sakura_magika

Woofice Chair! by JorgeGameDev 2020-10-25T19:16:41Z

i love this game, probably the most well polish of all i've played so far. the art is so cute and well done, i love the ridiculous character designs. the art style reminds me of alien homonid era games. i'm curious about this cute blue haired girl in the background. the "park rules" were also a great touch.

the concept ties in perfectly to the theme. keeping your RPM up is a fun gameplay mechanic, the controls are simple but the play can be challenging. i really liked the different whistling sound effects when i mouse over a button.

i liked the background music, but honestly, sometimes one of the sound effects of hitting the critters sounded like a baby crying, which was really disturbing.

it took me a bit of playing to figure out that you automatically attack when you're close to enemies, and that attacking slows down your rpm. i could never figure out if there was any difference between the weapons, or what the point of getting weapons was. are they just visual, or do they actually behave different or deal different damage? i'm also not sure what the treats did. just give more points, or give back some "health" (or momentum)?

some obvious next steps to take would be different enemy behaviors and weapon behaviors, or maybe special moves (like a bomb to clear the screen), (unless you already had that, and i just didn't get far enough) or giving each of the dog characters a different signature move.

thanks for making such a cute and fun game!

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Time Surge 2: Clean Up Time by HitchH1k3r 2020-10-23T19:15:53Z

This game is amazingly complex and sophisticated, bravo and well done!!!

I love the visuals, especially the sickly rainbow chronotoxin. Having the chronofluid to make objects "unstuck in time" to effect the next loop, and unlock things as you loop is awesome! (Also, is that a Slaughterhouse 5 reference?)

I think some visual feedback or indicator that you can pick up chronofluid with the mop would have been good, I didn't know what to do with it at first. All other objects interact just by pushing them or stepping on them, so the only way to know how to mop is by reading the directions which you should never count on players to do. If there had been some kind of visual feedback for the ability to mop up and put down the chronofluid, I think it would have been perfect!

St. Exton's Night by aurel 2020-10-27T18:56:20Z

i absolutely love the pastel rainbow color palette and aesthetic of this game. the main character design is super cute. i think the gameplay is fun and ties into the theme well. the music was super cool too! the UI was gorgeously designed too, i love the disjointed feeling of the soft beautiful colors of the "panic meter", with the creepy face and what the meter represents.

two pieces of feedback are that i felt it was rather hard to aim correctly when shooting the bad spirits, especially with no aiming reticle, and the green sprites that give you arrows are spread too far and thin, making it too punishing when i miss. i would have enjoyed the game more if i felt more free and empowered as the player to run around saving the townsfolk by shooting the bad spirits, instead of spending most of the time running around trying to hunt down ammo and getting really stressed out whenever i miss a shot.

if you could refine the gameplay so i spent more time running around shooting the bad spirits and saving the townsfolk, which is fun and cool, making it easier to aim, and having to spend less time running around trying to hunt down the scarce ammo, which ended up feeling more frustrating and annoying, rather than a "healthy stress", i think it would really improve the game. perhaps there could be more green sprites, closer to where the action is, and they could respawn, and/or making them give you more arrows when you touch them.

overall, it was still a really fun and beautiful experience to play this game! incredibly well done in such a short time frame!

Closing the Loop by Frederika 2020-10-23T22:36:21Z

i think it was less fun and more educational. at least it works! could be a good foundation to build on for more complexity.

Rest In Peace by Somnium 2020-10-23T18:13:40Z

it was very pleasant, and very easy. i think there's a lot of potential with this theme and style, to add more complexity! for a game jam, i think this set out and achieved very reasonable goals.

Crazy River by Shugor 2020-10-24T20:07:18Z

this was a fun little entry! i liked the dialogue and humor. it would be nice if it wasn't all left to chance, and you had some influence of picking where you go. the IT guy with the computer in the lazy river was hillarious.

one technical note, i have a high resolution monitor, and the game's display was tiny on my screen, and i couldn't resize it, so that was rather annoying. nice work over all tho!

Arcternal by superjai 2020-10-23T01:04:56Z

Visuals are great, I like how the enemies are glitchy color. I really like how you can see the other sides of the loop as you pan around, all the environment visuals were very engaging.

I was confused by the presence of sidescroller style platforms, when I didn't have an actual character to run around, just moving the camera and pointing and clicking.

I also think some more visual feedback for successfully hitting an enemy would be good, I wasn't sure if my shots were connecting most of the time.

It also didn't feel very rewarding to just be stuck fighting until all the crystals died. A way to break out of the loop and win would have been nice.

Ascend by almost 2020-10-23T23:04:38Z

this is incredible for a game jam! i love how the music stays in sync between the seasons but different instruments come in to play the melody. the art was beautiful, i love the painterly look, and how it transitions from season to season. i really liked the rain in spring.

the mechanics are great, changing things in one season to move forward in the other. i think there's an inconsistency with the bear's position not updating in every season, but that's minor.

my main criticism is that it was really hard to jump on the bubbles, and climb on the vines / icicles. i ended up getting stuck at the first place where you need to jump on the bubbles. i couldn't figure out what to do after making the second apple drop. i watched a play through, it seems you need to backtrack several seasons, because the path is blocked off, to get back to winter, but that wasn't obvious to me, and i just couldn't get back up on the bubbles again a second time.

the creature at the end was very surprising! the clouds were beautiful too.

i think a bit more tuning with the movement, jumping, and climbing mechanics would have made this entry perfect!

Electron the Electrical Engineer by xilentor 2020-10-23T22:26:01Z

This was delightful! I love the 3D graphics, the cute designs, little touches like how the menu is crafted, and the level reset animation. The puzzles had a great difficulty scale, I made it to level 9.

The way you incorporated this Jam's theme into your gameplay worked really well!

I think some simple background music, and sounds for hoping and completing the loop, would have gone a long way in making it feel immersive, but this is already incredible for a game jam!

Loop by Papaver 2020-10-23T00:11:05Z

My favorite game so far! I love how you made the character stuck in a movement loop, instead of a time / gameplay loop. The simplicity of the one button gameplay really suited the visuals and sound. The gameplay was very fun and challenging. I really like how you incorporated more mechanics in the levels, like getting the stars to open the gates.

The challenge of minimizing your loop count also makes it a puzzle game, though I'm no where near good enough to optimize playthroughs of the levels hehe.

Loop Guys by croze 2020-10-24T19:47:24Z

fun little experience, i felt like the character movement and jumping was pretty slow and smudgy, but i ended up feeling hyped up and excited as the game got harder, and i got closer to being the last one left. i think with a it of tuning for the movement dynamics, and making the camera not go behind the level, this would be fun to play with friends!

Flip a Talk by gamescodedogs 2020-10-23T19:02:11Z

Art was very well polished for a game jam, like the Ozzy reference. I think the gameplay is cool, and the phrases are funny.

I appreciate the gameplay as a metaphor for difficult conversations, but I also feel kind of lost or conflicted, because it seems like the only way to progress in the game is to say negative or aggressive things to damage your opponents. If it's a game about the experience of talking with people, I would have expected there to be some kind of positive way to make it through. Verbal violence doesn't seem much better than physical violence.

Loop Frogs by GaryS 2020-10-27T00:47:36Z

this game is awesome! I love the idea of one character being in a loop, and the other not, and using that to solve puzzles. The jump height difference between the two is another great layer of complexity.

the platforming (particularly jumping over tall fire) was a bit challenging/frustrating to me, and I really really didn't care the sound effects of jumping, for some reason they made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

Is there a way to restart/reset a level? I couldn't figure out any way to, which was also kind of frustrating.

Overall, great job, your idea was awesome and your execution was was solid, just some nitpicks / user friendly things.

Loop around in a cycle by fraanns 2020-10-23T01:17:06Z

I think this is a great entry. I think the movement mechanic is really creative, though it kinda felt I was like a a penguin waddling around from the top down. Some more audio feedback for when I move would have made it more immersive. I think all the level mechanics were fun and challenging. I appreciate the minimal art style.

POKKO by gord10ahmet 2020-10-27T19:22:59Z

i love this game!!! the pixel gameboy style and color palette are really pretty, theme tie in is perfect. i love how the battery meter depletes on the gameboy, and that's how you gameover / reset. the progression of difficulty and puzzles was really nice. music and SFX were perfectly suited to the game. amazing level of polish! well done well done.

The Circulation Desk by FireTwin 2020-10-25T21:45:30Z

i really liked this! the music and graphics fit perfectly together, and i loved the visual style. it felt very meditative and relaxing to play, even as it got harder. i wonder if there was any kind of ending, or way to break out, or if it just gets impossibly difficult...

libarian.png

Memoirs by Virtual Turtle Studio 2020-10-24T03:42:21Z

this is really lovely! the 2d sketch -> 3d model style looks wonderful. the music fits well with the mood, and i like how its written, sometimes heartfelt and sometimes witty.

i want to especially, Especially, thank you for using gender neutral pronouns in the love letter from your first crush. it really means a lot to me, to feel included in this space you've created, and be able to really see myself in it.

Escape From Rotting Town by Jonathan Lorenz 2020-10-23T00:02:20Z

i think the mood was set up well by the visuals and soundtrack. moving the character felt good, but the combat felt imprecise, repetitive, and i didn't feel like i had good feedback for when i hit an enemy. i didn't really feel caught in a loop, as much as trudging through doom, with just more and more enemies.

some kind of gameplay progression would have been nice, like stronger attacks to deal with the increasing number of enemies.

Wizard Recurse by Ismael Rodriguez 2020-10-27T19:16:51Z

wow you did a fantastic job with this! the time warp mechanic works very well, and makes for some really fun to solve puzzles! i love the graphics and sound too. the little colorful magical particles were really cute. the progression of the levels felt really good, just the right pacing of introducing new challenges. it was fun getting all the coins! i can easily see this becoming a fully fledged game, there's so much potential for more complex and difficult puzzles with this mechanic.

i'm completely blown away by the amount of polish here. the pixel animation, the sound effects, the pretty music, everything is so well polished. congratulations on such a great entry!

Hypnic Fall by Dakke 2020-10-23T18:50:05Z

This was really fun, I love the visuals and gameplay, the sounds were a nice touch too. Fit the theme very well, and created a good atmosphere. It took me a while to figure out how to progress, collecting more and more blue energy before boosting. It presented some interesting choices, about whether I should go for the jump now, or risk trying to get more.

One critique is that I couldn't tell if there was any kind of end-goal, or if I'm just going to endlessly jump up.

Edge of Ludum Dare by danielblanco3d 2020-10-25T22:13:55Z

i really like the concept, but i felt kind of frustrated/mislead after exhausting all possibilities, and realizing they all have the same ending. it seems like you really are stuck in a loop here, which i can appreciate taking the theme very literally, but ultimately didn't feel rewarding. as a player if i feel like i'm stuck in a loop, i have a desire to find out how to break out of the loop. since this game had no way to break out, it felt like every possible choice i could make was wrong, which left me feeling just sad.

i really like text based adventures, and branching narrative story, so i like the meta commentary that this game makes, just wish there was some kind of "good end".

Ebontale by JUSTCAMH 2020-10-23T22:45:05Z

this was delightful! insanely well polished for a game jam. great job on the transitions. too bad i ran out of manna at the end and couldn't defeat the dragon.

Arcane Forest by LadyMistLeaf 2020-10-23T01:13:28Z

I finished the game! I think the pumpkin was supposed to be a hint, pushing it would show you the direction you're supposed to go, but it seemed to allow me to push it the wrong way in at least some of the screens. I liked the pumpkin's expressions and dialogue, and the character and her animations were cute.

It was fairly frustrating to get reset without a firm understanding of how the pumpkin hint system worked. I understand that you're trying to make it a puzzle to figure out how to get out, but if the interaction of the hint doesn't give me a reliable answer, then I feel like I can't trust it, and am more inclined to just give up, rather than painstakingly exhaust all possibilities and memorize the solution.

RENT by Jam373 2020-10-24T19:42:21Z

well this was completely horrifying! i really like your art style and animation, the blend of pixel art and scribbly traditionally drawn pieces was awesome.

i liked the silent film dialogue style, but it felt a bit slow to me, pressing space to advance through quicker would have been nice.

i liked the gear puzzle, but i actually got stuck at the part where he goes to confront the landlord, where you press space and the hand slaps or something. i just couldn't figure out what to do there.

nice work over all!

loop runner by xiyou 2020-10-24T19:30:16Z

this was a cute little experience, i liked the pixel art and chiptune. the granny humor was great! i really chuckled at the wall of grannies. i like the animation of the disappointed bear shaking their head too.

Hardcore Quest 2020 by Rrawrr 2020-10-24T21:01:36Z

love the graphics in this entry! reminds me of N64 games. the dialogue was cute too.

Killing Count Time by NiKaDra 2020-10-25T22:05:31Z

i really like the pixel graphics and character design. i think the sounds created a good mood. i'm not sure why, but when i clicked to fire, it would only shoot like 5% of the time. i'm using a trackpad. at first i thought there was some sort of cooldown or ammo mechanic, but i watched the playthrough video, and that doesn't seem to be the case, so i'm not sure, maybe its a bug.

one feedback i have for story telling is that it felt kind of arbitrary that you just play through it twice, and that somehow stops the Count's time magic. i felt like there should have been something you do different the second time round, and i thought the clock in the front of the castle could have something to do with it, like maybe if you destroy the clock, then you're able to beat him once and for all, and his time magic fails.

i think the clock in the loading screen is my favorite part, its very beautifully painted, and i love the infinity symbol with the glow constantly moving through it.

Loop Lab by LeGoLaZ 2020-10-24T03:47:07Z

i love the 3d art style, very cute. nice use of time to make the puzzles! nice job making all this in a game jam!

Office Dating Simulator 2020 by Brainloaf Studio 2020-10-24T19:24:32Z

this was a delightful little experience. the humor was great, so many little touches everywhere, like the jokes on the white board. i love all the dialogue, especially the intern losing her... object. i got the receptionist ending, how delightfully gruesome!

Right Side Up by TheJonu 2020-10-23T19:30:39Z

Exploding packages is pretty fun and goofy, very relevant to modern life. I also got the big black box issue sticking around for screen transitions. I felt confused by why the packages are constantly sliding along the ground on some surfaces, there's no visual indication of what surfaces launch vs don't, so it all felt chaotic and random. I like that you had some audio effects, but I think adding an audio for the box hitting walls would have gone a long way to make it feel more immersive. Good for a gamejam over all.

Loopy Loco by ReallyQbert 2020-10-24T01:17:41Z

this was a fun little game! i think the difficulty ramped up super hard in the final levels. it seemed like there's no room for error, and i have to play perfectly or i lose. one thing to improve would be to find a softer middleground for difficulty.

i think the art is cute. i was expecting there to be more loops, but i mostly just crashed a lot.

Arthur Fisher Intelligence by Teto 2020-10-23T00:30:32Z

Very well done! The dialogue was well written, the puzzles were fun to solve, and had a good difficulty and complexity curve. I think its awesome how the robots build the very tiles that you solve the puzzle with!

Artie's eyes changing color and shape was a great touch!

Out of the Box by WiTech 2020-10-23T22:33:44Z

I made it to the fire ball room but it was too hard, had to give up. would have liked to see the rest of the game.

League of Ultranormal Detectives by Ghuyajil 2020-10-24T03:51:32Z

this is incredible for a game jam! nice job with the voice over. i liked the sound effects of taking pictures, and the background music.

