Somnium

Ash & Phoenix by Honey Pony 2023-05-14T21:54:04Z ♥ 2

An unexpected but interesting combination of game genres!

The many small details of the game work well together to create a strong mood that is both pensive and gripping. I especially liked the variation of "writing" sounds, including the special variants for finishing a word, but also how the background changed during the last part to match the story development.

At first I wasn't sure if the typing would "get in the way" of the story, but it quickly worked to draw me further into the game, making me feel a "part" of the story in a way. One thing I did notice was that the letters were case-sensitive - I accidentially enabled CAPS-lock at some point, and was confused why the game suddenly rejected all my inputs :D

All in all, this was a very unique and interesting experience!

Happiness Delivery by apiffer 2023-05-13T21:13:14Z ♥ 1

The game felt cosy and very wholesome to play!

I liked the art, and as others have mentioned, that spring-time mood could be further developed by adding some ambient music or perhaps some soothing nature sounds like the rustle of the wind, or the buzz of insects. The colors, and the small details like the leaves blowing in the wind were very nice as well.

Causality Couriers by David Yates 2023-05-13T21:01:14Z ♥ 1

Time-traveling couriers was an interesting take on the theme!

I enjoyed the game a lot - the story was compelling, and there were plenty of options to explore and interact with, and an interesting variety of endings as well. I managed to get all of the endings save two - perhaps some of them were time/"number of moves"-based?

I also liked the twist regarding the role of aliens in history, and the variety of tracked achievements/events displayed at the end screen. The latter especially gave motivation to play multiple playthroughs to see all of those outcomes.

I played the version on your website, and it seemed that undo and loading a saved game did not work as expected. It would only show the description of the scene, but not display any of the choices. It wasn't too much of a hassle though, since the game is relatively fast to replay.

The use of AI-generated art seemed a good match for the text adventure format, due to the very distinct locations represented by a single still image. Together with the writing, it worked well to set the mood of the game. I'd be curious to know how easy Stable Diffusion was to work with in this regard, and if much "post-processing" was needed to adapt the output to the needs of the story (or alternatively, having to slightly adapt the story to the limitations of the generated illustrations)

All in all, this was a very enjoyable game, with an engrossing story - nice work!

Gold Deliveries by Wave Propagation 2023-05-13T19:01:05Z ♥ 1

Simple but solid mechanics! The game was fun to play, my high score was 164 gold collected.

The later stages of the game had mines sometimes spawning on top of the player, a possible improvement could be to "re-roll" the placement of a spawning mine if the distance to the player was too small.

The movement felt good, it was easy to navigate carefully around the mines, even through smaller gaps.

Faking It by Hannah 2023-05-13T18:51:30Z ♥ 3

Fun game! Delivering a speech was an innovative take on the theme!

I had a hard time mentally translating the poses to the specific key-presses - especially when also having to shift one hand between mouse and keyboard as well - reducing the number of inputs enough, so one hand for the keyboard would be sufficent might have been a smoother experience.

The art and audio were excellent! They really sold the concept of an alien impersonating a human, while at the same time being quick to "de-code" at a glance to see which actions were needed next.

A very interesting and creative game!

30-second Deliveries by Sebastian-M 2023-05-13T18:21:23Z ♥ 1

Interesting game concept, a human cannonball courier was a fun idea!

I only managed 5 deliveries as my record, it seemed that unlucky rng can mean that the landscape can obscure the destination, making it hard to aim the later deliveries. Perhaps mouse controls for the cannon would have made it a bit faster to "reorient" yourself between deliveries.

I enjoyed the music, it matched the frantic gameplay well.

Interesting game, it was fun to see an innovative idea for the method of locomotion for deliveries.

ON TIME by VirtualMan52 2023-05-13T18:04:10Z ♥ 1

Fun puzzle game! Even though the mechanics were simple, some of the levels were hard enough to take a few tries, followed by an eureka-moment when the solution "clicked".

Music and sound effects fit the "silly" game theme well, and the art made the available routes and time clear to the player.

I also liked the humorous presentation, it game some extra context and fun to the puzzles.

A solid game!

▲●■♚ by Jimbly 2023-05-13T17:41:27Z ♥ 1

A very fun and relaxing game! I especially liked how clear and intuitive the art and mechanics were - the only exception was the victory condition, that was a bit unclear at first (meanwhile, I found that it was possible to infer the "added speed for links").

The sounds for the various "machines" added to the relaxing mood as well.

Great puzzle game!

Impasta by Jozef 2023-05-13T15:33:20Z ♥ 3

The "delivering a punchline" was a unique take on the theme, and the concept of having to come up with a punchline for a given setup was a very interesting idea. Though it did feel like the peggle segments sometimes hamstrung the possibilities too much - perhaps duplicating the most commonly used letters as extra targets could make it easier to avoid ending up being unable to construct meaningful punchlines with the unlocked letters.

The art was good too, the audience reactions were especially funny.

Interesting game!

Crab Raider by Lex 4kraba 2023-05-13T15:07:20Z ♥ 1

This was as fun game to play, and it was interesting trying to puzzle out how to complete the delivery. The guard was very effective, the stealth definitely felt like the most tricky part.

The art was nice as well, both the landscape, characters and their animations.

Nice work!

Delivery Bros by Fenyx 2023-05-13T14:28:31Z ♥ 1

This is a pretty fun game, especially considering you made it in only 5 hours.

The split between two different "phases" was interesting, it made sense to have to first fill the truck and then deliver the packages. It was a pity that you did not have time for making sound-effects for the delivery part - a tool such as "sfxr" or "jsfxr" can be useful to make sound-effects in a few minutes.

Very Good Deli by Antti Haavikko 2023-05-13T14:07:03Z ♥ 1

Fun stacking gameplay! Grabbing and stacking the letters felt very satisfying overall (a few letters felt like they had some unexpected collisions).

Getting to choose between multiple customers/words was also a nice touch, especially given that the words seemed relatively random (and at a few occasions even somewhat vulgar :D ) At one point, the letters spawned in a way so that three letters fell down and got stuck on the bell before I had a chance to start the puzzle, I'm guessing the physics were a bit unlucky.

The art was good, and the background music had enough variety to not become annoying even if the loop was a bit short. I liked the sound effects as well, they added a nice feel to the word-sandwich building. The "sandwichness" scoring parameter was a fun addition, I hadn't realized the meaning of the word colors before seeing that.

I also liked the small touches, such as the arm also extending on the title screen, blurred backgrounds and animated customer models - it made the game feel extra polished.

Mother's Day: Requiem by jaydubbyasee 2023-05-13T13:24:28Z ♥ 1

This was a fun and interesting take on the theme. I especially liked the gameplay variant of controlling both the "launcher" and the "catcher" parts of the game, it made for some interesting experimenting - one suggestion could be to make the camera zoom adjust more according to the force/angle used. The music matched the comedy of the game well, and the pixel-art was nice and clear.

Very fun game!

Every 10 seconds life by aDeCon 2022-10-10T11:08:00Z ♥ 2

Interesting game, interpreting the theme as a series of life events.

I liked the graphics, they were clear and also very expressive, especially considering the two-color scheme. The sounds for dialogue, including the "pitch variation" depending on the character "speaking" might have felt less intrusive if the volume of it was a bit lower.

The concept itself was interesting, a narrative delivered with a backing of minigames. Most of the minigames felt easy to "decode", the "words from letters" took me a few tries before I realized that the white-background letters were the letters to catch.

I liked the message of the game, so many moments to reflect on, so remember to make the fullest out of the time we get.

10 Seconds Spell Book by Corporation 2022-10-10T09:45:14Z ♥ 1

Fun game, with an interesting use of the theme. It had an almost "deck building" feel, in how you assemble your spell sequence from random elements.

It felt like there were three distinct "phases" of the game - a beginning trying to get some basic survival capabilities, followed by a more strategic building/swapping phase, and then a late-game where you had to survive with your build for as long as possible (since at this point, it was not viable to empty out large parts of your spell bar without being overrun by enemies). It was interesting try out a few runs, and experiment with the different combinations of powers.

I think I hit a bug, where if I deleted a spell too soon after picking up the amnesia icon, the game seemed to remove the spell but then become "stuck" (as if it wanted me to delete another spell, but being unresponsive to input).

Graphics were clear, and the music was sufficiently varied to run in a loop.

A minor suggestion regarding packaging (since there is no web build), would be to name the downloaded file (and the folder it unpacks to) with a unique name (e.g. profile name + game title), to avoid name collision with other jam downloads.

All in all, it was an interesting game to play!

lost.PNG

You Have 10 Seconds! by Shibaya 2022-10-10T08:59:24Z ♥ 1

Fun (and tough) game. The interactive tutorial was a nice touch to quickly learn the ropes. The difficulty spike was pronounced, though since the game is so short, it encourages mastery of the mechanics - for a longer game, checkpoints would probably have been a must.

As an arcade game, a bit of sound and perhaps some music would have boosted the mood, but that's always the trade-off for game jams XD Though for simple arcade sound effects, a tool like bfxr can be used to generate viable sound-effects in a few minutes.

A small quirk I discovered was when maximizing the game. Then the controls stopped responding until firing at least once.

All in all, it was a solid and challenging entry.

Tormenting Idol by Cameron Borthwick 2022-10-04T20:11:27Z ♥ 1

This game really nailed the spooky mood!

The maze was a bit confusing to navigate, but on the other hand there seem to be a bug where you can look through walls if you walk close enough to them to clip partly through them - so I guess that evens out XD

Also, the audio-design was great, and the graphics meshed well with the overall mood.

Life Passes You By by Cosmonautical 2022-10-04T19:18:02Z ♥ 1

Such a solemn experience, the melancholy was palatable. And good use of the theme, creating urgency measured in seconds, but in a timescale representing an entire lifetime.

Great work!

>_Moments fleeting by._

>_In each, important choices._

>_How will your life be_

Sunfall by chemicalcrux 2022-10-04T17:43:21Z ♥ 1

The game has a nice arcade vibe, and timing the segments to be 10 seconds long was an interesting take on the theme.

Sometimes the segments generated right in front of the ship, which made it impossible to evade (unless spotted during the "flying" transition) - if that transition was slightly slower, it might serve as an extra warning (since it seems you can still move during the transition).

The graphical "flourishes" were pretty impressive, especially the transitions between "levels".

Hostile Climate by Roboolet 2022-10-04T15:55:15Z ♥ 2

I liked the aesthetic of the game, and the (fixed) controls felt good - adding coyote time could probably make the small-platform jumps easier.

The randomness was a good use of the theme, and added hectic chaos, but also easy orb pickup sometimes (spawning in the same place twice in a row)

I also liked how the level-design had good "hiding-spots" for many of the various obstacles, although sometimes the random elements put them out of reach. A suggestion could be to add an icon for the next obstacle, e.g. in the center of the clock, so the player can "prepare".

History Repeats by Chetthonctus 2022-10-03T13:34:12Z ♥ 1

Interesting game, and also an interesting take on the theme!

I did not have the skills to complete it, mostly the timing threw me off - some kind of visual indicator of the timings would be a nice quality of life feature.

I liked the past-self mechanics, they were interesting (though I seemed to collide a lot with them by miscalculating their spawning time). It definitely added to the chaos XD

I also liked the music and sound-design as well.

A solid entry!

Monster's Dungeon Shop by Deniz ARAS 2022-10-03T13:25:14Z ♥ 2

Interesting game concept - actually having to drag items to the customers were an interesting mechanic. I like the art-style as well, and also that the items looked sufficiently different so that you could match them with the right customer at a glance.

I had the bug where I could not restart the game (easily fixed with a reload).

The idea of having a furnace to get rid of duplicate items was a nice addition, i.e. introducing a tradeoff between "tidying up" the playing field vs. dragging items through a pile of currently useless ones at a cost of time.

A solid game.

Sprawl: A cyberpunk interactive graphic novel by m11 2022-10-03T11:56:32Z ♥ 1

This is a pretty fascinating experiment. I'm surprised how coherent the styles are throughout the novel. And the generated art fits the format well, i.e. snap-shot illustrations for mood, but making the writing fill out the blanks regarding what is actually going on in the scene.

The idea has potential for sure, since that is the output of a mere 48 hours. The illustrations are evocative, so as long as the plot follows the limitations of the generated art, I can definitely see this working as a "full" project. Added interactivity would of course be nice, though additional branching could probably do a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard.

It was an interesting experiment to experience!

Seconds These Days by indigo 2022-10-03T10:15:20Z ♥ 1

I like the interpretation of the word "seconds" in a dueling sense!

The game is hectic, but fun, after a while you get a "knack" for identifying the matching patterns quickly - the 10 second time-limit becomes very tight, once there are enough picks to require scrolling. Since it is hard to get an overview of all actions in such a short time, and still have enough time to also place them correctly.

Although, the intro text scrolled a bit too fast, the mumbling sound effect was exquisite.

I liked the graphics, they were clear to decode even at a rapid pace. The explanation of the items was fun as well.

All in all, it was a solid entry!

Birdwatching by Iguanana 2022-10-03T08:33:37Z ♥ 4

Interesting concept, and a nice take on the "every 10 seconds something interesting happens" interpretation of the theme. The typing game genre was a good fit!

Considering the length of the words compared to the "typing window", having to restart from the beginning after an error, means that it is often not possible to recover from a mistake. Resetting the progress of the word instead of the entire name (or keeping the progress, but ignoring the keypresses) might make the game easier for people who cannot type as fast (perhaps as an easy mode).

Some kind of stat-tracking could have been fun as well, or even just a final end-screen showing all the birds and descriptions that were discovered during the game (to be able to read the descriptions at your own pace).

I liked the graphics of the birds as well as the educational aspects. Especially as those text-bubbles would also show the "easier" every-day name of the birds.

Interesting game!

Legend of the Broken Wand by thx4nothing 2022-10-03T08:18:37Z ♥ 1

Interesting game - poor wizard, he should probably get a new wand XD

The various spells felt different enough that they required a significant change in playstyle for each one. Some kind of indicator of which spell was active, as well as a countdown until the next shift, could be nice "quality of life" improvements.

Some of the enemies felt a bit too fast for some of the powers, so the dodge button was a nice supplement to the mechanics.

I also liked how the enemy corpses stayed, so that they could later be used by the levitation power as weapons.

Symphony of Legend by VivianMochi 2022-10-03T07:38:05Z ♥ 1

I enjoyed this a lot! The game was very atmospheric, and I especially like how you are "nudged" into perfecting your timing by adding a note to the melody when you hit a creature. It feels very satisfying to hit perfectly and have those hits mesh seamlessly together with the background music.

As mentioned by other commenters, it would feel a bit more "natural" to get into the rhythm if the directional key also performed the attack (since it would then be a single keypress)

I was also very happy that you are not reset back to the very beginning when you die, some of the levels did take me a few tries.

Nice work!

A Day in the Life by Jimanzium 2020-10-06T17:05:26Z ♥ 1

So easy to fail, compared to the meaningless but substantial effort required to staying in the loop.

Or, in other words: "Depressing game, well done!" :)

A comment on the interface: It was sometimes possible to fail by accidentially clicking before the text was fully rendered, making the "wrong" choice by mistake.

Other than that, you managed to convey a poignant although depressing message, which was clearly also the intention.

Orbital Blast by pvg 2020-10-06T16:21:38Z ♥ 1

I agree with the above comments that the mouse controls felt more intuitive, as you move the mouse in the direction you want to move, whereas I had to stop and think about the controls when using the keyboard (which is usually fatal in an arcade game :) )

Music and graphics fit the genre, and gave the game a nice retro aesthetic. I especially loved the music, though it was a bit loud for me, I had to turn down my volume.

This House Looks Familiar by CesarGary_ 2020-10-06T15:38:57Z ♥ 1

That was certainly an interesting experience!

I loved the progression, great mood, and a very eerie use of the graphics and sound.

A single thing I found a bit confusing, was that the later repeat of the "what is your name" prompt did not recognize the same input (i.e. the player's name) as it did when it appeared the first time.

As SirRed mentioned, each iteration felt sufficiently different to make the player look forward to seeing how that weirdness would be topped in the next.

Infinitely Worse - A Necromantic Adventure by mikelovesrobots 2020-10-06T15:12:59Z ♥ 0

Giving me the choice of sacrificing all that hard clicking work for a bonus? How evil :D I'm glad I only had to do it once, to bring down the end goal time to acceptable levels :)

I missed having a "no cost" clickable button, even if the reward was very small - keep me clicking! :)

All in all, a nice little clicker game about a very ambitious necromancer!

Coalescence: Battle System Prototype by Seth Tal 2020-10-06T14:46:56Z ♥ 2

Since it is a prototype, I'll try to give some useful feedback for improvement. Most of my comments are about getting an overview of the battle at a glance:

During the battles, it could sometimes be hard to tell friend from enemy at a glance, especially when the opposing team had similar appearance. Color-coding the names of the creatures depending on which team they belonged to could improve this a bit.

Similarly, adding floating life bars over the characters would be a nice quality of life improvement as well, so you don't have to glance between where the action happens, the top left for the ally bars, and top right for the enemy bars

Additional visual feedback, e.g "floating damage numbers" might also be useful to gauge the effectiveness of a specific battle assignment, although this might also depend on the underlying mechanics.

I had a bug during one of the rounds, where the last enemy on the field stopped taking damage.

Hyperloop hell by Aterlamia 2020-10-06T14:27:55Z ♥ 2

Ambitious! I loved the art style, and the interesting take on the theme!

I especially liked the short dialogue with the various NPCs, it was enough to give them distinct personalities, and together with the ditinct graphic style, gave the game a nice mood. As has been mentioned by others, the speed of the terrorist dialogue was a bit too fast to read in full, unfortunately.

I felt that the music had a bit of a thriller/scifi vibe to it, that worked well with the general feel of most of the game, except perhaps for the final bomb scene.

Despite a few bugs, I think that this was an impressive effort, especially for a Compo game!

Tropical Hop by shp 2020-10-06T14:01:53Z ♥ 1

Nice chunky shooting mechanic, and having the penalty of being shot be a slow-down worked well with the time limit mechanics.

I had more difficulty timing the platforming jumps. A possible bug was that after falling into water, it seems that moving after respawn requires you to overcome some inertia before you start moving again, i.e. it takes a while from you press the movement button, and until the character starts moving again. Since you respawn right at the edge, that usually meant that I jumped and then fell right into the water because I hadn't started moving forward yet :D

Graphics, sound and music were nice, and shooting the robots with that oversize gun never got old :D

Habits by M8rix 2020-10-06T13:05:56Z ♥ 1

Keeping up his habits, including work, even during the weekend - that man is dedicated to his habits! :)

An interesting take on the looping theme, with nice graphics as well!

A small bug: When clicking to dismiss the last page of the examination text, that click will also start a new examination if the mouse cursor is hovering over an active object.

Have A Nice Day by JmO14 2020-10-06T12:40:40Z ♥ 6

Interesting level design! Despite a few issues with proportions (especially the cups and plates in the cafeteria), you managed to capture the impression of a bland opressive workspace quite well. I think my favorite part was the very cramped cubicles/offices, despite the fact that there was plenty of room above them to raise their ceiling, like they vere engineered specifically to be feel opressive. I'd expected a bit more decorations in the boss-office (and that was a pretty short boss-tie :D ) The amount of little details was pretty impressive. It was also easy to navigate, which became important in some of the later loop-variations.

The sound was fitting, with some nice ambience- and action-sounds, and the people noises very funny. That supervisor call in the middle of the office must've been really distracting for the poor workers :D

I went through two full loops before I concluded that I'd probably seen all the possible variations. Some of the loop variations were rather interesting - I wish there had been a visual effect for the alternate printer action ;)

Tranquil Grove by Juutis 2020-10-05T19:14:35Z ♥ 4

Very enjoyable game!

Mechanics-wise this is a solid interpretation of the theme, and a compelling game loop as well.

The level design was great, providing a limited amount of set routes (clearly marked through the choice of terrain), encouraging exploration without overwhelming the player.

At the same time it managed to both tantalize the player with barred areas, and also having routes sufficiently distinct as to make the exploration feel worthwhile. I rarely felt that I have wasted the "expedition of the day", usually returning with either a clear objective (having spotted an upgrade in the distance), or a clear idea of new paths to pursue the next time.

Speaking of the items, I felt that their placement and effect was effective as well, serving as direct goals and rewards for exploring a specific set of paths. Both the "get rid of new kinds of obstacles" and "increase travel range" bonuses felt meaningful, in the sense that they gave a feeling of actual progress and enabling of future explorations.

