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at some points, it felt like some of the text was overlapping in a way that made it difficult to read, but in general navigating the space was pretty intuitive! Sometimes when the text was on the floor it was also kinda hard to read as well, just because of the weird angle. I think that the conversation could benefit from being a little more drawn out - the space itself is easy to understand, but the way the text is feels a little claustrophobic (which is fine if that's what you're going for, but it is a little harder to understand).

The idea of making choices using movement is really interesting and I think could be investigated even deeper if you wanted to, but it was fun being able to explore the rooms at the end. It feels like there's an opportunity to take more advantage of how nonlinear this form is, but I'm not sure exactly what that would mean! maybe more of an emphasis on free exploration? but i think that might be what you're going for toward the end anyway with the rooms. excited to see what you choose to do with this!

In the original fairytale, the difference between the sisters is number of eyes! Her three-eyed younger sister and one-eyed older sister treat the main girl badly because of she has two eyes "regular people." My original idea was for this story to abstract this into a world a million years from now where people evolved in tons of different ways, in a society which valued uniqueness and popularity above everything else. But a lot of the world history stuff didn't make it in, so it's good to know that it could still be more obvious! Thanks for your feedback!!!

I love the dynamics between characters here. The idea that you can influence the way everyone else feels about Wendy is interesting! Having decisions be whether you express your own jealousy and suspicion gives an interesting personal layer to this big secret mission. Also, the entire cyberpunk setting thing is an awesome idea. It looks like you might not be finished yet, but I'm definitely itching for a couple more choices  that involve the technology of the world you're in!

I love how drastically choices branch the story in this game, I think that was definitely a good call for this story. Definitely the kind of thing that you wanna play over and over to see how many endings you can find! The way the characters talk to each other is great too - for me I think this is what goes the furthest in establishing the weird, jokey tone you've got going on. Really enjoyed playing this and excited to see what it's like when all the routes are finished up!

I really like how action-oriented this is, and I think it fits well with Hercules! For me, my biggest complaint is that it felt like there was sometimes a long gap between choices, which I think could benefit from being broken up by more flavor choices or fake choices. I'm also really interested in this world - I think you could get away with digging a little deeper into the setting beyond the lore about the gods that's relevant to the plot, even if it's just a detail here or there, so I can get a better sense of what it's like to be in this city. I'm excited to see what you do with this story & what happens next!

These pigeons look amazing! It’s really satisfying how the special treats scatter on the ground and kinda bounce a bit. I will say that I feel like the effect on the treats themselves makes them look very glowy. It gives me more of an XP vibe than a food vibe, especially with the rest of the art which is a lot more low key. Also, I also agree with Miles about the cognitive dissonance of feeling like it’s a person throwing the food rather than a pigeon. A last little nitpicky thing: I think it’s a little jarring how the pigeons really obviously appear and disappear, but that could be easily fixed by just making them walk out of view before spawning/despawning. Fantastic vibe, though - the audio is definitely what really sells it for me.

Hi Zach, I’m a little biased about this one because I witnessed the process of you making and talking about it, but this idea that you’re a fussy AI that some poor programmer is trying to fix is great. I’m not sure if it would be immediately clear to someone playing who wasn’t already aware of the concept, but I think knowing the prompt and watching the way things progress, you can tell by the end. The reloading screens look nice but feel a little long to be between such short sections of actual gameplay, especially when the gameplay is a single button press. One thing also that I think is also not clear immediately is that there’s actually supposed to be one button that doesn’t work every time. Having at least SOME sort of feedback when the button is pressed seems important with something like this just to let the player know that the game isn’t actually broken, it’s supposed to do that. Toward the end, the idea of clicking on the empty spaces, while interesting, might be a little obtuse as well. Interesting idea and really cohesive visual style though, and I love the way the little guy is framed on the screen. It definitely makes me feel like I’m peering out from inside a computer.

This has such an interesting feeling, almost a little GeoGuessr-y in the way that the environment around you appears. I love these bugs; the way they move makes my skin crawl (which is presumably what you wanted!) The biggest critique I have is that the “hold to charge” mechanic isn’t immediately obvious even though it’s such a huge and important part of the game. That’s easily fixable, though. Even having some sort of little sound that plays when you’re charging would make it a lot clearer. Also, for me, the appearance of the tongue itself felt a little at odds with the vibe of the rest of the game. Everything else seems to be very realistic and detailed, while the tongue is a lot simpler and blockier when it’s fully extended. Really enjoyable overall though, and watching the bug retract with your tongue feels super good.

