triplefox

___ Pinball by WizardOfOzzy 2019-10-08T07:00:06Z ♥ 3

I do like a good pinball game, and have been studying them pretty intensively for the past month or two since I'm thinking of making one, so I had to try this one out. Just the way it's been executed on(build your own playfield) brings it way out of the scope of a jam game, though, so I had low expectations. Even a single plain-jane playfield, no gimmicks, that feels good is something that can be refined for weeks to months - when design tools try to get around that fact and provide an easy modular kit, they are guaranteeing that they will deliver something that only lets you make a low-quality playfield. And then there's a whole unfinished tycoon game on top of that. It adds up to being a lot of software and assets work before you have any chance of really tuning the game design - I opted for a Breakout style game this time for exactly this kind of reason.

To give you some idea of what's missing just in the basic gameplay:

There is no nudge. The flippers are weak and can't bring the ball all the way up the playfield. When the ball hits the bumpers it barely reacts. When the ball lands on the flippers it stops dead instead of bouncing. The plunger can't replunge if the ball falls back into it. There is no ruleset to speak of, which makes the result play with less depth than many 40's era games.

This level of execution is actually the norm, though. There are, like, four good pinball games on mobile(Pinball Deluxe, Zen Pinball, Pinball Arcade, Zaccaria Pinball), out of hundreds, several of which have table designers like this. It's hard to do the genre justice, and it's like sports or racing sims in that regard. With most video games, the physics are of relatively low importance and all the focus is on bombarding the player with interactions of timers and finite state and animation. But when you actually try to simulate a real thing, suddenly you can be spending a huge amount of time on details, and your most likely target audience is going to require that you get the details as right as they can be.

Doing the best you can by Akuseku 2019-10-08T04:36:37Z ♥ 0

The game is a simple fun concept, to it's credit, but it is definitely tuned a bit too difficult, mainly on the side of not being able to grind or use strategy to compensate(since the fighting is as linear as it gets). Essentially all of my games were ended due to lack of resources to advance through the equipment progression. It's easy to walk past all the mobs to the end, but then you get one-shotted. So instead I replayed a bunch and got trolled by the game not giving me the items I needed.

Temptris by Alexander Crane 2019-10-08T04:11:45Z ♥ 3

I was hoping I would play as the Temptris, but I guess this will do. The game is a very cool concept, it just needs a better execution with stuff like a final boss battle and a more complicated piece layout. I got a little frustrated a few times by smaller issues like placing the final piece wrong because it fell too fast.

Oh, and having to run the installer was a bit much for a jam game.

0 to 100 by TheMoonrise 2019-10-07T11:25:46Z ♥ 1

There is a lot of good stuff going on in this game. It's so punishing to lose a large score to a divisor, though. I was tasked with calculating 83 % 17 while also knowing the swapped and hidden locations of the answers, which is...quite difficult.

Grow quickly by congusbongus 2019-10-07T10:44:42Z ♥ 1

The game is a bit addictive, but eventually I felt like there was a lack of decision-making going on. I just ran from one fire to the next the entire time I was playing, basically mashing the button. It looks and feels good, though!

Coinbold by CornetTheory 2019-10-07T10:28:08Z ♥ 1

This made me smile.

Claimbeer by neowhoru 2019-10-07T10:25:27Z ♥ 0

There is a portion of the map where you can fall for two screens consecutively. Doing so gave me enough down velocity to fall out of bounds and be stuck underneath the floor.

Little Dead Riding Hood by Aim 2019-05-13T04:39:31Z ♥ 0

Played the post-jam version.

I get the intended relationship to the theme, but the gameplay has difficulty communicating it. It gives Death a "life bar" and "life counter" that is not the "lives currency"(misdirection - "my" life vs "your" life), and it only portrays one facet of currency through "collecting currency" and not having other kinds of transactions. These things are issues with conceptual coherency, something [I've written about](http://ludamix.com/dive/coherency). If you bring the ideas to some coherence, the rest of the game explains itself much more easily(even my game this time, which had all the usual issues of ramping up a large team with limited experience - the baffling parts of it are all the bits that the base concept could not explain).

Regardless you did succeed at executing on the game idea, so good work there!

Somnambulist by LancesCaterpie 2019-05-13T04:06:01Z ♥ 1

This game has a control issue that greatly frustrated me: relying on split-second timing to push a pattern of single-use buttons(jump, then press a different button, hold that, and then push yet another different button...why?).

Why not instead have:

* Use current item (no hold required, press again to place) * Switch current item/cancel placement/return

(Note: my game for this jam has a different kind of control issue, mostly brought about by team communication issues leading to way too many unexplained elements)

Delivery Vamp by AVSC 2019-05-13T03:39:26Z ♥ 0

I liked the graphics. The gameplay feels like something you could give to a small child to learn colors, numbers and navigation, although knowing the numbers can be cheated by brushing your collision box against every door on the street. If you wanted to spice it up, probably add some kind of chaotic element, like streets getting blocked off at different times and having to use a minimap to plan your route.

Double Deal by PowerSpark 2019-05-03T06:38:49Z ♥ 1

I've never seen a trading game done quite like this before. Bravo!

I played up until the point where I controlled all ships and one island. The problem I started facing at that point was I had a shortage of one currency, so I didn't have ways to make more doubloons(the currency existed, but it was trapped on already captured ships, making it hard to get at, and the island that traded that currency ran out). It might be possible to go further by carefully managing currencies across your whole fleet.

Deadline by Evan Minto 2019-05-01T07:05:28Z ♥ 2

Scrolled down and saw @evan-minto and I'm like "hey I know this person!" Nice work.

I got my teammates for the jam to crowd around the game for a replay, but I used the in-game restart, and it made the end text not appear.

Blood Pressure by superpokeunicorn 2019-05-01T06:53:21Z ♥ 1

I had a good time with this one. It has a few strategies to learn, a few exploitable elements(the last level with the platforms in the middle is quite easy if you just get on the top platforms and shoot down all the greens), and uses the theme in a clever way. One thing that is missing is dynamic range in the pacing: the monsters just spawn, and there isn't really more urgency at the end of the level than at the beginning. If you can figure out ways to safely gain health, the level is as good as cleared.

LifeCurrencyPlatformer by Quagga 2019-05-01T06:31:14Z ♥ 1

I liked the game balance, and the concept of configuring your character as the "life is currency" tradeoff. The game could be more technically accomplished(little things like sticking to walls) and include additional themes/characterization/etc. but it was very playable as-is.

Cashteroids by RumSquawks 2019-05-01T06:03:46Z ♥ 1

I had to go back and figure out what the shoot button was after losing the first playthrough to not knowing controls. After that it was easy because all I did was hold down shoot and spin in place. Some ideas:

1. Give me some destinations to move to(e.g. collectables), and then spawn new waves on a timer so that I get intercepted. 2. Give the enemies some movement patterns other than "berserker run at me".

The story has plenty of writing(good effort) but the writing feels flat(effort wasted), because each scene plays linearly and is focused on concrete justifications(business language) and not a feeling of anticipation for "what will happen after that, and why"(storytelling), like something that will be revealed and how additional themes in the work might interact with the main "your life is currency" one. When the twist comes, it's surprising but doesn't communicate a lot since we never build much of an investment in the characters or world.

MassTransfer by IvanPavlov 2019-05-01T04:39:38Z ♥ 1

I like this concept, for the gameplay to feel satisfying it could benefit from including some kind of chaotic element like in [this article](http://ludamix.com/dive/chaos/) I wrote on chaos in games. The game involves mass centrally, so some more use of physics elements would make sense.

Vampire Escape by Copito 2019-04-30T23:49:20Z ♥ 1

I like this deck-building game. I didn't complete it but I want to go back and try again soon!

Eldritchual by arkinrev 2018-12-10T03:21:35Z ♥ 1

I enjoyed this game for one playthrough, but I have two thoughts:

1. The strategy ends up being too linear in nature. The timers and increments are extremely regular and don't cascade into each other, so it was straightforward to find a pattern that kept all the numbers under control indefinitely. 2. The game has to do some tell-not-show to get where it's going(lengthy manual), because it's focused on mechanics that manipulate abstract numbers, which creates a need to learn the abstraction at play. It doesn't matter if the abstraction is actually very simple or well-explained: each one you add increases the likelihood of "it is so complex" "my head hurts" types of feedback.

There are many examples of computerized strategy games that are successful with an abstract approach, but they still have to invest a ton of effort on UX to make it parse well...and a major allure of video gaming is in being able to minimize the need for the player to do any parsing of rules in their head, instead communicating the bulk of feedback through a visceral, direct interaction and its result. When the rules, interactions, and scenario synthesize well, the game nearly explains itself, and all you need to know are the basic controls.

In most of AAA, this means the cross-genre combat template of equipment, formally named skills, cooldown timers and status effects. For strategy games, it tends to mean moving away from aggregate values and towards fungible items and agents. There is probably a way to revise this game to depict more things visually, although it admittedly would also probably go out of scope for a jam project.

The things we carry by arctic_allosaurus 2018-12-07T07:34:16Z ♥ 1

Flappy Bird (sad version)

I enjoyed the aesthetics. The gameplay left me feeling a little bit numb when it resorted to abstracting away life's slings and arrows as literal sawblades and axes, because with such general imagery, it cuts off the possibility of further exploring the themes. An infant figures out pretty quickly that sharp objects are dangerous, and learns to avoid them. But in later life, some of the most distressing acts look very ordinary and only later, when reviewed, can be seen for what they are. People get traumatized, and they push it away in their mind, only for it to intrude on them over and over like an angry scar. Even real violence, when filmed, tends to look banal and less impactful than what is portrayed in media.

I think the game is close to being really good, it just needs to resolve this metaphorical issue of how to "unknowingly sacrifice" things, and to turn that into a burden on one's conscience. As it is, when I reached the end, I felt like I had played any other game about resource management, and it was doing some tell-not-show to declare that it was about sacrifice.

Save da people! by ButteredGames 2018-12-07T07:03:30Z ♥ 0

I enjoyed this game, but I think it focused too much on the element of scoring at the expense of the experience during play.

My thought process once I had played a few sessions was: Sort the people by the ones that can be transported the fastest. If I have fewer total people then my chances are better. I had one with 8 people and saved all of them, while the 27 person one was impossible. I "solved" the game, so my score was just a matter of good RNG.

In contrast this game could easily use the action presentation to support interesting trade-offs that work with the scenario: using limited resources like a fire ax or extinguisher to open paths, turning on the sprinkler system to buy time, losing paths and people as time goes on and the fire spreads. These are all things that could result in sacrifices, and they're more hands-on and make me think strategically while I'm playing, so they engage me with the theme better than trying to balance the score at the end. Scores are a relatively slow feedback mechanism, and they don't always guide players to want to do better.

