Sean S. LeBlanc

The Treachery of Game Dev by ratking 2017-05-08T06:39:54Z

This is hands-down one of the coolest LD entries I've seen; it's crazy that you managed to basically make a pared down version of Voxatron in just 72h! The editor's not perfect (as pointed out in-game), but it's still very impressive. The first-person portion also has a really nice look to it: the geometry's simple, but the lighting does a nice job of glazing over that, and the developer sprites are great.

Some criticisms: - The code editor needs quite a few improvements. The two things that tripped me up the most were the lack of undo, and that recompiling didn't also save (I had to re-write one of the programs because I exited without saving) - I would have liked to see more physical puzzles (I assume the plan was to include more, but time ran out?) - Having to backtrack to find the solution to the physical puzzle was a bit annoying and could have easily been avoided. It would have been more interesting if instead of finding the solution code in a random machine, the snake machine from the start actually contained some necessary code for progressing.

This is my first 5/5 across the board this time around; great job!

Routine by Breno_M 2017-05-06T03:52:53Z

Visually this is a really nice entry, though I found that the gameplay got tedious quickly. I think it would have been greatly improved if the player had more control over the progression of time: having a fast forward or skip ahead option would have cut down on a lot of waiting. It might also have been interesting if instead of playing the game in real-time, the player plans routes at the start of a day and then watches it play out.

Could definitely have been fleshed out a bit more, but it's a pretty solid entry as is!

Spaceworm - Defend a sacred tree from worms invading your planet by 5Mixer 2017-05-11T23:05:24Z

Neat entry! The movement-based spell-casting in particular was an interesting idea, I would've liked to see the gameplay focus on that a bit more!

A couple criticisms: - The rate at which enemies spawn is far too easy at the start. I had to beat dozens of enemies before I felt like there was any reason to move away from the 2x3 area in front of the tree. - 1-length enemies can pass through you if you move into each other's positions on one turn - since the tree is on the right edge and rotated 90 degrees, it makes the whole game feel like it's being played sideways; I think having it at the top would have been a bit more natural (even taking into account that screens are typically wider than they are tall)

Uncharted Dreams - Fate of the Miniatures by Franklins Ghost 2017-05-04T02:21:31Z

The animations are great as usual, but it definitely would have benefited a lot from some audio. I was also a bit confused by the "press x" prompts that never went away at first; they initially gave me the impression that there were multiple interactions available (on the light especially it makes the player expect to be able to turn it off).

It's a shame you didn't have time to finish, it's a promising start!

Fancy meeting you here by Local Minimum 2017-05-04T01:10:18Z

Definitely one of the more interesting interpretations of the theme I've seen so far! The stiff character art paired with slightly animated backgrounds gave it a nice queasy feel, and the audio really helped to sell the weirdness of it all. I did find the text a little bit too obviously computer-generated (repeated phrases made this a bit more noticeable).

As a few others have mentioned, the choice to do a bunch of mini-games meant that they each didn't get as much polish, and they probably ended up a bit more confusing than intended. In particular, having something less abstract to represent the conversation topics than a single letter would have been a bit clearer, and could have provided a good way to add more variety in the gameplay (e.g. have a few different images for each instead, and introduce new ones as the game progresses).

Overall, it was a nice entry!

AS Mall World by Sean S. LeBlanc 2017-04-25T11:49:18Z

@RobotSoulsGames yeah, unfortunately we found some game-breaking bugs in the windows builds, so I've taken them down until they can be fixed. Not sure why the web version didn't work though!

edit: PC builds are back up now

Raven Delivery Service by DDRKirbyISQ 2017-05-07T02:08:12Z

Interesting concept! I didn't have much fun with it, though I feel like it would have been better in the co-op mode than single-player.

Fast & Faeries by andyman404 2017-05-16T03:01:05Z

Really cute entry! The gameplay feels a bit loose, but it's fun to just hop through the environment and not really worry too much about the race. Great job!

Unnamed Space Project by Devastus 2017-05-06T04:11:54Z

It feels like a solid start, but it's unfortunately lacking a lot of the polish and fine-tuning that I think a game like this needs in order to be fun. The 3D models were quite good, but it was difficult to get into the rhythm of things and I couldn't stand to play it for too long.

Our little island by tinyworlds 2017-05-04T01:41:05Z

The artwork was fantastic, and although the gameplay was a bit shallow, it was enjoyable. As most of the other comments have mentioned, having one or two more interactions available would have gone a long way towards making it feel less repetitive. I would have also liked to see a little bit more animation in the background elements (though that would have understandably been a lot more work).

Overall, a very cute entry!

A minor note on the controls: the existing scheme is a bit uncomfortable, supporting alternate inputs (i.e. arrows for movement or e for action) would make it a bit easier to play.

Path of the Rabbit by managore 2017-05-05T03:02:52Z

Prefacing this with a note that this was a really good game and I had a great time playing it! I have a lot of criticisms, but it's more indicative of how much time I spent playing than of the game not being fun.

- The first couple tries were very confusing; something didn't click with me that the bunny starts on a specific edge and only had one option to go forward until a few runs in. - It would have been nice if the game ended immediately on reaching an edge rather than leaving you there to wait out your remaining turns. It seems like it'd be pretty fitting to have the bunny just hop right off the edge while following the path! - The UI for showing upcoming pieces could get a bit confusing due to the text being so understated (i.e. I sometimes forgot that the bottom piece was next, and not the top). This could be fixed pretty easily by just having the scale of the very next piece be larger than the others. - The "barrier" around where you can actually place blocks is similarly very understated, and it's left to the player to pay close attention to the map edges. I feel like a game like this would benefit a lot more from the player being clearly aware of all of the pieces/rules in play so that they don't feel like they're being tricked into fail states, even if it does interfere a bit with the art style. - On that note, the artwork (although cute) seems a bit arbitrary and doesn't really communicate the theme that well. It gave me more of a board game vibe than "small world". - The first fox with 3 health has no obvious indication that its stronger, you just have to pay attention to the health dots. If the fox colours alternated on health changes instead of being seemingly random, it would be a lot more noticeable when the difficulty had increased. - There's nothing to indicate that the cells have a maximum height until it's too late (it's in the LD description, but not the itch.io one or in-game). On top of that, the game length is also balanced such that you reach the maximum height around the same time you reach the boss. It's pretty frustrating to get that far in a run only to lose because of a previously hidden restriction.

Quantum Frustum by nusan 2017-05-06T20:01:51Z

Very cool entry!

It was interesting how this kind of feels like a spiritual successor to your previous entry while still having a unique mechanic. It isn't particularly challenging, but it was fun while it lasted. A few criticisms: - the music doesn't really fit in with the rest of the game. It's a relatively upbeat MIDI track, but the game itself has a much more surreal and ominous look and feel. - the popups for collecting orbs/game over were fairly underwhelming (I'm guessing this was due to the time restriction and not done on purpose though) - mapping the shift button to restart area instead of 'r' was a strange choice; my instinct as a player is for shift to be run

World Tetris by mde 2017-05-15T06:47:10Z

Very interesting take on the theme + clever twist on a classic mechanic! It could use a bit more polish (the interaction feels a bit clunky, and some sound would go a long way towards generally improving the feel of the game), but overall it's pretty solid! I'd definitely be interested in seeing a version of this made without the LD time constraints.

Smalltrek by impbox 2017-05-16T03:34:30Z

Definitely one of the best of this LD! Solid puzzle game, lots of content, great sprites, it's even pretty fun to just fly around the snazzy level select!

Some criticisms: - first time I ran the web version it booted in a weird state where I just had the ship floating around the sun in a black void with no sound or text. It took me a minute to figure out that it wasn't just the game's intro and refresh. - the level complete sequence is a bit harsh on the ears - I would have appreciated a simple level skip due to getting stuck a couple times. Something along the lines of always being able to land up to one planet ahead of the current one would have made that a bit less frustrating.

Formicary by celia14 2017-05-05T01:02:25Z

This was a cute little game! The story was a bit silly (not sure how those ants plan on surviving), but I enjoyed it. It did bug out immediately after digging for the first time and I had to retry on the post-jam version to actually complete the game though; you may want to push the post-jam version a bit more to avoid frustrating other players.

My major criticism is that having the controls anticipate the player's expectation of what each direction would do based on where they came from (despite being an interesting idea) possibly led to more confusion than just having each direction be absolute. I definitely had a bunch of moments where I got turned around because the controls did the opposite of what I expected.

Great entry!

Digital Backwater by Max Cahill 2017-05-04T04:08:56Z

This is a really interesting idea, though I found that the concept and technical aspects were more engaging than actually playing the game (the post-mortem was a nice write-up). Part of that may be that I unfortunately didn't run into any other players while trying it out, but it would have been cool to see something in a similar vein with a bit more interactivity and polish.