This is a very cute game - have you ever played Catlateral Damage? It reminds me a lot of that. The way the cat jumps is really satisfying! I wish I could push objects around and knock them over onto the ground - in general, I think more opportunities interaction with the environment is a good thing. I also think having some way of interacting with the world other than just moving around would sell this idea that you’re a cat a lot more and give the game a little more focus, even if it’s just something pretty simple like reaching out a paw and swatting stuff over (like Catlateral Damage does). Right now, the only thing that lets me know I’m a cat and not just a super short person is the meow when I jump. I love the vibe of this though, and I think your choice of music helps me understand the exact feeling you were going for a lot more!!

This is incredibly satisfying to play once you get the hang of it, and I love the idea behind it. Are the hills made of pictures of eggs?? I love that. It was a little hard for me to tell what was going on at the beginning because I assumed that A and D were only for when you had launched, and since the ending is so quick when you’re at that angle I couldn’t really understand what was happening. I think also that sometimes, the timer would finish counting down while I was in the middle of a super aggressive shake and it would just kinda throw the bottle straight at the ground. If you ever come back to this, one thing that I think would make it a lot more satisfying is being able to see the bottle fall all the way to the ground rather than ending when it hits the tree tops. Cool game!!

This game is so interesting and weird. I love the spinning red pattern as a background and the way the screens transition looks awesome. One thing I noticed is that when you drag the word around to feed to the guy, it doesn’t really matter where you drop it - even if you put it super far away it still feeds it to him. I do think the line could be a little smoother, because right now, it’s clear that the line is made up of lots and lots of circles if you draw quickly. Also, this is sort of nitpicky, but you can kinda go ham drawing whatever you want if it’s outside the stencil, which I’m not sure was your intention. But yeah, I really like this, good job!

I feel like… this is what I want it to feel like in my brain all the time. The music fits perfectly! There’s definitely a lot that you could do to expand on this - my one criticism at the moment would probably be that having such a decorative font in that orange color makes it a little hard to read on the background for it being the most important element on the screen. Maybe some sort of outline would fix that? I also noticed the gaps between the trees that happen sometimes, but it didn’t really impact the experience that much overall other than sometimes taking my attention away from the quotes. It would be cool if the background changed over time or something, like the sun setting & rising. Awesome job!

Hi Jordan! I actually really love this. It’s simple but has such a strong vibe. The scribbly white and red letters look great, and scrolling through the quotes is jarring but also strangely satisfying in a way that I think fits. Even the opening screen is just so nice to look at, not that I expected anything else from you! If you ever continue working on this, I think having the scene be randomly generated would really add a lot of mileage to the experience. I also agree that all of the eyes should have an effect because seeing the ones that don’t do anything makes me want more!

This is awesome, I love the concept and how clean and simple the visuals are. The log is such a cool way of watching the relationships progress - it makes you feel like the characters are much more real than if they were just a static profile! I found that I was having some issues unselecting files after a connection was created. Sometimes I would right click and it seemed like nothing would happen. If you continue to work on this, having a feature where you can zoom in and out might be helpful, as I found that profiles would spawn outside of my view and I just wouldn’t realize there was anything there. The overlapping text makes things spiral out of control really fast, since there’s a certain point where things become unreadable, which you can’t really come back from, although I do like how chaotic the screen gets. I agree that it would be nice for WASD to move around faster as well. That’s pretty much it, my criticism is mostly just clarity and user experience stuff. Very solid design and again really amazing idea!!

Hi Ron, this is absolutely hypnotic. I could totally imagine playing something like this at a casino (not that I’ve ever been to a casino lol). I agree with Gen about how the game would benefit with clearer labeling on the numbers, or even maybe just changing the background or UI layout so it’s more distinctly a “me vs. the house” kind of thing rather than two numbers that are side by side, which doesn’t really imply an “opponent” to me. Also, personally, it wasn’t clear at first what the relationship between the two results was - for instance, the way that the numbers are displayed makes it look like instead of 1+3, the number might be 13. Solving this would be pretty easy I think - just displaying a total / final number of what would be added to your score would be enough, imo. I also still don’t really understand how the middle wheel calculates its result, since it doesn’t seem to use the same arrow as the outside wheel (or maybe it does, but it’s just a little off sometimes?). I seem to get 0 a lot on the inner wheel, even when it looks like I’ve landed smack in the middle of a number. Obviously, as people have mentioned, sound would make the experience a lot more compelling as well, but I think that even without it it’s easy to get the vibe you were going for. Really cool & interesting choice of mechanics with the assets we were provided!

Abby - this game is so strange, not that I expected anything else. Visually and audio-wise, I think you nailed that unnerving vibe, and every element really works together. Using the 4 humors was a clever idea that fit nicely with the theme you’ve got going on as well.

