itch.io

I love Monument Valley, so the moment I read  it was for fans of that I knew I had to play it! I think it's cool you were able to implement a simple version of that game's mechanics. The game is a little buggy, in particular when it came to moving the character. I tried holding down the right click as well as moving the robot one square at a time, but while those strategies helped, neither of them worked consistently. Also in the first puzzle after the tutorial the robot kind of zips up ahead of the blocks when you try to scale them upwards. And I believe a couple of levels after that I was unable to get the robot upwards without it falling and resetting to the beginning, which meant unfortunately I was unable to finish the game. Still, the aesthetics are lovely and the robot is very cute.

A nice simple game that recreates its inspiration well and has potential to be a chill time once the bugs are worked out. Nice work!

Glad you liked it! Yes, they do have different amounts! The bigger the orb, the higher the player can climb. Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! The size of the orb you select determines how high Climb Bot climbs after you successfully resize it. The bigger the orb, the higher Climb Bot can go. Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you liked the game! The thing about pressing A and D is that it takes up extra time while the monster climbs higher, thus giving it more of a chance to beat you to the top. But I know that part might need a bit of balancing as well. 

Would you say pressing A and D feels random because there's no visual feedback? The orb does grow and shrink when you press A/D, but it can be difficult to see, especially with the small orb size 💀 Will try and work on that as well.

Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you liked the concept! Yeah, I definitely should've paid more attention to how much height the purple orb gives you 💀 Also I have no idea what happened to the game's sound in your stream, the song is supposed to loop endlessly without those huge gaps! 😭 First time seeing that problem, might have to look into it. (Also sorry for it being a bit loud.)

I was indeed asleep when you went live 😅 Wish I could've made it to your stream, but thank you for playing!

Thanks for playing!

Balancing was something I unfortunately didn't leave a lot of time for, and was also something I was new to. Still, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for playing!

Thank you for the feedback! Something like that is something I was considering but didn't have time to implement. Thanks for playing!

I think that could work? I figured it out because it was implied in the description. But it could definitely be clearer.

This is an engaging puzzle game with a really nice painterly art style! Most of the levels I played took me way too long to solve lol. After the blue blocks were introduced I remember getting multiple correct solutions to the puzzle that didn't work. It took me a while to realise that this was probably because the blue blocks were heavier than the brown blocks, and there were too many on one side. You really did have to balance the scales!

One minor issue I found was that when positioning blocks on the scale some would fall when it looked like they should stay or hook in place, which is a bit unintuitive.

All in all this was pretty good! Keep up the good work!

I really like the idea behind this game! Combining memory with exploration is a cool concept. However, movement in this game, especially of the scaled-down objects, was quite difficult. I didn't understand why I couldn't go up the overpass in the big environment, and wasted a lot of time on my first attempt trying to do so. Having to go around was slow and finicky, especially considering the time limit, whch limited exploration. I also couldn't figure out how to move the miniature buildings at first - I knew you had to click and drag them but it was difficult to figure out when you were able to pick them up. Perhaps some kind of visual cue when the buildings are clickable might be useful?

I also had trouble moving the buildings around and setting them down properly, due to the distance you had to be from them to move them and also the fact that they would often clip through the table. Another thing is that there was no way of knowing how to say you were done so the game could tell you whether you got the environment right or not. If it's supposed to be by setting the buildings exactly on the rectangles, unfortunately I was unable to do that. Even when I definitely remembered how it was supposed to go I couldn't set the buildings down exactly right and it always felt like they weren't rotated correctly.

Overall though, I can see the concept and think this game has a lot of potential. I hope you improve this one!

Everything about this game is simple but effective - from the sound design to the UI to the concept. I really enjoyed this one and thought it was well done as well as a good use of the theme. What surprised me the most was realising I had to make 3+ pieces with a single cut - that definitely added another dimension to the gameplay! I also appreciated the puns in the level titles, lol. I do wish that after losing the laser would reset to its last position along with the item.

Made it through all 15 levels and had a good time cutting up some stuff. Nice job!

This is the most creative use of a girrafe's neck in a game I've ever seen! There was a moment after getting the first two bananas where I was like, "Okay, now what?" but when I figured it out I was like, ":OOO" and felt like I'd discovered an exploit XD Speaking of which, I love how the level teaches you techniques that aren't explicitly mentioned in the basic controls. The music is great, as is the cartoony art style. The little story at the beginning was a nice touch. Loved the background and walking animation as well.