Danger Beat by rhoff95 2020-10-27T01:12:42Z

oh wow this game is sooooo good! i love the concept, theme tie in, and execution.

my main feedback is that the feeling of winning is kind of vague, and very short lived. the middle green bit lights up, which i think means i won, but it's still possible to get hit by a bullet and lose parts of the beat, which in a sense is losing. at that point, the screen is full of bullets, so i go back to a state of "not winning" very quickly, especially because i'm tempted to move the character into the green middle area, which didn't seem to do anything and just got me more surrounded by bullets. i was only able to enjoy the full music for a second, or less.

i think it would feel better to become invulnerable when you beat the game, either by getting the last record to add the last musical component, or perhaps, needing the player to make it to the green glowing center after getting the final record as a final challenge. i like the latter idea, because lighting up the center automatically makes me feel like i should go there anyways.

if you did something like that, then i could feel empowered as a player, and also just feel at ease and less stressed out, since i don't have to worry about getting hit, and i can enjoy both the sound of the full music and the pretty visuals of a screen full of bullets, and dance around in them without being punished for getting hit.

without any kind of winning state like this, and so easily getting hit after finishing the song and losing progress, it honestly felt pretty stressful and frustrating. it was hard for me to even take a screenshot.

if you keep working on the game, then more songs and maybe some powerups (shield, bomb) would be fun additions!

edit: also wanted to say that i think the automatic difficulty scaling of the game works really well, where you only go one step back whenever you get hit. however, it also creates an interesting insentive where at a certain it's actually easiest if you let yourself get hit all the way back to zero, then you can very quickly try to build the beat back up before the screen becomes totally full of bullets again.

apart from the stress and impermanence of winning, i think you did a wonderful job! i was able to beat it at 90 bpm.

edit: also beat 120 yay!

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Paradox Planet by kingofsquirrel 2020-10-23T19:40:53Z

i thought the slime graphics were cute. it has kind of a slow build up, but was more enjoyable with more enemies, however, it got really tiring to have to click for every single shot with so many enemies. some kind of character progression like getting a better weapon would have been good. some kind of way to break out of the loop and win would have motivated me to play more.

also, i think the environment visuals were good, but the level design itself was too big. there were some obstacles and stuff which was cool, but too much open space, so i felt kind of lost, or like, the obstacles didn't really matter because i could just hang out in open area.

UnStuck LLC. by Int 2020-10-24T18:52:08Z

i got the poor ending! i tried a few loops of doing a good job at work, but didn't end up reaching an ending with that one, not sure if i just needed to play more times, or if i wasn't heading towards an ending. maybe some kind of indicator of your progress towards and ending would help.

overall, i like the art style and music. cassettes are inherently stuck in a loop! perfect!

Clound loop by Glayson 2020-10-23T18:20:46Z

i appreciate the celeste like gameplay, player movement and jumping was pretty hard to get used to, felt kind of sluggish somehow. having some way to eventually break out of the loop would have motivated me to play more. good job for a game jam!

i got as far as:

Screen Shot 2020-10-23 at 11.18.44 AM.png

Ballroom by StellarBearGames 2020-10-25T21:40:19Z

i enjoyed this quite a bit, the pixel graphics and animation were charming, and the music fit really well too. i actually do social waltz in real life, so this was cool to find in the game jam. nice quote from futurama, perfect!

i got wrecked when the super fast arrows started flying at me (i think the third phase of the game). reminded me of those ridiculous DDR and taiko maps that have different speeds of arrows at the same time.

Looponaut by exopunk 2020-10-23T00:19:56Z

Excellent job!!! The visuals and sound were extremely good for a game jam. I like how the difficulty goes up with each loop, especially how the increased movement speed can be a blessing and a curse, making it harder to control the astronaut through obstacles, but easier to run past the stronger enemies. The core gameplay felt pretty solidly grounded in typical platformer form, but was executed very well, felt snappy and tight.

Hanrick Hornigold and the Amazing Toothbrush of Liberty by Squidzilla 2020-10-24T04:00:04Z

great work with this! i really appreciate the dual interface of being able to type in commands, in classic TBA style, or use the buttons, so you know what's available. i wasn't able to beat it, some type of hint system would have been nice, but i liked the writing and the monochrome art style. the music was nice too!

17:18 by Alexia 2020-10-22T23:56:11Z

i liked the visuals, felt kinda vaporwave, but when I played it, nothing ever happened, no viruses came, i couldn't use any attacks. moving and jumping with the character felt floaty and sluggish, and it was confusing that i could walk off the screen a bit. is the connection to the theme just that you are always at your computer?

Plague Friend's Deathly Journey by sakura_magika 2020-10-23T18:29:13Z

Thank you all for playing!

@stellarbeargames I opted out of music ratings because I didn't think it would be fair, since I did the music post-jam, but I'm really glad you liked it! A hint to break out of the loop, you need to avoid paying the guard a coin to enter the gate. (If you did this, but still couldn't break out, then yeah, somehow, you found a bug.) I regret not starting to play the other entries in the game jam sooner, I was working really hard on continuing to update the game with everything I wanted to put in it but couldn't for the jam, so I neglected to play the other entries until I was done. I should have had more balance between playing and reviewing other games, and continuing to improve my own.

@firetwin I added music and sound effects in the post jam version, as well as a bunch of other visual touches, extra dialogue, and platforming. If you want to give it a try, I'd love to hear what you think! I'm glad you enjoyed it, same hint for you: after going through one loop, try going back in time to avoid paying the guard a coin to enter the town. And yeah, I could probably use a better font to make the game feel more enticing.

@gamescodedogs I'm glad you liked the disjoint theme and style. I remember happy tree friends from middleschool hahaha, I can see the similarities. Thanks for playing!

@hgcummings Wow, thanks for the compliment! I don't consider myself a visual artist at all, I just tried to draw everything as quickly and simply as I could. I also think there's more potential for different kinds of puzzles with this style of game. The butcher is my favorite character for sure!

Plague Friend's Deathly Journey by sakura_magika 2020-10-24T18:39:38Z

@nikadra oh wow, i'm so, so happy that you enjoyed it so much, thank you for all the compliments! writing the characters' dialogue was the most natural part of the game for me, all their lines flowed out, and it was really fun to find each individuals' sense of self. i'm so glad, and honestly relieved, that folks are receiving the visuals so well, i am completely new to drawing, this is the most i've drawn since i was in grade school, and i was really really nervous about having to make all the art my self for this jam. i actually painted everything just using my mouse, point and click... it was extremely tiring. i'm glad it turned into something that people like. i'm really pleased with how the time travel mechanic turned out, and i think it would be cool to take it further outside of a jam setting, and come up with more complex interactions. thanks for playing <3

@div00 oh wow, how embarrassing! blame unity, hahaha. i feel exactly how Plague Friend does from that screenshot, i can't believe you actually played the entire game without any backgrounds!

@danielblanco3d i'm so glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the praise! i was really nervous about doing the art myself, this is my first time with digital painting a whole world from the ground up, and i ended up painting it all with just a mouse, so i was really nervous about how it would turn out. amazingly, it's turning out to be really well received, wow! i'm definitely sad that i didn't have time to do any audio in the jam version, but i actually spent a lot of time making music and sound effects for the post jam version of the game. i had a lot of fun making the music and sfx, so i hope you have time to try out the post jam version too and tell me what you think!

Plague Friend's Deathly Journey by sakura_magika 2020-10-25T19:30:23Z

@moski thanks for remembering to not forget to embark on plague friend's deathly journey! i'm glad i was able to complete the bare minimum for the game to be fully functional within the game jam's time frame, but yeah, i just couldn't help but keep coming back to it, and i've been having so much fun developing the characters and world into something i'm really proud of in the post jam version.

Plague Friend's Deathly Journey by sakura_magika 2020-10-27T18:04:43Z

@papaver thanks for playing, I'm glad you liked the post jam version. it was a lot of fun to draw the sun and moon

@ranjan meow!

@reallyqbert thanks for the feedback, I'll have to look more into best practices for scaling UI elements at different screen sizes. In the Post Jam version, think the way I have it set up is that they should always be the same size relative to the screen size (e.g. inventory bar being 1/5th the width of the screen). In the Jam version, I think they are a static pixel size, so they probably only look right at 1920x1080. Trying to figure out how the UI canvas layout stuff worked was like the last thing I did before submitting, heheh.

@ghuyajil thanks for playing!

@rhoff95 mm yeah, that's a very good point about the hook, it does have a pretty slow start, and things don't really get interesting until half way through. maybe sone kind of experience in the beginning that gives you a taste of the previous night's bloody activities would set the mood better, and be more motivating to see what the game has in store. maybe even simply starting at the point that you leeched the patient, instead of starting when you woke up the morning after. especially in the context of a jam, as you said, games have a lot of competition to fight for attention, and players are jumping from game to game very quickly. I would love to try my hand at more complex puzzles / tasks! now that I have some experience with getting the basics set up, hopefully next time I can spend more time on more interesting gameplay.

@midorimelody aww yay, thanks!!

@peace-of-cake-games oh wow, really? I might revisit this world in the future to expand upon it, and make more complex / challenging puzzles, it's really grown on my over the course of making it!

@virtual-turtle-studio wow, I'm really glad you played it to the end! cute yet disorienting was definitely the vibe I was going for :3

Far Side of the Mirror by DDRKirbyISQ 2021-04-29T05:28:24Z

you two did so well! i had the most fun playing the social dance game. i felt very connected with all the animal characters, and very distance and judged by all the humans.

the duckies were so much fun! really reminded me of sans from undertale. i found my self feeling very relieved to find them again after dealing with all the horror humans.

i also had a lot of fun just running around as a meowmie, the art and animation for mocha are great! the seashell sounds were beautiful too, i liked having the beach sequences break things up. it made me wonder which was the dream, and which was real life.

i agree with @rosypenguin , the level transitions could use some visual clues, i also ran into a lot of walls trying to find the next room.

Patchwork by Herman Chau 2021-04-29T05:46:40Z

the nested world / puzzles were really cool, reminded me of Gorogoa. i love how radically the art style changed between the different puzzles. sadly, i was only able to solve the gasoline fire blueprint puzzle. i couldn't get the dinosaur things to line up, though i got close, i tried so many combinations. i wasn't sure what to do with the mushrooms, and turning the dials didn't seem to do anything in the caves.

maybe some hints would be nice, i'd really like to explore more of this game!

Chess Hellevator by BoxedMeatRevolution 2021-04-28T22:52:09Z

I really like this! I think the gameplay is very innovative, the hell theme and visuals are cute and fun, and the music was nice to! I was able to get a bonus, that felt really good. I think the mechanic of losing move options when you lose life works well as punishment.

Oculus Leviathan by NotExplosive 2021-04-29T05:01:32Z

it's pretty cool, but i think the fishy hitboxes need a lot of work. i missed what felt like 80% of my shots, and I tried many different strategies, clicking right on them, clicking past them, leading their movement, and i could very clearly see the yellow line hit them or go through them, but it wouldn't eat them.

the slowing down time mechanic seems cool, but doesn't seem to have any cost or downside. why wouldn't i just hold the mouse down all the time?

i really liked the sound effect for successfully eating a fish.

Riches Below! by mobiledev 2021-04-29T04:25:21Z

the visuals are pretty cute! i felt like there was too much delay between pressing X and the attacks actually beginning, and, though maybe this was intentional game design, i felt frustrated that i couldn't move while attacking. at the very least, i should start moving again after releasing the X button if i held the arrow key down, but it seems like i have to press the arrow key again after releasing X.

also, the elevator gave me a choice for whether to go down or not, and i'm not quite sure why. is it that you have the option to stay on the easier levels to grind more gold before going down to the harder levels?

Deepest Sword by Strega 2021-04-29T04:44:29Z

i love the concept and art, i think its very innovative and cute, but honestly, playing this game made my joy turn to pure frustration very quickly. couldn't get past the blue level.

Welldiver by DevEmil 2021-04-29T22:04:12Z

very well done! of all the games i've played so far, this one has the tightest and best feeling gameplay, i felt very in control, yet also very challenged, which is an awesome balance to hit. i liked the various enemies that were introduced as you went deeper, and how that made things more complicated and required some strategizing in addition to just dodging.

Minet by Justine D 2021-04-29T04:54:02Z

i really liked this one, the animations of this adorable cat loving dwarf grandma are great. i liked the shrinking light mechanic, making it harder to find your way back up, meaning you have to manage both your time and your mining patterns to be able to get back in time.

i think the mechanics of capturing a cat could use work, i found that i could just spam J and K and instantly capture any cat. unless that was intentional. it didn't really detract from the fun, it was enjoyable enough to spam buttons and get as many cats as possible, but i felt like i wasn't playing the game as intended, since it had this "press the right button" instruction.

also, at some point i activated the "super granny lightining bolt" mode once, but i never figured out how it works, how to activate it, what's needed, etc. was that ever explained anywhere?

7 DEEPS by ardorugus 2021-05-07T05:26:23Z

is there even a too deep?

Storyteller by Fadex 2021-04-29T03:29:17Z

this game is really cool! i love the graphics, looks like you took photographs? and perhaps even stop motion animation? the flow of choosing words, and going back and forth between pages was interesting, sometimes it would go backwards and i didn't understand why.

also, often it seemed like there was a clear "right" answer for what to type, like, "this is the sun" or "this is the color purple", so i wasn't sure whether this game was trying to have me type a specific thing to play "correctly", or whether the intent was for me to just make up my own strange story.

Clown Pup by skill347 2021-05-07T05:20:29Z

graphics and music were really cool, set a nice mood. i managed to get the ribs and something in the trash in my inventory, but couldn't progress from there after spending a while clicking around on everything. was not able to figure out how to us anything in my inventory.

one fairly simple thing to implement that would make the game feel a lot better to play is flipping the character on the X axis when i walk left. also, the collisions didn't make much sense to me, i felt often like i was getting stuck or unable to walk somewhere that seemed like i should be able to.

Deep down the Abyss by Kyrios 2021-05-07T04:29:46Z

great job on the visuals and atmosphere and sounds, but how to play was pretty confusing, and i ended up just killing myself when i thought i was killing cthulu. i clicked through the various options, but never felt like i got good feedback on what was effective until i saw the meter running low by alternating curse and insult. in the end, alternating those two was actually killing me rather than the boss.

6 Feet Under by theStoff 2021-04-29T05:19:56Z

i like the art and music, i think the gameplay concept is cool, but i ultimately found this game to be incredibly difficult. it took me a while to figure out that holding space went deeper (and deeper), and that i couldn't use the up/down arrows to control while i was burrowing, only left and right. the most frustrating parts were when it required you to dive, jump, then burrow again from the underside of a block (like up through the ceiling). the window that you have to release and press space again is so small, i think some way to make the controls feel more fluid work really help make this more fun to play.

the few times that i did actually pull off some back to back burrow/jumps felt really good. i especially appreciate the contrasted feeling of how slow and clumsy the zombie is just walking, but how fast, fluid, and powerful you are when burrowing. if the controls could be tuned somehow to make it easier to transition from one dive to the next, that would be great.

Dig 'Till You Drown! by Yeomsley 2021-04-29T21:58:46Z

I like the mechanic of spamming the dig button to climb up walls, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. What was frustrating was getting stuck under a dirt tile that I was unable to dig through when trying to climb up.

Jumping felt a little floaty, could use a bit of tuning with the speed and acceleration curves, but at least all the controls felt very responsive.

Nice work for a compo! Overall you had graphics, sound, gameplay, and even a tiny idle animation. I think the feeling of anxiety of going under the water into the "caves" to get gems was well done.

Nav's Endless Nightmare by Zizhen96 2021-05-07T05:38:12Z

very well done! the graphics were so cute and creepy and polished! nice design on the first tutorial screen. i liked the variety of the levels, and monsters, and the monster count down was nice.

Sporelunk by Brainloaf Studio 2021-04-29T23:48:02Z

very cute! your animation and art is just incredible for a game jam! i love the slippery wibbly wobbly movement of the shrooms. The mechanic of eating your own kind to survive is grusome in a very fitting way.

I made it to level 84. Ended up getting trapped by the wormy-like blocks.

I think finding some kind of powerup to get that perhaps gives you superdigging for a limited time/number of strikes, so you can one hit any boulder, would be a good addition so the gameplay doesn't get as repetitive.

The controls were fairly tight, felt responsive and not floaty, though i think i hit a few edge cases in pressing various buttons at the same time that left my character unable to move until i released and pressed the buttons again.

Over all, very fun and well polished entry!

Explory Story by Blue Pin Studio 2021-04-29T04:10:04Z

I think the concept is great, and the game had really cute graphics, animations, and music, but ultimately, I got too frustrated just trying to beat the first level. There are too many words that kill, some of them not expected, like "anxiety", and it became too much of a burden to memorize everything. I loved the funny effects like scream and cage, and cloning with "yourself", but it was actually really frustrating to hit "old", because it doesn't wear off, and just makes the whole rest of the level feel really annoyingly slow.

