oolimry

MAGIC-281: Intro to Alchemy by ninjacreeper47 2022-10-12T13:29:45Z

I don't even know what to say, this is probably the most innovative game I've seen and it's honestly such an interesting concept! I liked the amount of detail put into the subject and it's surprisingly consistent, of course I didn't understand most stuff and still have alot of questions but I mean that's what you get from a crash course right? I think it would be even more magical with voice acting. I'm looking forward to lecture part 2 :D (edit: also I'd like to know the answer to the bonus problem)

I got 13/18 btw no cheating

Bunny is going places by kuro 2022-10-05T06:59:14Z

I kind of have quite complicated feelings about this game.

This game is really really well polished! The art is so pretty and the music layers so well. It's so nice that The story is so absurd and meta it's really funny, I had a good laugh. I really loved the overall vibe of the game, chill and funky and just overall really pleasant!

But the gameplay kind of felt abit frustrating to me. I won't say it's a problem of the game, but rather it missing the mark for me. I think the concept of coordinating the two actions is interesting, but sometimes it felt like I failed not because I was confused but the game just didn't give me enough time. Starting the hot bunny section it just felt too fast for me, until I realised I could actually move the mouse to select the vegetable after I press the right WASD button, which at that point I felt kind of cheated and resorted to spam tapping the correct directional button and then moving my mouse after that. I won't say the gameplay is bad or poorly designed. Others have had fun with it and I can see why, but for me the frustrating parts of the game just felt too much for me.

Anyways, still a nicely made game :)

An Average Day At The Cat Cafe by alexrose 2022-10-08T06:51:35Z

This is absolutely lovely! This game is the most gorgeous I've seen so far. The whole atmosphere is so cute, chill and pleasant! This is totally a cafe I would want to hang out in! There were really funny moments too where I was both so confused and laughing so badly, like how I stole money from the employee only room and dumped it down the sink, or when random ghosts came to stayover at night! There were many details I loved too, like cat in the corner, how your character's facial expression changes when you make bad drinks.

The gameplay is really solid too! It's not particularly complex, but at least it's simple yet enough to keep me engaged keeping up with the orders. The drinks do take some trial and error to learn, but thankfully there's no pressure and the game's mood encourages you to keep trying and learn to remember the recipes and get faster at making them. I liked that it really just let me on my own, and let me explore and a pleasant enviroment, instead of doing some hand-holding. Small complaint is that the frothing symbol isn't that clear it looked like another milk jar to me. Also the game doesn't really allow changing the order of steps for some things, I mean I've never worked at a coffee/bubble tea shop before but I think I can add boba then ice instead of the other way round and it should be fine(? right(??) or unless I'm like alex and also don't know how to make boba). But yea I'm picking small issues in otherwise really well designed game mechanics.

This is great! Thanks for the game :)

Also @alexrosegames gws!

Gem Collector by nervous-composers 2022-10-06T12:54:32Z

At first I was wondering what this game even is, but over time it's addictive nature really revealed itself. It's an idle game, but you're on a timer of 10 seconds!

Getting upgrades really force me to see each level in a different perspective and the possibilities I have, and it's a genius way to reuse levels.

It's one of the most innovative ideas I've seen and has I feel great great potential. But I still think gameplay wise it still has some room for refinement, I feel like losing all progress after 10 seconds feels too punishing and really makes me risk adverse, and encourages slow and patient kind of playing. Also the dying while upgrading feels kind of bad even though I think it's fair.

Exorcist Patrol by PeachTreeOath 2022-10-06T04:48:20Z

Awesome concept and really well executed! The game is just so chaotic and yet so strategic at the same time. I had to plan which spells go well together and was it was really funny when a spell accidentally hit the ghost a little too hard and I need to go back and adjust the timing. Even with letting you choose a spell after each level, the game is surprisingly well balanced, great job on that!

