itch.io

Hey! First of all thank you so much, I'm so glad that my game is your favorite game of the jam.

I thought about it and I can address some issues the prevented your game from receiving the rating you wanted. (some of them may apply to my game as well)

First thing is that it takes some time to present all the the game's dynamics. As I said in my first comment, your game is a mixture of puzzle(/strategy), exploration and luck but it takes five or 10 minutes for the player to realize the puzzle aspect of the game so when players start your game and for the first minutes they are only engaged with the luck aspect of the game, they would assume that they wont get anything more than that and leave the game.

The luck aspect of the game is dominant to the other aspects. The problem with it is that at some point it becomes the only thing that the player is struggling with to progress further into the game and since it's out of player's control and they can't do much with lower number of moves, it wont be fun to play. You can weaken the luck aspect of the game and reduce its dominance over other aspects of the game, Maybe make a negative feedback loop for the player when they get a low number like giving some points and letting player do something with them when they have a specific amount of that points. You can also strengthen the puzzle and exploration aspect of the game to reduce luck's dominance and balance the three core dynamics. Maybe have different enemy types like having them move randomly but in an easy to predict patterns. Some of them may only move horizontally, some of them may only  move vertically, some of them may move diagonally, some of them may move like the horse in chess.

There are also some small issues with the exploration aspect of the game like having a more clear distinction between areas and making sure the player knows they are on the right path. I think instead of having a camera that follows the played all the time, it's better to have a zoomed out and fixed camera in each room and make it zoom in and follow the player when they are in hallways.

The last issue that I wanted to address is that the player has to wait so much when it's enemy turn and it's really annoying especially when there are no enemies on the screen that can hurt you or when there are no enemies on the screen at all.

I hope my comment is helpful :)

I really enjoyed the game and the difficulty wasn't a problem for me, though I think closer camera and having a little coyote time would have been better. I think I managed to beat every level at least once and hopefully I'll try to claim the lost treasure.

Also it looks beautiful and well polished. Great job :)

It's a nice little game, Though I'm not a fan of perma death for this kind of games.

Good job :)

Fun and simple game. I think it has the potential to be a fine shoot'em up game.

Good work :)

Thank you for playing my game, I'm glad you liked it :)

I'll play, rate and comment the game of anyone who comment here. I can't wait to play yours :)

Oh my god, that's really nice of you. You actually played it for 2 hours and I wish I had made it better and more balanced so the game could appreciate your efforts better cause I honestly can't appreciate enough the time you put on my game. The comments like yours give me so much motivation and confidence.

I had some plans in mind to balance the overall experience in terms of difficulty and pace but you have some wise advices that I hadn't considered.

Thank you so much and I'm glad you liked it :)

Simple and enjoyable strategy game with great aesthetic though I think it was a bit hard to distinguish the type of the game pieces.

Well done :)

At first I thought choosing all faces to be attack is the best strategy but at the second fight I understood I was so wrong. Then tried with 3 attack, 2 attack damage boost and one enemy shield reduction and didn't loose a single battle.

Clever game and I enjoyed it, well done :)

It's the most clever dice matching puzzle of the jam that I have played, you don't need to randomly roll the dices around to get the intended result You can think it through without relying on chance and I love that there is more than one way to solve most of them like you can match two sets of two dices or match all four of them at once.

Clever game, well done :)

Creative and fun. Well done :)

Yeah, it turned out to be more difficult than what I wanted it to be but I'm glad you liked it.

Thanks for playing my game :)

Thanks for playing my game and I'm glad you liked it.

I'm planning to fix the control difficulty, balance the orbs placements and some other tiny improvements at the weekend an release a post-jam version after the jam. That's all for now, nothing huge, but I'd like to have a chance to explore other possibilities of the core mechanic of this game in the future.

I'll play, rate and comment the game of anyone who comment here. I can't wait to try yours :)

I enjoyed the game more than I thought I would when I stated to play. It was such a relief to see the guards pass you by.

I like how you mixed puzzle, exploration and luck. And the way you forced player not to turn back by a ball and chain that also prevents guards from chasing you is brilliant and I've never seen something like it before.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the 5'th key of the set of five doors as I needed a lot of luck to search properly. (And I managed to pick 9 bones)

Great entry as you were also working on another submission. Well done :)

It's a really clever way of using dice, it adds another fun layer of luck to the Russian roulette that actually fits it so well. I love that you have pick the bullets yourself, though it doesn't really matter but it delivers a sense of fear to the player specially when you roll "6".

