Fire In The Hole! by Venom Studio 2016-12-13T09:21:00

*drags all items into the fire*

*rereads game description*

Ohh, you're supposed to move things AWAY from the fire.

lol

That aside, I wasn't exactly clear on what to do in the game. From what I gather, you must move things around so that they don't get consumed by the fire. But there's nowhere to move things off of, and things catch on fire at random it seems - there's no indication of which items will burst into flames next.

The biggest issue, however, is that something seems to constantly flicker in front of the screen, making it very irritating to concentrate on the actual gameplay itself. I mean, overall, I think the game could work effectively if there was some sort of warning indication of what you have to move out of the way, and if the graphics didn't constantly flicker stuff. The music's pretty appropriate though. Graphics are nice too.

Geometry Encounters by hlavik211 2016-12-14T10:07:00

I'm interested in playing your game (love the art in the gradient of the preview screenshot), but I'm not seeing a link to download the game anywhere. Your current link leads to the upload page of your hosting site. Maybe try a different hosting site such as itch.io or Dropbox even. Fix it ASAP so others can play and rate! :D

The Village by Gipzo 2017-05-17T00:52:54Z

The travelers saying "WTF" and YEAH" were just the right amount of humour that didn't make it seem over-the-top. I didn't realise you had to continually shower travelers with gold, and thus I ended up losing as I was focusing on upgrading my buildings too much. Nonetheless, I got some enjoyment out of this; I really love the art; the colours are just beautiful and makes for a very relaxing atmosphere, along with the choice of the music. I would have liked to hear some sound effects, which would elevate this entry even more. The game was fun for the time I spent figuring out how it worked. (the tutorial was good)

The Mother of All Games by sorceress 2017-05-03T00:13:34Z

Hi. :) This took me back to the days when I had those old handhelds that had 30 or so mini games in them and I loved that.

Some great things: - Monkey birds are so adorable. - I love the music. For some reason, I'm getting Aztec-esque vibes from the puzzle track. - The puzzles are pretty well designed. They were easy enough for me to pick up without a tutorial, even when I'm not familiar with the game they are based off of (if so). - I love the cat. - I love how the cat gets scared when you summon another puzzle piece. - The puzzles are consistent in their design, but different enough that you can tell them apart from each other.

Some issues and such: - In the snake game, perhaps the player should not start moving until they press the arrow keys. I also agree that the immediate feedback of the game is confusing and - In the platformer with the keys, I'm not really a fan of the player bouncing when they land on a platform. Not to mention the jump sound effect seems to go overboard as I am walking through a passage that is exactly one block high. - There was an option to Continue on the menu, but the game doesn't seem to save. I completed 8 of the 10 mini games before quitting. - An option to restart within a level would have been helpful. - It appears that you can summon a different puzzle in the same spot once you beat the previous one. Essentially, I could summon a bunch of puzzles within a short distance of each other and not have to move. This is really a minor nitpick, but I would have liked to have the different puzzle games spaced out around the world so that there is a reason to actually move around the world instead of staying in one spot. But I suppose it does make it more convenient to start playing the next game with your current mechanic. Imo it just defeats the purpose of the theme.

Other than that, this is certainly one of the more polished games I've played in this LD. The art, audio and variety of gameplay stand out for me here. Awesome work!

Anger Birb: World by Jezzamon 2017-05-17T00:39:10Z

It was a rather unexpected twist on Angry Birds. I love slingshotting the bird up into space or making the bird go around the world twice. The sound effects did make this funny. I was only able to get up to 63 km close, and yeah the positioning seems quite random. If it is consistent, it would help to have some more details in the background or something so it's easier for players to gage their aim. Other than that, this was a fun little time waster.

REDBOW by PixzleOne 2017-05-13T22:35:17Z

Well, I got to level 11, so I guess I reached level 10. I was expecting an ending for some reason before I remembered that these levels were procedurally generated.

Things I like:

- Good art - Good sounds - Being able to hold a key down to continuously shoot. - Being able to shoot diagonally and have enemies also shoot diagonally.

The things I was hoping to see worked on a bit further seem to be issues you're already aware of. The variety, for example, where difficulty only seems to increase by length and just more of the same two enemies, for example, didn't make the game super easy, but it did get to the point where I found myself wishing this had more variety. There were also a couple of tiles I was able to pass behind, and I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, since it was only a few select tiles, but they looked the same as the solid ones. Bigger levels did make it confusing to find the exit, so it would be great to have either a map or a beacon of some sort to lead to that exit.

However, for 48 hours, you did a superb job. btw if you do make a postjam version, do include some music. :)

Turing Compete by Kaisean Games 2017-05-15T21:24:21Z

This is a neat concept and I enjoyed flying over the world when zooming in. I thought the UI text was fitting, and the colour palette was well done. The snow graphics look a bit pixelated for some reason, which was strange. As for the game, it felt like a nice sandbox game. The instructions were a lot to take in for me when first playing, so I spent most of it autogenerating terrain and then deleting random conditions as I went along. I even managed to terraform the entire board, which was cool.

I'm not really sure why the orange generating contraption stops moving once you set in new conditions, even with the speed set to something that is, say, medium. If I save my changes and it stops moving, I have to click the speed button rapidly to go back the desired speed. Well, I did think the fastest speed was very funny, especially when the generator is only terraforming in a very small area and the squares just go flying off the board. XD

It's an interesting game, though it would be in need of an in-game tutorial for casual players, especially if there is going to be a competitive mode.

Humanity Simulator by RabbitTortoise 2017-05-11T07:19:34Z

Well my disaster escalated quickly. One playthrough and this was my score:

Humanity Simulator 02.png

I thought it was pretty easy to pick up and understand how to play. There are some interesting things that pop out for me, like how this resource gathering game is about destroying the planet rather than building from it. Or rather, creating structures, make dough, destroy planet. It works humourously for this game.

It's also strange, but in an intriguing way, how this planet is cube shaped. It felt like an odd choice altogether, but I was with it. I was trying to leave one side unscathed, but I guess I forgot which side it was and ended up cutting too many trees and resources, resulting in the storms catching up.

I can't say I was a fan of the movement in this game. The planet would automatically start rotating when I was quite far away from the edge, and it really made it hard to focus on gather money or maneuvering to a forest that was near the edge. Even though it does make it so that you can see the next side of the planet without having to actually move there, this was too disorienting to try and collect resources, which I guess is just the downside of having such a box shaped planet as opposed to a round one.

Also, the timer in the top corner loses its 0 digit when counting single digit seconds. It may be more consistent to allow for 0s to come before a 1-9 digit when counting seconds. (For instance, a time of 6 minutes and 4 seconds is displayed as 6:4 on your HUD, while it would be more consistent and intuitive to have it displayed as 6:04.)

Other than that, I thought the rest of the game was fine. The sound effects were satisfying (though I would have liked to hear more added, such as when chopping down trees or creating buildings) and I thought the colour palette was all right. I think the clouds obscuring my vision as the planet got more polluted was a great touch.

Tooth decay by Ithildin 2017-05-19T09:39:46Z

A fun, fast paced game. It really brought me back to the days when I played [Snowmuncher](http://www.neopets.com/games/game.phtml?game_id=412) on Neopets as a kid. I like the graphics, and I like when the person popping up in the corner when drilling through a large group of coloured blocks to say, "It doesn't hurt at all." I can see the expression really matching this dialogue, and it's quite charming. I was also really impressed by the sound effects because you have sounds for the drilling and since drilling is the core essential of the game, it could become annoying very quickly. You, however, managed to make it so that the drilling sound is not annoying at all. All the other sound effects were very well chosen. Of course, some good music would definitely elevate this.

A couple of issues/suggestions I can think of off the top of my head while playing:

- Instead of having the timer begin once the player starts the game, allow the timer to start when the player starts moving. - The drill detection seems a bit unforgiving for a game of this demeanour. Unlike Snowmuncher, the character can be positioned freely between two blocks, which makes it possible to drill and get "stuck" - ie. not falling on a block they've drilled underneath them, as seen below. Tooth Decay 02 resized.png

What I would suggest is either having "fixed" player movement so that they can only be at one block at a time, or leaving the current movement scheme as it is, but allowing the player to drill through the two blocks at once. As it is, this was probably one of the biggest issues that I got caught up on when playing the game, and I feel that if the player drills blocks directly beneath them, they should be expect that they are going to fall upon doing so. (the challenge should be in strategising, not testing the player's pixel-perfect positioning) - At some points, if I was a little off centre of a block when drilling downwards, but still completely a single block, I still wasn't able to drill it. - Despite this not really being an issue in fullscreen, I think it would be more ideal if playing the game in its original, in-browser size was at least a viable option. That is, I hope you will be able to find a way to allow the arrow keys to be "fixed" inside the game such that when the game is in focus, moving the arrow keys won't also scroll the window. I've played HaxeFlixel games where this is possible, so I think it would be feasible.

I did play through this quite a few times; my highest score is currently 720. I might come back to it though, because I do really like this concept (and you mention on the game page that this is beatable. I wonder at what distance?). I see that you're planning a post compo, and I'm already very excited for that. :slight_smile:

Tooth Decay 01 resized.png

Carefulzilla by glimaleite 2017-05-14T00:09:55Z

I had a lot of fun with this. It was definitely one of the more funnier games I've played.

"so you think death is funny" says my friend

"yes"

Well you know, some people have to die for the greater good...

Anyway, my only real issue is that I couldn't tell what I had to be careful with and what I could step on. On my first playthrough, I got to a pedestal, for example, thought I could crush it so I tried avoiding it and crushing the buildings around it instead. On my second playthrough, I decided to be less careful and try crushing that brown pedestal, but it turns out, I could step on it. There were some white buildings I mistook for the background that I kept crushing.

Aside from this, I really enjoyed playing this. I love the humour, and the art, dialogue and concept suit it very well.

ATLANTIS by OccultOne 2017-05-02T06:01:11Z

The first time I played, I was completely confused. I read the instructions on the game page and I just had no idea what to do. But I started playing, anyway. I vaguely understood that I had to interact with certain characters and to move them, but I had no idea what the towers were, or what my objective was.

Thank goodness for the video, which did help to outline what I was supposed to do.

I tried a second time and couldn't understand why my characters weren't allowed to move, what Mana was and why my characters just moved to a subsequent square when I tried to execute an action. I tried to use the Druid's action, but most of the time, this character moved to another hexagon and only sometimes allowed me to undo some tiles from their flood state. Anyway, I was just getting the hang of it and even unlocked the ship, but my scout sunk beneath the waves before I could get to it. Well, I did get to a tile and tried to interact with the ship, but the game didn't do anything and it kept bringing up the notification that the place was flooding. I think it was taking into account the other turns of the units I had lost.

I tried playing the game again, but the issues with the interaction and actions were frustrating. Finally, I used a scout to interact with a Tower and got this nasty popup:

ATLANTIS 01.png

thus leading to the game freezing and not letting me do anything else.

At that point, I decided I was done playing this. Not that it's a bad game by any means; I just don't think it's the kind of game for me. It was definitely interesting though, since I don't think I've played one of these board game-esque type browser games before. I like the look of the game overall; the pixel art style characters on this sort of isometric board. It's very pretty to look at. I also like what you did with the music, what with the extra layers to the same loop being added as you light up the towers. That was a great touch.

I can echo the comments above that this isn't really the kind of game one could learn just by reading the instructions on the game page alone. Without the video, I think I still would have been super confused as to what I was doing.

ATLANTIS by OccultOne 2017-05-02T17:59:06Z

@occultone I played on itch.io on Chrome and had refreshed the page several times to restart. I also zoomed out of the screen a couple times, but undid it on subsequent playthroughs. I don't know if that messes up the display, but I'm just trying to recall the things I did that possibly may have affected the game's performance.

Chroma by Megalink 2017-05-13T23:10:36Z

Dude that was badass, the music was badass, I was badass with my gun, so badass that I crashed the game upon my first death.

Chroma 01.png

(that's the message I got when I first died.)

Aside from this, I was reminded of a game I played in a previous Ludum Dare that did something along the lines of this, but somehow, I think this one is much more well put together than what I remember the other one being (I can't remember what it's called). The graphics and lighting are so good, the music was excellent, as were the sounds. Really pumping up the atmosphere. And I love the various enemies, the pickups left by enemies being attracted to the player - that element worked really well for this game. And the boss battles: while the first was pretty easy and the second I had a little more difficulty with, I thought both were good boss battles. The game was pretty reasonable with death as well.

Okay one thing I didn't understand was collecting the key, which I could later use to unlock a cell, but that didn't seem to do anything. This was when I died shortly after I did this, which caused the error message I got above. But I thought I might have had to save this key, and it ended up having no use.

I kind of laughed when the first boss was attacking me because the bullets looked like Christmas lights...not sure if they were supposed to be, but it was such a weird out of place look that didn't really mesh with the rest of the aesthetics.

Some other things:

- Pressing the E key felt unnecessary to acquire certain weapons. Most of them, if not all, are placed in their own secluded area that it's nearly impossible to "accidentally" obtain them, and it surprised me that I had to do this in order to pick up weapons and such. And even if one did accidentally obtain a weapon when they didn't want to, it's not like you lose your previous weapon in the process. - As a lot of people mentioned, I didn't like how I had to dash in the direction I was shooting. I don't necessarily agree that the dash is not needed, as I can see it working for certain rooms and bosses. It's just a matter of having the player dash in the direction they are moving rather than shooting.

Other than that, this was a treat. Great tutorial, by the way. And thanks for reviewing Terraform. :)

EDIT: I looked at your (@Megalink's) blog feed and only just now realised you *were* the ones who made Area 51, which was actually the game I was talking about. *facepalm* Yeah, this is a drastic improvement and I think it fit the theme way better than in LD37. Clearly it was different enough that I almost didn't realise I was looking at almost the same game. :stuck_out_tongue:

Daylight by conrad123 2017-05-02T05:09:26Z

It's a simple but frustrating game. There is a good choice of colours in the art, and the character, while just a box with a single black dot, has this "cute" look to it. The backgrounds are also quite pretty looking. The music has a choice of instruments that make it very warm and calm sounding, which is great for a game of this demeanour. I actually like the idea of the mechanic itself, and how you gradually get more jump height as you progress upwards. It made the ending really satisfying. Oh, also the 8bit sound effects are good. To me, it looked like the character was a cloud who fell to the ground and was jumping to join the other clouds in the sky. I know it wasn't the case, but the character really did look like one of the clouds. :P

Some issues:

- The energy limitation on the jumping seems useless. Despite the frustrating platforming, I never found myself running out of energy, even after multiple tries. - I also didn't get the point of having more than one enemy in the same platform in later areas. Both of them grant you energy, and once you kill one, you can just stand at the E point and you become practically immortal to the other enemy. - I wasn't a fan of the enemy combat. It took too many hits, in my opinion, to kill an enemy, and I almost always inevitably got hurt in the process. The energy bar for the monsters goes down too slowly to notice that you're actually landing a hit. Daylight 02.png - The platforming was ever so frustrating near the end. Lots of tiny platforms, ceilings to limit your jump, arrows that point you in a vague direction but you're not exactly sure how far you have until you land on the next area - all these things can cause me to *just* barely miss a platform and hug it on its side. When I miss, I basically find myself trying to fall all the way down so that I can die and be reset. - I will give you this though: I'm very glad the character respawns at the last E point. - The main character is nearly the same colour as the clouds in the background, thus, when one of the clouds is behind the character, the two practically blend in with each other. This makes it harder to fend off enemies, and just see the character to position it properly for platforming altogether (see below). Daylight 01.png - Like others say, I think the platforms that are about the same width as the character should be wider, too.

That aside, I thought this game was pretty good. One just requires a lot of patience to get past the jumpy controls. But the gradual shift in gravity and day to space-night sets a nice mood and leads perfectly to a satisfying end.

Step-Squish by NumNumDude 2017-05-02T06:46:35Z

Hahaha! I like the concept. The art was cute; I love the look of the ants and the different varieties of feet that stomped by. The text was pretty amusing and it seemed like you were having fun with that. The sounds were also good and satisfying, especially that win one.

Couple of issues:

- The ant can die just by touching the part of a foot and not when actually being stomped. Which, I dunno, in a *realistic* perspective, makes no sense. I did find myself losing a lot because I was touching the side and wasn't even under it. You did allow plenty of space so that this wasn't too huge of a problem, but I imagine it would be if you were to continue this and the feet stomped by faster, etc, then it would be frustrating for players to have clipped the sides but not actually get stomped on (and die in the process). - I have to admit, I don't think I won the game the intentional way. Since it's way easier to dodge just after the foot stomps down, I lingered more to the right and stayed there for the majority of the game. The crumbs that fell to the left stayed there permanently, so I waited in between stomps to collect all the 8 or so crumbs I had remaining in one fell swoop. I suppose, to make this more of a challenge, crumbs can disappear in between waves, or maybe the feet stomping down can move the crumbs around? Those are two things you can consider.

The game was worth playing for a few minutes of enjoyment, and is generally well put together for a 48 hour Compo entry.

Daydreaming Island by camilo 2017-05-01T07:06:28Z

I didn't mind the controls too much. Despite the fact that it was sometimes confusing as to whether you preferred the left click or right click, but since there were only two buttons involved, it didn't take much to figure out. A lot of the sameyness looks with the notes was a bit frustrating, especially at the start, where you have to find the key and the icon for it looks exactly like the notes.

I totally dig the 1bit style. Black and white pixel graphics in a minimal style are so my thing. I love how it starts from that outer view and then goes to a closeup of the character once you get into the lighthouse.. That really gave me a feeling of becoming immersed into this universe slowly. Musicwise, it's very well done. There's a lot of emotion in the tracks that gives this simplistic art style a lot of depth and matches the tone of the narrative. I liked interacting with the telescope, thought that was pretty cool.

The days counter HUD, while interesting, didn't really mesh with the graphics, gamewise. The white text meant that anything on the white floor made it blend in with each other. And yeah, like everyone said, the movement was a bit choppy, but it didn't really stop me from being curious as to how this game would conclude. This was simple, dark but emotional. I like it.

Insect Attack by SimplePotential 2017-05-14T00:41:53Z

"I'm sure there are more than a few bugs." Hey now...this game *is* a major bug infestation. XD

I like the idea of linking the life to time, and shooting bugs gives more time. I didn't really think it was smooth enough to incorporate penalties such as taking away time for missing a bug. If you're going to do that, I would suggest starting with some bugs with bigger hitboxes, and then gradually adding in bugs with smaller hitboxes to make it harder. And I guess there's nothing wrong with using the right mouse button to shoot, but it's just like, *why*? Well I think maybe Mac users might have trouble. Also, the bugs spawning not on the outsides of the screen was quite irritating, but most of the time, I couldn't really tell what was going on.

Overall, it was an all right idea. It did feel a little rushed, but I can see that you were scrapped for time in this. At the very least, you have something playable, with sound effects to boot.

Raven Delivery Service by DDRKirbyISQ 2017-04-29T06:41:46Z

This game has a very Diner Dash feel to it. It took me a while to get used to the gameplay, but after a couple of tries, I did get into it and kept playing to try and beat my record. In the later levels, I had to think a lot about where to place the witches, as I had a habit of putting them in close proximity of each other and wasn’t maximising my efficiency.

I did try co-op mode with my sister, and it was a lot of fun. I just found it easier to coordinate with another player rather than trying to multitask between two characters. But each mode presented its own, slightly different challenge, and I quite liked that.

I love the art style, and the music was pretty good, too. The track feels very “Match Girl” meets “Standing Here Alone” from Melody Muncher, which I can kind of see in the game, considering the co-op mode requires players to follow on-screen arrows to extrapolate the ingredients. I was kind of surprised that there was only one track, but I saw on your track listing that you were short on time. Still, it was a well put together track regardless, and also a big standpoint of the game.

I mean, the only things I can really see on how this game could improve is more levels, and perhaps having a certain number of potions required to proceed to the next level? Or even so, just recording the highest score for each mode would be nice. The game overall is very polished and the four levels offer something different in each of them.

Group Traffic Control by comatomatoes 2017-05-15T23:33:51Z

There was a time when I could disable traffic lights for my path, but constantly put the other player on a standstill by having a traffic light constantly on the red light. The orange car opponent got stuck for a long while. Additionally, when making money, it seems that I was hitting the maximum 5/5, but the money counter rarely went up. I don't know if you have to wait longer to make more money from the workplace, but there needs to be an indicator of some sort to let the player know how many times a car has to go into a workplace in order to make the cash.

Other than that, I thought the graphics looked pleasant, colourwise. The music was okay; very minimalistic and didn't really work for a game of this demeanour. It needs more of that traffic/city vibe to it. Sound effects for the cars, making money at the workplace, etc, would also be great. I didn't see any players when I played, but I might try to play this with my team later.

-----

All right, I tried to join a multiplayer game with a teammate and me, but it says the game ends in 47 minutes. So we have to wait an hour? How do we ensure we're actually playing with or against each other?

The Grass is Always Greener by intxparts 2017-05-01T09:10:55Z

That was short! I think I beat the game; it did close after I got the grass and the goat gave a little heart. It was very adorable; I love the tiny size and the colours are very pleasant. The sounds are great. You made me hungry for Honeycombs cereal after I read your game page. :P

End of a World by mikolak 2017-05-16T22:47:14Z

I can see what you mean; at first I was confused about what to do, but realised that certain contraptions, when enabled, can work together to produce the right amount of resources. I had issues with the energy allotment for searching, but realised it wasn't as huge a deal when I could figure out how to generate energy. I didn't quite understand why resources exploded, but it was kind of funny when things just magically combusted. I liked the explosion effects quite a bit in this game.

The only significant areas I could really see in need for improvement are the UI buttons (probably like that because of the time, I'm guessing; the text in the menu and help buttons was great) and also pausing the timer when the player is reading the Help menu. (Why does the clock keep ticking when the player just wants to figure out how to play the game?) Other than that, I really like the black and white icons, and like I said earlier, the explosion effects. I can also echo the comments from earlier that the game takes a noticeably long time to start up (on Chrome) and even freezes a bit. Also, nice music choice; it's calming but still has a sense of urgency while being somewhat outer spacey.

Dwarf World by rnlf 2017-04-29T07:50:50Z

Man the Dark Riches level...I almost forgot how much time I was spending playing this because I was so invested in trying to beat it. The puzzles are pretty well designed; they made me think a lot and got me a bit frustrated, but in a good way. I like the sound effects, and the tutorial is well paced. The levels themselves increase in difficulty really fast, but with the amount of levels you currently have, it's well rounded for a game made in 48 hours.

Specifically, sound wise, the gold mining and dwarf completing the level sound effects were satisfying. The background music is all right; it's simple and not annoying after it loops. I do like the art; the rocks remind me of crinkled paper, which goes with the rest of the character and component designs.

(I still didn't beat the Dark Riches level btw. I know I can skip levels, but most of the time I prefer to proceed to a level by beating it, and this is one of those cases. :P)

Pocket World by BtheDestroyer 2017-04-30T00:37:06Z

Not bad. I like the idea of collecting resources so that you can add new areas. However, I found resource collecting to be very slow and tedious. The art is pretty neat looking and the music, while fitting, is irritating to listen to after a while (with a longer loop with more variation, it could be less annoying). I like how the game saves info after resetting the resources, and being able to meet new characters with each area I unlock. I also found that I had to click so many times to collect certain resources such as sand and stone, and that got pretty frustrating over time.

Super Tiny Adventure Game by sinclairstrange 2017-05-16T18:42:26Z

It's a nice platformer and the game is overall well put together, but there are just little components here and there that make it off putting. The graphics are really detailed and colourful, but the highly detailed backgrounds makes it hard for the main character to stand out, especially in the first world. I liked some of the instrument choices in the music and that you seem to have different themes for the different worlds. Some of them matched okay, and others were a bit too repetitive, particularly in places where you had to spend a lot of time in.

Other things:

- I didn't like the camera movement being fixed to the character. It's a bit nauseating to look at after a while (since this is a pretty large scale game), especially since the character can make drastic movements like stomping when dashing in the air. - The side quests, while okay, were placed oddly such that I could obtain items before I even knew what I was doing. In the case of the bogs, I was obtaining the batteries, but I didn't find the NPC who gave me the quest until much later. Which makes me think, I was probably supposed to obtain those pairs of pants back in the island world for an NPC. - Something about the jump is strange to me. Like, it's super floaty at times but others, it's really grounded. I think this is affected by how long one holds the jump key, but the second jump is a super small distance. I dunno, it's probably just my taste, but it feels like the second jump could be a *bit* higher.

I really like how the worlds actually are continuous, ie. I can walk in one direction horizontally and end up in the same place I started. That was great in giving the whole "small world" impression. I'm not really sure if this fits the theme, since it's concerning a number of small worlds rather than just one small world, which the theme clearly states. But that's neither here nor there, I guess. Interesting stuff.

Terraform by ijzm 2017-04-24T22:43:57Z

Yikes, better get that game up and running soon!

Terraform by ijzm 2017-05-02T04:19:57Z

Thanks everyone. 72 hours was definitely not enough to balance out the game properly, but it was fun to attempt something a little different than what we have done before. There might be chance that the files for the game are lost due to @ijzm 's harddrive having problems, so we may not be able to fix or work on the game again. :( I hope that isn't the case, though.

@samusoidal The coal mines, stone mines and lumberyard are supposed to generate resources: coal, stone and wood, respectively. As for the housing, we were initially using houses to count for people, which would count towards the cost of making the other buildings. We couldn't figure out how to properly implement the houses in time, so we were simply going to make them a part of the score in the game over. We actually had a day less to make this, so sadly, a lot of stuff didn't get properly worked out.

Here Be Fish by Diedickegg 2017-05-18T23:47:53Z

Great sound effects and art. I love the detailed pixel art in the background and the lighting that comes from the top of the tank. The fitting is quite fitting, and the sound effects work humourously to your advantage. I think there are some interesting things to take away from the game, for instance, why the people worship you and build a statue of your hand. All this was very interesting.

I'll admit I did find the game a bit slow; collecting coins was a major impatience. My people were demanding trash, but the trash always got caught in some of the background scenery so I wasn't sure if I was doing anything correctly. I got a good laugh out of the animations of the little people bowing and falling over. Overall, I had a somewhat good time playing this.

For A Small World This Place Sure Has Big Problems by johnfn 2017-04-27T09:15:18Z

The only big problem I'm having is that I can't find a link to play this game. :P

For A Small World This Place Sure Has Big Problems by johnfn 2017-04-29T23:16:27Z

Hahaha I really enjoyed this! The humour was spot-on; I laughed so much while playing. It was a neat idea as well. I love the split screens because it truly gives a view on how small the world is, and how tossing the world was part of the mechanic. Best use of the theme by far.

johnfns game 01.png

The guy's face in the bottom right corner got me. XD

The music was great. There was a lot of good contrast between the two tracks, from this lighthearted track to the more mission-oriented track. I even like the art; it really suits the humour in both the background visuals and dialogue.

Some of the frustrating issues I had with this game were:

- The text tends to overlap quite a bit in some dialogue, which made the instructions (literally) unclear. - The dialogue, while funny, does tend to go on for a *bit* too long. Also, you can move while the dialogue is still in progress, which does make it a bit funnier in some parts, but a tad confusing in others. - Tossing a planet in diagonal directions sometimes caused the game to not remember that I tossed them diagonally and instead toss them straight. I'm *pretty* sure I was holding both keys at the same time, but that was probably my biggest frustration with the game altogether. - In the screenshot above, if the green shirted character falls into the pit of spikes on the right (off screen), he respawns just below the grey area rather than inside the passage. I had to tap the spacebar a bunch of times, which allowed me to luck in a midair jump. Otherwise, I was falling rapidly.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this. That was a fun experience.

Asymmetry by ChuiGum 2017-05-16T23:20:36Z

After several rounds of playing, I managed to score 322. This game really needs a static score screen so you can get a proper screenshot. :stuck_out_tongue:

Asymmetry 01.png

This was a really cool idea. Love the colours and behaviours, and how the music is affected in each area. (The music also had a chaotic feel to it, which was great for a game like this that continually gets more and more chaotic as you go along.) I like how you play not only with speed, but also size. There was also some strategy behind each of the various areas - speed for faster health, but also faster enemies and inducing faster rounds. Yeah overall, this was cool.

One thing I could point out is that starting a round with no enemies was pointless. The player isn't scored by how many rounds they last, but by the number of enemies they kill (or so it seems), so having the player start in that area without any enemies is something I didn't really see the point to. Maybe if the rounds were also taken into account, as a separate score, or just starting with a few enemies. It's pretty easy to pick up what coloured areas do what, even if you have to fend off enemies while doing so.

While strategising, I found myself making very little use of the bottommost areas, except when I was first playing. The top part seemed like the just the right amount of speed, with the slower areas for more precise dodging.

Flicker of Hope by Lucas Ferrantelli 2017-05-15T22:27:16Z

Argh I keep dying on the second stage. What a trip that was, though! I love the mood set by the lighting, graphics and UI. The game itself is pretty straightforward, but you have some good choices for enemies and mechanics overall. The spell for running seemed mostly useless, and I wasn't really a fan of health not regenerating, but because the game tells me I'm close to finishing, so I guess that means the second stage is the last one? :P

I thought the music was pretty good; very ambient but sets the tone well. The only issue I had with it was that it was too loud in comparison to the sound effects. I would have liked the sfx to be a bit more in the foreground, and have that background music actually be background music. Sound effects were great too.

I couldn't understand how the health worked in this game, particularly with the guys that blew arrows at me. Sometimes when they hit, I lost health, but other times, I didn't lose health until after a couple hits. Another thing is that on the game over screen, it seems the game automatically restarts despite having a "Try again" option, and it's not really the kind of game that should have automatic restarting, as the player needs to be prepared for the coming attacks.

Overall your game has a wonderfully dark mood, and I love the play with the lighting.

drone by atmospherium 2017-05-16T05:31:39Z

Well I finally checked this out...it's an interesting concept, it seems, but the one thing I question is, *is* the game supposed to look like this?

Drone 01.png

I've tried reloading the game several times, tried different settings for the scales and patterns and such, but I only see this blank screen with no hexagons as seen in the screenshots. Am I missing something?

The audio is pretty interesting, how you can contort the melody into different iterations and even input some notes yourself, but I don't know if there was supposed to be more of a display than that, which is all I see.

The Perfect Sandwich by tomer_cool 2017-05-06T22:49:10Z

Mm what a perfect sandwich.

I enjoyed the game for what it's worth. Simple platforming and fetch quest; I really love the look of all the components, especially the mayo jar. The colours look good in your game, too. It seems the best way to play this is to start with the wheat, however, I got it last and had to sit around waiting for this wheat to become bread. Your controls are fluid and overall pretty responsive, and there was a nice variety of things you had to do in order to obtain the ingredients.

A couple of issues I had:

- The jump is a little too floaty, but since this wasn't really a platforming challenge game, it kind of worked in this game's favour. - Some of the dialogue boxes don't close; for instance, solving the dog riddle gives you the tomato, but the dog still displays the riddle. Ideally, dialogue boxes should disappear when the player is not near the area in which they recently interacted. - The player's behaviour around ladders seem to cause the player to interact with them even if they aren't going up and down on them. As such, jumping very close to them (but not directly on them) can cause the player's jump to become "stunted". If the player is jumping past the ladder, they should not be walking on the ladder as they are doing their jump.

Overall, you have a good sense of humour, which adds to the charm of the text. I wish you had some audio in your game, though! Text Me Later's audio was the best. :P

Meteor Jam by PeachTreeOath 2017-05-11T09:30:57Z

Can I just say that you have one of the best looking titlescreens so far this Ludum Dare?

In general, I feel like the game has a great premise, but a lot of the problems I have with it involve all the parts working towards making it enjoyable.