Given that the world is persistent, I'm also making a mental note to come back in a week or so and see how the world has changed after more people have had a chance to play; I'm curious to know how it'll evolve!

Small World Fighters by noddingTortoise 2017-05-06T21:57:13Z

Nice entry!

Some criticisms: - the AI is a bit too easy; you can just spam the shoot button for a guaranteed win - the gameplay is a bit too repetitive; having the control area change speed/direction might help add some variety - pressing the back while on the menu (on a gamepad at least) causes it to quickly flicker between the two menu screens

Small World Fighters by noddingTortoise 2017-05-16T02:25:11Z

RE: the menu glitch, I was playing on Windows with an Xbox controller, if that helps!

Meteor Jam by PeachTreeOath 2017-05-06T22:27:31Z

This was a solid entry! I wasn't expecting much after finding out it was an upgrades game, but the core mechanic was actually pretty fun. It definitely feels unpolished (the artwork especially), but overall I enjoyed it.

Some criticisms: - not keeping your ore after completing a level made me feel like I had to grind on the early levels if I wanted to stand a chance at winning. It turned out this didn't matter since you can keep upgrades after dying, but I didn't find this out until the last area - the movement of the player/camera is very stiff, and you can easily get caught on the terrain - planet X is a bit unfair in difficulty; the player simply doesn't have enough time to react and pretty much just has to jump around randomly hoping they don't get hit - the rocket station behaving as a physics object feels a bit weird; especially when you can just carry it with you

To do list by Finlal 2017-05-06T20:47:24Z

It was an interesting idea, but overall I don't think I enjoyed this entry. I think trying to squeeze in a twist-based plot + a huge amount of detailed sprite work + a few minigames all in a single jam effort led to the story feeling a bit hamfisted. It might have been more successful if there was more content and time to build up to the ending, but it doesn't have much impact aside from a bit of shock as is.

A few more specific criticisms: - The tile-based movement felt a bit awkward, and the control scheme in general is very confusing. I think you could have gotten away with using a single context-sensitive action button for everything instead. - There's very little indication of what you actually have to do to progress. This, combined with the lack of any sort of hint structure and the non-obviousness of some of the puzzles made it really easy to get stuck. It would be a lot less frustrating to play if there were a bit more hand-holding (e.g. attempting to use an item incorrectly could trigger a line about what the character actually wants to use it for) - the portrait artwork and the sprite artwork didn't feel cohesive and look as if they came from two completely different games

Having said that, the amount of work that has gone into this entry is impressive! The sprites in particular are quite nice.

Days on the Firth by eddie 2017-05-04T04:41:18Z

This is a really charming entry! Short, but sweet.

Some minor notes: - would have liked if the music transitioned a bit more smoothly (seemed to cut out abruptly when you change screens) - the game crashes on exit instead of just closing

Ellipticats by Hotchmoney 2017-05-08T05:53:23Z

Cool concept! I found the difficulty level to be a bit too high and usually just ended up flinging myself into deep space, but having the player keep their cats when restarting was a nice way to keep it from getting too frustrating. I never quite figured out how the varying jump heights actually worked, but it was pretty fun!

IN CHARACTER by superjoebob 2017-05-16T04:42:35Z

Great entry! This was definitely one of the most entertaining games this LD, and it managed to hold my attention for a lot longer than I was expecting.

Some criticisms: - The text in the center was prone to blurring. - There didn't seem to be any purpose for the progress bar in the bottom right. It might be nice to hook it up to unlocking new brushes, colours, etc. if you're planning on doing any post-jam work on this. - Occasionally it would open a letter to show a blank screen, then close a few seconds later and try again. I assume this was a network connectivity issue, but it would probably be good to give some user feedback when that happens.

It would be really interesting to see a little compilation of some of the best entries after the ratings are over!

High Society Poking Enthusiasts by Dev Dennis 2017-05-07T02:28:36Z

Nice entry!

Some criticism: - touching any of the wall colliders causes the camera to jitter - quite a few typos in the intro text - I think I would have preferred it a bit more if fish-poking was a non-violent activity :p

I got bored after a few minutes and gave up, but I'm curious to know if the King Fish actually exists in the game, or if part of the joke is making the player poke fish into extinction in pursuit of their quest.

A Giant Hitch by GenericToast 2017-05-07T02:02:35Z

This is a funny little entry, nice job!

Some minor criticisms: - you can finish the work segment by just placing yourself on both buttons and jumping - the lunch segment was far too long for how simple the interaction was

Eine Kleine Insektmusik by davidthelazar 2017-05-15T06:12:33Z

Great entry! This is a neat concept, though the jam version suffers from the lack of anything to prevent the player from just standing still most of the time. The collectibles in the post-jam version definitely improve on this (though they do feel a bit arbitrary).

I would have liked to see a bit more content, but this is a solid entry nonetheless!

The Space Explorer by UnidayStudio 2017-05-15T05:15:25Z

This is quite an impressive amount of 3D asset development given the time limit!

A few criticisms: - The combat feels a bit pointless; it's too shallow to be challenging and is a bit clunky overall. I think the time spent implementing combat would have been better spent polishing other portions of the game. - Suffers a bit from adventure game logic; if a random hunk of pipe is good enough for a makeshift lever, you'd think the wrench the astronaut has already would work too - The cutscenes were a bit buggy: in particular the camera + the levers would jump around a bit

Overall though, this is a nice entry!

The Deep by GertJohnny 2017-05-04T00:41:09Z

This was a really neat entry! The humour sprinkled throughout the instructions was definitely the best part, and the audio did a particularly good job of reinforcing the atmosphere. Unfortunately, I found the actual gameplay got tedious pretty quickly. It's a bit hard to count that as a negative given that the tasks being kinda boring plays into the idea of being forced to do this job day in and day out, but it did make it harder to get into; a number of times while playing I thought to myself "OK, have I seen all it has to offer now, or is there going to be new stuff after I do this next thing?"

Few minor gripes: - first mission required docking + unloading cargo, but the mechanics for that were only explained in the second mission - map feels a bit too straightforward, especially since there's a depth control - character's climb animation plays at top/bottom of ladder

Down the Rabbit Hole by those-30-ninjas 2017-05-06T05:20:46Z

Very interesting game!

Some criticisms: - the turns feel *very* slow-paced - being able to restart at the current level would cut down on the frustration of losing a lot - there's very little to indicate what the three card groups actually represent: the player has to figure out how to use their set to make any progress, but it would be nice if hovering over the bunnies' set gave a preview of the enemy movements to make it clear how that mechanic works - there's nothing in-game to indicate that you can move onto the bunnies; I think most people would assume the player would take damage if they did this - connection to the theme is a bit tenuous

Although the game could use some polish in terms of interaction + teaching the player, it's otherwise quite fun, the artwork is cute, and it's mechanically engaging. Great entry!

Spermicorn by Fanu 2017-05-16T03:09:54Z

Well that was a strange one. The minigames both feel like they go on for a bit too long, but other than that it was a pretty solid execution of your concept!

Planetoid Piracy by RobotSoulsGames 2017-05-07T01:47:25Z

This is a really impressive entry! There's quite a lot of content, and the core gameplay loop is fun and relatively unique.

Some criticisms: - the controls were really confusing at first (it took me longer than it should have to realize that the prompt for jumping was "z") - even after learning the controls, I found that they required a bit too much context switching. I'm surprised a Terraria/Starbound-like control scheme wasn't used, with the items being scrolled with mousewheel and the weapon being treated as an item slot. This would have allowed for WASD + mouse, rather than arrows + ZXASW + mouse - I noticed some talk of music in the other comments, but didn't hear any while playing. Possible bug? - landlocking probably should have just been for tile collision rather than bounding box - getting killed for leaving the playable area seemed a bit harsh; it probably should just use up one of the teleport charges to save you instead - the balance of the combat is suited for the player running around doing things, but once you've got a few turrets you can pretty much cruise through the rest of the game in planet mode - the .pdb isn't needed as part of your public build, it's for debugging

Great job!

Batter Bros. by fanatrick 2017-05-07T03:30:24Z

Nice entry! It's unfortunate that Lethal League already exists, because this would have been a pretty innovative entry otherwise!

The artwork is great and the game is pretty fun, but the fact that it's inside a snow globe feels kind of inconsequential to the rest of it and only serves to give a connection to the theme.

Having a vs. CPU mode was a really nice touch though. It makes it a lot easier to get a feel for the game than trying to play a 2-player game with only one person.