Christmas Game by DancingNinjas 2018-12-07T06:26:45Z ♥ 0

This game is easily compared to [Special Delivery](https://youtu.be/oOJMnuKJZVs?t=8) since it has the fly-by delivering presents stuff. I like that opening part where you have to decide who is naughty, that's something I haven't seen done before.

Goblin Quest by Pellanor 2018-12-07T05:29:01Z ♥ 0

This kept me playing for quite a long time(I've seen a few different succession games this LD and this is one of the best examples of them), but eventually I realized that I had accumulated so many corpses that the game was actually soft-blocking me from proceeding with events in the mountains, because it would either kill the character or give them an amulet they didn't need. So I started a new run of the game only to find that the mountain death rate was still extremely high. If the point is to allow me to deliberately kill them, I should have an option with a 100% failure rate, instead of an option I actually want to pick that frequently kills them. It's really hard to see the possibility space of the game because many of the elements are random(unable to plan ahead, pure trial and error) versus chaotic(hard to predict but always consistent). For example, if it were only safe to hunt goblins or explore the mountains at certain times of day or days of the week - this is how VN and raising games will typically create "miraculous" events.

Timestep by taco360 2018-12-07T04:42:10Z ♥ 1

Good small game with some neat features - I won on my second try. I really like that map zoom although the game is so small that it probably doesn't need such an elaborate implementation.

Here's a UX gripe: Why does the game use the mouse to chop things, and the E key to use objects? It doesn't even use the mouse for pointing at objects. I was so close to being able to play the game without fighting my laptop's trackpad, but for that darn mouse button thing.

Muscles and the Gun by Kramdar 2018-12-07T03:41:12Z ♥ 1

I really like this kind of Glorious Trainwrecks-style "game looks broken, is actually thoughtfully designed". It's easily the most creative thing I've seen in this LD. But the control, physics, and AI all conspire to make it really difficult. I had to restart when I trapped myself in level 2, and I stopped after reaching the final part of level 3 only to die to that blasted cowboy's perfect aim. The enemies, as-is, aren't a good fit for the powers of my main characters, so it was a real struggle even to get that far in the level.

I would be happy to see more like this, with just a little bit easier gameplay.

STAR JUNK by christina-antoinette-neofotistou 2018-12-07T03:10:55Z ♥ 0

I like this kind of arcade gameplay, although I'm not sure I was really sacrificing anything but the space rocks and enemies that were in my way. The game is polished and fun but lacks for coherency in matching the scenario to the mechanics: too much of it is built on self-evident game tropes like "of course you shoot the enemies to take their loot", "of course you trade things at the shop to power up", so no particular meanings are conveyed.

RAT LABS by Flatgub 2018-12-06T08:29:00Z ♥ 2

First impressions: uh oh, it's a mouse game and I just got cozied up with my laptop. Basically no game jam game ever works well on trackpad so it's my usual expectation that I have to get up and sit in a chair to use the mouse. Regardless I managed to build some conveyors and accept the first assignment but got stuck on selecting the research center because no amount of mashing keys or clicking on the text seemed to help me.

After trying the mouse: Yeah, okay, the mouse wheel is the one and only way to select different structures to build. And now that I built it, completing the assignment was cumbersome since it involves multiple presses of Enter. It's clear that there was a lot of effort put into the graphics design of the UI but that's a pretty big investment for any game jam. I would have been happy with a scrolling text log and some hotkeys.

A little while later and I have gotten stuck on the task "Visual Research into 'Photograph'". Finally I figure out from the descriptions that I need to send the photos back through the photo booth. It's nice to set up conveyors and reminds me of setting up train lines in OpenTTD. But my enthusiasm for solving traffic jams is limited. Finally after rebuilding parts of the line I have completed the carbon pressurization puzzle but I'm getting bored, the end.

It's a fine example of this type of automation game, I think I'm just not the target audience since they've never really gotten me excited in the past.

Ursa by Maksym 2018-12-06T02:19:28Z ♥ 5

This is a pretty game with pretty music and it made me sit on the title screen for a while to listen. The platforming part of it was the weak part, and the game would probably work better if it had mechanics that felt more like "bear power meets star power".

Learn to be a self stopper! by Tût-tûûût 2018-12-06T01:39:59Z ♥ 1

I love this take on the trolley problem, if it were expanded upon I would suggest making the scenarios progressively more absurd with choices between cats and dogs, ninjas and samurai, and Batman vs Superman.

Morbid adventurer by PancakeFriday 2018-12-05T10:23:45Z ♥ 2

As a latecomer player I feel like I am not seeing the best the game has to offer. The map doesn't really tell me enough about the state of doors or where enemies might still be, and while I did win a few battles and encountered doors that might be openable, it wasn't giving me an option to sacrifice myself on the one I wanted to open, so I ended up just quitting altogether instead. But I did like going around and reading the notes.

I like the idea of something Souls-like/Zelda-like that engages with the succession gameplay more directly. Succession roguelikes are a thing and I recently sunk a lot of time into one of them, *Dungeonmans*. And games like *Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?* demonstrate that you don't need to have very much going on in the game's scenario to make people experience "collaboration" on a thing.

Santa on Skis by Zathnic 2018-12-05T09:14:06Z ♥ 1

I liked the look of this game the moment I saw the screenshot. The "Procedural Delivering Christmas Presents" genre is quite under-served, with the last entry I really liked being all the way back in 1984 with "Special Delivery" on the Atari 800. That one had a whole stealth minigame section where you go inside the houses and avoid the residents.

Hail To The King by Almighty Games 2018-12-04T12:19:47Z ♥ 0

I made it to level 7 and had a good shot at finishing only to have the game crash suddenly. Not sure what caused it...it's a really fun design though, a good take on the "sacrifice to reveal the board" that I've seen a few games do this LD.

Space Captain Leslie in ... Disasteroids!! by skettyNmeebs 2018-12-04T08:28:53Z ♥ 1

Although I've played many shmup games with rotation, I've never played one that felt quite like this one and let you slide along the screen borders, which is really cool!

That said I have a lot of remarks about the difficulty.

* The asteroids have a very large collision boundary and touching them means I take repeated hits with no invulnerability timer. When I die the enemies fly past me off-screen... * If I let the enemies get off-screen then they can shoot me without me seeing where they are. * Once I die more enemies will still spawn, making the game snowball away from me as I lose multiple ships in a row. * It's lengthy for a game jam game and all these little issues add up to frustration. * There is no visible score counter so I don't really know how far I'm getting apart from the dialogue.

Edit: I first tried the game on keyboard only(cause, laptop). I was able to get to around 70% of the way through the game doing that. With keyboard + mouse, combat becomes so much easier that these difficulty issues, while still present, aren't as obvious.

Bloodcaster by YongminPark 2018-12-04T07:53:23Z ♥ 1

1. I have to tell Windows to force off DPI scaling, or it overflows and I can't see the HUD anymore. There may be an option in Godot to tell it to force DPI. 2. The enemies appear to move and shoot randomly, which is a missed opportunity to program interesting behavior. Good enemies don't need complex AI, they just need a pattern I can plan around.

I like the Downwell aesthetic so it's nice to see it again.

NOT SO ARIGATO MR. ROBOTO by Kris with a K 2018-12-04T07:32:07Z ♥ 3

This had some very stylish presentation and once I had repeated the intro a few times I finally realized that Teedus was not a completely random character. I enjoy room escape games although I don't actually understand how I solved the puzzle in the end. On a second playthrough the state of the lights doesn't get reset which produced some bugs, and I think(?) there were more issues related to the state of modules - not every scene presented itself the same way with the same settings. As you can imagine I was just clicking around a lot and hotspot hunting to get through it.

Just delete them by Dock Frankenstein 2018-12-04T06:57:27Z ♥ 0

I really like the concept, but I discovered something that ended my playthrough very quickly: the released build doesn't store the assets in the same way as the source, so I can't do as suggested and "delete folders". I can only delete entire levels.

Chiiip by LuCecyl 2018-12-04T05:02:59Z ♥ 4

"Wait, I have to learn a new language to play this game?" "Oh, it's a setting." Kudos on making something very polished looking. The concept feels a bit limiting, though. Maybe something could be done with items, powerups, terrain etc.

Maze of Death by hamrathdoesldjam 2018-12-03T10:05:09Z ♥ 1

This game takes a lot of patience! I almost made it to the halfway mark with plans to finish, but got up and yanked my headphones out which crashed the emulator. Oops.

One thing I think might improve the game is to make it a little more Minesweeper-like by letting you mark possible walls. Whenever you hit a corner, there's a chance of taking the right direction, which is actually bad for mapping purposes, so I was sacrificing lives just to indicate both edges of corners.

Life in the Trenches by meskaline 2018-12-03T08:56:09Z ♥ 2

The repetition and simple "choose A vs B" structure like "Reigns" makes this game effective at giving the mood of trench warfare. I enjoyed the variety of events, although I was frustrated by their randomness. (Randomness tends to act as a design placeholder, because it cuts off the player's ability to calculate further ahead)

I would be happy to see more of this game.

Ludum Dare: The Game by Darylsteak 2018-12-03T08:36:07Z ♥ 3

This game feels like the nightmare version of game jamming. I'm not sure if it's actually meant to be strategic because there is no feedback on why work didn't progress or how helpful it was to take breaks. It could easily be something very calculated that you have to puzzle out with a combination of delay timers(e.g. you can look at your calendar to see when the special events happen, and taking them will give you a stat boost that you can plan around; sleeping at night is more effective than sleeping during the day, and so on) and bonuses for following a certain priority (e.g. the code->debug->polish cycle is faster than others).

Also, it should model the part where you choose between advertising your game with blogspam and rating and commenting on other people's games.

Chambers by RemiCraft 2018-08-26T21:12:51Z ♥ 1

The game is difficult to download. Google Drive has a "download folder as ZIP" feature but right now using it triggers a "leave site" browser prompt. To actually start the download you have to say yes, leave the site. This is confusing and off-putting. Please consider a better distribution method, at least packaging the game in your own ZIP.

Escape from The Alliance by Jimbly 2018-08-25T23:20:12Z ♥ 1

I won on my first playthrough with 193 alive - perhaps this is because I have won at FTL before so I kind of had a sense of the resource-management shenanigans - but it succeeded at producing the same kinds of tense scenarios I felt in that game. If it were pausable real-time, it would probably be too simple, but as-is it succeeds at being a streamlined time-management action game that cuts out all the stats and cruft.

The criticism of the game getting simpler as you go along is one that could be reworked in an expansion/follow-up by making the refugees more interesting characters and shifting the focus away from battle scenes as you progress towards some kind of interpersonal drama. There is a starting point just in having writing to give context to everything and it's possible to go a lot deeper with that(though it can also easily blow up the scope to do lots of writing).

Box Bonanza by PatrickRMC 2018-08-24T21:07:08Z ♥ 0

This is a difficult game to learn to play. It's a "physics game" which always makes everything feel a little bit clunky and imprecise, and there are plenty of options and controls, but they are only given the most basic indications - it took a few tries before I actually read the directions and learned all the controls I had. I feel lucky that I noticed that there were two character options on the main menu. I never feel like I know if I've actually picked up a crate, and crate pickup is also risky because it produces most of the clipping-through-walls bugs.