The skill-progression felt well balanced, with plenty of opportunities to improve either skill as needed. Although it took me some time to realize that you could actually dodge in combat (in effect, trading the more bountiful energy stat to save precious health). The steady amount of "walking-XP" at the same time meant that the time never felt completely wasted, even when ending up in a dead end.

Presentation-wise, I really enjoyed the graphics, and the background tune was nice as well. The UI elements were clear and informative, with the only exception I notice being not being informed in all cases that boulders required a pickaxe to pass.

Great work! :-)

Zen Loop by scottthoo 2020-10-05T18:32:47Z ♥ 0

Fantastic experience! And almost hypnotic.

Small bug report: I had a slight issue, where the reset and "toggle controls" buttons obscured the labels of the topmost controls.

I wonder if adding cycling colors into the mix would improve or detract from the experience.

Music was very good as well!

Nuclear Loop by Gorr 2020-10-05T17:09:04Z ♥ 1

I liked the exploration and puzzle aspects (though the fact that the mouse was suddenly being used did throw me off for a bit)

I liked the graphics as well, both the environment and the main character - the mood could have been improved even more with some background music (or other ambience)

I have a few comments/suggestions on the "time-out" mechanic:

The constant backtracking to the reactors became a bit of a chore eventually, since it didn't really offer anything new, just constant interruptions of what you wanted to do. This was also worsened a bit by the reset taking time (in effect making the countdown inaccurate), and that you had to backtrack further to hit both reactors every time (maybe a single reactor would have given the same effect).

To keep the "loop" effect, it might be improved by having each reactor remember the current stage of the level (i.e. act as a "checkpoint"), so you didn't have to start over each time. This might even match the theme more strongly (since the loop would be within the same game session, rather than being able to restart the game)

Of course, at some point you need to remember info from an earlier point so you have to terminate the loop early, but allowing the player to carry the gun (giving him an extra key-activated option) would be a efficient (if grizzly) way to reset the loop in this case.

Back to the endings, I thought that they worked really well! It was nice to get a full page rendering the outcome of the specific ending of the loop.

All in all, it was a nice exploration game, with a few puzzles (and a surprise ending) to keep things interesting. Nice work :-)

Monster Trapped by Terabyte 2020-10-05T16:18:32Z ♥ 1

Cute little game. You clearly put a lot of effort into the graphics and sounds (love the humming soundtrack as well)

Not much gameplay yet, but a nice first game nevertheless. The cute ending lived up to its name :)

Crazy Running Cow by Vollfeiw 2020-10-05T14:58:59Z ♥ 1

Heh, interesting take on the theme, and a fun concept for a game.

You already got a lot of feedback on the controls, which I won't repeat. Using the speed of the cow as a difficulty modifier (which can both be affected by player performance) was an interesting extra addition to the basic mechanics.

One nitpick I have, is that the "grass tufts" looked distinct enough to look like power ups, so it was sometimes a bit confusing when I spotted them on the track.

All in all, it is a fun game, with an interesting concept and take on the theme!

WhileLoops by Ausstein 2020-10-05T11:01:30Z ♥ 2

Haha, brilliant take on the theme, and fun game as well!

This might be one of the few games which is less stressful if played with muted sounds. But on the other hand, that would mean missing out on the nice RandomSounds :D

Very stressful (and fun) game - these Windows error sounds haunt us in our own personal stuck loop ;)

Loop Deleter by Zachary Barbanell 2020-10-05T10:50:15Z ♥ 2

Hard game, but still feels fair, as the rules for object interactions are solid.

Having a "undo one" function was definitely a nice added quality of life feature, especially in the more chaotic later levels!

As has been mentioned above, the tutorial text was a bit confusing at times, but helped with grasping the core concepts nonetheless.

Nice work!

Perry's Stuck! by DustinHoward 2020-10-05T10:30:34Z ♥ 0

Nice music and graphics, I especially liked the slime graphics :)

A few comments:

The level-design was a bit unfair at times, scrolling you into situations that were practically unwinnable. This was exacerbated by the limited lives.

I occasionally got stuck on the air (looked like the wall-climbing animation)

Work Sleep Repeat by Manspider 2020-10-05T09:45:30Z ♥ 1

Quite an atmospheric experience!

I missed having reactions for ignoring the directives, but on the other hand, that does reinforce the meaningless of the "loop"

Lot Fourteen by BumDag 2020-10-05T09:07:20Z ♥ 1

Intriguing concept!

It is actually possible to win the game?

From the info given, there seem to be two possible combinations of codes - with an unlabeled keypad, this increases to four different possibilites (depending on whether the top row is 123 or 789). But neither of these four seem to work (or maybe I'm misclicking - it's hard to tell without feedback from the keypad). It doesn't seem to be related to the order of staircases either (four different exists, but numbers from 1-5).

I think I managed to escape at some point (instead of an end wall, there was an opening to a field), but I'm not sure if I just clipped through a wall :) I did notice that at some point, the vase was unbroken.

The Cursed Tower by SevenLevelGames 2020-10-05T08:12:45Z ♥ 3

I liked the reversal of death and teleport mechanics, to turn teleportation into a bad thing, and death into a good thing! :-)

A few comments:

A bug I experienced: Sometimes, when hitting a "fake" lava section, I was trapped inside the floor when it appeared. In this case, I had to restart the game.

It was probably not neccessary to block the door during the tutorial. The mechanics are intuitive, even without reading about them.

All in all, it was an interesting platformer :-) I didn't have the platforming skills to get to the end, sadly.

Loopin' - A C64 action puzzle game by Endurion 2020-10-05T07:50:32Z ♥ 2

Neat, a C64 game!

Pretty entertaining, and quite challenging as the amount of enemy trolleys increase! I enjoyed the game, and the trip down memory lane!

A few comments:

There is a certain planning element involved (i.e. anticipating collisions with the enemy trolleys), but the slooow c64 cursor combined with the long stretches between "switches", sometimes made the game a bit frustating. Perhaps allowing the switches to be switched in advance, rather than having to hover over the switch for the duration, might have alleviated this somewhat (i.e. similar to the train track mechanic from "Donald Duck's Playground", if you know that old C64 classic)

It was not clear to me from the switch graphic in which direction the trolleys would move, when they hit a switched cross/"+" intersection.

Magnetic Ticket Collector by Edmanbosch 2017-12-28T06:42:09Z ♥ 1

So, the more tickets you have, the more aggressively the spikes hunt you? That's actually pretty clever :)

A simple way to improve the mechanics, could be to allow the player to unload his tickets during the level (which would then make the spikes passive again). But the score per ticket is multiplied the more tickets you turn in at once, giving the player a reason to collect as many tickets as possible before cashing them in. In this way, the player could balance a higher score vs. a lower difficulty.

It can be hard to keep up motivation for an entire game jam, but you ended up with a solid basis for a game, which is an achievement in itself! And hopefully, you picked up a few tricks for next time :) Better luck next LD!

>Moving like the wind, >collecting all the tickets. >Watch out for the spikes!

Spacelitch by Flaterectomy 2017-12-27T21:08:51Z ♥ 1

An interesting and challenging game! The art and music was excellent!

The basic game mechanics were simple, but effective. And without self-restraint, the game become a self-inflicted bullet-hell, which worked nicely with the theme. I'd preferred the reflected bullets to still harm the enemies, to at least be able to use the reflective shielding creatively, which as far as I could see, was not the case, but otherwise the power ups were well spaced out.

The cutscenes and indeed the concept of the dog taking over was pretty funny. I agree with previous comments that the cutscenes felt a bit intrusive, especially on repeated runs. Perhaps a more freeform "overlay" cutscene would have worked better after the initial into, but this would probably have required voice acting as well, so I can see why you went with cutscenes. Perhaps making them skippable would be a compromise (although this would still disrupt the "flow" somewhat).

The art conveyed information about threats and pickups very well. The portraits in the cutscenes were quite detailed as well, which gave the game additional personality.

An impressive entry for only 72 hours of work!

>Craven captain Chip! >But Woofberg will save the day! >Arf! Arf! Zap! Zap! BOOM!

Perigee by Fififox 2017-12-27T20:44:07Z ♥ 1

An enjoyable game!

The graphics and style of the world, including the rotating globe, is quite impressive, and gives a nice atmosphere to the game. The day/night cycle was also a nice touch! Some music and sound effects would improve the mood even more.

Gameplay-wise, the game consists of two very different phases:

The beginning of the game is very frantic. You have to build a defensible base of emergency bunnies, electricity generators and then blanket the perimeter with laser towers, all the while keeping your bunnies from blundering into enemy fire as they follow your mouse pointer with lemming-like determination. This part of the game is both fun and demanding.

However, once you have consolidated yourself on one of the continents, the best strategy is to do nothing, not even move your mouse cursor, since that keeps the rabbits passive. Hence, the "late game" consists of passively waiting for the days to pass until the world is safe. A further refinement of the game could introduce something to do in the late game, preferably something which needs bunnies. Or perhaps buildings could be constructed, which could distract the bunnies while you are busy constructing new buildings on a far-away continent. Constant power needs might necessitate this, for instance, to encourage the player to always have some solar cells in sunlight (and hence getting full use from your night-cycle-mechanic).

>The fluffy bunnies, >are key to our survival! >We must defend them!

Smooth Lines by yojammerjammer 2017-12-27T20:07:22Z ♥ 1

That was quite an interesting take on the theme.

The art and music were excellent, especially the reaction shots underscored the humor (and clueless nature of the protagonist) perfectly. The amount of polish was also impressive, including the fully fledged options-screen, title screen, and more.

The horrible lines were funny, as were the clever retorts to them. This is some of the best horrible writing I've seen this LD :)

Nice work!

>By using tripe lines, >he hopes to win all the girls. >Will he ever learn?

ħ/2 by colozz 2017-12-27T19:26:12Z ♥ 3

I liked the animations, both for the monsters and for the terrain. I also liked the variety of the invading monsters! Some sound effects, especially for the weapon firing, and the creatures dying, would improve the mood even more, it felt a bit too silent.

The gunplay also felt pretty good, including the fact that you had to shoot with precision, or have to wait for the gun to recharge.

The pathfinding of the enemies seemed to be a bit off sometimes, with the monsters getting stuck to buildings. This made it a lot easier to kill them, than they would have been otherwise.

The detail of being able to duck into buildings, and emerge in another place was a nice touch!

>Defend the city! >Deploy the quantum weapon, >And make them perish!

Student Loan Simulator 2017 Ramen Edition by smbe19 2017-12-27T18:57:38Z ♥ 1

I can't decide whether I think that the game is funny or bleak. Perhaps it is both.

A frantic clicker game - the "are you sure" prompts, with varying placement of the buttons, added nicely to this. A lot of the difficulty was from having to move the mouse back and forth, so perhaps some more mechanical depth could be added in a later iteration.

The theme was spot on as well.

The graphics were nice and clear, and the pseudo-random text was varied enough to keep up the illusion.

>Pay the pile of bills, >spending tomorrow's money. >No, wait, that's my dog!

Hoarding Havoc by Bookworm31 2017-12-27T18:03:56Z ♥ 1

That was an interesting take on the theme!

The "every inventory item is a card" card-based mechanics were quite interesting. Although randomness played a huge part, you still had to be strategic in the use of cards during combat. Use all your heavy items, and you might not have any weapons for the next encounter. And if you do not, you might accidentally overload yourself between encounters.

This formed a solid core for the game. The way the cards affected your stats, both when held in your "inventory" as well as when used worked really well, especially combined with the various effects of the enemy attacks.

The tutorial was a nice touch, although it progressed a bit too fast. It would probably have worked better as "click to continue", rather than as a slideshow, but that is a small detail.

The feedback through sound was sufficient - a few custom sound effects e.g. for each monster would have added even more to the mood.

Ultimately, the game mechanics were interesting and varied, but the events were perhaps a bit too random, which sometimes locked you in situations, where you couldn't do anything to prevent losing a few "turns" after. But it was an intriguing game nonetheless, which encourages replaying. Nice work!

>To traverse the lands, >goblins pelting me with rocks. >Will I make it home?

Hiyek's Ludum Dare 40 Submission - Swami Shooter PT by Hiyek 2017-12-27T15:36:33Z ♥ 0

An interesting concept, harnessing the thoughts of people, in order to protect them by sending evil spirits to rest!

Thematically, the game is a pretty good fit, both from a "more enemies mean more obstacles to avoid" and a "more bad thoughts mean having a harder time" interpretation.

The presentation suffers a bit from the placeholder graphics for enemies and humans. That being said, the graphics are clear and functional, and the character design for the main character is quite nice. Fully realized art for the remaining characters would improve the mood. Your idea of having the art change depending on the balance between the amount of good and bad thoughts absorbed, is intriguing, and would also clearly communicate this state to the player.

The gameplay is simple, but functional. Adding "roaming" people to feed from would be a nice addition, and would also open up additional game play possibilities (for instance, defending the people from the evil spirits). Adding a layer of context to the thoughts could also be an interesting addition, e.g. a small procedural text instead of directly specifying that a thought is good or bad.

As you mention in your notes, one of the biggest challenges with participating in a game jam for the first time, is prioritizing your time (and realizing that sleep is usually necessary). You've managed to finish a game with a complete set of mechanics, which is an achievement, even if the game was not as fully realized as you imagined!

>On thoughts I shall feed, >to release the enemies, >to their deserved rest.

You can't handle my final form by Zeriver 2017-12-27T13:38:47Z ♥ 1

Ouch, this game absolutely crushed me :)

The gradual unveiling of more and more activities worked really well in ramping up the difficulty.

The fact that any one of the minigames was easy by itself, but only hard in aggregate with all the other games running simultaneously worked well. It made the game feel fair, in the sense that any loss was due to the lack of multitasking skills of the player, rather than due to unfair difficulty in the game itself.

The graphics and music were nice, clear and functional. The music was perhaps a bit too slow, not matching the frantic action later on in the game, but as it was it instead had a calming effect.

Some extra "juice" could have improved the mood even further, for instance, a sound and screenshake effect when losing a strike, and similar flourishes.

A very convincing take on the theme as well.

>A few simple tasks, >total awareness needed. >Mistakes means defeat.

Cthulhu Writer by BjarkeAL 2017-12-27T13:05:04Z ♥ 1

Interesting take on the Cthulhu mythos, combining it with a typing challenge, with all the extra difficulty that entails (considering the names of the Old Ones).

Especially the names makes this quite refreshing compared to other typing challenges. The biggest obstacle to the current gameplay, is that the player is punished for being successful. The large obscuring text when you enter the name usually obscures the next step in the level. A different dramatic effect when successfully typing a name would probably be less frustrating.

The node traversal is an interesting variation as well, since you then need to plan your route through the words. And hope that the lonely node which was hidden from view at the start, do not turn out to be the longest and most obscure name of them all.

The game is quite atmospheric, with the gradual increase in strange whispers culminating in a quite scary noise. The various lore in the screen, competing for attention with the names themselves, were also a nice touch.

It was an interesting take on the theme as well, with both the number of names, as well as the number of characters within each name.

>Whispers of madness, >await those who dare to seek >the names of Old Ones.

*Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn!*

Grey Goo by kleinzach 2017-12-27T10:32:40Z ♥ 1

This was a very interesting game, and a very intriguing take on the theme!

The mechanics and story elements complemented each other perfectly! The incremental mechanics were a perfect fit for the concept of evolving nano machines, whereas the gradual reactions of the world, as story triggered by specific milestones, gave a clear feeling of progress throughout the game.

Of course, thematically, and in accordance with the game title and subject, the ending of the game was foreshadowed to the point where it was basically a foregone conclusion, but despite this, the journey through the story was still a compelling tale.

All in all, this was a very interesting take on describing a "Grey Goo" scenario through the use of unexpected game mechanics. This resulted in a very interesting game. Nice work!

>Nanites manifest >the potential of carbon. >For glory... ruin?

Apparently I'm a detective by Hayzar 2017-12-27T08:38:01Z ♥ 1

A very atmospheric game! The graphics and audio were spot on, and the amount of content was impressive. Both the objects, the various people and the backgrounds were clear and distinct.

As you mentioned, the gameplay suffered a bit from the lack of content. That being said, the interactions with the world, and the descriptions of the various objects worked well. This would be a solid basis for further development.

UI-wise, the game could be improved a bit with some further quality of life features. For instance, being able to examine the collected clues, and highlighting (or changing the cursor) when moving over interaction hotspots in the world. The exclamation mark highlighting important objects worked ok, but you often had to reposition yourself in order to actually click on the items in question.

This was an interesting story, with impressive graphics and mood!

>A strange mystery: >Who killed all the innocents? >I must find the truth!

Lights Out! by rubr 2017-12-27T08:15:07Z ♥ 1

An interesting puzzle platformer. I like the combination of strategic thinking and timing needed to traverse the levels, especially as lava lamps with different effects were introduced.

A bug: The game froze for me at the level with the three explosive lava lamps. I was caught in the lava, and then the lava animation played forever. The level didn't restart.

The lack of sounds makes the mood suffer a bit. It would be nice to have audible feedback when e.g. jumping, destroying the different types of lamps, shooting, winning and dying. I would recommend using a tool such as https://www.bfxr.net/ for simple sound effects. It allows you to randomly generate a number of short simple sound effects of various types in a matter of minutes.

The graphics are simple and functional, and the lava effect is interesting and very clearly lethal. Letting the lava rise more gradually, might allow for a more tense (and forgiving) experience, but as it is it does give a nice "OH NO!" effect whenever you destroy a lava lamp. The small touches in animation, including the "exploding death" were also a nice touch.

>Hunting down the lamps! >No Lava Lamp shall survive! >Lava Rising! JUMP!

Please Come In by Steve Johnson 2017-12-23T09:47:05Z ♥ 0

Despite the fact that the game is unfinished, the theme still shines through.

The idea of mixing the story with the decisions having an impact on the stats was interesting, especially since it opens up more possibilities of early choices impacting later events, without them being directly connected.

From a game mechanic perspective, I agree with previous comments that the appearance of additional text feels a bit abrupt, since the screen does not scroll to the last of the text. A more traditional "each new paragraph replaces the old one" might have worked better.

The instant charactization of the charaters by way of introducing them with a pixel art portrait worked really well indeed, and could even be expanded upon with having their expressions change depending on their current stats.

While it is a pity that you didn't have the time to finish the game, the game concept is interesting, and could be developed further into a complete interconnected story.

All in all, it is an interesting idea, and a fun take on the theme!

>Flat overflowing >with unwanted visitors... >Please, kindly go home!

Cruel Words by Mr. Blue 2017-12-23T09:09:03Z ♥ 0

It was a pity you didn't have the time to finish something playable, I was looking forward to trying your game.

Better luck next jam! :)

One Final Task by HuvaaKoodia 2017-12-23T09:01:08Z ♥ 1

An interesting movement/sliding puzzle game. The amount and variety of the different effects, makes the puzzles interesting to ponder and solve.

I like the relatively small scale of the different levels, which made it feasible to solve the puzzles in your head before making any moves. Which, due to the lack of single-step undo, is probably a good thing. The last level felt a bit overwhelming compared to the previous levels. A more gradual ramp-up would have made for a smoother transition.

The visuals and audio are clear, effective, and act as good feedback to what happens during the execution of the puzzle. The effect of most of the special tiles could be deduced from their art, which was good. The exceptions were the "move once" arrows and the fact that some tiles were consumable, while others were not. Combined with the lack of a "legend"/help function meant that the first try in some of the levels was to test how the special tiles worked, which in turn, really underlines the need for retry/undo functionality. The "give up" button in the second version worked well in this regard.

I personally prefer puzzle games to be wrapped in some kind of theme lending context to the puzzles formed, rather than being purely abstract puzzles. I therefore enjoyed the story/concept and sequences in-between levels very much. It lent both personality and humor to what is otherwise a relatively simple puzzle game.

Speaking of theme, the game fulfilled the theme in an "mechanical" if not especially "creative" way, but you still hinted at a "becoming overwhelmed" theme in the reactions of the AI in the cutscenes as well. So, a good use of the theme!

I really enjoyed the feeling of polish of the game, in the various small details, variety of the graphics, the AI "emotes", and the fluid motions. The hidden ending was also interesting, especially as it rewards playing the game in a counter-intuitive way. The biggest detractor from a gameplay perspective, was the lack of "quality of life" rewind and/or instant reset functionality. Additional levels would also be nice, but that's just part of the constraints of a game jam.

All in all, this was an enjoyable and challenging puzzle game. The mechanics worked, and the side-story and small flourishes raises the game from a simple puzzle game to a genuinely enjoyable (if short) game.

>Tricky conundrum: >Fulfill your obligations, >and lose everything.