I didn't manage to get to the end because of time, but I definitely wanted to keep playing. Fantastic work!

I really like the pixel art for this! I also liked being able to slash any monsters that got too close to me, definitely upgraded that a lot XD The game's music was a bit quiet though, and sometimes the projectiles would keep shooting after you died. 

Overall a well-made game! Good job!

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

My friend who did the art told me she was unconsciously frowning while drawing the monster and trying to make it look mean 😂 I'm glad you like how it turned out! Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you thought it was fun! Trying to explain clearly and succinctly how the game works was something I had trouble with. A proper tutorial level might have helped, but I definitely didn't have enough time to implement that. Thanks for playing!

Used one of your tracks in a game I made for ArtFight! Thanks for making these available! https://dreamcartographer.itch.io/artfight-photoshoot

Hello, it's your giftee ^3^ I think this game is great! I've never played this type of game before, but it was very easy to get a hang of! Requires a surprising amount of strategy and cam be genuinely nerve-wracking at times - I really got into it! You did a great job with the music and incorporating my favourite things. (Speaking of which, I really like the transformation sequence on the magical girl! And the cute little giraffe mouse pointer.) 

I still haven't been able to complete the first level of story mode, but I won't give up - anything to beat that utterly terrifying giraffe XD Thank you for making me this wonderful game!

Managed to draw a semicolon that consistently gets recognised as one. (At least, when it gets recognised at all.) Going to bend my own rules a bit and use Google Lens on it whenever I need a semicolon.

Oh no. 

I just realised something.

If Google Lens doesn't recognise handwritten semicolons... then how am I going to add CSS?

o_o;

Three sticky notes to implement, again, three lines of code. Unlucky number? Well, at least I got something done today. Though I'm starting to worry Google Lens is going to get stupider the more I use it.

The sheer silliness I've been going through trying to implement three lines of story JavaScript. Google Lens CANNOT recognise handwritten semicolons and it's been having a bit of trouble with spaces vs no spaces as well. Going to try to get the top one to work and probably ditch the other two.

Edit: It still won't accept my semicolons :') Don't know how it recognises stuff on random signs if it can't even see this. Anyway, I think Config.debug = false; might actually only be necessary to enable the other two lines of code. (Was borrowing the code from my other Sugarcube game and couldn't quite remember before.) 

Does that mean the JavaScript was a waste of time? Probably! But that's the point of the jam, I guess. And honestly... I still had fun :).

(Though I may or may not be thinking of finding a replacement for Google Lens just to see if it's better >.>)

Behold, a working intro! Starting to learn a few things about how to make this work. Saving the more difficult stuff for when I have more brainpower. Coding should be... interesting.

I will also be making all the music and sound effects with an out-of-tune kalimba.

(That's this thing here, in case you were wondering)

How it will work: I'll write the code on large square sticky notes stuck to the pages of a sketchbook (for convenience and to avoid weird looks from my family), then use Google Lens on my phone to copy the text digitally. I discovered it has this nifty feature called "copy to computer", which means I can paste the code into Twine straight away! The code will include CSS  and (minimal) JavaScript, and exclude passage headings. I will also be editing my code this way.

I will be working with the Sugarcube story format for the second time ever, so there's a bit of a learning curve attached. So far I've done a bit of preparation in terms of story notes and creating the passages I think I'll need. These are all empty.

This whole thing is pretty daunting to be honest, and I can only hope I'll have the time and/or enough sanity to complete it all. But this jam is so cool that I couldn't not join in. Better to at least try, right?

Stay tuned for (hopefully) more updates! Let's see how much of a dent I can make in this thing.

This is a cozy game. I really love the concept. Though I was wondering, if the customers are giving memories away, wouldn't they forget they ever had them the second they did so? Anyway, I liked the story and its slice-of-life nature.

The game had me genuinely struggling with one of its choices, which says a lot about how much the game made me care about the story and characters. Though related to that is something that confused me. I chose to give the Serious Woman's memory to the Handsome Man, and that seemed to help him. But then later on Shopkeep tells the Rich Gentleman that she needs the Handsome Man's memory back. But even though that memory was precious to him, the other memory seemed to be what he needed, so why the determination to get his old memory again? Of course it turned out that you're supposed to give that memory to the Serious Woman later, but Shopkeep couldn't have known that. I certainly didn't.