I never got a feel for what the actual pacing of the gameplay was while playing. I tried a few different strategies, but all of them either produced too much chaos to control, ran into the clipping-through-walls bugs or took too long to execute. That's frustrating. The concept seems good, but in executing on this one you may have tried to surface too many features all at once instead of trying to make a few that really fit together well.

MoodFood by DosWosh 2018-08-17T08:00:00Z ♥ 1

My top is 2:18. The combat is basically good and the audiovisuals fit well, although each element has a few rough parts to it and there is definitely a learning curve to how combat in this game works. The weapons are powerful enough but don't feel satisfying yet(impact sounds, particles, etc.) and on my top run I got a sense of the game running out of things to show me.

The game relies a lot on randomness when it doesn't have to, and this limits it right now. [See my article on chaos for details.](http://ludamix.com/dive/chaos/) You can probably make it so that there isn't a single random thing going on in this game, and still have it be surprising. I am particularly annoyed by the enemy spawns since it will just put them exactly where I stand and I have to find that out by getting hurt.

Edit: And yeah, keep it up! This isn't one you should let go.

Dirty Duty by grahhhhhhhhh 2018-08-17T02:24:57Z ♥ 0

This is a great "intentionally taking the joke too far" piece, which puts it in a similar space to [Twinbeard](http://www.twinbeard.com/) (Frog Fractions et al). I would even say that it might not be going far enough yet - it has plenty of the poop joke part which was good in that it focused everything for LD and the theme, it just needs diversifiers, like how you can sweep items off the shelves in Catlateral Damage. A more complete "bad dog experience" where you dig holes and chase cars and howl to annoy people would actually be material for a sizable game.

Closing in on Pascal by gamepopper 2018-08-16T22:35:36Z ♥ 1

The game shows a lot of technique on the coding end of things with little details everywhere. I actually wanted all the transition animations to go faster, especially after I die.

The game design follows a very conventional platform idea and could help define itself by adding some more ideas that feed back into "running out of space". Pascal needs a good raccoon power like being able to dig up trash to build platforms. It doesn't just have to be the walls closing in, this could be an own-goal type of thing.

Become a Monster by Rodrigo Denúbila 2018-08-16T19:46:22Z ♥ 0

I like becoming a monster! The concept is great and could easily be expanded into a whole single-player campaign where you travel to different gyms, bodybuilding stages, etc. and do open-world style quests to get bigger and crush the competition. It does need more detail with how training and fighting works though, the current systems are very simple and easy to exploit.

Shrinkage by woubuc 2018-08-16T09:54:03Z ♥ 1

I read the words "score combos" and assumed that it meant something much more complicated than intended, like a particular pattern of blocks similar to other falling block games. The game never once spells this out, but all it would take is to get rid of all the introductory text(nobody reads) and use an image depicting the three patterns that are OK to match, and the one that is not.

However, there's a more subtle issue underlying this, which is a belief-and-expectation issue, and this is make-or-break for casual puzzle games. Tetris works because the scoring system and core interactions reinforce the line-filling pattern at each step. If you are five years old, like I once was, and sit down with NES Tetris and play to pack blocks together in interesting shapes, you will eventually by accident match one line. And when you match one line, then you try to do it again, and by accident match two. And so on, until the goals of the game are clear and you are in the realm of advanced Tetris strategy. At each step, it's coherent with what you understood before: the game ends because the blocks reach the top. If I pack the blocks tightly, I can play longer. If I make a single line, I can play longer. If I make two lines, I can play longer... and it's all constantly reinforced, because it's intuitively satisfying to pack together the blocks.

And in this game, the design pulls out the welcoming rug from underneath and goes, "hah, matching one line, what a noob!" Which in turn defeats one's desire to explore further. It's very hard to adjust how Tetris scores and reinforces play without disrupting player belief.

In a lot of other LD rating threads I remark on how the game scenario could be reworked to reinforce the game mechanics better, or vice versa, because there's usually some thematic coherence to rely on, where you're like, "oh yeah, bullets do damage in real life, that's why touching bullets in this game makes my HP goes down!" When it's an abstract puzzle game, you're just going on more base aspects of human nature, and with blocks that usually means stacking, ordering, pushing them together. It's very hard to change the formula given everything else about how the game works.

But all the same I really appreciate that you did this because although I had an understanding of Tetris being a form of the belief "it's fun to play with blocks"(which is broadly applicable to block-pushing games or building games like Minecraft), I didn't realize until now that it was also about reinforcing a specific way of playing with those blocks.

Memory Mayhem by ZuhairGhias 2018-08-16T09:19:12Z ♥ 1

I'm glad you stuck it out and did this, having a character in there is a great sort of rethinking of a "Threes" or "2048" type of game and could be further refined by testing it with the whole array of "block-moving mechanics" - pushing, swapping, etc. The "can't add numbers greater than 8" aspect was a little bit un-intuitive but not unreasonable. And I noticed that while WASD worked fine, arrow key movement had some weird issue where one axis worked and the other didn't.

Regarding grid movement, the compo game I made also faces the never-quite-resolved problem of mixing free movement with a grid. I've worked with this problem before and the way I dealt with it this time was to gradually interpolate to a snapped position as you move around so that everything visually lines up, just not instantly. However, there is still some unresolved stuff with how my camera works that affects how the movement feels.

Polterplot by posho 2018-08-16T06:35:35Z ♥ 1

On my first go I went in without reading directions just like a real player and losted because it was very hard to figure out how the different characters worked, what the seed bags corresponded to, etc. That's a thing where tutorials *might* help but I think that also, the scenario isn't supporting the mechanics well enough just yet. "they are all ghosts, it'd be a pain to reverse engineer how they work, guess I will just spam things and see if I win" is how I read it on that first try. I had f.lux running and making everything orange-tinted, so the colors weren't distinct and I couldn't use that either.

I think this problem is an easy fix in the visuals though. Give the attackers big swords. Give the defenders big shields. The other two, maybe they could have additional symbols. Then make sure the animations and effects really convey the thing that each character does best. Maybe have a few levels where you can only use one type at a time and see what it does.

On my second play I read everything, turned off f.lux, and had a much easier time. I was doing well, but then hit a crash - I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary triggering it:

___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ FATAL ERROR in action number 1 of Step Event0 for object obj_seed_reloader: Variable obj_seed_reloader.slot(100042, -2147483648) not set before reading it. at gml_Object_obj_seed_reloader_Step_0 ############################################################################################ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- stack frame is gml_Object_obj_seed_reloader_Step_0 (line -1)

Regarding the design, overall: There are many mobile games following this style of gameplay. I'm not familiar enough with the genre to know how this one holds up or what it does differently. I think it works reasonably well, but would benefit from having the scenario built up some more with some backstory and characters(why I am fighting over furballs, what kind of place is this that witches fight each other with ghosts etc.) so that I have that hook more firmly in mind. Its long term play value would depend mostly on whether it's a good competitive game, and that means you need really skilled players to push its limits.

Weltraum by JLV 2018-08-16T04:35:09Z ♥ 3

Props for the voice acting and that robot animation, I got here from your post on how it was done.

The storytelling suffers from being mostly exposition. Almost all of the time is spent on building up the world, leaving nothing for knowing who these characters are and giving them opportunities to connect with the audience emotionally. This is a problem related to the work being short, but it's often encountered in science fiction and fantasy stories just because those settings allow the author to spend so much time going into details about weird alien races and magical gadgetry. Excessive exposition also frequently appears in games, not necessarily because it's hard to portray meaningful character interaction, but because the premise of most games means that they always have to spend their story time setting the stage for another combat scenario: "the bad guys are coming! see, they're really bad, they just kicked a puppy. better pick up a gun and trade witty banter with your AI buddy" and when you are telling that kind of story, it doesn't have to build up to anything in particular, because the rest of the gameplay will take over the experience - worrying about your health and ammo and feeling triumphant when you win and so on.

One of the appealing things about aiming for a visual novel kind of aesthetic is that you don't have to go for the combat scenarios. But if you put a giant robot in, then combat is expected as part of the genre(I tried doing a giant robot game once and learned that partway through). And then if you extrapolate from that to "ok, we'll add interactions that make for satisfying combat" you end up with some kind of strategy or action game. It takes some careful work to find a good mix of themes/scenario/interactive parts and make it all work together.

Backpack Goblin by halfmule 2018-08-16T03:34:19Z ♥ 2

The "inventory puzzle" genre sees a new entry: They tend to appear frequently in game jams and I saw one of them in this LD earlier.

This is one of the better takes on the concept that I've seen. The spatial manipulation aspect of both "next item" and "item in bag" is a good way to keep the interaction clean and straightforward. It might even be fine to focus only on the bag, and then add piece rotation and various clearing combos to move it even closer to Tetris and put additional focus on the items and their different qualities - despite all the games that try to ape Tetris, the idea space is still rich with possibilities. Modern Tetris lets you hold a piece in a swap position and functionally speaking, that does nearly the same thing as moving the character into a different item, it's just simpler for the player to manage.

The goblin theme is still good and would work even if it were made into a second screen/level select kind of thing. Maybe a reason to clear pieces would be to overcome hazards or defeat foes by pulling out the right item! It would be fun to have different roads to travel on, a sequence where the goblin goes in to sell all these items, etc.

The game loads extremely slowly, you might need to check that out.

SpaceOut by Lou Bagel 2018-08-15T23:41:30Z ♥ 2

This game is visually striking in screenshots, so I was looking forward to playing it. However, I am coming out of it with a phrase I've used on a few other comments: "this game substitutes scope for a coherent concept". It has a ton of features and mechanical ideas that do not have an fluid thematic relationship. That's why you have to rush around building tutorials to try to explain how it all works - the game isn't showing, so you have to tell.

This is one of the aspects that really divides board games and video games. If I play a new board game, I expect to have to "learn the game". It is OK if it is somewhat abstract: I'm sitting there moving around the pieces and talking about it with friends. But as a video game player, I want to go in mashing buttons and seeing stuff happen - and if it's going to require training, it has to be something I believe is worth the effort to learn, which leads to themes and scenarios that support the learning process, and in-game behaviors that cohere with what I know about the world.

That doesn't mean "an abstract video game is not allowed" - just that the abstraction is very immediate and convenient for discussing what the scenario is about. Things like "lives" and "hit points" make scenarios with frequent damage and death easier to grasp, for example. Ball and paddle games make sense because they look like the physics they represent. And so on.

When you have a game like this that mashes up genres and ends up being crammed full of rules that are basically only there to serve the game on the level of "interesting decisions"(which the game is good at - I can tell because it provoked my deep-think habit of chewing my fingers), either the player is eased into it really slowly(which has the common downside of "the game is boring, who cares if it gets better") or they will leave remarks like "I am so confused, my brain hurts now". It's often a lose/lose, even if you have things tuned and tutorialized such that they are clearly capable of playing the game successfully without understanding it.

