Timeless by Chaseplays 2017-05-11T01:06:47Z

Had a bit of fun with this dimension-hopping game. Some of those levels were nasty hard, but I've managed to make it to the end.

I do like the fade-ins in the situation the character is unable to swap to the different time. That really helped figure out the timing and where to go in regards to the next location. At the same time, since your character barely hops, any platformer-like sections ended up being more difficult than necessary. Some level designs also felt downright unfair. That said, I did manage to get all the apples, so I obviously enjoyed it to some extent.

Calor by stevenjmiller 2017-05-16T03:25:25Z

What a ridiculously complex game...that I had some of the most fun with! To me, the hex battle by fair was some of the most entertaining turn-based battles I went through. The 3-lane attack/defense portion, combined with a simple line puzzle was really fun to plan and execute.

The planet turning aspect of things wasn't nearly as fun. I found trying to manage the supply stuff to stay on the sunny side a bit cumbersome, and the seeming randomness of the solar flares didn't help. I get the reasoning behind those 2 mechanics: you need to get the player to encourage them to move the planet around somehow, and have some sort of sacrifice to come with it. Ultimately, though, I felt like the level of randomness made an already-complex system that much more frustrating.

That said, I did get a hang of both things, and even managed to farm a good chunk of supplies before besting the final boss, so I clearly had fun to play it all the way to the end.

Feed The Anthill by StaNov 2017-05-08T08:46:33Z

That wasn't too bad for a game about simulating ants. Had a pretty cool Pikmin vibe to it. I do think the tank controls are a hindrance, and the objects blocking your path seemed rather unfair. The sound effects are adorable, though.

Intergalactic Gold Rush by Omiya Games 2017-05-07T21:58:53Z

@aeveis Er, were you judging the WebGL version? As the warning says, that's actually the post-jam build, and shouldn't be used for judging purposes. There isn't a Jam version for WebGL due to the original project relying on threads, which WebGL did not support. It's a drastically different (and rougher) game, so it's only fair to judge that instead.

In regards to lava, there are dark platforms you can jump on, that almost always generates rewards. The intent for that biome is that it turns the game into a platformer as a "now for something different" gameplay change. Also, the Jam build doesn't have lava, which makes it a feature that shouldn't be judged for this game jam :P.

Edit: whoops, I forgot to mention that invincibility ability does let you walk on lava just fine! So that's another way of getting easy money.

Intergalactic Gold Rush by Omiya Games 2017-05-08T01:32:00Z

Hey, @stanov! One of the two programmer of Intergalactic Gold Rush here. Thanks for live-streaming your playthrough. Just finished watching the Youtube video!

In regards to ratings, I can take most criticisms, so feel free to be as harsh as you want. In fact, I encourage it, even in livestreams! Ludum Dare's rating system is all about growth, and I really think we all learn the quickest from our own mistakes. So go for that 3 star or even 1 star rating: it's a learning experience for me. I will always prefer honesty over being nice when it comes to feedback. Besides, I often rate other games with 3s and 2s (though like how I rate 5s, I leave 1s for truly exceptional cases), so it would be hypocritical for me to say otherwise.

I'm actually quite glad to see another dev seeing the game past its graphics, and asking the question, "did I find this game's experience compelling?" As you can tell, I'm pretty darn good at making things shiny (that said, art section is removed because it uses pre-made assets so it's not representative of our artistic abilities), but I'm actually more interested in improving my game design skills. If you didn't find it compelling, great! It seems a combination of factors, such as the lack of tutorial and how easy it is to walk off the edge, probably hindered your experience; a fault I 100% admit is an oversight on our part. I wouldn't have learned that with the comment you've posted alone; but the video really helped summarize the problems. Again, thanks a lot for the feedback!

P.S. If you have the time, please let us know what you think about post-jam's game. I admit, there's still no tutorial and it's very easy to fall of the edge. Still, it does attempt to fix a few other problems, such as providing a compelling reason to travel farther from your starting point.

Transistor Soup by stuntddude 2017-05-20T03:18:17Z

I found drawing transistors to be very difficult. Placing a inverter on top of a wire does not invert the wire, even though it looks visually the same as a properly connected inverter. These small UI missteps really destroys my enjoyment of the game.

A Smaller World by Frederika 2017-05-11T00:54:13Z

Noooo! It ended with a cliff-hanger! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

The lack of choice is an interesting decision. Definitely made me feel less in control, and made the dark ending feel inevitable.

Tooth decay by Ithildin 2017-05-03T07:45:45Z

To be honest, I have a hard time comprehending how to progress further into the game. Based on Mr. Driller premise, my original assumption was to hit the largest connection of blocks, but that didn't help me get further significantly. Aiming for candy did, especially when drilling right or left, but there simply wasn't enough to reach very far into the game. Could use help being a little more easier, at least in the beginning.

Land of the Sun by HolyBlackCat 2017-05-03T00:50:50Z

Huh, had a lot more fun than I expected. I really liked the variety of boss pattern that integrated with the environment layout. The aiming mechanic, on the other hand, I wasn't a fan of, and the floaty jump really took some time to get used to. The last boss didn't appear fair: it would have helped if the pits were visually indicative of being safe spots on one of its attacks.

Your Planet: Too Big by Scriptorum 2017-05-03T00:26:14Z

Not bad. There's something satisfying about the camera zooming in as the planet shrinks. I also found the physics to be pretty cool, especially levels that require timing the bombs so the panels touch each other properly. I do think the game gets a bit too difficult at the end. This isn't helped by the fact that the tile movements are not always predictable, making is easy to miscalculate a move.

Run, U Fool! by zgragselus 2017-05-15T17:54:15Z

I personally found the color-door concept to be the most intriguing part of the experience. The parts where you provide a fork in the path, blocked by 3 doors is something I really liked, especially compared to the monotonous "you're being chased" corridor sections. Personally, I think 3 colors may have been too much, and it would have helped reduce it to just 2. It would have been really cool to see split-second button puzzles that would involve changing the colored doors, too.

A couple of other annoyances I encountered were the relative slowness of how the character traveled. It didn't feel very fast. Furthermore, I would have liked it if the collider on the floor dropped out towards the tail-end of the crumbling animation, rather than the beginning. Some levels would have appeared more fair with this slight change in coding. Don't forget to add sound effects, either!

A Perfectly Lovely Expedition by cerno-b 2017-05-02T23:01:32Z

A bit of a simple trading quest game, I see. I enjoyed resolving the cryptic clues about which item to use on which object. That cross was a bit of a red-herring. Anyway, while the Day/Night cycle is really cool, I'm not sure it added much to the game. If anything, it felt like I had to wait for certain area to unlock for seemingly no reason. I wasn't a fan either of your character disappearing to create a new item.

Nucleu by agentparsec 2017-05-08T02:34:31Z

Got to the end reveal where...

**!!!Spoilers!!!**

It turns out the whole thing took place in a candle.

I *really* like what you've put together here! Oddly enough, I think I had more fun with the game not knowing what to do than with: it took me a while to figure out the mouse was the way to control the character, and the mouse button did anything. Nonetheless, the building music was a fantastic way to indicate the user progress was being made. The simplicity of the graphics really helped emphasize the clues on what you're supposed to do as well. Great job!

P.S. Hmm...maybe comments should have spoiler features.

littleBLASTplanet by gamepopper 2017-05-03T00:11:00Z

I like the general theme of the game, and the controls feel fine. It's hard to tell, however, how the enemies affect the planet, and more importantly, how much health the planet has left. This is made especially infuriating with the bouncing screws that moves far too quickly to aim at properly, and an aiming control system that doesn't allow for precision.

I did discover that holding down the shoot button makes the game much more easier. At the same time, though, it sort of falls into the other extreme: too easy. It looked like I would kill airborne enemies before they're even spawned. I'm not really sure that was intended, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be a middle ground between these two difficulty dampers the experience.

Asymmetry by ChuiGum 2017-05-07T19:01:00Z

An interesting concept, basing timescale and player size on the coordinate they're on. I did find myself moving around to my advantage often. Liked the pacing of the game, but when enemy size is also affected by coordinates, it makes it hard to tell the difference between bullets and enemies.

Smalltrek by impbox 2017-05-10T23:45:05Z

For a simple sliding puzzle game, I had a lot more fun than I expected. I really thought the ship as part of the puzzle was a smart decision. And the rules on each alien compliments the gameplay really well. The writing is pretty adorable, too.

It would have been nice if the description of the Diversity-loving alien was clarified a little more. It didn't strike to me until later that in reality, they need at least 3 sides of them surrounded by some sort of creature.

Overall, great work!

Dwelling by aeveis 2017-05-16T03:57:05Z

Welp, after trying the take method, I gave up life and just tried to make really easy platforms for myself. Ended up sacrificing 9 lives. It's an interesting trend to see yet another self-sacrifice game from you.

I think compared to the "You are the monster" game, this stood out more visually and the decision making was more clear. That said, the added simplicity also makes it easy to make lazy decisions like I did. In that sense, I question whether that diminishes the impact of the game. I just felt like lives were so cheap in this game to not have the sense of sacrifice.

Super Collapse Guy by crazi456 2017-05-06T01:34:02Z

Given how buggy *Fez* was, I really appreciate the lack of bugs in this game. Although, the fact that there was only one shape for platforms makes me suspect some shortcuts were being taken. That said, I did find one: when the world is flattened, walk under a solid platform so the character is unable to jump. Bring perspective back to the game, and the player will still not be able to jump, even if there's only air above the character's head.

I also appreciate the open-ended nature of the game mechanic and the level design. It's really difficult to add unintended shortcuts in the game, which this game does nicely (managed to skip a third of level 3 with clever crushing angles). Great job!

P.S. Also reminded me a lot of *Crush*!

Mind's Eye by Kosmo 2017-05-04T19:53:16Z

The turn-based aspect of the game reminds me a lot of the airship battles from Skies of Arcadia...and that's a good thing! I really like the step-by-step assigning of instructions that really makes you think through what you're supposed to do next. I thought the direction the character is facing was redundant, given that the direction they're walking towards imply the player wants to face that direction, and you can't walk past enemies anyways. I also didn't see the point of don't-attack command.

LD38 - Big Dreams by Iron Leonem 2017-05-08T08:33:19Z

I did like the toy-aesthetic of the game, as well as the music. In regards to the actual gameplay, though, I felt the enemy AI was too erratic to find fun in. As mentioned above, a lot of the actions the player takes doesn't feel like they have weight to them, likely due to the lack of juice. It would be more satisfying if the enemies had some sort of effect when they die besides just a single sound effect playing, and same story for getting hit.

As probably an early game for a few team members, I do think it's a great start. I think more can be done, though, to create a more satisfying experience.

Angry Worlds by MeronSoda 2017-05-02T22:44:46Z

Yikes, nearly impossible enemies and easy soft-locks makes it hard to appreciate this game. I could not figure out how to fight against the star enemies, and if I end up right under them (which is often), they end up locking my character's position and the character never dies.

A shame because the controls are great, and the initial level design is solid. It provides the controls clearly, and allows the player to practice and learn each new game element in a safe manner. If I didn't have the aforementioned issues and be able to progress beyond the 2nd level, I think I would have enjoyed the game a lot more.

Diminishing Lands by drazil100 2017-05-01T04:43:52Z

Not bad as a 2D platformer. The shrinking platforms are a compelling concept. I liked the "collect coins to go to the next level" objective.

I'm concerned about the fact that it's difficult to predict where the platforms will appear next. Sure, the faded out platforms is supposed to inform that, but the platforms we're on top of isn't colored differently, so I have no idea if a platform will disappear below my character's feet or not. The wall jumping controls were a bit fickle as well, not always jumping vertically upwards as much as expected. Also, the platforms appearing on top of coins are a bit rude.

Skylands by huminaboz 2017-05-05T02:15:03Z

Got through all the levels, most of it with no problem. Had lots of fun! Puzzle games are my jam, after all.

Saw a lot of polish from the user-experience perspective. While I was able to comprehend most things, the things I struggled to discover were destroying tiles, and the sunflower tile ability (at least initially). For the former, some sort of right-click prompt on a specific tile, as well as the left-click to indicate how to create a tile, would have been nice. For the latter, it would have been nice to see that tile contrast with the normal tiles to make the distinction of what it does more clearly. Also, the lack of zoom-out to plan your course of action really dampers the experience, and it would have been nice to have a history of undos so you don't have to restart the level all the time.

I personally didn't like the mouse controls only allowing the player to move to tiles directly adjacent to the character. Path-finding to the proper location would have been a lot nicer. Arrow keys would work pretty well as well. Didn't have any problems, otherwise.

A Growing Adventure by frankiesmileshow 2017-05-08T08:20:33Z

I found the ability to choose when to fight an enemy, and when to stop the progress, recoup the loss, and continue the fight later to be the most compelling advantage to this game's formula. Not to mention the excitement of finding new land, and the mystery behind each of them. I admit that I'm astonished by the amount of content added into the game. The lack of an ending and background music is a minor disappointment. Also got stuck in the end-game where there was no possible way for me to defeat one of the soldiers: I ran out of gold to collect. So balancing seems to be an issue.

It is a bit slow-paced, and I'm not really sure adding a timer for a tile to reveal was all that useful, especially the normal world tiles. Would have appreciated shorter time set on those. Overall, great job!

Booster's Day Out by paulstraw 2017-05-06T00:53:43Z

While the gravity physics are great, I would have liked more finer control on rotating the ship. Rather than letting the rotation of the ship left to the physics engine, it would have been nice if the player had full control over rotation, e.g. letting go of A and D will keep the rocket the same angle as it was left before.

Samhain: Fly Away Home by Vanillycake 2017-05-16T04:12:48Z

The art is really nice, but holy cow is flutter utterly broken. I think I was able to blow past the entire game by holding the up arrow key and fluttering past everything 4 or 5 times to get to the end. I mean, it's an awesome feeling to blow past what looks like an otherwise difficult game (the controls felt slippery to me, otherwise), but...I'm not sure it was all that intentional. It made it too easy to skip the cave entirely and make the game background sky-only.

Everybody Plays Golf by Omiya Games 2017-08-02T02:03:41Z

I'm looking into it. I'll also try to reset the energy system so at least you get some impression of the game.

It looks like my websites aren't serving https securely yet, something I ordered for just yesterday. The game relies on that working, so I'm suspecting that's the reason.

Edit: Yup, it was. New working builds were uploaded.

Everybody Plays Golf by Omiya Games 2017-08-06T00:23:34Z

@jason-kennedy Thanks for the bug report. Not sure what's going on, to be honest. Looking into it now.

Edit: it's fixed. Needed to downgrade PHP on the database server.

Everybody Plays Golf by Omiya Games 2017-08-11T22:37:00Z

@klianc09 I had to reboot the server. It should be fixed now!

Everybody Plays Golf by Omiya Games 2017-08-13T18:47:59Z

@klianc09 Agree with all of your criticisms. There definitely was a lot more self-aware jokes and game mechanics I wanted to add in to create a more entertaining experience, but getting the basics working took long enough to construct. Still, a disappointing experience was somewhere within the ballpark of what I was aiming for.

Everybody Plays Golf by Omiya Games 2017-08-21T23:37:54Z

OK, had to restart the server again. I haven't figured out why it stops working in the middle of serving, so restart it is for now.

Everybody Plays Golf by Omiya Games 2017-08-22T03:49:00Z

@joebeard Holy cow, we must think alike. I've been wanting to do that from the very beginning, but didn't get a chance to put it in!

Tiny Explorer by rijnswand 2017-08-21T23:27:03Z

Played it to the end even though it's clear from other people's playthroughs that somehow, I got the very short end of the stick and ended up with a super-slow rover (we're talking like, 5 decimeters per minute speed). Think I ended up playing a full hour to get to the end, with only one problem in the way.

Honestly, I was rather surprised. The slow speed in the game makes certain things that would be boring in other games a triumph. Just going from one power station to the other on a flat plane felt like a journey. And being able to overcome slipping into deep pits was like a victory in improvising. This game succeeds in making the small parts feel significant, even if at its core, the game plays like a walking simulator. I liked it!

Power Outcold by Moaz Ashraf 2017-08-22T00:37:23Z

It took me a while to figure out you can push blocks while jumping. It would have been nice to have puzzles earlier that would teach that rather than putting really long row of spikes, making the task look impossible. I think the game mechanic has potential, but with the lack of levels, the game appears a bit too simplistic and not really that fleshed out.

Neuropower by klianc09 2017-08-11T20:55:35Z

An interesting experience. I really like the tutorial is based off of achievements-like checklist system. It would have been nice to see a timer on how long one survives, although this probably ruins the point of the game being a metaphor.

The abstractness of the game makes it rather difficult to figure out what the intended message was. Does the game require multiple playthroughs, with different strategies to discern the ideal, optimal path for survival? The game claims that neurons working together helps it last longer, but it looks to me like a larger body leads to faster power draining, so would splitting up to smaller parts been a better strategy? There's just too many questions to ask, and I suspect for me, discovering the solution to each question won't get me any closer to the intended metaphor.

Shekateka by dietzribi 2017-08-11T19:27:53Z

While I thought the game was pretty fun, I really didn't see how the plug-to-shoot mechanic added much to the game. At its core, the plug-to-shoot prevents the player from shooting at certain parts of the room. The player is naturally forced to evaluate how the enemy AI operates, and attempt to manipulate it so that killing them becomes easier. This is something most players do with games like *Binding of Isaac*, though, so putting extra emphasis into AI manipulation doesn't feel like a significant shift from the genre. Instead, it just felt like it slightly emphasized a core aspect of that genre, while leaving the rest of it mostly intact.

Breathless Parks - Running, out of Power by gonutz 2017-08-11T20:11:13Z

I give you all props for the absurdity and a unique take on the theme. Buuuuuuuuut...a little too simple for my taste :wink:

Away Team by Joe Miller 2017-08-05T00:40:59Z

Cool game. Liked the consistent graphics and the effort put into world building. That said, I personally wished there were more directions in the game. I often felt like I didn't know what I was doing.

PARODIANUS II : 致命的な外国人ロバのリターン by knarf 2017-08-21T23:56:36Z

I see a lot of potential in the game, but the small bits of annoyances adds up to a rather unpleasant experience. For starts, I'm not entirely a fan of the game starting suddenly, especially when there's a 3 second countdown and enemies are filling the screen anyways. The sound effects are pretty repetitive, and could use variations. For example, it would have been nice to cycle through 4 different shooting sound effects instead of just 1 all the time. Taking hits doesn't quite have impact, and there's no death animation, so it felt weird to jump directly into the life count screen with seemingly no warning, and no way to tell what you did wrong.

Running Out Of Power supplies by Koen Bresters 2017-08-22T00:23:24Z

For a game about dodging, a lot of the obstacles are really hard to see. It would have been nice to have the electricity polls always activated, because it's difficult to tell from a distance where it's happening. I would have also liked a more tipped camera angle that prioritized on showing what's up-coming, rather than how close you are to the goal. The rolling ball's path was hard to predict as well, largely from the large amount of particle effects, and the game's general visual noise making it hard to focus on said element. A lot of polishing would have helped the experience.

Automated Explorer by Aircraft Terrier 2017-08-11T20:03:48Z

I confess I'm a bit mixed on this game. On one hand, the repetitive nature of trying something over and over again demands mastery from the player. The dead-ends providing more geographical information to the player so that they can save more time to collect power-ups is a really nice touch that emphasizes this aspect of the game. Combined with the power-ups themselves helping player proceed further into the game, there's a compelling experience in here that asks for exploration and self-improvement.

On the other hand, running out of power frequently, as well as making the wrong choices or turns often requires the player to return back to the starting point and trying the same task over and over again. This gets repetitive fast, especially during the beginning of the game where one doesn't have enough power-ups to elongate their playthrough, giving enough leeway to fix their mistakes. From that perspective, the game gets boring fast.

Ultimately, I'm not sure. I guess I like the simple puzzles, and the feeling of becoming more powerful is really rewarding. But for some parts, especially unlocking new vehicles, I would have liked an easier experience.

The Color of Days To Come. by TheOneThatNeverWas 2017-08-11T20:39:20Z

Cool stuff, although I think it might be a little too close to *Forever Someday*. I like the use of repetition, especially the daily life sequence, to bring attention to what's different. The fitness sequence was really special, too, requiring multiple clicks to proceed the story. Generally speaking, I find these interactive parts that attempts to match the player's action with what's going on the screen to be the most effective parts of the game (e.g. clicking really, really fast is like exercise to your fingers).

At the same time, some timings and cues could have used a little work. For example, I had a hard time figuring out what I was supposed to do with the toothbrush, since there's no visual feedback when waving at the mirror. I also thought the space sequence was too long as well.

HOME IS DEAD by ahintoflime 2017-08-22T00:14:13Z

For a first-time solo game, it's a pretty good start. I liked the difference between melee and gun, but it would have been nice to have a way to recover the gun ammo. The controls felt pretty snappy, but I found myself walking off the edge a bit too easily.

I'm curious the number of features in this game are..."happy accidents." For example, the infinite jump seems like an accident when you have a message on top saying, "You're not supposed to see this message!" The enemies not hurting you is a little weird, especially when their falling and landing on top of your character. And sometimes holding the melee button doesn't cause rapid fire, while other times, it does. Of course, being able to kill more enemies while dead is clearly a bug. I guess I'm easily peeved by bugs.

When the world goes to hell, I'll be here playing Video Games. by Will Walters 2017-08-11T20:20:03Z

Welp, when the world is dying, I guess rampant Capitalism is there to help us.

I actually did find the game quite entertaining, along with its self-deprecating awareness of how meaningless it all is. Was a bit disappointed that collecting coins while hiding under the bed didn't make the monsters notice my character. Those coin-collect sound effects should be loud enough for me to be eaten!

AEOS by Yetman 2017-08-22T01:41:07Z

I really don't know what I was doing. It felt like a game where all you do is flick a switch, then hope the right door opens. Which I don't think is especially fun...

The Will to Live (a game about willpower) by twainwright 2017-08-11T19:07:42Z

First time I played, I ended up giving in due to the lack of sleep. Second time, I was prepared and manage to survive the entire ordeal. I really liked how the odds feels stacked against you, but with careful observation of how the game economy works, one can find an easy solution around most problems the game throws at you. How the stats changed felt a bit verbose, though. I liked it!

The more hair you have... by Naca 2017-12-25T21:47:21Z

I kind of wished I didn't read the first few words below the spoilers (by accident, I swear!) before playing this game. The startup felt a bit slow, since it's just a whole lot of waiting until the tweezers appear, and the lose condition takes forever, but the message was really nice. I definitely would appreciate nicer people surrounding my area.

A small and short experience, but I think it delivers on its promise. Keep it up!

Stuck in Parallel by Omiya Games 2017-12-05T03:25:14Z

I'm dealing with some major collision bugs right now. So if you're playing this game and asking, "why can I walk through walls? Is that intentional?" No, no it isn't.

Stuck in Parallel by Omiya Games 2017-12-05T05:27:01Z

You jest, @stevenjmiller, but this no-walls bug was terribly annoying, with no obvious fix existing as of yet. Created a work-around, so the new builds are now up!

Stuck in Parallel by Omiya Games 2017-12-10T19:09:45Z

@antti-haavikko Thanks for all the useful feedback! Yeah, we were aware the physics in the game was shoddy. The intended solution for the 4th level was to push around lanterns while holding onto the orange lantern, but we realize this isn't well-conveyed.

Also, we're pretty sure we programmed the menus to be accessible via keyboard. Is that a bug?

Stuck in Parallel by Omiya Games 2017-12-12T01:50:00Z

@aevis I always consider puzzle designs with multiple solutions a hallmark for great design: they allow the puzzle solver to be creative and create discoveries of their own. Unintentional or not, I always accept any solution one comes up with (barring code changes, that is) to solve a puzzle in my games.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, this game is a technical mess in many ways.

Stuck in Parallel by Omiya Games 2017-12-15T01:32:43Z

@dawik9000 thanks for the feedback. I welcome the harsh criticism.

For controls, I'll polish that on the next LDJAM; it's a fair point and something I haven't properly researched. I admit I made the controls that way because I usually like games that lets the player instantly turn in any direction, but that does mean I sacrifice initial acceleration segment.

I'm having a bit of a hard time parsing the second point. What part of the second level was too difficult? If it's about the wall of spikes, one can bypass that by placing the lanterns away from it, making it invisible.

The Dark Castle by Joror 2017-12-27T00:55:31Z

I like the premise of starting the player with an objective. How fitting, then, that this first choice establishes certain choices gives items, changes story, updates stats, etc. I also like the clear indication of what choices are limited due to your character's shortcomings. And the writing is pretty decent.

Snowmans Dilemma by JCMonkey 2017-12-25T17:53:29Z

Not certain why, but I cannot play this game on browser nor Windows. For browser, I'm using the latest Chrome with uBlock Origin plugin, while for Windows, the ZIP contains a single file with no file extension. Changing this to *.exe does not make the game run.

Sofra by dietzribi 2017-12-23T17:53:06Z

Wow, what a predictable ending.

Just kidding. Although the moment I saw the conveyor belt I knew this was going to end just like *Can Your Pet?*

I highly appreciate the ghost jumping in this game. Makes the platforming parts a lot easier to deal with. I did struggle with the drop/pick-up controls. While I highly appreciate the drop-all button, I feel like having a different pick-up and drop button would have worked better. Additionally, I was quite confused when pick-up would sometimes pick-up a bulk of rabbits than just one. I think, though, this only triggered if you used the drop-all button.

While it was a nice touch to give an indication on the upper left-hand corner of carrying rabbits, it would have been nice if a similar visual indicator was provided on the player character itself. That's where the eye is focused on, after all, and I think it would have been easy enough to add a number near the character to indicate how many rabbits they're carrying to better convey why their jumps or speed are being affected. Minor nitpicks, though.

Overall, solid entry.

Dungeon Raid by kbf123 2017-12-25T21:32:37Z

Aw, that last treasure was quite a tease, but I guess you can never out-run the boulder. It's pretty cute, and I appreciate the loose collision detection keeping my character from dying too quickly. Not exactly a fan that the central game conceit is just dodging enemies while handling with the negatives of lifting all the items. I dunno, I guess that experience is just not for me. The experience just feels like a one-off narrative and that's it.

Super Mailman by 0xDD 2017-12-25T18:14:20Z

I think I like this game more than I should. I made it to level 5, but then was left with a green screen on the web version. Is that intentional? Did I clear the game?

Anyway, I did like that the smallest actions would cause a medal to appear on the screen. That certainly encourages the players to solve the puzzle with the least number of actions possible to make it to the goal. That said, I would have liked the medals to reset after failing a level, or even on the next level. It was impossible to read the instructions at some point.

As much as I was a fan of the player controls, especially the fall faster button which was actually put to good use for this game, I didn't find the physics of the boxes to be as fun. Given the instructions posted on the website, it seems you already know how tough it is to move these blocks in a predictable fashion when they're airborn. It would have been nice to see finer controls on how to move these blocks, such as removing rotations entirely.

Muldulamulom by mase 2017-12-12T01:48:02Z

Just like Somsnosa, I'm in love with the graphics again. For the most part, the game wasn't too bad, but it would have been nice if there was some sort of indication when getting a power-up what it does, and what button to press to activate it. I wasn't a fan of the B button being the bomb button: for a rather common action, it's placed far apart from the jump and attack. Carpet controls still letting the character walk off the carpet was a little weird, and I'm not too sure I was a fan of it. And the inability to switch from ball rolling to normal standing stance to be able to jump again was annoying.

I enjoyed it, though, for what it was. It's a calming experience.

Fox Flares by aeveis 2017-12-15T02:08:04Z

This certainly was a challenging platforming game. The small temporary platforms and the difficult-to-judge booster platforms were the most frustrating, though nice touch on making things feel *barely* passable. It really puts me on the edge. I would have liked a tighter control scheme, so the platforming didn't feel so unfair, as well as some sort of marker indicating the trajectory of the character flying on those flinging platforms.

Santa's Factory by SaraMartins 2017-12-25T22:50:29Z

Per Ludum Dare rules, I'll be rating the Ludum Dare submission.

Oof. It's very rough. The good qualities are the graphics and general presentation. It's polished, most of the UI elements are clear, and it's easy to figure out how to play the game, what the success condition is, and what is the failure condition. But that said, controls needs....lots of work (post-jam build does fix this significantly, by the way). The difficulty to select a box was very frustrating. It's hard to figure out where the center of the screen is, and even the box highlight flickers madly, making it hard to figure out when is a good time to hit the E key to pick something up. For a concept so simple, this flaw adds up very quickly.

I also found the box dropping sound effect super-annoying. A lowered volume, as well as randomizing a couple of sound effects would really help. Alternatively, changing the pitch each time the sound is played would help, too.

Hungry Dino by nax_89 2017-12-23T18:05:23Z

As mentioned during the stream, the stellar level designs are a stand-out here: I like a lot of the levels that does a nice job demonstrating a specific mechanic. I did think the puzzles were a bit too easy for me, but then again, I make a ton of puzzle games. I also appreciate that it doesn't overstay its welcome, ending just about the right time.

I do think it would have been nice to add more complexity to the mechanic. For example, it could have been cool if eating a specific animal gave you super powers, but only for the duration that you haven't eaten another animal. Or perhaps some animals have specific AI that makes them harder to catch.

Also, it would have been nice if the dino had feathers.

...

...

...

...OK, that last part isn't really important.

Tic-Tac-Matrix by Antti Haavikko 2017-12-15T02:18:43Z

What a ridiculously polished piece of work! I'm really impressed. I think the escalation of difficulty is pretty unfair, though; it would have been nicer if one could choose the difficulty level, as well as adding a local multiplayer setting in the game. Still, I enjoyed the experiment.

Mana4Life by dawik9000 2017-12-25T18:50:51Z

I think the graphics are beautiful and well-composed. Even if it's using pre-made assets, the space coordination is easy to read and pleasing to the eye. The special effects works well, with different-colored sparks giving a nice sense of danger.

I applaud the re-examination of what it means to have a health bar, and even celebrate the experiment you've created here. But I confess that, while I found the central mechanic to be interesting in theory, in practice, I found it a complete disaster. There isn't much fun to be had where a core part of the game is to stand around and taking hits on purpose just to keep oneself alive. My natural inclination, after realizing I could die from attacking too much, was to simply draw a crowd in, take a bunch of hits, then play the dance button, then repeat the cycle. The experience was, naturally, repetitive and uninteresting. I did also find it difficult to tell who and how enemies were attacking me, so I eventually ended up not bothering to look up at the screen, instead focusing on the bar at the bottom. With all the beautiful artworks, that seems like an unintentional experience.

Still, don't stop innovating!

Sunken by Tay 2017-12-25T19:31:44Z

The graphics and the audio is pretty good, and I like the general mood where it's clear you could die at any minute. Once once figures what are threats and what are good items, going through each level becomes a sort of a thrill ride, with very little predictability on what's coming next. I do, however, think some aspects of the game, such as the flooding acting as a timer to indicate how long the player has to survive, was rather cheap and uninteresting way of turning this game into an arcade, high-score experience.

