Was unable to get it to load without crashing on any of the 3 emulators I tried for Mac :( shame cos it looks awesome, and the fact you actually did a .gb file is incredible. Nice job for getting it done! I'll have another go on PC later and see if I can get it working on a diff emulator.

edit: Ok so I got it working now, for some reason it works perfectly on anything on my PC but my work mac did not like it.

Biotic Limit is a horizontally scrolling shooter that sees you playing as a white blood cell that has to patrol blood vessels and exterminate infection! There's quite a lot of variety of enemies given the short timespan and the fact this is on an actual gameboy, the death animation is really cool and an interesting use of the 8x8 sprite sizes.

The antibiotic power could be a little more powerful I guess, but the screen isn't filled with enemies all the time so it's not that big an issue. Some of the multi-hit enemies don't make a sound or indicate that they've been damaged.

Really cool game! Nice work!

Kitty Quest is mine! https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-5/rate/90133

Kitty Quest seems really decent. I like that it plays really smooth and the visuals are pleasant. Sadly the UI bugged out when I died once.

Gave you a very good rating, good job!

This is mine https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-5/rate/89913

Panzermann vs Spielejunge! It reminded me of the old good times playing Battle city on my Gameboy! Also I'm experiencing a bug with the Unity's webgl builds here, the input axis is always pushing the player to the right so I have to hold left to stop it, no idea why! still had fun playing it!

Here is mine -> https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-5/rate/89228

Nightingale: Dying Commander is a Fire Emblem-esque tactics game in which you control a small band of warriors fighting their way through enemy territory. The game features perma-death, so if one of your teammates dies in battle, they are lost forever.

The visuals in this game are stellar. The title screens feature detailed pixel art, while the combat sections are clear and straightforward. UI and sound effects are all nice, too.

The perma-death is a really excellent addition. The characters in your squad all have names, and you really feel an emotional gut-punch when one of them dies. The game is quite hard as a result, but the difficulty curve is pretty smooth.

One gripe I have is the game doesn't explain its combat systems very well. You can attack enemies adjacent to you, but I didn't realize you could dash over an extra space to hit an opponent. Knowing exactly what you can and can't do in the game, rather than having to figure it out, would have spared me some trial and error that cost me precious team members. Enemy AI is a bit inconsistent, but is overall very strong.

Overall, I think this is an exceptional entry, giving a great GB Jam spin on tactics games and managing to deliver an emotional experience in a very short time.

Here's mine: What Was Left In The Arena:

https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-5/rate/90341

I like this idea. I look at all the entries and I get overwhelmed, but seeing just the 1 above me makes it easier to find something to play.

REVIEW OF WHAT WAS LEFT IN THE ARENA

Well you have the resolution correct, but I question the choice of yellow and black. Maybe your GameBoy screen is just so old or contrasted sitting in the sun that this is what it turned to. I suppose in a sea of green, it will help you stand out.

Anyway, the game is a fight simulator with a point and click game visual aesthetic. There is a good amount of talking as the story revolves around you being stuck in a dungeon and forced to fight other prisoners.

The fighting is simple, up and down to block respectively, left to dodge an upper cut and right to punch. Think of it like a side view of Mike Tyson's punch out with different controls. In a way its like simon says. You follow the foe's movements, although a few times I was lead to believe there would be a high punch and it was a low punch.

When the player gets hit I feel it, I can see him get knocked back and forth and that's good. However, the lack of effect of your punches is my real sticking point here. My punches aren't even hitting their target, yet I guess they're hitting? On the plus side, what did feel good was knocking the opponent down and the mounted punching. Having to left and right. The red on yellow color scheme accented things nicely for the blood while still maintaining the four colors.

I do like the feeling of progression, winning fight after fight unlocking the next area just beyond a guarded door. Its a nice detail. One thing that did bother me is how close to the edge of the screen I need to be in order to push the map forward.

Overall, its a fair little game that I think polish and improving how the fighting feels will go a long way.

If anyone would like to review our little MetroidVania here it is:
AlienVania
https://sitebender.itch.io/alienvania

AlienVania Review

This was a fun little game. The shooting was satisfying and I liked how the particle effects were done. The ending was pretty funny, I was fooled and didn't think there was going to be a boss but there was! Also I read everything after that, if you care to know. The music was really nice, it wasn't banging or interesting enough that I'd want to actively listen to it on repeat but it was nice for background music and gave the game a cute ambiance.The art as a whole was very nice although I think the default palette should have been the 5th one I believe it was? One of the available palettes towards the end that has nice contrasts, definitely better than the default!

