itch.io

Well done! The concept is nice, the music and visuals are very soothing and go together well. I was able to complete the game without any bugs which is not the case for most jam games.

I'm missing a bit of UI elements: like a text support for the voiceovers, and visual hints to grasp the lens concept. I was able to complete the game mostly due to "bruteforcing" the puzzles rather than using my brain to figure out patterns and such.

The voiceover is recorded and played back in stereo which is a bit unsettling (basically sounds like ASMR but I don't think I wanted that). I would recommend making the track mono and panning it right in the center (this is common practice for voiceover in films and games). On a more subjective note I'm not a fan of the sightings and the overall tone of the voice but I'm well aware it's not an easy job!

Thanks for taking part in the jam and good luck with the next one! I hope you keep on making games.

Congrats on releasing! :D Will try it asap

Damn this one is super cute.
A fantastic choice of base movie, and a very good understanding of the atmosphere!
Nice controls, I found E and spacebar more intuitive than X and C.
Gameplay is fun, satisfying. Maybe a drifting phenomenon upon changing direction would make the movements more satisfying but not quite sure about that one.
Congrats and keep making games :)

Thanks a lot for playing! :D

Hahaha yeah these things are crazy nowadays :) Stay away from that thing while you can!

We're investigating! Thank you for reporting! Could you tell us which browser (and version) you are using and if you have add-ons that may interfere such as noscript, adblock, smartref, etc?

Thank you very much! :D

Thank you very much and sorry for the trauma :'( We hope you can enjoy your DM's once again someday :o

Thanks a lot for playing! :)

Great! Thank you for these precisions! I totally respect your stance on having just the music with no clear goal. :)

I hope you keep making music, and I look forward to see your next games!

You're welcome! And with regards to the timer thing, I never meant to say it's too easy! :P Just that it needs an additional incentive to go against the brain's natural laziness.

Also I forgot to mention this last time but I found it really offputting that the visible part of the piano keys on each cards stops at B. I'm used to see things going from C to the next C. The additional "missing" black note helps my brain locate the notes more easily.

Also as an improvement and a somewhat different challenge, what about a version with just the note names themselves, not the visual representation? :)

Take care!

This was a very enjoyable experience. I like the fact it is a single screen and falling down only makes you restart. The fact there's no lives and the music doesn't get interrupted makes the whole thing more unified and peaceful.

The platforming starts easy and gets trickier. I like the feeling of progression and I'm not sure if I would have liked things to get harder. It was a relaxing experience and it should remain so. So the difficulty felt pretty on point.

Thanks for giving us options to customise bindings. You could actually have the game start with that window just to make the sure the user selects their preference (and they would de facto learn the controls at the same time).

I like the graphics a lot, these shades of purples have a 90's feel to them. The music was nice but maybe a bit strange at times. This was a combination of the string sound quality, the harmonies getting a little bit busy and a pretty loose sync between the instruments which may come from the code (if the loops are launched upon contact rather than launched together at the start and having their volume adjusted). The choice of the soundscape itself was perfect for the game's atmosphere.

I hope you were happy with what you learned and I look forward to your next submissions! Take care!

I am unable to run this on a Macbook pro 2014, either via direct download ("MusicGameJam" is damaged...) or via the Itch.io app (opens a small window but it is blank). I wish I could play it or watch a runthrough :(

Love the reference in the title :)

Also really like the story and feeling of progression, just with small details like the sky getting gradually brighter, as if the goal was to survive through the night. (Speaking of the sky: if your entire level is in pixel art it makes sense to keep your clouds at the same scale as well)

The slashing animation is a bit off sadly, but I got used to it. This kind of detail actually contributes a lot to the experience so it's worth putting in extra time to fine-tune them in the next jam :)

Some ideas to expand on this concept:

- Make the enemies come from both sides. You have to turn to hit the correct ones.

- Introduce friendly characters which the player should avoid hitting at all (may need to change your story then :P )

- Maybe something in relation to the music? Killing enemies in time gives back a bit of life?

All in all, for your first game it is very impressive. I'm curious as to what tech you used for this and I look forward to seeing the next one so keep me posted! Take care!

I didn't get far at all, so I ended up watching the video you posted below. The music is indeed very nice and so is the concept. I also like the sleek artstyle.

I'm usually pretty good at these 3D platformers (played a fair bit of Recore which is also made in Unity) but I wasn't able to get used to this one for two main reasons I think:

- The transparent platforms are super offputting: in a game like this where precision is needed, I like to see where exactly the current platform ends and where the next one begins.

- Why the "W" binding instead of Space, which is usually used for jumps in similar games? You could even bind both of them and let the player choose his favourite.