I think giving more visual clues, or some kind of way to mark hazards once you discover them, would make the game a lot more fun to play. I think having the random effects, and the key and the door hidden in text is awesome, but the amount of landmines strewn about just made me really afraid to walk on any text at all, and discouraged me from exploring. If that could be solved, I think this game would be great!

Blackout by Frasse 2021-05-07T04:55:37Z

great job, got to the end! wonderful job with the music, visuals, and animation! the story was cute, you even did animations, wow! i enjoyed the classic point and click gameplay, and it felt nice that the character would walk to where i clicked.

but the ending left me feeling a bit let down, like, to tell me "well it was all for nothing" after me putting all the effort into playing and finishing the game just didn't feel very rewarding.

i felt sad that i couldn't put the mask on, heheh.

some feedback for gameplay, it's not very clear when something has another interaction that you need to click for, vs if you'll just say the same thing again. i think some kind of indication, through dialogue or UI, that lets you know you should keep clicking would be good, especially because there's no way to skip dialogue, so having to sit through the same dialogue again as punishment for an exploratory click is pretty frustrating. on that note, a way to skip through dialogue would be good too.

overall, wonderful job!

I'm Definitely Not Scared of My Own Basement by macaroni.dev 2021-04-29T04:16:26Z

I like the creepy graphics, especially this poor cute monster girl who has to go down stairs, and first person perspective of going down the stairs, but I felt like the battery drained really quickly, and the reloading time was too long.

Later on in the game, when lots and lots of things fly at you, it felt way to chaotic to try to manage shining the flashlight and charging the battery. It wasn't clear to me at first whether I have to hold the right click to charge, or just click it.

Lies & Descent by LazyAlarm 2021-05-07T05:03:44Z

the level design and flashlight holding made me feel pretty clausterphobic, so good job if you were going for that. i got turned around once, but eventually got to the acid lakes. i got across the first one and that felt rewarding, but i couldn't figure out a good way to jump from one pillar to the next, since they have sharp corners, i wasn't able to claw my way around to the other side of them. eventually, i think the acid glitched out and i just walked across.

got to the end, and i seem to have just fallen out of the level entirely, and watched it slowly shrink away into the infinite as i read your "you won message". it was kind of a good, but weird feeling.

i liked the music, but i don't think it fit well with the game. also i don't know what you're going for with the title. what lies?

Aftermath by Peace Of Cake Games 2021-04-28T22:59:59Z

I'm not sure if this was a bug or not, but I only visually saw the knife on the ground, I couldn't see everything else, I kept getting dialogue for like the journal, necklace, kitten, even the person who I killed for revenge. I just kept getting more dialogue as I walked forward.

I like the narrative based game, the text was a bit hard to read, but I get that it's going with the dark vibes. What made it more difficult though was how far away it was from me as the player, and the fact that I could just keep walking, and might not even notice the text. I think if this is a narrative based game, you should make the text more prominent, and not so easy to just ignore and keep walking, like maybe pause the game and have the player advance through the dialogue with button presses, and have the dialogue appear word by word or letter by letter to make it feel more engaging.

Aftermath by Peace Of Cake Games 2021-04-29T00:45:48Z

@peace-of-cake-games running out of time / energy is a huge challenge, especially if you're doing compo! Having to do the writing, art, and music yourself in addition to the programming in just 48 hours is a huge challenge. That's cool that you already had all these things planned, maybe you can make a post jam version!

Thrice Upon A Time by sakura_magika 2021-04-28T23:03:58Z

@pharaohcity thanks for playing, I'm glad you appreciated the Fire Emblem-esque. We spent a lot of time tuning the minigames to feel good playing, I'm glad it paid off!

@boxedmeatrevolution thanks, its fun to write stories within stories!

@peace-of-cake-games I'm glad you liked the characters, we put a lot of heart into them! I'm proud of the Archery game, lining up your power meter and the moving targets can be pretty challenging, hope it's not too hard!

Thrice Upon A Time by sakura_magika 2021-05-01T05:08:55Z

@yeomsley thank you!

@pierce-brooks rumor has it that the anime adaptation is in production by Studio Gaynax and will be released Spring 3030 season!

@devemil i'm so glad, we worked especially hard to tune the archery to feel good.

@digitalmessiah we knew there would be plenty of mining and ocean diving games, so we wanted to have a fresh take by going deeper through stories within stories!

@brainloaf-studio thanks so much for playing our game! i'm glad you liked how the character designs change in different times, Azura did a great job with the character design!

@shin0nome i'm glad you liked the characters' stories!

@yamzho it was a lot to take on for a single game jam, but somehow we pulled through...

@octopussy aww, i'm glad you like them! it would be cool to explore their stories more in future games.

@megan-kozun thank you so much!

@sanemsky thanks for the feedback on the "speech tick" audio, it's definitely rather obnoxious. it was supposed to be just a placeholder, but we ran out of time. i just pushed an update to make it less obnoxious (i also fixed an incorrectly-labeled speaker). Tourmaline did such an amazing job with the music, i definitely don't want the speech noise to distract from it! i'm very glad you liked the games and the stories!

Thrice Upon A Time by sakura_magika 2021-05-04T03:58:05Z

Hi everyone, I just published a Post Jam version that updates all the minigames with wonderful animations Azura Dark made but we didn't have time to implement during the game jam. https://sakura-magika.itch.io/thrice-upon-a-time-post-jam-version

Thrice Upon A Time by sakura_magika 2021-05-18T02:45:00Z

@fabula-rasa thanks, i'm so glad you enjoyed it! our narrative definitely could have used some work, but i'm glad you liked the deeper through time / memories concept!

@roka-josh thanks for playing! it's hard to fit story and gameplay all into one weekend!

@sephy yay, thank you! i agree, the dialogue interrupting the gameplay is pretty obnoxious. we wanted it in there because its primarily a narrative game, but should have found a less intrusive way to deliver the dialogue during gameplay.

Ariel Cleanomancer and the Eldritch Sweep by alyd asmar 2021-05-07T05:14:52Z

great job! i made it to the first level with the alternate floor plan. i liked the visuals and the "going down stairs" animation. the puzzle mechanic was fun to figure out.

one thing that really confused me was that i couldn't seem to do a "normal" vacuum even though i had 1 charge remaining. if one charge isn't enough to do the most basic technique, it just feels weird to me.

i think you could have taken the "eldritch hotel" theme a bit further, visually, the hotel, and the trash itself, seemed very normal.

overall, a very fun game!

Belongings Left Behind by trei 2021-04-28T22:46:22Z

Cute character, interesting mechanic of either jumping on or clearing the special circle blocks. I like the music too! I think the movement dynamics of the platforming could use some work, and I was a bit confused about the aspect ratio switch for the dialogue, is it supposed to be on a phone? Also, some visuals for the dialogue would have been good too.

Don't Pull It Out by Shin0nome 2021-04-29T23:57:14Z

good job voice doing some voice acting! the power up system is well designed.

i got fairly far... i think... but honestly i have no way of knowing just how far close I got to the end of your game. i think some kind of feedback or indication system for progress would be good. or maybe i just missed it?

Follow My Voice by coyotethursday 2021-04-29T04:32:47Z

i love the concept, but i think the guy abandoned me at some point after the "rock in the middle" room. i found my way to some water, but couldn't figure out how to go from there, and didn't get any more hints.

also, i wasn't sure if all the whispering was his voice, or like, scary demons around me. was i supposed to go towards or away from the whispers?

Jung Guns by vickles 2021-05-07T05:32:53Z

i really like the visuals, great job with pixel animation, and a "soul search self help" themed bullet hell is pretty funny and mood, but this was really hard, the slow movement speed was pretty frustrating, making it feel hard in a bad way, not a rewarding way. my experience with bullet hell is just undertale, so i'm not that experienced in the genre, but undertale felt hard in a good way, since i felt like i had more control

also, the shooting sound was pretty obnoxious,too screechy, i ended up just muting.

Down Down Well by OldDog 2021-05-04T04:13:56Z

i love the graphics and character design! i think the wall cling mechanic is cool, found myself wishing i could "double jump" with one on top of the other.

Deep Finger by Sephy 2021-05-18T02:38:54Z

disturbingly fun! great puzzle design, the ending took me by surprise!

Unstaball by khofez 2021-10-09T23:03:37Z

i think the concept is cool, but i never figured out the underlying mechanic behind exploding. does it just happen at random intervals, or do i have any control over it? what governs how big the exploding radius is?

i found myself desperately hoping around to the turrets hoping to get an explosion, but none came.

then, on my very next playthrough, i rushed straight towards the first turret, got an explosion, and unexpectedly won right there! maybe because the win condition is "0 turrets), and the next turrent hadn't spawned in yet? it was amusing, but you probably want to fix that, by settings time limit, kill coung goal, or altering how the turrets spawn in.

i challenge anyone to beat my score of 5 second win!

Screenshot 2021-10-09 155959.png

Unstable(d) by minibobbo 2021-10-09T00:08:15Z

the art and animations are very cute! the farmers running at you are terrifying! i like your take on the theme :)

some feedbacks: i saw an upgrade for kicking farmers, but i never saw any instructions for what button to press to kick. i tried various ones and they didn't do anything.

the first few runs, i didn't notice that the dash had limited uses, i thought there was some kind of bug where i could only dash once.

i think the movement up and down the track felt a bit floaty.

Chickie Catchers by DDRKirbyISQ 2021-10-09T22:18:50Z

wonderful job you two! this was an absolute charm to play, especially with a friend.

great job with the controller integration, made playing coop a lot of fun.

one feedback item is that i found it hard to reliably move the scratching post left and right using the tipping physics. sometimes i could get it tipping in the direction i wanted, then run that way, but others i couldnt.

i ended up resorting to repeatedly activating the "lifting" sequence, then trying to run to the left as it lifted, since it wasn't effected by physics during that state.

since moving left and right is crucial to the game, i think it would be nice to improve the ability to transport the post left and right reliably.

Gnolab by ShadowyXP Games 2021-10-09T23:24:03Z

i like the concept, but i found it pretty easy to get stuck, and also to glitch my way past a lot of the blocks in an unintended way. if i jumped at the blocks, i could stick to the edges and getup around them.

also, the platform colliders seem to be solid blocks, which made it impossible to back track because my head would bonk into them, which was pretty frustrating.

it seems like the blue plants are supposed to be exploding, so you launch yourself over the spike pits? i wasn't able to get it to work in the end, the physics was rather unpredictable.

it was pretty difficult to read the on-screen instructions, and while the readme was helpful, i don't like needing to read about how to play a game outside of the game itself.

also, it seems like using potions is disabled when in potion crafting mode, but the sound effects still played, which was confusing. the sound effects also seemed to play even if i didn't have enough potion to actually do a spray/lob, so that was confusing as well.

i think there needs to be a much more clear visual distinction between crafting mode and playing mode. personally, i'd bring up a menu screen for crafting that has instructions always visible in it.

SEXY BOOBY 95 by silkworm_sweatshop 2021-10-09T03:14:32Z

this was a lot of fun! i love the win95 nostalgia, and the handdrawn/pixel look.

i'm not exactly sure how i got the big boobie win though. i debugged the fleas, then got stuck on loading forever, played some surf. tried to click back, of course can't go back in the trial version. restarted computer on a whim, and then it worked?! i mean, if that's what you're going for then great job, very true to life.

Instability by R3L0ad1 2021-10-09T22:02:44Z

i like the minimalist visuals!

my high score was a meager 24.88.

i think the platforms were cool, but i didn't like the ropes very much. it took me a while to figure out i had to hold down space to stick to them, and even then, i didn't feel like i had any control. i died plenty of times when the rope didn't have enough momentum to swing me to the next platform. when this game is all about twitch reflexes, not having (or feeling like i had) control for random obstacles that come up, which cost me the run, was frustrating.

for this kind of game, i think an unstable environment is great, but not unstable player control.

or, maybe there's a secret to dealing with the ropes that i just didn't figure out?

minor UX note: it would have been really great to have the menu buttons controllable with arrows and space bar, or at least have a short cut to press space to retry on the score scene. i really wanted to have a seamless experience of trying runs over and over, but needing to switch to the mouse to click retry was annoying.

O'Ryan by James Dunlap 2021-10-10T06:05:14Z

i thought the floor crumbling right when you get to the cool thingy on the roof was a great moment!

i think the floors crumbling into physics-enabled rocks is the most unique thing about your game, would have liked to see more of that to make it stand out. make it feel more Unstable.

the jump was a bit finicky, doesn't always trigger when i'm up against the wall.

falling onto spikes was very annoying, can't jump out, but doesnt instant kill either, just need to walk back and forth until i die. please make it insta kill!

i'm not quite sure what the theme tie in is.

Bright Burning Beelzebob by AwesomeAlliterationAlliance 2021-10-09T02:10:01Z

i got an error "mac build cannot be opened". running macOS Catalina.

Ruff Tuff Skies by fiaKaiera 2021-10-09T01:47:53Z

i like this concept a lot! the graphics are very cute, and i like the idea of balancing attacking enemies against repairing the ship.

i think the game said i could press "Y" to repair the ship, but it didn't work for me. i'm not sure if it's actually supposed to work or not, but i really would have appreciated button-only controls, instead of having to use the mouse.

my main feedback is that it would be cool if repairing the ship was a bit more interesting than just spamming right click everywhere. like, maybe it consumes some kind of resource, or has a cool down, or something. i found myself completely giving up on the platforms above, and just walking back and forth trying to hammer as fast as possible, and occasionally slashing enemies.

overall, i think this is really well done though!

Crumbling Mind by NoeTheLazyDev 2021-10-10T06:39:54Z

i like the concept, did you ever consider switching between anxiety and depression as the game goes? it seems to lock you into one until you either check point or die, i think it would have felt more dynamic, or dare i say, unstable, to deal with constantly flowing through different mental states.

the background music was cool!

i tried several times to make a certain pretty difficult jump, but then i went pretty after the jump and unfortunately never ran into another teddy bear, then the screen blacked out from depression.

the depression mechanic was honestly a lot more anxiety inducing that anxiety itself (and honestly kinda frustrating) since it's essentially a death timer: if you don't make it to the next check point before the screen blacks out, it's all over.

maybe that's exactly what you were going for, but it doesn't feel very much like what depression feels like to me, and was just kinda frustrating to get lost and die to depression over and over.

Unstable Patrol by Jin9310 2021-10-09T01:54:44Z

i liked the visuals, but i found myself unable to play this very well. first i tried exploring to the right, and just found the end of the world, then died. then, i tried exploring to the left, looking for house #XYZ, but i walked so slowly, than i died before i could find it. i only managed to defuse one bomb in one house, the house right next to the starting point. and even when i tried to drop the bomb in the drop zone, the physics didn't behave the way i expected, and the bomb dropped behind me.

i would have been interested to explore more of the world that you built, but the slow movement speed and short timer to find bombs made it too difficult. also, as far as "fun-ness" goes, i don't think it's that fun looking for the right house, it feels really arbitrary to match the house to the number at the top of the screen. i think it would have been more engaging if the house actually had a visual indication that it got bombed.

Crisis: Reactor by arkinrev 2021-10-10T06:28:54Z

i like the concept, and the snarkiness of the AI or whoever's talking to you, but more feedback, visual or audio, than just raw numbers would have been more engaging. there seem to be a lot of cool mechanics at play with balancing all the meters, but it's just not that fun when the result is just numbers.

i thought i was doing well, but screen suddenly faded to white then i died, and i have no idea why, it just instantly goes to rebooting screen, so i didn't get a chance to learn what i did wrong to do it better next time.

LCD DREAM ESCALATOR by Hydezeke 2021-10-10T06:47:58Z

this was a cool experience! very cool! i like the music and retro graphics and strange newspaper thing a lot. and the title! cool title for sure.

i made it to the forest, and then i was doing my best to follow the sound, there seemed to be a sound that got louder.

then very suddenly, i stepped behind a tree or something, and warped back to the beginning? does that mean i won? or i lost?

if i lost, then, well, so be it. i wish i knew if i made it to the end or not; it wasn't very clear. but then again, neither are dreams. this definitely felt like a dream. a liquid crystal dream.