I noticed in the options menu a little oversight, it checks for inputs down every frame rather than checking if a key was just pressed down or released, which means it cycles through the options very quickly when you press left or right. There were some issues with the climbing mechanic as you remarked at the end but it wasn't overly annoying.

I think the biggest issue in this game is a big combination of weak proportions and controls. First off, your character is very tall compared to the monsters, and the speed at which they and bullets move compared to the space you take, makes the game harder than it should be. However that is not the only problem, because this issue could have been avoided if you could crouch and aim up as well as diagonally. On the other hand, it wasn't that bad because you had a lot of health to offset it, but still was kind of dull.

The level design was nice but not always, there were some level design choices at certain places but nothing major. Also, it was hard to discern where you could walk and what was the scenery sometimes.

Finally, one nitpick I could add on weapons is that the muzzle flash should render over the gun, not behind.

All in all, it was a good entry. Some issues for sure but it was fun and all of the weapons were very satisfying to use.

Since no game was suggested, I will take a look at both Worldwide Weirdos and One Strike.

Worldwide Weirdos

I found myself questioning whether or not this game was made with four colours...if I'm not mistaken, black and white also count as colours, not to mention shades. I mean, if that was some good use of the colours simply being dispersed around the palette to look otherwise, colour me impressed. The graphics themselves, however, are actually pretty nice and fitting for a game with this sort of idea. I liked the globe, too.

I can see why such a game like this would come off as offensive. After all, it plays off of stereotypes with the voices and the premises, etc. But as a Canadian, I found the first mini game to be kind of hilarious. Can't say exactly how I felt about the other ones, though. It would have been ideal to include a tutorial at the beginning of each mini game. Even just a bit of text that says which keys to press and what actions they do. While the first two games were pretty self explanatory, I couldn't figure out how to play the snake charmer one or the fighting one (which I read was broken, but still would've been nice to know).

That was probably my biggest issue with the game overall, along with the questionable palette and uncompletable stage 4. The audio and graphics, even the gameplay premise, are fine.

One Strike

I didn't have another player available to try this out with me, but I was definitely reminded of Yojimbrawl, except in this one it's a 1 hit KO. The thing that stands out most to me about this is the detailed background, not to mention the design of the players themselves. I think it's interesting that there's no jumping involved, just fighting and dodging. The sounds were fitting; I like them. There really isn't much to say about the game besides that, since you basically just play endlessly until you quit it seems. So a next step for a post jam version could be to incorporate a points system, perhaps. (And maybe change the player count on your page to 2 instead of single player :P )

I'm going to pick the game I helped contribute to during the jam, Angler. :D

REVIEW OF ANGLER

Angler is a challenging and engaging game that puts you in the water as an angler fish. You need to eat 42 lesser fish in an undersea maze while dodging sharks, urchins and jellyfish. Oh the jellyfish. I enjoyed the game, the music is soothing and the blue four tones make it stand out from the pack of other GameBoy games. It took a lot of calming skill navigating the west half of the map with the tight tunnels and spikes.

There's a good variety of hazards to keep you on your toes or cudals. The only real issue here was the screen size and abundance of jellyfish in the southeast quadrant. Since the jellies dash at you there's not that much reaction time, but you do have plenty of health. Otherwise there are health heart fish you can touch to replenish a heart on your five heart health meter.

I think the details are great, the waving grass, the scuba diver among the sharks. Its good to just explore and relax until you find big angry predators. If you wanted to push the game further I can only recommend a timer and even percentages of how many feeder fish you can eat in the time.

There were a few issues, such as going to the map, I couldn't always get back without using the mouse. Sometimes I would go to the map and then press enter to get back out of it just fine. The other odd issue happened only once and that was touching a feeder fish for the first time with my angler seemed to freeze the game for half a minute, but after that, there were no problems.

I like the game.

Since I've already had my game reviewed in this thread (AlienVania).... I went to the submissions page and just found the first game.

The Visitors

https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-5/rate/90385

I think its a good game to suggest, because the default image shows nothing about the game and there are no screenshots. You're going in blind!!!!

Since I did not realize AlienVania was already reviewed, I did two reviews!

