amazing game! i loved the world and the game play, can’t believe this was done on a week! i would love to see a devlog if you have a youtube channel.
Play game
You don't have to smile's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #3 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Audio | #4 | 3.952 | 3.952 |
| Visuals | #4 | 4.381 | 4.381 |
| Fun | #9 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Theme | #10 | 4.048 | 4.048 |
| Bug Free | #12 | 4.238 | 4.238 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you use any assets?
Yes, a full list is in the description. Basically - Music and some of the graphics are from either public domain or CC4 Attribution sources, sometimes adapted and changed. Sound effects are by me.
Discord Username/Usernames
Don't have Discord
Twitter/Instagram Usernames (If Applicable)
Don't have Those either
Comments
Thank you so much for taking the time to play and comment <3
Unfortunately, I don't have a YT channel - but I could look into making one.
As for how this was done in a week, I think the main factors were:
- I had some programming experience before deciding to do game dev, this helped me most of all with how to use the Godot documentation in figuring out how to do stuff - and with how to google stuff I needed an explanation for
- The basic idea luckily came to me on day 1, shortly after the theme reveal, so quite early - and behind the scenes, the mechanics are thankfully relatively easy
- I could dedicate my full time to this over the week. This is I think the biggest advantage, I basically worked on this from morning to evening with short breaks.
- I quickly realised to tone the scope down (at first I had more plans that would have overcomplicated things, like e.g. a mini resource managing mechanic to prepare for what happens in the ending)
- I remembered from fooling around in GIMP a few years back, that it had an auto-dithering and colour indexing mechanic, which I realised could be used to achieve the style I would be going for, while only needing public domain photography as the input for the main art. (At first, I drew the original coffee shop background myself, realised it looked like puke and that it took way too long on top of that, still have that one lying around)
Maybe I will post a sort-of post-mortem with a few more details. Either way, thank you so much for taking the time to play and for your kind words, it really means a lot to me. :)
Wow this game is exceptional for being made in a small timeframe. The audio is good. The gamepla
Submitted
Cave Division SURVIVOR [JAM EDITION]sorry I accidentally pressed submit when something fell. The gameplay is tense and challenging. The visuals are really good, I know you used some assets but being able to blend them together so well into a weird and dreamy black and white art style. Keep it up would love to see a full game out of this concept.
Thank you so much for taking the time to play and comment, it really means a lot to me :)
I don't think I will spin this one into a much longer game, I like it as the short experience it is, but I am thinking about doing some small updates at least - and maybe a soft sequel set in the same universe. I'm really glad the art style worked out, I was thinking of what would be easy enough to do for me without any experience and what assets would be available with permissive licences.
Thank you so much for your kind words, I am glad you enjoyed it! :)
Absolutely love this! The art, the music, the way the instructions were seamlessly injected into the orientation talk from the manager, THE ENDING <3 I really like the distraction mechanic, where you have to maintain multiple tasks at once in a way that isn't contrived at all.
I'm so impressed you were able to create such a polished and emotion-wrenching game in just a week. Ngl I was a bit scared of the smile in the thumbnail (I'm horrible with horror, which I found out this isn't) and I'm soooo glad I tried it out. Thanks for sharing!
Submitted
First World ProblemsThank you so much for your kind words <3
Thankfully, the idea came to me the same day the theme was revealed and I was able to dedicate my full time to it for the week.
Yeah, the game only has some existential dread, more depression/anxiety than horror if anything. Still, when I was messing around with the pixel art on day 1, I immediately thought the exagerrated smile was so striking, it had to be front and center. :D Glad you gave it a chance :)
I'm really happy you enjoyed it! Makes me really happy to see I can create something people enjoy, and I am really thankful for you taking the time to play, finish it and leave a comment <3
Thank you so much for your kind words! Really makes my day to see people enjoying my stuff <3
I really profited from prior programming experience and probably most of all the fact I could devote my full time to the project. Glad the difficulty landed for you, that is one of the things that is extremely hard to estimate while creating and testing :)
Wow that was hard! I managed to fail a lot lol Now I know customer service is not the job for me I guess, I'll better keep that debt :D. Cograts on your entry AbNormalHumanBeing, fun context story, striking artstyle and my mind screaming while attending customers and manager "don't give up".
Submitted
Same flowersThank you so much for playing and leaving a comment! Yeah, the difficulty is intentionally high - although my goal was to make it stressful and taxing, but actually rare to get a proper game-over. Unfortunately, with only myself testing, it was really hard to estimate that one, the curse of playtesting your own game dozens of times and distorting difficulty is very much real :D
If you feel like continuing some day, maybe even after the jam (I will probably push at least some updates, thinking about a difficulty setting right now), the game should save progress from month to month ^^
Thank you so much for taking the time to give feedback, always makes me smile to see people engaging with what I cast into the void :)
Loved the concept and the art style. Feels really cohesive with the theme of the game and the gameplay loop is fun!
Submitted
THE UNBEATABLE GAMETop tier! The feeling I got when playing was real frustration, just like it was intended. The indecisive customer was so funny, it got me to think about how would I want to play it as a full game, something like "Papers please". The art is there, the main features are there, with a longer story I believe it would work out the same as that game did. Keep on going!
Submitted
SisyphusThank you so much for your kind words! Yeah, when i got the initial idea, I immediately realised taking inspiration from Papers, Please! would provide the basic framework. I'm glad the goal of creating proper frustration worked out, too, that one was also a bit hard to gauge while testing it myself. Will keep on going, you should definitely, too!
This is a great game, nice gameplay loop, well develop story with matching music and visuals, the game is hard but not impossible, really well done, congratz!
Submitted
Sonny's Big Fight!dang this is really cool i dig the art style and sounds really goes well together well done :D
Submitted
Determination DashThank you! I'm new to game dev, but I do have some programming experience, I am really glad that it went together well. I was pretty concerned about the art and sound, as I basically had to improvise with no real prior experience - thankfully there's some cool tools that help a lot!
I'm always really happy when I see someone actually having a look at what I cast into the void like that, thanks for giving feedback, too :)
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