itch.io

Finally got to play through this game and had a lot of fun! It didn't seem like the esc button to go to the next level worked once i was in the museum though, since I seemed to be stuck on that screen while I was there, but even a single level was plenty of fun.

I enjoyed just reading about the game before playing to go 'mhmm, that matches a bit with my game, oh yeah, and that part, oh and that.' But also seeing what was different was nice too. Just, the whole concept of  a mining for fossils game and seeing the different ways we took it.

I know i got a tiny bit stressed from the timer, but i'm always like that when there's a timer, but I think part of it was not knowing I didn't need to dig up the entire fossil. I think part of it was A: going off needing to do so in my own game and B: I found the star leaf fossil first and being able to dig it up all the way and thinking 'ah, everything will be this size' and being wrong.

As for feedback, the sledgehammer seems very easy to overswing and break a lot of fossils below, even if it's the very first thing you do. The contrast of the dirt is sometimes a bit hard to see when it's the lighter variety on top of the fossils and you haven't quite cleared it. I know there was once or twice i wasted some time debating if something was a crack or some leftover dirt or just the art of the fossil itself and wondering if i try chipping away at dirt that may or may not be there and risk instead cracking the fossil.
You also mention a ground penetration radar map in the description, and if you don't just mean the map itself, I'm not sure how to activate the radar since you don't mention what button activates it. And I kinda already mentioned esc not working in the museum, but it's not that bad. if it weren't for the mention of it in the description, I would have thought there was enough to the game already!

Finally got to play through this game and had a lot of fun! It didn't seem like the esc button to go to the next level worked once i was in the museum though, since I seemed to be stuck on that screen while I was there, but even a single level was plenty of fun.

I enjoyed just reading about the game before playing to go 'mhmm, that matches a bit with my game, oh yeah, and that part, oh and that.' But also seeing what was different was nice too. Just, the whole concept of  a mining for fossils game and seeing the different ways we took it.

I know i got a tiny bit stressed from the timer, but i'm always like that when there's a timer, but I think part of it was not knowing I didn't need to dig up the entire fossil. I think part of it was A: going off needing to do so in my own game and B: I found the star leaf fossil first and being able to dig it up all the way and thinking 'ah, everything will be this size' and being wrong.

As for feedback, the sledgehammer seems very easy to overswing and break a lot of fossils below, even if it's the very first thing you do. The contrast of the dirt is sometimes a bit hard to see when it's the lighter variety on top of the fossils and you haven't quite cleared it. I know there was once or twice i wasted some time debating if something was a crack or some leftover dirt or just the art of the fossil itself and wondering if i try chipping away at dirt that may or may not be there and risk instead cracking the fossil.
You also mention a ground penetration radar map in the description, and if you don't just mean the map itself, I'm not sure how to activate the radar since you don't mention what button activates it. And I kinda already mentioned esc not working in the museum, but it's not that bad. if it weren't for the mention of it in the description, I would have thought there was enough to the game already!

originally it was z x and c as just using the tools, but we ran into the issue of people constantly pressing the wrong one and getting upset that they screwed up the buttons, which, when there's strategy involved, is not fun. Being able to decide your tool, see which tool is selected for verification, and then using the tool worked a lot better for the playtesters I got.

As for the arrow keys, i don't think i've ever heard of a keyboard without them, so I never thought to not use them. it certainly would be clunky to use zxc and wasd, but when you're using arrow keys, they're on the opposite side of the keyboard, so if I went with wasd, I would also need to swap out the tool buttons.

I love this game so much. The art style is adorable and the fact that there's jar rattling sounds when you bump the jar is lovely. It's like I have a jar full of dino toys. It is enrichment!

I also love the bump feature in general. it works well with the fact that your dinos aren't perfectly round, so they don't roll like in suika game. so though you're inspired by it, that bumping feature does help make it more unique. I've sometimes played unlimited bumps just because I want to shake the jar a bunch.

I also feel like sharing that when I was sharing with a friend about the game and mentioning the bumps, i was trying to explain how it worked well and just went "well in the main game they're not a commodity, I mean, they are- wait i think that's the right word, but I just mean- ...dino saurus. (/ :3)"

Only time I had issues with the game was when some larger dinos merging caused them to get stuck together, but it makes sense since they are such funky shapes and the bigger ones can cause more displacement. honestly, it's expected enough that it doesn't take away from the game much for me.

This game is very frustrating to play. Loading into the game takes a while (30 seconds from title screen, nearly a minute after you die), the jumps are based on momentum, so if you go down a steep enough cliff, it's impossible to go back up since you also slide down the slopes. I managed to get stuck twice in my first run, having gone to the left until I found the end of the map. I was unable to go back up the slope and found myself stuck at the bottom of that valley before going into the cave there, which I was unable to leave.

