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A jam submission

Out Of CTRLView game page

A frantic human vs. computer click-'em-up.
Submitted by jamfizz — 4 hours, 55 minutes before the deadline
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Out Of CTRL's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#6613.5283.528
Originality#7623.6673.667
Presentation#8753.6393.639
Fun#9213.2783.278

Ranked from 36 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
You are fighting against an out of control computer partially because you literally lost your control keys.

Did your team create the art for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

Yes

We created all art during the game jam

Did your team create the audio for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Submitted

Yay I make it! Great game! Simple but cool, I like the end :) 

(+1)

The easiest way to describe it is probably as a frantic hybrid between Avoider and clicker games. I managed to win but still do not understand what the exact consequences of the glitches are in terms of progress. Plus, they seem to speed up after some condition is met (perhaps a timer after spawn or proximity to mouse?), but I am also unclear on that. For posterity, the way I won was by paying only mild attention to the glitches and focusing more on constantly & rapidly clicking while dragging the cursor around to close the pop-ups until I got down to just a few. Basically a button-mashing approach. I don't really understand how I won, to be honest.

The visual and contextual theming is well done. The overall aesthetic vibe leans on the cute side and reminded me of Beglitched on iOS. The game states and UX/UI are all there as well, menus and win screens and all. If the audio was not using pre-existing assets, I would have given the presentation 4 stars instead. Everything was very fitting, save for perhaps visual distinction of the glitches, which got a little hard to see in the clutter.

It's a cute message-in-a-bottle sort of game. It's the type you play once, appreciate the idea/motif, and are done. Not every game has to have great replayability or offer lengthy playtime. Some games, like this one, are mainly about executing the one punchline well. In that regard, I think it did pretty well (minus needing some balance tweaking perhaps).

Overall, a solid and very complete experience. I liked it well enough, as I prefer games that have a clear identity, and this one captured exactly what it intended to be. Good work, but I won't be playing again.

P.S. Now come and take your pop-ups away, please. They are like a relative's kids: cute initially but turn annoying from the first half-hour onwards.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your critique! When the glitches hit you they scramble the pop-ups around and lower our health, if your health goes down entirely you'll lose (your computer will fry). The glitches spawn at a low speed and then accelerate at different rates based on how many have spawned, and how many tabs have been closed (same for how often they spawn). As stated in the instructions (and many times in these comments unfortunately) you win by clicking on the CTRL key advertisement when there are no pop-ups (except heals) on screen.

I unfortunately couldn't compose my own music due to time constraints but I feel what I found fit the design of the game well. The glitches are supposed to not be entirely visible to 'sneak attack' you and hopefully divide your attention but I understand how that can be confusing.

It's a simple browser game, so it's not really made to be played over and over unless you want to get a new time record. 

This is my first game jam game (and first game at all) so I appreciate your honest feedback. Thank you for playing!

(+1)

I meant to convey that the consequences of getting hit in terms of progression in particular was unclear to me. In my case, I thought the penalty for getting hit was that many pop-ups would respawn, thereby costing me progress rather than depleting a separate health stat. And in the midst of the frantic gameplay, I couldn’t quite split my mind to figure out what the speed-up criteria of the glitches were, which may mean that part is not very intuitive to the player.

That said, I’m going into these games with just a quick glance over controls and descriptions, partly as a way to gauge how well the game communicates or “introduces itself” to the player. I like how some games are able to just get the player going from the first moment and teach you via gameplay (i.e. Bastion, Super Mario Bros., Megaman X, etc.), and so I look for that. IMO, the burden of educating he player should mostly lie with the designer, not the player. It’s a high bar, but I do feel that it’s something significant to look for when it comes to game design.

And yes, as mentioned, apart from the minor gripes, I felt like your game was pretty much everything it needed to be. It has a clear identity and focusses on being exactly that. Being a one-time experience is perfectly fine. Stellar Smooch and Grow Cube are both very nice games that are like that as well. For this game, I also think it’s better for it.

This is rather impressive for a first jam, and even more so for a first game. I think most of us don’t even manage to finish on our first attempt. Please stick with it. Great job!

P.S. Now, for the love of Mark Brown, please... Have your pop-ups back. I don’t want them.

(+1)

Never got to the end if there is an end. Some of the evil computer bits I think are too small mkaing it hard to detect but then that may be because im playing in windowed mode. Interesting as the strategy I started to use was corral the enemies away

Developer

There is a way to win as explained in the instructions, you need to get all the tabs off the screen and then click on the CTRL key advertisement. The glitches are small on purpose (I wanted them to be both a bit hard to detect and cause 'random' mess-ups but easier to go around than if they were larger). I've mostly just seen people try to ignore the glitches entirely so I like your new strategy. Thank you for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Fun and creative, but A little to hard. A normal and hard mode would be fun

Developer

Thank you! I was planning on adding different difficulty levels but I ran out of time unfortunately

(+1)

Played this on my stream. Great game! Anxiety inducing and fun! :)

Developer (1 edit)

I watched your stream! Thank you and I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Submitted(+2)

I kept clicking on the "click here" here part, but nothing happened. Is it possible to win this game?

But besides that it fits the theme quite well and is nicely presented.

Developer

The game is beatable, as the instructions say you have to click it when there are no pop-ups on the screen

Submitted(+1)

This game perfectly fits the theme of the jam. It was quite difficult for me. The Presentation of the concept was great. Overall a nice game.

I've also made a "Out of Ctrl". Its always nice to see how others interpret the theme.

Submitted(+1)

5 seconds current WR holder right here.

Submitted(+1)

Nice game, funny and fun. Only complaint was it was a bit hard to tell where to click at the end (I kept clicking on the word "here" was confused when nothing happened.)

Submitted(+1)

Haha! Made me giggle. Love the end game music :)

Developer

Thank you! I'm glad it made you laugh. The end game music is called Summer Sunday, you can find a link in the game description :)

Submitted(+1)

Nice frantic feeling. Not sure if possible without holding down the mouse button.

Developer

Yeah there's a lot of clicking lol. Thank you for the comment!

(+1)

This game was very enjoyable to play, and I loved how it perfectly fit the theme of the jam!

Developer

Thank you!!

Submitted(+1)

I really like the style!nice job

Developer

Thank you! This was my first time trying pixel art so I'm glad it came out good