I don’t have much criticism for this. I’m a little torn because I sort of agree with what Miles said about thinking that the control scheme should feel a little more frantic, but I also enjoy the grueling work of simply pressing one button at a time and paying attention, forever. I kinda want there to be some sort of sound when you lose? & the loss condition itself felt a little inconsistent at times - sometimes when I’d start the game, almost all the limbs would immediately be moving super fast and I’d have like, one second to fix it before losing, while other times I didn’t touch any of the buttons for ages and it didn’t end. Also, the blood button wasn’t working for me (maybe that’s the brokenness you were referring to in the description?).

But yeah, I really like that you made something very intentionally unsettling like this. You have a real strength for making funky experimental games with a super powerful and specific aesthetic.

Hi Raymond! This game is like, super delightful. The art and music and colors all work together to make this really pleasant atmosphere, and the text is simple but strangely endearing. It does take a while for the kitty’s mood to go down - at first, I didn’t even notice that it could do that because of how long it takes (plus the fact that it sometimes doesn’t update until you try to interact with her again). In the description, you said that it’s supposed to be a drag and drop type thing, but you get the same effect from just dragging your mouse back and forth which maybe isn’t what you intended. I also noticed that if you wait for long enough without doing anything, the kitty just gets very happy all of a sudden. Oh, & I wanted some sort of animation on the kitty herself too, even if it’s just a simple little movement up and down and some visual feedback when you feed/brush/pat her!

But yeah, this game makes me really happy! It’s super short right now but I think if you wanted to make it longer, I definitely wouldn’t mind there being more phases between upset and very happy, or even the kitty wanting one specific thing each time so there’s more trial and error between the start and end.

Hi Luke! This is so satisfying to play - it has the vibe of one of those games where you vent your workplace frustrations by slamming a ragdoll of your boss around the room. It’s cool that the little dude stays standing; watching him sway back and forth after a big explosion is oddly soothing. It’s also interesting that what you choose to do to this guy feels so inconsequential. After the little emoji particles disappear, all traces of your previous actions are gone, which might be intentional to fit the vibe or it might not be, but it definitely has a huge impact on the game’s sandbox-y feeling.

This game is simple but well done, so I don’t have a lot of criticism. If I had to say one thing, it’s that I don’t understand the visual significance of the little rectangles in the background, and the shadows are all weirdly jagged where the actual objects themselves have smooth edges. Good work!!

Hi Jordan! This game is so beautiful and I love the idea that you’re the pet. It’s simple but I think it really works, & I always love a typing game!

There were definitely times that I pressed the button faster than the game would let me, and then before I realized that it didn’t go through, I’d missed the trick. Also, this is probably a side effect of having such a short time limit combined with such a high visual standard, but I wish there were a few more tricks - after a bit, my hands were kind of staying in one place on the keyboard where I could reach every trick, which I think is maybe a little less chaotic than the vibe you were going for.

This is so cute though - the simple colors make it really nice to look at. And the whole pet adoption process metaphor is super interesting and clever!

This game is like… everything I could have wanted from a virtual pet game. The animations are adorable and the way the camera zooms in when you click on stuff is super smooth and nice. The “Return to Garden” button wasn’t always working for me unless I had the game fullscreen, though, and I think when you click different things too fast or something, sometimes your little dude will get stuck in a seemingly endless loop of doing one thing like eating or being watered.

I also wish that you could see their names underneath them - the name feature is nice but doesn’t really affect anything right now. It would also be helpful for keeping track of who’s who and who will need stuff soon. And I agree with Gen about the evil ones! I was completely read for them to like, start eating the other guys or something. Anyway… I love this.

This game is really visually pleasing, and I think the clicking sound when the ring turns fits the game perfectly. The ambient sounds and clean visuals are so relaxing! I also think it’s interesting that each press of the space bar rotates the ring by half of a ring segment rather than a full one, making accuracy extra important.

One issue I had is that there’s nothing balancing out the amount of each color your ring starts with - the second time I played, I had all blue segments of the ring except one. I feel like you’re really at the mercy of the randomization that happens each game - if you only have one or two pink blocks and they’re both grouped up, there’s basically no way to deal with that because you can’t spin around the whole ring that fast. I’d also think it might be good if there were some sort of visual feedback when the ring gets hit by a matching colored block, even if it’s just something small.

Overall though this is cool! Great work.

Agree with all this! I was definitely struggling to come up with a mechanic that felt like an authentic portrayal of dialogue (because you don't know what you're going to be thinking in the future) while also not being boring or unfair to the player. I think the answer to that is probably just that if I had more time, I would have written more so that there wouldn't be those gaps where you're locked into silence at all!