*Welcome back, Ducky!*

Feathers by MikomiKisomi 2017-12-07T15:43:29Z ♥ 2

Firstly, telling the story from the point of view of a harpy, was an interesting lens through which to experience the world.

Even though the story is relatively short, it touches on an impressive amount of themes: The blissful innocence of not knowing good friends from bad, the experience of making a new friend, and even darker themes like the uncertainty about the fate of loved ones, horror, and panic. Yet the progression and mix of themes still feel natural, if a bit fast paced due to the short length of the story.

As @jjjjason mentioned, the combination of various text-effects and placement, to represent thoughts jumbling around in panic, worked really well!

Considering the small amount of time you had to complete the game, it was probably a good decision that you decided to add extra depth to the story (i.e. opportunities to learn more detail), rather than extra breadth (branching choices). It still left the player with the single important decision of whether to engage fully with the story, or not.

The characterization of the various characters was short, but in most cases still sufficient to get a good sense of them. The carnival scene might have been more impactful if the build-up had been stretched out a bit before the reveal (e.g. by hinting at the cruelty to come).

All in all, this was an engaging story, with some interesting twists on how you used the medium!

>Friendless with feathers. >Siblings gone! New friend arrives! >Happiness at last!

Color Collider by SarizaGames 2017-12-06T20:04:39Z ♥ 0

Color-Tetris? What a bizarrely intriguing concept :)

The game suffered a bit from the lack of scoring, but otherwise, it was a very interesting and innovative take on the Tetris concept!

The music worked well, and fit with the gameplay. Some sound effects, especially when triggering color changes, could have improved the mood even more.

Sometimes the stacks shifted, I'm not sure if that was a bug or a feature?

A bigger game field, and more variety in shapes might improved the gameplay further.

In any case, this was an interesting spin on a classic mechanic, and it fit the theme well.

>Mix falling colors! >Planning as they fall from top. >Overwhelmed! Too many!

Super Consumerism Sim 2K17: GOTY Edition by EX3D0 2017-12-06T19:02:30Z ♥ 2

A fun little game - I like the pixel art!

The gameplay is simple, but could be expanded upon. Possible expansions could be to make the items swich places randomly. Another suggestion could be to apply a "bonus" (extra cost...) for buying items in a specific order (which then changes).

I agree with @handle that the high score should definitely be displayed at the end screen!

Kudos for using LibGDX!

*I'm sure I'll recoup my losses when I sell all those bitcoins! And lava lamps, those are also a safe investment... right?!*

>Friends! Do not partake! >In rampant consumerism! >That's... OH! SMARTPHONE! *DING!*

LD40 Compo: The Greed Run by vkmicro 2017-12-06T18:29:14Z ♥ 2

A fun little platformer!

The level design was large, and interesting to explore, as it contained a lot of interesting passages, coin formations and obstacles patterns. I especially liked the vertical openness, which made the jump-boots a very fun mechanic. The game would have felt more vibrant with a bit more variety in the blocks layout and the color scheme.

As you mentioned, the game was a bit buggy (although framing the stuck-to-floor as part of the godly punishment was a nice touch ;) ). My game session ended up freezing completely, with the music running, but the game otherwise being unresponsive (I couldn't even close it without ending the process). The effect of having a grace period after leaving a platform which @flaterectomy mentioned above, would also have improved the feel of the controls.

The music was simple, but it kinda grew on me. The noise effects for the coins was nice and satisfying, now it just needs some sound effect feedback for other effects (like buying items, jumping and landing) :)

The concept of having the physics variables decrease over time, and buying items from the world to temporarily increase them, was a very interesting mechanic. And it worked especially well with the reset-upon-death mechanic, which meant that you were careful to avoid death right after buying items, but after a while started to actively seeking out deadly obstacles, in order to regain lost speed. That duality in the mechanics worked really well I think!

All in all, the game had interesting mechanic-twists, and was a quite good first try in the platformer genre, especially since it was made in only 15 hours! :)

>Indulging in greed. >Endure godly punishments. >DON'T BUY THE BRACELET!!!

Re:Tileation by Akusan 2017-12-05T18:31:22Z ♥ 2

The mechanic of having the walls retaliate when hitting them with projectiles had an interesting effect on the gameplay, both in that you have to check your fire, but also in the sense that you can use the wall-ignoring properties of the return fire to eliminate enemies in cover. It becomes especially chaotic when firing a lot of shots.

The gradual unlocking of special abilities, in order to gain access to previous inaccessible areas worked really well, and fit the genre perfectly!

The health regeneration felt like it slowed the flow a bit, especially since there was no checkpoint system - so you faced the choice of standing still, or risking losing all progress. Faster regeneration, checkpoints, or another way to more quickly restore health would therefore have been nice.

The controls felt good, although I would have preferred less "sliding" when stopping running. For the areas with drops, it was sometimes hard to see/guess where to drop down safely. Combat felt satisfying, especially in tandem with the wall retation effect.

The music was excellent, both in-game and on the title screen. The graphic was both clear and nicely detailed - I especially liked the animated cape! I'd liked some distinct features differentiating the different "door pairs", in order to make navigation easier. The power-up chests had a nice eye-catching colors, which immediately made them stand out as goals, which worked great as a motivation!

All in all, it was a enjoyable and solid game!

>Run, gun, jump, explore! >Beware of the corrupt walls! >Or you will perish!

Collateral Damage by almost 2017-12-05T16:43:09Z ♥ 1

"The better you do, the easier it gets to cause collateral damage". That was certainly an interesting twist on the theme!

The various upgrade types all felt powerful in their own way, and worked quite well as "giving the player enough rope to hang himself", with the double-directional fire as an almost literal double-edged sword.

The effect where the enemies circled the planet, continuously damaging them, was a very hard state to get out of, without accidentally killing your planet as well. Which might very well have been your intention.

Having gotten my space pilot training from games like "Star Control", I had some difficulty adjusting to the "A D to strafe, mouse to rotate" controls. But somehow this just served to underline the theme. The combat felt good otherwise, especially with some of the more effective weapon upgrades.

The music was okay, although I didn't think it fitted the genre very well. Meanwhile, the art was clear, and the target markers worked well, in allowing the player to hunt down the threats.

A solid game!

>Defending my worlds! >Oh no... Another "reward". >Oops... Friendly fire...

Avoider by Linus 2017-12-05T15:06:49Z ♥ 1

That was a pretty innovative game concept, as well as an interesting take on the theme!

The game felt hectic, but in a good way, where you can actually make your life easier later on by planning correctly. Those instances where the next waypoint spawned in the vicinity of you were especially interesting, since you then had to fight the impulse of just taking the shortest path. Letting the player know how much time was spent on each level added to these constant pro/con decisions as well.

The controls were adequate, although the camera felt like it rotated just a bit too quickly.

The incrementing difficulty of the level design worked well, and gave the game a nice difficulty progression.

Having different music for each level was impressive, especially for a compo game! I felt that some of the tunes did not really feel like they matched either the hectic or the planning elements of the gameplay, but that could be purely subjective.

The graphics were simple but functional, and the highlighting of the "most direct path" worked well, since it allowed the player to concentrate on how round-about a route to take, rather than having to actively search for the waypoints. A "remaining waypoints" counter could have been a nice mid-level progress indicator.

A nice entry, which was interesting to play! :)

>Easier future, >by planning in the present. >Dodge the ghosts and win!

Shoot - Keep Your Score Down. by GoldenHart 2017-12-04T21:11:12Z ♥ 2

The core gameplay is basic, but it works.

I like that the enemies actually try to evade you, rather than follow a fixed pattern. I noticed that the player's starting position seems to be in equilibrium with the enemies, i.e. they don't try to evade before you move. Maybe this is intentional, maybe they just don't move before you start to move yourself? But you could always nudge the player's starting position a bit to one of the sides if this is not intentional.

I also like how you turned the scoring upside down (and reflected this in your game title). The twist of having a high score boost the enemies would have been an interesting twist on the theme.

As others have mentioned, I too had a bit of trouble with the fixed size window - I could not see the lowest part of the GUI.

I would also suggest that you allow the player to use e.g. space for firing, in addition to the mouse, so that the game can be played with keyboard alone.

I also noticed that after the timer runs out, the game seems to "remember" that your input is disabled, even if you go back to the main menu, and then restart the game. Maybe this is the cause of the freeze issue.

The graphics are simple, but workable. The projectiles seem to be spawning a good distance from the ship, but other than that, I don't have anything concrete to suggest, except perhaps some additional variation (e.g. moving "pixel" stars as background).

The music is nice, and is a contrast to the usual action-music used in these kinds of games.

**Since you mentioned you were going to add extra features, here are some suggestions:**

Collision detection with the enemy ships. Perhaps your score is penalized more if you collide with the enemy. Or you could implement "shield"/"hitpoints" as an additional lose-condition (as an alternative to the time-out).

Additional enemy ship varieties. Some might fire back (trying to hit you), some might be smaller and faster (trying to evade you), and some might be larger and have multiple hitpoints (trying to ram you).

More randomized ship spawning patterns. Instead of always spawning three at a time, at a predefined location, you could add a delay and a (slight) difference in speed and starting horizontal position, in order to add some variety to the enemy patterns.

Sound effects for firing, destruction of enemies, impacting projectiles, when enemies pass you, etc.

Some sort of cooldown or other limitation (overheating bar?) on the primary weapon, to encourage precision rather than blanketing the battle area in projectiles.

>You must stop the ships! >Do not let them evade you! >We're counting on you!

Haven by William Bundy 2017-12-04T19:52:03Z ♥ 1

The game has an interesting combination of strategy and reaction. The gameplay of having events pop up, which you then had to react to worked well. A pity that it meant that one rarely had time to read the stories, since they did not usually have an immediate benefit. But the color-coding, in combination with the timer-bars, worked great in providing an overall sense of the ideal order of handling the events. Some icons might have made it even easier to discern at a glance.

Triggering a rescue event was always hectic, and a nice variety from the usual "click the events until the go away" basic mechanic.

The statistics and especially the traits of the colonists was a nice touch, even if their in-game effect was not always directly discernible. The stat counters went haywire for me for some of the colonists, at some point they had 18790482 in their food stat. I'd also have liked newly joining colonists to not be useless for the rest of the round, by e.g. autoassigning them to food collection, but this is minor point.

The merchant event seemed a bit too random sometimes, in that they might trade in goods that I possessed, but simply did not possess in sufficient numbers, robbing the event of its decision potential. Perhaps it would have worked better, if the amount that the trader demanded was capped to your current limits. That you get events for trading resources that you do not possess is nice though, it encourages the player to acquire all the different resources.

I enjoyed the art style. The character portraits were charming, and the background, while simple, lent a bit of atmosphere to the game as well. As other have mentioned, the text was sometimes a bit hard to read.

Some kind of sound effects to go with the buttons of the game, and perhaps to accompany resolving good and bad events would have improved the feeling of feedback, but it was not vital to the experience.

An enjoyable game, and a nice compo entry! An interesting take on the theme as well, both for the amount of colonists, and the amount of events.

>Running a haven, >command your people quickly. >Or all hell breaks loose!

Zzap by HS_Dave 2017-08-22T16:22:24Z ♥ 1

Great puzzle game, with a nice mood!

The graphics, sound and music worked really well together, the game felt very polished!

As others have mentioned, the randomness of the levels made the difficulty vary quite during the game, but I actually think that it worked pretty well. There was a certain satisfaction in surveying the game map, trying to locate an ideal route at a glance, and then sometimes getting a map with an easy solution. But I guess it depends on whether you play it from an "incremental difficulty" vs. an "get through a lot of levels" perspective.

Nice game!

>Moving like the wind, >Find the path, avoid the slow. >Unlock the Exit!

Last Sunset by piscythe 2017-08-22T16:01:47Z ♥ 2

Interesting and very atmospheric game!

The music and graphics are simple, and yet very evocative. The game has a great mood, which is further underscored by the element of mythology you chose to include! The light being reduced in step with your energy levels worked was a nice touch as well!

The difficulty was pretty high, I had to try multiple times to survive long enough to get past the first miniboss - and then the game crashed shortly thereafter, because I missed the small window and accidentially clicked outside the game canvas. I managed to get a bit further on later attempts, but unfortunately not to complete the entire game.

The three different types of shots, matched to different kinds of enemies was a nice way to bring some extra variety to the gameplay, as were the minibosses.

>Ra is descending, >Apophis rises. Stop him! >And save the sunrise!

Candy Wars by Jason200101 2017-08-21T18:55:54Z ♥ 1

Humorous game, with a very unique art style, and quirky characters!

The humor was bizarre, and yet thoroughly enjoyable, from the angrily shaking general, to all the jabs at the 4th wall. The writing in the game was as excellent as it was bizarre!

I was unable to complete the "mass destruction" mini-game, no matter which part of the grid, and how fast I clicked. Not sure if it was a bug, or just me :-)

As for skipping the text, I see what you are going for in making the text unskippable on the first play-through. The option to be able to click to finish the "text scrolling", even on the first play-through, might still be a worthwhile quality of life improvement, for the fast readers in your audience :-)

All in all, I thought that the game was entertaining, with excellent writing and humor!

>A raging doughnut, >calling us into action! >We must stop the invasion!

Destroy Your Country by roflmoqkz 2017-08-21T18:27:29Z ♥ 0

Interesting game, and rather dark! You had a large variety of effects to chose from, which made the decisions very interesting to make! If you are going to make post-LD improvements, I would suggest, with the game being very text-focused, that you put the text through a spell-checker and/or get another person to proof-read, as there were a few grammatical errors.

The mechanic where you incrementally increase (or decrease) your level of total power, which in turn unlocks new policies, worked very well. The icons were clear and gave a vibe of fun that had an interesting contrast with the game's theme.

Nice work!

>Obey, brings Ruin! >Ignore, also brings Ruin. >Destroy the world then...

Trump Card by SideSplitter 2017-08-21T17:49:32Z ♥ 0

Fun parody! The amount of small details in the game, from the perfectly timed soundbites, to the sprinkling of special events (and even a golfing-minigame!), is especially impressive. The humor is good-natured, which is rare to see in political parody. And the interplay between the three resource types worked well, and usually followed logically from the choices. The graphic, music and sounds worked perfectly, great mood!

All in all, an entertaining game!

>Man Must Be Governed! >By me?! I'll give it a shot! >I Am The Greatest!

Ludum Dare Simulator - Click your way to the top of Ludum Dare leaderboard! by Nufflee 2017-08-21T17:23:45Z ♥ 1

Interesting concept, especially the balancing between incrementing progress and staying powered. I did not notice much of an effect of buying the upgrades, but maybe I just didn't upgrade them far enough? In any case, combining a clicker with a timer was an interesting idea.

>Money and power! >Balanced with development! >Must finish the game!

FILEFICTION by Menno Stas 2017-08-21T03:54:41Z ♥ 1

Interesting concept, giving voice to "computer characters".

You have the foundation for a neat adventure game here. Your three characters have distinct personalities, and the "drag a character to an application" gameplay could be expanded with additional applications, with the different characters interacting differently with these.

The variety of their talk was also a nice touch.

>Pam, Kay and Mary, >all have their stories to tell. >New Computer Friends.

Oh no! Democracy! by Tim Eriksen 2017-08-19T19:01:49Z ♥ 1

Interesting game!

The action cards worked really well in giving the player some agency over the randomness of the cards!

Combined with the fact that you have to collect several different resources, this introduced a bit of strategy to the choices, which would otherwise be just to pick the card with the best ratio between resource-gain and unrest each turn.

I liked the art style as well, and the humorous cards (who would have known that an old bucket could be so useful, or that the elderly would enjoy water slides)

Nice game!

>Placate the people, >while assembling the rocket! >"Here, have whatever!"

Lost Lantern by Phaix 2017-08-19T18:34:28Z ♥ 1

Very atmospheric game! The graphics, lighting and ambient sounds create a really great mood!

Some more features in the maze, might make it a bit easier to navigate and explore.

>With only your lamp, >you must explore the dark maze. >What lurks in the dark?

Glitterwing VS Apocalipsaur by DDSFloko 2017-08-19T18:07:13Z ♥ 1

Fun game, with an interesting concept.

It took me a few tries to see the connection between the request icons and the parts to charge (first I thought the top icons were the opponents next moves, which I would have to counter with moves of my own). But once it clicked for me, the game was pretty fun to play. Sometimes, the physics of the plugs were a bit frustrating, but I guees that was in order to make the act of changing plugs a bit more complicated.

The graphics and audio were very good!

>Charging all the plugs, >Kill the Apocalipsaurs! >Then, well-deserved rest!

Mr Mayor's Energy Crisis by HuvaaKoodia 2017-08-19T15:21:10Z ♥ 1

A fun and very polished resource management game!

The game had a nice amount of simultaneous elements to juggle. The trade-off between closing down the various generators repairs vs. balancing the risk of negative events happening, and still having sufficient power, created a lot of interesting decisions. It was not entirely clear from the UI that repairs could sometimes take several turns, and that you could actually suspend repairs before they were done. I discovered that last fact by accident (which probably saved me from being fired). The decision making was tense.

The newspaper was an elegant way to present the introduction, the progress between the turns, and to introduce new game elements as they appeared. Especially with the entertaining writing style!

All in all, it was a great game!

I propose that future measurement of approval rating, is done using a new **kitten-news per month** metric.

On an unrelated note, it was nice to see that Ducky MacDuck came back okay from the tour. As a newly minted celebrity, perhaps he can replace Mr. Mayor when the approval rating hits the floor ;-)

>Skilled mayor wanted, >to manage our power grid! >Not an easy task...

Get Energised! by GalaxStudios 2017-08-19T09:06:25Z ♥ 1

An interesting game. Once you realize how to balance fighting with collecting energy, the game is pretty fun to play.

I made it to level 14, but at that point, the game spawned such a large amount of electrons that the game slowed down to a crawl. Also, in one of the previous missions, suddenly no enemies spawned, dooming me to run out of energy. The concept is pretty solid though, despite the bugs.

>Stranded and alone. >Attacked by the electrons. >Kill them for power!

Potential Energy by Carsen D. 2017-08-19T08:41:41Z ♥ 1

Fantastic atmosphere! The story, music and lighting effects works very well together. The game was a bit too dark at some points, at least on my monitor and daylight conditions, but the resulting mood was excellent!

It was nice to play a more story-focused and less action-heavy platformer, and the story was enjoyable. Nice work!

>Rebels in the dark, >threatening our colony. >I must do something!

TITAN, Defend Earth before it's too late by MichaelTWG 2017-08-19T08:24:23Z ♥ 1

A very intriguing game! The split between climbing around between the different stations, and managing the larger battle was very interesting! It became quite hectic! The art and music worked well together to create a great mood as well.

>As the only crew, >a Titan Operator >must thwart all the foes!

Running on the Power of Love by nervous-composers 2017-08-19T08:08:00Z ♥ 1

A nice little game! Some of the obstacles tended to blend into the background (especially the bush), and the ending sequence had my knight running through several obstacles, but otherwise the "jump the obstacles" mechanic worked well. A suggestion would be to introduce a larger variety in the obstacles, and then have the jump vary depending on the amount of time the jump button has been pressed. The art was excellent!

>Must stop the wedding! >Run, as fast as possible! >Nothing can stop me!

< Mr. Plug > by Drachmor 2017-08-19T07:21:00Z ♥ 1

This was a fun platformer, with an interesting literal take on the theme!

The controls felt precise. The time limit was a bit constrained, especially in the third level. I think that I would personally have preferred a shorter time limit, but not having to return back, since having to replay the level, even after having finally solved it, felt a bit disheartening. As for the level design, the different types of terrain gave a nice variety, and I really liked the smooth transition between levels. The story and nice pixel art gave a nice mood to the game as well!

>Find all the fragments, >to save a dying city. >Rest in peace, hero!

Buzzy Bee by Estebe 2017-08-19T06:36:56Z ♥ 1

Interesting take on the "whack-a-mole" concept!

The timing-element makes it interesting, and the sound feedback was a really nice touch. Some music might add even more to the mood.

The success percentage score at the end of the game, further increased the replayability.

>An efficient bee, >exhibits careful timing, >collecting nectar!

Revolution by wicked7000 2017-08-19T06:22:35Z ♥ 1

Interesting concept! You've built a pretty solid foundation, with combat and health system, simple exploration, an inventory system, and a resource gathering loop. There is a lot of potential here!

Being able to use the keyboard to move would be a nice addition to the controls. Other than that, there is a lot of directions you can take this game in, if you make a post-LD version. For instance, the addition of a larger variety of objects (and different capabilities of enemies), combined with a larger or extra maps, could improve the exploration and combat elements. Auto-combat could be an alternative to not being able to leave the combat. And some music and/or sound could improve the mood.