Divine Intervention by YogurtTheHorse 2021-10-09T22:48:37Z

hi hi!

how funny that we made nearly identical games! i loved ye oldey timey computer aesthetic, and the tangible integration of the menu items / controls into the visuals.

i liked that for the pasta, you had to open the lid to stir / add salt. creating dependence between the temperature and these two other parts meant that i had to more closely manage the temperature, so that i had a buffer space for when i needed salt/stirring. the first time, i lost because temperature went to low when i needed to open up to stir.

critiques of your implementation:

the most important thing i found missing from your game was audio feedback, and more strong visual feedback, for pressing the various buttons. i often couldn't tell if i was pressing the right button, or what was happening when i pressed any button. i think getting this right is critical, otherwise i can't build up an intuition for the controls; how what i'm doing is effecting the game.

i think the learning curve could use work too, you throw a bunch of rules for what button to press under what circumstance all at once at me, and it was pretty difficult to get going. i think going step by step to gain mastery would let you make the latter levels more difficult, because the player has already learned the basics.

possible bug: i beat the first two tasks, but the third task never unlocked.

Screenshot 2021-10-09 153955.png

Screenshot 2021-10-09 154226.png

Celestial Waltz by gasgiant 2021-10-09T23:59:35Z

it's always nice to listen to some tchaikovsky, and it really fit with what you're going for here!

at first it was really beautiful watching the orbs weave in and out, but unfortunately, i never got a sense for how my inputs were effecting the game; i never had a sense of control. eventually, my orbs just drifted apart, and i was sad.

is this just a simulation, or is there actually a goal, like, don't let them crash together, or don't let them drift apart?

Volatile Defender by azagaya 2021-10-09T03:21:37Z

i think this game is excellent! reminds me of crypt of the necrodancer. i love the blend of rhythm game, tactics, and combat.

i made it to round 6. those walkers that explode everything around them are so tanky!

one feedback is it felt a bit confusing when everyone is two grid tiles tall, i felt like i should be able to shoot the enemies feet. maybe making them 1.5 tiles tall or so would help the visuals line up with the grid better.

Wonky Brew by civmaniac 2021-10-09T02:31:35Z

i like the spooky take on overcooked! the cute graphics were my favorite part, i like the hue rotation filter when the brew gets unstable.

i think combining various ingredients together in the ritual circles was a cool idea.

i think the three different ingredient prep stations didn't add a lot to the game, since they were all so close together, and had the exact same interaction, there was no motivation for actually learning which ingredient went with with prep station, and consequence for getting it wrong, since it would just make the "nope" sound, and move on to the next one, without losing much time. if you had spaced them out a bit more, it would have cost more time to get it wrong, which would have been more motivation to learn them. also, while some of them made sense, others didn't like grinding the feather looking thing, or boiling cobwebs. with no intuitive connection between them, that also made it seem more like a minor frustration than a fun mechanic.

for the opening cutscene, i would have appreciated a button that simply advanced the dialogue right way, instead of either skipping it entirely, or waiting the full duration of each dialogue sentence.

i also think that having some kind of progress meter would have been good. i felt totally blind as i played, not knowing what goal i was pursuing, or even if there was a goal, or if it would go on forever. that motivated me less to keep trying again, when i wasn't sure how much progress i had made in the previous run.

on the score screen, it said i had "00:01", and par was "05:00" or something. that didn't make any sense to me, i definitely played for more than one second. was 5 minutes supposed to be the duration of the game? or was there a certain number of recipes i had to successfully brew?

Rocky Rhodes and the Cracked Case by Brainloaf Studio 2021-10-09T21:53:35Z

oh my god. i think this is the best game jam game i've ever played period. fantastic job across the board. i can't imagine a better take on the theme than this.

more than being enjoyable or fun, this game took me on a journey and changed the way i see the world. i think that's the most important thing art can do.

Understable by vidim888 2021-10-10T00:12:14Z

i like the pixely art i think the concept is cool, the idea that you need to drain your health to become small enough to fit through the crack, but then run to the end before you run out of health was a great moment in your game! the "ah-ha" was very satisfying.

i think the idea of silver and pink portions of the health bar, constantly draining, alternating, and changing you, is super awesome, but unfortunately i never figured out how to control it, so i got stuck at a level.

i think the "f to pause your health drain" felt kind of arbitrary, not sure how it fit in, didn't make sense in the gameplay narrative you crafted. like, as metaphors for life / relationships, what does it mean to pause? and from a pure gameplay perspective, yeah, just kinda arbitary. like "why do i have the ability to do this?"

anyways, cool entry over all! rainbow!!

Cake on the run! by GameDevTraum 2021-10-09T03:04:31Z

cute and fun, pup needs cake!

i made it as far as the big hole in the road, not sure how i'm supposed to get over it, i feel like i jumped as late and high as i possibly could!

for a level as long as you made, i think it should have check points, or be broken up into multiple levels. the gameplay wasn't engaging enough to motivate me to try again when i died half way through, because of how long it would take just to get back to the point again.

the "lives" mechanic was a bit unintuitive, because there are some things like hitting the barriers that would take away a life, but other things like the hole, or losing balance completely, that insta-killed, and it wasn't clear what would take life or kill me immediately.

....To the Ends of the World and Back by Peace Of Cake Games 2021-10-06T00:31:06Z

i liked the visuals for the stars, they were nicely mesmerizing. i think making correcting the steering a bit more involved would have gone a long way to make the game more fun. i think it's nice that you made grace queer.

Elbatsnu's Brewery by Feraligatr 2021-10-09T02:55:44Z

i went through phases of thinking i understood the mechanics, realizing i didn't, thinking i did, and again, i didn't. got stuck at level three.

it wanted me to get 150 gold, but it would deplete my gold every time i made a new option, even if i didn't buy anything. was the intention that i had to make 150 gold in one option?

so, i got 150 gold on the next round, then was working on buying cards, but it blew up randomly! right before my fourth card! (probably there was some rule for why it blew up that i just forgot about). maybe from playing the same card too many times? got too frustrated at that point.

i think the concept is cool, but it felt like there were too many arbitrary rules / goals to keep track of.

A day in a life of an electric spaceship owner by spacecadet 2021-10-09T23:41:53Z

the intro cutscene was pretty funny, with the scream, and nonchalant switch flipping.

i liked how the game challenged me to plan and replan a good route to navigate the level that efficiently picked up the right tools and dealt with the challenges as they appeared.

however! not being able to jump off ledges was pretty frustrating. also not being able to switch a wrench for cup of water was frustrating, instead i had to walk over to the nearest disaster, waste it, then walk back to get the right tool.

one thing that confused me was the ship in the basement started freaking out, but nothing i could do interacted with it. i guessed this was just supposed to be a visual indicator of the ship's health, but visually it had the same treatment as the intractable elements. i went back to read the instructions, and realized i just needed to press space with no tools to fix it. i think making that clear in the game itself would have been nice.

i got close, but failed just one or two pixels away from a full charge.

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-04T22:29:14Z

@peace-of-cake-games ahh thank you! literally just now I was finally able to beat the final level for the first time hahaha. i must have tried it 50 times by now. i kept questioning myself, if i made it too hard, but in my heart i knew it was just right, and i just needed to care for the plip-plops with everything i had.

i can't describe how rewarding it feels to finally achieve true plip-plop love!

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Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-07T20:34:27Z

@thatmanrobin thank you for playing, absolute madness is exactly what I was going for!

@brainloaf-studio plip-plop insanity! yeah, I was going for the feeling of "it's easy to pat your head, or rub your tummy, but hard to do both at the same time". I'm really really happy you liked the music and sfx! I made it all using one piano library, just tweaking various parameters to get different qualities of sound. I wanted the final level to sound something like an absolutely chaotic classical piano score.

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-09T02:33:25Z

@cireneikual222464 thanks for playing! i'm really pleased with the difficulty curve, level 1 is trivial, level 2 is surprisingly more difficult, given that it just adds one more task, 3 feels crazy, and 4 is absolute chaos.

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-09T02:43:15Z

@exmxpx "tamagotchis on meth"... this is my favorite description of the game so far, thank you!

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-09T22:36:29Z

@thatanonoword thank's for playing! i considered making the buttons clickable, but it would be impossible to play this game only pressing one button at a time, so i felt like mouse controls wouldn't add anything, just be confusing, since the game can't be beaten using them. touch screen could definitely work though!

unless you wanted to do both at the same time? like, would you have liked to be clicking and holding on the water/heatlamp, and using keyboard for everything else?

@gamedevtraum i'm so glad you liked the sound design!

@fabula-rasa yeah, controller would be cool! i think i'd put hot/cold on the triggers, food/water on the shoulders, and then maybe map wobbling the joystick to scooopidy-doopidy. i'm glad you appreciated the finess, it was very important to me to design the game such that blindly button mashing would lose just as much as not doing anything at all.

@yogurtthehorse i just played your game, how funny that we ended up doing such similar concepts! thanks for the kind words, i'm glad you got to experience a plip-plop emotional arc! for what it's worth, i think your visuals and UI are awesome, though pretty jumbled, but in kind of a warm, nostalgic way, much more fleshed out than mine.

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-12T00:10:46Z

@shadowyxp-games that's exactly the feeling i was going for, thank's for playing!

@r3l0ad1 meow, i'm glad you liked it!

@patrickrmc yeah, the final level is a challenge for sure, glad you enjoyed it!

@jayjack i'm glad you liked the plip-plop stares, i really wanted to do more with their expressions, maybe in a post-jam version...

@adam-jewell oh yay, congratulations on beating it! i'm actually impressed it only took you five tries. i hope you liked the peaceful scene at the end!

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-12T00:11:06Z

@bamberga thanks for the feedback, i completely agree that the game needs more direct communication to the player about whether something is in a good or bad state. my plan was to add diffent facial expressions to the plip-plops near each item (food, water, poo), and have them look happy when it's good, sad when it's bad, and dead when it's really bad. that would make the player both understand what's going on better, and be more engaged with the plip-plops themselves, rather than just their food/water/poo.

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-12T00:16:43Z

@mediflect thank you so much for playing, i'm really glad you liked the piano sounds! i made all music and SFX in the game using the same piano library (except the shaker when you start a level), just changing different parameters to alter it sound for different parts. i really wanted the audio, visuals, and gameplay to all have this cohesive "plinky-plonky" feel.

that's an interesting comment about the meters, a lot of people who tried it actually found the meters made it even more difficult, just adding to the already chaotic visuals. the core experience i wanted to create was to really have the player feel really engaged with the plip-plops and their conditions, and i felt like showing the meters would create a disconnect from that.

i consider showing the meters "developer-mode" than anything, i enabled it in the final build i submitted as a last minute decision because i realized it was hard to visually understand what was happening in the latter levels

as i said to @bamberga , i definitely agree that i fell a bit short of the core experience i was going for; it's not obvious how the plip-plops are doing based on the visuals for their food/water/poo. i think having dynamic expressions that show them happy/sad/dead depending on the conditions of each item would have gone a long way in improving the player's comprehension of how well they're doing, and removed any need to see the underlying data via the meters.

Plip-plop! Unstable Conditions of Care by sakura_magika 2021-10-22T02:55:59Z

@jin9310 thanks for playing! i'm glad you liked the sound desing :3

@evangreenwood ahh, adding a horror twist, that's a great idea! like maybe the plip-plops turn on you and devour you alive if you fail. that would be such a fun surprise, since they're super kawaii and the graphics are bright and sunny normally, to get grimdark gruesome when you lose.

Core Weapon by ThatANoNoWord 2021-10-09T23:12:21Z

i made it a meager 51 seconds. the core blew up but i have no idea why, i thought my pressure and temperature were in good zones, and none of the meteors hit.

i like the concept a lot (and my game is actually somewhat similar), especially balancing the controls/condition of the weapon with actually using the weapon, but i think the feedback needs to be more clear about what to do to stop the ship from melting down. like for example, some kind of visual hint for the control that you need to use to stabilize the ship for whatever meter is in a bad state.

Inner Demon by Shaymin 2021-10-09T23:51:45Z

i like how you tied the narrative to the gameplay! the writing was kinda meta, which was cool.

sorry you ran out of time, that's frustrating.

during the dialogue sequences, does it just auto advance? it seemed like sometimes pressing space worked and other times it didn't. i think it would be nice to press space to advance through the dialogue.

Crewman 49 by ThatmanRobin 2021-10-07T20:44:57Z

nice job, especially for compo! I liked all the voice over, especially about the password. the game reminded me a bit of The Stanley Parable.

I know you were going for "UNSTABLE" but the camera shake was a bit extreme, I think. it adds to the personality of the game for sure, but a little less, or maybe a user setting to reduce it, would be appreciated.

I actually found the hacking a bit frustrating, because I think of WASD in terms of arrow directions, not the actual button letters, so I struggled to remember what finger mapped to what letter.

I think the graphics were pretty cool, did you do any modeling yourself?

I think I beat the game by getting to the escape pod, but I was a bit confused, because right before then, I found an empty fuse box that needed fuses to be repaired. I ended up accidentally escaping as I was trying to find the fuses. are there multiple endings or something?

Plubertium: Galactic Exchange Student Sim by mechamew 2021-10-09T02:09:00Z

this game was delightful! i'm in love with the cross of succulent photographs and 2D cartoon art. Mew Mew 2's character design is my favorite, but the caring relationship with Moomdud was really touching as well. i love the writing, humor, and funny names.

i took the drugs route. wahooooo! what at trip!

one possible bug is that in the drug sequence, i had a flashback about playing noseflute, but i didn't actually do that in my run (in fact, i ditched to do drugs, which was why i was tripping in the first place), so maybe it's a bug that i got that flashback?

anyways, thanks for such a fun experience!

Egg Racer by Exmxpx 2021-10-09T02:42:37Z

great idea, but turning around instantly drops the egg out of the pan, no good! i'd rather have no ability to turn around it all, than for it to be an instant-lose button.

the walk animation is crazy unstable. the walking physics is also interesting, it seems to track some kind of momentum, which resulted in me getting stuck at the bottom of the ramps several times, which was frustrating, because i would have been able to catch my flying egg if i hadn't gotten stopped on the ramp.

there were a few times where the tiny gaps between the tiles became visible, resulting in glitchy (unstable?) looking visuals. maybe put a very slight overlap between tiles? (like, have the tile size slightly smaller than the sprite size)

i made it to the fire, but my egg fell into the fire, and i still lost :(

i liked all the egg related quotes, added to the charm of the game.

The Unstoppable Guio by Lucas Thomaz 2021-10-09T23:55:10Z

i liked the graphics, reminded be of okami.

the gameplay would have been fun, except the camera instantly jumped upwards whenever i jumped, which was really jarring, made me dizzy, and made it really difficult to keep control.

Realignment by Mediflect 2021-10-10T06:18:58Z

i really enjoyed this entry! it's hard to find dialogue this well written in a game jam, well done. especially the renaming bits, they were really entertaining, how frustrated Curie got haha!

also, i love how deep into music theory you went with this game! i can't say the mini games were particularly fun on their own, but it was really relaxing to hear the discordant tones resolve, and if they were too engage i'd miss the dialogue, so it made an overall very serene little journey.

i of course took the obvious route at the end, i was half-expecting the AI to sort of turn on me at the last minute, which... kinda happened?

Deathline by ping78 2022-04-06T19:44:08Z

i like the neon glow visual style! decent over all twin stick shooter gameplay, the physics and movement felt pretty good, and it's fun to use strategies around hiding behind rocks from enemies.

the grab function didn't seem that useful to me, it seems to attract smaller pieces of debris, are you supposed to be able to launch them at enemy ships? or use them to block? with things as hectic as they are, i didn't feel like there was any space to figure out how to use grab.