Hi Ron! I love the extended, lingering dialogue - it builds so much tension! The first time I played, I didn’t realize there was dialogue coming and pressed space and shot right away and I was like, is that it?? I think that long pause at the beginning before he speaks can be very easily construed as waiting for the player to take an action (and in this case, the only action could be the space bar). Once I actually figured out what was up though I thought it was really cool!

I would have really liked it if he shot after the end of that super long-winded little diatribe, he would actually shoot though (or run away?). It feels sorta strange that the only outcome is you shooting him and once he’s done talking he just sits there and waits for you to do it. A little nit-picky thing - after you shoot, it feels weird that you can keep pressing space to make the shooting sound but no bullets come out. I feel like it would make more sense to just not be able to shoot at all, and also being able to shoot once seems like it would add to the drama you’ve got going on.

Hey Miles, the progression in this game is amazing! I love how personal it is to you and the way the the story is shown both in the gameplay & narration. The fact that the game becomes this laborious button smashing that barely moves the character at all feels incredibly relatable. I feel like it’s really interesting that nothing happens if you just don’t move for a long time and there’s no real consequence to whether you finish in 10 seconds or 100. It’s not necessarily super satisfying, but I think it does add an interesting layer of meaning to the metaphor.

One little critique is that the on some of the backgrounds it’s really clear where the tiles start & end so it does feel like the audience is just repeating rather than like you’re actually going somewhere - maybe that’s intentional, maybe not. Another TEENY tiny spacing thing - if you go over 100 seconds, the “c” in sec is going out of the little text window.

This game has a really powerful visual & audio style and it’s super meaningful! You did an awesome job on this.

Hi Abby, this is really satisfying to play! I feel like the effect when the hammer hits the nut really makes me feel the pain the nut is feeling - I feel like I’m squashing a big bug. The music really matches the vibe perfectly. I felt like I was playing for so long that I just never expected it to end, so when the ending popped up I was like, oh huh! The hammer sometimes swings back and forth pretty erratically & unpredictably which can make it hard to get any nuts, but I feel like that’s probably part of the desired effect, so I actually think it works. Really weird game!

Hi Santi - once you get the hang of it, this game feels super good and almost weirdly hypnotic to play. I love the design of the cactus men! One thing is that it kinda feels less like a river and more like a snake being pulled along - I wish it left behind the exact path you took, looking like a winding river behind you. I also definitely wish there were some sort of audio, even if it’s just a little thing when you switch directions. Overall though I think it’s really enjoyable!

Hi Philip! This feels super great to play and really close to the original. The hellish sound the engine makes had me feeling very immersed! I like the way the 40 speeds feels, especially with how smooth yet responsive the left/right turning is. It makes it so you can dodge tons of trees in a really satisfying way. The one thing I’d say is that it seems like turning speeds up as you’re going faster which would be totally fine except that when you’re going slow, the turning doesn’t feel very responsive. Awesome job!

Hey Michael! Probably my favorite parts about this are the effects when you hit enemies and the effect when you run into a tree. They both look super cute and fit the rest of the game’s vibe really well. The biggest issue I had while playing is that the turning is really sudden, and if you’re turning rapidly from side to side, it can feel very jittery. As somebody who gets motion sick, it could be a little hard to deal with when dodging clusters of trees. Other than that the bike movement and turning feel really nice. Good work!

Hi Stephanie, I love the art here, it feels really close to the original. The way the projectile moves is also nice and makes me wanna be spammy with it, except you have to wait until the original one disappears to spawn a new one. I think at one point I actually managed to do something where the previous projectile just didn’t respawn, so I couldn’t shoot anymore. I also like the bike movement other than the fact that it takes a hot sec to really get going or slow down, but once you’re there it feels super nice. Good job!

Hey Justin! The bike movement on this feels really solid, it’s super responsive. I’m not sure if the way the enemies move was intentional but I think I’m into it? It’s kinda trippy and kaleidoscope-esque, even if it’s not super authentic. I think the big thing I was left wanting from this was some sort of big, obvious effect when you crash into a tree or hit an enemy. The collision when you hit the tree is a little bit weird sometimes as well - sometimes it feels like I’ve successfully avoided it and then I’ll crash anyway. Good work!

Hi Jordan! This feels really smooth to play, like a better feeling, modern version of the original. The way the trees work and the rest of the art all feels super true to the original vibe of the game.

The one thing I would say is that sometimes the projectile shoots from pretty far off to the side instead of from the center where the bike is. It can make it impossible to hit stuff that's far away, especially since the projectile is small. Also the collisions with trees feel almost a little bit too forgiving? I felt like there were times I was certain I was going to hit one of the trees and then I’d kinda glance off of it, but maybe that’s only really relevant when you’re not going super fast. Great work!