thisismyjam

Diortem by Ilseroth 2018-12-04T04:15:58Z

@timothy-tarter Charge an attack with left mouse button and shoot the blue shield door.

SATIATE! by Secretmapper 2018-12-04T09:04:39Z

I played this for about an hour before it crashed. It was a good hour.

So this is a great mix of mechanics and more narrative weight working together with the theme of the jam. At first I wasn't feeling it and I was about to give up, because the alien's hunger was tuned too high between rounds. But then I stopped thinking of the people as people and it all came together with a sadistic click. Or a microwave *bing* as the game itself provides.

This isn't the puzzle game I originally concluded it was when I figured there is an almost dictated order of constructing buildings. As a quick aside here it may be a good idea to limit the first building choice to only a propaganda tower for this reason to smooth out the difficulty. Instead it's a single player, economic match of Starcraft only the people are the economy you manage. There is a lot of micro here. You're scurrying around scooping up units with space bar and then putting out fires by using them on empty production buildings. Which mostly produce more units to scurry around micromanaging.

In my last round before the game crashed I had so many people I wasn't even paying attention to the food meter anymore. The food processors (bing!) were just another building that I had to keep close to 100% uptime on production runs. It made me feel like a monster, but then that feeling deepened and I realized that the alien in the sky had just made this business as usual. Shoving someone into a food processor to feed the beast in the sky was now Tuesday.

A few things, good and bad:

I don't like have fussy the game is on registering inputs on grabbing followers and assigning them. It never felt smooth.

The sound effects were fantastic and were my favorite part of the game outside of the experience of running a human slaughter house.

I wish there was a round cycle on the screen to show how many times the alien has fed.

The guy saying "You need me where?" started to sound like "You need me rare" as time went on which was hilariously dark to me.

I'm not sure if having the player move a person around instead of an RTS mouse interface is the best decision. I do mean this precisely as I'm saying it though: I'm not sure. It might be better how it is but it's worth bringing up.

Lastly I thought another twisted moment was when I started prioritizing stressed people to go into the food processors. They were just done working and needed to relax--then off into the machine to become paste. The game was really successful in making the scenario so messed up.

Metamorphosis by silkworm_sweatshop 2018-12-06T06:10:01Z

This was excellent. I think this might be the only game on the jam that I have to put a spoiler warning on for the comment? Really weird! In a good way.

For presentation this was a little inconsistent. The sounds and music were a good choice--reminded me of some Super Nintendo games. The visuals on the creatures and backgrounds were good. The levels not so much but they were functional the blocks feel like they belong in a different game.

Gameplay was fun! I like the central system of gaining life to take a hit and using that as a way to open paths. It makes me wonder what else could be done with it: balancing resources in a room to drop blood in the same place multiple times to fill a gap or a bowl to proceed. I also liked the potential of the push switches staying up when you're small and aren't heavy enough. This could be used to allow you to make a jump as the small version that you can't make as the large version. There's quite a bit of potential here and I enjoyed that the game felt like a full level rather than just a tease.

So about the spoiler: the ending went on for too long with the last 10 metamorphosis points but damn what a surprise of a payoff! The intro suggested one thing and expertly misdirected that the moth attacking was the bad guy, you even sympathize with the butterfly and think "yeah!" when they get an attack off while dying. And then the end... seriously well done. I'm impressed that was pulled off in a game jam game like this.

I would be interested in playing a full game that comes from this foundation.

Way of the Dodo by chrismcmath 2018-12-06T05:53:48Z

Oh cool someone did it! We considered the Yoshi sacrifice bit while brainstorming the theme. It's awesome to see that someone went with that angle.

The game was pleasant to look at. The music was a good choice--calming and fit the bouncing and fluttering around. The commitment on the jump required an adjustment but it was fine after that. I do think having more mid-air control when doing a stationary jump would have been good but it was never required--perhaps for that reason. The only true problem with the jump was that sometimes the dodo would get hit a ledge and lose all momentum but that's a nitpick for a game jam game.

