PolymathLD

Reef Gobbler by BoxedMeatRevolution 2021-10-06T01:11:55Z

This is so fun and chill. The art is great and the sounds are so relaxing. I especially liked the feeling of growing the plants with the flashlight. In a future version it might be nice to have a little more positive feedback for the player, like growing sounds while the plants sprout, having the creatures react when they get fed, or pause for a second then visibly scuttle over and start an eating animation, something like that. For LD though this is perfect! Nice work.

O'Ryan by James Dunlap 2021-10-04T23:07:01Z

There's an impressive amount of game here already in terms of level design and content. I love the art, sound, and the overall mood of the game, and the platforming felt pretty good (especially the basic jumping and running). The shooting felt underbaked to me--I really found myself wishing that I could shoot while jumping or falling, and that the attack direction would default to go forward instead of up. I think this is a great starting point for a fun Metroidvania and it's really cool how much you guys already have in place. Good stuff!

Orthoptera by cottontshirtz 2021-10-05T08:02:55Z

I love this. With the unique movement style, I think you really managed to capture the feeling of grasshopper-ness if you know what I mean. The audio was really great too--loved the piano tracks and the rolling thunder and the different notes that play as you hop. The art was charming too--there's similar geology around where I live and that orange-and-blue palette from the red canyons is striking. Liked the little character portraits as well.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to glide (that's what I get for not reading the instructions properly, I guess) but once I did it was a lot of fun hopping and flying around the canyon. Also enjoyed the little snippets of dialogue and story. Just a nice feel from the whole game. Good work!

The Escape by Marin0104 2021-10-06T01:38:46Z

Nice visuals, really creative approach to the graphics. Feels good to steer the car and it's a lot of fun trying to avoid all the holes opening up. I do wish I had a little more time to react to some of the holes but that's a minor complaint. Good work.

Karawan by Rongo Matane 2021-10-06T08:22:23Z

Absolutely gorgeous game. Gives me a ton of nostalgia for Oregon Trail. The premise is interesting and thematic. Gameplay-wise, I agree with other feedback that it was a little frustrating that it felt like you had to take fairly specific actions without a lot of guidance on what they should be, like it wasn't sure if it wanted to be more of a puzzler or more of a strategy game. I still had fun with it though and I think there's a ton of potential here.

Outer Space Transport Service by Turncoda 2021-10-05T03:24:51Z

Beat it in 7:59. Was really fun hunting down all the salvage and dropping off the yellow boxes. Everything worked perfectly and I enjoyed the physics. Love that CRT screen effect you put in there and the cool little 80s-tech hums in the soundtrack. Perfect chill little game.

From someone who also just made a top-down game about a salvage pilot in space, it's really cool how two concepts that sound similar on the surface (even with a fairly similar movement scheme) can have two such wildly different outcomes in both aesthetics and gameplay.

Nice work on your game!

Buggy the Bunny by Don Fouts 2021-10-05T00:34:04Z

This is incredibly unsettling and I love it. The way it uses disconcerting imagery and sounds to punish the player for "cheating" is brilliant. It's also really clever in that the platforming mechanics not being all together *there* just enhances the theme and overall experience. Great work.

WONKERZ by BlueCalx 2021-10-06T01:53:03Z

Ha, this is awesome. So much inherent humor in things toppling over, I love it. The visuals are cool and psychedelic and it's fun to control the car. The camera did get a little frustrating, especially in the pillars of eternity section when it became hard to see the vehicle, but I'll admit that just added to the "unstable" feeling. Which is the other good thing, this is obviously really thematic. Anyway, love physics games like this! Cool stuff.

Landslide by Reef 2021-10-05T02:30:10Z

Nice spin on the platformer/endless runner genre! Haven't seen anything exactly like this before. Everything works well, the pixel art is cute, it feels good to play, and it sounds good. Only real feedback I can give is that the falling rocks move pretty fast so it's hard to react in time to do anything about them, which makes it feel pretty luck-based when you die to one; but maybe I'm just getting old and my reaction time sucks now. Anyway, fantastic job!

Insomnia by Foursay 2021-10-05T09:53:56Z

This is incredibly artistic and easy to relate to. I love it. The tying of figurative gameplay elements in with conceptual, emotional concepts is a really powerful thing you rarely see outside of indie developers and you did it really well here. The soundscape in particular is incredible, but the imagery is great too. Thanks for the poignant experience!

Capt'n Slippy by emrod 2021-10-06T00:53:33Z

Awesome take on the theme, love the art and premise. I think it would feel a little more clear if the player could always see what they need to put in the cannon somewhere on the screen. It was still pretty intuitive though and I picked it up quickly! Love the aim and fire screen.

HONK III by Tricky_Fat_Cat 2021-10-05T09:22:53Z

Kept saying out loud "how did they do this?" while I was playing. A whole damn FPS with multiple enemy types, multiple large levels, a bunch of weapons, and a dedicated honk button over a weekend? As others have mentioned, I don't really see the theme, and obviously the gameplay relies on tried-and-true old school FPS design tropes, but I still had a lot of fun and I'm still incredibly impressed. Honk.

Trauma by AdamCYounis 2021-10-04T23:38:14Z

Fantastic premise. Love the art, sound, story, gameplay concept, all of it. I was half-watching your stream while working on my own game so I have to admit I was so distracted I didn't fully understand what you were going for until I finally played the game. But that just made it better when I got to be surprised by the gameplay. Super interesting to combine a movement command game like the board game Mechs Vs Minions with a story-driven puzzler/Metroidvania--I never would have thought of that. I have to dig really deep to find any criticisms at all, but I did have one game-breaking bug that forced me to start over near the beginning of Session 2. The only other thing I would say for a full/final version, if you do one, is I would consider putting some thought into making the card-switching a little less cumbersome. It was fine with only a few near the beginning of the game, but when you started to get a big stack of cards, I was wishing I could use the mouse or that there was some faster way to re-arrange them. (I suppose it will work much better on touchscreen devices if you can drag them around, though.) In any case, amazing work and thanks for slamming yourself with so little sleep to give us all this awesome experience!

Volatile Defender by azagaya 2021-10-06T00:47:00Z

Really fun! This would make a great mobile game.

Go Hard! by bernard-bumblebutt 2021-10-06T06:57:33Z

This feels so great to play. Love all the positive feedback, particles, the light show. The insane cackling in the background and the insanity meter. Just awesome.