But if you get the scenario elements to align well, they will either get it immediately, or feel like it was obvious all along and they are merely incompetent, or remain blissfully ignorant. And all three are OK. They're playing and having fun.

Memory by Kataware 2018-08-15T22:45:39Z ♥ 1

My thoughts on this game are actually very similar to the ones I left for the game @griz made...

It's a design that is technically impressive, but "substitutes scope for a coherent premise". In this case the game is more well-rounded and finished overall, but I was actually turned off by the idea that I was going to have to sit through a bunch of dialogue and level grind for the sake of following convention before it could get to the part where it distinguishes itself from any other action RPG...and then it didn't end up doing much with the premise anyway.

The more stuff you add to a game, the less you can think about polishing it...hence stuff like the game's tuning/balancing being off is more like a symptom of not finding the point and focusing all your resources on getting to it quickly, than an actual problem in your execution. It pains me when I see this happen to jam games because I know what it's like to put yourself through the wringer to build all that stuff.

TrackBlasters by paulloz 2018-08-15T22:07:21Z ♥ 1

The game is a really good idea and I was impressed, but the mechanics are missing something. The pace gets slower and slower the farther I get into a track, when I think it should feel fast and risky! Maybe the bombs should blow you across the pits, so you have to do more and more damage to keep going.

Insufficient Storage by petitpois 2018-08-15T20:49:01Z ♥ 2

I think the concept is good! It's a cool idea to have "waves" of spam emails coming after me. I like the sounds and music. Those work pretty well.

The game is very confusing at first, for a number of reasons:

- The art style is harsh and leans on being "low res" without really developing distinctive shapes. It would benefit from using a more balanced color palette, for example [DB16](http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12795). Traditional art skills will always help your pixel art! - The HUD elements are large to the point of obscuring the action, and they don't follow a coherent [information architecture](https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/information-architecture.html). The analogy you are going for is something like a notifications feed, but the layout you have doesn't resemble any application I've used, and the font is very difficult to read with all the letters merged together. It would work so much better simply by starting from an application you use and trying to copy that look. - It's not clear at the beginning that the game is a twin-stick shooter type of game, or what resources are available. You can figure them out through some interaction, but it feels jarring. If the graphics were all scrambled I would have almost as much idea of what is going on as I did on my first play.

When graphics in games work well, they are the so-called "pictures that say a thousand words". The game I did for this past compo also deals with an "inside the computer" theme, and it took extra effort to build up characters and symbolic content that helped it make sense. You might find my [devlog](https://ldjam.com/users/triplefox/feed) interesting to read, it goes through my whole design process.

Dragon Cave by Andres Vargas Charry 2018-08-15T20:14:57Z ♥ 1

Hi, it's extremely difficult to download this game in the form you hosted it: Ordinarily Github has a "clone or download" button but because you put everything on "develop" branch and never merged that, the option isn't there. So I would have to download every file on its own or coax a local copy of git into pulling the develop branch.

I suggest putting up the build on itch.io - it's free, and you can add a theme etc.

Deep Heat by gwinnell 2018-08-15T20:06:55Z ♥ 1

The 1990 DOS game Pyro II came to mind when I saw the screenshot: [Pyro II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEc4SDDsxGA).

This game is more like a circa 2010 Flash game that would have gotten 1,000,000 plays on Newgrounds or Kongregate back in the day, though. It's mostly because of that shop screen and the game loop constantly forcing you to want the next item so that you can progress. That was a thing that really characterized Flash games around then and looking back on it I think it's a dark pattern - it compromises the design, diminishing the intrinsic reward factor.

That said, I'm impressed by the concept overall. There could be more going on with the scenario and characterization, but as-is, it basically gives you a cool variation on a twin-stick shooter.

Falloor by Madamin_Z 2018-08-15T11:18:20Z ♥ 1

Neat game concept and I liked the music, at least until the 100th repetition. The basic mechanic is solid and produces many interesting situations, but many of the elements around it are a bit generic and don't "play into" each other, this is something where if you had not just one but several themes that all work together, the game becomes a lot more interesting and easier to expand on - in my devlog for my compo entry I play a "coherence game" to brainstorm such a set of themes, and then used that to come up with all of the major ideas of the game. For example here the whole idea of food and eating is a very good match for "running out of space", but the obstacles and puzzles aren't doing anything to build around that concept.

Shelf Life by Grawly 2018-08-15T02:26:51Z ♥ 0

I wasn't sure if this game would deliver, but it's such a good, self-contained execution of a humorous concept and it even has an element of tragedy to it. Could it be expanded? Maybe, but it doesn't need to be!

Slime Escape by Dom Harris 2018-08-14T08:58:00Z ♥ 1

It's possible to clip into walls when I mash the dash and jump buttons. I really like speedrunning games though, I'm glad you did one!

Inventory Wars by saoi-games 2018-08-14T08:37:26Z ♥ 2

This game has creative gameplay ideas but reads a bit incoherently for a few reasons:

- A UI like this is going to be assumed to be a convenience function, and not the focus of the game. - When that UI is combined with a timer mechanic like the conveyor, it looks like it's going to be a fast-paced time management game. - Then the per-item rules come in and it starts to feel much more complex than usual time management games, where everything you need to know can be seen and understood immediately. - The game focuses on "scoring" instead of "solving," which when combined with the conveyor kind of implies that my strategy is to sit there waiting until I see as many items as possible, calculate an optimal score, and then quickly move every one of them. All of that means that I can't think at my own pace and relish in a decision.

There are a lot of ideas there that all work in isolation, and then end up fighting for time and player attention. The solution is almost certainly not to add more UI, because that gradually leads down the path of "training" the player to play in a form dictated by the computer based on its calculations. You lose all the immediacy of just clicking on things and seeing what happens. That's where incoherence really damages a design: It leads you towards adding scope to fix your problems, which creates new problems.

One of the thing I discuss in my devlog for this past compo is how to make sure an idea is coherent before implementing. It might help you think about how to make this design accessible. I've seen plenty of games in past game jams that do the "inventory management as puzzle game" thing. They work best when they're presented in a way that carefully emphasizes the puzzle aspects, but I don't think any of the ones I've seen have really nailed how to make it into a game that defines the genre. A lot of the time, video games work simply because they have a core interaction that works - like Mario jumping or shooting a gun in Doom, and with puzzle games, a similar thing applies. It has to feel good from the beginning.

Backspace Bouken by Jake White 2018-08-14T08:02:31Z ♥ 1

I was impressed with what the game did with its concept! I didn't end up playing all the way through, though, because it started feeling repetitive very quickly. Most of the time seems to have gone to combat encounters but I'm not convinced that that's the best way to leverage this mechanic. What if the game were about puzzles where erasing parts of the text opens and closes locations, replacing the switch puzzles you usually find in dungeon crawlers? And then tying that in with some kind of "the walls are closing in" type of thing where you can trade letter space for physical space?

Killer Bytes by Alien 2018-08-14T07:25:27Z ♥ 1

Clicked this cause my avatar is from "Killing Bites".

I think this one turned out very well! I've been planning to use Godot for projects, but haven't found the time to really sit down and jam with it for a while. It's nice to see folks working with it.

There isn't too much strategy to this game, but the shooting is still challenging since it's balanced to be very difficult. It would be good to see a version that fleshes it out with more enemy patterns and distinct waves.

Get Comfortable by mcccclean 2018-08-14T05:11:06Z ♥ 0

Another PICO-8 game spotted. I got 202! I love how there are different names for all the kinds of overlapping positions. It's just about perfect as-is.

Meow Moves by wolfybytes 2018-08-14T02:45:42Z ♥ 1

I was able to break the UI somehow - I think it might have been by moving the cards from the right side back to the left. The game has very appealing visuals but the card game design is hard to pick up because it's very abstract/mathematical. The scenario has a lot of possibilities for specific game elements, it's just that the visuals aren't being applied to help the design.

Maybe a different approach to this game would be to draw on classic puzzles like the [Simon Tatham collection](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/) and create a variation on one of them that adapts all the "stage performance" elements. e.g. instead of scoring, when a puzzle is complete, a new trick is performed.

Crushed by Rusty Bailey 2018-08-14T02:37:51Z ♥ 1

Another PICO-8 entry! Nice! I think the design is good, but I have some technical remarks.

The crush detection would probably benefit from switching to this algorithm:

Build a placeholder tilemap that copies the level data just for crush detection. Each time a wall grows, superimpose the rectangle bounds of the wall onto the tilemap as if it were tiles. Then plot the position of the player on that same tilemap. If the player is surrounded on all sides by collision, they're crushed.

I see something about an OOM bug being fixed but the game still has some performance issues. I can't see the code but there is probably a way to optimize wall drawing so that it's lighter - in general PICO-8 performs better with respect to its "virtual CPU cap" when the code uses fewer symbols to do the same thing, with the exception of function calls. Fewer function calls are better.

Mouse Trap! by Krooked590 2018-08-14T01:34:18Z ♥ 0

This game shows a lot of potential to be developed into a kind of Pac-Man style maze chase. I like that there's even a "bonus round" part. Once I got a handle on how it worked I cruised to level 11 and then encountered a bug where I hit the level exit at the same moment that an enemy moved on top of it, triggering both the level end and the death sequences.

I suggest dialing down the number of random elements. They aren't out of control, but they make the strategies to win each round more generic, which is why I was able to get so far. I wrote an article on [chaos](http://ludamix.com/dive/chaos/) and it discusses what makes chaotic elements in games(which we usually want some of) different from simply random ones, and how to achieve them.

CRUMBLE by whycardboard 2018-08-14T01:18:48Z ♥ 1

This is an interesting game. It shows technical prowess but the design needs more of a direction to it for everything to come together. My strategy for this game relies a lot on being lucky. I didn't notice any info on when tiles will fall, so I'm playing assuming it's random. Elements like the different items to collect and the teleport function work as abstract mechanics, but they don't have any grounding in the game's scenario.

I suggest looking at both my own devlogs for this past compo and my [chaos](http://ludamix.com/dive/chaos/) article. They might give you ideas of where this design could go.

VOXSOLAR by geekdrums 2018-08-14T00:58:02Z ♥ 1

This is top notch. It reminds me a lot of [Sentris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4r0mJtNENc), if you've ever played that, but the puzzle mechanic in this actually sits more comfortably and doesn't need a heavy tutorial. It might need an extra mechanic to be totally fleshed out, but everything about this game really does work as-is and the only thing I want is more of it.

Chrono Caverns by ryannielson 2018-08-13T21:10:15Z ♥ 1

The game is very playable, but the puzzles are too easy! I went through the whole game and five random levels before I made a mistake.

