Ree Rolph

SPÅRVAGN by Dustyroom 2020-10-06T02:51:50Z

Oh, this is wonderful. The aesthetic and theme obviously bring to mind Mini Metro, but this has a desperate tension all of its own. In Mini Metro, you get into spirals where you can't keep up with demand, until your metro overflows. This game is a constant juggling act where you wrestle with a tram system designed by someone who took to transport policy like Harold Shipman took to medicine. Sure, it's deceptively simple at first, but by the last level you're crashing trolleys togethers like a toddler in an ethics class. Sure, you could play it safe like it's a game of Rush Hour, but where's the fun in that? Stick a procedural generation system on in and pop it on mobile, I'd buy it in an instant.

Paradox by Wahooney 2020-10-06T02:03:09Z

An interesting prototype, I'd like to see where it develops! Quite a small level, but still enough space to demonstrate the concept. I think you could make some really neat puzzles with this system. There were a couple of places where you could get trapped, so I had to start again from the beginning, but enjoyed it overall.

waveloop by radmars 2020-10-06T03:46:46Z

Not entirely sure what to say about this one. I was a bit confused about what I was doing during the game, but it seems like it's basically about layering on different loops in a multi-track song? I guess that fits the theme, but I'm not entirely sure how it's a game. It felt more like a sort of experimental toy. Interesting to play with though.

Fractman by samh 2020-10-06T01:51:54Z

Just source code, in a format I don't recognise. Is there a playable executable?

Gravitron - 2047 by RAC-Games 2020-10-06T00:29:58Z

I like where you're going with this! However, I did have some difficulties with it. Most significantly, it was unplayably laggy. I think I downloaded the newer version, but it was still almost impossible to play. Most of the other problems descend from that one. I could never really figure out the range of the gun I was using. The spread seemed to imply close range shotgun, but sometimes I accidentally killed people from far away, and sometimes people I was right next to didn't go down when shot. The game also ended up pointing me to a random pink thing on a dead end staircase? I don't know if that was the end, or if a level trigger failed to load. The mood was good, and I liked the music, but the lag really hurt it.

Blood Drive by Tyler Miller 2020-10-06T00:14:51Z

To be honest, I found this very disorienting and difficult to play. The perspective is sort of isometric (ie. looking down at the character diagonally from above) but it controls like a third person shooter. Except the horizontal axis was flipped, so you move your mouse right to go left, and left to go right. I've never seen this before, and found it very offputting. Otherwise, it seemed like a fairly standard wave based shooter, with some mild tower defence elements. Not overly keen, but I suspect some small changes like moving the camera lower and fixing the look would make it much more playable.

ludum factorum by AMastryukov 2020-10-06T14:12:02Z

Interesting little experience! Found the rhythm game a little glitchy (although it's possible I'm just bad at rhythm games), but I always like to see a typing minigame!

NEONWISE'89 by fmdkdd 2020-10-06T00:07:58Z

OK, I rated this all 5 stars. The concept is really cool, like a digital version of one of those "don't touch the wire" puzzles, but much more interesting. The minimal graphics and sound worked really well, and it had very strong sense of style. I have to admit though, that must be the most times I've dyed in a menu screen! Unfortunately, I didn't finish this as the game kept crashing when I was halfway through. While that's to be expected of a game jam game, a level select screen would've gone a long way. As it is, I played from the beginning until crash twice, and didn't feel like trying it for the third time. That's not a knock on the game though - very enjoyable overall.

Defuse in under 5 by Darylsteak 2020-10-06T14:04:26Z

Liked this a lot! Reminded me a bit of McPixel. The lowest amount of time I managed to complete in is 2 seconds. Good work!

PARAD🕑X SECURITY by grizeldi 2020-10-06T02:07:15Z

Game page seems to be down.

