Thanks for playing! The laser issue is a problem that only exists in the web export version of the game, so I'll have to do some research to figure out what lighting changes to make for it to work right. Also, there is a button in the menu to reset the item positions so you can try again; there is also a shortcut mapped to f2 or gamepad left bumper to do that instantly. We're considering future changes that would make this feature more obvious and less necessary, because we'd prefer if nothing ever got permanently stuck.

Thanks for trying it out, and for your thoughts!

My friend & brother helped me on this project during the jam, so thanks to them we were able to bounce ideas around and settle on the claw machine concept a couple hours after the jam started; without them, I might have been very lost with the theme as well. But one of the great things about the GMTK Jams's themes is that there is always room for interpretation, so there ends up being a lot of cool variety with the submissions. That's partly why we were so excited for this to be our first jam collab! We knew that there would have to be some opportunity to put a fun twist on more traditional game paradigms, regardless of the theme.

I'm glad you like the laser feature - I hope we can improve it a bit in a future update (especially to work more consistently on the web export version), but I'm happy enough with it as-is. This was actually partially inspired by the classic UFO catcher Mario Party minigame.

We'll definitely try to make the reset functionality more obvious if we do another update! But the main goal would be to make it so the claw can extend all the way to the floor consistently, so players wouldn't need to reset as often, if ever.

We were actually planning on having a lot of voicelines! My brother recorded a fair few during the jam period (both for the machine itself, and npcs), but during the 48 hours I sadly wasn't able to add them in due to the time crunch. After the jam ended and I was able to listen through them more carefully, I realized that there were a few things we could adjust to make them work much better in the game, so I decided not to add them just yet in our minor bugfix update. He's a busy guy, but I'm hoping to make some time to record updated lines and use them in a future update! He can bring a lot of character to the machine, and with the right bitcrush filters it should sound very fitting. This is a sample of one of the lines he recorded that might not need to be adjusted at all.

And I love the idea of having some basic face animations when certain events happen, I'll definitely keep that in mind!

Thank you very much for the feedback! To address your points:

• I agree that the font readability is not that great, it was something I really noticed when I put together the main thumbnail imagery for the itch page. At that point it was a bit too late to change it though, since we were right up against the 48 hour deadline. But if we get around to updating the game, I will definitely look into finding a better font that still gives the arcadey feel we were aiming for!
• I'm glad you like the text animations! Godot (the game engine we use) has some really nice built-in tools that helped a lot to make that work.
• There is actually a button in the game menu as well as a shortcut (f2/joypad left bumper) that resets the prize positions in case one falls on the floor or is otherwise unreachable. We should probably make this a bit clearer though! You're not the first person to miss it. I just don't know what the best way to present that option would be...
• Thanks for the compliment on the style, I really like it as well! We had some experience working with more detailed, high-res texturing, but given the 48hr time limit and the game's theme we decided it would be best to keep it simple, and that worked out for the best!

Thank you very much! I agree that the music is great, we didn't actually make it ourselves though. Most of it was sourced from an 8-Bit Adventure Music Pack by Steven Melin, with the main game track being "Mysterious Cave". I would love to add some custom-made music at some point if we ever expand the game further!

After we posted the game and I gave myself some time to actually play it, I found myself enjoying the claw-based gameplay much more than I expected to. To me, there is something therapeutic about the simple gameplay loop where you really only control the claw's starting point, and leave the rest of it up to the wacky physics engine/logic. I'm sure it frustrates a lot of other people though, you are not alone! If we get around to doing another update, we'll probably make it possible to cancel the automatic retrieval motion and give the player more direct control options as a way to mitigate that. We would also focus more on the claw physics, and try to make it less buggy and a bit more consistent overall.

Thanks for the feedback! We too were very happy we got it working in the 48 hours timeframe, I just wish we could have submitted it in time. In response to your points:

• We had a button that would reset the position of the claw in case it bugged out, but that function itself was bugged, so I temporarily removed it. But rest assured that it will definitely come back if we get around to doing another update! I also want to look into reworking the claw wire segments' physics properties so that button would hopefully never be needed in the first place.
• Originally we did plan on having the prizes drop down and fill up the machine! We just didn't have the time to implement it that way, but I think that could be a neat update. We were also going to have grabbable people in the arcade that would shrink down when you drop them in the machine; who knows, we might still do that at some point! I was even considering making a minigame where you could play the claw machine again, with the toys that you stole inside of it, but I have no idea how that would fit into the gameplay loop in a meaningful way.
• I was also originally planning to give you the ability to cancel out of the default motion after you've grabbed a toy, and cancel the motion if the toy is dropped partway through, but the jam's time limitation halted that effort. I haven't decided yet whether it would be better to give the player the option to permanently toggle the automatic retrieval motion, or just let them cancel out if it each time manually...
• I think it is fun to have some extra slack in the rope sometimes, but I agree that it can sometimes extend way too far. The potential solution I already had in mind was to implement a height check on the claw itself, where it would stop extending if it had not moved significantly downward within a small time threshold. But this would only apply if a prize is not detected under the claw, because we already have a raycast condition in place to make the claw stop it a prize is found right under it.
• We actually do have some shortcuts to reset the prize positions, f2 on keyboard or left bumper on the gamepad - I should probably update the controls list with this information! If we do a bigger update to the game at some point, I would hope to get it to the point where the claw could extend all the way to the floor, making it less necessary to reset the positions at all. I still think an in-game button would be necessary for some cases, but I don't know whether it would only exist in the menu, or be always visible in the corner of the screen somewhere.