**Gameplay**

- I thought the idea of mining ore by falling meteors was a clever idea. It combined a hazardous game element but also made it very useful at the same time. - As others have pointed out, this game is quite exploitable. I maxed out all my upgrades early on in the game by purchasing whatever I could and then dying, which kept my upgrades. I didn't realise this worked for the rocket as well until I read the comments. (I would just buy all three parts together and then take off as fast as I could.) I ended up using this exploit for the rockets to beat Planet X. - It wasn't until Jupiter that I realised this game was super glitchy. It's way too easy to get stuck inside the ground, and I don't just mean the parts with holes (though yes, those too). There were parts where I was directly in front of a ground tile, and had to rapidly tap jump to wiggle my way out. This makes the more difficult planets more frustrating than fun (screenshot below). Meteor Jam 03.png - I love how you go to different planets per level. For a future build, consider having each planet with a varying gravity, which would affect jump height and speed as well as how fast the meteors fall. - I actually didn't hate that you kept the upgrades upon dying, mostly because this game would have been unbearable without its exploits. That's not exactly the best way for players to beat a game, but if you are to have harsher consequences for dying, the game has to be a lot less buggy and a lot more responsive. - I know people have already mentioned the pause thing, but even though the rocket can protect you from meteors, it's extremely unstable and can tip over as a result of a meteor hitting either it or ground underneath it. And when you're bringing up the upgrades screen, it disappears the moment the rocket foundation moves away from the character.

Oh yeah I laughed out loud when my rocket tipped over as I finished building it and launched it. The game acted as though I was moving somewhere fast, but I was just coasting along the side. XD Meteor Jam 02.png

**Other elements**

- It's nice how you managed to make six different tracks for the planets. Chiptune was a fine choice for the art style, but since this isn't 8bit art, I think it would be fine to take more liberties with the chiptune and not be so "GameBoy" sounding. "Mars" and "Jupiter" are the tracks I enjoy the most, but some of the later tracks get a bit too annoying, but I think it's more because the loops are too short, which I get because, well, 72 hours. - I wasn't really fond of the sfx in the game. The jump sound is a bit too high pitched, and the rock collection sound is barely heard against the music and sounds too much like a bass drum. You would need something a bit more resounding for the collection to be satisfying. - The graphics in-game...I have mixed feelings about. The background colours are nice, but the protagonist is kind of too small in comparison to the screen imo and their walking animation looks awkward. I do love the title and ending screen graphics, though.

I've probably said too much, but this game had quite a bit to offer that was worth commenting on, so I guess that's good. I think when better executed and less exploit-dependent, this could be a lot of fun.

Bugyard by rilem 2017-04-30T05:58:40Z

I was led to some area where it took me to an A Bug's Life clip on YouTube. Is this the ending? If not, it's a very frustrating secret, as it reset all my upgrades. :P

Things I like about this game:

- The art is cute (love the backgrounds). - The areas are quite vast and varied, visually. - Creepy as heck bug dying animations for one of the bugs (that bug head lying on the ground...super awesome) - The music track has a catchy melody and some nice chord progression. - The controls feel smooth.

Things I had issues with:

- As mentioned in one of the above comments, I got stuck on the opening cutscene a couple of times. - Hanging at the edge of the screen but not crossing over to the other screen sometimes causes enemies to respawn immediately in the same screen. In one area where I was supposed to be able to change screens, the game had an invisible wall or something, and it caused a whole bunch of enemies to spawn in that area and kill me. It was just before the lower cave ish area. - It's possible to go to areas that require powerups before you get said powerups. The first time I played, I went to the underground cave area that starts with you falling down a long passageway so you can't get out of it. It was frustrating because I didn't have enough jump height to reach the platforms, and I had only acquired the gun. - While I do love the music track, it feels a bit too...islandy for the game. The xylophone sounds have a tropical feel that doesn't quite suit the backyard bugs, underground style. Especially when transitioning between certain areas, it would be nice to have a contrast in music tracks between certain areas, and maybe spend more time in the same areas before transitioning to the next. - Acquiring certain powerups causes the gun powerup on the Abilities list to disappear.

I do like the game overall; exploration platformers are just my style. It's mainly the bugs (not the characters) that get me stuck that make it frustrating. But I kept coming back to play it, so I guess that's a good thing.

Neon Genesis Pluto by Avocadosan 2017-05-16T18:59:01Z

When the music started I was like, "oh my gosh; is this going to be ORG?" because that starting instrument sounded very ORG like. But I'm glad there's more of an 8bit sound to some of the instruments. Wish some of those running notes would continue though.

But anyways, the game...what did I just play? The tone was so weird, but strangely, it came together well for this game. The cutscenes reminded me of the old TV games I used to play when I was a kid. I liked the humour for the most part, but man the tone was all over the place. I gotta give it to games that give me legit math questions to solve, though. Since it was pretty easy to die, I wasn't really a fan of the record skip sound effect. It was also hard to tell what could kill me at first, since it seems aliens are collectible (for what purpose?) and some of the planets can be touched while others kill me instantly. Mars had the most unexpected attack. I quite enjoyed this ironically, even though I'm not really America.

Ayyy lmao :joy:

SnowGlobe Warrior by Ethan Allwood 2017-05-14T08:46:10Z

The three stage setup really makes the spike in difficulty enormous, which is a shame, because I think this game has something special. In general, I really love the snowglobe setting; it was a great interpretation of the theme. The pixel art is super attractive. The music is fitting, seeing as it is chiptune; it's a little tragic sounding and somber, but this kind of made sense to me considering I was fighting snow enemies and had a fighter with the slowest reaction time ever. :P

And overall, I think that's the most frustrating part about the game. If the attacks are going to be super close range, they need to be more quick. In pretty much every instance I played, my enemies were always quicker to attack, no matter how much distance I gave myself. The only time I could land hits if I was lucky was to position myself where they would get stuck trying to chase me in the centrepiece, but even then, this technique didn't work very well for the snowball throwers. It would have been great if I could move around while preparing the sword attack, so it would allow players to strategise and dodge more efficiently. Oh speaking of the dodge, I did not find this technique useful for the game.

I did, however, like the variation of enemies, and how the sword can kill groups of enemies at once. I kind of feel disappointed that you spoiled it all on your game page, though now, I guess I can't say I was confused on what I had to do. :P I agree with @ajayajayaj that there needed to be way more sound effects for actions like deploying attacks and killing enemies. But the one sound you used for transitioning between levels was great.

If you were to make the response time of the character's attacks instantaneous and allow moving while attacking, I think I could forgive the difficulty of this current version. But for 48 hours, you've done a fine job. The graphics, music and idea were the high points for me.

To do list by Finlal 2017-05-01T08:56:16Z

This comment will contain a lot of spoilers, so please beware.

*To do list* truly is an impressive feat, even aside from it being made in 72 hours. From the tone, I could already tell something was off about this character, but I wasn't exactly sure what. Then it came to the end and I was like, totally in shock. It was definitely unsettling, creepy and just the right kind of creepy.

To have music for each of the days, done within the time limit? That's amazing! I loved all the chiptune tracks; there was a very nice contrast between them for the different days, and the soundtrack contributed to this sort of distortion of reality as to what you're actually doing that this game needed. It did manage to get creepy at some parts when needed.

I suppose this game actually goes in reverse, and the ending is actually what you started with? Loved the hints of foreshadowing too. The glitchiness at the end freaked me out.

Here's a couple of issues I had:

Four Quarters To Do List 01.png

- The game's hit (collision?) detection is a bit odd. When you have to interact with things, the character ends up at such a far distance from the actual object. I suppose this helps in knowing which items you can interact with, but it's a bit weird and initially made me think I wasn't supposed to interact with said object. - The game's screen is taller than mine, and cuts off where the bottom of the screenshot is. I think it's worth knowing, but it wasn't such a huge deal that I couldn't play this game. - It was super confusing, especially at the beginning, knowing what to do. I got stuck on the trash part because I had no idea that the white things (again, in the screenshot) were trash. I thought they were rocks! - It would have been nice to be able to interact with key objects and have the character say something about the object with hints.

All in all, a great game with a chilling payoff.

Spike Spire by Acuity 2017-05-17T02:33:26Z

Hey Acuity; I remember you from OHC. :) Oh heck, this game is pretty tough, but it's actually kind of fun. Part of this is because the music is quite good. I love the contrast of a buzzy bass with delayed piano and a metre that sounds like a beat of 3 followed by 5 - I don't know what that metre would be called, but I like counting uneven beats like that. The game actually kind of benefitted from not having a lot of sound effects, but the one dying sfx was a bit too loud, but I guess it startles the player into realising that they've lost.

I agree that the game needed a lot more frequent checkpoints, and perhaps a bit more forgiving jump height, especially since a lot of factors can go wrong in terms of unresponsive controls, lag, that is not necessarily within the player's control (my game was skipping a couple frames and it made some passages frustrating to go through). Regardless, this doesn't seem like it is one of the most difficult of these sorts of spike platformers, particularly because it is very small scale, but I have yet to beat it, so maybe it will frustrate me if I was to try and beat it (which I might, later. :D).

Wake Up ! by GoZz 2017-05-02T02:18:25Z

Neat work. The graphics really carry the mood here, and the music is fitting. I like the idea of switching between two different "dream" dimensions, and the choice of art portrayed in the graphics. It was pretty short, but well rounded for a game made in 72 hours. The ending had a nice choice of visuals.

Most of my gripes with this game you seem to be aware of already. A combination of spacebar and arrow keys can make one of these controls unresponsive; an experience I've had playing multiple browser games with this issue. Some games like these map alternate keys for a spacebar function (eg. a letter key) and they tend to work better. Backtracking because I fell through a hole or something was not too bad because it was a smaller game, but if you are to expand this game, I think it definitely would become a larger irritance.

Other smaller things:

- When I first landed on the box and hit E, it started to sink into the ground. This stopped immediately when I left the box though. - The controls do feel a bit slippery as well. I dunno; it felt like sometimes I couldn't stop myself from moving when I wanted to. - More sounds, yes! I could picture this with some LIMBO-esque sounding rustles for walking on the ground. I was getting a lot of LIMBO vibes from playing this, actually. I see LIMBO is one of your inspirations, and it shows in a great way. - It was hard to tell what was a solid platform, as both the background and foreground elements could be in a black silhouette. Some rocks I thought I could land on, I couldn't. - I can't exactly see how this relates to the theme. It's about a girl stuck in her dreams, but the world itself seems kind of big, as even though similar elements appear, there are different puzzles, and it felt like a different part in the same area of the "world". I guess the whole gist is that the world takes place in the girl's mind which is small compared to the *entire* world? :P

Overall, good job.

Wake Up ! by GoZz 2017-05-02T02:26:12Z

Ack I wanted to add one more thing but I ran out of characters. The game window in the browser version is smaller than the module given, but this isn't an issue when playing fullscreen.

A World in a Jar by Zeknir 2017-05-15T09:02:35Z

I really love seeing these kinds of games on Ludum Dare, and this adds very nicely to the experimental, growing plants type of game collections. The highlights for me are the art, and the various plants that can be grown are super creative. I actually like how, towards the end, I can really see "worldly" type plants appear and that felt a lot closer to the theme than I expected.

If I could pick out few couple issues I had, they were:

- Some of the hints are misleading. For the cake pops, for instance, you mention that the plant involves something "colourful", which led me to believe that I had to breed a seed with the candlebra in order to make a colourful plant with fruit. But nothing was working, and I could not for the life figure out what else the hint could be for. I actually looked at your timelapse video in the end, for the clue. It would have bee more helpful to the player if the descriptions of the plants were a bit more relevant to the hints in the plant-o-pedia. - While I think the sound effects are well done, there's something about the music that doesn't really sit right with me. Although calming, the loop feels rather short, and since this game is quite lengthy, the music starts to get a bit grating after a while of playing. Maybe I was just too into this lol, but I dunno, a game of this demeanour needs background music that is longer in length and not as repetitive. I know you've opted out of the audio category, but this could be something to consider if you were to continue working on this. - I didn't like how the plants weren't ordered, in the seeds menu, by the same order they are in the plant-o-pedia. I guess it does allow the player to see the plants in the order they've collected them, but it makes it a bit confusing when it comes to trying out different combinations. Often, when following the hints, I would end up with a plant that was completely different from the one I was trying to unlock. It seems, on the plant-o-pedia, that you have it set linearly, and having the seeds on the seed selection screen ordered in that same way would have made it a lot quicker to try various possibilities without being confused by plants you've unlocked after. I don't think this would have been as big of an issue if the hints were less ambiguous.

Overall, I was quite engaged in this and probably spent a lot of time with this than I should have. I just have to unlock all those plants, lol. Good art, good sound effects and nice atmosphere.

A Relatively Small World by Samusoidal 2017-04-29T08:13:10Z

The art in this is very interesting and the music track goes very well with it. I like the sound effects; they are amusing. The theme is quite prominent in this. I'm afraid I found the game too hard to understand. It seems you have to pick up things and place them in certain areas, but the game seems very picky about where you stand when you execute this action. Even a really small pace off can make all the difference between whether you pick up things or not. Secondly, I haven't a clue what to do with the aliens. I had assumed you had to pick up buildings and move them elsewhere, but I wasn't fast enough to save them all. Additionally, one of the hints states that aliens don't like wool, but I wasn't able to pick up or find anything that was wool related?

It would have been nice if the game had a faster respawn time, rather than getting the player to wait for the quote each time they restart. Which, by the way, I felt the quote really helped tie together the game to the theme perfectly.

Tiny Colonies by PhyscoKillerMonkey 2017-04-29T06:40:00Z

This game has a great colour scheme with a cute pixelated art style and satisfying sound effects (love that “clip” sound when a tree is cut). I found it a bit slow to play, however. I’m glad you gave tips on how to start, but I found myself confused as to why I needed a farm, and what the third icon from the top-left HUD is supposed to be. I think it’s wheat, but I can’t see how it factors into the gameplay.

Mostly, I just found myself waiting a lot to generate the right amount of resources so that I could construct more things. Ultimately, the time for waiting was just too long that it wasn’t fun after I started off following the guide. That being said, I do like how this game interprets the theme, and it’s pretty cool how you can see this small planet from a distance away, with your character walking only around the outermost perimeters you can see. If there was anything this game could have improved on for the future, it would be the balancing of how you generate resources vs. the cost of placing them down.

LD38 - Big Dreams by Iron Leonem 2017-05-02T04:08:59Z

Super Crate Box meets Toy Story - I like it! There's a good variety of enemies and weapons. All the platforms and weapons seem to match the tone of a child's playroom. The only thing that seemed out of place was the look of the powerup pickups, which looked like candy bars. I guess they sort of tie in to the tone, but it would have felt more consistent if it was all just toys. I like how you put the menu buttons as candy bars like the pickups, though. The music has a melody that plays well with the "child and his toys" concept. Pianos and bell sounds were a good sound scheme.

Some other things:

- I was unable to face and shoot in the left direction. Whenever I walked, it was always with my character facing the right. This also happens with the download version, so I assume it was intentional, but it doesn't seem like the ideal character movement for a game where enemies can spawn all around you. - I wish the top of the screen wasn't solid so that the player character wouldn't have such a stunted jump. (the player should be able to make a full jump when they go off the top of the screen. - Because this is about a child playing with his toys, it would have been interesting to incorporate child-like sound effects - like when a dinosaur dies, have a childlike "RAWWWRRR" sound. I think it would add to the humour/charm. - Sometimes standing right behind a bucket will cause an enemy that spawns at the opposite end to immediately die, and you never even get to see that enemy come out.

Overall, this was a small but all right entry, with a good whimsical tone.

LD38 - Big Dreams by Iron Leonem 2017-05-02T18:10:43Z

@iron-leonem Ohhhh that probably explains why I didn't have a problem playing the game the first time around. I didn't even realise I was using the WASD keys on the first attempt, that means. Typically I use the arrow keys, so that's strange.

Anyways, I tried playing again but with the WASD keys in mind, got to a score of 810. I then saw you had lollipops for health restoration, which at first I thought was generous, but definitely became useful as more buckets were placed and the difficulty progressed. I have one more quip that I think is a bug: when using the Nerf gun on a dinosaur (mostly when it's in the air it seems), the bullet pushes it back against the edge of the screen and doesn't kill it. That almost makes this weapon useless if that's intentional, so I'm thinking maybe it's not? But I like how the Nerf gun bullets travel slowly so that you can land on them as they're traveling across the screen. :D

Newbie God by nuria-fl 2017-05-17T00:19:01Z

Well that was short but sweet. The control scheme was a bit unexpected, and only being able to shoot fire seemed a bit out of the ordinary. I liked the sounds, but I felt like maybe there wasn't enough audio overall in the game - the first shooting sound scared me. However, I did enjoy the art, and the outcome ending text was very cute. It was indeed a very tiny world. Not sure if it will flourish if all that exists are two people and a cat, however. :P

Little Mouse Planet by Frodewin 2017-05-01T06:38:36Z

Cute game! The sound effects in the game go really well with the game's graphics. The game was pretty straightforward, once I understood how to play it. That cat really loves to teleport, man. I like how the small world theme is approached here; the camera is focused in a close view of the mouse, and you can see that when you walk in a straight line, you end up right where you started. I like this perspective.

I managed to survive for 36 days, but the difficulty plateaued pretty early on in the game, and this made it more of an endless game of patience, which means dying of boredom to see how many days you survive. :P

Some issues:

- Pressing the C key twice results in this screen popping up: little mouse planet 01.png - If you press the C key again at that screen, it cycles through a bunch of numbers in the centre of the screen (with the Game Over text gone), from 0 to 9, before sending you back to the titlescreen. - Like I mentioned above, once I understood how everything worked, the game didn't really offer much difficulty. I think there are several ways to approach this (and if you wanted to continue working on the game more after this, the progression of difficulty in an endless game like this would be the best thing to focus on imo). For instance, sleeping in the house lowered my tired metre, but also restored my health. This was probably the thing that made the game too easy. Maybe over time, the speed of the cat could increase and more bushes could be added, etc. These are just things you could consider, but you definitely don't have to do exactly that.

The game, aside from those issues above, is solid. The titlescreen music, by the way, sounds like it was made in ORG Maker. I was surprised, when I looked at your game page, that this was not the case.

The Tiny Astronaut by JSJDev 2017-05-13T23:43:56Z

I like this concept a lot; the planets are varied, and I like how you're told what can harm you and what's okay, and how these can vary from planet to planet. The art is pretty, but I felt like the text was out of place. It was a good choice of colours for the text palette, though.

My biggest frustration came from the hitboxes. It seemed it was too sensitive, in terms of being able to clip hazardous ground was very frustrating, as I couldn't tell what killed me on the last planet. I actually didn't manage to beat it. Other than that, I thought it was a sweet little game.

Suds of War by James Dunlap 2017-05-06T23:35:40Z

HAS A BOOBOO oh my gosh XD

I wanted to like this game, because I really like games that try to turn children's play, for example, bath toys, into an epic war game. And there are parts here that I think work. The 3D art is a good choice for turning simple toys into an epic premise. I like the visuals in the titlescreen. The music and sound effects are simple but fitting. There are also some creative choices, what with incorporating duckies, boats, bathsuds and sponges.

However:

- The game's performance seems to be overall choppy in both the download (Windows) and the browser. The browser version yes, was laggy throughout, but in the download, at least the titlescreen worked like a charm. - There isn't enough...automated action(?) to make the game feel more fluid. For instance, when all three of my boats make a move, I can't move them anymore for the rest of my turn, and yet I still have to click the "End turn" button for the enemy to proceed. Unless I'm missing something that can be done after my boats move, why not automatically proceed to the enemy's turn? - When I lose all my boats, I'm basically a sitting duck (haha), waiting tons of turns for my ships to respawn and I have to click "End turn" each time waiting for my inevitable demise. I feel like the sponge could also have some sort of attack of its own - maybe not as strong as the boats, but something that you still have control over so that when it dies, that's the end of the game (but you can do something at a great disadvantage regardless). Otherwise, when all my boats are down and I'm waiting, say, nine turns for my boats to be respawned, I'm probably going to die and there isn't anything I can really do except forfeit. - I love the idea of having suds in the battlefield and uncovering the ducks as one moves along. But I don't like how the enemy base also seems to be concealed in the mist as well, and that enemies can't uncover that mist as they move along. Quite frankly, it might have been a bit more strategising to allow the enemies to uncover the mist as well, such that the only mysteries are the ducks. The AI can already see the enemy, and it just...I dunno, feels a bit unfairly balanced to have it be able to see you but you can accidentally stumble upon an enemy while finding its base and thus you end up dying as a result.

Overall, there are some great ideas being explored here, but it just feels a bit slow overall. I dunno, maybe it's not really my type of game.

Suds of War by James Dunlap 2017-05-09T20:50:33Z

@james-dunlap Ah so it's purely just both sides trying to guess each other out until they find each other?

I played the web version and that was pretty choppy, but downloaded the Windows build after and it was slightly better. Like, the titlescreen in the download performed fine, but the game itself seemed like a slideshow, and I'm not sure if it was supposed to be like that.

M^3 (Moon Mining Manager) by KnightOwl 2017-05-09T21:29:27Z

I think you've tapped into something interesting, even if the final product (for the jam) is a bit bare bones. The zooming in and out was a good feature because it gave the impression of how small the world is. For some reason, turning the world constantly doesn't allow me to go in a complete 360; it just stops after rotating for a while, which sort of ruins the impression of this being a "round" world, where you can spin it continuously in one direction and end up where you started again. The rotation mechanic should be continuous, imo.

As for the game, yeah, I tried playing it, but I couldn't really get into it. It was confusing how everything worked in this game, what you were supposed to do and there were lots of placeholders such as "New text" and buttons labeled "Button" at the start of the game that I wasn't sure what to press. I feel bad, because even the video had me confused of how to work the game, but maybe I didn't listen intently enough to it.

Overall, I will give it to you that the mini map looks all right, and I do like the fancy names given to the resources. The video you use to promote your game at the start of the page was charming. I saw some nice looking graphics for the resources at the bottom of the screen in the game, but they weren't really integrated into the game itself. It felt unfinished and wasn't exactly pleasant to look at; too many grey and yellow tones, but I get that it's supposed to be the moon. I'm curious about the post-jam version, so I may check that out some time. Props.

Little Sprout Garden by Valmay 2017-04-25T04:26:22Z

That little seedling sprite is super adorable.

Terraform: a Small World by DuffJones 2017-05-11T09:56:48Z

The game is a little too tall for my screen as well - I have to zoom out quite a bit, to about 65%, and even then, I have to put my browser on full screen in order to play.

The game itself isn't too bad - I haven't played that many story based, choose-your-own-adventure type games, so it was a nice experience. I was quite resistant to terraforming, which I guess was the goal of the game. But when I was offered the option to restart, it printed out a "dev console" at the bottom left corner of the screen as such:

Terraform a Small World 02.png

Overall, the story seemed okay, but the text scrolled up pretty quickly in some parts and it was too fast for me to completely read what the other individual was saying to me. The appearance of the speaking and the player's response texts look too similar; I wish the distinction was more obvious. Aside from this, the aesthetic choices in the text, backgrounds and graphic of the "small planet" were good. I noticed you are opting out of the graphics and audio categories, but you have them enabled, so I will not rate in those categories. Make sure to opt out as confirmation though.

PS I like the reference to Ludum Dare 37's theme. I don't know if it was intentional, but I did get a chuckle out of that. ;)

DEFEND YOUR SMALLEST OF WORLDS by Ben McEldowney 2017-05-16T19:23:45Z

GAH, they turned the Earth into Mars!

Heh, I haven't seen that many games use slingshots for self defense. It's quite hard, having to aim opposite yourself to hit targets. The game has a humourous concept, and I like how you have the most random items to throw, from a car to a factory? to a cow. I felt like the UFO ships are too small, especially when starting out with such inconsistently sized items. Aiming was quite a pain, especially with the rapid speed the UFOs moved at. I also feel there would have been more of a sense of progression if all the items you threw were more or less the same size to start with, then changing it up gradually as the game goes along. Different sized UFOs too, would have been great. Well, maybe that's something to consider for a post jam.

And, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think an entry can [opt in](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules) for audio if they use a royalty free loop, which appears to be what you've done. Granted, it's a nice sounding loop (very reminiscent of Pebble Dash) but as someone said above, it doesn't really go for the right tone. It is very "nighttime" sounding, but nighttime music does not necessarily fit into the space theme. I think your sound effects were fine, but unfortunately, I don't think rating audio is proper even if you generated your sound effects because you got the music from somewhere else. (You could, however, remove the music entirely, next time in an entry so you can be rated in audio.)

Also I know this sounds weird, but I like your UI. :stuck_out_tongue:

Save that small planet by zeu31 2017-05-03T01:44:21Z

My highscore was 8900 before I decided to quit. I found it hard to move around the planet and aim at asteroids, and ended up spam shooting most of the time to get rid of most far out asteroids, all while trying to aim for the ones that actually got close to the planet. I'm glad the ship is invulnerable to asteroids, which gives a bit more time to react and hit. Artwise, the planet and asteroids designs are really good. There's a lot of fine details on the planet, nice colours and a bit of humour in that the cities are monstrously huge in relation to that tiny planet - or so it seems.

Couple more nitpicks:

- Some details in the "space" area could be used. Maybe some white dots of differing sizes to give a "starry" look, thus evoking more of the idea that this takes place in space. - I'm not really a huge fan of the sounds - the shooting sounds are much louder than the sound of asteroids getting destroyed, which gets quite annoying after playing for a while. Maybe something more Sine wave or Tom sounding could be more suitable. The asteroid sound effect is a bit clicky and could use some more punch, but it wasn't as prevalent of an irritant. - A button to restart directly into the game rather than bringing the player to the menu screen would elevate this game's replayability a lot, especially since the only other option on the menu is to quit, which you give as an option on the Game Over screen anyway.

Overall, it's an all right, workable game with some nice graphics. You also nailed the theme pretty well too.

Samhain: Fly Away Home by Vanillycake 2017-05-16T06:01:13Z

I agree with everyone else that you've managed to combine many different art styles together very well. It was quite tough to get into the gameplay itself, as it seems very unforgiving if you mess up by falling into water (and the controls did not make retracing my steps very fun). The music was quite nice; it definitely conveyed the chilly winter effectively. I liked the different types of enemies, and there were some interesting elements in the underground areas that weren't explained. There is a lot that can be skipped, however, especially with the floating mechanic. I do like it, but yeah, it felt like there needed to be more to encounter along the way to make this an effective journey.

Mr. UN and the small world village by JulianMH 2017-05-16T20:55:05Z

An all around solid entry for a Compo entry. It's short, but effectively simple, and fun to play. I love the sound effects, the little guitar riff when you purchase an item, the little sound effects when converting people. This was a lot of fun, and I think a lot of the humour comes from the prospect of making conversion to peace this simple. It would be interesting to see this premise taken to other planets, maybe. But generally it was a short but satisfyingly good playthrough.

Tribes of the Turtleland by ArtKurkowski 2017-05-02T19:24:24Z

This is the kind of game that demands levels. I quite enjoyed playing this; I especially love the design of the turtle, and the little tribe figures with their permanent >:O expressions. I like the music too, maybe the in-game more than the menu screen, which had a tendency to sound a bit staticy at parts, but it had some good flow and tune to it. The main area track had a very floaty, world feel to it, which was great. The sound effect for placing the tribe members was also cute, and I would have loved to hear maybe some collective sound effects for when the tribe members fall off the island.

I appreciated the game hints, which served as a good guide on how to play without being super intrusive. There were also good indicators with the cursor as well, telling you why you can't place certain tribe members wherever you want. I played until the third "make it harder", of which it seemed the enemy tribe was multiplying super rapidly and I had trouble keeping up. Aside from this, I can't really pinpoint any other major problems I was having, except maybe that sometimes, the tribe members could end up inside the water, which caused them to shake back and forth and sort of pop around the pool. Oh yeah, and it would have been nice to also map the WASD keys as well; I found myself using these by mistake when playing instead of the arrow keys. Or maybe have them configurable for letter key combinations.

The game also had a tendency to lag when lots of tribe members were in place, but it wasn't so bad that it took me out of the playing experience. Overall, I liked what I played and would *love* to see this with a levels system and different coloured turtles, because the way you've designed the "turtle" world is so intriguing.

Ascension: A God's Test by MatHype 2017-05-05T17:33:25Z

The biggest detriment to this entry, I feel, is that it's not really the type of game that can be picked up and learned, but it presents itself like that. I think this is also the reason why it feels so slow. For my first two playthroughs, I was expected to build a temple and create villagers, but was given no indication as to how this was supposed to work. As a result, I was always losing the first round. I actually don't think I even won a round when trying to match the objectives, because collecting resources and making stuff required mana, all of which you don't get very much per round to start with. There was just a lot of guessing and checking involved with playing the game, which I couldn't find myself enjoying here. A tutorial, maybe even integrating narration with it, would have made it a lot more engaging from the start.

(also the text gets cut off here) Ascension 01.png

That being said, the combination of 3D and pixel art in the game really works in your favour. And of course, I love me a game with some voice acting in it. If you were more dramatic in your inflections, I think this could have made the game more charming. And maybe more voice acting in between the rounds when your turns get all used up, eh? The music also is fitting enough; I like how you seem to have two different tracks in game to switch it up.

The Ludum Show by ketchupcoke 2017-05-15T23:57:01Z

Nice graphics. I was wondering why the moon and sun were attached to a string; I thought that was pretty neat. It was a bit hard to find certain items; there was nothing intuitive about some of the locations. But once all the pieces were collected, it was easy to put them together. I liked the different scenes and the lighting. As others said, it could use some audio. I was also concerned, from the background, that the details in the background would be too distracting, but they weren't too bad.

Chuck and Bull by CheesyMoo 2017-05-13T22:04:27Z

Fitting music, nice colours. The pixel art is pretty good, but it's a bit hard to see the looks of some of the items and characters. The text box also looks really out of place in comparison to the graphics. This game could have also used some more sound effects for certain actions; it would have really added to the charm.

As a game, there isn't much to it, as stated by the other comments. I don't think that there necessarily needs to be a survival element, but if it's going to be like an interactive piece, there does need to be a lot more to do.

Chuck and Bull 01.png

I think the item circled in red was what others were referring to as "booze"; when I interacted with it, it just started the music over from the beginning. I'm also not sure if the chicken's text is supposed to be humour or a typo. Considering the other piece of text is with the wife, I couldn't really tell.

Last Breath by nikrt 2017-05-17T20:49:38Z

Last Breath 01.png

Text getting cut off is one of the biggest issues I have with this game, especially since the instructions are only included within the game and not anywhere on the game description.

I can see, however, that you've done a good job ensuring playability, such as instantly killing the player when they fall off the edge of the island. And no, that's not sarcasm - it's good that I don't have to wait so long once I can't get back on the island and so I just die instantly so I can restart faster. I thought the art looked all right; there was some interesting use of lighting on the ground that was pretty cool. The sound effects are also good - I like the groans and the shooting sound has a nice pitch and isn't too annoying when spammed a bunch of times.

Some other suggestions:

- It would have been more helpful to see bullets being shot out of the gun and hitting said enemies. If not bullets, then lasers, etc. But there should be at least some feedback on the trajectory of where the projectiles are being headed. - I would have liked to press and hold the button to shoot rather than clicking rapidly, because the gun doesn't seem to do all that much damage. - The enemies seem to remain completely static if they are spawned far away from you, which allows for the player to just launch grenades as they seemingly regenerate and obliterate enemies with ease. You could have both sorts of enemies, ones that walk back and forth on the island, and some that remain stationary until you approach them. - If you are to continue upon this, do make the text smaller so that it fits on the screen, and also, have the in-game text could match the titlescreen for more consistency. (I like the menu screen fonts a lot.) - The UFOs also look very out of place in comparison to the rest of the graphics (like 3D ish?), so consider redesigning them so that they have the same sort of style as the enemies, characters and island.

Bugs:

- If I launch a grenade very close to me and then stand on it, the grenade doesn't ever detonate. I also am unable to jump when I'm on a grenade, but I can still move (see screenshot below). Last Breath 02.png - As also seen in the screenshot above, enemies can get stuck in the ground sometimes. - Pressing the Alt key also allows me to launch a grenade. I'm not sure if this is in the controls, but from what I saw in the Instructions, it was only mentioned that the mouse buttons were used for deploying weapons. Which makes me wonder if the game also has a button mapped to the shooting key.