The Show Must Go Down by tykenn 2021-10-04T22:01:20Z

Really funny, creative premise, and I liked the art and the general idea behind the game. It was a little unintuitive figuring out how to disrupt the play--I wasn't sure what to do with the objects on the table, although punching the curtain and dropping the piano were pretty obvious. I also feel like I would've picked up on things quicker if it didn't take me awhile to figure out that the narrative stability bar was going from bottom to top instead of vice versa. I'm probably just tired and braindead at this point, but I do feel like it might be more intuitive if you reversed the direction of the progress bar. In any case, wonderful work! Love the humor, the cool splitscreen layout, and the art is fun and appropriate to the concept. Also think you nailed the theme in a way I never would've considered.

DRILL by dodori 2021-10-04T22:50:09Z

Holy crap this is ambitious. A basebuilding/tower defense/twin stick shooter/survival and resource gathering game with character animations and pathfinding in a gamejam? I'm gobsmacked that it works at all, let alone that I was able to play it for half an hour and had fun. In terms of the core gameplay loop the only significant critique I would give is that I always felt severely short on the fire resource. Maybe there's something I didn't understand or notice, but it feels like you can only get it automatically when the drill activates? It would be nice if there was some way to convert wood to fire and/or you could collect it from the aliens or something. In any case, nice work! Would love to see where this idea could go with more polish.

Riot Village by Getem Ratan 2021-10-05T10:19:19Z

Nice little core gameplay loop you've got there. It's fun to see how many villagers you can get to pop out before everything falls apart, and it definitely has a thematic feel to it with things getting more and more hectic and unstable as the game goes on. Would love to see this expanded with additional mechanics in the future!

loop by peterfiftyfour 2021-10-06T06:44:04Z

This is such a simple and fun concept. It's so obvious and great that I feel like I should have seen it before somewhere, but I don't think I actually have. The one thing that I really wanted was more of a sense of challenge and urgency. I assumed the lava would be rising beneath me as I built and climbed upward, so I was racing to get as high as I could as fast as I could, but then I fell down and realized I was in no danger the whole time. But this way is more of a chill experience and maybe that's what you were going for. I personally would like to have more of a risk of death and more of a drive to climb quickly, though! In any case, this is such a neat idea and the actual mechanics and aesthetics are really well-done. Cool stuff!!

Hammer Keep by BadPiggy 2021-10-06T05:35:43Z

Really creative combat system and it works extremely well. Visual style is coherent and appealing. Sound effects and music sound good and appropriate. I'd love to see this expanded on more but as a core gameplay loop it's pretty cool!

Space Crazy by Uppitydonkey57 2021-10-05T00:41:47Z

I think the problem with the sensitivity is partly that the window is not always capturing the mouse. It took a minute for it to kick in for me but once the mouse stayed in the game window it worked fine (though higher sensitivity from the settings menu was welcome). Anyway...! Love the concept here, simple and well-executed and the AI dialogue was hilarious. It was very short and light on challenge, but good idea, I had fun with it, and laughed out loud, so high marks.

GUNSTABLE MAYHEM by cakts 2021-10-05T10:51:40Z

Can't believe you don't have more ratings/feedback yet. Interesting core ejections mechanic, and so many other mechanics as well. Awesome gamefeel. Solid art/visual effects. Excellent work! The only real issue I had was I had a difficult time reading the text in the top left, so it was hard for me to know when to eject the core sometimes. Not sure if this had something to do with the scaling or the shaders you used or some interaction or if it's just intended behavior. Anyway, other than that, I had a blast.

Frosty Wobble by Ghuyajil 2021-10-05T07:44:56Z

Unbearably cute! I have a six year old daughter and she'd love this. Might show it to her tomorrow (it's the middle of the night here). The art is absolutely fantastic, especially given the time constraints, and it's pretty neat how you managed to work in all the staple platformer abilities in usable form, plus wobbly platforms, in such a short time. I do feel like the camera could use some work if you continue to polish the game, it was a bit jerky and sometimes got frustrating in the sense of not being able to see where I wanted to go. I also couldn't seem to find a quit button and had to CTRL+ALT+DEL out which is a bit of no-no from a usability perspective. But clearly since I found all the collectables none of that was game-breaking. Fun little kid-friendly game that I could easily see getting polished up and sold over the upcoming Christmas season.

Frosty Wobble by Ghuyajil 2021-10-05T07:45:09Z

(accidental double-post, ignore!)

Unstable Isotopes by Recher 2021-10-08T11:50:23Z

Despite "think-ahead puzzler" not being my favorite genre, this is a really cool direction to take the category. Love the idea of basing a puzzle game on chain reactions and energy. I like that there's not just one solution and that you can really think about optimizing your score. It looks like a really elegant piece of code, too, which is worth serious bonus points in my book.

Given the unique platform and the barebones nature of the game, I don't have any major criticisms that feel like you don't already know about them. The only one that feels relevant to address from the design perspective is that I did have some trouble intuiting the rules at first. It took me awhile of playing around with the game to feel like I was beginning to grasp what would happen when I made my move.

In terms of post-LD, if you were to continue developing this concept into a full game, I'd love to see level design get brought into play. Such as some smaller tutorial levels to start out with and explain each rule and some later levels that are much bigger and offer unique challenges to even complete them at all. Feels like you could pretty easily crank out a ton of levels for this and very gradually ramp up the challenge. I'm also kinda dying to hear what it would sound like with some awesome sound effects (preferably sounds that harmonizes together and come together like a cascade of beautiful notes, because that would be so cool). And of course more visual polish would be welcome. But I'm sure you already know all that!

Nice work!

Mountaineer by vsi- 2021-10-06T04:52:06Z

I found it quite difficult and frustrating but also really addictive! The random hazards made me mad, but in a way that made me want to keep playing. Probably tried it a few dozen times before I had to give up. I think the controls are a bit difficult to pick up as others have said. I think they would work better on mobile than on a computer--having to quickly mouse over to the buttons then mouse back to the playing field was really tricky. Perhaps assigning them to keyboard buttons as well (like 1,2,3 for example) would help. Anyway, I thought the game was really thematic and creative and I had fun trying (and failing!) to beat it. Nice work!

