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| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | Parcel Panic | compo | 112 | 3.79 | 3.59 | 3.58 | 4.24 | 4.51 | 3.61 | 2.51 | 3.64 | |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | Fuse Lit! | compo | 70 | 3.92 | 3.89 | 4.10 | 3.91 | 3.69 | 3.56 | 2.70 | 3.57 | |
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | SCANLINE | compo | 16 | 4.16 | 3.96 | 4.02 | 3.92 | 4.03 | 3.92 | 3.29 | 4.14 | |
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Transcendental | compo | 72 | 4.04 | 3.88 | 3.67 | 4.02 | 4.12 | 4.40 | 4.50 |
A clicker with online leaderboards? Basically as addictive as drugs :D Great job – super polished overall, the music really adds to the frantic feeling, and the the idea of going into debt is a really funny and cool take on the theme. Great job!
Controls and gameplay felt super responsive and snappy. Art and sound effects were nice too. The dissonant music was a bit off-putting, and the pickup system needs tweaking - they're not worth the risk right now, imo. But overall, simple but well executed. Great job.
Nice! Presentation is really charming and the gameplay loop is pretty cool. Little quality of life improvements that would improve the playability a lot would be: - Locking additional O2 purchases until you get the flashlight - Having O2 refill much quicker when you're on the surface - Speeding up your ascent somehow. Gets a bit tedious when you're deep down
But I don't expect that kind of stuff from a 48 hour game. Great work!
Ha, can definitely see the Flow inspiration here. Two simple things that would probably improve the play experience would be 1) not making the player hold the up arrow constantly, and 2) zooming out the camera a bit – there were quite a few moments of blind wandering around, hoping I'm not leaving the play area into an empty void. Other than that, a pretty nice and chill experience. Zoned out for a bit longer than expected with it.
Wow, sunk like an hour into this. Great game! Really elegant design. I prefer this to Threes, 2048 and the like.
Really charming! Cool that you didn't just slap on the theme of meditation, but actually focused on the crucial element – breathing.
I was impressed by the length of the level and the quality of the assets and lighting considering the very short timeframe. This would actually be really moody with some ambient sound and echoing footsteps. The fire arrow mechanic could be expanded nicely.
@ariorick that's an excellent idea! Didn't give the audio much thought and didn't even consider stereo effects. Thanks for the feedback!
@steven-c , yeah, you definitely have to be opportunistic with the snowflakes and ignore them a lot of the time. In general, it seems that I've tuned it a bit too difficult, judging from some of the responses I've gotten from friends. Thanks for the feedback!
@tetrapteryx , I'm right there with you. Thanks!
@niterich , yeah, the physics are a bit janky, it turns out. The light touch seemed really intuitive to me and I didn't really think to test any other approach than the slow and methodical one I use (see the gif in the description). Valuable feedback, thanks!
@civmaniac , haha, I like that interpretation – I'll use it the next time someone tells me the game is too hard :D Thank you for the kind words!
@fabula-rasa , wow, I didn't even consider trying that! You're right, it plays pretty nicely. I'll stick to the mouse, though. Thanks for the feedback, and, since I've tuned it so difficult, it's nice to see someone get such a high score!
@lalaki7 , thanks for pointing out your game! It's super interesting seeing all the different meditation games. I feel a sort of solidarity with all the devs who approached the theme in a similar way :)
Ooh, cool to see some Lovecraftian stuff. Pretty cool game. The art and vibe are great, and the possession mechanic is quite satisfying – it feels nice to change characters on the fly.
Really nice gameplay concept, good job! Dragged on a bit too long and the controls made editing the graph a bit slow and tedious, but I definitely think this idea has a lot of potential. It's a cool take on the theme as well, and I liked the Windows 95 interludes :) Very groovy music as well! Honestly, probably one of my favourite games of the jam.
The presentation is really charming – super tasteful pixel art and very pleasant, responsive controls. The monster dentistry theme is really cool too. But I was a bit puzzled by the gameplay side of things, unfortunately. Didn't initially realize that I could swing my pickaxe, and after that it took me a while to understand how to look for damaged teeth. Didn't understand the point of money, though, nor what exactly the icons and numbers in the menu screen mean. I bet this could be really cool with a bit of tutorialization – even adding some info to the game description would help. Feels like there's something cool here that's just a bit too obfuscated.
Ha, the music loop is so groovy. Really pleasant little game. Good visuals and audio effects, nice controls. Just really solid overall. Very nicely done.
Out of all the LD48 I've played so far, this is probably the one I'd most like to see turned into a finished game. The setting and mood are really cool and work wonderfully with the gameplay loop.
Was this inspired by the music video for Radiohead's "Pyramid Song"?
Really great art, music and atmosphere! The music sort of reminded me of Super Metroid and that got me thinking that this could totally be turned into a little metroidvania.
I have to say – THANK YOU for not making us go all the way back to the ship every time we run low on oxygen. A lot of game in this jam have an oxygen mechanic, and your solution is definitely the most palatable.
Great work, I'd like to see this expanded! The strong mood has left me wanting more.
Hey, Unity loading bar stuck at 90% for me. This can happen sometimes. You might have to change something in your build settings, Google around.
The art, sound design (excellent choice of music!) and laid back but still interesting gameplay make for a really engaging, adorable game. Combat and movement felt very good, and I really appreciate that the oxygen system wasn't too punishing. This is definitely one of those LD games I can imagine growing into something bigger and better.
Nice! Killed a few minutes with this. It's already pretty fun, but could be really nice with clearer progression and structure, less visual clutter (really hard to tell what's happening at times) and an autofire option. Good job!
I agree with others that the pace is maybe a bit too slow. Hook speed and fish spawn rates would probably benefit from a boost. Scratchy's stall being combined with the shop panel would make for a nice UI optimization.
But the core loop is really solid! I spent way longer playing this than expected :) The fishpedia is a really good touch to keep the player interested. The art is super charming (some of the fish designs are really funny and cute), and the music changing as you go deeper is a super nice touch. Really, really good overall!
Simple but quite well executed. Presentation was really nice – the visual effects are very pretty and the music fits very well. Click and hold for movement would probably be a lot more satisfying.
Ha, I love the progression from something simple and generic to the strange, unexpected and HUGE in scale. Really fun to zip your golf ball around those massive caverns. Game has a lot of character. Approve of the Blender monkey head. Excellent work.
I like the concept and mood of this very much. The lack of direction and the weird colission issues sort of added to the strangeness of it. Simple visuals and audio get the job done nicely.
@littlegamer , interesting to read your response. It seems to me you have a pretty healthy and objective understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. You should definitely return to this idea once you improve your programming skills – you have a really good intuitive understanding of horror and surrealism.
The level of polish and amount of content here really is impressive. I love your pixel art, and the gameplay felt really chunky and solid. The only thing I'd change is probably tweaking the weapon a bit – it's a bit sluggish and the recoil is absolutely uncontrolable. I end up putting myself in a corner to keep control, which is kind of a degenerate strategy.
Encountered some technical issues – upon dying and restarting, the music disappeared, and there were a couple of times I ended up on the wrong side of a locked door. One of those times I ended up outside a boss room (I cheesed it by shooting the off-screen boss, of course, hah).
The amount and quality of enemy and boss designs, and the level design are really crazy (you've even got hidden shortcuts – how cool is that!). Crazy good work for 48 hours.
Really fun game! Super polished and has a really fresh gameplay concept. Cool rhythm game vibe to it. I'd change the audio mix a bit – I could hear that there were pretty good sound effects, but they were too quiet compared to the music.
This is excellent! Ended up doing a couple of runs, even though I got lucky and won on my first one. The mechanics are intuitive but open up room for interesting strategies, and the look and feel is really polished.