AlienVania
AlienVania is a nice platformer featuring super-juicy pixel art, a wide selection of weapons and enemies.
After few istants playing this game, you will realize it is very polished, from the game menu to the gameplay.
I particularly enjoyed the splatter effect when killing enemies and totally loved the music.
The size of the map and the quality of the graphics is impressive for a jam entry.
If you really need to find a small flaw, maybe a few things like explosion particles are not pixel-aligned, but that's not a problem to me.
What to say more? Try it, and you will have a nice surprise near the ending.
Music: 4/5
Visuals: 5/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Design: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

Wild Goose Chase
Wild Goose Chase is a nice meat boy inspired platformer, you play the role of a very nice character in his task of rescuing a goose.
Controls feel very balanced, graphics are essential but stylish and it's very fun to play.
I enjoyed how the tutorials got inside the level art: I would recommend it to give it a try!
Music: 2/5
Visuals: 3/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Design: 3/5

Overall: 3/5

My game is called Phone Throttle (https://santarcade.itch.io/phone-throttle) it's an HTML5 game where you do wheelies with a scooter, controlling it with your phone gyroscope but watching the gameplay on your desktop browser.
Unluckily, it requires an Android phone with gyroscope in order to play it.
Give it a try and let me know!

Review of Phone Throttle

The first blocker was the fact I have an iphone. The game does not work with one. I tried with a nexus 10.

The main menu doesn't say anything about the game, just a couple of images with the game's logo above. The QR code disappears to fast for my skill with the QR reader app.

Once I got the game running, my first impression was that the motorcycle was moving randomly. After a couple of minutes figuring it out, I found the correct positioning for my device. It's a hard game tho. I manage to get 48 points somehow. But I got bored after a couple of minutes trying & failing.

Technically the game is awesome, the developer achieved a simple way to sync two devices. The graphics are just ok, they work. The same for special effects. The game doesn't have music, just the main menu.

• Music: 1/5
• Visuals: 3/5
• Gameplay: 3/5
• Design: 4/5
• Overall: 2.75/5

My game is Le Gatuno: https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-5/rate/88875

Cheers!

One Strike review

Was looking at this for a while. Totally got into the mood and style when I saw screenshots.

The graphics are amazing, the animations very nice. Although I wished that the main characters were better visible against the background. Using the the mid color for the faces and sky only may have been wasteful. The outlines help a lot though! I just wonder if the overall visual was a bit easier to read if the background was one tone brighter.

This 2 player mode is addictive. It is a very basic concept of movement but it gives enough possibilities to develop strategic moves. The tension when waiting for your opponents move really fits the overall theme of the game. Good job, you totally deserve this!

The hit animations help motivating for a clear strike. Too much gore for my friend but I loved the reference to Japanese cinema gore in Lone Wolf And Cub style.

We had trouble distinguish a clear win of a session some time. Kind of felt a info screen was missing, sometimes on a rushed round we would almost oversee that the session was over. Also a winning screen, sound etc. might help motivating for the next round and gives the winner opportunity to cheer. Compare Street Fighter II and any other fighting game.

Also sad it did not have music or minimalist sound design to accomplish the stage. The sword hit sound was a bit too much if you ask me. Too loud and deep. I expected a "slice" instead, but this may be me. Please work on the sound, that would add a lot to the atmosphere of this game.

I hope this review was helpful and you find some time to address issues that you find apply.

Here's my game Beat-Up-Boy: https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-5/rate/90271

Demi-God Review:

I'm not sure how to categorize it, but I'll try: Demi-God is a side-scrolling beat em up/shooting game where you have to advance forward while beating waves of enemies.

The game is very short with only around 4 waves, but it's just the right length for the amount of content present and doesn't overstay it's welcome.

At first, I just clicked the game window to get the focus, and it automatically advanced the title screen with the controls, if you wouldn't have had the controls on the game page, I would have missed them.

The transforming was a nice touch, although I'm still not exactly sure, what the animation is supposed to represent. The bullets you can shoot felt IMHO too weak, it could help to make them faster and bigger.

Killing the bats felt much better, than killing the aliens(?), because they died within one hit. And hitting the aliens the first time, did not really give any audio/visual feedback.

The music was a noticeable short loop, but nevertheless it did not get annoying.

I just saw that the art looks crisp in the screenshots, but when actually playing the graphics look blurry. Seems like they get scaled with "Linear" instead of "Nearest" Interpolation.

I reckon this might have been one of your first games? Don't be discouraged, if I sound overly negative/critic, I hope you see it as a way to learn how to improve the next time around.