I tried to make out what were the negative consequences for collecting treasure, since I noticed nearly all of my stats changed, but it was hard to tell. This is a shame, because it's honestly one aspect in the game I though was most interesting. To make the game better-telegraphed, it would have been nice to have animations indicating how your stats changed, especially right above your player character. Additionally, it would have been cool to have treasures indicate what boosts they'll give before the player obtains the treasure, without mentioning the negatives. That would give a nice risk-vs-reward incentive where one might focus on increasing attacks stat at all times, as a consequence of sacrificing everything else.

I wasn't a fan of using double-tap as the method to move either, though I realize the intent was to commit to one's action. I also had a hard time figuring out which sprite was the player at the beginning. They blend in with the meat and enemies pretty easily.

After Drive by FreezedIce 2017-12-25T17:41:32Z

Got the score, 77906. I couldn't tell if the vehicle became faster as time goes along or not, but I really couldn't tell how the game became more difficult. Adding more people didn't seem to significantly affect my controls. The spikes on the cops were annoying, but other than that, this game often felt like long stretches of nothing (OK, there were cars, but I only had to weave in-between 2 cards driving the same direction as the player vehicle).

That said, the game was running, like, 20 FPS on my computer, so that's probably the reason the game was so easy for me.

The Carrier by Pixel Shade 2017-12-09T03:42:03Z

I really want to like this game: the graphics are fantastic, and there's a lot of exploration potential. The touchy thrusters (yes, including the reverse thrusters) and gravity, however, was infuriating. I would have appreciated limiting the rotation of the ship so that I don't accidentally overshoot right or left. Also, just me, but I would have appreciated making all the pretty visuals obvious dead-ends, rather than me finding out they don't lead anywhere.

SpaceBallz by The Triumvirate 2017-12-25T16:38:45Z

The game concept though simple, is pretty solid. The art is nice, too. I love the title screen and the mouse-hover constellation effect.

I would have liked to see some guidelines (e.g. lasers) indicating where I'm aiming. I cannot count the number of times I was frustrated with the first level because I had difficulty figuring out how to aim at a distant planet. Personally, I also thought it was unfair that the sun moved faster over time. I'd rather that the difficulty be tied to the levels; so for example, the sun spins faster each progressive level instead of the current implementation.

Endgame by niterich 2017-12-25T22:17:11Z

Unfortunately, the game seems to crash far too often for me to give any proper ratings for this game, but I do want to say I'm impressed with what you have. I also love the premise of glitching your way past the end-game of this epic JRPG.

Delta Vee by AZealousRetort 2017-12-25T16:56:31Z

This isn't too bad! The controls are a bit frustrating due to the lack of friction and sensitivity (at least on this super-high-res Mac screen), but the core concept is enjoyable. I also thought the collider circle on the ship could be smaller for more close-call events. Despite my complaints about the controls, I do think the challenge is cool. Would have been nice if said controls wasn't for something intentionally action-packed.

Rogue by NightraiderX 2017-12-12T01:52:38Z

Pretty darn awesome for a first entry in Ludum Dare! I liked the stealth being associated with the health of the character, though at times, it was too small for me to continue. I would have appreciated a minimum meter size, while still allowing the health to lower below that threshold. Controls are pretty good for the most part, though when the character flips on unusual platform angles, things get very awkward.

Busy Room by chinykian 2017-12-09T03:15:42Z

I really appreciate the amount of polish that went into this game. The magnetic diamonds, generous hitboxes, and useful-but-not-over-powered slow-down are all fantastic. There's substantial amount of visual feedback that helps me make informed decisions in a short amount of time.

I guess I was expecting a more frenetic, faster-paced action game; I felt after a few playthroughs I was good. Despite the polish, I didn't quite feel it was a compelling experience that encouraged me to replay the game again. I'm not really sure how to fix that, and it might just boil down to taste.

Bee Holder by Feedlipe 2017-12-09T02:21:36Z

The concept is interesting, I really like the use of the number of honey collected determines who the bees aggro to. That said, the controls for collecting honey (e.g. standing next to the hive) is not obvious. Some sort of visual feedback letting you know that your character is collecting honey would have been nice.

Would have been nice to see some juice to make the collection process more gratifying.

Gold Digger by 4Knights 2017-12-25T22:06:28Z

I really like the music for the game. Would have been nice to see more variety in the sound effect department. Maybe it's just me, but does the rate of fireballs actually increase collecting more coins? I didn't notice; I often just dumped them into the trunk in discrete chunks, so I only notice the rate increasing over each progressive level. Nice touch on adding a time limit to putting the coins into the truck, though. It does resolve the problem of constantly dodging the fireball.

Not sure I'm as huge of a fan about the context of the game (depicting a character who literally digs gold doesn't remove the negative connotation of the phrase). I also admit it's too simple for me to be engaging, but the focus on a single experience is much appreciated.

Hachi Block by Omiya Games 2018-08-21T17:32:32Z

@aeveis Yeah, a planned feature that didn't come through was some sort of block animation indicating a column is in danger of touching the top of the screen. Unfortunately, I ran out of time.

Edit: and did I mention the difficulty levels were a last minute addition? I didn't have time to balance it :tired_face:

Open Spaces by Frederika 2018-08-17T03:58:07Z

Excellent job, everyone! I know some of the stuff below are repeats of what I already said in person, but I hope you find the following feedback useful:

I do think that for the most part, the progression of the story is smooth and believable, though a bit compressed. The presentation is excellent, with the sketchy penciling heightening the tension, and music that uses unconventional instruments. I do appreciate the majority of the character dynamics, but there's a line with Quinn that makes her sound like a Mary Sue (the "Nelly thinks she's helping, but she's really not" part), or at least a sudden and uncharacteristic author-insert. And while neither of these problems are immersion breaking, I managed to find a typo and a bug while pursuing all the bad endings (because I'm a jerk).

For the typo, in the scene where you go to Quinn's party without a therapist's help, Quinn suddenly starts referencing themselves in third-person (was she secretly a cartoon villain this entire time!?):

OpenSpaces 2018-08-16 (18787).jpg

For the bug, right after choosing "You're right" when Nelly confronts you in Quinn's party...

OpenSpaces 2018-08-16 (18789).jpg

...well...

OpenSpaces 2018-08-16 (18788).png

Stepping Stones by Ithildin 2018-08-28T23:19:34Z

I thought the game was pretty fun. Figuring out what path kept the player from jumping onto 3 of the same colored platforms was entertaining. Personally, I think the levels could have been designed a bit better so the game conveyed its rules a little better. For example, start with a level where one can beat immediately with 2 stepping stones, then have a level with 3 (it's a trap!) to make it clear the 3rd stepping stone is the thing the player needs to pay attention to. From there, introducing new colors can be done more smoothly. Overall, enjoyed it.

The SACCULOS Saga by s-ol 2018-08-21T20:58:08Z

I...Well...Um...

Ya know, I always thought I liked absurdist humor a lot. There's a lot of appeal to the philosophy that we humans will always be seeking for meaning in things that clearly has none. This game series, which gives me the Soda Drinker Pro vibe is...quite a bit much for me to swallow. I mean, I guess it's a commentary on our obsessions with sequels?

I rated high in innovation, though. There's a lot of potential in the concept. If anyone in the team plans to pursue this implementation further in future games, I'm all for it.

The SACCULOS Saga by s-ol 2018-08-22T03:57:17Z

@s-ol So...you're saying another sequel is coming?

Lancaster Electronics Ltd. by Flatgub 2018-08-28T23:44:21Z

Oof, I confess I'm not a huge fan of these style of games (says the professional programmer). Anyway, while I realize time was short, I found the interface could use a lot of improvements. Parts that I thought were intuitive were clicking on and dropping modules onto the grid. I didn't realize, however, the game had different modes, and that the number keys or scroll wheel will change to each of these. I didn't like that linking modules had to be done in a separate mode. I also had difficulty deleting modules once selected, since there's no visual indicator a module has been selected, and the screen merely displays the properties of the modules, but no instructions to delete it (contrast that to a link). The delete key may not have been working, either.

modbot by 01010111 2018-08-21T04:30:33Z

Wow, those spike hitboxes are really large. I like the idea of applying more mods on the robot and making it unwieldy, it's a clever risk-vs-reward mechanic. I thought the levels didn't do a very good job of demonstrating why this is such a novel idea, though, at least before the helicopter vs spike level. I may have missed the later levels where one would have to make careful decisions on what they attach, but at the current standpoint, it just feels like a novelty. A tutorial would have been nice. Had to read the descriptions to figure out what to do.

Super Responsible Parent by dietzribi 2018-08-25T02:32:15Z

Extraordinarily fun! Bouncing alone is a ridiculously entertaining mechanic alone, and combined with the dash mechanic creates a very tight platforming-like experience. Fantastic job at laying out the levels to ease the player into the wacky physics and controls.

Ice Interstice by aeveis 2018-08-17T20:22:25Z

Very cool puzzle design. The last level certainly had me stumped. I was most impressed with the creative audio, actually: it was a really nice touch to make each footstep play a different note.

Most puzzles seems to have multiple solutions, which I tend to favor and applaud for. I did think the harder levels requiring a specific set of procedures to be more annoying, but that probably boils down to taste. I did think the ice shooting mechanic needed to be more reactive to the player's input, or at least provide a clear visual indicator on when the penguin needs to cool down before launching the next ice beam. To be fair, this wasn't a game breaker in any way, since it's already turn-based, so one had all the time they needed to wait until the beam was recharged. It does appear a bit glaring, though, after smacking into the same ice cube over and over until a projectile is launched.

These are all nitpicks. Overall, I think the game came out as a nice package!

Ultimate Cave Of Dangers by gaspard 2018-08-22T19:44:15Z

I think the procedural level generation was pretty fun, but due to the slippery controls, and the poor wall-jumping that wouldn't be powerful enough to allow the character to fit through tighter spaces or treck up taller walls, there were frequently cases where my character would die for reasons beyond my control. I think a closer inspection with the controls of the character should be taken, then tightening the platform generation to work with the new control scheme.

And for my part, outside of the kickback from shooting, I didn't feel particularly incentivized to kill zombies. They felt like bullet sponges and not worth the effort.

Finger Noodles by vfabien21 2018-08-29T00:01:13Z

On a retina screen the text appears very small, and perhaps because of that, it's difficult to discern what the next step is. I think some animations and more thorough instructions to indicate which hand and which key the hand is supposed to press would help. Also say something like, "don't let go of the keys until the next turn!" Anyway, cute concept, I really like it.

Bunny Bazooka by MZA 2018-08-25T01:39:40Z

The Ludum Dare build of this game is super-duper rough. From the excessive screenshakes, to infinite bullets and jumps, there's just a lot that feels like it needs more time and polish. To me, though, the most annoying thing was how the action-based nature of the game combines poorly with controls that's easy to mistake from left to right. I confess I wasn't a hug fan of the jump physics, either.

Runing Out Of space - cakes by Nalah 2018-08-21T04:02:11Z

Oof, the platforming controls needs a little more work, in my opinion. It's currently very slippery: tapping the direction in the other direction has a small bit of delay that makes it feel less reactive than it should be. I felt the character wall-jumps at inconsistent distances, and couldn't figure out what would cause them to suddenly climb up a wall really high vs only bump into it. I also got stuck in the half-pipe as well, as I couldn't figure out a consistent way to increase height. There's a lot of great ideas in this game, especially the limited number of dashes, but without the tight controls, they make it difficult to access and utilize properly.

Unfamiliar by Kovakomes 2018-08-21T03:44:55Z

I'm reminded of a Skype call a long time ago my sister made when she was visiting Japan. Reconnecting with her cousins, aunts, and uncle, she invited our grandmother to the call. What was striking was that after marveling at the technology that is video-chatting from overseas, our grandmother would ask my sister, "who are you?" Each time, my sister would reply, "your granddaughter, remember?" This was in a span of 30 minutes.

Back to the game, I'm pleasantly surprised at how well the narrative was written. It must have been quite a challenge to write from an Alzheimer's victim's perspective without sounding like there's a lot of gotchas (e.g. the frustration that the reader memorized something the lead character doesn't) and deux ex machinas from the reader's perspective. Having new, only-slightly-important details prop up later to re-contextualize the lead character's observations was a subtle, yet effective way to demonstrate her inability to retain memory. I did think the time skips were a bit sudden when the subtlety was lost in favor of the lead character being unable to distinguish past from present, but then again, I do understand that this is the natural conclusion of this disease developing. I sort of wished the transition was a little more smoother, like building on how our protagonist mistakenly identified her granddaughter as her adult daughter.

I also confess I wasn't a huge fan of the music lingering a little too long than I would have liked. There's a lot of dialog to go through, and since the music only changes on scene changes rather than key moments, it got repetitive after a while. I'm a huge fan of the art, however, and enjoyed using the point-and-click format to encourage the player to collect as many memories as possible before our lead loses them. Well done!

Soggy Bunny by rexpeppers 2018-08-17T03:12:04Z

Doi, the game ended just as I was enjoying it! I definitely loved the water flowing mechanic and how that prevents the player from progressing. I also really appreciated the level progression that made it easy to experiment and understand some parts of how the water flow works.

I do confess the water flow was less predictable when it was out in open space. It was pretty clever of you to make the blocking of water a more important objective than to have the player decipher the water flow movement. That said, I do think that made the solutions to the later puzzles that weren't tutorial material too simple. I think with more time, this could have been something very special.

Personal Space by Hannah19 2018-08-15T20:35:33Z

It took me a while to figure out the movement was locked to a specific spacing direction indicated by the bottom-left hand corner HUD. Since my focus is towards the player, I didn't notice this indicator until later. Perhaps consider moving that HUD below the player character, so that it's in the same place my focus is on?

In regards to the gameplay, it's certainly stressful to realize how limited your movement are, and how it seems many NPCs moves towards your direction. It's funny how after some experimentation, my winning move was to sulk into the kitchen and hug the top-left corner. So, I assume I perfectly got the intended experience in the game? I like the concept, it certainly forces the player to reconsider the conditions the playable character is in.

I was a bit bummed out that I couldn't walk out the door, but heh, I guess that's the price of a surprise party.

Little Bear Planet by gudval 2018-08-24T01:38:42Z

I frankly do not know what one is supposed to do with the level, Lateral Thinking.

Edit: Figured it out. Gah, I'm not a huge fan of these, "edit the text file in the game data to make it work properly," kind of puzzles.

Little Bear Planet by gudval 2018-08-31T20:33:57Z

I realized I haven't given a proper review for this game. Mostly, I wanted to echo what most people have already said: as a Sokobon-based puzzle game, I think the concept is solid, but the controls left me wanting. I would have desired a full 180 spin, with the game resolving which direction of the spin considered valid, or display a shake animation to indicate both directions are invalid. Level and puzzle design were mostly OK, progressing in difficulty relatively smoothly.

Space Farmer by TalesOfPixelia 2018-08-24T00:45:20Z

I see no seeds on my 2880 x 1800 screen, either. I can tell from the screenshots it's off-screen to the left, so I'm unable to click on it. Here's the screenshot of it, in full-screen:

Screenshot 2018-08-23 (18794).png

The Gargoyle Landing by BoopsGames 2018-08-15T22:13:29Z

After having approached the game both from "survive as long as possible" to "match as much as possible," it's clear that the former is a better experience from the fun perspective, and the latter for scoring purposes. From that sense, I feel the game is rather inconsistent in experience: the scoring mechanism does not match with what makes the game fun. I also felt the precision necessary for the blocks to be considered a match-3 formation was too strict as well. It would have been nice if the blocks merely needed to touch each other.

Solida Amationis by Omiya Games 2018-12-05T20:20:56Z

So for those curious, the dating simulator has 2 endings. Without spoiling too much, the former ending will almost immediately lead you back to the beginning of the game, while the true ending shows the credits.

Solida Amationis by Omiya Games 2018-12-08T19:56:48Z

@rumor "Individual Letters:" Gosh, sounds like you hit a bug. Oddly, Python interprets a tuple with a single string as if it's just a string while looping through each elements when entered into a for loop, rather than a list of strings with one element. As a consequence, it generates a sentence that requires you to click through each single letter. Blarg, do you remember what topic it was, and the conversation thread behind it?

I'll also look into why bg streets A doesn't show up. The images was put in at the very last minute, so of course this would happen. :stuck_out_tongue:

Solida Amationis by Omiya Games 2018-12-09T03:57:31Z

Thanks, @rumor and @mrtroy. I found the problem and fixed it accordingly. It shouldn't happen in the latest build anymore.

Edit: And yes, I'm sure you already figured it out, but "Solida Amationis" is a made-up disease. I simply looked through an online English-to-Latin dictionary and had it translate, "Perfect Romance." Apparently, there isn't a 1-to-1 translation to "romance," but I think I got close.

Solida Amationis by Omiya Games 2018-12-14T02:41:29Z

Spoilers below!

@aeveis Good question. Whether your significant other makes it or not is impacted by whether you use the proper item at a particular section *and* certain dialog trees. Sometimes, the significant other selects the dialog tree for you. Combined with the base probability of success at 80%, yes, it will feel completely random. Edit: with a few exceptions, I think almost all paths decreases the probability of success, so most of the game is figuring out how to keep it from dropping.

I confess this was a deliberate decision. Part of my line of thinking was to encourage the player to replay the game and help them realize the significant other is playing the same game as the player. Second is to make the dating part more stressful. I try this via a ton of randomization, thus not knowing what to expect next, and a ton of choices to make, overwhelming the player.

I'm not expecting the game to be a pleasant experience. Heck, the *story* alone is incredibly upsetting. With what little time I had to work on the game (I had to take two days off this game jam due to work-related reasons) I tried looking for some game mechanics to implement via Ren'py that would support this uneasy story.

Solida Amationis by Omiya Games 2018-12-29T00:29:24Z

@shakedimus Haha, yeah, we ran out of time to make music specific to a park, so the really chatty cafe music just looped to the noisy part.

I Am Free by marvalgames 2018-12-15T03:27:54Z

We started the stream by playing the executable, and since no instructions popped up, we were utterly confused as to how to play the game. I did notice the WebGL fixes this by adding a help button, but boy is this game incredibly cryptic on its rules.

Well-Hidden Genie by AidanMarkham 2018-12-05T03:13:54Z

I had a lot of difficulties trying pick-up anything with a touchpad. I'm not sure if the game is any better with a mouse, but it's a really frustrating experience when you know what to pick up, and having immense difficulty over it. I appreciate the aesthetics overall, but I confess I'm really biased against fetch quests. They're not my taste.

Super Sellout by Moski 2018-12-08T02:37:26Z

Solid aesthetics, thought the controls were a bit strange. For a game genre like this, I would have expected either the E key (for WASD) or X key (for Arrow Keys) to make the action, while the Space (for WASD) or Z to do the jump (for Arrow Keys). Thought that was a curious decision.

I thought the later parts of the game kind of scrolls a little too fast. It didn't seem to matter how many sponsors I didn't choose; I couldn't touch the right side of the screen. That limits mobility alone, so it felt kind of awkward. I did like the sponsors affecting dogs and metals, but I thought the puddles were visually not obvious as obstacles to avoid. Jump felt a little weird as well. I think some extra visual flairs should have been added to tapping F without anyone to save, as that would have informed the player that they are wasting their time doing so. The feature itself is fine, it's just not obvious.

Beyond by MouthlessGames 2018-12-13T02:28:33Z

Appreciated the game playing around with the medium much like the Poo's Training section in Earthbound. While the excellent audio design and the compelling narrative does a great job in selling the mood, I thought the point-and-click part was clunky and unintuitive. For example, how was I supposed to figure out that turning up the heat of the basement required clicking on the laptop, then the text on said laptop? Normally in a point-and-click adventure environment, I'd assume just clicking on the fireplace, or going through the task of finding a lighter and wood before approaching it, would be the right thing to do. I also thought it was strange and silly that the window needed to be opened for the cig, when ya know, it's already established that the room has a chimney, given the fireplace. Air control clearly isn't the reason.

Ursa by Maksym 2018-12-13T02:03:57Z

Boy, this game is hard. I would have appreciated a level run through (e.g. the camera cinematic providing the visuals on what the level looks like) at the beginning so I can figure out which ability to sacrifice. Otherwise, it felt like I was doing a lot of blind guessing. Would have also been nice to not have to always select which abilities to sacrifice, as entering the menu would take time away from replaying the game. For difficult games, the turnover from death to replaying should short. Perhaps the game could store the initial set of sacrifices, and only after tapping restart button, does the sacrifice menu pop-up again.

I also had difficulties following the narrative, since it appeared while platforming. Since my attention remains on the platforming, this makes it difficult for me to follow along with the story. In the end, I ended up not caring.

Ai System by ToadieTechnika 2018-12-26T02:38:14Z

Yikes, this is very difficult puzzle platformer. There are a lot of red-herrings in the game, and it really required a lot of careful planning and numerous practice to get to the end. I gave up around level 6 or 7, since it required getting the jump controls perfect, and I just became exhausted with it.

To be honest, I actually like the game, especially in it requiring the perfect number of hearts at the very end. That said, I don't have quite the tolerance to deal with its difficulty. Would have appreciated a lenient level-select screen to skip over levels I couldn't beat.

Slime Girls by nervous-composers 2018-12-21T08:13:03Z

Those were some really beautiful graphics! I thought it was strange that given the silky smooth animations, it was strange the player character moved their legs faster than the actual speed they were walking, if you know what I mean. I think the stand-out feature in this game was actually the Metroidvania-like level design. I really appreciate the many shortcuts added to shorten the path from start to end. It would have been much more frustrating if those unlockable shortcuts weren't added in.

Given dying is the main mechanic of the game, I wished the death and spawn animations were much shorter, so I would be able to jump back into the game sooner. Given the game has deliberate troll traps (mainly to justify the lighting created by death sports), having a quicker respawn would have really helped reduce the frustration of these elements without penalizing the game's pretty challenging difficulty at certain points. Overall, solid package.

What We Hold In Our Hearts by mgoadric 2018-12-15T02:55:03Z

This was an interesting experiment. While not exactly "fun," I liked the attempt made to give meaning to the items the character is collecting. Unfortunately, since I was frantically tapping the right arrow key, it was very difficult for me to pay attention to the narrative. I think I would have had a significant connection to the game if I didn't need to remain so focused on the button tapping, thus allowing me to read the narrative a little more closely.

Blood Money by Baconinvader 2018-12-29T00:26:50Z

Barring a long instructions screen and a bit of a learning curve, I thought it was pretty fun. I get that this is more or less a procedurally generated set of levels, but I did get a sense some level formations were a bit unfair. I also found the default hand gun was perfectly sufficient for the majority of my gameplay, so I had no reason to switch to a different weapon, let alone buying them. There are just in general a ton of power-ups to memorize that it gets a bit overwhelming; I just ended up picking up a few that clearly opened a new path and that's about it. Strafing without a question was the most important skill to play this game.

Overall, I think some balancing revision is necessary, but the core is very enjoyable.

STAR JUNK by christina-antoinette-neofotistou 2018-12-15T03:56:31Z

I really, really like the trade-off mechanic. It really forces you to think about the aiming of the game, and deciding what to take out. Presentation was nice as usual. I kind of chose to cheese the enemies by flying far away, then slowly approaching them until they're in view and shoot. I do think the controls were a little awkward, in particular the aiming, as it was easy to overshoot the angle. Still, the small world size and a neat radar really helped make the game feel strategic and fair.

The Grassland Kings by Mathstr0fficial 2018-12-29T00:37:42Z

To be honest, I didn't enjoy this game much. It gets very hard, very fast, and combined with rapid reduction in vision, the information available to the player is further reduced, making it easy to make more mistakes. From an experimentation perspective, it's interesting and worth further exploration. From a playability perspective, I found it too frustrating to play.

Pillar of Peril by Selgeron 2018-12-08T04:13:51Z

I thought the graphics were really good, and the escalation of difficulty was fine until the last level and the final boss. I appreciate the time given to experience all the abilities early on, as it does make the decision of what to sacrifice difficult. I would have appreciated it if the game paused while I was debating what to sacrifice, though. Go Hand-ability!

I thought it was difficult to aim given only 4 directions were supported. I also thought the audio, both music and sound effects, were very repetitive. The latter in particular could use variety via playing a random selection of a category of sound effects, and/or randomizing the pitch/play-speed each time the sound effect is played. I thought the final boss was too difficult for my taste; combined with being reset from the start made me want to quit early. Since there's nothing else left to sacrifice at this point, I think it would have been a better idea to just reset the player from the beginning of the battle with full health.

God's Wrath by Enver Arco 2018-12-16T22:35:08Z

I appreciate that it's not game over if the God's Favor meter drops to 0. It makes it much easier to survey the entire level and confirm where things are before actually attempting to drop things into the volcano. The extra visual filters, while effective at conveying the danger level of the situation, often made it difficult to find things, let alone detecting the anvil shadows that could potentially kill you (the forest saved me, though). Mostly, I thought the game was really goofy, especially the poor Unity FPS script that allowed the player to scale mountains walls like they're nothing. Given the relaxed rules, it made it easy to appreciate the details put into the game.

Blight Tower by jeplmr 2018-12-16T21:46:33Z

I think the game is far too difficult. Having all the bots turn to you, along with the outposts generating more evil bots was frankly overkill, especially on a game where the big bad is a bullet sponge. I would have appreciated either all the spawned bots turning evil, and the outpost becoming disabled, or the spawned bots remained untouched, but the outpost starts spawning evil bots. While I understand the inclusion of this rule, I don't think it was a good idea to have an extra rule stating that losing all bots would make the player lose the game. I feel like the bots generation could have just been infinite, with limits on how many can be spawned at any one time, and make the objective more satisfying that way.

The controls were mostly fine. I miss the jump, but then again, I suspect that would have broke the path-finding. The fire rate is too long to make the experience satisfying, and the boss has way too much health to feel like I'm making any progress at all. There are also no obvious tells when an explosion has a splash effect on you.

Wild Heat Showdown by Akusan 2018-12-05T02:48:22Z

I found the level generation to be the most interesting part. It creates an impressively expansive maze that's interesting and cohesive to go through (though some sprites were missing...and graphics sometimes appear where there are no walls). Enemy and item placements were mostly reasonable.

Gameplay-wise, though, shooting was incredibly difficult given the mouse pointer being completely invisible the entire time. I also swear it didn't fire properly a couple of times. The game never mentioned the ability to double-jump, or holding shift to run, so navigation was initially difficult. Plus, enemies could fire you off the ladder, with no possible way to dodge the fire. I think at one point, one spawned behind the background, only making them visible by looking through the windows (they still hurt the player). I don't think the restart level button works, either. It always felt like there was never enough time to navigate the maze. Eventually, I ended up just completely skipping the shooting aspect entirely in favor of just finding the goal, as that alone was a difficult task.

I wasn't a huge fan of the text either. The "accent" was jarring enough to reduce the mood and atmosphere from me.

Sacrifice Knight by Balgorode 2018-12-16T22:08:45Z

That was pretty short and sweet platformer. I definitely thought it was cute and the controls were nice and responsive. Graphics were very good; music could use a little work.

The part I appreciated the most was the upgrade system and the maze-like level design. The soul-meter in particular helped encourage exploration in finding hapless villagers and trying to map out an optimal direction in taking on the final boss. I feel the combat could have used a little work. In particular, I recommend adding knockback on enemies to make it much easier to combo-attack them. As it is, when you initially play, the sword is too weak to defeat the enemies before they walk into you.

I know time was short in adding a boss battle, but then again, I thought it was charming that it was so easy. Same with the Gainix ending of "rock falls, everyone dies" end screen.

The Missing Piece by comenoha 2018-12-26T00:52:17Z

Very cute. You've managed to strike into my nostalgic heart with a Shel Silverstein aesthetic. I had a lot of fun.

The platformer controls were tight, and the level design was lenient enough to feel fair, while the puzzle design made it appear difficult. Game mechanics were introduced naturally and the overall experience was very pleasant. Only encountered a few annoyances: one, it's hard to tell which switch moves which platform, and more importantly, how the platform moved. Some levels may have benefited from a checkpoint; the one with a big wall in the middle, and requires the player to fall in particular comes to mind, since the platform moves very slowly, and I got annoyed waiting for it to come down each time I messed up. The music got repetitive after a while as well. Finally, I thought it was weird that on my screen, the game forced itself to windows mode, even though it still supported widescreen (which still revealed the seams in the background).

To be clear, these are all minor in a very-well packaged game. I'd like to see more, such as new special pieces formed after colliding into a pencil.

Platformer.txt by Hugo kieffer 2018-12-15T04:15:12Z

The file manipulation is a bit difficult to deal with, especially with the puzzle requiring to drop collision. I ended up using cut-paste, then undo to swiftly take care of the problem, but I don't think most people would have realized that was possible on their OS. The premise is clever, though the puzzles didn't require too much from the player, and could use a bit of work. Would be nice to see more levels.

Whatever It Takes by SomewhatInfinite 2018-12-16T21:14:01Z

The game takes way, waaay too long to play. Problems I see immediately are the very low probability of increasing the population (which isn't good when the starting population is small from the first place), and the need to devote at least half on to making food, which further worsens one's ability to increase the population. I can already see myself wasting 20 full minutes (40 cycles) just trying to build a larger population alone. As prior comments have made, a skip button would have drastically reduced my frustration.

I don't especially think the number of buildings one needs to manage is too difficult to understand, but then again, I've been largely focused on population control only; the mining and wood-cutting buildings were extraneous coming from that play style. Personally, I would have increased the probability of a new meeple spawning, and also increase the number of food units made per meeple. I do otherwise think the sacrificing part adds an interesting twist to the regular formula, but it is quite frustrating at the beginning.

Long Live The King! by Player 2 2018-12-15T02:28:04Z

I can't move the windows well, either, on a 1280x720 screen resolution.

Long Live The King! by Player 2 2018-12-16T19:51:10Z

I'm on a Macbook Pro 2017 running Windows 10, October update release. I was duplicate-screening with a projector on 1280x720 screen resolution. Here are the rest of the specs:

ApplicationFrameHost 2018-12-16 (18865).png

You can see us attempting to play the game here:

https://youtu.be/4bmEUhG37uY?t=3613

Bloody Madness by Alastairwyn 2018-12-15T02:20:21Z

Not bad! I really liked how loose the level design were, making the platforming fairly easy to do. It allows one to focus on the puzzle itself. That said, I thought the main mechanic itself was too simple, and not easily expanded to more complicated puzzles. Still, I did make it to the end with ease and enjoyed myself throughout.

Cowboy Hell by dk5000p 2018-12-08T01:53:11Z

I kinda like the aesthetic of the game. There's a consistency and charm to it. Plus the way you can exploit the health points to be distributed to all the other stats was really funny.

Personally, I'm not exactly a huge fan of heavily stat-allocation game. While I think it's really fascinating that one can adjust their stats before every battle, I think the process is tedious, and hampers the fun. Still, I admit some bias against the game, so probably not the best to rate this game.

I also echo that the unskippable final boss music really reduced the replay value of the game.