Entropy by SleepyStudios 2017-05-15T06:40:23Z

The online multiplayer aspect is definitely ambitious, so congratulations on getting that complete during the time limit! Given that there were also AI players though, I'm not too sure it was a great time investment. Not having bots definitely would have prevented some people from playing since it's unlikely that there will always be enough players online to make games viable, but at the same time the bots kind of trivialize the online play; it's impressive to have networked multiplayer, but if the gameplay works without it (and in fact, if most players are just going to be experience it alone against bots), why spend the time on it? (excluding just for the fun of doing it, of course)

In terms of the actual gameplay, the neverending tug of war is an interesting concept, but I felt like the three factions didn't feel distinct: blue + green might as well have been a single faction since there doesn't seem to be any way for blue to do anything other than suppress red and support green. I also found that the lack of immediate feedback in the world state made all of the player's actions feel very impotent. This may have been intentional given that the gradual push and pull of the factions is put front and center, but it does make it harder to engage with the simulation.

It's a cool entry and definitely a solid start, but plenty of room for improvement!

SUN GOD by palemachine 2017-05-07T03:15:25Z

This is a fantastic entry! Unique take on the theme, and well-balanced such that it takes a couple tries to beat without being overly difficult. The visuals are also great, and I especially loved the transition from intro to title screen.

Some criticisms: - the RNG at initialization can be a bit annoying when all the planets are above and to the right of you - the bullet trails disappear all at once rather than fading out from tail to head - having an in-game tutorial is a nice touch, but I feel like this one was a little bit too in-depth. One which simply explained the premise, controls, the fact that there are hazards would be enough without specifically outlining the different hazards, ui elements, etc.

Another thing that might have been interesting is if the win screen was either a bit more varied (to reward the player for having beat the game) or less varied and almost identical to the lose screen (to highlight how silly the win condition of having flung yourself and millions of others into the sun is).

Gravity Trails by electr1ca 2017-05-07T02:52:38Z

This is really great! It's simple and not particularly innovative, but it's also very cute and one of the most well-executed entries I've played so far. The music and the little faces on the planets were really nice touches too!

Minor criticism: the "down to interact" seems unnecessary; the only thing it's used for is the intro + outro, so it might as well just re-use the jump key or trigger on movement instead.

Arry World by willowblade 2017-05-08T06:50:45Z

The artwork and audio in this is quite nice, but I wasn't really sure how to make progress most of the time. The text was also painfully slow, and simply restarted when you interact twice (instead of instantly completing the letters that are ticking in one-by-one like most dialogue systems). Since I didn't know what was going on and trying to find out was frustratingly slow, and I ended up quitting pretty quickly.

Den by La mecanique du plastique 2017-05-06T04:39:44Z

One of the best I've played so far!

A few criticisms: - end screen doesn't properly register as the game having ended (you can still click and have the beast make noises and whatnot) - providing WASD + an action button as a keyboard alternative would have been a nice touch (the mouse controls aren't that bad, but they are a bit finnicky) - the game is very short, and even in that short span the scream mechanic is very underused

Having said that, the amount of work included in the game is already very impressive. It would be interesting to see a longer version with more things to do, but it's already solid entry from start to finish!

Rock Hammer by Airman4 2017-05-15T07:03:20Z

Congratulations on your first game! The artwork was definitely the standout in this entry for me.

Some criticisms: - due to the timing of the blocks that fall, the player is lucky if they get more than one shot at hitting them, making the game pretty stressful from block one. It would be better to be more forgiving at the start, and ramp up to more challenging speeds after the player has a feel for the mechanics. - there was an exit button on the loss screen, but it didn't seem to do anything - as others have mentioned, it's lacking the level of depth + polish needed to keep people playing more than a couple rounds

Having said that, it's a nice start, especially for a first attempt!

Planetary Garden by joatski 2017-05-07T00:48:07Z

This is a nice entry, if a bit boring. I feel like there needed to be something new introduced after the first couple cycles. I noticed that you just had to do algae then buy goats to open the next planet, so I was expecting there to be a twist, new gameplay element, or some sort of end state at later stages but didn't find one.

On a more minor note, some music would have definitely improved the experience, and the artwork could also have used a bit more polish (the font seems like an especially bad choice due to legibility).

Becky's very very Small and TOTALLY not mundane World by pmarincak 2017-05-16T02:15:55Z

Nice entry! The artwork's cute and it's an interesting take on the theme.

Some criticisms: - I feel like it should choose one of the two stations the player isn't currently standing at to keep them moving; getting three coffee breaks in a row can kind of kill the frantic aspect. - The timer seems a bit too forgiving: I got bored at around 10k, but still had about 15s to spare and just let it run out. It probably would have been a bit more engaging if playing against the timer was a bit tougher. - I also ran into the music bug in the web version reported by a few others (I actually thought it was intentional up until the game ended and the music didn't come back! It does a good job of highlighting the dreariness of it all.)

_Save_ by iamteekay 2017-05-05T01:33:52Z

Nice minimal art style! The sound effects added an extra level of polish, but I definitely would have appreciated a bit of music to go along with it.

I did find that the balance was a bit off (I'm pretty sure more than 50% of the damage done to my planet was a result of stray laser beams). Making the player invincible was a cool way to put the focus on the world itself, though I think it would have been nice if colliding with objects directly still had some sort of reaction, e.g. pushing the player around or temporarily disabling them.

Overall, a great little entry!

Minor bug: when the planet finally did lose all of its health, the game froze up for a few seconds and the audio got stuck on a loop before it recovered and showed a game over screen.

The Crushed Sky by CMLSC 2017-12-11T05:11:06Z

I found this a bit too challenging, but it's a solid entry! Nice work. - It's pointed out in-game that tapping X is more effective than holding it, but it's left to the player to manage this, which ended up being a bit frustrating to control. I think it would have been better if instead, you treated it like a multi-jump system and had each individual X press do a single boost instead of being a press+hold control. - If you're going to have text which animates in, it's best to have the "next" button first cause it all to appear, and then have the second press actually make it progress. I ended up skipping some dialog when trying to read faster out of habit.

Orbits by tuism 2017-12-11T06:14:43Z

Cool entry! One of the most interesting uses of the theme I've seen yet. Only ever managed to make it to 4, haha!

A minor complaint: having the short delay between taking your last hit of damage and actually blowing up feels a bit weird; I think it'd be better to have immediate feedback for that.

Micro Trooper by Split82 2017-12-10T09:52:39Z

Digging this 1-bit art style! It wasn't particularly deep in terms of gameplay, but it's still a solid entry.

It's interesting how differently the compo and post-jam versions feel due to the firing modes. The latter is definitely easier on the wrist, but I may actually prefer the former due to the strategies available: in the post-jam version, I found myself getting further mostly just be standing on one level and defending, which ended up being more boring.

The diagonal shots during jumps and being able to jump at any point after walking off a platform were both nice touches.

Save the Hats by Gruhh 2017-12-08T05:44:43Z

Interesting concept, but I found it really difficult to get the timing down and didn't make it too far in. I wish I was better at playing this, because it seems like a pretty polished entry!

It's cool that you added an intro sequence too, but it would have been nice to make the little bit that plays when you restart skippable (especially for people who suck at the game like me and have to see it multiple times in quick succession, haha).

Babies! Babies! Babies! by Local Minimum 2017-12-06T07:21:05Z

Wow, every time I feel like you folks have hit a new high for creepiness, you go ahead and top it in the next LD :p

I've seen a couple takes on theme which were simulation game approaches to "kids/pets are nice but too many is stressful", but this was certainly a more interesting interpretation, haha.

The foreground babies were definitely the best part.

BaconMan by josefnpat 2017-12-06T06:36:06Z

Digging the overall goofiness of this! The character designs do a really great job of selling the style.

- I found that once I got into a good rhythm, it wasn't actually that challenging. Idk if the monster spawn rates ramp up over time to eventually make it impossible, but I felt like it could have been made a bit more difficult if you made it so that you can only punch them when not holding bacon (or maybe you just lose the bacon if you punch with it?) - The audio got pretty grating after awhile. I imagine that was at least partially intentional for the voice-over, but the music was more the issue for me (it seemed to get louder and quieter for no real reason) - The time for a cooked strip becoming burnt seemed really sporadic, to the point that some pieces are basically just a lost cause if you aren't already on it when it cooks - Making it so you can open the controls and exit repeatedly to repeat the starting line was an A+ decision

The Last Stand at Epsilon Tauri B by geeitsomelaldy 2017-12-10T08:05:37Z

Nice entry! It was fairly simple, but a nice take on combining asteroids with the theme.