Danger Flask by Evileptic 2021-10-06T01:27:43Z

The overall presentation here is spot-on. Great animations, art, music, sound. It felt great to run and jump around. Gameplay-wise I think this is really thematic. It did get a little frustrating how randomly the flask would pop out, like sometimes I would grab it and drop it the same instant. A nice addition if you keep going might be some kind of "drop risk" meter that increases as you run/jump/etc--just a thought. It took me awhile to find the third flask on the second level, a little strange having to jump over the level exit door to get to it. I'm sure that was intentional on your part but a lot of players might not make that intuitive leap, haha. Anyway, this is a really cool and thematic game and it's very polished and well-done. Kudos!

Cairn by Chrispy977 2021-10-05T07:07:36Z

Absolutely gorgeous, relaxing game. I half-expected going into it that the physics wouldn't work or that it would be too hard to control, but those weren't nearly as big of issues I expected, and I was able to make some nice cairns within just a minute or two of playing around. The music and visuals are just wonderful. I will note that the scoring seems finicky and a lot of times I struggled to get it to give me a score at all (maybe I was doing something wrong regarding the center stone, I don't know). In terms of features I'd love to see added in an expanded version, I would like to be able to control the camera more and gain a higher viewpoint. Although I understand that with the way the controls work this could break the game so I can see why you went the way you did. Anyway, really cool stuff! Nicely done.

Ethereal Runner by jabsatz 2021-10-05T02:24:46Z

Agree about the Lovecraftian vibe! Nice horror themes for the Halloween season. I like the thought put into the magic mechanics with the tradeoffs and risk vs reward. And it's pretty satisfying blowing stuff up. Cool submission!

Rock On by Leuthil 2021-10-09T06:40:10Z

Things I liked: The minimialism of the gameplay and visuals, very clean and easy-to-grasp game. Blowing enemies off the edge was cool. The sound effects and music you chose worked well. The game was very thematic. Upgrades are always great, and the opportunity to play better and optimize your power curve.

Things that could be improved on: The difficulty curve feels a little off, goes from zero challenge to almost no challenge to extreme challenge very fast. Probably just some more intervening levels that gradually ramp up would be welcome. I would like to see more visual polish--textures, particle effects, animations, etc.

Overall great work on fulfilling the theme with such a simple, creative, focused game!

Orbital Cascade by PolymathLD 2021-10-05T10:37:11Z

@thunder @oliver-richmeier @the-fazzo @boxedmeatrevolution @nillard @cottontshirtz @abuelitajoe @alina-baybulatova @joerenglish @bluecalx

Thank you all for the kind and constructive feedback! I've been working my way through the list and I'll try to play all your games (if you participated in the jam) before the end of the period.

@abuelitajoe sorry to hear about your cursor glitching, I haven't been able to recreate it yet but I'll keep trying.

Orbital Cascade by PolymathLD 2021-10-08T08:06:33Z

@legiongrifst @peterfiftyfour @turncoda @fishtaod @bernard-bumblebutt @vsi @gamezero @antrimplato @raysi @gus-the-shark @rdcooper @barrier @pancho @emaigualmc2-art @adamcyounis @leuthil

Thank you so much for all the positive feedback and constructive criticism! It seems like the most common problem people have had is that the controls can be difficult, although some people also enjoyed the challenge. I think for a post-LD release I may switch the control scheme and try to make it more intuitive, without entirely losing the feeling of being able to master the ship's controls (I do like the thruster-based movement a lot and I think the game would be worse overall if there was no challenge there).

I also think that a more gradual difficulty curve and more frequent, shorter levels are great ideas.

Much gratitude for everyone who took the time to play the game! Been busy yesterday and today, but I will get to playing more of your games as soon as I can.

Orbital Cascade by PolymathLD 2021-10-08T11:28:04Z

@Recher Thanks for the feedback, that's some awesome constructive criticism!

You're right that "status" is confusing. I couldn't figure out a better term. The thematic idea was supposed to be that it represents the amount of backup you have left from other trash collectors ahead of you, which is why it gradually regenerates over time, but I didn't explain that well within the game; it's always a battle between clarity and overwhelming the player with an info dump.

The burning satellites do not deplete the status bar, FYI, but that's another thing I didn't manage to explain well. They're supposed to already be burning up; I wanted to include a feature where they broke up when they got close to the end of the screen so it'd be self-explanatory, but I ran out of time.

These are all definitely great things for me to consider should I continue development on this, so thanks a bunch. I think I'm leaning toward having left click be "move forward" and let the debris be auto-collected, as you suggested.

Dank Brew of the High Mage by John Luke Lusty 2021-10-05T03:42:26Z

This is one of my favorites yet. So damn funny--laughed my butt off--simple yet challenging, and fantastic art (especially the death animations). Kudos.

Dreampoint Collapse by JoeRenglish 2021-10-06T01:44:43Z

Difficult and fun! Really coherent visual style and simple, fun concept to basically edit the levels as you play. One minor thing I wished for while playing was for spacebar to also activate jump, since I have a lot of muscle memory for that from other games it feels more intuitive. Anyway, cool game!

Disruption by WYL TEAM 2021-10-05T10:07:07Z

So atmospheric. The music is great, and I love how it switches when you get close to the monster. The pixel art is perfect; the player character's walk animation is the essence of depression and it totally got me. Excellent job.

Unstable Piles by nulldreams 2021-10-04T22:09:59Z

I liked it a lot! Simple, fun, and intuitive idea for a physics puzzler that slots neatly in with the theme, and the pixel art is cute.

Escape from planet Shaduk by fishtaod 2021-10-06T06:53:28Z

The game looks so cool. Love the squash and stretch in the animations. The puzzle was really mindbending, I might have liked to see the game begin with some very easy puzzles and ease you into the concept better. Really neat ideas and execution though!

Lovecrafting by Concker_88 2021-10-05T07:32:42Z

As everyone else said, the art is fantastic. When trying to start over I did encounter some crashes, but easily resolved by refreshing the page. No crashes or game-killing bugs in actual gameplay. I feel like this is the sort of game that could be played with a deck of cards on the tabletop, but the addition of the increasingly-problematic timers really adds a lot of (good) stress to the challenge.

Temple Sprint by chrishg12 2021-10-05T02:17:13Z

Fun to combine Indiana Jones with something like Mirror's Edge. The grapple mechanic has potential but I could never get it to work consistently as expected. Love the Hollywood set pieces--floor crumbling, not one giant ball but a *bunch* of them, the platform dominoes ala Moria. Cool stuff, lots of potential here.