Overall, this was relatively well rounded, especially for a first Ludum Dare entry. I'd love to see what that Story and Instructions text on the menu screen say in its entirety. I'm always a sucker for stories and in-game lore.

Last Breath by nikrt 2017-05-18T22:53:41Z

@nikrt Hey, thought I should clarify that the enemies were completely stationary - they weren't even destroying the crust, until I approached them. Unless that was meant to be a very gradual thing? There was no animation for them destroying the crust when I was playing.

K.R.A.B.S. by limejuice123 2017-05-08T01:36:55Z

I played this with my sister. It was overall fun, but kind of slow. Maybe it's just my computer, heh, but it seemed like players just moved sluggishly throughout the arena. And it was confusing to know what the particles in the sky do. Other than this, the metres and score indicators were clear but not intrusive, which is great.

Probably my biggest issue with this game, other than the slow performance, is the controls. Even on a download build, using the Ctrl and Shift keys for either player can still mess around with changing the player's keyboard language, etc. Sure that can be changed back, but then again, mapping shoot and shield functions to the letter or punctuation keys, for example, can also resolve this to some extent. I've played some multiplayer games that have movement and shoot/jump (aka two functions), and the defaults usually are WASD and the G and H keys for player 1, and arrow keys and /. for player 2. Even the ability to remap controls would be a great touch.

Other than that, the game was fine for what it was. I like the robotic voice and the music. The background art was fascinating as well.

Cataclysm of a Potted Plant by Timestop 2017-04-29T06:28:22Z

That was a very quick but cute playthrough. I would have personally liked to have the character be respawned from the start of the stage rather than closing the game upon losing. Having open up the game again each time is annoying, especially if you have a task for the player where it’s relatively easy to lose (one hit equals instant death).

I do think the art is the best part about the game. I love the combination of realistic looking soil with the cute worm and rock. The inconsistent art style adds to the charm. I am curious as to why the worm starts as a bunch of blocks and then suddenly transforms into a more cartoon-like worm once he reaches the top. I guess it really is a special worm after all!

The music is all right; I like the "sunflower_soiree" track; it’s got a bit of a wondrous "I wonder what’s up above" feeling. I only wish it captured a bit more of that feeling of "rain" in it, seeing as the game is entirely about avoiding raindrops.

Oh, the dialogue was also pretty good, albeit there wasn’t too much of it. My heart goes out to that poor rock, who totally got rained on and probably fell off the leaf as I was climbing up. :P

Something Something by sgstair 2017-05-17T02:13:18Z

I dig the Minecraft aesthetic. It was fun clicking around the map area and getting a good perspective on the little map. It's a shame there wasn't really anything else to do. I had a look at the Map Editor, which was interesting. It seemed to have a mind of its own when it came to zooming in and out. There was also a time when my cursor wasn't quite aligned with the in-game cursor (my actual cursor being lower), so I kept putting the game out of focus trying to place certain tiles because I kept hitting the Start menu instead. Overall, it's a cute experiment, and it would be interesting to see where you are going with this.

KeyPuppers by AntaresValdemar 2017-05-02T06:21:18Z

PUPPERS that's such an adorable name!

From the looks of the screenshot, I thought this was going to be a typing game, but the way this game works makes it seem a lot less of a typing game than it actually is. Sure you have to hold the corresponding keys to repair them, but each pupper always seems to move the same direction: left to right (Q to P, A to L and Z to M). Since you can only repair one key at a time, it's nearly impossible to quickly repair a whole row of keys, what with the constant wave of puppers walking through constantly and only getting a minimal amount of time to "fix" each key.

Personally I think this would have worked much better as a typing game. You could have puppers jump from key to key, at different distances between the keys, and at different paces. With these variations, it would seem a lot more like a typing game. But that's just my personal suggestion.

Here's some other thoughts:

- Freezing the puppers should not cause other waves of puppers to come onto the screen while said puppers are still frozen. Without this, it barely serves as a cooldown time for the player to repair keys while still being reasonable. - Holding the shift key and then said targeted key does appear to be superfluous. Consider letting the player hold down just the letter key to repair.

Those things aside, I think you've got some fine ideas here. The graphics are really cute (I mean who can say no to colourful puppies anyway? :P), plus the music is upbeat and fun, and I do find it suitable to the graphics and overall tone of the game. The only thing that I don't like about the sound is the "hover" fx for buttons; it just sounds really scratchy and unpleasant against the pleasant sounding soundtrack. Something that's more "bwoop"y or maybe more lighter, gentler and shorter than the effect you currently have is an sfx I could see working as a suitable alternative.

But yeah, congrats on your first game jam you did a fine job (final score was 260 for me...hehehe).

Shovel vs deforestation by chispaLBC 2017-05-15T23:07:51Z

Those lumberjacks make me think of Canada for some reason :P. And their eyes on the outside of their face make me think of a snout from a distance - like they're animals or something.

Overall, I think this was pretty well put together. You have a playable condition, some nice looking art, good sound effects and a music track to boot. The musical loop is catchy, albeit it does start to get a bit annoying after several repetitions.

As I was playing, I noticed I could actually hit lumberjacks that were quite far away from the character if I rapidly pressed the E key. It got to the point, in one level, where they looked as though they were randomly dying, but I guess the game was still inputting my attack even after I let go of the key.

- I would have preferred to have the attack key mapped to something opposite WASD, like K or M, etc. This would give more control with the attacks rather than having to sacrifice jumping. I found myself using my right hand to press the E key at times. - There was also a bit of a bug where lumberjacks could get stuck on the top of a tree, and they wouldn't move until that tree got cut down. Shovel vs deforestation 01.png

I enjoyed the humour and it was a sweet little game.

WHAT A SMALL WORLD! by ilikescifi 2017-05-06T23:50:21Z

Wow that was a quick sit. The graphics and music are definitely good in this (could have used some chiptune but you captured a good feeling in this); I love the tiny pixelart of the outside world. And I agree with the others that you set the music cue up great in this. I also love the sounds of interacting with things inside the house. The video game bloops were super satisfying. Despite the presence of an NPC, I'm surprised you don't get to talk with this individual.

My only huge issue with the game overall is that whenever the character runs into a wall or solid object, the screen goes crazy and quivers back and forth like there's an earthquake going on. I don't know if this is intentional - it doesn't seem to be, and is really disorienting.

I did like the dialogue, but the text boxes should really linger until the player moves away from said object they just interacted with, imo. Overall, it was a short and sweet game with a rather unexpected ending.

Rock Hammer by Airman4 2017-05-15T20:50:17Z

I can agree that this concept would work really great for mobile, so it's nice to see that the game is also built for that. The art is fine; the colours look nice, but something about the main character looks a bit out of place in comparison to the background. It's not super noticeable though, especially when the character is moving constantly. I love the logo you have for the game page though.

Honestly I don't think I can say anything that wouldn't have already been said in the comments, as this is a relatively straightforward game. You have the tools for this basic concept, and I really think it could work as a fun arcade mobile game with more content added to it (plus sounds and music). The one thing I did find myself wishing when playing this jam version is that there was a button for restarting the game, like pressing the spacebar, instead of having to click on the Retry button. Also I was able to pause the game on a game over, but it only brings up the pause screen, and this goes away once I hit "Retry". Finally, maybe you could consider varied widths of target areas, which also would change up difficulty.

All in all, good fundamentals, and if you continue to work on this, I can only see additional content benefitting the game.

Ghost Cat by Belga54 2017-05-18T22:42:53Z

I don't understand why this game needs an installer (why not ZIP if it's a Unity game?), but I downloaded it and am ready to play. :thumbsup:

Well that was interesting. I'm a robot that defends myself from ghost cats by throwing garbage at them...I think... :stuck_out_tongue: I guess the overall concept of this is fine; I like how the items dropped can pass through multiple cats, the musical cues are pretty good and the art, although inconsistent in design, has a nice colour palette that isn't disturbing to the eye.

It seems as though it is possible to walk off screen, and I'm not sure if that affects the cats as well, as there were some points where I was losing health, but I didn't see any cats on screen to attack. The sound effects were also used inconsistently in the game as well; I heard a bit of a "hitting" sound effect, which I thought was for when I hit a cat, and then thought it was for when I got hit myself, but this effect did not play consistently on either action. You'd want to give more attention to the sound effects and overall consistency of the art style.

Other than this, the game is all right. I like the design of the robot and that titlescreen music you chose was cool and jazzy.

My Other World by Formona 2017-05-16T21:30:06Z

I love the choice of mini games; playing with words is often hard, but it works for this narrative. By the way, great poetry, which really tied in with the music and worked to set a good mood. I like the designs of the bosses, the map and the background a lot, but the only design I had issues with was the main character. It might just be me, but the cute chibi design didn't tie in with the unsettling look of the bosses.

And while I like the idea of the mini games, the best one really was just the first game. Part of this is because the game's tutorial only briefly flashes on screen. If it was like the poetry text that allowed you to continue, this would have improved the gaming experience a lot, imo. For most of them, I didn't even finish reading the tutorial text before it flashed right to the game, and I had to die several times before I could read the remaining bits. This was especially an issue in the third stage, where I actually had no idea what I was supposed to do, and losing health was too slow. I eventually took it to be that "ohh you have to match words that are the opposite of the negative words?" but even as I beat it, I wasn't entirely sure if this was the case. So yeah, a more static tutorial text would have made this all the more better.

Aside from that and the main character's design, I thought this was a pretty unique overall put together game.

tropix 🌴 by cakeknuckles 2017-08-19T22:44:03Z

Geez if your phone is going to run out that quickly, you might as well keep it plugged in. :P I do find it amusing at the end, when the charger sneaks in to charge the phone, and you get to take a look at the photos you took. It seems as though sometimes, the entire picture is not captured and I only get half photos. The blurry ones with 1 like was funny though.

It was quite fun to try and figure out which photos were the best to take, all while managing the multiple messages and dialogue popping up on screen. The art is great and the mood set by the music and colours is fine, too. All around, I really like this game.

The Music Box by DDRKirbyISQ 2017-08-02T01:37:38Z

I'm reminded a lot of a game called [Loop](http://www.nitrome.com/jam/games/loop/), but instead, this is determined by the order in which you visit places. As expected from a DDRKirby entry, the music is done well; it seems like there are a lot of different sounding tracks that really liven the mood and overall really fit with this art style.

Storywise, it's a very simple game, but I found myself enjoying the characters the most. I enjoyed their aesthetic and the cute nods to humour. If there's one thing I had to nitpick, I guess I found that the plot didn't really make a whole lot of sense. The same day keeps repeating over and over, so how does the protagonist remember the safe code (which I had acquired in the night of that same day) before the day begins? Why does the protagonist end up losing the key when the day starts over? And the other animals seem to not have any recollection of the day repeating? I just found that part doesn't really make any sense. But perhaps I'm just thinking too hard about it all. :P Oh yeah, and how does a music box run out of power, anyway?

Aside from this, yeah, this was a nice sit with great visuals and audio to boot.

PutOuter by ginger9 2017-08-14T02:06:18Z

I feel like this concept would work great as a level based game. Introducing the mechanic and then introducing hazards/enemies gradually as you progress. I guess it is pretty linear, but there wasn't really a sense of progression to introduce the player what to do with the game's controls, as was mentioned in the comments. If all the art was consistent with each other, at least for the things that could be affected by power, it would have made all the difference in understanding that the platforms could be turned off.

Well, that aside, I got to the part with the row of turrets that flash green light on and off. I thought I had to wait in between their safe spots, but it turns out that the turrets can change direction to kill you in the safe spots? That was quite frustrating. Perhaps it doesn't happen in the newer versions (I played the original compo one.). I would take a screenshot, but it was a bit of a pain to get through the beginning parts.

The best part of the game is easily the idea. Turning off the enemies, making things run out of power, is great. Although I guess granting the power back for the platforms kind of ruins the presence of the theme for me? However, the theme didn't say that whatever is running out of power can't get it back. :thinking:

Moon is the limit by Azargaz 2017-08-02T00:20:22Z

I couldn't even take off the ground despite pressing and holding the ignition key, and I tried both the web and the download version. The upgrade system looks interesting and all that; even the sound itself for the rocket engine working is very fitting for this kind of art style. I like the design of the sky on the right-hand HUD, but overall, I don't think I was able to figure out how to play.

Space Tanker by wasea 2017-08-14T01:43:50Z

As others said, I think the rate of the water being lost on the planet happens too quickly. Gameplay seems to last for about ten seconds, no more than 20-30 if you can maneuver that rocket with precision. The rate at which water is being lost increasing, however, does make for a good challenge, but it definitely needs to happen more gradually.

While planets fill the water tank much faster than the nearby satellites, it didn't seem as though there was a lot of strategy or progression for the player that would make the speed of diminishing water feasible. It would be interesting to have some resources only giving you a certain amount of water, maybe, or a certain amount of fuel. Maybe have some resources with differing cooldown times, where you can't use that resource for a given period.

I really like the music; the chords really suit the being lost in space sort of feeling. Maneuvering the rocket was fine. It was hard to master, but not frustrating. Some additional sound effects for water collection would be nice as well. I couldn't tell if you had them in there, but if you do, they should be louder or something to make it more obvious that it's there.

Overall, you all did a fine job. :thumbsup:

Electronic Supremacy by damdoshi 2017-08-03T05:43:40Z

Interesting. I haven't played a puzzle defense game like this in a while. The game is definitely in dire need of an in-game tutorial, or maybe even a tutorial level. I also would have liked the ability to destroy tiles I had built, which I don't think was possible in the game? I had built only containers because I didn't have enough power to build anything else, but I ended up not being able to build anything else and thus, got destroyed by the robots.

While the game is certainly very confusing and buggy, there were still elements I liked. The robotic voice sound effect? That was pretty cool. Also, that cursor looked like a metal skeleton hand, which was very intriguing. It's a shame the robot enemies don't seem to mesh with the other tiles. Regardless, I'm sure there's some good ideas swimming around in here amidst all the confusion.

Mower Storms by dracominer 2017-08-03T06:21:25Z

PURPLE? PENGUINS? Sign me up!

Unfortunately, I can't seem to start the game. :( I can get past the cutscene and can even change the difficulty, but when it comes to clicking the Play or Credits buttons, neither work. I have the latest version of Java, too.

BatteryPackMan by junjunlowpoly 2017-08-03T05:21:53Z

Getting a score of 300 has never been easier, considering how you can continue earning points after death. :P But I've only played the compo version, so maybe the post jam has this fixed.

But other than that, I thought this game was fun. I love the chunky pixel art style, and the music pairs well with it. The music is repetitive, but soft enough that it's not annoying. The sound effects were also good. I like the concept, and yes, I can see that when it comes to scoring, you do have to decide how to distribute the power depending on the enemies that appear. Well, I didn't really figure out the strategy yet, but I am definitely one of those players that loves to keep all their units alive so I didn't last too long! Overall, great game. And great intro, too. ;)

Fuse Cell by christina-antoinette-neofotistou 2017-08-03T04:21:30Z

I really want to play this, but I cannot get it to load for the life of me. I've tried Chrome, Firefox, Edge and IE on my Windows 10 laptop and they all come up with the same Construct 2 loading screen, but with the bar stuck at the empty mark. I've tried playing other Construct 2 web games and they load just fine. Sorry, I don't know why. :(

Fuse Cell by christina-antoinette-neofotistou 2017-08-04T06:27:20Z

Oh wow, the game finally runs on my computer now. I had a lot of fun playing it; the artwork is cute and colourful and the audio is epic but also pleasant. The gameplay incorporated the theme well. I like that enemies' attacks can harm you, but enemies are also needed for you to gain power. Although...the first time at the boss, I did run out of power and had to accept my inevitable defeat. I guess it would be nice to at least have some enemies spawn while the boss is attacking as well? Overall, it was very cute, pleasant and enjoyable to play.

Energy Game by rcioletti 2017-08-03T05:27:45Z

Without a link to the game, we cannot play it. You may want to read up on the [hosting guide](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/hosting-guide) to find out how to actually "submit" your game so that it can be properly judged. Add your link while there's still time! :)

LifeRunner ~~~O by ruba 2017-08-02T00:04:57Z

I'm having some issues running the game. According to Microsoft, I already have VS2015 installed, but it crashes shortly upon running it. A command window pops up, followed by a large window titled "GFX" which stays blank, but then a notification comes up that says that it's stopped working.

LifeRunner ~~~O by ruba 2017-08-03T06:49:19Z

@ruba I'm not certain what you mean by "Video card", but upon searching, it seems to mean graphics card? In that case, the card I use is called Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000.

LifeRunner ~~~O by ruba 2017-08-14T01:21:36Z

@ruba Well, I got to try the newer version. The game opens up the window, I hear a split second of music and then it crashes immediately. Sorry. :(

The Floor Isn't Lava by InappropriateName 2017-08-21T05:03:00Z

If the floor isn't lava, why do I keep dying? :(

It's a cute little game; the aesthetic reminds me a bit of Canabalt, what with the whole running across the rooftops premise. I like how the city is called Power, and you're trying to run out of the city, therefore "running out of Power". That was a cute play on words. I liked the intro a lot, too. My only major quip is that it seems pointless to have the character able to grip the side of buildings (as mentioned earlier), as you end up dying anyways once you're in that state. Although it would be interesting to have the character be able to run along the ground, maybe dying if you fall from a very high height?

Of course the other things to touch up would involve audio, more details in the graphics. For what it was, I mean, you have a good start. Of the graphics you have in the game, I liked the look of them all (especially the particles flying out of the broken wires). The play on words for the theme was amusing, too. All in all, not a bad job; keep it up. :thumbsup:

Batterime by Hadrien 2017-08-14T02:27:18Z

Good stuff. I played it all the way through. The graphics are pretty minimalistic, but fitting for a game of this fast pace. The music is quite repetitive, but I think the vibe of the track is suitable. The sound effects were really good, though.

At first, I had problems with losing power too quickly, but it seems as though running actually causes me to lose less power. Also, it was a bit confusing to know that the character could latch onto walls, but I guess you do figure this out pretty quickly if you just run into the wall many times. :stuck_out_tongue:

Overall, it was short but well done. One of my favourite entries so far. I do love fast paced action platformers.

Space Power Defender by EdwinGameDev 2017-08-01T07:40:36Z

I absolutely love your game page background and the pixel art within your game is attractive as well. The colours really make this game pop aesthetic wise. The music has a nice choice of instruments; a bit wandery, but hey, it fits with the "space" vibe pretty well. :P

Personally I find the controls a bit unintuitive, especially since the game seems to start with the expectation that you'd master the controls right away! I also found it difficult to tell which side I was supposed to be shooting with. However, I really like the idea of defending something that, when destroyed, makes you less powerful. That is a good interpretation of the theme. If the controls were based more on the player's perception of direction rather than a move forward/backward/steer scheme, it might have been more fun to play again. At least on a keyboard...you mentioned "joystick" so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be compatible with a controller. Anyways, good stuff. :thumbsup:

Greed by Jake Cope 2017-08-03T06:53:27Z

It sure takes a while for me to get some certain upgrades, and there's a pretty generous amount of power given that it never really feels like I'm running out of it so easily. Also, are the other blank squares supposed to mean something? They seem to never be used, but appear to light up after a certain number of clicks. There is something satisfying about the light blinking faster, though, as you get the proper upgrades for it. There are some interesting elements here, but it did feel like it took too long to reach satisfaction.

EDIT: However, I kept the game open in the background, kept amping up the speed and values and eventually got to the point where I maxed out my money and had to watch the world deplete in power. MWAHAHAHA! Still took quite a while though. It would be interesting to note how long it took to deplete the world of power and maybe give some incentive to try and do it in the shortest amount of time. But yeah, even as I write this message, I haven't even knocked down the first 9 digit yet (and that includes the time it took to take and save the screenshot, plus add the edit). You may want to knock a digit off or something.

jake cope Greed.png

AI Overlord Runaway by Agecaf 2017-08-08T03:13:47Z

Agecaf...say, would you happen to be the same Agecaf who made a game for the Nitrome Jam? *I sometimes dream...* was one of my favourites from that jam. I loved the music there, and I love it here, too. The melodies and progression overall; it's not the kind of music you'd expect in a bullet hell, but it works in this one mostly because of the aesthetics and the experimental vibe of the game.

I loved the various powers. It was really interesting to see how they were all based on dodging elements, rather than defeating enemies. While I was intrigued by my abilities, I also found myself not using that many of the powers in a single playthrough, not only because of the power limitation, but also because there were just so many that it was hard to keep track of them all. Still, that just got me to replay several times so I could get a feel for them all.

The game is really great given the time restraints. There's a lot of potential to take this further. Although, if you would put this into different stages, it might be more ideal to introduce the powers in smaller groups per stage. Either way, I truly enjoyed playing this.

The Electrician by Catoto 2017-08-19T21:56:12Z

I love the art style - the backgrounds are detailed, yet not distracting, which is a definite plus for me. As for the gameplay, I really like the idea, but as others said, there doesn't seem to be a way to tell which wires will give you power and which take away your power, which makes it less fun. If there was a consistent look (colour coded wires, or even wires that are "broken"), I think it would have been a lot more fun (you could then up the difficulty by increasing the speed gradually). Perhaps you could also consider a power limit, like you can't cut wires when you're over a certain amount of power. I can see this concept working quite well as a rhythm game, and you do have music put over the game that gives it a rhythm game feel.

So overall, I like the idea a lot, and the graphics are great. I can see a lot of directions this can improve post jam. :smiley:

Charger by Matt bob 2017-08-01T07:00:45Z

HAHAHAHA this was really cute! A very short story to say the least, but I was engaged the whole way through. I like the design of the rhinos; the graphics overall were very adorable.

When I first played, I had to start the game over because I accidentally skipped the dialogue in the first part. Perhaps you'd want to consider implementing scrolling text in the future for the text boxes, which will make the dialogue a little easier to read and less difficult to mistakably advance through. But other than that, while very short, this entry overall feels complete. Though it wouldn't hurt to have some audio as well. :)

Mecha Testing Ground by Spitfireleet 2017-08-19T21:11:38Z

This game has satisfying sound effects and a nice colour palette. I don't really understand why I was fighting jack o' lanterns, but somehow, I was okay with that. :stuck_out_tongue:. I like how the game has two sort of approaches, what with killing as many enemies in a set amount of time, but also having time affect the movement of the character.

The only thing I really had an issue with was that the hit detection was a bit questionable. It seems as though you only get hurt when the enemy passes through the line with your gun. Considering how that actually makes things easier (the second playthrough, when I understood how to play better, I lost no health by just spamming my gun), I guess it's not worth complaining a whole lot. It would be more ideal to make what you see what you have to protect, y'know. :wink:

Low Disk Space by green2onion 2018-08-16T05:51:04Z

What an odd game. Some of these files are so strange (downloading tweets in a video form?) and the overall story surrounding this "deleting files" simulator is peculiar. But, aside from that...I think I did get some enjoyment out of this game. It's a very simple concept, but getting the high score is the challenge since you have to keep track of so many files and try not to delete a lot while also making sure you don't run out of disk space. :rofl:

I think the overall game works fine. The only thing I wish is for the ability to drag files and rearrange them. It might have added to the frenzy, but also helps keep the desktop a little more organized for the player if they so desire. :stuck_out_tongue: Other than that, the game looks fine and works fine. Honestly the gameplay itself is enjoyable. I believe it's just the story behind it that is odd to me. Odd but topical. :thinking:

Bath Time by DDRKirbyISQ 2018-08-16T00:03:07Z

I also got stumped at level 8, even in the post compo version. :joy: It's a fun concept that feels like it was designed with mobile in mind. That's good, but it wasn't exactly a joy to play with on the mouse. I would have liked it if you were able to click and hold in between transitioning from the bath to taking the cats off the drying rack. I guess like "it isn't a huge deal" since it's one button you re-press and all, but...in such a frenzy, smaller details like this would at least help make later levels a bit more forgiving, I think. :joy:

I also feel like the "swipe controls" for taking the cats off the drying rack isn't consistent with its response at all. I tried this in earlier levels of the post compo version, and it seems like even if I wait for all the cats on a full rack to dry and swipe to the right, making sure my cursor is on all the cats, all but like two or three get picked up most of the time. And this, in later levels, makes things extremely irritating because you'll have to swipe twice or three times when the cats have all fully dried because the game doesn't recognize that I swiped across the screen to try and pick up all the cats for some reason?

The indication that the bathtub was about to explode also felt somewhat strange because it seems like there's a delay once the kittens pile on, rather than the bathtub exploding the moment a kitten is added. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that I was cleaning cats and none were coming down and then all of a sudden, the tub just combusts.

The art style is pretty cute, and I love the calming colour palette. I also enjoyed the sound effects - you always make such nice chiptune-ish cat noises that make those animals 10x more adorable, I swear. I like what was done with the music, too, what with the chiptune arps kicking in whenever you swirl to the music getting faster and more intense when your bathtub starts to run out of space. If anything, I guess the music was a bit repetitious, but I'm guessing this was done because it's affected by what you do or what happens in the game. This kind of composition wasn't really what I would expect from a game like this either. But it's fine for what it is.

Given the screen size, I can only imagine that this will become a phone game, and I'd certainly be interested in seeing how that would play out. This really seems like it would play a lot better with a touchscreen.

Daycare Dilemma by Random-storykeeper 2018-08-14T07:07:03Z

Yoooo @agecaf nice to see you again! I'm surprised you played our game this early. :rofl: We were rushing to get a submission out, so a lot of things got overlooked, and the slowdown of the site during submission hour didn't help. :joy:

We usually do a Windows build first, then make a web version after the submission hour has ended, as IJZM says it takes quite a while to compile a web one and usually results in a lot of errors. But we have it out now, and it did fix one issue with the music. IJZM ended up using the incorrect track for the menu screen (the eight second loop that was playing in your version was *not* supposed to be on the menu screen :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: ). I guess that's what we get for rushing to submit. :joy: Thanks so much for your feedback and I can't wait to play your game! (probably tomorrow though as it's getting late right now haha)

Spaceabon by Agecaf 2018-08-15T23:21:06Z

UGGGHHH so close to 40000 :weary:

Spaceabon-YIKES almost 40000 resized.png

This was quite the puzzler, and gets quite fun as it does get challenging. I spent most of my time in puzzle mode, but the Arcade mode also presents a nice, difficult task of having to think fast as blocks spawn rapidly on the screen. Puzzle mode gets CRAZY once you start handling like 8 different blocks in the tiny space, and I found myself running out of storage pretty quickly. It didn't really help that the way the character interacts with the blocks is kind of finicky. I get that the area is designed around this "once you touch a block and move, the character automatically takes the block with them", but I found myself getting more frustrated when I accidentally forgot this and went to get move a block but ended up moving another because it was on the other side of me. Ah well, it's all part of the challenge. :joy:

I've noticed that there seems to be a bit of a glitch in the music? Like just before it loops (I think), it makes this loud, jarring white noise. There also seems to be a big discrepancy in the dynamics of your track from the beginning and the end (the beginning of the loop is much softer than the end of the loop), which makes me wonder if this is what's causing the loud noise. But I also notice it is inconsistent; sometimes that blast of noise is a mere click upon looping. I was playing the Windows version, too.

That's a shame, because the game music is quite nice. It's got this aimless, 12/8 feel, like I'm floating around in space. I love the saxophone lead and the dry bell plinks. That being said, I think the sound effects are too quiet and subtle. I would have loved to hear some more satisfying sounds, or at least have those current sound effects be louder. Maybe some BFXR blips to help contrast it from the music more. The harp sounds made me think of Monument Valley, which I don't really think meshes with the graphics.

I like the various block designs and the little person at the top controlling the vehicle whenever you move around. The game, overall, is a fine puzzler, albeit tedious in the Puzzle Mode. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: But I enjoyed and got frustrated with it, as a puzzler should do. :rofl:

Ant Factory by Pavel Smejkal 2018-08-15T10:22:35Z

I went into this game completely confused, but after staring back and forth at the ingredients list and actually understanding how to play, I sank about an hour or so into this game. *Only three levels,* I told myself. That last one gets quite tricky, though, since you're forced to have the six ants making the stone items constantly. I really loved the puzzle element overall, and the easy-to-access list and quick pause button made it a lot of fun to ponder over how to set up the buildings and where to relegate extra supplies that are building up.

The game very cleverly works in the theme because not only do you have to make sure you're not running out of space in the main sort of storage area, but also you have to make sure that you don't run out of space on the grid itself. And having to also create a path the ants can walk on doesn't make it easier either. :joy: But I really like how this is all interconnected: don't run out of main storage space, don't run out of space to host your factories, don't run out of money...etc. Not to mention some of the items that will create an excess of stuff you don't really need so you have to make other items just to clear up space but also earn money back. :stuck_out_tongue:

The three levels you present do increase pretty drastically in difficulty, especially between the second and third level, but they overall do provide progressively harder challenges. And I just really like the concept overall. It works with ants. While the gameplay itself is solid, some touchups to the aesthetics (such as the plain blue background) and adding some appropriate audio would elevate the gameplay experience even further.

I guess one thing I found myself wondering was...what was the point of being able to move the map around when the size of the map is the same size as the screen you work with? I actually didn't use those keys at all during my playthrough, but going back to check, it looks like the map definitely has an edge that is the exact length of the screen you play it in. I dunno, arrow keys and WASD (or its European keyboard equivalent) would have been nice to move the map around if it had been bigger than the game screen. I suppose that's the case when trying to play windowed, but moving the map around gets pretty buggy in such a resolution (it gets stuck in a certain direction and I can't move it back).

But yeah aside from that, I had a great experience with the gameplay as a whole. Although it kind of has a steep learning curve, it gets pretty addicting to try and beat it, not to mention the great integration of the theme. :clap:

Weltraum by JLV 2018-08-16T01:03:18Z

Well that was a pretty creative use of the theme. Taking it literally, a little too literally... :smirk:

I enjoyed the interactivity you do get, besides proceeding through the story. I think the voice acting is the most effective part of the game. There's good changes in dynamics and tone with the voice depending on the situation the character is in. The only thing that bothered me was that there was sometimes noticeable background noise or static when the voice played. But the overall voice acting was well done.

I do agree that it would have been great if 75 also had at least a different sound effect from the overseers (since it is addressed that 75 cannot speak, if I recall). And voices for the higher-ups would have been awesome. I guess the only thing missing for me was more background noise or ambiance. I loved the mood set by the pixel art colours, and the piano at the end was fitting enough, but there could have been way more sounds or ambiance during other parts, especially the ship chase scenes.

The story itself was pretty engaging, and I did laugh when I finally got how this connected to the theme. Nice work. :)

GarbageForm by ElusiveMilestone 2018-08-16T06:27:13Z

The concept is a great basis for a game. Unfortunately, the execution of this game is too finicky and unbalanced that it really hinders how fun it is. The controls are super slippery (a single press of the key sometimes causes you to move several squares forward) and it doesn't help that you have to be pretty precise where you throw your box to rebuild the platforms. Even so, when the boxes push you forward, you usually only have a bit of time to move them out of the way so you don't get pushed over. To have that one block thrown away rebuilding one part of the path while like, three rows get pushed towards you each time does seem quite unfair, especially for a casual, first time player.

By the way, when your path finally clears out and there's only one row of blocks left, nothing else spawns and you're just left standing there. I guess it's pretty easy to just fall off the path, but I dunno, might have made it more consistent if that last row up and left rather than forcing the player to kill off their character.

GarbageForm-Stuck on a single platform.png

I think the basis of this game is good and for what you managed to do in four hours, it's decently playable at the very least. It certainly needs tighter controls and more leeway in regards to the throwing distance of the blocks and when the trash collector catches them. That would at least make it more generous with the current balancing as the player would be able to toss the blocks more easily.