It took me a while to understand what the game wanted me to do. Tried pushing every typical jump button on the keyboard before finally rocket-jumping. It's certainly a cool mechanic – could be a lot of fun with slightly tweaked physics (the character movement is kinda sluggish, whereas the flares are really wild). I think this is pretty good, considering you had other stuff you had to deal with.
I love how unwieldy the controls are and I now want the word "aliven't" to be a thing. Good job.
Really cool take on the theme and nice sense of humour. The mechanics are interesting – I think you've done a pretty good job of gamifying debt management – but the game was way too tough for me to engage with deeply. I realize that making it hectic and difficult was the point, but a smaller maze, slower pace and more readable movement of the investors at intersections would improve my enjoyement greatly. Nonetheless, I gotta applaud the originality on display.
I love the Japanese retro PC aesthetic, as well as the theme, but unfortunately found the game way too difficult. The floaty player controls feel nice, but make it basically impossible to avoid all the fast-moving projectiles. I'd get bombarded with both positive and negative thoughts within the first few seconds of each attempt and then be forced to restart. If you'd tone down the projectile quantity and speed, this could be a lot of fun.
@lalaki7 , I made like 5 attempts and didn't get to grips with the mechanics at all, got slaughtered every time. The thing to keep in mind is that your players aren't gonna be half as good as you are at your game. I made the same mistake with my game – tuning it to where it felt fun for me. The result is players with high scores that I consider absolutely trivial, and a lot of players missing content I made that only triggers when you've reached a certain score.
It's a good idea to tune jam games easier rather than harder, imo, since most players just wanna check it out for 5 minutes and then move on.
It's cool that you're planning on making a post-jam version, though! Eager to check it out.
The theme, visuals and audio of this are really charming, the game put a smile on your face. Gameplay mechanic is pretty cool, I like the different hazards requiring different button presses, and the lullaby healing is an interesting addition. It's a bit too easy, I lost interest at around 2 AM, but otherwise, great work!
It's really interesting to see someone else make a game with such a similar theme and gameplay, haha (I made the game Trancendental, which you reviewed; change the theme and controls a bit and it's basically the same game :D ).
Feels like Sekiro + Hotline Miami, which is a really cool combo. The sword swing is super satisfying. Enemy tells are also pretty good (boss was quite well designed, imo). The slowdown is a cool idea, but felt kinda janky – in particular, the sword swing feels super unresponsive (animation ends quicker than cooldown timer).
If you kept working on this, you could end up with a really exciting, high skill ceiling game.
This is a really, really cool entry. Love the presentation, especially the music! Would like to hear more of your stuff. And the audio and visuals fit together extremely well. As for gameplay, I had trouble understanding the depth/distance of the spikes and the pickups, and there were like 2 or 3 times when my button press didn't register. I also found the controls to be a bit unintuitive – I instinctively wanted to use the left/right keys to rotate my character 90 degrees, rather than hop to a cardinal direction, and I wonder if the way the platforms rotated in sort of primed me to expect that. It may just be a subjective thing, though. But yeah, super vibey and well-packaged overall, excellent work.
Can't say it was super strategic – staying above reputation until 500 pop and just spamming everything afterwards seemed to work nicely for me – but, hey, painting the map is always satisfying. Cool to see a strategy game in LD!
This is crazy good, doesn't feel like a game jam game at all. The puzzle design was really good! Movement is super interesting (inspired by Snakebird?), and you really squeezed everything you could out of the mechanics you have.
Love the music and the art. The gecko character is super cute. Overall, probably the best entry I've played so far.
Love the look and feel of this - satisfying animation goes a long way. 'Try again' screen bugs out and requires a page reload, and I didn't get to the "rival sniper" thing - the game ended after the third level for me. I'd like to see more!
Revisited this since the rival scenes were added. Nice addition! In practice, it wasn't really anything to worry about, but conceptually it's a good way to spice the game up.
Surprisingly fun! Contrary to a lot of people giving feedback, I thought the physics-based block placement was pretty intuitive and fun. Compelling gameplay - I thought I'll just get the one star to see what this game is about, but ended up getting up to the infinite blocks. At that point my miner stopped working though. Pipes were all showing connected, miner was close to the blocks, but just wouldn't mine anymore.
And nice music track too!
Great puzzle game! Amount of levels and exploration of mechanics is really impressive. Great difficulty curve too. Visuals were pretty nice, audio got a bit grating. But great job overall!
Had no idea what was happening for the first 2 fights, but once I wrapped my head around the mechanics, it became really fun. I could definitely see a more polished version of this. Really cool prototype, I'm impressed.
Hey, neat, our games are really similar, haha: black and white, pixel art, grid-based puzzlers.
Really nice puzzle mechanic. My only complaints are that the difficulty ramps way too quickly and the way the floors collapse isn't clearly demonstrated, and that the damaged ground and pit tiles are really visually noisy and difficult to distinguish. And I wish there more levels of course, but under the time contraints it's totally understandable that there aren't. Good job, this idea deserves some fleshing out.
Wow, impressive! Really captured the vibe of the first Zelda game, love the subtle callbacks to that game (like the graveyard, or following a river). The glitch aesthetic was nice, especially when it was utilized to impact gameplay somehow (the mazelike or confusing rooms). I wish there was more of that. Sword collision was a bit finnicky, as others mentioned, but it didn't bother me too much. Wasn't frustrated when I was killed since it's so quick and easy to get back in the action, and you're constantly making progress.
Great job!
Ha, I was scrolling through the list of games, and yours caught my eye because our games have kind of a similar aesthetic.
Really cool mechanic! I encourage you to flesh it out into a larger game. Still, this is surprisingly long and well explored for a compo game. The visuals are really pretty, so it's a shame about no audio to create a really strong atmosphere. Overall, very good work.
Oh man, question #4 got me good. Nice. Cute way to participate in the jam.
Haha, such a fresh take on the theme. Really nice atmosphere and audio, cool vibe. Gameplay is simple, but an engaging enough vehicle for getting you to explore the game world and pay attention to the funny little details. I could totally see this being the conceit for a bigger walking-sim comedy type of game.
Hey, just chiming in to let you know that I'm also getting a virus alert (for both versions). Windows Defender is doing it. Maybe it's useful information for you.
This is such a silly, charming idea. I had a smile on my face as I was playing. This needs sound and a more levels. I want more of this siliness. Great job!
I have to admit this didn't hold my interest through the whole trip and I didn't finish the game, but it's cool. The theme is nice, I like the fact you give players time to learn the layout and the minigames, and every individual mechanic is well-explained and solid. I just think it's a bit too long and repetitive. But it's a cool idea nicely executed (except for the mistake in the flying minigame controls).
Really classic and clean design, nicely done. Takes me back to playing World of Goo :) Very fun.
I did find an exploit where I can snake my way up to a higher platform, build a foundation there, and cut the lines I used to get there, all without entering build mode: ld1.jpg
Also, the physics completely spazzed out when I tried using balloons.
If those two issues were fixed and a replay button was added, I wouldn't guess it was made in only 48 hours. So good job!
Nice, one of the best I've played. Really satisying juggling the different orders and trying to optimize. Nice gamefeel as well - I like the tactile nature of picking up and putting down items and of activating the devices. Really polished and well considered entry, great job! Did give me a bit of a PTSD flashback from when I worked at a cafe, though, haha :D
I looove the look of this, the art is so cute and good-looking. Theme is funny too. The gameplay is simple but surprisingly strategic, I was hooked! Veery RNG-heavy, though. The spacing of the breaks can just doom you sometimes. Got there in the end, though. Fantastic work!
Fresh idea, well executed! Good job. The whole look of the game is super cute - love the penguin's walk cycle, and the snap of the level shifts is satisfying. I didn't fully come to terms with how to do long jumps off of ice, had to skip the second-to-last level (not counting the end screen). Really good call to have a next level key in a jam game!
