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Thank you so much, and we're glad to hear you enjoyed it! It was a blast to make. 😇

Definitely a tough one, but thanks for giving it a look!

Thanks so much for giving it a look!

Hello!

We've finished up development on the post-jam update as of yesterday, to be uploaded following the Jams conclusion! The player is overall snappier to control, the speed and I-frame window on dodges has been extended, and both the bounds of the arena and the boss's attacks are more telegraphed. We tried to incorporate as many points of feedback as we could, so hopefully, it makes a difference!

Thanks for leaving your feedback!

Hello, thanks for leaving your feedback!

We definitely focused on a simple concept in order to try and control our scope, so all (or most) of our mechanics could be relatively polished by the first day. While I would personally separate design & relevance in that respect, I totally respect your judgment. Our ultimate goal was to make a game we enjoyed playing, and as we're both fans of shmups, it was an easy choice.

Regardless, we're happy to hear people are still enjoying it! Thanks again!

OH how could I forget, the music track was an absolute banger.

Love the aesthetic, the pixel art and palette are downright gorgeous. In terms of gameplay, I enjoyed trying to solve a winnable strategy for each level. Originally, I had tried to keep 4 segments open at all times, swapping between them as needed, but this often led to a prisoner escaping with seconds remaining, which set me back.

Eventually, I found my most consistent strategy was to open as many walls early as to drop the ventilation, before going on the defensive on the latter half of the progress meter. Experimenting with different level layouts kept each run enticing, as I'd have to consistently think on my feet.

Overall, I'd like a bit of leniency introduced to the game, rather than the all-or-nothing win condition that is currently being employed.

All together great work!

Short, sweet, and engaging platformer!

First off, the control is some of the best I've felt yet! The character is responsive and demonstrates incredibly tight air control, both while jumping and dashing. The feedback on every action is satisfying, and that's a difficult thing to achieve.

Visually, the pixel art for the environmental details stood out as being very well crafted, especially the "halls of the dead" aesthetic on the different types of platforms. The effects on dashes, explosions, and phasing platforms 

Each new variation of the room ramped up the difficulty, but dying never felt unfair or due to the fault of the player. The final variation with destructible green and blue walls was my favorite of the bunch!

Excellent work!

The concept of rotating the space around was a really creative use of the "One Room" theme!  I'd love to see an expansion of this mechanic, both with unique room geometry as well as attacks that make use of the rotation ability!

As it is currently, there isn't much need for manual level rotation in combat. You could use level features such as destructible cover or enemies that are vulnerable from different angles.

I could also imagine a boss attack where your current floor is filled with some telegraphed hazard, and you need to rotate the room to avoid it. Any excuse to give the players some excuse to engage with the mechanic of rotation!

Also, I really appreciate how your enemies with projectiles clearly telegraph when they're about to fire. These types of affordances are often forgotten under time pressure, but benefit the overall feel of the game.

Well done!

This is some great stuff! I loved the idea of different systems being knocked offline in battle and having to prioritize which systems go online to meet the situation, ensuring that you're meeting a quota of available energy. I could imagine an expansion of the system where the player is deciding on which coordinates to visit, weighing risks and possible benefits of randomized encounters.

Getting upgrades for each encounter completion felt good, and I could see more upgrades being added in the future. The atmosphere was well executed, and the idea of being the lone pilot behind enemy lines is a tense premise that is filled with potential if you chose to continue development.

Great work!

More like Djacked.

This is a fun little point-and-click! I like the idea of re-rolling the environment to try and find new items, with the ticking clock of both the progress bar and the dimming lights. I could imagine additional factors contributing to the global death clock, like some sort of spirits attempting to free the Djinn that must be banished before they reach the lamp. Any way to get the player juggling more would be a fun inclusion!

Aesthetically, the art direction here is clean and well made. The focal point of each environment is always the lamp and discovering all the places where the items can hide led to some fun surprises throughout.

Great work!

This one's very interesting! I think I can safely say this has been my favorite in terms of audio design & soundtrack: having periodic entries of ambient, droning synths is a great way to get around the limitation of short loops in Game Jams, especially in games where longer sessions are expected. Each track is very well composed and doesn't stick around long enough to get grating.

