itch.io

I like the simplicity of this game. But I feel like this game gets really frustrating with its randomness. I feel like removing the movement hurts the game more than just being a unique component. Perhaps making the rolls more in relation to what enemies are there instead of spamming the roll. So if there's a 3, 4, and 2, it randomizes between those numbers, not just a completely random roll. At the very least, the movement would probably help the game a bit more. Overall good job on the concept.

I wanted to post this here to see about others' interest in this, what they'd expect from this jam, and who could help on the most essential part of the jam that I'll be going into soon. 

For starters, the premise of this jam is kind of in the name. Instead of normal game jams where it's usually just to have fun in making a game, the jam is also intended to be a boost in developers' careers in game dev. How so? Well, the entire jam is going to be an attempt to simulate the entire cycle of game development. Within a month before the jam begins, jammers will have the ability to design their games beforehand so that once the jam begins, jammers will be able to work in full production on the game. But the most essential part comes at the end, where the top highest voted submissions would get critiques from experienced creators in the industry. This would mean people working in triple-A, or any successful studio in general. It would also include people who've worked in the industry for a little while with 3 or more years of experience. But it would be primarily people who are in Design, Art, or Animation to help critique those aspects of submitted games.

Now why join the jam? Aside from the fact that jammers would give feedback from experienced people from the industry, it's also an incentive to start learning more about the full-on game dev cycle. But most of all, it would hopefully serve as a chance to boost dev's careers up.  I know currently, there are a few jams that are also doing a year-long time for development, but I believe these jams are meant to be similar to other jams, mostly for fun and to incentivize working on a game for a year. But this jam is meant to be dedicated to a bit more than just that, with the primary focus being to help improve ourselves as game devs overall.

This is also why, and the weirdest part of all, I'll be participating in this jam alongside others. The reason why I first started off this idea of making a jam was to spend a full year on a project, but I felt that there would've been no drive to push towards the end. Whereas with this jam, it would bring about the chance to work on a full project, and simulate a real game development experience rather than just doing a passion project on the side.

So here's where I need your help on this, the Itch community. Firstly, I'd like feedback on what people think of this idea, what would you expect out of this jam if you wanted to come into it? And secondly, who would be interested in either moderating and or being a dev in the experienced creator slot? Remember the premise being that such people at the end of the jam would critique these submissions (would be the top voted games).

If you're interested in this jam as well, currently I have a WIP Discord https://discord.gg/9gBQRhCAsT

Apologies for a bug that occurs when playing the game again and the hud doesn't appear. We had a build ready to fix it but didn't get completely built until the exact time the submissions closed.

Simple, creative, and interesting spin on the theme. Easy to get into, and a good progression in the challenge. I'm honestly not sure what feedback to give, you did an amazing job with this game.

Simple, yet original idea. I love it! The gameplay is smooth,  not too difficult, and easy to get into. My only feedback would be to perhaps add levels or some form of progression. Make the game more challenging as the player continues, and especially adding powerups would be great. You got an amazing start, and I hope you continue working on the game.

This is one of the few games that I'm shocked to find was made just in the 48 hours given. Really well done systems design, visuals, art, and sounds.  The controls felt pretty smooth, and the aesthetics were really well done. That said, my main problem with this game is its lack of instructions.

Without watching the trailer video, or looking at the description, I had no idea what I needed to press or do (other than the obvious WASD and space). The easiest way to circumvent this is a text, either in the world or on the HUD, that tells the player what button they need to press.  Crouching a lot of players will likely know, but not everyone, so even in that area it's good to communicate to the player what they need to do when they get to that area. And for new abilities that haven't really been done in other games, you definitely want to add something to let the player know what they need to do.

Overall, again, really good game, it's seemingly just that lack of communication is missing.

Nice and cute, also a very interesting spin on the theme. However, as the others have said, the challenge seems to be too difficult at the start.

Really polished, simple, and great gameplay. I love it. The only feedback I can really give is possibly making the collisions a little less sensitive. There were moments where I wasn't sure why I died, but I really like the challenge that the game presents even with the collisions. The controls were also a bit confusing at first, and the challenges were quite difficult.