A very cool idea. I always find games with this kind of detailed/tactile interaction satisfying. There's something very pleasant about getting into a groove and watching the machine move up and down (the satisfying clanking sound helps). It does get a bit dull, maybe some extra things to keep track of or some random events interfering with the engine would help.
Thanks everyone! I'm so happy to read that some of you are responding well to the look and especially to the puzzle difficulty. That's a very tough thing to gauge, and I was crossing my fingers that I got it about right.
@dalep thanks for pointing that out! It's a bug, yeah. I had that happen during development a few times, but couldn't figure out what was happening (and, tbh, didn't have time to fix it). Nice catch!
@paperaeroplane555 I like the purity of the objects disappearing completely, but I hear you. Maybe some sort of glitch effect would read better than disappearing.
@nicmagnier So cool to read about your a-ha moment! As for undoing and the odd behaviour of phasing - if there was more time to add or fix things, those two would be next on the list for sure. If there's ever a larger version of this game, it should have infinite undos.
@rogual haha, added that message to let players know that the game isn't broken but that they haven't solved the puzzle. Burn unintended. Yeah, interaction with phasing objects is a bit inconsistent (doors kill you, crates don't), I can see how that would be annoying. A lot of the mechanics could use a slower and clearer ramping up to. Cool that you noticed the font :) It's not the original, but it's the best old-school console/terminal type font I've found over the years: http://webdraft.hu/fonts/classic-console/
@octahedronsoftware @lcstark thank you for pointing out the bugs. They happened a few times during development. The tile-based movement and object implementation is really janky, haha, so there are strange edge cases. Didn't have time to fix them, and luckily there's the level restart as a last resort. Thank you for sticking through, and for the nice words despite the technical hickups.
@paroxysmal yeeah, you might be right. It's so difficult to gauge the difficulty ramping with puzzle games. I really didn't want to throw players in the deep end, but maybe I went too far in the other direction. I understand that people don't want to play LD games for long. Thanks for the feedback and kind words!
@zsharpfire ha, fair enough, I drew it in like 3 minutes and literally didn't have time to go back and do anything else. It's not the most inspired design out there, I agree.
So nice to read this feedback, thanks everyone!
@reccy , I think the train of thought that took me to the scanline idea was Unstable -> Glitches -> Old hardware aesthetic -> NES 8-sprite-per-scanline limit. Thanks so much for the positive feedback!
@gibss , I totally get what you mean with the doors and it's a shame it got too frustrating. I wanted the doors to simply push the player back, but under the time pressure, this was the quickest thing to implement. Thanks for the words of encouragement regarding developing this further - I was toying with the idea and it's nice to see someone else think so too.
@xlambein Thanks so much! So nice to read that it's your favourite so far. 100% agree about the undo feature. Simply didn't have time to implement it.
Thank you everyone for playing! Seeing the response to this game has been so nice.
@rubr Paldies :)
@willoxs glad you appreciated those posts. I find self-advertising on the home page really annoying, haha - goes against the community spirit of LD. Thanks for checking out my game, glad you liked it.
@muse-x thanks so much! It's so nice to read such positive feedback, means a lot :)
@clonze sorry you were frustrated. I put that message in that level specifically to communicate to the player that the solution is a bit outside-the-box, but you're not the only one who's been rubbed the wrong way by it. I guess I didn't introduce the object phasing mechanic well enough. That's a really difficult thing to get right without extensive playtesting. Thanks for giving the game a shot, though!
@junjunlowpoly absolutely agree about the undo, like I've said before. @pancelor I know what you mean about the punishing aspect - this would be remedied with the undo feature, and that, I think, would also make the realtime elements more palatable (although, as I'm thinking about maybe pursuing this further, I am playing with the idea of objects phasing per turn, not in real time - we'll see). As for the 6-door level, did you sync up the two rows of phasing objects? That's the intended solution, which leads to relatively forgiving timing to get through the doors. If you were trying to brute-force it through there with precision timing, I'd have to redesign that puzzle to make it clear that is not the solution.
Really cool idea! You've explored it quite well so far, the puzzles were satisfying. Would love to see more (and more complicated) levels, this has potential. Quite nice graphics and sound too.
Oh man, this is great. The gameplay is simple, polished and fun, but the theme really takes it to the next level. Such a silly concept, really brought to life by little details like the echoing scream. Someone above me put it well - you seem to have had fun making this. That really shines through.
This is excellent, probably the best game I've played this jam. Really good mechanic and very polished. The ways you build on the core idea (moving atoms, multiple layers, multiple actions) are really good additions. Love the look and the music. Difficulty curve is pretty brutal, I'd like to see a slower introduction of really complex stages. And some of the later ones are so complex that it's a bit impossible to predict what's going to happen, so I used trial and error quite a bit. I guess that's inherent with these mechanics. Couldn't do levels 19 and 20.
Overall just a super polished, clever and fun entry. Amazing job.
^ Someone's salty.
I already left a comment for this a few weeks ago. Wanted to pop in and say congrats. I mentioned in the previous comment that it was my favourite so far, and it stayed that way. Out of the like 50 games I played this jam, this was the best, was really happy to see it win.
Really fantastic concept, well explored through quality puzzle design. Kind of difficult to wrap your head around at first, but you do a good job of tutorializing it. Presentation is ace too, though the admin texts are a bit slow. WASD directions in the isometric perspective felt intuitive to me in this game, but I know people differ, so either a different perspective or on-screen controls would be a good quality-of-life feature. I kept accidentaly splitting the wrong version of myself, because my brain kept wanting to press Q for the left-most character on screen, rather than how it's colour-coded. Maybe that's just me but thought you should know.
This is one of those LD prototypes that I can totally imagine becoming a bigger game. Really novel. Great job.
Really cool to handle a real issue. I think you've done it respectfully, with the upront disclaimer and all. Pacing was kinda slow. But I think you'll be happy to hear that this did put me in the democratically elected crony mindset: keep the power supply artificially low for three years, and winterize and keep the power on for year 4 - I was thinking there might be a hidden public support stat. Cool game. A bit slow, a bit simple, but really unique.
I also made a Sokoban-inspired game, so it's really cool to check out others who have done the same thing :)
As far as presentation and polish goes, this is probably the best game I've played this jam. Truly fantastic work. Graphics, music and sound, gamefeel - all excellent, and makes a beautiful, cohesive whole. Crazy good work for a weekend.
That said, I'm afraid the visuals don't serve the gameplay. As others have mentioned, the perspective makes it really needlessly difficult to read. For a Sokoban game you really need clear line sight of all the tiles. You kinda get used to it and learn to read it a bit better, but I was really frustrated in the beginning.
The gameplay mechanic is super simple, but the theming and presentation really carry it. Nice mood. Good job!
Really charming game. Cool take on the theme, cute presentation, and any game with a goat player character instantly gets bonus points.
I'll agree with the sentiment that it's maybe a bit too luck-based - sometimes you just get dealt a losing situation when a pillar in front of you quickly shoots up really high. As I'm thinking over what I would change in the pillar behaviour, I realize it's not a completely staightforward problem to solve, so I can't really fault you for the current implementation.
I like the look and idea here. With some sound and more minigames, this could have a really cool, hectic feel to it. Turning off the generator once in a while is a great addition that can add to the chaos - so good idea there. As is, it was a bit repetitive, and I found synapse connector minigame a bit too slow and involved for the vibe you're going for. Still, nice prototype.
This is so charming. Huge props for making it in just 12 hours! The presentation - music, sound, art, writing - are all lovely and really create a lovely, funny mood combined with the silly typing gameplay. I loove how the gameplay and story are integrated.
Hey, saw this played on a stream yesterday, nice to see it pop up and get a chance to play it myself. Love the art style, wish there was audio to go with it. The gameplay is fun! Typical shmup, but well executed. Three changes I would make to the gameplay: - make the weapon autofire instead of having to hold the mouse button - make the turning speed of the gun much faster. Bullets trail behind where i want them to go, and the enemies move really quickly. - make the game easier. I didn't complete it.