The "draw a non-overlapping path" puzzle is a kind of genre of topological puzzle, and its usual constraining factor is with entry and exit directions, e.g. the [7 Bridges of Königsberg problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg). For an example of a recent game of this type that used some interesting constraint rules, [Galaxy Express](https://cosmicexpressgame.com/) is a good model. In this case, since you have a dungeon and lava there's an obvious incentive to add a bit of dungeon crawling stuff with keys and doors and monsters and lava being used to destroy stuff. Tons of things you could do with this scenario!

Purple Void by mochakingup 2018-08-13T20:49:03Z ♥ 5

This game is well-produced for sure, and I wanted to play it just based on the stuff I was seeing in your devlogs, but when I see a well-produced game I end up critiquing the design more harshly. So I'll be the odd one out in this sea of deserved praise.

The thing I'm generally looking for in giving game jam feedback is "how could it be expanded on?" and you've cut off the possibility of that by using a scenario that is built on pragmatic convenience: boss fight in void, the boss fight is the whole story, the abilities of the characters are generic, and the characters don't really play off each other or suggest anything more - I don't even know what that boss *is*. There are a lot of games that achieve roughly this quality of design in LD, just with less polish - simpler graphics, less refined boss patterns, etc.

I can't think of anything to say like, "maybe you could add this or change that," because the concept is so unstructured, it could just go in any direction. And that means that if you were to have a meeting tomorrow where you're like, "let's turn this into a commercial product", you'd probably have to start over. The game leaves a great "product impression," but a good prototype will also excite the imagination and make you say, "and then we could also add all this other stuff and take it even farther".

If you'd like more of my thoughts on design process, take a look at my devlog, I blogged my whole process for this past compo.

you have a fish bowl defend it by magicalfeyfenny 2018-08-13T20:04:11Z ♥ 0

Congrats on finishing! The title explains the game pretty well and yeah it's balanced such that I can play forever if I hold down the fire button and don't move and if I do anything else I lose instantly.

You might be interested in my article on [chaos](http://ludamix.com/dive/chaos/) which has some ideas that could be used to help generate varying waves of enemies.

Bitter Litter by Jole 2018-08-13T12:40:28Z ♥ 0

I like this idea! I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong because it seems like it bombs me with more pieces than I can handle in a short period of time. (but also, I started playing it on my trackpad which means I can't be doing any fancy mouse-slinging)

It might make for more interesting gameplay if some of them didn't just fall to the surface but instead orbited a while at a certain level, breaking off gradually. This is basically like a shooter game in sprit, and with those it's always about finding cool AI behaviors that are just predictable enough to plan around, but still varied.

In Roll The Waves by Eoku 2018-08-13T12:17:33Z ♥ 1

I was hoping it would keep going and give me more challenges! The atmosphere it has is really good. It might make for more interesting puzzles if the flooding was more like a gradual expansion along the shore instead of a "curtain" covering the map, or if the snake had others tasks to do, like pushing blocks or eating apples.

Boxed by Devio 2018-08-13T11:56:05Z ♥ 1

I really adore the graphical style. Time management games seem like a challenging design problem because they're so easily overcomplicated with things to keep track of. Usually when I see these games expanded it tends to focus on characterization, like in Papers Please. In this case, there might be "a story in every box".

Mindblocked by volando 2018-08-13T10:38:28Z ♥ 0

This game is very well executed. However, there's something on my mind. I see this game design appear in every game jam of sufficient size - sometimes with variants and new puzzle pieces, but generally following the same rules and same kinds of puzzles. Is there an original game that these are all derived from, like Sokoban for block pushing games, and why have I not heard of it?

Super LD42 by anikki 2018-08-13T10:09:25Z ♥ 1

I like the look and feel of the game. The dialogue was confusing in part because it's hard to distinguish the "characters" - so you don't know who's talking, or even which ship is the friendly.

It's satisfying to fire at the enemy ships, though. They have an interesting movement pattern, that's the important part. Shooting games are so reliant on making the enemy waves do interesting things.

Mike the adventurer by Griz 2018-08-13T09:38:59Z ♥ 2

It's really hard to evaluate this game because it is overflowing with features: scrolling map traversal, combat, enemy AI, stats, animation, cutaways for when you walk behind trees - and yet the thing that would presumably define it, make it unique and finish off the game loop - the inventory management - is a placeholder.

So do I rate on what it is, or what it proposes it could be?

With a lot of jam games, placeholders can happen - time constraints and all - but it's just really annoying to be put in that position with this one since the game is plenty effortful enough. The art style is cute. The music has a nice jaunty flavor to it. It's doing very well on the technical aspects, but the game design isn't there. It leads me to this hypothesis: "this game's design substituted scope for a coherent premise."

If you'd like a little more background on why I get to that conclusion, I suggest the [devlog I made for this LD](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/zero-grace-megadrive/ld42-live-blog-from-theme-to-design). It's based on the hard-won wisdom of trying to do exactly this, regretting it, and making a system so that I never do it again.

Rant over. Welcome back to LD! I am coming off a break too.

The Killer Blue Tiles by Alisiena 2018-08-13T08:37:19Z ♥ 5

That was a surprisingly scary download because the game has almost no identifying information, not even a screenshot posted, and it triggered not only the "may be harmful" warning on Chrome, but the Windows Smartscreen warning, AND the administrator "allow this program to modify files" warning. Next time, please just put everything in a zip file. It won't trigger all these false positives from anti-malware tools, and most people rating game jam games expect to play 20 games a single time, so they would rather not see 20 of them cluttering their desktop.

For those wondering: The game is a plain Unity3D game wrapped in an installer. The installer is what set off all the alarms.

Now, the game itself. The game is very simple but it's OK for a first effort! You seem to have a decent idea of how to use Unity's UI, now the challenge is for you to develop some more advanced techniques.

For example, the game doesn't seem to notice when the ball thing(?) has already fallen outside the edge of the map. That makes it unfair because then I can't win anymore. So there should be a feature that moves it into a place I can reach.

Party Simulator by KotoriYousan 2018-08-13T08:14:07Z ♥ 1

I got the game running OK in the webGL player using the itch.io fullscreen button to work around the window size issue.

It's very simple, there isn't a lot of strategy beyond memorizing the right response. One way this could be improved is to borrow an idea from visual novels and RPGs and add some kind of "flag condition" or "stat based condition" that makes it possible or not possible to select an option. Also check out *Reigns* for an example of a really good use of a game all about this kind of simple dialogue.

The world and characters also need more development and this can suggest ways to make the dialogues interesting. For example, maybe the main character has some kind of comfort device like a teddy bear that they can use to regain composure. Or there is a friend that they can call over to save them from a difficult conversation.

I think the concept is good, it just needs a design that fits everything together better. Most of these kinds of games rely on having lots and lots of dialogue which make them hard to execute in a game jam.

Bay Area Traffic: Disaster Simulator by dxk2294 2018-08-13T08:00:27Z ♥ 0

This is really fun to look at and I am all for more transit sim games(I put quite a few hours into Cities in Motion 2). Are you folks Bay Area locals by any chance? I help run a gamedev group and our next big meeting is [this coming Saturday](https://www.meetup.com/SF-Bay-Area-Game-Jamming-Game-Design/events/nxzzmlyxlbxb/).

Snake Reduction by ReiMari 2018-08-13T06:49:24Z ♥ 1

This is simple, but it turned out pretty well! I also did a game of this type. If you'd like to see how I approached it, I did a whole devblog - [here's the first post in the series](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/zero-grace-megadrive/ld42-live-blog-from-theme-to-design).

Running out of Platformers by Aret24 2018-08-13T06:41:53Z ♥ 2

I adore that this is hosted on MediaFire in an age when most people seem to have gone to itch or GameJolt.

The platforming is OK. In some of the levels I was able to wall-kick off the gaps in the shapes and skip a few parts.

I love the part where the key is huge.

The room shrinking into the void doesn't add as much as I had hoped, it's kind of a time limit on each room but it doesn't affect how I think about the platforming stuff. What if it were more like the room changing over time, opening some possibilities and closing others? So I have to find a route that reaches the right places at the right times, as well as having a time limit.

The Amazing Shrinking Game by svenardocom 2018-08-13T06:24:36Z ♥ 3

The final result is actually a really good prototype considering the timeframe. It's just a little too RNG-heavy. When I see RNG-heavy games, I suggest my article on applying [chaos theory](http://ludamix.com/dive/chaos/). The distinction between randomness and chaos makes all the difference in turning a fine basic concept into "I really want to play this game".

In this case, the item spawns could be based on "something else" - like a second character that's moving around, tossing them out.

The Okinawan Samourai by Voxel Forest 2018-08-13T06:00:26Z ♥ 1

My score doesn't get reset when I start over. It took me a few tries to understand how to do the movement and I agree with the other comments about the choice of mouse buttons being problematic. I usually try to sample game jam games on just keyboard and trackpad first and that always catches a few games that try to use elaborate mouse controls or were designed with a gamepad plugged in at all times.

I really like the idea and motif. Swordfighting in a constrained space is a really creative idea for working with the theme and easy to expand upon, the only thing holding back the game is the technical stuff.

ROoS by Stephen Coley 2018-08-13T01:58:59Z ♥ 1

Very nice presentation and game concept. I was initially confused by "collecting space" because I was going too fast and trying to jump like I would in any other platformer. I'm sure there's more that can be done with this idea.

Black Star by ZealousNarwhal 2018-08-13T01:53:16Z ♥ 0

I tried playing twice and both times, the black holes weren't very threatening. I didn't notice the connection between their growing and the asteroids because I was shooting down every asteroid I saw. Perhaps I am too good at these games.

Anxiety by TontonPizza 2018-08-13T01:46:04Z ♥ 1

Very effective audiovisuals. I could imagine a larger game built around the anxiety/space metaphor like this.

Petra by cassowary 2018-08-13T01:21:21Z ♥ 2

This is a great example of block-pushing puzzles. I have one technical complaint which is that all the music feels like it was arranged and mixed aggressively for loudness while the actual compositions are calm and soothing. I ended up turning it off and putting on something else.

Room for love by caribou 2018-08-13T01:09:47Z ♥ 0

I might have to come back to this one since I can't figure out the solution yet, it always ends badly.

Arctic Arctic Adventure by lonewookie 2018-08-13T01:03:16Z ♥ 0

This game had me playing for quite a long while! It does have some issues with the collision: the character doesn't have any way of sliding against edges, so it's hard to access curry when it's in a nook. And when I finally died, I lost all three lives instantly.

Besides those issues, I would suggest adding some more detail to projectiles, like an arc on the curry so that tossing it is not quite as simple. Also, give the movement patterns of the walruses some more predictable elements so that I can form a plan. The game uses a lot of RNG right now in places where it could have some kind of chaotic pattern, something that varies but follows a predictable logic.

Going Up! by Madbeagle 2018-08-13T00:48:03Z ♥ 1

I'm impressed that you put so much into this game! The quantity of UI plus the time pressure makes things very overwhelming and it didn't get better when I played for longer. There's a ton of things to track - 3 elevators, 10 floors, and destinations per person, and I can't come up with anything more than a basic pattern to handle that.

