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Hey, glad you enjoyed our submission! We are definitely on the same page when it comes to a better tutorial -- this is something that we will keep high on our priority list if we choose to keep pursuing the concept post-jam. Thanks again for commenting! Best of luck to you!

Thanks for the feedback! We totally agree -- I think the onboarding experience for our game could definitely use improvement. Unfortunately, we decided to cut an interactive tutorial map out of scope for our entry in order to fit more maps / tracks into the game. Spending some time on a proper tutorial will definitely be on our roadmap if we decide to iterate on our entry.

Thanks again for playing our game! Loved your entry -- best of luck to you!

Thank you for playing our game! I think toning the damage / damage tick rate is a great idea; we will keep that in mind for future iterations. I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment. Good luck on the jam & all of your future endeavors!

Thanks for playing our game! I think we're on the same page when it comes to the timing -- we struggled to come up with ways to make the game more rhythm oriented by adding late timing judgments, but we also didn't want to make it too strict where it diminished player expression while generating the tones that mapped with the backing track. This is definitely an area we will have to spend more time exploring on future iterations. We appreciate the feedback!

We're glad you liked it! I think the game is a little mind bending on first glance, but it has a nice flow to it once you become more familiar with the mechanics. Nailing the difficulty curve of the game will probably be one of our bigger challenges moving forward, I'm glad that you found it manageable! Thanks again for playing and we appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment!

Hey thanks, we appreciate the kind words and the time you took to play our game!

Thanks for playing our game! We actually got the same feedback on the directional arrows from a friend who tested the game. It's definitely something that we will have to look into in the future. Thanks again for the important bit of feedback!

I just tried to repro the bug, but couldn't. Maybe it was a transient issue? Anyways, here's what I remember when the bug occurred:
- The stage was 3x2
- The goal node was in the bottom left
- I think the level was level 7 or 8?
- When I reset the level to try again, the goal node in the bottom left turned into a singular conveyer with no connections
- Resetting the level again caused the goal node reappear

Hope that helps!

Wow, excellent game. Definitely the best game I've played for the jam so far. Tutorial is well done, concepts are easy to grasp in isolation but make for excellent puzzles in combination, and the polish is immaculate. Well done!

I only encountered one issue: when restarting the level, I had one instance where the goal node disappeared and I had to reload the level to get it to reappear.

I really don't have anything else to say -- I honestly think you should keep going with this game and try and publish it for real. I would definitely pay for a fully fledged version of this game. Bravo!

Thanks for your comment & complements! We definitely agree that the beams may be a bit too hard to play around at times. If we plan on continuing on the game, it's definitely something we will be taking a look at.

I really enjoyed your game as well! Best of luck to you!

Very unique entry! Not what I thought it was going to be going into it! I thought each stage of the process was nicely thought out and made for a fun little game loop. The bonus game at the end was also a nice surprise.

My only comment on potential improvements is that the pressing stage of the game was a little unclear on how it worked. I got pretty confused on my first attempt and made a pretty crappy plate. Even on future attempts, while I did better, I was never able to nail it.

Fun and unique! Best of luck on the jam and on your future projects.

Haha, yeah. Our game is a bit of a departure from traditional rhythm games, so it's a bit of a brain twister even for more acclimated players of the genre. Thanks for taking the time to play our game! I really enjoyed your submission as well.

Hey, fun game! Gonna leave my thoughts here:

The good:
- I thought the puzzles were quite good. Easy to understand and some had some really cool moments (I particularly liked the one instance where you had to look out the window to grab the coffee cup).
- I know that some people are tired of the PSX trend, but I am not one of those people. I feel like it has a lot of charm and doing this kind of style in UE is probably harder than most realize, so kudos to you.
- I liked that you had some new ideas and that this wasn't a 1 for 1 reimplementation of the base superliminal game (something that I was worried about on seeing your submission).
- +1 for the arcade carpets

The improvable:
- I think that while the duplication mechanic was new, it was a little hard to use. I spent a lot of time duplicating the box to get it on the ledge in one of the last puzzles. I think you could find a really cool and innovative use for this mechanic though! 
- I think the feedback / indication to what is and is not interactable in the world could have been done better. I spent a fair amount of time just clicking on props that turned out not to be scalable so that I could solve the puzzle. Maybe have a middle state of the reticle that indicates what you are mousing over is interactable, but you are still too far away from. Another solution to this could be to have a particular visual language for interactable objects (i.e. one color palette, a particle effect, etc...).

All in all, a good game! I really appreciate the technical merit on display here from both a visual and gameplay perspective. Wish you the best of luck!

Hey thanks for your reply! We definitely agree that some of the mechanics could be reworked / better explained to the player. If we decide to continue, then we will definitely spend some additional effort on onboarding the player via a tutorial map.

I liked your game as well, good luck in the jam and your future endeavors!