The Mortal Coil by MarkoPoloDev 2020-10-06T13:25:23Z

I enjoyed this overall! I wouldn't say it's a roguelike exactly, the map stays the same between runs so there's no exploration, and you pretty much need most of the upgrades to win. The idea of focussing the gameplay around crowd control and traps is really interesting! I thought it was a bit of a shame when the Lasso damage upgrade sort of removed that. It felt like that was really the core of the game, but after that point you can just spam lasso and traps until everyone is dead. I didn't beat the boss, mostly because it felt unclear how I was meant to. It would be nice to see the core combat concept expanded, but I feel like adding the time loop and upgrade system didn't really add anything to that. A longer linear level, and possibly additional traps instead of upgrades, would've been a better fit in my opinion. The loop theme was already well represented in an interesting way in the core gameplay *ahem* loop.

Cyclotroid by Korteh 2020-10-06T03:38:02Z

I thought the reconfigurable maze was a really novel, if slightly unintuitive idea! However, I have to say I had to give up fairly quickly due to my dislike of things with 8 legs jumping at me. Even freaks me out in Minecraft. That's a personal problem though, For people who don't have hang-ups with creepy-crawlies, it's a good time!

Shattered Hub by Gen Liu 2020-10-07T01:17:18Z

Not great to be honest, unless I'm missing something crucial about it. It seems to basically be the same platform level repeated multiple times with a terminal containing a slightly different log. I can't find anything more than that.

Hypervisor by DoctorMozart 2020-10-06T04:09:11Z

Oh, this looks awesome! Love the idea, and the zine is really nicely put together. I'd love to play this as Tom Baker's Agent from Douglas Adam's Hyperland documentary

p060dd4p.jpg

Countercl0ckwise by Iker Díaz 2020-10-10T02:27:11Z

Really nice work! Loved the minimalist aesthetic and sound design, and a really innovative way to build a platformer. It felt like the difficulty spiked considerably at around 5, so it would've been nice to have that curve smoothed out a bit. It might also be good to have a fast-forward button or something, so you can accelerate through the early parts of the game once you're confident with them. It gets a bit repetitive going through the first 30 seconds after every death. Nice job!

Chicxulub by Literal Games 2020-10-07T02:00:19Z

Very cute! I really liked the sprite work, and the sound design complemented it well. The high starting mass did seem to remove some jeopardy though. It felt like you could remain still for the whole game, and still probably make it to the end. Having lower initial mass and checkpoints on each wave would've been more interesting imo. Nice work!

Light footsteps after the rain by Chocolat-Endive 2020-10-06T04:00:23Z

I liked it a lot! A nice mood piece, it kind of feels like you you'd find it hidden on a scratched-up CD-ROM you'd unearthed from a drawer. If that makes sense? It probably doesn't. Lovely photographs.

[PlayerName]'s nth loop by Matthewjd389 2020-10-05T23:48:09Z

So I finished the game! Mixed feelings about it. I was enjoying it a fair bit, felt a bit like DLC Quest or Evoland from years ago. I had a few frustrations, particularly with the spikes blending into the background and the height of the jump not scaling with time holding down the space bar. I was also a little confused about why the Braid rewind time ability was there, as it didn't seem to be used for any puzzles except for getting crystals without dying, and that isn't really neccessary for most of the game. I was honestly really frustrated when I got to the Lost Crystal bit though. I'd been spending the whole game focusing on gathering collectables, and then I had my save file deleted without warning, and had to finish the hardest part of the game, without seeing it before, without dying. As far as I can tell, due to the inconsistent nature of the platforming, it would take pure luck to actually win on your first playthrough. It just pulled the rug from under me a bit, and felt like a betrayal of expectations up to that point. It also made the previous mild frustrations much more irritating. I did want to finish it though, so I didn't grab the Lost crystal on the next run, practiced on the end section, then got it on my third run after that. I think the no save run would've been better as an additional challenge run, or at least warned about beforehand (unless I overlooked that.) Otherwise, good work!

nth loop.PNG

Hell Glider by TheAxe316 2020-10-07T00:22:03Z

Ooh, I loved this! Too few games have a decent grappling hook in them, particularly platformers. The closest I can think of is Floating Point by Tom Francis, in which I have an embarrassing amount of hours. Art is lovely, and the slow initial movement made the grappling feel more fluid and exciting in comparison. Would love to see a more complete version of this. Hell, I feel like the core loop is good enough that it could be well served by procedural generation. A roguelite version of this could be really interesting.

