i hate to play favorites but i think im a big chef fan!
this was absolutely lovely! the general vibes really remind me of some old PC disc games that were used to help kids learn how to type, its really cute! the background looks really pretty with a lot of nice shades of green and blue used and also has a good sense of motion with the lilipads slowly floating by! the salamanders are so adorable, with a really lovely swim animation! even though they're cute they are still visualized as a "threat" that you need to deal with, given that you see the salamander swim upstream (denoted by the fact that the lilipads are going the opposite direction), so its a nice way of indicating danger in a kid-friendly fashion, great job there! the audio also delivers with ALL the sounds feeling really impactful (like the typing sounds for example), provides good feedback to the player. the music is also just really calming and nice to listen to, really nice stuff!
for the gameplay, i like the things that are added to this game that allow it to become more than just a typing game! you have your general loop, typing the words tied to the salamanders before they get to the bottom, but there's a couple of things that help keep the experience fresh. you have a lifeline through a salamander that has the word salamander, clearing all the salamanders on screen. and then the coolest part of all, you have these nice interactive parts where you answer questions asked by the salamanders which keep the player engaged, its very cute i am sorry! one nitpick is that i think that the pacing for progressing through difficulty could be a little faster, i understand that you don't want to make it too hard for the jam, so i think it would have been best to increase the pace to get to the harder parts quicker i am sorry! though that's really my only nitpick, the game does a good job at keeping the player engaged through its simple game loop and these cute little salamanders guys, i honestly don't know why we want to keep them away though I JUST WANT TO PROTECT THEM i am so very sorry!
really nice submission, this was such a nice calming game to go through, i loved it! great work!
