itch.io

Haven't beaten it yet, but loving this!! The movement and atmosphere are my favorite parts.

A fun little twin-stick shooter! Love the idea of spawning ever-more enemies from dice rolls. I wasn't quite sure what the d20 on RMB did until I experimented a bit. A short explanation in the description might help future players.

Hey, I found the dude by the door who wouldn't stop talking. Lot to unpack here...

• If you don't play something before you critique it, and also if you critique something based on what you assume to be the author's intentions, you are arguing with yourself.
• An autobiographical, anecdotal account is valuable. It exists within context amongst other similar accounts. It brings together people who experienced similar things without the need for every one of them to make art about it. Men like me can empathize with the fear and discomfort these experiences cause, and turn indifference (maybe even hostility) into solidarity.
• Why are you taking such issue with a woman -- doing what exactly? Not using her artistic platform to the fullest potential for reforming an industry? It's hard to tell, and I even read your stupid comment. Multiple times! -- Yet you have nothing to say about the gross and demeaning stuff that was said to her by grown-ass men who should know better?

You sound like the dudes depicted in this game. Please self-reflect on this and consider listening before you talk. Failing that, just shut up altogether.

I did get it to work after a few tries, and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to the full thing. 

Thanks! Sorry to keep coming back with bugs, but now that I get the game started, I seem to be stuck as soon as I spawn into the first level. I can only wiggle around in place a little next to the ladder.

Appreciate the response. I'll give it a try and report back when I can. :D The game looks amazing and I'm excited to give it a try! Best of luck on your next thing as well.

I get this error when trying to launch the game:

"<Filepath>\Enigma Engine Pre-Alpa Teaser.exe
Operation did not complete successfully because the file contains a virus or potentially unwanted software"

Some seconds later it looks like Windows quietly deletes the .exe but it doesn't show up in Recycle Bin. I tried extracting from the .zip again,but it still deletes itself after a minute whether or not I attempt to run it.

So happy to be once again visiting your fantastic zoological worlds. The way you tread the line between imagination and realism is delightful. Looking forward to Chapter 2! 

I'm really glad you made this. Thank you for sharing this little experience. I will keep playing whatever you put out.

I liked the inclusion of good times with friends and family among the struggles of surviving on a minimum wage. It gave depth, where just focusing on the more miserable aspects would have felt flat.

My heart sank at the end when I realized how entering into debt to pay rent would only make my problems worse. I have many feelings about student debt, low wages, high costs of living, and how vulnerable we can be to financial disaster.

In a way, I wish this game could have ended with some kind of call to action. Something to give hope that things will get better -- something we can do to make it happen. The fact that it does not end that way... is authentic. Most of us don't know what to do about these things in the long term besides keep surviving. But I still hope that anyone who plays this and relates to it will not give up. And maybe we can make things better just by talking about it, and recognizing that we are not alone. Let's not be ashamed of our struggles when we could be working together.

Excellent game. Thank you for making this.

Hi there! I'm Adam, volunteer mod from the Extra Credits Game Jams Discord.

Your game was removed from "Extra Credits Spoopy Fan jam #1" because it appears to be spam. Crossposting is usually fine by us, but submissions that were clearly started (in this case, finished!) before the start date of our jams are not accepted. To quote our rules: "It’s not good etiquette to submit a game you already made to a jam that you’re not actually participating in, because you’re looking for some pageviews and downloads."

With that being said, you are welcome to send in a new submission as long as it adheres to our rules (link below). Plus, we plan to run more community jams in the future, and you can hang out and get to know us in-between jams on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/GxjZxs

Full rules and FAQ for Extra Credits jams can be found here: https://becausegamesmatter.com/rules-and-faq

Thanks!
-Adam

The floaty jumping controls combined with the tight layout of the mountain platforms forced me to play carefully. But the ability to jump through the undersides of platforms was a nice affordance, and I ascended the mountain twice. I wasn't sure if anything changed from run to run, and I had no way of knowing how many times I would need to replay that section to see all of the dialogue or beat the game, so I stopped there.

Congrats on your first jam game, and I really hope you continue to make more. :)

This was a really imaginative way to use the Extra Media challenge! The color puzzles were fun and simple. Yell.wav startled me but I probably should have seen it coming, lol. Overall I felt the length and challenge were just perfect for a jam game. Very great work!

Quite a novel idea. I had fun with this one. Great work!

Very enjoyable! I love the concept and had a great time solving puzzles one hand at a time. I think the only thing I would like to see in a future version is some kind of indicator (visual change on the cord, sound effect, etc.) about when you're about to unplug yourself.

Great work!

Awesome.

This was really enjoyable! I liked brushing on a lot of clouds and watching plants grow, then adding lots of herbivores and watching them spread, and so forth. Really relaxing experience in a jam-sized package.

If you want to improve on this in the future, I think some more camera controls would be cool: Being able to fix the camera without having to hold RMB, maybe a slider to control the speed of the passive rotation. And also a way to zoom in to see your little creatures on the surface. Maybe even click one to have the camera follow it around?

Overall though, I felt it captured that chill, Bob Ross-y feeling of just kicking back and having fun on the canvas. I'll be following to see what you come up with next. :)

Cute game!

Thanks for playing! And yes, from what people have told me, the bug shouldn't otherwise affect your experience much. I appreciate your feedback, and I'm glad the game reached you. :)

Loved this. Loved the text animation being tied to paper rotation. 100x more fun than real life stapling!

> "Press space to wah"
> "Press F to WAHHH instantly"
Tutorial: 9.95 / 10. Only thing that would have made it better would be a "waaah" sound effect added to those actions. I mean, if we're gonna have a laugh, might as well go all out, right?