WhileLoops by Ausstein 2020-10-06T13:56:07Z

Very enjoyable! I have to admit though, the (basically) unskippable cutscenes between each playable section did slightly put me off replaying enough to finish. The jokes were funny, but there weren't really enough to avoid repetition on one run, let alone multiple.

CREATION EXCAVATION by taffyko 2020-10-06T03:28:32Z

I liked this a fair bit, although I didn't finish it. The fully destructable landscapes meshed well with the time loop, as it meant you couldn't tear up the whole game too much. The aesthetic was lovely, quite Downwell like, although I don't know if there's a proper name for it. I felt it could've used a bit more direction - I found 4 of the totems, three destruction, three creation, and couldn't find any more clues of where to go. It's possible I was just being boneheaded and missing them, but after a few resets I decided to throw in the towel. The pre-mined parts of the map worked well as in-game clues, but sometimes you had to mine in random spots to find things (I think.) The destruction and creation tools were fun to play around with, although they could be a little finicky at times when you missed a block and got stuck. I always like to see games made with Godot as well, even though I still haven't figured out how it works. Overall, good job.

HONK II by Tricky_Fat_Cat 2020-10-09T18:54:33Z

Liked this a lot! Impressive scale for a jam game, but it felt like that let in more little frustrations that could have been adjusted with smaller scope. It felt particularly easy to get lost, especially early on where there's no clear indicator that the red lights on walls are buttons that open doors (I was thinking in doom mode and looking for a red keycard!) The weapons also felt a bit flimsy - partly because of the sounds, but also because of the delay between striking a killing blow, and having an enemy die. If you're going for a doom-like, you need solid, clear, and brutal feedback when an enemy dies. I'd love to see this refined a bit more!

Detachment Undone by Gossian 2020-10-10T20:59:45Z

To be honest, it feels like this is far from a playable state. The aesthetic is nice, but the gameplay is both glitchy and not particularly engaging. I feel like this could be interesting given more work, but can't rate it highly as is.

Escape Velocity by Sean Holloway 2020-10-10T02:59:18Z

Really liked the concept, and the "smashing the keyboard" sound on death integrates really well with the music. Eventually, it felt like I was just trial and erroring it, so I threw in the towel, but maybe I'll try it again when it isn't 4 in the morning. Good job!

Aboard by Chris Mulholland 2020-10-10T02:44:43Z

Liked it a lot, but was it meant to end at Day 4? Other people seem to be calling that the end, but it just went on to the next day for me at some point. Was a bit confused about what had happened there. Graphics and mood were all great though, good job!

Crypt of Capitalism by Lychee 2020-10-06T03:04:59Z

I like the concept of the stuck in the microtransaction loop a lot! The game definitely felt like it needed a bit more work, the platforming was quite floaty, and I would've liked to see the core concept developed a bit more. It reminded me a bit of DLC Quest, which you can tell is a fair few years old from because it used DLC instead of microtransactions, but I haven't seen a more recent game that went with this concept. I'd be interested to see it developed further.

GLASS CLEANER 2077 by 730 2020-10-10T00:56:42Z

Nice job! Would've been nice to have some consequence to the glass washing, as it seemed a bit disconnected from the story. Although, to be fair, that's also mostly true in VA-11 HALL-A anyway. Nice mood piece, and a good homage to the original.

Shadow of Archimedes by Eckkert 2020-10-06T14:33:45Z

Oh wonderfully done. Beautiful, evocative, interesting. I'd say I'd like to see more of it, but it felt perfectly formed. Good work!

Ouroboros by JoeDev 2020-10-06T12:43:36Z

Ooh, a very cool short experience. Like if the Lernie boss fight from Hades was an homage to Shadow of the Colossus. There did seem to be a glitch where if you fell off a platform that was immediately devoured, you'd just be stuck there and have to alt-f4 out. As the game is quite short, even binding restart to R and quit to esc would've gone a long way. Great work!

