itch.io

I realize this is a 2 year old project, but is the Playdate scrolling keyboard not able to be plugged in here?

I've been playing this for a year now and it's my favorite game on Playdate. As a very experienced player I have some thoughts:

• The numbers under the stone (0, 1, 2) should be represented with icons of zero, one, or two bombs to help clarify the difference between it's sum and it's original hidden number
• Hard mode has become unlosable for players like me. Would highly suggest removing free 0 blocks, adding ambiguous ? blocks (specifically to corner tiles), a single mistake should kill, increasing the number of 2's hidden, and maybe introduce a time limit.
• Music loops way too quick for an infinite puzzler so I often just mute it.
• I wish the Win/Loss rate was more easily viewable on Main Menu + Pause Screen

To be completely fair, the 0 marker is useless because you'd just hit the block if you knew it was a 0

The music was glitched to be silent until you enter the 3rd room. Movement feels sluggish and wish that bullets traveled the full screen to make them worth the loss in damage. It was NOT clear that you can interact with the floating red triangles. I thought they were collectibles but a white outline of the interactable object may hint people. I actually enjoyed the style of writing, but the game needs special text effects to bring it to life (like Celeste). Platforms were difficult to decipher from the background. Using an outline might help readability. Double jump has no weight and feels out of place, like I should have a new ability/attack to reach higher ledges instead. The lighter has a lingering hitbox effect which felt really cool to use.

Super excited to see more of this!

The detailing on the sprites and using dithering for background details looks great. Hoping for more Game & Watch titles with this level of graphics! Chef, Fire, and Manhole seem like obvious choices

Would love to see this come to Playdate, loving the art style!

I see over a month of active development and bug fixing, a price tag, and a polished game. Don't be so hard on yourself or your work because this deserves more recognition!

You're clearly a talented dev if this was a game jam project that turned out this good <3

Are you unhappy with the revenue share that comes from publishing on there?

This game seems super polished, would love to see it on Catalog!

I didn't realize there was a paid 2.0 version after downloading months ago. The game concept is charming but I wouldn't be able to justify $3 without more animation and effects work. Overall there's a lot of polish I'd like to see so that this stands out as a game I show my friends on a new Playdate

Any plans to further polish the main cog with animations, a background, special effects, and visual upgrades to match what you buy?

Everything looks polished here, but is it possible to have items pop up on the sleep screen like a recent To-Do prompt or showing what date it is?

Any intent to add more animations, effects, and transitions to polish the game? The physics and aiming looks top notch.

Is there no support for play against a CPU in this game?

Incredible work on this. Do you have a business email I could use to get in contact? Reach me epicshaner[a]gmail

Everything looks really polished, animated backgrounds is the only other thing I could've suggested. You're making a killer app here <3

Any plans to add transitions, completion effects, and fakeout prompts? Love the base concept!

Going to bump this comment, all you need to do is recompile the game and post that version of the game file. 

This is the first game I sideloaded on my Playdate months ago and was seriously impressed with the graphics on this. Also really appreciated the ambient sounds to make the settings come to life. This is one of my go to games for showing off what the Playdate is capable of and I hope you have plans for more cool projects like this. 

Wow so this you're the reason this game has a black screen at the end lol

Just got around to playing this, what a fun deviation from the usual games! I wish there were more powerups so that the dice would actually change up sooner into a match. Has anybody actually gotten to a 6 die before?!

There is a lot of control being offered to the player without difficulty to compensate. Like the bad and good spaces seem like good ways to augment the player's strength but with the ability to choose where you land it only really adds a reason to change up rolling a 6 every time as you target good spaces and go over bad ones. Other people commented on the way this game strays from the dice theme which I agree with even despite having randomly generated levels. An easy fix in my mind is to have the worm start at a random number every time and force the player to adjust their number on the fly which might address the awkward difficulty situation as well.

Can't say I have played a game like this before though and its strengths of balancing calculated moves with a rush to move forward are so satisfying! Such a winning formula with many ways to expand it if you were to update or target a full game release which I'd be excited to play. You already have tons of great art assets, lighting effects, and overall polish to work from which is quite impressive as a jam game. The worm character is so charming and a natural fit for a theme so heavily tied to numbers 1-6 as well as your gameplay requiring constant grounded forward movement or crawling. The variety in blocks also surprised me as it felt sufficiently random for multiple playthroughs and led to fun experimentation in the 2-10 minutes that most people will give a jam game.

Adding a score at the top is such a great motivater in these endless games that I wish more people included and while I don't understand entirely how it was adding points, it was an exciting experience to roll and then get to watch the score go up as the worm automatically moved forward. That score counter made the waiting portion of the game actually fun and felt like a subtley genius addition to your concept.

You did a great job overall and really impressed me as a somewhat experienced jam dev!