Overall, again, really awesome job on this game. 

No problem, you guys deserve the praise. And thank you! The team's really proud of the artists, and we hope to continue working on the game to bring the gameplay to the same level as well.

You got a good game going here, the art is simplistic but cute, and the gameplay seems balanced. As the others have said though, the game is really difficult to understand at first. To mitigate it, I recommend investing more time through the tutorial, explain more in-depth what exactly will happen. Think of it like you're teaching someone new to a card game everything about the rules, rather than just giving the steps, you explain what happens when you perform the actions.

Overall, again, good game. All it needs is that extra bit of polishing in the tutorial, and I think it'd be much more enjoyable.

Wow, a 3D game made in 48 hours with a lot of details, that's a feat that's not easy to overcome. Really good job on this game, I loved the music, the aesthetic was pretty good, the ending was satisfying, and the sounds were relaxing. There were a few minor issues, some completely understandable such as a few collision issues on rocks (some had no collision, and some were hard to navigate on).  I also was confused a bit over what I needed to do, or where to go, but the level design did manage to direct me after a little while.

Overall, again I'm really proud of how this game was made just within those 48 hours. I really hope you continue working on the game by polishing it off and maybe adding a bit of a longer experience.

Everything about this game is nearly perfect. Nice and cute art, nice sounds and music, and a good rise in the challenge.  I like that you can merge to create other elements (or colors), and have to solve problems that way. I think the only thing missing is to add more levels, perhaps with introducing more elements to eventually get into a really challenging level to finish off strong.

Overall, again, really good.

I love the idea presented for this game. It's simple and brings logical thinking to tackle a challenge. Most puzzle games with this simplicity go about it in 2D, so I like that you went with 3D for this. I do have some issues with the game, however.

The lack of a user interface to reset or to switch to a different level was a bit annoying. I felt like there was a bug where the wood wouldn't fill in the gaps despite it visually looking like it would, seemingly mostly because I missed an area. Having the wood fill in the gaps partially off the bat after you set it up to do so, and only stopping the wood when it hits the other wood would help communicate what the player needs to do. You could use this with your lose condition where you have a limited number of tries (which should also be displayed so the player knows).

Overall, again this game looks really good, especially for your first game. I hope you continue working on it more as it seems like it would be a great app for the google play store.

You did really great with this game. The music, art, and just overall aesthetic are really well done. Having the cube being gelatinous really expresses the character well. I wasn't too sure about the game fitting the theme, but crossing and or combining mechanics (to "join together") did cross my mind. My main feedback would be to work on the controls a bit more. The rope felt a bit challenging to use. I believe if the rope controls were either more sensitive or switched to purely by mouse, it may work better. You could also allow the player to decide the sensitivity and or the controls. 

I also did face a bug where the player got stuck on a  lava/fire area where the player couldn't move or escape, and I had to wait until I died.

But overall, again really nice job.

Thank you for the feedback! Sorry to hear that about the controls and theme. The idea was that the souls would join together with the Reaper when they go into the reaper to in other words solve a problem (that being to complete the level). But do you have any feedback as to how you believe the souls could interact with the reaper to fit what theme more? As for the controls, we're hoping to work on the game after, and aside from level design, controls are something we plan at looking at again.

Thank you for the feedback! We're hoping to work on the game after, and level design is the first thing we'll be prioritizing. Also, a Soulcatcher universe would be awesome haha.

Not bad, the gameplay is simple, and the art, as well as the audio, are really good. The level design had me confused as to what I was supposed to do in the sense of an obstacle. I felt like I was more roaming too freely eating people and then suddenly finding the end level area. Maybe you could add obstacles that require your monster to eat enough to break? 

Overall, again nice job, just needs some refinement and additional work.

I like it, simple art and gameplay brings me back to the times of playing cooking mama-type flash games and cooking fever. The game play was a bit difficult to understand at first despite the tutorial, but I got the hang of it and started to actually have fun once I got it. I also recommend increasing the retirement cost if that's your intended end goal for the player. That way the player would have to focus on upgrades first and then retire once they've gathered all that money. Overall nice job!