But, overall, quite polished and fun! Good job.
Excellent puzzler! Really simple set of mechanics, but well explored. Prorps for the intro cinematic that explains the mechanics and for the hint and skip system. Only nitpick design-wise is that the ability to block explosions wasn't introduced well. I was stumped and had to resort to using the hint to understand what to do.
Graphics and theming are really cute as well. Music would make the presentation absolutely perfect.
One of the best entries I've played, great job.
One of the most interesting entries I've played. Loooove the atmosphere - tasteful visuals and gorgeous music. Level end sounds are crazy loud, though - if not for that, audio would get top marks.
The gameplay is simple but interesting. The levels did get frustrating when you started having to collect like 20 flames, and I agree with whoever mentioned that you should get into the meat of the game quicker, maybe cut some of the early straightforward platforming levels.
But overall a really unique and moody game. Good job!
Woah, I didn't have high hopes as the game was starting, but this is fun! I would have been happy to play it for a couple of more minutes. This game is a great example of gameplay trumping presentation, like someone already said above.
Nice, I also made a Sokoban game, so it's cool to come across others who have done the same thing. And it's neat that we've taken our games in quite different directions.
This was really well designed. The collapsing floor mechanic is super simple, but really allows for a lot complexity. Different weight boxes were a great idea. The mechanics were tutorialized really well too - good difficulty curve. I'd say maybe the theme is a bit underutilized and this falls back on regular Sokoban a bit too much (last puzzle, for example). In that sense, level 8 was really good.
Presentation is very simple but effective.
Great job!
This is lovely! The art and dialogue are really cute and I love the quiet soundscape. Really atmospheric game. Didn't overstay its welcome either, ended right when I was starting to get bored. Great job!
Incredibly sweet that you created this with your kids. The presentation is very charming
I really like the theme here. The out-of-signal-range gameplay mechanic is really fresh! Visuals are nice too. The audio got a bit grating. But all in all, a nice little prototype with a cool concept and mood.
Excellent prototype. Squad tactics + flicking/minigolf is such a cool idea! Really satisfying gameplay even at this simple stage. Feels so nice to topple multiple enemies by hitting a house/tree. If there's one gripe, it's that I didn't get a clear sense for how the aiming works. As far as I could tell, you could gauge the power of your shots and over/undershoot (a la golf games), but it didn't fell intuitive somehow. Kept missing shots that felt like they should have landed.
Lots of potential for a great party game here. Well done!
Oh man, glad I saw a post about this game earlier today. This was very a very impressive entry, kudos to all the team. Atmosphere, visuals and especially audio were on point. The platforming in level 2 was a bit frustrating and it wasn't immediately clear what to do with the reactor (first I though I have to use the computer, then I saw doors on an upper level and thought I need to do platforming in the previous room), but the atmosphere more than makes up for these nitpicks.
Ha, great concept! Looks great, very polished. I couldn't quite get into the gameplay because I found the controls way too delicate (on keyboard) to balance myself out effectively, but looking at the other comments, looks like most people didn't have that problem. So really good job!
Nice! Cool theme and gameplay mechanic - I don't think I've played anything quite like it. Nice presentation too - good sound and graphics, clear visual language that goes well with the mechanics. Only the controls are a bit finnicky. I would have liked a more powerful jump, and catching emotions feels a bit unreliable (even if there's an arrow above them). But overall, great job.
Nice twist on the typical formula! It felt a bit too finnicky, I wasn't able to get a feel for keeping the tower in a non-destructive sway, but maybe that just means I have to git gud, haha.
I like the look and sound of this very much (tho music would have made it even better of course), and limiting the player's jumps and falls in a platformer is a cool idea. Would be nice if the stability decreased relative to fall height/speed: soft and well-gauged landing could only cause a bit of instability, large falls would cause a lot.
I found the game pretty difficult, which is not helped by the hitbox glitchiness mentioned above, so it was frustrating that there were no checkpoints.
Nice game. I like the gamefeel - satisfying controls, physics and sound effects. Felt a bit too slow and easy - just sit on a platform to refuel for as long as possible, hop to the next shard, rinse and repeat. Lost interest about 16 shards in.
The 2001-esque music is nice but feels really out of place. There's nothing in the visuals or gameplay to amplify that desperate or horrifying feeling that the music is conveying.
Haha, charming and kinda funny entry. Cool that you made something even with the limited time!
I love the janky, faux-3D look. That + the title and your description gives this surprising character.
Really cool vibe to this game. The art is simple but very effective, and the movement of the windmill makes the platforming very engaging. Responsive, polished, addictive and pretty - can't ask for much more from a compo game. Great job!
Nice little platformer, well done! The different gameplay mechanics are all pretty entertaining (wallrunning is always a great addition), and you've strung them together into some very nice obstacle courses (good difficulty curve). Movement felt a bit sluggish, jumping into and out of wallruns was a little finicky, and I think if I was developing this game, I'd make the character run forward automatically. But overall a polished and fun experience!
What a creative take on the theme! I've never seen this kind of word-of-mouth/public opinion gameplay mechanic, really original. And it's fun to see the little characters having conversations. Visuals and audio are cute too. Very nice overall.
Weapon switching mechanic is cool, and the presentation is super charming. Cool music (the ambient passage maybe comes in and out a bit bluntly). Should me more difficult - too easy to kite enemies, able to stay at full HP constantly, and it's easy to fall into a groove of switching between the pistol and the energy beam. Lost interest without losing. Even so, it was good fun for a few minutes nonetheless. Nice work!
Really like the look and sound of this, very moody. Cool gameplay mechanic too, pretty fun. Difficulty ramp could use work. Was trivial for a while and then suddenly I got hit with a list of calls that soon went off the screen. Felt like it might be a glitch? Either way, very creative, and a nice proof of concept.
Nice! Cool and original take on the theme. Solid game mechanics with nice audiovisual feedback. The ability to save a falling plate is so good!
I like the visuals, idea and core gameplay idea very much, but unfortunately the very slow text speed and the lack of a feedback/hint system really put me off of playing the game when I had missed a clue.
Neat! The sound design is quite nice. It's impressive how a combination of good sound and gameplay mechanics can make even such a crude looking game atmospheric and tense. The gameplay has potential, but I found the levels to be a bit too mazelike. Some landmarks, less completely empty, fully interconnected rooms would help a lot, as would a minimap, like someone mentioned.
Very simple but well executed. Cool mechanic, someone mentioned VVVVVV and I totally get where they're coming from. Quite nice gamefeel - pleasant sense of gravity and satisfying 8bit sound effects. Some music would have been nice, and the difficulty curve is probably a bit too intense, but these things drawbacks are totally understandable in a compo game. Great work!
Wow, I love the presentation and writing here. Anime-level drama combined with 4th wall breaks to explain controls and arcadey gameplay is really funny. Great job on that. Gameplay is simple, but it's pretty fun. This is exactly the kind of complexity that I'm able to effectively multitask at, haha, so it was satisfying. Nice entry!
Love the atmosphere and the idea! Using weights to steer your ship is a really cool mechanic. Execution could use work. I found the game really difficult. The barrels are quite rare, and once you get hold of one, they're very unruly. Easy to lose one overboard. I'd add railings to the ship - feels like the game would still be difficult enough.
Really cool idea! I was curious to explore the connections between the different letters and what cutting them will give me, but sadly the choppy movement, inability to use the hammer at times, and letters flying off-screen made it a bit too frustrating to complete. I can see that under the buginess there's a really interesting system and puzzle.
I also like the visual of a letter landfill. Cute :)
Really fresh and interesting idea. I'd love to see a more polished version. It was very difficult to play because of sluggish movement, erratic enemy movement (hunters turning toward you and immediately killing you) and (I'm guessing) really small hitboxes. I could barely land any attacks. But again, the idea is really fun and original.