Labrats by Matank 2018-12-13T04:27:11Z

A pretty solid puzzle with no obvious flaws in the puzzle design themselves. Given how restricted and easy it is to softlock oneself in a level (if they didn't have a restart button), I think more levels could have been added to encourage the player to think through and understand the resource management of the game. In particular, I had the most difficulties keeping track of how many mice I needed with X-and/or-Y ability. More practice in that realm would have significantly helped me ease through solving the later puzzles that were super difficult.

Not to mention the red herrings in the game. I dunno about you, but I like puzzle games better when the focus is on using what you have, than dealing with what one discovers isn't important.

Cheela by Shakedimus 2018-12-16T21:18:32Z

The controls were really bizarre, in the sense that dragging-and-dropping a box would have been the most intuitive control scheme for selecting units, but instead the game required 2 left clicks, and even then, I wasn't too sure. Right click as a "go here" was a bizarre decision in my opinion. I think a good old context menu on single clicks would have been a better idea for "go here." I also had a very difficult time knowing what units I've selected, and initially, didn't even know which units were under my control (white or black?).

Ultimately, my winning strategy was literally running away from the opposing AI (and an occasional cheesing where I dropped a unit to the bottom right of the opponent number grid, making a lot of newly spawned AI units fall into the square). That's....kind of an interesting statement about a population.

Floofs by kaeveris 2018-12-21T06:33:42Z

Not bad for a first-time Ludum Dare game, especially in Compo. To echo what everyone has said, the inaccurate aiming is a pretty darn huge dealbreaker. It sounds like the momentum of the platform isn't transferred to the bullets, so that could have used some fixing.

I confess the arcade-y feel is simple to learn, but also repetitive, and quick for one to get bored with. I get the sense the most amount of time was spent in graphics, which are quite polished for a compo.

Tiodrem Reserve by Bungus Productions 2018-12-16T23:18:27Z

I really like the music of the game, and the graphics aren't too bad, either. The controls were mostly fine, with the grapple hook being the most fickle. It took me a while to realize the grenade doesn't actually hurt anything, so I feel like that could have used some better observation on wording.

I feel like the game expected me to know which ability to sacrifice in the exact and proper order through the cryptic level design. To be frank, that made me feel like I was supposed read the level designer's mind, which isn't a fun experience. All the enemies are super-vicious with insane speed and large hitboxes that makes them difficult to avoid. Given your poor single-jump height, the down-attack felt especially ineffective, and what I ended up sacrificing first. The kill screen appeared very often during my playthrough, with the time wasted between each on progressively making me more and more annoyed as I played.

Can't save them all! by lilou_cormic 2018-12-13T03:39:40Z

The easy-to-outmaneuver AI, along with its predictability, is simultaneously charming and problematic. For example, in my second playthrough, I was able to save 96 individuals. I thought the game concept was fine, and honestly one of the better implementation of the theme. As a game trying to create some challenge from the player, though, I believe the AI is a big deal-breaker.

The Treachery by Tosunami 2018-12-08T03:33:10Z

I liked the harmony of the visuals and the music. There's a consistency in the aesthetic that, while barebones, tells enough to get the story. It's also very unusual depiction of hell.

I do confess the controls felt like they needed a little work. For WebGL build, it didn't seem like holding done the mouse button auto-fired. Holding down jump shouldn't cause you to jump again when landing on a platform. I also thought that there was not enough visual and auditory feedback on successfully hitting a boss correctly. I highly recommend checking out [Make it Juicy](https://omiyagames.itch.io/make-it-juicy), Juice it or Lose it (search on Youtube), and other presentations on how to add these sort of polish.

Hunger Sings by Swanijam 2018-12-21T07:36:33Z

Fantastic as always. As you've probably seen in our stream, I do agree with a feedback that the shoot button was a bit extraneous given the game auto-aimed anyway. Some of the bullet patterns were a bit tough, and I would have appreciated a slight increase in health, but I did eventually defeat all 4 bosses. I felt like more could have been done with sacrificing time; sure, it's a joke in this game, but imagine testing the player by genuinely adding that requirement mid-boss fight (or after you die).

Dare to Risk by Morris Beardbarian 2018-12-13T03:28:11Z

I had a lot of fun playing this. I mean, it's basically Risk. I thought the upgrade mechanic was brilliant addition to the RISK formula, as it creates an interesting risk-vs-reward decision making. The game seems biased towards the player with the most land mass, especially since each mass can only hold so many units. Maybe when programming this for multiplayer, consider adding mechanics that empowers those with less land mass than the other.

The UI could really use some improvements, though. Ideas include having actual arrows on the board depicting where the troops will go; clicking said arrow can bring a pop-up asking how many troops to send to that area.

The Last Light by Jenny Bourke 2018-12-13T04:37:42Z

Wasn't a huge fan of the bugs. Wait, that was a confusing pun, I don't think that made a whole lot of sense. Lemme try that again...

I think the art style is well stylized and provides a lot of character. I appreciate each character's dialogue corresponding their presence, and as such, needs. Some of them border on creepy, too. I did think, however, it was too easy to accidentally skip the dialog. I also wasn't sure the game was working properly when I gave light out of order. When I collided into a moth, the game just sort of froze, which I'm not sure was intentional. Hopefully, you'll both have more time to work on this.

King's Guard by pssilva 2018-12-13T02:43:35Z

I thought it was interesting that this game felt less like a tower defense, where taking advantage of the economy was the main focus, than a lane-based infinite runner. From that perspective, I thought a lot of stats (besides HP) wasn't all that important. Being able to place each figure anywhere on the map was an interesting choice: I sort of expected the characters to be forced in a lane, but no, you can place them between the lane and defeat more enemies that way. The pacing at the beginning, I think, could have used a little more work, as it's a lot of waiting for the enemies to roll in. On the other hand, I definitely got sweaty towards the end, where the screen filled up rapidly, and priority went into figuring out where to place the tank.

Please God by pandacodemaster 2018-12-05T02:20:36Z

I'm not sure why this keeps happening, but as I rapidly tap the right button to scroll through the denizens, the game will sometimes meow, a new entry will appear on the diary, then I can't interact anything anymore. Initially, I thought it was due to the volcano meter turning zero, but I was able to have one session where the meter reaches zero just fine, and...would still let me play.

The Last Duel by dollarone 2019-05-20T04:24:18Z

I really enjoyed this entry despite the confusing UI design and rather dull presentation. It felt like the game was really well balanced, with the AI just barely being beatable. I really appreciated the game taking its time to explain the turn order, improving the predictability and the strategy the player has to develop. That said, I did think some added graphics and effects could have helped what the effect of said turn was (e.g. shooting laser animated the shield number going down).

It wasn't difficult to figure out the one card to play, one card to hold onto concept per turn, but I would have liked to explain what and why the player would want to take these options. For example, I didn't know the AI and player shared the same deck. I didn't know the ratio of how many cards are in the deck, so it would have helped to know that information prior to playing. Lastly, I realized it's possible to end the game with a tie where both the player and AI dies at the same turn; not sure how the game deals with that. Still, I do think it's cool the game was designed with a constantly depleting resource in mind, and figuring out how to make the most out of that situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk

dunkin' dogoos by Karai17 2019-05-20T20:40:57Z

Excellent *Marble Madness*/*Super Monkey Ball* game! The checkpoint system is a god-send. They're well-paced, and makes the game difficult enough to be satisfying, but easy enough to be tolerable. It kept me motivated to play the game to the very end.

The game definitely needs to be played by a controller: I can't imagine using the keyboard. As mentioned by everyone, I did find the camera to be unwieldy. I also found the "splot" sound effect really annoying; it could have used variations each time it played. I appreciate the rain components was well balanced, but it was difficult to tell when it applied, and when it doesn't. A little strange, given that the rain's intent is to encourage the player to speed up in a game that asks for careful play. Still, these are nitpicks (except the camera) to an otherwise great game. Nice job!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk

Assault on Crown Archipelago by aurel 2019-05-14T03:44:49Z

Confession: I could only get through 2 or 3 levels before feeling motion sick. This was even before I realized I could drink booze in the game: something about the game's controls and dark graphics makes it hard to stomach the camera movements. That, and probably the low framerate my poor computer can muster.

I did get up to the harpoon, and I find it fascinating it operates as a platform. It is a very thin platform, so it was a bit frustrating to figure out where I can land on the harpoon. Perhaps adding some "ghostly platform" effect would help aid the player on the size of the harpoon's platform. In addition, the angle of the harpoon seem to be based on the direction the player aimed, which made the whole thing very fickle; I would have liked it if the harpoon angled to the normal of the surface it attached to. It might also help to put a clear highlight on the harpoon so that it's recognizable from a distance, and most definitely from the wall it's attached to.

Another confession: fetch-quests are a pet peeve of mine. I'm not a huge fan of needing to collect nearly all the coins within the 2 first levels. I often felt like I needed to read the level designer's mind to get as many as I can. Combined with my motion sickness, I couldn't really play for too long. Sorry.

Assault on Crown Archipelago by aurel 2019-05-14T22:33:39Z

@aurel I was using the Windows 64 bit build, rather than WebGL. Even turned off Ambient Occlusion, but that didn't seem to help. Then again, I have a retina screen, so the high resolution may be part of it.

For the harpoon angle, really, my feedback is about having a flat platform to make landing on it easier, regardless of the angle of the wall it's actually attached to.

Assault on Crown Archipelago by aurel 2019-05-15T01:07:19Z

@aurel Don't think I did. I'm not sure how that would improve the framerate?

Chimera by Omiya Games 2019-04-30T03:28:32Z

@crefossus Hey, thanks for the comment! A few things in regards to the design of the game:

As mentioned in a blog post (which quickly got buried with the "I'm in!" posts), my schedule was interrupted with a local games showcase I needed to attend. As such, when it came to brainstorming a game, we deliberately chose a game idea that wouldn't take too much time out of us. So to answer your question, no, there were no enemies or significant layout planned. It was intentionally an artsy game, but we kept the experience short to preserve the initial impact without getting too repetitive.

Chimera by Omiya Games 2019-05-04T05:02:18Z

@ursagames Thanks for playing. Some answers to your questions during your stream:

1. Obviously, you've figured out the maze is indeed procedural generated. We used the free ["Maze Generator"](https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/modeling/maze-generator-38689) in the Unity store to generate it. 2. The maze generates exactly 12 arms. The part that is random is the number of heads it generates (which is always 1 or greater).

---

Since I've already revealed the intent of the game in other streams, I'll re-post my comments here: this game is born from my curiosity of what the character you play as in first-person shooters look like. I pitched this game idea to the team that the point of collecting arms and attaching them to the camera is to make the player hyper-aware of this question ("who am I playing as"). I personally would love to hear how others interpreted the game, and whether they derived any meaning out of it. We kept the game minimalistic and mysterious on purpose, after all.

The only thing we did actually end up cutting from the game was collecting legs. Sadly, the act of attaching arms to the camera without getting it occluded from the camera's close-range in Unity proved to be difficult to solve. I didn't find the time to repeat the solution with legs. In addition, new symbols would have to be added to represent the number of arms and legs necessary to open a door.

Chimera by Omiya Games 2019-05-06T04:51:13Z

@foolmoron Yeah, I didn't expect the actual experience to be fun, given its minimalistic design. I focused on keeping the experience short so it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Chimera by Omiya Games 2019-05-13T00:28:45Z

@linear Our menus are open-source! Feel free to clone this Template Unity Project:

https://bitbucket.org/OmiyaGames/template-unity-project/

Our documentation on it is...actually really poor, but we did open-source it for a reason.

(Edit: translating to proper English)

PATH, a game of life by Ekilibr 2019-05-12T21:32:12Z

This is an interesting take on trade-quests in Zelda games. I did think the fact that time *also* slowly erases your life was a stroke of genius. It forced me to make interesting decisions, such as whether to continue the path I'm taking, and whether to listen to a character.

Some of the clues given in the game is a little too obtuse for me to figure out. I did feel a little tired after trying to find some of the endings, largely due to the high reliance of trial and error. I'll give it another go after the stream to see if there are any pathways I missed (after 3 endings or so).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8

PATH, a game of life by Ekilibr 2019-05-13T00:58:31Z

Hmph, nope, only found the following endings so far:

* Destroy rock to get the starting quote. * Go back home after 1 unit remaining for bookend. * Plant flowers in the desert. * Be friends with weird animals.

I'm still stuck trying to figure out how to deal with the family. There doesn't seem to be a special prompt that appears with them.

GARUA by dietzribi 2019-05-18T23:49:36Z

Neat! The game had a pretty decent pacing, despite all the "it's balancing is broken" comments throughout the stream. As usual, well done in the presentation quality. Graphics are solid, and music is fitting.

The metroidvania part was probably the more interesting aspect of the game. I felt the combat became trivial over time, as most of my focus eventually turned into tanking every hit. Personally speaking, I think the sword attack didn't have that much impact; the only feedback I noticed was the enemy knockback.

Baby Benjamins by foolmoron 2019-05-13T04:19:29Z

Yikes, this game makes my carpal tunnel worse.

Had a pretty fun time playing this gravity simulation. I did like the joy of tossing things around. I was a little annoyed that the money won't compound until the one being dragged was touching another like-item. I guess it would have made the game too easy, but I was half-expecting things that just happened to touch each other also combine as well.

Still, there's an inherent joy in seeing those numbers rise really, really fast.

Sword of Hearts by MSiddeek 2019-05-13T00:15:21Z

Had a lot of fun playing the game. The idle animation of the character spitting blood was a nice touch. Puzzles were introduced well enough that I didn't feel the game was unfair (except potentially the no-death run).

The ghost-jumping (or coyote time) as a puzzle solution to some of these might have been a bit much. Obviously as a convenience feature, I did enjoy having that feature at all, but at times, I felt I needed to know how that aspect of the game was programmed so I can time my jumps properly, which isn't a good feeling. I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the idle animation forcing the player to stop momentarily, which creates an occasionally stutter to the movement and gameplay. These nitpicks didn't ruin the whole experience, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8

Sword of Hearts by MSiddeek 2019-05-13T00:25:49Z

On a side-note, I just gave it another go, this time with the no-death (or, really, no heart block) run. You sly fox, you've hidden all those clues of how to get through this game without relying on the heart blocks in weirdly creative ways. Welp, I got the sword and a magenta screen, so I guess I win.

*Note to other players looking for clues, pay attention to the screenshots in the itch.io page, and notice the dotted wall patterns are almost always vertical, with a platform above.*

Rising Dawn - First Blood: It's Brunchtime by AfroAnt 2019-05-11T17:38:47Z

This game is pretty hard! The controls were simple enough to grasp, and elements such as "no reflection" and "transforming in front of people = no good" were introduced in intuitive and non-obstructive ways. I think the tutorial, while could use improvements in introducing buttons presses, were thoughtful and well done. You've also managed to create this simplified experience of a stealth game: the thrill of being under-powered but also having enough tools on-hand to handle the situation.

I think my difficulty from playing the game stems from the fact that there are just a lot of people, and it's far too easy to give away your location. It's hard to figure out how to get away from the cross people, since it's a double punishment for detection, and they hunt you while you're hiding (which mainly is due to your character walking slowly, and the health bar makes the bat form untenable). At numerous moments, I simply reacted with a "I don't know what to do here" face. Some improvements in level design slowly teaching the player how to crowd-control would be great.

F_NULL by feips 2019-05-13T03:34:41Z

So...I had to play this game because I am indeed working on an F-Zero-like anti-gravity racing game (shameless self-promotion [here](https://omiyagames.itch.io/prototype-airwaves)). But anyways...

There are a few things this game does nail: the sense of speed is palpable, and the high-bloom, strong contrast minimalistic art are quite extraordinary. I did think given the speed of the game, the track itself felt too thin. This was particularly unfair in areas with many bends on the road. The minimalistic graphics also made it hard to predict when the next tight turn was coming, so it did make it difficult to stay on the middle of the road.

I think you're on the right path, but the game does need some polish here and there.

A Moment To Reflect by aeveis 2019-05-20T20:48:36Z

> ...I’m on vacation so this was scoped pretty minimally.

Oh, yeah, been there, done that.

Given how short the game was, I didn't feel like committing to a specific flower was...particularly meaningful. I mean, the game resets in a super-short time, so I could just replay the game again; that kind of makes the decision-making process trivial. I just went with farthest flower first, then gradually chose closer ones to see all the dialog ('cause I'm weird like that). There just wasn't much consequences in choosing one choice over another.

It did feel like the game was not for me. Which, to be clear, is fine.

Random bugs I found: tutorial kind of shows up out-of-order, especially if you figure out how to move and approach the sheep early in the game. I also noticed that by tapping the X button over and over again while on top of the flower, it resets the fade-out animation, making it easy to just not commit to a decision. Maybe that last one was on purpose :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: ?

Grim Adventures by ursagames 2019-05-13T03:02:32Z

That game turned out to be longer than I expected. The upgrade system is really interesting, and certainly gives a bit of a Metroidvania feel to it; though not by too much, as I quickly discovered. I had the most fun trying to beat certain levels without having certain power-ups available. That said, I did struggle with the boss, so I guess that was one thing I felt forced to have power-ups (edited-to-add: this isn't a bad thing; it was only an observation).

I'm glad I had a controller at hand, since the game had parts that were difficult with keyboard (narrow pathways in particular). Dashing across the low-ceiling, lava pits proved to be more difficult than I expected as well. I'm sure you already know about the depth-perception issues: I would have appreciated a free-form camera that would let one observe the gaps between platforms at any angles, thus making it easier to calculate my jumps. Controls felt a little loose, too: moving is slow, and the jumps felt very floaty (definitely increase Unity's gravity, or scale everything to be smaller). I also felt the attacks had no impact, partially due to the simple animations, but mostly due to lack of juice: hit-pauses, camera shakes, screen flashes, etc. Some of the moves could also use extra flourishes as well, including jump, land, double-jump, and dash.

Those were my thoughts.

Grim Adventures by ursagames 2019-05-14T04:05:57Z

^ Also, I made an educational game about juice, something I basically recommended as a way to improve the attack's impact:

https://omiyagames.itch.io/make-it-juicy

Super Powerup Dash by ETHproductions 2019-05-13T03:15:06Z

Phew, got past the menus. As commented in the Newgrounds site, hey, nice job getting something out for this Ludum Dare despite things not working out midway. The level design, though short, was completely fine in my book. A little difficult to navigate, but not too intimidating. Controls were pretty tight, though it took me a while I could push down to swim in water.

Obviously, the lack of features is a bit of a bummer. I can see this becoming a larger game where the player needs to commit to a different play style. As of now, the double-jump is totally over-powered. Looking through the comments, it seems *all* power-ups are over-powered, so maybe some balancing is in order.

CurANTcy by HacksawUnit 2019-05-13T04:36:07Z

This game is amazing. I love the presentation and the simplicity behind the game. I was half wondering if one could play with just the audio alone, but that doesn't seem to be the case: the drumroll doesn't seem to scale with the coin height. Still, the purity of the game is incredible. That drumroll really makes the game super-intense.

Life Merchant by Webox 2019-05-13T00:06:54Z

Aw, the game ended *just* as it started getting interesting! I actually really love this puzzle game; not too hard, has enough Sokoban challenge, but has a neat character switching mechanic that really forces you to think. I think the improvements of controls would have been nice, perhaps having a proper walk animation from one cell to another so holding down the arrow keys has meaning. Some of the text in the game implied some mechanics that didn't seem to make it into the game, e.g. "you body doesn't fit through these steel bars" seems to imply that you could regress in age. I did really like the levels, though; they ramped up in difficulty smoothly enough that the whole experience was pleasant. Would love to see more coming out of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8

Risky Life by neowhoru 2019-05-05T23:40:51Z

What's in the game is quite impressive. The platforming controls were tight and predictable. Firing bullets were fine. I do think the level design was a bit uninspired; in particular, the lack of variety in enemy movement made the combat very simple. I also thought it was interesting that most levels were horizontal in nature. I assumed with the jump powerup, there would be more vertical levels, but apparently not.

I did find it strange that 1) taking a power-up would turn your character into a glass-cannon (instant kill), and 2) bigger bullets is even an option. Since power-ups is mostly necessary, the first thing forced the player into one-hit kill situations, which...I have mixed feelings about. And, well, bigger bullets didn't seem to do much?

Emergency Economic Envelope by crefossus 2019-05-06T04:49:32Z

I think I've beaten the boss. Not sure; the boss played a particle effect, and the game slowed down. There were no end screen to greet me.

I thought that needing to recollect your..."bullets" was actually a clever mechanic. It adds a significant depth to the fight as not only is aiming but also positioning becomes vital to your player character. There were a number of weird strategies I've experimented with various degrees of success that made the game more unique than most others I've played this jam.

I think the full 8-direction controls were a little strange from the aiming perspective. I never found use for shooting in angles, for example, since it's already difficult to do that while still. The game was a bit too bullet-hell for me to enjoy; I really don't like games that feels like it's too focused in dodging. Still, the concept has potential.

Emergency Economic Envelope by crefossus 2019-05-14T03:56:27Z

@crefossus Aside from *Geometry Wars*, I confess, not really. Bullet hell isn't really my thing. Even *Ikaruga*, with its innovative color switching mechanic, doesn't really do it for me.

Ludum Dare 44 Entry by spacemyname 2019-05-21T01:31:19Z

Nice job getting 3 games done this Ludum Dare. While I don't pretend any single one felt polished, I'm still very impressed at what you were able to achieve in such a limited time span. Of the three, I think the *Bejewled* game was the one I enjoyed the most. I'm a little annoyed the game doesn't register the 5-color combo, but eh, nitpick.

I did think the UFO game was...odd, to say the least. It doesn't keep track of score, and it was kind of easy to get away with UFO tractor beams. I did eventually get caught, but it was strange...

If the triple jump worked more consistently, I would think the first game would be more fun and interesting, but without it, the game feels a bit unfair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk

CorrupSoul by Odlog Oglog 2019-05-14T04:03:46Z

Haven't played the game yet, @odlog-oglog, but since the topic of "Juice" came up, I couldn't resist: here's a playable game I made that covers the same topic. Hopefully you find that educational as well.

https://omiyagames.itch.io/make-it-juicy

CorrupSoul by Odlog Oglog 2019-05-19T00:30:03Z

OK, finally got around playing the game. So, first off, great job making the game in 26 hours. That's a really impressive feat, and you all should be proud. I thought the music was pretty nice, too.

Now, I hope you'd excuse my criticism, as I have many. My first problem was trying to figure out how to play the game. Despite having read through the directions, finding the necessary HUD bars was a lot more difficult than I expected. I felt like I died for unknown reasons until I found both the corruption and HP bar. I also thought the AI needed some work. I was able to cheese the game by hiding in the corner and swinging to the left all the time. This forced the enemies to come into the thin corridor in a single file, making the game far too easy. Not to mention the gauge to de-corrupt is right there in the same corner. I also didn't really understand how the exploding eyeballs behaved, and just let them explode on their own most of the time.

Overall, solid effort, but certainly could have used more....time. :wink:

Battery Life by Attala 2019-05-20T03:56:33Z

Had a lot of fun playing and streaming this game. It's a fairly well-paced game about resource management, which did frustrate me at earlier levels, but was much easier and generous in the later ones. I personally had a hard time figuring out how much fuel I needed for each conveyor belts and yellow doors, so ended up experimenting with bits and pieces for the most part. Some sort of hard limit in either would have been useful. I would have also like to see more elements besides just enemies, conveyor belts, and yellow doors; though to be fair, this is a game jam and all. I also thought the way the camera rotated, it felt a bit drunken. It would have been nice if the camera followed the mouse, at least when combat was involved so I can see ahead where I'm aiming.

Obviously, I hit into some collision bugs which you already knew about. Still, I was impressed with what I played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk

MoneyBag by Lexyvil 2019-05-20T04:35:49Z

The controls were responsive and mostly smooth. I like the simplicity behind the concept as well. The gradual loss of the coins wasn't too punishing, though it was a bit more rapid than I expected. And I'm glad the quick restart button exists, since I abused the heck out of it.

As a physics based platformer, though, I didn't like the clumsiness in the game. It probably comes down to taste, but I felt less in control than I would have liked, especially with the lack of aerial controls and short jumps. Everything, consequently, becomes a strict commitment: I'm looking at you, evil stairs! I can see this game as requiring a sort of mastery to its physics, but I didn't feel compelled to replay it often. The game simply didn't feel like it was for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk

Shadow Seekers by Caveman54 2019-05-20T03:33:32Z

I confess that I was too confused with what I was supposed to do with the game to even finish it. I liked the graphics a lot, but the initial time I walked into the dungeon, there were literally no way out of the first room. It wasn't until the second playthrough that I realized the level was supposed to be procedurally generated. I did get lost in the maze, too: there didn't seem to be an obvious objective and items to guide me to a specific direction. I know this is more difficult to implement in a procedural game, but something to keep in mind next time.

Other concerns include the attack animation, which I thought didn't do a good job at conveying the range of the attack. This made the combat difficult often. A couple of times, the attack button didn't seem to register, and nothing would happen; at other times, the down-attack seems to play two different animations, with one visually having poor range. I also couldn't figure out how to throw things in the game.

https://youtu.be/299GvZrjyZk

Jukebox Panic! by Kaish 2019-05-06T04:32:17Z

I really liked playing this game on-stream. The concept is simple and sweet, easy to get into, and adds new challenges to each level that encourages progression. Personally, I thought some new mechanics added in a level could have used a smoother introduction, such as having a level devoted to each mechanic for the player to slowly get used to them. I also wanted a bit more control over how the coins bounced from the cursor: my original suggestion was to make the circle larger. Not saying that would solve the problem perfectly, but it's something I think is worth experimenting. I also had difficulties moving coins stuck on the sides of the screen to move out of them. Lastly, some colliders, like the legs on the tables, could use some smoothing.

Definitely looking forward to a mobile release. Just remember to compensate for the finger that will inevitably cover the screen!

Black Friday Shopping by Evgeniya Zapolnova 2019-05-05T22:52:24Z

As a simplified turn-based RPG, the battle system was easy to comprehend. The strategy of the game was clearly indicated, making it a thinking a game (a good sign). Since the instructions were pretty sophisticated, it may be worth putting a tutorial in at some point. I also feel that the battle system is too simple. It has a, what I like to call, "optimization problem" where the same strategy works in every single battle. It might be worth adding elemental weaknesses, new weapons/party members that support those weaknesses, resources, etc. to add variety to each battle.

Slimevery by Edusrmt 2019-05-19T00:13:31Z

The most cynical implementation of *Boy and His Blob*. There's not even a hug button. How dare you!

Joke aside, it was a pretty simple puzzle platformer, though I couldn't help but feel it was too simple. The slime AI is pretty good and their bounce even has a lot of character. It's a little sad the only application they seem to have was dying on spikes and getting trapped into switches. Then again, I didn't have any slimes following me at the end, so I guess joke's on the final hooded person?

On my retina Macbook screen, the game ended up being very small. I thought the jump was awfully short; it made jumping over gaps very stressful due to the required precision. I would have liked checkpoints, too, since very frequently, I ran out of berries to feed slimes.

bird food by kyavi 2019-05-12T20:58:35Z

As a puzzle game about optimizing the path to travel, the game experience was interesting. I really like the interesting twist added into the snakes game. The levels were clearly presented, and I didn't have too much problems piecing out the best path to beat each level.

I personally struggled with the reactive-ness of the controls. It didn't feel "tight," and at many times, died for tapping the directional keys at the wrong time. There were a bit of "depth perception" problem as well, in particular the guillotine. It would have been nice if the shadow appeared on the snake itself.

Oh, right, and the half-movement thing, like everyone said :point_up_2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8

Green Dragon Inn by MrTroy 2019-10-10T05:59:06Z

The detailed language depicting the world is a nice polish that really encourages the player to explore more of the story. Given that very little details are given at the beginning of the story, I definitely thought these extra flourishes were necessary.

That said, I also felt the story was really linear. If I understand correctly, there are, like, only two wrong choices you can make, and they're very early in the game. Past that, the player is railroaded to a specific quest with all branching paths circling back to the main plot. I didn't enjoy this bit much.

The writer clearly has talent, so I suspect much of this had to do with time limitation than anything. Looking forward to see what's next!

Uballto by Omiya Games 2019-10-07T22:38:45Z

@omnikrll and @muse-en-lystrala We have tripled the number of levels on the game! Play it again, and let us know what you think!

The Empty Jar by gamezero 2019-10-20T19:41:56Z

The graphics are great, and and I like the central mechanic implemented. I can imagine with extra jars and more movement options, the game can become a very interesting puzzle game. As it is right now, the limitations makes the game super-linear and repetitive. I also found the act of refilling, walking to a pit, then pouring the liquid, and repeating that process over to solve the puzzle boring and repetitive as well. More time spent on the games level design and controls would have probably made this game more interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq_qRoOOl-s

Beggars Can Be Choosers by Herman Chau 2019-10-20T03:18:43Z

Oh, no! I was on a roll with this until the apple showdown! Beggars_CAN_Be_Choosers 2019-10-19 (22163).png

ETA: at least it saved my last progress, far enough for me to see this screen: Beggars_CAN_Be_Choosers 2019-10-19 (22164).png

What an epic showdown with the apple scrounge.

Beggars Can Be Choosers by Herman Chau 2019-10-20T03:28:31Z

OK, real review.

I actually quite enjoyed this rogue-like experience. The writing had quite a lot of charm, and though it took a while, the stats were informative enough to shift the game to my favor. I do think some more positive cards where begging gave coins appear earlier would have helped the player understand the outcomes a little more.

It took a while to register, but I do appreciate that certain conditions, such as the amount of coins you have at hand, or triggering certain outcomes, helped trigger certain cards to appear, fleshing out the world a little bit more. That said, it is a bit slow-going on many playthrough, so some balancing on quickening the pace of the story would have been appreciated.

Ammodillo by Jeremy Ryan 2019-10-13T21:51:31Z

Had a lot of fun playing the stream! A lot of clever game design decisions makes this a very pleasant game to play throughout, including tight controls, easy-to-predict bullet patterns, HUD that follows the character, etc. I did think it was a little hard, but not in a way that I thought was unfair.

Some polishes include an easier way to aim the dodge roll, as that proved to be the hardest thing to learn in the game. Some foreshadowing on the attack patterns would have been nice as well. Overall, strongly enjoyed the experience!

https://youtu.be/wkzhmrjM_28

Eleven Days by dreamlogician 2019-10-20T04:52:55Z

...I don't get it...

Writing is fine, and brings about some excellent poetry skills. I actually do like all the thread of the story barging in very suddenly, with seemingly no reasoning. I'm not sure I understood the purpose of that setup, though, as I couldn't tell how the ending wrapped all those threads up.

I agree with above comments that the story is a bit slow in pacing, and that does tamper the enjoyment of the game. At times, while in the middle of swiping between transitions, it would kick in very early between 2 text sections, that the first text becomes obscured and difficult to read. As such, I ended up skipping parts of the story since I couldn't read a paragraph or two anymore.

ETA: also, I get many of those artworks were drawn and depicts images of ye olde times, but a few were...yikes. And I guess Tom was already ahead of the times for watching Simpsons and playing video games in an era where neither could have existed.

Bob the Brawler by itsdanidre 2019-10-28T03:06:53Z

The game is really quite polished, both in game feel and presentation. I don't have any major complaints of the game. Nitpicks that comes to mind is the repetitive nature of the game, as enemies don't behave any differently from each other. As such, the game starts to feel a little boring rather quickly.