Aside from that, there is a difficulty problem as is often the case with jam games (it's so hard to make a game and balance its difficulty in so little time). Again, I want to refer to this Quill18 video on game jams. It was frustrating to stumble so much on the very first obstacles, without getting to hear the rest of the (great) music, and also having to click on "start" again each time instead of being spawned at the start / last checkpoint again. Here again, the different levels (or are they randomly generated?) are nice but also make it harder to learn the first steps.

I hope this helps, and I look forward to see you in the next jam! Take care!

This was one of the most impressive entry in terms of content and polish: there are even cars going by outside the shop, with sound effects and particles!

The gameplay itself is fun and satisfying. I like the freedom we have in the movement and the chaotic (hah!) aspect of it all.

Graphics were amazing and efficient at communicating the function of each object, the background music was a bit repetitive and could have been made optional by putting it on a radio item with a on/off switch (I couldn't focus on my drum mashing properly!)

The only thing that put me and a lot of other people off (I've been watching every stream and video of this jam :P) is the "hitbox" size when it comes to giving people what they want. It's not that it doesn't work, but it can be a bit confusing because there is no visual or audio feedback telling us whether the customer will accept our merch or not.

Another thing that slightly put me off is the camera jiggle. It feels somewhat unnatural, too regular (no perlin noise?). I understand it takes time to get a good feel for these things, which is why I would have preferred to not have it at all, all things considered. It was more offputting than immersive.

The attention to detail and the fun mechanics really make this one of the top entries! I also like that you spent time making teasers and trailers, it shows the consideration you put into this game.

I hope this helps, and I look forward to see your next games! Take care!

Ah, too bad for the sound files! I'll wait and gladly try the next build. Let me know when it's up :)

Also you're saying the game is "underdone" but in my opinion it has a lot of content for a jam game already! (Just look at some of the other entries, they're really small) It's just that it's encapsulated in a much larger box. So for the jam version just reduce the box size and you'll be fine :D

Cool concept. It's obviously a very niche game, but it's challenging for those of us who have rusty music theory knowledge. I wanted to play it but my brain was not okay with that :P  maybe a way to trick the brain into liking this would be to add a timer of sorts? (The score thing didn't really work for me)

Visually, while the dark green background instantly reminds me of solitaire, it wasn't obvious the cards were stacked sideways in the center area. Maybe giving them a border and making them actually stack? Oh and I will not forgive you for the use of comic sans :(

The game also needed a "reset" button always within reach. How did you test your game without one anyway? :o Did you assign it to a keybind?

Overall an interesting concept! And thanks for providing us an exe (I know it's a bit harder with pygame)

I hope you enjoyed the jam, and I'll see you in the next one!

Cool game concept, mixing rhythm game and a RPG story feeling!

I really enjoyed the cute graphics (eyes blinking in the tree logs) and the overall game design.

A few things got in the way of this beautiful experience:

- Sound wise, the initial music was very loud and then followed by the gameplay where there was absolutely no sound. Some wind sound effects and eventually footsteps would have added to the atmosphere (I was actually worried I had a bug and relaunched the game to make sure). The instrument samples were not great but that doesn't really matter considering how hard/expensive it is to get realistic sound and feel.

- Regarding gameplay, I originally didn't know why I died the first couple of times. Took me a moment to notice it was due to hitting the edges. Additional feedback and visuals could help (like a sort of miasma particle). Also I found it particularly punitive to roll me back to the very start after hitting the wrong arrow keys in the rhythm game. Usually there is a checkpoint whenever the gameplay changes that much so that the player stays in the same mindset and challenge after dying.

This definitely has a great atmosphere and good concepts! The execution needs some polishing but that's easier to work on than creativity which you have for sure :)

I hope you learned a lot during this jam and you will attend the next ones! Until then, take care!

Sick game with a story and progression, but also super solid core mechanics for all levels! You struck the perfect balance in my opinion, which is super impressive for a jam!

I love the music of course (spotted a George Benson sample in the first tune haha!) and how well the game reflects what's being heard. Made me think of the video clip for Star Guitar with the filters variations showing up in the floor textures etc. Vaporwave was a good choice for that gameplay, and vice versa.

A player impatient to get to the song like me would like to skip through dialogue even faster (is faster text a v0.2 thing? Is there any other way to skip?)
The story is interesting but honestly after seeing some gameplay it's hard not to skip it :P I don't know how to remedy that except maybe have the story happen in a corner during the game, in a sort of transition course where the challenge is lessened to focus on the story but the player still feels like he's running?

I like the mechanics in play, and the extra challenges of punching things sideways etc. which add difficulty without being punitive.

Since you're using Unity is there any reason why you're not hiding the cursor? It is somewhat distracting.

Overall this was super solid gameplay done right, and great content for a 72h project! Thanks also for adding these feature updates!

Hope to see you in the next one! Until then take care!

With the recent update and the UI feedbacks I finally feel like the master of my creation!