My suggestion would be to figure out what part of the UI adds the most complexity and either automate that away or make it user-programmable so that the player can focus their attention on a smaller set of things, and then add some characterization and day scheduling("rush hour") so that I have additional reasons to prioritize some guests or perhaps learn things about their lives. There are several different ways in which this concept could be expanded upon and I wouldn't let go of it just yet.

Mob Floor by Pixels Everywhere 2018-08-13T00:35:56Z ♥ 1

I'm getting this error at launch:

___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ FATAL ERROR in action number 1 of Step Event0 for object oPlayer: Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [0,-1] out of range [1,12] - -5.gp(100029,-1) at gml_Object_oPlayer_Step_0 ############################################################################################ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- stack frame is gml_Object_oPlayer_Step_0 (line -1)

Slime Sumo by bloodyaugust 2018-08-13T00:29:49Z ♥ 2

I deeply appreciate the fact that I don't have to press a button to shoot, cause it makes it possible to play on a trackpad.

Nobody expects to be crushed by slime until it happens to them 💥🤢💥 It's great that they have physics, but the realistic way it works right now is chaotic enough that it makes strategy hard to execute. A good concept that can probably be better with a more abstract implementation.

Major Tom, Can you hear me? by samoatesgames 2018-08-13T00:17:02Z ♥ 0

Nice concept! I didn't read the directions on my first try so I was a little bit mystified at the opening menu and first puzzle, but once I got what was going on, I was impressed, although I don't have two people with me to play through it properly.

Claustrophobic Muscle Man by Chanoyun 2018-08-13T00:11:00Z ♥ 1

Your itch.io page is giving a 404 - maybe it isn't published?

mosquito girl by appix 2018-08-13T00:09:21Z ♥ 1

I like the concept. When I started, it was difficult to understand how the mosquito repellent worked.

Running out of RAM - an 80s BASIC programming simulator for C64 by hamrathdoesldjam 2018-08-13T00:02:28Z ♥ 2

For the folks who need an emulator, here's a link to [WinVICE](http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/windows.html), [CCS64](http://www.ccs64.com/) and [OSX VICE](http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/macosx.html). There are also versions of VICE available in the package manager of most Linux distributions.

Interesting sim game although I was able to crash it: "string too long error in 35055". It would be fun if there were side events that happen when you write code, or it involved solving literal puzzles like in programming games(e.g. Shenzhen I/O). There is potential for a game here with interesting characters and storytelling, even.

Ice n Fire by Jiri_One 2018-08-12T23:47:26Z ♥ 0

The graphics work great as still images, though the characters would really be more lively with a three-frame walk cycle.

The scenario needs some more context for me to get pumped up about playing it. The interactions with elemental powers are cool, but the rest of the scenario doesn't build on that, so it ends up feeling like most twin-stick games, most of the time.

Politics by foxor 2015-08-31T10:47:00

Thinking I had beat the system, I played without clicking "Organize" until I had an audience of over 10 billion. I smashed through every influence goal until the campaign started, at which point my followers melted away to a mere 100k.

I guess I should have stayed out of politics.

I Dream Of Big Boats - The Office Theft by snake5 2015-08-26T09:54:00

It booted but did not show a title or allow control, just showed a scene with characters. (This is on AMD A10-4600M laptop with Radeon HD 7660G)

ECS in Python by brianbruggeman 2015-08-26T09:22:00

ECS in a dynamic language like Python tends to involve a redundant approach to architecture. You can already access the raw fields and check for existence. The only thing you need on top of that is something to maintain a global indexing of same-type fields. And then once you pursue that road further, and try to add more integrity constraints, you drift towards implementing a relational database, or at least some subset of one. If you want a game engine that is maximally data-driven, try writing all data in BCNF form. (You can spend well over a week thinking about how to implement a clickable GUI button, doing this.)

If you want to continue focusing on architecture from a performance angle I recommend thinking about how your system will treat memory allocation as that is the main thing separating "great" entity systems from "good enough" ones; zero runtime allocation is a good goal. If the entity system ends up being worse than just hand-rolling allocation strategies for each piece of data in the game, it loses by default.

Bottom line, though: you will get more done in gamedev, especially in game-jam scenarios, by writing a single large main loop that does everything in a semi-customized fashion. It is inelegant and CS Professors Hate It, but it has the result of making the code more like an art asset - fluid, easy to change, easy to toggle or cut bits out, or make one-off variations.

Slime Saga by Draknek 2015-08-25T10:38:00

Reminds me of the Candy Jam one but I liked these puzzles better. Sounds were doing some weird clicking/distorting thing, don't know why.

Boblar's Ascension by AzureAspect 2015-08-25T00:25:00

This one sucked me in a little more than I thought it would, I think because of the time limit of "how long will the planet last."

Utterly not by uthamon 2015-08-24T23:23:00

It's not a fun jump feel. I know people tend to complain a lot about the jump in platformers but that's because the essence of action games is in making the control and the challenges fit together in complementary ways. It's not enough to just have a reflex challenge like the precise long jumps here.

Pirate RPG by Ershany 2015-08-24T23:04:00

I like that music.

Survive by Javabot 2014-12-12T08:38:00

I like the idea, although to feel complete it needs some more dynamic behavior when play starts, things like chain reactions or unusual monster behaviors. Try adding some element of "chaos" (e.g. cellular automata rules) to make it playful without having to brute force a lot of designed content - it only takes a little bit to make everything much more interesting.

Unnamed Game by Timm638 2014-12-11T07:14:00

I lost on my first try because there was only one water tile... :D

It's a lot of fun considering how simple it is.

i_tried by bobola66 2014-12-11T06:32:00

This is well made - the reset game seems broken, but that is a common problem(some styles of coding are easier to build a reset feature for than others). I'm a fan of the later snowman upgrade art. Snowminate, heh.

Dugeon Loop by sorle 2014-12-11T02:36:00

I really like the racetrack concept, it's like playing with slot cars.

The 5th Layer by Iak 2014-12-11T01:39:00

I won!

Pengie by GeorgeBroussard 2014-12-11T01:33:00

It seems like I'm playing the villain in this game.

LED by Nakate 2014-12-11T01:26:00

Very relaxing aesthetic.

Mountain Life by flouiz 2014-12-10T23:02:00

This is a great idea and an unusual way to do it. Thank you for making it.

Inventory by TheMeorch 2014-12-10T04:30:00

Very challenging puzzles.

Derelict by Justin Mullin 2014-12-10T04:06:00

I struggled with this one but did like it. The controls weren't too hard to grasp(the text layout of "Probe A Q" "W Probe B" was confusing) but I don't think I got the strategy even after I "won." The monster basically seems inescapable no matter how you plan and probe. The way I actually won was(rot13):

Gnxr nyy guerr perj zrzoref gb gur ynetrfg arneol ebbz. Nf fbba nf gurl'er qbar ercrng jvgu gur arkg ynetr ebbz. Guvf znl unir bayl jbexrq orpnhfr gur znc trarengrq unq gur zbafgre fgneg va n cbfvgvba gung zvtug genc n fvzcyr NV jvgu cbbe cngusvaqvat novyvgl.

Quiet Life by VDZ 2014-12-10T02:55:00

I had a lot of fun with this. I liked the deliberate minimalism it had where usually survival games of this type need to overdose on features.

Main Menu Fighter by Legiion 2014-12-10T01:52:00

I had some fun with this. It was perplexing to have the zoomed-in camera be the default since most of the time I wanted more visibility, and of course the balance felt too hard at first, then too easy after getting some upgrades. Good work overall.

Rare Earth by Thingo Studios 2014-12-10T00:28:00

I like the continuous boss battle feel of it, although some are much harder than others. Also I got tired of mashing the fire button.

Just Dance Dance Discotron Central: Cobra War by RobotLovesKitty 2014-12-09T23:00:00

Top notch!

Legendary Legionnaire Winter Massacre by banana4life 2014-12-09T22:53:00

Nice looking and sounding twin-stick shooter. I'm handicapped since I'm playing all these mouse+keyboard games on a touchpad, but I was still able to get a feel for the play since the difficulty curve ramps up smoothly.

Drill Escape by wildfield 2014-12-09T11:40:00

You can cheat and outrun all enemies by tapping the arrow keys instead of holding them.

Emporium of Death and Laughter by talecrafter 2014-12-09T10:58:00

I really enjoyed the deliberate feeling of everything being interchangeable about this scenario. Not just the arena, but the monsters and the player characters too.

Knight Them All by BoraxKid 2014-12-09T10:43:00

The controls aren't documented...

SheeBall by dieblume86 2014-12-09T10:34:00

I somehow managed to push the "hard" AI offscreen behind the goal after some combination of powerups and ball movement. Then I won 10-0.

Tiny Miner by Maxw3ll 2014-12-09T09:42:00

I got a crash twice, this is the error from the second go-round:

Script 'Game_Interpreter' line 1411: NoMethodError occurred.

undefined method 'each' for 130:FixNum

I was having some fun with this(although I think the PC is too talky).

You Gotta Feed the Wizards by lycrashampoo 2014-12-09T08:36:00

First note: It's annoying to deal with installers while reviewing LD games(too many games, too little time).

There are a lot of bold, interesting ideas here, but they kind of trip over each other. At first I thought it was a match 3 but managed to pick up on the "match the orders in the row or column" idea. But the orders are quite complex for the number of moves I have to make to fulfill them. There isn't always food available to feed all wizards, or it's impossible to move what's there into place. This doesn't improve with time since food gets stuck in clusters. With all these limits, Popcap's "Alchemy" game came to mind, but the movement/placement limitations were what that game was designed around - this one includes all that spellcasting and experience stuff too.

After some play I managed to earn a freeze spell and thought, "ah, now I will have an easier time managing the pieces," only to discover that it freezed the wizards!

All that probably has to be done to clean up the design is to cut some things and iterate some other things until it's all focused in a way that makes sense. There's lots of stuff going on here and you can probably make it great with another weekend of just thinking and tuning things.

$2000-$3fff by ianh 2014-12-09T07:48:00

I expected joyport 2 since most classic C64 games prefer that...other than that this is most excellent.

The Selene Project by gameproducer 2013-12-26T01:33:00

I liked it. The audio was very difficult. Not just the levels but the recording quality and accent.

Braid 2 by magicdweedoo 2013-12-19T06:42:00

A little bit too hard for me on trackpad.

One Video Game by SoundGuy 2013-12-17T02:35:00

5/5 audio

CUTIE ADVENTURE WORLD X by Overkill 2013-08-31T05:27:00

It's so creepy to watch the world get corrupted as you wander around, unable to provide enough hugs to help anyone.

Self Destruct by Octopuns 2013-08-30T20:48:00

Funny how almost every level(except the last) could be solved with no loss of life, if only they had the foresight to all enter at the same time.

Mercurial by sorceress 2013-08-29T19:47:00

I played the "fixed" version but it still hanged when I finished all three games.