Also, as endemic of the arcade genre, there was a point in the game where I simply felt like giving up because the number of baddies becomes too overwhelming. This did make the game less fun for me. On the plus side, the typical game length didn't feel too long or too short, so the spawning progression felt pretty good.

https://youtu.be/No9PjQTpi0s

i don't know what to feel anymore by omnikrll 2019-10-09T19:07:01Z

I took the game as an interactive audio piece, and while I found the visuals and the audio as an interesting experiment, it very quickly became loud and grating for it to be enjoyable. Searching for the mine itself was entertaining at the beginning, but with a lack of ending or progression, felt repetitive very quickly.

It's a cool experiment, and I applaud for trying something new. I do think it's a little too minimalistic, and the one that that makes it interesting (the audio) wasn't very strong, either.

Oh, and hello, fellow New Yorker! I...don't live anywhere near NYC, but hey!

Terminal by jaydubbyasee 2019-10-13T19:29:26Z

Very cool idea. It was probably good that the number of commands to run were limited. That said, confession, there was a bit of a learning curve using the Open command, as nothing indicates why it doesn't work without standing on top of an orange file.

I did think the platformer controls were sluggish and uncomfortable. A huge problem I encountered was that I had no idea how large my character was, and how large each platforms were, felt unfair towards the last, final level. I really did enjoy the idea, though, so I strongly appreciate it for what it is.

https://youtu.be/wkzhmrjM_28

Ludarium-45 by acronaut 2019-10-21T23:27:57Z

A quick disclaimer: fetch-quests are my biggest pet peeves of mine. This game clearly isn't meant for me.

The presentation stands out in a good way, and the controls feels *wicked*. The thrill of just traveling around at high speeds is fantastic, and is easily what I enjoyed the most in the game. I was disappointed, then, to see the level focused on collecting things rather than parkour or racing experiences. Given the strong speed-running potential, the current level doesn't do a good job of, in my opinion, justifying the super-satisfying controls of the game.

As it is, I thought the collectibles were hard to make out from the flashy background, making the task of finding them tedious and frustrating. The lack of any guides or markers on where to find the next closest (or really, just any) collectible also didn't help in this regard. I also felt the timer was quite cruel, as I never really felt I had enough time (and distinct land marks or minimap) to map out the optimal route of collecting everything. Still, the polish on the game is really quite impressive. I just thought the objective clashed with the general feel of the game.

https://youtu.be/qq_qRoOOl-s

Primordial by Muse en Lystrala 2019-10-11T04:11:51Z

Daw, it ended just as it begun. Knowing your schedule at the time, I'm pretty impressed by the final product. The story is really cool, and the writing kept me interested; however, given the lack of choices the player could make, it did feel like reading a story than a choose-your-own adventure I've come to expect in visual novels. Hope to see more from this project soon!

PIPO THE GHOST by woody_builder 2019-10-28T02:42:40Z

I think this is a mostly solid implementation of *Chu Chu Rockets*-like circuitry game genre. I really appreciate the tutorials and level design that allows the player to learn and explore each game mechanic. The progression of difficulty on each level felt fair and natural.

At the same time, I also felt the game was....really generous? I didn't feel too challenged by the game, and often, the first solution I came up with was the solution to the game. In fact, in a few levels, I just ended up using a lot less blocks than what was given to me. On one hand, I sort of like it when games don't demand perfection, and encourage multiple solutions to a puzzle. On the other hand, it kinda felt like some levels weren't thought through. That somehow made the game...less fun for me? I have very mixed feelings about this.

ETA: as an aside, the behavior of portal and jump blocks were the least obvious to me. I had to deliberately experiment with them to understand how each behaved, which tells me the given video tutorials weren't informative enough.

https://youtu.be/No9PjQTpi0s

Appeasing the Quadopus by dk5000p 2019-10-21T22:44:48Z

Great game, 10/10.

OK, unhelpful review aside, some actual constructive criticisms. The game is, for the lack of better words, very buggy with some fundamental game design flaws in an otherwise solid (if, a little too safe) basis. To me, this actually added to the charm of the game, to a point where I started enjoying the game for being "it's so bad, it's good." As you can see from our stream below, we basically just cheesed every boss and exploited any bugs we can find.

I did think the game could have used some significant polish in a number of factors. For one, I always felt either the player's hitbox was too large, or the boss' attacks were too large to dodge. It would have been nice to have the gravity boosted slightly to make it much easier to jump between the Cola bullets, or at least add some hold-jump-button mechanic for taller heights to make it easier to execute short-hops. The player seemed to have a clear hit animation (though rudimentary), but it would have been nice to see a similar effect appear on bosses as well for successful hits. The current visuals for the axes being launched made it difficult to predict its range, and arguably since it's so close-range, it doesn't always feel effective. Also, the flip point of the player isn't quite centered properly...

Finally, the bosses really needed a large amount of animations (or at least, some sort of visual effect) to provide a "tell" for when certain attacks are coming. As a player, it was difficult for me to predict what the next upcoming attacks were, and how to work with the new situation the game has thrown at me. This was why cheesing was more satisfying to me than trying to play the game the "intended" way: I didn't really feel the Cola and Doughnut bosses were "fair" (Hamburger was just strange).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq_qRoOOl-s

BlockRockin' by Iori Branford 2019-10-20T02:37:04Z

Given the mechanics, I was wondering what prevented the player from just creating a horizontal line, placing a block on each end over time. It appears from experimentation that the game has a limit on letting you place blocks beyond a certain dimension or speed? I wasn't able to tell, but after see-sawing for a couple of times, around the 67th block or so, the game didn't let me place the blocks horizontally again, which I guess is an interesting way to kill an exploit after a while.

It would have been nice to see a few bits of extras to add some complexity to the gameplay, perhaps a different level layout with unusual hole placement. As it is, I thought the game was easily exploitable given its simplicity.

Kawhatzithon by AllBetsAreOff 2019-10-19T05:21:47Z

I like the part where you collect 3 Triforce pieces. And 120 stars. And...

LD45 | Scrap from Nothing by Linkouille 2019-10-21T23:02:07Z

The *Kirby's Airride* City Trial concept is pretty interesting, and the graphics are really nice. The controls felt mostly smooth, and easy enough to learn. A lot of struggles we've dealt with had to do with the difficulty of figuring out how to attach parts to the player, as the location one needed to "touch" the factory was seemingly different for each factory. In addition, having the game played on a single keyboard was probably not a great choice, given that most keyboard have a "press at maximum 3 buttons at the same time" limit.

It was a little harder for us to judge the combat in the stream below, since the two of us who played (@allbetsareoff and I) were badly off-balance. That said, a few things were clear to us. For one, firing projectiles to a shielded player took too long. The turn-speed for each player, combined with a rapid-firing gun, often made propulsion not very useful. It would have been nice to see temporary blockades on the combat course to help the player avoid taking damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq_qRoOOl-s

Ritual by Unicorn Studios 2019-10-18T05:04:35Z

I really like the slow, gradual reveal of the game as one slowly walks downwards to discover what's coming up. The audio does a fantastic job of creating an ominous and hostile atmosphere. It took a very long while for me to figure out all the controls, as well as discovering what materials were necessary to create my own bonfire; but in a way, that frustration sort of enhanced my experience as things slowly become clearer, and the narrative slowly unfolded in front of me.

Still, I do think having an actual tutorial on teaching the controls would have been really nice. For example, instructions on how to bring up the inventory would have been nice very early on. It would have also been nice when one had enough materials to create a bonfire, and where it would be created when the right-mouse button was clicked (where the mouse cursor is). I definitely felt like I died a lot from too much experimentation, and once I realized how simple the game was, felt a bit bummed by all the things I could have learned earlier if the game just gave me hints at what buttons to press.

Nothing is my car ! by T-Bo 2019-10-20T04:32:35Z

I thought the polygon graphics were nice, and the music helped the silly nature of the game. The arcade gameplay was simple and easy to understand, and a little fun, too. That said, given the jam version doesn't speed up more over time, it was pretty clear to me there was only one way the game would increase in difficulty: throw more elements to crash into. As such, it was pretty frustrating to end up in situations where super-human reflexes were necessary to get further into the game later on. This is, admittedly, a problem with the genre itself, and a bit of a pet-peeve of mine, but I would like to see some measures to at least give the player an illusion that with more practice, they could feel they can further into the game at certain points.

In Time Like These by miu 2019-10-21T22:17:03Z

The setup of the game creates quite a claustrophobic and oppressive atmosphere that works really well with the general narrative of the game. In addition, the scarce resources and the randomness of all events creates a hostile environment, which again works in favor of the narrative. I think when it comes to setting the mood, the game succeeds.

That said, I also felt the player didn't have *enough* control over their situation. The only significant decision I can see one making is either to risk adventuring or just keeping their stack of food and water supplies by staying home. That said, given how scarce resources are, and how many outcomes on adventuring leads to loss of resources, I never felt the incentive to save food and water. Instead, I favored using both food and water almost immediately, making the decision of whether to go adventuring or not trivial. More control over the outcome would have been appreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq_qRoOOl-s

Contraband by AdamCYounis 2019-10-20T04:13:45Z

I was wondering where the obligatory Ludum Dare Metroidvania went. Found it here.

The general method of unlocking things as you go along is really interesting, and traversing through the maze-like level is pretty cool. The graphics is beautiful, of course, and the audio, while could use more variety, is enough to set the mood. Writing was minimal enough to give enough character, but not to a point where it was annoying. And the ghost platforming is highly appreciated.

That said, boy, I often felt the level design and gating really needed some work. It is incredibly easy to soft-lock the game. I was able to identify at least 2 parts:

1. The early section if you miss the boots entirely and just don the jacket, the rest of the level becomes impossible to traverse. 2. When powers are removed, if one bothers to platform all the way to the wall-grabbing character, they lose the wall-grabbing power, and the rest of the level becomes impossible to traverse.

I've encountered numerous cases where the knock-back caused my character to bounce between 2 lasers very rapidly until death, which also given the game's lack of checkpoint placement towards the end of the level, created some very frustrating experience. While I think the game concepts are nice, both the lack of ability to restart the game or at least, reverse some decisions, as well as flawed level progression, made it difficult to appreciate the rest of the game's polish.

And, yeah, I, too, think wall grabbing controls needs some work.

Sluggish Grind by Catusfelony 2019-10-11T04:37:57Z

This was a decently fun metroidvania game, that was pretty generous in its level design. It was pleasant to play for the most part, and the level was compact enough to not feel like a slog exploring.

I felt some extra animations or particle effect would have helped convey more information that seemed sorely lacking. For example, I couldn't tell if a bullet hit registered properly on the larger enemies, as nothing indicates whether they actually got hurt or not. The jumps are super-floaty, which while generous, combined with the slow movement did make traveling feel monotonous. The recoil on the gun is, while interesting from a traveling perspective, did make it a bit difficult to learn and understand at first. And the repetitive sound effects could use some work; I usually like to randomize the pitch before playing a sound so the player doesn't get tired of the sounds as quickly.

Sluggish Grind by Catusfelony 2019-10-21T22:46:12Z

We played your game on-stream!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq_qRoOOl-s

Sluggish Grind by Catusfelony 2019-10-21T22:46:21Z

We played your game on-stream!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq_qRoOOl-s

Small Town by Emiliabea 2019-10-28T02:57:41Z

It's nice to occasionally play a low-stake, feel-good narrative game. I did enjoy the introduction of the game, as I, too, closely relate to forgetting important dates. I feel things got a little hairier mid-way through, though.

At points, it was difficult to tell what to click to progress the story. I've had difficulties during the mobile phone screen, for example, to make the game progress to the selection of which store to visit. I thought the point-and-click portion with the cat store was pretty cool, but I didn't share the same opinion with the game and book store. The game store felt a bit like a guessing game, as we tried to click nearly every single element in the game, as there were no visual language to tell us what can and cannot be clicked. This was worse with the book store, where every book's silhouette looks exactly the same, and their colors don't stand out from the rest. I felt like I was pixel-hunting on the latter screen.

From our short playthrough below, we couldn't see which items would result in a different ending, so we ended up assuming the player will always get a good ending. Given the low-stakes of the story, that felt...unfulfilling.

https://youtu.be/No9PjQTpi0s

Fast Bastard by eupde 2019-10-08T23:58:04Z

There is quite an impressive amount of polish for a first-time game jam entry. The art is beautiful and easy to read. Controls were easy to learn. And I liked the card flipping animation.

I felt there were a lot of information that I missed on my first few playthrough. For example, the first score I got was 0, since I didn't know one needed to click each card twice to actually steal. I also couldn't make out what was considered a trap, and what wasn't. Getting kicked out from stealing was bizarre for this reason; the card values didn't match, so why did it happen? I'm also not sure how traveling from one person to another added to the experience.

ETA: I forgot to add some bugs I encountered. This includes walking into objects, which (correctly) forced me in a 45 degree or so direction to avoid said object...then kept doing that well after the object was out of my walking path. I also learned the icon to steal remains even when your character is not within the bounds of stealing.

Fall of RS-17 Icarus - an Akaban Tale by Kooshy 2019-10-13T20:22:47Z

The audio design is really great, and I did like the slow build in the story. Even if amnesia is a cliche start, it's effective enough to encourage the player to start seeking for more information on their environment. Most of the UI was pretty clear and easy to navigate, which given their importance in puzzle solving, is pretty critical.

That said, some visual elements were hard to read. For example, I didn't know wires next to the panels could be repaired with an item. ETA: It would have been nice if some indicator appeared when either hovering over it, or just having an exclamation mark to things that can be interacted with. As mentioned in the stream, it was a little difficult to tell what other items can be interacted with as well, such as wires (tape recorders were more obvious). It would have also been nice to see more items to interact. Pretty neat!

ETA #2: also, the item to repair wires looks a lot like chopsticks. I had no idea it was meant for repairing any wiring.

https://youtu.be/wkzhmrjM_28

Zmaaone by Furano 2019-10-21T21:17:39Z

The music is fantastic, and I really like the graphics and the concept of the game as well. The tone was generally consistent, both in writing and the dreary and satirical aesthetics.

Throughout the livestream of us playing below, and admittedly as a non-electrical engineer, I never quite felt like I "solved" a puzzle so much as stumble into a solution, and not knowing why it was the right solution. While I recognize the genre of these games require some level of trial-and-error to understand, quite a large number of elements were either unexplained, or poorly explained to feel satisfying. I really think for game like this, a tutorial would have been nice to help overcome the keyboard-shortcut-heavy controls. In fact, I'd argue most of these keyboard shortcuts should probably have a toggle radio button equivalent on-screen. Another poorly-explained mechanic is when the electricity generator emits electricity: neither the timing of when the first burst comes out, nor the regular intervals bursts will be emitted were explained, and thus, made the solutions to the puzzles difficult to compose. The purpose of the diodes were very confusing based on the tutorial alone, since wires aren't described to automatically generate a grid-like layout. More importantly, the purpose of the collisions weren't explained, which understanding that would have made the final level much more easier to solve.

Overall, while the game design is mostly fine, the mechanics in the game are poorly explained, making it difficult for me to design solutions to each one. Solving a level, as a consequence, simply felt like luck rather than the usual "aha!" satisfaction. With a more gradual explanation of how each element worked, I think this game would have been more fun to solve.

https://youtu.be/qq_qRoOOl-s

Spellody by EvilScotsman 2019-10-23T03:57:58Z

The graphics and audio are clearly the main draw here, and I think both are well done. I appreciate the game's attempt at making the controls of the game cohesive with the music-based theme to support its aesthetics. I don't think the game did a great job of teaching how to make spells, and how effective each ones were. When I did figure out how to cast spells, I still felt the game relied on too much trial and error. I couldn't make out which spells were effective against which enemy, and the screenshot images didn't describe them well enough for me to figure it out.

I recognize there is an audience out there that likes to experiment and memorize which spells does what, and what to cast, but that style of gameplay simply isn't for me.

Feed Meh by MrTroy 2020-04-23T04:18:11Z

Ah, that was cute. The flower totally ate me after I murdered a person, and just left their carcass at the edge of the map while picking up another vegetable as food instead. Totally worth it.

I did like that the veggies came in at very short supply, which really made the moral choice a difficult one. The character moves exceptionally fast, though, so I found it rather easy to pace myself and scan the entire level pretty easily. I'm not sure that was intentionally. Additionally, it often felt like the camera was having a hard time catching up with how fast the character was moving. It would have been nice to move the camera ahead of the direction you're moving, thus providing a preview of what's in front of your character.

The little arrow that always points to the plant is *super* useful, and highly appreciated. That said, I would have liked it if it was somewhat bigger and more clear (e.g. maybe make it highlight when you're holding something?), as it was difficult to see where it was pointing sometimes.

Too bad the sound didn't make it in. There were some funny details I've noticed that would have definitely been accentuated with the right sound effect. Sounds like this was a bit tougher to make than usual.

Good stuff!

Quick Edit: Also, would have been nice to have some landmarks to better orient myself on where on the arena I actually am. Again, this was where the guidance arrow came to the rescue, but still, it would have been nice to see something besides the light floor all the time.

Me And My Horse by Manderxan 2020-05-07T18:51:24Z

It's nice to play a comedy game during these trying times, so appreciate the slapstick humor here. While most things were pretty self-explanatory, I confess the biggest struggles I had were controls. I'm so used to up-key being jump, having it be grab really messed me up.

I realize there isn't much you could do about this, but I found the physics-heavy nature of the game to be unpredictable and really annoying. To be honest, I didn't think the humorous animation was that great of a pay-off for the frustration I felt trying to get the horse fly high enough for the game to think the rope was being hit. The game is otherwise pretty fun, with silly rigidbody physics everywhere.

Team Yggdrasil by Omiya Games 2020-04-27T05:26:42Z

So, long-story-short, it turns out Unreal multiplayer testing and debugging requires two computers, which I didn't have during the development process. It took the full four days to setup the Lobby system, only to hit this roadblock, so literally every feature implementation besides the lobby is guess-work. The original idea was to take Spaceteam and somehow make it into an FPS fetch quest. Each player would be given information on where to find a collectable, but not necessarily which player has access to it.

If I *was* able to code correctly, what *should* happen is that both light beams and a single collectable will appear on the map for all players. The collectable is a bit small on purpose, as the light beams is supposed to indicate where it's at. Obviously, using the Spaceteam catch, said beams only indicate the location of another player's collectable, but not yours.

I couldn't confirm the collectable graphics being swapped out for light beams logic has been coded correctly or not, so if it's not, that's my lack of understanding Unreal multiplayer.

Sample X by Frederika 2020-04-23T01:17:17Z

Oh, hey, I can leave a comment now! I was a bit confused when I started the game, but when the LabTech private messaged me instructions, I knew what to do. I've now ascended.

Wonderful humor, as always.

Sample X by Frederika 2020-04-23T01:38:30Z

Note: Spoilers below! Other constructive comments:

Early in the game, it's difficult to make out how the sliders affect the rate one can click on the samples. I found that by making more, it helped me gauge how the sliders changes the values. To me, that implies that similar to the freeze sample command, it might be a good idea to actually hide the sliders until there are, say, 10 to 20 samples that the user can see effective changes in how the sliders affect the numbers.

I get that the objective of the game is to deliberately lose samples. This wasn't well communicated in the beginning, however, as the moment I started seeing that number, I instinctively stopped freezing samples from losing more. It might be a good idea to either swap the numbers around a bit, having the host number show up first before the missing samples so a connection can be made, or to have clear instructions to freeze more, with some sort of tongue-in-cheek dialogue that it's OK to lose some samples that you've made.

I definitely like the slow-crawl of the story slowly revealing itself, and making the player rethink about their own actions. I feel some of those information could have revealed itself slightly less antagonistically, so as to motivate the player to continue playing and see how the scenario ends. As it is now, I felt the pacing was slow because I ended up taking a careful route, and avoided experimenting with the numbers.

What A Dig Move by zgragselus 2020-05-07T02:15:32Z

This was a technically impressive game with a lot going for it. I had to lower my screen resolution to enjoy the game at a reasonable frame rate, but I thought the concept was very innovating and provided an interesting idea.

I did think the biggest thing this game suffered was insufficient UI. I would have liked, for example, to see the area I would have dug, and how far I would have dug, or at least an undo button to reverse my last action. Furthermore, I had points where the water literally surrounded a flower, yet a win screen did not pop-up. I would have liked to understand why that is, such as some sort of fill meter, indicating how close I was to triggering the right action.

Overall, I would love to see more of this concept, but the lack of predictability in my actions made it difficult to make the right moves.

Tumble Baby by 01010111 2020-04-23T02:11:36Z

Oh, no...

tumbleBabyBug.gif

Edit: in hindsight, I'm still keeping them alive, so there's that?

Tumble Baby by 01010111 2020-04-23T06:48:34Z

Alright, real feedback time. I thought it was pretty cool game. Requiring timing to slide each piece is a really cool addition to a well-trodden genre. Presentation is spot on, as always.

On criticism side of things, I noticed the game was very small on my retina screen. I dunno if Haxe provides screen resizing, but such a feature would be appreciated. Maybe it's just me, but I found...*removing* the baby to be more fun that I think was intended. It's quite easy to soft-lock the game with the last puzzle, as the GIF above demonstrates. I wonder if either it might be a good idea to just give the win to the player if the GIF happens, or at least provide a restart button (tapping R didn't seem to do anything). lastly, I'm not sure how I replicated it, but the cannons sound effects at one point started rapid firing and seemingly never stopping until I moved the tile with said cannons. It was...quite annoying.

Anibun Help Me! by aeveis 2020-04-23T03:33:46Z

Neat strategy game. Given the "offensive" maneuver is to shield as often as possible, it looked like the most optimal strategy was to stick close together and rhythmically press the guard button when appropriate. This made the dash button a bit less useful: even if it was meant to escape from tight corners. The ability seemed only appropriate at the very end, and even then, I didn't end up using it.

Also, while I've done my best to read as many manuals scattered in the world as possible, I didn't feel like I was given enough time to utilize the knowledge each one game. I didn't know the name of each animus were, so I did struggle to associate their default abilities with what each book had to say. Not to mention the slow scroll of text and ever approaching wisps meant I couldn't stand still and appreciate the text. That's too bad, since each of them provided how to revive the other characters, but I couldn't read fast enough to grasp how.

Experience wise, controlling the group felt like herding cats, which while frustrating, did feel like was the point of the game and the charm of it. I definitely would have felt more bored if the characters stood still, and I stuck to the strategy of gathering them into a single location, and spammed guard; occasionally swapping characters when the current one hits their cool-downs, and repeat the process again.

Like @ck656 I would have appreciated a better camera: the look-ahead was poor enough I couldn't really see the Willows coming over in advance quite often. I couldn't tell if the stun animation provided temporary invincibility, but especially towards the later parts of the game, I felt I had a lot less movement control with each character as the wisps overwhelmed everyone. As such, I felt I won the game, not through skill, but shear luck.

Phew, that was long. I hope I didn't come off as too harsh.

Adrift by cdunham 2020-05-07T02:52:56Z

I definitely enjoyed what I played here. The assorted levels each introduced new obstacles nicely (until turrets came into play...), and I felt the game kept things fresh each time. The controls and momentum of the ship mostly felt intuitive and easy to understand.

I did occasionally dislike elements that greatly disorients and redirects the ships movements in unpredictable manner. While some of these were easy to avoid, turrets in particular felt unfair because the player is intuitively going to play carefully to save as much fuel as possible. Some levels, however, seemed to be designed with taking wild risks in mind, which I don't favor as much. Additionally, given when you run out of fuel, the fact that the game doesn't stop until the ship stopped moving -- which, I might add, takes forever if turrets are shooting you at opposing sides -- didn't feel fun at all. The long game-over screen was definitely the most infuriating part of the game.

There's a lot of cool ideas in here, so I'd love to see more with better tweaks such as...reducing turrets. Did I mention how much I hate them?

Helicopter M.O.M. by Evan Minto 2020-05-08T21:05:51Z

Splitting up the tasks between platformer and shooter proved to be rather difficult since the activity of the two are frequently very far apart from each other. For the shooter sections, for example, I'm paying attention to the right side of the screen so I can see where the enemies are coming from. The platforming, on the other hand, happens on the left side of the screen. It'd be kind of cool if the jumping was more of a quick-time event with a significantly wider window of error than what we have. Checkpoints would have also been nice. Otherwise, I felt like beating the game relied less on skill, and more on rote memorization not unlike rhythm games.

Platdaughter by TheBaecun 2020-05-07T03:11:07Z

Just going to echo what the other commenters said: I can't get past the first part of the game due to twitchy controls and spikes that instantly kills both characters.

Cowboy and Robot by techsec 2020-05-07T03:58:09Z

Oof, I'm the worst player for this. I have zero patience for stealth games, and this game in particular really rubbed me in the wrong way for that reason. The map is definitely too large for this game, and it's exceedingly easy to push the robot into a building, thereby making it impossible to progress any further. I want to appreciate the look functionality, but because it prevents your character from moving, I didn't find it as useful as I would have liked. The fact that the imperial soldiers move means merely looking around while standing still is actually quite dangerous, so I would have appreciated being able to move and look ahead at the same time. Besides, the camera moves far enough that you might be unsure the robot wandered off elsewhere, which introduces its own risk.

Sorry, wish I enjoyed the genre more.

Tunnel Vision by Avi 2020-05-07T03:31:02Z

Overall presentation was pretty good, and I liked the procedural generation aspect of the game. While technically impressive, I also felt the game was difficult to control for a few reason. First, I thought the camera was too close to the ship, and did not give me a good view of the level itself. Second, as a 3D game, it suffered from the classic depth perception problem where I could not accurately gauge how far a wall was relative to the ship. I also thought it would have been nicer if more of the tunnels were visible, as the big holes would sometimes just suddenly "fill in," and I was often caught by surprise with that effect.

I recognize you've added the tight-curve ability in there as an anti-frustration measure, which fair enough. In a way, though, the existence of that feature informed me something in the game needed work. Fortunately, it wasn't the controls; while I thought they were touchy, I was able to adopt to it just fine. I think it had more to do with the poorly placed camera that makes it difficult to be spatially aware.

I am so Bored! by WhenYouCantFindAFriend 2020-04-23T01:31:04Z

Oh, boy, I really needed an existential crisis today. For anyone else playing, Audio is definitely a necessary part of the experience. Thoughts: gameplay is fairly easy to grasp, and seems to sync up with the audio fine most of the time. The simplicity and lack of challenge in the game actually served to help me focus more on the auditory narration. I *did* think the writing made me go, "who thinks like that? Using 'bored' in place of, 'unmotivated,' 'fatigued,' depressed?'" but I guess that means I'm not the one the message of the game is targeting. I do, however, strongly relate to the conundrum the monster is facing.

Other notes: I can't figure out a way to escape the Credits screen.

Faire L'Amour aux Plantes by Jenny Bourke 2020-04-23T01:59:19Z

Well, that was an unexpected ending.

Some feedback: Given how often I clicked each plant, the kissing sound effect got annoying very fast. It would have been nice if variations of the kissing sound effect were selected randomly and played. It would have probably been interesting if mid-way through the game, more than one new plant were introduced.

Also, the cutscene where the protag and plant kiss was a little confusing, because one could still click on the plants at get the kissing sound effect. This made me think the plants were still dying in the background, though careful observation revealed time pauses during these moments. I feel these pauses could have been better communicated visually and interactively, e.g. by plopping a full screen background like the ending, and preventing interactivity with prior plants.

Propagate by ZipLockBagMan 2020-05-08T21:17:53Z

That was a surprisingly fun game, though I did bump into quite a significant amount of gameplay related problems. The biggest one was the "extinguished" objects started getting into the way of blocking objects that have already fallen. As I had difficulty clicking on them, it was difficult to pick them up. It would have been nice to add either an animation, or a visible effect that something clicked is carried so the user knows when to move the mouse. I didn't end up using the rotate feature that much, as while useful, there isn't much time to keep the flame alive for me to actually care utilizing it. Some strategies I tried include multi-branching flames, which ended poorly, and just keeping a single flame alive, which proved to be much more fruitful.

Ghost Prom by King Squid 2020-04-23T01:50:46Z

Daw, pressing space seems to properly freeze the player character, but does not make any dialog appear. At least pressing space again lets you escape from the blank stare of the ghost-possessed player character, though. Managed to progress to the gym, but didn't really get to enjoy the progression of the story, obviously.

Woofice Chair! by JorgeGameDev 2020-10-25T19:09:28Z

As expected of your studio, the art style and music is quite excellent. I appreciate the easy-to-understand, arcade-style gameplay that needs fairly minimal amount of explanation to get started with. With some extra time and polish, I can see this being a popular arcade game.

It was a bit unfortunate, then, that much of my struggle was having all the information I considered vital so badly spread apart from the screen, that I had difficulty paying attention to any one thing. Namely, I had a bad time trying to keep my focus on the pup while carefully tracking the spin meter. Flipping my eyesight from the center of the screen to the bottom-right corner and back was not a fun experience, ultimately distracting me from otherwise easy-to-understand mechanics such as how getting attacked prevented the pup from recharging their spin for a short duration. The game often ended with me saying, "what happened?" because I was unable to keep track of the spin meter (which seems to double as health).

I've also found the look-ahead camera placement to be not very useful. Most of the time, I was paying very close attention to where enemies were, and moving away from it. The camera, however, moved towards the direction I was moving, making the enemies following me harder to see. It would have been nice to see the camera position average the enemy and player placement so both can be seen optimally.

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4

Luminous Edge by Yword 2020-10-17T18:57:09Z

I actually had a lot of fun with this game. What a tasteful, yet effective use of particle effects and screen shakes. The last few levels, including the boss, I thought used the after-image to boost fire-power mechanic quite cleverly, and would love to see this game expanded upon with more unique puzzle ideas like that.

There were parts in the game I was really confused with, such as the behavior of lasers in relation to cyclone attack, and how much health after images have. For example, in the level with split paths, I kept dying because I couldn't tell which direction the lasers came from, and thought I had to have 2 after image, with one protecting me in one lane. From experimentation, it turned out my main sword could deflect the laser with its own cyclone attack, so I though maybe I only needed one after image and cyclone laser. But even that took multiple tries because for some reason, my after image died faster dealing with lasers *even though it was using cyclone,* and my main sword didn't lose health doing the same thing. I've had similar technical problems for the burst fire attack, as sometimes the blocks didn't disappear when struck by either the main sword or the after image sword's fireball. I did find this less frustrating since most levels with these obstacles didn't require twitch reactions.

It might be interesting to explore other methods of "aligning" the after-images, instead of requiring the player to utilize the environment geometry to make it happen. I feel that was a bit time-consuming.

What Goes Around by Omiya Games 2020-10-18T18:37:26Z

@reheated Thanks for the feedback. In regards to my reasoning for opting out:

* For audio, I used music from an older game, so it didn't seem appropriate to opt-in for something I didn't make during the Jam. * For graphics, this one is probably just me being really strict, but particle effects are all from Unity Standard Assets. Still, you're correct that the models and shaders were made by me.

