W-Wow, sorry for the late answer! Thank you very much for your appreciation <3

I'm happy you've liked both the characters and the mechanics :3
About the Q button, you're totally right. The tutorial is one of the latest things added, and it's not well polished.
The same for coins :( There should have been a final recap screen, showing your coin record, but we were too close to the deadline, and we decided to skip that feature and dedicate more time on debugging.
Again, thank you for your enthusiasm!

Uhm. This is really really rough. The 2d + 3d mix is interesting, but really incoherent. Mechanics need a lot polishing.

The setting is a bit confusing. I'm not really understanding what kind of world you created.

I liked the digging mechanic. Maybe arrows are not the perfect weapon to dig. What about a gun or something more... explosive?

However I think this could be a interesting point to work on, because it's pretty unique.

Heya :D

Here's my fast review of Junkdogs!

The plot looks like a mix between Cowboy Bebop [for the mood], and Planetes [for the setting]. I really love them both.

The good things:

Dialogues are short but incisive, the graphics are simple but lovely.
The story is really promising, and I hope you'll continue this game :D
Music is really good and perfect for the mood. I loved the feeling they give.
Puzzles are simple, but yet interesting and enjoying.

The bad things:
There are just two bad things in this game:

1- The "escape from this room" enigma. It's no sense. I had to "talk" to every tile of the screen before getting the EXACT tile in which you've hidden the solution. This is not a great design idea, I think :(

2- The battles. In general, calibrating battles with 1 vs many using a basic RPG battle system is difficult. You have a little variety of actions, and non-damage actions are in general a double edged-weapon.

Let me show you an example:
You can heal (oh good!) but when all enemies attack you, they inflict you mostly the same damage you're getting back. So healing is pointless.
Heal becomes useful when you kill at least 2 enemies... but at that exact moment, you've already won.

I've appreciated that the barrier doesn't consume a turn. This is a good idea.

If you plan to add more battles, here are some ideas:
* Give the player more supporting actions, that don't consume turns
* Give the player non-standard turn durations. i.e. Final Fantasy X is a good idea on how to manage battles in which turns have different "timings"
* Add more strategy features: Allow the player to move to enhance or reduce damage
* Or, directly: don't make battles in which you control only one player. Adding more characters avoid most of this problems and gives a lot of variety to the battles!

Summarizing, I think this game is a very good entry and I hope you'll continue it :D

Hi there,

I've tried the game, here's my impressions!

I had serious problems with controls. Xbox controller is not mapped correctly (the movement was working fine, but not the other keys), so I've played it using the keyboard.
To be honest, I've found the controls pretty bad, initially. Then, after a bit of practice, I learned how to use them. The main problem was that "W" is for jump, and space is the teleport.
After a while, I discovered that the left-click could be used for teleport as well.

I know it's written in the game page, but many player (like me) downloads the game from this page directly.
As a suggestion, I would map "space" as an alias for "up". Furthermore, I would add some kind of in-game tutorial :P
I've appreciated the good difficulty curve and the level design in general. The jumps are well calibrated, even if I died a few times before discovering the double-jump. LOL. TUTORIAL!
Maybe for the contest version, I would add a few more checkpoints, since sometimes it feels a bit frustrating because some colliders were not 100% polished.
Summarizing, I think that this game has good qualities, and could be MUCH better with an initial tutorial explaining the controls AND the double jump as well.

The gameplay choices are interesting. The killer feature is, of course, the teleport, that gives the player a LOT of air control. For instance, it can be used to pass through objects AND to stop the time while deciding what to do.
This is a great approach, because it turns a frustrating game mechanics, like the "jump of faith", into an original and challenging gameplay sequence.
Definitely, I think this is a good entry for this contest. I'd sure try an extended version.
Good luck!

P.

🌀 AUI - Stone Snake Island 🌀

LINK: https://elfgamesworks.itch.io/aui-igmc2018

AUI is a platform puzzle adventure set on a tropical island threatened by the awakening of a furious fire deity.

Help the cute Aui master his rock-solid and liquid-lava forms in order to save a water spirit trapped in a pond and help her reach the freedom of the Ocean's waters once again.

Evolve with the Environment!

LAVA

Aui's basic magma form. He's swift and nimble, able to jump around, stick on walls and wall-jump. He's hot!

ROCK

Aui's solid form. He's not very agile, but very strong and sturdy. He can break stuff and roll around. He rocks!

Screens

LINK: https://elfgamesworks.itch.io/aui-igmc2018

You make a very fair point, we've actually discussed whether to introduce an "explode" button or not quite in depth!
The cons are the ones you mention: other powers are all "passives", so it feels a bit "left out" to have only one active mechanics, which we agree is kind of an issue.

At the same time, if things were to burn on touch, burning would be very similar to "passing the bars" mechanics-wise - also without having a "choice" button, puzzles (like the platforms moving on explosion) would be less about reasoning and more about action (not necessarily a bad thing, just a direction we took).

On a side note, introducing an "action" button was also reasoned taking into consideration other mechanics we designed, but which we didn't have the time to introduce in the final version for the contest T_T

Heya!
We've successfully submitted our project: we can relax now, right? Right?!