Shoal by Kerdelos 2022-04-20T18:22:00Z

this was really fun! like peaceful, wholesome version of badlands. i like the visuals and BGM, but the fisherman's voices were rather startling, a bit too dark and gruff for the rest of the atmosphere.

i'm really impressed with how all the level pieces come together, it feels very organic.

i think i hit the "boss fight" area you just mentioned, where the screen paused and there were several sharks, before it really sped up again. i think that's a cool mechanic to have, but it was really confusing to me when it happened. maybe having a countdown timer some sort of visual indicator that this area is special would help. also, the second level is crazy fast and difficult! i died so quickly, heheh. i think a slower curve up would be nice, it felt kind of jarring to the atmosphere of the game for it to suddenly become so much more difficult.

i had one run where i was absolutely showered with new schools of fish, and then the following run was extremely sparse, so i think a good refinement would be to control the randomness a bit.

also, i appreciate that sometimes there are bonus schools of fish in the outlet or sidepath streams, but i felt like, since most of them are just deadend deathtraps, it was never worth trying to go into one to get more fish.

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Kiwis Can't Fly by DDRKirbyISQ 2022-04-06T21:57:32Z

@peachtreeoath oh my god, i played the Orisinal bunny cloud jumping game! i got those vibes from this too!! i remember letting that game run in the background as i worked in college just to listen to the music.

Kiwis Can't Fly by DDRKirbyISQ 2022-04-07T00:16:10Z

@ddrkirbyisq and @xellaya excellent work with this game! i absolutely love the art style and traditional animation, especially the witch cats on brooms! i love how their broomsticks poof when the kiwi bonks them.

i'm so happy you made a game about kiwis, these birds are very special. when i saw the title, i was afraid it would be a game about their inevitable extinction, i'm so glad it's not! (for anyone interested, we can help save them from extinction! see https://www.savethekiwi.nz/about-us/ for more info)

i think it's really great that you opted not to make a typical arcade style "endless run / jump / fall / escape until you die" type game. it was a very soothing, somewhat surreal interactive journey, and i got to feel like i made a pretty song along the way (although of course @ddrkirbyisq did all the hard work, heheh).

thank you for making a warm and fuzzy little corner of ludum dare to enjoy :3

STUDY LADY (cookie mix) by PeachTreeOath 2022-04-07T01:01:24Z

excellent work! i never expected to find myself so engaged by a cookie clicker game. i made it all the way through!

i won't spoil the ending for everyone else here, but i love the W. S. Maugham quote, really ties it all together. though, honestly, it was pretty disappointing to be hit with a solid color background and some text as the reward for finishing the game, after spending so much time looking at all of the pretty art and animation. i was expecting like a snapshot or something of the girl with her cat and her finished homework, or something to bring the visual story around to a conclusion.

i think you did well in tuning all the numbers. i felt like it was satisfying to figure out the "puzzle" of effective resource allocation.

It was really serene listening to the future funk and watching all the different animation iterations. i felt satisfied with fine tuning this "machine", figuring out where's best to spend resources. it also would have been nice to display the total number of loops it took to reach the end, if anything to compare against other players, or different runs, to see what strategy is more efficient.

i can't say it felt entirely on theme, i think i see what you're going for with the girl and the cat trying to prevent the milk from falling, but it definitely felt a lot more "LD46 - Stuck in a Loop" than delay the inevitable.

but still, it was really fun and cute! especially seeing the evolution of the various world objects through each world. meow!

The Inevitable Relay by Papaver 2022-04-20T23:46:47Z

an interesting experience, the practical sfx were a bit unsettling, yet a bit cute, and the background visuals were far too noisy, made it pretty tiring to look at.

i liked cycling the racers to give them breaks, i think more could be done with having three racers, to add some puzzle elements to the platforming.

the level design was interesting, i think the sloped surfaces were too ambiguous though, some of them looked pretty steep, but i could still slam my way up them, while others are too steep to climb. having a consistent visual language about what is and isn't climbable would make it more playable.

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Orbles by Rongo Matane 2022-04-11T23:56:50Z

wow! this is seriously impressive, its so fun to watch the warriors go out and attack. i love the music and art!

Orbles by Rongo Matane 2022-04-12T20:17:45Z

@cameron-paxton oh wow, thank you so much!

Terminal Hydrophilia by 6smith 2022-04-11T21:21:18Z

it's a cute game, i wanted to take down the "big gunship" type enemies at first, but i found their health too high and their homing bombs too powerful, so i learned to just run away from them.

the world felt pretty sparse over all, and i felt like i needed to search for more enemies to kill. maybe that's what you're going for, with the idea of trying to survive, and not dry up, but i think it would be more fun to have more enemies.

i think the spikes ones were my favorite since they're not difficult to avoid the shots and give lots of points/health.

i saw a few power ups here and there, but i never felt like i needed them, or understood what they did. for this genre, i think that weapon modifications would be the most typical, or bombs (screen clear) or a shield.

as for innovation, this felt like a twin stick shooter (ala geometry wars) played mostly straight, with the addition of your constantly decreasing health. when i think about water drops trying to avoid evaporating, and fighting with other water drops, i would have expected some kind of mechanic with merging and growing, looking for smaller drops, avoiding ones bigger than you, and some kind of interaction with contact, instead of firing missiles. currently, it doesn't feel like a water droplet game, it feels like a geometry wars game with a water droplet skin.

good over all polish! i like the droplet font and colors, and subtle animation in the background.

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Procrabstination by sebastianscaini 2022-04-11T23:51:49Z

well, that was surreal. i think i put on all of the clothes / interacted with the crab things, but it still gave me the "you're forgetting something" when i went outside. i was kinda expecting the character to be wearing the crab clothing and accessories.

it was pretty frustrating not being able to skip the crab starwars intro sequence, which i'm guessing was intentional, but still not a good experience, especially the second time. i ended up closing the tab after pressing many buttons.

thanks for making my day a little weirder!

MY DREAM BACKROOM DATE by sleepyGrin 2022-04-20T17:38:14Z

played through to the end, you definitely made an interesting piece.

feedback for gameplay: have some kind of feedback for the player when the game detects either a YES or NO gesture. not knowing if i correctly gave the input, combined with the already psycho nature of the dialogue, made me unsure whether it was actually getting my YES or NO response. like, i thought i gave the "right" answer, but the AI just got mad at my anyways, so i wasn't sure if that's just the narrative, or if i didn't input correctly.

feedback for narrative: the ending made the journey feel pointless, like, i might as well have just not done anything, the outcome would have been the same. maybe that's what you're going for to try to be on theme (and let me just say, the theme sucks, very uninspiring), but it's definitely a negative player experience for me, to essentially get a bad end even when making it all the way through by (presumably) answering correctly each time.

Cute Crumbling Corpse by Chewie Henwitch 2022-04-07T01:10:15Z

i like the concept, but this game felt pretty punishing, when an organ is not doing well, ATP lowers, making it harder to heal the organ, a vicious cycle. maybe that's what you were going for, but ultimately it lead to rounds being over pretty quickly, and not much motivation to try again.

i think the visual style and mood are nice.

as for gameplay, a bit more feedback for performing actions would be good. even if its just a little sound, and maybe a visual pop (quick grow/shrink) animation on the relevant organ to make it feel like i'm really doing something when i heal / upgrade.

Comet by EduSilva 2022-04-20T17:43:48Z

cute graphics, i was surprised the first time a monster came out of the astroid. after that though, it felt a bit too easy and boring, there was only ever one astroid at a time, and it was not at all challenging to pick them off, then pick the bugs off. i think having the astroid spawn rate increase over time would have felt more engaging, then just flat-ending the game with the big astroid.

also, sometimes a glowing thing pops out of the astroids, but i couldn't interact with them. what are they for?

i like the colors and character design and the movement dynamics felt solid.

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Rising wind Island by ShivArt 2022-04-20T18:08:41Z

this was really fun! i love the visuals and animation. in my first run i didn't even realize i could refill the balloons with apple gas and died quite quickly. in my second run i tried to run a bare minimum ship with just two apple peons, and made it like 4 minutes.

in my final run, i believe i beat the game. i rushed the propeller with 3 peons, 1 miner, and 2 iron miners. after getting the propeller, i got a gunman, and spent the extra iron and stone i was accumulating on castle upgrade, although i don't think that was necessary, as it felt sustainable even with just the three peons.

however, with the upgrades, i bought a couple more fighters, and filled the rest with peons, and at that point, i could sustain the balloons well over the drain rate. iron and stone continued to accumulate pointlessly.

i think using an exponential curve for the balloon drain rate would have added a sense of urgency, and inevitability, since it would eventually become impossible to keep up with. but it felt satisfying to know that i reached the point where i could keep my adorable little islanders alive forever.

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Monkey Seen, Monkey Screwed by Roolow 2022-04-07T01:18:03Z

i agree, CTRL is a pretty unintuitive button to press for an action, i think E makes the most sense for WASD, or Shift for arrow controls.

but honestly, i think it's completely unnecessary for there to be any button press at all. i think it would play much more smoothly to automatically get the bananas. when i'm already concerned with keeping an eye on all the spotlights, i don't want to need to remember to press a button when i finally make it to the bananas.

it felt pretty challenging over all, especial for getting caught to be an instant loss. i think a QOL would be to have three chances, or maybe a timer like 2 seconds to get away if you're under the light.

AI: Raining Cats and Dogs by zc74560 2022-04-21T04:47:36Z

this was... a surreal experience, especially with the voice sound effects. you definitely captured a particular mood of a toilsome inane office job. i found myself feeling a lot of mental whiplash muxing "accept / reject" with "correct / incorrect".

thanks for making my day stranger!

Delay the Destruction!! Danmaku Downfall by matthewrobo 2022-04-21T16:49:59Z

wow, you made touhou, nice! the controls felt too sensitive and jumpy for me. the "time halving" mechanic honestly felt unnecessary, like it didn't really add much or change how i played the game, i think a normal life system would have worked just fine.

Dinosurvivor by YukimiItsuka 2022-04-11T21:05:44Z

i like the graphics and concept a lot!

i didn't survive that long relative to other players, but that's partially because i realized after a minute that i can mostly just stand still and hold down space, and my engagement dropped a lot.

for gameplay / fun factor, i feel like it only became interesting when the big boulders that split into smaller boulders started flying in. otherwise, i just kept my dinos bunched up to make a decently wide spread, and mostly stayed in one place holding down spacebar. so i was basically really bored for the first few minutes of play.

also, for holding down space bar, it felt like a chore, since there's basically no downside to not holding it down. if there were some kind of energy meter or a bigger cool down, it would provide more incentive to be strategic about it.

at once point i got a cute pink dino that fired laser beams. that was really nice and unexpected! but i think it happens to rarely, another big improvement would be a wider variety of dinos, and having different variations more frequently. but of course, only so much you can do in a game jam.

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Beavers Inc. by ditam 2022-04-06T20:28:03Z

well, i did my best to place beavers to repair the damn and stem the water flooding, but i got a lot of game overs without really understanding what i did wrong or how i could have done better. is there something more to it than assigning beavers to the choke points?

i liked the attitude / humor in the dialogue. the graphics reminded me of the old "dwarfs" game.

Beavers Inc. by ditam 2022-04-07T00:07:11Z

@ditam thanks for the explaination, i gave it another try, and was able to get a lot farther. it's actually pretty fun! i love the "...erm, 'recruit' a new member" function by sending two beavers to the same location, it's a cool mechanic to trade improving present state for having more workers, and grounded in reality in a very funny way!

review updated :3

Lokat's Revenge by Kaijiro 2022-04-06T20:04:10Z

i appreciate the derpy visuals and sfx. more than once i really felt like i had shot on target, but still got game over.

i think having 3 lives or something would make it a bit more fun, game over right away feels kind of disruptive.

Reversary by AploveStudio 2022-04-20T18:51:31Z

this is by far my favorite LD50 game. i think you took a very uninspiring theme and made something wonderful, playing as a dark souls boss! i love the visuals, character design, and game design. especially that the boss even has three phases! having the ranged attack become more powerful over time was such a cool touch.

i found the melee attack to be very unreliable, rarely actually making contact. it seemed to me like it never hit all the way to the ground. also, it was a bit unintuitive at first that i couldn't turn around without jumping or attacking. i guess it makes sense, because i might want to backup without turning my back on paige, but i found myself several times wishing i could turn around right away, and paige was going back and forth so it was hard to stay facing her. but, i suppose that's pretty common behavior / strategy for a dark souls boss, so i guess its quite fitting!

i made it to level 16. at that point, it seemed like there wasn't any more unique dialogue, so i just let paige kill me without doing anything. that was actually a pretty interesting experience. as i just sat there, so did paige, for like 30 seconds. then she attacked me a few times, and then just sat there again. in the end, it took her quite a while to defeat me, with a few pokes in between long periods of just standing there doing nothing. it was rather emotional experience, it felt like in the end, she didn't really want to kill me, and i didn't want to kill her. i don't know if this was intentional or not, but it was very moving.

i found that my best strategy was backing myself into the right hand wall and use ranged attacks. paige didn't seem to do very well with that, it seemed like she was pretty confused about where to find and attack me: Screen Shot 2022-04-20 at 11.42.39 AM.png

thank you so much for such a wonderful game!

The Engineer by Codeman1010 2022-04-06T20:16:52Z

i like the HD 3D / pixel 2D blend of graphics. it seems like for a lot of the repairs, i needed to interact with the display board, instead of the actual machine next to it, which was pretty unintuitive to me.

also, it seemed like i just had to mash spacebar until it went up a decent amount, but when i was doing that for oxygen, it went up to like 30%, then just stopped, and eventually went back down even though i was pressing space bar. i was hearing the little "interaction blip" sound, so i'm not sure what was happening there.

i think more clear indication of where to interact, and the success of interacting would be good. the green light and soft "blip" sound are kind of underwhelming, since pressing interact is the core gameplay. and i think it would feel more interesting and realistic to interact with the machines, not the message boards.

and this is just a nitpick, but having the closed doors seemed like a rather arbitrary impedance to moving about.

Delayarrhea by BearDing8 2022-04-13T05:55:38Z

i made it! what a cheeky ending.

a very cute little game! i think a really fun change would be to make the poo meter slowly fill up over time, to give a sense of urgency, and force the player to solve each puzzle on a time limit! and it would feel more grounded given the premise of the game (i was actually surprised the meter didn't fill up on its own), to add an additional challenge!

i think the puzzle / level design was well done, it wasn't super intuitive at first that you could scooch through seats vertically but not horizontally, i just assumed they were also impassable objects, until i was forced to b the level design, so good job in teaching that mechanic through gameplay.

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The Pit by Itskdog 2022-04-13T05:48:39Z

this is a most unique and fascinating entry! combining realtime movement with card playing / deck building is a really cool idea! i personally don't like using the mouse with the arrow keys at the same time for this game, i think having keyboard bindings for playing the cards would feel a lot better (kind of like using character abilities in action games), like maybe A/D to fall, and GHJKL for cards to keep it all on the home row.

i honestly think trying to align to the theme is really holding your game down. i think its a really bad theme, very uninspiring, encourages making bland unoriginal arcade games. i think the concept/system you came up with would be much more interesting for a platformer, or something with a bit more action.

Delaying the Waking World by EOShadows 2022-04-21T04:37:53Z

combining arrow button dodging with mouse point and clicking, is an interesting idea, but it is pretty stressful to split attention and split control mechanics. innovative, but quite "fun".

good job with the art, theme, and metaphor with gameplay!

Good Boy eats the treat. by RobbzenOne 2022-04-04T23:45:06Z

your pixel art style reminds me of Curse of Monkey Island era computer games, when they were pixel-y, but really trying to look painterly, this lovely in-between time before games became HD, but after they left the confines of 8 bit.

it was a cute and mildly disturbing experience to be a sentient meatball being chased by the dog. i made it 45 seconds.

i'm guessing the doggy fun meter is intended to inevitably run out, no matter what? and if you slow down, it just drains it quicker? as i played, i found myself experimenting, trying to see if there was anything i could do to get the meter to go back up, and wondering if there was any benefit to going forward and backwards, instead of only forwards (especially since the controls menu states that going backwards is an option), but it seemed like the answer was no to both, you really only want to go forwards, and have the meter drain as slowly as possible.

Baggy & Maggy by Revetoon 2022-04-21T04:22:45Z

what a lovely and fascinating game! i love the art and character design. the rope / bag physics was so much fun. the movement dynamics felt good too.

got the climber achievement!

Screen Shot 2022-04-20 at 9.20.32 PM.png

Tsunami by GameDevTraum 2022-04-05T21:15:17Z

I think you have some cool puzzle design, like needing to hop down to a previous level to get the key, then get back up before running out of breath.