Twin Tails Jetpack by ExpiredPopsicle 2021-10-05T16:00:24Z

Okay, this is actually hilarious. The visual idea for the character goes a long way here. Gameplay-wise, this is a genre I've seen done before, but the execution is good here and the levels are fun, with some creative camera movements to spice things up. Well done!

Eternal Crisis by cerno-b 2022-04-05T18:47:13Z

I was just thinking last night about how much I like the concept of bullet hell games where the attacks come from the center of the screen rather than scrolling in from the edge, and lo and behold, you made one! And it's fun! Nice work. Love the segmented, ever-growing bosses. The time-as-lives concept is also thematic and works well.

Kiwis Can't Fly by DDRKirbyISQ 2022-04-08T04:31:23Z

Simply lovely. Probably the best sound design I've played yet this jam, and wonderful art as well. Gameplay was relaxing and enjoyable, although obviously very simple. Whole thing was a nice polished package. Great work!

Hyper Keepy Ups Turbo by nanolotl 2022-04-06T11:39:35Z

What a great idea for an arena shooter. Brings me back to childhood memories. One of those cool things where you're like--I haven't seen this before--why haven't I seen this before, it's an awesome idea! I really liked how you included the ability to collect bombs via power-ups too. The interplay of the three different goals (shoot stuff, collect stuff, keep the ball up) makes for some really interesting gameplay. My only minor gripe is I do feel like the controls hampered the gameplay a little bit--the fast movement made it pretty hard to aim, in particular. I would personally have enjoyed more of a twin stick/mouse aim setup, but maybe that's just personal taste. The art and sound are clear and communicate the gameplay well. Overall, fantastic work!

Akubi by Almax 2022-04-05T10:43:14Z

Beat it in about 5-10 minutes. Special compliments for the art. The background art in particular was astonishingly good for a jam game. Nice, pleasant music too. I definitely felt the theme played into the mechanics. The game played well--it was easy to judge where my attacks were going to land and the player feedback was solid. Difficulty was just right for an LD game. It was a fairly straightforward take on the genre, so I can't rate as highly as I'd like on innovation, but everything else was great. This is the kind of game I could see buying if it were expanded into a full release.

Daybreak by LoHii 2022-04-05T21:40:36Z

Fun arena shooter! Loved the grappling hook mechanics. There should be more games where you play as a vampire. The graphics and sound were solid, and everything worked well. My only minor constructive criticism would be similar to what other people said and you already know--a little UX work on illustrating to the player how the different player resources work would go a long way. Regardless, this was a lot of fun.

Feast or Famine by ColinBellino 2022-04-06T15:53:37Z

Awesome! One of my favorites yet. Just good solid twin stick shooter action with old school Zelda-esque levels, nice pixel art, and a goofy sense of humor. Couple of minor critiques: I initially got stuck because I didn't realize you could dash through downed enemies and the first one was blocking the door. No big deal, I figured it out quickly, but I could see it tripping up some players. I also didn't realize you could suck enemies' blood by dashing through them until I accidentally did it on the third level. Maybe one quick pop-up message in the first room explaining those things would help.

Aside from that I had a great time and made it all the way to the punny ending. Nice work!!

Orbles by Rongo Matane 2022-04-05T19:01:16Z

Wow, absolutely love the production values on display here--art, graphics, everything. Creepy Attack on Titan vibes plus city/civilization builder. Fine work!

Pass The Torch by Dan Smith 2022-04-05T20:35:05Z

What a harrowing game! Quite the experience. Simple concept but it made me feel things. Absolutely nailed the theme better than any game I've played yet. Art and sound worked in concert with the story and thematic elements to make it that much more powerful. Very fine work.

Aloft by ColeSlaughter 2022-04-05T20:12:12Z

One of those games where I found it really hard to wrap my head around the controls but once I did it started getting easier. Very innovative concept! I did wish the difficulty curve was less harsh, but still very interesting gameplay. The graphics and overall mood were also really polished and strong.

Xermatt Redux by kiririn51 2022-04-07T01:11:03Z

Man, I love old-school adventure games like this. Brings me back to the early 90s. Great dialogue and story, really suspenseful, *awesome* pixel art, the works. Really feels like the first chapter of a full, polished adventure game you'd find for sale. Incredible work!

Flupye Ranch by JOZGames 2022-04-06T13:59:17Z

I like the concept of protecting your herd by rebuilding the fence and keeping the bad ones away. Nice work!

22h38 by Katutt 2022-04-05T14:48:45Z

Made it all the way to the ending! I'm very impressed by the achievements of making such an atmospheric, visually-interesting game and simply including so much content in an LD game. The varied musical cues also impressed me.

Gameplay-wise, it was fairly simple, but I liked the core idea of dying to progress via a time loop. I also don't know if I've seen the particular combination of isometric tiles, turn-based movement, and story-driven adventure game yet, which is what this sort of feels like? Pretty cool.

It did take me a few minutes to get used to the isometric controls, but once I got a handle on it they were fine. It would perhaps be more intuitive at first if you could click on adjacent tiles to move to them, though.

I think this game might have the most potential of the ones I've played for a full release, perhaps with more content and some additional mechanics. Great work! I was really sucked in by the sound, visuals, and writing.

Into The Light by Yorsh 2022-04-05T16:49:34Z

You have to be some kind of psycho to make a game about saving mosquitoes :laughing: All joking aside, this is wonderfully done. Fantastic graphics and sound, and a cool little gameplay mechanic to build around. I like the escalation of more lights turning on and more and more bugs appearing, very thematic. I got a nice little swarm going by the end. Cool game!

The Last Keeper by Bugord 2022-04-07T21:44:37Z

Excellent, one of my favorites yet. Love the core mechanic, reminds me of the board game "Forbidden Island". The graphics are fantastic, the sound is good, and the concept is well-executed. A really nice curve of basically fun macro work at the beginning leading into a stressful frantic ending scrambling from place to place trying to protect your last remaining tiles until the portal activates. I beat it on the second try, just barely, so the difficulty curve seems pretty good. Love it!

Wizard Hunt by Timur_Bahadir 2022-04-05T16:08:18Z

Always enjoy these tower climbing/infinite scroll games. The bow mechanic made for some fun metroidvania action. I thought maybe having a health bar or hearts so you can die to the enemies would be a nice challenge--maybe for a new game+ mode?

