This is quite the fun and stylish arcade style game, it's hard to believe it was all put together over the course of just 72 hours! You've earned yourself a new follower!

I got it running, but you should add another small instruction to the page saying which version of Love to use, the latest version (11.1) throws the following error when trying to play it:

Error

I needed to use an older version than advertised on the front page of the Love site (0.10.2) to not get the error which would then allow me to play.

Hey there! I just played your demo and I thought I'd leave some general feedback on it since I really enjoyed some of it, but I felt like I needed to talk about some of the issues I had with it personally. I know from how the page sounds this comes a little bit late to really act on completely, but still, I'd want similar feedback if I were releasing a full game too so please don't take this post the wrong way!

The gameplay was a little hit and miss for me, but that could be due to not playing many games like it. I feel as though generally the game tries to go for a more arcade-like experience, but appears to be missing or off key with certain elements, such as having no score tracking when going through a level or needing to stop and wait for an animation to pick items off the ground. The general enemies also feel far too difficult to avoid for me personally, even when utilizing the dodge roll, which made it feel like taking hits was just inevitable rather than being down to skill or timing to avoid.

I really loved a lot of the art style for the most part, the main cutscenes and general 80s vibe were both great, and even the gameplay itself looked pretty good even if some of the stylizing could've been turned up even higher with lighting and effects.  However, I think the mini boss cut ins and character portraits accompanied by text box dialogue were too far removed from both of the previously mentioned styles and clash too much in my eyes. I'd say either go for the cutscene style for both portraits and mini boss cut ins, or use pictures of the in game models rather than introduce a third art style.

The sound department felt like a mixed bag. The music was great from what I heard of it, however the sound effects lacked the amount of punch they required in my opinion, making the guns and grenades feel like they lacked impact overall. This makes the game feel a lot less like the experience I assume you were going for. Use arcade sounds! Make them loud! Make them punchy!

A few smaller issues I noticed that could be fixed are; damage numbers should be larger to reflect more impact with the destructible objects and mini bosses, the crosshair should be visible below objects because it's often easy to lose sight of it such as during the barricade rocket launcher mini boss, and the input to continue text boxes should be more consistent because I could only sometimes move it on with left clicks.

Please don't mistake my entire experience with the game to be a negative one! I actually quite enjoyed playing it aside from what I mentioned, and some little tweaks here and there regarding what I brought up would make this game shine even brighter in my opinion. You've developed something really special and enjoyable here, be proud of that! 

Hey there! I wanted to give your game a shot but I couldn't seen to figure out how to download and run the game properly. Do you have any instructions on which item I need to download and how to get it playing?

This is a topic specifically for general feedback relating to the second release of 'Our Last Hope', or 'OurLastHopeRevised.pdf'. 

I'd like to congratulate the winners and top scorers of the jam, you did really well! It's a shame I didn't get to play and rate many of the entries due to most of my friends being fairly busy people, but I'll get around to them eventually even if the jam has concluded!

Here's hoping for a successful jam next time too, where I'm going to put even more effort in to climb higher through the ranks! While I wait for the next one I'll be polishing my game up and releasing a revised version booklet with less of a word count restriction, but still keeping with the more minimal spirit of the jam! If you'd like to see it, it'll be up on my page within the next couple of days.

I'll hopefully see you all next time!

These are some very nice fonts, both on this set and the others you've produced, I can't wait to put them to some use during a game jam or personal project!

You just keep looping around until you've assigned a role to each player, so once you hit the last category listed you loop back around until everyone has been assigned one of the three categories of people. There'll only ever be four systems on the ship though, that's where the debates and conflicts in the game are supposed to arise from as everyone argues over what they should control for that round. I should've probably made it more clear but I was rationing words by that point! 

Thanks for the feedback though, I'll be sure to make it more clear in the revision released after the jam!

Thanks for the kinds words nikomaru! The setup was indeed crafted to elicit the kind of chaos you're describing, and it's exactly what I'd expect to unfurl from such varied personalities being left in charge of something so complicated and important!

My apologies for asking another fairly obvious question, but I just want to make a confirmation so I'm not doing something wrong! I've got the title of my micro-RPG at the top of the .txt file, so it goes like this:

-----Title Goes Here-----

-Heading-

Stuff

...

