I can second this, I am also having some difficulties with UI and input! (I find that getting play to work well in browser embeds can be tough for things like jam games with short turnarounds, or high-concept stuff that gives little room for stress-testing!)
Either way, I dig the idea, balancing between realism and optimism to get by!
As a disclaimer, I personally know the developer. I played an hour in, died 445 times, and completed the screen with horizontal moving platforms and gravity reversing arrows.
As someone who has never played (only watched) I Wanna Be the Guy for myself, I'm happy to say that the original doesn't feel like a prerequisite! Normal mode felt like the amount of difficulty I expected: tough but fair.
I appreciate the ways that level mechanics are reigned in: for example, simply reversing the gravity disrupted my jump accuracy, so the design rolled back to basic platforming for a while, then sparsely overlapped mechanics for controlled difficulty spikes (no pun intended). Frequent checkpoints and safe platforms allow you to rest and reflect.
The tightness on the turnaround from learning a mechanic to subverting it is rapid, but satisfying. For instance, the orange platforms' ability to rise above their starting point is unintuitive, so you are closed in with one to encourage playful interaction. The tendency to abandon those platforms is used against the player immediately after: it feels deserved, not frustrating!
At a close second to jumping, dying is what you'll do most in the game, but fortunately, each failure rewards you with a humorous quote or image. They oscillate between trendy Gen Z conjurations to mid-2000s meme culture, so even if you're picky about your in-game humor, you'll likely enjoy a significant chunk of what's on offer (and thankfully, none came off as truly mean-spirited to me).
Other sneaky tricks, such as killing the player with the bottom of the screen above, fall within reason of the game's rules and take advantage of the player's assumptions. They're far enough apart that I don't feel I'm being griefed, and instead I feel like I'm in on the joke. The level design is used to produce physical comedy, rather than relying on visual gags or one-off rug pulls, which I greatly respect.
As someone mostly uninitiated with clicker-style games, the fast reset cap on money really kept things tight! The total play time is substantial enough to get that extreme, exponential rate of production going, but short enough to encourage a second playthrough!
In the end, I did succeed with 22,594,991 ramen and a max cap of 2,159,050 money; I lost $33,425,786 in the process!
This is a bunch of fun, and it sure seems like you had fun making it! I love that the trick names continue to elongate while you hold the trick: it's the kind of detail that's funniest when it first happens, then again once you've realized the text has careened off-screen! I picked up the keyboard controls pretty quickly, and the amount of sloped terrain gives the player lots of time to acclimate to the functionality of movement! The aesthetic is appropriately charming and scrappy, too: exploring around is worth it for the different graffiti tags to find!
Congrats to everyone on the team! (We'll see if anyone has the skills to beat the current high score, though it certainly won't be me and my measly ~6,000 points!)
Great work with the game! I like how the main gameplay can be minimized for those in it for the monologues and reference material, while those looking for a challenge can try optimizing their gameplay! Juggling items and dual-controlling Pete are addictive and great for score, but it puts you more at risk of being distracted from the lightning bolts raining down: so maintaining a balance there can be difficult, but always in a way that the player can dial back on! Managing the clutter of falling objects helps to put on some pressure in an entertaining, too! It's very satisfying to get a good grip on it and shove a bunch of props off one side of the ship!
I hope you had lots of fun working on this, and that your self-care is going swimmingly!
Thank you so much for the feedback! I can say that shaving and makeup being one merged action has confused quite a few players, so that's one of the things I plan on making clearer next!
I really appreciate you sharing your own experiences, too! I'm hoping that the game can encourage motions of solidarity, as we identify the material circumstances that limit us, and how we may liberate ourselves in spite of those circumstances toward feasible euphoria! I definitely want to continue development when I get the chance!
Thanks again for sharing, and take care as we brace for the winter!