Art was nice, enjoyed the 80s She-Ra vibe.

All in all, well-done.

Infectious - Delay the inevitable by ZoomieRoomie 2022-04-06T11:24:54Z

Pretty innovative game concept! Never seen something quite like this before. Interesting take on the arena/arcade game genre.

Ydunian Prune by MateusBoga 2022-04-06T01:18:06Z

Clicker games are totally my guilty pleasure genre, absolutely love them. This one was great, awesome pixel art, a surprising amount of content. I eventually got to what I think is the good ending. One of my favorite games so far this jam.

The Flower of Marasca by F1Krazy 2022-04-06T17:45:29Z

Nice mini-metroidvania you have here! The gameplay was pretty polished except I did fall through the world once in the area near the flower. Other than that, my minor feedback would be similar to other people; item selection system is a little tricky, seems possible to get stuck and be unable to finish (even though it didn't happen to me).

On the plus side, The art and sounds/music are simple and lo-fi, but they all work well together to form a coherent aesthetic. I thought the level design was a real strength here, the difficulty was just right and the challenges were just different enough to be interesting. I enjoyed playing through it and getting what I guess is the good ending? Cool game!

DeadFlame by Conroy 2022-04-06T16:08:41Z

Haha, the intro screen is awesome, so high marks for humor even though I'm guessing it's an asset you found since you opted out on graphics?

Anyway, the game is fun and it feels great to shoot the zombies. The shooter mechanics work well and I think the basic game loop of feeding the fire and fighting baddies is a fun idea. I did feel like there was a bit of a lack of direction though--at some point the zombies stopped coming and I had to go out into the woods to find them, which felt a bit odd. I also was a bit confused by the inclusion of the pistol since it felt like the rifle was just better in general and my ammo was unlimited.

Still, I had a good time shooting zombies and I thought it was fun entry, so great job!

Untitled Zombie Shooter by Ismael Rodriguez by Ismael Rodriguez 2022-04-06T20:15:49Z

Feels great to play, really satisfying shooting the zombies and quite challenging with all the spawns. The gunplay is good and the core mechanics work just as they should. Love the retro Doom/Wolf3D/Duke Nukem vibes. The one big thing that I think is missing for a simple game like this would be some spatial audio cues from the zombies, I mostly died from getting snuck up on from behind even though I was spinning back and forth like a mad top, haha. I still had a lot of fun with it though, nice work!

Comet by EduSilva 2022-04-06T11:20:39Z

Very nice! Love the palette, awesome Game Boy Color vibes. Nice feedback, feels good to shoot stuff. The comet looks awesome when it's about to hit. Played a handful of times and really enjoyed it. Great entry!

Crystalysis by jordantanner 2022-04-08T02:49:23Z

Smashing the crystals and dashing and jumping around felt really satisfying and looked and sounded cool! The camera worked well too which is not a small thing in a game like this. I did wish there was at least one other mechanic to make things more interesting. Had fun with it though!

Dead Weight by jsloth 2022-04-06T11:32:58Z

Oh, I love the old school Quake vibes with the graphics here. Looks awesome. Interesting concept for a game too, very innovative. One thing I would've liked to see was more feedback for the player's left click skull-pushing ability, sound effects/visual effects/something that gives a better sense of what your "clicking range" is. Other than that, nice execution of an interesting premise! Liked the ambient sound effects too.

The Last Savior by JustusPan 2022-04-05T12:13:16Z

Nice and juicy! The art and animations look great, and it's satisfying to smash through big groups of enemies. There's a little bit of interest here mechanically with the matching of attacks to enemies, too. Mostly just feels good to play, fine work.

Horde! by Fear Games 2022-04-05T10:53:06Z

I felt like the off-kilter camera actually added to the feel of the game. Since there were no enemies, just targets, it didn't bother me too much. Laughed out loud multiple times. Felt great to build up a big horde and get revenge. I did get some mild stuttering when my horde first started to get big, but then it stopped; strange. Anyway, fun entry! Brought a smile to my face.

Tilted Saloon by Vitor Milioni 2022-04-05T16:20:26Z

This is such a neat idea. Physics platformer plus pinball? Yes please. Also really enjoy the wild west theme and all the art that goes along with it.

I played it for quite awhile, but did end up getting stuck, unfortunately, and wasn't able to finish. One thought I had was that given the Wild West stuff, it would be really neat if you also could use the mouse to shoot the pinball to apply physics forces mid-flight and move it around. But really, I'm probably just bad, haha.

Great work guys!

Heal me, please! by Andrey_Zhukov 2022-04-07T14:29:31Z

Really nice and intuitive game concept. Feels like it would work just as well as a tabletop card game, which is a sign of a solid design. I do wish there were some satisfying sound effects, that would add a lot to the game, but I know it's Ludum Dare so some things inevitably fall by the wayside. Game looks great and is otherwise polished and fun to play. Nice work!

Pizza Gal by No Grapes Games 2022-04-05T19:37:02Z

A lot of fun trying to maximize your route. Good, solid, simple mechanic to base a LD game around. The character animations were great and everything looked good and polished. Cool game!

Don't Kill Your Darlings by scalliondelight 2022-04-05T20:24:49Z

Wonderfully absurd and funny. Took me a minute to figure out I was supposed to click and drag but once I did I was off to the races. Also really enjoyed the weird and charmingly disgusting art.

Nelson's Nightmare: Remastered by clemonades 2022-04-07T20:23:46Z

Polished and feels great to play! Love all the different player feedback elements, the screenshake, weapon knockback, enemies flashing, particle effects. All looks great and comes together to give the game a lot of juice. Pixel art looks pretty good, sounds and music are solid, just a good all-around package.

Only negative thing I can add about what you have here is the difficulty curve feels a bit off, like it starts out really hard, gets a lot easier, then gets hard again. I think this is because extra jumps are so important for being able to escape tight spots, and the player doesn't start with any.

Other than that, had a great time and really enjoyed it!

Unfaithable by Furano 2022-04-06T18:40:51Z

Fun twin stick shooter! The art looks great and it feels awesome to shoot baddies. I did have some problems with the camera going a bit crazy, but other than that everything worked well. I really like the time loop concept here.