DIMENSION LOOP by Danial Jumagaliyev 2020-10-07T01:30:46Z

Very good work, my favourite of the more meta games I've played so far. The minimal graphics are well executed, and none of the additions outstay their welcome.

Quantum Split by InitialPosition 2020-10-09T18:28:20Z

I liked this a lot! I've played a few games this LD with a similar mechanic, but this has the best feeling platforming of any I've tried. The last few puzzles made good use of the iteration of clones as well. I'd love to try a longer version of this! I didn't seem to get any sound while playing the HTML5 version - I don't know if that's a problem on my end, or with the way it's set up as other people seem to have it working.

ENDLESS DUNGEON by Sikatrix 2020-10-06T00:19:23Z

Not going to rate this, because it seems to be broken. Can only go right and down, so almost immediately get pinned in the corner and killed. Throwing up a lot of unity error messages. I think this probably needs a bit more work before it's playable.

Time Gear by edubochi 2020-10-06T04:18:29Z

Hey! Instead of uploading the files separately, you need to zip up the entire folder they're in and upload that. Currently you're missing the data folder, so the game won't run.

Kill Me Plenty by Blood_Jackal23 2020-10-06T02:15:42Z

Short, but sweet. I don't think I've seen the idea of changing level architecture based on how you die before, although I'm not hugely knowledgeable about platformers. I'd be interested to see a more developed game on this theme.

Bullet Space by tanatb 2020-10-06T02:28:43Z

I quite enjoyed this! I did find that the difficulty spiked from "too easy" to "impossible" for me as a non-bullet hell player within about one level, but it had a solid aesthetic, and I'm sure it's possible once you get the hang of it. Also, it seemed a bit odd to put the beginning of the usual "death-restart" loop of roguelikes basically into the tutorial, so you'd have to get through the slow, very easy stuff to get to the meatier parts. Also, it's a small point, but it would've been nice to have weightier sound effects for hits. It was quite difficult to tell sometimes when the screen was very busy whether you were connecting with people, and it would help a lot with game feel. Not the sort of game I tend to play, but it was fun to give it a try.

Back To Routine by Xisco 2020-10-07T01:42:26Z

Ha, very nice. Loved the 1-bit graphics. Cycled between drinking coffee and working while avoiding going to the bar until I got a disease. Overall, a great simulator of the last six months of my life.

Clockmaker by Tristan Mansfield 2020-10-06T01:47:04Z

Oh, I loved this. It felt like a lost flash game from about 10 years back. I did use the backspace teleport a bit to complete puzzles, which may have been cheating, but I had fun with it. That last puzzle was a right pain in the arse, I had to spend a fair amount of time replacing my clones with slightly more efficient ones to get through the door in time. Wonderful stuff. Other than that, beautiful graphics, good sound design, great mechanics, good work all round.

Collateral Damage by Michael Parrish 2020-10-06T13:39:45Z

I liked this a lot! Although I certainly destroyed the earth more often than the aliens did! Simple idea, well executed. I would have liked a bit of music, even relatively simple, but a very enjoyable experience.

Star-Dogged Moon by Ree Rolph 2020-10-06T04:28:55Z

@lychee Oops! Sorry, that wasn't my intent. I hate it when games do that. I don't blame you for not following it, I had to rush it and basically cut the conclusion so it's pretty incomprehensible.

Star-Dogged Moon by Ree Rolph 2020-10-06T22:54:40Z

@projectaroid Ha, a little flourish from the artist. The reference pics were Christopher Lee in the Wicker Man, but I wasn't going to say no to a Tom Baker!

Star-Dogged Moon by Ree Rolph 2020-10-10T02:16:57Z

@fawnblue Glad you enjoyed it! Some of those issues are things we didn't have time to fix before the deadline, the script was basically thrown straight in without proofreading so there may well be some mistakes. Dialogue shouldn't have been cut off though, were you running it in full screen/odd resolution? There are definitely a few UI problems that show up if the window is too small.