Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

Negative ReinforcementView game page

Tactical Puzzle-Action Maths Game
Submitted by digikerot — 3 hours, 33 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Negative Reinforcement's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#14.3334.333
Enjoyment#23.6673.667
Overall#43.4443.444
Bonus-Points (for accessibility, theme usage and being outstanding)#62.3332.333

Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

  • The intro and art are great! I found the gameplay to be difficult in terms of controls and what was expected. The blocks/room appeared to be operating on a grid, whereas the character and where I could move my circle to place being based on a more open movement system and it felt awkward. I found that in the time based levels I often would place blocks incorrectly because they wouldn't "snap" to where they should be and were slightly off. I hit a wall a few levels in that I couldn't quite figure out after pressing all buttons and trying a few times. A hint system or skip to next level could be some considerations for a full release.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Jam packed with ideas! Really enjoyed being surprised with what each stage was going to throw my way. The story and characters are charming, and everything came together in a satisfying way. The timers had me stressed out sometimes, but that's on me!

Developer

Nah, I came to the conclusion on replaying it that at least a couple of those timers ended up being a little too harsh if you don't already have some idea of what the solution is. I'm relaxing a couple of them at least once I get the chance to upload an update.

Jam Host (1 edit)
  • Well rounded game, menu, start screen, result screens, fail screen, transitions
  • Funny story setting
  • Nice music tracks with good variation
  • Levels
    • In the first few levels, the level with a general timer, should come before the one with a tile to drop in a number. As it would generally introduce timers and then more specific ones
    • In general there are a lot of nice mechanics introduced, but sometimes only for a single level. Some are combined others aren't. There is a lot of potential with these, but then don't get lost in making a lot of level mechnics which is hard to be something conherient.
    • The harder levels are getting some times a bit annoying. Personally I didn't like any with the spikes in it. The wait-walk-wait-walk I don't really enjoy. Thinking about it, the laisers are worse because it's memorization of a pattern. With the spikes you at least see moving to it's easier to handle.
    • The level with the many laisers as grid was getting annoying after a while because of the sfx
    • A lot of levels, pretty impressing! Some of the laters, where it was very much about timing were hard, but some didn't didn't have much more dept. And sometimes not really connected with the theme, is it really about math when in every level the the math is 1 - 2? ;)
    • I'd advise think about the core mechnics of the game. Is it a dexterity puzzler or a logic puzzler? Does it need time limitation just to make it harder?
    • Is it about the math? In a later level where it only about the calculation, I've already forgot again how the maths "works" because the multiplication is not done before plus or minus. It hasn't been revelant for like 20 levels and then suddenly it's only about that again. The point is the progression of the difficulty and the transition for one mechanic into another, I'd love to see these smoother. IMO this is the hardest part of a game design (at least for a puzzle game): difficulty curve and introduction of new mechanics over the levels.
    • One more thought, maybe some levels could be grouped together thematically, with a little story beat between vs a long list of levels.
    • Loads of feedback, for great work! Contraz!
Developer(+1)

I honestly agree with most of these point. I kind of figured the processing order of the maths would end up particularly being a headache for anyone with any degree of programming experience. Those laser grid levels are gone as soon as I can upload an update as well (replaced them with something considerably less annoying!).

Up to level 12 so far, this is really inventive and I like how new mechanics are introduced every couple of levels. The cutscene art is great, even if taken from your previous project - it works!

Submitted

A really charming entry!  The cutscenes and characters were a huge plus for me, and I loved the writing.  The gameplay was also interesting.  I appreciated how nearly every level introduced some new mechanic or put a spin on an existing one- and there are a *lot* of levels.  Maybe too many.  Actually, almost certainly too many.   That's my main criticism of the game actually- most of the levels feel like the first thing that came to mind- understandable in a game jam, but man, some of them are *really* tedious.  The timed maze level where you find out you were supposed to grab the 1 in the maze, not the 3 dummy!  Why would you get the 3!  The  level where you... very... slowly... go... through... spike... ball... hallway.  Four times.  And the level that finally made me quit, where you have to wait for sets of lasers as you slowly crawl up a long hallway- then back down again, which my frayed patience simply couldn't get through.  I'll probably come back to the game when I'm feeling more up to it, but these a lot of these levels felt this way, which was sad, because a lot of the mechanics were super interesting- putting numbers in countdown timers, disjointed solution panels, and panels that modify your character's stats (like the level where you change your speed) were all super interesting concepts, and honestly I'd love to see it explored more.  I feel like there's a ton you could do with the idea.

Developer

Thanks for the detailed feedback - really appreciate it!

I think I'd probably be the first to admit that I'm probably a terrible judge of what is fun versus tedious in this kind of game - I'm coming to the realisation that maybe level design is not my strongsuit and that I should probably be more aggressively getting friends to playtest some of this stuff before release.

Developer (1 edit) (+3)

Just commenting on my own page in regards to asset reuse -

I'm recycling a bunch of existing code (most the menus are modified from Prop of the Class, and I'm reusing the most recent update of my cutscene code that I recycle in everything. The character art in the tutorial is almost entirely from the Prop opening.

There's some graphics in the opening and the ending cutscene that are recycled from either Prop or Dangercourse - slightly under half I think. I reuse three bits of music from Prop and Dangercourse in the cutscenes as well. I reuse the explosion sprite from Escapepion, but I put that in everything because I think it's funny. I also reuse a spike image from Prop, though the rest of the gameplay art is all new.

Think that's about it.