What Goes Around by Omiya Games 2020-10-27T03:20:11Z

@coleslaughter Thanks for all the constructive criticisms on the stream! I agree with pretty much all of them, and personally, I don't think this is my best work.

Surprisingly, as much as I think *Ikaruga* and *Geometry Wars 3* are really great games, my main inspiration for making this game was....*Lumines* and *Tetris Effect*. That's right, I was trying to make a musical schm'up: my original intent was using the *Ikaruga* color-changing formula to encourage the player to hit the space bar to the beat. There's bits and pieces of the original vision in the final product, such as bullet fires from both the player and the enemies, as well as enemy spawns, timed to the beat of the music. Unfortunately for me, getting the movement controls right on a sphere was a **LOT** harder than I originally thought. In addition, I had work on Monday, so that combined forced me to compromise the original vision to what we have here. I definitely think it was too ambitious (and with the current iteration, too random) for its own good, and would probably need to go back and architect an entire music-to-gameplay framework before revisiting this project again.

Closing the Loop by Frederika 2020-10-10T20:24:31Z

I like the base mechanic and the potential behind the game. Unfortunately, the lack of content doesn't really bring the best out of it yet. It sounds like either the circuit mechanics were pretty difficult to program, and/or there just wasn't enough time.

Round Out by foolmoron 2020-10-27T01:34:25Z

Hey, Foolmoron. Nice to see you in Ludum Dare again!

As mentioned on the stream, I like the concept of the game a lot. Reminds me a lot of *Kirby: Canvas Curse* and Art Attack from *Paper Mario: Thousand-Year Door*. It's easy to learn and understand, and has a satisfying gameplay loop that encourages improving your last score.

I did think the game in this iteration was a bit *too* simple. While this game is fun in short bursts, it's also something I got quickly bored with. Still, I see there's a lot of potential behind the concept: I can see a lot of cool new elements you could add to further expand the game.

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4?t=5173

Twist Turn Shoot Burn by gamepopper 2020-10-27T01:42:33Z

As mentioned on the stream, I really like the movement of the game. It has an excellent frenetic presentation that encourages risky play. The procedural level generation is a nice touch as well.

One thing I didn't like, despite being fundamental to the gameplay, was the aiming and firing. I constantly felt like I was working against the game's limitation, and even felt the satisfying fast speeds to work against the careful nature of aiming. That's also not to mention that the way the enemies randomly spawns, sort of makes the pacing of the game haphazard.

Of course, I also had a lot of difficulties with controls, where left or right keys had unexpected behavior when moving vertically on a track. That...didn't help.

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4?t=5744

Curly's Chase by aeveis 2020-10-13T01:37:05Z

It's always interesting to see puzzle games that re-contextualizes existing mechanics, such as in this case, movement. As usual, excellent art and music. The dialogs from other characters were a nice touch, adding some necessary grounded value to the game (shout-out to self-quarantining dragon cub). I hugely appreciate the relaxed nature of the game, e.g. easy undos, and Curly moving at the player's pace.

I know it's something I'm supposed to intuit, but it took me a rather long while to figure out Curly's turns take up 2 blocks each time. It might have helped having some sort of look-ahead or silhouette indicating the trajectory of Curly, to make this learning process a bit quicker. It also wasn't clear to me that some fireflies required being touched twice. When they did run off, they often got stuck in corners: it wasn't intuitive that "undo" doesn't reset the firefly count, so adding a tip on that might have been useful. I did like that the maze had a non-straight-forward path that required some thinking, and I would have liked to see more of those in the level.

Had fun, nice job!

West by ursagames 2020-10-16T22:59:41Z

I'm simultaneously really impressed with what's in this game, and a bit frustrated at how rough the it is. As you've mentioned in the descriptions, it's pretty clear the project was well over-scoped. Fundamentally, I actually like the irreversible dialog trees, and how the game forces replays to unlock new information. Discovering this is really rewarding. Along with some nice flavor text, there were some really strong potential behind this idea.

As you probably already know, the biggest flaw I've noticed in the game was the lack of direction provided to the player. On one hand, it makes the game feel a bit like old-school RPGs where one needs to discover on their own what they need to do in the game, and figuring that out yourself is great! On the other hand, given I have no idea where to start, it was incredibly difficult to find breadcrumbs to progress the story. A classic example is where to find the manuscript: it's in an incredibly remote location I haven't even thought of venturing into until I experimented with Percy's AI, and noticed I could actually climb mountains (I also got the poor soul stuck, so yay!). I suppose the campfire smoke was intended to be a clue, but given Morris gave no hints as to the paper's location, I would have dismissed that detail as a nice background prop.

I could probably list a number of things that I think could have used improvement: touchy mouse controls, buggy dialog system (on papers, specifically), slow movement, poor AI, etc. But I think all those are nitpicks to a really promising mechanics that just needs more time to cook and be better realized. I hope to see more from this project.

P.S. Also, I actually did manage to pummel Percy to submission the first time around: no weapons needed. Huh, I guess that *is* a way to save Carl.

Save The Prince by AVAVT 2020-10-17T01:10:16Z

Wow, I've managed to beat the game on first try. I've actually really enjoyed the level of strategy required in the game, including taking advantage of actually going backwards to avoid bad cells. There's a lot of potential behind the game that I would love to see expanded upon. Balance-wise, I think it started getting too easy towards the end as each battle just poured you with points to spend. But still, being over-powered is enjoyable in its own way.

I'm sure you already know about this, but I did think the UX was easily the weakest part of the game. Making everything keyboard-only when mouse would have been much more efficient is a serious shame. Figuring out how to prepare your army was cumbersome, and difficult to figure out how to do on the first try. In fact, even now, I'm not quite sure I've properly understood how to optimally setup an army (assuming I have an infinite amount of each troop, which honestly I was pretty close to by the end of the game) in reaction to enemy forces. Tutorials would have been useful, especially army preparation, and their rock-paper-scissor mechanic.

I thought it was really bizarre one had to select "move" to make a move at all. I'm find with entering confirm to roll the die, but I felt a separate button could have been dedicated to preparing an army, e.g. ESC, saving the player's time to make moves. I felt my game session ended up really long due to these time-consuming UI interactions, rather than me thinking through my moves carefully.

Other than that, excellent presentation, especially art. The lack of sound effects is a shame, but didn't take away from the experience too much.

Dude Ranch by ColeSlaughter 2020-10-18T00:59:46Z

Had a lot more fun with this game than I expected when I played it on-stream. In particular, the tactile feel of lassoing and reeling in...dudes...felt great, and greatly contributed to the experience. I also appreciate that, slightly illogically, a thrown lasso follows your player movement, making it easy to correct one's aim. And of course, the graphics and sound effects are top-notch.

It would be interesting to see how, if there are any plans, this game could be expanded upon. For one, I would like to see the lasso controls slightly more polished through experimentation and playtesting, as while the reeling felt great, launching the lasso was a bit unintuitive at first. I'd also love to see power-ups and obstacles added into the game to slightly complicate the immediate objective.

Overall, great job!

https://youtu.be/6mjxeFKXq_8?t=5398

24 Hour Diner by dreamlogician 2020-10-10T20:33:44Z

Would like to see more, but admittedly what's here is very rough. The art is really nice, though.

The Curse of Cattenburg by Honest Dan 2020-10-18T22:09:18Z

There's an astonishing amount of polish in the presentation of the game. Despite the poor performance we've dealt with during our livestream, I genuinely enjoyed the card-based combat. Perhaps it was due to luck, but despite accidentally skipping over the tutorial, having the enemies attack first really helped my understand how to play. For the most part, the descriptions on each card was informative, and helped me learn the mechanics pretty well. The easy difficulty setting was...easy, but I can see it being nail-biting in its stat and resource balancing for the player.

Parts I had difficulties include not knowing what all the possible cards were on the board. This made it hard for me to judge whether it was a good idea to use support cards or not. The P and E cards were not obvious to me how defense or attack targets work; this could potentially be because I was running the game on its lowest setting, and made the card descriptions nigh unreadable.

Additionally, I thought the board game part was the weakest mechanic in the game. It felt incredibly random, and gave little control to the player. This is in stark contrast to the battle, where there are a lot of careful decisions one could make, with their own risks involved. It would be nice to see either branching paths, or a power-up like system to adjust how many spaces the player can move.

https://youtu.be/6mjxeFKXq_8?t=3080

Caterpillar Cowboy by eldogg 2020-10-17T17:05:06Z

Well, take the max Audio rating. You deserve it.

The game is well-presented, with consistent and endearing graphics, excellent music, auditory commentary on gameplay. The controls are intuitive and smooth, to boot. Pacing was decent: new elements were added in each "level," and the game never felt too long nor too short.

I felt like the game was a one-note comedy game. It's a great playground game/simulation, but at least I have a hard time thinking about how to further expand the game beyond what's presented. I think it's simplicity is also a bit of its own downfall.

ETA: the credits reveal was really cool, nice job in being creative on that!

Tropical Hop by shp 2020-10-11T00:45:24Z

I like the polish and presentation in the game. Most movement and controls feels great, with the exception of jumps (more on that later). Enemies, at least on the first lap, seemed fair; on second lap, the increased importance on aiming and shooting is a really nice touch.

I think while the core gameplay is fun, I have to echo what everyone else said on the lack of aerial controls making platforming difficult. The double-whammy with all the momentum taken away during respawn is really annoying, too. I unfortunately ended up more frustrated as a consequence, and did not have the urge to continue when these problems mounted.

Hyperspace Slingshot by AllBetsAreOff 2020-10-11T00:24:41Z

The art is really good, and I really like the orbit presentation depicting the trajectory of space junk and mines. The hitboxes are really generous as well, and the difficulty was tuned to be approachable, but difficult.

I thought the "capture junk from the backside" mechanic has some really cool potential. That said, it was unfortunate the large drag on the ship turns the mechanic more of an annoyance. If the ship moved like Asteroids, e.g. little to no friction, I can see how this mechanic would force the player to make a commitment in collecting a specific space junk. As it stands right now, I felt the ship moved too slowly for the mechanic to really shine.

LaserLoop by Neon Glass 2020-10-27T02:27:46Z

This was a surprisingly refreshing brainteaser that miraculously never felt too difficult to beat. While not the most original concept, the resources given were relatively straightforward to understand, and the number of them given provides just barely enough leeway to provide multiple solutions to a single puzzle. I'd love to see more from this project!

As mentioned in the stream, a tutorial would have been nice to introduce each resource, and what they do. controls in particular was a slight hurdle to go over. The holes-in-a-wall in particular took me a while to understand. I also barely noticed the numbers below each resource, so actual instructions on that would have helped. Lastly, I would like to see a hint system that helps the player figure out the solution by placing the first few pieces in the correct spot progressively.

Enjoyed this a lot, thanks!

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4?t=3519

break by DecadeDecaf 2020-10-17T23:54:10Z

This was really fun to play on stream! Controls were tight, and the progression was reasonably paced, especially to make that final gag hit. I thought that the use of discs was a clever system to allow the user to slowly but surely increase the difficulty at their own pace. It would have been nice to see said disks be used for allowing the player to customize their experience more, but for what's there, I really appreciate the purpose it holds.

Presentation-wise, I did think the game was bit on the weak side. For starts, I felt the slimes came in a bit too slow, making the initial portion of the game feel pretty long and arduous. Some common polishes, like screenshakes and hit-stops, weren't used in the game, which I thought was a shame. I also think the game could have used more variety in the sound effects department. And I would have liked to see more dialog! The random prop NPCs at the bottom of the level were pretty cute, and I would have liked to see their conversation tree evolve over time.

Still, an enjoyable experience for what's there.

https://youtu.be/6mjxeFKXq_8?t=6766

Among Stars and Robots by jaoel 2020-10-17T16:25:30Z

Well done on the presentation, especially the tutorial. A lot of things were presented clearly, and most parts of the game were presented clearly and transparently. Early levels, did a good job of making me feel smart, as the solutions were pretty clear. Later, especially harder levels, however, felt like a complete guess-work and experimentation. I've managed to "beat" all the levels, I feel, using the same forward-sensor-turn-clockwise solution (with occasional additional forward step at the end if said solution didn't work).

Parts that I felt *weren't* presented as clearly include behavior of stop-sign bots, and the behavior of the sensor tile that I felt the tutorial did not do a good job of explaining its purpose. I don't think I've managed to grasp (or admittedly, bothered to care) how the stop-sign bots behave. As others have mentioned, noting the limit on the number of moves, as well as adding a hint that the same move can be plopped twice, could have helped. Perhaps a one-cycle guidelines indicating what the trajectory of the bot would look like may have helped the player better understand some of the behavior of certain game elements.

And small nitpick, but it would have been nice if the sound volume slider actually played a test sound to contrast with the music.

SpaceC by ZevsEHG 2020-10-11T01:14:27Z

As expected of an Unreal game, the graphics do a great job of depicting a sort of hollow horror in the puzzle game. That said, I found the controls to be very touchy, and experienced some motion sickness as a consequence. While I liked that all the switches are located on the ceiling of the puzzle room, it was difficult to trace through which switch triggered which wall/platform.

Personally, some stuff that would have gone a long way in making the game more enjoyable:

* adding shadows would have really helped me judge my jumps better. * A more fine-tuned movement with a small acceleration to ease the motion controls. * larger platforms. * Door triggers not being time based.

Lucky Lefty Loves Loops by TheBookSnail 2020-10-18T00:34:45Z

Welp, I got 38 seconds as my record. The ending twist was a really cool and rewarding visual effect. I also admit that the game was a bit too simple for me.

I was actually caught off-guard first, when I played the game: in the title screen, it only displayed WASD, so I assumed my controls were based on regular top-down movement. Instead, what I got was a physics-based tank controls, which took a little while to get used to. I also had difficulty getting used to the slippery controls, hindering my ability to optimize my movement.

The only other constructive criticism was that at first blush, the collision box of the snail looks like the whole snail would be relevant, rather than only its shell. While not a bad game design decisioin, it does have an unintended side effect of making the player think they need to make wider turns, because they think the snail's long body would collide into it. It also disoriented me on estimating when two snails would collide.

https://youtu.be/6mjxeFKXq_8?t=6170

Hangin' Around by Nocity 2020-10-27T02:49:45Z

Finally, a game that recreates the *Feel the Magic: XY/XX* (or *Project Rub* in EU & Australia) formula! I really like the narrative approach of the game, even if it's incredibly minimal. I'm actually shocked how quickly I was able to grasp the objective of both microgames, and the overall game itself, despite the lack of instructions. The transition from point-and-click searching gameplay elements, to the simple microgames, were a really nice touch. Pacing is excellent as well, not sticking to a single element for too long.

As mentioned in the stream, the point-and-click part was, I think, the weakest part of the game. While I think these portions are necessary to evenly pace the game as well as provide context to each microgame, I felt like there wasn't enough information to motivate me to click at the right spots. Furthermore, trying to interact beyond the intended locations yields no reactions, which I thought was a lost opportunity. These are pretty nitpicky stuff, though, in this tightly packaged gift.

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4?t=4529

Fearcle by Jupperevie 2020-10-18T22:45:20Z

The art and sound design in this game is excellent, and deserve high scores. Even with some limited animations, the game provides enough to fill the player's imagination. Presentation-wise, I do think the game excels; it is unfortunate, then, that I had immense difficulty discerning the objective of the game.

When playing on-stream, I was able to discern that the order of the switches turned on matters. As a consequence, I thought all switches needed to be turned on to solve the puzzle, which turned out to be false. I, furthermore, couldn't tell *if* I even got the order of light switches as correct: progression was very difficult to make out. It doesn't help that most levels look exactly like each other.

Given these frustrations, I failed to find the game as scary. I only felt lost for the most part, which really reduced the jump-scares to predictable, looping affair.

https://youtu.be/6mjxeFKXq_8?t=817

Paper Planes by SamDemaine 2020-10-17T18:27:40Z

The version I played on browser (Firefox and Chrome) both gave only black boxes to represent the plane, making it difficult to track some vital information, such as score. I can tell the concept to be simple and fun enough for quick play, and using past locations as an obstacle is really clever. That said, I also felt the game was rather shallow; more like a novelty to play on short bursts, then move on. When working with the glitched art, the game somehow *feels* less fun, even though I suspect the controls and physics still remain exactly the same as before. Which....is weird, honestly.

WhereIsMyWand? by Szkocka 2020-10-11T01:26:57Z

The changing forms between ghost, normal, and zombie was really interesting. There are some strong potential behind that mechanic, unlocking new abilities between forms. Ghost in particular was really cool.

That said, the game does feel a bit bare-bones. Sound like the hectic schedule you've mentioned in the description prevented you from implementing more ideas into this game. Still, at least you got a silly story in there that required no text to convey.

As an aside, a random bug I found was that as soon as you start the game, returning back home soft-locks the game.

Dinosaur Game Level 1 by JDcierski 2020-10-25T19:46:03Z

As mentioned in the stream, I *have* played *This is The Only Level*, and having played that...I blame that Flash game from taking away my enjoyment of this one. I genuinely think I would have enjoyed this game a lot more have I come in fresh, but as mentioned in the stream, I couldn't help compare the two.

It would have been nice to see this game put more focus on puzzles than it currently has right now. Although, given it's a compo game, I recognize that's asking for a lot. It's pretty hard implementing new mechanics in a time crunch, already.

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4

Imperial Eggnog Incorporated by Blue Pin Studio 2020-10-13T01:09:38Z

I snorted a few times, but was too pro-consumer to care about what the CEO had to say. Serves them right.

Was decently fun, with some clever design choices, such as info tabs deliberately obscuring the details you are supposed to be making comparisons to. It adds a bit of tension when trying to determine whether you've made the right call or not. Presentation was pretty good as well, with the story keeping me relatively immersed in what I was doing.

While I thought deliberate obstructions such as downloading ingredients, unlocking the judgement machine, etc. added to the tactile feel to the game and some level of tension, those obstructions were rather easy to work around, to a point where I came up with a short routine that would save me significant amount of time per carton. Another thing that sort of takes away from the challenge is the lack of change in things to judge, which makes memorization a rather useful shortcut to get more egg nog out the door. It also didn't appear getting more egg nogs out actually factored into any score, so I didn't feel rewarded for over-performing. One final nitpick is that I found the tutorial to be really long, and think it could have been shortened, perhaps by requiring the user to go through only one or two tabs, then slowly escalating the details they need to pay attention to the next day.

Still found playing this a pleasant experience.

Re:Live by Ciber_Turtle 2020-10-18T23:29:53Z

This was a really neat game with excellent presentation and a nice tutorial the stepped through some important basics. Given the novelty of the mechanic, I appreciate the game's slow approach at introducing one new mechanic at a time, and allowing the player to experiment, practice, and improve upon their prior knowledge. I do also think, though, the game has a bit of a pacing problem, where early levels are far too easy, and levels like 2-6 are far too difficult. It did feel like early portions of the game was a bit of a drag, and while up to 2-6, the difficulty starts to ramp up nicely, 2-6 became a wall I just couldn't overcome. The timing necessary to jump right as a prior ghost lands on a switch was rather demanding, given the tight platforming.

It would be nice to see some level of customization in regards to controls, since it wouldn't surprise me if someone kept entering space by accident. For example, maybe a button to accept a certain action as "recorded," and another that kills the player, but doesn't create a ghost throughout the run that player made. In fact, I would prefer it if the player plain died from spikes, clipping into boxes, etc. without a ghost recording of it, since most of the time, said death was an accident.

I also would have preferred a taller jump, and a more lenient ghost platforming/coyote time. Platforming kind of proved to be more difficult in this game than I thought was necessary.

Z Rhapsody by KaafiRookie 2020-10-18T22:19:55Z

I think the game has some strong potential, especially in the exploration department, when I played it on-stream. Most movement controls felt really smooth, and I would only suggest making a few tweaks, like slightly increasing the jump height and consider adding double jump. Sadly, my computer had difficulties running the game, so it was hard to tell how certain aspects worked, such as combat. From what I could tell, combat seemed a bit bare-bones, and the swing visuals made the attacks look incredibly short-ranged and weak. It would have been nice to see the combat polished, such as adding light vs heavy attacks, and defensive maneuvers.

I did think the art direction, at the current stage, looked random and incoherent. The environment clashes with the toon shader applied to the characters, not to mention the mook's armor didn't seem to fit in with the time period the industrial environment suggests. I recognize it used pre-made assets, not to mention the development took a significant time crunch. That said, I would like to see more consistency in visual style, at least, so things appear like they fit within the universe the game is in.

Lastly, the camera controls on PC needs a lot of work. The slightest movement of the mouse seemed to cause the camera to jerk around, which didn't feel great. I also didn't like the Field of View increasing when the dash button is held, as I found it disorienting. I would have preferred the camera pull back slightly, instead.

https://youtu.be/6mjxeFKXq_8?t=1921

Sisyphus Beetle Takes His Daughter to Work by pee-thief 2020-10-10T23:37:24Z

Excellent job on the presentation and silly humor. The aesthetics were pretty consistent and informative of the environment our beetle works in. I liked the dialogs as well.

One of my bigger gripes was actually the instructions: specifically, letting the player know they can just cash out their time share. I chose to do that first (skipping the timing minigame), then immediately clicked "haggle" and "accept." I guess the intent of that instruction was to let the player know they can escape the situation, but for this player, it lead them directly to the end credits with no context, and left them very confused. I had to play the second time to have a better understanding of the absurd humor.

Space Drummer by Guilloteam 2020-10-27T03:10:05Z

Oof. This game has sooo much potential, but it's missing quite a lot of stuff I would have expected from a schm'up. First, the good parts: presentation, including graphics and music, is absolutely excellent. The use of a drum loop is a genius customization measure that adds a lot of freshness to the tired genre. The controls were perfectly fine as well.

For a game that has an immense amount of polish in art, I was actually surprised at a seeming lack of satisfying juice to give that crunchy feel that makes your weapon fire feel powerful and satisfying. Firstly, hitting and destroying ships has no sound effects associated with it. The color blinking is too slow to be noticeable: a larger, more exaggerated animation would have helped. I would also add an explosion effect on where the bullet collided with the enemy to signify a successful hit. And of course, I'd add a good dose of hit pause for successful hits and defeating enemies.

I also thought the game could use some more balancing measures. I often felt enemies had too much health. I also felt my ship was too large, and all the bullets appeared too small, making it easy for me to get hit. It would have also been nice to slowly introduce the weapons as upgrades, and add some risk vs reward measures like a shared resource meter on all the weapons when allocating their fire timing on the drum roll.

I look forward to the future of this game, there's a lot of cool stuff I can see coming out of it!

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4?t=7489

Smells Like Chlorine by TheGreenWorm 2020-10-25T19:35:40Z

This was a really cool narrative game with some nice non-Euclidean space tricks being used. I really like the surrealism elements of the game, best emphasizing video-game specific tricks that's hard to replicate in other mediums. I did think the pacing of the game was pretty good, even if I was being a rude jerk testing every geometry early on when I streamed it.

The parts that didn't quite work for me (and these are nitpicks) was the fairly linear nature of the narrative. While I don't think the game needed more exploration bits -- what's there actually helps keep the story going at a nice pace -- I would have liked to see more dialogue bits and evolution in characters changing over the course of the day. There were a few characters that appeared to have some sort of background or story potential behind them, so it was a shame a large number of theme only had 2 or so unique lines to speak of, even when taking the insanity phase into account. I personally would have liked to see more interactive bits in the game, as well as any way to scroll back to certain dialogues I may have accidentally skipped.

Overall, highly enjoyable experience.

https://youtu.be/vvR6P6ZVvL4

Vast Trivia Of The Void by JorgeGameDev 2021-05-01T03:58:16Z

Hey, Whale and Games team! Nice to see your entry again! As mentioned in the stream, I thought the game presentation, and most UX layout to be excellent. While I would recommend a few tweaks here and there on the placement of certain buttons and indicators, for the most part, I was able to find most things by myself pretty easily. Most cards were pretty self-explanatory, and helped add strategy to turn the game closer to your own liking. Given Trivia games are, er, not my thing, I would have liked to see a bit more complexity in the board game design, such as branched paths (though I do believe that was cut due to time.)

https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=1025

Marble Warble by MrTroy 2021-05-05T23:53:53Z

Well, as expected, this game was hard. Discovering shortcuts was really satisfying. I also appreciate the technical achievement on moving platforms, where the marble follows its movement when on top of it. I couldn't unlock the secret end level, though :(.

While the controls are serviceable, I did feel the presentation made it difficult for me to internally understand the momentum behind the marble character. In games like *Monkey Ball*, for example, the entire level rotates in the arrow key directions, which makes it easier to "accept" slow reacting controls and low surface friction. I think I would have appreciated just a bit more drag on the marble so it's easier to decelerate and give myself a little more control.

That said, the levels *were* designed with the current controls in mind. That really helped make the game more fun. I think the level itself was relatively well-paced, switching between speedy and precision based areas. I also hugely appreciate the lighting being perfectly vertical, as it helps me determine where I'd land using shadow alone. Lots of good subtle polishes in here.

Walls by Omiya Games 2021-04-27T05:49:28Z

Thanks for your long-time support, @mrtroy! I dunno if you were checking this page regularly while we were, uh, letting Unity build our game for over an hour. Still, we do indeed have a build up and its...well, let's just say we wished we had more time this time around.

Walls by Omiya Games 2021-04-28T03:57:34Z

@notexplosive D'oh! I sure failed to take the lock picking part into consideration, my bad. It's so easy to by myopic during development, the most obvious things slips away from you.

There's just a lot we ran out of time to implement, given a bit too much time has been focused on polish.

Walls by Omiya Games 2021-04-29T22:46:35Z

Hey, @aeveis! Great suggestions, as always. As you've probably deduced from my past entries, I am terrible at integrating a discernable story into non-visual-novel or non-cookie-clicker games. Believe it or not, many of the games I've made in the past -- especially puzzle games -- were developed with a story in mind, and I just run out of time to put it in (probably has to do with me always designing levels on the last day of the jam). *Walls* is no different: I was thinking the player character had cabin fever after being quarantined during COVID-19 pandemic, and that manifested into moving walls. You sort of see hints of it, with goal poster having a cartoon diagram of the virus, and music progressively getting more frantic and glitchy over its run. In a way, the remote at the end is taking back control over the situation. But yeah, I wasn't expecting anyone to grasp that...especially since I put no effort to inform the player that there even is a narrative from the first place.

Walls by Omiya Games 2021-05-03T06:50:13Z

@mizatorian Yeah, that's a bug that I let slip through due to time constraints. It certainly gave me a better appreciation for *Portal* and other similar FPS puzzle games.

Walls by Omiya Games 2021-05-17T04:26:16Z

@kristof Thanks for the review. Yes, the radio is a _Portal_ homage. As for soft-locking, hitting ESC does bring up the pause menu, which includes the restart option; that's a potential solution to a bug I really should have spent the time to fix.

Susane the Sub by BoltKey 2021-05-02T02:56:09Z

Behold: firefox 2021-05-01 (26984).png

The general flow of the game played well, and each upgrade felt substantial enough to be worth collecting. I've enjoyed the pace of the progression I was making throughout the game, and appreciate how the game forced me to dive deeper and potentially make me take riskier choices over time. Also, good call on making the process of resurfacing not take any fuel at all: appreciate that gesture.

I did think the objective of the game was not clear. While the upgrade system is placed reasonably at the surface, due to the physics of the game, it's hard to *keep* the menu up to access it properly. It might help to pause the game on each resurface, or perhaps require the player to manually bring it up by having a button appear upon resurfacing, thus making the pause justified. It also felt bizarre that the collected items aren't recovered at once: it required me to wait on the surface. It would have been nice to show a list of things collected, and the corresponding price on the side bar instead. Other than that, my only nitpicks are presentation-related, e.g. music, sound effects, splash particle effects, etc. Would have also been nice to add more fish and varying AI. Cool stuff!

https://youtu.be/6TLiMWFpBNo?t=996

Jet Racing 4 by Reactor-Scram 2021-05-13T01:09:21Z

The inclusion of a track editor is quite amazing. And I'm surprised it seems most of the game seems to be made from a framework than a WYSIWYG 3D game engine like Unity, Unreal, and Godot. It's also feels very, very rough to me. While the graphics aren't too bad, I did find the driving sound effect grating and repetitive. The music didn't help the presentation, either. Like @recher, I would have liked to see a control introduction screen. After learning what the Ctrl key does, it makes the game a lot more playable and enjoyable.

Other parts I found the game needing some polish is the camera movement. While it's good that the camera pans in the direction the player turns, since I adjust my turns frequently by tapping left or right, the jolting movement made me motion-sick. And as a few people above said, I'd like to seem some strategic mechanics mixed in, like drifting and boosting.

It sounds like this is a build-on-top of an existing game, and I certainly would like to see it developed more. It does feel like this entry isn't quite there yet.

Dimensions by Tarcisiotm 2021-05-07T02:40:21Z

Daw, the game was over as soon as something interesting emerged on the second level. I actually enjoyed this a bit: there's a lot of really cool things you can do with dimension swapping. I really liked that the game stored your prior in-game position when you return to said dimension.

There were a lot of design decisions I thought were really bizarre given the current lack of content, and certainly would be interested in learning what sort ideas you all had in expanding this. For example, I thought it was unusual despite there only being two dimensions, two different buttons were dedicated to swapping between them. Were more dimensions planned? Perhaps a HUD indicating which dimension you're in would help emphasize that? It would also be interesting to add elements that affected both dimensions as well.

Lots of interesting potential here. Just a shame it ended so quickly.

Adelie - Rolling in the Deep by Meep 2021-05-16T03:02:03Z

*Goes through the comments section*: Wow, I suck at this game.

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=2936

Had a lot of fun playing this twin-stick-like shoot'em up. It's nice and focused, easy to learn, hard to master. The roguelike structure does a good job of keeping each playthrough feel fresh and interesting. Graphics were great, and the lack of music actually wasn't all that bothering. Great work!

Personally, I thought the biggest problems I had with the game was movement. The knockback on each bullet fire didn't feel good, and how swimming up and down had a different physics applied than left to right. I recognize those were added in to distinguish this game from other shoot'em ups, but I personally had a hard time learning to work with these limitations.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the short range the poor penguin had when firing. I would have also liked to see the bullets of the fish had a better tell so I can make out when they're going to fire, and where. It may have been nice if the starting enemies could only fire in specific directions (e.g. left or right only), and there were some variance on when each fish fired.

Still, I did get better with the game over time, so clearly, I can learn to live with the limitations the game presents.

Press Space To Jump The Gap by foolmoron 2021-05-07T03:38:08Z

Took about 17 minutes to cross the gap. I'm wondering if it even was a good idea to add so many red herrings in a puzzle game like this. But anyway...

This was an enjoyable puzzle game where, to be honest, the description of the game kind of gave away its surprise factor. My first instinct was to play around with the scroll wheel on the mouse, and I rather quickly figured out there were some controls to change around. Although, I think I first started by zooming out, and playing around with different builds that, for a few of them, didn't allow me to change any of the Vim editors. It took me a while to figure out the original build seems to be the only way to get the controls to change, well, the game controls. But I digress...