On a technical note, I got "stuck" in the victory dialogue. The text-box kept repeating itself.

>Prowling the dark streets, >Wresting loot from enemies. >I *will* reach safe haven!

LOTS - Legend of the Teleportation Stone by oliverlevay 2017-08-19T05:30:29Z ♥ 1

An interesting game, and quite challenging!

Turning around felt a little slow, but otherwise the controls, including the teleportation, felt pretty good. The sound effects were funny, and the puzzles were interesting, if a bit "trial and error".

Nice work!

>Go, locate the flag! >Teleport past obstacles. >Or fall to your death.

Output by clutterArranger 2017-08-19T04:53:12Z ♥ 0

Interesting game! The fact that you had to hit an interval, instead of just a minimum amount of power, was an interesting mechanic, which made the decisions of what to build (and when) more strategic.

Having the fines come out of the same resource pool as you use to produce new plants, means that once you hit outside the interval, it is very hard to recover.

Nice concept!

>Meet rising demands, >for energy production. >Bankruptcy awaits.

#MaybeMyPresident by shubshub 2017-08-19T04:33:06Z ♥ 0

Interesting game! I liked the concept of having to enact policies, while still having to balance the needs of the population.

No policies for squashing crime apparently? But in any case, the population always rebelled against me, before high crime became a problem.

A few sounds and/or music might have enhanced the mood further. There were some pretty funny policies among the policy cards.

Nice take on the theme as well!

>Balancing the needs, >of an angry populace. >Defeat by rebels.

A Black Screen by qzqxq 2017-08-19T04:12:31Z ♥ 2

Very intriguing game!

The concept of this game is great, and so is the execution.

At first, I had some difficulty passing the first saw, since I assumed that the movement was grid-based. Hence I pressed W instead of holding it down, which did not move me sufficiently fast to get out of the way of the way. Once I found out that I could keep pressing W to run, it clicked for me.

The sounds work very well as a navigation aid, and together with the "hit wall" sound, it made it possible to make a "mental map" of the level as you play.

Nice take on the theme!

>Darkness all around, >with only sounds to guide me. >Will I find the stars?

Bounty by Gurvan 2017-08-13T12:55:12Z ♥ 1

Nice game!

The mechanics are simple, and work quite well. I found it a bit difficult to aim the cannons, since the direction is relative to the direction you are facing.

Exploring the seas was interesting, and the upgrade system was a nice touch. Perhaps the in-game text could have explained the effect of the different upgrades?

It was an impressive first game, especially for a compo game! Nice work!

>Sail on the high seas! >Battling, and finding treasure! >The **X** marks the spot!

Galvanica by icxon 2017-08-13T11:25:21Z ♥ 2

Wow! The game is hilarious, fits the theme well, and has charming art and music.

I love the amount of content, variety and replayability of this game! It seem to have everything, from the various minigames, tough decisions, humorous story, and the fact that everything can (and probably eventually will) be burned.

Excellent game!

>A long journey home, >fraught with burnable perils! >**must...feed...the furnace!**

Powerless: Trump Teaches Typing by RootPew 2017-08-13T10:54:28Z ♥ 1

An entertaining typing game, with an fun take on the theme!

The game became quite hectic, but the typing mechanics worked well, as did the graphic, sound and music.

Sometimes, slower words were highlighted, so that there was no time to type both that word, and the faster word reaching the head first.

>Out of control! Sad! >So many words! So much win! >Tremendous typing!

Electric Car by eLeDe 2017-08-13T10:11:36Z ♥ 0

An interesting game!

The game mechanics were efficient, and the graphics and sound was fitting.

I liked the maze-based gameplay, but the maze was perhaps a bit too large to support the "trial and error" based mechanics. You end up re-playing the same long stretches of road a lot of times, in order to hit the correct combination of side-paths with batteries to be able to reach the finish line.

>Route-exploration, >through the network of long roads. >Reach the finish line!

Breathless Parks - Running, out of Power by gonutz 2017-08-13T09:43:37Z ♥ 1

Funny concept!

The art and sound effects were great, but I never consistently get the rhythm to work.

It's been a long time since I last saw this type of mechanics. At least there's no joystick to break now :-)

> We should watch Matlock! > No! Grey's Anatomy! Now! > **SQUEAK** **SQUEAK** I will choose!!

Space Survival by TheAspiringHacker 2017-08-13T09:12:14Z ♥ 0

Interesting game.

The game concepts are solid. I agree with others that increasing the speed of your own projectiles, as well as the turning speed, would allow for greater control in the game. With a faster turning speed, the decision of whether to use the back-shield or the energy-siphoning front-shield would be more tactical.

>Turning, Aiming, Shoot! >Shots incoming! We must block! >Adrift, No Power...

PowerMan by someone9999 2017-08-13T06:11:58Z ♥ 0

Cool little platformer!

The hover-mechanic worked well, the gun consumed a lot of energy though. If you make a post-LD version, I would suggest placing more battery-powerups in the level (and of course, expanding on your solid base with some additional levels). Perhaps running out of power should be a lose-condition as well, since you can otherwise get stuck.

I like the amount of polish you managed to implement, with animations, sound, music, and even a tutorial. The death-transition was very funny!

Impressive work!

And it is always interesting to see another Java-game! Although I could not find a link to the source-code anywhere?

>Soaring through the sky, >the monsters far below me. >Power gone! Falling!!

The World's Worst Segway by doomshmuck 2017-08-12T22:12:01Z ♥ 0

Hehe, a segway delivery service is a strangely fun concept.

I kept running into the "plaza" in front of the middle building. Somehow I kept thinking it was a road. Perhaps make the color a bit more like the buildings, or make it similarly stand out?

Highest score: 350

>The strange people chose, >delivery by Segway. >Watch out for the car!

daemon by bombjack 2017-08-12T21:23:33Z ♥ 0

Hard game! I was unable to progress very far.

But very nice pixel art!

>One must suffer much, >to free the lost souls from hell. >Is the angel doomed?

Battery of Power by Belga54 2017-08-12T21:07:02Z ♥ 1

Cute little game, with interesting controls!

Using your life as ammo was an interesting idea as well. But perhaps the shots should take a little less energy. I killed myself more by shooting the monsters, than by being hit by the monsters :-)

Other than that, it was a fun game!

>Rampaging teddys! >They are stealing my power! >Zap them! Zap them all!

Bolt World by Linus 2017-08-12T20:54:25Z ♥ 1

The game is quite addictive!

It was not always clear why I died, but I assume I grew large enough to hit a larger sphere, but too fast to see it. The acceleration attack was a interesting trade-off between risk and reward.

A suggestion could be to introduce some kind of "breaking" attack, which would break up a larger sphere into smaller spheres (with a limited amount of activations) - so that if you are quick enough, you might survive a collision with a larger sphere.

>Roll. Absorb. Repeat. >Hunting, Preying, Dodging: Spheres. >Largest always wins.

Don't Go Flat by wh05herlock 2017-08-12T20:29:23Z ♥ 1

Interesting game, although very hard!

The graphics were clear enough to see what was going on, and the minimap was very useful!

Having to collect 10 solar panels was perhaps a bit much, considering how fast your power drains. A suggestion could be to lower that number a bit. Then it would be a viable strategy to try to avoid the enemies, instead of having to fight them for energy. I think I hit a bug as well: When I collected solar panels, and then died, the next time I respawned, I got the "victory" message (and restart-button).

The explosion animation was a nice touch :-)

>I must find panels, >before my power runs out! >Bzz! Destroyed by bots!

Shut Everything Down by Skosnowich 2017-08-12T20:07:57Z ♥ 2

An interesting puzzle/stealth game!

The graphics, music, and sound effects worked well together, and the game felt very polished! The game felt a bit claustrophobic, due to the small window compared to the size of the levels. A possible improvement could be to be able to maximize the window, and see the whole level at once.

The popup in the last mission was a bit unexpected, since it interfered with a timed puzzle. I thought that the rest of the tutorials worked well.

Your game fit the theme very well, both on the concept and the ending. As the game was quite unforgiving of mistakes, the levels had a good length, not too short, but also not so long as to be frustrating if you lose.

I also liked the variety of the puzzles. Even though the rules were simple, there was still something new to learn in each level!

Nice work!

>I saved my masters, >by disabling my brethren! >Slowing... down... Why... me?!

Necromancy by N4tticus 2017-08-06T16:59:01Z ♥ 1

There is an impressive amount of features in the game! It is impressive that you managed to make both a dungeon generator, a leveling system and an inventory system in only 48 hours!

The close connection between monsters and the necromancer means, that it sometimes seems a bit random whether you are able to succeed or not. Sometimes too few or too many monsters spawn, which usually leads to the necromancer's demise. I also experienced some screen-scaling issues on my two-screen setup.

It would probably have been worth it to spend a little more time on balancing the game :) But you've clearly made a very ambitious game, with an impressive amount of features! :)

>Zap all the monsters, >to absorb their energy. >Power rising fast!

Deep Raider by kr4ft3r 2017-08-06T15:59:35Z ♥ 1

The game was very atmospheric! The graphics and sound, especially the sonar, created a great mood for the game. It did feel like exploring a dark underwater world.

For later improvements, some additional waterlife or underwater features might be nice, the world felt a bit empty.

The humor was pretty funny and odd as well.

>Gone treasure hunting, >in the oppressive dark depths. >...OCTOMUTANTS! **squish**

Mystic Power by seurimas 2017-08-06T15:13:29Z ♥ 1

This was an interesting game. It had a nice variety of different spells and enemies!

The enemies were a bit too fast. With some of the spells, you could fire at their maximum fire rate, and still not kill the enemies fast enough to avoid getting swarmed. Also, it was hard to survive on/near the platform for long enough for the spell cooldown to finish, for the same reason.

I liked the graphics and sounds as well. The "thump" when getting hit by the big monsters worked quite well, for instance.

>Beset by monsters, >I must find effective spells! >Muhaha! Ice Mines!

Pura The Robot by Ramkey 2017-08-06T14:50:32Z ♥ 1

Interesting puzzle game.

The puzzles were a bit too action- /timing-focused for my taste, when combined with having limited lives, since it means that you can have solved the puzzle, but still be forced to replay it again and again, until your timing is perfect.

However, the narrator was entertaining, and the fact that you have to leave parts of yourself in the level in order to solve the puzzles, was a fun and unexpected feature! The graphics were quite good as well.

Nice work!

>These rooms will scrap me! >Not enough boxes... Now what? >Who needs arms? Not me!

Slinger - Last jump to infinity. by roycocup 2017-08-06T14:18:41Z ♥ 0

A fun puzzle-game, it was quite enjoyable to play!

The collision detection was a bit unfair sometimes (with the ship visually overlapping the target, but not triggering the next level).

I completed all the missions in 25 attempts. If you are planning a post-LD version, you should definitely make some more levels!

Nice work! :-)

>We must plot a course! >With gravity as our tool, >we **will** return home!

Unadexus by smbe19 2017-08-06T13:55:03Z ♥ 1

The complexity of this game was impressive, especially for a Compo game! It was a quite interesting take on the theme as well.

The player has to juggle quite a few different parts, and that balancing act was compelling. It felt a bit unforgiving, I had to restart several times before being able hit the right combination of build-order and timing to survive long enough to be able to leave Earth.

The graphics were clear, and the UI was efficient (if a bit bare-bones). The ship-loading and control had a few "gotchas" though, e.g. sometimes not being able to unload dudes when loaded by mistake, or having to destroy ships at a destination world in order to send the next ship there (because of insufficient fuel at the destination to let the existing ship fly away). The "colonization" part could perhaps have been simplified a bit with a "colonize" ship-type/action, which would automatically consume the ship at arrival to form a basic "colony", automatically unloading the cargo and dudes.

If you are making a post-LD version, I would suggest adding some tooltips to the different icons, and definitely a pause function. Using sliders for the ship-loading might make it a bit easier to tweak as well (and/or pausing the game while on the cargo screen).

Overall, it was a quite interesting game, with impressive depth!

>Our future looks grim... >We're running out of power... >To Unadexus!

Depths of Oceania by cnoble 2017-08-05T08:35:28Z ♥ 1

A very atmospheric game. You made a lot of nice art, especially considering it is a compo entry!

Finding out how the energy system worked took a bit of experimentation. I ran out of power several times before I got the hang of it. It was rewarding having to "master" the various concepts.

The game was rather hard without mouse-lock though, especially when trying to turn the weapon. My cursor kept escaping to my other monitor.

The shark was a very nice touch. It would have been the perfect place to add a small "Jaws"-like musical sting :D

It was an enjoyable game, with a excellent mood. Nice work! :)

By the way, you should consider "hearting" the comments/feedback that you find useful. It encourages other people to also leave good comments, and it is an important part of the new karma algorithm on the ldjam website :)

>Gradual descent, >Find power... OH NO! A... ** CHOMP! ** >Claimed the rich rewards!

Ultimate Fusion by Thirrash 2017-08-05T06:40:52Z ♥ 1

Interesting concept!

It was a bit hard to keep track of the current atoms, but the tools were efficient once I got used to them. I kept clicking on the images for the tools, instead of using the number keys.

I think that the barriers lasted for a bit too short a time. The speed tools felt just right. As has been mentioned, the restart-button did not work.

The view angle made it a bit hard to keep track of the atoms, but otherwise both the art and music worked well, and enhanced the mood.

>Juggling the atoms, >the fusion must continue! >The star lost its light.

A Robot's Final Stand by Demandooda 2017-08-05T05:40:43Z ♥ 0

Interesting game! The extra layer of juggling the different systems was an interesting addition, which included a certain tactical element to the game as well.

I would suggest adding hotkeys for the systems (e.g. using the number keys), and making the movement keys be relative to the direction the robot is facing. The shield was an extremely powerful weapon, perhaps it should just have repelled the enemies instead of killing them.

The game was a good fit to the theme, and the music was a nice touch. Without using the shield, my record time was 142 seconds.

By the way, you should consider "hearting" the comments/feedback that you find useful. It encourages other people to also leave good comments, and it is an important part of the new karma algorithm on the ldjam website :-)

>Swarmed by robot foes! >Engage systems! Fight the horde! >...ran out of power.

Her Final Words by Eliana 2017-08-04T04:42:53Z ♥ 1

A short story, with great writing!

I think that the sound effects, and especially the timing of the gradually appearing paragraphs, worked well to enhance the effect of the storytelling.

The story was also both compelling, and well written. It could have been a bit longer, perhaps with a few branches further detailing the Mind's relationship with the people chosen in the end. But as it is, it still feels both focused and complete.

A very nice game!

>As the Mind, I run, >in pursuit of the Reaper. >Cornered! I must choose...

My Kingdom for a Rabbit! by incobalt 2017-08-03T18:45:41Z ♥ 1

This was a very interesting game!

It is very impressive, how you have made such an atmospheric and interesting game, from a relatively simple set of components working really well together. It seems that you are quite skilled at time management! :-)

As have been mentioned previously, the music fits the game well, although the volume is a bit too low. Also, I agree with previous commenters, that the random elements could probably have been better in some kind of "between round" events, rather than to obfuscate the results of the trials. The random outcome of the trials feels a bit unintuitive.

The art fits the mood well, and the small touches (like the individual names of the would-be heirs, and the storytelling-feel of the results of the trials) really makes the game come alive. I like the take on the theme as well, interpreting power as political power (I had the same interpretation of the word in my game).

All in all, this was a very nice game! Nice work!

>To Rule the Rabbits, >You must pass the five trials! >Choose the heir wisely...

Battery Low by Freedom Is Slavery 2017-08-03T17:09:35Z ♥ 1

I love the concept, this is certainly a fun take on the theme!

The game becomes quite frantic! Who would have thought that the life of a professional phone charger would be that hard...

A bit of hectic music could have made the mood even better.

Nice game!

Oh, and I got a high score of 33900

>The Curse of Cell Phones. >Faster! We must charge them all! >...ran out of power.

Light The Way by BobbyTables 2017-08-03T04:32:13Z ♥ 3

The intro screen established the atmosphere well.

In the game itself, the music and sounds also worked well to enhance the feeling of urgency.

A few suggestions: The main character turns a bit abruptly when you change to the opposite direction, which can be confusing when the vision cone suddently shifts. A gradual (but fast) turning animation might have alleviated that. Also, a side-effect of the floor being the same color was, that sometimes in long tunnels, it was hard to see whether you were moving or not. Some floor-features might alleviate that optical illusion.

The light towers worked well as a game mechanic, and tied in well with the theme. I amount of health vs. the damage dealt by the ghost was also good. You had to be careful, but it was not punishingly difficult. Having a proper ending screen was also a nice touch.

Nice work!

>Lost in the darkness. >Chased by ghosts! Sear them with light! >Escape from the maze.

Twin Jet Miner by invader 2017-05-16T14:41:00Z ♥ 1

An interesting game. I struggled a bit with the controls, however. It seemed that my upwards thrust would randomly stop registering the up-button, which would usually mean me dropping to my death, instead of hovering and dropping a bomb.

There is an impressive amount of variety in the game, with a lot of different elements to master and use to your advantage.

>Stopping the diggers, >using available tools. >The base shall be safe!

Don't Make Me Stop This Car! by UncleChris 2017-05-16T14:27:20Z ♥ 1

Fun concept, and interesting take on the theme! I love the title, it fits the game nicely

The graphics were clear, and the gameplay worked rather well, although victory seemed a bit random, with the cars often putting the player in an impossible position.

...although on second thought, that could count as increased realism as well.

>The car is our world, >as we move towards our goal. >Dad, are we there yet?

Let's Be Happy in Our Small World by Tuomo 2017-05-16T14:10:08Z ♥ 2

A fun observational puzzle game!

The art is quite nice, especially the animations, that work quite well in causing a distraction.

The difficulty progression was very satisfying, as the number of intersections, people and distinct characteristics increase steadily. And all it takes to fail, is a single mistake in observation...

>Who is the culprit?! >Through observation powers, >point out the guilty!

Gaia by PowerSpark 2017-05-16T13:27:01Z ♥ 1

That was a fun puzzle-platformer. The pixel art was very good, and together with the music, it created a nice mood.

The mechanics were ok, with some interesting puzzles, but the controls/cloud mechanic did not feel intuitive to me.

The concept of riding across the skies on a large flying beast was very compelling!

>Jumping in the clouds. >Pushing, pulling, jumping high. >Find the road ahead.

FREEDUMB! by Brothers Arcade 2017-05-16T13:04:13Z ♥ 1

Quite amusing satire. Your distillation of a few recognizable traits into a game-concept worked well, and the "Twit"-feed even doubled as a way to display additional satirical content.

Gameplay-wise, the game was simple, but as a vehicle for the satire it was sufficient. It was a bit hard to scroll the feed, but other than that, the UI and presentation was effective and built the mood.

>The news are fake. SAD! >Social Media is Truth! >Unleash the Freedom!

Ascension: A God's Test by MatHype 2017-05-12T04:02:41Z ♥ 6

A very intriguing strategy game!

There is an impressive variety of terrain types and actions in the game, and the quest mechanic was pretty efficient in giving the player some concrete goals to work towards. The tooltips very pretty efficient in explaining the game mechanics, while still leaving . One thing that could have been explained better was how resources are earned (e.g. through tool-tips on the resource icons). The base mechanics of harvesting and imbuing terrain worked really well.

The lava-mechanic gave some additional urgency to the game, but it felt a bit counter-intuitive. The placement of rubble at the beginning of the game, seem to signal that lava will not spread diagonally, which then came as an unpleasant surprise later. It also seems that lava keeps multiplying, even when cut off from the source (i.e. a single lava-field, with no connection to the volcano, seem to be spreading in multiple directions). Finally, the Lava-mechanics and the quest-mechanic felt like they collided occasionally: Racing the clock is one thing. Racing the clock, and then having to abandon your plans at the very last moment, or face being buried in lava, felt a bit frustrating.

The art and music worked really well, and the element of the gods talking to you during the game (being voice acted no less) was a very nice touch, that made the world feel more alive. The UI worked quite well, with the exception of the tooltips sometimes being cut off (for the mountain and stone tooltips for instance) or obscured behind other UI elements. The map was very clear, it was easy to get a grasp of the world and resource status at a glance.

This was definitely an interesting game to play, I hope you'll expand on it!

>Volcanoes appear, >at the behest of Ogun. >World drowned in lava.

Insekter!! by dskeppstedt 2017-05-07T18:54:30Z ♥ 3

An entertaining game!

The graphics were quite nice, and the soundtrack was excellent! The gunplay was satisfactory, however the spawn rate of the spiders made it pretty hard to navigate, especially with the end game gun; the recoil was so powerful that is was almost impossible to move and shoot at the same time, and the spiders respawned so fast, that this made it really hard to cut a path through them.