Really interesting mechanic, pretty fun. Tuned very difficult, made it to about where the jump boosters are introduced and felt a bit too intense at that point. Also got stuck in the wall once and had to restart the game. Other than that issue, really polished. I like the look and animation. Nice gamefell. Overall, very cool!
Others have pointed out the spamming. A small timer/delay between placing objects was a good suggestion, I'd give that a try.
BUT before I realized that exploit, this was really fun. I love that, compared to other physics/tower/balancing games I've seen in this jam, this one actually gives you time to make deliberate decisions. Another plus is the presentation - super simple, sure, but satisfying. The different colours and sizes of the shapes make it quite visually interesting when there's a big pile of stuff. And it's just inherently entertaining to watch big piles of physics objects interacting.
So, really simple, but really cool!
This is a really interesting idea. Reminds me of puzzle/tactics games like Into the Breach. I wish I could see the bomb patterns on any turn, not just the turn before the explosion (maybe when hovering over with the mouse or something). The game field is a bit too complex to be able to keep everything in mind and I feel like I'm not able to play as strategically as I would like to.
Beautiful game. Love the aesthetic and gamefeel. Gorgeous music. Snapping of tiles feels super satisfying. The mechanic is interesting but feels a bit easy. Like maybe it would be better suited for small, hand-crafted levels, because right now it's a bit trivial.
Side note: my condolences for what is being done to your country. Be safe.
Excellent puzzle game. The growing complexity and learn-by-doing tutorialization really is reminiscent of The Witness - as others have mentioned. I'd take that comparison as high praise.
Feels like the timer and game over condition is there to adhere to the theme, but doesn't benefit the game in any way. I got to level 23 or something and was having a good time, but the time pressure was a detriment, and I'm not going to replay the game to finish it. Which is a shame because so far the puzzle design was excellent and I would have loved to finish the game. Continuing on that train of thought, an undo button would be great too.
It's very nice to see LD entries that take a more experimental and personal route than the technical exercises or rough prototypes we mostly see (no shade - rough prototypes is I do in LD as well).
I love the aesthetic here. Both the sound and visuals are in a way really rough, but they also have a lot of personality and cohere into a very moody whole. I think it's also impressive how the game does not explain itself at all but still manages to be intuitive and gripping (I played for longer than I expected).
Definitely the most left-field entry I've seen, and one of my favourites. Great job.
Props on trying those new tools. Coming out of the compo with a solid, finished game is difficult enough as is. Doing so while learning tools - hats off.
I agree with other commenters about the speeding up idea being interesting but that the speeds should be tuned somewhat - the start is too slow, and then the speed-ups get really crazy.
Pretty typical but fun pipe game. I agree with others that it's initially confusing. Basically impossible to seriously strategize, mostly a pure reflex game. I don't know if it would make the game too easy for your liking, but I would so like to have the ability to rotate pieces.
Well, in absence of an ingame high score table, here's my 23 chain :) Screenshot 2022-04-04 235009.jpg
Fun game, this kind of stuff is a great fit for the jam. Very polished. The chaining mechanic is sooo satisfying. I wish the green point orbs would either get collected automatically or be easier to collect. Most of the time getting them is too high risk, it feels like, because by the time the new bomb has spawned, the orbs are often almost off-screen. But that's my only nitpick in an otherwise well-executed arcade game.
@pvg Yeah of course, for 48 hours this is great. Where I'm coming from with the green orbs is that the game is already pretty difficult, so I don't know that the extra challenge of collecting them is needed. Especially when collecting the orbs doesn't really put any sort of twist on the game - you're still just dodging stuff as you would normally. But to have a big explosion chain and for that to be followed up with a Hoovering of goodies - boy, that's a dopamine rush that'll keep your player engaged.
Anyway, not saying I'm right, just an interesting design thing to consider.
Really impressive work. The art and especially the music are gorgeous. I like the design of the arena and the transition effect (although I feel like it could have been taken further by changes in lighting and music). Reminds me of Psychonauts or Alice: Madness Returns. Some of the thickest atmosphere I've encountered in a LD game.
Always cool to see Twine games. This is a great one. Really good writing: simple, to the point, funny and, surprisingly, packs a bit of pathos as well. Like, I expected this to just be a gag game, but it's actually a nice little tone piece. The last page/lines really put a sweet, melancholy bow on it.
Good job. The mechanics are really fleshed out well thought through, however the harsh difficulty doesn't really allow them to shine, I think. Tuning the game a bit easier - start with a bit of a faster walk speed, have plants die slower and less bug attacks, and maybe get rid of the darkness completely - would make for a more engaging, more strategic experience. I felt like there were flashes of interesting strategizing - doing watering runs vs bug spray runs, collecting many hearts in a row, etc. - which I wasn't really able to think about because of the speed of the game.
But yeah, the core here is great!
This is a really interesting, original idea, and I like the implementation a lot. Very polished. Cool audio, tasteful visuals, satisfying controls, etc. Top grades across the board.
I'm not sure the central gameplay mechanic works (but hey, game jams are for experimental ideas). I think this game really demonstrates how quickly multiplication gets out of hand. It's only possible to play for a few seconds before it goes crazy. Perhaps having the new balls start at 1 would give some possibiliy for more strategic play? I thought waiting til the last moment to cut the balls would help survive for longer, but it's still brutally difficult.
@christian-zommerfelds @cagibi Haha, the spacebar behavious is a debug thing I forgot to take out. Ignore it! Good find though :D
@christian-zommerfelds You're right that the rope behaviour is not so clear. Visuals and better tutorialization would help a lot here. Didn't have the time sadly.
@eaglev You're right about the last level. The mechanics were asking for a larger level where you can really stretch the rope out, but the level requires more work for an interesting puzzle to actually emerge. Unfortunately , I had critically little time for level design.
@puree-adventure Glad you enjoyed it so much, it's so so nice to read about your fun experience :) Wasn't expecting such positive feedback for this one.
@jonah-srg Pipe Push Paradise, Stephen's Sausage Roll and those types of 'hardcore' Sokoban games are a big inspirations for me (the SSR influence is fairly obvious in the visuals here), so that comparison means a lot. Thank you for the kind words.
@caudatecoder It's so nice of you to do this! Really interesting to watch. Thank you for sticking with it despite the bumpy start. Regarding tutorials: I really want to avoid explicit (verbal or visual) tutorials, instead setting up levels where the player learns by doing. Your playthrough shows some flaws in the current level design (particularly level 2). So thank you for that. Such valuable information.
@lukix The behaviour when pressing space is a debug thing I forgot to take out, ha. It's not supposed to be in the game.
@antonsem Really cool initiative, I appreciate it very much :) I wish I had time for more content, yeah. I was struggling with the coding side for so long that in the end I had like 2 hours for puzzle design, haha.
@cppchriscpp Thanks for the in-depth feedback! Interesting point about what you thought the rules about extending the fuse after lighting it would be. Something I didn't consider. In general, the take-away from reading the comments is that more tutorialization is needed. It's an interesting but slightly unintuitive (highly unrealistic) game mechanic.
I'm aware of the bug and kinda know what's causing it. Sadly didn't have time to fix it and was hoping it will be enough of an edge case to not cause too much trouble. Sorry you encountered that, but thanks for reporting!
Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I'm glad that some of you are clicking with the central mechanic despite the oddity and lack of tutorialization.
@jackaljk You're right both about the unintuitiveness of the central mechanic and the picured level. Too much new information packed into a single level.
@brotherst @oneowerse I'm really happy to read the words 'mind-bending' and 'surprise' in your comments :) It's the feeling you hope to give with a puzzle game.
@the-neon-shark Feedback and explanation about how exactly the fuse pushing works is the biggest flaw of the game right now. I think your point about it limiting player creativity is really accurate and well said. In a puzzle game, you want the player to wrestle with your puzzles, not your ruleset.