I did have a few issues though: - The first wave with the asteroids felt far too long for a tutorial level - I agree with the comments that the lasers could be a bit more visually distinct, and that having more feedback when getting shot would be helpful - It'd be nice if the threat controlled a larger range of difficulty; even with maxed out threat, it was relatively easy to win by just putting your ship into a slow horizontal slide at the bottom of the screen and constantly shooting up.

I stopped playing after wave 3; I'm not sure if there was more progression after that point, but given that there was zero indication of anything having changed between 2 to 3 and 3 to 4, I assumed it just repeats the same level. If that's true, a good way to make people play a bit longer and experience the game at a few different difficulty levels would be to make the different weapon levels unlockable, rather than giving free access to everything right off the bat.

unrogue by dunin 2017-12-11T06:33:51Z

Really cute dungeon crawler with an interesting risk/reward focus! Only major complaint is that there doesn't seem to be an end goal beyond seeing how high you can get your score: I'd be a bit more motivated to try and make it further if I knew there was a defined ending at some point.

Loved the little "walking down the stairs" animation btw.

Ominos by differentname 2017-12-11T04:48:47Z

Great entry! This was a surprisingly interesting take on tetris; played it multiple times trying to beat my previous scores. It does feel like the difficulty ramps up a bit too fast (my best was 22 lines). I think the difficulty came mostly the increasingly awkward shapes you have to place; if this part ramped up slower in relation to the size of the board it might be a bit more approchable.

Some audio/visual polish would also go a long way towards improving this, but still a really solid puzzle game as-is!

escape🥚hatch by 01010111 2017-12-05T01:59:34Z

Nice entry! Wasn't particularly innovative, but the music was great.

Alchegator by torcado 2017-12-05T03:35:42Z

Cute little puzzle game, but I the logic was a little bit too obtuse for me near the end. I had to resort to the walkthrough after melting my box without having enough sand leftover to make the mirrors (it seemed kinda like a bug that the glass box could only crush into metal though; was that intentional?).

- making the mirrors was kinda buggy, and ended up making metal panels instead sometimes - at one point I agitated a bottle and then threw it, and the fizzing noise never went away - reading the note interrupts the laser beam (this is a super weird one, haha) - I would have liked there to be an easter egg for using the mirrors to angle the laser at the mouth :p - occasionally after picking something up, the directional controls would reverse until I put it back down

It could stand a bit more polish, but overall it's a pretty solid entry!

Alchegator by torcado 2017-12-06T06:54:36Z

@torcada ah yeah, sounds like that was the case. Looking at the walkthrough for the different objects' names, it was pebbles -> slag.

Curse of Greed by Sophie Houlden 2017-12-05T02:34:28Z

This is really good; one of the best entries I've played so far! I did have a little bit of trouble with the walljump (the area with a bunch of vertical lasers got me more than once), but other than that it was really solid as a platformer, and the incorporation of the theme was pretty clever.

The attract mode was also a nice touch!

Boiler Room Defense by cerno-b 2017-12-10T07:34:56Z

Great entry! The main mechanic is a clever use of the theme, and the risk/reward of taking the different shot powerups adds some interesting depth to it.

I think the sprites could have been something that better represented the gameplay (it's a bit weird that a boiler would be shooting ice), but that's a fairly minor criticism. Nice job!

Stay Alive by wh05herlock 2017-12-09T08:45:05Z

Nice job getting a full crafting system working, but the graphics in this could use some work. In particular, one issue which could be fixed without spending too much time is colour: I'd recommend going with a palette that has a bit more harmony in the future to avoid having such a harsh contrast on your tiles/assets.

One kinda funny bug I noticed was that the player is able to continue playing after "dying". That could actually be an interesting way of giving them the freedom to experiment with mechanics, but given that this is a survival game, I'm guessing that wasn't intentional, haha!

crowglary by blackoptics8 2017-12-06T06:49:56Z

This feels like more of a proof of concept than a fully realized game, but it's very cute nonetheless! I imagine there was supposed to be more for you to do once you've spawned a few little birbs (as it is I'd argue it only gets better as you have more, haha), but it was still fun to run around in the field for a little bit.

Life's A Glitch by gamepopper 2017-12-11T04:21:48Z

Nice entry! I see we went for similar interpretations of the theme, haha.

I did find the gameplay in this a bit simple; I would have appreciated a bit more depth to the game or a bit more use of glitches to impede the player's ability to survive.

LORD BASKETBALL by designernap 2017-12-11T07:46:03Z

Great entry! The idea is solid, though I did feel like getting a basket was waaaaay too hard (forgiving mode probably should have been the default, haha).

The crowd throwing things was the best idea in this imo; it would have been nice to see that part emphasised more with even more ridiculous amounts of increasingly distracting objects being thrown.

Exploding Golf, with Lovable Piggies by OldPeculier 2017-12-11T05:26:13Z

Great entry! The explosion mechanic is a cool twist on the basic golf puzzle, and there's a nice level of polish to this. It'd be interesting to see a more fleshed out version of this with even more mechanics!

- Exploding the cue ball seemed a bit too powerful and let me solve levels in ways that didn't feel intentional at all: e.g. on level 7, you can simply shoot directly into the center island and then explode the red ball into the hole. - The connection to theme was fairly loose - I found myself getting a bit turned around on the controls pretty often; I got through it without too much issue but I do wonder if having it simply move the hit point instead using a polar system would be a bit more intuitive - I killed too many piggies :(

A cozy winter walk by tinyworlds 2017-12-05T03:53:07Z

This is adorable! Cool to see a bitsy entry too!

I really loved the use of items for the cat, having it run ahead of you and making you pick it up each time.

Some minor issues: - The tree and Susan's house are missing walls so you can wander around in the void - the final sentence of the ending is a character too early (the "a" from "a game by..." shows up in the previous page) - I also ran into the issue where the player would walk forward in the last pressed direction. I haven't seen that bug in a bitsy game before, and it didn't happen again when I refreshed; might be a good idea to ping adam and see if it can be fixed.

Great entry!

The lost strawberry by egordorichev 2017-12-04T04:47:42Z

Interesting mix-up on the Celeste mechanics!

- I like the idea of having the pickups obstruct your vision more, but I found that in-game this effect wasn't noticeable enough to be effective; it could have stood to be exaggerated a bit more. - I found the boss fight to be pretty frustrating. The most difficult obstacle on that level wasn't the enemies or the boss itself, but actually the platform which just carries you into spikes if you don't jump off quick enough. - the default palette is pretty low contrast; I think one of the brighter ones would probably be a better choice since there will likely be players who don't bother switching it.

The scope of this is pretty impressive for a LD entry, congrats!

btw, the source you posted errors out after a couple seconds of running, and it's also just the code itself; you should probably put up the actual p8 file so that the rest of the game (sprites, sfx, map) are included.

Cute Cats Daily by impbox 2017-12-04T05:51:49Z

Cute entry, but I found that it had a few too many issues for me to be able to have a really good time with it: - Biggest issue is that picking up cats seems to be bugged: I assume this is how you're meant to send them off for permanent adoption, but since you can't pick them up you kinda just get stuck with more and more cats (it's also a *huge* let-down to be told how to pick up a cat and then not be able to, haha). - Another issue was that the progression of time feels way too fast. Having days pass by really quick makes it feel more stressful, which supports the theme, but I found that I barely had time to figure out what I was doing before I'd already adopted three cats. It might make sense to have the first few days start off slower, and then ramp it up over time to give it more of an approachable difficulty curve. - The audio distortion was a nice touch, but I couldn't tell what it was tied to; it was grating even when I thought I was doing a pretty good job.

I think this could be a fun little management game if a few of the issues were fixed!

Glitched by tomer_cool 2017-12-06T06:19:15Z

Cool entry! Looks like we went for a somewhat similar idea.

- I found the transition from level 2 -> 3 was a bit too quick in terms of the "level" of glitchiness; it goes from a few rectangles out of place to every single texture being replaced with a text atlas, which ends up making it feel a bit too artificial IMO. This would have been more effective if there were more intermediary glitches. - I would have liked to see more glitches that affect gameplay, either like the little stretch+pop that moves the player, or even just things that are visually distracting or deceiving enough in order to make the platforming a bit more involved - Audio would have been a plus (there's only so much you can do in 48h though, haha)

Also way to make me feel super old by being a whole decade younger and still making competent games :p

Complicity Inc. by rhythmlynx 2017-12-09T09:25:04Z

Really great entry! Even though the concept was strong, I was half-expecting this to be a massive slog to play (which would be thematically appropriate despite being boring!), but it turned out that it was actually really well balanced such that you're doing each new task long enough for it to be stressful, but not for so long that it feels too repetitive.