The art is so cute and the music really complements the spooky yet funny and chaotic vibe so well! The game is really cohesive and well polished :)

Blind Jump by TsFreddie 2022-10-05T13:02:11Z

It's a really interesting idea and very well polished! I can't really think of anything weak about the game, other than the not very clear tutorial about being able to edit the sequence halfway

I must say the level design is really good! The spikes that appear after stepping on them are probably my favorite mechanic, as both a trap and an indicator for my position. You all nailed the balance between giving too much information and too little information during the blind phase, and it made it really fun! The sound effects were super helpful for figuring out what's happening, and encouraged me to play by feel more (instead of continuously pausing the game which could be really tedious)

Overall a really solid game!

Smack Demon by Firebelley 2022-10-07T13:26:26Z

Well polished game! The sound effects and music are great, I wished there was an audio category here. I also really liked the visual effects like the how the player moves and the attack animation, it really brings life to the game!

The gameplay is well designed too, giving the ability to skip, leap and block, and really adds much depth to the gameplay, while the cooldowns for leap and block felt fair and balances the abilities well. I like how chaotic it is when there's more than one enemy on the grid and I had to try and find the best route to attack the enemy (which is also partly why I didn't like the levels with separated islands, since they felt like separated levels and are cleared independently).

Space Hourglass by PatteDeCanaard 2022-10-07T01:03:49Z

This is great! The core mechanic is really really interesting and deep once I got the hang of it, and prompted me to start experimenting with many different strategies to see what works the best. It took me a while to fully understand what was going on with the people and the hourglass, but once I understood it really hit me like magic!

It's also really really well polished, gameplay is smooth and I didn't find anything particularly annoying. I love the art style and look of the game, and the music is great too!

Amazing game :)

What's the rules? by Pusheeneiro 2022-10-06T10:33:12Z

I think it could definitely be a fun game, the concept is interesting and the minimalist art style is really nice! It's just that the game really isn't for me.

My main problem with it was that you'd had to restart from the very beginning through all the mini games that you already know the solution to just to get to a stage where you had to do some trial and error before figuring out what you needed to do. Definitely adds to the frustration and got me to stop at the vegetables level. But maybe that's the intended experience I guess, kind of like the impossible quiz.

Holospecter by theStoff 2022-10-06T06:07:01Z

Definitely the most polished and well developed game I've seen so far! The graphics are amazing, the high-res art is beautiful and the pixel-art levels are super crisp and communicates the details about the gameplay really clearly! The music was exciting and there's even voice acting! Gameplay too was well polished, controls were responsive and forgiving and dashing felt natural (although not being to dash without holding left or right felt abit off to me, died to that a few times, but is a minor thing). The whole mood is really cohesive and it's great :)

My minor gripe with the game is there's a lot of waiting, be it waiting for the 10 seconds to replenish for invincibility or for drones to go out of the way. The flow of the game often became like clear one area with invincibility -> find safe space and turn off invincibility and wait -> continue on (and similar with drones too when I don't have invincibility). I'm sure for speedrunning it's interesting since I would have to consider when and how to conserve my invincibility, but playing casually it disrupted the flow of platforming when I had to wait for invincibility to recharge.

But yea anyways I'm over explaining an issue that's not that serious and the solidness of everything else makes up for it!

A Forgotten Pulse by Retrisma 2022-10-05T04:52:19Z

First off I really like the art of the game, the flash of red and the infestation spreading every 10 seconds gave me a sense of dread, and the music and art look really bleak. It was a nice part

Gameplay wise, I felt the movement was abit clunky. The slow pace exploration does fit the melancholy theme but I feel some sections could be more lenient (and also you would clip through platforms sometimes for some reason). Because of that I kind of quit early cause some parts were too precise for me.

Other than that I can't really comment much more since I couldn't finish it or find out where that 10s pulse is coming from. Still, I liked the overall mood of it, thanks for the game!