I got stuck behind a wall of boxes several times, and I didn't figure out any way to get unstuck in that situation, which was pretty frustrating. I guess it's an unfortunate gotcha of any physics based game.

I think having some kind of way to recover from that is important for a game like this, maybe kicking or destroying the boxes? otherwise it seems too easy to accidentally / unexpectedly get into a game-over state, just because of the boxes, not the water, and have no choice but to wait until you drown.

Gone Out by Bea 2022-04-21T04:31:17Z

i love these visuals! beautiful pixel and parallax art. it's nice to have a quiet and atmospheric game, after so many generic arcadey games for this terrible, generic theme.

The Itsy Bitsy Jumper by sakura_magika 2022-04-05T21:43:58Z

@tankou as long as one spider was saved, there is still good in the world!

@nafos-games <3 thanks for playing!

@nafos-games nice score! I actually just broke my record and got 20! feels so good.

@reulan thanks for playing! a high score is a great suggestion, I'll try and get that done soon.

@nicolekg I'm so glad you liked it! the controls are definitely tricky and non very traditional. I considered just using the arrows to jump instantly, but because the spider has a certain horizontal and vertical range she can jump to, (and sometimes there is no valid target at all), I thought it would be good to have a way to aim and see where you'll jump before committing to it. I'll play around with a version where you instantly jump in the direction of the arrow key you press and see if I can make it feel good. what I want to avoid is players needing to hammer on the arrow key to keep attempting to jump until a leaf comes into range and they actually can jump.

I got more feedback from a friend that the rain drops should spawn above the "Heavenly Landing Leaves" so you can see and avoid them for the final jump, otherwise you could get rain spawning right on top of you as you land on the final leaf. I'm also going to look into synchronizing the rain spawn location with the cloud, perhaps randomizing between the three columns the cloud is currently hovering over, to make it a bit more predictable and avoidable.

Screen Shot 2022-04-05 at 1.36.35 PM.png

The Itsy Bitsy Jumper by sakura_magika 2022-04-06T21:54:55Z

@ping78 thanks for playing! the controls are a bit unorthodox, and take some getting used to, i'm glad they eventually became intuitive for you!

@mistagiggles woah, 18 is a great score, well done!

@itzemii who knew folk / nursery rhyme music could be so hardcore?? ;) thanks for all the positive feedback! i agree the font isn't the most fitting, bodoni is kind of my default, but yeah, something more whimsical would be better.

@cube-logic thanks for all the feedback! as for the sun, i wanted it to be a source of safety and comfort, matching the lyric "out came the sun, and dried up all the rain", and to provide a flow of tension and release to the game. however, i agree that doing something more with it than just appearing when the rain stops spawning would be good. i'll have to think on this more.

as for the controls, i definitely considered instantly jumping when an arrow button is pressed, and am still considering it. the problem is that the spider has a limited horizontal and vertical range for her jumps, and i didn't want the player to feel like they had to blindly mash the button until they could jump, otherwise the game might not feel responsive. also, the auto targeting algorithm will change what leaf you're going to jump to as they fall, since they all have different relative speeds, so by aiming your jump, you can know exactly where you will jump to before you commit to it.

one solution i'm considering is to constantly run the algorithm that detects all possible leaf targets, and keep them all highlighted. then, you can just press the arrow you'd like to jump towards without needing to aim first.

The Itsy Bitsy Jumper by sakura_magika 2022-04-07T22:07:15Z

@peachtreeoath thank so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the controls! I have also done the “galloping” technique but I actually prefer to use left hand on A/D and right hand on space to go the fastest. I’m so happy it made you laugh :3

@ffffchai im glad you liked the SFX, it was fun to come up with them, going for “heavenly and slightly unsettling”

@6smith :0 ganbatte kudasai

@okamit thanks for the feedback, I definitely want to do something about the raindrops spawns, make them higher up and try to make them mostly under the cloud, but a bit random too. It was a fun challenge to make a nursery rhyme into a fun and challenging rhythm game. Nice score!

The Itsy Bitsy Jumper by sakura_magika 2022-04-11T21:36:16Z

@sprunth yay, i had fun with the art for getting to the top! i imagined the spider catching on fire as she goes to heaven, because the sun is too hot, even though the sun is what makes the rain drops go away, it ultimately kills her.

@chingle glad you enjoyed, that's what i was going for!

@skyward4d thanks for playing, i hope the absolute chaos was a fun ending for the game

@daniel-username a jump takes exactly one beat to complete, so if you time your jumps to the beat, you will jump (and ideally ascend) as fast as possible. if you jump slower than the beat, you're just not getting as many jumps in as you could. if you jump faster than the beat, it's not strictly bad, as long as you're still getting a jump hit in on each beat, but pressing the jump button more often than necessary makes it more difficult to also press it as soon as the next jump is possible, especially because as the song speeds up, so do your jumps, so you need to press jump more frequently to get as many jumps as possible in.

@cakts yay, thanks for playing!!!

i just watched my friend play the most incredible round, i honestly couldn't believe it as i saw it happening, but now, 27 escapes is the highest score i'm aware of: unknown.png

The Itsy Bitsy Jumper by sakura_magika 2022-04-13T06:05:15Z

@pureimprov yeah, i think there is a sweet spot for the speed of the music and ease of gameplay. you made it up to heaven at 666 speed? that's awesome! i've done it once too.

@fueelin thanks for playing, glad you liked it!

@allax that's interesting feedback; the game is a "score as much as you can in the timelimit" type of game, so of course, it's easy to get one or two escapes to heaven, but i felt like it was pretty challenging to get "a lot" of escapes. based on the comments and watching some of my friends play, here's how i would grade scores:

* 0-5 escapes: F * 6-10 escapes: D * 11-15 escapes: C * 16-20 escapes: B * 21-25 escapes: A * 25+ escapes: S

what was your top score?

@bearding8 \m/ 666 \m/

@itskdog jumping to the beat is the fastest the spider can possibly jump. it's true that it's not always a good idea to jump on every beat though, if there are raindrops all around you.

The Itsy Bitsy Jumper by sakura_magika 2022-04-21T17:49:04Z

@knexator meow!

@papaver you can jump left or right by holding down the corresponding arrow, or up by not holding any arrow. the spider has a horizontal and vertical range she can jump, and the game will highlight the leaf you will jump to in the direction you are currently aiming (left/right/up). raindrops and leaves both spawn in set columns, so for the most part, you will only get dropped when you're on a leaf, but sometimes you can get dropped mid-jump if you're jumping across a column. 16 is a respectable score!

@mark-a-pressler heheh, yeah the drops are pretty punishing, especially as the game speeds up. i think it would be too easy if it only took you down one leaf (and wouldn't be faithful with the original lyrics haha), but i'm considering having the leaves speed up more along with the music, so it doesn't take as much time away from you as you fall. as for the sound, i was going for something kind of retro-arcadey, but yeah, it doesn't exactly fit with classical strings.

@ivana-gigova i'm glad you like my art style! it's my refined, signature solid circle brush technique.

@matthewrobo C for Cool! i hope to put the score ranking into the game soon. as for the previewing, it's definitely a good idea, and one i've been pondering. essentially it would be removing aiming, and constantly targeting in all three directions (highlighting up to three leaves at a time), then just instantly jump when you press an arrow button.

The Assessment by Okamit 2022-04-11T22:11:34Z

this was a lot of fun, but i wasn't able to save the world after many tries : (

for being on theme, i guess it's impossible to save the earth, the games just keep on coming?

and while i get that forcing humans to play warriowares for no good reason is the point, i think the premise of "being ungrateful" and "horrible sins" feels like its trying too hard to come up with a reason. i think it would be more believable if the aliens were more upfront about it, like "hello lowly humans, we're bored so we're gonna force you to play these games or we'll destroy your planet."

wonderful job with the art, animation, and sound effects! i love the old school orchestral sci-fi feel! really impressive polish!

feedbacks: * intro text should be 2x as fast, or have a button to skip individual dialogues instead of the whole thing. * i was never able to pass the safe. it's clockwise, counterclockwise past and then to, then clockwise again right? i found it incredibly difficult to move to the right number (playing in a track pad). most frustrated by this one. * minesweeper - difficult to see where to click, and difficult over all! * difficulty scaling on the egg scramble is rough, after the first one, i had eggs already falling as soon as the game began, and spawning so far apart it feels impossible to catch them both.

Majellan by Reulan 2022-04-05T21:35:02Z

I think you have a really cool idea here, of becoming more capable as you get older, but also nearing death as you get older, and needing to balance the two. some puzzles require an older form, or some are much easier with an older form, but there's a risk of being older. it adds an element of suspense to exploration.

I was able to explore pretty far in certain parts of the level by getting as far as I could, waiting to age up, then continuing, which was fun, but, in general I didn't feel rewarded for finally getting to the least accessible areas. there would just be like a couple fountains to age me back down, and I was like "well what was the point of waiting to age up to be able to get up here, if all I get is aging back down". I think at the very least a big treasure trove of diamonds would have been nice, but ideally some kind of unique item / encounter. of course, it's a game jam, so that might be asking for too much.

also, at the very far left, upper area, I found a fountain that I couldn't activate by touching it, and a door with a key behind it, but no way of getting around to the side with the key.

I think it was not very clear what the block colors meant. it seems like there are a variety of colors of normal blocks, with no difference between them, and then some other blocks that are damage / death blocks. it was confusing to have damage / death blocks in addition to the spikes and gears, especially because death blocks look so similar to normal blocks. I think it would be clearer what is damaging if you kept all blocks as "safe" and just used them for visual variety, and only had hazards be non-block shaped.

overall, it was a pretty surreal experience, especially with the music. why all the spikes and gears? what's up with the fountains? it made me feel like I (the jelly) am some kind of lab experiment, trapped, eternally trying to not die by staying young.

I looked up Magellan, he's a Portuguese-born navigator? Is he related to Ponce de León? he didn't seem to be mentioned in anything related to the Fountain of Youth.

overall, nice work, I think you're on to something good here, if you refine the level design more! and of course, there's the built-in jankiness of unity physics. slippery on floors, sticky on walls, the opposite of good.

Life - Delaying Death by Itzemii 2022-04-06T20:23:31Z

it's an interesting game for sure, i really liked the gameplay mirroring the experience of life throwing all kinds of things at you, and you can try to go towards the good and avoid the bad, but eventually hit the bad.

i like the art and animation, so good job focusing on that. the sound effects were fittingly surreal.

(although i didn't understand why puzzle pieces were bad)

but as far as the game play, it felt much less like delay the inevitable, unless it's inevitably getting board by the game. i got to like 8000 and realized there was no difficulty curve, and no end condition other than deliberately going towards all the and things to kill yourself.

one way to fix it would be to make the base level decrease get exponentially faster, since no matter how many good things you try to go towards to prolong your life, death is inevitable for all of us. then it would feel like i'm actually playing against a challenge. i think it would metaphorically fit as well.

The Fire Will Die by PolymathLD 2022-04-21T05:07:20Z

i like how all the various parts come together! managing warmth, the fire, rocks, and gathering food feel varied.

i think the narrative was cool, but involved a few too many concepts, like druids and highborns and whatnot, my favorite parts were the grounded, more present aspects, but i appreciate the world building through narrative!

Doomed Drone Defence by Skyward4d 2022-04-11T22:34:19Z

feels a lot like hades. i never really understood what fuel was supposed to do, does it just slowly drain as you play, and you need to pick up fuel and bring it to the generator?

Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 3.32.19 PM.png

Doomed Drone Defence by Skyward4d 2022-04-11T22:34:49Z

also, as you can see in the screenshot, all the text showed up really small on my screen! just playing the web build.

Color Entropy by knexator 2022-04-20T23:49:59Z

it's visually pretty interesting, gaining or losing points felt totally random to me. i could keep clicking on two squares, and sometimes i would lose points, other times i would gain points. at no point did i feel like i had control or understanding of the points. i understand the theory of the game, to gain points my moving pixels to the other side, but in practice, it just felt random.

Drop by chingle 2022-04-06T19:57:22Z

having the spikes block the air puffs created an interesting challenge. it definitely made the game more of a puzzle that requires lots of trial and error for how to time the puffs to get past the spikes, but the fact that you reset every time was pretty disheartening.

also, i don't see the point of having 3 lives if you reset either way.

Drop by chingle 2022-04-11T22:26:49Z

@chingle ahh, i feel pretty silly now, i actually missed both the check point and the fact you could move forward and backward. that changes everything! played again, made it a lot farther than before. i think making the check points visually indicated would be a big improvement, and maybe tracking your furthest distance as well as time.

I Would Like to Thank the Academy by sprunth 2022-04-11T22:19:24Z

very innovative idea for a really uninspiring theme!

does the way the player plays the game have any bearing on the MC patience, or is it just a straight time limit for your speech?

my run's favorite quote was: Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 3.15.52 PM.png

Inevitable Dungeon by Surfa 2022-04-06T19:52:13Z

it's an interesting concept, but i think that manually using the death bag isn't very fun or intuitive, you're basically incentivizing the player to find an item, put it in the bag, and wait until they die so they can start the run off with it. i think that some kind of automatic "carry items forward through death" would be better, like perhaps a random item you found gets carried to the next run, so your actions from the previous run still effect the next one, but you don't need to spend valuable time tooling around the menu, or give up a precious item that you found.

Mr. Psychologist by Arthemy 2022-04-21T16:40:18Z

i really like the atmosphere you created here, with the music and shifting portrait visuals, and the loneliness of this old man in his office, i just wish the gameplay felt less random.

if you're going for true immersion into the role, then maybe the answers can be more obviously right or wrong, and more obviously connected to the narrative.

or you could make it less about reading into the individual caller's stories, and more "gamey", like have one or two key words in the text that are colored red/blue/yellow/green and it's more about matching the colors, with some kind of time limit.

Nyan Tower by sacredyouma 2022-04-21T16:57:05Z

i think the art was really cute! music had a good mix of cute and exciting.

very interesting hybrid gameplay of typing and click and drag. definitely got overwhelming over time, and i button mashed to no avail.

instead of gathering resources to build up time, i think it would have been cool if it built up the bomb meter, and when you filled it up you could clear screen, instead of right clicking to stun, which feels kind of arbitrary.

Screen Shot 2022-04-21 at 9.55.13 AM.png

Dreadlife by Cube Logic 2022-04-06T20:09:20Z

i think you did an excellent job with the tutorial being delivered stage by stage, and the music set a great atmosphere, it all felt very immersive.

i didn't expect to die instantly when the blue meter ran out, the heart symbol made me think it would drain just one life point, so that was pretty brutal.

this is just a personal note, but i think "violence is the only answer" is pretty over done in games, and i was looking forward to more puzzles / dodging than just attacking enemies.

I Sink Not by eeldam 2022-04-11T22:45:01Z

i absolutely love this game, the visuals, music, and concept are just wonderful! how fun, to make my own Howl's Sailing Boat.

i had a lot of fun building a monstrosity of a boat, though it didn't do nearly as well as some of the others posted here!

absolutely excellent work!

Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 3.41.46 PM.png Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 3.41.57 PM.png

I Sink Not by eeldam 2022-04-11T22:45:17Z

also, i think i found your debug menu by pressing D heheh. Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 3.46.10 PM.png

Delay Inevitable Death by nafos_games 2022-04-04T23:51:49Z

having the game in an "always running" state was really confusing to me, i didn't understand why the controls didn't work and i phased through boulders, especially since, on my screen, the text on the bottom that says what the controls are is mostly cut off.

i think the hit boxes on the boulders are too big, i felt like i was constantly dying out of nowhere even though it looked like i had dodged, which was really frustrating.

since there are boulders that are low, i expected there to be some kind of way to jump over them, but it doesn't seem like there is. that could add some variety to the game play.

i also think some kind of score timer would be nice, to track current and high score, otherwise it feels pointless to keep trying.

congratulations on your first LD submission, hope this feedback is helpful!