A couple criticisms: - The profit forecast didn't feel anywhere near as transparently sinister as the drone, censure, or disposal tasks; I think it would have made more sense to put this as second to have the ramp towards complete lack of personal ethics a bit smoother - Got completely thrown for a loop on the population one and got fired before I had a chance to figure it out; I imagine this one was near the end though, so it may just be purposefully much more obtuse, haha - I would've really liked there to be a couple more interactions between different elements of the OS. The evidence -> trash interaction was cool, and it would have been interesting to see more elements that took advantage of that sort of thing instead of having so many which were contained within a single window.

One of the best uses of the theme I've seen yet!

Black Hole Star by wowa 2017-12-11T05:39:33Z

This is a really cute entry, but unfortunately I found the gameplay a bit boring. - There was no real indication of where to go to find each star; it was pretty much just wandering around until you found where the little guys were congregating (some positional audio on the black hole sound effect could have been a good subtle way to lead them) - 12 stars seemed like far too many for the variety of gameplay available; it could have easily been half of that without sacrificing much of the experience - The player is never in any real danger, as simply holding the light over top of them is enough to keep the little guys at bay even towards the end

I would really like to see a version of this with more depth though; gameplay issues aide, it is a nice entry with a great visual style!

Mushroom Délicieux by TRASEVOL_DOG 2017-12-06T05:05:44Z

This is gorgeous! I found it a bit too hard to play to completion (made it 6/7 like four times before giving up, haha), but definitely nailed the feel of the theme. It manages to have a look-and-feel very unlike most pico-8 games too; it's an interesting progression in art style from your last one!

Cybercage Battleground by makiki99 2017-12-08T03:53:53Z

Interesting concept! It had a few issues, but this was a pretty solid entry.

- Mouse controls didn't work in fullscreen (this may just be a limitation of PICO-8 though; can't say I've tried that before) - I think the difference in bullet power needed to be exaggerated more: I played the first round "as intended", purposefully keeping ammo count low to try to do more damage, but on my second run I did much better by just picking up ammo as soon as I killed enemies. - It bugged me a little bit that there was a visual indicator for health, but just a number for ammo, especially when the ammo is far more important/dynamic than the health is.

Really nice use of a simple graphical style. Using circles and lines for everything probably gave you more time to work on other aspects, and the few little details like the flickering text helped add a bit of polish.

Catastrophic Cities by Drauthius 2017-12-11T06:20:45Z

Interesting visual style, but this game is kinda impenetrable to play, haha! It's very hard to get a sense of what effects your actions are actually having, and even harder to get a sense of what they'll do before committing to them.

CrudeCarnageCars40 by elZach 2017-12-10T08:50:05Z

- the loop point in the car engine audio clip is pretty noticeable on the main menu (I did really enjoy all the pitch-shifted "vroom-vroom" sfx when you're passing the AI in-game though) - the car selection on the main menu started out at 36 on the slider, but the text next to it said 200 until I actually moved it - out of curiousity, I tried driving off the map and found there was nothing stopping me but a relatively long + boring drive; I'd recommend putting in something to prevent the player from just driving away - Given that nothing happens when you reach lap 3 and that the AI isn't particularly challenging to pass, it probably would have been better to just ditch the lap/position indicators and keep the focus on causing chaos in sandbox mode

Overall, a pretty great entry!

Infectious Void by Odrez 2017-12-10T09:03:57Z

Interesting entry! It's a bit rough around the edges, but the art style and audio do a good job of conveying the atmosphere.

- noticed a bug where if you die while standing close enough to the teleporting potion, pressing space will teleport you and kill you again instead of respawning - given that the primary mechanic is mostly interesting as a puzzle mechanic, the enemies seem like a strange addition. If there were more ways to interact with them it might make a bit more sense, but as it stands all they really do is test your reaction time. - the health values seem to be a bit fudged; the lever would always kill me after using the teleport potion, but didn't kill me after skipping the teleport and getting hit by an enemy along the way.

Would have been interesting to see more of this!

Kids, Don't Do Wild Magic by ErikU 2017-12-09T07:36:26Z

Interesting concept! I think there are some solid ideas here, but also that the implementation ended up making it far more challenging than intended. - The lack of a fluid camera control makes both the navigation and aiming much harder. Having it move smoothly based on mouse movement would be a big improvement. - I agree with the other comments that the controls are pretty awkward. Since both spells are press+hold to cast, I think having an explicit "spellcasting mode" was redundant; simply blocking movement while casting either spell would have accomplished the same thing. - Given the clunkiness of the player's moveset, the AI opponent's abilities felt fairly overpowered. I found myself often getting sniped by boulders with very little time to react and get out of the way. - This is more of a technical point, but whatever was used in order to do the mouse aiming made it so that in the web version (on firefox at least) pops up the browser warning for an element having taken control of the mouse every single time you right click. This could probably be fixed by capturing the mouse all the time, and handling the different modes internally to the game if needed.

Overall, I feel like this would have benefited from a fairly reduced scope, but you did manage to make the battle feel pretty hectic, haha!

Captain Alexia by ludonaut 2017-12-06T04:45:43Z

Nice entry! I would have liked to see a bit more depth, but this is pretty solid as-is.

A few criticisms: - The zombie ship bug definitely detracted from it, but kinda hard to hold a couple bugs against an LD entry, haha! - The difficulty seems to cap out pretty quickly; my guess is this was done for performance reasons (just tossing more bullets and ships on the screen has its limits) but it only took a couple minutes for it to feel like I was just cruising through. - Being able to instantly move your ship anywhere with the mouse felt a bit over-powered - Just losing your buddies instead of having a "death" felt a bit lack-luster

Really dug the art style on this one!

Little World by leafo 2017-12-04T04:58:53Z

This is adorable! The outside music is particularly great, and the faux-3d characters are also pretty cool. Would've been really interesting to see what this was building up to!

A minor criticisms: the transition between areas is always a slide-up, but would probably look a bit better if it was a slide-down when the player is moving up into a new area.

Pooch Parade by pmarincak 2017-12-11T06:01:41Z

Really cute entry! I found that the AI for the dog you're chasing could stand to be improved though; it often got stuck in a corner or beside a bench and ended up being far too easy to catch.

I'll Take You To Tomato Town by adamgryu 2017-12-10T07:09:35Z

One of the best entries I've played so far! Only complaint is that the interpretation of the theme felt a bit like an afterthought, but the game itself is fun, funny, and has a great goofy style to it.

Sunken by Tay 2017-12-06T05:40:14Z

Nice entry, though I do agree with most of the criticisms laid out in the comments already: there's far too much RNG for it to feel like your choices as a player are making much of a difference; the double-tap to move seemed unnecessary; travelling up instead of down would have been more consistent with the premise.

If a few of these issues were addressed, I think this would be a lot more compelling as a roguelike. The RNG issue is especially holding it back: giving the player more agency would go a long way (the only real "tactic" I came up with was to take advantage of floors with meat to get s kill in then heal immediately after).

Xmas: Sorted by Liquidream 2017-12-05T02:17:12Z

Oof, this was a tough one! Simple but sweet.

Xmas: Sorted by Liquidream 2017-12-06T06:52:36Z

@liquidream fair :p

Deadline by Sholf 2017-12-11T07:02:29Z

Fairly simple, but fun little game! The gameplay does start to get boring after a little while though; having powerups definitely helps add to the variety, but it's hard to stay interested after you've written a couple dozen pages.

Sword Collector by Dave Siegel 2017-12-11T04:26:09Z

The joke was a good one, but delivery left a bit to be desired. It was pretty strange that even when the player falls over mid-battle, you still get the "you defeated your enemy!" win message.

Happy Marshmallow Factory by thechemist 2017-12-08T03:29:52Z

Cute little clicker game! The narrative was a bit heavy-handed, but it was also more than goofy enough to excuse, haha. I think some audio would have gone a long way towards making the assembly line feel more satisfying, but there's only so much you can get done in a jam :)

The news ticker was definitely the best part.

Do You Mind If My Buddy Joins the Band? by Brandon Anderson 2017-12-11T04:59:09Z

Interesting idea, though I found that the timing of the key presses and the audio felt really disjointed and made it a lot harder than intended.

Cool that you recorded your own audio for this though!

Mo' Gold, Mo' Dragons by tvance 2017-12-11T05:53:12Z

Nice entry, though it could use a bit of polish. - the UI is fairly basic, especially ending the game with an alert window, haha - the music didn't really feel like it fit the premise of the game - the hitboxes on the dragons seem really forgiving - the dragon sprites were nice, but having better visuals for the player, coins, and ground would have made them feel a bit less out of place

Maze Trudger! by Colossal Gnome 2017-12-08T05:26:03Z

Nice entry! It would have liked to see a few more options for interaction though, as it stands the muck is unavoidable and the enemies are essentially just minor obstacles to run past. I also agree with the other comments that the audio was pretty repetitive.

