itch.io

While I understand the goal of restricting how many spells are available at once, it effectively makes Strength the stat that governs this which doesn't feel right to me.

I appreciate that there are options like porters which mitigate this, but at low levels it seems to punish magic users even more than most OSR systems and dissuades the use of niche spells like 'Ventriloquism' or 'Read Languages' when you can only carry 2 or 3 total.

Going from level 1 to level 6, unless strength is a primary, then an arcane magic user will have 5 more spells per day and 60 more spells to choose from but only 3 more slots. Meanwhile a melee fighter is unlikely to ever need more slots than they start with besides perhaps having a secondary weapon or acting as the party's pack mule.

Really nice system from what I've looked at so far!

One question on spell casting: are runestones/writs per spell, or per circle?

The rules for scribing suggest one per spell (since the special component must relate to the spell in some way), but this seems quite prohibitive considering they take an inventory slot each!

The lack of copy and paste is extremely frustrating, and seems to have been an issue for a year or more judging by other posts on the topic. Pasting into a rich text editor should not be a difficult problem to solve (particularly as they seem to be using the Redactor editor, a library which supports paste out of the box...)

I loved the art style and the physical interaction of mashing items together / ripping them apart, but I found the gameplay a little bit frustrating.

For me, a lot of the puzzles fell into the category of "I don't know why I'm doing this, but it's the only thing I can do right now" (e.g. lighting the candle to get the key or knocking the yellow thing off the shelf to get the coin) which I didn't find very satisfying.

I also found the environments quite busy and had a bit of difficulty seeing what was passable and what wasn't (I didn't initially realise I could get by the shopping trolley, for example).

Regardless of the total volume (and I'd say 3% of all games is still fairly substantial), adult/dating sim/visual novels seem to flood the "Popular", "Top Sellers" and "Top Rated" searches for certain tags because they are understandably popular, but if I'm looking for a genuine horror game then I don't really like having to sift through all the vampire porn games and zombie dating sims. I can turn off Adult content, but that hides a lot of genuine horror games too.

Having now heard the "Pitch Please" episode where "It's not me, it's the gun" was suggested, I can appreciate that section even more.

It's interesting and the art is basic but clean. I think the enemy shots are too fast (and/or the player should be able to take more than one hit) because you can't really dodge them at all.

This was a very relaxed experience :-) The music is lovely, but quite short compared to the length of the game so it loops a little too often. The map is also a bit big so it might be nice to move a bit faster, but I love the low-poly look and the lighting and snow effects are great.

Basic but functional graphics and slightly sluggish-feeling controls, but the stealth mechanic is awesome! I love how you need to create false trails to distract him :-D

Some clever ideas and very much on theme :-) having it be random who does and doesn't transform between playthroughs was definitely surprising!

I like the feel of the controls - raise gun and fire gun being separate actions was cool, and the animations were nice.

I did run into an issue where I failed one run because my bullet went through a monster and killed an innocent, which was a bit frustrating, but otherwise didn't have any problems.

It would be nice if the opening dialogue was either faster or skippable because it put me off trying again after my third restart.

Overall a very solid entry!

Really cool concept art and visuals. Definitely has potential :-)

Pico8 is a really fun platform :-) I enjoyed the graphics and sound, but some of the stages felt a little bit unfair. The dialogue was well written and made me chuckle.

Really nice art style (I particularly like the card art), and using cards for digging is a fun idea.

I'm not sure about the real-time enemies because the cards play-out quite slowly so it can be very difficult to time your movements - I think it would be improved if either the card effects started instantly or the enemies were slower or even turn-based.

If you did want to build on the idea, I could see it potentially being a fun little deck builder if there was a wider variety of different cards and the player could mix up what they wanted to bring with them.

I liked the idea of each level unlocking a bit of the story and building up the difficulty from the previous level, but the difference in visual style between the level select and the platformer sections was a bit jarring. I also had a bug once the enemy boxes started appearing where the camera would focus on one of them rather than the box I was controlling. The platforming was also a bit too easy for the levels I could actually play - I think it could have got more difficult more quickly.

Gorgeous art and animations (reminded me a bit of Minit). The puzzle mechanic was clever and some of the levels were quite challenging, although I think they could have been a little bit harder by the end because I was quite inefficient with moves sometimes but never ran out. The story was a nice touch and added a bit of mystery as well as a cute ending. 5/5

Thanks for the feedback :-) The stuff in the presents was one of the last things I added so I went a bit wacky with them.