If this was to become a full release I think that some work would have to be done with the double jump dodo launch. Having to make sure you're fully on the ground when you have a two stack of dodos could be annoying over a full game when you're trying to jump quickly and accidentally trigger a double jump. Maybe double jump having its own dedicated key.

Continuing that thought: the stacking dodos makes me think of a different, more puzzle-like direction that this could go in instead of platforming levels. Each puzzle room/screen would have a set amount of dodos that pop out and you have to manage that stack to perform a task--maybe get to the egg. So if five dodos pop out of the whole you can stack them all and have tasks based around that height. Maybe sacrificing some along the way to get the full stack to fit under a low ceiling, or being able to switch between which dodo that you control and needing to work together--single player co-op with a team of the birds. The flutter ability getting stronger with each dodo could be explored there too. It just dawned on me that it's another Yoshi reference as well, haha.

I appreciated that this was a full level and wasn't over after a minute. It was an actual exploration of the mechanics you made for the jam. Good work.

Hyper Skater by neowhoru 2018-12-06T12:23:49Z

Yep you can Super Metroid wall jump all right. Pretty fun mechanic but it isn't used for anything here.

So this is a simple platformer and it was fun. Definitely that high browser game drop in and play and end up playing longer than you thought you would quality. I wonder if that wall jump could be used for something if there were more levels. Hmm. I think there would have to be some more mechanics if it was to continue for sure. Even more complicated platform arrangements, or some of them moving, wouldn't be enough after a few more levels. The other possibility was already explored on the third level and I liked that! You have to work out the correct order to collect the energy refills between saving your friends. You can't just mindless truck through it all in a linear order. That was a cool twist for something in a game jam and showed you were thinking of how the system could be effectively explored.

Sacrificial Wool by WalterP 2018-12-04T06:39:58Z

This was excellent. Looks good. Plays well. I don't think I've seen a game use the options menu for puzzle solving before so it was unique for me. Very well done.

I'm trying to think of how this system could be expanded over an entire game. Hotkeys or a gamepad arrangement would be a must so you don't always have to keep opening the menu. More options being introduced later. Toggling Anti-Aliasing to turn slopes into stairs you can climb, or stairs into slopes you can slide down quickly to escape danger. Leaning hard into the "RTX-On" joke as a temporary mode that drains a usage meter that allows the sheep to turn the tables--sort of Pac-Man style with the fruit and ghosts.

I think it would be difficult to make it work over an entire game but it would be possible. Something around 2-3 hour runtime and going with only the best interactions. I think it would be special.

Requiem by brklipel 2018-12-06T12:43:55Z

Fun foundation here. Movement and offensive options feel mostly good. A reticle that extends out from the player character would be a welcome change for spells since it's a little awkward to judge. Same for the bomb spell exploding on contact. But I mostly went with melee strikes away. I have a soft spot for dashes and I love having that option to quickly weave away from enemy attacks. I enjoyed that the most.

There were some glitches I ran into: the floor tiles would often distort and I would see lines between them horizontally. The little enemies were perfect. The big enemies at the end of every level would consistently lock up and would stop moving and stop attacking me unless I moved away. I'm not sure if the third level is the last one or not since the game froze after that boss was killed. I then played the game again to see and it froze the second time as well.

Sacrificing abilities at the end of every level is a brave decision when there are so few to begin with. I like the idea but I question if it would work over a full game. Unless you were also finding new spells as you went, or started way way WAY more super powerful and the game progressed like you were losing cheat codes as you did so.

Visually the game was great. Different environments. The big enemies looked the best out of everything. Great presentation. Fun core.

Penance by Blodyavenger 2018-12-04T08:06:37Z

Evil cute satanic Pikmin.

I really liked the name of the game being a twisted version of penance.

So for a game jam I think this is pretty great. The concept is simple and well executed and yet it must have been hell to get the presentation this good while also having a full level of what would be a game. So by that standard I can only say well done.