Control-wise, it's cumbersome, but it seemingly is intended to be something of a methodical game. Once a rhythm started to form with the flow of organizing and delivering, it became a bit faster, and the upgrades help in keeping your control feeling less and less clunky. I did feel like it was nearly impossible to ever get ahead in terms of the load zone being full. Having so many boxes spawn at once, especially before I had a handle on the controls, prevented me from ever catching up.

Aesthetic-wise, this is honestly great. It's super ominous, and I felt like it was hiding some secret from me. I could almost imagine it was going to be showing some hidden hand as to a larger setting or narrative it's trying to tell.

This is an excellent entry!

Nice work! Bashing crates and collecting coins was really fun. Trying to manage the turrets, hopping between destructible cover, and considering how to balance objectives and high scores leads to a bit of a learning curve and the potential for some risk vs. reward, given that the levels are designed around such balance. It was quite easy to avoid damage, however.

In the future, I'd like there to be more hazards that populate the levels, both in order to raise the difficulty, as the game was quite easy, and to improve level variety. Having optional objectives or collectables sequestered in difficult sections of the map may also be an idea to give the player some agency over the difficulty curve.

Aesthetically, the pixel art on the characters was charming! Given more time, I'd like to see more varied environments/tilesets if more development is planned for this.

Great job!

Awesome!

I appreciate the response. We're playing with some polishing right now, so I'll start playing with different movement speed values and see what feels good. While I can't promise drastic changes to control, as we're looking to move onto some new projects, this is still a great insight into how we can improve in the future across any game we work on.

Thanks again!

Hello, thanks so much for your feedback!

I'd like to clarify because there are two move speeds: One while your firing is very slow, and one while idle is much faster. When you're talking about increasing the movement speed, are you referring to the movement speed while firing or while idle? This would help us get a better idea of how to balance offense vs. evasion in the future.

Thanks so much!

I will rate this "trash"! Good sense of humor, btw.

First of all, the sprite-work and aesthetic choices may have been simple, but they're appealing in that simplicity. I think sticking with this style would be a good direction for the game, though I'd like to see some features added to the background so I can tell how quickly / far I'm ascending.

I really like the idea of swapping between different patterns to avoid hazards: It adds a nice bit of strategy and room for balance. I could imagine the speed of the elevator being increased, so the player can gain a sense of quickly altered momentum. That said, it currently is very difficult to tell where I'm going to be moving when I start a pattern!

It almost seems as though when I selected one, I would sometimes start halfway through the pattern? This was especially problematic when attempting to switch to the left-most one with the lateral movement for dodging, only to be sent straight upward. I like the idea of there being some overlap between where you start from one pattern to the next, but some indication of this would be appreciated.

Finally, I can't tell how much health I have, or whether I'm taking damage. Having a clear sound effect for getting hit, with the elevator shaking slightly would let me know if I successfully dodged a hazard. If there are 3 hits to be destroyed (As it seems, maybe? Or is it just 1?), some HP counter would go a long way.

I know I gave a lot of suggestions here, but I genuinely love the art and the concept! I'd love to see some future development updates to this one.

Yeah, extra weapons and power-ups were something that hit the cutting room floor, but it's definitely something we've considered adding in the future. Even a bit of variety in terms of offense would go a long way. Thanks for leaving your thoughts, and glad you enjoyed it!

This one's hectic! I can see this being expanded in the future with additional tasks, maybe overlap between the tasks if the boss gets overly annoyed? Organizing desks while hurling coffee at interns, stuff like that.

The narrative is simple, charming, and relatable. I especially loved the character portraits, they were expressive and well made. The SFX for the text crawl could be brought down a bit, it's quite loud compared to the rest of the game's audio.

One thing I'd like to see improved is the discernability of successful actions.  For instance, I failed the printer minigame several times, as I wasn't sure if I was successfully hitting the green bar on time: there was very little feedback on whether I was on the right track.

Simple fixes and improvements and you could have a very replayable game on your hands! Great work all around!

This one's great, I love the visual style and the pixel art for the characters and environment. The flow of juggling between the different stations and pre-emptively preparing for events like hunger and power surges is very well executed.

One thing I'd like to see is an improvement on the progress bars: Currently, they're being influenced by the lighting of the room, making certain bars difficult to tell when they're nearing completion. Having these be unlit materials would help in the discernability of the game-space.