Fart Competitions by PureImprov 2022-04-12T01:18:50Z

the gameplay really didn't feel connected to the action taking place in the game. reminds me of the "learn to touch type" games i played in elementary school.

i strongly having some kind of feedback for pressing the buttons correctly and incorrectly, otherwise i have no idea if i'm doing well or not as i play.

i don't know if this is a good score or not, but here it is... Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 6.15.41 PM.png

Deloop by Lecloow7 2022-04-21T16:45:39Z

some feedbacks: * i like the idea of slowly losing your vision, creates a good mood * please list the controls, i had to press a lot of random buttons to figure out attacking and movement * the movement dynamics could use some work, there's too much acceleration and deceleration, makes everything feel floaty and imprecise. * enemies walked inside/on top of me, and i move too slowly to get them out, so that was a really frustrating way to die. * could use some kind of visual / audio confirmation when i actually land a hit on the enemies

Elonkorjuu - Live Harvest by Tutti Ankka 2023-01-15T03:39:41Z

this has gotta be one of the coolest looking LD submissions i've ever seen! i've never felt called to make 3D games, but seeing this game makes me feel like i could try it, designing with a sort of 3D world 2D asset hybrid.

i love both your visual style and level design sense, especially the use of dithering and color. gameplay is the perfect balance of simplicity and engaging.

the fact that you even support custom levels is just crazy for a jam!

main feedback would be that i don't think the BGM really fits the atmosphere, i would have gone with something more atmospheric, eerie, and moody, less rhythmic and up beat. but that's just a personal sensibility, the way it is now feels like it would be right at home in a 1980s arcade cabinet.

Orchard Archer by icxon 2023-01-14T18:33:00Z

pretty fun, you hit a nice feel for the archery. i felt pretty frustrated by the purple killer apple, i shot it several times but it didn't seem to be killable.

Late Harvest by khaotom 2023-01-14T18:25:58Z

i harvested 10 flowers! very surreal, tapping movement is interesting, but got tiring after a while. good job for a few hours!

A Day in the Life of Death by DDRKirbyISQ 2023-01-14T20:38:36Z

this game was absolutely wonderful, the parents were my favorite, especially their theme song! i turned it up every time they came on. happy la la forever!

Harvest Battle Adventure by Falkreon 2023-01-12T02:28:32Z

i think its cool that you incorporated education about the poisonous plants into the game, and the low-res art reminded me of old computer games i've played.

on the web version (at least in Safari), i didn't get any sound.

a little more variation than just tapping would have been appreciated.

overall, i don't really vibe with killing plants (poisonous or otherwise) for no reason tho : (

Flavors of Victory by Kyrio 2023-01-14T20:06:06Z

excellent job! i think you've hit all the marks here. the visuals are especially delightful, gameplay is the perfect balance of simple to understand, but engaging.

i only wish your rock paper scissors charts could be integrated into the game itself somehow, even just a little hotkey to bring it up as an overlay for reference, but that's a minor nit.

also, maybe showing a bit of the math behind what determines the win or loss. for example, in the battle that got me, i really thought i hard crafted a proper recipe to beat the opponent, and i'm curious to know why they defeated me.

anyways, great work!

i got clobbered by this guy... Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 12.02.50 PM.png

Flavors of Victory by Kyrio 2023-01-14T22:20:40Z

@kyriom mm yeah I can understand wanting to hide details from the players, my game also has a somewhat complex simulation running behind the scenes, but i hid too much from the player in the first version which lead to misinterpretation, confusion, and frustration. It’s a hard balance to strike especially in a jam with so little time to test.

CharacteRiser by alexhonor 2023-01-14T20:23:34Z

A+ for innovation! i love seeing people make creative text based games, buying harvesting and selling the very letters you use for commands is such a wonderful idea, especially for the theme.

i think the delay for seeding is a bit too long tho, i want to play this game fast!

Puppet show! by mitus 2023-01-14T21:01:47Z

so many surreal harvesting games this round! i found that i could just keep both torches running and clear away all the birds, looked so funny! good job with the puppetry visuals!

The Gold'n Apples by kikiriki367 2023-01-14T01:43:22Z

i gotta say, i skimmed through the tutorial, and when i played the first two times, got totally stuck because i thought the gold/apple gains were continuous, overtime and it was a turn based or real time simulation. i was pretty confused and frustrated when i didn't even have enough points to continue, but i decided to go back and reread. turns out it's a one-time gain based on the current world state! well, that cleared everything up. i'm sure there's some way to more clearly communicate that fact within the actual game play, but it's a game jam.

based on your high score table, i didn't do that great, but i didn't do that bad either. maybe i should have been optimizing for apples and focused less on getting gold in the final round.

chill hop bgm is an interesting choice, it's definitely nice to listen to, but feels pretty disjoint with both the pixel art style, the medieval setting, and the harvest theme. but it all more or less blended into a nice little experience :)

Screen Shot 2023-01-13 at 5.39.25 PM.png

Speedy Harvest by CG_Fred 2023-01-14T19:03:44Z

well, the multi-tractor-extravaganza was a very surprising and hilarious twist! i definitely chuckled. nice mouthed sound effects.

Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 11.02.21 AM.png

LD52 Moonlight by Fis 2023-01-15T09:41:55Z

really cute character design! i like the cooldown based combat with two attacks, and how the attacks create light that reveals enemies. i think it would have been cool if the flowers made more light too.

if you continue working on the game, would you consider implementing a "twinstick" style keyboard only control scheme, where arrow buttons do attacks (8 directions), and maybe shift+arrow is ranged attack? just an idea; i'm not great at using the mouse for these kind of games heheh :(

Harvest is coming by thomasward 2023-01-15T04:05:35Z

well, i went through an entire session without interacting with anything inside, and, to my great frustration, got a bad end, despite having done so well on the outdoor mini games.

then i read the comments, and there's all this talk of herb games and cooking games and the dog, and i realized i had missed basically more than half of the game.

i just didn't know there was anything to do inside! there wasn't a "todo list" that slide down like there was for the outside, and no visual indicator that something is interactive. just confusion that my son keeps getting worse and worse despite me chopping and fishing like a good daddo. it was quite frustrating!

it was definitely more satisfying to play through with doing the indoor tasks as well. i must say though, that fishing mini game needs to be "canned". it feels like it takes way too long, involves no skill, and i have no real influence on how it goes, just waiting for the line to bend.

i also agree with some other commenters that the grave hit box is too big.

other than that, i consistently got a really loud and harsh audio glitch around the beginning of the dialogue with the son, so i had to mute : (

i liked the record player, and petting the dog. it's the little things...

overall, it's a good little experience, but i'd really try and make sure interactive things are more clear, or maybe give stronger hints like the boy saying "i was cold last night, could you make a fire? i'm starving, and so is the dog, please feed me!"

Herogatchi by WiredOverload 2023-01-14T20:34:57Z

cute idea, i liked playing as the archer hero. i actually never had a tamagotchi, so i felt a bit lost in that mode. i tried doing various things, but was never sure if it actually had an impact. found several glitches where the herogatchi screen got overlayed with multiple UI elements

Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 12.31.48 PM.png

i think its cool if you wanted to implement a faithful recreation of tamagotchi, but for me personally, i think making that part of the game simpler would have been better. i understand tamagotchi is a sort of long-form experience, so its hard to adapt to a 5 minute game jam experience, but maybe something more like Hades, heheh, where you spend a bit of time upgrading / reconfiguring, then going back out to the fight.

Fruit Market Express by benk 2023-01-14T18:55:35Z

this was actually quite fun! i have a knack for efficient packing, and it was cool to see it made into a game. i didn't realize at first, but you have to be sure your space is laid out correctly for both filling the bucket, and filling the selling bucket. i ran into what i thought was a bug in this state, but actually i needed to move things around to fit the second watermelon in: Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 10.48.57 AM.png

i did, however, find a bug, when i had a guy ready to sell, then i timed out, when i restarted he was still stuck there: Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 10.49.54 AM.png

anyways, after 3 attempts, my high score is $76 Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 10.52.19 AM.png

Fruit Market Express by benk 2023-01-14T18:57:47Z

by the way, i think it would be really nice to implement keyboard only controls. technically yes, dragging the fruit around is a mechanic, but if you're playing well, you should never have to do that, since it takes up a lot of valuable time. i'm much more fluent with keyboard than clicking around the screen, and i have a feeling that i'd feel like a wizard in this game if i could just arrow around and use space or some other buttons to take and place fruit.

Pleasant Valley: New Beginnings by shaner421 2023-01-14T18:39:38Z

stardew valley + zombie plants! love the concept and the visuals, but i think combat is too hard and uninteresting, because (as far as I can tell), there's no block, so it's just a matter of kiting, and trying to get in for a hit, which gets old pretty fast, doesn't feel that satisfying. adding a block, or some other kind of evasion, would go a really long ways to making the combat feel more engaging and less frustrating!

Match-3: Crop Rotation by Ausstein 2023-01-12T02:35:19Z

when i read the description, i thought i understood how the game worked, but when i actually played it, i was really confused by the "rotation" interaction of mousing over various plants. from the description, it seemed like i would be able to choose how to rotate them by clicking left or right, but in practice, it seemed like they were rotating on their own, and the animation was rather jarring, when they animate into one orientation, then snap back, etc.

that all aside, i like the concept of trying to let the seeds mature and finding matches with the bigger plants.

Screen Shot 2023-01-11 at 6.32.12 PM.png

Goblo The Harvester by Tricky_Fat_Cat 2023-01-15T09:30:33Z

wow, there is a /lot/ of content here, and it looks darn good too! great work making mario 64 with evil skellies and evil goblo all in just a jam!

i ran into a few input issues, like goblo not attacking when i click, or walking for a while after releasing the button (on the patched version).

other than that, my main frustration was not knowing how to kill the big skellies with shields for the longest time, until i accidentally discovered the ranged attack (nope, didnt read the tutorial). maybe this wasnt intentional, but i tried hitting them with many melee attacks and they just wouldn't die. a single ranged attacked did the job though. it felt kind of arbitrary that melee does nothing against them?

anyways, this was really cute and fun! made it near the top of world 2, found several purple stars, but then fell all the way down and got sad.

Samhain by daitli 2023-01-14T18:16:57Z

same issue as @leoatopos :( both firefox and chrome on mac

Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 10.15.28 AM.png

Samhain by daitli 2023-01-14T18:20:13Z

watching @krassenstein 's video, your game looks really cool, let me know when it's updated! i too like the trippy menu. gameplay kinda looks like god of war, but you can freely fly! i like the black white and gold color scheme too.

Combine Carnage by MinThaMie 2023-01-12T03:13:00Z

what a funny game! the "hand made" SFX were entertaining. at first i thought part of the challenge was to stay on the path, but it seems like the car is locked in, which makes the game easier, but maybe less of an interesting challenge.

i think you need a stronger indication of the fact that there are multiple levels, and what level you are currently on. it just says "3, 2, 1" and "lap X/3", so i wasn't even sure i was progressing until i noticed the course was different. maybe say "Course X, Lap Y/3"

often, it seems like the wheat spawns with the sprite facing the wrong angle, when the car actually is right next to it (maybe you're spawning them facing the camera's current angle?) here are some examples, see how the sprite is just a pixely line? Screen Shot 2023-01-11 at 7.07.24 PM.png Screen Shot 2023-01-11 at 7.07.30 PM.png

i managed to get on the score board, though i don't think i did well. after a while i purposely hit a stump to see what would happen, since hitting the chickens was so funny. i was surprised that it straight-up ended my game. maybe be a little more clear that stumps are certain death? Screen Shot 2023-01-11 at 7.08.31 PM.png

Elite Brain Harvester Zombie by Pulni 2023-01-16T03:36:21Z

played to level 10, seemed too easy to just kite around, auto attacking is convenient but to very engaging, i think it would have felt more rewarding if i had a few buttons to press for each attack.

good job for implementing the different attacks and upgrades, and of course the mouthed SFX

Screen Shot 2023-01-15 at 7.33.18 PM.png

They Hide in the Fields by Hawkin 2023-01-15T08:58:37Z

it's always really cool to come across a spacial-audio driven entry, nice work! getting got by "them" is especially scary, good job capturing the fear factor in a jam game!

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-09T19:20:11Z

@falkreon @ausstein oh, heheh, yeah i forgot to hit "publish". thanks for the heads up, fixed!

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-09T20:42:42Z

@sid-fish @whalejam thank you so much for playing, that's just the kind of reaction I was hoping for! I agree about the fiddle, I just uploaded a fix to tame the fiddle sounds, and replaced them with a much less annoying sound in the tractor game.

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-12T03:22:54Z

@miranda thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!

@harmofish i'm glad you liked the music, i had to throw it together really fast at the end, i'm relieved it turned out alright!

@daitli yeah, i'm actually really proud of the bucket's gameplay feel; it's a very simple game that's been done to death, but there are the little details that make it feel good to play, or feel bad, and i'm happy with where i landed with that.

@tavevil yay, thank you!

@khaotom @kikiriki367 thank you for playing, but i have to say, this game does actually have 8 distinct endings depending on your choice of actions. i suspect that neither of you actually reached the **true end** of the game, just the *end-of-round score screen*. it takes about 3-4 rounds to reach the true end of the game, depending on how you're impacting the environment.

(sadly, if you leave nature and humanity at a "stable" level, the game will just continue forever, i didn't really have time to implement a force-ending", if i did, it probably would have been a scalar value that increases the strength of your actions on the environment until it soft-forces an end-game condition), but if nature/humanity consistently thrive or suffer, you should reach a new screen after the score screen.

that all being said, your comments reveal to me that i should have been more clear that playing more rounds will actually get you somewhere in the game, that i should have a stronger indication of progress, and not make the game seem like endless rounds.

maybe i should put a game ending in after completing 3 rounds, even if you haven't reached a **true end** game state, to at least show players that an ending is possible, besides the end-of-year score screen.

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-12T04:49:21Z

@kikiriki367 oh my goodness, ten long years! i'm really surprised you made it that far without reaching an end state.

there are three conditions for ending the game: humanity goes extinct, nature becomes extinguished, or nature reaches a certain threshold of thriving.

if you keep playing without reaching one of those states, it means you are constantly taking more from nature than what would allow it to thrive, but taking less than what would diminish it to becoming extinguished. and, and the same time, you are taking enough for the human population to neither grow or shrink.

i'll go into some more details here, i'm not worried about spoilers because no one will likely read down this far before playing the game first.

humanity needs to harvest a certain amount of nature to maintain a stable population. this particular amount depends on how many humans there are. if humans suffered or thrived in the previous year, the next year will have more or less humans, resulting in a higher / lower need level. the need level is indicated by the bar on the left of the UI, and on the bottom left, you'll see exactly how many humans there are as you harvest, you'll see it go up.

when you see this meter filled completely, it means you have met the needs of the humans, and their population will remain stable. if you overfill it, then the human population will grow. if there are many humans, the need will be great, and the bar will fill rather slowly. indeed, it might be impossible to fill it completely, if there are too many humans, and/or nature is too unhealthy. in essence, your world state may become such that it is impossible to sate the need of humanity, and losses are certain.

nature, on the other hand, will become less healthy if it is over-harvested. you can roughly gauge the health of nature based on the bounty set before you in the mini games. if you see lots of apples, wheat, and trees, it means nature is healthy. if you see few, then nature is suffering. the amount nature thrives or suffers entirely depends on the percent you have taken from nature *for that year*. if you're harvesting about less than half of what is there, nature will be thriving. the less you harvest, the more nature thrives, becoming more bountiful in the next year.

now, it may be obvious that harvesting zero of everything will be the healthiest for nature, and that is true, except that will result in instant loss, because humanity, having nothing, will not survive the winter. if you harvest a tiny amount, then nature will dramatically increase in health, but the human population will likely suffer terrible losses. however, there being a bountiful harvest available in the next year, it should be no trouble to sate the need of your population going forward.

again, it should take about 3-4 rounds of nature thriving or suffering, or humanity reaching 0 population, to reach and end state. i'm very curious what your scoresheet is after 10 years!

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-12T05:46:40Z

@icxon wow, thanks for posting the video! good luck with getting to the end!

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-12T06:02:30Z

@kikiriki367 i've uploaded a patch that shows you exactly how close you are to ending the game in the score screen! i'm sure you're tired of my mini games at this point, heheh, but if you care to try to get to an ending, it should be a lot more clear how close your are now!