Another run I went to the right, and there is an area with a slope up, a single block slope down with a flat plane about 3 or 4 blocks wide before another single block slope up. twice I managed to get stuck there.

I was able to make it to about 6 minutes, dying to a pterodactyl that started showing up after 5 minutes. it does not seem to care if you are in the grass or not. if it spawned to be at the level you are at, when it overlaps you, it will kill you.  I was fine with it flying overhead, but needing to go get food and water spawned it in a place where I died despite being hidden. Not to mention I had to take my headphones off once it did appear because it seems every time it spawns, its sound effect gets played overlapping just as many times until it's just horrible noise.

I'm also not sure why the large dinosaur in the title image exists. In 8 runs (over half an hour of time), I have never seen it once, and if it doesn't appear until after 6 or 7 minutes, it probably either shouldn't be the cover image, or should just show up sooner.

Thanks! I made sure to have an in depth description of the game bc I remember the one that inspired it seemed to not explain it all that well. I figured 'well if I'm making a game like it, I might as well make the improvements I always wanted.

Hey, I think you may have submitted the wrong game to DinoJam4 as this doesn't seem to have dinosaurs and the game seems to have been made 4 or more months ago.

The game runs well as an endless runner, but the fireball seems a little unnecessary with its current implementation. Focusing on both the dragosaur and moving the fireball around is a bit tough, so I normally just moved my mouse to sit in front of it so It would hit something no matter when it was fired. And I couldn't keep it out of the way until I wanted to use it because if a second fireball was fired while I was waiting, they would run into each other and destroy each other, making a sort of use it or lose it scenario. If it weren't a set firing time or it didn't destroy itself, it might work better, but I only really got good scores when I wasn't actively using the fireball, getting second place on the leader board with a 928(though it hasn't updated to show it yet).

The sounds are okay, I know someone already mentioned the jump sound could use some variation, but I think it might be nice to keep the music playing, as as soon as the track has ended, it doesn't loop and is gone until you refresh the page.

There's no selecting items, you just need to have it in your inventory to use. that's why in the tutorial, you never actually select the key to unlock the door, you just see it in your inventory.

Lovely little game. Ran into a small issue into the tutorial where it froze and the button has sort of duplicated itself so ti looked like there were two buttons stacked on top of each other with the one on top slightly to the right which made me need to restart, and then sometimes clicking on the button to send a truck out would send me back to the main area. of block picking.

It got a little hard at a certain point when the blocks were all on the edge bc i had to use time to send trucks out for space and as i was waiting on that, i lost a few points because i couldn't move the pieces so they just sort of cascaded into me losing, so potentially the game could see if the whole conveyor belt is full and potentially move it back or destroy other pieces or something, It just got to the point where i hadn't lost a single point then suddenly all of them were gone. Though I know some games are like that where it's endless until it piles up.

I think there was also a bug when one of the trucks left for good, it wiped one of the other trucks as well, which was good since i was down to one truck, but i did miss out on those points.

But this is a great game which I keep playing and even my roommates have checked out to play.

A lovely game, though a little hard to control. Though you said you can jump off walls, it wasn't clear that that was the main way to move around since a normal jump won't get you over the first obstacle, but if that's the point of the game, it works very well. Especially since you sometimes need to pick paths,a nd some are easier to wall jump around in than others.

for info bc why not, tetris'd started as an animation of a stick figure surviving tetris blocks trying to crush him that eventually was turned into a flash game as well where you were jumping, wall jumping and flipping through the falling tetris blocks to see how long you could last, and that was about it. it didn't clear the blocks, just kept stacking up. this is better because it has a dino in it.

Haha, tbh, I used the color palette from Gold Silver and Crystal for all the sprites as well as designing them based on pokemon tiles from the older games. so the grass is essentially some of the grass from the gen 3 games, but remade in a 16x16 style with 15 bit colors. That being said, the colors for the dino actually came from ponyta and I only made him that way to look like Agumon from digimon.

The gliding issue seems to be more of an issue with the downloaded build then I had making the game and even when I played the built version, as I didn't run into it that often and had trouble getting it to happen when I was trying to, but I think i've managed a fix that can be implemented at a later date.

And then the walking through things was an after effect of me essentially shoving duct tape on something that is okay with it, but could do better with more. because from what i managed to code, that was the best middle ground i could get between 'you can always walk on this no matter what' and 'even though you should be able to walk here, the answer is no.' but hey, slowly walking on water is fun sometimes.

Thank you, and I'm glad you noticed the arrows! originally I was going to have the doors opening and closing too, but didn't have the time to code those in and the arrows worked fine.