There are some elements of the game where it's really well conveyed what each thing does. Physics sliders and action drop-downs, for example, worked really well from a graphical design standpoint. I did feel some parts were a little poor, though. The toggle to turn on Vim editors...doesn't look like toggles, especially compared to the enable colliders toggles. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me the jump Vim required toggling two boxes, either. I was also a little annoyed that a beta game engine had to be selected to make the later builds available, the one that's sandwiched between two beta editors that doesn't work. And I thought it was really confusing that enabling an invisible wall works, but not the flag trigger (you had to open a build including the graphic). I would have appreciated more consistency in the visual language the game presented so there were less confusing moments like these.

Lastly, I found the act of scrolling in and out really annoying, specifically because the game didn't seem very sensitive on it. It felt like I had to put too much effort in getting into each "screen mode" of the game.

Props as always for coming up with something so off-the-wall and unusual.

Sinking Atlantis by lekiy 2021-05-07T04:35:22Z

The animations are really exceptional in this game. The jump and swim animations in particular reads incredibly well. Controls were pretty intuitive and responsive as well. But when it comes to the physics of this game...boy, it's really rough. I didn't like colliding into a wall, and teleporting upwards. There were also weird behavior when swimming on the surface of the water that made it difficult to dive into the water. I confess bugs like these are a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

I also found the lever graphics to be a bit ambiguous. I initially thought they were background torches, so I didn't both to interact with them. Once I did figure out they were levers, I thought the puzzles involving with them were...a bit simple. Like, there's some stuff going on when there were two or more, but much of it felt like just needing to know the right sequence of levers to hit to get to the goal, which I think without another mechanic like block pushing, makes it rather dull to go through said motions.

There are some strong Water Temple potential here (believe it or not, my favorite type of The Legend of Zelda temples), would like to see some more features and bug fixes added in to bring the best out of this game.

HELLEVATOR by pickens-inc 2021-05-16T02:47:01Z

Had a lot of fun playing this on the stream:

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=1875

The arcade feel to this game was great: fire rate felt balanced, dash cooldowns feel short enough to make the attack useful without being over-powered, and hitting/defeating enemies were really satisfying. I also really like the variety of enemies in the game that realy forces the player to change their strategy over time. Not much to complain about for the gameplay side of things.

I did think there were still a few improvements the game could have made, though. Primarily, having the camera focus where the cursor is, rather than where the player is, would have really helped get a better view of the arena. Typically, these twin-stick shooter games averages the location of the character and the cursor, and has the camera focus at that point. I also felt like the monsters that could take multiple hits were a bit of a bullet sponge, and either reducing their health, or adding some mechanics to help mitigate their sponginess (e.g. making the enemy stagger on each hit, and/or increasing duration of player invulnerability after losing health) would have made the fight feel more fair.

Still, the game's strong focus really halps make it quick and easy to play. Well done!

Diacombs by aeveis 2021-05-10T05:21:13Z

Wow, it took me hours, but I finally figured out the section @connorses pointed out. Eek, despite all the hint slots in there, that section begs for perfection.

I really like all the puzzle mechanics presented in this game, from the tried-and-true Sokoban formula to Pikmin-esque command-'em-all movement. I did find the latter mechanic to be rather confusing at the very last puzzle, given that the characters, after bumping into a wall, sticks for one turn. Also, fantastic touch on requiring the player to rely on pieces from other sections of the screen, and even a full screen apart! It really helps make each level feel connected, as well as testing your own memory.

My biggest complaint (other than the hard parts of the puzzles; 'tis the nature of puzzle games) actually has more to do with the undo feature. There are turns I wish the undo system didn't record, such as pushing a non-movable object. Most movements where I'm not pushing something, I also wish wasn't recorded, either. This would have made the harder puzzles more tolerable to deal with, given it would have taken less input to get back to where I wanted to be.

I also thought that while the sound effects design is quite excellent (realistic, timed well, and informative), the music felt really dull. Even if it's a thinking-game, I think it could have used a few more instruments and a longer composition to lighten up the mood, especially if the player got stuck.

Had a lot of fun, great job!

Oculus Leviathan by NotExplosive 2021-05-06T01:41:48Z

The presentation on this game is quite stellar. I like the mystery it creates with its stark, high-contrast colors, and the minimalist text to go along with it. The clever use of the color yellow was an excellent way to teach the player what the objective is, including the end twist. For the most part, I appreciate the "play with the story" aspect of the game.

I did, however, think the need to catch fish by point rather than raytrace was a significant weakness in the experience. Since the faster and smaller fish already move erratically, eve with curves, it felt very difficult to predict where they would end up. There were very dull and/or frustrating moments where I couldn't catch that one fish, and that really hampered my enjoyment with the game.

Still, I appreciate the short, sweet, to-the-point concept of this. It's nice to play something that felt like it didn't need any new content beyond what's already in there.

Worm Go Down by DragonZBW 2021-05-14T02:48:56Z

Had some good fun with this game, though it's calm music seemed like a false flag to a much more destructive environment my poor worm was getting itself into. Controls were smooth, and I really appreciate the look-ahead camera focusing where the mouse was aiming. I also like the unique health system that also creates a bigger target, thus creating a bit of a risk-vs-reward system, though that sometimes creates some bizarre collision issues when traversing through thinner tunnels. I ended up be expelled out of one of them, for example, apparently because the "gun" has a collision. Overall, intuitive game with some nice game feel.

I think my biggest complaints are the over-use of repetitive sound effects and screenshakes. For sound effects, something as simple as randomizing the pitch of the sound being played would have went a long way in making it tolerable. As it is now, I can still hear the firing and explosion sound still ringing in my ear. They get very dull, very quickly. For screenshakes, while a powerful tool, I think they should have been reserved for destroying an enemy. As of right now, it occurs too frequently, when a simple shake animation and sprite flash for an enemy getting hit would have sufficed (similar animations for the player getting hit would have been appreciated). I personally like to add a brief pause in time as well when the hit connects, both at the enemy, and at the player. Having a screenshake when the player is hit is, however, justified, and I'm fine leaving that in.

I also didn't like that your own bullets collider into your own tail. I dunno if that was deliberate, but it did make the usual run-away/strafe-away while firing that's the core experience of twin-stick shooters unpredictable and not very fun. I think removing just that interaction would have been more interesting.

Still, most of these are nitpicks. I still ended up having a good time!

Far Gone by TomBuston 2021-05-01T05:04:00Z

Solid presentation that works well with the mysterious story. While I'm probably the worst person to judge a game like this, given the tendency for me to find bugs and glitches, I did think most aspects of the games worked. Personally, I would have liked to see just a bit more hand-holding, so it would have been easier for me to figure out what to do at certain parts. Similarly, I would have been more compelled with the story if there were just a bit more hints and direction on what's going on. Still, I realize the mystery and metaphorical approach was the intent, and it's probably likely I'm just a dense person. Hopefully you've enjoyed (and cringed) watching me play!

https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=8513

Walls by CakeAndLies32988 2021-04-27T03:09:53Z

@busy-games Yes, it's [up here.](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/walls-1) @cakeandlies32988 upload created some bizarre conflicts, so we're appearing as separate entries, even though we actually did collaborate on the game. Sorry for the inconvenience.

ETA: You can check @cakeandlies32988 profile now: the real game (with fancy thumbnail) is listed correctly!

Abyss by xotraz 2021-05-10T03:26:28Z

So, uh, fetch quests are a pet-peeve of mine, and I really hate being told in a game to collect *exactly* X-number of items. Fair warning on my comment: I'm probably biased against it.

There are some interesting ideas I liked in the game, including the vertical tubes that inherits the vertical velocity of your player. With polish, such as automatically guiding the player to the horizontal-center of the tube and making the y-velocity up or down the tube fixed, would make this a wonderful mechanic full of interesting opportunities. Having items open new ways was also pretty interesting as well.

I found the level that came with the game to be...very bad. I recognize it was created by a random level generator: while that in and of itself isn't bad, it's very noticeable as a human player the level has no sense of narrative or flow. This makes trying to search for keys exceptionally tedious, since 1) collecting a key doesn't tell me which new path has opened, and 2) the key and pathway all feels very random, and consequently without purpose.

I admit that, given the intent of this project was a tech demonstration, I'm probably being overly harsh here. I think with more time, some interesting ideas could emerge.

Fallumns by Logan 2021-05-02T01:54:58Z

So here's a review of someone who already had the game spoiled prior to playing the game, and bothered to, anyway. I think it was smart to develop a game where each level is designed to be relatively easy and forgiving, given how frequently the gameplay changes. The breathers between each level also worked wonders in keeping the player ready to soak in to the next bizarre surprise coming in next.

I've said in the TVGS livestream that I thought the twist over-stayed its welcome. I may have been harsh there, given when I played it, I didn't really notice the overstay per-se. It was nice that gameplay themes starting early on (Falldown arcade mechanics, bullet hell dodging) gets mixed together in later levels, mixing things up a bit.

Still, I do have some nitpicks. There were parts in the game I thought was really easy to get stuck in, including any bombing levels and the gold collecting segments. I've said in the stream the gold-collecting segments felt under-utilized, and having now played the game, I came back still feeling this way. I take that the boss level was intended to be a sort of callback to the original columns with bullet hell added in, but I did find this part to be fairly weak and uninteresting. It just puts a halt to the momentum of the game, and doesn't "feel" like a boss, so much as a more annoying "*columns*, but with lasers." And the lasers made the segment unnecessarily harder. Ultimately, I relied on the clear-all power-up to finish that segment, and that really didn't feel all that satisfying of an ending. Perhaps bringing back the bomb and needing to time the placement of it may have made the boss more interesting?

ETA: Also, might be a good idea to add some notification when the player reached a checkpoint, as well as some simple reminder about hitting ESC to bring up the menu and reset back to said checkpoint. These can appear after the twist has been revealed. Having no info available to them, I wouldn't expect most people to know they can just use the "Restart Level" prompt, or even know from the first place ESC can bring that up.

Still, I can't deny the game has a lot of charm; the same charm I see in games like *Psychonauts*, *Nier*, and *Little King's Story*. The constant genre-switching is something I've been wanting to explore myself, so it's nice to see it realized in these tight jams as well. Looking forward to seeing more from you.

ETA: https://youtu.be/6TLiMWFpBNo?t=1950

Black Magic, White Cat by Lyxil 2021-05-17T04:23:16Z

Got what appears to be the positive ending. Pretty cute story, if a bit...annoyingly saccharine. While the story length is quite commendable, I would have liked to see more split story paths and choices to make in the game, even if some of them would have no changes to the story progression. Add a little more roleplay, let players be complete jerks and reap those consequences!

Still, I appreciate how the world is introduced in a simple way, utilizing our good ol' boring world as a grounding basis for the extra added supernatural. Characters were mostly likeable, if a few (Karth and Inora) felt like they just blended into each other. And, well, I don't especially enjoy playing as jerk characters (even though I'm a jerk player myself), but Furonin wasn't pushing my buttons too much.

And...uh, I felt the Japanese excerpt at the end read a bit too much like Google Translate.

Orange Diver: The Great Drown by Prostone 2021-05-16T04:06:11Z

Here's my playthrough of the game. Got to the deepest point in the game on first try!

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=6120

I actually wasn't a huge fan of the physics-based power-up system interacting with the submarine and the rope initially, but I surprisingly got good at collecting them over time as I learned to control the rope a little more, and using it as a net to gather said power-ups. I'm not sure it was intentional, but I do confess learning how to utilize the tether between the submarine and diver was really gratifying. There's a lot of depth from playing around with the rope alone, and utilizing the wonky physics to create some complex and useful behavior. I think exploring more with that mechanic, such as making both the submarine and the diver controllable, would create some really interesting opportunities.

I thought the game gradually getting darker was a really cool feature and helped set the mood well. Both the artwork, lighting, and audio really helped the mood of the game. The serious tone, though, did clash with the comical rope physics. Additionally, the lack of animations, and how every sea creature reacts to your boat like an inanimate object damper the presentation a bit, making them feel like mere physics props than actual animals. Would like to see the presentation of the game polished a bit more.

Mission: Descend by JuanJ7 2021-05-13T00:51:53Z

The art and animation is really good. The procedural generation is pretty impressive as well; the levels felt natural for the most part. While the presentation of the game is fantastic, I found the gameplay to be a serious detriment to my enjoyment of the game.

When it came to wall-climbing, my initial intuition was to hold the direction button against the wall, then tap the up arrow key. Doing so, however, consistently caused the character to get "stuck" on some geometry; usually, the rock placed on every intersection. Fighting against this instinct on holding the left or right directional key while wall-climbing help avoid this problem, but it took a lot of experimentation to learn to do so.

A crucial part of the game I found wasn't well-conveyed was how the extra energy tanks worked. If the energy tank went to red, I first thought having an extra tank would auto-refill it. To my surprise, it didn't. Then on the second playthrough, I attempted tapping N, and it dropped a tank. If I took this newly spawned tank, the red-tank indicator still was red (although it *was* full). This confused me significantly, and ended up trying to surface as quickly as possible. Ultimately, it turned out I had a lot more energy as I finally noticed the red meter depleting.

Frequently, the level generated a bunch of levels where, one wrong bomb placement would make the only way back impossible to traverse. Often, said level requires the player to make the bad bomb placement, anyway, to further proceed into the cave. This is very frustrating to go through, since once the player sees it, the only viable strategy is to return back to the ship, and start collecting energy tanks until the player feels comfortable exploring further.

There was also at least one moment in the game where successfully returning back to ship resulted in the game not registering, and my character dying as a consequence.

I did eventually find a planet where I can find the gear, but I felt it was entirely out of luck. For this rogue-like design, that's not a good feeling to have. I'd like to see this game baked a little more.

Out of order by GiGiChef 2021-05-11T02:18:15Z

OK,so it's a point-and-click adventure game about figuring out what can be clicked in the elevator. Hm'K. I guess I'll just have to click on everything....

I'm really impressed by how well this game brings a constant sense of surprise. What once looks like a normal fixture of an elevator being repurposed for something else often put a grin on my face. It was fun trying to figure out this escape room game.

Some criticism I have include the lack of reticle in the game made it difficult to figure what I'm hovering over. Some parts of the game is very small, so it's difficult to pick them up. I would have liked it if stuff that can be picked up were bigger. I know surprise factor is critical to the game design, but I would have liked some sort of visual language (highlights? sparkles?) that would tell me what is interactable, and what isn't. Lastly, I would have liked to see multi-step help prompts to provide more hints than what the cryptic voice gives.

Still, it was highly enjoyable doing some wacky guesswork and being rewarded with some sort of silly reactions the game gives me. Thanks for the experience!

A Cat in the Aliens' Lair by Sheinxy 2021-05-06T02:23:11Z

Uh, oh. I'm, like, the worst person to rate stealth games, since I hate them with a dying passion. So, uh, take that into account when I write my review below.

I generally like the dark atmosphere the game provides. The use of lighting and shadows does a great job of instilling the feel of how dangerous this mission is. For the most part, I like the decoy mechanic as well. While it's use is a bit short-lived, it still opens up a lot of possibilities for the player to come up with creative ideas on its utilization.s

That said, one of my least favorite attribute is how sensitive the aliens are to your presence. Given each alien is lit with a red lighting circle, I thought that meant the aliens detection system was based on distance. After a bit of testing, though, it became clear to me their detection-system was based on line-of-sight; distance had no effect in deterring their attention. This often lead to moments where an alien off-screen would ambush me, despite me having no way of reacting since I can't see the party-pooper. It would have been nice to add a method to change the camera location, e.g. with mouse or right-stick on the controller, so it gave the player a method of look-ahead. I also honestly think the game should probably be better lit so it's easier to convey the line-of-sight based system you have.

I also would have liked it if the alien detection system wasn't so insta-death. Adding a method for the player to improvise would have helped. For example, perhaps add a margin of time where the alien detects your presence, but also stops at that spot before dashing towards your direction. Perhaps one could drop a decoy if they're fast enough to ward away their attention briefly.

Still, the experience was short and sweet enough to be entertaining. I can certainly see this game expanded with a few more improvements.

Subterranean Sub by NorthernDevGuy 2021-05-16T04:33:38Z

This game had probably one of the best graphics I've seen from this jam thus far. Presentation, including the audio, was excellent as well. And the controls were nice and reactive, too: zooming through the seas in a submarine was never this fun!

I did think the objective of the game was a bit lackluster. Although, I confess, fetch quests are a huge pet peeve of mine, so I'm already biased against collect X objectives. Fortunately for this game's level design, there's no "floating" rock formation to search for, so using the classic following-the-wall strategy certainly worked wonders. At the same time, though, because said strategy is so effective, the game never felt like there were any challenges. Given there's no enemies or significant obstacles in the game, the game felt a bit like a mere vacuum-cleaner simulator where all you have to do is scan through the whole level once, collect all the things, then call it quits. Although it was possible to plan around, I also didn't like the fact that the submarine appears to briefly lose control after collecting something.

I personally would have appreciated giving the player a little more control over the camera. Often it felt like the camera lagged behind the submarine's movement, so it was hard to see what's beyond the direction the submarine was already moving towards. I would have liked it to move ahead of the submarine so it makes it easier for the player to make out the path ahead. Alternatively, allow the mouse to control the camera.

Overall, somewhat enjoyable, but also too easy and predictable. Some more challenges to spice up the gameplay would have been appreciated.

Pheromones by Shakedimus 2021-05-17T00:12:01Z

Played the game on-stream!

https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=921

Lots of interesting potential with this *Pikmin*-esque game. I like the idea of being able to switch controls between multiple different ants and scouting the area to find the optimal path. Even the need to sacrifice some ants provides an intriguing experience that, while a little frustrating, still feels like an integral part of the game's experience.

Personally, my biggest gripe with the game has less to do with AI or difficulty, but rather, the complexity of the game in its current form. I really do like the very cool experiments this game makes: I think how its mechanics are implemented all needs to be heavily simplified to help the player better absorb the purpose of each of them, and help them come up with ways to create complex strategies this game seems to demand. Some examples of simplification I think the game could use include:

1. Making the game have top-down, 2D *Zelda*-like controls instead of the gravity-based platformer it's like now. 2. Only allow any ant to place exactly one pheremone. If the player taps the pheremone button again, it'll remove the old one, and place the new one to a new place. 3. When selecting an ant to control, pause the game so the player has more time to choose which ant they want to switch to. 4. Add a tutorial section where the player can practice all of the above with infinite amount of time (i.e. no water).

I would love to see more of this game worked on, as it does introduce some really innovative mechanics. As it is now, it's a little too overwhelming for me to enjoy.

Implosion by Caveman54 2021-05-14T02:26:09Z

Wow, this is a hard puzzle game. Though, I've enjoyed and finished all the levels, though, so I guess it isn't too difficult.

A lot of my concerns with the game has to do with the onboarding process: learning the controls, puzzle mechanic, recognizing what each tile does, etc. I found the "move lower-layered bots at once" animation to be not very intuitive: after moving a piece, I couldn't make out why the game would suddenly shift to a new level, and I had to watch another bot move. The gate tiles looks less like locked doors and more like lasers that would kill me, so that and the key graphic would have helped the player learn more quickly the purpose of these items and tiles. A tutorial on how to switch between different tiles would have helped as well.

I really did think the whole move bots at the same time mechanic was really cool, and think it's actually a matter of graphical design that could help improve the readability and the ease in which the player could use to make out a solution to each level. For example, since most layers aren't very large, I think showing all the layers at once would have greatly helped. Selecting layers in this way would be pretty intuitive, and you can probably flash a marker on all the bots that would move as a consequence of selecting that layer. I would have preferred arrow keys to move said bot instead of mouse. Also, death would have to be readily apparent and perhaps even a replay is warranted to inform the player why they messed up. I think for a game like this, an undo one step feature would be possible as well.

Great work, had a lot of fun!

Deep Dungeon Tactics by Aditya Kumar 2021-05-17T03:29:05Z

Observe the stream below, where I completely exploit unbalanced parts in the game to my advantage:

https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=6526

Believe it or not, had a lot of fun with this entry. I'm really impressed with what your team was able to create, given tactics games aren't easy to make on a game jam schedule. The simplification of the genre is really appreciated, making it relatively easy to learn and master. Tutorial was informative and not too long. I personally would have liked to see more explanation on the stats, but at least at first blush, I did feel I understood most of economy that the game had to offer.

There were some UX problems and stats balancing issues I would like to see fixed in a post-jam version of this game. The level-up dialog isn't displayed as such, making it look like any other stats dialog that often pops-up (not to mention it appears with seemingly no context). I would have liked to see the enemies travel and attack range when I hover over them, so I can make a more informed decision. As much as I like the procedural aspect of the game, the progress in the game did feel disjointed at times. I also thought the healing by staying still was a badly exploitable mechanic, and think having items or healers would have been a better choice (though I can understand the time constraint). Finally, most of my gameplay was just letting my ranger level up like crazy, which might need some more careful observation like adding level caps and whatnot.

A lot of these problems, though, are nitpicks to an otherwise solid entry. Made it to around level 7 or 8 pretty easily.

Excavatris Inc. by Neon Glass 2021-05-01T04:54:36Z

Yaaas, *Tetrissssss*. This is my jam! I really like the re-framing of the score system here, clearing the board being the focus rather than creating Tetris, T-spins, or combos. That subtle change really helped give the game a new spin to the old formula. That's really cool.

Aside from the 3-power-up, I didn't really take many of the power-ups' advantages. I feel like the controls and implementation of power-ups, while necessary to the game given its procedural nature, needs a little more polish. I would have also appreciated some explanation on certain elements how they behave, and what to do with them (e.g. mines, moving blocks, what blocks fall vs what doesn't when line is made, etc.)

https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=5784

Excavatris Inc. by Neon Glass 2021-05-02T04:11:18Z

Darn, @jorgegamedev. I just gave it a run, and only got to depth 109.

Bubbly by Kaish 2021-05-17T02:18:07Z

Had a lot of fun playing this game on-stream:

https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=2942

There's a lot of subtle details implemented in the game I really like. I appreciate the balls are programmed to bounce towards Bubbly. The controls are reactive, and the jump arc is satisfying. Lighting and artwork is great, and for the most part, enemy movement are well-telegraphed and predictable. Having all these information and conveniences really helps create a tight and fun platforming rogue-like experience.

I'm not without some criticisms, though. I did think the way some enemies spawn was a bit unfair. In particular, the way ghosts and spiders spawn in, I felt, were too quick and easy to die from. I also thought the myopic default lighting and a camera that lags behind the player made it difficult to see very far, creating circumstances where I thought I was making blind jumps. I would have liked to see the camera either provide a better look-ahead algorithm, or allow the player to control the placement by moving the mouse cursor to where they want to focus on. Finally, I thought the dying animation is too long. I would like a faster respawn process so I can get back to the game faster!

Deeply Organic by DoctorTM 2021-05-11T00:50:35Z

I'm quite impressed with the large array of gameplay and graphical elements in the game. There's a surprising amount of content in such a short amount of time! The number of graphics and animations implemented were pretty impressive as well.

But I also found each component in the game to be...unpolished. It was easy to hit a (fortunately non-game-breaking) bug in nearly every minigame:

* Throat - you can die after the "here we go" prompt shows up. * Pill waterfall - it's possible to cling on the wall. No side-by-side walking animation. * Liver - As noted in the description, die once, skip the level.

Stomach was probably the only one I couldn't find a significant flaw in. Although I'm not sure it was intentional that you can cut into another tumor without finishing the first one.

When it comes to polish, I'm usually seeking for stuff like how responsive the controls are, whether [juice is properly applied](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_feel) or not, are the sound effects for the same action varied, etc. I think from that sense, the Pill and especially the Liver section of the game had me wanting the most. I'm sure the sword swinging animation on Liver is intentionally slow, but it rarely felt like it had impact colliding into...whatever was infecting the liver.

Still, given what's in the game based on the limited time your team had, I have to admit there's a lot more to this game than I first suspected. Good job.

ETA: replaced the Juice it or Lose it Youtube vid link to Wikipedia article on Game Feel, as this site apparently unrolls Youtube links into embeds.

Roll Deeper by HyperTheory 2021-05-10T02:56:08Z

I played this game solo, so take that into account when reading my comment.

I think the concept of the game is fairly interesting, and with some extra polish, could become a fun game. Most of the simplicity works in favor of this, including the objective and graphics. That said, I also think it was too simple, and there were many parts where I think changes would be necessary.

On first impression, the color-coding of the game was really confusing. I'm used to lighter colors being closer to peripheral view: therefore, my interpretation was that lighter parts of the map = mountains. Obviously, I ended up being surprised it was quite the opposite. I also found that since both player 1 and 2 look exactly the same, it was easy to confuse which was which. Furthermore, it was hard to keep track of which player was winning, since my focus was directly at the player's position instead of the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. It would have helped if instead, there were a P1 and P2 marker, along with their score over each ball to make it easier to track these information.

I also I think the objective of the game, to get to the lowest point of the map, is too easy and anti-climatic. Once a player has reached the lowest point of the map, it's actually quite easy to defend, since if they "slip," they can just roll back down to the same spot. This often made the map the biggest determinator on which player won: the player closest to the deeper valley almost always had the bigger advantage. While the theme was "deeper and deeper," I actually think this game would have benefitted if instead, the objective of the game was reversed: getting into higher elevation scores higher points. In this case, there's a very real tension for the winning player to defend their spot: a small mistake could very much cause the player to lose balance and fall down, making way for the second player.

Lastly, adding at least one more power would have helped. When two players are fighting over the same ditch, it just feels like a casual bumping match. If, for example, a "boost/tackle" button was added, that could make the game more competitve.

There's some potential with this idea: would like to see a more improved version of this game!

PANEMUAN by etrealjunior 2021-05-16T07:31:13Z

As you know, I've played the game live:

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=10756

My experience with this game has been a bit jarring. For example, I think the mid segment with the platforming was one of the better moments in the game, while the beginning setup was completely forgettable. The last section had a bizarre whiplash for me where the moment-to-moment imagery is really good, but I found the final message to be extremely discouraging. I nearly just quit the game after that.

I think part of the reason why the better parts work has to do with the fact that I have a strong reaction to the chase sequence. Furthermore, that "panic" helps the narrative since it's in-sync with the story that's being conveyed. Likewise, the "happy" memory part in the third act works pretty well given it's directly after the chase-segment. So the act doubles as a breather and reflective moment. It's a bit disappointing, then, the first act and the second-half of the third act feels like a disjointed cutscene. The gameplay in the first act does nothing to reinforce the story, and the second-half of the third act is exactly the same as the first, happy half: it's a jarring experience that the gameplay for the two halves are exactly the same. I would have expected the second half's gameplay to have some sort of struggles to convey the more sad parts.

I've mentioned the ending of the final act was really discouraging: this is probably a perk of English, but just saying, "No, you're making the wrong decision" is a *really* fast way to drop players' interest. In short, it puts the player in the defensive, since in their mind, the game "made" them make the wrong decision. Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if anyone ended up being insulted by the wording of that final line. I recommend phrasing that last sentence as a question, e.g. "What could have I done differently?" to encourage the player to not feel disheartened or defensive, and consider trying something new.

Deeper Well by Feraligatr 2021-05-01T04:41:26Z

Appreciate how this was a really relaxing game to play (especially the music!) Managing resources was probably the most interesting aspect of the game, and I would have liked to see more UI elements informing me of how this sprawling network of numbers is affected by the decisions I'm making. I confess I'm not much of a village-planner, so I didn't really use the roads that much...or really coordinate the buildings in any specific way. And due to my own shenanigans, I often got lost on the map, and couldn't find the well at times.

https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=3006

P.S. "Well that was deep"

Crust by exopunk 2021-05-01T05:15:31Z

Some of the more magical moments for me playing this game was figuring out how to use the grappling hook in conjunction with the water flow movement. I thought those moments where the aim and timing mattered really helped justify the primary form of movement in this game. I unfortunately felt throughout the rest of the game, the grappling hook wasn't all that compelling, given it was just a simple way to get to a point towards a wall very quickly, and not much else. I think if more timing elements were added in, such as moving enemies, or even reducing the drag on the submarine so it would retain the momentum from swinging on the grappling hook much longer, could make the movement system much more compelling and dynamic for the player. The fantastic graphics and music, as well as the clever placements of the pearl, did compel me to play to the end, though, so great job!

https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=11161

The power of the deep by Tris250 2021-05-16T02:24:06Z

As promised, I have played the game on-stream, although it's been two weeks since I've made that promise.

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=814

In summary, I thought the game had an interesting idea, but it wasn't presented in a way that made said idea interesting for me. It first attempts to subvert the idea that power-ups are almost always good. Unfortunately, that's nothing new for most players: even in games like Super Mario Bros. series, I naturally end up deliberately skipping power-ups I don't like. Second, it asks the player to balance between two meters: health and sanity. Since collecting a power-up recovers all health, though, for a number-crunching player, these meters look less like a resource balancing act, and more like just an extension of the classical health bar. For example, I would argue with the inclusion of power-ups, each sanity unit can be equated to 2 units of health. Since the player starts with 3 health and 3 sanity, and reducing the sanity down to 0 is game over, that means the player has 2 x 3 = 6 units of health. And so I end up treating these units as just a representation of 6 units of health. That...doesn't seem like the intent, given the description of the game.

I think the idea of increasing power having a serious cost -- often known as risk vs. reward -- is a good goal to have, and a lot of great games can emerge from testing the limits of that balancing act. With more thought and time, I'm sure this game can create something more engaging with its premise. As it is, though, I felt like it was a beginner's platformer game: gravity is too low, jump isn't very high, camera doesn't have a look-ahead system so platforming has a lot of blind jumps, enemy encounters are slow and easily skippable, etc.

Where are my sexy red boots by FroBros 2021-05-11T01:03:57Z

There's a lot of really cool potential in this concept. I appreciate that some of the visual language the game presents (e.g. the circle-of-influence) helps create a sense of mystery and discover in better understanding the game's mechanics. If I had to guess, though, I assume just implementing the feature took a lot of time, no? The shortness of the game kind of gives away the fact that while the game has great potential, it was also really rushed.

A way I can see this game being expanded upon includes being able to move around small objects, once they're at a certain threshold. This could bring a lot of really complex puzzle solving elements into the game. As it is right now, I feel like the game feels more like an I Spy mouse hole game than anything, which makes the game a bit repetitive.

Would love to see this game expanded upon. And can I say I really love all the wacky audio effects you've added into the shrinking and growing animation? What a fantastic touch!

Where's my dynoMITE? [LD48] by miej 2021-05-02T03:30:45Z

Played both the original and the more polished version. The improvements are pretty stark and appreciated, given my primary frustration was how quickly the rope coiled, then cut off so quickly. The audio and the comical physics of the rope really adds to the humor of the game. In particular, I found the rope physics to be the most interesting part of the game, and would like to have seen more in the level design that would push the player into finding new ways to utilize it. As of the current game state, much of my focus has to be split between keeping the helicopter afloat, vs figuring out where to aim the dynamite. It would be nice if the game allowed more precision in controls, such as removing the gravity on the helicopter controls, allowing the player to focus more on the rope movement and really learn to utilize it.

