I got killed by the cop. The most difficult part of the game is that I am not always sure what my actions will do (does not answering mean I'm silent, or am I saying "yes"?), or even which response is negative or positive (ex. "Did you never do X" could be answered as "No, I never did X" or "No, I indeed did X"). In the case of the cop scene, my logic was "Well, since I don't have the option the drop the knife, I'll say 'No' since it's not possible". I think reworking the dialogue or just going to the "hands up" dialogue regardless of the player's choice could help. With "hands up", you're probably not going to say "no" to that. Plus, it still works if you're holding a knife.

One other minor thing was that it took me awhile to figure out that I was supposed to let the "no" run out for some dialogue. At first, I just assumed that it would give me a game over. Maybe changing the start screen to where you have the let it run out (instead of clicking) would help? This could just me a "me issue" though.

I really enjoyed your game and it's one of my favorites from this jam. I hope my feedback can be of some help.

The game was great! The cop scene wasn't to bad, realised I could fail if I did it wrong [or I assumed I could fail]

Comedy was good, and the angry detective jumpscare was weird/funny.

Also, is it possible to refuse the toaster?

I saw this on a stream before I played it so I am biased but the first time I played it I got through the cop scene okay. I tried it again on purpose and the one shot does seem quite harsh. I think if that had been my first experience I may not have realised there was more to the game or not wanted to go through the start again. The 2nd time I did all the opposite choices to the first time and you have added a lot of content in there nice job. 

I really like that the no concept is introduced in the menu. The part that I was not sure of was when I left it run out what my response was. Giving a triple refund could have been that I was saying yes or that I was just silently agreeing so I was not sure then. In the managers song it definitely seemed like I was just staying silent. In the interrogation it seemed like I was saying yes but I guess silence works there too. Maybe if someone commented directly on the response near the start like 'nothing to say aye' or something along those lines it would help explain exactly what the consequence of doing it is.

Just came back from giving it a play and a rate!

I actually think the mouse controls have potential, they feel pretty decent. You could afford to tweak and juice them up a bit, but I don't think anyone is expecting perfection from platformer game-feel in a jam scenario.

I do think however that they aren't a good fit for the time loop mechanic.

Take this early level for instance:

I know what I want to do, but actually executing feels needlessly difficult with the less-precise mouse controls. I think you have to decide what your game is testing the player on; their puzzle solving skills, or their mechanical execution?

You certainly can test the player on both, but if you do you need to make sure that they don't get in the way of each other.

I found interacting with my past-selves required a high level of precision, which would have been fine in a traditionally controlled platformer where it would be easier to commit the actions required to muscle memory.

Both ideas are good, but not together! Like ice-cream and sausage, better apart.

With the mouse-movement idea, the controls will probably feel better if you have a visual metaphor that sells it. Like my character is something which chases the mouse cursor, or something similar. Something that makes the player accept that their control is going to be a little bit less direct.

If you're doing that though, I think you'd want to find some interesting ways to play with the idea that the mouse cursor and character are separate, but related. What if the mouse needs to activate a switch, but doing so will cause the character to walk in a dangerous direction? It could make an interesting puzzle platformer! There could be some great mechanical jokes you could pull actually, could potentially be very fun to design.

In summary:

1. Mouse control is fine provided you're not asking me to do anything too hard.
2. If you're using mouse control in future, be playful and explore the design opportunities afforded by having to think about the characters location relative to the mouse.

Hmm, depends what you're going for.

If you're going for hard, which I think you are, I think the question is how you express difficulty.

Another way of thinking of it is asking yourself this question: "What am I testing the player on?"

Currently, your game is a bit of an endurance challenge. It becomes a question of whether you can keep the rhythm of jumping once you get it.

If you wanted to change what you were challenging, one option would be to shift toward designing a bunch of different configurations the two platforms appear in. Then each pair would serve as a micro-level, a little trial to be overcome quickly before the next pair appeared.

If you went in that direction, you might want to make the actual platforming easier (as players need to take in what's going on, and then execute a plan quickly).

If you stick with the endurance thing, you probably need a way to ramp challenge up over time. Maybe a steady increase in the rhythm of the platforms appearing?

You probably need to decide what it is you want the game to be, and why you want people to play it, to answer the too easy / too hard question. Does that make any sense?

1. I'm sorry I forgot to do the template,
   
   1. Level design and Enemy patterns.
   2. My goal was to introduce new mechanics to the player and ask them to think about the game in a different way.

First I need to check if I'M stuck and lost.

Is the way to beat the creator to close the tab and stop doing his dirty work?

If so, I get it.

If not, I don't and we can talk about WHY I don't, haha.