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-12T21:18:58Z

@kikiriki367 wow, such dedication, i'm truly flattered! the picture is becoming clearer now, yeah, i'm not surprised it took so long while maintaining such a large population. this might be a brutal strategy, but i actually spend the first one or two rounds culling my population down to less than ten. that makes it much easier to pass each subsequent year with very low harvests, letting nature thrive at a very fast rate.

as long as you keep at least one human alive (yes, there are special ends for that), you can still win the game, so that's actually the easiest path heheh. trying to win the game with more than 20-30 is quite harder, as you found out! i never actually tried, myself. i should recognize that accomplishment with new endings.

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-15T02:50:54Z

@kikiriki367 cull them!!! that's cool that you really dedicated yourself to a "humanitarian run", it's probably a bit harder than it should be, ahh game jam balance.

@gizmolo thanks for the praise and for noticing all of the details! as i develop, i keep a running list of little touches to add after the core loop is done, and hope to get to as many of them as possible before submission hour. i think thats where the real fun of game jamming lies for me, putting the "author's touch" into the game.

@appoxgames ahh yes, the axe! i spent a lot of time getting the look, feel, and sound right. there is indeed easing in the movement for that real "thwack" feel. i layered the ugliest piano chord i could play with some metal clanking sound for the SFX.

@flying-dog-fish yay, i'm glad you liked the howling wind! i really wanted to take all the "life" out of that scene as you "progress". you're right about the repetitive text, i was sort of going for a children's book / nursery rhyme feel with the repetition, but after a few rounds, yeah it just becomes annoying. i should just show it all at once and have one button to skip/dismiss after one round.

@math1369 mm, yeah, a skip button would be a great quality of life feature, but maybe only appearing after the first round, to keep the twist a surprise. realizing your population is too high and needing to cull down is the intended experience, i'm glad you got that! however, yeah, 12 rounds is too much, i think you need to cull the humans really really aggressively in order to get to and ending in a reasonable amount of time. that's definitely something that should be improved in the game.

@lzxh yeah, that's exactly the experience i was going for! except needing to play or 7 rounds, i was hoping 3-4 before and ending would be the norm. did you get to a real ending after the 7 rounds? i agree, a skip button would be good, especially in the third mini game, where the idea is to make you feel really bad for cutting down even a single tree...

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-15T23:24:11Z

@harmofish @khaotom @tavevil @kikiriki367 @flying-dog-fish @benk @gizmolo @theherborist @ditam

Thank you all for the compliments on the music/sound design. I've just published the OST here:

https://sakuramagika.bandcamp.com/album/happy-tree-harvest

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-16T03:53:18Z

@xedradryade that's about the shape of it! yes, the people have spoken, i definitely need a skip button. hoping to have time to do a QOL update soon.

@benk that was definitely the idea with the axe game. sorry you lost patience in round 3, it takes a long time for nature to reach a "pristine" level (game-win condition) if you are also trying to maintain a decently sized population. it's much easier if you cull down to under 10 humans in the beginning, heheh...

@pulni hahaha, "now i'm frogged", what a fun expression. skip button incoming!

@theherborist yeah, one-third is about right, good job on figuring that out! skip button request heard loud and clear!

@ditam thank you for such a lovely comment! "as if i was the bad guy here!" heheh, good intuition :3 i'm honestly really really happy that you noticed the progress bars at first, most people don't see them at all. and especially that you noticed them filling up "questionably" fast. and that you thought it was just a balance issue at first. spending 11 years to finish with 29 people and pristine nature is true dedication, thank you for playing so thoughtfully, and for caring about the real-world preservation messaging. it really just makes me so happy that someone experienced all the things i was hoping they would, and really appreciated the design and message! <3

@ntb896 thanks for playing, glad you appreciated the little animations

@tricky-fat-cat i've bee feeling pretty depressed about the state of the world, so i tried to channel that into actually doing something to try and help using the skills and interests that i have. thanks for playing!

@d3kryption heheh, i was wondering if anyone would bring up happy tree friends, i remember watching that many years ago. glad you enjoyed this subversive, yet far more wholesome happy tree game.

@epicgamefan shame the forest destroyer! shame!!! just kidding, thanks for playing, i'm glad that you appreciated my audio sensibilities :)

@jakubbala i did participate by myself, and self-make all the assets (except a couple field recordings), but i did so under the 72 hour timeframe instead of 48 hour, so i registered as a jam instead of a combo. i usually work alone, but 48 hours is just way too short for me, so i always register as a jam entry. you select which entry you register your submission at the bottom of the page, i don't think it's automatic.

thank you all so much for the feedback and compliments! all of my <3

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-21T02:39:19Z

@stephenwhoskins thanks for noticing the dissonant violin on the tree chopping! i definitely wanted to give the player some audio clues that they're being a horrible person before they see the score screen heheh.

@artsyomni yay, glad it had the intended impact with you!

@hawkin thanks for playing, and thanks for the feedback! i've uploaded a little QOL patch that compresses each mini game's opening text into one paragraph after one round has been completed. i agree about the sounds, some variations would have made them a lot less annoying; i probably could have at least squeezed in some programmatic volume variation for the harvesting SFX, but i was sadly creating and integrating the sound at the very last minute, and really rushed it :(

@better-half heheh, i'm glad you like the art style, seems like the basic circle brush with no feathering has become my signature style. excellent job on ending with a colony of 50, that takes real dedication! i'm so glad you liked the shift from music to whistling wind in the deforestation game, i'm very proud of that detail. yes, having to manually dodge apples when you're trying not to over-harvest was an intended detail. i tried to come up with ways to make the "not harvesting" path more interesting for the wheat game as well, but sadly i couldn't. for deforestation, i wanted to make a strong statement that "doing nothing is better than doing anything", even though it doesn't make for fun gameplay. to "dj scratch" audio in realtime, just start a coroutine that modulates the pitch properly of an audio source over time. webgl unity doesn't support negative pitch, which will ordinarily play audio in reverse (such a cool feature!), so i pre-rendered reversed versions of the bgm and hot-swap them (keeping their play-time in sync) when the pitch would have become negative. thank you for appreciating all the little details, and the environmental message. i think that's what i like most about game jams, is coming up with cute little touches here and there. glad to share with you as well!

@weefairyfabi thank you so much! i'm just so happy that the game had an impact and sparked good discussion with people!

Happy Tree Harvest by sakura_magika 2023-01-28T04:06:34Z

@alchemic wow, thank you so much for posting the video and leaving the commentary! it's really good for me to watch someone playing it and voicing their thoughts as they go. as for the endings, there is actually a good ending (a few variations of it in fact).

if keep at least one human alive, and only take what you need, then nature's health will increase. the more you leave for nature, the healthier nature becomes. when the meter on the bottom right fills up, nature is at "pristine" condition, and that's the good end.

the quickest way to get there is to harvest very little in the beginning of the game to cull your population down to less than 10, and then to harvest only enough to keep the population stable (this is indicated by the bar on the left during the mini games; when it fills up, that's exactly enough for the current population's needs).

the more you leave for nature, the healthier nature becomes at the end of the round, which, as you noted, influences the amount of available resources in the next year. the reverse is true as well, and as the cycle repeats, it can become a positive or negative feedback loop.

the simulation is set up this way to demonstrate that the more humans take, the more they thrive and need, and at the same time, the fewer available resources there will be. thus it quickly becomes impossible to sate humanity's need, and both nature and humanity suffer. if, on the other hand, a small group of humans take only what they need, then nature thrives. the more humans there are, the slower nature will thrive. it is possible, but difficult, to reach pristine nature with a larger population (some of the other players took 10+ years to reach pristine nature with around 30 townsfolk).

anyways, thanks again for playing! i liked watching your tractor driving skills :3

A Necromancer's Guide To Happy Farming by TRUEchips 2023-01-14T19:06:54Z

this looks cute! is an HTML or mac version possible?

The Harvest by EpicGameFan 2023-01-15T08:56:22Z

wow, this was really cool! i find that a lot of adventure games, especially gamejam adventure games, suffer from either being inaccessibly convoluted, or not the most engaging, but this was quite a fun experience, the puzzles made sense for the most part, it was fun to explore and experiment. the art and music were quite polished too!

and then, the fact that this is to spec for an actual gameboy game (and that you have it running on gameboy hardware) for a gamejam is really super cool! great work!

i made it to a good end :) Screenshot 2023-01-15 005107.png

That Wasn't Wheat... by sammot 2023-01-16T04:16:45Z

pretty difficult! i like the limited visibility implementation with dithering, the pier art in general was well done, even with some shadow casting!

the color pallet makes it look really eerie, and it's especially unsettling with the amount of gore from hitting an animal.

i liked controlling the tractor EXCEPT for backing up! when i back up, it seems like the left/right arrows to become inverted, which doesn't really match how i'd expect a car to drive, so that took a bit of getting used to.

i thought i was driving carefully, but still hit rocks for the first three or so rounds. then, i finally made it through the time limit without exploding, but only had like half the quota :(

besides the frustrating difficulty (i probably just need to get good), i think i disliked the music the most. it really didn't feel like it fit at all. i think i was expecting something more atmospheric and creepy, given the visuals.

main lesson: don't harvest wheat at twilight!

Screen Shot 2023-01-15 at 8.10.23 PM.png

Glean the Luminescent by jcg 2023-01-15T02:39:51Z

this was fun, i really like the visual of the light in the center growing in strength, and the shadow you cast from it. i wish that was integrated more into the gameplay, the idea of a central light and shadows surrounding it.

i also wish my character got more powered up the bigger the light got. maybe it did and i just didn't notice?

i found both the light points and the enemies really difficult to see on my screen, not sure if its a resolution thing, i have a HDPI display.

made it 5 cycles before becoming overwhelmed.

Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 6.37.10 PM.png

Aggro-Culture by Ategon 2023-01-15T08:16:28Z

i think i agree with @fizzbark , this was fun to play but given that the wheat is a dud, and it's just about grinding those pachira coins and tomato turrets, i feel a bit lost playing. personally, i would have taken out the wheat and not shown the shop, if they dont actually work, and focused on making something fun with the mechanics you did complete. maybe do more with the map, since it seems like there is plantable and unplantable terrain.

i like the designs of the different bugs!

Hermesh by Kultuk 2023-01-15T08:34:03Z

tada! great success!

i came for the ducks.

Screenshot 2023-01-15 003235.png

nut another harvest story by WhaleJam 2023-01-12T03:01:30Z

wow, how cute! i like how you collect them all on the menu, and how they all bounce when you mouse them. i tried so hard to find the fifth nut, i think i explored every dialogue option and got two bad ends. i thought it might be a way to secretly cross the river... alas.

great work! i love the children storybook art style.

also dang, that raven! what a surprising attack!

Hopping Harvester by ntb896 2023-01-16T04:02:36Z

this was actually one of the most fun entries i've played, in terms of pure gameplay feel & satisfaction. i spent my first few rounds thinking the walls and ceiling would kill me too, it became a lot easier once i realized i could bump along them and be fine.

for a while, i felt quite comfortable just getting the pearls that were far away from the obstacles, and letting the risky ones just go by. however, eventually i got cornered on the left edge of the screen, and when i finally got brave enough to try to get back over to the right where the pearls were, got hit by an obstacle right at the ceiling level :(

but yeah, the movement feels really tight, it's a simple arcade game with basically no glitches, great work!

the only thing i noticed was that the bgm dropped out for several minutes, then randomly came back. do you have a lot of silence at the end of your audio file?

final score: 37 Screen Shot 2023-01-15 at 7.59.20 PM.png

The Time Traveler's Garden by Drizzle Games 2023-01-14T20:42:22Z

well, this was absolutely fantastic! i love how the music shifts to the eerie, far away whistling. what a fun twist on overcooked for this theme! <3

i especially appreciate how the micro-narrative makes so much sense: of course if you could time travel, it makes sense to plant seeds, to to the future when they're ready, harvest them, then take them back in time to serve freshest ingredients to the customer. but, it all goes horrible wrong when the future is a nightmare of mutant plants!

i really really appreciate this kind of thoughtful design, where the mechanics and twist aren't arbitrary, and come together for a cohesive whole.

(i too found the enemies to be rather difficult, maybe having a block or dodge roll would help)

CrapCirclz by Francois Dervaux 2023-01-14T20:12:47Z

love the visuals and co-op design! i think its a shame that one player basically has to stop playing to get the top view, wish there could just be a button to toggle top view on/off so both players can make crap circles from that perspective!

When The Wheat Grows by Better Half 2023-01-14T19:05:30Z

i'd really like to play this game, is it possible to build for HTML (or mac?)

When The Wheat Grows by Better Half 2023-01-21T02:24:40Z

thanks for making the web version, @better-half

i like the art style, it reminds me of games in-between the pixel and HD era, where artists wanted to draw cartoon-stylized graphics, but still had to be mindful of the resolution they were drawing at. like curse of monkey island.

it's great that you made a point and click adventure game! again, monkey island comes to mind. it really takes me back. i noticed you added some variations to the bgm depending on the location, that's a good touch.

i recommend using multiple scenes to avoid the bugs you noted with clicking randomly in the background, seems like your click hotspots are still active even after location transitions.

for the gameplay, by biggest critique is that the "special" dialogue with each character based on the items you have should remain locked until you've conversed with them sufficiently to learn about whatever their motive / secret is. otherwise, if you just travel to each location and grab the item, then talk to them for the very first time, you can dive straight into their "special" dialogue without having to do any investigation, and narratively it doesn't make sense for you to start talking about the special item when you don't know a thing about the person.

as for the narrative itself, i must say i'm pretty disappointed. i was initially quite interested when the game was premised as during the church's takeover of the world, but before indigenous religions of europe had been eradicated by them. i was looking forward to an exploration of the existence of a pagan religion in italy as it contends with the new and devastating power of the church.

[SPOILERS AHEAD] however, right off the bat, the worst possible ending, in my opinion, was foreshadowed by the beginning conversation with the cult leader. you're here to do murder. and not only do you murder, but you basically spend the entire game stealing, lying, and blackmailing people, before leading them to be murdered. i really must say, shame on you. non-christian religions, especially pagan religions, are misunderstood and misrepresented enough as is. if this game is to be taken at face value, then it must be a good thing that the church is conquering the world and annihilating these "ancient traditions" that abuse people with lying, thieving, and murdering.

i'm not in-general against games where you play as the villain, or games that hide a dark purpose behind the players actions, i think can be really cool. context is of utmost importance, and in this context, i think its harmful to portray this cult, which is presented a european pagan religion upholding ancient traditions, as villainous murderers, and that the people would likely be better off if the church continues its conquest.

Otter Seaweed Restaurant by StephanSchue 2023-01-14T19:08:57Z

wow, paper cutout graphics are great! did you physically create them or use texture maps?

The Pets Over The Innsmouth by 21st Century 2023-01-15T03:31:07Z

oh my goodness, the art and animation are just incredible for a game jam! love the concept, but i wish the whole experience was a bit more accelerated in actual gameplay, like, everything just running at 2x or 3x speed, to really see the little ones run around, eat drink sleep and multiply, for a more satisfying harvest at the end!

Getting Apples In It by Sid Fish 2023-01-12T02:43:19Z

well, that was a surreal experience. the googly eyes on the drone and the auto generated voiceover narration made it feel like a dystopian parody.

i gotta say, maybe this was intentional, but the click and drag drone controls were amazingly frustrating. the lack of ability to rotate the drone except by landing it on a surface was especially frustrating. if you're trying to do some kind of commentary about "look how awful drones are" then good job!

i was gonna give all the levels an earnest go, but after a huge amount of effort to finally get an apple in the bucket in level 2, it literally just rolled out of the bucket (from within the bucket), and i gave up.

also, the windowed version was twice the size of my screen, and when i hit "maximize" to make it fit within the screen, some buttons were drawn outside the screen bounds. might wanna double check your UI layout setup!

overall, thanks for this surreal experience, i hope that we might not be replaced with drones quite yet.

Planet Harvest Unit by Harmofish 2023-01-14T01:46:10Z

it's cool that you made such a large and complex simulation for a game jam, but i felt pretty overwhelmed by the amount of information and all the various things to do in the UI