The maze generation was interesting, but I think the gameplay would have benefited from a starting with a smaller maze as well; it's pretty challenging to get to the end just due to the sheer scale of the map.

fyi the \*s in your game's description (in "A\*") are turning sections of your description into *italics* because wrapping a block of text in them is the markdown syntax for that. You can put a \\ in front of them to avoid that.

BURROWED TIME by endesga 2017-12-04T07:03:45Z

Nice entry! Only managed to make it to round 6, but this was a pretty solid dungeon crawler.

Some minor criticisms: - I found that the light mechanic didn't seem varied enough; enemy damage was the only deterrent that affected my decisions about how much time to take. - It could just be that the previous weapon fit my play-style better, but going from getting 2-for-one kills in one shot to the peashooter with a messy low-damage spray felt like a downgrade. - The skull dudes felt a tad too quick; it was pretty much impossible to dodge one if you were walking towards one it off-screen - Dungeon generation occasionally created big empty boxes, which felt a bit out of place for the visual style

Spearfisher: Blood in the Water by Windburn1 2017-12-06T05:26:06Z

Hey, nice entry! - Controls are definitely the first area for improvement: the turning would have been greatly improved if the speed was based on mouse distance from center rather than being relatively binary. I also saw from the comments that the spear was based on where you click, but probably wouldn't have figured this out just from the in-game feedback. - I would have probably scoped out the terrain generation: the procgen aspect is cool, but it's hard to appreciate it as much when there are gameplay issues getting in the way. If the scene had been static and more time had been spent polishing other parts, I feel like the end result could have been better overall. - Out of curiousity I tried playing on the lowest graphics setting, and found myself sailing through islands at super speed and couldn't find any fish; you may want to restrict the quality settings a bit, haha!

The shark was definitely my favourite part; great job on the swimming motions!

Vacuum Invaders by deshipu 2017-12-10T08:15:55Z

Really cool project! Reminds me a bit of Arduboy.

Having an emulator would have made rating the game itself a bit easier, but completely understandable to just have a video instead.

Let's mix some drinks! by Sintel 2017-12-10T08:27:47Z

This is such a good entry! The cartoony artwork is great, the theme is integrated well, and the audio is phenomenal!

There's probably a version of this game which would have made losing a bottle/glass a fail-state, but I think having it simply respawn them was a great decision and made this a much better experience.

One of my favourite entries so far; great job!

Mo Money Mo Problems by Oivin F 2017-12-10T09:34:31Z

Nice entry! The stress mechanic felt a little strange (if you're making thousands of dollars, you're probably not going to be "stressed" over an abundance of loose change), but other than that it was an interesting take on the theme. - I agree with the other comments that it'd be better if click + drag was supported, and that the bags are a bit too finnicky about what counts as a deposit - The magnifying glass was a really cool idea, but I found that the hidden costs were usually small enough that it was simpler to just sign everything to keep things moving - There were a couple minor sorting issues: if you had multiple contracts overlapping, the text from both would show up on top of the background of both; if you had a contract overlapping a coin, clicking the coin (which is visually underneath it) would pick up the coin rather than the contract

Void Light by nusan 2018-12-05T05:35:02Z

Super cool! The graphics are fantastic; I was excited to see a raymarching entry!

As other folks have mentioned, the controls are definitely one of the weaker points. Using the keyboard for turning felt very awkward. I think it would have been better if it used mouse-look and 6DoF controls instead.

There are also some minor typos/grammar errors in the text, and the text itself is a bit plain (especially in contrast with the environments), but a cool entry overall!

Unwritten by HitchH1k3r 2019-10-26T03:20:32Z

This is a pretty neat entry! The puzzle difficulty ramped up pretty quick, so I'm glad there was a walkthrough video, but the core mechanic feels like it has a lot of potential if you decided to expand on this. Some audio would have been nice for polish, but it's pretty impressive as-is.

Paint Rush by Ekilibr 2019-10-14T20:28:19Z

Great entry! One minor complaint: the rainbow ink splats seemed a bit at odds with the tone of the rest of the game. Maybe sticking with something more monochrome or a single accent colour would have suited it better?

That aside, solid concept + fun to play!

ASHES TO ASHES by AkirAssasin 2019-10-14T22:39:49Z

Interesting puzzle, though not particularly intuitive. Having the arches more clearly indicate that they're immune to fire would be helpful.

Mastafoon! by Local Minimum 2019-10-12T18:52:48Z

interesting entry! i definitely had a bit of trouble with the difficulty curve: level 4 was very challenging, but then level 5 was almost too easy. having your movement play out in real-time with the hazards despite the turn-based enemy movement was a bit strange but added an interesting layer to it; i would've like to see more done with that!

flue by Sean S. LeBlanc 2019-10-16T01:14:17Z

@jimbly your first interpretation is correct, yes: you only reveal until you have a non-club when starting from nothing

Soundmarine by Dustyroom 2019-10-14T22:56:26Z

beautiful entry! would've been nice if some of the stars weren't placed in configurations that made it impossible to get them all, but otherwise very relaxing.

World Collector by Joe Williamson 2019-10-14T21:13:08Z

One of the best games I've seen so far this jam! The puzzle design is a little basic, and it seems like more could have been done to take advantage of the mechanics built (e.g. the physics-enabled boxes never seemed to come into play despite playing through to the end), but it's a great concept and it's very polished!

lotor by torcado 2019-10-14T22:01:17Z

oh i like this a lot. it does wear out its welcome pretty quickly after the first dozen or so levels, but the design kind of makes that inevitable.

the abilities to see what you're placing or remove blocks felt like they were also rng, and i feel like if anything could be made more strategic, it would be having these be more intentional (e.g. getting one after every X things placed)

Unlock Everything by DDRKirbyISQ 2019-10-15T01:08:09Z

nice entry! certainly not the only "unlock basic gameplay features" take on the theme, but i dig the GB megaman style of this one

Trelet ~ The Land of Words by Ovidios 2019-10-15T00:34:35Z

Interesting concept, but the controls do feel a bit clunky. I wonder if clicking a tile, and then typing the letter via keyboard would have felt better? As some other folks have mentioned, having the death be a bit more forgiving would have been nice too. Other than that though it's pretty solid!

Inky escape by egos 2019-10-20T06:20:28Z

interesting concept, but i had a hard time understanding what i was supposed to be doing at first. the difficulty also felt a bit off, because once i understood, was able to play from start to finish only taking damage once. maybe failing the simon part of the game needs to have consequences? (it would probably need to be much less fast-faced for that to be reasonable though)

i'd like to see a more polished version of this!

Nüllptr by egordorichev 2019-10-15T01:18:36Z

nice entry egor! i have to say tho, the theme feels a little shoe-horned in: you can't really progress until you get the correct powerups, so starting with nothing and having them provided purely by rng just delays what feels like a "proper" starting state. it's nice and juicy once you get into it, and all the different retro ships look great, but would've liked to see a bit more creativity!

Amnesiac Adventurer by justinooncx 2019-10-15T00:55:36Z

Definitely one of the more clever games I've seen this jam! It's a great interpretation of the theme, and a solid puzzle mechanic. Some audio and more deliberate UI would've been nice for some extra polish, but it's still impressive as-is!

- Making it so just having nothing is all you need to progress, instead of actually "clearing" the levels is a nice touch; it's rare for puzzle games to have flexible difficulty like that - You mention it'd be cool to see a reversed replay of players' runs; if you switched to using grid-based movement for the player, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to simply record their inputs and then play them back in-engine to do this (still a big ask for a jam game tho haha)

Words With Foes: Quest for the Lexinomicon by MattWoelk 2019-10-15T02:14:28Z

Dang, this is incredible!! clever game design, beautiful graphics, great audio, funny writing, even just the typing interaction feels amazing! I've played a few entries so far that have excelled in a couple areas, but this is top-notch in nearly every way.

FOREST NINJA WIZARD GHOST by johnnysix 2019-10-14T19:32:17Z

not bad; the design is a bit simple and the platforming was kinda finnicky, but the artwork was nice and it didn't overstay its welcome

Ahoy! by tiptoe 2019-10-14T19:55:35Z

Very well done! Cute visuals and solid core concept!