On the other hand, when I finally reached the escape pod, this also meant that the victory felt well deserved indeed. The two upgrade guns felt very satisfying (except for the recoil on the last gun, as mentioned above), and had a significant effect to justify the extra expenditure of credits. The game had excellent atmosphere, with a lot of nice visual and audible effects to really enhance the experience. If you have the opportunity, you should consider making a post-LD version with an extra bugfix pass, as the underlying game is very satisfying.

I did run into a few bugs (pun not intended ;) ) - at some point in the beginning, after getting the first gun and firing at the first spiders, the "move left" control suddenly locked, causing the main character to always run to the left, even when no buttons were pressed. And for the south-most gun-seller, the gun-labels are rendered upside down.

>Spiders everywhere! >Grab a suitable weapon, >and blast your way through!

Palm Planets by Oreyin 2017-05-07T16:55:13Z ♥ 1

A relaxing little game!

While there was not much to do, except to walk around an collect the planets, the graphics were nice, and the soundtrack was quite soothing. This made for a relaxing experience overall. I liked the picture of the solar system model at the end of the game as well.

I discovered a small bug by the way: Sometimes, the footstep sound played for an extra cycle, after you has stopped walking.

Congratulations on completing your first Ludum Dare!

By the way, if you want comments, and to get a rating at the end of LD, you should rate and comment on other people's games. Otherwise, they'll never find yours!

>Search for the planets. >Pluto is vindicated! >Now let's find the rest.

FUEL by KCreanor 2017-05-07T15:55:09Z ♥ 1

Input precision and frenetic timed action combines into a fine action/puzzle game!

The art is sleek and very nice looking, and the gameplay and controls feel pretty tight. And there is even a high score mechanism to encourage replay. I did have to adjust my mouse sensitivity, in order to get the fine control necessary to complete some of the more involved mazes though. Or maybe I just didn't master the distance equals speed mechanic well enough...

All in all, it is an impressive game, especially for a Compo entry!

>Fuel has been placed. >Now you must run the gauntlet. >Collision is death.

Small World Fighters by noddingTortoise 2017-05-07T15:22:42Z ♥ 2

A fun take on the theme!

I played the game on a keyboard, against the AI.

I enjoyed being able to play two different modes, they felt sufficiently different to justify the extra dev-time. As has been pointed out earlier, spamming ranged attack is a dominant strategy - perhaps some sort of cool down could work, if you don't find the time to implement several different weapons post-LD.

Sometimes, a dead player will spawn right in front of an enemy while facing the wrong way, even in two-player-mode, resulting in an instant bonus-kill. Perhaps the spawning code could be tweaked to make this scenario less likely.

The art was both clear and nice looking, and the controls were efficient (except when being at the bottom of the world, so it feels like you are jumping in the wrong direction, as mentioned by others).

All in all, this was a fun game to play, even against the placeholder AI bots. I would definitely try out a post-LD version.

>Running round and round, >in a deadly game of catch. >Only one can win!

Hop Up by eli 2017-05-07T14:46:43Z ♥ 2

That was a pretty innovative take on a classic genre!

I like how it starts out like any other side-scroller, and then uses more and more visual tricks, until you finally mess up and collide with an obstacle. For me, that point was reached at 68.853 seconds.

The control of the variable jump felt pretty good. I agree with others that the experience could be enhanced with some sound effects, as well as some music which fits the changing of the landscape.

A nice entry!

>Avoid obstacles, >morphing, turning, and flashing. >What a hectic ride!

Small World by andrewl 2017-05-07T14:29:21Z ♥ 1

A quite addictive little game!

The mechanics are simple, but effective. The variety of both the incoming speed and angle, combined with the number of different objects, works really well.

The retro feel works really well for game, specially in combination with the charming background music.

Making the game in only 6 hours is pretty impressive! Congratulations on your first Ludum Dare!

I managed to last for 10.45 billion years - hopefully, the inhabitants managed to get away from the planet before then.

>A limitless void. >A small world, hurtling through space. >How long will it last?

Aliens vs Rng by Valicitor 2017-05-07T14:09:35Z ♥ 1

An intriguing concept!

The semi-random graphics, the UI and the music sets a pretty good mood, and you definitely have a promising platform for further development. The stats of the planet (which are changed by the current options) does not seem to have much of an effect currently? The main stat having an effect at the moment, seems to be the population count, which seem to just stop events from happening anymore, once the planet is dead.

I liked the dark humor of the game and current options, as well as the randomly generated planets (and their info stats). I laughed when I saw the age of one of the planets listed as "dragon". When/if the planet info stats have an effect on the planet itself, it would be useful to have some kind of overlay displaying this effect.

I am looking forward to seeing which additions you make to the game post-LD.

>Civil war ensues. >Assuming direct control. >Barren world remains.

Mini Planets by Willbl3pic 2017-05-07T13:28:01Z ♥ 0

The concept is interesting - the idea of jumping between planets, and sometimes even being fired at them across space through a cannon, accompanied by an action-filled tune, was oddly compelling.

As have been mentioned by others, the controls and camera need some tweaking. For instance, it was not clear to me why the jump button stopped responding sometimes, even though I was standing on a surface.

It's a nice idea though. So if you have the time, you should definitely consider experimenting a bit more, and make a post-LD version.

>Jumping between worlds, >Fleeing from your enemies. >Collect all the coins!

Shapeshifter: The King of A Small World by Rixud 2017-05-07T11:42:21Z ♥ 1

You have made a solid foundation for a puzzle-based platformer. The four different powers complement each other well. As has been mentioned by others, the experience suffered a bit due to the context-based jumping, and at times the camera went trough the world walls. But overall, I think it was an enjoyable puzzle platformer, with some interesting puzzles, which can be easily expanded with additional content. Nice work!

I was also affected by the "blown off the map" bug, which I actually found rather funny - the beetle must weigh a ton to be able to resist winds THAT powerful.

>Jump, squeeze, stomp, and glide, >overcoming obstacles. >Whoosh! Blown off the map.

Potions recipes by dick-claus 2017-05-07T11:00:00Z ♥ 1

Not bad! I can see your entry being a pretty solid foundation for additional content. The current version is interesting, but suffers a bit for having so few objects to collect. I think that being able to click away the notification screen, rather than having to wait for it to disappear on its own, would improve the flow of the game a bit.

I loved the soundtrack, and especially how the sound-effects sounded like they were part of the background music, but were still distinctive enough to signal the events. I even caught myself trying to play along with the background music with the "cannot go here" sound, by repeatedly walking into a tree.

I'm looking forward to trying the post-LD version!

>The wizard embarks, >on an ingredients hunt. >Gonna find them all!

Starstruck Ducky by HuvaaKoodia 2017-05-07T10:18:05Z ♥ 1

That was a quite interesting take on the "climbing the social ladder" concept!

The writing was humorous, and the concept has a nice surreal quality to it, which is amplified by the hilarious ducks, and the funny reaction animations of the hero.

I would write additional comments about the gameplay, but the relevant points have already been made above - instead, I shall be busily pondering exactly how a duck answers a phone, or for that matter, how it uses an (IoT) toaster without being electrocuted.

>A little-known duck, >climbing the social ladder. >Fame is everything!

More Room! by Skosnowich 2017-05-07T09:17:20Z ♥ 4

Wow! An excellent strategy game!

I really enjoyed experimenting with the different upgrades, and seeing the effect on the battles. It gave a tangible feeling of progress which, combined with the gradual assimilation of the map nodes, worked really well.

The art and UI was effective in conveying the "grid" as well as the current status, and also conveyed a good mood, especially in combination with the background music. I wonder whether the ability to auto-send soldiers from the consolidated areas would be a good extra feature, or if it would take away part of the "multi-task"-management challenge - while it was sometimes a bit frustrating having to do so manually, especially when the action became frantic, it also imposed an extra tactical element (rather than being purely a "quality of life" features).

The tutorial was very effective (and funnily written), and I loved how the scale of the game kept increasing every few levels - a sad, but perhaps realistic view on the evolution of war.

It's a pity that the source code is not available. I try to learn as much as possible from other LibGDX developers each Ludum Dare, but this time, without a proper search function on the new site, finding other LibGDX games is a matter of pure luck.

>Always expanding. >The world is our birthright! >We... demand... more... room!

Rickshaw World by tobico 2017-05-07T06:33:57Z ♥ 1

An interesting game!

It was a varied little world - the distinct areas felt different enough to give the illusion of traveling across a populated world. Sometimes it was a bit hard to navigate towards the camera - I think that a tracking camera would have worked better for the exploration.

Storywise, it was a really sad game. Not only were many of the passengers completely oblivious, the ending really struck the point home. Well done! The mood was well supported by the slow music in the background. Perhaps some "inner monologue" could be added, for the long trips between passengers, for a deeper insight into our protagonist's backstory.

>Transporting people, >Some nice, some oblivious. >...so much wasted work.

My Purpose by Maldo19 2017-05-06T19:58:57Z ♥ 1

Very nice game! The art style has a very distinct feel to it, I really liked the semi-abstract feel.

Gameplay-wise I found the game to be very challenging. As has been mentioned, one of the dominant strategies seems to be to stay near the planet, and then circle and shoot. When I strayed from the planet I inevitable got lost, although I would put the blame for that squarely on my sense of direction in space (they should probably have used a better template for the defense-android then...). The omnidirectional firing worked really well, it was effective even when fleeing (I guess I'm not exactly the pride of the fleet...). The introduction of variation of enemies gave a nice progression, especially since you had to adapt your tactics to survive.

I also enjoyed the small story-interludes between the levels (although I will probably never become good enough to read the last one).

It was a very fun game - I don't usually enjoy shooters very much, but this one felt very satisfying, despite me being completely outclassed. The dogfighting worked really well, enough so that I would often get caught up in it, which usually did not end well for my planet...

>Stalwart protector, >fighting off the invaders. >What is its purpose?

Submerged by walnoot 2017-05-06T19:03:20Z ♥ 2

Very cool concept!

With only a few different components, the game manages to be very engaging, as you try to outbuild the rising waters. And make too many mistakes while rushing towards the skies, and you will pay for it through a decrease in efficiency. This loop worked very well.

I love the presentation! The isometric art is pleasant to the eye, and the UI is clean and easy to use. From a gameplay point of view, I would also suggest having the help screen pause the game.

All in all, the game was both interesting and had an fun take on the theme.

>Water rising fast! >Build! Faster! Toward the skies! >...The world IS a pond!

Re:post by Terrabalt 2017-05-06T18:28:53Z ♥ 3

An interesting game concept!

The mechanic of sorting through the news articles, and applying them in an optimal order to earn money, without your ratings suffering too much, was intriguing. It was sometimes a bit hard to move the headlines, since they could only be picked up from the sidebar, when clicking on the part that was actually inside the sidebar. In games like this, where you have a lot of activity near the edge of the screen, it would be nice to have the mouse cursor locked to the window as wel.

There was a nice interplay between the various game elements. Balancing money with ratings was tough, especially when there were no usable news on the TV, so the news<->storage<->PC loop worked well.

>Only post the best news. >Impending rent. Must earn money! >Untrustworthy... FIRED!

Ionnect by AkirAssasin 2017-05-06T17:33:29Z ♥ 1

Nice gameplay idea, very unique!

It is a quite relaxing puzzle game. From an UX perspective, I accidentally connected the wrong components a couple of times , and there did not seem to be an easy way to sever a connection, except for connecting to another atom? A reset-button for the level could also be nice, in case the player has really jumbled the elements around.

I missed having a bit of feedback and/or context for the different puzzles - as it is, it feels very abstract. However, the dragging and rotating mechanics felt very natural. As has been mentioned by others, some of the levels felt a bit repetitive, but as you mentioned, it would definitely help if you add some extra compounds. I also think the game has a good potential as the foundation of an educational game.

I was particularly fond of the "morphing"-effect when completing a level.

>Isolate compounds. >Connect methodically. >Master chemistry.

Mallows World Adventure by geeitsomelaldy 2017-05-06T16:43:34Z ♥ 0

I've never played any of the Dizzy games, but I got a strong "Auf Wiedersehen Monty" vibe from it, due to the similar gameplay, and theme of travelling between exotic places around the world.

The art style and music worked really well - I think that Mallow looks a bit worried, which is to be expected, with all the hazards in the world.

The various environmental hazards were easy to avoid, and yet could still leave the world in an unsolvable state if you died at the wrong time. Hence I think the game would have worked just as well without that element, but just focusing on the exploration. Similarly, there did not seem to be a specific purpose to the snorkel - you pick it up at the beginning, and keep it in your inventory for the entire game, to be able to navigate freely - and it might kill the player if he use the wrong button at the wrong time (and if you drop it in the wrong place, it could make the game unsolvable).

The amount of content is really impressive for a compo game - there is a lot of explorable space, and the fact that each location has its own unique theme and theme music was astonishing - and you even found the time to add a unique look to the NPCs as you solve their quests as well. The puzzles were fun to solve (the shovel-puzzle in particular had an unexpected result), and the game really managed to convey a good abstraction of the difference between the various exotic locations.

All in all, it was a quite impressive Compo game!

>Exploring the world, >trading foodstuff with locals. >Gurgle, gurgle, wheeze.

Glade in the Sky by AdroitConceptions 2017-05-06T15:48:25Z ♥ 1

That was a pretty hard puzzle game! The puzzles were varied, and for the most part interesting. The duration of the "falling to your death" animation was perhaps a bit too long, considering how many times it happens *cough*. On a personal note, I did not like the combination of having to starting over completely after a failure, combined with trial-and-error-puzzles which can leave you in a failure state (e.g. the "falling path"), as most of the puzzles were rather tedious to repeat once solved. Perhaps each solved gem could count as some sort of checkpoint?

I really liked the presentation! The art was clear, yet abstract enough to give the game a unique look, and the footsteps did a good job of adding to the atmosphere. The game conveyed a feeling of navigating harrowingly narrow platforms floating in an otherwise empty void.

This was a quite impressive game for a compo game, especially since it's your first.

>Solid ground is just... >a matter of perspective. >Falling death is real.

Submersible by kleinzach 2017-05-06T06:39:17Z ♥ 3

I love the concept of this game!

It was quite an immersive experience - the extra layer of sitting in a sub, and having to navigate though button presses worked really well. From a UX perspective, as have been mentioned by others, I think that the controls would feel a bit smoother, if the buttons could be "held down", instead of having to click them rapidly.

The procedural generation created sufficient variety so that the exploration did not feel boring, although few extra variants of fauna would be nice. Can the path to the exit of a level become obstructed? In my first playthrough, i did not find the exit, and it was not until I read through the other comments, that I realized that the game had multiple levels, and when I tried again, I found the exits just fine. Although it is entirely possible that I just got lost the first time.

The sounds fitted well together with the rest of the simulation - in particular, using the engine noise as a substitute for a speed gauge.

I'd say that your experiments were successful!

>Just me and my sub. >Exploring the pretty caves. >Alas! No Nessie

A Week's Passing by iseeicy 2017-05-06T05:19:35Z ♥ 1

A very interesting game, the experience was quite unique!

I really liked the art. The mood it conveyed fitted the story perfectly, and the bare bones apartment made a great backdrop for the reductive representation of everyday routine. Having the world be significantly brighter in the beginning of the game, might have stressed the development of the story even more. The navigation was a bit confusing at times. Specifically, when exiting from the bath/bus, I would expect to exit facing towards the world.

The slow deterioration of the daily routine, and the increasing hard time getting out of bed, was a powerful way to convey the protagonist's increasing struggles with his grief.

The ending was uplifting - the way the story was going, I had feared that the bus would end up playing a more horrible part... The final realization of the theme was brilliant!

A note: While I did not run into any issues with the LD version, I got stuck repeatedly in the post-LD version 1.3, when speaking with the other guy waiting on the bus on the morning of day 2 (the controls stopped responding after the conversation).

A wonderful game, with a powerful message!

>A world was shattered. >...Grief ...Unhelpful Platitudes. >......A Light in the Dark.

Troubles on Colony 39 by Stadoblech 2017-05-05T19:50:46Z ♥ 0

An interesting tale, to be sure. Poor neighbor!

The elements were simple, and yet you used them effectively to tell the story. The art was quite charming. Some additional sound-effects could have improved the mood even more.

In general, the writing was fun, even if it had a few errors. It was a fun surprise when the rocket suddenly spoke to me! A few more interactive objects could make room for some more funny text.

>A change in routine. >Daisy production is up, >but morale is down.

Orbitunes by ColeSlaughter 2017-05-05T19:29:11Z ♥ 3

This was a very nice and relaxing entry! It was pleasant to spend some time "composing" variations of tunes - even though the basic elements are simple, the physics-driven repeating of the various notes worked really well for random experimentation. I had to try a few times to make the asteroids go into orbit, rather than shooting off into space, but when it finally "clicked" it felt more like a reward for experimentation, rather than an obstacle.

The graphics were simple and effective, the vibrant colors and movement plays really well together with the resulting music. Your entry is a great example of the fact that "toys" can be just as interesting to interact with as more goal-oriented games.

I read your post-mortem as well, to gain some insight on the technical implementation. It was a quite interesting read, especially the parts about the synchronization issues and the "music theory" foundation of the concepts. So thank you for sharing that!

>Star, floating in space >Orbited by singing rocks >Beautiful music

Candy Cave Quest by ashtheevil 2017-05-05T16:14:34Z ♥ 0

An interesting hidden-object game, with a cute and unique art style.

The objective of the game was clear, and the puzzles made good sense. I liked the sound effects and voiceovers, although the voices sounded a bit "stiff" at times. The reactions of the main character was a very nice touch.

The rotation puzzle was hard until you used your imagination, which ties nicely into the message of the game; the connection between the selected objects and the corresponding objects in the scene was very clever.

It was a fun game to play. Some additional puzzles and objects would make it even better. The twist at the end (and the corresponding change in graphics) was great!

>Wonders of the mind, >makes the world a magic place. >Don't fear the Keeper!

Small World Sim by pyokoanarogue 2017-05-05T05:35:15Z ♥ 2

A nice strategy/simulation game!

The goals gave some specific objectives/direction for the sim. A suggestion could be to expand upon this, making separate "chains" of goals for evolving the world in a specific direction, especially if you add extra buildings with additional tradeoffs.

The building effects complemented each other nicely. I would suggest adding some extra buildings for variety. You could connect them to the goals-mechanic, "unlocking" specific buildings when various goals are reached, which would add an additional element of evolving your world aiming for a specific type of end result.

From a UX perspective, I felt that the building placement interface felt a bit bulky: The buildings are hidden away in a separate pop-up menu, which can obstruct the currently selected tile that your choice will affect, and then after selecting the building, you have to click a separate button to actually build it, with the map still partially obstructed.

I would therefore suggest reversing the order of actions, i.e. first select the building, and then click on a tile to build a building at the clicked tile. That would allow the player to put down multiple of the same building without having to move the mouse between the map and the button panel, and save a lot of clicks. Putting the building choice menu directly on the button panel (as a row of icon buttons for instance) could similarly improve the "flow" of the GUI. Clicking one of them would then change the building description at the top, to match the new currently selected building.

As others have mentioned, the game has a nice old-school strategy game feel to it, with combined with the charming music created a good mood for the game. The day/night cycle and spinning the globe to unveil additional building space were really nice touches.

All in all, it was a quite enjoyable strategy/simulation game, with great potential for further expansion!

>Trees require funds. >Funds require factories. >...Industrial trees?

A Relatively Small World by Samusoidal 2017-05-04T19:07:59Z ♥ 1

Interesting game, with a very unique concept!

The music was pretty relaxing (perhaps a bit in conflict with the gameplay). The sound effects were very funny! The hand-drawn graphics gave your game an unique aesthetic, although it made it hard to recognize some of the features. I liked the fact that the cities could be identified by the wildlife near them though, that was a nice touch.

The puzzles were rather absurd, and all the more funny for it! They also had their own weird logic to them, so I managed to play through the game without losing or dying. But it did require some thinking outside the box, that's for sure.

Just a small observation: It is a bit cumbersome having to install LD-games, since you then have to uninstall them afterwards, and not all uninstall processes are good at cleaning up after themselves. It might discourage some people from trying your game.

In any case, it was a fun little game to play, with a delightfully bizarre plot!

>As a nice giant, >I shall solve all your problems! >...YOU ATE THE PUG?!?! WHYYYY?

Haven - The Small World by Iluvatar 2017-05-04T18:34:11Z ♥ 2

I enjoyed playing through the game - the story is pretty good, and the atmosphere of the game is amazing! The music enhances the mood well.