Battery Low by Milestone Games 2022-04-05T22:05:36Z

The rover's voice is adorable. Really fun planning out your route through trial and error and figuring out how to win. Great pixel art, nice sound design, good music. Awesome entry!

Glue Bot Galaxy by J-fret 2022-04-05T14:22:46Z

What an awesomely weird take on the theme. Gluing together a breaking apart planet--love it. Falling in almost feels intended. Hazards of the job.

I definitely liked the cabin level more than the city level, easier to see what I was doing. I found myself wish a bit for third person perspective to see what I was doing/needed to do better--but I know third person cameras are a huge pain so I totally understand why you went this direction. In any case, the graphics and sound were solid!

Anyway, high points for innovation and I definitely had fun spraying glue everywhere! Awesome work!

Tick by ChewieCB 2022-04-06T12:13:39Z

Felt really good when I got going fast and got a flow going. Love movement-based top-down games like this, and enjoyed the delivery concept. The art and sound were good, especially the character portraits. The difficulty felt fairly well-tuned to me; I was able to just barely keep it going at first, and as I got better I was able to gradually increase my timer. One minor nitpick is it might've been nice to not have to press E except to go to the shop, but instead to just automatically pick up/drop off when you enter the areas. Anyway, nice entry! Enjoyed playing.

InevitaBallistics by JHax 2022-04-05T10:35:21Z

Don't know if I've ever seen an arena shooter quite like this, so high marks for innovation. Love the old school Atari/arcade vibes and the range of different levels to play. Would've liked to see a little more player feedback about the power-ups generally, like a text pop-up telling you what you picked up/used, and more visuals. Cool game!

We Need To Talk by Doot 2022-04-06T17:49:57Z

This is adorable and fun and I love everything about it.

Very Long Spell by NotUsername 2022-04-05T16:32:57Z

This is exactly my type of game! Played quite a few runs. Very satisfying, loved all the player feedback and juice/gamefeel. I played with all the spells offered, and my favorite weapon was the laser. I was only able to get past the first boss, unfortunately--the game was quite difficult. I don't mind the difficulty but maybe a 3 second countdown when you enter each room would be welcome, since you often spawn in a dangerous spot? Sometimes I felt like I didn't have enough time to react when I first started a room.

Also have to compliment the art, which was polished and good. And even though I know you opted out of the audio category, the music really enhanced the overall experience. Love me some metal/hard rock tunes. Nice choices.

Delaying Ludum Dare by Emily Pitcher 2022-04-06T20:36:44Z

This Is Why I'm a Solo Dev: The Game :laughing:

Seriously though? This is great. I actually haven't seen many platformers submitted this time, so it was great to play a solid "normal platformer" where everything worked well and the controls were tight. The audio track was worth top marks in that category alone, so funny and entertaining, and letting the player make choices and putting up all that amusing background art and different music tied it all together just enough to work.

Great work guys!

The Stone Curse by Protagonist-kun 2022-04-06T23:34:45Z

Didn't seem to be much "game" here, unless I missed something? But the art and music were beautiful! Gorgeous and relaxing to look at. I could easily see a full game doing well with this art style and mood.

Erefos by exopunk 2022-04-05T17:00:05Z

Wow, this is just awesome. The gameplay and controls feel tight and good, the art and sound design is phenomenal, the level design works well, and the concept fits the theme. You even included controller support--very welcome on a platformer! Love it, love it, love it. Made it to the end with just the right amount of difficulty.

The only very minor criticism I can think of is that the movement and animation feel of the player character seems a little bit ponderous given the frenetic central mechanic of running to get to the next light; the light mechanic seems more suited to a faster pace. But even then, that's totally subjective, and I can see why you went the way you did.

Thanks for the great little bite of platforming! Would love to see a full version someday.

Wizardfall by Quite Good 2022-04-06T19:16:03Z

Beat it once in "talking mode" and once in "fighting mode". The talking one cracked me up. Obviously very simple gameplay, but I liked the idea, the art direction, and the writing, and simple games are good in Ludum Dare IMO. Nicely done!

Somnipathy by Cyzaine 2022-04-05T15:57:36Z

Creepy and funny at the same time. This really takes me back to the games I played in the 90s. Good work!

Simple Harmonic Motion Game by Escapade 2022-04-05T16:38:48Z

Agreed, love the idea of the central mechanic here. Unique take on the endless runner genre that I've never seen before; always interested when people take an established genre and do something truly innovative with it. Had fun playing and trying to beat my high score! Nice job.

Cars crusher by nyanpierre 2022-04-05T10:24:33Z

Nice take on an emerging genre. I like that you're a little car doing battle with a bunch of giant trucks. Destruction and doom to all jacked-up pickup trucks! Especially when they have devil horns.

It's easy to control and it feels good to upgrade your weapons over time. I played for longer than I care to admit before I eventually drove my car into the pileup on purpose to end it. (Just the right amount of jank by the way, love how they start stacking up, hilarious.)

My main critiques would be that I feel like most of the weapons are hard to actually hit anything with, except the auto-aiming turret of course; the bombs seemed to almost aim away from the enemies, and the forward-firing laser, well you generally want to be driving *away* from the bad guys, so shooting forward isn't that useful. More important though, I think the difficulty should've ramped up a little more over time for this style of game--felt like I could've kept going a lot longer and I wasn't under any real stress mostly.

Anyway, fine work!

Space Ninja by mhorth 2022-04-06T21:42:38Z

This looks and feels great and the level of polish is tremendous! I agree with those saying it's simple, but I don't think you could achieve this level of polish with anything more ambitious given the time constraints. And simple can still be fun :smile: Awesome work!

Death's Gambit by osh.studio 2022-04-05T12:29:51Z

Love it! Don't think I've seen this kind of you-move-they-move game done as sort of an arcade high score type thing before. I also have a soft spot for isometric pixel art, and the graphics here are great. The reaper's pathfinding worked perfectly for me, which is a big deal in a game like this, so nice job.

Would've maybe liked if movement had some sounds since that's the main action you take in the game, and just a few more sound effects in general, but what's there is solid! Fun game!

The Fire Will Die by PolymathLD 2022-04-05T21:49:28Z

Thank you all for the kind comments and constructive feedback! I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to play the game. I'm trying to get to as many of your entries as I can bit by bit while still playing some others in the jam.