Also, it's still possible to get the tail of the helicopter stuck in this cave: firefox 2021-05-01 (26985).png

Our livestream: https://youtu.be/6TLiMWFpBNo?t=6144

Deep Drive by Ahmed Hamdi 2021-05-16T03:24:34Z

Played it on-stream:

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=4990

This game...is really, really rough. I feel like there's a lot of great places the game focuses on: pretty good-looking vehicle models, keeping the vehicle orientation in-line with the course, particle effects that play when the vehicle turns, etc. But I also felt the parts that mattered to me the most, such as the vehicle's traction on the course, actual speed of the car, camera providing necessary information for me to steer properly, and turbo actually having an instantaneous effect speed boost instead of just increasing the acceleration, felt very broken to me. The car were incredibly slow, and I constantly felt like I was driving on ice. The course itself was constantly hostile to my ability to drive. And the camera only shown the top of the hill, but never what's behind it, making it difficult for me to make the right decision on which way to steer.

There's a kernel of a good idea in this game, but it was all so very confusing and nothing seemed to come together to create an enjoyable experience.

HELL deep is your love? by Villanelle 2021-05-01T05:07:27Z

Wow, what an extraordinary game. Incredibly high level amount of polish, and very punishing but rewarding levels. Aside from checkpoints, minor hitbox changes, enemy placement, and other nit-picky elements, I really have not much more to recommend improving what's already there. Had a fantastic time, thank you!

https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=12721

Dead End by jetj 2021-05-17T02:38:42Z

What a solid Compo game.

https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=4186

The game was really laggy on my poor, poor computer, but I can still see how interesting this game's exploration aspect was. Obviously, what's here is a bit bare-bones, but the simplicity of the mechanics and the way the game preys on the player's curiousity created a very compelling experience. I really love the cursor you've created to indicate where one can place a lantern, and with it, how that connects to the last one you've placed.

I only have a few nitpicks here and there with the game. I've noticed some bizarre normal glitches in the game (corners seemingly emitting dim lights for no reason), that I think is a bit of a concern. I would have liked to be able to place the lantern attached to any on the line, rather than the last one. I did think the respawn was a bit severe, though fortunately given the slow pace of the game, wasn't a significant concern. It would be nice to see more environmental story telling in the game, to provide the player more incentives to explore the cave. And I got the sense that the adventure was a bit linear in experience: as an alternative to a story-driven experience, it might be fun to experiment with more branching paths.

Climber by xxnolanxx 2021-05-07T02:26:54Z

I like the pick-axe mechanic to slow the fall of the climber. There's a lot of satisfaction in slowly learning how the axe interacts with the wall works. That said, to me, said mechanic made all other movement-related mechanics completely useless. Ropes weren't very useful, and I found the ledge grab too context-sensitive (not to mention the visual design made the sprite look like a wall slide, rather than a ledge grab). I ultimately found the game to be too easy, and with the current level design, wasn't compelled to explore further what I can do with the game's mechanic.

To be honest, amongst all the mechanics, I found the ropes to be the most interesting and with strong potential. Perhaps if, similar to *Terraria*, there was a way to shoot them into the walls, as well as gathering more from in-world pick-ups, could make the mechanic more useful. If the pick axe must remain, it might be interesting to add climbing up ceilings of caves to make the item less useful.

Deeper and Deeper in the Woods by Mizatorian 2021-05-14T00:18:04Z

Confession: the first time I played it, I was actually surprised at how short and simple the game was. Fundamentally not a bad thing: I did think the game got its point across. I was mildly reminded of the original Paper Mario's lost woods puzzle game mechanic, where you had to make out the different path that lead to the way to the Boo Mansion.

Game presentation I thought was fine and consistent. Controls were pretty good. I liked the nice touch of very slowly going through each gate, both allowing the player to hear the full sound effect, and making the choice a commitment. I just thought the "clue" to the right path was...really obvious. To a point where playing the game was really trivial.

It may also just be me, but I wonder how many people got "stuck" thinking the locked gates were impassable. While having gates are fine, it might have been a good idea to remove the lock visuals, or else it creates a seemingly impassable graphic.

I assume the game's small scope is due to the lack of time (which I'm guilty of as well), so it's quite understandable the game is a bit bare-bones right now. I personally would like to see more unique methods of trying to distinguish the right path for the game in the near future, to flesh out the game a bit more.

Beepo's Shop by itsBoats 2021-05-16T04:23:16Z

Had a lot of fun playing this on-stream:

https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=7155

There's a bit of a learning curve with this game, but thanks to its turn-based gameplay and chill presentation, failure never felt too punishing. I really like that the path you create has serious consequences on the drill's health. It really forces the player to carefully think over the path they're taking, and making measured decisions on using their limited resources.

Perhaps my favorite aspect was that it encouraged the player to discover for themselves the many intricacies of the game. Through experimentation alone, learning how straight paths could be treacherous, there are more gold deeper underground, digging tiles gives more money than zooming through tunnels, which upgrades help optimize gold collection process, etc. was all very, very satisfying, even if it lead me to death. It's quite extraordinary how through relatively minimal means, you've found ways to convey such critical details efficiently to the player, all without a tutorial.

This was a grand a time. Looking forward to more projects from you!

Black Cat Apothecary by Omiya Games 2021-10-12T01:54:28Z

@notexplosive Thanks for the comment! That's a very interesting observation. I wonder what lead you to think our game was about trialing which potions were the correct ones, and how to make out whether they were the right choices or not.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying the direction you've suggesting is wrong or bad at all: in fact, I personally think that would be a very cool game! That said, it's a bit different from what our team initially intended. I ask the above question because, at least for me, I want to better understand how we've created this game design vs expectation disconnect so we can improve the presentation in both this and in future games we develop.

For context: as I understood @sunshiner's game idea, the original intent was to focus on emerging character stories, and using that to gauge whether you want to help them or not. In that sense, the cheatsheet is a deliberate feature: it shifts the focus away from the potions, and more into the customers themselves. Still, I confess that all of us in the team had at least one day during this Jam that we weren't available in, so the game's polish level is certainly not at where we've hoped it'd to be.

Again, thank you for your valuable feedback!

Okay & Alright by aeveis 2021-10-20T05:18:04Z

Oh, this is a different-paced project coming from you! It is fairly short and narrative focused, which...I admit, isn't really my cup of tea. Still, there were some interesting details I liked: for one, I liked how there were timed controls limitations that helps add to the narrative impact. I got the sense that the text reveals themselves, regardless of whether the tears hits it or not; but there was one moment where I felt that detail was really effective. The "positive" text reveal about still having control over the situation in particular was memorable, given how ironically little control I had in revealing the text itself. That said, it also made the segment *feel* like a struggle, so I guess it worked as intended.

I'm unfortunately not a huge fan of what little control I had over revealing the text and interacting with in-game elements. I can tell those game design decisions were deliberate...and I simply didn't like them. Still, at least I thought it was an interesting experience, with a few shining moments.

Expression Compression by NotExplosive 2021-10-21T03:06:31Z

Oh, interesting. I manage to beat the game. So does that mean I'm an alien? Am I leaning something new, deep, and dark secret about myself!?

Joke aside, I did like this algebra-driven puzzle game. It was sort of interesting that much of the puzzle came from figuring out how to navigate and utilize the UI you've created, and determining the correct sequence of drag-and-drop to get the intended goal. The obtuse graphics and nature of the instructions actually helped set the tone of: you need to figure this out on your own. So I did like the feel that I was smart figure out the UI, and comprehending the problem at hand. Interesting stuff, enjoyed this quite a bit!

Cthulhu goes to Work by battlecoder 2021-10-09T19:31:08Z

I promise to write a more full-fledged comment, but in the meantime, here's the live-recording: https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=840

Cthulhu goes to Work by battlecoder 2021-10-12T01:17:55Z

Alright, the full comment:

Excellent work on the art and intro cutscene. Even the droopy music significantly adds to the polished presentation of the game. It would have been nice to see some squishy/moist sound effects to add to the comedy of the game, but either way, the game reads quite professionally.

I think the biggest problem I had was the slow start and somewhat bizarre stats balancing of both the physics of the game, the grace-period of screwing up the balancing, and scoring. The slow format of the game makes the game a bit too easy to play: even when I get overwhelmed with too many food items, the point that made me quit the game was when I couldn't reasonably keep the *foods* on the plates, rather than keeping the plates balanced. While I think it was a good idea to keep a scoring system to motivate the player to keep the food from falling, it also became the primary source of frustration for me. As mentioned earlier, I "quit" the game when I realized I couldn't reasonably keep the food on the plate, and raise the score.

I think having stages that reset the food and plate's placement would help provide the player a sense of progression. It might be also interesting to add either a time or score gate to avoid making the "drop food away from the plates" a viable strategy for keeping the plates balanced longer.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty cute minigame. I did think the arcade nature made me feel like this is more of a one-and-done sort of game. I recognize it was the first attempt at exploring the Godot game engine, though, so hopefully with more experience under your plate (pun intended,) the next Ludum Dare games might become more complex.

Improbability Fighter by Wendel Scardua 2021-10-17T02:37:03Z

Promise to post up a full comment, but here's the recording from the livestream, including a timestamp:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=8643

Improbability Fighter by Wendel Scardua 2021-10-20T03:52:24Z

Full comment:

Well done on making, of all things, an NES-compatible game. I confess I'm not aware of all the NES limitations, so pardon some of my comments that overlooks the feasibility on the actual hardware.

I quite like the chaos mechanic that forcefully switches the controls and firing behavior of the spaceship. Much like *Geometry Wars*, it forced me to constantly change my strategy and keep me on my toes. It would be pretty awesome to expand upon the idea by adding more ships, and with it, changing movement and firing behavior. It might also be interesting to change the chaos meter to be based off of how many shots the player fired, rather than (or in combination with) time.

I did think the enemy layout and firing behavior was really predictable. I also didn't really like that they were bullet sponges, and didn't move. It did make the game rather easy and dull, despite the constantly changing ships. I would have also liked the ship you swapped to be randomized as well. It was a bit too easy to plan ahead and adjust my plan as soon as I figured out the pattern.

I also dealt with some slowdowns, so perhaps it might be a good idea to put a max cap on the number of bullets that can be on screen? Still, I found the game to be short and sweet enough to be enjoyable.

Improbability Fighter by Wendel Scardua 2021-10-20T22:38:09Z

@wendel-scardua Oh, interesting. I got the sense in my playthrough it merely cycled the ships in the same order, so I got the impression it wasn't randomized.

Baserackcanball by HacksawUnit 2021-10-17T02:40:36Z

Had a lot of fun playing this on stream. Will write up a full comment, but in the meantime, here's the recording:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=9620

Baserackcanball by HacksawUnit 2021-10-20T04:07:32Z

Full comment:

This game is really addicting. Everything has just the right amount of visual crunch and juiciness to it. It's easy to get into the rhythm of the game and enter a certain flow where you can keep the can bouncing from wall-to-wall.

At the same time, I was a bit disappointed that it was possible either the bat or racket control can end up being deactivated. While that does bring some much needed change-up for two-player gameplay, on one-player, knowing that the controls may be disabled forced me to pay close attention to the character and the rings around it, vs. the rest of the game. This is a shame, because it looked like upon watching the recording that there's a lot of nuance on how to adjust the angle of the shot, what each ground element does, and whether to use bat or racket based on whether you want to take advantage of the ground elements or not. It would have been nice if the range and toggle of whether the bat or racket is usable or not was streamlined so that I can put my focus elsewhere, such as adjusting the angle and speed of the can.

That said, the polish in this game is quite excellent, and I can see myself playing this over and over to get a better score. Great job.

鬼心伝 - A Story of Heartful Oni by kiririn51 2021-10-20T06:45:14Z

...Oh, you're making me pull up a kanji dictionary for this one (or jisho.org; same thing.) Well then ***Cracks Knuckles.***

このゲーム、ムズイです。一番最初のボスですぐに倒れました。トホホ。

絵や音楽は非常によく出来ていて「マジ四日でこんなの出来るの」とか思ったりしました。それと比べて弾の打つ音は繰り返しが多く、すぐに飽れます。説明書がないため、初めて遊ぶ人には少し学びにくいと思います。特にミサイルの使い方がよく分からなかったので、あまり試しませんでした。「撃たれたという実感が来ない」というコメントがありましたが、こっちも同感。

正直、僕はこういうゲームには苦手なのであまりコメント出来ませんが、まず、敵の打つ弾の速度がすごく速いことに驚きました。少しでも遅くして欲しいとよく思いました。風雪が弾に当たる幅はどれっくらいあるのかも読みにくかったです。僕は弾に当たらないように集中してたため、敵の位置を見ることが難しかったです。画面の下に敵の位置の矢印が欲しい。せめて下手なプレイヤーには無敵モードがいいかも。

この手では風雪君はまー君に会えないけど、「それでもいいや」と考えてゆっくり寝ます。

Ark by ProdigalSon 2021-10-17T04:00:43Z

I promise to write up a full comment, but in the meantime, we have a recording of our playthrough here:

https://youtu.be/QZxtnpxwT_M?t=5864

Also, as promised earlier, here's the screenshot of level 13, where the solution below created a bug where a poor narwhal was left behind, yet the game registered as the correct path. Humans can be so mean, sometimes.

firefox_HB9ona63py.png

Ark by ProdigalSon 2021-10-20T04:53:34Z

Full comment:

It's a good thing I'm already a puzzle game designer, because boy does this puzzle game become really hard, really fast. The rules that this game provides are relatively easy to learn and understand. I think it was clever keeping the focus on path-building, and creating mechanics around that central concept.

One thing I did struggle with were that some mechanics weren't introduced in such a way that eases the player into understanding the fundamental behind it. For example, the first level that required creating an intersecting path involved creating a sort of a figure-8 path, when I think a figure-4-like solution would have been a simpler way to teach that mechanic. Furthermore, it would have been nice if some levels were dedicated to reviewing a previously-introduced mechanic. It took me a while, for example, to learn that an animal placed in a basin can be re-retrieved. Had I known this, I think I would have solved some of the levels much faster.

Perhaps the biggest concern I have with a puzzle game like this is that there's probably going to be a point where the difficulty of a level has escalated enough, that some players would end up simply quitting the entire game mid-way through. I'm wondering what sort of solutions there might be to prevent this from happening: perhaps, adding some time-step controls to monitor the timing of how each individual carrier moves. It might also help adding in a hint system that provides a partial solution for those truly stumped.

Still, I've enjoyed my time playing this game, and would definitely like to see more development in this project.

Kalamari Damacy by rHornbek 2021-10-17T02:30:22Z

Promise to write up a full review, but here's the stream reacording in the meantime:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=7690

Kalamari Damacy by rHornbek 2021-10-20T03:38:11Z

Full comment!

I really, *really* like the load balancing mechanic. The simple rule adds a shocking amount of depth to an otherwise age-old side-scrolling arcade game. From making certain luggage more valuable than the rest, to making the "hug the left side of the screen" actually *not* the most optimal strategy, there's a lot of complex decisions I had to make while focusing on avoiding krakens and dragons. Very good call on keeping the ship only tilt left or right, while leaving vertical tilts unaffected. That made the mechanic just simple enough to manage, given the player needs to focus on dodging as well.

There was a point in the game where I felt the ship was moving too quickly. Combined with the relatively slow movement of the ship, there was a point in the game where I just gave up because I couldn't feasibly dodge everything. I'm aware the game was designed to be like an arcade, but it would have been nice if there were levels/stages so it felt like I was making progression instead of trying to play forever.

Still, there's a very strong potential behind this concept, and I certainly would like to see it expanded upon.

The Balancing of Hill House by yupasama 2021-10-09T03:43:12Z

The balancing mechanic adds a nice new flavor to the old Sokoban game formula. I appreciate that the rule forced me to rethink the routes I'm taking when it comes to pushing the furniture. And the UX/interaction of the game was straightforward enough for me to figure out what to do, and what not to do.

At the same time, the presentation of the game, I feel, could use some work. Obviously, things like animations and sound effects would go a long way in helping make the game feel more alive. I also felt that, given there's only one level, there wasn't much to do? Like, I removed all the furniture on my first try, so I thought the game was a bit too easy.

ETA: Also, played your game, live! https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=98

JennyBee by Iori Branford 2021-10-17T01:46:55Z

Played it on stream! I'll do my best to get my full review in soon, but if you want to check out my thoughts early, here it is in recorded form:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=24

JennyBee by Iori Branford 2021-10-19T05:07:45Z

Alright, full comments on my playthrough.

To be completely honest, this game feels...rough. There's an interesting idea in here where potentially honeycombs are used to attach and create Lego-like formations to deal with an incoming threat. The physical nature of how the beehive holds itself on the branches looks like it could be expanded to an interesting, maybe even experimental experience. And the risk-reward of letting ants eat the beehive to gain speed upgrade hints at some interesting game design direction.

As the game currently is, I felt the game was too simplistic. The behavior of the ants are very predictable, and honestly reminds me of tower defense games. Without a currency or upgrade system, though, it didn't feel like I was planning ahead and being rewarded for the preparations I've made. Instead, I felt like I was going through a repetitive motion of keeping ants away from the beehive. It didn't help that the direction Jenny aims is a bit unpredictable without a reticle or line-of-sight HUD element.

I get the sense that there wasn't a lot of time to develop this game, which is understandable. Would certainly like to see some of the elements in the games being brought to new and interesting directions.

The Yellow Wallpaper by WhenYouCantFindAFriend 2021-10-06T05:30:30Z

I like the art direction of the game, and the point-and-click interface provides an interesting way to interact with the environment. I was rather confused with the sudden genre shift when doing the platformer section. And I didn't realize I've reached the end when I clicked on the Yellow smudge.

The presentation is quite excellent, but I also felt disoriented with things seemingly happening without reason or explanation. I don't know if that was intentional.

The Yellow Wallpaper by WhenYouCantFindAFriend 2021-10-07T05:21:38Z

@whenyoucantfindafriend I think more of a scene-transition effect would help me understand and contextualize why I'm shifting from one gameplay after another.

Reactor by Birdwards 2021-10-21T02:40:52Z

I can appreciate this game trying a new idea to the match-3 formula. The rules seemed simple enough, and most visual designs and animations communicate their intent well that I wasn't confused most of the time while I was playing. The visual theme and audio to match did a pretty good job of setting a consistent and relaxing tone one would expect from a puzzle game.

That said, it didn't really *feel* like playing a puzzle game. Most of my experience was about chasing after a specific atom, rather than attempting to create a cool formation or combo to generate the most points. I don't consider this necessarily a bad thing -- it's just different -- but it was certainly unexpected.

There were some legitimate issues I did have with the game, though. Playing the WebGL version, it was kind of hard for me to grasp why the game suddenly ended. In theory, it would be due to some of the atoms touching the red ring, but I never felt like through any of my play-throughs, that actually happened: the red ring would simply expand instead. Instead, after getting the bond to a certain size, the game seemingly just ended. Perhaps the visuals aren't catching up with the actual intended data range?

I also felt like the controls were really loose, and it made it difficult to precisely choose which atom to attach, and where. The turning wasn't instantaneous, and both rotation and movement appears to have momentum that's difficult to stop. This may have contributed to the game's lack of "puzzle-game-like-feel." It may have been nicer to have more tighter controls.

Still, I thought there was a neat idea presented in this game, and certainly think it can be expanded upon with some more time and polish.

Neon Saber by Kaish 2021-10-17T02:05:57Z

Will type up a full comment soon, but here's the recording of my stream playing through this hard, hard game:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=1042

Neon Saber by Kaish 2021-10-19T05:27:05Z

Alright, the full comment.

I thought this game was too erratic for my liking. To be clear, the presentation of this game, including graphics, music, and sound design, are quite excellent. I like how the cutscenes plays out, and much of the game feel is pretty solid. I thought that needing to rely on the shield could have been a really interesting game mechanic as well.

That said, I honestly did not enjoy playing this game. I didn't feel like I had much control over the situation, and having the gameplay almost solely focused on dodging bullets and lightsabers isn't a concept I find very fun. Not only that, but the gameplay is at odds with the objective of the game: if I have no offensive abilities to defeat any enemy, then how am I supposed defeat all of them to get to the next level? Since the saber bounces in unpredictable angles, and thus gives the player no strategical benefits, the game often felt like a time-based survival minigame, where how long the game took was a complete luck-of-the-draw.

I was also disappointed with how ineffective the shield was. It seems the only purpose it served was to briefly keep the player protected from the saber and bullets; otherwise, it just mirror-reflects the bullet in a completely useless direction. When the objective of the game is to defeat all the enemies, this behavior becomes insufficient; I would have liked to see bullets retro-reflect off the shield, back to the direction they came from. At least that would make the shield potent, and justify the short duration it stays up, as well as the long cooldown the ability suffers from.

Clearly, this team is very talented and capable of creating an excellent experience. I think as an experiment, there are some interesting ideas this game serves. That said, personally, I found the flaws to be too glaring to feel excited in exploring the potential opportunities the game mechanic provides.

Urban Llama Farmer by zerocomms 2021-10-06T00:25:08Z

I appreciate the straight forward UI experience and the border to prevent llama placement, though I've noticed it's still possible to stack and even clip llamas into each other if you drag really fast while they're still blue. It also gets really tense as the tower grows really tall. At least the llamas being solid, non-animating, hard-body objects made the experience feel predictable. Any frustration I felt were stuff I blamed on myself.

I did feel the lack of sound took away from the experience. It would be nice to see some extra polish in this game, especially in the game feel department. Still, enjoyable while the experience lasted.

Unstabled Goat by Marc-Antoine Girard 2021-10-17T02:08:04Z

Here's the recording of my livestream! I'll post a full comment of it eventually, but to check it out, I've time-stamped the vid below:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=3935

Unstabled Goat by Marc-Antoine Girard 2021-10-20T02:21:37Z

Alright, the full comment. Note that I largely played on an Xbox 360 controller to play this game.

The presentation in this game is quite good. The graphics are consistent and clear to understand. I've rarely had a moment where I felt either visually overwhelmed or confused based on the elements that are generated. The visual and audio effects had a relatively good crunch to them. And I actually liked the diegetic health bar, being represented by the luggage in the cart.

Personally, I had a bigger problem with the control over the cart. While the movement of the goat is mostly fine, given the game is about dodging elements, having such "loose" ability to manipulate the cart makes it difficult to avoid things. For example, needing to swap from one lane to the other, then back requires moving the goat above the cart, dash, then trot around the cart to the bottom, then dash. If I had direct controls over the cart, this process would be much faster, giving me the ability to dodge rocks at the last minute. It doesn't help that the goat has collision with the rocks, and thus needs to maneuver around them to even touch the cart. And that's before I mention it's possible to be blocked by rocks from approaching the cart. I also found it frustrating that the goat has to keep up with the moving cart, as it made it slower to maneuver around the cart.

Perhaps having a way to both control the cart and the goat at the same time may make the game more satisfying. For example, with left-stick + right-stick combo, or keyboard controls one character, and the mouse controls the other. This would make the lightbulb mechanic much more interesting, an element I ended up ignoring after a while because keeping the cart out of danger's way was much more important to me, and the game was bright enough without it anyway. I certainly would like to see a level/stage system to give a sense of progression, rather than an infinitely long level.

Ezekiel And The Fake World by Skvader_418 2021-10-09T19:41:56Z

I promise to write out a more thorough comment, but in the meantime, here's a recording of my live-play-through: https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=6869

Aside: the recording is really bright because I have an HDR screen. Since that doesn't stream well, I've applied an HDR-to-SDR LUT filter, which...isn't a perfect translation.

Ezekiel And The Fake World by Skvader_418 2021-10-12T05:55:00Z

Full comment:

On second re-watch of my playthrough, I failed to realize how many subtle, yet incredibly helpful animations and details you've added in that gives this game an extraordinary polish to it. I thought the controls in the game were really tight, and the clever level design helped me learn and understand the main mechanic of each stage. I'm really impressed by it all.

Personally, a few main negatives that stood out to me were the size of the enemies, dealing with enemies in underwater segments, and the camera positioning. For the enemies, I personally thought they were too small when in the regular platforming stages to feel worth killing. At the few points where it was necessary to bop on a few of them, the lack of volume made it difficult to get those interactions right. It also doesn't help that by default, Exekiel moves very quickly, so I often overshot my jumps.

I also had a hard time dealing with enemies during the underwater segments, mainly because it didn't feel like I've had a way to defeat them, nor get away from them in an expedient manner. It would have been nice to at least have a boost to swim in other directions besides up so evasion would be easier. And lastly, I would have liked to see a look-ahead camera implemented: that is, if the player is moving right, also have the camera pan to the right of the character. Given your firm understanding of platformers, though, I assume this was more due to lack of time than anything.

Had a lot of fun playing this short experience! Would definitely like to see more, even if it wasn't made in GDevelop!

The Builders by Dante2001 2021-10-09T19:34:07Z

I promise to write a more full-fledged comment, but in the meantime, here's the live-recording: https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=3392

The Builders by Dante2001 2021-10-12T03:04:08Z

Well, the full comment.

I really like the pacing of the story in this game! Despite my silly glitch-hunting playthrough, I did enjoy how the game builds up to the twist. I did eventually go back to talk to the chill, bipedal insectoid friend, so I've finally got the full gist of the antagonist-at-hand.

When the horror segments kick in, I did appreciate how the gun isn't very effective against the enemies. The fact that you're both limited in bullets, and can't reload, helped make the player feel pretty helpless when swarmed. That said, it seemed like the sanity meter hit was pretty generous (the fire burning part seemed to have a far more negative effect in comparison,) so I can't say I felt overwhelmed by the zombies.

ETA: given there's a lot of walking in this game, it would have been nice if the running pace was just default rather than holding shift key. I think the running pace is quite tolerable and helps move the story along, while walking just feels like a complete crawl.

Still, I adored the experience I had. Certainly would love to see more!

Aside: Unity really needs to fix their FPS scripts, especially the slope detection. But then again, at least it let me appreciate this oasis most players would have probably missed out on.

Ludum_Dare_49_si1ueb7B9W.jpg

Space-Fix-Attack by John llyod Apolo 2021-10-17T03:09:38Z

We've played your game on stream! Will write up a full comment, but in the meantime, you can check it out here:

https://youtu.be/QZxtnpxwT_M?t=545

Space-Fix-Attack by John llyod Apolo 2021-10-21T02:00:08Z

Full comment:

Given the premise of the game, my first question that went through my head was, "how is the game designer going to balance the focus being split between fixing their ship and dodging enemies?" Having now played the game...I think the experiment had an interesting answer that kind of costed one aspect of the game. But first, the good parts: I thought the mouse controls to move the ship was genuinely a clever idea, and really well-put together. The fixing minigame as well was straight-forward and easy to grasp what I was supposed to do. Credit to the graphic design: it's an easy game to understand and play with minimal instructions.

I think the part that didn't work so well was the actual firing and dodging part of the game. Despite having some of the smoothest and flexible ship controls, I never got the sense to be able to flex my skills with it because the enemy and bullet spawns are so few and far between. I realize most of it was to balance with the fact that it's supposed to create a breather while the user is fixing their ship. Still, it's the first thing the player sees when starting the game, and the slow nature to what looks like an otherwise high-action genre puts a damper to the experience.

I think these two modes could be merged together by reducing the cost of fixing the ship, thus making it less risky and provide a lot more room for the shooty-bang-bang part to improve. For example, it might be cool to slow down time while doing the repair mode. Doing so doesn't reduce the risk to zero, but still gives the player an ample amount of time to perform the repairs. It might be further interesting to extend that with inclusion of upgrades, where they also need to be applied through a minigame mid-playthrough.

I like the idea that the game presents, and think it can be expanded upon. Would like to see more time spent in it to find the sweet spot for a fun game.

Boat History by etrealjunior 2021-10-09T19:43:25Z

I promise to write out a more thorough comment, but in the meantime, here's a recording of my live-play-through: https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=7703

Boat History by etrealjunior 2021-10-13T04:19:32Z

Alright, props for innovation points here. Using water physics as a form of traversal is certainly not what I was expecting, and despite the complexity of such soft-body physics object, both the behavior and the visuals were convincing enough to feel like water. I've found that while the water behavior is pretty unpredictable, I've still manage to at least *feel* like I was in-control of the situation. Which is probably a good thing because I was very frustrated while playing through the later levels.

Some of the flaws I've seen in the game includes the fact that, as of the medium I was playing in, there was only one source possible for water to flow. On certain parts of the game, such as lifting the boat upwards between two saw blades, I felt like having a multi-touch interface would have been beneficial. That way, there would be two or more sources of water to lift the boat (but would that make the game too easy? Hmmm...) I also found that even leaving the boat idle, it had a rather erratic and unpredictable behavior, such as moving completely on its own. I also disliked that the last stretch of the final level requires rotating the boat, which is already very difficult to do, and there seems to be a behavior-of-sorts that corrects its orientation from the first place, making the task even harder.

Still, there's a lot of potential with this idea, and I certainly would like to see more puzzle elements added in to more heavily emphasize the physics-playground nature of the game. Despite all my gripes above, for the most part, I did think the game was fair.

FARTOPOLIS by aerloth 2021-10-17T03:13:00Z

We've played your game live! I'll write up a full comments on my thoughts, but in the meantime, you can check the recording here:

https://youtu.be/QZxtnpxwT_M?t=1577

FARTOPOLIS by aerloth 2021-10-21T02:14:32Z

A full comment:

Normally, I would be a bit hesitant to deal with an unusual control scheme as, "use a seesaw to navigate left or right," as they tend to not be as reactive in a obstacle dodging game. I did, however, quite enjoy this game for its balancing act (pun not intended) of making dodging manageable despite the slow handling of the tower our titular character is on. Not only that, but the game mechanic even provided some much needed sensitivity in changing the horizontal velocity of the tower. Of course, the crude graphics, audio, and humor all worked in the game's silly tone. Pretty cool stuff.

That said, there were some flaws I've noticed with the game. The biggest one is that the movement of citizens being farted on aren't exactly predictable. It would be nice if they consistently moved to the other side, rather than dealing with the fact that they could move up and down, thus not affecting the balance of the tower whatsoever. I also thought the screen shakes are a little overwhelming, and they sometimes triggered for no discernible reason. A constant bug I seem to deal with during the stream playthrough was how I kept getting stuck on the arrow pads. It'd be nice if those pads were less "sticky."

Still, this was a neat game that really challenged my original assumptions. Glad to see it come out much better than I would have imagined.

TECHNUCLEAR by TheGreenWorm 2021-10-17T03:43:32Z

Will write up a full comment soon, but in the meantime, we have a recording below:

https://youtu.be/QZxtnpxwT_M?t=4177

TECHNUCLEAR by TheGreenWorm 2021-10-20T04:26:13Z

Full comment:

The presentation of the game is, of course, fantastic. I really like how nearly all movement and animations were to the beat of the music. Controls, of course, was simple enough to quickly understand. And the new mechanics added in provided a nice mix-up to the billards/minigolf formula.

Despite all that, I felt like the beat and music was rather superfluous. Like, in theory, the rhythm of the music is supposed to help the player time their shots to an optimal angle during the rotating levels. Still, I could playthrough all the levels while disregarding this info. I would have liked to see more game mechanics that really encouraged the player to really nail their timing, thus encouraging the use of the music's rhythm. Also, I would have appreciated a longer guiding line that would indicate how the ball would bounce off of walls, so I can make more accurate shots.