The three locations are beautifully drawn, as is the title screen. You clearly spent a lot of effort here, and it shows!

The game itself feels a bit short, but still manages to contain enough objects with descriptions to hint at how everyday life in Haven must be. If you have the time, you should definitely consider expanding on the game into a post-LD version, to flesh out the ending, and add a few more descriptive objects and puzzles. You reveal enough of the world that I want to see more of it!

>Empty loneliness, >calls for desperate action! >I must find my wife!

Bureaucratic Deity Simulator 2018 by mmason 2017-05-04T17:58:38Z ♥ 2

A very neat puzzle game!

The pixel art is amazing! And combined with the music, it gave the game a very nice mood. The volume of the sound effects was rather loud compared to the music (especially the "cannot place here" effect), which was a bit jarring, but otherwise the presentation elements fitted well together. The town had an interesting "high tech" vibe to it, making it an interesting contrast compared to the otherwise serene nature tiles.

The tile-interactions themselves were quite fun to discover. The pacing of the puzzles sometimes seemed a bit abrupt; sometimes they skipped a few concepts, or had very different solutions from puzzle to puzzle, which made them seem less cohesive. As you stated above, some more levels could have gotten even more mileage out of the mechanics, which are certainly complex enough to last for additional puzzles.

The discovery process was enjoyable, as was the spatial element of having to perform the moves in the correct order, and using the "buffer spaces" to the best possible effect. Sometimes it was frustrating not to be able to experiment freely within the constraint of the levels - perhaps the sandbox could have been unlocked after the first few tutorial levels, for fun and practice. But the puzzles themselves had a great difficulty - great brain teasers, without becoming frustrating. And the fast reset-mechanism combined with a small playing field really encouraged experimentation!

It was a very enjoyable game to play!

>A pristine new world, >molded by bureaucracy. >Behold! Perfection!

You Just Don't Get It by Mikhail Rudoy 2017-05-04T04:56:12Z ♥ 1

A quite charming little game!

The art, music and ambient sounds really set a positive mood, in stark contrast to the stories being told. Very nice! The cutlery object was sometimes a bit hard to spot against the background.

A suggestion for a future addition, could be to have the story-sentences change if the altars are intermixed, creating a new "what-if" hybrid story.

The game was enjoyable to play, and the stories were compelling, with a distinct difference in feel between them. Nice work!

>A peaceful island, >filled with trash and memories. >Perspective is key.

1964 World's Fair Engineer by Lone Spelunker 2017-05-03T19:07:38Z ♥ 3

A very impressive game!

The amount of different variants of cards is very impressive - so many different images, and yet stylistically they all mesh perfectly together, giving the game a nice vibrant and positive mood. Some music would have enhanced the mood even more.

The difficult balancing act of considering which cards to keep, and which to reject in any given pitch, really makes the relatively simple core mechanics shine! One thing I found a bit counter-intuitive, is that the background cards applies their delight before the merge, rather than after. So you get penalized for moving a background-card from darkness into the light for instance, whereas I would have expected the reward to be applied as the background would be perceived by the ride guest.

The tooltips were very helpful while playing the game, and the instructions did a good job introducing the various game concepts. Considering the unconventional mechanics it might also be useful to have a "reset pitch" functionality, in case the player make a mistake.

Some miscellaneous feedback: I cannot find the link to the source code on the game page (or is it somewhere else?) I also experienced a few technical difficulties with starting the game. I could not get it to work in Chrome or Internet Explorer (in both cases, it displayed the two firsts cards, and half of the third, on a static dark blue background). It worked in Firefox, however the animations were a bit slow.

This was a very intriguing game to play!

>As the project lead, >I shall awe and delight you! >Don't mind the motor...

My world by Erkberg 2017-05-03T17:41:08Z ♥ 1

A nice narrative game!

You used both graphics and music to good effect, shaping a great mood for the story to unfold in.

In my first playthrough I reacted to the invasion in accordance with the character's perspective, not even considering whether it could be misguided. That the dash-action is prominently featured in the instructions, also primes this first reaction I think. I was then happily surprised when it turned out that combat was merely one way through the game, and not even the most satisfying one.

The mechanics were a bit frustrating - the "floating" controls combined with the deadly sea was a lethal combination. But in a sense, I guess that just reinforces the message of the game.

This was a very enjoyable game to play!

>Kill the intruders! >Violence is not the answer... >An important choice.

SUN GOD by palemachine 2017-05-03T17:02:22Z ♥ 2

A very nice idea, well executed!

The graphics and music was excellent in setting the mood. I found it a bit hard to read the numbers during the action, though. As has been mentioned above, perhaps it could be supplemented with a "progress bar", to be able to decode the amounts involved (and the distance to the goal) at a glance.

Both the tutorial and the introduction text was very funny and entertaining to read. Especially the dramatic introduction of the true hero of our tale, THE SUN GOD! It is always nice to have some backstory giving some context to the game, and it was a great setup for the gameplay itself.

A very impressive game, especially for a Compo game!

>The world is shrinking! >It's time to PLEASE the SUN GOD! >COME WITH ME, brave citizens!

Tetripolis by Mulack123 2017-05-03T16:16:50Z ♥ 1

That was an innovative take on the classic Tetris gameplay!

The combination of a spatial puzzle with a rule-enforced optimal way of solving said puzzle works pretty well, especially as it ties into the mechanic of unlocking additional pieces of the puzzle.

However, ultimately I felt that the large amount of possible combinations, and the fact that the unlockable pieces are unknown at the beginning of the round, meant that finding an optimal solution (or even a good one) was a matter of "brute-forcing" the puzzle, rather than solving it. As you mentioned, having the upcoming blocks visible would mitigate this somewhat, but potentially at the cost of making the spatial part of the puzzle (too?) easy to solve.

The graphics were very good, and the interface felt pretty fluid as well. I had fun playing the game, it was definitely the most challenging puzzle game I have played so far this LD. The final "coin awards" gave an nice extra incentive to try improving the score.

Oh, and I loved the punny game name!

>Planning my city. >Profit optimization! >Alas, just one coin.

Rebuild. by TehT 2017-05-03T15:19:15Z ♥ 1

An interesting puzzle game!

I liked how you literally start with a small world, and then expand it. A nice take on the theme! The graphics are quite nice, and it is easy to identify the various tile types. I did miss some "tool-tips" on the exact effect of each tile type.

As you stated, it is very easy to overextend yourself in the beginning, but once you get a good mana income, it is quite fun to hunt for the special tile types. The fact that you get to play after the 100 turns was also a nice touch (although the score keeps accumulating).

A possible bug: For some reason, using the "town"-resource button never caused a town-tile to appear for me, it just drained the mana. Or maybe it was just supposed to increase the population?

All in all, it was an enjoyable puzzle/strategy game, and a good entry for your first LD!

>Small starting village. >...spend your mana carefully >Suddenly Stonehenge!

Chuck and Bull by CheesyMoo 2017-05-03T14:30:30Z ♥ 3

A relaxing little game.

It felt a bit sparse though. I would have liked some more objects to interact with.

The music and graphics are nicely done, and makes for a pretty calm atmosphere, with some funny sound effects as well.

So I spent some time leaning back, relaxing, and literally watching the crops grow.

> A small peaceful farm. > Oh look! A bottle of Booze... > COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!

Bug to the Footstep by eddynardo 2017-05-03T04:58:43Z ♥ 2

A fun and challenging puzzle game!

I like the cute graphics, they add some context to what would otherwise be a rather abstract puzzle game. The fact that you actually have to "hunt" your wiggling game pieces was a nice touch! Some music and sound would have added even further to the mood.

The difficulty progression worked well, with the later puzzles being just challenging enough to be interesting, without becoming frustrating. I also like how the "flip"-mechanic added even more variety to the mechanics.

It is impressive that you made this in only 14 hours!

> Ladybugs and snails, > fit nicely in the footstep. > Oh no, it's a worm!

Daffodil Village by Hjalte 2017-05-02T19:46:34Z ♥ 3

A fun little game - for such an cute village, the villagers sure are creepy...

A possible bug: When a villager is near the edge of the screen, some of their dialogue is obstructed by the screen edge.

I liked the graphics - they are quite cute, and the eyes are nicely eerie.

If you make a post-LD version, I would suggest adding enough conversations so that every villager has his/her own dialogue. Although in a sense, having different people ask the exact same questions did make them feel a bit more spooky.

Having your earlier conversations decide the ending, depending on whether you took the time to befriend the villagers, was a nice touch.

I found the game entertaining, although it felt a bit short :-)

> Idyllic village. > Smiling faces everywhere. > Do not ask questions...

Barely There by benbennett 2017-05-02T19:03:13Z ♥ 1

A simple and enjoyable game!

The graphics are very nice, and the music underscores the mood well (both during the game, and during the ending).

Except for when losing control when leaving the flower, I felt that the control of the bee was very good, with the player being able to fine tune the magnitude of the "jump". As for the flower-jump, the birds did seem to take good advantage of the momentary loss of control.

And the ending... talk about mood whiplash!

All in all, it was a quite enjoyable game, with a nice twist at the end!

> So sunny outside! > Look at the pretty flowers! > ...how dare you, foul beast!

Smalltrek by impbox 2017-05-02T18:36:41Z ♥ 2

Wow!

The game feels impressively polished, especially considering that it is a compo game! The amount of detail is staggering; All the details - the little animations, the lovely music, the fun introduction text in between levels, and even the visual effects for the scanner and level transitions, combine into an excellent game!

I found the level progression to be very good. The basic puzzle mechanic variations are introduced at a good pace. And just as the player has them mastered, the change where the cute cuddly creatures start in their expansion mode, provides a change of pace that really revitalizes the game mechanics for the rest of the levels. You managed to stretch a relatively simple set of mechanics to good effect, and the variety of the different rules was well balanced.

The controls felt a bit imprecise at times - I tended to overshoot my target, both when selecting a level, and when warping to the next sector. Other than that, my only "complaint" is that I was supposed to have time to play and rate a handful of games today, not spend all evening on playing this one...

All in all, it was a very enjoyable game!

> Planet in uproar! > Obey the wise commander. > Tribbles... everywhere!

I Just Wanted Groceries by Jedeen 2017-05-02T03:47:50Z ♥ 5

Hilarious take on the theme! The graphics and music really sets the tone of the game. The game can be quite challenging, depending on the location of the items, and the "customers keep arriving" mechanic works really well for gradually ramping up the challenge. At least they finish shopping eventually.

I also loved the small details - the random appearance of the shoppers, that they actually have different "identities" if they run into you, and of course the fact that in the end, the cashier is as chatty as the rest of them. The main character world probably have preferred a self-serve checkout :-D

An entertaining game!

> Carrots on the floor. > The shoppers saw me coming! > Everlasting chat...

Out of Breath by james-gillespie 2017-01-02T20:38:00

Cool survival game!

The pixel art is great, and the day/night cycle was a nice touch. I liked the variety of factors you had to balance.

It was easy to get lost on the surface - perhaps some kind of (perhaps craftable) compass/homing beacon could have improved that aspect.

A very solid entry!

Bite The Pain by hadesfury 2017-01-02T20:26:00

Very interesting and unique idea, and an interesting take on the theme.

The pacing was very fast, almost too fast - I had some trouble "taking in" the status of the patients at a glance fast enough.

Great humor, despite the morbid theme, due to the over-the-top (and very good) graphics.

1 Room and 48 Hours by meg 2017-01-02T20:04:00

Funny game, very meta :)

The various "resources" played well together,and the results screen was a very nice touch.

The feedback was good, once the link between ??? and its object was clear. The warnings when approaching the limit were a godsend, considering the very fast pacing of the game.

The Mini-Man 3D by adrian09_01 2017-01-02T19:56:00

Very nice graphics (the owner needs a greater variety of DVDs :) )

The "coin platformer" gameplay worked well, it was pretty hard to avoid some of the enemies though. It was fun "exploring" the room.

A fun entry.

Neat (Ludum Dare 37) by HawkSandwich 2017-01-02T19:44:00

Interesting concept, and very engaging gameplay!

The art had a very unique quality. A greater variety of objects would have been nice - having to remember the orientation of a number of otherwise identical objects was a bit frustrating.

Orbital Engagement by tompudding 2017-01-02T19:34:00

Very nice and immersive user interface! The gameplay was also very fun.

The home-made sound effects were a nice touch as well.

levelone by dietzribi 2017-01-02T19:21:00

Very good game!

The concept was an interesting take on the theme, and was very entertaining. The desperation of the creator was very funny, and the humor had a nice satirical bite to it.

Crazy Puzzle Unicorn (CPU) by hnzlmnn 2017-01-02T04:51:00

Fun puzzle game!

I liked the interesting variety of puzzle tile types, and the simple and effective art.

The puzzles became rather hard, so the "drag to view" feature made a great gameplay difference, letting us plan ahead.

Nice entry! Also, nice to see LibGDX used in another game.

Network of the Trapped by MikeTheWayne 2016-12-30T09:27:00

Interesting concept, although I did not manage to generate any revenue (as far as I could see). Perhaps clarify the effects (and interdependencies?) of the three monetization options?

The "type to implement new features" mini-game was an interesting way to handle the implementation of the social network - the "look ahead" feature was a nice touch.

DEBOI-OPPAI by TBOI TEAM 2016-12-30T09:00:00

An interesting concept!

The game was enjoyable, if a bit short. I liked the hacking mini-game - it felt urgent, but with a time limit high enough that is was not frustrating.

I think that the grid-movement might feel a bit less restrictive if the graphics "supported" the grid, i.e. by having the furniture align more closely with the movement grid, and maybe even having a subtle "tile-border" effect in the floor graphics.

Both the art and the music worked great with the concept!

Clue by Wumbo 2016-12-30T08:14:00

A fun game, with an interesting take on the theme!
I especially liked the Christmas-themed murder-weapons.

Ask Her by Sorak86 2016-12-19T05:38:00

Excellent game!

The reactions to the various words and themes were spot on, and worked really well to discover which parts of the narrative would move the story forward.

The parser also worked really well! I only got confused on one point, where I tried to ask her about her age, but both "my age" and "your age" resulted in her talking about my age.

The art and chosen music made for a very effective mood. All in all, this was a very interesting (and sad) game!

Labitect by Echo Team 2016-12-18T15:19:00

A very original concept, with an interesting take on the theme!

From an UI perspective, I would have preferred the log to scroll automatically, to easier be able to see the antics the poor patients are up to :)

It would be interesting to see which elements you would add to a post-LD version of the game, if you are plannning to make one.

Faucet by AlmightyTuna 2016-12-18T15:05:00

You have managed to create a great spooky atmosphere, using relatively simple methods, to a point where it was tense going near the mirror. Very impressive!

The "mirror blinking" effect went by a bit too quickly. The audio was excellent in amplifying the mood.

Great game!

Elevator staff simulator 1932 by jordgubben 2016-12-18T14:51:00

A very creative take on the theme!

I enjoyed the writing, as well as the fact that you actually get to make a rather important decision at the end.

The snarky descriptions "though the eyes of the elevator operator" worked really well, especially in contrast to the rather rude people you are exposed to.

A very interesting game!

EscapeJam by Kalm004 2016-12-18T14:37:00

This is an interesting little game!

It was fun to try to guess which options would be considered good or bad, in the different genres. Although I think, that for some of the playthroughs I made, the team would probably never have finished :)

Nice work!

No Man Hero by PlugRobots 2016-12-18T14:25:00

A fun little point and click game! :) I love the concept as well.

As others have mentioned, it would be nice to get a background for the inventory, and having a lose-screen for when the timer runs out.

The music fitted well with both the concept of the game, and with the graphics, it sounded suitable dramatic :) The different noises for each action was also a nice detail.

Good work!

Keep Working! by Riftpoint 2016-12-18T14:06:00

This was an enjoyable and entertaining satirical game, and the contrast between the two different paths was interesting.

The message of the "obedience"-path was very clear, but also felt rather "blunt". For satirical "edge", it might have benefited from the "show, don't tell" writing approach, letting the player infer the message, rather than being told the message directly. For instance, "copying games" = "managing risk", "earn money" = "maximizing shareholder value", "Games as a product" = "standardization of production methods". The message would still shine through, and might be less immersion-breaking, than directly telling the player how to feel. You actually use this method in the very last part of the obedience path, where the dolphin is thanked for the work, but meanwhile, it is pretty clear where the majority of the (monetary) reward is going :)

The "imagination"-path was very fun to play, and felt very original, enough that I had to play it twice. Gathering everybody in an attempt to stop the meteor felt fittingly epic, even (especially?) since we are not shown the result.

I also loved the art and audio throughout the game, especially the contrast between the "cutesy" grapics, compared to the themes.

I loved the spoof on office work, as I went in a similar direction for my own game (a "developers being constantly interrupted in their open-plane office" parody-game).


All in all, it was a very interesting game, nice work! :)

One room away from success by Gulyasarni66 2016-12-18T07:28:00

Interesting puzzle game!

The "hit-box" on the top row of answer buttons was a bit too large, I had to redo entering the answer a couple of times, because I kept accidentially activating the top row buttons.

The puzzles were both interesting and varied - it has been a while since I last solved a Caesarean cipher :) I liked the art as well, and the music worked well to enhance the mood.

Nice work! :)

Class Notes by tellus 2016-12-18T06:59:00

Interesting concept, an innovative take on the theme :)

I loved the escalating dinosaur-drawing-competition. You should consider making a post-LD version, containing additional notes.

It seemed that I could not use the mouse to choose the selection in the dialog (no mouse pointer), so I had to use the arrow keys instead).

All in all, an interesting game :)

Pixel Artist Simulator by aamatniekss 2016-12-18T06:46:00

That was an interesting experience, telling a sad (and hopefully very exaggerated) story.

You can almost feel the main character's frustration, as his few glimmers of hope are squashed horribly, by low sales, and being casually brushed off by the game company rep (not done much paid work indeed...)

The (slightly disturbing) detail, that the main character works more slowly, the more hungry he gets, was a nice touch.

Very nice satirical game! :)

Also, it is good to know, that posters can serve as an emergency meal ;)

Utility Station OR-152 by Justin Mullin 2016-12-17T09:24:00

The game has an impressive amount of different subsystems implemented, considering the short timeframe.

The different systems are varied and complex enough that the game is fun to play for a while, while trying to find an optimal work proces.

The simulated control panels makes the game feel very immersive, and the sounds provide a nice final touch.

A suggestion for further development, could be to introduce penalties for "risky" breaches of procedure (connecting a contaminated ship to the station, allowing ships to depart without retracting the arm, etc.)

A great simulation game - I enjoyed playing it!

nO mooRe by frittatenbank 2016-12-17T07:36:00

The atmosphere/mood of this game is close to perfect - the art is simple, lending it a very nice unnerving quality, which combined with the excellent music, underscores the dark theme in a great way. This is definitely one of the most atmospheric games I have played this LD!

As the game is very dark, you should probably have used the "warning"-feature when uploading :)

Despite some difficulty in clicking some of the objects, the gameplay and storytelling worked well together. I especially liked the "time travel" concept, and the transition between times felt very smooth as well.

Great game!


On an unrelated note, it is nice to see another game made using LibGDX :)

Nightmares by Yami no tenshi 2016-12-14T11:54:00

The gameplay is simple and clear, and the music, sounds and art makes it work really well! The game has an excellent mood/atmosphere!

The "short/low-powered" throws felt a bit too short, but other than that, the controls felt really intuitive.

This is a great game :)

My score was 117 (ow, my hand :) )

Bye. by Saiodin 2016-12-13T14:48:00

A very nice spaceship construction simulator! :)While the gameplay could have benefited from additional balancing, the game is very entertaining as it is. And I love the visuals!

The lab needs some serious workspace safety improvements, but then we would not have the very funny accident descriptions :)

We Need A Hero by tomdeal 2016-12-13T13:54:00

I love the concept! A very fun strategy-game!

It seems that you can become "doomed" pretty easily, hitting a downward-spiral of losing fame because you do not have enough heroes to send out, causing you to not have enough fame to hire new heroes, and then you just pick fights until your last hero dies, without making any progress :)

I really liked the style of the city and GUI! Also, the concept of having "cards" for the heroes and events, and having the battles play out in a small "card-window", including "shake" impact-effects worked really well! :)

Some suggestions for UI-improvement, if you make a post-LD version: Auto-start battles when the hero arrives, and let clicking the red dot have the same effect as clicking the corresponding "card".

Brian by Noxim 2016-12-13T13:21:00

An interesting game, and a nice take on the theme.

