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Was this made in 7 days?

I got stuck at the "your shots ricochet" section.

It would be really neat to try splitting this jam into two: one jam for the Game Design (2 weeks?), and then one jam for Game Development -- where the games must be made from one of the designs that were submitted.

Great game. The graphics are nice; fishing is frantic, the exploration is wonderful; the ship combat is a little too easy, but not overwhelming. I only wish there was a map of the islands.

This game is a lot of fun. It was a little tricky to figure out the bridge switch, and that a sword can cut bushes... but everything else is very well designed and executed.

The palette shader does a good job at keeping the 3d environment so it isn't a complete blur. Amazing work for only 2 days! One thing I would change is to just remove the hand, or make it appear (animated) only when used.

That is a great way to put it! After looking at many lowrez 3d games, I think this is very often the case sadly.

Like others have said, the cut scenes and voice acting really make this enjoyable. The models were nice too.

I think it would have benefited from some way to identify the ships farther away (even as a single pixel). Not sure if the music falls into "legal right to use" (from the jam faq), but it perfectly fit the game.

I love the idea, but I got confused right away. I wasn't sure if my clicks were doing anything. Maybe add more feedback (sound, color, animation) when something is clicked.

This was a very cute game. I assume it uses sprite-stacking? The graphics are really well done. It could use some power-ups and some environmental/terrain obstacles to avoid - probably things to make it feel like a junkyard. also would be nice to have a way to quickly boost away; then it wouldn't be quite as difficult, and there would be a new skill to master.

Really great job! The music and art is wonderful, and even though my patience is typically low for platformers, I (think) I made it all the way through (there was no winning notice). For a first time opening cinematic and soundtrack -- both were amazing.

The only thing I would add is some animation to the character: an idle/breathing movement, a squish-down movement when you hit the floor, and stretch-up movement when you jump would be perfect.

There's actually nothing to bump into. 😄 But the physics is a little slippery; it needs to be fine-tuned.

Thanks. What do you mean by less buttons? I tried to match the keys with how NMS works.

Glad you liked it. For the ship: You have to be close to the ship, then press E to enter, W to take off, E to land, and E again to exit.

Thanks! and thanks again for your help with the sprite stacking. Gave you a shout out in the repo's readme credits.

I got stuck with no way to get out as the red cat.

It's a surprisingly fun time. I beat the main game and got up to 40 before getting bored.

Quick, get this man some start-up millions! 😆

That was a lot of fun! I hope you make an extended version that has cute little faces on the blocks.

Only the last level offers a challenge, but it relies on guessing.

Love the music! Seems like the optimal tactic is to drive real slow to avoid the walls, but that's not where the fun is.

Love the character designs, graphics, animations, particles. The gameplay is interesting, but waiting for each movement is painful. Having an option to speed up the movement animation to be many times faster would really help. Also a small, simple 1st level would ease players into things.

It is very unoptimized, and does a comparison on every pixel of the screen before drawing.

This jam doesn't specify it, but many jams allow you to make some base code beforehand and re-use basic utility code, i.e., a game engine. Just as long as you don't make the game itself before the jam starts. If I make a game it'll be with this framework: https://github.com/morph-games/owls16

This jam doesn't explicitly mention it, but most jams say you can use anything that you legally have the right to use -- which means no sounds directly from existing, copyrighted games. If you do make a "fan game" that uses graphics, sounds, or characters from an existing NES games, you're in a legal gray area. Likely it'll be fine, but you do open yourself to Nintendo and other copyright holders complaining via a DMCA request, and taking your game down.

Since the NES controller actually has the buttons in the order B, A...

...it's best if Z = B, and X = A. 

This also matches what Pico-8 does, with X being the primary/Yes/confirmation button (similar to NES's "A"), and Z (labeled as "O") is the secondary/No button. In Pico-8, you can also use N and M for secondary and primary respectively. This would be useful if people also allow WASD keys for movement -- which is ideal from my perspective.

My preference is also to have the Tab key used for Select. But I do like Enter for Start.

I was excited until I saw the theme. "one button" makes it hard to make anything besides a boring clicker game, and I already did that with a game called "Mortal".

Here's what I did recently: https://github.com/morph-games/owls16/blob/main/src/console.js#L26

The idea is that if you're constrained to an NES controller, then you can map a whole bunch of keys to the controller buttons, so that players can just pick and choose which they like. 

• WASD and arrow keys for the D-pad
• "A" button: E, X, M, ".", "]"
• "B" button: Q, Z, N, ",", "["
• Start: F, J, B, Enter
• Select: R, H, V, Tab

Would anyone be interested in making a game using a prototype fantasy console that runs in the web? It has an API and concepts similar to Pico-8, but the games are written in JavaScript.

https://deathray.itch.io/owls16 -- I could adjust the resolution and palette to fit the NES, and help with any issues you might have.

I only used a few utility functions from LittleJs. The rendering is all done with Xem's W.

Great feedback, thanks! 

The curve of the shots is an oddity caused by the max velocity, but they probably should be allowed to go faster. A crosshair is a good idea, as is the idea of a cone-shaped weapon. I considered autoaim, but didn't know how to implement it without it looking weird.

The shield and power were added in the last days so they didn't get much love (due to lack of bytes mostly). As it is, the shield is meant to be a reactive block, used only in desperation. This is counterintuitive since shields in most scifi and video games don't work like that.

Very satisfying animation and sounds for a clicker game. I like the idea of having branching choices rather than just letting the player get all upgrades. Calling the dialog an "NPC" is a bit of a stretch, but it was amusing. Good length for a jam game.

It does take some practice to get good at the aiming (which is probably not great for a jam game). The tips I can give: try to limit your speed while trying to fire, and lining up with the enemy (like for a joust) will make sure they're easier to hit.

This is a lot of fun! love it.

The card game was a blast! I enjoyed it a lot. The decisions were typically fairly simple, but it was still engaging. The dungeon exploration is sort of non-existent once you realize everything can be seen on the map (my own game had this problem too), but the movement felt good, and the gray dungeon looked fine.

Like others said, the story went by too quickly, but it seemed very appropriately creepy for the theme. I liked the design of everything, even if they didn't all fit together. The first encounter with something otherworldly in the basement was a thrill. 

The rock-paper-scissors combat has potential, but not in it's current state which is just entirely random. Maybe if you only had a limited number of each action, and you could see some hints about what the enemy might do.

The good: Nice use of three dimensions and multiple levels; nice, theme-appropriate story; a good amount of detail to the levels.

The bad: Falling through the floor; lots of empty space (needs more small enemies, and a better way to understand the grid); no sound?

The music was good, and the art style was interesting ... but I could not figure out what "square" I was on in the grid, so movement was very difficult. I got killed by a spike trap on the first run, and an enemy on the second run (on easy).

The web version took a long time to load and then went unresponsive. 😟