@krammetje I love Stephen's Sausage Roll, so it's nice to read that comparison :)
@binaryprinciple So happy to hear that it's your favourite, means a lot :) Ape Out is an interesting comparison - didn't think about it as I was making the game, but you have a point!
@lcstark Thanks for the really thoughtful feedback and the video! You're absolutely right about transparency of the rule. Some sort of visual feedback would help. And I was aware of that bug, but thank you for the detailed report anyway. You're right - it's about how I keep track of the segments. It would be a non-trivial thing to fix and I was sorely lacking time.
Interesting take on the theme. Looks very cool, it's a shame there isn't some spacy music to go along with it.
Disagree with the person who didn't like the scoring system. I think it's clever, forces you into risk-taking. Otherwise it's easy to just go around in big loops forever. The scoring forces you to engage in the interesting dance.
Don't know anything about ML, but it's cool to see someone explore that in LD. Interesting video.
Really novel gameplay mechanic. Last level made me think for a bit! There's a slight issue with readability at times - not always clear which level an object is on or where one will fall due to the perspective. Other than that, the presentation is great. Love the little frog fella :)
Great presentation. The modeling, texturing, animation, post-processing - everything about the visuals is great and really impressive for 48 hours.
As for gameplay, it's pretty fun and polished, but I think the jumps are a bit too demanding, you have to be pretty pixel-perfect. It took so much of my focus that I couldn't really realistically go for the brains (doesn't help that sideways movement is a bit slippery).
Impressive work overall.
Really nice art and animation - the Death character is really expressive and fun (I love the game over animation). Combat feels responsive and punchy. it's fun to stunlock everyone, haha. I found the slow navigation, small field of view and poor signposting of doors frustrating when combined with the very punishing timer. I wish I had a bit more time for exploration. But that's really my only gripe. Everything else about this is quite cool.
Nice unusual use of PuzzleScript and funny theming. Surprisingly fun little game!
Very nice puzzle game. Anything with chess pieces immediately allows for some interesting complexity. There was unfortunately a bug where I could place my pieces onto enemy ones and cheese some of the levels. I also wish the difficulty ramped up a bit more and the puzzle design was a bit more rigorous (right now a lot of puzzles can be finished leftover pieces, for example), but can't ask too much from a jam game. As a first exploration of these mechanics, this is really, really good.
Theme and presentation are of course great. The animation work is really juicy, and I really like the jazzy soundtrack and super tactile sound and feel of everything.
Cute theme, nice presentation and gamefeel, pretty fun little game. I love my pet rock.
Ha, funny take on the theme. I agree with other that this is really well-scoped for the compo. The throw feels satisfying, and the game in general is pretty polished. Movement felt a bit slippery/sluggish to start but I got used to it. Nice job!
I don't know what's more unfair – powerful mages avoiding their taxes, or drone enemies being able to shoot through walls.
Very fun and polished platformer, and a surprising amount of quality content for the compo. The mana management felt a bit sluggish to me. Like the controls would often feel unresponsive because I had enough mana to make a shot, would then attempt to jump and shoot only to realize that the jump ate up mana. Gives the game a start-and-stop feel that I don't think it benefits from. The boss fight felt really good, on the other hand. Maybe a question of the level design and the kind of challenges you put in front of the player. Idunno.
In any case, very impressive work. I had fun!
I think I'd enjoy this more if the timer was slightly more forgiving. Trying to get hearts just doesn't seem worth it with the time loss, for example.
Some things were a bit confusing. Why does the bar go down in uneven increments when you're in human form? Why is there no timer in slime form? etc.
Those complaints aside, the game looks and sounds great. Even if it's a bit rough around the edges, it's suuper impressive for a compo entry. Good job.
Quite a simple game but executed well enough. Controls could be more responsive but overall pretty good.
I agree with the above commenter that going for abstraction may be a good idea if the art is a bit lacking. Another point about the graphics would be that all the objects are really tiny on-screen. Would like it all to be bigger, chunkier.
Cute little platformer. The level design is really intuitive - I somehow always went where I had to, even when it the next step didn't seem that obvious. Great job with that.
As far as complaints go, I didn't know the spacebar was also used for interacting with the monster and was really confused. Thought maybe the game was broken, but saw that no-one in the commments was complaining. I don't know, maybe I had a brain fart, but usually there is some prompt on which key to press.
But that's a minor complaint. Got there in the end :) Good compo entry.
Really cool 2048-like. Polished, good looking and fun. I wish purple block creation could be somehow avoided by clever play (like let's say if there's green blocks between the fire blocks that would have collided or something). Not much to say about this. Just a really solid, simple, addictive design, well executed.
This is cool. The audio and visuals are really simple but well executed, the game has a nice atmosphere. I like walking away from the fire, out into the quiet. It's surprisingly moody.
The gameplay is super basic but it works well. And it's funny! The idea of taking down your door to burn it in a stove so your baby won't cry - it's so silly, I like that.
Currently stuck on level 6, but I might return to this - really interesting mechanic, and I'm curious to see how else it's used. Good puzzle design and a very interesting take on the theme.
Very impressive compo entry. Polished and feature-complete. I love the quirky music and take on the theme - very cheerful and fun vibe.
With a bit of control and level generation tweaking you could really take this to the next level. At the moment I wish the drifting felt more responsive and had more utility, and that I had to press a modifier button to do tricks. Otherwise it feels unnatural to have to go off the throtle as you hit a ramp if you don't want to do a trick, and there's no air control. As for level generation, it'd be nice if there were no obstacles in front of speed boost ramps. Really annoying to boost into a tree. Just some small tweaks that could improve the feel of the game immensely.
Nonetheless, like I said, a great entry.
This is neat. The UI is very satisfying, as is the core gameplay loop itself. It's always satisfying to paint the map, build cities and infrastrucutre networks, etc., and this game taps into that nicely. I would also love to see little trains on the tracks :)
The balance felt off - I was getting too much money and stations from the card stack, and not enough track. Also feels like there should be more money sinks (use money instead of tracks if you don't have any? maintenance costs for stations? I'm sure you thought of stuff like this). I lost interest after a few minutes. That said, I think it's good for jam games to be tuned easy rather than difficult since people don't want to spend too much time on them, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise.
At first I thought this game won't do that much with its theme, but the progression is really well done. I don't want to spoil it, but the marriage of theme and gameplay is really surprising and powerful. I'm from Eastern Europe as well, so this story hits close to home. Really good job.
I'll add a technical note: for me, on a 4k monitor, the text was very tiny. But whatever, I don't expect jam games to be optimized for 4k.
This is excellent, probably the most fleshed-out, well-designed entry I've played so far. Really solid and intuitive design, and a cool marriage of theme and gameplay - bull in a China shop has a lot of flavour. This isn't my genre of game, so I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I can totally see how others (like the person above me) can get sucked into this and really try to master it. Great work.
The movement and jump feels really nice, and the game looks and sounds great. I think the shooting kind of hinders this game - having to aim and manage health incentivises you to sit still instead of engaging in the much more fun platforming. There's also basically no use for the for the wall climb.
You have a great character controller, but it feels like it would fit a pure platformer or infinite runner better.
Don't get me wrong, I still had fun, and the level of polish is super impressive a compo game.
Ha, this is cute. Reminds me of an old DOS game or something - huge cosmetic UI taking up a lot of the screen and simple 3D graphics. It's a cool vibe. Fun to see the playfield get filled up with more and more junk and colliding objects as well. Nice controls, nice simple gameplay. Good job.
A gorgeous tribute and clever representation of the slow fade of memory. Love the message, the sun-drenched art and sweet music - it all creates a really delicate atmosphere. Great interpretation of the theme, well executed. One of my favourites.