It is a super nice platform to make cool music. It's hard to make a sampler in which every combination sounds good, but I feel like it's the case here! And that's no random chance, all thanks to your ear, taste and skills!

For a game, it is still missing some kind of objective or quantification. Here's an idea using this "tech": limit the user to an arbitrary amount of points: turning an source on will use X points (it could vary depending on source type) and firing one shots will use points each time. The user is limited to this amount of point to make a music which he records and uploads on a page. The best voted music wins. Even with limited time you can make this happen by writing down instructions and letting people chose their own recording and upload means. An itch.io jam page could have been used to collect and rate the entries.

In any case, this is still very nice both alone or together through a stream or video. (Music is meant to be shared!)

I hope this helps, thanks for the UI update and see you at the next jam! Take care!

You have a crazy good concept here, with plenty of challenge and a fitting music/graphics aesthetics.

Your new challenge now is to make it more accessible, especially regarding the difficulty: start slow, take the user by the hand and gradually let him thrive. Quill18 said something regarding difficulty in a Ludum Dare "best practices" video that I really value: take the difficulty that you the developer find trivially easy, and make that your "hard" setting.

Also I feel like for once the pressing of key is really synchronised to the music. That is fabulous. You have two ways to let your player know about that: 1) tell him upfront that hitting the keys in time will make the game easier for them 2) let them figure out that it is the case. The second one may create an unwanted "dip" in difficulty, kinda like someone struggling in a RTS finding a good army composition and rolling through several levels with it.

I think once you have taken a lot of time to fine-tune a proper progression (with actual playtest data not just rough guesses) you'll have a fantastic game that people will want to play and could actually sell pretty well in the mobile ecosystem!

Hope this helps! See you in the next one! Take care!

The stupidest/best game entry. The cheesiest music (that bass tho) and a fine choice of game mechanics that make the user look and sound derpy af. Very suggestive graphics and sound effects. It has it all!

This is one of those games that work super well on streams too, I've got the best clip from Futa the other day (representative of the whole playthrough):

https://clips.twitch.tv/CleanFaithfulApePeteZarollTie

For disclosure, I played the freshly updated version since that's the only build available. Not that it matters too much, plus Xavier let us update games after the deadline so it's all good.

Screenshot proof that I finished the game:

Okay maybe I didn't :P I found it very hard from the get go? I am a musician with good auditive memory, but even with two keys it's hard to remember the proper sequence if it gets really long. It's nice because there's plenty of room for challenge, but maybe make the first levels simpler? If they are short they won't be annoying, a skilled person will go through them in a breeze and stupid people like me can use this time to adapt and get ready for more.

Feedback wise, I like that you went to the point. It's very efficient and can be played quickly. The gameplay itself is self-explaining so you need not have some kind of voice explain it, but it's missing one explicit feedback: what to do when the level starts: I heard "you play the game with F and J..." (brilliant idea btw) "... press the space bar to start level". And so I did, and I waited there for something to happen. I even checked the itch.io page to see if this was a bug or something. It did not occur to me to start pressing either button randomly. That needs to be explicitly mentioned for those like me who don't randomly mash keys :)

Props for doing both the music and blind theme and making the game accessible. Few of us actually stuck to those rules and your game is probably the most user-friendly for blind people. Speaking of which, you should post a link to it on reddit.com/r/blind !

I like the commitment to go and add professional audio acting as well! This makes it so much more enjoyable and shows you were serious about this! Kudos!

I'll stop here for now, I have so many games to review still! I hope to see this bloom and I'll see you at the next jam! Take care!

P.S. ex Love2D user here, nice to see a game made with it!

Hello ! Sorry for rating your entry so late but hey here we are!

So I may have a critical bug but after several restarts and fiddling with volume sliders I'm still getting no sound, which is a shame because I see a lot of visual feedback so I assume there's some cool music and SFX I'm missing :( I will try to take that in mind.

So right off the bat I saw the main menu UI and was like "wow!". It felt like a professional game, with so many options to change the colors, volume... load and save functions, etc.

And then I stumbled upon empty menus, and played a little bit to find lots of placeholder text and buttons. And that's where it fell short and I was projected back to the reality of what is possible in a 72h jam.

To me this very complete UI says a lot about your ambitions, and I'm curious to know if you thought you could do it all before the jam deadline or if you were only laying down the foundations to build a real game... which you should!

For the jam version however, your focus should not be on getting every UI menu and functionality done. It's not only taking away hours of tweaking from your main effort of making a basic fun gameplay, it's also hindering the prototyping process: you want to experiment with different formats, and keep only what's working and what's actually fun. Then add to it only when necessary, cut off a feature that doesn't work without worrying about redesigning an entire layout yet. Instead, you lay down an extensive list of functionalities and then focus on quantity rather than quality. You could theoretically have both, but usually that's not how things turn out, and especially in such a short time frame. For me this is very reminiscent of the waterfall development method versus a more agile solution. It seems like you stuck to a plan but that plan was a bit too ambitious. You can always change the plan, that is important to remember. And it's easier to change if you haven't put hours into it and you are still open to change (e.g. a fresh idea is easier to discard than one that you have identified with).

