itch.io

Played your last game that you made for VimJam 5 and like A Familiar Escape it's a charming little puzzle game that feels polished and looks cute. Having ammo and health sharing the same resource is an interesting concept. The levels are quite easy but at the same time, with christmas-themed games, vibes reign supreme, and the vibes are certainly there! Looking forward to your future projects :)

Fitting music, a very charming artstyle (with some fancy little lighting to boot!) and a fun concept. I did feel on some of the levels that damage wasn't really avoidable and sometimes the ghosts would spawn and instantly deal damage to me. Maybe it could be avoided and i'm just bad (very plausible) but even when plotting out a route of escape it felt damn near impossible to not take damage and i just budgeted my health for the level. It doesn't feel entirely fair, but the dashing and platforming part of it felt good! Being ya'll first entry ever is cool, besides the pain points i mentioned, it was a neat little game. Looking forward to seeing how you develop this one further. Good luck and great work :)

Finished it! We start with the good: music never overstays it's welcome, the levels are short and well designed with the movement system in mind and i think the penguin is pretty cute. HOWEVER, i am not a fan of how i'm not really able to "adjust" the movement as well as i would have wanted. you slide a fixed distance, i think? and i cant just nudge it to avoid obstacles. With some improved movement the current levels might become easier but it would also allow you to make difficult leves that still feel really rewarding to clear. Overall? It was fine, and i like the concept, but could have been a little tighter. The death counter was something i wish i had added to my own game, and i liked that it tracked the amount of times i messed up. Good work regardless and good luck with the jam!

Half-way there, eh? ;) Looking forward to seeing how this grows!

Got to wave 8.

I think it scales quite well, and it starts getting quite hectic. The sharks however where a little bit of none-issue as i just made them get to the same corner and change the direction of them when they get back to the screen again. Sometimes the crabs stop when i click them, sometimes they start walking again before the seagull picks it up but that COULD be intentional and makes it a little more micro-manage-y. Cool way to interpret the theme, and very enjoyable. It's got a few kinks and the crabs could probably have a hitbox that is a bit nicer to the player, but all in all a good entry. Good luck!

This got some cool lore to it and it's tightly coupled with the actual gameplay! The adaptable difficulty is very nicely implemented without making the game TOO easy. I didn't quite figure out the last pipe puzzle, but that also put me on to the fact that it actually SKIPS if you fail too much. A clever mechanic especially for gamejams (i've soon played around 50 entries so it does speed up my testing a little hehe). The sprite also evolving over time is a nice touch, too. Short, but fun and creative. Great work, and good luck with the jam.

A short but fun entry! Using the recoil to fly this cute little robot through the levels was a cool mechanic as many mentioned before, and i did watch Vim play it live but felt like i should try it too. My only real complaint is that it's quite easy to get stuck on corners, but this could easily be fixed by changing the hitbox from a square to a "tall circle" (google tells me it's called oblong? elliptical? you might understand what i mean). I had fun with it! Great entry, and good luck with the jam <3

I like the assets you chose, sprites and music is cute. Played a few runs and made it to around 33s? Could've gone longer but the jumping would just not happen randomly and at a point it got quite frustrating. But seeing as you are a solodev i can't blame you too much for not nailing it perfectly during the time alotted. Fun in practice, but unfortunately quite buggy. Great work regardless and good luck with the jam! :) 

Finished all the levels, and movement felt quite good. The wallrunning was very smooth for a project under such a strict timeframe, however i am not a big fan of the rotating platforms. I kinda understood how i would play around it but it felt a little too janky and would've prefered less of them and more of the wallrunning and sliding about. Mechanics felt good, but the levels felt a little undercooked. That said, not a bad entry in the slightest and i think you guys did a good job! Good luck with the jam <3

Originally my plan was for the timer to start as soon as you took control of a rat, but it wasn't implemented. It's added to my mental list of "things i will do if don't just make something new". Thank you for your kind words, and also for your time. Good luck with the jam <3

Glad you enjoyed it and thanks a ton for the feedback! If we do keep working on it i will make a new track for it (this one took me like? 5-10 minutes? had a bunch of bugs to squish so it wasn't top prio), and the graphics would probably be revamped somewhat. Good luck with the jam, and thanks for your time.

Movement is a bit weird, but it has visuals and a cool soundtrack. MIGHT have been that i misunderstood how it's played!!! Good job & good luck with the jam.

The puzzles are okay but what really stands out is how damn cool the tentacle is. Seeing it unroll itself is mezmerising, and allowing the player to move any part of it allows for some really strange but awesome strategies. Some levels felt a little tedious, but overall i found it fun and a great proof-of-concept. What would be more lovecraftian than the horrors of manual labor?? Good luck with the jam, and great work.

Man what a great entry! While the racing part has been done before, the harvesting portion of it is a really interesting system and unique system. Some minor bugs: starting off with what looks like 0 money, losing and restarting keeps your money and makes the days go past 28 but no races and no "pay off debt event" (went all the way to day 60, harvesting and day count still worked). Charming, unique and a genuinely great time! Great work, good luck with the jam <3

Not very difficult but a nice proof of concept. Restarted a few times when i understood how the new characters introduced worked but other than that it was quite clear.  It was a nice touch that you could hit your own units, it would allow for some quite complex puzzles. The graphics looks nice and the sounds are servicable. The delay between turns is a bit slow. Nice overall, but could've used a little more content. Good luck :)

1387 was my final score.