Our game Pixel Soldier

Pixel Soldier review:

Difficulty scales up quickly but effectively; with simple sound and graphics, it looks like you were able to focus on developing interesting/satisfying mechanics, and on that front this game really delivers. The effect of hopping around the screen to dodge bullets is made to be a bit more rewarding because it also improves the speed with which you can dodge enemy missiles, making a skilled player able to avoid taking damage while knocking out the challenges set before them.

Supports a waves/ boss style; I'd say something a little clearer in the game itself about what the controls are might be helpful, the first time I was sure what all my options were was after I decided to try remapping them to see if I was missing anything. (They are in the gamepage though so that is helpful as well).

Music and graphics are a bit on the simple side but I feel like that suits the game's style and contributes to the overall gameboy feel. Bosses drop health boosters but I didn't see any power-ups along the way, I'd say that's what I want out of potential future additions to this game's development: the ability to shoot different projectiles, more of them, etc, as a direct result of the bosses killed and such to keep the gameplay robust as players progress.

Overall I'd give it a 4/5 stars, especially considering it's a GBJam game but looks rather polished.

My game is The Curse of Talon Cyphyr

The Curse of Talon Cyphyr is a collect-a-thon styled platformer where you play as a little dog named Talon and collect berries.

The game didn't feel too long or too short which is something that I always appreciate. It appeared to have five different levels to the best of my knowledge, with an intro room and a central hub.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the choice in the color palette. Rather than being monochrome, the developer decided to broaden the palette a little with purple and orange, giving it more of an early GameBoy Color vibe- and it looks nice.

The game plays with you going through each level collecting berries in order to activate an NPC who then opens a barrier in the level which allows you to collect some... stuff. When you pick up berries, you need to howl which turns them white and allows you to gather/eat them. I'm honestly not quite sold on this mechanic, as it tends to unnecessarily slow the game down. I think that having either howling or pressing down to collect the berries would be sufficient, rather than needing to do both which ends up feeling redundant. Perhaps some other uses for howling would alleviate that issue as well!

The sound overall is pretty good. The sounds are typical GameBoy sounds and the music is pretty enjoyable to have in the background. More variety in the music would be welcome, however. Since there is a stage or two that just continues playing the hub music, I suspect that the developer simply ran out of time or didn't have more music prepared which is to be expected in jams.

The player control feels a little rough around the edges and could benefit from a little more polish. Jumping essentially teleports you in the air rather that actually jumping you, and the jump itself could probably stand to be given a little more height. Nothing too aggravating but worth noting nonetheless.

Now, I'm not sure if there's an ending. I (at least I think I did) collected all the items, berries, and spoke to everyone. When nothing happened, I noticed that the levels reset themselves when you leave and renter along with all of their items. Of course I could have just missed something and if I did, I apologize.

I think the level design could use a bit more variety as the obstacles are pretty much the same through all the levels with the exception of water in the first level and the spikes in the last one. I understand this is because of the jam (I know I wanted my game to have more variety but such is how it goes), but with the future in mind some gimmicks would be interesting.

Overall I had fun with it. I think with some spit-shine, the game could be pretty interesting. It gives me a castlevania vibe from the aesthetic with some collect-a-thon style things going on, which is a good thing.

P.S. to the developer: Please don't take my criticisms too personally. I tend to critique much more easily than I compliment, so if the ratio of compliments to complaints is off, I apologize.

My game is Super Skater Kid.

Super Skater Kid Review

Oh my, what a fun game!

The concept is pretty simple: You're a bold skater on a suicide mission to be the best avoiding bicycles, jumping over cars and collecting coins. While you do that, you can and should be even more daring and perform radical maneuvers to win more points.

The music and sfxs are perfect for the game. Also the presentation.

The gameplay is where this game really shines. Its super fun jumping over cars, doing tricks and avoiding bicycles at the same time. The level progression is very well thought. Even though the game is difficult, you want to play more.

Where i think you could improve:

- Its kinda hard to see when the skate tricks are finished and sometimes you lose lives wondering why. A more visual effect could better tell this moment (maybe a action circle?). This should give the player more control of the jump and to better decide when to do a trick. Also, the maneuvers could be more flashy, its hard to see what he is doing since you have to pay attention to what is coming next.

- Background looks rushed.

Overall, i really think you should continue developing this game.

• Music: 5/5
• Visuals: 3/5
• Gameplay: 5/5
• Design: 4/5
• Overall: 4.25/5

My game is One Strike: https://inc4nus.itch.io/onestrike

If you gonna review this one, PLEASE play with someone, since its a 2p game.