I think you could fix the problem of getting stuck with just some ui changes. I would have made the cryptic_hash always be visible and in exactly the same spot. That would make it much easier to detect something is going on in them. You may also want to introduce a way to look at previous sent requests/received hashes, so that the player can read back if it took them a little while to figure out what is going on. I do think it will stay a bit of a niche game, even with a better UI. That's not a bad thing though, you don't have to make something that caters to everyone, and I enjoyed the game :)

I'm having trouble getting the game to unzip, getting this error whenever I try to extract.

I really want to try it, I love the old windows style :(

I failed to escape, but I enjoyed the puzzles and was completely engrossed while I played! The only puzzle clue I didn't understand (ignoring all the others that I killed myself with) was the "number of steps". Once I counted the number in the image (and I'm unsure if the topmost "step" is actually the landing and should or should not be counted), I was at a loss as to what to do. I tried counting forward the number of characters, but got a letter and I moved on to other clues. What made the clues (even if I didn't understand them enough to win) work for me is that it was apparent what was a clue, but it was not obvious what the clue meant. Because of this, I never felt completely lost and could justify my (wrong) decisions.

I'm excited to see what all you add! My only worry is that adding too many will give the player choice overload/paralysis. With only one window, you have to keep a lot in your head. But, it probably won't be an issue.

So for context, I used to play guitar and I've studied music a little, but I'm by no means a musician.

I also play rhythm games a bit, and I'd say I'm neither great-nor-bad.

Your game is soooo bruuuutally haaaard.

It took me about 15 minutes to play THE LICK even once, and admittedly some of that was due to frame skipping, but still.

I think part of the difficulty there was due to the fact that I couldn't rest my hand, as I had to play five notes. This required me to shift my hand up one key to hit 5, then back down to reset for 3-12, which is quite tricky as is.

Add in movement and it's very, very hard.

I was able to defeat the first demon, but I feel like your mechanics are fighting each other a bit. The mouse movement doesn't really add anything to the game, perhaps the game could function more like a movement-less battle game?

I really, really like the idea of using music to fight and I understand that the one lick, one measure thing as to keep it on theme, but I think only being able to have the one lick affect gameplay gets in the way of being expressive with the music.

That said, having to actually pull of THE LICK does have a certain appeal.

What if instead of having to move around, each note of THE LICK did something? One note blocked attacks, one note attacked, etc. But you could only *finish enemies off* using THE LICK, otherwise they get some health back and get back up?

That way, you have the satisfaction of learning to play a piece of 'music', as well as some of the free expression of just hitting notes and grooving out on devils.

(as for the technical issues, I think there might be some pre-existing unity plug-ins which help with syncing game-play to rhythms and stuff, you might be able to find something there that helps with future rhythm games.)

Back in middle and high school, I was in band, so I know the basics of reading music. That being said, I had no early idea how I was supposed to sync up with the drums (never played with a non-symphonic band to be fair) until I listened to your audio and started head banging. After almost 30 minutes, I pulled off the lick (twice, apparently, but I only remember doing it once). It was so satisfying, almost like it was the Dark Souls of rhythm games.

I think having eighth notes being the first thing you have to pull off (at the game's tempo) is too fast. To make things more difficult, it is hard to use the keyboard to play. I have to both scrunch up my hand and twist it to cover the keys. Maybe a numpad would be better, but not everyone has one.

The only real cue you had for when to play (aside from the subtle camera shakes and the drum), was the music at the top (only at the beginning). I can't see someone who is unfamiliar with sheet music being able to read it without it lighting up in time with the drum (like in other rhythm games). Just having that up there as a visual refer for when to play (pros could still disable it if you wanted) could help a lot. Options for changing the bpm might help as well (sort of like custom difficulty).

I'm going to disagree with Crime Dog a little here and say that I think the movement controls could work as long as players were able to fall into a rhythm with the lick. If they were able to do that, they could focus on movement more and playing less (sort of what you said). I think it would also help to make the circle around the player bigger. That way if people still had a hard time, they would have to move less. I'd be interested in what others think though.

Your idea on paper gets me excited, and I did really enjoy pulling off the lick, so I think you had the right idea. The issue (for me at least) was the barrier to entry being too high.

Hmm, that's a really tricky question to answer! Maybe someone else can pipe in?

I feel that it does. The game clearly draws on twin-stick shooter design, and having one 'bullet' on screen at a time is atypical. 

I guess you COULD argue that your bullet doesn't behave entirely like a bullet (it stops where you shot it to, as opposed to continuing to travel), which may weaken the theme. That's pretty nitpicky though.

I rated it high on adherence, you'd probably need to find someone who disagrees and ask them why?