Seriously, you did such a GOOD job on the sound design and the feeling of movement! Easy to pick up, hard to master, but BOY is it satisfying. The jetpack refilling on walls was a stroke of genius. Intuitive controls and the nice soundscape that is just kinda organically created by the player bumping into things and humming away with the jetpack. Simple but effective graphics. I was going to say "this would slap on phone", but i tried running it on my phone just now and it just works. Be proud of this one! Good luck with the jam.

I think the movement system is quite neat, although i did go back to the description to fully understand how to build speed. Simple rectangles with a bit of flair did wonders graphically. Didn't finish too many levels, either it's a little hard or i'm just kinda bad at these sorts of games, but found it enjoyable nevertheless! GJ & GL with the jam!

A pretty ambitious project, and while the walljumping was a little clunky the sliding and shooting felt fine. Keep working, bud! And good luck with the jam

What a cool way to interpret the them and focus?? I'm sorry your PC bluescreened, would've loved to see you vision fully, but what existed was still fun even though the constant clicking was a bit tiring for my wrist hehe. Unique with a lovely art style! Great work, and good luck with the jam <3

Thank you!!

Ditto with your rat!!!!

AH YES, the ever-looming threat that is overscoping! I really had to reign myself in for my own project and forced myself to stop making mechanics and start making actual content, so I feel ya. We live and learn, right?

Great choice of art, music and sounds! It felt quite punishing at times and was kinda repetetive, but once i got into the flow of it I like zipping around obstacles. I did encounter a bug where after hitting an object my character just kinda ceased to exist. The effect for losing was VERY cool! Good luck with the jam.

What stood out to me the most is the little indicator for when you are about to be spotted! Very neat. A short but fairly enjoyable experience, could use some sound effects (maybe like a PING noise when they start spotting you?). Didn't encounter any bugs! Good job, good luck with the jam.

A little throwback to early GTA titles! The briefcase spawned inside i building so i had to restart but as someone else already said, the gameplay loop is intuitive. A bit clunky, but also charming. The car noise var a bit grating and could use some variation. Good work, and good luck with the jam.

It's jank but i have a softspot for programmer art, bonus points for that haha

The boss seems to always do his spinning move when starting which is a bit unfair, but I could still beat it in 4 seconds so it wasn't that much of a problem. Very FUNNY though, with the sound effects just being what i'm guessing is one of you just saying "pew" making it go p- p- p- pew which gave me a good chuckle, and also the bosses HP bar spinning with him looks silly. Shooting could have a better punch to it, the fight could go on a bit longer. Good luck with the jam!

It was a pleasant little experience. None of the puzzles stumped me too much but i did restart a few times on the last one because of my own skill issues heh. Graphics looks cohesive, but i think the moving sound gets a little annoying after a while, could use some variation in pitch perhaps?  Didn't encounter any bugs though! Good job & good luck with the jam.

Feeling like a level is easy and then seeing someone play it, only to come to the realization that it was easy because you made it yourself seems like an awfully easy trap to fall in haha. The same to you, man!

Now THIS is beetle racing! Slipping and slidin' around as a bug was fun, and the jumping was servicable. At some point it felt more like a top-down platformer and personally i would've liked more levels to speed around in, but overall an enjoyable experience.
There is a bug (heh) where you can jump even when falling, and while it's not consistent it allowed me to cheat some levels. The menu was pretty damn cool and i'd love to see what this turns into down the line. Great work champ.

This is why you keep your money in your WALLET and not placed randomly throughout the house!! On a serious note, i think it was an interesting use of the theme and focus, controls felt fine and the levels i played felt varied enough in environment. I don't know if the visual for the pathfinding is intentionally left in or not, but it makes it more fair for the player since they can see instantly where the npc is going to travel. The small dots do look a little out of place visually, though. I was only seen through what i felt like a wall once, but other than that it felt like the vision cone was fair. All in all i thought it was pretty enjoyable, albeit a little rough. Great work!

You are welcome to out-rat us hehe

Some sprites were just kinda made as placeholder and then never got... placeholded. Our focus was for the game to be fun, and it seems like we hit that mark. Thanks for the feedback :D

It has a bit of jank to it, but I feel like that kinda adds to the stress which we can pretend was intentional all along lol. Thanks for trying it ou!

Thank you for playing :)

Thanks! The mechanics feeling intuitive is great praise.
And right?? We thought it looked super cute and were satisfied with out it turned out.

Thank you so much for playing! Means a lot :D

I had this requested by a friend but we never added it. A combination of the levels being short and personally I kinda like that you have to figure out levels while the timer is ticking? But for QoL that would probably be quite ince. IF we pick up development i'll make sure to add it. Thanks for the feedback :)

I can see what you were going for with this one, even if it's a bit rough. Bonus points for being creative! Sounds are fitting and makes up for not having any music. If you end up developing it further i'd be open to playtest it.

First run: got to last room and just barely didn't make it until the timer ran out

Second run: 57s to spare!

I found that strategically losing life to save even more time was a very clever mechanic and if intentional, kudos to you! Didn't mind having to start from the beginning, which might be a turn-off for some people, but for me I think allowing me to use my knowledge to beat it faster felt quite rewarding. Good combination of assets and sounds, my only real complaint is that it's very easy to get caught on corners but that is just me being nitpicky. Good job, mate.