While the graphics were quite simplistic and the player sprite didn't really mesh with them, I did like how the protagonist crouches and puts their hands over their head when they fall off the platform. The player character doesn't even fall all the way down despite there being empty space. How interesting. :thinking:

It's Raining Humans! by conrev 2018-08-16T06:57:23Z

LOL that's a lot of humans piled up on this one planet. They're all definitely dead by now. Is there a lose condition to this game? I feel like I should have gotten it at this point. Perhaps the game wants me to fill up to the brim with humans all the way across?

Its raining humans - is this supposed to happen.png

I didn't really like how the fan is like a one-time use item once you press the space bar and then have to wait several seconds before recharging. I think it would have been more ideal to have it so that the giga fan only activates when you are pressing and holding the spacebar, so that the player has more control over how much of the fan's power they use instead of the fan just simply going until you run out of power, even when you don't have humans falling into the planet yet.

There also could have been more indication as to where the humans are going to fall. At the moment, it does feel random, since they seem to rotate around the planet before falling in a completely different area from where you see them, and it changes all the time. You could consider having the humans fall slowly towards the planet to begin with, then speeding up as they get closer to the planet's surface. Sort of like a gravitational pull, eh?

The human physics were pretty goofy and I like how humans managed to catapult themselves into space then land on this one planet that apparently is not too far off from Earth. :stuck_out_tongue: Like I said, I'm almost certain that none of those humans that fall to that planet are actually alive by the time they hit the planet's surface. No wonder they look like soulless silhouettes. :joy:

Oh yeah, I was wondering...was the music composed specifically for the game, within the scope of the jam? Just curious, seeing as there is someone credited for the audio in your game's description. If that was the case, you could have opted into the audio judging category. I did think the music was quite nice, and suitable for the game. (But if it was free music by that composer/composed outside of the jam, etc. then you'd opt out of Audio).

WearOut by Abhis1Kadian 2018-08-15T08:39:21Z

I took a couple of attempts with this (after a considerably long wait after hitting play :thinking: ) and couldn't get past my high score of 24. :stuck_out_tongue:

WearOut-highscore24.png

I really enjoyed the setup of this game. You obviously tried to go for a more humourous approach, and I thought it was funny the way the story of the game was arranged. It worked well for this sort of concept, too. I like the idea of a survival defense game where you are trying to conserve space because it can only accommodate you.

The graphics, while simplistic, worked well with the sort of dark humour this game has. Nothing was super distracting or hard to tell apart from the others. A decent enough job was done here. Regarding the music, I'm assuming you didn't make it, considering you opted out of audio. Despite this, I still think it's worth thinking about how you could select music tracks that are more coherent with each other and perhaps more fitting to the type of game this is in general. The collection of tracks, even if they are not your own, can have a big impact on your game's mood regardless.

My biggest gripe with the game, unfortunately, is the gameplay itself. The controls for attacking were not desirable and would have been more suited to keys on the keyboard. There's also not really a whole lot of response within the game itself that shows clearly when your attacks affect the opponents and I didn't catch any significant differences between kicking and punching. As a result, I mostly just spam kicked until I died. It felt really inconsistent, since once you are actually within attacking distance (ie. close enough that when your character punches/kicks it could actually touch the opponent), you're more likely to lose health as you defeat them. Overall, I didn't have a great experience, which is a shame because almost everything else surrounding this game - the story, the minimalistic graphics - does have the potential to be a good basis for a fun game.

Congrats on your first game jam, and welcome to Ludum Dare. :) You managed to complete and submit a game for the first time in a game jam, so that's a pretty impressive feat. :thumbsup:

Calorie Killers by big-cow 2018-08-18T09:09:16Z

As many others have stated, I think the core idea of this game is very fun, but the biggest issue lies in just how unbalanced it is. Right from the get-go, burgers start spawning at an insane rate that, even if you are precise with your gun, you inevitably end up being overwhelmed by them no matter where you go because they all take a crazy amount of health to kill. Either burgers need to spawn less frequently or take less hits to kill (with the rate they spawn in the initial game, it would probably, well, more reasonable if they all went out in one hit). But yeah, I like the idea of enemies making you larger if they hit you. It makes them easier to hit, but at the same time, you run the risk of killing yourself with the spiked borders.

I also noticed that you fire less responsively as you get bigger and I'm not sure if this is intentional, since it seems like you can fire at the same rate once you click and hold again. The burgers also seem to be killable by just touching them with the end of the ketchup bottle if you click and hold and swing the bottle back and forth in front of them. Because of that, I have to wonder if maybe invisible, short-range bullets are being fired?

The graphics were pretty goofy and made sense for the humourous concept, along with the sound effects. The chiptune music was suitable and good. Overall, the game is pretty amusing.

Rainbow Rave by Rainbow Rave 2018-08-16T00:38:01Z

So this game is about a unicorn...getting drunk...but it's set in candy land...but it's not snowing...and there's rave music playing???? It's quite a funny concept. :laughing: Maybe not exactly my kind of humour, but I did get some enjoyment out of the unicorn DJing in the background. That's my favourite character in this game. :rofl:

I like the idea of the goal being to collect drinks, but the more you collect, the more drunk you get. I take it this means that you have to time your shots so that you're not drinking too much at once. One thing that really confused me was that there appeared to be no way to die or complete the game. I noticed that there is only multiplayer, but I wasn't able to put in a second player, at least in the web version. But I could still play the game as a single player and get revived every time I fell off the map or collapsed.

There is a huge delay in the music when it loops, and I'm not sure if that's intentional (maybe to imply the DJ switching songs? :stuck_out_tongue: ). As for the music, I suppose it's fitting enough for a rave. But the graphics and the music weren't really coming together for me. I did like the sound effects - they were quite funny, however, when you get more unicorns in the playing arena and they're all making the same sound effects as you, it starts to become extremely grating when all those sound effects stack up against each other.

Overall, I just...don't think this game was for me. Although I do appreciate seeing multiplayer games pop up in Ludum Dare. :thumbsup:

Sofa Kingdom: Change of Thrones by LandoSystems 2019-04-30T03:36:51Z

The faces are terrifying as they are hilarious. I like the idea of the player being a wallet and coins that make for your weapon and life force. I'm a huge fan of puns, and these ones hit the spot. :joy:

I played through all the levels except I got stuck on the boss, which I think might be the last one? The biggest issue I was having was understanding how the combat system worked. Sure you can't really take damage or die, but that became a detriment when I was at the boss, where I take it the only way to win is to kill it, and I just wasn't able to do anything. I would shoot coins, but I wasn't able to collect any of them, and the ground pound only seemed to work inconsistently and was overall very frustrating.

The art is very humourous, although I think the sprites kind of look way more detailed than the backgrounds? My favourite sprites are the evil dust bunnies. The music also followed a goofy tone; I liked the little vinyl pops in the title screen theme. Improvisational jazz was not quite what I was expecting with this sort of weird and wacky idea, but it was very welcome in my ears.

Overall, it was quite fun to just navigate around the area. Despite the levels being maze-like, I was never really lost, which is good. I just wish the game's main mechanics were more consistent.

Inflate Me to the Moon by DDRKirbyISQ 2019-05-21T00:47:59Z

I'm really curious how well this will play on mobile, so I might download the iOS version at some point. I did play the original Jam version, and it was giving a real workout on my wrists. Nothing too demanding, though.

The biggest issue for me was that the graphics didn't quite match up with what the rest of the game was going for. The gameplay, the silly references in the music, the narrator...these elements seem to match up with an over-the-top cartoon style rather than the pastel colours and cutesy art. I like the graphics and the visual references, but I don't think they were an appropriate style for this sort of game, especially going all out with the arcade sounds and the narrator. As a comparison, this game uses a similar art style to another of your titles, "Bath Time", and to me, that works because the rest of the game's elements and the humour are kept "cute". So all these elements work together and create a cohesive product. I didn't feel that way about Inflate Me to the Moon. There's too many over-the-top elements that make it feel very cartoonish and not cute. To see that similar art style being inserted into a game like this felt really off.

Actually, looking at the soundtrack, it seems like the game was going for 16-bit references in its audio; I'm wondering if referencing 16-bit graphics would have made it mesh a little better? If they were already referencing 16-bit graphics, I wish I could have seen a more clear connection.

The concept was interesting; I do like the play on the word "inflation" here. I thought the scene with the bird being launched into the sky was nice, and the progression of hearing more of the audio as the rounds progress leaves more sense of anticipation as I reach the final round. It was cool hearing references in that particular cutscene to "moon" related tracks. The combination between the Duck Tales moon theme and that motif from To the Moon was particularly satisfying. I couldn't quite catch all the references, but looking at them on the Bandcamp page confirmed some of the references I had suspicions of.

I wasn't super hot on this game, but I'm glad it appeals to other people. It just wasn't working for me in terms of cohesiveness, if I have to be honest.

Change Lives by Jack Lance 2019-04-30T05:34:43Z

lmao well you all definitely thought out your title very thoroughly, so props for that :clap:

I beat the entire game and I have to say, I really enjoyed playing it. It took a bit to understand the idea, but once I did, it was neat seeing all the different ways you could beat a level. Having to lose lives as part of the puzzle felt well integrated into the game and it was very satisfying to beat. I also really liked the use of the bars as a platform and, in later levels, a movable object.

In level 6, I was able to move off screen to the left, and I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, since you basically just get stuck once you go off screen. It's not a huge deal since I can restart, but given that the other levels had walls within the boundaries of the game window, it felt weird that that one level was open ended. I have to say, I really liked the solution to this level. It was really creative.

The graphics are adorable, and the palette is pleasant to look at. While it's cool that you see the tail of the coin as it moves left or right, I have to say, it didn't make a whole lot of sense why the coin would suddenly turn its back to you as you move? It's a small nitpick; I just found it quirky is all. :stuck_out_tongue:

Overall, I finished the game feeling satisfied that I played it. Nice job. :grin:

Ephemera by atmospherium 2019-05-20T23:55:29Z

Got the download, enjoyed staring at a black void of nothingness while listening to some good music 10/10

Seriously, that happened with the last entry of yours I tried to launch. I guess my computer can't handle your amazing visuals or something.

So I watched the YouTube video to see what I missed. I guess the reason why that one isn't preferred is because some of the lyrics don't quite sync up with when they actually appear in the song? Regardless, everything was very...particle-y. I liked the fuzziness towards the end; it did match up with the way the song built up to the end. It was cool.

Catch all the coins by Matu 2019-04-30T17:37:50Z

AH NO I got a score of 22 :weary: This was fun! It took a while for me to understand the difficulty behind it, but once I noticed the timer getting shorter and shorter, I realized that a simple concept was getting quite hard to keep up with. The controls felt responsive and fluid, though I had a lot of trouble getting coins that were a diagonal from my current position. It often felt like I couldn't make very short movements and kept circling around a single coin trying to get it. Other than that, I liked zipping around the small area, trying to collect all the coins back and forth. You picked some good sounds that work with the game. Perhaps adding a couple more different coin sounds of varying tones and randomizing those sound effects would add some extra flair in the audio department. It was a quick and easy to learn experience overall, though.

Sacrifice by michaelaranda 2019-05-20T23:32:33Z

Hearing the monsters still attacking you after you die is pretty terrifying. :cold_sweat: I love it.

This was a very simple but well executed take on the theme. I always like the approach where being more powerful also makes you more vulnerable to dying easily. The enemies looked pretty terrifying, and their sound effects were creepy. They were definitely my favourite part about the game. I quite enjoyed the combat; using the mouse made it easy to precisely deliver blows, which made it all the more fun to get behind an enemy and completely destroy it. The music was also really cool; I like the level of intensity and the balance between the percussive and more quiet moments.

Overall, it was quite easy to pick up and understand how the play this game, and I had a good time.

World War III: Ghost War by Aticora Games 2019-04-30T18:04:44Z

I found this game incredibly frustrating until I re-read the instructions and realized you can recharge your health. :joy: (At first, I thought you had to conserve your health and you had to strategize which enemies you had to shoot and which ones you'd skip.) Knowing the special ability compensated for some of the more frustrating behaviours in this game, particularly regarding the enemy collision. It seems like I only sometimes lose a sliver of health when I run into a green ghost face-to-face, while other times, I almost drain what seems like half of my health. Just being near an enemy often inhibits my ability to jump, and my collision with an enemy on a ledge would cause it to walk off said ledge in a straight horizontal line and sometimes twitch a bunch of times before walking back and resuming its normal pattern. It was quite funny to watch. :joy:

Another issue I had with the game is that the controls are kind of unintuitive. I found myself messing up a lot when I first played because I kept positioning my finger over the W key to jump when you really had to use the space bar, which I believe works better for games with mouse controls. That being said, I think it also would have been ideal for the shoot key to be mapped to a keyboard key rather than using the mouse, since the game doesn't have positional shooting. All keyboard controls would work better for this sort of game and feel more comfortable all around.

But despite my quips, I think holding out to the end of this game was worth it. That final boss was terrifying! :rofl:

Bet on it by Ydoc124 2019-05-07T03:52:13Z

I played until I got this message:

Bet on it - Fatal crash error.png

I'm not really sure what state the game was when I got it. To be honest, I didn't really understand a whole lot of what I was doing. :sweat_smile: Maybe it's because I wasn't familiar with how to play Poker at all, and the game was more designed in mind for people who do know Poker?

I believe I got to almost 200 years in a bet before the game crashed on me. As for the game itself, I do like how I get *An Untitled Story* vibes. Everything from the art to the music, even just the gambling concept itself made me think of AUS' Blackjack mini game. I like the idea of having your opponents converse with each other in between turns while you remain the silent protagonist. The dialogue did start to get a bit repetitive as the game went on, and it was hard to tell when it was time to take my turn again.

The music worked for the kind of game that this is, given its art and presentation. It set just the right tone, too. I think, overall, I was just confused on how to enjoy this game to its full potential. It was an interesting atmosphere in general, though.

Dryad's Forest by miroreflect 2019-05-02T00:27:17Z

Oh gosh, that game over image is freaky. I walked out with a score of 41298. This was overall a pretty solid entry, pretty easy to pick up and understand. The pixel art looked a little strange with the attackers, but overall, the gameplay was fun. I like how the music changes once you start getting down to a low number of trees; the ominous tune was quite nice. The mechanic was very well tied to the theme; I like how you regain life by attacking, your life transfers to the trees and you spent portions of your life to get familiars that help you protect the trees. Having less trees makes it easier to protect the few, but is more prone to attacks. Overall, the gameplay and use of the theme stood out to me the most about this game. There were times when I got stuck in the trees, but nothing I couldn't wiggle my way out of.

CosmiCraft 🌟 by Random-storykeeper 2019-10-10T07:53:13Z

@peachtreeoath Thanks for your feedback. The unfortunate thing about the development process was that enemies never left behind engines up until one of the latest builds. I was one of the people who helped with balancing the game and upped the player speed to compensate, since you'd slow down quite considerably in earlier builds once you started stacking on the parts. When the engine item was properly implemented, it was quite past the deadline, but I'm actually kind of glad that this game is a little on the easier side, as one of the issues we had with the last game we implemented a boss into (Love Love Space Attack) was too unforgiving to the point where getting to the boss was near impossible.

It makes me super happy to hear that you (and jwiggs) like the menu music. I was really concerned that it was going to have a huge disconnect with the game music and was thinking about redoing it during the jam. I guess I'm glad I ended up not having enough time to do that. :joy: Also yeah, the panning in the game music is quite prominent, mostly because it's in the delayed synth at the beginning, which is always heard when playing the game except when fighting the boss. It's just there to add a little more depth and movement to the sound in terms of its placement on the audio spectrum. In the case of the game theme, when the same pattern of notes repeats twice, so I pan it such that it adds this sense of dimension rather than it all being flat and centred. It leaves a bit more room for the instruments, such as the bass, to come through better.

I don't think there were any features we had planned that we ended up having to cut this time around, but that might be a question for @ijzm to answer since he's the one doing the bulk of the programming, haha. We definitely need to get icons made for Tpcool and Frosty at some point (the latter of whom has contributed to a couple of TSC games in the past). I'll have to bug Takeshi about that. :wink:

CosmiCraft 🌟 by Random-storykeeper 2019-10-11T23:53:31Z

@peachtreeoath I just realized I screwed up the grammar in that one quote; that's what I get for not giving my long ramble a good read-through before posting. :rofl:

Survivor Slots by PeachTreeOath 2019-10-08T08:11:12Z

I like how this game has elements of chance, but also involves some strategic thinking in order to win. The instructions kind of confused me, but once I got into the game and realized that I could just look at the slot guide instead of guessing which way those arrows make the panels move (I know; I'm slow :joy: ), I managed to beat the game on my second try. It still took a while, though, got up to day 18 before I made it out, but at the very least, I did not get eaten by gorilla demons and played it super cautiously.

The game had an unnerving pace to it despite having no music. Knowing I could take as long as I needed to plan out my decision but still had to deal with impending doom was a little worrying, but overall, I enjoyed the game quite a bit and can say that I haven't come across a lot of games like this on Ludum Dare.

I wish the game would have indicated which day I got out on on the ending screen. I nearly forgot and it would be nice to have some proof with a screenshot that I made it as far as I did, haha.

That aside, all this really needs is audio. Although I must say, it's hard for me to spend as long in games that have absolutely no audio as much as I did with this one. This is a pretty solid entry, all in all.

You Gotta Buy Everything by MiltonNH25 2019-10-13T05:53:37Z

This is great, definitely an engaging one. I love these kinds of games where you start with, well, nothing and then slowly build your way up to making a full game. The art style and music reminded me a lot of An Untitled Story, especially when buying the shop items. I wish I would have been able to buy upgrades for the shop button sprites...it would have made the whole "buying to reveal the game" concept more thorough and satisfying. But overall, I appreciated the concept and integration of the theme. It was kind of funny just how unnecessarily powerful I could get at the very end. :joy:

Adrift by jwiggs 2019-10-08T00:56:49Z

Tried playing the game again after I died, and I was met with this message:

``` ___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object obj_spaceship:

Trying to draw non-existing sprite. at gml_Object_obj_spaceship_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- stack frame is gml_Object_obj_spaceship_Draw_0 (line -1) ```

But overall, I was interested in this one because it seemed quite similar to my team's entry. Overall, I liked being able to zoom in and out of the area. The physics felt a little...drifty?? which fits the whole "drifting aimlessly in space" mood. :joy: It was quite tedious to steer around, though. The sound effects were fitting.

My one major gripe is that the time between waves seems too long. The only time I really need in between waves is putting together the parts of my spaceship, which pauses the timer and causes it to reset, so I'm just sitting around waiting for a while in this vast area. I thought the asteroids were destructible, but that appears to not be the case. Maybe they take an absurd amount of bullets. :thinking:

It's interesting that the missiles are attracted to the cursor rather than being homing missiles that seek out the enemy. I felt like that might have been more intuitive.

I really enjoy the menu screen, particularly when you click "eject" and the astronaut slowly floats away. Nice visuals overall.

One eraser / one rubber by chispaLBC 2019-10-13T05:00:54Z

I quite enjoyed this; it was fun trying to figure out what I needed to trade based on the hints and the other items these people had. I thought the visual style complemented the audio and the dialogue well - it was amusing to see what these non-playable characters were called, and seeing my inventory grow was quite satisfying until I became the queen...or king. :smirk:

My arm must be very long, considering it can go all the way to the top of the screen. I like how my hand can go under the text, too. :joy: But that aside, it was a very cute game that kept me engaged until the very end. Nice concept overall.

In The Beginning by Blueman 2019-10-10T08:34:06Z

This was a neat little game, like the nods to Biblical references and I like the overall pixel art aesthetic. There was enough sound going on overall that, while there was no music, felt like there was enough sound to not feel empty, which is good. The cards were a neat approach; I was confused on how to play at first, and despite not really looking at the instructions, had no trouble understanding the basics of what I had to do. When a game can just present itself and have the player go in with little to knowledge of how to play and be able to pick it up right away, I think it speaks to how well the game was executed. I was engaged by this game; it kept me interested long enough to keep playing and play the victory card. Well done. :)

The Idea Explorer by Sebastian-M 2019-10-15T05:52:28Z

This game is a great example of a simple idea executed in an intriguing way. I like the narration, despite a few minor grammatical quips and how well it tied in to the gameplay. The way the level zooms out completely when you finish a level makes things extra satisfying; I love being able to see the level I just navigated in its entirety. The way the colour palette changed kept the minimalistic design interesting without becoming stale.

I really love what you did with the audio in this game. It's very clear that time and effort were put more into the mood and the audio, but I think the idea is distinct enough that the mood and audio actually help to enhance the gameplay overall. Starting out with very few notes with the delayed shorter notes chiming in every now and then sets the tone perfectly for a world that is more abstract. Actually, it almost feels like I'm stuck between worlds, maybe even some unknown dimension. And I love how that music gets built upon as I progress through the levels. The guitar and percussion were fitting and if they were not layered upon the already existing background track, everything flowed together seamlessly. :ok_hand: Also, can I just add that the sound that plays when you obtain inspiration/motivation/determination is just amazing? It's a big part of the reason I wanted to keep playing, even after I crashed the game by pressing the spacebar (should've read the comments first haha).

The controls are probably the most puzzling aspect of the game (no pun intended?). Using only WASD keys for movement seemed too restrictive, especially since the only function of the mouse is to advance text boxes and any UI. A more practical set of controls for this game could have been either WASD or the arrow keys to move and the spacebar to advance the textboxes and level start/complete screens. Unless the gameplay actually depends on the mouse, having two different control sets for movement (ie. WASD and the arrow keys) is generally most ideal.

Another interesting thing of note is that the controls seem to be geared towards perpendicular movement while the game perspective is isometric. I may be using the terms wrong here, but games that have this sort of isometric setup (Naya's Quest as an example) usually have regular arrow key controls that are set so that you automatically move at a diagonal when pressing up or left, etc. rather than having to press up *and* left to move. Maybe I'm too used to playing isometric games that have such controls, but I think it may be worth considering. More precise movements can be difficult to attain if you're expected to press two keys at once. But I understand if this was an intentional decision, as it's more intuitive if paired with simple enough level design.

The tower design is really cool, but it gave me the most trouble because I was never able to see behind the tower, and I'm not sure if the spotlight truly illustrates how the tower's structure worked exactly. If the camera were able to rotate along with the player, I think it might have caused less confusion as to why I kept falling when I was walking at times. The final part towards the end also had some perspective issues, where it looked like I was going to fall off a tiny platform but was still hanging onto it for some reason. But all in all, I was able to complete it.

All issues aside, I like your game a lot. It hits that right balance for me in terms of sound, gameplay, visuals, all meshing together perfectly to create an evocative mood. (although, the ending also crashed the game, but I think I might have hit the Exit button out of curiosity :joy: )

Nothing Left by Solah 2019-10-13T09:22:51Z

The cutscenes were definitely the most striking part of the game, and I like the way that the game ties in to the story. It reminds me of [Soom](http://www.pixellovegames.com/games/soom/?game=soom), in terms of the premise. That being said, I found the gameplay to be on the frustrating side, particularly with the dash mechanic. The second to last stage especially proved itself to be quite the hassle, as it felt as though the space bar wouldn't respond at the times when I actually pressed it (although the space in which you have to move while dashing proves this to be hard to tell). Maybe it was because I wasn't used to using my left hand on WASD to move, and I ended up crossing my hands over each other so I could control my character's movement with my dominant hand. :joy: But overall, I did think these two mechanics worked pretty well in conjunction with each other, and the simplicity of the aesthetic seemed to work for the portrayal of this mysterious "caught-in-the-afterlife-but-not-quite" kind of setting.

The part that also stood out to me a lot was that the main character has a strong resemblance to my irl appearance. I found that coincidence to be funny. :joy: I don't know if I relate to the character a whole lot, though, have to think more on that. :thinking:

Real-time Gardener by sebastianscaini 2019-10-08T05:15:01Z

This was the perfect game to come across as I left to have some tea and dessert after dinner. I have a soft spot for games like these where you can leave for a while and come back with results (like the zen garden in Plants vs. Zombies haha). It also helps that the game is super cute, and seeing the pictures of these adorable flowers made me wonder exactly which kind I was going to get. Overall, I enjoyed it. Not saying I could play these types of games too often, but every once in a while, it's nice to see something like this.

The audio was quite something. I think I heard a super high pitched voice cut through the music, if ever so subtly. It was kind of grating, and I'm not really sure if that's intentional. Looking at these previous comments, if it's supposed to be screaming, that's actually kind of terrifying. :rofl: But that aside, the track that plays during the game is also happy and it makes me feel happy, too. I like the subtle voices - at least I think there were subtle vocals aside from the super high pitched one. I almost felt bad for turning off the music for a bit because the music note looked so sad under the :no_entry_sign: .

So yeah, the game did what it was supposed to do and I was glad to see my flower grow after I left my computer for a while. Nice job.

Basil by Abdul Zakkar 2019-10-13T08:54:13Z

Needless to say, I was pretty salty about my score. :smirk:

basil - score 7-03.png

Overall, I was on board for this game - well, half on board and half in the water. :joy: It is a little confusing learning how the game works, but once I got the hang of it, that's when it got fun...and the difficulty started to ramp up. Making this an endless game felt kind of bleak, since the boy never calls for any help, and his desperation grows the more he's all alone, trying to survive. But it overall works for the premise of this game.

Don't know if this was intentional, but I found it strange that the game starts out in fullscreen during the cutscene and then goes into window mode when playing the game. What's even stranger is that when starting the game again, the cutscene was windowed the second time I opened the application.

I thought that having the balance between spending time in the water to collect materials and then build with them or use them to cook food was a good idea. Everything seemed to work fine; the character movement was good and the music was bleak, but had some nice tones that fit the mood. I really like how washed out the character looks - that suited the mood perfectly.

Forbidden Fruit by OnurY 2019-10-12T01:18:33Z

This game was so bizarre; I didn't even know what to expect. I didn't realize there were a ton of references until I was told what said references were. But even though I didn't get most of them, it still made me laugh because of how random the game was. The boss battles were frustrating, but I liked that you respawned right at the boss you were fighting rather than right at the beginning. The bosses had a neat progression and there were enough safe spots to strategize, but it was still challenging enough along the way. I also found it strange that you acquire the weapons of the figures you kill along the way, although a lot of them seem very similar to each other. I'm not really sure what the significance of Adam was in the game - I think I did try to hit X after acquiring the fruit, but it didn't seem to do anything.

The alternate ending was quite interesting and I like how you accounted for that possibility. Very funny overall.

Night Lights by archfan7411 2019-10-15T09:29:53Z

Cute game! It plays well and the overall premise is easy to pick up and get into playing right away. The graphics are adorable and I love the setting with the bushes and red flowers. The vignette lighting also sets this charming nighttime mood that works for me.

I do echo the feedback of previous comments in that there are some collision issues with the character collecting the fireflies. It seems to occur whenever I approach the fireflies at a diagonal, ie. when I'm pressing up/down and left/right simultaneously, which causes me to slide up or down alongside the fireflies.

The game certainly would have benefited from faster character speed and just a few more elements to the gameplay that make it more challenging. I did check out the post-jam build, and I like the idea of having bats that take away the number of fireflies you have, although I do think there needs to be more indication on-screen that this is happening, like showing the fireflies sprite on the bat if it comes in contact with the player and even a sound effect to go along with it. You could also consider enemies that temporarily inhibit movement as something the player should be avoiding if they want to get the most amount of fireflies possible.

I'm a little mixed on the choice of music. While it is happy, I'm not sure if it complements the "night" mood that well. I think that element is best captured in audio, especially since the only visual indicator of this being night (besides the title) is the vignette lighting. But, I guess the horns kind of give that jovial being in nature tone, which makes sense given the source of the music. Personally, I could have used a bit more "night" tones and something a little less cheesy, maybe even chiptune to complement the pixel art style. Not that cheesy's bad; I - again personally - don't think it really complements the game that well.

My highest score was

Night Lights score 26.png

but I found I had to luck into that number, since many attempts would leave me with somewhere in the low 20s, and I think that one time, there were tons of fireflies that would spawn right under where my character was passing through or very nearby. The RNG and slow speed make this game kind of tedious to try and get highscores with, but it at least gave me the opportunity to appreciate the background and super cute pixel art protagonist. Welcome to Ludum Dare. :grin:

Sweet Nothing by Kellmen 2019-10-13T08:12:52Z

I really love the narration in this game. The voice acting had great delivery to make the game fun while I was figuring out the puzzles. Some of the quips, even the ones that were supposed to be insulting, were rather amusing. I liked the pleasant music track and that credits detail at the end for "Game design" was a nice touch. I found the movement of the character to be on the sluggish side and unresponsive when first pressing one of the A or D keys to move. But other than that, the level design was pretty solid as a whole. I like how the last level unfolds into a longer level, although it might have been cooler if the buildup to that longer level was more gradual. Still, I give this game two thumbs up. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Nocero by Empty Set 2019-10-12T00:41:47Z

The game was confusing at first to me, especially with how to time the attacks. I wish there was more of a visual indicator, kind of like the combat system in Undertale. I think that was pretty much my only issue with the game. As a whole, it is well put together and the controls are responsive. I quite liked the look of the game and the two audio tracks had enough contrast to distinguish them but still fit within the game environment. With the waltz feeling of the main world track, it almost feels like I'm in a castle.

I enjoyed the idea of starting with no attacks and having to learn them along the way. It would be cool if you had to learn the attacks from other enemies who had attacked you rather than just going through the menu, because the current system feels like just a more elaborate way of selecting an attack and I think it might have connected more in regards to how Nocero thinks of the attacks (rather than just thinking of them out of nowhere). It's a good entry overall; I enjoyed learning how all the moves worked against the enemies. I like their appearances a lot, particularly the surprise ones that aren't even in the main overworld.

Dead on Arrival by Colin Stone 2019-10-15T06:16:07Z

I think the audio issues are probably worth fixing in your current build, even after the deadline. It's the kind of thing that could be considered an "overlooked bug". I didn't experience any issues after the first few levels upon dying, but yeah, once I did die in level 4, I think, the game started again and began to stack the audio. The music is strangely straddling that spot between chill and intense. I think it has something to do with the stark contrast between the composition and the instrumentation. I'm not really sure if it fit the tone of this game at all, but I dug the music on its own, at least. It's worth a thumbs up if you do post the music on SoundCloud or something. :thumbsup:

Also, regarding dying, the game seems to start you right at the beginning of the game rather than the level you were on, which is quite frustrating, given the game's overall premise. Is there supposed to be a cooldown for your HP bar filling up? It seems to carry over with each level you progress. I think a more ideal balance would be to either have the bar reset to 0 every level or to have some way of getting rid of your full HP. Maybe if you were to extract bullets from the ones they had shot at you. :joy:

The overall idea was super interesting, and I think it's a rather unique perspective on the concept of being a player killing enemies. I think there's a lot more to explore with this premise, like if you're reversing time, starting the first level as the last level in a typical game of this sort. But you did tap into something neat during this jam, and I can see even the execution of what you have working well if there were some balancing tweaks alone (along with the audio stacking fix).

Come Meet My Friend Who Lives in the Attic by fishbrain 2020-04-22T05:52:04Z

The mood in this game is outstanding. It has a charming retro Flash game look to it. The silhouette of the monster is delightfully creepy, and there's just the right amount of colour applied to the psychic ability. Paired with the screams of the martyrs and the crunching sounds, plus the distorted sounds in the music, it was an evocative experience.

The gameplay was simple, but straightforward. It was strange that the stairs were basically anywhere on the floor, as if people magically had the power to levitate upwards, haha, but I found it amusing. I was confused by how the health and score metres were affected; it seems like the people have one hit KOs and I couldn't get two people in a row to the attic in succession, but each person I led up there seemed to give anywhere from 30 to 80 points. I also felt as though the controls were somewhat unresponsive, like there are slight delays when I press a key to go up or down the stairs. I'm not sure if it was intentional for the challenge, but I think the need to weave between the wandering enemies demands less of a delay in the controls. Perhaps it was just my machine, as I did notice the game lagged a ton when I tried to stream it on Discord to show a friend.

(I just took a quick look at the video gameplay; I didn't realize you could wait on the balcony. :face_palm: I basically just tried to rush it every time lmao.)

Also, if a person could really be led into a dark house with zombie-like creatures and not immediately think they need to get the heck out, I mean, that's really on them, isn't it? :joy: All kidding aside, the game was just the right amount of creepy and I love this dark take on the theme.

Overstock! by Random-storykeeper 2020-04-22T07:55:35Z

@dodormeur What browser (and version) are you using and what operating system? Someone else in my team reported the same issue with the web build, but it was working fine for the rest of my team.

The Honest AI by atmospherium 2020-04-22T08:02:31Z

Quality game, 10/10, glad it let me do this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZBZ5jeMrH8

(Although I will have to deduct 1 point for the mispronunciation of the word "eh" :smirk: )

The Honest AI by atmospherium 2020-04-22T20:40:58Z

@atmospherium The AI's voice stopped working once the garbled text-to-speech tried to say the lyrics. :joy:

Food Chuck by PeachTreeOath 2020-04-30T01:25:38Z

This game is oddly endearing and I like the mixing in of hitting targets with a dining dash sort of twist. I can't really add on to what's already been said. I enjoyed the aesthetic - something about the way the lighting and the design of the vehicles made it seem more serious and post-apocalyptic, but also humourous. The strange altered voices saying what type of foods I was giving to my customers really fit in with the mood, but also was funny because it's weird. I have to admit, even though I enjoyed the strangely distorted ice cream truck theme, it was extremely grating by the time I got into the later levels, or ended up restarting the first three levels however many times I did. It was a good idea, but it also added to the challenge of tolerating the soundscape while concentrating on aiming.

Speaking of aiming, I often found myself having trouble moving the mouse around to aim with the cannon. The first time seemed fine enough, but later attempts made it seem like I was moving my mouse all the way to left and yet I was only barely able to view what was to my actual left. I wonder if there was a way to re-calibrate the mouse in the middle of playing, such that I could reorient my cursor in the middle while keeping the camera view the way it currently is. I also found it difficult to aim at the targets - not sure if there was a good indicator other than the skull at the top of the cannon, which even then, didn't seem to always hit the target specifically.

But despite the frustrations with the controls and my personal taste with the music, I can say that all these elements come together cohesively and give the game an extremely distinct and memorable personality. It hits a very unique spot that is on target, unlike 80% of my shots fired in this game. :joy:

Worm Protect Egg by Gunturtle 2020-04-21T17:07:52Z

I enjoyed it. Took me a bit to realize the egg was solid. Makes sense I guess, but I think it might have been better if the egg weren't solid since you need to maneuver around quickly to protect it from enemies in all directions. The enemies look so funny when they get stunned! I like the idea of using the snake mechanic to get longer, thereby having more tail to protect yourself.

The difficulty curve was the biggest issue I had with the game, as many other comments have mentioned. It's pretty steep, especially for new players who do not fully have a grasp on the responsiveness of the controls. I'm also not really sure what the pink creatures do in the game. I thought they were additional pickups you could use to gain segments, but wouldn't harm the egg, but it seems inconsistent as eating one at the beginning does give me an extra tail, but another one in succession of that does not. Do you have to eat a certain amount of small bugs to gain a segment?

The game is quite fun, and I think the other elements like graphics and audio are great (although the sound effect with the worm at the menu - I think it was a sound effect but it was...bloopier - anyway, it was kind of annoying but that was the only thing), particularly the sound design. The idea in itself is quite fun, but the steep difficulty curve makes it hard to get into, especially with that tutorial screen popping up every time you replay. *I already know how to play after my 5th attempt, dangit!* :laughing:

My Friend Phil by Conroy 2020-04-21T06:00:10Z

I somehow ended up with two Phils, and the one I threw into the water had a mind of its own and started flopping towards me. He prefers me over water? :thinking:

My Friend Phil - double Phil 75.png

I wanted to like this game more than I did, but I think the controls and the long death sequence are truly what stop me from fully enjoying this game. Something about the combination of AD/arrow keys to move and the spacebar to jump *plus* the mouse to throw the fish made things super finicky. I never really did end up using the fish throwing mechanic because I always had one hand using the spacebar and the other hand to move with the arrow keys. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not used to using the AD and spacebar with one hand simultaneously, personally. It's a shame because the fish throwing mechanic seems like a really clever idea, using the one thing you have to protect as a weapon. Honestly, I do wish W were added as an option for jumping, since I think that seems like a pretty standard set of controls for when you have to use both the keyboard and the mouse.

The other frustrating aspect was the long death sequence (also, when I die, the game says that "Phil dies", so I guess my life force is connected to Phil's, haha). It takes a while to adjust to the physics and how the character responds to movement, so to instantly die on a single hit makes things all the more irritating when combined with a game over sequence that spans several seconds. Just based on the finicky nature of this game, having an instant restart would at least have created more incentive to go through multiple attempts. This particularly becomes a nuisance after the waterfall, where I found it unclear how far I had to fall. It took so long to get up there, too. :weary:

But as vexing as these issues I had were, I found the rest of the components to be on point. I love the look of the game. The graphics reminded me of Hyper Pixel Man with a more vibrant colour scheme, and I love the concept and story overall. Like I said earlier, I like the idea of having to protect the fish but also use it as a weapon to kill enemies. Oh yeah, and the music is on point. I love it. It's got this happy, but upbeat adventurous feeling, especially when those electric guitar-sounding synths play those syncopated chords against those chiptune arps. It's so great! I wonder if there's more music in the other areas (I didn't play past the first level, but the other screenshots do seem to imply there's quite a bit more to this game), but I can say at least the one track I heard was easily part I enjoyed the most about this game.

I think the game has a lot of potential and I may try to pick this up again in the future. As it is right now, it's hard to keep playing it so many times in a row because of the long death sequences combined with the 1-hit KOs.

The Reef by jakemchugh1 2020-04-22T06:22:59Z

This game takes me back to biology - a class which I quite enjoyed, especially when it came to learning about marine science. I remember learning about predator and prey relations, but unfortunately a lot of that knowledge has gone down the drain. Even though I'm no longer a marine sciences major, I still am drawn to games and information about it. I appreciate this game's educational drive. It's fun to mess around with the various parameters and see how the ecosystem is affected over time, and I love that you put a graph at the bottom right to indicate that.

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but when I first got a game over, that text stayed at the top permanently when I restarted the simulation and it was behaving to the parameters I adjusted. In one instance, my reef suffered from coral bleaching and the red game over text indicated that for a split second before reverting to the other text that simply mentioned that my ecosystem had crashed.

I also think the graphics could have benefited from making the predators and prey more distinct. The vibrant colours do make the fish stand out, but some of the predators and prey share the same colours and that made it difficult to tell how I was affecting the ecosystem as I could confuse predator and prey - particularly when they were all grouped together or farther away from the screen. That aside, I was impressed by the amount of details that were added to the reef itself, especially with the variety of seastars. It would have been cool if the seastars also played a role as predators, but I suppose that could be for a different simulation.

Regardless, I'm glad to see an entry that has this specific take on the theme be executed so thoughtfully. It really makes me think. :thinking:

Fishy Escape by Vyndilis 2020-04-30T00:24:26Z

The graphics and music are the standouts of this game. I love the colour palette and the design of the character. Despite having no facial features, the character's appearance still carries a lot of personality. I also like the idea of implementing trees that interact with the fish differently, but also affect you in a strange way. The palm trees, in particular, were a great touch since their effects could make the game significantly more challenging and not just straight up kill you. I would have loved to see more challenges like those implemented into the game.

I was also not expecting the crocodile to come up and eat my poor fishy, so I liked that element of surprise. Overall, the game is a good starting point that has the potential to be a very lovable and charming game.

Save the Plant by burg113 2020-04-22T06:44:36Z

I won? And also:

Save the plant - I won 50percent.png

When I started the game, the text was already zoomed in and the game was in full screen. I had no way of closing this text nor did it disappear for the entirety of my playthrough. Fortunately, the text did not obstruct me from playing the game, and despite the UI being just barely visible (I saw a blue bar, but I had no idea what it did), I was able to win.

While I do agree that the game was pretty easy, it was overall well executed. The controls were responsive and I found the dashing mechanic to be particularly satisfying. All the areas looked the exact same, so it was hard to tell how far I was progressing along. With only one look for the enemies, it often felt as though I were going through a loop until I reached the end. I also initially thought that "saving the plant" meant I had to go pick up the plant first, so I mistook one of the suns for being a little flower plant, oops. :joy:

Box Of Limes by RedDashGames 2020-04-21T06:50:45Z

Nice game, it reminds me of Sandman, Enemy 585 and Mega Mash's Nitrometris bits. :P The pixel art is lovely and I enjoyed the music a lot. It was kind of a shame that the music restarted every time I restarted a level, as I restarted quite a bit due to the puzzle aspect of it. Everything overall responds pretty well - I think the game was pretty generous in the detection of when the lime gets crushed due to a block and I enjoyed using the aspects of Tetris as a mechanism to get a character to the goal.

There was one instance of one of the ledge levels (High Ledge) where I was able to place a block on the topmost ledge way above the dotted line despite when I reloaded the level, I couldn't do it again. I also had trouble navigating the level select menu when I had the mouse controls activated. The menu says to swipe to scroll, but when I tried to "swipe" by clicking and dragging down, I would just get stuck on the top part of the level select. I notice that the menu moves when I move the mouse, but it didn't really allow me to select anything past the first level with the mouse alone.

I think it would definitely be worth fixing those softlocks as soon as possible, and as you mention, would be within the rules. The rest of the game is pretty solid as it is. The added challenge of collecting the star was a nice touch.

Save the Penguin by MECHORD AND MECHOH 2020-04-30T00:02:19Z

As a fellow penguin lover, this game broke my heart. :cry: I was glad that in the end, I was able to save any future penguins from being slayed by my boyfriend, even if it took three tries to get a bunch of noodles cooked correctly. rip :pensive:

That aside, I like how you took an unconventional approach as to how to "save the penguins". It was overall pretty humourous and I think the graphics were fitting enough. The penguins looked good, at least... :penguin: The gameplay was simple, but I think that was a good idea given that the main goal is to make the Doshirak correctly. It's funny how intense the music gets during the making of the Doshirak and then transitioning to that upbeat chiptune track for the "racing" part was a logical progression.

I did think it was kind of strange that penguins would fly (omg) across the top of the screen despite them not really having any effect on the gameplay. It didn't seem like I was in danger of jumping into them, at least. Well, I'm glad those ones were alive. :stuck_out_tongue:

Leafed Behind by melomel 2020-04-21T04:42:11Z

Dangit Grams, why do you have so many flies in your house? :weary:

I like how the music sounds like it's building up as the plant grows bigger; it makes me more excited to see what the plant grows into. It would have been neat if the layers were actually added as the plant grew bigger instead of just being tied to the single track, but overall, it synced up pretty well with my successful playthrough. The sound effects for the flies were kind of strange - the sound of them crunching upon death was satisfying but also uncomfortable, like I'm popping them into my mouth or something. :joy:

I like the small details of the water stream running in the window. Graphics wise, the palette looked nice, though I found it a little strange that the watering can had a black outline but the plant pot didn't, even though the watering can wasn't black coloured. It's a small nitpick, but I think the black outline on just the watering can makes it look like it's not completely part of the game.

The fly swatting mechanic was quite finicky sometimes, like it felt like the game required a very precise lock onto the flies in order to kill them and I wish the hitbox detection for the swatter were a bit more generous. I wasn't a huge fan of the plant moving around, personally. I think it adds an interesting depth of challenge, but it also lends itself to a huge degree of uncontrollable uncertainty. Especially when it gets to the later days, it's not fun to try spend time defending the plant from flies when it's in one area only to have the plant suddenly move to the other end on its own. It also doesn't really make sense in game. It could, however, be interesting if the player also had control over the plant and could move it by clicking and dragging with the mouse. A couple of my failed attempts had to do with the plant moving itself into a crowd of flies when I was already defending it from another crowd of flies, and I can see that hindering the experience for a lot of players.

Overall, I enjoyed what I got out of it - there were some fine ideas that fit together nicely. :sunflower:

Murder by fingamer 2020-10-21T09:39:16Z

This entry is like an abrupt horror-mystery. I enjoy the premise and I was curious how the looping mechanic would work in this Clue style sort of game. The music overall was more suited to conveying a horror mood, which complements the idea of the killer trying to kill you. I like the idea of using the arrows to quickly "flip" through different rooms.

Unfortunately, I found the incorporation of the theme to be more irritating than engaging. Having to adhere to a strict time limit while also finding your way through the house and investigating just feels like so little time can be taken to get engrossed in the mystery and find the clues. I get that the time limit is part of the theme, but it feels like without the 60 second timer, the game would have been a lot more fun. That or the timer could have been longer, or pause whenever the player is looking at dialogue or investigating items.

It also doesn't help that many of the game's keyboard controls are convoluted. The game feels like it could have functioned better as a point-and-click. It's weird having to move a character around to talk to individuals but also use the mouse to investigate. I dunno, to me, it felt like it should be either all mouse or only keyboard. The E to talk, B to go back also comes across as unnatural, considering how far that key is compared to the A, D and E keys (on a QWERTY at least...).

In a game where the goal is to solve a mystery by investigating testimonials and items, I really wish it had like an in-game notebook or something similar to keep track of what clues I've collected and the accounts of all the suspects. Something that would show the evidence I currently have rather than just at the answer screen.

Overall, I think this game could be quite interesting if it leaned more into the horror aspect, visually. Maybe subtle panned footsteps or shadows/silhouettes moving around in certain locations to give the sense that the player is being watched and is a prime target for being murdered. Having a loop mechanic in a mystery game is quite ambitious given that the leisure of time is what one can expect from those types of games. I just wonder if there's a way to make it so that the theme doesn't hinder the gameplay. But that asides, the mouse related controls are generally well implemented and the sound effect cues are good.

Color Coded by Random-storykeeper 2020-10-06T23:08:08Z

@ruddgasm Thanks for the input! I'm surprised some people have found our game already. We've been pretty busy recently after the jam finished, so we didn't have time to put up screenshots yet. There should be some up shortly, though.

LD47 game by tomhunt 2020-10-07T18:32:54Z

When my timer hit 0:00 on my second attempt, I was about to jump over a short barrier. My car landed on the top of the barrier and twitched its way backwards. It was quite funny. :joy:

The part of this game that stands out the most to me is the audio - well, both literally and figuratively. The music is great. It has a bit of a synth/8bit combination that works with the pixel-like 3D renditions of the cars and the overall colour scheme of the game. The part that stood out in a not-so-great way were the sound effects. They weren't bad; they were just EXTREMELY loud. Thankfully, there seemed to be only two sound effects that I heard throughout the entire game, but every time I got a speed powerup, it took me by surprise - even when I was expecting it! :rofl: There's also a bug where going to another tab after the round is over causes a super loud descending sq 25 jingle to play repeatedly when I go to another tab. Here's an example of what I hear:

https://youtu.be/7XJ550sn2Kg

The racing aspect did seem pretty unruly, but I think the fact that there were no outwardly frustrating penalties such as falling off the track (and into the beautiful purple grid void) put more emphasis on the challenge being to complete this looping race. It was a good thing too, because I definitely did feel the "ice" physics as mentioned in the previous comment. Thankfully, the course did not have too many sharp turns, and I never felt as though the ice-like physics *hindered* my progress, but I did find myself accelerating a lot right to the turn, then cranking it left or right.

I also discovered, by accident(?), that you can shoot bullets by clicking on the screen? I didn't see any mention of this in the game or on the game page - maybe I missed it. Is there any purpose for shooting? I thought, at first, it could be used to destroy obstacles, but none of them seemed to be affected by my bullets.

Overall, I enjoyed this as a relaxing, racing game. It feels chill, despite racing against the clock. The racecar track approach was a good basis for the theme, and I love the idea of the track adding obstacles gradually with each lap.

Springy's Adventure by TheCrittersCove 2020-10-24T01:16:04Z

Both the visuals and music pair well together to create a relaxing, pleasant mood - which is actually kind of dark, considering how this game ends. :thinking: But I enjoyed it overall - the soft green palette was very easy on the eyes and I really like the font choice for the buttons.

I think this game could have used some sound effects to enhance not only the mood, but aspects of the gameplay. For instance, a sound effect for when the hawk approaches would help to serve as a little extra warning for players that the bird is approaching. A visual cue for the hawk that appears briefly would also have been helpful, although the hawk wasn't too difficult to avoid, up until the final stage. It just felt a little too sudden, even though the mood overall was too relaxing for me to be shocked. It also would have been nice to have a sound effect/jingle for when the player can move to the next area. Maybe a HUD as well to indicate when or how much the player has left to consume in order to proceed. I wasn't very clear as to how this was determined, so I was mostly just wandering around the area in a mostly vertical matter, then pressed my head against all sides of the screen until I suddenly went to the next stage.

I thought it was really cool how the slime respawned by growing into a flower. I'm not sure if there was really any penalty to getting caught, since I never actually started at the beginning of any stage except for the last one. I love how the visuals were varied in the two stages, but still remained cohesive as a whole.

There were some issues with text overlapping at the bottom of the screen when items were picked up in quick succession, and the game music stacks itself when replaying the game. These were two things I noticed, aside from the blank main character face. I'm not sure which version was the bug fixed one, but I just assumed it was the October 6 version. Additionally, I do feel like it was a missed opportunity to have the stage itself also loop horizontally - I was kind of surprised when it didn't. Still, that's more of a very small issue and I had a good time.

WORK ROUTINE by ROBOWARRIOR1982 2020-10-07T02:07:55Z

I like the way routineness is executed in this game. The graphics have this very "corporate" feeling to them - it reminds me a bit of video ads that are all like "we're all in this together :)", so to take that style and flip it into this pleasantly coloured dystopia really is effective at making this idea of the day looping very dissonant and all the more unsettling. The music is also well done; I love how machine-like one of the tracks feels. The music could have been louder, as it was pretty soft in comparison to the sound effects.

Gameplay wise, I think the idea of going through the same motions over and over should lend itself to some form of progression to better indicate that the game ends after ten loops. If I didn't read so in the comments beforehand, I probably would have stopped at loop 4 or 5. Maybe something like the newspaper displaying some countdown text, so that the player picks up the hint that the game is supposed to go on for a certain amount of time. Then it can culminate to a certain "ending" or "conclusion", or just keep looping forever... :stuck_out_tongue:

The game's ability to be thought provoking is its greatest strength. I enjoy the way the scenario unfolded visually. It's simple and it packs a punch.

Stuck in Time by Wesley Vong 2020-10-07T02:35:34Z

The concept itself is fun; at first I thought the clones spawned too quickly, but I was able to get past by hugging along the edges and taking frequent stops. I like how some tools had a one-way passage, challenging you to strategize your movements around it (hesitating in there could very likely result in death!). The more I became familiar with the area, the more I found myself enjoying the game.

What initially frustrated me about this entry is that the movement is painfully slow and the boundaries are very unintuitive. I spent the first few attempts trying to get the battery in the lower area, but I felt like I kept getting stuck just before the lower passageway at the start. It just seems very picky about what position you have to be in sometimes and what areas are solid versus what you can walk on. I had to take extra time to figure out exactly where I could move around. It also wouldn't hurt to have arrow keys as controls, too.

I appreciate the checklist and timer, and overall feel like the game worked best in concept, but the discovery of where I could move to, along with the sluggish movement, slightly detracted from that. Good job.

Chew Choo! 🚅 by RainbowUnicorn 2020-10-26T08:23:18Z

> Start game

> Instantly lose :frowning2:

Do you have to activate single player mode separately or does it automatically activate when no one is present in the arena? After several attempts, it seemed as though I was the only train left on the track, couldn't see anyone else for a minute or two.

All questions aside, I find the concept of the gameplay itself fantastic - simple to learn, difficult to master. I think the core mechanics are there, and with a tutorial stage and a formal menu, I could really see this as being one of those .io games. As far as I could tell, I couldn't find a way to replay right from the menu, and having a designated single player stage could at least help those who don't know how to play get into the basics of the mechanics instead of being thrown into an already existing, multiplayer stage.

Regardless, it would be interesting to see powerups or something that would affect the length of the train as well. Overall, it's a great and pretty well executed mechanic.

The Magic Hat by Shanzhai 2020-10-07T19:02:01Z

Very nice, charming entry - reminds me a lot of *The Company of Myself* if that were a metroidvania. I would say that the mechanic of piggybacking yourself to get a boost to higher places works a lot better than it does in that game, although in The Company of Myself, you were able to get past larger gaps by creating many clones of yourself.

While it seems as though the clone resets its movements based on most recent moves, I also would have appreciated a true reset button to start clean from the current stage, particularly for the ones that don't have any hazards you can hit and run yourself into. Longer, taller levels could use a map of sorts so that a player can plan out their moves more efficiently instead of having to guess and check.

That aside, I think the game itself plays fine - I like the setup and controls were smooth and fast paced. The music complemented the pixel art and character style well, although I think that the composition of the track was a little too sad for the bright blue setting? But I guess it's sad because you lost all your pets, haha. The jump sound effect is on the loud side - I would definitely compress or lower its volume next time.

This idea was pretty cool and the overall execution of the game is good. Nice job.

Coalescence: Battle System Prototype by Seth Tal 2020-10-07T01:32:12Z