The dialogue/story was interesting, I loved that both the main character and the narrator were fully voice-acted! :)

The streches between "interaction-points" was rather long though. More separate triggers (and perhaps even some branching) would make the story even more interesting for the player :) And perhaps some kind of visual cue, making it clear when the dialogue is spoken by Brian rather than the narrator, would make the story easier to "parse" as well.

The art-style was also nice - simple and clear.

All in all, it was a interesting and unique game, with an fun take on the theme :)

How To Cope With Boredom and Loneliness - A Guide For The Isolated - A Documentary Filmmaker Simulator by rodobodolfo 2016-12-13T12:57:00

Fantastic game! This is funniest parody/spoof-game I have played for a long time!

It has great graphics, fitting music, and many small touches like the simulated camera angles and hilarious sound bites, making the game feel very polished. Excellent work! :)

Come On Up by Gumboot 2016-12-13T11:53:00

A very fun climbing/platforming-game, that even manages to include story-progression without breaking the flow (with great humor)! Very cool game, and the art is great!

I still managed to get caught in the "endless flopping" bug on my first playthrough, so it seems it has not been completely fixed yet :)

The Navigatorium by Fixxel 2016-12-13T11:14:00

A nice foundation! You should definitely expand on the idea, and add some more features! :) The game is quite atmospheric :)

The error-sound, while fittingly dramatic, sometimes drown out the replacement-number, causing that one to be missed as well.

Ludum Dynamics (TM) by geometrix 2016-12-13T10:04:00

Well, that was an interesting experience, and also especially fun for me, since my game was also a variation over the "annoying corporate work-life" theme :)

The game had a nice sarcastic bite to it, with a lot of funny details, from the perpetual depressing news (and weather), to the strange support requests (and standardized bland response). It was depressing how fast I ended up being able to spout the standard ticket response. The "paradise" vacation simulator was also a nice touch.

My only comment is on the plot resolving - logically, the edit-command would probably have been just as effective as the delete-command (if less cathartic).

Great game/experience!

What happened to Michael? by BubsyPoochies 2016-12-13T08:51:00

Great game!

The story was compelling, and I really enjoyed the "new perspective on previous items"-progression of the story. Reminded me a bit of the old adventure game "Overclocked".

The excellent pixel-art and well-chosen music also added to the experience. Also, nice homage to the X-Files.

I did get stuck on my first playthrough first, at the very last click (I got the "Not now" feedback when clicking the computer, despite having found all the clues). I think it might be triggered either by me clicking on the computer at one point before getting the last two clues (triggering the "not enough information" feedback), or because I triggered the "found wristband" event again by clicking the CDs in the final FBI-scene.

OneRoom by Danman9914 2016-12-12T21:26:00

A great twist on the theme!

You captured the mood of a chatroom perfectly, and the various elements played really well together - although the the ending was a bit unexpected. The game also felt really polished, e.g. the different profile-pictures for each user, and the small "mini-games".

An excellent game!

The Eternal Empire by oskardevelopment 2016-12-12T21:00:00

A very enjoyable management-game, filled with interesting trade-offs. It was particularly hard to balance income vs. stability.

An interesting take on the theme, and the setting and presentation was quite atmospheric (I started dreading the musical piece playing during cutback-decisions)

It would be helpful to have the current balance displayed on the screen as well, to see how far above/below budget the empire is.

Your little human by Quaternius 2016-12-12T17:51:00

Fun game, and both the graphics and music is well made.

The four different resources supplement each other in an excellent way. And the "upgrade" mechanic, letting you trade time now, into more efficient resources later, is a nice extra touch.

All in all, a very solid game!

I have only managed to keep my little human alive for 17 days, at which point he ran out of sleep and food at the same time. I guess I balanced the resources a bit too well... :)

a game about sheep by Nilq 2016-12-12T17:22:00

Fun game, even if the connection with the theme is not obvious :)

It seems that an effective tactic is to bring down the amount of attackers to one, and then focus on farming. Perhaps the "wave"-system could be replaced with spawn over time system :)

I love the pixel art, and especially the small touches (like the fact that the invaders also have a "shaved"-state, with their appearance changing accordingly).

You should probably make binaries for the different platforms (or at least mention that the game was made in the Löve frame-work, and include a link to the page), if you want people to try out the game :) Downloading separate frameworks is just so much work, especially if you have to track them down first ;)

It seems that your source-link accidentally points to the game itself, rather than to the source-code?

Inside The Office by Darkhaul 2016-12-12T17:01:00

It is a great beginning :) You have a (very nicely drawn) environment, mechanics in place for sorting the contents of the archive drawers, some background for the decisions, and a feedback/result mechanism.

You should definately make a post-LD version, adding some additional outcomes and/or files, and maybe a restart and/or quit-button on the result-page.

Also, I can only assume that we are stuck with the job for live, considering that there is no door in the room! :)

Tamagogeek by dodormeur 2016-12-12T16:37:00

An entertaining little game, with a nice take on the theme :) I like the pixel art, it is both simple and clear!

A suggestion, if you make a post-LD version: Add some kind of visual indicator for the various bars, that illustrates the direction (and magnitude) of the change, due to the current activity.

Alone In Space by Mango Malarkey 2016-12-12T12:06:00

Very nice game! I also considered making a "space-ship-as-a-room" themed game, but decided against it, because I figured it would take too much time. It is impressive how many features you managed to implement in only 48 hours!

I am clearly no space ace; in my 5 tries, I never once managed to survive space combat against more than a single opponent. But the different systems seem to tie well into each other (although a terrible pilot like me would have liked some kind of regenerating force shield upgrade as well).

A few suggestions for UI-improvements, should you decide to make a post-LD version:
* Highlight in the upgrade menus how many of the necessary items you already possess.
* Visual and/or audible feedback when the laser beams hit their target in combat mode.
* I had a hard time controlling the pilot inside the ship, he has a very wide "turning radius".
* Display fuel costs for travel somewhere. It was hard to predict how much fuel was needed a few "moves" ahead.

THIS IS AMAZING by JokerDen 2016-04-24T09:28:00

Very enjoyable and fun puzzle game.

While the early levels were a bit too easy, I liked the progression from easy to hard.

Sometimes I managed to drag the points outside the playing field by accident - perhaps there should be a check preventing this.

Tile Snake by ORECROS 2016-04-24T09:03:00

Excellent game!

Very innovative idea, using the classic Snake-mechanics in a block puzzle game. It made for great puzzles, especially in the later levels, where more puzzle elements were introduced. Especially the directional walls and the "tile eliminator" gave interesting twists to the solutions.

Having the optional objectives for extra challenge was a nice touch as well.

I also enjoyed the combination of sound, music and graphics.

(Web) Pyramid Escape by lukethecoder64 2016-04-24T08:07:00

Nice intro, and I love the art style! The different properties of the shapes was interesting.

I could not get the downloaded version to work (the shapeshifting buttons did not respond), but the web-version worked fine.

Changelings by aeai 2016-04-24T05:58:00

A fun take on the classical Lemmings! The pixel art is really nice.

As has been mentioned by others, a "mass bomb" button (or just a level reset) would be a nice convenience addition :)

Particle Mess by Tetha 2016-04-24T05:44:00

I like the concept! :)

It was pretty fun, messing around with the different components, while trying to make an optimal layout.

Some simple sounds might make the mechanics feel even more satisfying :)

Postmortem Hero by sistinedisco 2016-04-23T08:41:00

Great game! I really enjoyed the concept, as well as the execution!

I especially enjoyed the humor elements, and small nice touches, like the big fearsome Griffon "Meowing" after being defeated.

The concept of choosing the right hero, was a nice take on standard RPG Maker team mechanics.

The Seasons Processor by Simon 2016-04-23T08:13:00

An interesting entry. It was interesting to play around with different configurations, to see how it impacted the colors. Literal shapeshifting :)

It would probably be preferable to be able to change the values from inside the interface though :)

ChickenMan by meisterfuu 2016-04-23T08:02:00

Cool, another LibGDX game :)

It is an interesting puzzle platformer, with a nice variety of elements.

The physics feels a bit strange sometimes, especially jumping, but the game is fun, and the sound and graphics work nicely together to create a nice mood.

Flames and Shifting by Jordan 2016-04-23T07:48:00

Nice, another LibGDX game :)

I loved the graphics and effects, although the game was a bit too dark sometimes :)

The audio and graphics combined to create an excellent mood.

The Protean Organism by Tomahawk2001913 2016-04-23T07:38:00

Very interesting platform puzzle game. It has a nice combination of mechanics, which you use to create interesting puzzles, and the developer art is quite charming :)

As other have said, restarting should be from the level you reached, not the very beginning :)

Deershifter by bluszcz 2016-04-23T07:29:00

Interesting concept, with nice graphics and sound :)

Pretty fun concept too, I can honestly say, that this is the first time I have played a game as a shapeshifted laser-beam-blasting deer on a mission of revenge ;)

Out of confort by ultravioleta 2016-04-23T07:13:00

Charming art style, and fun to play!

The table is littered with dead fish, I think they wish I was better at this game ;)

Spacedentists great fall by StMatn 2016-04-23T07:05:00

Funny game, and a very interesting take on the theme! :)

It is also surprisingly hard, I have not been able to come anywhere near the 21737 record ;)

Morphing Maze by AGausmann 2016-04-23T06:58:00

I like text adventure games, so it was nice to see one as a LD game.

The game could be improved by adding some of the "standard" parser conveniences, for instance allowing the user to type the first letter in the command (instead of the entire command), adding all visible exits to the "what" command, and executing the "what" command automatically when entering a room.

I enjoyed seeing the different mazes the algorithm produces. A trick to make the maze seem less generic could be to have a few "unique" room-descriptions, assigned randomly to rooms (in effect creating "landmarks" in the maze). This could also be combined with "shape-dependant" generic descriptions, i.e. assigning "a corridor turning sharply" description to a room with a North and East/West exit, for instance (these descriptions could then be assigned after the level generation).

The energy mechanic added a nice sense of urgency to the maze exploration - perhaps the player should be warned, when he is about to starve to death.

Wrestling the RPG by Kate Kligman 2016-04-23T05:44:00

An interesting game. The text was well written, with a nice variety of different paths. Adding additional decisions could make the game even more interesting.

OmniDrone by OriginalBigDan 2016-04-23T05:36:00

Fun game!

The shapeshifting between plane and tank feels useful, and I liked the mechanic of using the metal from the wreckage to build up your own army.

One small issue is, that your army has a tendency to kill itself, as it stacks up at the exact same location.

Nice entry!

Oh What a Night by Siegfried Croes 2016-04-23T05:20:00

Great game!

The art is excellent, and the story was funny. I loved the humor and all the nice small touches - for instance, how the game icon itself makes perfect sense once you reach the ending twist, how the cheese moves around by jumping, and even the small description when entering the "jumbled" room.

I liked the exploration element. It had the classical "if it is mentioned, then it will become important later" adventure game feel, so you always have an idea of where to go next, once you have explored the map.

Shapeshift Inc by Jajo 2016-04-22T18:47:00

Nice puzzle game :)

I think that combining a pattern matching game with "battle" mechanics is an interesting idea.

If you are going to develop the game further, a suggestion for an additional mechanic, could be to shift the tiles above the removed tiles downwards, tetris-style (and then add the new random tiles at the top). This would allow for more "strategy" in aligning the rest of the colors to your advantage :)

I Have Brig Plans by reheated 2016-04-22T18:35:00

Amazing puzzle game!

The rule variations complement each other perfectly, the learning progression is excellent, and the graphics, sound and "intro sequences" combine to give the game a great atmosphere.

I also love the take on the theme, shaping both the playing field, and for the shapeshifter, even the rules of the puzzles themselves.

The last puzzle level was nicely challenging, and really brought all the previous mechanics together.

StealthShifter by PixelRetro 2016-04-22T16:16:00

Very nice puzzle game!

A single suggestion, would be to use the wasd-keys for movement - the udlr was a bit counter-intuitive for me, as I constantly triggered shapeshift while attempting to move down/south, or reversed left/right (due to the l/r key's relative positioning on the keyboard. Muscle memory is hard to defeat :-)

I liked how there were enough different mechanics, enemies and commands, to make the puzzles both varied and interesting.

I especially liked the levels where you had to take advantage of the terrain as well, to make the enemies "forget" you again.

SUBJECT 26 by MSiddeek 2016-04-19T10:12:00

A very enjoyable game!

The various texts and clues during the game, combined with the excellent graphics, created a great mood, and the puzzles were interesting, without being frustrating.

This is definitely one of my favorite games so far!

TRUMP: Political Shapeshifter by Brice 2016-04-19T09:39:00

I always enjoy a nice satirical game :) Nide work, and a unique take on the theme!

Mimic by Chaserbrown 2016-04-19T09:30:00

Interesting game, although very hard :) It has a nice variety of different powers.

The soundtrack is excellent! I remember spending precious time listening to it, when you posted it on the main page during the LD ;) A pity you removed all the "extra" songs from the soundtrack :)

Scientist clicker by kariamoss 2016-04-19T09:08:00

When I try to start the game, I get an error that the file "libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll" is missing on my computer.

Keysmith's in a hurry! by Felladrin 2016-04-19T08:45:00

Charming game, with an interesting take on the theme! Fun too.

A different sound effect for when the part is not completed due to lack of materials, could improve the "feedback" of the interface even more

The variations in the generated job requests was a nice touch, and the music really fit the mood :)

Paranormal Investigator by kwmx 2016-04-19T08:15:00

Nice idea, I loved the concept!

The object descriptions was a nice touch.

Werehunter by sadenly 2016-04-19T08:02:00

Excellent game!

I enjoyed the mechanics of having to guess your opponent from their description, even if it was not obvious for some of the animals, which animal would be the best to defeat it.

The music and graphics did an great job in creating an excellent mood.

One of the best games I have played so far!

Corners by Drkr 2016-04-19T07:44:00

The text, music and gameplay combine into a nice atmospheric experience.

Shape-Shifto: The Reckoning by MeritLeave 2016-04-19T06:53:00

I loved the graphics and sound. The basic elements are in place, I can't wait to see what you'll do with them :)

rain contact by remmy 2016-04-19T06:42:00

A very fascinating experience! I loved the "seeing the contours with falling rain" mechanic, and the rain animations felt very natural.

A single suggestion would be to use another button for the "lightning". Not all browsers "consume" the shift-event, and so hitting shift repeatedly can trigger the "Ease of Access" popup on Windows (tearing the player right out of the experience).

Dance Dance Pathogen by SnedHlepPls 2016-04-19T06:25:00

A very innovative concept, and the game is fun as well :-) I liked the music.

The game is hard too, especially once you have to use the rotation mechanics as well. I usually did not live long after losing my first antigens :-)

Sound Shift by Andy_Voz 2016-04-19T05:46:00

An original concept, and very enjoyable to play!

If you are considering making a post-compo version, I would suggest that you enhance the "win detection" logic, so it does not matter in which order the soundballs are placed :-) Also, it could be useful to be able to listen to a "partially constructed" chord.

You could even add labels to the soundballs and target chord (and maybe even give the name of a "wrong" chord as feedback), thereby making it into a simple edutainment game :-D

Pyramid Scheme by LandoSystems 2016-01-02T17:28:00

Great game! There was a nice balance between juggling all the different screens, without neglecting any one area for too long.

Minimal Oversight by farnsworth2 2016-01-02T17:03:00

Interesting concept, a fun little game :-)

Decision by Sim00n 2016-01-02T16:40:00

A very enjoyable game!

The specific relationship between the minor stats and the major stats was not always clear, but was still intuitive enough that it did not detract. It seemed to take a lot more effort to get the bad ending, than to get the good one though.

The graphics and interface was impressive, and the writing was great!


Also, thumbs up for using LibGDX.

Attrition by Team Buttfacę 2016-01-02T16:07:00

Very intriguing game. The music and graphic sets a great mood!

Hard Decisions by vortex 2016-01-02T15:57:00

Loved the game, great writing!

I liked how previous decision could come back to haunt you several "choices" later.

Aazelchi's Messaging Service by Franklin's Ghost 2016-01-02T15:46:00

It was an interesting concept, a pity you did not have time to finish the game.

The graphics were effective.

Let's Play Simulator 2016 by zulman 2016-01-02T15:40:00

Excellent game! The writing and humor was great, and the gameplay was very addictive!

Quality Control by PixelPerfect 2016-01-02T14:58:00

Great concept! The game was fun and challenging, and the graphics were functional.

Some of the terms were hard to recognize, since they were relative (small vs. normal vs. large for instance)

Nice take on the theme!

Spread by gogo199432 2016-01-01T10:27:00

An interesting puzzle game, with an interesting concept (and hard puzzles/minigames).

It was fun to play - a bit more branching of the routes would add to the "planning" part.

The Lawpasser by KBF123 2015-12-18T04:52:00

Fun game! The bear was a nice touch.

You can use the "File -> Export Application" option in the top menu, in order to export your game. You can then find the game files as a subfolder called e.g. "application.windows32" - and then you can distribute that folder (possibly compressed with e.g. winzip) as well.

Inhabitants by adamyounis 2015-12-16T04:50:00

Great art and music.

The game felt very polished, and the gameplay was hard, yet addictive.

Evil Developer's Lair by Baecun 2015-12-15T04:47:00

I liked the graphics (and animations), and the concept!

The game was fun (although it got rather hard in the later levels).

Very nice first entry!

Rooter by AuthorX 2015-12-15T04:35:00

Nice idea, and I liked the graphics (especially the root animations).

The game seemed to occasionally ignore/"revert" keypresses for changing direction.

That said, congratulations on getting the game to a point where it is a finished (if simple) state!

PerePey by Riftpoint 2015-12-15T04:16:00

Excellent game!

The first level was a bit overwhelming in its number of objectives, while just learning the game.

The graphics and music fit the gameplay very well!

Stem by Yamzho 2015-12-14T16:46:00

Fun game!

I especially like how the different stats and obstacles tie into the game mechanics.

The graphics and UI are effective as well.

Great take on the themes!

Interview at Incredible Inc by EvanEGibbs 2015-12-14T16:33:00

Excellent graphics and mood!

I loved the concept - a great way to use the theme.

Master Baiting by tazdij 2015-12-14T16:23:00

Relaxing game. The music was nice as well.

Grow, Thrive, Evolve by Taffaz 2015-12-14T16:04:00

A very enjoyable game!

The different phases felt different, both in the possible opponents/prey, and the difference in the surroundings (my disregard for speed-upgrades did not serve me well in the avian phase...)

Great use of the themes! The graphics were functional, and sufficiently different across the three phases to give variety.

Also, thumbs up for using LibGDX!

Vampires suck! by chriiis88 2015-12-14T15:43:00

Fun game, with a creative idea!

The vampire vision did drain the bloodmeter a bit fast, but the mechanics were entertaining. I liked the graphics - the animation you get as the vampire hunter beats you, was especially funny, and the attack animation worked pretty well.

Great game!

Also, thumbs up for using LibGDX!

Jack's unremarkable, absolutely normal day by Jod 2015-12-14T15:30:00

Interesting game! I especially enjoyed the variety of the different paths, and the "foot note" info links added extra variety to the flow.

It was a fun experience, with enjoyable writing.

Feed The Hole by krashja 2015-12-14T15:07:00

Loved the graphics!

Also, very nice concept, and I love the visual effect of how the absorbed stuff pile up in the left screen!

The sound effects supported the gameplay perfectly.

Plant Simulator: Chemical Warfare by DracoLizardStudios 2015-12-14T15:01:00

Interesting concept, and very nice graphics!

It was a bit hard to see the effect of the poison leaves, which made the timing a bit tricky.

Lumber Co. by Mattress 2015-12-14T14:26:00

A nice little game! I found the graphics rather charming (although it can be a bit hard to read the black letters and numbers on top of the dark parts of the background).


If I may comment on the mechanics: I feel that some of the attractions of clicker/incremental games, is that there is constantly visible "progress" (i.e. watching a score grow bigger), and that you can increase this score by a simple direct action (i.e. by clicking on something).

Hence, I think that the "feel" of the game might be improved, by removing the cool-down on the clicker-button, so that there is a "direct action" constantly available (it won't matter after the first few lumber jacks anyway).

Similarily, changing the update frequency of the lumberjacks (so that the counter updates more frequently), would make the pacing of the game seem faster (since the counter would be increasing constantly, instead of once per three seconds)

Potatiana Jones by Ildfuglen 2015-12-14T13:50:00

I enjoyed the game (as well as the easter eggs, although I mostly saw them in passing, falling towards my doom).

Great use of the theme, making the growing of seeds, the main method of navigating the levels!