A time limit is an interesting idea - maybe that gamecube really does end up waterlogged if the player takes too long to find it!

Oh gosh, I didn't realise that I had missed the change tool control out of the readme! Let me update that now, lol.

Thanks for the detailed review, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! If I had a bit more time I'd probably mess around with the lighting and/or shaders to see if I could get rid of that strange square shadow that you get on the snow. I messed up with the end screen because I was still working out how to use static images in Unity (it ended up as a material rather than a raw image), but I worked it out for the presents themselves so next time I'll know better :-)

Really fun idea, and challenging but fair levels. A little bit of background music might be nice, but otherwise I really enjoyed it :-)

Nice work! The music is good (I particularly liked the boss music) and the isometric / voxel look is stylish and clean. The map could perhaps do with a bit more decor, and some sound effects or visuals for hits would be nice. Overall it was a fun little game.

Really nice art assets and the music is good. Hitboxes seemed a bit off because it wasn't always obvious why I took damage? But otherwise enjoyable :-)

A really nice little puzzle game! The mechanic is clever and the puzzles got quite challenging. The pixel art is charming and the sound effects are simple but a nice touch.

Thanks! I really wish I could have found time to get a controls screen into the game itself because I think a few people have been confused by that - a lesson for next time :-)

The music was fun and enjoyable, and I really liked the clean visuals! The minigames are simple but challenging and they control well.

Great work fitting in so many of the jam modifiers!

I love how each enemy drops its own spell, and I enjoyed the variety of visuals and gameplay effects (although I did find the Shield spell a bit lacking because of the need to hold it).

The low poly graphics look great combined with the pixilation filter, and the simple sound effects are nice too.

I wasn't convinced by the minigames at first -there were some fun mechanics in there, but the outcomes became a bit predictable- but the ending definitely made up for it. Some neat ideas and good dialogue!

A very surprising little game :-)

All of the visuals were great and the controls felt really good for the pong and escape sections, although the left click action seemed a bit unresponsive for the last part. It was a bit difficult to get used to, but by the end I absolutely loved "It's not me, it's the gun". 

5/5 from me!

Really fun, and I can appreciate the effort in making five minigames. The Yogs voice clips are nicely done and I like the varied visual styles. Only problem I had was that I couldn't work out how to win the space ship game (it feels like it should be obvious, but I couldn't time it right or something)

Really nice mechanic! I'd love to see this idea expanded to a full game :-)

Nice work! There's some social message in there somewhere about automation devaluing the workers, lol. The simple visual style of the level looks great, although the detailed elf models look a bit out-of-place. The Yogs references were subtle but fun, and the music was good too.  It would be nice if there was some kind of ending, but overall I really enjoyed this! :-)

A really nice little digging game! Fun, if a bit easy, and with great pixel art.

I really like the balancing mechanic - funny and original! I managed to get to the randomised coins and then failed: it might be nice to have more than one life so it's less frustrating to fail? I enjoyed the slightly manic music, too.

A fun little game! The visuals are simple but clean and the controls work well. I'm not sure how the camera is linked to Sips, but I was able to guess the other pairings without too much trouble.

A very amusing idea with some nice graphics and animations, and good use of yogs music and voice clips. The controls felt a bit clunky and it seemed like inputs were getting queued (I'd often drink beer twice in a row?), but it was good fun and the different boss phases were inspired!

A solid twin-stick-style shooter :-) The art is great and the Yogs voice lines are a nice touch. On one run I got quite unlucky with modifiers and ended up with a really slow fire rate, so maybe it could benefit from some auto-balancing going on behind the scenes? Still good fun though.

Thanks for the feedback :-) Seems like a lot of people just dug up everything, lol. I don't really mind since the dig mechanic was what I spent the most time on, but halting the player movement is a good idea. If I expand on it later then I might also think about adding some 'bad' items that punish you if you dig them up.

An odd choice for Christmas, but fun all the same!

Graphics and environment are nice and the effects are cool, but the motion blur is a bit much for me.

Cool, I've done the same.

A pretty neat platformer. I had some minor graphical glitches and I think it could benefit from some checkpoints so you don't go all the way back to the beginning when you die. The 'surprise' modifiers are a fun idea and the graphics and animations are nicely done - a solid entry.

This is hilarious and a little bit disturbing XD

Great art, great sound effects and great music!