wow, i have no idea how you managed to come up with and design a game with item synergies given the game jam duration, but this was great! love this take on the item-management based genre, backpack hero management gameplay contextualized with a more real time action top down experience is pretty fun! besides some balancing adjustments (3 sweatbands for the win xd), i feel that they all work really nicely with each other and provide good scaling for future waves! there were also a nice variety of enemies that synergized well with each other, making the combat feel tense and engaging! though i think the ai is a bit abusable since you can just take advantage of corners, since the bullets are big enough to usually collide with the corner if they stop at the right place (also your bullets being smaller than the enemies makes it easier for you to abuse this since it'll less likely for your bullets to collide with the corner). the random room generation is also very nice, but sometimes you can get really unlucky with the enemy spawning and run into scenarios where you can't really avoid getting hit. these are small nitpicks though and easily adjustable, the game is still really fun!

the abberated items locking their position creates a neat element of strategy in terms of how you want to try forming your inventory to future-proof yourself and not place yourself in potential bad positions later on down the line, which i think works pretty nicely in a game jam setting like this where people will only on average be playing for a few games, but at a broader scale i can see players constantly resetting and getting frustrated if the aberration rng doesn't go their way (especially since shop items are highly randomized). this next part is just me playing armchair game designer so you can skip it if you'd like (your game idea already works xd). to avoid this problem, i think instead of aberrations locking an item's position (which is a huge negative to the player) you can instead make items either weaker or have an inverse effect when aberrated (and can be sold for less than the original sell price). i think this allows for an interesting dynamic where player's are encouraged to frequently change their builds, constantly move around their items, and plan for future build pivots if they don't want to be affected by nerfed items (and it also allows players to experiment with the different items in the game more, thus engaging more with the game). though through slight nerfs, players can still opt to continue with their build that contains weaker items if the synergies are strong enough, allowing for players to make these kind of tough decisions during play. though again, the aberrations locking their positions is also a fun mechanic to engage with, this was just me doing a thought experiment xd!

the presentation also is really nice, again nice level generation with cool different themes to switch up the visuals! the spiral effect on the backgrounds of the shop and main menu look also really nice, adds some visual interest in the background through the spiral motion while not being too distracting! also love the attention to detail with the shop items where they tilt when you hover over them, feels very nice! every sprite asset just looks nice in general and feels consistent with the art-style that the game is aiming for! the BGM is also really nice to listen to, adds to the vibe of the game really nicely, well done!

overall, really fun game! whats here is already super addicting, and i could see this getting expanded even further to something really cool! great work!

Okay, fess up, you saw Balatro’s perspective shader on it’s cards and couldn’t help yourself right? 🤨

Jokes aside, it an interesting build system thinking about what ‘core’ items to grab and how those are placed. Seems like “abberiated” items hurt you here because you run into the situation were someone misplaces a core item turn 1, like I did with the casino and it’s a huge feel bad. Also, small touch I liked was how the basic enemy “sprays” instead of shooting dead-on predictably.

Some UX stuff:

• Some ‘not enough cash’ messages should be minimally short. the longer delay you have, the more frustration there is.
• I’d a box around the “Star” signs and just make them always show up as zones in the box so that info is always visible to the player, maybe have an item “shine” if it’s conditions are met.
• This might help you illustrated some better-looking items: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1pXyO0MKFg

I just finished trying out your game. You did an awesome job, the mechanics are really well implemented, and the shop system is just too cool. I almost forgot I was trying out a jam game, I genuinely kept playing in auto-pilot.

Also, I read a comment where you said that the tri-shot enemy was inspired by the primal aspid from Hollow Knight.

You got me there. tri-5 stars. You the goat <333

Great game!  This one was a lot of fun!  I really liked the music in the game and the puzzle backpack idea is really cool! 
Some of the items though incentivized me to not buy more since they could weaken my gun.  At some point, I pickup the sweatband and didn't want to get more items more than 3 items since it made my gun so strong. 

Nice rouge-like, with a ton of upgrades. I would like to see more features like bosses and more dynamic enemies that play off each other, like a melee enemy that rushes toward you while another shoots at you. I really like the randomly generated levels, it really makes the game more repetitive. I also made a rogue-like that reminds me a little of this. Great game that i will give a great score.

The backpack mechanic/inventory management puzzle is really interesting and provides some tangible buffs for the game. I wasn't certain if I was getting anywhere, but it's fun becoming stronger and creating good builds.

I enjoyed how the game was equal parts top-down shooter and inventory manager, that really switches up the gameplay and allows for a nice breather in between levels.

I felt the difficulty spike at around level 3-4 so I couldn't get much farther than that in my runs. Wish I could've seen more of what can be done with all the different builds. Also the trishot enemy is my nemesis.

This is a contender for one of my favourites. The main mechanic is very unique, and kept drawing me back in to find more cool items and make broken builds. And good job on making the enemy AI feel threatening, as it's hard to get that right when pathfinding in a randomly generated dungeon.

The backpack and shop mechanics are very original, and I really like how the placement matters and how objects synergize with each other. Also, good job on your implementation of procedurally generated dungeons. I didn't find any healing items in my first playthrough, so it was a little hard. Maybe you should always offer the option to buy hp in the shop.

I like the idea of the bag pack that empowers your abilities. It is quite amazing how many things you managed to implement. I especially like the line-of-site effect; it instantly makes the scene feel more alive. I didn’t get how to heal your HP, though. The gameplay for the jam is good, but it could feel more engaging if it gave some understanding of progress or purpose.

We definitely pulled from the same sources haha! I really like the shop system. I can see a full game with this concept! 

Unfortunately the core gameplay as is falls a bit short. Enemies are pretty stale and you see all there is to offer in the first couple of minutes. Aside from maybe increased numbers they didn't seem to get much harder and their behaviour to begin with wasn't different enough from each other. The spinning enemies are a cool idea, but since the other enemies can't path or shoot past them, they don't end up mattering unless they spawn in a corner hallway and get a free hit on you

I was really hoping for a boss fight, but then the game ended before I could get a screen grab of my items. I had a combo of money and life generation that meant I was functionally invincible as long as I was at my keyboard. I ended the game with well over 2k money, and all the inventory spots unlocked.

I think your core loop could use a little bit of "punching up". Some screen shake, some flashes stuff to make it feel more visceral. I kinda felt like I was peeing out the bullets, especially because they come out of the center of the sprite haha.
Even another weapon type would make the game feel a lot better. You could probably work it into the shop. Have your pistol start in your inventory (and be weaker), and you can buy new weapons and swap out to more powerful ones.

I hope you keep working on this after the jam! This has a ton of potential!

Interesting combination of a top-down shooter and inventory management with a twist. Great work! :)

Really interesting game, i really like the gameplay loop, it makes you try to think hard about what items you buy and sell because in the future you may not be able to do those things. The sound effects are satisfying and are clear about what happened. Great Game :D

cool game. Very satisfying puzzle and shooter

Pretty good. I liked the music too.

Interesting build system, its really the core of the game. Great to see more roguelikes on here.

Very neat build system!

The game is realy cool, it make me want to try again and again to get the best build :) The inventory management part is really well thought out, I would love to see this idea implemented with more feedback on the action level and more precise controls !

Having procedurally generated levels is perfect for a game like this so good solid design choice there

Wow! This game is so good I have played it multiple times already this could potentially become an actual good rogue-like game if you keep working on it, maybe after this jam you could make it so that you can pay to remove the aberration things to make it feel better