I seriously appreciate your kind thoughts! Kid-friendliness was definitely something I wanted to maintain, both to challenge myself, and to make something that I could share with family, friends, and students alike! Although Burdy's on indefinite hiatus, I definitely think about revisiting the project from time to time, thanks to those who give it a try!
Thank you so much for sharing this with me! I'm glad to hear that the narrative is relatable beyond my own experiences, and it's all the more reason for me to keep going with the project!
I think it'll be difficult for me to set aside time to work more on it for now (working-class struggles!), but the good news is that I'm reaching a point where the systems are all modular enough to lead the way—with that done, it will be a matter of creating/adding content periodically up until the end!
Thanks again for the support, and take plenty of care!
As an upfront disclaimer, I've had a part in teaching the developers of this game, and therefore, I'm inclined to review their work favorably!
On the whole, I like the premise, being a dog trekking back to their owner who has moved away. It's easy to remember and sustains the motivation of the adventure end to end, even when events get more fantastical. I didn't expect the twist ending, and in retrospect, it makes sense from the start, so the surprise is well earned! The 2D art accompanying significant story beats in the game are also appreciated, as they help to keep things fresh.
The variety of platforming contexts is also a strong point of the game: the scenery changes often, so aside from some staple elements (such as climbing through logs to bridge one segment of gameplay to another), you'll have novel environments to explore at each new turn. I was frankly surprised by the quantity of content in the game, which surely was aided by borrowed assets, a wise choice for this situation. Being in first-person view also feels appropriate given the narrative direction, though this sometimes leads to some awkward platforming timing (not uncommon for games like this) and the camera occasionally clips through surfaces at close-range due to the size/relative positioning of the character's bodily collision. The hunger meter depletes at just the right pace, and food items were located in places I'd hope to find them—those locations were more challenging to reach as the game progressed, comfortably raising the difficulty level in a satisfying way!
I'm tempted to say that the hunger meter is the glue that brings everything together, but I think it's a close second to the game's quest readouts, which are narrated by the dog character. The monologue was particularly charming for me, and it seemed as though whenever I was reaching a point of "what now?" the prompt would update just in time! Those checkpoints, and the restore points for platforming challenges, are frequent and encouraging. I spent a lot of time eager to see what the dog's next thought was going to be!
All in all, I feel the team did well to juice each component of this game for its latent potential, and I look forward to seeing what each dev will do next!
As a disclaimer, I'm an associate to Leyline Studios, and an existing fan of their games.
I really dig this concept, and I'm surprised how playable it remains to be even when your sensory threshold slips away! On your first play, it's an interesting contrast to a lot of runner/parkour-type games, specifically ones which trend toward designs that can be perfected on the first try. The game actively pushes back on that mentality as information is removed, as if to ask, "How well do you actually know this game?" The player is encouraged to take their time getting to know the game first, to make mistakes and slow down.
The more you play, the less of the whole you pay attention to. You narrow your attention onto only the most basic forms (in this case, edges and perpendicular lines), and you trade the diminishing holistic experience of the game for technical optimization. The way the game rendering takes that information away for you at high speeds reflects the delimiting processes of game mastery in a visual way, and it makes me rethink my relationships with the games I'm most familiar with.
And, for those players who find this all as interesting as I do, links are provided to the research undergirding this game design, which I seriously appreciate!
A brief disclaimer: I am an acquaintance of the creator, and I have collaborated with them before on a game jam. My analysis below may seem overdone as a result, but know that I'm not writing this as a favor (academia has not been kind to my writing style), and I hope that my thoughts still ring as genuine in the end!
I feel that Sleep is Inevitable is a great example of how the form and context of a game jam game can stir certain provocative questions as a player interacts with its incompleteness, while being aware of its incompleteness.
Being aware of the short turnaround time and prototype status of the game, the gameplay leads me to ask, "Is this supposed to work like this?" and "Am I doing this right?" These questions mirror my own experiences in retail and service jobs, characterized by their half-finished systems and questionable tendencies to isolate employees. I recommend you play the game first before reading on, as I'm about to offer some examples from my own unique play experiences.
