A great combination of fantastic visuals (love the low-poly, it's really well done! The colour palette is cool too, nice and calm), calming music (I like the synth + chimes), and clever addition of cards to augment gameplay.
My only feedback is that a little tutorial would be nice (I didn't realize the move limit, otherwise everything is pretty self-explanatory, other than the cards perhaps, due to including controls in the UI--good idea by the way). And perhaps some of the level design/order the levels are in could be looked at (the levels were usually quite satisfying to complete, but sometimes were a bit too hard/easy).
Oh--and thank you so much for the ability to rotate the camera! (also thanks for the Mac download.)
Love the futuristic-casino visuals, particularly the spawning-in/dying felt good (and the music complements it well!). Congrats on making all your art in the jam time!
I like the concept. Using playing cards and other objects as ramps is cool.
However, the controls of the dice are a finicky (probably because of the cube shape--I'm not sure how to improve this, maybe using a different shape for collision?). Perhaps allowing for some arial control or making jumps less tight would be good too. (I only finished the first two levels.)
The positioning of the camera could be improved as well, as I felt I was fighting it a little.
Great job on the game! The art is fantastic, and there's a ton of potential here.
I like the light and post-processing effects, they look nice!
I'm a bit confused about the objective of the game, and how the dice in the bottom right works.
I couldn't figure out if the bow did damage to the enemies, so I ended up using dynamite instead. The dynamite was fun (and a clever way to get around impossible world generation--impressive to have world generation on a jam game, by the way! also fits nicely with the theme).
My game was a little laggy on browser, but from what I got, the dynamite effect felt good.
The execution is great. However, it doesn't really feel like there's any strategy unless I'm missing something. Perhaps some choices to make or a way to influence the roll would help.
I like the art style, it's nice and polished, and I like the way the people are designed.
However, it does seem like the game is lacking in intractability. Perhaps being able to do multiple actions or more complex actions before it resetting would help remedy this problem.
Additionally, the dice mechanic feels like it could be incorporated better. The ability to reroll the ability over and over quickly seems to defeat the point.
I see that you've uploaded the game by using a different website. I'm not sure whether this is in the scope of the rules, as it needs to be runnable on windows or browser (I think in itch).
If you're on chrome, you can disable that by clicking on the arrow dropdown menu and clicking "keep". I'm pretty sure chrome does that for a lot of executable files, including games.
The art and music are amazing! Great job making them in 48 hours!
One problem that stands out to me is making sure the player has interesting choices, sometimes both armour or element choices are the same, which means you don't have much to do.
A tutorial would also be nice, as I found myself semi-randomly putting things in slots.
Based on the other comments a lot of people liked the satire, but I guess it just wasn't for me. (which is okay!)
I think there's some room for improvement with the UI (a tutorial other than the game page would help), and the visuals could be more cohesive (perhaps if you had the oppertunity to make your own visuals).
The idea of choosing which faces you want to bet on is a neat idea! However, I think the dice mechanic could be integrated a bit better (perhaps thematically somehow? maybe the dice could be replaced with something more related to NFTs).
Lovely palette and art! Unfortunately, I didn't get any sound effects or music on the browser (edit: might have had the tab muted...), but on the desktop, the sound effects complemented the game well, and I like the style of music for a chill feel (excellent work making it during the jam!). Also impressive you got a nice menu in the time limit--really polished for a jam.
I like the idea--the beginnings of a Papa's Pizzeria Dungeonmasteria! This version lacks challenge; if you had more than 48 hours, I could see the addition of more ideas (like the "cheaters" you mention) or the time limit shrinking (I wonder if you could make the music speed up or change...) to make a hectic game!
Few small graphical issues I noticed: if you lose money repeatedly, the text drifts downward; and the DM's purple colour band should maybe be thicker, as it's easy to miss.
Thanks for a Mac version! (it's what got me to play your game)
Neat concept, reminds me of bloxors. The level design feels pretty good, although I found myself sort of just moving the cube around until it worked. Perhaps adding a way to "die" (pun not intended) if you do something wrong, such as take too many moves or show a particular face, would add stakes.
I like the cube-orientation shower in the bottom right, but perhaps colouring the edges of the die would be a more natural way of showing which face is in which direction. Also, it's good you included animations for the die turning, I liked that.
Nice job making a piece of music during the jam! That's cool. (I have a bit more of a background in music production than developing games so maybe I can provide some tips here.)
- Some variation on the drums would be nice. I don't know what DAW program you're using, but you should be able to vary the velocity or which sample you use to give some variety, maybe pushing the drums into the background with some reverb/making them softer/quieter would be nice.