I think the constructive criticisms a few have offered are dead on and I will definitely take those issues into account for a potential future release.

The Fire Will Die by PolymathLD 2022-04-06T01:26:29Z

@cyzaine I used the latest one that's on the Godot asset library, I believe it's 1.4.1. Didn't change anything or have any problems with it until I switched from debug to release (which I need to make a point in testing sooner next time) and realized Dialogic was causing my game to crash. Read up and found out that the fix is to make sure you're including *.json and *.cfg as non-resource files on your export--no big deal, just caused me a few minutes of panic until I Googled the solution :laughing:

Thanks for contributing to Dialogic, it's a fantastic plugin and saves me lots of time! Also thanks for playing!

Jailbound Joyride by AmberFall92 2022-04-06T23:57:33Z

Really polished and fun, love bouncing on the police cars. Sound design, art, and music were all addictive. Really nice take on the endless runner genre, good job!

the pond by Misfire_dev 2022-04-05T19:51:33Z

A relaxing way to spend some time, but not without its goals. I might have personally liked it better if dying did not reset your progress, given the relaxing and casual mood. That's just taste, though. High marks for setting such a great atmosphere.

AUTO_GENERATED_ADVENTURE_v2.9 by JuhrJuhr 2022-04-05T12:05:44Z

Incredibly amusing. Love the fourth-wall breaking and all the fun interactions with the player. Could easily see this concept being expanded into a larger story too! The pixel art was cute, and the gameplay worked well, simple as it was. Mostly just kept chuckling at the AI as I played.

Void Prison by Tadas Migauskas 2022-04-05T10:06:20Z

This game feels great to play. Tons of player feedback, screenshake, strong controls. Reminds me of Vlambeer games and Enter the Gungeon. Clean, readable art with smooth animatons, solid sounds and music. I like the idea that the bullets push you into the wall instead of killing you. I wouldn't have minded the enemy projectiles being just a hair slower, but that may just be a poor reaction time thing on my part. Nice work!

Earth's Last Stand by Junklab 2022-04-06T11:07:47Z

Simple and elegant gameplay! The way the shooting and movement works together with the camera creates some interesting interplay. Feels like the best strategy is to try to keep yourself centered on the screen so you have the maximum amount of time to react rather than using the movement to dodge, but I could be wrong there. Enjoyed the art and visual effects, love the lighting on the earth when you fire your rockets in particular. Nice little game you have here!

The Gallows by Burn Tree 2022-04-06T23:44:09Z

Possibly my favorite art so far this Ludum Dare. Very poignant, stream of consciousness type game. Beautiful soundtrack too. This game really sets a great atmosphere and tells an intriguing story in a unique way.

Wrath of the Sun God by Skript-Kitty 2022-04-06T11:59:42Z

Everything worked well and I was impressed you managed to include so many boss phases! I would have liked if I felt a little more mobile in the boss arena, felt a little slower than I would've liked trying to get around, and like there were only a couple of symmetrical paths I could traverse. Other than that the boss fight worked great. Managed to win on the first try (on easy, just barely) so the difficulty seems about right. I also really appreciated the controller support, always important in an actiony platformer type game. Enjoyed it!

Hydropy by lantto 2022-04-05T15:49:18Z

Really interesting how the eruption is growing exponentially while your tree-cutting strength is growing exponentially as the game zooms out. Haven't seen something quite like this in the idler or arcade genres. Fun game!

No Way Out by LonelyLionGames 2022-04-05T19:19:24Z

Central idea here is tremendously funny, so thanks for that :laughing: Especially with how all-in you went on playing it straight with the creepy sounds and graphics. Just brought a smile to my face. The actual gameplay, I mean, it's trivia with little FPS challenges. It works fine though! I enjoyed it, and the trivia questions themselves felt like they were in a good spot where I knew the answers to most but not all of them. The fighting/dodging/platforming was fine too, but simple. Nice job!

Target Practice by JCMonkey 2025-04-07T19:17:52Z

When I went to play this one I thought it would be a lot less interesting than it actually was--I really like the mechanic where clicking the balls sends them flying at high speeds so it's hard to just spam a single ball, but you _can_ hit it again while it's still going fast. Also adds a lot of variety to tracking their movement and such. Overall really satisfying concept with a lot more player feedback and reactivity than I expected, fine work!

Moos from the Depth of Space by notnasiul 2025-04-07T17:02:53Z

Loved this, an early favorite from the jam! Very funny, great art, solid gameplay, challenge factor felt just right. Multiple times I found myself thinking "I wish you could..." and then I actually tried it, and whaddya know, the dev thought of that too! Great work.

Depths of Hell by mediocrity 2025-04-08T18:40:04Z

I played this for an embarrassingly long time, haha. Great work. The way you can only upgrade your character between defeats, and the coins even stick around on the map, almost makes it more of an idler/incremental game. But I'm a sucker for power scaling games and games where you can basically break them after awhile, and that's definitely the case here. I started playing another game on my phone while I let this one run after my first win, just to see if I could, with sufficient upgrades, sit there and win without doing anything, and... yup. By the way, I think the shotgun may actually be more powerful than the sniper rifle in my testing, but costs less? Just a heads up for the dev and any players.

Cave of Gorbs by fusionnist 2025-04-08T15:42:53Z

Really satisfying, well-presented, trippy, and chill game. Enjoyed how you go through all kinds of different environments and throwing rocks at enemies good player feedback. I wasn't really sure what to do with the resources other than the rocks though, and I don't think I ever found another fountain besides the one at the starting point. In any case, nicely done!

Selective Drilling by Xwilarg 2025-04-07T19:30:34Z

Nice work getting something this complicated done in such a short time! I managed to find one of the endings (Escape). These digging games always have such an addictive game loop. It was interesting that you tried something different with the drill that cools down and takes you multiple blocks per "swing"--not sure it _totally_ worked, but it was different and I appreciated that. And I think it was a wise choice to not penalize the player for dying. Had a fun time buying upgrades and digging down over and over.

DESCEND with CAUTION by LightningST 2025-04-08T00:43:13Z

One of my favorites so far! I'm amazed at how great the level design is given how many different mechanics you packed in. The "putting fall damage into a physicsy platformer" thing was very amusing and worked well to add challenge. This is a game I could actually see the speedrunning community really getting into. The only real critique I can give is that I don't know if you _mechanically_ expressed the "depths" theme very well, though visually you certainly did a fine job. Great work, in any case!