 Also, it's amusing how the mother will be upset about you playing games, but is completely fine with her son sleeping near a sparking, faulty wiring, uneaten pizza on the floor, all while a pizza delivery man reaches into her son's room with a fresh box.

This one had a lot of charm, excellent work!

First off, I love the design of our lad here. He's exceptionally charming.

The perspective changes in the room were consistently enjoyable to engage with, and the music seemed to build in a like manner. The idea of starting with low, droning bass and percussion that builds up over time with some nice lead arpeggios really fits the kind of expansion that the player is working towards. Given more time, I think a dynamic music system where each expansion brings a new instrument into the mix would be a great addition, of course with a slightly longer arrangement to prevent excessively looping.

While the gameplay is simple, the concept and experience had me grinning throughout, very well put together!

I think this has a lot of potential!

Along with some sound effects, I think a good idea to expand this concept would be a "turn limit", which would reduce the brute-force method for solving puzzles, and allow for a simple rating or par system to reward players who think before acting.

Discerning the optimal order for turns could be quite difficult if denser, hazard-rich rooms were designed, but of course, I understand these are longer-term goals. Adding optional collectables that must be fit within the limited number of turns would allow players to give themselves optional goals to further the difficulty for extra reward.

Really great concept and I'd love to see this developed further!

This is neat!

One thing I'd like to see is the addition of some type of hazard that rests on the ground (like a crack or hole in the road) that forces the player to jump. This would serve to reduce the downtime between needing jumps, as the bouncing car-pocalypse must often be avoided by remaining grounded, which leads to some long stretches of downtime.

I really enjoyed the art, especially how the little man looks like he deeply regrets his current life decisions! Some speed lines when you pick up the coffee might better communicate the increase in speed though.

Great work all around!

This one's very fun!

I love the mental strain of managing a minigame while trying to aim and fire, a great concept that could very easily be expanded with additional minigames. The inclusion of a shop was a great touch as well, allowing me to employ some defensive strategies to assist as the night went on.

If I had one thing that could be improved, it's the incentive to progress the day. As it is, it's possible to farm for money while the difficulty is low, and ignore the minigames. While this is the optimal strategy for ensuring success, it's much less fun than engaging with the systems that are there actively.

Aesthetically, the nightmares are charming and well designed, and the different UI for minigames contrasts really nicely with the dim background.

Excellent work!

This one's excellent! I found myself making constant decisions as to where I should focus my attention, attempting to ensure a stable balance between the collection, defense, and objective completion.

The idea of one pool of resources for all actions means that there's always a tradeoff for committing to one pillar of the game loop. The dwindling resources across the map additionally create a natural ticking clock as the difficulty steadily increases.

I hesitate to give suggestions here, as there's already a very well-defined balance in the existing mechanics. More enemy types with additional house upgrades might be a nice thing to explore?

Excellent work!

I can see this being expanded into a very engaging light-sim! The pixel art is excellent, very well put together. Given more time, some additional customization like palettes or room layouts might be an interesting addition.

Additionally, some feedback to let me know which object I'm selecting (either some audio queue or having the objects scale or light up) would help when trying to quickly select a specific item to move it out of the way.

Great work all around!

That's really great feedback! We're hoping to polish some of the effects to improve that much-needed clarity, along with some general optimization and bug fixes. We're really excited that people are enjoying the game, so it's always great to hear!

Thanks again!

This, for me, has been one of my favorites of the jam! Simple, clean pixel art, easy to pick up mechanics, and a collection of interesting upgrades to play with that enhance an already engaging core loop.

The randomness afforded by the shop along with the ability to reroll your deck of upgrades added a good sense of risk vs. reward to the point management. I could choose to go several phases without buying anything and freely go on a shopping spree, but having to manage health between phases meant that many points went towards maintaining and pushing the deck to include as many heals as possible.

The one thing I'd like to see added is regarding enemy spawns. The effect for when an enemy spawns is almost instantaneous, and a good amount of damage taken was an enemy spawning on top of me at an inopportune time. A bit of extra time where some audio queue could play, and a longer visual to indicate where an enemy is spawning would go a long way into improving the overall experience of the game.

Superb work!

First, I'd like to focus on what I'd love to see improved. Technically speaking, the character feels very difficult to control. The velocity of the character seems to vary wildly and inconsistently between ground and air movements. and I'd regularly miss simple jumps and get caught oddly on corners. Also, I ran into several issues with picking up objects: I'd often get stuck underneath them, and this ended my run every time it happened, which is a real shame!