So much emotion in such a small and minimalistic experience. Well done :)

I'm so thrilled by your detailed and kind words. Actually I don't know what to say  right now :), at this point I think you know my game better than me, I mean I thought it's not possible to climb up the hill without more force orbs.

I know that the control is harder than I thought it would be specially when I forgot to put any proper force orb after you get the third one. There were thing that I wanted to put in the game, like jump pads and movement speed upgrades to make it easier to explore the map but sadly I didn't manage my time and effort properly. I wish I could make a better experience for people who play it, especially people like you who spend so much time and managed to beat it.

About the crystal, honestly I added it into the game minutes before I exported the last build and didn't manage to make an end sequence. So I'm really sorry about that, but I can only thank you for your time to play and beat the game (which I thought no one would do that) and your heartwarming comment :)

I wish I had managed my time better to ask more people to play my game so I could fix the control difficulty. I have some ideas to make it much better for the post-jam version. About jump height, I know I forgot to make sure players know about it but you can jump mid air and do double jump or triple jump, it's actually the only way to get some of the orbs, though I know it's a really hard maneuver specially to reach the crystal, which requires at least a quadruple jump.

Btw, thank you so much for playing my game. I'm glad you liked the environment :)

Thank you so much for playing my game :)

I wish I had managed my time and efforts better so I didn't have to rush at the end and give you a better experience. I hope I get batter at it.

That's amazing. Since I forgot to place proper orbs after getting the third one and didn't manage my time properly to add movement speed upgrade and jump pads (to travel faster along the map), I thought no one would try double jumping or stay enough in my game to get fully upgraded. 

I know it's a bit hard to control the dice but I hope you enjoyed the game :)

And thank you so much fore playing and getting fully upgraded, you made my day :)

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it :)

Having other dices and being able to push and rotate them is the thing I haven't seen in other games so far and you presented it very good. Well done :)  

I wanted to solve the puzzles without relying on trial and error and rolling around but at some parts, it was all I could do as it's hard to predict how will be the dice when you reach certain points. But overall it fits the theme very well, is fun and challenging and I managed to beat it. Well done :)

It also reminds me of the game "Gunbrick". it's a tile-base puzzle-platformer game with some action. You should check it out.

I manage to solve an easy one. It requires a lot of thinking but you'll feel so satisfied when you guess everything right.

Sorry to hear that. jumping over gaps is a bit tricky but seems like it's more difficult than what I thought.

Thanks anyway for playing my game. I'm glad you liked the vibe :)

Though I didn't understand how the side of the dice affects the jump parameters (if it does at all), I managed to finish it.

I loved the intro. The concept is fun and I scored 800 so far.
I also liked that I had to plan ahead of time and adjust the rotation properly for the next laser.
Well done :)

Is she sobbing on the couch?
Interesting concept btw and I was lucky enough to survive the week.
Well done :)

Overall I enjoyed this game. It was a bit chaotic at the beginning but when I learned how it works, it got interesting.

Nice take on the jam's theme and well done :)

I'm glad you liked it.
Thanks for playing my game :)

I would have gone for a high score if I understood how the damage area of the sword is determined.

Good game as your first game to the public.

I loved every aspects of this game and the Undertale vibe. Its a fun polished game that can turn into chaos depending on your luck.

Although I beat it on first try, I must say the difficulty curve caught me off guard and I liked it.

Really well done :)

I tried to make the platforming as good as I can but it's still a bit hard to control and has room for improvement.

And thanks for playing and leaving your feedback. I hope you enjoyed it :)

Yeah you're completely right.
I wanted to put an upgrade that boosts your speed and make some jump pads which could throw you to other sides of the map to explore faster but ran out of time. And also I was in such a hurry that somehow I forgot to put some force orbs after the third one you collect, so you have to go all the way to the other side of the map for more orbs.

Thank you so much for playing my game and giving me your detailed feedback :)

Thanks :)
I'm glad you liked it

Oh, my bad. I don't usually read reviews to the end so I must've missed it 😅

Good to know, thanks 😍

This is a weird jam and it's really hard to tell what's good or whats bad and I think you have a really interesting idea :)

I'm really glad you figured out how it works, but I don't get what you mean by what you typed in the last line and I'm curious to know.

Your idea is great and I think you could make it more confusing while keeping it's playability.

But in this jam I found out that it's really hard to make a game confusing yet playable. You did a nice job and made a really interesting game, but I think it could have been made more challenging for this specific jam.

BTW, well done :)

Yes, the song itself is epic but you made a nightmare out of it :)