The look of the prototype is cute and appealing. I wish the UI also matched up to the charm of the graphics in a way that wasn't difficult to read. The text was a little on the small side and it seemed as though it could have been a lot larger.

The battle system also was pretty straightforward for me to understand, although most of it seemed to be just me button mashing the three buttons, then fiddling around with clicking on the player characters to have them gang up on remaining enemies. As much as I enjoyed the look and description of the characters, I didn't feel as though what character I selected had an impact on the outcome of each round. Going into each round, I wish I knew which enemies I was fighting against and their stats, since I picked each character based entirely on looks :smirk:.

In regards to the music, the battle music seemed like a good fit. The titlescreen music, while also nice, didn't seem to fit as well. It was as if the music was going for two conflicting moods.

Overall, I think the characters and battlefield look great, aesthetically. Best of luck fleshing this prototype out.

Chamber One by alessia-ip 2020-10-26T08:10:33Z

When I first started playing (the web build), I didn't even notice there was text at the top until a few levels through. :joy: But I think I get the overall gist of the narrative.

The thing I really like about this game is the pacing. The transitions were very fluid and quick. I had this sense of being "looped" or warped around as I touched the coin. I love how the levels expand and eventually, the narrative determines the gameplay. It's cool when games do that sometimes. This one worked pretty well, especially given the "ending".

I think the jump was a bit weird sometimes, particularly when it came to jumping onto platforms. It didn't give me too much trouble, but I did get stuck a bit on some parts that involved jumping out of a small valley nearby other platforms. It seems as though hitting the side of the platforms causes me to lose my jump entirely, yet clipping the corners will allow me to get an extra boost and land on the actual platform. It just seemed kind of weird, but the simplicity of the level design allowed me to focus on getting through with these interesting physics without being too unforgiving.

The music was pretty good overall. I like that bell-like sound that goes low high, low high continuously. At first, I thought each level I passed added layers to the music, but partially through my second playthrough, that doesn't seem to be the case. The music does lend itself to that sort of player controlled aspect, so it would be pretty neat and perhaps a bit more rewarding to players who continue as their progress adds more to the music's texture.

Say When, an Unlimited Soup Experience by DWink 2020-10-12T02:23:42Z

*Mm*

*Mm*

*Mm*

I haven't felt this loved by Olive Garden since the Sonic movie. Overall, this was a quick and fun experience. In my very first attempt, I was able to leave right away. But in the subsequent attempts, I started walking all over the tables and throwing off bread sticks. The waiters must have been on me because I was catching them every single time I tried to walk to the door after that! :joy:

The game sometimes does start with unfortunate positions where the waiters are already facing the player, thus they almost immediately lose whether hesitating or moving away from the table. Also, all of the waiters chiming in at once to get you soup gives a slightly unsettling feeling, like they're robots that work in unison.

That one attempt after I knocked off lots of items off tables, I ended up leaving and getting caught at the same time, so the game respawned me at the start with the "Congratulations" text atop it, still allowing me to move. I thought that was pretty funny. I do wish that knocking off the items had more impact on the gameplay - I didn't see much effect if there was one - it could have added more to the humour.

I like the choice of audio and sound effects overall, though I wish there were a few more prominent sound effects than just that one "hmm" sound when you get caught. Maybe some at different tones? (though that could remove the clone vibes... :thinking: )

15 Seconds time cop by teonino 2020-10-26T07:57:22Z

This entry put the theme to great use; I loved it. It took a bit of time to understand what to do, but once I got it, I found it quite fun. A game all about patience and observation really took advantage of the loop mechanic as a means to that end, and I like how the actions are subtle enough that I was engaged in trying to monitor the activities of the individuals on the screen. The mechanic of triggering certain objects in an effort to draw attention to the time traveler was also a neat idea, as a way of verifying your guess on who the time traveler is.

The music was done well; I love how the beats match up to the timer. It had this slow, even and somber tone to it. The piano and strings fit with the concept of keeping to the time and having it loop over and over again. It's too bad the menu music doesn't loop, and also restarts every time you hit an option on the menu; I would have liked to hear that menu music loop continuously until the play option is selected.

I think the graphics weren't quite displaying as they were intended (as others have mentioned), but the designs and colour scheme seemed fine. At first, I also thought that distinguishing the colour scheme of the characters could be helpful, but I think keeping some of them similar colours put more focus on observing their behaviour rather than doing the process of elimination by colour. Limiting the colour of the outfits to a few colours made it easier to focus on groups while still watching out for each individual's behaviour.

Personally, this game is right up my alley. The gameplay and music are the outstanding aspects for me.

Stuck on the Train by Conneli 2020-10-07T05:52:56Z

I enjoyed this one; I like games that require some memorization. Towards the end, things started to get confusing and hectic while racing against the timer. I do second a previous comment that the text could be sharper, visually. The game is also so fast paced that sometimes, I barely keep track of what the dialogue is. Interacting with several characters in quick succession causes all their dialogue to overlap each other and while it goes away, it would have been more ideal to have only one character's dialogue display at a time. But I'm glad the important stuff stays and that I could go back and review the dialogue for hints regarding what to do. I was challenged, but not completely frustrated.

The graphics in this game are nice, and I love the little bits of dialogue that I do catch along the way, along with the voices. This, along with the calm, happy music, created a pleasant experience ~~while imminent doom approaches~~. I like how the screen starts turning white as the timer reaches towards the end. The controls felt very fast paced and smooth, although my hands felt kind of squished having to press the E key so close to WASD.

The presentation of the conclusion was also neat. Although I read some of the dialogue in reverse, I think. :thinking:

Once More, Through the Desert by Totteri 2020-10-26T08:50:47Z

While I do enjoy narration based games, I found this one difficult to get into. I think using the desert as a setting to evoke the feeling of desolate endlessness was perfectly chosen. I love the idea of having narration in between the gameplay aspects. The intertitles were generally well done and paced. I just didn't feel the gameplay was quite up to par with the narration, and sometimes made the story feel too tedious for me.

There were aspects of the gameplay that worked well. I like the part where you get the companion, and the quickly scrolling sand was an effective way of adding the right amount of disorientation while not being completely overwhelming in the game. I was never sure if there were specific goals that had to be achieved or if I could just allow myself to be insta-killed by enemies every time. It was hard to tell with the narration, but mostly, I just moved left or right and shot enemies that got too close.

The graphics and text are also way too tiny, so it was difficult to tell where the narrative was being directed when in the gameplay screen itself. I think that had an effect on my experience with the game because I didn't feel as close of a connection with the character on screen as the narrative portrayed the character to be. I guess keeping the sprites tiny does allow for the area to seem huge and desolate, but I think that could still be portrayed effectively even if the sprites and text were bigger.

I also think the gameplay could have helped to guide the narrative to some extent, where the player completes a particular goal in order to reach the next part of the narration. It just felt like the game didn't even need to be played in order to experience the narration - perhaps this was part of the intention, but at the same time, it also feels less engaging as a game.

Nonetheless, I think the narration carried the mood, and the little bit of ambient sounds helped as well. If the gameplay and narration were more closely intertwined, it would have allowed for a more personable gameplay experience.

The Language of Dreams by Joel Davis 2021-05-09T23:33:25Z

I also had trouble with going through certain passageways, but I found the lines going through them helped me to move along, and it was extremely helpful having the ability to zoom out to look at the entire map. It took me a while to realize that certain objects could be inspected - I spent most of the time talking to people and it didn't seem as intuitive to me that objects had to be inspected to learn the language. Nonetheless, I appreciate the presentation of the game - the stylized colour schemes and the sketch-like drawing style give this minimal sort of limbo feeling. I love the way the text is basically just fancier letters that get scrambled around until their true meaning is revealed. Seeing the word list fill up is quite satisfying.

I found that sometimes, the texts would overlap each other, and that made things confusing to read. But you incorporate the real-life pictures of the pen and paper with the art style very well. It would be wonderful to play a completed version of it someday.

Far Fetched by johnfn 2021-04-28T21:22:27Z

The narrative and setup were outstanding. I love the contrast between the rough drawn characters and the solid colour setting and characters. Really helps fuel the imagination. :wink: The music was quite well done in parts - it almost feels a little *too* mature and epic for a setting that calls for more mystery and ambiance. :joy: The production was great though, and I especially love the touch of the chorus joining in for the goblin chase. I would have loved to hear the same done with the second track for the boss battle.

While the sound effects chosen were great, I wish the game made more use of them. It would have been nice to hear some dog sounds whenever encountering the dog, or textbox scroll sounds for the text. Just little sound effects here and there would have helped to bring a more immersive experience the same way that the lighting does.

I found the levels to be quite well designed, particularly the progression between action and puzzle. The rocks seems kind of hard to push at times, like it was super picky about the angle and you had to push so hard for the rocks to actually move. It complicates things when you have to do it while dodging bullets, but I did manage to get past it - still, the long winded backtracking with the river did feel extremely tedious when you can only push one rock at a time.

The narrative was witty and interesting for the most part. I love the boss text, in particular. Maybe I'm just a sucker for Dad level puns. :joy: I love that the game has checkpoints, but it would have been nice to restart the boss when the fight actually begins rather than at the cutscene text which tests my rapid clicking skills.

There are also some issues with the text cutscenes overlapping each other. I wasn't sure if it was intentional, but it didn't seem to lead to anything narrative wise, so I thought it'd be worth pointing out. Examples down below:

Far Fetched text overlap maybe 1.png

Far Fetched text overlap maybe 2.png

Overall, the game was engaging and dynamic. I think the music didn't quite gel together with the art and narrative, but I respect the direction it went in, especially with the addition of the vocals and performers. Very nice stuff.

Oceanographer Cat by TheCrittersCove 2021-04-28T06:08:49Z

What a pleasant and cute game! The concept was super fun and I loved watching the all the creatures pop out in terms of colour once their photos are taken. I can definitely see this as an educational game aimed at children that could be used for teaching about ocean life.

I found the execution of the mechanics to be quite strange. I haven't seen a game that uses steering with the mouse but doesn't make use of clicking with the mouse at all. During my gameplay, I was constantly trying to click to activate the camera, and I feel like this is the most natural form of controls for a game that involves the mouse. It's also odd that this game has slingshot mechanics for moving - it felt unnatural and I personally feel like the game would have felt a lot more inviting to its exploration concept if the movement were more smooth and constant. I would have also loved to see more responsiveness to the mouse in regards to steering the character rather than just having the cat always face in one direction.

Nonetheless, the game was simple enough that the control scheme didn't stop me from playing entirely, but overall, the controls felt like they were more suited for a puzzle game than a little open world adventure like this one. I like the graphics a lot, and the music is calming and wonderfully fitting. Love that bassline against the bell arps. The whole track gives off those wonderful "cute and chill ocean exploration" vibes that I could listen to for hours (actually I'm listening to it right now while typing out this review :3).

1GEMCLIC.EXE by verysoftwares 2021-04-27T09:15:16Z

This game is crazy satisfying, gameplay wise. For what this entry is, I had a good time just relaxing in uh...capitalism... The fun part was definitely trying to go as fast as possible, and the automation upgrades make it especially fun. It's too bad the game only has one sound effect, but it is funny hearing it just devolve into a loud buzz by the time you're going at hyper speed. Maybe the deeper meaning is that the desire to acquire a large sum of non-existent wealth drives one to the point of insanity?

Overall, I found this game quite amusing and performance wise, it runs surprisingly well even though I'm currently racking up a mass amount of gems with tons of drills and trading posts.

(Also, I love that you can buy more than one capitalism. :money_mouth:)

Animals in the Deep by Spicy Boi 2005 2021-05-09T06:50:35Z

I aspire to be a farmer that can dig with my nose.

This game is well made - I like the colours, and the minecraft blocky feel suits the digging to find animals concept pretty well. The pleasant piano music made me think that the game was perhaps influenced by Minecraft, and I think it works overall.

I found myself fiddling a lot with the controls, especially since I found myself wanting to press the W key to jump more than the spacebar. In a game like this where the puzzle is just finding the animals, I didn't mind it too much, but it would have made getting out a lot more intuitive. I would have liked to see more feedback from the game as to when you collect an animal - maybe a sound or a change of expression in the animal sprite or farmer, just something so the player has that visual feedback, the same way they get that satisfaction when putting animals back on the farm.

When collecting animal directly below me, I would "ride" the animal back up to the surface and the animal would bounce slightly underground upon going back to the farm. It also seemed very easy to get stuck on the sides of the blocks on the way up, though it did make for a fun "dash" ride through the ground using the pickaxe.

Overall, it was a good entry, with a lot of cute animals (especially when they're one on top of the other; I thought one of the farm animals was some chicken-mouse hybrid when it was actually just a cat and a chicken on top of each other).

Diving for Dinner by Kontiko 2021-04-28T06:34:49Z

Gotta say, I felt bad for this poor fish stuck in the ice, rip. :pensive:

Diving For Dinner fish stuck.png

I played this on a gamepad, and the experience was overall pretty great. The colour palette is great; I LOVE the look of the penguin. The controls were very fluid and I love the little rush of adrenaline that I get from outrunning the enemies. The musical cue from the sharks was a neat touch and it blended in with the music quite well - so well that I didn't notice that it wasn't part of the actual soundtrack for a while. I love how the sharks just kind of bounce off the rocks if you hide for cover with no chill whatsoever.

The map seemed pretty well designed, with big open spaces and mini alcoves on the sides where the penguin could squeeze into but predators couldn't. I loved seeing the varieties of fish, too.

For a game that resets all your progress once you die, it would have been nice to have some leniency when being chased by enemies - maybe a slight delay in movement from the enemies upon them noticing you (especially those above and below you, when you have less peripheral than from the sides), or even a life system you can upgrade to. I thought this was a pretty good entry overall, and I love the concept. :penguin:

Disaster Dig by alpharock6 2021-04-27T17:28:42Z

This was a relaxing game, probably because of the choice of music. The sound effects were nice, too. I love the idea of using the main material you dig for as the material you use for refueling yourself. I wish I could just carry fuel in my inventory instead of immediately using it every time I collected it. :joy: Also, it's kind of funny how the ice gets pretty close to the hot area; I thought it would have melted haha. It was surprising that the robot could float, but I think it was overall a good way to ensure you wouldn't get stuck. The game reminded me of a browser/mobile game called Dig to China, but it feels more consequential because you can lose all your progress instantly from running out of fuel. (although I think the warning is good, sometimes venturing too far from the path means there may not be enough time to get back!)

Disaster Dig by alpharock6 2021-05-03T09:25:22Z

@alpharock6 Hmm it could be neat if the warnings came on sooner the farther you ventured away from the refineries.

Deep Blue by MoonstoneStudios 2021-04-27T06:16:14Z

You really set the mood with the music. I absolutely love this game track, especially those sliding synths that go up and down. The structure of the whole track feels like a submarine exploring, with all the disjointed notes serving as the sonar. The sound effect for the submarine was a neat choice, since the ascent/descent felt like I was adding an extra bassline and it made me want to explore more just to hear the combination of these two sounds. The sound effect doesn't seem quite clean, though. There's a lot of "pop" noises that can be heard when moving the submarine, and I think the effect could benefit from a hint of fade-in and fade-out.

I also love the look of the game. There's something about the free-drawn art that is very inviting and pops out against the plain blue background. The lighting on the sub looks great too. It would have been nice to get some consistency in the HUD and menu section, like free drawn text to go with the cute graphics.

The exploration is neat and I loved being able to scope out the map and check out what cool collectibles were hanging around. I did think the lobsters were enemies for some reason and avoided them until I realized they had no effect. :thinking: It didn't seem like there was any sort of end goal, so I just ventured to different areas until I felt like I had explored enough.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience, if just for the experience of the audio and graphics clicking together for me. Wonderful entry.

The Ocean's Treasure by Anirudh Munipalli 2021-05-09T06:23:16Z

"Awesome. I like hard things." :joy:

The most challenging parts of this game were a) trying to figure out how to properly start up the game, and b) trying to figure out how to play. At first, I thought I could just move with the arrow keys to collect the gems. It took me a while to realize that you had to click the mouse, and it was a lot simpler to play than I actually realized. After that, it felt like the game itself was like the ending prize, like "congrats, you figured out how to play this game, now get all the gems you want".

It wasn't exactly the most satisfying game, but I do appreciate the little comments that appear when you collect items as you descend. They were the most charming and distinct thing about this entry. There's something quite sad about seeing a plain, neutral faced person casually descending in the emptiest depths of the ocean with nothing but a white bubble surrounding him. Without fish in the ocean, we come to realize: What have we become, with all our spoils going to waste in the depths?

Maybe the diver was simply trying to clean up as much waste as he could. What a hero.

Go to the Abyss by Felipe Felix 2021-04-28T20:38:34Z

That was a quick sit. The art and music were the standout points (although I think the outlines on the blue brick platforms in the second stage look quite unnatural against the setting. UI could use a bit of love, or at least a different font, but overall, it was clear what the game was trying to go for.

I like that the game had a simple story that worked for the theme. It would have been interesting to read the notes that the father left behind as a way to progress the story in between levels. It just kind of feels like nothing much happens until the very end.

The levels were pretty well designed for what could be achieved in 72 hours; I liked the bit with the descending onto the crumbling blocks, it's a shame the spikes don't actually hurt you but I guess that actually made it good for me to not be annoyed by them. :joy: I didn't quite understand how the attack and collection system worked, and it wasn't really clear what the items were and what to do with them. Also, Ctrl and Alt keys aren't really a great fit for a control scheme, especially the Alt key, which just causes the game to lose focus when played in a browser. I would highly recommend sticking with one of the letter keys, even the spacebar.

Other than that, the game had a solid premise for a narrative platform adventure. Nice work. :thumbsup:

Into the Deep by Adam K 2021-04-28T08:15:54Z

I think the issue regarding the graphics is that they aren't very consistent. The non-outlined main game assets and the outlined hearts for the lives feel like they come from two completely separate games. It's a good job for a jam, and definitely better than what I could ever draw in 72 hours. :joy: But that aside, I think the premise of the game was generally straightforward and I like the idea of the air bar also being affected by hits from enemies and their attacks. The levelling up system was neat and it's great giving the players the option of sacrificing upgrades for a higher score. I don't really get why the individual ships have their own internal levelling system when it seems as though the only thing they upgrade is just the same stats across the board. If they have special unique abilities, that could give each ship more distinction.

The audio work is well done. The sound effects are super satisfying, particularly the one where you collect the oxygen canisters. Music is atmospheric and suits a game of this premise.

Little Mother by Save Sloth Studios 2021-04-27T06:32:34Z

I love how dark this game gets despite maintaining a very warm, pastel palette. It makes for such a stark change visually, especially at the ending, and it feels more impactful.

I was pretty weirded out by the audio, but as the game went on, it became interesting. I'm not sure if it was dynamic or not, but it definitely felt like it, where crossing into different areas changed the music. All of it felt quite seamless and I liked listening in the background for different cues as to how the game was progressing. There was enough mystery to keep me intrigued for a game that mostly involved pressing and holding the down arrow key.

The visuals were the highlight, for sure. I love the design of the animals, and the way Little Mother turns her head back and forth while walking breaks my heart. Those poor babies. :cry: I like how the background had no outlines, though that made it hard sometimes to tell what objects were solid and which I could walk over. The game was simple enough that it wasn't a huge deterrent. Overall, an unsettling experience.

Deep Pocket Digs by ChrisAP 2021-04-28T21:49:39Z

This game's mechanic reminds me of The Sun and Moon, but with more control over where you are underground. Can't a mole learn to keep the bag closed? :joy: The drilling felt quite janky. It feels like there's little to no air momentum, particularly when you move horizontally (eg. when falling off the edge of a cliff, you just stop midair). I'm guessing this is to force players to use the blocks to drill their way through (which is a cool puzzle) - the drilling mechanic itself was quite inconsistent for me and I never quite knew how far or where I was going to end up, which was only an issue when I really wanted to explore particular places.

I love the little visuals of the coins jangling around as you're moving. It was a great way to present your progress visually than with just numbers. Plus it was very satisfying seeing the bag fill up. :money_mouth:

EveryDay by xpoho 2021-04-28T07:13:30Z

Holy crap, this game excels in the mood category for me. I think the emotional connection is even more emphasized by the minimal graphics and simple gameplay. The way the character moves, the blurring of certain backgrounds; it all comes together and uh, really makes me feel something all right.

I do feel as though the game's sudden dive into darkness was really sudden, and that was what got me interested in playing it. The sudden ending also leaves me feeling a lot of doubt as to whether or not the game truly ended or not.

This entry says a lot with so little, and it's quite fantastic in that regard.

Harvest Timing by Pennycook 2023-01-14T09:39:57Z

I enjoyed the concept of this game a lot. I think it works great as an educational game, especially for younger children learning about numbers and number patterns. The names were quite fun to decipher and I spent an embarrassing amount of time refreshing my memory on what the sequences were and what days to water.

What I enjoyed: - The choice of graphics paired with the music work to create a very comforting and inviting experience. The music track has that hint of Stardew Valley in it that works in favour of the mood (however, it is a bit on the soft side). - Native gamepad support is much appreciated! - Being able to harvest a day earlier for a lesser amount of points was an interesting and welcome touch. - The incorporation of the instructions and controls as part of a note that works as a preface to the story. I enjoyed the humour in this, too. I guess this explains why the character is just one colour, although I don't know how many nude people out there have hair that matches exactly the colour of their skin. I guess the character could be bald, but the bump makes it seem like they have hair. :thinking:

What I had some issues with: - While I agree that player movement is on the slow side, I don't find it as tedious since the playing area is kept very small so there's less need to move around a lot. That being said, the actual playing area being smaller than the game window screen gave a slight sense of claustrophobia, being so limited in where you could actually go and do. - The game could definitely use more player input feedback. The watering can sound effect was a good start, but the lack of other sound effects did lead to a rough start when beginning the game as it was hard to tell when I was actually planting things. Plus sound / a visual effect would help give that satisfaction from a successful harvest. - I do think the game could have made it more obvious as to what seeds were planted, but there also isn't really an incentive to plant other seeds. Most of the time, I just planted all of one seed and watered all spots as I thought were needed. - A visual indicator as to what spots were watered that day would have been more beneficial to the gameplay experience. It felt like the main bulk of the puzzle is focused around figuring out which days to water on and adding a watering "memory" puzzle on top of that - right at the start - does seem unnecessary. I think it would work if the game had more progression in terms of how it introduces mechanics or for a hard mode. However, it wasn't a huge issue since I just planted all of one plant in later runs and systematically watered everything in one go. Still, visual indicators would be real nice for watering. - The Interact and Use Tool button are basically the same function that are completely location dependent. If the Interact button is just used to sleep, then I think it would have made more sense, player-wise, to have just one action button for executing the tool and going to sleep, which is triggered based on what tool you've selected or where you use the action button. - When they are two separate buttons, it gives the implication that the Interact button can be used elsewhere. I thought it would be used in front of plants to provide a text box of what was planted, but such was not the case.

Lastly, I felt like I was having some trouble understanding the watering system and the numbers for some of the plants. The carrots were straightforward and I was able to harvest them no problem. I also was able to grow the turnips. However, the corn (which I assume is supposed to be watered evenly) seemed to give me trouble. It's days after planting and not the numbers of the days, right? Well, I planted it on day 5, watered on day 6, left unwatered on day 7 and then on day 8 it died. This was weird to me since the name implies it's to be watered every even day, but I'm not sure why my corn died unless it was supposed to be watered on the first day.

Harvest Timing by Pennycook 2023-01-14T22:21:21Z

@pennycook I used a wired Logitech gamepad F310. It was joystick to move the player, A to interact and X to use tools. My prompt screen looked like this:

Harvest Timing 03.png

Oh, I see about the corn; it died because I watered it on the day after, which was 1 day instead of waiting for 2 days. May I also ask - the cauliflower, that means the exponent is 2, right? Like 1^2, 2^2, 3^2 instead of 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, etc.

In either case, I'm not sure how this sequence allows for the full 4 waterings needed. If it's base to the power of 2, then you would only be able to get like 2 waterings in at most. With incrementing bases to the power of 2...

- Plant on day 1 - Water on day 2 (1 day after, 1^2) - Water on day 6 (4 days after, 2^2)

Then the next day, 9 days after (3^2) would be day 15, which is not within the 14 day range. But if it's 2 base and incrementing exponents...

- Plant on day 1 - Water on day 3 (2 days after, 2^1) - Water on day 7 (4 days after, 2^2)

Waiting 8 days after to water (2^3) would mean watering on day 15, which is again one day outside the 14 day range. Am I thinking about this incorrectly? It doesn't seem like this plant can be watered 4 times within the range of days given in-game.

Fall Faybound Festival by juxipolo 2023-01-16T06:51:54Z

Card-based RPGs aren't really my thing, but I like the amount of progression and upgrades that were implemented into the game, especially given the time period. Unfortunately, I seemed to have an issue with the game where the screen wasn't big enough to see everything. My third Faymon was always just outside of the screen view, as was some of the HUD. Thus it was very hard to figure out what I was supposed to do. This is a screenshot of what I see when I download the game, and I can't full-screen to see more of it.

Fall Faybound Festival.png

Despite the confusion, however, I was still able to keep at it until I actually won a round, which ended up feeling pretty satisfying. I appreciated the XP that you could collect to upgrade so it felt like progress was being made even after each loss. I also really liked that you could easily see a preview of how your attacks affect the other enemies, but it seemed weird that they didn't stack, like the preview only showed you how much damage that particular card would do to that enemy even when you're attacking that enemy with other cards. It would be nice if, when playing the attack card, you could see where that card was being played (although now that I think of it, I'm not sure if this is a thing that's just outside of the game window).

I also thought that the art style did have a palette that felt like it suited this whimsical farm sort of setting. The sound effects used were pretty weird - a mishmash of recorded voice and what I assume are sound effects generated with BFXR. The latter is much too loud and punchier compared to the voices and the combination of these two types of sounds don't feel like they complement the graphics that much. Honestly I feel like the voices worked better with the art style, so I think going with the more acoustic/recorded sound effects for everything would have made it click more, at least with me.

Overall, this was an interesting experience that I felt like I understood the gist of in a short amount of time. Nice work!

Scrapped by Random-storykeeper 2023-01-15T02:28:02Z

@datagreed I'm not sure I understand you correctly, but the only way to destroy enemies is to either push them into the pile or make them go into the pile. There isn't really a difference between both of them - when 10 of them go in, then you're supposed to get the upgrade. If that doesn't help clarify things, then let me know.

Galactic Garden by MartensCedric 2023-01-15T02:51:16Z

I only made it as far as wave 7, but I sunk a (relatively) large amount of time into this game. There's a lot of depth to the gameplay and I love that it's this harvesting tower defense. The humour was pretty great and the atmosphere was good. My only gripe against the audio is that once the later waves kick in, the sound effect of the crows firing gets REALLY loud.

I also appreciated the zoom options and the ability to boost was very helpful once I actually understood how to use it. It made the large map and slower movement seem like less of an issue.

I found it surprising that forwarding the dialogue was not entirely player-initiated. When I first played, the dialogue automatically proceeded too quickly for me and I do wish it paused until the player presses the button to go forward, especially since there's options to skip the dialogue entirely.

While I do appreciate the keyboard controls for pausing and skipping dialogue, I think having on-screen buttons for these functions would have made more sense given the mouse-based aspect.

Regarding the weapons, I appreciate that there were a large amount of upgrades in the game, but I do think they could have used a touch more balancing. One example that comes to mind is that I don't think the basic firing gun really needs to keep the lower tier versions as you purchase the upgrades and that they should replace them. There isn't really a need to go back to your good old single firing gun during wave 7, especially when some of the higher tiers don't really consume that much energy (or any energy at all).

Overall, I enjoyed this entry and had a ton of fun playing it. Let me eat my vegetables, crows!

(Also a side note: I downloaded the rebalanced version and played it out of curiosity, but most of the controls weren't working. I was only able to click to shoot and plant, but I couldn't move nor rotate my ship with the mouse. I can play the original without any problems, but the rebalanced seems to not have any working controls except for the left and right mouse buttons.)

Monkey Oolong Harvest Bop by PeachTreeOath 2023-01-14T23:00:25Z

I had a lot of trouble with the gameplay in this, and I think a big part of it had to do with the game's performance. I play on Chrome and for some reason, I was experiencing a lot of dropped frames and I think the controls had a bit of delay on them. Every time I launched my monkey, instead of it going in the direction it pointed in, it would get flung off to the side. Then I started launching off to the side and sometimes, I would make it up the tree. I did watch the gameplay video and it doesn't seem like that was supposed to be the case, like everything is supposed to be very smooth and when you launch when the arrow points up, it's supposed to go up.

That aside, I think the game, aesthetically, works pretty well. I like the blend of Chinese paintbrush style with the cutesy vector monkeys. I think the clouds they sit on help to connect these two art styles together. I also enjoyed the simplicity of the gameplay itself. It's one of those easy to understand and difficult to master mechanics and I love the added addition of being able to chain throws and plan how to launch the monkeys in advance.

I wasn't able to get more than 2 leaves and I do suspect it is mostly because of performance issues. But I think the game overall is simple but well executed.

Harvesting Time by PeteDBrickz 2023-01-15T01:16:59Z

This game is really cute and fun. I love the look of the ghosts and the concept of using time as a cost factor was also interesting and I like the approach. It was interesting that the pickups had a time life of their own based on when you kill the ghosts, but it also felt disadvantageous especially when the ghosts become numerous and killing them quickly becomes near impossible.

I didn't last super long in most of my playthroughs - the longest was 72 seconds, but I like that it was a quick play and I could easily get the gist of it going in. I do appreciate the auto-firing too. Overall, nice job!

Harpvest by SpoopyIsSad 2023-01-18T02:01:46Z

I never thought I'd play a horror game about harps, and this one was surprisingly well done. The gameplay premise is simple enough to understand, with the skill coming from harvesting before the predator harp comes to get you. I only saw one enemy, but if there are more, then I'm going to be in big trouble because I freak out easily.

One thing I noticed when starting up the game was that the menu buttons were extremely blurry? I tried this game in two different browsers and it seemed to be the case for both. It was only on the menu screen for me, which was very strange.

Harpvest 01.png

The best thing about this game is the atmosphere for sure. I love the low ambience paired with the zoomed in camera and mostly cloaked-in-darkness area. The enemy constantly pursuing me was especially scary since the distance I could put between it and allowing myself to harvest meant that I couldn't see when it was coming or if I did, there wasn't enough time to finish the har~~p~~vest. Actually that added to a lot of the fun, but I admit that I feel the gameplay experience would have been more positive for me if the:

- **Harvesting time were cumulative or slowly diminishing** - I don't know if this was actually a thing or not, but if it isn't then, I think that would help to balance out the challenge, giving players some time to harvest, but not completely lose their progress if they have to dodge an enemy. If it is, then an indicator would definitely be helpful. - **Harp locations had more indicators** - By means of a simple arrow pointing to the general direction of the harps that slowly adjusts itself based on your current location and/or a general map that shows the layout and the locations of the harps.

I think, overall, the premise was fun and I liked the unsettling atmosphere. The beginning cutscene with the clipart was amusing and I think set the right kind of tone given the ridiculousness of the premise.

Otter Seaweed Restaurant by StephanSchue 2023-01-14T23:40:03Z

The graphics are definitely the standout in this entry. I particularly like the use of crinkled paper coloured blue for the texture of the water. It has a lot of charm alone.

I played with a controller and my experience with playing the game like this was overall positive. I think the controls generally worked well for what the game is and most of my issues were more in the execution rather than the fluidity or performance. There was a good setup for the gameplay and it took a bit, but it was relatively easy to pick up.

If this is a score based game, I don't think the game should loop back to the beginning once time runs out. When that happens, there's less incentive to share your score as you could miss it if you're not prepared. I think the game could have benefitted from at least having a game over screen where the player presses or clicks a button to replay on their own volition.

Of course, some audio and additional complexities in the gameplay (like customer satisfaction, different types of harvests, etc.) would elevate this entry further, but for what is presented, I think the basics are there, boosted by its cute and stand-out art style.

windowkill by torcado 2023-10-03T01:37:42Z

I came across this game on Twitter/X and after a few minutes of playing, I was amazed. I really like the sound design and the aesthetics in the game. Even though they're simple, they're so satisfying to hear and see and they work well with the concept. The gameplay is really interesting, especially with the constant shrinking down window. I love the idea of bullets helping to increase the window size and using multiple windows for later game enemies. I'm not sure if I got that far, but I enjoyed the experience a lot. It's a very neat idea.

Window Kill - Coins collected 166 RSK.png

Bake Me One More Time by hadesfury 2023-10-04T01:27:09Z

The art style for this game is nice and I like these kinds of baking/managing games a lot. The execution for this one was just very difficult to really get into and enjoy. It's definitely the kind of game that needs a lot more of a tutorial or guide in-game to ease the player into how the game works. I wouldn't have known how to make anything if not for the recipes in this post - I tried and it seemed like that was a requirement, which wasn't very fun. If part of the gameplay is to figure out how to make the recipes, then I think having the chaos of the customers crowding around you doesn't really work with that kind of gameplay because now the challenge of the game is split between two very different things that become overwhelming for a first time player.

I made it through the first two days and on the third day, decided to upgrade to an extra dough station. I didn't realize that would make the game so much more difficult as I couldn't make dough anymore. Instead, I got a new room and a new material that I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. It didn't help that the music here changes to a slightly different theme the moment you enter it and the change is so noticeable and it's so easy to hop in and out of that room that the audio became very disorienting to listen to. I always appreciate the use of dynamic music in games, but I think the changes between the two tracks in those rooms is too jarring that it detracts from the gameplay experience. On a positive note, I do like the track used when you start going into the negatives - that was a good implementation of the audio.

Overall, the art style is nice, the controls are smooth, there are some nice music choices here and there, but the game feels like it's trying to be two completely different things and as a result, it makes everything very confusing. Add on top of that having to start the entire game over from the beginning upon losing and it makes the experience even less fun. I think the game would have functioned better if it either focused on:

1. Having all the customers crowd around the kitchen, but you get the recipes and guides on how to create the items in-game. 2. Have no customers crowd around the kitchen - it's just you, but you have to figure out what the recipes are.

Personally, this was just my experience with it. I think there are great elements hidden within this concept - it's just that the execution makes it very difficult to get into.

(My review and ratings were made playing HotFix 2023-10-03[15-34].)

Tetranome by Random-storykeeper 2023-10-02T23:07:48Z

@embedder72 There's definitely music and sound effects. That's strange you aren't hearing them. Are you playing the web or the Windows build? I just passed this onto IJZM, and he suggests trying to refresh or play the Windows build if you aren't already.

Tetranome by Random-storykeeper 2023-10-03T09:45:44Z

@gonzo13 Shoutout to @ijzm for coming up with the concept! :grin:

Tetranome by Random-storykeeper 2023-10-04T16:03:25Z

@kenjimarcio I definitely had trouble coordinating the rotate and drop buttons at first. I hope you'll be able to find a control scheme that works for you in the menu.

Tetranome by Random-storykeeper 2023-10-06T03:53:29Z

@amberfall92 Were you playing on the web version or the downloaded version? I was told that default controls should also include arrow keys and spacebar, but they seem to not be the case in the web version. In either case, you can adjust the controls from the menu and they should save.

Tiny Farm Island by gamesplusjames 2023-10-02T23:40:05Z