Really well-made game with simple graphics and gameplay. The aesthetic with the audio and the darkness really adds to the game. I think I did run into a soft lock around the fourth area I believe ( it was the area that had said "a million raindrops could drown a city") with the logs not breaking due to not having enough fish, but I had gathered all the possible fish in that area as well as the previous areas that I've seen (I even backtracked to check). I think there was a fish that was meant to join my party but disappeared (which may have caused the game-breaking bug).

But, overall, really good game!

Really good game, love the art, the humor, and the game play. I did find it really difficult to get through the level, probably due to the level feeling a bit too harsh. Overall I can definitely seeing this work on Steam with more levels and a bit more polishing. Really nice job!

To be honest, this is a good attempt, but it needs a lot of work, and I'd strongly recommend adding updates to the future to help improve it. The biggest compliment I'd give is to the art, it looks cute, but also does need a little bit of work.  But the major issues are with both the game play and the audio. I'm not sure if there's meant to be any audio, but your game could really make due with a simple music track and or some sound effects. The level design is annoying to traverse around due to the tiny bumps in the ground and difficult to understand where to go and where you're at. Adding something to the enemies like them chasing the player, and adding attack animations on the enemies would help add more to the combat.

Overall, again, you did a good job, and I hope you continue to work on this game.

To be honest, this is a good attempt, but it needs a lot of work, and I'd strongly recommend adding updates to the future to help improve it. The biggest compliment I'd give is to the art, it looks cute, but also does need a little bit of work. But the major issues are with both the gameplay and the audio. I'm not sure if there's meant to be any audio, but your game could make do with a simple music track and or some sound effects. The level design is annoying to traverse around due to the tiny bumps in the ground and difficult to understand where to go and where you're at. Adding something to the enemies like them chasing the player, and adding attack animations on the enemies would help add more to the combat.

Overall, again, you did a good job as evident by the good art and animation, and I hope you continue to work on this game.

A pretty neat simple game with simple gameplay. The art is cute and simple, and the humor is pretty enjoyable. For feedback, there was an issue with the font that made it a bit difficult to read. That was likely due to me being in the browser and thus giving a smaller resolution, but I'd still recommend seeing a way to fix that for smaller resolutions.  But, overall good job!

Thank you for the feedback! A tutorial was something we definitely wanted to do but just didn't get the time (along with several other features we didn't get the chance to implement). We didn't think much about individual control over players,  but I think that could be interesting. We plan to update the game to include some missing features that we wanted, as well as some bug fixing, polish, and refinement, so some of this feedback will most likely be in.

Really well-made game, especially for a game jam game. I can see why it's become popular on Itch. I see I'm not the only one who has had struggled with some of the levels, but it's definitely interesting how you utilized the player controller's exploitation through your level design with how you nudge the characters closer by constantly hitting something, or vice versa to get them to go apart. Overall really fun simple game that probably could make it onto Steam (perhaps with more levels, maybe introducing other characters like a green person.

Oh also side note, you're music sounds very similar to Stardew Valley, one of my favorite casual farming games. 

Like the concept of having your hands actually connected to the controls. Really adds immersion. Though it'd be great if the player could also get into the game by using those controls instead of having to use the mouse.

Good game, like the simplicity of the gameplay and level design. Though I would recommend changing the color of the level floor,  it causes some of the objects to blend in, and become hard to see. Examples are your selected square and the particles. But overall, nice job!

Unfortunately, the music is bugged out and doesn't play. We plan to work on the game in the future, including fixing bugs like these. But for now, here's the track.

Thank you for the feedback! The team, and I, spoke about possibly continuing on after the jam to develop more for it to give it some real polish. 

Thank you for the feedback, if I may ask, did you get a chance to play on the Sandbox level? If so let us know your thoughts with that.

Credits: Dylan Stilwell - Programmer (Most to all systems unrelated to audio), Ceasear villegaes - Artist (Modeling, UI, animations) Marcy Nabors (All sounds, music) - Sounds, Level Design

Controls - WASD - move, LMB - Shoot, RMB repair holes