Also using the cherry with spacebar(removes nearby enemies) is not listed in any of the controls, I learned about it by accident.

Ladylike by NinaEmmett 2013-08-29T18:43:00

I guess this is one you can't win.

SILX by alvivar 2013-08-29T07:22:00

I can't really play this on my current laptops's trackpad, it acts up when i try to keyboard and mouse at the same time. :(

10TEN SECOND2NDs by stepvhen 2013-08-29T07:19:00

I liked the rowing-by-sweeping thing. Best part of the game as submitted.

ROBOT PLANET by GeorgeBroussard 2013-08-28T06:06:00

Score 2825
Kind of contradictory to have turns and a time limit, but I had fun with it.

Ten-Second Postman by tombsar 2013-08-27T22:05:00

Made it level 12 on a trackpad. I don't really like the fast clicking part of it, mostly because the device I'm using isn't made for it. It would be a relaxing game otherwise.

Mechanical Madness by Thermite 2013-08-27T21:50:00

I don't like the "high def" because it made me force the browser to full-screen to fit everything on this laptop display.

jump by yinbar 2013-05-05T02:14:00

Twitchy!

-- by vegard1992 2013-05-05T02:09:00

After an initially perplexing learning curve I had some fun with this.

Factorism by dagothig 2013-05-05T01:45:00

too much gameplay...

MiniCrawl by Elemnir 2013-05-05T01:03:00

Very challenging, also a lot more tactics-focused than most roguelikes :)

KiraKiraRetro by Misfit 2013-05-03T19:26:00

Very nice presentation. The faux-Boulderdash graphics were making me want to play the real BD though.

Save Shape Land! by Saisaith 2013-05-03T19:05:00

I was amazing at how you demonstrated the traumatizing nature of war in this. All of the characters, even the player, were quivering with fear throughout. Great work.

Spellflinger by bigbadwofl 2013-05-02T09:20:00

maximalist gameplay and controls

DIG QUEST Deluxe: ASCII Mining Adventure by SuperDisk 2013-05-02T08:13:00

This game has swag

Zen Garden by ssshepherd 2013-05-01T08:33:00

a nice complement to my own meditation game

Other Space by GarethIW 2013-04-30T20:10:00

The gameplay loop's delta time needs a maximum limit, when my laptop fan spun up it started skipping so many frames it was unplayable. Fun game though.

The Only Rocketeer by Monxcleyr Productions 2013-04-30T19:27:00

It failed me on a hull breach puzzle when I had everything connected??

Rhythm Rogue by bowlercaptain 2013-04-30T06:38:00

This is very cool and I got into it more when I figured out the details of the controls(tapping the arrows to the beat, not holding them down), however the balance and other mechanics need work for it to shine. Please work on it more, it has potential!

Naked Shades by Lamia Queenz 2013-04-30T03:53:00

i'm winner

Minimal Acceleration by Zhrack 2013-04-30T00:47:00

it felt a bit sluggish

Jumps-- by revilossor 2013-04-29T21:54:00

of the games i've seen doing limited jumping, this one is probably the best

Untitled by zaratustra 2013-04-29T21:36:00

blink and you'll miss it

Fantasy RPG #58 by Martze 2013-04-29T20:49:00

I'm a bit torn by this one. If it were maximally minimal it would just be a walkthrough. But there is something about the pacing of having battles and grinding that makes an RPG feel like it has a sense of progression.

Kazimir's Revenge by Alex Shestakov 2013-04-29T20:08:00

Too much gameplay...

Minimum Reason Game: Hail To The Potato King by nodoxi 2013-04-29T12:31:00

beat 300 points

Minimalism - the shoot 'em up by CiderPunk 2013-04-29T11:59:00

Too much gameplay...

Rebellion: Resistance of Complacency by GreaseMonkey 2013-04-29T11:12:00

too much gameplay (read: bullets)

Problem Attic by ella guro 2013-04-29T10:13:00

The level design is very expressive, albeit by the time I reached "I can't remember maybe it was _" it was taking over an hour to understand each level enough to complete it.

METROCRAFT by gregdevice 2013-04-29T08:03:00

It was really laborious to place so many blocks.

The Boy Who Leapt Through Planets by ydg 2013-04-29T07:57:00

I like the penis gun

Framerate was kinda low for me but i dealt with it

circlesLT by evelyn-jolli 2013-04-29T07:47:00

requirements are dum

OCDC by roaet 2013-04-29T07:43:00

good idea, too much gameplay

PONK by Sos 2013-04-29T02:16:00

Works in VICE. The zip compression isn't supported by one of my archiving programs though!

How Can You Even Tell If I'm Just Fucking With You At This Point by mcc 2013-04-29T00:03:00

I got 35, top game

Enemy of the State by Arcantic 2013-01-01T07:52:00

The footstep sounds gave me a headache

Korruptor by Codexus 2012-12-23T04:19:00

I had to get right up against the guys to hit them.

Robbert by JuiceBox Entertainment 2012-12-20T06:03:00

I would have liked to see this in a more finished form.

Regnant by phaze0 2012-12-20T05:55:00

The basic gameplay works, but it really needs more UI polish to feel complete. Little things like knowing where to attack next are made very difficult on the small screen.

Unhappy Holidays! by GeorgeBroussard 2012-12-20T05:42:00

Score: 9450 :D

You ARE The Villain by Kwrky 2012-12-19T12:14:00

I had to bail on it. It started using too much CPU which meant that I couldn't even go do other things while waiting for the dialogue to finish.

Phi by Thomas Bowker 2012-05-05T11:29:00

Struggled for at least an hour to understand the meaning of the clues. Couldn't get it. Maybe I'm too sleepy.

Slime Buster Micro by brenthamel 2012-05-02T09:51:00

It looks so promising, but ran so poorly for me :(

Tiny World '82 by BleuLlama 2012-05-02T09:46:00

Impressive work. It took a few tries but after naming the ROM correctly I finally got it to run.

Tiny Flat by nSun 2012-05-02T09:24:00

The dialogue was very cute. Well done.

Quest^3 by angryshroom 2012-04-30T09:48:00

It seems like some of the time key items do not appear. In one game the final fortress did not appear, in another I never found the amulet.

My First World by Dark Acre Jack 2012-04-29T21:21:00

I won!

Mr.No's Laboratory by Helco 2012-04-29T11:41:00

It was a faster process to place wires before the post-compo version.

The speech is only playing on the left channel. Painful on headphones.

Puzzles were okay, I got through them without any trouble, but this type of puzzle and scenario has definitely been done before.

Shipwrecked by Madball 2012-04-29T07:45:00

Very atmospheric, considering how low-fi it is.

Recluse by chambers 2012-04-28T11:21:00

The spider obstacles did not really add to the experience. Otherwise, a nicely done exploration platformer with a cool gimmick.

Tiny Island by Zathnic 2012-04-28T10:06:00

A challenging but quite addictive puzzler. I ultimately gave up on level 7 - it really pushed my abilities to optimize the layout.

Downsize by Jwatt 2012-04-28T09:19:00

In the end I got stuck because levels were designed very precisely and I couldn't really figure out how the AI was going to react. Wonderful aesthetic and puzzle concept.

Conquest of the Cyber-Ovine by Nanolotl 2012-04-28T08:36:00

Cpu usage was way too high, but you succeeded in making me grind to the finish.

Maybe next time the worlds could be tinier so that I don't have to struggle with low framerate :o

Land of Food by DeadlyFugu 2012-04-28T06:33:00

I won! I wish the engine used something more like the Inform or TADS parser though. It was annoying being unable to abbreviate common commands.

Planet Run by minism 2012-04-28T03:00:00

I made it quite far but twice I got kicked out by tapping the wrong arrow key in the respawn menu.

Overall the game is very cool and has an idea with amazing potential but there are way too many bugs to enjoy it properly right now, the two biggest issues being getting stuck in the walls, and having physics tied to the frame delta(it made my jump heights very inconsistent).

Great presentation, especially the music and the rotation effects.

Tiny World Cardgame by SusanTheCat 2012-04-28T02:33:00

Impressive work. Card games can be tricky to computerize! The mechanics eventually frustrated me though; the game seemed to have a lot of delayed feedback where certain actions can get you in trouble, but only a few turns down the line. The UI also had some occasional problems that left me guessing as to whether I was following the rules or not.

Tiny World Civiliaztions by Square Particle 2012-04-28T01:45:00

It seems like every single Ludum Dare somehow manages to have a "clash of civilizations sim" in the mix. Some of them end up being pretty good, most are overscoped like this one.

Flatlands by johannhat 2012-04-28T01:40:00

Showed promise. The mechanics were interesting but hard to grasp, and I won before getting a good understanding. Five stars for bravely innovating.

Jack Primus and the Adventure of Tiny Things by Wizered67 2012-04-28T01:32:00

Boss battles! I stopped after failing at the third one. It felt unfairly difficult. I didn't really understand the story, and a lot of the elements didn't make sense to me. On the other hand it looked like there was some good variety on display.

Forever Alone by ra4king 2012-04-26T07:00:00

It took some time to understand how to play and after a while it became repetitive. I never found the last planet...

However I really liked stealing from other planets and making your own bigger. :)

My FPS was quite low, 3-15 FPS. I think it was using software rendering...but this didn't affect play so much.

Disregard All Humans by Fireblend 2012-04-26T05:39:00

I like the "monster crushing cities" concept, and it's nicely presented, but like other commenters I agree that it doesn't feel satisfying to have the monster stay the same size while the world gets smaller.

With a change to scaling and some more variation in obstacles and abilities, this could be a lot of fun.

ANT SURF HERO: THE SURFENING by JigxorAndy 2012-04-26T05:29:00

Cute and action-packed! I'd like to see more of this.

In The Beginning by BenW 2012-04-26T05:20:00

Great presentation! I can imagine a few ways to add depth or strategy to this.

The Good Ship Higgs Boson by Jezzamon 2012-04-25T23:36:00

Nicely done. Something to shoot for if you do a follow-up or a similar game: More polished graphics. Make an autotiler or something, or use full-screen pixel backgrounds. Bigger, more animated sprites, particles. etc.

The Underground Court by caranha 2012-04-24T08:48:00

The only negatives I really have for this are that the game moved too quickly(especially the cats) and it would have been nice to have more polished graphics. I made it to the end after a few attempts. Nice work!

Age of Antpires by Dezzles 2012-04-24T08:26:00

Looks kind of neat, I would have liked to see "Catan with ants" but I clicked around and couldn't really figure out what was going on.

Battle For 35 Leukothea by Rectifier 2012-04-24T08:18:00

It's nicely done. It slows down mightily in the later levels, and medium felt too easy to cheese through after the first few waves(once I could afford it I just built sniper towers and never upgraded).

I'm not sure it works as a straight TD - maybe there's another way to make expandy-shrinky-world a good puzzle or source of strategy.