Depths Driller by TasakaSama 2025-04-07T22:20:54Z

Was able to complete the game! Enjoyed the mood and everything worked as it should, no major bugs. Intriguing idea to have enemies come up out of the drills you place. Only thing I would suggest if you make a similar game in the future or expand this one, it would be nice to place more hidden resources than the player actually needs to accomplish their mission--it took me quite awhile to hunt down the last Quartz vein. Other than that, nice work!

Deep Delve by P1x3lc0w 2025-04-07T19:09:06Z

Very ambitious to tackle a metroidvania roguelike in a 48 hour game jam! Well-done! I had so much fun I immediately started a second run. There are things I could constructively criticize, but I'm sure you're well-aware of them already, I'm just amazed you made something with this much content, gameplay, and complexity at all in such limited time. One small tip from a fellow Godot dev on a good way to reduce the repetiveness in a random system--I've been sticking things into Arrays and using Array.shuffle(), then pulling the front one out and removing it from the array every time I need something random but don't want it to repeat. Deck of cards idea. You probably already know that trick though!

Anyway, loved the early NES style pixel art and audio, very consistent and nicely done. The gameplay functioned well. It was addictive being able to upgrade my weapon and buy new ones. Super cool how the enemies get harder and add abilities as you go deeper. Lots to love here!

Igbi Goes Deep by Jared Saizdelamora 2025-04-07T17:34:13Z

Cool idea to do a 2.5D sidescroller survival game like this! I liked the progression and exploration, and you really managed to make different areas with a different feel to them in a short time. It did get a bit tedious going back to the merchant to sell stuff. One thing I do have to mention--I think the embedded web version is broken on Itch, I couldn't get the inventory system to work. I downloaded the Windows executable and was able to play through properly.

The Well of Secrets by coatline 2025-04-07T17:20:44Z

Very nice, loved the creepy atmosphere! Sound design was great and a good sense of how to guide players through levels using lighting design.

Deep Descent by boids 2025-04-08T17:53:27Z

Nice, simple, appealing core concept, and everything controlled well! Was fun dodging objects and shooting towers. I do have to say, it feels like it's missing some challenge and could use at least a couple more mechanics--like, for example, a player health bar that you have to manage, or speed boosters you need to hit to stay ahead of the red wave. I made it to -2000 and it didn't seem to be getting any harder, and felt like I could have gone on for quite awhile, but I wasn't feeling challenged and the game didn't seem to be getting noticeably more difficult.

Definitely have something here though, add a few more things and I could see this being super fun to play. Nice work!

That Underground Level by andrewkennedy 2025-04-07T16:43:53Z

Lovely homage to some lovely old classics. Pixel art was great, atmosphere was very enjoyable, and everything worked well. I laughed out loud in delight at that first time you fall down into a new game.

Altitudes by PolymathLD 2025-04-08T18:53:22Z

@psedera @lazyanttu @coatline @sicosiber @reaktori @ssiannas @vladcfg @inferno123 @aune @ibandurist @meskaline @fusionnist

Thank you so much for taking the time to play the game, rate, and give feedback! Much appreciated!

Regarding the difficulty, I would have liked to make the curve a little shallower, but I didn't have time to playtest and tune as much as I would have liked. That's Compo for you!

I've also seen mixed feelings on the "changing altitude" mechanic. I personally like how it turned out fairly well, all things considered--but I can definitely see how it could be frustrating!

Knocking On Hell's Door by Frib 2025-04-08T03:49:08Z

Absolutely wild, implementing a fully-functional FPS with all of the classic Quake arsenal in a compo GameJam. Super impressive. Visually could obviously use some work, what with the lack of enemy animations, textures, etc, but I'm sure you know that already. Also loved implementing "depths" as "levels of hell in a Doom-like". Great fun, thanks!

Topography by sudocoffee 2025-04-08T16:03:49Z

Really, really neat mechanic, very creative. Loved the minimalistic art and audioscape, and how the music tracks faded into each other as you carved. Only thing I found a little frustrating was that I kept making progress, then accidentally uncarving back to the top layer and having to start over. Not sure how to address that, but it did get a little tedious after awhile. Maybe a skill issue! Eventually made it to the end though and had a great time, nice work!

Just a few kilometers by ollulf 2025-04-07T22:31:52Z

Wonderful job, some of the best visuals so far in compo! Gameplay mechanic was new and interesting, challenge level was tuned well. Appreciate requiring the juggling of different elements in gameplay, always something I enjoy. No real criticisms, great little game!

DungeonDescent by thisyc 2025-04-07T23:04:35Z

At first I thought this was a match-3 in the normal sense of moving gems around, so it took me awhile to figure out the concept and I initially thought it was bugged. A little demonstration animation at the beginning taking control of the mouse cursor and showing it drawing a line through gems to picking them up would help with this. The only other big criticisms I have are that I couldn't figure out how to restart so I just quit the game and started it back up every time I died; and I encountered what I assume is a bug where gems got stuck on top of each other in one spot. This didn't break the game but was annoying.

In any case, after I got the hang of it and figured out how to kill enemies, it became really fun and I spent a solid 15 minutes playing through to round 100. Really addictive gameplay/upgrade loop, nicely done!

Where Stars Forget Your Name by Vladcfg 2025-04-07T19:39:30Z

Very nice player feedback, visuals, music. Just a great chill little experience. Only thing I didn't love was the black hole gameplay mechanic (they looked cool though!), because generally by the time I noticed I was close to one it was already too late. Maybe would have been more fitting (albeit less realistic) to have the black hole simply spit you out at a different, connected black hole instead of being a lose state! Obviously this is very simple, but it's clear you put a lot of time into polishing the experience, and I appreciated that a lot as a player.

Don't wake him up by dithom 2025-04-08T19:47:04Z

Great concept, and you tuned the difficulty just right. Had a lot of fun retrying until I was able to steal everything at 7:27am. Really good main menu art here, by the way!

rabbit hOled by melonboy 2025-04-08T17:42:53Z

Really neat! Love all of the mechanics with the rope and the inclusion of so many different platforming mechanics. Graphics and audio are really atmospheric and wonderful. Loved the eerie exploration element. Without spoiling it for others, are all the endings the same "infinity" ending, or is there a "true" ending that you can find on repeat plays?