I'm a big fan of farming games with pixel art, so this was right up my alley. It was a little confusing at first, but I love that there were a lot of instructions in-game, including a guide on the actual gameplay screen. I also found the tool structure to be a little unintuitive, especially with the incorporation of "hands" being a tool and a hammer being used to smash rocks instead of using a pickaxe like how a lot of other farming sims handle rocks. I kept mistaking the hammer for a hoe. But after a while, I got used to it and found myself enjoying this. After a while, it becomes quite relaxing in spite of the shrinking time limit and limited space to plant crops. I didn't really use the shop all that much since it felt like the upgrades weren't really that beneficial. I guess by expanding, they would become more useful, but even though I used up all my rocks, I didn't find the island that much larger (especially given the more rocks appear to be used to build 1 piece of the island as the time gets shorter).

The music helped give the game a relaxing mood and the blocky style graphics were cute. I do like the tiny tidbits of humour sprinkled into the shop and the game description. It was adorable. The sound effects worked well, but I do think that the notification messages that pop up on the screen (the ones that tell you how much money you get while harvesting) become overwhelming when you're trying to harvest a lot at once.

A quality of life suggestion I have is that I would have liked to be able to continuously use the same tool by clicking and holding when you're nearby an actionable item instead of having to constantly click and hold. I do see that there are upgrades related to clicking and holding, but they seem more for range rather. I think for non-upgraded tools, clicking and holding could still be executed as long as the character was directly next to the applicable item.

Overall, I thought this game hit all the right notes and was quite a chill experience. Great work. (apparently images are broken right now but that's supposed to be my end screen, hope it works soon)

Tiny Farm Island - End screen RSK.png

High Tide Heist by Remus 2023-10-03T00:14:58Z

I played the web build and it seems like the tutorial text is REALLY small in comparison to the giant pixel art. The two buttons in the top-right corner are not very clear in terms of what they do. I clicked one out of curiosity and was booted back to the title screen. I thought I lose my progress but it turns out it was just a tutorial. I appreciate the tutorial, although I do feel like it just kind of threw a lot of information at me without a lot of sense of progression to the tutorial. I know there is some, a lot of the steps are just multiple textboxes scattered across the map.

I also had trouble understanding what to do after building the ship. After assembling it to the point where I couldn't place any more wood to build said ship, I wasn't able to progress. I like the concept of the game a lot though; it's fun to dodge the cannon balls while trying to gather the resources needed. I just had trouble understanding a lot of the UI and progress. The direction with the treasure wasn't very clear. Was I supposed to pick it up? I thought they were grenades at first. Is it possible to do combat with the ships while you're collecting resources and not on a ship?

The music is fitting and the chunky pixel art style is neat. I just found a lot of the text difficult to read - even on the Itch.io page, it seems like the logo and Game Over text become more of a background and are hard to discern as text. I like the idea a lot and the look of the ship on the game page is very nice.

Denpo by Strato 2023-10-05T01:11:17Z

This game is just a little too addicting, which is an absolutely fantastic thing. Combining the characters together was very satisfying and I like that their larger size takes up less space, but makes them less prone to matching. Sometimes I feel like I'm almost going to lose, but then I get a good combination and seeing all those characters get set off by each other just makes it all the more fun. I also really like the music - it was just the perfect sort of tone for this kind of game and complemented the graphics and gameplay quite well. The art for the characters was also very cute. I'm not familiar with Denpafish but this was an aesthetic I very much enjoyed.

I appreciate the sliders, but I noticed that the game registers actions while using the sliders, so when I tried to adjust the music volume for example, it fired off a character in that direction. Not sure if that was mentioned, but I was playing in the web version and that's what happened to me. The physics also seemed to be less forgiving in this - there were a lot of times when I thought I could push over other characters already in bin to nudge them towards others, but they often didn't budge as much as I thought they would. I think I'd get used to it after playing for a while, though I was a little taken aback by it.

But aside from that, I think this is a very good entry. I really like that you don't lose when you hit the top, rather when a character falls off. That makes for some great opportunities for comebacks when you're just on the verge of losing. I didn't do super well in my few attempts, but I feel like I will be coming back to this one later.

Denpo - RSK score 1727.png

Desktop Madness by DodoIta 2023-10-02T22:50:20Z

This was a lot of fun. It's easy to pick up and understand and I love the art style and the way the music captures the playfulness and charm. The idea to have a backup with a timing element works well against the need to manage the piling files coming onto the desktop, but I'm glad that you can still drag and drop files while the folder is being backed up. I do wish that there was a little more of an indicator for the folders when they would fill up, maybe them changing in appearance. While I also like that you're able to drag and drop while backing up, I do wish that the backup window could be minimized or focused out of. There's even a minimize button on it that sadly doesn't work. 😞 Overall, I think this is a very charming and easy-to-pick-up entry. Great job.

Desktop Madness - 15600.png

One Earth by TheMiSta92 2023-10-02T22:34:59Z

I'm glad that there's an instructions screen in-game. Interacting with the resources was quick and I like the idea of incorporating the theme of "limited space" into how much you can hold. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to craft buildings, so I didn't progress very far. I broke down 4 trees for wood, but I could only pick up one thing at a time. I tried clicking on the button for building a house, but it didn't let me interact. When I tried to drop the wood next to each other, nothing happened and I couldn't drop wood on top of wood that was already in place. I'm not sure if there's something I wasn't understanding, but I couldn't do much besides walk around the area and break down resources for collection.

The graphics do look nice and I like the running notes in the piano music with the gentle swelling strings. It gives that sense of time passing fairly quickly, which works well for a setting like this. The music does seem to be mixed too softly compared to the sfx.

I also think the white text against the sky blue background is too difficult to read. Perhaps some shadow under the text or maybe switching it to a black colour would help with the contrast.

Please let me know if there's something I'm missing and I'll come back and give it another shot, because I couldn't figure out how to place buildings at all.

One Earth - Help screen.png

Edit

As promised, I tried it again. I'm not used to having to build the blueprint for the structure then gather the materials, so it was an interesting approach for sure. I do love the idea of passively harvesting and timing all these elements to work together. I just wish that there was more of a gameplay benefit to constructing buildings. Like sure it gets your population up and you can build bigger houses, but without these things, there doesn't seem to be any consequences for just wandering around the area and not constructing buildings. I just wish that the buildings had more of a reason to them, as once I build one, I don't really have a reason to build more (in fact, it just seems to add more stress and nothing else).

Less Space by Vyndilis 2023-10-04T01:47:24Z

Simple concept, easy to pick up and difficult to master. I found this game to be a lot of fun - the progression of the levels becoming increasing small in terms of the safe spaces was well executed and I like that extra touch of being able to dash when all the loose tiles fall. It really challenges your risk vs. reward factor and I enjoyed it a lot. This page mentions gamepad support, but it didn't seem to recognize my gamepad. :thinking:

The music had a nice beat to it, though the chords felt a bit off in terms of their notes. It wasn't bad, but I'm not sure how well this held up after multiple loops. The rest of the sound effects worked well enough. The graphics also were a suitable choice for this kind of gameplay. I did several real attempts but the highest I got was level 21 with a score of 3240. Unfortunately I pressed space before I could take the screenshot, but I still have the high score recorded on this screen below.

Less Space Level 21 - 3240.png

Overall this is a fun and well done entry. I hope you will be able to re-upload the images on this page, as they appear to be broken. It must have been around the time images started breaking on the LD site. I had it happen with an image I uploaded for another review, but the image issue appears to be fixed now.

Less Space by Vyndilis 2023-10-04T14:34:14Z

@vyndilis I can see them now!

Fishbowl Rescue! by FedeOlive 2023-10-03T01:51:14Z

I'm not really a huge fan of first person 3D adventures as I find them disorienting, but I really love fish, so I gave this a try. The first thing that really stands out to me is the environment. The underwater world feels vast and vibrant. I guess the vast part goes against the theme of "limited space", but it was nice enough to experience the world. I like the menu music quite a bit. The game is also relatively easy to understand how to play. I just didn't quite understand what the metres were for. I know one metre is for water, but I'm not sure about the vertical one on the right side. It seemed to be unrefillable.

It was amusing seeing sharks in a fishbowl, but I guess they're supposed to be either freshwater or perhaps sentient decor. Or maybe they're not supposed to be taken seriously at all. :joy: The movement did feel a bit disorienting; I kept ending up sideways despite not rotating. The up and down controls also felt weird - space and Ctrl, but I don't think they were unreasonable. I like how responsive the aiming and plunging are. Overall, this was a pleasant experience.

Fun Ant Game by ElmoEinstein 2023-10-04T06:25:44Z

I played this...for an embarrassingly long time. It was quite addicting and satisfying to slowly but surely build up the colony. I like the concept a lot and I think the game was simple enough to understand and get into right away. The pixel art was definitely a standout and I liked being able to zoom in to see the details and zoom out to get a better look at my colony. I was kind of disappointed that ants only seemed to come out of the very first queen colony that was on the map to begin with, but all the other queens I placed didn't seem to produce any ants, so they were all concentrated at the bottom instead of spreading to all the other areas, especially the surface.

What this game could have used more of is a sense of flow and urgency. As far as idling games go, this one was very manual and having to constantly go back and click on each action and wait for the food to fill up just made for a less engaging experience. The game also didn't really have much of a goal - I know there is a super expensive "Obama" in the shop and I decided to go for it and buy it, but it didn't really seem to do much. Kind of expected I guess, but also kind of disappointing. I thought it would be the end-game. :joy: I know Obama was put in for humour, but it also feels like the humour is too random in-game - the music and gameplay feel a little more grounded and serious and this just doesn't seem to gel that well with the rest of the elements.

Fun Ant Game - Obama.png

I like the idea of having to balance out these different elements of the house, food storage and queens and that placing these elements adjacent to one another can cause them to affect their output. It's strange that the upgraded versions also end up in the shop to begin with - I mean, once you get into the later game stuff, it's hard to justify even purchasing the lower-tier versions of the items.

While the music was nice and fitting enough to be in the background, I did find the short loop in-game to wear out quite quickly especially after playing for a long time. I think the game could have also used some sound effects, particularly when you're trying to do something and you don't have enough resources for it. There's just not a lot of feedback in the UI to sort of guide the player into understanding why they can't initiate an action.

I did notice some wonky UI stuff with the scrolling - moving the map up and down also caused the sidebar menu to scroll up and down, but the scroll wheel itself doesn't affect the sidebar menu options and I have to manually move the scrollbar with the mouse and cursor? :thinking:

Overall, I would still say that my experience with this entry was more positive, if just for the pixel art and concept. It's pretty well done for a game made within 72 hours.

Airpansion by Beeb GameCodeCompany 2023-10-04T00:45:33Z

I really love the sense of the limited world expanding over time and how the theme is also kind of explored by marking the end of the day and being able to only select two tools at a time. This game feels so heartwarming - there's something about the choice of the graphics and the music combined with the voice acting and cutscenes that felt emotionally moving. I like that some of the sound effects were voice acted too - from what I could hear anyway. This kind of game would really benefit from having having dynamic music - layers being added over a single theme as the perimeter of the world expands. The theme that was chosen works well given the timeframe.

It seems like some of the barriers have no texture to them - I'm not sure if this was intentional or if time ran out and a graphic couldn't be found to be added. It seemed a little strange and took me out of the experience. Gameplay-wise, I found that picking and choosing the tools on the end-of-day screen were not always responsive. I would go over to a tool and click and sometimes, the tool wouldn't come into my hand. It seems like the game wants me to be positioned directly over the tool in the same hand as where I click, which is quite finicky.

Airpansion - Unfinished textures.png

Other than that, I really enjoyed this a lot and played it all the way through. I think I got to the end (spoilers I guess but there's a single image) but there was no option to replay or an indication that the game was indeed finished. However, on that screen, I could still hear myself being able to use my tools sometimes if I left or right-clicked. Overall, this was such a charming and comforting experience.

Packed to the Gills by npckc 2023-10-03T05:24:33Z

As far as cute sea-themed games go, you knocked it out of the park! All components come together so well to create a cohesive and cozy experience. It feels like a game you'd play to wind down, with the muted pastel colours in the art and the passive nature of the gameplay. It's very much a sit and react game where it took a bit of figuring out how to react to certain scenarios, but the fun part of the game was just figuring out how the game wanted me to position myself. The game was also very generous in letting you continue forward or retry the current level, so you never feel pressured to HAVE to retry (I retried anyway but only cleared level 3 with no misses).

Great work with the music and the woodwinds. I love how everything feels relaxed and uplifting but also lively, which is strange given how laid back the rest of the elements feel. But it works! The woodwinds were such a nice touch and the chiptune works well with the art style. As far as sound effects go, I think most of them were satisfying and worked with the music/aesthetic. The only sound I couldn't get behind was the train sound at the beginning of each level. It sounds really garbled - which I imagine is to make it sound like it's underwater, but it comes across as really unsettling and uncomfortable to listen to and it doesn't go that well with the rest of the sound effects. I always felt a little off-put every time I started a level before the music kicked in.

I was also wondering if the game supported keyboard controls in the menus once you're in the game itself. I noticed I could bring up the settings menu with the keyboard, but to progress through the actual levels or even the haiku, it seemed like I could only use the mouse. Honestly it feels like the entire game could have used more keyboard controls for UI stuff or at least when going through the haiku lines.

Overall, I think the game is super well executed and I love the experience it brings and the emotions it makes me feel. I do love that touch of the haikus serving as the in-betweens of levels and hints of what's to come. The soundtrack is lively and fun and I will go and buy it now.

Packed to the Gills - Level 3 no misses.png

Bullfrog Burnie by Logan_Core 2023-10-06T16:48:10Z

I love the pixel art and concept of incorporating frog-like mechanics into a platformer. The idea of the walls closing in is pretty neat, considering it can be more advantageous to wait for some levels to be narrower while being more prone to hitting the spiky wall sides. I really like how the music is used as well - the percussion picking up once you get to the actual tower climber portions was nice. While the composition in the track is very loopy, the instrument choices have pleasant timbres and the track doesn't wear out as easily. It enhances the environment of the game just right.

At first, I struggled a lot with level 2 but the moment I started writing in my notes to complain about it, I got past it and made it up to level 13. My biggest issue is that with the interesting movement controls, I feel like this game would have benefitted a lot more from being an adventure-platformer, without the chaotic tower-climbing aspect. The controls are quite difficult to get used to - even with the tutorial, you still don't get the full extent of how the physics or angle of jumping works, which made level 2 so difficult to deal with.

I know the wall-closing part is how the theme is integrated; it just doesn't feel like it goes that well together with the jumping controls, especially with the fall-jump mechanic which was difficult to get used to even in the tutorial. There's a lot of nuances that can be further fleshed out in an adventure-platformer to give the player a better sense of the controls and their quirks, then have the spiked wall levels either be interspersed with those regular levels or their own challenge entirely.

I will echo the sentiment I read above about the disappearing blocks. Their signal when they disappear is too subtle, both in visuals and lack of sound cue. I also was curious about the use of the spacebar. It was mentioned in the tutorial but when I pressed it (in the web version), it didn't do anything.

Overall, this is a cute entry with some difficult platforming because of the controls. I appreciate the volume slider and the interspersed checkpoints, though I do wonder why the checkpoints couldn't be after every level since not having them at level 2 and then dying gives the impression that you always start over from the very beginning once you die, which is just not true later on.

Slideworld by XRy 2023-10-04T08:14:48Z

I was immediately drawn to this game because of the graphics. The chunky pixel art birds did it for me - what can I say; I'm fickle when it comes to pixel art sometimes. I enjoyed the take on the Sokoban puzzle game for the most part. It's nice to have one with mouse controls and I love the addition of being able to slide the perimeters of the board around (at least that's what it looked like to me). Sokoban games always feel very limited so I feel like that was within the understandable boundaries of the theme. :joy: Not only did I appreciate the skip button, I also like that the levels loop around once you get to level 8 so I could take another shot at the ones I found more challenging. Strangely enough, levels 7 and 8 were considerably easier for me than the other levels (besides 1 and 2). I would say level 4 was the one that tested my patience the most, just because it involves so many crammed spaces and you really have to sit and think about how to strategically deal with all the pieces - that is, unless you're super familiar with these kinds of puzzles (which I am not).

While I like the graphics a lot, I will say that the colours of the bird and one of the lighter blocks in level 4 made them blend in with the background blocks. One of my initial struggles with level 4 was that I thought one of the squares couldn't be moved because it looked like it was part of the main level's perimeters. I also found the understanding of how to move the level boundaries confusing. In level 3, there were some areas where I just couldn't move the level even though I had free spaces within the arena. I imagine the level area itself also has some boundaries that I couldn't see, though it does draw a lot of confusion from a player's perspective. It made the dragging feel unresponsive a lot of the time.

Slideworld - Level 4 complete.png

Overall, I enjoyed what you presented - it's the kind of entry that definitely deserves to grow a lot more outside the boundaries of a jam. Great job for a first entry.

Tele the Axolotl by Arthurficial 2023-10-04T22:27:29Z

I haven't played a lot of axolotl games, and this one felt like it definitely had the title going for it. I think the premise is pretty solid - a tight bullet hell with enemies that can drop blocks that limit your space. The teleport mechanic was also a great idea - I was confused exactly where I was teleporting to (was it random?) and I mostly just moved around the arena, shooting enemies.

Even though the theme is "limited space", I think the starting arena is a bit too small, particularly around the openings between the rooms. Even when starting out, something about the movement felt very difficult to control to be precise. It also didn't really feel like there was a reason for there to be so many segmented rooms, since they would more easily get filled up with blocks anyway and I mostly just stuck to the room I started in. The ability to hold the mouse button to continuously fire would have been nice, especially once the game starts to pile up with enemies. Of course some audio would always be great for a post-jam version.

Overall, I think you've got something good going here - the concept works well with the theme and I enjoyed the general premise of the gameplay. Congrats on producing a game in your first game jam and welcome to Ludum Dare!

The Kid And The Mud by Rolly 2024-04-22T05:55:52Z

Controller support and voice acting in a Compo entry? Colour me impressed.

I almost gave up after the first cutscene as I tried to interact with the stone using keyboard and controller. It would have been a lot more clear if the instructions in-game were to "Press and hold", which is what the game wants for the stones - "press" alone indicates a quick hit of the button and releasing immediately. I only learned this from skimming through the comments.

I think this entry is really strong gameplay-wise. I love the idea of summoning enemies to fend off villagers and trying to find the next stone in the process. Using key combinations to summon the enemies was fantastic, though I wish the controls were set up a little differently. I feel like I failed too many of these combinations because I was trying to press some keys while having to press and hold the shoulder buttons and I really wish the controls for flipping through the summons were just pressing the L1 button not pressing and holding. Then you could have another button just to quit while on the summon screen if needed.

The area also felt a bit barebones and I wish there were some additional background elements to give a better sense of moving through an arena rather than travelling through an empty void. I really liked the little pixel art characters.

The audio was also very strong - there's good delivery in the voice acting that helps to get the humourous lines across. I like nonchalant delivery when there's a game over; that was pretty hilarious. The music was pretty on point in helping to set the mood and complementing the narrative. I like the story and I think it would have been cool if the mud were more connected to the summoning rather than being incidental - like if the kid, while digging through the mud, accidentally dug up a special item that caused a bunch of stones to summon and then the gameplay goes from there. But as it is, I enjoyed this entry overall - for the timeframe you were given, it's got a lot of charm and fun.

Spoonmaster by RumiaObsessed 2024-04-22T01:11:40Z

This is a well-put together entry with an amusing concept. I appreciate that you are able to press and hold to shoot (a basic thing I know, but there are quite a few shooters out there that do not do this!) and I really like the background art with all the faint utensils. The movement feels a bit janky, especially when it comes time to jump - it feels like it's a bit delayed and difficult to get a handle on the precise movement you want to make. I also think the firing was a bit weird - you almost always miss the enemies until you learn that you can crouch and shoot, then it becomes almost a breeze. At the start though, the enemies always seem to get you first since they crowd around the ground and throw forks constantly.

The music is really well done - too bad the menu music doesn't loop as I think it's a good blend of gentle high bells and that buzzy synth bass. The game music is quite interesting - I like the guitar chords, feels almost jazzy but a little bit off, and still sits well in the background without being too distracting. It definitely is not the sound I would expect with this kind of concept, but I think it still works pretty well to create a more distinct experience. My main issue with the sound is that the sfx are too loud, especially with all the noise from the enemies throwing their forks.

Surprisingly, the boss battle was way easier than the main gameplay, mostly because the boss is very easy to hit and the attacks happen on platforms where you don't really need to be on unless you really want to hit the boss up high instead of waiting for the Flying Forkman to spawn next to the player. I don't really mind - an easier boss for an LDJam is probably better than having one that's just unreasonably difficult. Still, I think the boss could have at least attacked by firing some projectiles at the player after spawning in a different part of the arena.

Overall, I liked what I played - there's a lot of room for the game to have more depth to it in the main part of the gameplay. Good job and nice ending! (Quick note: I just tried to press "p" for cheat mode after focusing back in on the window after writing this review, but nothing happened.)

Crimes Against Carrots by NonDev 2024-04-22T01:21:34Z

This game looks right up my alley. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work on my laptop. Whenever I open the EXE, it opens a window, then closes almost immediately after. I'm running Windows 11.

Demonic Fridge and Vegetables From Hell by 7uc4s 2024-04-16T16:28:32Z

I love the idea of a survival game where you spawn the enemies based on certain conditions - the addition of making it a fridge was amusing and I like that you use their drops to summon different combinations of enemies into the area. The movement felt smooth and at a reasonable speed and I like that you can stack up on health extra early.

I didn't love the spacebar to fire, especially since you use your mouse to aim the fireballs anyway. It almost feels like the controls should have been reversed, like clicking to shoot (and preferably supporting holding to continuously fire) and then spacebar would be used to pick up and put in the fridge when you're directly in front of it and drop the item if you're not near the fridge.

There are also some minor issues of the character going behind the lever despite it being a supposedly solid, interactable object. I also think that while you chose a good set of graphics to go together, and I understand that fridge was done by one of you. I think it would have looked more coherent to the environment if it were also in the pixel art style as it looks oddly out of place here.

Demonic Fridge - Character behind lever.png

The lighting was done well; it fit the dark but also funny concept (though I will say I wish the drops were also affected by it). Audio could obviously be something considered for a post-jam version of this but I had a good time overall.

QuickDraw TCG by CMLSC 2018-04-25T01:47:21Z

It's a little hard to tell your records when the game doesn't even give an indication of my progress once I die. All I can tell is that I got past about five waves. It was when everything started getting pretty wild with the bullets, tumbleweeds and meteorites that I ended up losing all my health.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this game. It gives me Potatoman Seeks the Troof vibes with the tumbleweeds and the constant dodging of the elements. I loved the art style and the floatiness of the jump worked in the game's favour. The idea of collecting and playing cards to affect your abilities was done in such a way that made it fun but also wasn't too easy or unreasonably difficult. At first, I thought maybe the abilities lasted too short but the game overall makes it work by giving a lot of cards. That being said, it's kind of unfair when you're just starting out a wave and the cards are all a double jump's reach away and by the time you do get a card within your reach, those cards go away and URGH! Well, it was a real workout to say the least. :stuck_out_tongue:

Sound effects were good, the chaotic and dissonant music truly added to the insanity of having to constantly dodge hazards. It does grate a tad on the ears after a while, but when playing the game for as long as I did, the music mostly helped to elevate the experience rather than distract from it. And the graphics are really well done; love the details in the background and the retro aesthetic.

Dememtory by Tommislav 2018-05-15T19:47:15Z

This was pretty intriguing, and the text adventure portion of the game was a great format for combining these two genres. I was trying so hard to memorize the card orders for the memory part that I didn't pay enough attention to the story :rofl: but I got the sad ending where I died in the forest with my cat, so I guess if there's one way to go, it would be just that. Overall, I enjoyed it but perhaps I will pay more attention to the actual story next time lol.

Demon Dash by superpokeunicorn 2018-04-24T09:47:49Z

The enemies definitely look demonic. I had fun with this one. It has elements of both Diner Dash and Mega Man, without completely delving into the mechanics of either game. Really, it was a nice hybrid. And there was a lot of stages given that it's a compo entry. It would have been nice to have some more variety between the stages besides just the arrangement of platforms. Seeing as you have three different colours of enemies and I believe three different types of hats?, maybe the different colours and types could have been introduced gradually per stage so that the challenge is that the player has to manage more varieties.

I do, however, really love that the enemies had unique behaviours from each other and the idea to shoot them in order to colour the hats was great. Sometimes, when the player starts moving right from when the character spawns, the enemies don't spawn into the area for a very long time! I guess the enemies just don't like it when their target moves. :stuck_out_tongue:

Goodnight Meowmie by DDRKirbyISQ 2018-04-25T00:47:08Z

That was super creepy, but also very cute. I love how this usually goes for the more unsettling type of horror and doesn't rely too much on creepy imagery but rather distortion of the images. The sounds were a bit frightening; I was always on the edge of my seat when going out of the room. Movement is a little on the sluggish side, but it does help to set the pace. I was real worried about the backtracking because of how slow the movement was.

Those footprints, though. eeeugh. And the sound design work is on point. :ok_hand: Great adorable "night" music and scary ambiance outside the room. I didn't quite understand the story behind the game. From the get-go, one can already tell that the setting is kind of "off", but I didn't really see the payoff to why this character was in this place with this cat. Perhaps there's deeper meaning in the ending, I don't know.

Yeah, it was a nice blend of the two genres, good balancing the caring for your pet with the fetch quest aspects of the outside. Great experience overall.

Love Love! Space Attack by Random-storykeeper 2018-04-24T22:30:12Z

@trivial171 Yeah, the game definitely needed some more testing as it does get ridiculously hard. Having invincibility frames and the ability to clear bullets would help ease the difficulty. I was also thinking that the bullets from the squids could spawn less often too. Thanks!

Harvest Doom by Fiote 2018-04-25T00:13:14Z

This game is really frantic and also addicting. The constant going about farming, but also fending off enemies was quite fun, and I loved the spooky approach with the dark colours and souls and various Halloween-esque creatures constantly coming at your farm.

I find that when it came to the delivery of the souls, the place where you had to stand to deliver them was kind of picky. Like, the place where you actually deliver them is a step before the door, where it's very easy to walk all the way to. As a result, there's quite a bit of frustration when it comes to rushing to get your souls, but then walking too far that you go up to the door and moving frantically back and forth until you get that popup to deliver the souls.

I also think the health should reset for when you attack your own towers. It's very easy to do so on accident, and I feel like over time, the player will end up taking away their own towers when they don't intend to.

Aside from that, I definitely had a lot of fun with this game. The farming and tower defense aspects are both pretty evident in this, and they work well together. I love the creepy mood and ambiance of the music. The design of "you" aka the player was also very well done. It's a bit weird looking at the horizontal lines in the game - they seem a tad out of place and detract from the atmosphere, but I do understand that it does help to align the elements more easier. I wonder if there's, perhaps a way to make them feel more part of the aesthetic, though.

Blackjack Beats by Acuity 2018-05-03T07:09:02Z

YO ACUITY you entered LD41? :smile:

This is an interesting idea you've got here - rhythm games and card games certainly don't seem "compatible" at first glance. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how Blackjack even works (despite having played versions of Blackjack in other games), and even more embarrassingly, how your game works. :sweat_smile: Like, I had no idea you could miss some beats, as typical rhythm games will normally "penalize" you for doing so. Once I got it down, it was smooth sailing from here on out. :sunglasses:

Blackjack Beats score 870.png

(Although, I don't know if this is a good score or not, but it was a significant leap from my other lower scores. :joy: )

One issue I had with the game was the fact that it really just felt like Blackjack and not so much a rhythm game. That reason mostly does point to, as mentioned above, the fact that you don't get penalized for missing beats. It's also a little frustrating when the Z and X keys *sometimes* get mapped to the same function, but *sometimes* they don't. There were times when I wanted to keep playing my hand, but I ended up standing because I was using the X key to deal my cards at first. The rhythm part also didn't really feel all that much "rhythm" like - it was very even beats that I guess landed on the beats of the actual music, but they were so far few in between that it really just felt like I could press the Z and X keys almost whenever I wanted to and focus entirely on the card game without the rhythm game part affecting me at all.

That being said, the Blackjack part of the game was pretty well done. I like the design of the cards, the simplicity and pleasantness of the music. The sound effects (er - one sound effect?) were snappy and satisfying. And once I got into the rhythm of the game, it became fun to start "strategizing" my play. One aspect of the game I do like that does feel very "rhythm game" esque is when the music stops, the game also stops too. Overall, I think it was a great concept to explore, but could use more time for extra polish and figuring out how to "blend" the two genres together better. Well, that's what post-jam versions are for, eh? :wink:

Steps by M-1 2018-05-15T19:28:03Z

This game has a very cool mood to it. Something about the audio and aesthetic style meshes really well for me, and even the audio works for a rhythm game. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure about the execution - as puppetmaster points out, the controls are very delayed and that detracts from a lot of the fun. I'm also not really seeing the "rhythm game" aspect in the game itself - sure, I can hear rhythm game elements, but I don't particularly feel like I'm playing a rhythm game, just trying to get through all the obstacles using timing (and delayed controls).

I do like how the music kind of comes to a slowdown when you get hit by obstacles. That was pretty amusing. The soundtrack is also particularly great, probably the standout of this game. I actually have it playing in the background while writing this comment. :grinning: All around, feel-good music.

Jumpcard by pestodesign 2018-04-25T09:46:45Z

This is a pretty neat idea, incorporating the actual cards as platforms that you can jump onto and collect coins in the process. I love the art style, and the various environments on the differing cards. The music was also good - I like the Celtic feeling. I will admit it might not be the most fitting for the type of game, however. The fast paced, triple beat subdivision feels a lot like "frog on an adventure" rather than "frog jumping around in the same space on screen". But hey, maybe there *could* be some aspect of adventure with this concept. After all, you did have different aesthetic themes on some of the cards. :wink:

The movement of the frog was way too finicky. He controls like a slingshot, only instead, you pull towards where you want to "sling" the frog towards rather than away. Also the movement felt super elastic; sometimes small motions will cause the frog to jump leaps and bounds while other times, the frog is able to jump just a little amount at a time. It was easily this part of the game that detracted from it being "fun". Despite this, I do like the idea of using a slingshot sort of control - it does add some challenge in what is basically just a "get coins" type of platformer. If you plan on adding more elements besides coins (it would be interesting if each environment card had its own unique quirk), then it may need to have more precise controls than just the "slingshot". Perhaps you could even show the line of trajectory to give the player an idea of where they're aiming.

But overall, it's a nice blend of two game types that don't normally go together, and they're both incorporated well here. :frog:

Dance Dance Ratatouille by vividreality 2018-05-03T08:45:26Z

I really like how you've blended together both the cooking and rhythm game elements. It was clever to incorporate an aspect of cooking - eg. adding in the vegetables as what would make the "rhythm" portion, and also give the player time to do the other cooking aspects such as turning up the heat, adding seasoning and stirring. The rhythm portion for the most part seems pretty reasonable, although I'll admit it's not very kind for first players. Nonetheless, the Cooking mode doesn't really stop if you mess up, which I think is nice as it allows people to practice the motions and replay to try and improve their score without the frustration of a game over. I like how you also included the Endurance mode as a challenge, too.

The music was quite well done - there were "cooking game" elements mixed in with "rhythm game" elements, although I would have liked to hear more heavier drums, as they will really help to drive the "rhythm game" parts more. To me, the percussion was kind of soft. I do like how the music kind of gets really intense towards the end ish...though.

I don't know if I can 100% prove this is happening, but the game appears to not be taking any of my double key inputs. I am almost certain that I press the keys at the exact same time, right on the spot, but the game keeps telling me I missed them for some reason. That was really the only huge issue I had with the game. Aside from that, it was fun.

Pet THAT by sunnray 2018-05-15T19:11:28Z

Well I got to pet the cat once before accidentally moving my mouse *too* far up the window and closing out of the game the second time around. :stuck_out_tongue: It's a fun, cute little game. I love how the bullet hell portion involves dodging words, and how the LIFE text at the top basically follows you horizontally, which means the closer you get to the cat, the more riskier it is that you'll be hit by something in life. I thought the art looked fine; the pixel aesthetics worked here. That hand is quite detailed to the point where it gets a bit creepy, but maybe this is just on me. :laughing: I had a good time for the small amount I played.

Plane Fishing by Belga54 2018-04-25T21:48:41Z

You know, I gotta love a game that has DERP FISH and vocal sound effects. woohoo!

Plane Fishing 59 seconds.png

I didn't progress much further, mostly because the game sometimes restarts with a whole bunch of bombs in the water already rather than starting anew. Regardless, there is a nice charm to this game that really holds it together. The frantic plane flying, the art, the looping background music and the sound effects function as one cohesive package, so well done on that.

It was pretty interesting how only going into the water would kill the plane (based on the controls), yet you aren't able to fly offscreen (the sky is simply a contained boundary), which is something I would usually expect in these types of games. I wouldn't say it was a bad thing - there wasn't really an advantage to hanging out by the ceiling, and the time limit made sure that I wasn't just camping out in a single area for a long time. For an increased difficulty, it would have been interesting to see things pop out of the water that you might have to avoid, perhaps even as you fly directly over them. The bombs served as a good enough challenge, though it does get pretty dense as the game progresses, making it near impossible to even drop one without inevitably throwing your net onto a bomb.

Overall, I thought this game was ridiculously cute and I was without a doubt entertained. Very nice work! :fishing_pole_and_fish:

Final Football Tactics by clue 2018-05-02T21:19:49Z

Game: Press Tab to switch between players Me: *presses Tab* Game: *pauses*

I mean, you can select the player you want to move with your cursor easily, but I did find it a bit amusing that the game suggests a control that doesn't even seem to work. :rofl: I see you addressed that, however. As a whole though, I thought it was a fun little puzzle game. I only tried the single player mode so far, but I thought the challenges were interesting enough. Some were deceptively easy, and they made use of the tactics learned throughout the levels. The tutorial was much appreciated because I was pretty lost on what to do, and the levels were helpful in gradually introducing you to the tactics of the game.

If I had to pick out some issues, I don't really understand why some of the controls are set up the way they are. For example, you have to select M on the player to move the player, and selecting M deselects the player, yet when you use the "Kick" controls with the same player, K on the player again does not deselect the Kick function, and you have to hit Escape instead. It would have been more consistent (and also...nice?) to have K, if already select, deselect the Kick on the player if the key is pressed again - since you only initiate the Kick on the ball, anyway...

Also, the turn system was a little strange in that I could initiate Turn 2 or the last turn with the Space bar and start the game out like that, such that after I make my first move, the game's just like "Oh yeah, you messed up" and then resets me back to the start of the level. I know it's just a matter of pressing the space bar to ensure that you are on the very first turn, but is there any way you could make the turns automatic? I mean, each athlete has a limited number of moves and kicks anyway, so once those are all exhausted, would it not make sense for the next "turn" to immediately commence?

The game's presentation looked fine enough, but it seems like there's some inconsistencies in art styles, what with the almost realistic grassy field on the outer borders (are they playing in a barren field?) with the cute pixel art players to the super opaque soccer ball...they all looked nice, though it did feel like there were lots of different art styles being meshed together in a way that doesn't quite seem...cohesive. Ah well, at least it looked fine as a whole. The music was also very nice - I'm a sucker for the more jazz style game tracks, and it's fitting for a game that's mostly about puzzles and thinking. As Flaterectomy suggests, the music doesn't really sell me as a "sports" theme, so maybe something to keep in mind would be to try and go for a mix of the two? Both puzzle and sports...could be interesting.

I think you had some good mechanics at work here, and the strongest aspect for me was the tutorial on how to play. If there's time, I might try to go for the multiplayer mode.