- Since this piece loops, it might be a good idea to have the piece completely developed (ie. not bringing in the synth or strings in later, but having them at the beginning). A little intro would be fine, but as it is, I think this makes the loop a little awkward.
- String samples are really hard to make sound good (I know from experience), so one tip I have is to make the instrument get a little bit louder and quieter during each musical phrase (not necessarily each note) using volume automation to make it rise and fall gradually(or changing the velocity). It might take some experimentation to get it to sound better. It sounds a little like the string instrument patch you chose to use is meant to be a whole section of strings--I might recommend having multiple instrument string patches and layering them instead to see what that sounds like.
- Some reverb overall would help the piece be a bit more cohesive.
Again, it's really cool that you made a piece during the jam! (And sorry about the essay lol)
This idea is incredibly creative, an actual physics system is a great way to "load the dice"!
The two main things I think could be improved are the controls (you could either go for more Octodad chaotic controls, or maybe more precise controls and focus on a more puzzle feel) and the "level design" (with more time, in limited supply during a jam, more levels with more specific requirements could be developed). It would also be great if the rolling of the dice were to be sped up (which should be possible with a physics system? I'm not too familiar)
The inclusion of an interactive tutorial was also a great touch! (I think without it, the mechanics could have been a bit confusing.)
I love the concept—it's extremely creative—and it's easy to see how you'd expand on it with different shapes/requiring the orientation to be correct. Maybe if you had it so the dice sped up, that could provide for a good difficulty curve. The darkness with simple lighting is nice.
This game was quite fun after I got the hang of it (I got to 50), but I had a bit of trouble figuring it out at the beginning (I was trying to put the dice backwards + the tutorial text disappears quickly). Perhaps if you had more time to develop the game, a visual tutorial might be a good addition (but of course with less than three hours, that wouldn't be a priority.)
Also, thanks for the Mac support + explanation about how to get around security features, it's much appreciated.
Thank you so much for playing! Your feedback is much appreciated. I think you're totally right on the testing/features page, and I'm sure better UI/other visual cues would help as well.
Thanks for playing! (and thanks for the feedback!) It's much appreciated.
I agree with your point about being killed too quickly, implementing a count-down system sounds like it would help. And we should have tuned the difficulty a bit better.
I liked the 7th puzzle (it was definitely the most difficult, but perhaps doesn't belong with the first 6).
I liked the feeling of the magnet being pulled when held by the robot. Maybe it would be interesting to play with the idea of switching between polarities while holding the magnet for platforming (I know players criticised platforming sections in the previous demo, though).
I wasn't a huge fan of the default controls. I only realized afterwards that the right-click could be used for throwing, which I think I preferred, although maybe there could be a way to throw the magnet without having to use the mouse, which would also feel more natural.
Throwing the magnet felt a little clunky since it felt like a pause from gameplay. Maybe allowing the player to move, or throw the magnet accurately without using the mouse would be good (using WASD instead, perhaps? "W" would be nice to easily throw straight up).
Having to reset some levels repeatedly was a little annoying. I didn't realize until afterwards that the control button had to be held to reset, perhaps the symbol shading in slowly or having a loading bar could make this clear.
I see the concept, but I keep getting the pear stuck at the right side of the screen and the pear falls off when I try to move it. The art direction for the characters could be interesting—I'd be interested how it would look if the background and platforms used the same art style.
This is a great interpretation of the theme, and the graphics are beautiful! The game is a bit difficult though, with the vines stopping momentum (I only got to level 3, but I did find the bear).
I see that you're going for gameplay kind of like fire boy and water girl, which could be interesting, but since the characters are identical, there's no reason to control them separately. With some tweaking, it could work as an interesting puzzle-platformer.
I love the concept, super original! It's like a Metroidvania all folded up on itself, or like room-randomizing mods. I'd love to see some more levels, but definitely quality over quantity (I really appreciate that it doesn't reset the whole game if you die).
Cool concept! I like the puzzle element and having to react in real-time to move the cats, but having to react to their quick movement does make the game quite difficult (I only got to level 3).
Thanks, it was fun! (And in our defence, the other code was written from scratch, and we adjusted the tutorial's code slightly, although, again, I'm not sure how substantial it was.)
Just in case it wasn't completely clear, griffpatch_tutor's platformer tutorial code (gravity, collision, etc.) was taken and used for Dot in Space, not written originally by me or my teammate. I don't know if this still falls within the guideline that most of the code should be written during the jam.