Oh man, this is sooo charming. I love this (super relatable) take on the theme, and this is so full of cute little touches - from the cute visuals to little gags like the chicken in the window. A lot of LD games feel like technical exercises. But this one is really bursting with personality and artistry. Ok, the minigames get a bit repetetivie maybe, but whatever, I love this.
Congrats on your first LD! Fantastic work. This is my favourite so far.
Cool concept, thought at first I wasn't sure what was going on. Can't say I love the movement and bomb placement. In a way it's streamlined and unusual, which is cool, but I really felt like I lacked control and, as such, an ability to strategize.
I got a game over from an enemy coming from nowhere from the right side of the screen. Don't know if that's intentional. Felt like a bug and was really unsatisfying :(
But overall a nice and quite polished compo entry.
Decent platformer but the controls felt really unresponsive and weren't a good fit for some of the precision platforming required. I do like the random progression of levels and the fact that they exist in the same space - meaning you can use the platforms of a previous level to beat the next one.
Audio seemed to work for me just fine.
This feels soo 90s with the music, colours and type of gameplay. Like some kind of weird shareware game. Don't know if that was intentional, but it's a funny aesthetic :)
Not much to say about this except that I haven't seen a dribbling character in these types of games. Bouncing between the floor and ceiling is interesting and changes the feel a bit.
Cool little ant farm. The presentation is really top notch - great audio and visuals, and the slow zoom out really gives it a cool, cinematic feel. Really elegant way of extending the playspace and introducing more complexity. Though it does mean that workers are more and more difficult to click on.
The gameplay is fairly trivial - needs a rebalance or more to do - but watching the little AIs do their thing is saitsfying. Pretty cool entry.
I think there's a really good game hiding here, but I couldn't see it. Controls and physics makes this really unforgiving. Wasn't able to land on the moon. Controlling the rocket was really slow and unpredictable. I wanted to do big turns to course correct but it was either too slow or I couldn't turn in the direction I wanted. Maybe in a such a small gameworld, the rocket should have a much lower mass and be more nimble?
It's a super ambitious idea and it's cool that you went for it, I really want to applaud that. It also looks like everything is working under the hood. It's just a question of tweaking the controls and physics properties.
Haha, brilliant idea. Fun gameplay loop, really well executed. Trucks having different interiors is a great detail. The sound effects are hilarious.
Once you get rid of the initial pile of cargo, the game gets too easy, though. I stopped playing at like 1.4k. Spawn times could be quicker.
But super fun overall!
Dang, a functioning 3D stealth game in the compo - super ambitious! I'm impressed by what's here. Had fun with it! Clear enemy AI, solid controls, etc. No complaints, really.
Didn't have to use the rocks and drone at all. Very clear openings in the patrols, and it's easy to outrun everyone anyway.
Got a chuckle out of the hiding spots in level 2.
Great entry! Really clever game mechanic. I admire one button games that do something interesting. Visuals and music on point too. Very polished. I was getting a bit bored but then the game ended, so really well done with the length too. Well explored and executed concept.
What a clever idea! Would love a more developed version of this with more advanced search and sort tools. But it's cool to sleuth over the PDF too. Very cool vibe - like Papers, Please or Stop Talking and Nobody Explodes, etc. Tactile and really makes you feel like you're sleuthing. One of the most original entries I've played.
I'm awful at typing, so this genre isn't really my bag, but this is really solid and polished. Love the theming and presentation - it's a really quirky take on the jam theme - but I wonder if it's undermined a bit by the words being random. After the tutorial, I was thinking what a fun idea it is to write 'tree' or 'bird' to warn the drone about upcoming obstacles.
Wow, this is kind of brilliant! The stealth gameplay is on the difficult side, but nonetheless well tuned - I was always able to gauge positions of enemies, take a peek without giving myself away, slip away if the enemy that noticed me was far enough, etc. And the level design was great in the balance of safe vs dangerous areas (and how clearly communicated that is). Stealth gameplay is really tricky and I think you basically nailed it. The one thing that would be nice would be some last ditch way to get away from nearby enemies. If you're spotted in close quarters, you're done for, and that's not super interesting. Escapes are exciting.
The atmosphere is impeccable. The hum of the enemies is so menacing. And the architecture has a really strong dystopian, brutalist vibe. You do a lot with a little here.
If there's one complaint I'd make, it's that the game overstays its welcome. It's kind of unclear what the endgame is. Is it endless? Are there a certain number of packages? I got caught during the second delivery and decided to stop playing. Would have been totally satisfied to do a single run and escape.
But yeah, I'm a sucker for stealth games and this is really, really good. One of my favourites for sure.
Thanks everyone! Glad people are having fun with it.
@tumblingpuffin @kgurniak91 @nick-baggett I definitely agree that it's probably a bit too punishing and throws you into the deep end immediately. Was thinking of having the spawn times get quicker as the game goes on (starting slower) but didn't have time to implement it. I did want to tune it quite difficult as it's pretty content-light. I'd rather the player lose too quick and maybe try again than get bored because there's no risk of losing (common problem with highscore LD games). That said, it could still be tuned a bit easier and more beginner friendly.
@ltyrosine That's incredibly kind of you to say, thanks so much! I'm glad you appreciated the little details in the presentation - I got really into that aspect while working on this. Happy to read that the gamefeel clicked for you. I love that it gave you the 3D toy feeling. I really like games that feel tactile so it's cool that you got that out of this.
@tinykidtoo my friends who tried it got like 100 points on their initial attempts, so 80 is pretty normal, I think. The ones who got into it did like 200 points. My PB is 470. So, you know, some room to grow. The Benny Hill comment brings up an interesting point - I wasn't 100% sure how to handle the tone for this. Definitely could have gone a super goofy route but that'd require a totally different graphical direction, and I'd have to be careful not to make it annoying. Anyway, just thinking out loud. Thanks for playing and for the feedback.
@jackaljk I'm with you, would have loved to do something like that. The tutorial messages were coming in at 2 AM, in the last hours of the jam. Didn't have time for anything more advanced.
@machinescreen I didn't realize items could end up behind the customs area, thanks for letting me know! Glad you dug it otherwise.
@cagibi Hmm, sounds like the physics glitched and the package flew off-screen while you were stuck in the 'holding' state. Sorry about that! Seems like the game's more fragile than I thought, didn't have such problems while developing/testing. Not a huge surprise when dealing with physics, of course. As for customs, the box isn't supposed to empty! The idea is that you put a parcel in there, it gets "scanned", and then you can forward it like a normal package. I should have explained that in the tutorial better. Thanks for letting me know! And thank you for the kind words despite the problems you encountered.
@machinescreen @ani I was pretty happy with the keypad sounds myself, glad to see other people enjoy them too :)
Thanks everyone!
@helen You couldn't read the zipcodes even when in the zoomed-in/rotation mode? I'm sorry to hear that, thought the text was large enough. Noted for future games!
@lcstark haha, the music was coming in last minute, so synthy drone is all I had time for. Cyberpunk vibe is def in there somewhere - my main inspiration for the graphics was Metal Gear Solid 1. Glad the vibe works for you! I agree about the physics - no time to tweak it in the compo, obviously. VR definitely crossed my mind, but that's completely foreign to me. Thanks for the feedback!
@justcamh , thanks again for playing on stream, it was really enlightening. There actually *is* a 10% chance of letters needing to be weighed, and I kinda regret that decision. Without extra feedback about what you did wrong, it feels odd.
Basically I agree that the game needs more variation. This is all I had time for, and it's the reason why I tuned the game very difficult - because it doesn't hold up for a long time as is.
Wow, impressive how polished this is. Beautiful animation, really responsive controls. Routing the levels and going for speed is super fun. Has that Super Meat Boy, Pizza Tower feel. And I like how the game didn't outstay its welcome. Solid little chunk of content.
The tutorial messages are a bit of a momentum killer upon restart and the theme seems like a bit of an afterthought. Other than that, no notes. Extremely solid compo entry.