PS Mad props for making a game that saves progress. :thumbsup:

King Circle by Artur Hawkwing 2018-05-02T20:45:56Z

So I really wanted to play your game, but regardless of what settings I choose up front, I always end up with this error message: King Circle error.png

I'm trying to run the game on a 64bit Windows 10...

Soul Sword by Raiyumi 2018-04-25T02:13:16Z

The music is fantastic! It's got a really nice "dungeon RPG" feel, and I love the arps and chiptune sounds. The overall graphics are great as well - although I wish the character's sprite had a "back" animation when going up rather than looking like they are walking backwards. It just made it more difficult to tell when I was facing an enemy and fighting it due to this.

I wanted to keep playing because I love the mood overall. The gameplay itself, however, is all right. A lot of the time, I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over, with no real sense of progress being made. Even going through the different dungeons, a lot of them just felt the same even when they were randomized. Using and selling items was a bit confusing, but I think it had more to do with when I did collect those pickups, I thought they were souls. It would have been nice to have the items be like a different sprite that isn't so similar looking to the soul icon in the HUD so that it's more clear that this is what the player is picking up.

However, the game was quite intriguing for its overall mood. I'm still listening to your game's music in the background while I write this comment. It's just that good. :thumbsup:

Music Make Me Shoot My Gun by AHS 2018-04-25T05:54:40Z

Hooray I win!

musicmakesmeshootmygun-youwin.png

This was a good game, very easy to understand and the rhythm aspects, while fast paced, were also on point for the most part. I like the rhythm tie-in to the tower defense part in that the towers only shoot when you do the rhythm portion, which gives you more incentive to try and be precise as possible.

Some of the enemies, in later waves, ended up travelling in very tight groups, making them look like a huge snake. It was actually kind of funny, although it did cause me to lose quite a bit of health due to the insanity and the fact that you can only shoot so fast due to the rhythm game portion. :laughing: Ah well, the concept was quite well executed given the amount of time you had to work on it. I like how the screen tints just slightly when you're losing health; it's a nice indicator while you're concentrating on the rhythm game because I was rarely focusing on the enemies at all when the waves were being initiated.

I guess that's also kind of downside to the rhythm game incorporation into this genre. Tower defense games are typically all about setting up beforehand and you usually have time to watch the enemies in action while your "towers" do the "defending". To have that going on at the same time as the "rhythm game" portion does mean missing out on a lot of the action that makes the most satisfying part of tower defense games. I wonder...if the rhythm game part was an entirely separate thing that happened before the wave...would that work better? Say, you do the tower placement, initiate the rhythm part, then afterwards, you watch the enemies travelling and the towers shooting based on how accurate you were in the rhythm part. Right now, it's hard to tell exactly how well you do in these rhythm parts, aside from the screen tint. I do see text flashing on screen, though it is brief to say the least. Anywho, that's just food for thought.

Overall, it was a pretty well executed concept that didn't seem super buggy. The visuals and music served basic needs, but they weren't in any way annoying. From what I could tell, the simple drum rhythm matched pretty well with the rhythm game portion. Good job!

Infestation by aurelwuensch 2018-04-25T08:17:26Z

Well...I am able to type up the words and switch between the two modes, but after the first card, I am unable to play any others, even after regaining a sufficient amount of energy to do so. The game simply shuffles my cards around, it seems, once I play a card, and no energy is lost nor is there any effect on the game. This seems to only happen on subsequent playthroughs, after I lose a round, go back to the menu and try a different map.

The gameplay was also just as equally confusing as I kept getting told that I had reached the bronze, then silver levels, but the infestation was spreading, and it ultimately would lead to me losing the game. None of the cards seemed to have any effect on anything, so I was forced to let the infestation happen inevitably. The typing game component was the better executed of the blend of genres, though there didn't seem to be many words available to type and the game's response to the keys was highly sensitive. Sometimes, after finishing a word, the game would still think that I was holding down the letter to that key and then flash through a whole bunch of different words because they were all supposedly inaccurate to what I was "typing". That being said, for the few words you did have in the game, they were all varied in length and typing difficulty, which I liked.

There seemed to be a lot of variety in the tracks that play, and I like how the music is randomized, even when you replay a stage. Or so it seems, anyway. Some of the tracks were borderline irritating (the one with the constant pounding bass, although it did capture the feeling of "doom" pretty well, would have worked better in a shorter stage rather than in an entire level) while others actually were very nice. Most of them worked for the type of game you're going for, so overall, good job on that.

As a whole, the game does feel unfinished and a lot of my frustration comes from not being sure if my misunderstandings were due to a bug or insufficient explanations. But hey, making a game in 72 hours is hard. You got the typing game aspect down pretty well, and I like the idea of combining that with strategy and card games. It was ambitious of you to try and combine three different types of games together, so nice job taking on that risk.

Falling Labyrinth by LarrySeinfeld 2018-04-24T09:24:31Z

Very interesting combination of genres. You basically spend time playing Tetris for a good portion of the game in order to set out a path. I really enjoyed that. The enemies being musical instruments was amusing and I love their designs. The general aesthetic of the game had this unsettling vibe; there was a right amount of dissonance in the music that spoke to the urgency of the gameplay despite also having a somewhat somber feeling.

I find the criticisms I have with this to be more in the finer details. As a whole, it's a solid concept and executed well.

- It would have been nice to be able to rotate blocks. - When fighting an enemy, it would be nice to have your action and the enemy's action delivered in two separate instances, rather than both parts of the text at once. I didn't realize that the text was simultaneous at first and the battle sequences were confusing for those first few moments. - I kinda sorta wish the Tetris parts were turnbased with the dungeon parts? That is, instead of having the Tetris and the dungeon going on at the same time, have a piece fall only after you defeat an enemy or something. Even with the extra time you get for collecting pieces, you still have to make sure you're positioning them in the right place while also trying to orient yourself in the right position to walk forward in the dungeon and it's like two very different control schemes you have to master all within a time limit. Maybe I'm just bad at dungeon crawlers, haha. - The game is way too easy to accidentally restart. :stuck_out_tongue:

But yeah, this was quite an intriguing game with a lot of multitasking, lol.

Falling Labyrinth by LarrySeinfeld 2018-04-25T06:10:59Z

@LarrySeinfeld Could you also program it to be a combination of keys, perhaps? Like pressing R twice, or maybe pressing R and then Y to confirm and N to cancel.

Cruise & Co. by Blinkenlights 2018-05-03T06:08:41Z

Geez Daddy, have you not heard of slowing down or hitting the brakes? :laughing:

This was quite an enjoyable, but quick game. I didn't really go over 75 MPH, or if I did, I never acquired a screenshot as proof. :rofl: I loved the dialogue, and when Dad jokes are paired with actual voices doing the talking, it's such a perfect match that I can't help but be amused. What I really like about the voice acting is that even though I can tell it's the same person doing the voices, the tone and inflection suggest different characters, making them a bit more recognizable from each other.

I do agree with some of the other comments that the font was overall pretty hard to read. Combined with the fast paced gameplay, I often had to quickly guess match because I couldn't quite pick out what the choices were. That, however, did make it kind of fun, as even choosing the general nudge towards the answers would lead to you saying something I should have expected, but didn't. And that was kind of funny.

I also noticed that sometimes, the game would easily lose focus whenever I started a new game - the steering controls would cause me to scroll down the entire page rather than steer in the game. Strangely enough, the times those happened, I didn't actually run into any cars, so phew. :relieved:

One thing I did find quite annoying was that it was pretty easy to die in the game, but there wasn't really a fast enough respawn. I would have liked it if, when you hit the "Ctrl" key, that the game just automatically starts you from the actual game itself rather than going back to the titlescreen, which will make it more engaging for players to immediately start replaying the game the moment they die. Then, you could perhaps have another key that brings up the instructions/intro again in case people need to reference them again.

The idea was very funny, and I think the fact that you have "Dad road trip" dialogue combined with somewhat chaotic gameplay, which in turn affects how well you drive, there is a really nice formula here for a humourous, fast paced game.

Farmer 21 by Jon_Nova 2018-04-24T06:51:59Z

Me upon first playing: Aww this is cute! I think I'm starting to get the hang of how to play this.

Me after playing: **HOLY CRAP**

I do stand by the fact that I really dug the art style. The simplistic graphics were really effective at delivering the story, and I love how you mixed this with the black screen and text. Gameplay itself is pretty basic but I get that it only serves to move the story along. Once I got the hang of it, it was just about doing the same routine over and over, though the change in atmosphere is what initiates me to keep going because I'm curious as to what happens next.

There's a couple of issues that stood out to me, one being that I don't understand how this relates to the theme? I guess the genres being combined here aren't necessarily game genres, but even with that in mind, it doesn't seem that far off from being **SPOILER** a dystopian plot. Is it the fact that it was portrayed with chunky pixels?

The control scheme feels a bit wonky as well, but maybe I'm just too used to interacting in other games being mapped to a key that requires you to use an entirely different hand. Nevertheless, it did not detract from the overall experience/mood, which is definitely this game's strong point.

Midnight Thief by Deadly Apps 2018-04-24T06:42:14Z

Stealthy lemmings? I can get behind that. :eyes:

I really like the way the buttons are designed on the HUD. Nice, big, illustrative and a clear good indicator of cooldown. I feel pretty silly though, because I'm still pretty confused on who I'm supposed to be, haha. But all in all, the presentation of this game works well. I enjoyed the "hmmph" sound effect and the little clink when collecting resources was very satisfying. It's impressive you managed to make music within the time period, albeit the audio could certainly be expanded or revised upon for future releases.

Overall, nice job. It's amusing watching the animations go back and forth. The green really pops out from the rest of the graphics. :P

A Knight of Music by Danny88881 2018-04-25T07:11:03Z

I might be silly, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get past level 1? The knight can't jump high enough to reach that ledge, and the wall to the right of it is way to high for me to get up.

a knight of music -stuck ledge.png

To make five tracks within 48 hours, atop also doing the other aspects of the game, is very impressive. I like how the tracks did sound different from each other, but still had a similar sound design connecting them. I do agree with BeamKirby in that while the tracks are good, they're not really fitting for a rhythm game. You don't necessarily have to make tracks that are 4/4 but the rhythm patterns did feel quite counter-intuitive and did not match any beat within the audio at all. I think you can totally keep the chiptune sounds, but have more focus on the drums and allowing the rhythm based portion of the game match those drums.

The art style was nice, and I liked that you had an in-game tutorial, as well as an overworld map. Those were great touches that I don't see in a lot of compo games in LD. You've tapped into an interesting concept, though I think the focus needs to be on reworking the rhythm game aspect and figuring out how to blend the two genres together more seamlessly without it feeling like the player has to juggle two completely different games. Keep on keeping on. :wink:

Kingdom Crush by Hannah19 2018-04-25T06:47:27Z

Aw yeah

kingdomcrush-youwin.png

I was about to call it quits when the dialogue started looping (I think Allison called off her armies three times and repeated that same part about "knowing my history", and that egotistical guy told me twice that I wasn't worth his time or something) but just as I did, I beat it. :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, some of the text goes outside of its textbox.

kingdomcrush-textoutside.png

There are some neat ideas going on here. For instance, I love that the path is heart shaped; not only does it tie in with the dating sim portion but it also gives a lot of possible spaces for tower placement, especially since the people will walk around the tower multiple times. The designs of the characters were very cool, and the humourous moments did get me sometimes. That hex pun though. :laughing: Also I couldn't help but feel kind of sad since you know that while you're seducing all these wizards and knights, etc., TONS of people are just dying on that path. :rofl:

When I first played, I thought I had to answer the dialogue quickly all while making sure the people weren't getting to my tower and it was a lot to kind of take in at once. I guess it's nice that the two parts of the game were going on simultaneously, but I ended up not really concentrating on the dialogue at first because I was under the impression that I had to rush.

The music was very medieval-y, which is fitting enough for the game. I noticed that it kind of loops weird on the Credits screen? Like, I heard the title theme play its intro, then it suddenly replayed the intro after about five seconds in before doing the whole loop. It's not a huge deal, but did stick out. Also, while the portraits are well done, I would have liked to see the rest of the art in the game more or less match that style. There seems to be a lot of different art styles at work here and they don't quite mesh well together as a whole.

As for the visual novel part, it was probably the strongest aspect of the game. I enjoyed talking to the characters and I liked their different personalities. I also liked the possible answers and how some of them felt natural to the flow of dialogue. Storywise, I kept wondering if all these people were just standing around, waiting for their turn to seduce you or you them and why they didn't intervene with each other constantly. Haha, maybe there was just some dialogue I missed. XD

Kingdom Crush by Hannah19 2018-04-25T18:49:18Z

@tg1397 You know, it's really only frantic for the first few runs, maybe even the first attempt when you don't realize that you can go through the dating sim part on your own time. I think it would be more intuitive if the dialogue did happen between the levels rather than at the same time as the dating sim, but I wouldn't mind seeing comments from the other characters pop up that don't require an interaction. :P

The Third Scattering by mbrezu 2018-04-25T08:52:39Z

GAH! This game really loves to give me cards that are not the ones I want or need. :stuck_out_tongue:

The Final Scattering score 1484.png

That was my second attempt, first was me being a bit confused on how the premise worked and lost a lot of lives in the process.

The game definitely needs music, because it's such a thought-heavy game. You don't really hear anything until you make a move. And I thought the whole match-3 process was already very time consuming. :joy: It's an interesting concept in that you not only have to focus on where the matches of three are, but also how you can get to a match in the first place with the cards you are given. I did enjoy the game overall. The art you chose to include in the game was very cute; I love how everything is all animal themed and how you can see different animals pop up on subsequent playthroughs. I also like how the game sometimes picks a match for you right away, giving you free points. :laughing: The sounds you did incorporate were pretty good, just far few in between.

There's a lot of patience needed to sit down and play this, but in general, I had a fine experience. I see the appeal of the extra challenge, maybe for people who are very familiar with this type of game (which I am not :P). It looks like it would work great on mobile. I only got to play the Windows build, though.

Super Ice-Cream Roller Ultra by Probe31 2018-04-25T21:26:36Z

Golf ball casualties: at least 20. :icecream: :thinking:

Ice Cream Roller 2 stars baby.png

Despite how frustrating the controls are, I have to say, I had a lot of fun playing this. Like yeah it was pretty easy to fall due to how narrow the path is, but the game was at least forgiving in letting me keep my items whenever I fell. The run in that screenshot was mostly done by falling off the ledge immediately after collecting most items (particularly the ones where you don't just move in a straight line), which helped me to quickly spawn back to the middle and grab the much needed items. :stuck_out_tongue:

Of course, the downside to keeping your items is that the orders have an insanely low "patience" time, which I could swear was running out faster than what the indicators gave. Some orders, when finished, would switch their order type but keep the timer running rather than resetting it, making it discouraging when you finally scoop up that TRIPLE APPLE ICE CREAM and now your customer decides they just want a single scoop grape that you have to trash and hurry to create in a matter of seconds. :weary:

This was quite enjoyable and got me laughing whenever I just fell off the ledge. It's an interesting take on the whole "make something and serve it to someone in a time limit" type games, with the additional mechanic of [Fluffball](http://www.nitrome.com/games/fluffball) physics. I had a good time, mostly because the music and the graphics were quite pleasant and cute. You captured a laidback, yet still happy feeling with the audio, and I definitely enjoyed that. I wish there were more sound effects because they would have really helped with indicating as to whether or not I had already taken a scoop of ice cream. Some of the bins hide the character and that makes it hard to tell when I did take a scoop.

The one level you designed (I'm assuming, since it seems to be the only one I can play) is good, though maybe not the best first level to start out with. You'd want wider platforms, even more fences, to give the player a chance to get used to the controls. Not all isometric platformers control the same, oddly enough, so it's ideal to start with a ridiculously easy level and then gradually amp up the difficulty once players are more comfortable. For what you have in the game, I quite liked it, even when I did make that poor golf ball with a mustache explode for the 12093820th time. :joy:

60 seconds to Mars by RocketRaccoons 2018-05-03T06:45:31Z

:thinking:

60 seconds to Mars Instructions over credits.png

Also bringing up the Credits for the first time made the game go into fullscreen? That was pretty weird. :confused:

(Actually, it seems like selecting any option on the menu screen after a game over or for the first time makes the game go into fullscreen mode. :thinking: )

When I actually started to play the game, there was absolutely no audio whatsoever. I guess I had it open in the background for too long and it doesn't loop? Restarting after a game over does bring the music back, however.

But these issues aside, I thought the game was pretty straightforward and relatively easy to pick up and play. Although...I didn't really understand the benefits of blocking, or the difference between a Heavy and a Normal attack aside from them...doing more damage to the enemy. I would expect there to be some repercussions for the player for using a heavier attack, but I wasn't able to figure out what they were.

It also seemed a little strange that you had to wait to pick up weapons and items. It didn't really seem to add anything to the game other than to waste the player's time? It especially doesn't help when the player goes in not knowing what these items are and what they'll add on to the player exactly.

Despite my bickering, I really did like the look of this game. The designs of the aliens you fight are very interesting and varied. I wish the UI also matched up to the graphics, though, instead of just the plain text. The music was also pretty good. There's an intensity in the lower voices that contributes to the idea of there being a time limit, and the melody was mysterious enough that it conveyed that alien-esque, being in outer space feeling.

The time limit is quite the hassle, but maybe that was just me and my first experience playing. Sometimes, the controls didn't really respond, thus I was madly button mashing just to try and beat the clock. I was looking back at the timer each time I cleared a room and you only get what, 6 extra seconds when you clear one? That seems pretty low. Anyways, there's some good ideas in here; all in all pretty good for a game made in 72 hours, eh? :stuck_out_tongue:

I Contact by gamebuilder 2026-04-24T07:21:37Z

(comment 1/2)

Wow. I had some difficulty figuring out what to do at first, but it was fairly easy to pick up where I left off at a game over. However, I do wish there was a restart button within the game itself. If there was one, I couldn't figure it out - I tried spacebar and the arrow keys but no response and had to manually refresh my browser every time. Thankfully, the game loads pretty fast so it wasn't the end of the world.

Some of the navigation seemed wonky (it was possible to go back to the overworld within the TV world, which I don't know if that was supposed to happen).

Fun

I found this game engaging enough to want to try and figure out the clue. I eventually did win, but I really overthought the "clue" that was mentioned in the previous comments. Here was my thought process hunting for clues:

!>1. Looking at the flowers !>2. Looking at the shapes (triangles, circles) !>3. Looking at the tree on the far left - maybe branching paths, what does the bird represent? !>4. Observing which areas had the minions in the main area before the TV.

!>Then I looked at the channel and thought "oh, it's the children and when they appear on the TV". I thought maybe it was by the order of the screens - the third channel change had a child, so I thought it would be after the 3rd screen. But it also seemed that the children on TV resemble the children in the TV world. I wasn't 100% sure which is the actual clue, but I knew it had something to do with the kiddos.

I Contact screenshot 02.png

Innovation

I found the aesthetic of the game to be very distinct, and I love the concept of being in this mysterious sort of land going into the static-y TV.

In a longer-form version of this game, I would be interested to see an alternation between going into the "real" world vs. the TV world, rather than just having one section with finding all the kids and a simple puzzle just to get into the house with a ton of backtracking. There's a lot of great setup here to expand on further.

Theme

I didn't really feel the theme in the gameplay but rather the concept itself. The changing of the channels, what they represent - I suppose that was the most I got in terms of the theme integration. It's definitely not a bad thing - it didn't necessarily scream "signal" to me, but I do see where the theme was used when thinking of the game as a whole.

Graphics

Using coloured pencils and paints to create your game graphics is a power move. At times, it felt a bit like a collage with the pencil-coloured flowers, minions and protagonist. It was very strange, seeing the abstract with the traditional and the cut out photos, but I think that really helps play into the game's mood/atmosphere and gives a lot of opportunity to use the art narratively.

Perhaps the combination of graphical styles could represent the worlds sort of shifting gradually - maybe the whole real world starts as a traditional art style, but as you rescue the kids, things start to become more and more abstract (or could be the reverse of that).

I Contact by gamebuilder 2026-04-24T07:22:04Z

(comment 2/2)

Audio

I like that the audio plays into the contrast of the TV world vs. the real world, with acoustic instruments used for the outside world and victory themes while the TV world has chiptune/synths.

I really like the acoustic overworld track and the way the background accompaniment is phased/flanged. Great use of the guitar for the lead - although the first time I heard it, I did feel the guitar was mixed kind of loud compared to the accompaniment. I did get used to it after a while.

I was surprised there weren't sfx when you interact with a minion disguised as a kid, though perhaps that would have made things a little too creepy.

Mood

The pencil-coloured girl against the dark-coloured background with the abstract shapes creates a distinct atmosphere that works with the darker colour palette for the background. It did seem like there were a lot of elements like the flowers or the red tree with the bird that I wasn't sure if they served any other purpose other than maybe to hint at lore? But it was interesting to see these elements and think about how they would work in the game narratively.

I also think the "collage" style for the playable character worked well with the game being step-based...kind of feels like moving a paper doll along a flat scenic background akin to a stop-motion animated drawing.

In Control by MelissaL 2026-04-23T05:33:51Z

(comment 1/2)

For a game that mentions being able to "explore freely", it felt more like an action-puzzle game where you have to activate the levers quickly and get to the next checkpoint/area before you run out of power. I think the general flow of the areas and the concept of the gameplay was solid, but I definitely had a lot of trouble getting into this one. I stopped just after the area with the long passage upward to the exit, which took about 20 minutes ish.

I appreciate that the game has controller support, though. I pulled out my gamepad for this one. I did notice that the "X" key on my Logitech (akin to an Xbox controller I think) was mapped to the Restart key, which made it too easy to accidentally restart.

Fun

After reading the description and controls, I found I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do. The wall at the top at the beginning of the game did not seem to be a solid area, and I was trying to interact with the other objects that stood on the wall and kept dying. Eventually I did figure out that oh, you're supposed to hit the switches to progress.

I'm glad there were lots of checkpoints, because I found it was super easy to run out of power. I wish the game communicated this more clearly that there was a power level, and I'm not even sure if that's the case of those satellite signals around me were the cause of it. I think maybe some of the sound effects gave the implication that the controllable robot was dying, but there was nothing visually. I would have liked to see some kind of bar or a change in the character to show the passage from being at full power to death.

The puzzles were a bit on the simpler side, but I think it worked to the game's benefit having the time-based element to balance it out.

I also noticed that in later sections - the long vertical passageway up to the exit, for example - the respawning was super weird. The camera seemed to start from the left and then slowly pan to the right while the player actually had that window of time to control the robot and would lose time the moment the camera finished panning to that checkpoint. I also had some issues with respawning when I first played, where if I passed one of the earlier checkpoints (I think 2nd or 3rd) and died, it respawned me back at the very first, but my character was not present in the area and I had to completely refresh.

Innovation

The main distinctive element I could think of from the game was the the addition of the little barrier robot that you had to go up to in order to interact with it and chase it away. The sound effect choices for it were kind of silly. Other than that, it did seem like a somewhat standard puzzle game, albeit with a pressure element to make the player execute the correct actions quickly.

On a tangent, I found that the signs mentioned the H key needed to be pressed to chase away the barrier robot, but there is nothing mapped to the gamepad I was using that seemed to trigger it. I pressed every button I could think of, but none of them seemed to be the equivalent of the H key. So whenever the barrier robot came up, I would have to put down my controller and hit the H key.

Theme

At first, I thought the robot was being powered by the green intermittent satellite signals, but this did not seem to factor into the gameplay at all? I might have missed this, because it just seemed to be time-based. I did see the theme in the sense that you have to interact with these levers and they "signal" to trigger other elements in order to progress, though I'm not certain if this was the intention of integrating the theme.

Graphics

I like the details in the background tiled elements, and the green signal waves stand out. The robot seems a bit stocky, which is an interesting design.

In Control by MelissaL 2026-04-23T05:34:00Z

(comment 2/2)

Audio

Since stock music was used (I notice Pixabay was credited for both tracks), the entry should opt out of the Audio category for ratings. Stock music is allowed in the jam, but the Audio rating is assuming you created all the audio within the jam timeframe.

As a general comment, I did feel the in-game music was quite distracting for the game. The hard-hitting music with the drop moments didn't feel like it complemented the graphics style or the gameplay and worked against them.

Humor

The Humor category does not seem completely applicable to this game, unless the little "quack" from the barrier robot was intended as the humour. I mean the robot was cute, but that sfx and the tone of the game/gameplay/story didn't really feel like it was all that funny to me.

Mood

As mentioned in the Audio section, I did feel like the music clashed with the style of the graphics. I wonder if it was chosen to sound "mysterious", as it does have a bit of that tone to it but in a very aggressive way. The composition of the track felt like it was a completely different mood to what the rest of the game was going for. I guess personally, pixel-art styles typically you would expect more chiptune, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that. Still, I think the gameplay music could have been a little more in the background, as I did personally feel like the gameplay music really was my main obstacle in giving this particular category a more positive rating.

Captain Distress by HexStart 2026-04-27T08:07:42Z

(comment 1/2)

There was one thing that drew me into checking this game out: the colour purple. And even though what piqued my interest was something very shallow, I'm glad I checked this one out. I played the Hotfix build.

It might be strange, but what stood out to me most about this game is the UI. The text was very clean and easy to read, there were a lot of good indicators for the planets and their distances from where the player is at, along with the previous distance. If I had to nitpick one thing, I would have liked to see bold text applied to the yellow for the distress beacon messages. With yellow and white having a lower contrast ratio to one another, it would help players who may not be able to see low contrast as well to distinguish the emphasized text in another matter that is not just colour.

I appreciate the elaborate settings menu. I found I didn't have to mess with it too much, but I'm glad it was there.

Fun

The controls were simple and easy to understand, which made it easy to focus on building up the skill of the actual gameplay. During my gameplay, I was curious if fuel was going to cost extra for going longer distances, but that didn't seem to be the case. However, it made sense from a gameplay standpoint since the limited placement of the fuel station and funds balances out the difficulty. It was easy to want to replay this multiple times to discover the names of the planets and their appearances. I even threw a couple of times just to go to super far distances to see what other planets were out there. I also enjoyed the puzzle aspect of the gameplay, figuring out from the message clues and the distances to pinpoint the location of these ships to be rescued.

Captain Distress screenshot 03.png

Innovation

A puzzle game where you have to manage your own limited resources seems pretty straightforward, however, I do like that this entry is not so much focused on the journey between the planets and treats it more like a tactical turn-based sort of game.

Theme

A game about responding to signals fits the theme just fine for me. I do like that in the game over, you end up being the one having to send out signals yourself, which does give this feeling of continuity to retries where the distress signals you're responding to feel as though they are a previous player's "attempts".

Graphics

The game has a nice colour palette. I like the appearance of many of the planets and the details on the ship. If there's one thing I would have liked to see, graphics-wise, it would be animations. I don't think it needs to be flashy or anything, but it would have been nice to see some lights on the ship, maybe some tints on certain planets - some smaller animations to make the game feel a little more immersive.

Captain Distress by HexStart 2026-04-27T08:07:50Z

(comment 2/2)

Audio

I like that the menu theme is the backing to the main game theme. It leads to a neat seamless experience when starting the main game itself.

The main game music is lowkey with just the right amount of energy fitting for this kind of exploration game. It has just the right vibe to not wear out after multiple listens - in fact, I've left the game running in the background this entire time while writing up this review. I particularly like the sound design, specifically the soft keys and the little fading pads that kind of get panned as they fade out. This music is a good background track that you can do other things to, and I think it serves its purpose in the game well. I see picusmajor has a Bandcamp, so hopefully we will see this game's soundtrack on there soon.

Most of the sfx are good, though I will say that the distress sound - when you first get a message - seems quite loud compared to the other sfx like menu interaction sounds. It seems a bit like a creature and I found it jumped out to me distractingly. While there is an sfx slider in the settings, turning it down would make the other "normal" level sfx too quiet to hear.

Generally, the audio feels a bit on the quiet side, even with all the in-game settings maxed out. I had to turn up the game's volume quite a bit in my own headphones.

Humor

The game did not seem all the humourous to me. The most I could think of would be in some of the dialogue being amusing, but it mostly just seemed like people who were in distress.

Mood

The music primarily carries the mood here. I love the look of the "outer space". The details are what help to also set the atmosphere and complement the music. Again, I do think some idle animations (as described in Graphics) could help with the mood/immersion a bit more, but for the most part, the graphics, music and gameplay complement each other.

Crashout by leenoi 2026-04-23T07:43:20Z

I'm glad to come across a game that approached the theme in a similar way to what my team did. I saw the traffic light on the thumbnail on the front page and was instantly curious. Overall, I like the structuring of the levels around days and gradually introducing newer gameplay/balancing mechanics and other elements. It was really well done especially given the compo timeframe. I love the way the traffic light in the menu responds when you hit Play.

I wish the game also mentioned that arrow keys were also valid controls in addition to WASD. I'm glad that there's dual support regardless.

Fun

At first, I found myself spamming the WASD keys to keep the lights red, but I like that the first day is very open to allow the player to get used to the controls before introducing the warning of the power usage. I found myself being quite on edge while playing, so I do think the gameplay was generally engaging in that sense, and it helped that it was easy to understand how to play and focus more on having to play well.

Was there a limit to the power usage? I didn't quite understand it as the game would show the total amount of times the lights were used and that accumulated through levels. The way the tutorial presented it made it seem like there was a power bank limit, but there was no UI showing what that limit was.

Innovation

I think the general presentation of the game is memorable enough, like there's a distinct enough style with the recorded audio.

Theme

As far as being direct to the theme, this is a game about controlling traffic signals, and I think it executes that well.

Graphics

The colour palette is cohesive, and I like the design of the roads and cars. I like the freehand drawn lines on the traffic lights. The cars have a nice little animation as they drive.

Audio

It sounded like the menu music was a live-recorded acoustic guitar, which I really enjoyed. I kind of wish there was in-game music, or at least some ambience like sfx for the cars driving on the road to fill the empty space left when there are no other actions occurring. It did sound like there was some sort of hum while there was supposedly no audio during gameplay, which was a little strange.

The crash sound felt a bit like a plastic bag being crinkled. Is that what it is? I struggled with coming up with a good crash sound effect and tried using a plastic bag and heavily processing it, but I couldn't get it to sound right.

I did only get up to day 3 and was having some trouble with timing those traffic lights for the ambulance - I might come back to this entry later to try it again. Personally, I think the siren sounds could be panned in the direction that the ambulance would be approaching from, since that sound appears to be the cue before the ambulance approaches - at least for the left and right directions. I even think with some dynamic changes, you could possibly imply top and bottom cues. In addition to the sfx, it would be nice to have some visual cues of where the ambulance will appear at the same time as the sfx plays - maybe some of the lights of the ambulance appearing on the side it's approaching briefly before it drives through.

Humor

Were the ambulance sounds your voice simulating a siren? I really like that; it's very funny. I did laugh out loud when I first heard the siren.

Mood

Things do feel a bit ominous without music during the gameplay. I guess if you really wanted to enhance the mood, some ambience could have been nice here, like road sounds. But I think for what was done in the timeframe, the mood is cohesive enough and no element of the game felt overly distracting or at odds with the other elements.

Stargazer by plutonicrock 2026-04-27T05:13:09Z

(comment 1/2)

I was interested in playing this game upon seeing a preview of the graphics and learning that the gameplay centred around discovery through audio. The visual style definitely delivered, but the audio was a bit hit-or-miss in terms of its execution. The gameplay was also difficult to understand, but reading through some of the previous comments, I understand that this was more a result of not having the full extent of the jam to work on the game. In the end, I think you delivered something playable that works, albeit confusingly - but still a good setup to work with and expand upon for the future.

Fun

The gameplay was difficult for me to understand within the context of the game and its description - particularly when it came to the attuning. The telescope searching part of the gameplay worked quite well, and it was fun and satisfying to come across a planet with the limited scope of vision. The planets seem to have thoughtful names and appearances, from what I've seen thus far.

When it comes to the tuning, the biggest problem I had was that the knob-tuning was very tedious. Having to click each time to move the knob a notch clockwise just didn't work with not knowing what exactly the knobs do. In a game about tuning, I would have liked to have the knobs behave a little more like a dial. I think the incremental knobs could have worked if the audio feedback in response to those settings were more obvious, as the challenge would then be to not "overtune". But in this current setting, it's difficult to have these hard-to-manage controls without giving the player more direction as to what they are supposed to be playing for.

The page description mentions "static", but I only heard static in one of the planets out of the 4 I came across (the purple one with the eye, to be exact). The other 3 planets didn't seem to have any static, so I had no idea what I was tuning or affecting. I'm not sure what the intention here was supposed to be, but my intuition was that the two knobs maybe control two frequencies or maybe the panning. It also seemed like the audio itself was fading in and out of the static itself, so it wasn't really clear what was from the music itself vs. the audio in response to the dials being turned.

Stargazer screenshot 01.png

I love the idea of searching for particular planets to create unique combinations of poems. I didn't have a chance to explore all the planets, but I like that this game incentivizes multiple replays.

Innovation

Using audio itself and tuning as the "signal" to find the other planets was a super neat idea, and I think it's distinct from the other entries I've played and seen thus far. That plus the overall aesthetic and gameplay makes this entry stand out - particularly the idea of using the planets as "songs" and building off of that.

Theme

Two things stand out to me in regards to this entry's use of the theme: the "signal" of the audio cues when searching for planets and the signal calling out to the planets to attune them. Both elements are relatively clear, even if the signal is not noticeably visual - I think this was an interesting use of the theme that I think has a lot of potential within the game to be worked with and expanded upon.

Stargazer by plutonicrock 2026-04-27T05:13:23Z

(comment 2/2)

Graphics

The art in this game is gorgeous. I love the watercolour-esque style of the graphics. It gives the game a sort of ethereal aesthetic that works for a game about gazing at the cosmos.

That being said, I found the NPC on the right in the overworld to be a little disturbing to look at. Maybe the fact that they have no face, or that they kind of bounced up and down when I would re-focus on the game. They almost seemed 3D; it was a little off-putting to me (but still looked pretty cool for the most part).

The one graphical nitpick I have is that the knobs seem to have this square gradient border around them, which I'm not sure was intentional, since they are circles. And those gradient borders were moving at an angle when the knobs were turning, which seemed to be less intentional. You can even see it in the earlier screenshot I posted when looking closely.

Audio

The use of audio when searching for the planets is well done. There's good sound design in the compositions that works with the graphics. You set up good audio cues for indicating where to look for the different planets and lock into them when using the telescope.

There are a couple of elements I think could be adjusted regarding the use of the audio: - I wish the music transitioned more seamlessly from the overworld (with the tuner/telescope/NPC) into the tuner. It's weird to have no music in this overworld and then all of a sudden hear music when loading up the tuner. If there is to be silence here, I think this could be place to have more ambience and/or fade in the planet sounds when loading up the tuner machine. - I don't like that the music stops and then loops again when interacting with the planet in the tuning room. I wish it played continuously in a loop so that the player can hear the differences more clearly. It just seems awkward for the loop to end on a few seconds of silence.

Humor

This category does not feel applicable to this game. I couldn't find anything that necessarily came across as intentionally humourous (but if there is, let me know).

Mood

The art style and audio work together harmoniously to create this beautiful, otherworldly sort of mood that I think fits with a more laidback gameplay of finding planets and tuning to them.