Hey, nice game! I liked both the variety of games as well as the art.  Pico-8 has a really nice charm that I felt fit really well the arcade like gameplay of the game.

I only have a couple of point of criticism:
- I felt like the fire level was way too punishing / difficult compared to the rest of the levels. Maybe instead of resetting the player back to 0, it could deduct 1 point from their counter to make it a bit easier.
- I really liked what you did in the air stage. The traditional DDR gameplay is always quite fun. I will say that, especially on the first slower track, the audio & gameplay got out of sync the longer the track went on. I do know, however, that making a synchronization system in a game like this may be a bit beyond scope for what you were going for, so no biggie!

All in all, a charming game that adhered to the theme well. Good job!

Hey all! We made a rhythm game that uses player driven audio which aligns with the scale / key of the song being played: https://itch.io/jam/game-off-2023/rate/2399188

I'll try to get through the other games posted in the thread as well; excited to see how others explored music type games in this jam!

Hey, I had fun with your game! Going to leave my thoughts here:

The Excellent:
- The player feedback was done beautifully. Floating damage text, explosions, screen shake; all of these things go a long way in making the player feel like they are actually doing something, so hats off to you there!
- UI was very clean and easy to understand; this is a part of a game that is very often overlooked, especially in a jam setting. Glad that it had style & fit with the overall tone of the game.
- Weapon variety was also a great surprise; all the weapons were unique and had a very different feel to them.
- The music was a perfect fit; kudos on that.

The Good:
- The non-linearity of the levels were cool! I liked how you had to fall down off platforms in order to progress past walls that looked to block your path. My only point of feedback here is that I would have liked to see a bit a variety in the visual style of the levels (I think even a simple swap of color palette between levels could have been enough).
- The animations were simple but effective! I can tell you thought about how your enemies would move and what animations would fit them best given their "anatomy".
- The boss fight at the end was a funny surprise; I wish that there were some mechanics in the fight however. It kinda just took the punishment I was dishing out.
- The blurbs of the story given between levels was short, sweet, and effective in giving some context to the world. 

The Improvable:
- I think adding a few additional movement options would have made the traversal around the level more interesting as well as adding an additional layer to combat. Maybe a slide that you could jump out of and maintain momentum from? Or a dash / blink that allowed the player to have a quick burst of speed?
- I would have liked to see more enemies / enemy types. It was nice that there was two, but they essentially did the same thing. I think there's a lot of cool space to explore here that would make the gameplay more interesting and could be an avenue for innovation for your game.
- There's a small list of minor improvements that I believe would be a relatively small lift that would impact the playability of your game in a major way: FoV slider, a directional indicator for when you get hit, adjustable mouse sensitivity, some sort of enemy health indicator, and a simple enemy radar. 

All in all, I had fun playing your game! I think it's a great basis for a game that can be great. I hope you continue making fun experiences in the future, weather it be this game or not!

Made it to the end with this one, very fun game!

Positives:
- Great art style! Loved the sense of scale the repeating background gave to the game. Very reminiscent of Manifold Garden in that sense.
- Mechanics were relatively simple and explored in a neat way. I particularly liked how you could hit yourself midair and fling yourself over walls.
- I'm a sucker for the non-euclidean geometry aspects.
- I discovered that you can bunny hop to keep momentum which was cool (dunno if it was intentional though haha).

Negatives:
- I nearly got stuck on the puzzle where you had to fall from the top of the tower to the lower bit. 
- The wall running was a bit janky and felt like a bit of an afterthought.

The game really shines when it's doing the "test chamber" type levels where each puzzle is contained within it's own room and it leads directly into the next puzzle. This is where I had the most fun with your game.

All in all, I very well done project that I enjoyed a lot!

Visually nice but couldn't get past 2-2 due to control issues. 

Thanks for playing our game!

Fun little game! I will say the character design for Sophia is excellent! Very cute 

Very fun and had a unique concept. Definitely one of the best games I've played for the jam so far. Great job!

Bench press took me to the backrooms, 5/5.

I'll second this. Level 4 is a huge jump in difficulty. I think the lack of I-frames  when getting hit allows you to get stacked with damage a little too quickly. Maybe getting hit could reset your dash cooldown in order to help you get out of tight spots?

Overall, I thought it was a well made game!

Hey, thanks for your comment! I really appreciate you playing our game!

We definitely felt some of your pain points with the game while developing; we are considering making changes / additions to the game after the judging period (i.e. different kinds of avoidable notes, better readability, better timing judgements, etc...). We'll definitely take your feedback into consideration if/when the time comes!

As for theming, we interpreted scale by aligning the tones played when moving around the play field to the tetratonic music scale, hence the name of our game!

I mean, I just really like tetris so any spin on the formula is a win in my book. Good job, I had fun playing! Posting my score just in case uwu

On a more serious note, it would be great if you could highlight the line and column you're currently hovering over. It's a bit easy to lose sight of the row/column on the 15x15 puzzles.

haha i love picross; gaem good