"Unnecessary Sequels" - Awful Summer Jam 2018

Yosemite Birding: Birds Gone Wild! takes the informative edutainment model of the original Yosemite Birding and allows you to date your birds. It's about as fun and goofy as it sounds. It's a taste of something that could be a very unique anf dull featured experience that needs a little work but has an incredibly entertaining start.

Liked
+ Music and SFX were spot on for a dating game
+ Fun, cute, and sexy art style
+ Fun interactions with the different birds

Needs Work
- Art is a bit scattershot
- Sometimes hard to know what a bird will like
- Under utilized overworld

I absolutely love this concept. Learning actual bird facts and then using that information to woo a pretty birdy is just absurd enough, without going too far and just being a mess. I would love to see this further developed, but that does bring some of the issue. The game doesn't quite feel complete. If you had to explore maps looking for items to give to your bird, and interacting with other npcs on those maps to learn more it would turn the dating into a kind of puzzle you need to solve. Also a Wing Man helper.

There is a lot of good art in the game, but there are multiple different styles that kind of clash with each other. There's a lot of cartoonish iconography in the UI, but then the birds are hyper detailed until you take their picture. Having the art feel more cohesive would be nice. Really I'd want to bring more of the art closer to the realistic side because the buff birds are hilarious.

Overall, I think there is true potential in this idea as a sellable product, that would actually sneak in a lot of cool information about birds when you aren't paying attention and I really hope to see this project continued.

-James Rossi

Elevator pitch
Yosemite Birding but it's a dating sim

Describe how your game adheres to the theme
Nobody wanted this but now it's here and you have to play it.

Playing it makes you yearn for an actual sequel to Yosemite Birding. (https://gunzil.itch.io/yosemite-birding)

Comments

SAGiggsSubmitted6 years ago(+1)

Pros:

Funny
Weird
Good development on previous jam game

Cons:

Ending was a bit short and anticlimactic
No instructions whatsoever

Here & There:

Missed this on the Gong Show and boy am I glad I did. I absolutely didn't expect this even despite the title. It had a great mix of silly humour and interesting bird facts. I don't know where this bird knowledge comes from, but it's engaging enough to get me to research birds which I rarely ever do. I looked up each bird after I got confused with the first and how to know what they liked, then I read an article with Richard Prum about the blue keratin-and-air-pocket thing which was interesting. Ultigonio's music is a highlight, as usual. I would have liked an intro and a more fleshed out outro because what's there felt a bit cut-off but that's no big problem. I don't know what else to say, this was fun and strange and I enjoyed it. Nice!

Submitted

Story Time with Grampum Peepmpop 2: Revenge of Puppem Gramma

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RaujinnSubmitted6 years ago(+1)

This was a genuinely fun little Visual Novel! I like how it felt to get little clues of how to get in with them birds.

Presentation, sound, writing, pretty much all of it was great!

The only minor issue I had was initially I had no idea what the goal was or how the heart mechanic was working (having the same sound for raising and decreasing heart-rate might have confused me, not sure).

Submitted

Pong II: Legend of the Ball Paddlers

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AlruniaSubmitted6 years ago(+1)

LEARNED SO MUCH ABOUT BIRDS AW YEAH. Love how the educational content never stops, not even when you're "done" and finally getting a photo of your chosen bird, but also doesn't ever feel annoying or out of place. Actually there's a LOT to love about this game, for me the biggest thing is how skillfully you transformed Dating Sim mechanics to be about hanging out with ridiculously sexy birds instead of creeping on schoolgirls or what have you. The vaguely gross beating heart to represent heartrate was my second fave.

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The Last Panderling II

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AnActualWizardSubmitted6 years ago(+1)

I learned and I loved. Silly concept but it kept a smile on my face throughout.

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Where the Red Fern Still Grows

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VStudiosCreations6 years ago(+1)

This was a really interesting game. I was really engrossed by the education and making the birds happy. Nice work!

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TomRSubmitted6 years ago(+1)