How I would have approach the development of this is to focus solely on the section where you make a band and make songs with it. These loops have to be super tight and feel polished before I even think about adding a main menu. Even in a UI-centric tycoon game.

This is my main feedback and I'm going to leave it at that. I think I made my point. I think you guys should really keep working on this prototype because it's a really cool concept. But even if you have a larger time frame (even years), please look up agile development concepts because even on these scales plans need to be changed and features need to be cut and focus should always be on the core content.

I hope this helps. Let me know what you think about it and if you're going to take the idea further.

Hope to see you at the next jam! Take care!

@Itooh another key to press is "S" :D

Fun little thing right there, but it's almost a pity that you submitted it so early when there were potential leads for true goodness!

- Love the theme, love that you replicated it on the itch.io page

- Love the small footprint and the single exe file. I must ask: what technology did you use there? Looks like it's using no external libraries or such and at this size I won't blame you for not including midi controller support and the like :P

- Additional screen space would have been nice (maybe simply double each graphic's size. Even small smartphones usually rock a 720p screen nowadays.) You could have used that space to write down instructions

- Interactions were musical and visual but felt a bit unnecessary since there was already so much music to begin with: I would suggest starting with less and let the user add things. I felt like whenever I pressed a key I was messing with the music, making it worse. That doesn't make me want to interact with it, which a game should push towards!

I hope you find this feedback useful. Please let me know what the tech was!

See you at the next jam! Take care!

I built the ugliest cubes but it was very fun!

This is the most original entry in my opinion. Both in terms of tech and in terms of what you had us do to be able to play the game (it wasn't easy explaining to my flatmates what I was doing with paper and scissor on a Sunday afternoon).

The concept is very cool and would be nice to present to children (including the building part which is fun in itself!) I think you had a great idea and I can't add much to it, so I'll just talk about the execution.

I like that the app itself leaves most of the screen real estate to the camera, and therefore the cube, and that you've incorporated feedback straight onto the "virtual overlay". Regarding feedback, it would have helped to set a different color for each cube because the shapes are not the easiest to remember (they're pretty though!) and I got confused with which one does what sometimes.

The songs themselves are nice, but maybe too hard in the sense that sometimes the clashes were not obvious. Picking extracts from songs with different tempi and avoiding neighbour keys would have helped make the clashes more obvious (I am a musician myself I should mention).

I like that you gave us a backup virtual version of the cubes. It would have been fun to have physics applied to those but I'm aware of the complex camera work that would be required in order to make that usable.

The printed cubes seemed very small to me. They are cute, especially with the graphics, which fits the name. But my fat fingers would have liked to put together and manipulate something bigger, maybe multiply the side length by two. (my printer is calibrated yes :P) But hey, you're saving paper so thanks for that!

Overall, it was a nice little concept and my first AR experience I believe! So thanks for letting me in your world for a bit!

I look forward to seeing more games from you! Until then, take care!

Thank you very much :) Yes level 2 has been tricky for most people because there are two electric piano samples that sound very similar. Balance is still something we need to work on! We will try to release a better version of the game with more levels and variations soon.

That's the point! Think of this as a training! Haha :) Hope you were able to enjoy it nevertheless!

Thanks! A minute to figure it out places you pretty high in our playtest "highscores" heh! A much much more polished version is underway :)

Thank you! You have @thomaslean and @tomcaseyymusic to thank for that :D

Hello :) The goal is to locate pixels that have hidden switches on them! The only way to do so is to pay attention to the sound they emit! And if you find all of them, you get a little reward :)

Aye, so hard to get controls and level design right in so little time! These things take time, much like good wine :D

Hey! Thanks for playing and what a wonderful game you have submitted yourself :)

Yes there is a voluntary delay after each click, it is meant to be. The idea behind it was to create a bit of suspense after each click instead of having instant knowledge if you were right or wrong. To hold the player in the unknown for a tad bit longer. That's why the delay is so long :P

However I didn't have the time to implement visual feedback (a loading cursor maybe) and prevent additional clicking / accidental double clicks, so I understand it can be offputting!

I'm curious to see if more work will make this feature better or if I have to drop it out.

Thanks for this precise feedback!

Np :)

Sure thing! I understand the choices and they are legit! And you're right about the colors. It was interesting to make a game about synesthesia :)

Thanks for giving it a try! Yep level 2 is not very popular among our playtesters right now :P Trust me it's even more infuriating from the dev side!