Every 10 seconds color will be changed by IzhVaryag 2022-10-06T12:31:03Z

It's cute :) The piano sounds are really satisfying and rhythmic. But I felt the gameplay was kind of repetitive since it consisted of jumping between two columns (which is easy) and jumping within the same column (which is kind of annoying at times), and occasionally reacting to the colour changes.

Swapwood Quest R by Saturnyoshi 2022-10-06T07:27:52Z

For such a simple concept and theme, it's incredibly deep, strategic and fun! I liked how each enemy has a different pattern to figure out and there's a lot to think about while many things to balance like the 10s timer and the rising blocks.

It's also really really well polished! The art, music, gameplay, and overall feel of the game all are great and complement each other really well.

I don't have much else to say other than it's a great game :)

Bearly Fishing by SakuH 2022-10-04T13:32:09Z

Gnarly! Radical!

What a well polished game! The gameplay is really chaotic but bouncy and fast-paced, and the artsyle and music and sounds really complement that feeling well. T

I'll be honest I didn't beat it got a little too tough somewhere in (I have no idea how far in), the physics of this game is kind of wonky (which is a good thing! it's chaotic!) and I don't feel I have enough of a grasp of it to continue. That

Also the title is brilliant :)

J-Menuing by nyxkn 2022-10-06T12:02:54Z

It's such an interesting idea! Nice take on the JRPG genre with a really strange and wonky twist to it that makes the gameplay so completely different. It gets abit confusing at first but thankfully the prompts explain enough of the mechanics that I can understand how the game works, and it becomes a "don't get confused and think fast" kind of gam, which is honestly pretty fun albeit repetitive.

Also the music is amazing!

Amnesia Wizard by Maxthedoom 2022-10-04T12:37:39Z

It's a cool idea and concept, and was fun learning how the different abilities work. But after learning all the abilities, it became like every 10 seconds I was playing a slightly different game that wasn't particularly interesting after

second interval by ty_ 2022-10-04T12:17:14Z

The game is so pretty! It felt really pleasant to play, thanks to the gorgeous art, polished design and the exceptional sound design. The music and instruments playing with the background really add to the wonderful, musically feel to the game.

Modern Post by Holy_Doggo01 2022-10-05T01:02:18Z

A fun and addictive with a simple concept! I liked the simplicity since it's so easy to get started and play it, and addictive to drag and drop crates to match the grid But I also didn't really like the simplicity after a while since the game didn't have much depth to it and was mainly dragging things fast (which is fine, not every game needs or intends to be mechanically deep)

Still, the game is very well executed and polished! I liked how most of the puzzles are well generated, they took almost 10 seconds to complete, none of them felt they needed too few or too many steps.

Clockmachine Chaos by SirMilkman 2022-10-05T09:15:25Z

It's a nice take on the theme! I think the gameplay is fun trying not to hop too early or too late, and planning the route is itself a fun puzzle. The minimalist art really goes well with the theme too

I did feel that some levels are very precise (i.e. you need very good movement if not you'll die to a time barrier), and sometimes I couldn't understand the timings of some blocks (maybe I didn't understand what the label meant?). But these are minor and weren't particularly frustrating

Speed Dating for Misfits by itsBoats 2022-10-12T10:16:30Z

I didn't really get the gist of the game at first but it turned out to be really fun! I regretted not paying enough attention to the first round and learning about each of the characters. The characters are really cute and wonky and funny, I like that every character is so unique and blows my expectations.

Lighthouse by rickylee 2022-10-08T02:14:16Z

As many said, the atmosphere of this game is incredible! The lighthouse spinning, the thunder and rain sounds, the crashing noises, makes me feel really fearful about what's to come, as if my life was on the line. Gameplay wise, there's actually no reason to paddle when the lighthouse is pointing away from me, but the atmosphere was enough to push me to daredevil forwards in the dark, because I wanted to rush towards safety. When I saw I was close, I was spamming the up button so hard!