Would something like -----Title Goes Here----- count towards the overall word count? I'm assuming not given what's written, but I just wanted to make a last minute confirmation before submitting.

Thanks!

Ah, I'm sorry about not noticing that, I didn't see it after using the tool to count my words. Thanks for the clarification though!

Hey there! I've been working on my Micro-RPG and I just read the rules again, which talk about tables not counting towards the word count. How exactly do you construct said tables in a .txt file in terms of formatting?  Can you provide an example please?

Phew, it took thirty minutes and a change of input method but I beat the game! I'm guessing that's not anywhere close to record time but hey, I'm not that experienced with these old styled games! I do love Resident Evil though, and this was quite the fun and engaging demake to try out and finish.

I think as others had said though the game was a tad too difficult in places, and for myself it was often the abundance of things happening in general which kept catching me out. I did however feel the game became far easier to play when using a controller, as I just couldn't get the dropping down to work reliably when using my keyboard.

Overall though this was quite nice and solid for what you set out to achieve, so kudos! I hope to see more great stuff from you in future and you've earned yourself a follow!

I made it my mission to seek this game out based on an official Itch.io screenshot and wow, I'm glad I did! This was incredibly well made for a jam entry and it deserves high praise for that. The visuals were fantastic, the gameplay was accurate to Virtua Cop while being just as fun and the music was great.

Well done! I hope to see more great work in future!

Score: 950

I quite enjoyed your arcade-like experience! The only thing I can really criticise is how quickly the difficulty increases, as a more smooth scaling of how many enemies spawn at a time would've allowed for a more tense experience rather than quick minute or so attempts. Good work overall though!

Hey there! I just wanted to say that this was quite the interesting idea for a jam before I get on with my question. I can't wait to see some of the interesting things people do with so few lines of code!

Here's my question though, as someone who comments code a lot to keep it well documented, do comment lines count as lines or are they excluded from the overall counting process?

Can I ask what engine this game was developed in please? I read through your website and saw Unity mentioned in a couple of posts, but I wasn't sure from looking at material for the game if it was made with Unity or an entirely custom engine. I'm mainly asking because this game looks GORGEOUS for a Unity game if it is one.

I think the best tip I can offer is to quit when you have a decent score, otherwise the mentality of 'just one more try' keeps kicking in. A few of my friends got sucked into that kind of loop while testing it over that weekend too, so you're not the only one! 

Thank you for showing my game on your channel, I appreciate it!

The timer you saw over the weekend saying 24h left was the time leading up to the game jam and SGDQ, now SGDQ has begun the jam has too, meaning you're now allowed to start making a game and can submit it at any point before the deadline now shown on the game jam page. 

I hope this helps!

I really liked the art for your entry! It had a very quirky and funny art style, especially with the man in the shop. I'd suggest making your next full game with that kind of styling, I think it'd catch quite a lot of eyes!

I didn't have anyone to play this with locally so my experience with the title wasn't how it was intended, but I feel like it could be quite a fun little game to challenge a friend to for a while from what I could see. Keep it up!

Hey there! I'd just like to take a minute to give a little bit of feedback regarding the content on the front page of itch.io, specifically in regards to game jams. 

I didn't have an account for the site for the longest time, because I didn't really feel like I had a reason to make one, but one thing changed my mind a certain time when I logged in. A game jam. It not only encouraged me to sign up to itch.io, it encouraged me to sign up to the jam itself AND got me to see my entry through to the end. It was a great experience, and since then I've been looking at the game jam section every so often to see if anything else would catch my eye.

What I'd like to suggest is that maybe two or three of the slots on the front page are reserved for promoting game jams with interesting themes or ideas. I think this would help promote the idea of creation on the platform and get more developers involved with producing something for a game jam, and it'd probably mean more sign ups for the more unique jams too. 

Thank you for reading!

Hello! I read through your jam page earlier and decided that I wanted to help out a bit, since I had a spare ten minutes and didn't have much better to do, plus I wanted to (hopefully) encourage more people to sign up!

What I did was proof read and/or altered a bit of the jam page to make it more readable. It isn't bad in the current form, I don't mean to post something like this as an insult, but the version I've altered might make a bit more sense to English readers.

The version I changed can be found below. Have a nice day!

Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome to our Writer's Game Jam. We are Paranormal Studios, an indie game studio located in Granada, Spain. We make games for PC and Android typically, but that's not why we're here.

It's time to show people how we roll, and to show people who say: "Games are not art" that they're wrong!

The theme will be revealed at the start of the Jam.

Minimum Page Count: 3 (on Calibri 12 or so)

Maximum Page Count: 10 (on Calibri 12 or so)

What is the Paranormal Studios -Writer's Jam-?

We're going to create stories, share ideas, and make some games based on the entries. During Paranormal Jam, you can share you entry with everyone on Itch.Io by making it downloadable, a draft so only the judges can vote on it, or you can send your entry directly to us at the email address found below! It's mostly designed to be a creative exercise.

What can I win?

If the experience of participating and creating something wasn't enough, we do have some prizes for the top three entries.

First Prize

1. An award/prize from Paranormal Studios to show that you won the Jam
2. $20 for a Paypal account
3. A piece of digital art based on your entry (What ever you want)

Second Prize

1. Custom Prize from Paranormal Studios.
2. A piece of digital art based on your entry (What ever you want)

Third Prize

1. A piece of digital art based on your entry (What ever you want)

Rules for the Jam

1. All entries must be created during the Jam (Else will be subject to disqualification)
2. The entry should be able to be adapted to a game easily. (No major changes required)
3. All entries must be in either English or Spanish. (Language counts more than grammar here, we just need to make sure we can understand your entry!)
4. The entry must be 'Safe for Work' to a degree. (You can allude to sex or gore within your entry, but please try to keep actual depictions to a minimum!)
5. The entry MUST NOT violate anyone else's copyrights or include stolen content. (You may use works you can license or are something like public domain, but these works must be credited as such.)

I came back to play Tomochesti again today and figured I'd show off my treasure haul!

Do you have any ways to get in contact Papercookies? I've got Steam, Reddit, ect.

I just thought I'd delete it because it sounded like a stupid question in my head, but if it's a common question I'll just leave it up.

Thanks for the quick reply though. It's a shame it isn't implemented yet, but ah well. I'll just have to try and get the person's attention by commenting on one of their games or forum posts.

Hey there. I know this is a really stupid question and the answer is probably staring me right in the face, but how do you message people on Itch? I've tried viewing the community profile and other profile of certain people, but I don't see options to send PMs or anything anywhere.

I'll delete the topic once it's answered, since compared to a lot of the more serious questions here this one seems to be based around my own stupidity.

This is the second game jam I've taken part in, and the first I've actually developed a working game for. The first time I'd just collaborated on a game design document rather than make something playable. I knew as soon as I saw the page on the front of Itch.io that I'd have to participate just from the premise alone, so I made an account and joined as quickly as possible.

It's the first time I've pushed myself to make an actual game within such a short space of time, and to be honest, I really enjoyed it. There were struggles of course, mostly due to silly mistakes in code, but I felt satisfied having a working game by the end of the jam. I think the biggest issue I ran into was my sleeping schedule being a complete mess, although thanks to the event it's been corrected a fair bit.

Thanks for hosting the jam Yukon W. I hope you end up hosting it again next year, because I'll (hopefully) be the first one signing up!

I've been enjoying the jam quite a bit for the same reasons as Papercookies, I'm just getting what resembles what I'd imagined in my head and rolling with it.

My overall idea was a minigame/microgame endurance style project made with GameMaker: Studio. It's been coming along pretty well so far, with the only real issues I've hit (besides one error I managed to fix by pure luck) being caused by my own silly mistakes or oversights.

I have cheated in a way though, using the built in sprite editor within GameMaker to achieve transparency on the JPEGs that needed it. I feel bad for doing it, but for some of the objects in my game it just wouldn't have been possible to keep transparency away. One example of this is bubbles rising from the bottom of the screen that the player has to pop. The bubbles sometimes overlay each other, which would be even more difficult to see if there was no transparency around the circle shape.

Teaser for one of my more fleshed out minigames/microgames

I thought I'd ask this question since it's probably a valid one;

Mouse drawing only? Or do drawing tablets and the like count too?

I agree! I made an itch.io account about an hour ago just to sign up to the jam and try to make something for it. The concept got my gears whirring pretty nicely, so I hope I'll see it through.