That said, WOW is this game gorgeous. The pixel art is some of the best I've seen, and the overall quality of both the audio and visual feedback for throwing objects, defeating enemies, and collecting $$$ make the act of going for a high score consistently engaging.

With some tighter controls on the player and a few bug fixes, this would easily be a 5/5. Amazing work, and I hope you continue with this one!

Glad you enjoyed it!

That's an excellent suggestion, and something we should have communicated more clearly! Of course, it came down to time. We've addressed it in a post-jam update, adding a short prompt tutorializing the bounds of the arena before the fight. Hopefully, it's enough to at least introduce the concept before it results in unnecessary damage.

In terms of the attacks, we're going to play with some more clearly discernable windup audio & visual effects for each spell. While they'll still behave the same, players will at least be able to judge what's going to be coming next sooner, making decision-making a bit easier.

Thank you for playing and leaving valuable feedback!

First off, I need to say the lasers are too fast. They're excellently telegraphed, with unique audio and visual effects, and the lighting/bloom on them contrasts greatly against the dimly lit interior, but there simply isn't enough time to accurately react and find a safe spot when playing as intended.

That being said, you nailed a creepy aesthetic and atmosphere, and the pixel art on both the player character and the creatures is really appealing. When the spawners were introduced to the creatures I needed to eliminate, the game became quite tense.

Overall good work!

Time is always a factor! Regardless, you did an excellent job.

This is a great example of taking a simple core concept and making an enjoyable challenge out of it. There's very much a constant mental analysis of finding safe places to stand. While it starts quite slow, the difficulty ramps up nicely to where I found myself making positional errors or being overzealous when attempting to collect coins: Risk vs Reward.

I would like to see some visual indication of when a coin is about to disappear, so the player can more easily make moment-to-moment judgments. There were times when I would decide to move for a coin only to have it vanish with very little feedback. Additionally, the prompts for what I'm about to buy might be better placed in a dedicated section of the screen that does not obstruct the view of the corner.

Overall, very fun and well put together!

This is a neat one! I enjoyed the spell-swapping mechanic, and time permitting it could be expanded into giving each spell a bit more of a unique identity beyond a projectile. For instance, giving the flame spell a more continuous, short-range spray (like a flamethrower)! Changes like this could be tied into a simple upgrade tree if needed.

The idea of giving me the opportunity to use the enemy's spells against them was a nice touch. One thing that would have made this strategy more viable is a clearer indication of the enemy charging and aiming their attacks, allowing the player to react and influence the spell. This could even be made as an enemy variant, adding a bit more variety to the core game-loop.

Well done all around!

Simple and addictive! The light resource management with using the dash charges, and combing the move into a large vertical leap across many bubbles leads to a satisfying loop that rewards careful aim and timing, along with the prioritization of threats.

Visually, I see the influences of Downwell very clearly, and as an homage, you did an excellent job emulating the style.

Excellent work!

It really came together nicely! Thank you so much for playing!

Thanks for your kind feedback!

Hey, thank you so much for giving it a look!

This one's incredibly charming! The theme of "One Room" is demonstrated in its most creative expression I've seen yet!

I think from a balance perspective, you could potentially lower the move-speed of some enemies to allow a bit more time reacting to them, or widen the buttons to ensure that quick reactions won't miss as much. I found myself one pixel off the jump sometimes, and that's all it takes to end my stridin'.

That said, the aesthetic, both audio and visual, are very well realized, and the voice acting adds a layer of polish as well.

Yee-haw!

As a game jam prototype, I find this one very interesting. You've nailed the aesthetic and systems to create a compelling tower-defense game. The sprite work and feedback of killing and collecting resources to spend on more traps are very well realized here.

I'm sure given time, more comprehensive tutorialization and communication of how the different elements work could be implemented. The game is fun,  but quite difficult to get a handle on until a few attempts. With complex games like this, where the player is micromanaging many elements, it's imperative to make sure that each individual option is clearly communicated.

A short "Build Phase" where I could get some information on what to expect so I could rewire traps, spend some resources, and prepare would be appreciated, both as a way to better control the difficulty curve, as well as allow for a bit more strategy to complement the on-the-fly rewiring that can happen when your traps are inevitably destroyed.

Overall great game!