False. XD

It's now time to present our work in the best way possible!
https://elfgamesworks.itch.io/aui-igmc2018

So... I've just finished improving the game page. The keyword is: LAVA.
Care to give it a look? Can you give it a WARM welcome? :D

I've added this information in the installation instructions ;) thanks!

Thanks for taking the time to play our demo and for your feedback!

Overall, you make very solid points that we will need to address if we decide to develop this concept further. :3
We had a lot of game mechanics mulling over our head, and we had a hard time deciding what to put inside the demo, what to leave out... and what to polish.
(for example, there was another game mechanics based on a new transformation which didn't make it to the final version) T.T

Oh gosh this Is bad! I'm happy you could finally play it!

Press Q to Explode, like you've done in the tutorial :P

Thank you :O Looking forward for your feedback!

YAY! We did it! It was very hard to finish in time!

You can find it here, in the contest page :D

https://itch.io/jam/igmc2018/rate/331377

Thank you for following our devlog! Some gifs and screens are upcoming! :D

Thank you! We've tried to make our best, and @Ennacrima really did her best with the art :D

DEVLOG 2018-11-28

Heya all,

The intro video for AUI is finally ready!!!

There's just sooooo much going on in it: the great gods make their first appearance on the island, our lava-boy falls into his very first pond, meeting--Enough spoilers, just watch it already!--

Jokes aside, please enjoy the fruit of oh-so-many-sleepless-nights. XD

What do you think of the stone carvings?
Do they give the idea of some ancient writings? :3

Thank you! We're using Unity3D ;)

DEVLOG 2018-11-27

Heya all,

Our little island is getting livelier by the day :3

We are animating obstacles and stuff in the background, which will help Aui change into his various forms.

The Stone Snakes (which name the island itself) will either blast poor Aui with either fire or water: dodge flames if you want to stay rock-solid, jump into them to melt into lava-form and vice-versa!

Hope you like what you see so far!! There's still so much to implement and polish, but not so much time left, argh! >.<

DEVLOG 2018-11-25

Heya guys!
Working on the intro of our AUI: check this pic!


Who's this mysterious new creature?
What will she say to our hero? :3

DEVLOG 2018-11-21

Heya guys,
Just a few updates about the project. We're currently working on the backgrounds.

The game is set on a remote volcanic island, previously populated by tribals, now uninhabited. For this setting, we're trying to mix a sunny cartoon environment with some elements from the Polynesian culture's traditional art style.

Here's our result:

What do you think? Any feedback is very appreciated!

AUI - Stone Snake Island

Meet the cutest lava slime EVER and master his many forms: It’s time for AUI!!

AUI is a platform puzzle adventure set on a tropical island amidst fire and water.

To return the favor of saving his life, a young lava slime is determined to aid in her escape a frail water spirit trapped in a pond that will be destroyed by the wake of the near volcano.

Join our goofy hero, take advantage of the environment to switch from solid rock to liquid lava to explore the beautiful island and save the water spirit from certain demise!

Concept

Evolve with the Environment!

LAVA

Aui's basic magma form. He's swift and nimble, able to jump around, stick on walls and wall-jump. He's hot!

ROCK

Aui's solid form. He's not very agile, but very strong and sturdy. He can break stuff and roll around. He rocks!

Follow our devlog! :D

Heya, Linux and macOS versions added ;D

Glad you enjoyed it :)

You can play it without steam by downloading the file. The steam key is just an extra ;)

Thank you :D

Thank you very much :D

We are finally taking Little Briar Rose on itch.io with a special launch 50% discount for a week!

https://elfgamesworks.itch.io/little-briar-rose

Little Briar Rose is a Stained Glass adventure game, already out on Steam, iOS, and Android.

An ancient legend, a cursed castle surrounded by brambles, a forest inhabited by funny enchanted creatures and a sweet princess sleeping in it. And, obviously, a fearless prince!

This is what Little Briar Rose is made out of. In this particular stained glass-styled graphic adventure the player will help a whole dynasty of princes complete their quest. Be careful though, many will try, but only one shall prevail!

We’ll soon share everything with you, so don’t forget to follow us here, on our Discord, and Socials!

Discord ~ Facebook ~ Twitter

We’re looking forward to seeing your feedbacks <3

Enjoy the game!

Ach sorry, we lost your comment :D Thank you very much >.<

We have released a bug-fixed/improved version lately. We'll surely continue this game after the contest ;D

Oh gosh, we lost your comment! Thank you very much! :D

(Gosh ci eravamo persi il tuo commento, grazie mille *_*)

Thank you for you support! It means a lot!
Yep, the game is not quite famous, right now. We are trying to show it around the best we can. This was a gameplay experiment, therefore solid feedbacks are very important to get what's wrong with the game!
The Battle System would have needed a bit of polishing to speed it up a bit. We are focusing on it for the next update.
Thank you for your time and kind words! ^ ^

Woho~ Thank you very much!
I'd love to hear your feedback once you finish the run! :3

Thank you for your video, I added to my playlist. ;P Bye!

Hi! Sorry for the late answer :( Thank you for your report!
We are working to an improved version of this game, we'll be releasing it soon!

Thank you for your report! I'm building a new fixed version, I'll upload it soon! ;)

Thanks for your feedback! Have you played the browser version or the download version?