Only a few items can remained spawned at once, and the spawn rate is not flexible, meaning that it's possible for an item you're carrying to be despawned mid-transit. I was incentivized to pick up and carry only the most recent items, letting the earlier inconveniences disappear into neglected oblivion. This is one of several conflicts that the player, just trying to make the most of the situation, will eventually decide is not their problem (or else they will be overwhelmed). The same goes for items rolling off the edge: sometimes it's your fault, sometimes it isn't, but hesitation about that doesn't help to get the job done. A numbness begins to settle in. The careening camera is unpleasant when you're running out of stamina; based on the drowsy spells and panic attacks I've had standing up at work before, it would be miseducative if the feature didn't make me a bit ill. There's a bit of rebellion in using the rope to jump around and work up a bit of energy: the rope wasn't made for you, but desperate for any kind of stimulus, you indulge yourself in using it. Likewise, it took me a while to realize the rope requires you to rapidly tap the E key to use—I had to do more than hear the impulse, I had to get desperate to use it for my own gains. If squeezing a small bit of stamina out of the rope isn't enough to break the player's will, they'll be shattered seeing the Completion meter tick backwards at the halfway point. I gave it several more tests to see if the negation point is a feature instead of a bug, just to confirm that the system I was working under was designed as I had feared. After that, awakened to the bleak circumstances, all that was left to do was participate in inevitability, whether by failing the job, falling out of the world in an act of apathetic self-harm, or resigning by quitting the game.
I truly believe the messages embedded in this game could not hit me as strongly if this game project had full closure in its production. The working world is similarly tumbling in a constant state of unfulfilled potential, from frayed customer interaction policies to company websites riddled with dead-ends. Had this game been neatly polished with a lacquer finish, it would be uncontroversial in the worst way, a hollow performance of workplace opinion instead of authentic participation. Sleep is Inevitable bottles those moments of on-the-job discomfort and futility as an aesthetic, and I feel that there's an immense value in embracing such game experiences. If a game can draw this much meaning from me in its unconventional state, I think it's worth further decoupling the belief that a game is measured on its production value alone.
[Reposting from the GMTK Game Jam thread]
Full disclosure, I'm a friend and fan of the devs, and having jammed games before, I'm more interested in calling attention to the unique, positive qualities of this game than giving a review (I will not apply a score for the GMTK Game Jam)! Here are some aspects of Mowed Down which represent some of Leyline Studio's strong points as developers:
If you enjoyed anything from this bite-sized game, I'd recommend looking into the rest of Leyline Studio's catalog. If there's one thing game jams can demonstrate, it's the instinctual strengths of the developer, latent or realized. If you liked something about this game, I'm certain that quality exists in their published works as well.
Full disclosure, I'm a friend and fan of the devs, and having jammed games before, I'm more interested in calling attention to the unique, positive qualities of this game than giving a review (I will not apply a score for the GMTK Game Jam)! Here are some aspects of Mowed Down which represent some of Leyline Studio's strong points as developers:
If you enjoyed anything from this bite-sized game, I'd recommend looking into the rest of Leyline Studio's catalog. If there's one thing game jams can demonstrate, it's the instinctual strengths of the developer, latent or realized. If you liked something about this game, I'm certain that quality exists in their published works as well.
As a disclaimer, I know the folks at Leyline Studios and follow their mainline work. This being said, I saw them sharing that they'd submitted a game to the GMTK Jam, and played it on my own volition!
I feel that Only One Burn is an excellent example of what a jam game can live to be: a representation of how far the devs can take an idea. If one mechanic can be fully polished and exhausted, it can be assumed that the devs can do so to a number of other mechanisms and concepts!