But the more interesting way I like to look at these jams is to imagine what a full game born from them would be. The only problem I have is the way you acquire minions: having them placed in cages near the enemies and buildings you use them on means that the amount available must always be balanced or else you could get stuck. So unless the game is a bunch of quickfire rooms (think Super Meat Boy) so that you can allow for mistakes and compensate with quick restarts, players will quickly learn that they can run their minions into whatever they like without the risk of running out.

This makes the minions sort of like a weapon durability problem. If the game is the most interesting when using them, then resorting to a permanent last resort weak weapon would be a bit crap. It was definitely more fun to run your minions into stuff and make them explode rather than shoot. Maybe a constantly spawning horde is the way to go, with dead bodies adding to your respawn rate--so demonic necromancy. Your corpse army could act like a regenerating health shield that enemies can pick away at like peeling layers from your horde that you also expend by sending out, and you have to balance periods of evasion so that your demon zombie numbers can recover. Corpses making this max number higher (sort of like Katamari Damacy) could also be used to gate off areas in levels until you've done enough elsewhere to collect corpses, or maybe acquire special versions of the minions that are being swept along in your horde.

The game already makes you feel powerful in a great way as your sweep your mouse ahead with the right mouse button held down. It feels like you're waving your minions along with orders and orchestrating chaos. Good job.

Dungeon Sacrificer by Ancalagon 2018-12-04T07:40:19Z

This one was interesting. I went in expecting one thing and got something else instead.

First off on your presentation: there's a mix of what looks like heavily lined drawn sprites, digital painting, and pixel work. I don't like the mixing of styles for this game, especially when the pixel enemies showed up in the dungeon. The hand drawn stuff was fine but mostly I think you should stick to one style in the game, although it could work. Also the text box was too large during the opening imo.

Anyway I was expecting the theme of Sacrifice to be found only in the opening story and then it would be a simple dungeon crawler. At first this seems right: you have a village that can cater to your needs through shops. There's the dungeon nearby that you acquire gold in to spend at these shops. But after you kill a boss and leave the dungeon you can choose to make a deal with the devil and sacrifice villagers to make the dungeon part easier. When it comes to buying equipment from this menu I wasn't sure what it was asking, which sort of made the theme stronger to me since a deal with the devil would be a tricky affair. I can see players going for this the first time and then learning the hard way that it has morale consequences.

The gameplay was a bit rough but that's okay for a concept jam game. The only thing that really annoyed me was that the character sprite is strictly limited by the angle at which we view them--you cannot slash your sword, or shoot your bow, outside of those limitations. Especially frustrating for aiming since you have narrow cones to the left and right of your character no matter where you point your mouse cursor.

However that's secondary to how much I appreciate the concept! I really like the idea of the dungeon crawling being difficult and maybe even tedious the "good" way and that you are heavily tempted into sacrificing people to make that easier and faster. If the gameplay and level design got a proper development time's worth of attention (not just a game jam) then I can see this being compelling.

Good job.

Throwing Shade by Casey Macneil 2018-12-04T06:22:59Z

I think it's more fun to say that it's Jammy instead of Glitchy. :)

This is a cool concept. Straightforward platforming controls but with hazards that only effect the sheep that you're trying to carry. Initially I thought I had to leave the sheep on the button to open the first door so I could carry the key to the second. There's obvious potential for using the sheep as a tool to open the way to the end and then have another challenge with carrying the sheep after solving those problems.

There's also the potential of the *sheep* being immune to some dangers that your character is not--maybe something that the sheep can be thrown through but you cannot walk through without dying.

I was disappointed that there wasn't more than one level which is a good sign. The bugs were tolerable except for the one in the narrow cave after opening the first door. I managed to jump through that three times and on my third time it took me at least 20 tries because my character kept getting stuck on the floor part.

The art style was great. The sheep was cute. Nice play on the theme of a sacrificial lamb. Maybe some hints from the title that the sheep can become a black sheep through some power up and have a different twist on the rules? I like it.