Most of us live in a tiny world by jeffz 2012-04-24T06:37:00

It's not really a game yet, but it definitely has the beginnings of an art-game type of piece.

0x17's-TinyWorld by 0x17 2012-04-24T06:18:00

Nice little details like the starfield and jump particles. The platforming is managable but definitely on the hard side - even in easy mode - and mostly because of the way the control mechanics work, making it easy to bounce off a wall into a sawblade. And it all seems only vaguely related to being a tiny world...

Earth Is Dying! by Attrition 2012-04-24T06:08:00

Terrific fun. I must have replayed at least 15 times, eventually stabilizing on a strategy where I (ROT13) sbphf ba gur vaare cynargf jvgu cer-rkvfgvat erfbheprf, yrg gurz greensbez, naq gura qhzc nyy gur erznvavat crbcyr ng gur ynfg zvahgr(orfg fpber vf nebhaq 21,000).

It looks suitable for expansion into a game with more strategy, types of levels, etc. Polish and sound would help, but the game is already good :)

Tiny Life by armornick 2012-04-24T05:34:00

I was a monster.

Invasion of the Planet Snatchers! by icefox 2012-04-23T08:48:00

Nice prototype! If the invasion and piloting parts were both a little more fleshed out with some content(e.g. orbital defenses), it could be a really fun game.

Angstrom by Daniel 2012-04-23T08:06:00

This game was good but felt "overscoped" in a few ways that were detrimental:

The art style had a nice manga feel, but it didn't translate to paperdoll animation well.

The physics didn't add a lot of substance to the game and the platforming felt sluggish. Mouse aiming was made quite difficult since backward firing was restricted.

The sound was mostly excellent but felt sparse during gameplay.

The cutscenes and story did a good job of drawing me in, but lacked a good conclusion.

Overall it felt like the game was building towards potentially interesting gameplay and story, but ended too quickly.

dLeIaFtEh by CoveBit 2012-04-23T07:47:00

The meaning was kind of vague but I enjoyed the mood + setting.

One Of A Kind by DDRKirby(ISQ) 2012-01-10T00:21:00

I eventually stopped at one of the later puzzles because it was getting pretty trial-and-error for me. I did like the idea though and had some fun with it.

You Don't Need To Be Alone by SusanTheCat 2012-01-09T23:56:00

The breadth of this game was very cool. It definitely could have done with more cutting and focus though; playing it, it's hard to get any idea of what actions are worthwhile.

Hyper Alone (Totally not helpless) by iFred_QC 2012-01-03T00:16:00

Nice work. I had a lot of fun with this, even with little flaws like being able to melee through walls - it deserves to be polished and perfected!

Stray Whisker by JigxorAndy 2011-12-31T05:53:00

Top notch. I kept waiting for the sad ending and it didn't happen, which was almost the unexpected thing given how many "art games" take that route!

Solved with Head by Steven Colling 2011-12-31T04:38:00

I actually played this one for quite a while. It deserves expansion!

Mr. Treevil's Lonely Heart by José Eduardo Terán 2011-12-26T03:51:00

The third level is sooo hard. I wish the game were less randomized but it had me playing for a long while.

You don't have to be alone by robashton 2011-12-26T03:45:00

Whatever you did in the loading phase, Firefox croaked on it in an endless loop.

Alone amongst Kittens by Rylius 2011-12-26T03:35:00

I had some fun with this one but my game ended suddenly when I ran off the right side of the map and was forced to run right forever.

I also had no idea how to "build a launchpad" which prompted the above misadventure.

The Last Metalface MK2 by Jeremy Stark 2011-12-26T03:18:00

404....

Project Robert Sean by vrld 2011-12-26T03:17:00

It seems to be too unfinished to be playable, particularly the crafting elements. I gave this one four or five tries and they all ended in various crashes.

Expecting a Call by devwil 2011-12-26T03:08:00

I generally agree with critics that there's something missing from this game. In my model of design I look for a mapping to language - what vocabulary is "in the world," and what is afforded to the player.

If I were trying to show telecommunications keeping people alone, I would try to develop it a bit beyond "clicking to satisfy the person." As it is, everything at the surface of the game suggests that people are, in fact, satisfied by receiving the call, and you are doing the right thing and earning points by helping them. Only through an artist's statement does the subtext gain weight - so it fails "show not tell."

I would instead try to depict how answering calls pushes people apart.

Maybe they are at a party and when you click to let them take a call, they can literally float offscreen, and everyone becomes slightly less happy.

Or I could cut it down to one person and assign numeric values to various activities, including using the phone, and make the downsides of the phone greater than the benefits. (this would be a bit of a "sledgehammer" approach but still effective)

The Last Shadow by Justin Mullin 2011-12-25T16:09:00

Like the concept. But it was unplayable on trackpad. I can't deal with mouse sensitivity so low.

My Own World by Jwatt 2011-12-22T22:53:00

I think the concept shows promise but will need a different iteration for me to really get into it. I don't mind the physics responsiveness and bounce, but the overall speed of play is quite fast and leaves no room to react - repetition until everything is muscle memory seems to be the only way to proceed.

The behavior of block drawing(rules of down-right vs. up-left) is perplexing from a player standpoint, and I don't know if a scrolling camera is appropriate - having the whole level visible might be better.

If there were a concrete reason why the player can draw blocks other than "just because," the theme of the game might gel a little bit better.

Space Wrench by Daniel X. Moore 2011-12-22T22:39:00

I think the use of turrets shooting bullets is what is making this one feel generic - if it were more strictly about survival instead of combat, or had some kind of "virus" spreading through the level that you can't stop, it would have been a lot more distinctive. The hidden items and use of a oxygen supply are good ideas though.

The sound cut out partway through for no apparent reason, and some of the later levels had bad performance. Pixie is looking better and better overall :)

Super Smash Lander Suicide Party, Bro? by Black Ships Fill the Sky 2011-12-22T22:24:00

The game is awesome. It's not lonely but I am willing to overlook that.

Frosthome by Jeck 2011-12-22T20:29:00

Crashes on load.

Cave Wanderer by GreaseMonkey 2011-12-21T02:39:00

Amazing stuff, using a real retro platform is way cooler than just faking it.

Ydunn by Randomasta 2011-12-19T12:46:00

You should finish this properly when you get time. It shows promise!

Are You Alone? by Zesh26 2011-12-19T12:41:00

It's very buggy. Are the ghosts supposed to move? I seem to be attacked by them invisibly at random, and then discover their dead bodies later on.

This may be a side effect, but it seems impossible to progress - you lose too much hp.

My own footsteps by mcc 2011-12-19T12:09:00

But I don't own a car... you should keep doing more with this aesthetic(even if you change frameworks). It's way cool.

Escapism by Dramble 2011-08-31T04:01:00

This feels likes it's right on the cusp of being a good art-game experience if it were fleshed out more. I think the main thing that is missing is a feeling of consequence. "Escaping" into the zombie game doesn't have any real effect on the rest of the game world - similarly, letting your money and energy go to 0 also do nothing. Introducing some dynamic that adds some tension and choice between the escapism and the "real" world could do a lot for the game and its meaning.

Escape! by DivideByZero 2011-08-26T06:27:00

+ It's playable and finished
- Gameplay has little relation to escape(if it weren't for the text there would be nothing to go on)
- It fails me with "out of time" when it really should say "clicked the wrong one." That one confused me for a bit.
- Even for this game, the shapes are too abstract and don't conjure any imagery for me.

To Hell And Back by Kayamon 2011-08-25T11:18:00

This is a pretty solid adventure game :)

Go, Fish! by zamza 2011-08-24T23:38:00

Nice work, you made a pretty well-rounded game :)

EscapeBot2 by ahnimal 2011-08-24T23:31:00

Controls didn't work for me. What I saw shows some promise though :)

Martin vs Monty by jonbro 2011-08-24T23:28:00

Can't rate, sorry :(

Self Destruct: Activated by jauntypixel 2011-08-24T22:57:00

The control is extremely inconsistent. I suspect that this is because Flixel uses a straight variable timestep(which makes physics behavior vary with framerate). The long hangtime is OK since you need it to shoot, but low horizontal dampening is not desirable for this kind of precise platformer.

Also, while I was able to figure out shooting the gun downwards, this mechanic was introduced as a requirement very suddenly. Up until that point I was having some fun with the game and liked seeing some simple puzzles mixed in, but that level put me into a rage between the new mechanics, the higher difficulty, and the control problems.

Also, I would have preferred sound effects to music given the choice since the music got pretty annoying.

Bomber Planet by adamatomic 2011-08-24T22:18:00

I wanted an automapper in it. It felt 80's in the bad way(time to break out the graph paper) without one.

I hope you expand this one, it could be a nice Zelda-style game with more items and truly unique areas.

Warden's Burden by Trancelucid 2011-08-24T01:13:00

Can't rate because of the "paused" problem.

AWOL by quickfingers 2011-08-24T00:45:00

I was confused by the control scheme the first time I played(managed to skip the instructions by accident and expected left/right to be "accelerate"). The second time I "got it" although it ran sluggishly for me on this laptop.

Very nice looking game.

Tall Butt by Luthwyhn 2011-08-23T11:15:00

I really liked this, I've never played Tablut before, so I'm giving 4/5 innovation just for reviving a "dead" game. I had to keep the rules text open while I played(something in-game would have been nice), made tons of bad mistakes, but the AI let me win anyway. Pretty much the only additional thing I'd want is better presentation.

ESCAPE by TerryDiF 2011-08-23T10:55:00

This one was tricky but cool. Sometimes the short distance for hotspotting objects faked me out(e.g. the lower drawer, the rug).

Don't Let 'Em... by headchant 2011-08-23T09:15:00

I'm going to pass on rating this because on my laptop's intel graphics, half of the gameplay sprites seen in the screenshot are not showing up or are showing up pure white.

Astar by intmain 2011-08-23T06:00:00

I liked this game. I think the sound could have been better(I would have preferred sound effects to music if it came down to a choice) but it was overall very well presented.

Hotel Escape by pgil 2011-08-23T01:18:00

I wasn't sure at first but when the real game started I was suitably impressed.

Cube Collapse by Martin Fasterholdt 2011-08-23T00:23:00

I like the concept but there's no feedback on how close you are to solving, which made me feel frustrated pretty quickly.

Dot Matrix by AJMilsom 2011-08-23T00:07:00

I enjoyed this and got all the way through it but never felt like I totally understood the mechanics of the teleporters. Maybe there is some other way to represent them that would have made it obvious to me?

Tetts escape! by zoral 2011-08-22T23:59:00

I couldn't run this on my laptop even after downloading the xna lib. I'll try later on my desktop.

This is your dream by stRana 2011-08-22T23:42:00

Despite this being so simple I played it over and over until I got to the "next morning." It was frustrating to find the hotspots yet at the same time it felt accurate for the "dream world" idea.

BATHOS by johanp 2011-08-22T23:24:00

It's the puzzle everyone talked about doing, but it was done well :)