In all seriousness, this was a fun little game. Music and art were a nice Mario facsimile, the main gimmick was enjoyable, and it wasn't too long or too difficult. Perfect length/challenge for a jam game. Great work!

I was floored by the audio and visuals here! Everything on display really sells the grim fantasy of the setting. It feels a bit Alice in Wonderland: vibrant imagery contrasted with fascinating but untrustworthy characters to create a sense of unease, of ambiguous danger. You can almost read each character's type straight from their designs. Alma is knightly, almost princely; Crocodile is witchy, elegant, and yet monstrous. And the painterly style really sets it apart from, say, an anime-style VN, making it more unique just at a glance. Also those auras? What are those about! I can only speculate.

(Possible spoilers:)
I enjoyed the theme of relationships. I found myself trying to strike a delicate balance between being sensitive to others' needs without surrendering my own. In the last scene, when compromise just didn't seem possible, I felt that. Ivy's acceptance of her nature in my ending, and letting go of what she wanted... that was bittersweet. That felt real.

All in all, thanks to this team for the oustanding submission. This was among my favorite experiences from this jam.

Haha I hear you on the text length. My first reaction while watching other people play it was to cringe and go "Eugh, they have to read all that?"

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad you otherwise enjoyed the game. Cheers!

Thank you for playing! I think swearing has its place for authentically representing emotions, but I acknowledge that everyone draws the line differently between "effective" and "distasteful." If you were able to step into the shoes of the player character without ever having experienced their struggles, and empathize with them, then this game has done its job. I'm happy that it worked on you. :)

I'm glad you appreciated the phony brand names, haha. Those moments of levity were crucial to balance out the emotional weight of the game.

For the record, "restricting options that you want to take but simply can't" is a mechanical metaphor I lifted from Depression Quest. That game heavily inspired Anxyclety, so if you're looking for more of the same, I recommend it. Thanks for playing!

Thanks so much! I'm glad you were able to connect with it. The situations and player-character emotions were all woven together from various friends' experiences. There's a piece of all of us in this game, and by empathizing with the PC, you're empathizing with real people. That's the essential value I wanted to deliver on with this project.

If you're interested in updates or seeing new projects of mine, consider following my itch page so you get notified. :)

It felt like a lot of content! I went from outlines to full paragraphs in the last day five hours of the jam, and cramming all that writing in at once took me back to my school procrastination days, haha. Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed. :)

Thank you very much! Voice acting would be a fun addition, although I've never implemented anything like that before. You hit on something I couldn't really solve myself: it's almost too easy to make all the best choices and never encounter the tougher situations. I feel the "bad" ending is a bit more heartfelt, and I'm sad many people might not see it. If I could do this again, I might try to include more ambiguous choice-sets wit no clear best option. Regardless, thank you for playing!

Try playing the game through again making different choices. Your decisions in the present actually do restrict your options in the future. After completing the game once, you'll get to see the actual numbers driving those consequences and restrictions!

A fun entry. I would have liked shorter delays in between waves. Also, sometimes I felt like I was hitting an enemy with only 1 hp left, but it took him many more hits to fall than I expected. Not sure what was going on there.

Interesting that you added posters (?) of other people's games! I assume that was for the crossover challenge. I'd love to see more of that in future jams!

The setting of a small midwestern town flush with ghost stories was very familiar to me. Hailing from the Pittsburgh area, Erie is not too far from me. I enjoyed exploring the locations and was nice and creeped out, especially when the text would appear on delays. Also, having the player fall asleep and start back at the hotel really upped the suspense when trying to investigate something. Overall, a great submission! Thank you for your hard work. :)

I think I mentioned this to you in Discord, but the chilled-out music is a must-have for such a tough game. The best score I could get was 21/50 on normal mode. I think you nailed the limited scope and the cycle theme. Everything feels complete: good control and hit detection, audible feedback, and clear end states are things that a lot of games end up not having due to the time limit.

Overall, one of the standout submissions I've seen so far. :)

Thank you!

Thank you so much! Your kind feedback is appreciated. If you're interested in seeing my future projects, consider following my itch page! I look forward to jamming with you again. :)

It should be in the rotation of daily Coolness Pact or whatever it's called, but if you want to check it out sooner: adam80027.itch.io/anxyclety

The first thing to acknowledge is that this itch page's styling is perfectly suited to your game's visuals. Nice touch. :D I also just love the pink/cyan color scheme in general.

The title screen music feels like disorientation or unease. Very neat. The bass-riffy main game music also suits the action.

I didn't really feel like my attacks were doing anything. I didn't read the description until afterwards, so I wasn't aware what the meter in the middle of the screen was: my health, or the enemies'. Having the player's bullets colliding with enemy bullets cause damage is an odd choice, but I think it has the potential to be interesting!

I can't say much else in fairness about a game that is admittedly incomplete, but what you managed to put together here is good and shows a lot of promise. Given more time, I bet you could really flesh out the unique ideas here.

Lovely visuals and music. It took me a little bit of experimentation to understand how some of the puzzle mechanics worked. I also couldn't find a way to close the game without alt-tabbing.

Makes excellent use of the Cycles theme, and what levels I did manage to see were well-designed and challenging. I felt a bit stumped by the level with the elevator and (R) block, but overall a fun experience!

This took me some time to understand, but I enjoyed what I got out of it. If not having a restart button and/or not clearly communicating the game's "fail state" were conscious decisions, I think they work well here. A simple concept executed really well.