It had a fair bit of "trial and error" though, which made it easy to become stuck in a dead end by running out of seeds by having to guess where to shoot seeds into an unseen area (and guessing wrong), running out of seeds right before the goal, etc. This was a bit annoying at time, especially in f.x. level 2, which started out with a series of precision jumps, which then had to be repeated. As an alternative, I harvesting the grown plants to reclaim the seeds could also have been useful.

The graphics were clear and efficient, and I liked the music.

All in all, it was an enjoyable game!

Hydro Carbon by bentglasstube 2015-09-14T18:28:00

Love the contrast between the happy tune and the actions of the player :)

Monster Break Out by careless 2015-08-26T16:42:00

The game felt very polished - smooth controls, great graphics, logical puzzles and even a few humorous references. And even the sound track is part of the game world, nice touch!

The game was very entertaining, and would be a solid foundation for additional content.

Stomp City by Hero7785 2015-08-26T16:26:00

Simple, yet entertaining :-) I like the look of the monster

God has a system by jordinuco 2015-08-26T16:11:00

Very interesting take on the theme, very innovative - I don't think I've ever played a console based God game before.

It was enjoyable to play, and could have been even more interesting with more options.

Monster-Guider by Hegback 2015-08-26T15:58:00

Nice game, pretty easy to lose though :-) Memorable tune.

Cyber Butcher by AODQ 2015-08-25T15:38:00

The graphics were great!

The game crashed a few times for me.

Prison Escape by nozzergaming 2015-08-25T15:29:00

A fun premise. It was an enjoyable experience, even though it was short. I liked the graphics, which combined with the music made for an excellent mood.

B(L)OB by Nikteddy92 2015-08-25T15:19:00

Fun game, I really liked the pixel graphics.

Impressive game, even more so since you made it in only 12 hours!

Monster1 by McFood 2015-08-24T17:40:00

I love your take on the theme! The story was short, but good.

The Greater Good by LucaRedwood 2015-08-24T17:21:00

Interesting concept, and the various tradeoffs of the decisions is interesting.

Morally Upright Siren by Chaoclypse 2015-08-24T17:13:00

The game is hard, but the game is brilliant, both in idea and execution :-)

Agent Moloch, Undercover by M2tias 2015-08-24T17:05:00

Simple mechanics, but interesting concept :-)

A battle for the graveyard by Yamzho 2015-08-24T17:00:00

Pretty neat game :-) It is fun to play in multiplayer, although the keypad panel might have been better for player 2.

Invasion by Humbleness 2015-08-24T16:53:00

I get an UnsatisfiedLinkError when trying to run the game

"Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no lwjgl in java.library.path"

Release The Kraken by AndyGates 2015-08-24T16:43:00

Fun game, but difficult. The controls were hard to master, I kept trying to hit 1-4 instead of qwer.

CEO by Th3dz 2015-08-24T16:32:00

Loved the game, especially the crazy explosion-affected physics! Very fun, with a great mood!

Drama in Space by Teekeks 2015-08-24T15:08:00

Loved the game! The drastically different ship weapons reminded me a bit of of Star Control. Excellent work!

Monstering Monsters by NickMakesGames 2015-08-24T14:39:00

Very fun take on the theme, and the sound effects are a very good fit to the humor and mood.

Pretty hard though :-)

Monstrous Clicker by Nizl 2015-08-24T14:31:00

Simple, yet entertaining :-)

Ameba Warfare by kingpirux 2015-08-24T14:25:00

It was fun tinkering with the different variations, and seeing what kind of weird amoebae I could breed :-)

Bad Boss by NebulaOrbit 2015-08-24T14:13:00

The controls were a bit hard to wrap my head around, but I found the portrayal of the boss and his antics to be rather humorous.

You'll find the monster when it's over by pi_pi3 2015-08-24T14:08:00

I liked the graphic style.

Sometimes the aliens would fall down a killing chasm, but this would not decrease the "aliens remaining" counter.

The rocket jumping was a bit hard to control.

Is That Me? by Gil4 2015-08-24T11:48:00

Pretty hard game. An interesting twist on the "mirroring".

Detonate by Aden Manson 2015-08-24T11:44:00

I liked the gravity effect. The black-silouetted targets were a bit hard to see against the dark background.

Nomnomnom by Sogomn 2015-08-24T11:19:00

Even without a goal, the game is strangely compelling.

Slavery Simulator 2015 by Sébastien Bernery 2015-08-24T11:18:00

Loading becomes stuck when close to completing for me as well, both in IE and Firefox

SAW by Vereos 2015-08-24T11:06:00

Interesting. I like how you slowly unravel the story by "performing science"

Also, I believe that unicorns have hooves, not paws ;-)

Mazeotaur by Killbert 2015-08-24T10:46:00

Nice graphics, a pity you did not have more time to spend on the game. As mentioned by others, I think that some kind of feedback when hitting the victims (and perhaps some evasion behaviour when they spot the large minotaur coming towards them) would make the game more enjoyable.

Adventures of Tic Tac (the cat) by namrog84 2015-08-24T10:39:00

Funny - it would have been fun to be able to interact with the mice in some way. I like how the building outside the window had a giant cat head on top of it.

Evolution by sapermysz 2015-08-24T10:31:00

I liked the basic premise, as well as the upgrade mechanic. I think that the combat might need a bit of balancing. Specifically, by the time you see the threat, it will often be too late to do anything abount it, and the monsters are very lethal when they reach you.

Monster - Prison Break by Gaius Baltar 2015-08-24T10:17:00

Very fun game, that rewards patience, and punishes impatience (especially on the last level).

I liked being able to make a bullet-hell for the opponents for once, the bouncing bullets is a very nice mechanic.

Fiskarens fiende by WillysJerry 2015-08-24T09:50:00

Nice music and graphics. The enemies moved rather fast (and flexibly) compared to the time it takes for the attack to be performed. Or maybe I just have very poor timing :-)

HUNGRY CTHULHU by DKoding 2015-08-24T09:45:00

Great, another LibGDX game :-)

Entertaining game, and surprisingly hard, especially in the later levels where the soldiers have fortified themselves indoors.

Starting off the player in the middle of a group of soldiers in the later levels was a bit unfair :-D

Cutesy destroyer of worlds by Graham Weldon 2015-08-24T09:16:00

I was looking forward to playing this, after reading your progress reports on the site :-) And it didn't disappoint! I especially like the "ground shaking" effect efter each landing.

"Monster smash puny humans!" (or maybe "Monster jettisoned into orbit by sustained fire by rifle toting humans!" ;-) )

The Net by Rasmus Dyhr Larsen 2015-08-24T03:19:00

The guards didn't need to call for help, they killed me almost instantly all by themselves :-) Very exciting game, I enjoyed it a lot! As a personal preference, I would have preferred if the interactions with the objects were mouse driven as well, instead of through a separate keyboard button.

Monster Chomper by PokeyOne 2015-08-24T03:07:00

It seems that your jar-file contains the contents of your res-subfolder in the root of the jar-file, which causes an error when running the game.

It can be fixed by copying the files from the root of the jar into a subfolder called res in the jar-file (or taking the res-folder from the source, and copying it into the jar-file), f.x. by opening it in 7zip and fixing it from there :-)

SeaMonster by tomdeal 2015-08-24T02:58:00

Very enjoyable (and relaxing) game. The music and graphics combined into a very nice mood for the game. I enjoyed it a lot :-)

Abduction by SudoDave 2015-08-24T02:47:00

Fun game, with challenging gameplay. The graphics style and general mood was excellent, especially the newspaper between the levels was a nice touch.

You are the Slime by EmanP 2015-08-24T02:32:00

A solid game. I like the graphics style, and it was surprisingly addictive.

The jumping height seemed a bit random occasionally, with a giant jump every once in while, between a lot of low jumps.

Sticks N Stones by duncankeller 2015-05-11T19:03:00

Simple, yet entertaining :-) The graphics style and the funny sound effects really enhances the humor.

Kawaii Destruction by Kawaii Game Studios 2015-05-11T17:30:00

The graphics are pretty nice.

Perhaps build some "border checks" as well, it seems that you can move off the screen to the left, and then never come back.

Hotdog-pocalypse by adamk33n3r 2015-05-11T17:21:00

Entertaining concept. The graphics were simple and charming :-)

Obstacles which would block the hot dogs would have made a game a bit more challenging (it seems that right now, an easy way of suceeding is to simply stay in one side of the screen, and continually firing towards the other side.

The "strafe-effect", where firing locked the direction the character was facing, felt a bit odd.

Red Threat by rjhelms 2015-05-11T17:11:00

Fun game. I really like the retro graphics. The mix of enemies (and the different weapons used for their defeat) makes for interesting gameplay as well.

Love Bomb by Andrew Quartermain 2015-05-11T17:00:00

I love the art and the music!

Hemland - a Roguelike by oskardevelopment 2015-04-26T15:58:00

Nice roguelike. The rooms felt a bit empty.

Invaded by TwittleCreator 2015-04-26T15:42:00

You managed to get in a lot of content, both nice graphics, and even some voice-overs. I'd say the game show potential - so just keep practicing :-)

Mighty Gravity by hmightypirate 2015-04-26T15:33:00

Interesting concept! The gradual acceleration when turning did make the controls feel a bit unresponsive. But I enjoyed the game.

Game Over [MY DEAD BODY] by frogcheese 2015-04-26T15:21:00

Solid mechanics - an enjoyable puzzle game :-)

Choose your own title! by jlauper 2015-04-26T08:10:00

Interesting game, with a dark story. A pity that it is mostly the ruthless actions getting rewarded, but that's just a matter of taste. I enjoyed the genre as well, "Interactive fiction" is too rare these days.

rm by Eskoala 2015-04-26T07:59:00

Loved the writing, as well as the setting. Nice to see that text adventures haven't died completely out yet :-)

Kid Kannon by ElanGleiber 2015-04-26T07:28:00

Nice visual style - solving puzzles by throwing a kid at them was rather funny as well.

Pillows in Space by Daporan 2015-04-26T06:47:00

Nice game, although sometimes it felt like I did not get the pillow even though I collided with it. The "pass through the open part of the gate" mechanic took a few tries to understand.

Philosophers Battle by BubuIIC 2015-04-26T06:40:00

Very original use of the theme, and a very entertaining and interesting concept! :-) Some of the philosophers need a bit of balancing.

Global Warning by fueelin 2015-04-26T06:29:00

Innovative puzzle game. I liked the concept :-) As has been mentioned (and as you have fixed in the post-jam version), it was a bit hard to guess the effect of the storm drains in the jam version.

The Unconventional Ninja Cat by Ershany 2015-04-26T06:19:00

Good job! Nice character designs :-)

I had to restart a few times, after getting stuck on the walls. The color of the background might have been a bit darker, so that enemies and weapons stood out better.

Riddix' Dialogue Adventure by Iak 2015-04-26T06:09:00

Innovative idea! It was very interesting experimenting with different combinations of the weapon (and seeing the changes graphically is a really neat concept).

Vacuum Hero by Evgiz 2015-04-25T10:13:00

Excellent game! It feels very polished, and I really enjoyed the graphics, as well as the interesting take on the theme :-)

It is a bit annoying with infinite spawning enemies in the "puzzle-heavy" sections though, since you have to start over when dying.

Professor Chalk by PnDAA 2015-04-25T09:49:00

Funny (and weird) game! A bit too fast scrolling through (it seems that the best strategy was to stay in the top of the screen).

IFF by eott 2015-04-25T09:04:00

I enjoyed the game, especially the aesthetics. Although the enemies had a tendency to gather in groups, after which, the life expentancy of the confused enemies became very short :-)

Hackinator by ungarischeziegenspielen 2015-04-25T08:57:00

Nice game! The hacking mechanic felt powerful, and the music was quite good. The game has a nice aesthetic overall, including the pop-up "console windows".

Harry and his Herring by Amazingcookie 2015-04-25T08:37:00

Good game! Both the attack mechanic, as well as the blocks falling into place mechanic were interesting.

Infectious by Chemical_Studios 2015-04-25T08:26:00

Nice game! I enjoyed the basic mechanics!

I think that having more zombies at your disposal could make the game more interesting (and at the same time, counteract the "human wandering around in a far corner" effect).

Unconventional Typing by cravingsleep 2015-04-25T08:10:00

Nice game, and the difficulty curve feels good. Penalties for mistyping and using real words instead of random lettes, could both be suggestions for further improvement.

Cortex Control by Smokeylope 2015-04-25T07:59:00

Nice game! I love the mind control mechanic, although some kind of indicator of when it runs out would be nice.

Tense, and quite hard!

Dental Desperados by biscuitdough 2015-04-25T07:31:00

Hilarious concept, with great execution! The hand-drawn style is quite charming.

Savior by CarlsonAndPeeters 2015-04-25T07:25:00

A very enjoyable game! I loved the wall text!

The puzzle where you had to ignore the first zombie in order to cure both, was a nice twist on the level design from the other levels.

The controls felt a bit imprecise.

Elimination Communication by Mykaelos 2015-04-25T07:08:00

Fun game, quite an unconventional weapon ;-)

Was there actually limited ammo? If so, an ammo counter would be nice.

Potion Quest by juxipolo 2015-04-25T06:59:00

Impressive game, really enjoyable! The progression of capabilities through new potions was interesting.

I used the right click movement almost exclusively, since the left click movement does not react to clicking on non-adjacent hexes.

Arthur and the Staff of Arbitrary Arrangement by Rscar 2015-04-25T06:39:00

Love the graphics and the mechanic. It was a bit hard to differentiate the the ground from the empty air sometimes.

Very hard, but very good :-)

Squirrel Man, nuts! by kunzbe 2015-04-25T06:32:00

Fun game, strangely addictive :-) And killer squirrels are a unique take on the theme!

Conventionally Banned by Sverik 2015-04-25T06:12:00

Basic gameplay functions well. Some on-screen counters (mines placed, people stopped) would have been nice.

The alternate ending was a nice touch :-)

Ninja With A Teddy Bear by agmcleod 2015-04-25T06:03:00

Interesting concept. Nice twist in the "boss fight".

Had to turn off "Sticky keys" shortcut in Windows in order to play the game.

Kiss 'em all?! by Zcience 2015-04-25T05:54:00

The physics and lighting system gave a nice feel to the game.

Shadows by Jaloko 2015-04-25T05:45:00

Very atmospheric game, and I like the lighting and shadow effects! It was almost impossible for me to see the beacons though, even when sitting in a somewhat dark room.

Timelock by pixelballoon 2015-04-25T05:40:00

Great game, with interesting puzzles. I loved the levels where the starting orientation of the cubes was different.

Eye Contact by Dark Arts and Sciences 2015-04-25T05:28:00

Ambitious and very interesting concept! A pity you didn't have time to develop the game further.

Gloom by Azlen 2015-04-25T05:14:00

Very unique and atmospheric concept!

It is very easy to lose your orientation, and the companion whispers are not frequent enough to gauge how much you turn when you move the mouse.

HOW TO DESTROY AN ISLAND by syncxzoz 2015-04-25T05:04:00

Creative weapons. More feedback on the effect of the various choices would be nice.

Basement RPG by KBF123 2015-04-25T04:57:00

Entertaining, with nice graphics. The battles should probably be balanced more. Even the "easy" spiders deals a lot of damage, so you pretty much have to avoid them, rather than fighting them.

On a Ludum Dare related note, your profile page won't display, unless you post at least once on the main page.

Xecute by arkelite 2015-04-25T04:34:00

Enjoyable puzzles, although the use/effect of the different blocks was not always obvious. I liked the art as well.

payload by rburema 2015-04-25T04:18:00

Fun game, and solid concept. It was a bit confusing that the physics were not deterministic.

Airlock by CreamyBacon1 2015-04-24T19:54:00

Adding the objectives of the rest of the game to the text spoken by the three first characters, might have made the next part of the game clearer.

Where Is Your Gun Now, Mr. Chekhov? by Mike Mezhenin 2015-04-23T17:14:00

Excellent game! I love the atmosphere, and the puzzles are great.

Pixilion by sirikan 2015-04-23T16:56:00

Scrolling speed was a bit slow, but otherwise a fun (if somewhat buggy) Lemmings-inspired game!

CitySim 3000 by smbe19 2015-04-23T16:46:00

I like the 3D world. A bit more content, for instance more hacking mechanics, would add more variety to the gameplay.

Freddy The Frenchman by PyroSneak 2015-04-23T16:38:00

Charming graphics and mood - a pity the music doesn't keep looping.

As for the controls, it might make them feel a bit smoother, if Freddy would move in the direction of the last direction key used. Currently, some movement keys "block" others, which can make the controls feel a bit unresponsive.

Hashcon: The Unconventional Convention by MegaMasterX 2015-04-23T16:25:00

Fun setting, and the controls felt smooth (except for right clicking in the web player). A bit more variety in the types of enemies would have made the game even funnier.

The game crashed in the web player when right clicking. A workaround is to choose to run the game in full screen mode, from the context menu popping up when right clicking. The game can be played normally after that.

The Penanggalan! by Beavl 2015-04-23T03:26:00

I really liked the game! Good puzzles, and the game felt very polished. The music was a good fit as well.

Platead by ChrisAntem 2015-04-22T19:41:00

Very unconventional weapon :-D And nice touch that the camera moves with the head. Pretty hard game though :-)

You Only Dare Thrice by drakekin 2015-04-22T19:31:00

Very nice concept, and I really enjoyed the impressive freedom of movement (especially having both camera zoom and rotation).

For a game based on information gathering, some kind of tracking would have been nice, either graphical (i.e. some kind of overlay on the buildings) or easily filterable in the Mission Timeline (e.g. filterable by event type, "person told me x", "clues from faction y", etc.)

But very enjoyable to play!

Zombie Slaughter by Timm638 2015-04-22T18:46:00

The zombies are a bit too hard to kill - some kind of indicator of how close they are to death would also have been nice. A zombie spawned right on top of me when I killed one of the zombies, and as I couldn't outrun it, and it took too long to kill it, I died without having much of a chance :-)

Food by OnePonyGames 2015-04-22T18:27:00

Cool concept, although my farmers have got to be the least efficient farmers in existence :-)

Luckily, two warriors were enough to persuade the clearly more effective Verengi farmers to keep my minimal surviving population alive until the 30 turns had passed... Luckily for my tribe, an entire decade of raiding by the same two soldiers, didn't convince them that a minimal investment in soldiers on their part, would have left my village to a well-deserved end...

So, interesting concept and execution, but a bit more work on the balance would have made it even better :-)

Also, the seasons changing was a nice touch!

Armory of W.A.T. by dallonf 2015-04-22T18:03:00

Funny game! This might be the first platformer I've played, where my weapons were almost as dangerous to myself as to my enemies :-)
A bit of variety in the enemies, to match the variety in the weapons, would have made the game even better, I think.

Queen Bee by PurpleMonkey 2015-04-22T03:44:00

Interesting concept (with an interesting take on the theme). Some kind of visual indication of which powers the different students posesses might have been helpful.

Conquer and Consume by Nilq 2015-04-21T04:11:00

Nice take on the theme! :-)

Weapon Regulator by drludos 2015-04-20T16:46:00

I like the concept, that what is conventional depends on who defines it to be so :-) The game feels fun and original as well.

Nexton Void Blasters Deluxe by Megalink 2015-04-20T13:58:00

The game has a funny concept :-) A bit hard though, I guess my ranged skills are insufficient :-)

The Fast and the Frankfurter by KittyMac 2015-04-20T13:44:00

When running the Windows version, I cannot the the roads, only the terrain features (i.e. houses etc.)

It Overtakes Them by purenickery 2015-04-20T12:50:00

Very enjoyable game, simple, yet compelling. The music fits the mood perfectly.

Tongue Lash by benjamck 2015-04-20T12:16:00

Very surreal. Very awesome. :-)

I got stuck though, one of the heads had partially descended into the ground when I stapled its tongue, so I could not get back out of the hole after picking up the light gem (hmm, I think that this might be the most surreal bug report I've ever logged ;-) )

The Messenger by Mossy Frog 2015-04-20T10:54:00

I fell through the platforms a few times, and I also had issues with differentiating the platforms from the background (especially since I am sitting in a bright room). But I enjoyed the art style, as well as the ending :-)

Unconventional Time by OccamsRazor 2015-04-20T02:57:00

I get the following error, when trying to run the windows executable: "There should be 'UnconventionalTime_Data'
folder next to the executable"

Home Defence by ZQMony 2015-04-20T02:49:00

Fun and novel concept! The movement-blocking carpets were the death of me more than once though :-)

Sword in a mirror by GameQuester 2015-04-20T02:39:00

Versatile mechanic, with some nice twists :-)

Agent Of Souls by Norbex 2015-04-20T02:21:00

I had to restart a single time (I became stuck in the door in the first level). I very much enjoyed the "scouting ahead" mechanic!