I posted what I liked about your game in the comments but as for specific feedback I think it would be good to have all the information for the player in one place. When I am attacking I am looking where I want to attack. When it is on cool down was not obvious to me until I saw it up the top. This gave me the impression that it was not working. Once I saw the timer I understood it but I had to keep looking away from the enemies I was trying to kite. If you had the information on the mouse cursor like it was red on cooldown then slowly turned green when I could attack again I think it would feel more fluid. I had similar feedback in another jam I did with https://n00begon.itch.io/time-stream where you had to keep looking at the top of the screen rather than at the enemies. I think all the pieces are there you just need to make sure all the information is easy to access for the player and it will feel better. Like your screenshake and slow motion make them feel badass now you just need to make it more obvious when you can move so it feels more fluid.

It might also be worth defaulting the position the dash aims for as where the player holds down the mouse? There were a lot of times when I went to dash somewhere and then had to readjust my cursor away from the point where I wanted to dash... felt a little counter-intuitive. You've done a good job of juicing what you have though!

I think you could probably benefit a lot from watching people play over their shoulders, if you can get some people sitting in front of the game. See what they try to do first.

Hi n00begon!

I felt that each of the other entities in your game did a good job of feeling abrasive/unhelpful, but the part that really got ME personally was toward the end.

When those slightly more blue shouty people vortex you in and debuff your speed, I found myself thinking 'shit man, just leave me alone, I just want to reach the top of the goddamn screen'. And tell you what, I've had a lot of days where I've felt like that.

It's a good mechanical representation of trying to get through a day with a depression, you did well.

If you were looking to improve it further, one area might be making the character at the end who does you kindness a bit punchier mechanically. Removing the speed debuff from the shouters is excellent, but it would be nice if they also followed you as you moved to help you feel like you two were interacting.

Of course, that's only really relevant if you interpret it like I did, which was meeting someone who you could share your day with.

If you're going the random act of kindness from a stranger who ISN'T going to be in your life from there forward, perhaps there should be a part at the end that is impassable until the stranger is kind to you.

Perhaps an effect like pushing through wind, or something similar. I think you tried to do it with the crowd earlier, which was really effective, but one more beat which REQUIRES the strangers help would I think make the message hit harder!

It seems like I got the same interpretation as Crime Dog. I felt depressed/sad until the end and then waited a good minute just listening to the music and thinking about the game. As the character at the end didn't follow me I just pushed it to the top with me :) The crowd part was also a strong one, having to force your way to the top.

The constant death during the tutorial while I was trying to figure it out slowed the learning process considerably, and I was often dying without actually learning anything. Every death should really be a lesson in a game like this.

Your idea of having the teleporters already set is a good one, I would build on that.

A level or two where you just have to platform existing teleporters to give you a chance to get used to the platforming physics is good.

I think the next step after that would be to design a number of levels where you have to MODIFY an existing set of teleporters to make the cycle more favorable for you (for inspiration, have a look at timing-based platforming challenges in existing games, then modify them so they become impossible and the player has to fix them by affecting the teleporters).

I think your idea is a little hamstrung by the theme here, as the idea of changing the cycles of level elements in a platformer manually is a really cool twist on the genre, but being restricted to a single block (especially having it dissapear as soon as you move) really limits what you can do.

If you do stick with the one block idea, I'd double or even triple how long the ticks last for blocks; currently the platforming challenge is very high, right from the word go.

Another way to reduce complexity might be to not have all of the teleporter functionality active from the start.

You already do this a bit with the maximum-time limitations on certain teleporters, but it could be good to only have some of the more complex functionality come in later too (you could colour code the teleporters or have them in some way visually different when they have extra functionality. Bonus points if the visual difference is a tactile thing I click to activate or modify that function).

Sorry for the wall of text!

To summarize, the strongest part of the game in my opinion (for whatever that's worth) is modifying the cycles in platforming challenges manually to make them possible, or favorable. There's a huge design space to play with there, just be gentler on the players and maybe drop the one block limitation post-jam if you find you're not getting great levels out of the restriction!

Hey, great trailer!

I'm pretty tired and about 5 minutes off bed (Australian time here), so if you don't mind I'll pop back tomorrow so I can give you answers that actually make sense, and aren't just the sleep-deprived ravings of a madman.

Hi Joshuahuk!

I like the feeling of being lost in a videogame, but...

I hate the feeling of being lost in a videogame.

It depends on the game.

So, for context I will turn off every navigational aid in an open world game if it'll let me, and some of my fondest gaming memories involve being lost in games like Morrowind.

Buuuuut...

It's a very similar question to 'should the character of my game move fast?'.

The answer depends entirely on the context of the entire game around it. 

That's kind of a cop out answer, so to elaborate a little further, let's change the question:

What does the player get out of being lost in your game?

• Is it an interesting experience?
• If it isn't, should it be?
• If it shouldn't, why can the player get lost?

Basically, is getting lost in your game interesting, and do you want it to be?

Currently, I don't think your game benefits from having players feel lost, because being lost in your game isn't interesting. Getting lost and finding my way again doesn't really lead to me making any compelling decisions as a player, it just extends playtime.

(Sidenote: I didn't get lost in your game particularly due to that signal prompt.)