Overall though, this works really well. I like the way the physical memories are presented and described, and the little hints that the game takes place in the past. And I genuinely did not see that twist coming.

A very down-to-earth tale with well-written, personable characters. Well done!

The main character is soooo cute! The story was also very cute and sweet. You established a good rhythm with how events played out each day, which was good for the setup as well as the payoff when things began to deviate a bit. I really connected with Dream Lady and wanted to see her happy. And I got worried when she stopped turning up. I'm glad everything turned out okay in the end. :)

The art is simple but charming. I especially liked the crayon drawings. It's clear that a lot of work and love went into this. And of course you get points for even doing the voice acting yourself!

I enjoyed this. Great job!

The writing style of this game has great voice and really helps you engage with Kazan. I love the main mechanic of composing your own letter, I thought it was pretty fun. Are there multiple endings based on what you pick? I also like the mystery of not knowing where these letters come from or why. The music is lovely.

There was an issue with the screen size, though. The game's display was too big for my laptop screen so text was cut off at the edges, making it harder to read everything. The issue actually seemed to get worse as I got further into the game. It's a shame I wasn't able to read everything properly, as once again I do like the writing style and was curious to learn more about Kazan. There's also a bug where if you go back to the main menu after completing the main game a second playback of the song starts up but the first one keeps going, so the song is playing twice at the same time, if that makes sense.

Still, this is nice work!

This was such a sweet story. I like how such a common phrase was both made literal and used as a metaphor for the love the two main characters have for each other. And the music is really pretty. 

There's a bug with the text when you look at the items (when I looked at the picture and then the wedding dress, the picture text didn't go away so I couldn't read the text one). And there's a small spelling mistake in the wedding scene. But other than that, this is done pretty well!

Good job getting this in!

World's most delayed anagnorisis, LOL.

Thanks for the feedback! I've been wondering whether or not it was a good thing that the game takes multiple playthroughs to understand, so I'm glad to have someone chime in on the matter. It was a pleasant surprise for me to discover during development that I could incorpirate an unreliable narrator. I'm not sure if the slightly hidden text is just your screen/monitor setup or an actual bug; I was able to read the final message in its entirety both in and out of fullscreen. 

I'm glad you enjoyed it! (And understood it... eventually.)

(Yooo! The opening "Ludum Dare 32 - Track 5"  is in my game ROSA! Song buddies! :D)

Super SUPER well-made. The idea behind this is really intriguing. At first I thought the deteriorating environment was literal, but it started to make sense when the main character returned home. I liked the teddy bear as a symbol of innocence and hope. I also loved all the little details sprinkled throughout that convey both story and atmosphere. (Though I have to ask - why is SquishypuffDave in this game? XD EDIT: Oh my gosh, I can't believe I noticed SquishypuffDave but not myself XDDD It's an honour! Thanks!)

As for the reveal, I'm not sure it recontextualizes everything that came before because there's not much story prior to watching the tapes. Or at least, there doesn't seem to be. Why does the main character go to the house? Does he know he's going to do what he does in the tape, or is at least considering it? Or is the tape an unexpected wake-up call on where his life is going? Both those things are probably difficult to convey in such a short game, espcially when you need to focus on the main events.  In any case, it definitely works as a reveal for both the main character and the player, whether it be literal or metaphorical.

The only real issue I saw is that there doesn't seem to be a way to exit the Windows version at the end. (Also if I knew my thumbnail would be front and centre, I might have spent more time on it XD Thanks for promoting us all though!)

Excellent job!

Now that I've finished it, I can say this had a great reveal! It recontextualizes the whole game and even the title screen. It's a well-conveyed, lovely story too. I really like the new addition you've made too - where while Scarlett's chasing the dog the music gets quieter and the city noises get louder. I'm pretty sure it's new, anyway.

There are still a few bugs. I can still make Scarlett walk under the tall plant I mentioned before. And you might want to check the lampposts/objects outside, I could walk under several. Also Scarlett briefly disappears the last time you interact with the dog before her sensory overload. I think that happened the first time too, but I forgot about it. But those are smaller bugs that you'll probably work on later. 

Nice work!