In no particular order, I want to note some things that made this game special to me:
- Although this game takes the shape of a lunar lander, I ended up playing it nothing like the inspiration. I had the most fun playing aggressively and creatively, particularly when I adjusted to using the side jets to tweak the vehicle's velocity!
- Iterative levels act as scaffolding for player skill: since it can be difficult to get accustomed to how long and forceful the fuel burn is, using similar level setups with additive twists leads to a comfortable learning curve! Perhaps this is contentious, but for a game jam, I think this was a great choice!
- The distinction of a "Success!... kinda..." motivated me to land more safely in future levels, but didn't feel condescending for completing the level in a rough-and-tumble way!
- The combination of immediate vehicle velocity in some level startups and the hysterically abrupt explosion sound effect on failures makes quick restarts way more satisfying than I'd expect.
Again, having known the developers, I think this is a great introduction to what the Leyline Studios partnership's does best: juicing gameplay and quirky gameplay concepts. Experiencing how unique this game feels gives me great hope for whatever's next in the pipeline!
Spectacularly sharp, in its artistic design and implementation all around! I'd like to do the developers a service by pointing out what truly shines about this game, and why you should try it out!
-Clear communication of scope: with the first level being fairly short to complete, then showing one flame in the tower, the player can understand just how much time they're committing to! Short and satisfying!
- Lovely artistic choices! Being a bit of a puzzle/dungeon crawler hybrid that also hedges on wordless tutorials, it's clear how effective the imagery works when the gameplay components are so affordable!
- Healthy lenience in the gameplay keeps anxiety and intrigue in a playful balance! e.g. being able to spot the corners of tiles by rotating the light, flickering the light to gradually scour an unfamiliar area safely, quick respawns meant I could experiment with the game's silent rules with no frustration!
- The game takes its most basic concept and runs the full course: I can see exactly what I subjectively enjoy about this design, and I am ready to be excited for any extensions of it! I could say all of the points above with zero hesitation!
Whether this game continues to grow or remains a solid jam entry, it's a significant and memorable experience for me! Awesome job!
In teaching students UE4, I find that even those who are primarily interested in design will set aside their designer inclinations until the game reaches peak function, whether by their own volition or their peers' request. It's a noble act, to put gameplay function before gameplay ideology, but in those cases, I really miss seeing the creative forces and brainworms of the creators, unable to bury themselves into the project.
This is what I enjoy most about Transform Blasters- the intent to create novelty/exploration (modular gun evolution and mysterious criteria to boost stats) tied to the player's central motivation (shooting baddies) wasn't cut from core gameplay, and ultimately is what led to me playing ten times longer than I would've otherwise! Both artistry and programming in a game development setting are problems that need solved, and design is the methodology in solving those problems- that design sensibility is what hooked me, and I'm glad you didn't shy away from it!
In short, yes, that is one interpretation that had crossed my mind!
In truth, the original narrative was very ambiguous- chasing a dream with the help of support and faith, and despite the loss of support or faith over time and change, what the dream stands for is never out of reach- but on about day 3/4 of the jam, as I was thinking about the metaphor and whether it was coming together mid-development, it occurred to me just how well a transgender narrative seemed to make sense with what was visually depicted!
I'm kind of ashamed that I hadn't designed for that in the first place, since it works surprisingly well in hindsight, but since I'm not an authority nor experienced person for the topic, I think I'd rather leave it undecided so that players can perceive that notion and own it for themselves!
Since I can't say that I'm trans myself, I wouldn't want to lead a story that wasn't personally validated, or worse, one that was potentially disruptive: for instance, the ending of "coming back home" in the finale cannot be a reality for some transgender people who are ejected from their families, and the game's theme of "transformation" might incite negative stereotypes about elements of transgender lifestyles and choice. Ultimately, I'd hope that a transperson could find value in the span of this tiny game, but I wouldn't want to prescribe that to the player! Here's to hoping it helps someone!
(and hey, thanks for the feedback! I greatly appreciate it!)