Life Passes You By by Cosmonautical 2022-10-04T05:25:26Z

This is not just a game, but a great experience. It's short, so short it captures the essence of juggling so many things in such a short period. Lovely and touching game that nailed it's aesthetic and theme with the bittersweet music and gameplay that overwhelms me just like many things in life.

I didn't just enjoy it, but I was moved by it. I loved this experience

Birdwatching by Iguanana 2022-10-08T02:04:32Z

I'll be honest I didn't enjoy it. I felt the gameplay and the theme just didn't fit with each other. The typing is quite punishing since it deletes all your characters for a single wrong one and you lose immediately for one missed bird. That is fine, but it makes me hyperfocus on the bird's name instead of the facts that were around it. Also the name is shown twice, one above the bird and one at the bottom, but the one above the bird is moving and harder to read, so I mostly focused on the bottom one. I only had the time to glance at the bird for a little bit and read the facts if I managed to type out the text fast enough without mistakes, else I'd be scrambling to type things out instead.

It's kind of a shame since the bird drawings are great and the facts about the birds were really interesting, but the gameplay discouraged me from appreciating them.

Between Hell&Heaven by Dfyzet 2022-10-04T12:55:41Z

Fun game with an interesting and fitting concept! I love how chaotic and panicky it gets over time, with the relieving period of heaving in between. The music changes adds to the switching between the panic mode and the relief mode too

At first I thought the game was going to just be pretty simple, but I was quite surprised at the amount of the detail, like how you could accidentally shoot the healing orbs. At first I was abit upset when I saw 8 enemies surrounding and spawncamping me when it became back to hell mode, but later I realized actually the positions of the enemies are kind of the same, and heaven was not just a time to scavenge for power ups but also to position myself at a safe place. The gameplay is surprisingly deep!

I liked the game :)

Flicker by oolimry 2022-10-07T14:01:51Z

@kizilejderha @peachtreeoath thanks for the detailed feedback and nice comments!

@kizilejderha It's good to know that the visual indicators like the enemy glow served it's purpose well, tbh it was quite a last minute addition after finding myself just randomly dashing most of the time. I think some music or at least some ambience would definitely have helped with the mood. And yea probably resetting lives would've been good, I don't really have a good reason for not adding it (it's like 2 lines of code), other than I completely didn't think of that idea.

@peachtreeoath Attacking enemies in the dark is also one of my favorite parts of the game, I tried to design the levels around that, and it's nice to know that you enjoyed it too :) About keeping attack direction against the walls, I think it's cause the player is a circle and if you move into the wall the player "rolls" against the wall, some engine things which I couldn't (or rather didn't have enough time oops) to figure out.

Thanks to everyone else too for the feedback, comments, and complements!

Termination Imminent by Kizilejderha 2022-10-05T06:30:53Z

What a banger! This game nailed both the mood and the gameplay, and they complement each other well!

The gameplay is one of the most interesting games I've seen in the jam. It takes a simple concept and adds many layers of complexity and depth to it. Additionally, each level feels different and gives a different kind of vibe, some are stealth challenges while other are brutal all out fights. I really liked the puzzly aspect of the game, and trying out good routes through trial and error (bonus points to instant restarting). One of my gripes is about how precise some parts of the game is (I almost gave up at level 3), like how missing a single shot usually means death. Still, I think the game is fair and can definitely be learned and mastered.

The constant pressure of escaping traps, dropping weapons and escaping sentries keeps me really tense. With the constant beeping music and flashing red borders every 10 seconds, it felt really tense and nerve-wrecking, as if any misstep would cause me to die. A perfect mood for a game about breaking out of a "jail"!

It's an amazing game!

Misplaced Tie by knexator 2023-10-02T02:17:22Z

Cute little game! Reminds me a lot of tower of hanoi, but more interesting with some interesting logical deductions of what can go where