Cool concept! The lack of quick camera controls and, most importantly, indicators for where the delivery men are going, didn't really let me explore the core mechanic. It was a bit too slow and formless. But it looks and sounds great, and the core mechanic is really satisfying and interesting. I'd love to see this idea explored further.
Super clever. It's a testament to how thematically rich this idea is that I was constantly wondering about the many directions this could go in. There's a lot of potential here both for storytelling and puzzles. What if you had to make more difficult deductions to understand what word/phrase is missing (I agree with the previous commenter that the wrong answers are too obviously wrong)? What if there was story motivation to input incorrect or false information?
The typing was ever so slightly annoying but it's somewhat justified by the theme. Maybe the tokens don't have to be case-sensitive? I don't think I'd want to keep playing much longer as is.
Audio and visuals are minimal but super solid. The lightly strobing background is cool but can be a bit hard on the eyes. Maybe a toggle for that kind of effect in the future.
Overall, though, a really interesting and complete experience. Fantastic compo entry. I'd love to see something like this developed further with some really solid deductive puzzles and writing.
I feel like this game would've benefited from slighly arcadier, more responsive handling. It's fun to take big turns when going at full speed, but trying to hit a package, recover from a crash, turn around, etc. is really arduous and kills the pacing. When it works, it works really well though.
Enjoy the irregular/maze-like map. Not too complicated but adds enough of a wrinkle to have to think about it.
Lost at 16 packages. It felt a bit long. Difficulty/pressure could probably ramp up quicker.
Visuals are very simple but clean. That goes for the whole game, I suppose - simple but clean. I enjoyed it. With slight tweaks to the handling, I'd enjoy it a whole lot more. Really solid entry!
Interesting concept. Love the atmosphere and theme. It's impressive how moody it is considering the simplicity of the graphics. As other have said, controls are a bit rough. The clouds/fog are really strong, can't see a thing. Did you do that so there the player would miss some of the text sometimes? That creates cool ambiguity, however, I think I got a game over because I took a person to the wrong destination (timer showed I still have time). That kind of sits wrong with me. If you're adding these ambigious elements (the fog, moral judgements), then it's kinda weird to hit the player with an arbitraty failstate. It might be more interesting to let the player decide where to send each person.
But again, the theme is so strong. It's so evocative to be rowing the boat and listening to the people's stories. Like I could see a bigger, atmospheric story game built on this idea. Cool entry.
Another cassowary banger. Just knocking it out of the park every LD.
Wasn't sure about the puzzle potential at first but you wring a lot out of the fan mechanic. Up to level 11 (will be returning later when I have time) and every level so far has been delightful and instructive.
Beautiful sax playing! The game would be charming without it but it's really the cherry on top.
First LD53 game I've played and I doubt anything else is gonna top this, tbh.
Cool that you found time to participate in the compo, congrats! Cute little game. I agree that connecting the storks to houses is an interesting wrinkle - now I wonder how far you could push this type of game with little twists like that.
Wow, great mechanics and really well explored! Good job. This is really content rich. Solid presentation and tutorialization too.
I felt like the controls were a bit too finnicky for something demanding such precise timing. Tough to drop boxes on the correct tile.
I stopped playing soon after the destination device was introduced. If the controls were a bit tighter and the levels were a bit shorter (often they drag on after I've "solved" them already), this would hold my attention a bit better. Nonetheless, a really solid entry. Again, love the mechanics. Would love to see you explore them more.
Really cool idea. It's too easy as is - easy to play endlessly (I lost interest at 1500 points) - but it's a really cool twist on memory games. Could be fun with more groceries, increasing complexity or time pressure, etc.
Cute presentation as well. Good job!
I was so surprised by the core mechanic. Literally made me go 'wow'. Was in disbelief for a few moments. It's so clever, so beautifully revealed, and so emotionally rich: kinda scary, yet also super powerful, makes you feel both in and out of control. And it's well explored beyond that initial reveal.
The art and sound obviously elevated it. Such a strong atmosphere. Beautiful music.
Some of the best moments I've had playing a video game in a while. For a jam game to do that is quite the accomplishement. Incredible work.
I like the gameplay mechanic here a lot, well done! It's a bit janky and rough to play - the controls are slippery and the platform placement mid-air is pretty unforgiving -, but I really dig the slightly puzzly navigation and optimization elements at play. Good call being lenient with the number of platforms that can be used but rewarding clever placement with the star system. The game's perfectly scoped and timed - it ended just when I was getting a bit bored.
Cute presentation too. Excellent simple pixel art.
Sadly the game doesn't do anything interesting with the jam theme. Solid entry overall though, good job.
Love the mood, graphics, audio. Really funny and charming writing (and lots of it!). Floating is really fun, but yeah I never got a grip on attacking. Stopped playing at the eagle boss after he stunlocked me (you respawn in as feathers are falling on you, then he swoops in) and regained all his health multiple times. Really punishing. Wonder if this game would be better without the one hit kills.
Haha, this is nuts. Really funny entry. Basically impossible to control but that's somewhat the point, I guess. Super nice from a technical standpoint, looks and sounds very good. Love the music speeding up.
Great entry! Super clear gameplay, well-communicated rules. Cute visuals. I love perfect information games where you know what the enemy is going to do. Enjoyed that element here, fun to strategize.
I don't normally play deckbuilders so didn't crack the puzzle of the last battle.
Love it, one of my favourite entries so far. Great take on the theme. Very nice writing and art. Really moody. From a gameplay standpoint, I think the only thing missing is a progress/distance indicator. I felt a bit cheated heading out to the final stretch of the road with 7 hours left, since every previous leg of the journey had been 6 hours.
Thanks for the Stan Rogers recommendation for background music! Perfect fit.
Really nice, fully realized entry. Very polished, audio and visuals are on point. Love the chicken animation and the feather particle effect.
Fun gameplay! Well tuned. Super responsive and nice to play. Good call to make the hitboxes for getting hit and throwing the eggs pretty lenient. Cool risk-reward with the chickens leaving eggs but also being obstacles.
Everything just feels right with this entry. Super solid. Great job!
Put me on the leaderboard! :) egg.jpg
Haha, this is great. Love the pun, love the goofy writing scrolling across the top of the screen (no time to read it, though!) and the stretching and rotation of the liver is actually mechanically pretty interesting. Super cute little entry, great job!
I like the central idea of having to carry an object that changes what your character can/can't do. And the idea of the pipes is interesting. I feel like this would make more sense as a puzzle platformer, actually - figuring out ways to progress with the box through networks of pipes, etc. As a (really punishing) platformer, I feel like the potential is a little lost, the box doesn't add much to the game. Definitely more to explore with this mechanic, I think.
Graphics and vibe is really cute!
Overall solid entry.
Nice. I enjoy the look of this a lot - super clean, nice palette, love the timer on the truck and the gray fog. Brutal difficulty though. The car's tough to handle and the game is really unforgiving. Wish there were checkpoints after each obstacle.
Overall though, a polished, solid entry.
Interesting controls, took me a bit to understand. Didn't have the patience to master them, but I commend the originality. Pretty charming in all other aspects. Focused and well-realized entry even if not exactly my cup of tea.
For your first game jam, that's huge! Congratulations!
Cool obstacle course! More than I expected. I also dug the different materials. Some of the gauntlets seemed rough at first but once I got how the movement actually works, it was manageable. That's my main complaint - that it's not exactly clear how the controls work.
Love that you included stats in the end! 6:40/202/77
Fun entry!
Agreed with others that it's really cool you finished your first jam game, especially since it didn't go smoothly. Congrats!
This is a cute little prototype, could see a puzzle platformer built on this base. I'd encourage you to see if you could come up with another level or two leveraging these mechanics.
Controls are a bit slippery and the presentation is pretty basic, but for a few hours of work this is neat. Well done.