Destructo by JPGFG 2021-10-09T19:46:14Z

I'll write up a more thorough comment soon, but I did end up playing your game live. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of muting my microphone throughout, so you can't even hear my commentary on it. Since I do plan on streaming it again next week (October 15th, 7 PM CST,) I'd be happy to play and provide commentary again. Lemme know: https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=8938

Destructo by JPGFG 2021-10-19T04:54:04Z

So I didn't get the opportunity to stream this while you were viewing online. I'll post a more thorough comment instead.

For the most part I thought the game was pretty fun. It's fairly easy to understand the controls of the game, and while it takes a bit too many clicks to make a turn pass, I appreciate the turn-based nature to at least think through what the next set of actions I should take. I think the floor dropping does add a neat formula to the classic. It would have been nice if the floor either blinked or stayed a different color when it's indicating the drop, because I often confused it with highlighting the tile (while having the red-shifting screen effect on.)

It's sort of curious that the player can upgrade their attack power very quickly. At first, the upgrade seems completely pointless given the player can already oneshot all enemies, but after a certain point, the enemies also upgrade to provide that incentive. It seemed, however, there were only two types of `Mike (clone)`, and it was very easy to upgrade attack before hand to a point where my character one-shots them. In fact, around the third playthrough, I did get to a point where I was nearly invincible, and merely died because I wasn't paying attention to the floor blinking animations.

The parts of this game that worked for me was trying to plan around tiles that fell and are no longer traversable. Needing to change my strategy due to changing landscape over, you know, performing Mike genocide made the game much more interesting. I think to emphasize this portion of the game, it would have been nice if more variety were added to various gameplay elements that really forced the player to take risks. For example, it would have been nice to see some more enemy variety, and with it, varied attack ranges and formations. Another obvious update would be adding more types of tiles (e.g. walls,) and maybe add more types of items. Adding some traversal-affecting items would be nice, too.

It's a good start: with a bit more time polishing the upgrade system and added variety of gameplay elements, I can see this becoming something bigger.

Rogue Planets by Roboolet 2021-10-17T02:21:12Z

Quite enjoyed this game on stream. I'll get to writing a full comment soon, but in the meantime, here's the recording with timestamp:

https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=5365

Rogue Planets by Roboolet 2021-10-20T02:58:40Z

Full comment:

I'm quite impressed with this game's effective use of [`Physics.Simulate(float)`](https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Physics.Simulate.html) that really helps remove ambiguity and guess-work from the player. In doing so, it helps make the game feel deterministic and more puzzle-like. Paired with some excellent graphics and audio design, it was really easy to get into the groove of this methodical game.

That said, I did think this game has some flaws. For one, you can only launch one asteroid. I don't really like it when a game demands perfection like that. It would have been nice if, like *Angry Birds*, the player is given more than one asteroid to launch. Second, as a commenter above stated, I did find the game rather slow, and would have liked a fast-forward button to quicken the pace of the orbits. It's also not immediately obvious how far a planet has to move away from the star before it's considered de-orbited. I also didn't like the "fast-forward/reverse" icons, as it wasn't really clear what they do on first glance. Lastly, it would have been nice if the game detected when a planet/asteroid would fall into the star during the shot-aiming phase, so I wouldn't have all those, "the game tricked me into thinking this would work" moments.

Excellent work!

The Forgotten World by QueenOfSquiggles 2021-10-09T19:32:39Z

I promise to write a more full-fledged comment, but in the meantime, here's the live-recording: https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=1978

The Forgotten World by QueenOfSquiggles 2021-10-12T02:02:59Z

Alright, the full comment, as promised:

I'm genuinely impressed at the amount of humor and world-building you were able to cram into this jam. Yes, the game is buggy, and froze at least 3 times during my playthrough. The graphics is...simplistic. The only properly-implemented battle mechanic is bullet dodging, as `action` and `spare` menus didn't do anything I could discern. And the lack of enemy types was quite disappointing. But I feel like the game description undersells how much *charm* you were able to ooze out of all the silly dialogs the game has to offer.

I certainly would like to see more time spent polishing with this game, obviously starting with the bugs and the battles. Sound effects would be a great addition, as well as visual effects like screenshakes, flashes, and particle effects. And of course, I'd like to see an actual plot and storyline develop. But what you've already got here is pretty darn amazing. I honestly would love to see more coming out from you!

Volatile by Mateu 2021-10-09T19:37:22Z

I promise to write out a more thorough comment, but in the meantime, here's a recording of my live-play-through: https://youtu.be/8_LZxCDpWIE?t=5395

Volatile by Mateu 2021-10-12T05:29:25Z

Alright, a proper comment this time:

Of all the things you've implemented in this game to deliberately make difficult (and thus, make the upgrades meaningful,) believe it or not, the absurd recoil was probably my favorite. Unlike most shoot'em ups, the recoil really forced me to focus on the accuracy of my shots, which gives a decidedly different feel than what I'd expect from the genre. If the map was larger, I was thinking the recoil could have been a really cool way to travel long distances quickly.

That said, I did feel like the game didn't give the player a lot of room for experimentation. As such, I felt like I only focused on making my shots accurate (I didn't both to prioritize which enemy to fire against,) and staying alive longer. This makes the gameplay rather stale pretty quickly. I also felt like I hit a wall with the upgrades, as I found it too expensive to purchase them at the very end. And of course, I would have appreciated some sort of signal on where enemies will be entering, so I know which edges of the screen to avoid.

Still, the presentation of the game is highly polished, and I actually like the disadvantages you've added into the game (recoil, bullet bouncing, etc.) I think with a bit more experimentation on what double-purposes each of these things could do, you can develop some new and interesting ways for players to play the game.

A Slice of Life by Chikentear 2021-10-21T06:06:09Z

To be honest, this game is very confusing to me. For context, I'll admit that I am a straight, cisgendered male, so I am quite ignorant on the subject like these. There may have been some intentional design decisions or details that I completely missed.

I think my confusion began within the first exchange you have with Nour and Muwan. It appears like the two had friction between them, so I initially thought this conflict would drive the plot throughout the story. I was sort of surprised, and a bit bummed, that this issue was never brought up again. I also got stumped during the movie suggestion section because...well, of the choices given, *Fight Club* was the only movie I've seen, let alone know the plot about. So that was a really awkward moment. I get that the writing was intentional conversational, and moreover, is supposed depict just a moment in our player character's life. But I also found that a bit...aimless? It wasn't what I expected, and I confess I didn't find the banter between the three characters compelling, at least to a point that would encourage me to experiment with the multiple choices.

I did read your reply to @sasha-v to get a better understanding of the intent of the game. It sounds like the "gendering" of each choice was deliberately arbitrary? In context, I do think that makes sense, and the game was effective at catching me off-guard on that. For example, given I'm Japanese-American, I went the full-Japanese route, and got what I assume is the queer ending. It's kind of funny, given I frequently use the cultural differences between Japanese and US culture as evidence that gender roles are artificial. That said, I thought the way this point was presented wasn't very clear. I wonder if there was a more direct way to bring it up, e.g. by exposing the stat in the background, or perhaps use some sort of up or down (or left or right) arrow animation to indicate what sway each choice had. That way, the feedback would be more immediate to the player, and might help them realize the muddy nature of their choices.

Again, I probably wasn't the best player to go through and attempt to analyze what appears to be a complex topic I have no depth of knowledge in. Still, I did like the diverse representation added in at the end. The art and illustrations are all fantastic, too: a shame the music couldn't make it in.

Blockage by Dis0rder 2022-04-18T00:08:36Z

Will write up a full review soon, but here’s our let’s play of your game! https://youtu.be/7bpS9mbzmSM?t=5264

Blockage by Dis0rder 2022-04-20T02:36:38Z

Alright, the full review.

Obviously, I love the graphics and the music of the game. The presentation is absolutely stellar, and the part that stands out the most. I think the general narrative was a nice setup as well. The confusion and unnerving dialogue helps add to the bizarre nature to the game. I genuinely liked how most things weren't really explained, with one exception (more on that later.) It added to the mystery.

As for the gameplay...it felt...minimal? I don't know if the intent was to create a more narrative or aesthetic game, but the low stakes in the gameplay felt off-place. Based on the gameplay, I expected either a more exploration game, where either there are a lot of strange landmarks, and/or cinematics/narrative play between checkpoints. I sort of came back disappointed when both were, while good, a bit short and left me wanting for more.

I also didn't figure out that I could fire with the space bar when obtaining the power-up. It would have been nice if a short tutorial was provided for that.

In summary, I could easily see this game displayed in the museum, and I'd love to see more of these kind of wacky experiments. I would have liked the gameplay to either have higher stakes/higher action, or really lean in the exploratory nature by creating wackier and stranger landmarks to see, and maybe perhaps some strange cinematics to further confuse the player.

The March to heaven by damakuno 2022-04-18T00:00:26Z

I'll write up a more full review soon, but for the time being, here's my Let's Play of it! https://youtu.be/7bpS9mbzmSM?t=358

The March to heaven by damakuno 2022-04-20T01:56:05Z

Alright, the full review.

One of the bigger problems I see in visual-novel-y type games that covers these resource management of keeping a single person alive is the inherent stress level of dealing with limitations. In that sense, I was pleasantly surprised at the relatively few numbers and ease in getting what I assume is the intended ending. I think this was a good choice: the general cutesy aesthetic implies that while a heavy topic is being covered, it didn't want the player to come away feeling down. It's quite a difficult balance to pull off, and I think it's done pretty well here.

Other compliments that comes to mind is the UI. While I think some of the graphics could have been more clearer, the general layout was easy to read, and friendly for experimentation. I didn't really have trouble figuring where my character's stats were, and was able to make informed decisions. I think the only thing that wasn't really well translated was the passing of time, and more importantly when the day ended. This last part, of course, is important for me because it's when I had to pay my bills.

If I had to be critical about one thing, it's that I didn't like how verbose the ending was. I confess I lean towards more abstract and observational stuff, so a lot of explaining "the moral of the story" came across to me as rather preachy and unnecessary in my opinion. Perhaps adding an epilogue for our character was an intentional choice, but for this player, it didn't feel like it added anything to the story: the journey the sister goes through is enough to infer what happens to our character. ETA: now that I re-watch my stream, I think the other part this ending dialogue stood out like a sore thumb is the fact that most of the game's text is driven via spoken dialog. Having a narrator suddenly talk about "and here's the moral of the story" feels like quite a change in narrative style, and, well, I don't like it.

Well, that's enough rambling for now. This was a surprisingly heartwarming experience, a nice warm light to a dark time we live in. Thanks for submitting it to our stream!

Choboro by DaivyIsHere 2022-04-18T00:13:55Z

Will write up a full review soon, but here’s our let’s play of your game! https://youtu.be/7bpS9mbzmSM?t=6764

Choboro by DaivyIsHere 2022-04-20T03:53:27Z

Alright, the full review.

Soooo...I really like seeing people create experiments. This game, of course, adds an interesting twist to the ye olde pinball genre: adding a ball one can slingshot. Given pinball is originally designed with significant limitations over the control of the ball, adding this extra control could significantly add or break the game. Aaand, well, I'm in the break-camp, but perhaps for reasons you might not expect.

First, I found it difficult to pay attention to sling-shotting and flicking the flippers. Both take quite a significant amount of attention for me, so I couldn't really juggle the two in a cohesive way. Second, in the brief reprieve I'm able to focus on the slingshot mechanic, I find that it breaks the game in a significant way. Points are much easier to gain when aiming is made trivial with the mouse. On the other hand, since the flippers always move at a set velocity, it was difficult for me to control the balls, which ironically made the game more fun.

Taken this together, it makes sense why Boro was added to keep the challenge of the game. And to be fair, juggling two pinballs is certainly more frantic and fun than managing just one! But based on above observation, I can't help but feel the difficult-to-predict nature of Boro is added as a cudgel to reduce the players autonomy, and that sort of makes it less fun for me.

Other observations:

- I actually like the whole mechanic of the flippers slowly moving apart from each other, and would like to see more experimentation on that front. As of right now, I though it was really bizarre that the slopes leading to the flippers aren't, well, slopes leading to the flippers. Instead, they're right now floors that both Chobo and Boro can just lie around, and it's not fun dealing with them when they're stuck in that state. I feel like a lot of pinballs do a good job of keeping the ball moving at a manageable rate, so it might have been a good idea to also lean into that part that works. - I *do* like the colored pins, which really helps justify the slingshot mechanic. - I don't like the slow-downs that occur when Chobo and Boro are close to each other. It's something that I don't have control over, and hurts the pace of the experience. I would have liked it if there was a limited resource I can use to trigger the slowdown myself, since the feature is actually useful for slingshot purposes. - I felt there was a visual discrepency between the flippers and the collision box. It, along with constant flipper flick velocity, made it difficult for me to learn and control the balls trajectory.

I think that's about it.

Virtomae - Virtual Pet Buddy - Pet Anything by lletzgogames 2022-04-18T00:03:19Z

Will write up a full review soon, but here's our let's play of your game! https://youtu.be/7bpS9mbzmSM?t=2504

Meta Jammer by pschichtel 2025-10-16T07:36:29Z

While I confess I couldn't really rate the rest of the categories that highly, I really *love* this take on the theme. I couldn't stream much more of the web-app, but I definitely will be playing around with this more and see how it differs from the usual Ludum Dare game list scrolling, and get back to you on my thoughts. I do really appreciate this different take on Ludum Dare game listing, and hopefully we can see this built-up more so future jammers can explore in the same way as well.

Unwordy by Omiya Games 2025-10-07T23:02:29Z

@notexplosive I've faced the same problem before. I dunno why it happens. Maybe the CDN link I'm using to verify whether the word is in the dictionary sometimes goes offline? Or maybe it doesn't like the traffic.

It's something I should look into. This was a tough project to work on.

Unwordy by Omiya Games 2025-10-12T04:03:47Z

@daniel123 Oh, a 100% agreed. I just ran out of time.

Unwordy by Omiya Games 2025-10-16T20:32:39Z

@zidan-banan: > why only three letters?

Partly because it's a callback to old arcades that would only accept three letters. Mostly because I didn't have the time to add in a bad-words-censoring filter, so limiting the number of letters one could enter was an easy way to cull most of them.

Unwordy by Omiya Games 2025-10-22T21:32:11Z

@benskca I checked the words you've entered and it seems to work fine for me. Not sure what's going on. Screenshot 2025-10-22 142826.png

I am aware that restarting the game the second time often leads to errors and timeouts. I'm not entirely sure why. My first assumption would be the dictionary API I'm using isn't available, and if I were to improve on the game, that I should really look into an offline dictionary, instead. Alas, I didn't have the time to do that for this entry.

Unwordy by Omiya Games 2025-10-23T19:20:56Z

> Not sure if debugging to find the cause would be better than switching to an offline dictionary in the future. > @abcdef65g

Hard agree on this. I'm using a dinky server where I'm not even sure it supports Python, so getting an offline dictionary hosted and ready was starting to look daunting during the game jam. If I ever get around to it, I would like to switch to a Python server and switch to using ODict or a similar library to handle the problem.

Cursed Museum Collection by Frederika 2025-10-19T07:21:27Z

I guess I'm perpetually doomed to get a B- on my grade of artifact studies. Curse you, insomnia.

On a serious note, I liked the hand-drawn artworks that really sets the mood of these seemingly random collection of items. Having them all cursed when interacting with them even slightly was a fun way to add branching paths. I also like the writing behind the history for each item as well. It certainly implies a larger world is out there beyond the intractable items...even if the source of said world-building is a little sketchy.

I was a little disappointed the game was a bit short. There didn't appear to be a way to "solve" the curse, or mix-and-match them, so I was slightly sad about that. I also felt the teddy bear curse was rather abrupt as well. Other curses had a build up or an elaborate pay-off to what is happening to the player character; but the teddy bear only expresses there disappointment. It would have been nice to see, say, the weight on the player's chest getting heavier and heavier as time passes...or something graphic like that.

Anyway, the writing and artworks were definitely the strong points of the game. I think with a little more time, e.g. audio, more dialog, maybe even a few more mix-and-match dialog branches, would improve the game quite drastically.

The Grand Aquarium by binroot 2025-10-22T22:10:08Z

This was an interesting experiment at collecting and maintaining growing fishes in a limited tank size. The fail state being the fish growing too large for a tank did help with the risk-reward elements of the game. I did figure out how to play the game pretty quickly as well: I felt informed enough to make careful decisions on whether to expand the tank, risk adding more fish to a tank, etc.

I think a factor I found annoying was the camera animations. For example, if I catch a fish, I have to wait for a short bit before I'm forced to add it to a specific tank. This action blocks me from, say, catching more fish or selling them. Also pausing for each fish to grow did grate on me as well, for the same reason that it blocks me from doing anything else. If the waiting time on these elements were reduced or even eliminated, I think the experience would have been better for me.

It was also strange that I had to widen the game window to see the entire fishing grid. By default, only a small sliver is shown on the screen, which makes the fishing minigame sort of longer waiting game than I think was intended. I also found dragging a fish-tank to sell at the center of the screen to be rather unintuitive. Maybe a button would have helped?

I do think the core gameplay loop is fine; fun, even. The risk of fish out-growing their tank is a good call, in my opinion. While the prices of each fish isn't readily available, I think I found the optimal strategy to be to sell more and larger fishes as much as possible. Having that be the core strategy does add excitement to the game. I think if actions were more streamlined a bit, I would have had more fun with the game. As it is, now, I'm annoyed with the many pauses the game insists on.

Edit: I also ran into a bug where I caught a fish, then the game was unable to place it into a fish tank. This lead to a softlock where I couldn't fish for any new fish.

Fume: The PC Gaming Simulator by alaah 2025-10-12T04:15:17Z

Thanks for submitting your game to our livestream! This was a really clever take on the theme, and I really loved the writing behind it. The game's UI and objectives were mostly intuitive as well.

I did feel like this game wasn't really for my taste. For one, working with non-renewable resource was not exactly my cup of tea, and I felt the game price fluctuations were too random for me. Even if the sales weren't random (which, it appears not to be,) the changes were swingy enough that I felt discouraged to memorize the best timing to grab each game. For my part, I found the swift-crazy-sale mode to be the most entertaining part of the game, given it required me to time my mouse-clicks. Somewhat aside, but I was annoyed that each sales phase ending would kick me out into the game listing page, again: it's a UI change that wasn't directed by my action.

Still, the game does deliver on its humorous presentation, and it did tickle my funny bone.

Fighters Keepers by Kyrio 2025-10-16T20:47:29Z

Oh, snap, I forgot to put a comment down here.

You've got a good laugh out of me during the stream! What a nice callback to Pokemon while trying something new!

I think the graphics in both battle and exploration mode are great, and the music really kicks up the mood. There's a lot of charm in the presentation. I also think most things were pretty self-explanatory, with only a few question marks here and there (will go over them, soon.)

Personally, I though the description of the game kind of gave away the surprise factor for some of the items one could acquire. Furthermore, while I'm aware this measure was necessary for obtaining house as an item, I did think the need to tap a button to open a door was somewhat unintuitive. In particular, the prompt to open said door is all the way at the corner of the screen: it would have been nice if the button prompt was placed nearer to the object that would be acquired, so an association would be made to the player.

I'm also aware the raider descriptions weren't something that was able to be implemented in time. I would have loved to see a more polished game with in-game hints to give that information. On the other hand, the two hazelnuts and each boss being two-hit wonders does make the battle system really easy to win all four.

I was also a bit surprised by the fact that unused items in the previous battle stays with you. I think logistically, it makes sense to do that; but it also means one would be less prepared for the next boss battle. If I was informed of this earlier, I think I would have been a bit less frustrated with it. Although, to be fair, it's an easy problem for the player to work around.

You obviously have a very talented team! It sounds like the game had great ambitions, but was cut short by time. Hopefully the next jam will go more smoothly.

Crumbs by leparlon 2025-10-12T04:54:02Z

...I hate you.

But seriously, great take on the theme. I did like how this game really delivers in the outrageously counter-intuitive ways websites attempts to collect your browser's cookies.

I mentioned it on the stream that while I did find the game fun, the pop-ups escalates much faster than I would have liked. It would have been nice if the ramp-up time for the absurd amount of of pop-ups was stretched just a bit longer to help the player notice some subtle changes, like the color swapping between the accept and reject buttons. I also only barely noticed the cookie animation in the background, which while nice, did mean I couldn't pay attention to how much time I had to respond to each pop-up prompts. It would have been nice if the button themselves indicated their lifetime.

Still, I did like the frantic nature of the game, as well as how it tricks the player in nasty ways. Great job!

Curio by anothersomething 2025-10-22T23:12:25Z

I really like the pixel art and music in the game. I also like the idea behind each item having a backstory, and how that needs to be taken into account when slotting said items to the cabinet.

Personally, though, I found the text display slow, and really, really long. While I found the wide variety of personalities interesting, given how much they spoke, I started getting tired of their speech patterns very quickly. I especially found the widower's purple prose and fisherman's weird beliefs grating. It would have been nice to see these backstories summarized a bit further, even if it sacrifices the shopkeeper's personality (which I'd argue the priest conversation does a good job of enlightening, anyways.)

I appreciate that the game provides a last-minute "slot your items here, now!" screen. It would have been nice if in said screen, hovering over each cabinet slot still gave the description of the item to be placed. I somehow managed to get the right answers the second time playing, so the slot descriptions were sufficient enough. I did kind of wish I could have skipped the dialogs faster, so I could get to the cabinet slotting part sooner.

Big Fish by Cyberdream 2025-10-23T01:01:55Z

This is quite a gorgeous game that does a really good job of simulating an arcade game. The sound effects and music all adds to the mood to the game that makes one feel like they're really there.

Unfortunately, just like an arcade game, it's also rather unfair. Despite how I've timed my space bar presses, I've been unable to collect any items that appears within the first two rows:

Screenshot 2025-10-22 175101.png

The fact that the fishing pole doesn't stay still, as if it has no drag or friction, adds some frustration. I often felt like I was fighting the game, than blaming my lack of skills, when trying to catch anything.

With a more refined controls, I think I would have liked the game more. The presentation in particular really sells the arcade experience. But I often ended up more frustrated to continue.

SheepSeek by Elmos Minion 2025-10-12T06:10:00Z

Thanks for submitting your game to our stream!

I personally found the grappling hook and movement mechanic more engaging than the shooting mechanic. Because of that, I ended up being more interested in exploring the stages more than engaging with the enemies. I wonder if there's a need to drastically change the game's design so that it only focuses on traversal, where one needs to collect X number of sheeps before completing the level; or to focus on the combat, and the grappling hook only works for combat purposes.

I do think the lack of auditory and visual feedback on hitting the enemies makes it less satisfying to shoot at them. Futhermore, since the sheeps fire so slowly, I felt the combat was somewhat more difficult than was intended. I personally liked that I had to move around and collect more sheeps, and thought it quite enhanced the combat moments where I felt vulnerable and needed to strafe around a bit. That said, knowing most levels didn't require me to engage with the enemies, I wasn't incentivized to explore the combat strategies any further.

This is a game with great potential: the mechanics individually are quite compelling. In its current implementation, as well as its current *combination*, I do think more time and polish could have helped.

Acorny Business by Theo Ratkin 2025-10-22T23:37:07Z

It was nice playing this annoying-and-drunk-woodpecker simulator. I felt each of those acorny honks pass through my very soul.

In all seriousness, I probably had more fun with this game than I should have, fighting the *Flappy Bird* controls. I think most commenters have already addressed the difficulties with controls, so I'll try to summarize: I personally found it highly sensitive, and would have liked it if the woodpecker stayed level (rather than fall,) and a different set of controls allow one to change elevation.

Though, I think a huge part of the reason why I felt like I was fighting the controls had to do with the fact that each acorns are really small, as are the tree branches to land on. Since it was really hard to land onto a tree branch, it was hard to collect acorns; and since the branches would get in the way when rotating the camera to collect acorns, it further worsens the collecting experience. An alternative way of improving the game could be to make the acorns a **LOT** larger, and simply allowing the woodpecker to collect them by colliding into them. This would streamline the collection-process, and solve both the controls and, to a lesser extent, the camera issue.

The game was basic and simple, but in a way, that added to the charm of the game. I just liked how minimal the game was, as it really helped the chill mood it evoked. Nice job.

Fartnite by osh.studio 2025-10-19T06:55:00Z

Well, your game description said it all: it was quite rage-inducing.

OK, that's not fair at all. As seen in our stream, I did slowly get better at the game, and I did eventually figure out how to use the level's shape to my advantage. And it's a really simple and easy game to understand, too: I did think most of my mistakes were mine, and mine alone. The graphics were stylized at just the right amount, and sound was...uh, satisfactory, to say the least. Solid presentation, all-around.

It would have been nice to have more than one level -- and in particular, tutorial levels -- to slowly escalate the experience to the player so they can practice and understand the physics in the game. This would make it easier for players to experiment with each character. I'm aware the larger level has a sort of mini-tutorial on practicing jumping, and I did think this was mostly fine: but it would have been nice to have more space to practice the curves, as I think I ended up understanding that the least.

Still, I did appreciate the simplicity of the game, and how in combination with the curvy level design, it can snowball into more complex maneuvers. I simply wasn't the kind of person too interested in mastering the game's controls, but I can definitely see someone getting into it.

Slay 'n' Squeeze by Senso 2025-10-16T07:26:02Z

Sorry for the late comment. Had a busy schedule this week.

So I played this game for far too long on-stream. As far as idle-games go, this was very solid! It was definitely fun trying to find the best synergistic combination to farm the slimes and their goo to build a more absurd skill tree.

Presentation is fantastic as well, but I do think some things can be toned down a bit. For one, it was easy to get a lot of overlapping sound effects and screenshakes. It would have been nice to see those timed-out a bit (e.g. after playing the first slime-get sound, have a brief gap where no other slime-get sound effects can be played; queue a max of X sound effects between gaps) so it wouldn't disorient the player.

Aside from these nitpicks, I don't really have too much complaints. Sure, the startup could be a bit faster, but once the game gets going, it does get going. It would be nice if the context wasn't about farming seemingly innocent slimes, but other than that guilt-trip, it's hard to deny I had a good time.

LOSS by anima_animus049 2025-10-22T23:55:58Z

I wish I could read the dialogs in the game. The graphics looked nice, and at least world navigation seemed simple enough (granted, standard RPG Maker stuff.) It was a bit confusing as to why character sprites in the overworld kept changing, or the fact that the party member portrait has an old burly man in it. I....probably am missing a lot of context.

Please don't touch my collection by zidan-banan 2025-10-12T04:00:44Z

Thanks for entering your game on our live stream! Some thoughts:

I had some fun with this! The presentation is great, and the interface is simple enough to understand. I like how the game takes advantage of the point-and-click adventure format to let the player experiment and slowly find clues bread-crumbing to the final solution.

I also like the physicality of each bottle opener. Having them fall off the shelf was a clever way to indicate when each bottle opener's "in-game purpose" was completed, and no longer needed by the player.

For criticisms, I *did* find some of the clues obtuse. The puzzles were fine, in my opinion: they were as simple as clicking bottle openers in the right order. But how the clues to indicate which bottle opener to tap first was a little harder to discern. Furthermore, I ended up having some clues come in out-of-order, making the puzzle harder to solve.

As a puzzle game designer, myself, I understand how difficult it is to balance player experimentation with nudging the player to the right direction. Personally, I think I would have approached the problem by streamlining what clues/tools were provide. The less clues the player has to work with at any one time on screen, the easier it will be to nudge the player in the right direction.

On the other hand, there is a charm to players just doing whatever and being entertained with random noises each bottle opener makes. So I'm not sure where I'd draw the line on balancing that. Certainly something worth play-testing.

Also, nitpick, but don't forget to randomize the sound effects -- or at least its pitch -- each time they're played. It can get pretty repetitive to listen to the click noise.

Edit: forgot to mention the game reminds me a lot of Vectorpark's games. And I mean that as a compliment!

Restructive by aeveis 2018-05-10T00:23:59Z

Hehe, I actually really love the inversion of player expectation there; the sudden realization that one needs to fix what they've broken is both shocking and comical. To bad there wasn't an ending implemented, but even as a short experience, the surprise was more than worth it. Would like to see more stuff building on this idea!

Billard Dungeon by DoctorAlpaca 2018-05-10T01:43:02Z

Yikes, the later levels were really hard, but how could I not save the adorable billiard balls? I appreciate that one can control the player billiard at any time, but it was difficult to deal with the more complicated elements with the swordsball and wizardball. I do think the health bar is a bit short, making the game more difficult. It would have been nice to have temporary invincibility after a hit. Also, it was difficult to read when I got hit as well.

Think Before Escape by acoto87 2018-04-28T02:42:00Z

I highly appreciate the tight controls and the reasonable platform difficulty to find this game enjoyable. To be honest, though, I thought the turn-based aspect did not add to the game in any way. On the contrary, waiting for the next move was a test of patience to me. While it's compelling to go through the suspense of, "was this the right move" after your turn ends, once it becomes a predictable pattern, it turns into a chore.

Karaoke Ninja by GastricSparrow 2018-05-10T00:50:57Z

Loved how the other players could easily troll the player when using a microphone. Unfortunately, it was often difficult to control the actual pitch to make a specific platform appear, but still, it was in good silly fun. Perfect for streams!

Rockin' Horse by niterich 2018-05-10T01:01:07Z

The controls weren't very explained in my opinion: I confusingly tapped 1, 2, 3, and 4 button before figuring out I was supposed to enter, and the numbers were about the beats. Grasping the beats took a while, but once it's there, I find the experience enjoyable. I would recommend providing some visuals to make it clear how the beats are supposed to be interpreted, because I did have a lot of moments in the game where I was confused as to why me hitting enter didn't do anything. It would have been nice to see visually how I missed the beat. Also, the slopes were a bit too steep without the boosters, and I debate whether that's a good thing for players unable to grasp the beat.

Fellow Campers by alignright 2018-04-28T03:01:26Z

Hi, we attempted to stream the game with the screen resolution of 1280x720 on Google Chrome, but the website kept freezing :frowning:

Need for Coin: Island Hoppers by saoi-games 2018-04-28T00:26:49Z

Heyo. Played this during the stream. I thought the concept was interesting, but given the fast-paced nature of the game, the controls felt woefully loose. For example, the handling (turning) is too slow to deal with the 90-degree turns. Similarly, due to presumably some bumps in the road, my car would hop uncontrollably. I would have appreciated tighter controls to make the integration of racing with platforming (the latter which requires tight controls form the first place) more pleasant.

Spike-Stricken Love by bigda 2018-05-10T01:11:10Z

The dialog is pretty funny, but I did find the hit-boxes on the spikes were rather unforgiving. It would have been nice to have a jumping ability to escape from the bad spikes. I think the feedback to the player letting them know they're losing health would have helped as well. A lot of the game felt like positioning oneself to the proper location, which given how difficult it is to predict where the colored spikes would appear (they appear at the same time as the other spikes), it would have been nice to see those choreographed earlier and with a longer duration.