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Thanks a bunch! I definitely think it does get a bit tedious at certain points, so more variance in the games is something I definitely want to explore post jam.

Thanks a bunch! Sorry about the asteroids, I tried 3 different solutions and still didn’t manage to squash this bug completely. A post jam challenge!

No you didn’t I appreciate the feedback! Just also like to talk through my thought processes as well to bounce ideas off people :)

Yeah I started trying to add a little rocket to the progress bar but didn’t have time to get it working :( In a post jam update I’m hoping to have some nicer visualisations

Yeah I completely understand the dilemma - to be clear I don’t think you should give direct control over the match to the player, the sort of battle with yourself auto chess style gameplay is an interesting and fun idea, I think that the options you have between the matches just don’t provide enough control to feel like you are really influencing the outcome. It’s a difficult balance to achieve for a game like this. A mechanic I saw in a different entry was instead of picking a perk when you level up, you can remove a previous debuff - it may be worth thinking how similar choices could apply here and expand a player’s options (e.g. maybe instead you can choose to remove a previous buff from one side, or maybe there are also debuff options that show up not only buffs). I’m sure you can come up with some ideas to help this balance, you have a really great starting point!

Yeah definitely, I think that would be a great way to adapt that style of control to keyboard and mouse, glad to have helped!

I just gave Mori a go, and I thought it was very cool as well! I really liked the idea and the puzzles, though I found the scythe a bit awkward to control which could be a little frustrating at times. I think I would’ve found it more manageable using a twin stick configuration on a controller than the keyboard and mouse, so I could use relative pointing rather than an absolute point. Still really unique and interesting though and I liked it a lot.

Thanks!

Thanks!

This was extremely unique and I really enjoyed discovering the interactions between the different characters, almost like an extremely chaotic assembly line! This has to be the most unique game I’ve played so far in the jam. Very impressed you managed to get this all developed in time, the level of polish is also really impressive. Great job and good luck, would be excited to see what else you can come up with!

Nice idea! I enjoyed the clue finding gameplay, I think you did a good job of hiding them in different places so you had to explore, but not making them really annoying and difficult to find. Would like to see more exploration in this, and maybe some more lore (I saw you did some, but it could be expanded akin to games like Emily is Away). Really nice job!

I loved the art in this game, the style was great and the monster art was super well done. The audio and SFX were also done very well, and the range of activities you have to complete gave a good about of variety to the game. It didn’t seem like there were any stakes, as far as I can tell there wasn’t a penalty for leaving tasks too long, which might have kept things a bit more engaging and tense, but it was still a very good game. I don’t think the Tutorial explains that the Tab menu is how you find out where to go (or I missed it if it did), so that may be worth highlighting more since I was confused at first in the real game. The tutorial overall though was very solid and thorough which is a nice touch that is often forgotten in a jam. Great job!

The dialogue and the story were both pretty good, I think you did a good job with the idea and the writing. I think the game mechanics could have been a little more developed though, there didn’t seem to be much point to fighting the ghosts, so potentially some rewards or incentive would be good to encourage the player to engage more with these mechanics rather than walking by them to advance the story. Very nice entry though, good job!

Thanks a bunch, I really appreciate the detail!

The asteroids bugs were very unfortunate, I wasn’t able to resolve them all which is a little disappointing, it’ll be priority 1 after the jam. For difficulty, there will definitely be variants of the games added to increase difficulty over time, not just more things but new mechanics (like initially hiding runes in pairs or buttons swapping orders in Simon Says), I intend to do a decent amount of work on it after the jam. Avoiding too much repetition is a good idea, I’ll have to add something for that too.

Thanks again!

Nicely done and thanks so much! The difficulty ramp is definitely a bit of an issue, I didn’t have much time to tune the values on frequency unfortunately. Originally the games were meant to get more difficult each phase (each game would have 3 variants with added difficulty, the base one, a harder one and one that adds an extra mechanic) but I didn’t have enough time to implement this (or the extra minigames). I definitely agree though on trying to get that satisfaction/relief moment, I’ll make sure I’m tuning towards that with the adjustments. Really glad you enjoyed!

Thanks a bunch! The original plan is each game would have 3 variants that are harder than the last (e.g. the runes on the pairs are hidden, or the button order doesn’t match the light order) but I ran out of time. Something I’ll look at after the jam!

Thanks! I have a design doc linked in the description with some of my other ideas for minigames, I’m hoping to implement some more after the jam!

This was a nice take on the theme, and I really liked the way it was presented and visualised. I think the lack of variety in the interactions meant things got a bit repetitive, but the core idea and gameplay loop I think is good and has a lot of promise. Potentially taking a Papers, Please style approach and having new challenges, rules or controls added in every few days would keep things a bit fresher for longer. Nice job!

Edit: One bug I found was that if the alarm was on at the end of the day, it broke for the subsequent days, might be worth fixing!

This was extremely satisfying to play, and I do enjoy the evil roomba concept. The sound, UI and effects were all well done. I think that a bit for variety in the gameplay loop would have been nice to keep it from getting too repetitive, but I do think the execution making things satisfying helped a lot here too. Nice job!

Thanks! I was hoping to have some time to do a nice background but I couldn’t fit it in unfortunately. It’s on the list for post-jam updates!

That makes sense, I do agree it’s better to be hard than boring, best of luck!

This was an extremely clever take on the theme, and a great concept overall. I liked the backstory, the mechanic idea and the art. I think that the level design ended up being a little frustrating - I felt like Nothing dying should’ve respawned you at Everything rather than at the start, it felt very hard to make progress. And I think starting in a large open space to navigate didn’t lend itself as well to a puzzle game with this mechanic.