A Nice little game though it could use some polish. It doesn't read very well to just have the items on top of the volcano shaped mug as I kept expecting a sound effect or animation or something to happen to signify it was being added. It seem you realize that somewhat already based on your reply to others, but it still plays well as is, so even if you don't update it later down the line, it's still okay.

I love them so much. it was broken in the web version but worked perfectly once I downloaded it. I love how the dino could bonk into the other items in the menu and that if you moved your mouse high enough, you could see the rest of their body. The random duck was funny too. Could have easily been and endless game, but I love that the dino can succeed in deflecting all the rubble. And afterwards I just had fun moving them around. I honestly would have loved this game if it were just moving the dino and interacting with objects in their home or something and it were more of a virtual toy than a game, that's how much I enjoy them.

A nice game! Sort of like flappy bird bird much less frustrating and much more fun. The dragons have lovely designs and the obstacles are easy to read, even the lava spouts since the gem positions can help you see them if you're paying attention. It would be nice if there was a little variation with the gem collecting sound since you're gathering a lot, but it's okay.

Yeah, I ran into the flying in some direction with no input bug once or twice before. I believe it's mainly because of key inputs being used too fast as there is a 4 or so frame area where when you collide with something, if the keys you're pressing change, it will read them wrong. (to let the player move in more than one direction, but correctly stop when colliding with an object, it checks what buttons you're pushing, then when colliding, it will adjust your speed based on that, but if the keys change between it checking the amount of key and adjusting your speed changes, then it will cause the issue)

It usually corrects itself when you collide into something new, but I never got the issue with the raft as even when I forcefully put the dinosaur in the water without the raft, he wouldn't have it.

I'm glad you liked it and sorry that the movement was a little wonky. Hopefully it was otherwise fine!

A Lovely game! reminds me of Tetris'd, but with less complicated controls and more controls over the blocks themselves. The lava is a nice hazard to look out for and easy to spot. The one complaint I have is the dinosaur itself. Don't get me wrong, it's well designed, it's just that the dark green doesn't have the best contrast against the background, making it a little hard to see in the tetris area or the info area. it's easier to see in the info area, but being able to see your character as you move it is pretty important. It's not like the dinosaur is completely invisible, it's just a little hard to see. A more lime green or lighter color in general could help, or perhaps just a white pixel outline If you ever go back to change things.

But this is a fun game and I'll probably play again to get a higher score.

A very fun game. The dinos are all well designed and their abilities read well. It could be go to have the ability to change the controls in the pause screen, or more information on why you have 4 different versions of the controls. Mainly because if I wanted to change the controls for one, it might overlap with another, and there's not an easy way to just turn the other sections off, as well as they didn't want to change properly, sometimes booting me out of the controls menu.  The other thing would be the platforming with the glide/dash ability. Getting up to the floating pool with the two coins is pretty tough because there's only a 1 tile platform to land on when jumping from the mushroom, and it's on the next screen, so being able to react well enough to land there is hard. I know it took me at least over 5 attempts. If you ever go and fix it, it might be you want to change that first one to be a bit wider so there's more room for error.  And I think the last thing is Olaf breaks a little if you suicide while off of him, which can leave you trapped unable to jump high enough to get to him.

So other than those three small things, everything else is great! The idea works well with having one dino that gets the other powers. The graphics and sounds fit the vibe you're going for. The scroll on the screens is smooth, and it's clear what you need to do in each area, at least to me. The slow movement in the water makes it feel tense as your air bar depletes, but not too much. Overall a lovely game that could use a little bit of polish, but works fine nonetheless.

Sorry, I guess I worded the recharge rate a little poorly. I more meant that at full health, because each attack uses more than one piece of ammo, you can fire about 3 times before you need to recharge. but on lower health, you can only fire once, twice, or sometimes not at all. Since movement is paired to firing, which is paired to ammo, which is paired to your health, you could theoretically have not been hit once, but in trying to get away, just moving can kill you because you haven't recharged enough, which is fine at the start, but the fact that if you have been hit enough, it is physically impossible to attack even when you still have health, much less the fact that if you still attack, it can take around 4 seconds to do anything is a little frustrating. Sure you can fire a grenade, but that doesn't help with your movement.

A very nice game. I wish it told you about being able to suck up enemy projectiles, and there being a way to use the vending machines in case all the enemies left are the melee ones and you've used everything else up. Plus while I'm sure the coins count as a score, it might be nice to give them some use.

The game is pretty great gameplay wise, but could do with a little more information such as how damaged the enemies are, what exactly is going on with the grenades, more info on how exactly the fan works, etc.