Over and over by mAnimal 2019-10-20T06:54:08Z

unfortunately i can't say i enjoyed this one, and had a number of issues with it: - making the dash require an arrow key to be held is frustrating: the player expectation here is that the dash button will make you dash in the direction you're already facing if a direction isn't held (in fact i thought the dash not working was a bug until i read the instructions more carefully) - the integration of the theme isn't particularly inspired, and actually took away from the experience imo: the level design's pretty good on its own, but when you have to restart from the beginning each time it feels unnecessarily difficult and tedious. i was only able to have fun with it when using the save/load keys - even if you were intending to make a "rage game", those games are usually quite liberal with checkpoints in order to avoid making folks rage-quit, and instead focus on making the moment-to-moment gameplay rage-inducing - the framerate was kinda choppy, much more so than i'd expect from a simple 2d web game

having said that, there is a decent game groundwork here. in the future, i'd recommend spending more time testing (ideally with some actual players) earlier on; i imagine some of the fundamental issues could have been caught that way

Over and over by mAnimal 2019-10-20T06:54:13Z

edit: double posted, and apparently there's no delete 🤷‍♀️

Draw Your Own Adventure! by detectiveLosos 2019-10-14T23:52:44Z

this is quite impressive! the art is fantastic, and i imagine it must've taken a lot of coordination to do full voice acting in the scope of a jam.

i don't have much to add beyond the criticisms already mentioned in other comments: an eraser or undo of some sort would be a very nice addition, and a gender neutral protagonist would've probably suited the drawing mechanic much better (and even ignoring that, the "twist" of making the rogue a woman feels like a missed opportunity)

HEARTSCAPE by ZakAmana 2019-10-14T20:56:49Z

Nice entry! It looks and sounds great, although I think it needs more mechanics that challenge the player directly - right now you can pretty much only lose via your own poor planning. As-is, it's fun for the scope of the game, but something that added more pressure (e.g. enemies) would go a long way towards making it more interesting.

Despite that, it's a really impressive entry; I hope this one does get expanded in the future!

Day Zero by Emma B 2019-10-15T00:01:23Z

cute little game! ngl, having the "achievements" go up to 22/20 felt a little mean, but the ending did catch me by surprise!

(btw the popups have a typo in "discovered")

Vessel by Gabriele 2019-10-14T19:44:00Z

interesting idea! i do think it's a _little_ too obtuse for it to be as compelling as it could be unfortunately; i felt like there was just too many unknowns at the start for me to want to sit down and figure it all out. given more time, maybe it would work better if it started with a smaller subset of stuff to figure out, and introduce more gradually?

definitely agree with the other comments about the audio btw; they do a lot to enhance the atmosphere, and also that they could probably use some volume adjustment, haha

little BEETLE bottle BATTLE by AP Thomson 2019-10-19T18:19:42Z

Definitely took a couple tries to get into the groove of it, but this was a fun and interesting mix of genres! Would've been nice if there was a way to repair your castle so that a bad round isn't as much of a run killer, but it was balanced well enough that this didn't feel like a huge issue while playing.

Birder x Runner by Local Minimum 2018-04-29T04:03:23Z

In my mind, both bird-watching and running are meant to be fairly relaxing activities, but the time-sensitive multi-tasking in this ended up making for a very stressful experience! Outside of the "story" section, this also felt like it was missing some of the trademark wackiness I've come to expect from your games.

This was an interesting idea, but I think the execution was a miss for me.

MATCH3+CONNECT4 by Sean S. LeBlanc 2018-04-24T05:02:12Z

@matt-fabius ah sorry about that! The menu that pops up when you pressed enter is a pico-8 built-in thing. The key choice probably seemed a bit weird too, but it actually has multiple buttons that do the same thing: it maps z/x, c/v, and n/m all to two "buttons". The first two sets are fairly common for keyboard controls, you just happened to stumble on the weirdest one!

Heck Deck by torcado 2018-04-24T04:05:59Z

Great entry! This mix of ideas worked really well!

I did find that after a couple tries the core loop got a bit too easy. Because you have so much control over movement with the superhot time mechanic, it's pretty rare that you actually get hit unintentionally. In fact, I often found myself spinning around for ages, waiting for pickups to drop so I could progress. Something that might make it a bit more challenging is making the superhot mechanic less than 100% effective, i.e. make it so that even when you're not doing anything, things still move, just at a really slow pace.

btw, I saw you mention on twitter that this was the first time you tried a hand-drawn art style; you should try it more often, because it turned out really cute!

discardagain by blackoptics8 2018-04-28T20:24:53Z

Love the springy art style of this!

I agree with most of the criticism of the AI others have posted (starts off feeling very hard and feels too easy once you learn the mechanics). It doesn't do a great job of making the game fun, but good AI's also super tough; it's impressive for LD even if it is a bit unbalanced!

I also found that the shield card wasn't obvious. I had to refer to the written description to figure out what it was supposed to be; maybe something more straightforward like a literal shield for the graphic would be clearer?

Overall, this is great entry. I think with a few more card types, this could be really interesting!

Demon Trials by saucygames 2018-05-13T14:41:21Z

I liked the visuals in this, but it was a bit frustrating to play. I felt like the drifting could have been a bit smoother; as-is, it feels like you lose way too much speed any time you take a corner.

Strategysphere by gamepopper 2018-05-13T06:19:32Z

This seems like an interesting idea, though there are a lot of things in the way of being able to play it properly.

I think introducing it as a 5 player game is a misstep, as you're pretty unlikely to find 4 other players on short notice when going through rating LD games. The game itself seems to work fine as a 2 player game where one player controls "good" ships, so saying it's 5 player probably scares off more folks than necessary.

The controls and dice rolls are also quite obtuse; they're explained in the description and it's good that the game calls that out, but it'd be a lot better if they were more intuitive + presented in-game. The dice rolls in particular could simply show the actual number of moves/ammo you got rather than showing 1-6 and giving you a mapped amount.

I also agree with the comments about dice rolling taking too long; the game should do this part much faster. If the concern with making them shorter was that you wanted to give players a chance to see them, you could maybe have the dice rolls continue to be shown while they are making their moves.

I do think this has potential though! It's a shame the issues make it difficult to play, because I have a feeling that the game can actually be pretty fun.

InvadTris by csanyk 2018-05-13T18:13:10Z

Nice entry! I initially thought this one would be boring based on the description, but it turned out pretty fun. It could use some more polish, especially in terms of making the two games feel more coherent, but it's otherwise pretty solid.

Great job!

Netcrawler by impbox 2018-04-24T04:29:57Z

Oof, this is a really challenging one! Took me quite a few tries to understand what was going on, and even then I only managed to make it to around wave 30.

Having all the instructions written out was helpful, but it's a lot of info to take in all at once. If you were to ever expand on this one, I think it would benefit a lot from some in-game tutorialization which progressively introduced the mechanics (that's quite a bit to ask for a jam entry though, haha).

I also got the above bug btw; it can be reproduced pretty consistently by placing a tile just off the right edge of the board.

Overall, it's a fun entry!

Tetrikaruga by gre 2018-05-13T15:19:15Z

This was a clever idea! The mash-up works really well together, and the audio is a nice layer of polish. Adding the ability to tap the pieces upwards was also a good idea; I feel like it would have been much too difficult without that.

Great job!

Keyboard Army by PeachTreeOath 2018-05-13T18:29:22Z

This is a really cool idea, but it's way too hectic for me to enjoy unfortunately. I found the multi-tasking required to be too difficult and could only manage to look at either the recruiting or the deploy area one at a time.

It's easy to tell a lot of work went into this one; great job folks!

Match Strike by chainedlupine 2018-05-13T16:04:13Z

This is impressive for a jam entry; building a whole flight sim in such a short time frame seems like quite a task. The genre mashup is pretty funny too.

Dear Clicker by blubberquark 2018-05-13T04:16:24Z

This was a funny concept, though I think the execution left a little to be desired. There are some good jokes in here, but the delivery feels a bit weakened since it's lacking a lot of the moodiness of the parodied material. Obviously I wouldn't expect someone to try to match the production value of Dear Esther in a weekend jam, but I think there are a few relatively quick additions that could go a long way towards getting that feel, e.g. an ambient track with some wind/waves, a darker palette, voice over that's hamming it up a bit more. It could even be funny to make some of those layers of polish unlockable through the clicker game, similar to how you have to buy the ability to walk.

Couple other minor things: - it seems like spacebar was unintentionally tied to jump, and the jump is just made really short instead of being disabled entirely - one of the audio tracks has significantly lower recording quality than the others

Despite those criticisms, I enjoyed this entry! The ending was also genuinely great.

Flee, little guinea pig! by tipyx 2018-05-13T05:25:26Z

Oof, this one's really tough! It's a cool concept, but it could definitely use a softer introduction.