Thank you for the feedback! I did hope it would be replayable, but mainly because the player would be either going through things again to see the hints/foreshadowing they missed or picking [RIGHT] every time to fix things, lol. As for the ending, it was meant to be an ambiguous cliffhanger - you don't know if you're about to be saved or destroyed.

I wondered about the significance of there being two of that red-and-yellow pendant thing. Did the protagonist need them both for some ritual/to assert their dominance? Actually now I'm thinking that it gave the guild leader some kind of power, and now the protagonist has two of them, therefore twice as much of it. (Or maybe it was just two halves of some extremely valuable item that needed to be put back together.)

I agree that there are a lot of ways to interpret the ending. In any case, it was pretty surprising.

Good work!

So apparently you're supposed to cook breakfast on the stove first... ;;;>.> It was like 6am when I played this, don't judge me.

Anyway, I still found a few places where you could walk where you weren't supposed to. For example, you can walk over the left wall in Scarlett's room and end up in the other one, and you can walk on some things in there as well (like the bed, which I danced on). You can also walk on the fire extinguisher in the hall ouside Scarlett's apartment, under the tall leafy plant at the top right in the flower shop, and on top of the flower shop's front counter if you come in from behind it (yup, danced on that too). Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

I also noticed that expressions seem to remain even after you've moved on to different interactions (like how seeing the food stand in the beginning made Scarlett sad, but she still had the crying face on when I had her greet customers at the store).

And I also got stuck at the exact some point as Toaster Strooder. When both Scarlet and the dog are next to the big hole the game freezes and I can't continue.

So far though, I like what you've done with this. I think Scarlett's text box is a really nice detail. Another small detail I liked was how the guy at the food stand also reacted to the barking. I really want to know what's in that bag. I wasn't quite sure what it was that distressed Scarlett. Was it it the barking noise? The stress and frustration of having to chase it? The apparent rejection? It made me wonder, in a good way. And I like how it came right before an important reveal.

So, I couldn't leave the house because an invisible wall kept stopping me from getting Scarlett's breakfast ^.^; (I'm assuming it's in the brown paper bag? It could be the chopped food as well, but I couldn't get to that either). I haven't rated the game - I want to complete the whole thing first :) I'm sure updating it should be fine if it's to fix a game-breaking bug. 

Speaking of invisible walls, I noticed quite a lot of them in this first part. Though maybe that's to clearly show where you're not supposed to go. Though I could walk on the fridge and table. (I may have made Scarlett dance on top of the latter.)

I like Scarlett, though. She's cute.

Hi, the desktop RAR file appears to be empty. You might want to check that out.

This was a pretty solid puzzle game. The last puzzle took me way too long to figure out, though. As for the story, I liked how the interface changed as the character's awareness did. You did a good job at making me feel for them too. I didn't get to open the first two doors in the dream world though (probably because I didn't sleep enough - I thought bad things would happen if I did, lol). Also, nice adaptive music.

Great work!

This has excellent art direction. The old picture book and paper doll style (with white paper creases and everything!) appeals to me quite a bit. Much like you with my game, I had to play this twice to try and understand what was going on - but I think I might have gotten the basic twist the first time because of the very last shot. It's just that the events were so surreal that they had me thinking I was missing something (read: a lot). As far as anagnorisis goes, does it recontextualize the rest of the story? I don't know. It seems like the new context is something you could've already intuited from the visual style alone. Though maybe that's part of the foreshadowing. (Or I'm misunderstanding, like, everything.)

I think what I liked best in terms of ludonarrative was the scribbled-out dialogue. That's because even though you don't know what's being said, that's not what's important about it. What is important is what it conveys about the situation, mood and in particular the narrative arc, which is achieved via things like context and music choices. I like how these things allow the player to infer for themselves whats being said, even if there's still some mystery. Very well done.

I hope the boy stuck on the ceiling is a reference to Roald Dahl's "The Twits".  I didn't notice until the second playthrough  just how creepy and robotic his laugh was. (Just like how I didn't notice the lying down half-face in the cover image until I was rating the game. Was that always there? O.o)

Fantastic job!

Thanks for the feedback and for playing the game so early! I guess based on what you said it might need a bit more work to get people to understand the story on the first playthrough. 

Also I really appreciate the suggestion about the font and colour choices - it's something I only really thought about once during development. I want to improve the UI by a lot over the next three weeks so the extra symbolism could be something to consider.