I'm also not sure if it was purposeful, but while i know your health is linked with your ammo, it seems to take longer to charge the less health you have. I would think that's how you have it linked, to represent less ammo, but it doesn't work too well gameplay wise. Since your attack then translates to your movement, in the long run your health affects your movement, meaning the more hits you get, the harder it is to try and avoid more hits. It might be better than instead of more hits taking longer to charge your attack, it instead weakens your attack, that way it isn't affecting your movement.

Glad to hear! I know I'm planning to fix up the smaller issues in my game when the jam voting is over and I can edit my game, but then I'm planning to go back and make a v2 that redoes a lot. But in general, I'm hoping to see which games do get updated versions because ones like this I love enough I would really love to see that updates version.

Oh this is an amazing game! It works very well for the theme and focus and is a lot of fun to play. The only issues I sort of have is that I don't think I ever saw the tutorial text explain the apples, and that on what I believe were levels 3 and 4, I slept only to spawn with monsters right at the campfire. That last one could be simplified by making sure the monsters aren't right there at the start of the level, or giving a little screen between levels for the player to click when they're really ready for the next level. Like maybe it's just an image of the character sleeping, but it could also give you a moment to not only take a breather between levels, but potentially also see what equipment you have since I was very glad to see the items you gathered carried over into the next level.

I really enjoyed the fact that the night got darker as you went on, making it harder to see so you would be more likely to move on to the next level. The light around the player could have been a little bigger, maybe less of a static circle and maybe more it's a light that fades a little as it gets further out, but it works as is. Plus the fact that later in the night becomes a little more of a struggle means you can't as easily just stick to an easy level to hunt monsters and grab plenty of materials so you can grind your way to be stronger to make later levels easy. 

Lastly, it might have been nice to make the game fullscreenable. I've got a computer with high enough resolution that game game took up a little more than a ninth of my screen. It was still absolutely playable, but it would be nice to resize the game. (I saw you made in in game maker, so it's pretty easy to make it resizable, it's just hidden in a menu that I know I had to look up to find for mine)

Anyway, I really hope to see you potentially add more to this game as it's really good! definitely one of my favorites from the jam I've seen.

Small addition, love the fact that coming here to leave a comment or rate it has the name of the page being 'rate this stick i found' which makes the title even better. yes I would love to rate the stick. that sure is a ten out of ten stick. strong and sturdy but easy to swing.

Don't worry. It was my first one too. Well, technically my second, but I only did the art before, so I wasn't really on the gameplay side of things until this one, so I'm counting it as my first.

yeah, most of those bugs have been pointed out. the main bug seems to be for some reason item positions are read differently between the normal and fire worlds, which has messed with a lot of collision as something that works in one place won't work in the other even though no code should have changed that.

The game is alright, but is a bit slow to play. just moving around needs me to wait a second or two in between button presses to do much and if I mess up, resetting takes about 15 seconds before the level starts again. The puzzles are good though, though a marker for the fireball at least at the start would be nice, but since it's consistent, at least you can memorize that. that being said, it also isn't told to you which ground is flammable and what will or won't spread flame.

Also there seems to be a bug sometimes where once you use a fireball, you are unable to move on flammable ground even if it isn't on fire.

Nice game, though seems to have a few bugs that need fixing. The replay buttons seem to not work, you have the option to click on the other type of kettle/ball to launch, but doing so will also launch it at the same time, and lastly the count near your launcher doesn't match up with how many shots you have, so by the last playable level or sometimes just level 2, it will be listed as negative.

Otherwise, the only thing you might want to change up is your firing meter, it's listed in percent but only goes up to 10% as full, and just in general, since it's mostly transparent, the texture behind it makes it a little hard to read. Plus I'm just not entirely sure why the charge is needed as I couldn't tell that the speed changed anything other than just going faster, which no matter what, it will still go the same distance. perhaps you could add a block that you break if you go too fast, but if you're slow enough it lets you bounce off so you can collect another gear. who knows, maybe that was your plan but you just ran into issues with coding it or the time.

good working title.

Instead on making it onto the platform I needed to get to, I often ran into the side of it, smacking the character's face on the side. the character itself was not running *on* the side but *into* the side.

yeah, i realize it wasn't as clear, but that's mainly because i was having the most bugs with the text which would have been done for hints, so a lot of it ended up being cut down.

yeah sorry, i meant the looping. and i was using mouse anyway

yeah. I was saying that since where the button appears is random, and you need to click it early to clear the jump over the helicopters, you don't really have the time needed to have the button appear, process where it is, move over to the button, and click it in the time span provided before the jump would fail and the helicopter fly into you. The helicopters flying in along with everything else were conveyed well with the large lines going down the screen to show when you needed to take action.

it seemed like it was random. was there actually a pattern to where the button appeared on the screen?

I love the character and the way you used the various functions. I just really wish there were more to play, but what you do have is great!