I feel like the mechanic for choosing the power of your shots is a little too punishing. I think either making shorter shots have a shorter stun time, or making it so you have full control over power by making it based on mouse distance from the guinea pig could make it feel a bit more fair.

I was going to say it would have been improved by audio, but looks like I also ran into the issue where audio didn't play.

Great entry!

Idleshot by boaheck-artgent 2018-05-13T07:32:02Z

Wow, glad I gave the post-jam version a shot after trying the original. There's a huuuuge difference in how much fun can be had. Even with the post-jam balance update though, it still feels kinda broken: You can easily hide out during early waves and get enough of a lead on shells that you're basically unstoppable, but jelly drops at such a low rate that it still takes ages to make progress.

Some other issues: - the store UI was very cumbersome - unless I'm missing something, the turrets seem like a bad investment since you need jelly to progress - there wasn't really any need to decrease bullet spread; when you're shooting dozens of bullets per second it's actually kinda beneficial to have them spread so you don't have to aim as precisely

I love the art direction in this though. Really enjoyed the super bright and saturated look!

Pretty Pretty Pirates by Matt Fabius 2018-05-13T05:58:02Z

This is an interesting idea, though I think it needs a lot more feedback on what's going on in-game; the controls often felt unresponsive, though I'm not sure if it was bugs with the game or just that I was misunderstanding what was going on.

Couple notes: - having a web game with WASD and also CTRL means you're gonna occasionally have people pressing CTRL+W and closing the tab. You may want to rethink that one, haha! - the rendering of the clothes seemed to be a bit buggy, and they'd often swap between being on top of and behind characters at random:

Capture.PNG

Platform Hero by Rombus 2018-05-13T14:55:31Z

Nice entry, always cool to see more PICO-8.

As a few other people have mentioned, the platforming physics could use a bit of work and the rhythm sections start off a bit tough, but otherwise this is a pretty solid game.

Dragoon Drop by jhandsy 2018-04-28T21:50:26Z

Oh wow, this is without a doubt one of my favourites from this LD! The music and artwork are both fantastic, and the game is quite fun! It's not the most original take on the theme (I've seen a bunch of card-based/turn-based action games), but this one had my playing for almost an hour before moving on.

With some more content and variety, I could easily imagine this being a full game. Great job!

Minor bug to report: sometimes the text rendering on cards got a bit messed up, e.g.

Capture.PNG

Pill-Boy's Text Adventure Platformer by Damien Remars 2018-05-13T05:37:07Z

Really clever entry, if a bit simple. This is a solid concept; with more content it could be a pretty interesting game.

Unpopular opinion: changing "exit" to "win" on the last level is actually pretty funny if it can end up killing you. Nothing wrong with trolling your players, haha.

btw, the narration gets a bit weird at the ends of levels:

Capture.PNG

Pinboy-an RPG+ Pinball game by Colleen9416 2018-05-13T16:28:34Z

Great artwork and audio on this one, but the pinball physics feel really wonky. It seems more like the ball is sliding instead of rolling, and the bounces are often way weaker or way stronger than you'd expect. I even managed to get stuck on one level because the ball was bouncing perfectly up and down on an obstacle.

Btw, not sure if you've heard of it, but you should check out Rollers of the Realm, which was a fully-fledged game based on the "pinball + rpg" concept.

Soul Sword by Raiyumi 2018-05-13T03:36:03Z

Really great pixel art on this one, though I found the gameplay a bit lackluster.I see a lot of people have left suggestions on what could be done to improve the combat though; I don't really have much else to add to that discussion.

The disconnect on the controls was also a noticeable problem; arrow keys + s requires two hands, so you have to take a hand away to interact with the store elements. This seems like it could have been easily solved by making the mouse button attack when you're not in a menu, or by making the menus keyboard-based.

This game does have really great style; I think with more polish it could be quite fun!

Paddle Pals by Mors 2018-04-29T04:24:57Z

Really adorable entry! It's a relatively simple idea, but the execution is great and you've got an impressive amount of content too! The checkpointing does leave a little to be desired though; some of the later levels are actually pretty difficult and having to restart the entire level gets a bit tedious.

A couple other minor criticisms: - The in-game tutorial showing you how to switch back to platformer-mode is a bit poorly placed: The area which first has you switch to the paddle mode can easily end up killing you, and you have to actively look ahead to find out how to get out of it. - On the "give me a hand" level, it's possible to get stuck in the area where you have to break the floor (you can break some, then switch to platforming, and you won't be able to jump out)

Overall, this is solid game!

BIRKANOID by MateCziner 2018-04-24T04:50:33Z

Neat entry! Definitely in need of some balancing, but I could see this being a really solid game with just a bit more polish! There's a surprising amount of content for a jam game, and it's a cool concept.

btw, there seems to be some issue with the audio, where sounds stop for awhile and then a whole bunch play all at once, as if catching up to the gameplay. This may just be an issue with the engine though, so :shrug:

Golden Beak Golf by McCordinator 2018-05-13T15:09:01Z

Interesting mashup! It does feel a little unbalanced though; there isn't really much point to trying to golf effectively, since a faster hit makes the flappy bird game harder, and you can only realistically clear one gate per shot with the golf shot.

Making the whole thing playable with one button was a nice touch. Always nice to see PICO-8 entries too!

Cruise & Co. by Blinkenlights 2018-05-13T05:49:52Z

Cool idea! I found that in general, there was far too much RNG to feel as if I could realistically survive for very long, but with some balance changes I could see this being pretty fun.

Some other minor criticism: - The audio starts/ends are pretty noticeable and abrubt right now; having some background audio and putting the dialogue through a noise reduction pass could help fix that. - Occasionally the restart would break the game (it would start, but the car wouldn't move and there were no other vehicles); I'd have to do a full refresh of the page to fix it - Given how difficult it is, having a couple hits of tolerance before losing the game would be nice

Having said that, this is really impressive for a first proper attempt at a game. Well done!

Tiny Crusader by nilstastic 2018-04-28T20:40:34Z

Great entry! Love the particle effects, and it's nice to see another PICO-8 entry.

Some criticisms: - the crusader to rescue for an extra life is a bit unclear in-game; I though it was just a graphics bug until I referred back to the text - using procedural levels is cool and probably let you include a lot more content than possible if hand-authoring them, but it also means that the game felt unbalanced. I found that the levels were all way too easy, except for the occasional one which feels way too hard and starts off immediately funneling your guys into a pit - you should probably hide the native cursor with a bit of extra CSS so it doesn't double up on the in-game cursor - there seems to be a bug where there's a second in-game cursor baked into the map

Overall, it's a neat idea. I think it needs a bit more complexity in the game design for it to be compelling, but as-is it's a solid prototype!

Shoot bullets in my head while I play golf by FabianLC 2018-05-13T08:02:37Z

Didn't know what to expect from a title like that, but glad I played it! This was a cool mash-up; one of the most interesting takes on the theme I've seen this LD.

It's a little too hard for my tastes, but this is definitely a great entry. I'd be really interested in seeing a version of this which eases into the difficulty a bit more smoothly.

Fluffy Koala and the Delicious Cake Café by ducklingsmith 2018-04-28T17:03:59Z

This was adorable and awful (but in a good way)!

Siege Of The Cloud Empire by HailBurns 2018-05-13T06:44:31Z

There are some interesting ideas at play here, but tbh the "platformer" genre felt under-developed to me. The transition from 3D to 2D was cool, but beyond jumping up when a wave is finished and the occasional pickup, there isn't really anything to do as the player during sieges. I think it could have been a lot more interesting if the player was actually a combatant, or if they were more directly controlling the army.

btw, minor bug to report: if you press down while you're on the ground in platforming mode, you fall through the earth.

Vyperspace by iLKke 2018-04-24T04:14:10Z

Cool entry! It's a simple idea, but works pretty well!

I did feel like the best strategy after awhile was to just run around in circles and mostly ignore the asteroids/ore though. Even without actively going for them, the collisions between asteroids were often hectic enough that you end up collecting ore anyway. (I could just be bad at playing it properly though, so take that with a grain of salt.)

Really digging the slight screen distortion btw; it's surprisingly effective at giving it that extra retro boost without being too in-your-face and getting in the way of the game.

Painting the Black by Abraxas Interactive 2018-05-13T04:41:44Z

Nice entry! Starts off a bit too quick imo, but neat idea once you get the hang of it.

I think the "red gloves" need to be a bit smarter though, especially once you start getting some points. I found that the best strategy was to aim at a corner and barely ever change the angle. Even occasionally hitting one wasn't that much of a setback; filling the bases again is tedious, but getting a strike is a much worse penalty.

I took a quick look at the post-jam version btw, and the addition of sound/music definitely helped a lot.