Now, you could make getting lost interesting if you wanted to!

Maybe getting lost leads to stumbling into greater challenges, or greater rewards.

Maybe it drains resources, and players have to improvise to survive.

Maybe the actual process of navigation is an interesting challenge (orienteering with maps, landmarks, vague directions, etc.)

There's heaps of thing that you could do, but do you actually WANT to them?

Because it's totally valid to just not have the player get lost at all. (In fact, it usually allows you to designer tighter, more exciting levels)

If you're making a top down action game (which I think this game is), getting lost is probably just a distraction from what your game is focused on, which is chainsawing hordes of the undead.

Horror, as a genre, relies on dis-empowerment (horror), or the threat of imminent dis-empowerment (survival horror: the threat of running out of the resources you need to survive).

Your game doesn't dis-empower the player (I am a chainsaw wielding flannel god of death),  which is fantastic for an action game, but also means it's not enough of a horror game for any of the genres traditions to be relevant to you.

This is a very long answer to a very short question, so to sum up:

1: If you go the action route, don't let the player get lost

2: If you go the horror route, only let the player get lost if you can make being lost interesting

If you really want to hybridize action and horror, I'd look to survival horror for examples. The genre manages to balance both elements with varying degrees of success.

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere, but your game is one I'm planning to come back to.

I'll probably need a little more time than I have right now to give you a really good answer on this.

I was planning to sit down and play it again at some point over the next few days, so I'll hit you up here (or somewhere, think I'm following you) when I get the chance to reeeeally sink my teeth in.

I think more than anything a game like yours is one of those where you really FEEL out what's good/not good (although a better designer than I might have a more objective answer).

I'll get back to you!

Hi dragon_hatcher!

I had a go without the instructions first and was quite confused. With the instructions I didn't have a problem understanding, you're quite a good technical writer.

As for strategy, I maxed archers in all 4 towers then spammed all money into healing them. That seemed to go alright for me in the time I played? I cycled between towers in a generally clockwise direction.

I haven't played it multiple times yet, but I can safely posit that yes, it would be easy once you get the strategy down, as the game is more about thinking of a strategy than executing a strategy (which is fine if that's what you're making, it just means you need to make a bunch of levels)

On the fun thing, I really like that the game is about multitasking (it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but there are people who enjoy it) and the formation system is cool (although I didn't really have to use it to defend my towers effectively). 

I think it's worth playing around with making some crazy changes to what you've got and seeing how it affects how the game feels! I think it's a bit premature to worry too much about difficulty and such at this point;  you're early enough in development that you can still try some wild game-play experiments! Sometimes this is referred to as 'finding the fun', and it gets heaps harder to do later in development when it's harder to change your project.

You could try some experiments using what you've got as a base to see if you can solve some of your instructional / strategy issues. Stuff like the following:

• What if there were two or three towers instead, but the game took place on a single screen, and was more zoomed out?
• Currently a lot of your action happens off-camera, and I watch it on the minimap. Having it all on one screen could help communicate the concept of your game at a glance to players, as well as making sure that they don't miss anything.
• If you did try putting the game on one screen, you'd probably have to slow player movement considerably to preserve the tactical considerations of where you put your characters.

• What if the towers were more capable, but even more directly dependent on your support?
• Maybe try making towers heaps better at defending themselves, but they run out of arrows unless the patrol retrieves them from slain foes, or towers do fine against weaker enemies, but large siege bosses appear that out-range the tower, or battering rams that are immune to arrows. Something that really obviously demands the players attention.
• What if gold is something the patrol has to retrieve / mine / fight for / steal, and carry with them rather than gold being generated in towers?

• What if the level itself had more natural obstacles?

• What if the endgame wasn't to spend a few minutes in each tower, but instead required you to destroy the heavily guarded monster spawner or something? You need to defend your towers long enough for your patrol to increase in power enough to attack a spawner, or something similar?

Some of these are easier to try than others depending on how comfortable you are with programming. Try the easy ones first, if you feel like it!

These are all pretty random ideas, and a game that used all of them would probably be a little confused, but what I'm trying to get at is that there's a lot of different directions you could take what you've got, and the best way to find out which way you want to take it is to try a lot of different stuff and see what you find the most compelling!

Basically, try and riff on what you've got and see how different you can make different versions of the prototype. 

In a way, by making this jam game, you've narrowed down the entirety of all existing game design patterns and elements to a handful that you find really interesting (a number of which aren't traditionally found together).

Think of what you've got here as your ingredients! How many recipes can you make? How different can you make them taste? Which ones are your favorites?

Don't be afraid to try stuff that doesn't work, or anything like that. You can fix it all later.

I guess I'm proposing the game design equivalent of sketching. You've got a set of elements that are really easy and fun to remix, and I think you should play with them more before you settle in and try to balance stuff!