I think the reason a lot of puzzle or precision platform games use rooms that are relatively small is to give you quick resets back to the puzzle without reducing the challenge itself, and so that they can put the emphasis on the mechanic (thinking like Portal test chambers for instance). This game is so creative, I think it would be really nice to see a rework of it after the jam potentially exploring some alternative level formats to find the perfect fit for this mechanic.

This game really gave me Portal vibes in terms of the narration and the build up towards the twist, I thought it was a very creative take on the theme and very well executed. I found the last part a bit confusing since it was difficult to tell what the switches and buttons were affecting, but with some experimentation (and trial and error) I figured it out and got to the ending. Based on how well this turned out I would be very interested in seeing what a longer story puzzler from you would be like! Great job!

The art and the theme were very good, though the gameplay got a bit repetitive. It was unclear if there was any point in fleeing or guarding since you seem to have to defeat the enemies, so they don’t seem to have much effect. I also sometimes got the same blessing for all three options, and the trials seem to keep pace with the blessings, so there isn’t a big sense of progression. I think the main thing that would help here is more clarity on how things are improving, and a little more player agency in actively making choices. Great start to a game though!

Really cool concept, and I liked the blend of different mechanics, though I found it hard to balance the minigames and exploring the lore (especially since I got tricky minesweeper puzzles a few times which had harsh penalties). This could be a really cool full game I think, consider continuing with it after the jam. Great job!

This was very well executed, I liked the art in particular, both the style and the execution were great. I think overall the gameplay was pretty fun, there was a good amount of polish throughout (though some more feedback on the manual shooting would be good so it’s clearer what you can hit and if you’re hitting things). I think the balance was a bit on the hard side, the turrets seem to get destroyed very quickly and are very expensive to replace, so I think there could be some tuning with the balance. To have produced something this polished in the time frame though is really impressive, this could definitely be expanded into a full game. Well done!

I’m very familiar with running out of time to execute your concept, don’t feel too bad, it happens! As a solo participant or a solo developer for most jams, I tend to try and go for very small scopes that I can hit quickly, and then work on improvements for the rest of the jam. I find this makes it more likely I can get something to submit, and usually I find this more motivating since I can play early and see it improve. I hope you keep working on this game if you like the idea, or gamedev in general!

Thanks a lot!

The music doesn’t seem to work on some browsers unfortunately, I’m not 100% sure why. It worked on everything I tested but it broke for someone who playtested my game and we couldn’t figure out why.

There was originally meant to be a system where minigames got harder as you went along (not just quantity but also mechanics, e.g. the symbols are initially hidden in Pairs). But sadly I ran out of time. I’ll explore this post jam though!

There was even going to be a third monitor that turned on towards the end :P

Glad to hear you liked it! The asteroids bugs are a little frustrating, I tried to patch it but didn’t manage to fix it completely, will have to investigate more after the jam.

No worries, it was still really fun. I think it’s a good indicator that you’ve got a good concept and game loop when the player can overlook some bugs and still have a good time.

Possible actually, I have logic that avoids advancing the phase if you’re in a game, but I don’t think it does the same for a loss, thanks for the report!

This was an extremely well rounded game with a great concept. The level of polish from the intro/outro sequences, to the different music for different blocks, to the range of criteria to keep in mind. It was extremely impressive given the time frame and I really enjoyed this one. I could definitely see this being a great pick up and play game, I would definitely recommend keeping it up after the jam. Good luck!

Yeah definitely! I’d love to see it

This was a very interesting take on the theme! It took a little while to get used to but once I got the hang of things I found it quite fun to try and strategise while keeping what I had dealt in my head. Unfortunately it froze for me a couple times before dealing the table cards which was a little annoying, but I still enjoyed it a lot regardless.

I thought the idea and the mechanic here were really good, and the art style was great. I think that gameplay wise it had a bit too much going on though, trying to find ingredients, fulfil requests and discover different potion types all at the same time is a lot to manage and meant it felt a bit like I wasn’t able to stay on top of things. I think potentially splitting this type of game into phases (gather stuff at night, help customers in the day) or focus in towards one set of mechanics (collect + help, or discover potions + help) might make the player feel a bit less overloaded. I really did like the execution of each mechanic though, so I think it is just about balancing it out so you get the most out of it all. Great job and good luck!

This was a very interesting idea, the eye contact aspect was a nice touch to keep you on your toes. The grading is a little harsh though, I got 95 and wasn’t hired :( Well done!

The art was really good, and while at first I wasn’t sure if some of the spells seemed useful the scarcity mechanic made me try out different combinations which was quite fun. I did seem to get way more of the wings than anything else, which made it a bit tricky to get some of the sigils though. Nicely done!

The visual style was great, though I did find that the game was a bit frustrating as it progressed, since it becomes quite hectic but there isn’t a lot of variety in the tasks. The collisions between the objects in the tasks also were a bit frustrating as it made it a bit awkward to control. I really liked the idea though, and the sound was also quite good. This feels like a strong base for an overcooked-type game.

I thought the concept for this game was really interesting and unique, and the visual execution is incredibly well done. I did think that the player was not necessarily engaged enough in the game, especially as the fights get longer towards the end and given you don’t have a huge amount of control over the fights, but this is something that could potentially be refined a bit more. Great job.

This was really excellent. Some of the puzzles near the end were quite difficult but all were pretty solvable with some effort. I enjoyed playing this a lot, and definitely has the makings of something that could be a full game. Great job and good luck!