I'm not too great at bullet hells so keep that in mind with my comment. I found the controls to be overly responsive which I do understand is important for split-second dodging but there would be moments where I want to micro-adjust and end up throwing myself into an adjacent bullet because I shoot off so quickly. In that same respect, I was always able to outrun and dodge bullets assuming they didn't spawn on the sides of the screen, and catch me by surprise. The difficulty seems to be a beginner trap though, as with practice the levels become easy because you will learn the patterns and have hearts to spare. The buffs being random is interesting, but I question if it really shines in this game where you can choose your level and reset the buff with just one button. If the game had consistent progress with moving on to new levels with old buffs it would make for a fun roguelike experience of seeing how far you can make it with greater and greater effects placed on you. Overall had a ton of fun and liked the game feel

Wow, I really struggled with the speed of those dice! I am playing on a touchpad so I'm gonna offer lots of understanding for that as a point of difficulty. This is such a frantic experience fitting for the customer-serving genre of games. It's a lot of fun to do quick math when you are getting close to the number you are aiming for and that ability to re-roll dice does wonder for finding that exact number you need. Loving all the control and player agency on offer here, there's truly no mechanic or BS to blame for your loss in this game even despite the random numbers. Some indication of when a customer will leave or when you match their number would do a lot for the game feel and polish. Loved the concept and was impressed with its well-designed gameplay!

I am really digging the concept of throwing dice to hit enemies OR to roll for random effects. I think it adds tons of meaning to accuracy, holding fire, and rolling before entering a room. It's a genius concept in my opinion because it can add a defensive element to the shooter genre that just isn't explored by it's many many games. I feel as if the enemies in this game being really fast/small and how walls will disrupt your trajectory in unexpected ways kinda hinders the idea from really glowing because you'll naturally miss a ton of shots and end up with random buffs no matter what. That combined with limited dice ammo feels annoying when it comes to the early difficulty of the game even though it has great intentions in the overall design. Offering multiple dice is a natural step forward too, but I didn't get any explanation on their effects so naturally, I just aimed them towards enemies and hoped for the best. For all I know the bomb dice could always be debuffing or damaging me and I wouldn't know any better when I die 5 seconds into a room just trying to frantically throw my dice. In that same respect, there isn't much control in terms of choosing what die you want to throw next because you can't cycle or toss out unwanted dice. That addition would bring out strategy already lying dormant in the game unused. Overall I felt like the pace of the game was fast and aggressive but the strategy and design were asking for slower methodical play, curious to know your intentions as the developer. I am absolutely in love with the concept, game feel, and overall art style even if the gameplay can feel conflicting with its ideas. Great job!

For a randomly generated dungeon setup, I liked that you allowed the player to time when they hit the dice so that a speedrun could toss RNG out the window. A big complaint with games in this jam is the lack of control but you offer the alternative without losing the fun factor. I would have liked to see more added in terms of abilities, dice implementation, or maybe a boss fight at the end to give this game more meat on its bones. The platforming itself controls well and the level design is considerate of the physics and each room I played was interesting. All around good job!

Wow, we greatly appreciate all the praise and criticisms you offered here. The "endless" nature of the game is not all that and you are right about it lacking a boss battle in the jam build. Our priorities were aimed towards executing the concept while the difficulty and content being made with a 3 minute playtime in mind. The player visibility and hitbox sizes will almost definitely be adjusted in a future update if we make it. All around you made great points and observations which makes me really happy that you wrote it all out for us. Thank you!

Definitely, something we just didn't consider in development but luckily it can be a fun and exciting experience to roll and see what happens. We'll include this in an update if our team decides to work on it more!

This game was definitely the most unique concept I've played in this jam. It's such a fun balance to worry about enemies but then also keep track of the die and attempt to catch up to it. The platforming feels somewhat jumpy and the lamps could use some sort of better indication that they aren't just background elements. Polish those elements and I think you have an addictive formula that you could apply to different room types for a fun challenge every time. This also might work really well as a coop experience allowing one person to fend off enemies as the other chases the cube. I see tons of potential for fun with this concept and really enjoyed the game, great job!

I love the ideas and thinking you had while playing our game and we'll definitely consider these things if we do release an update. Thank you for your detailed comment!

We definitely were tempted to change the dice throw, but when we started experimenting with diagonal throws and bank shots off the wall/enemies, it was just too fun to get rid of and added a nice sense of mastery to the "unruly" throw. Did you ever try those tricks while playing and did it make any difference for you?

What sorta ideas did you have? I was thinking how tricky it would be if you cut off rightward rotations or maybe scrambling the die after every correct answer could be interesting ways of adding difficulty without breaking the simplicity of the game.

I think I would have preferred more diversity among the random weapons to make it feel like a true roll of the dice. The dark atmosphere and multiple hallways design led to many panic moments and on-the-go improvisation. I think you nailed the game feel and leaned into your main gimmick really well in a fun way.

Diificulty and enemy spawning aside, I really love the game feel presented here. The smoothness of movement, shooting, and the camera along with the polished visuals give this a high quality impression. I haven't seen different bullet spreads in the other shooters I played but here it feels great and would probably work wonders with more enemies in the room. The fact that the dice will change sides without shooting adds some really nice strategy behind the option of holding your fire which I always appreciate in a game. All in all I really liked what I played and would wanna see this developed further, good job!

Perfectly summed up my thoughts. I also finished the game and felt guilty with the semi-brute force methods I used just because it wasn't obvious to me if there was some overall strategy to keep in mind or rules to help you find your way there.

I've seen a few other games try a similar concept but your level design shows such an understanding of this puzzle concept and doesn't give players the room to mindlessly roll around to get to the goal. There are some very clever one-way paths that lead to the solution in a satisfyingly subtle manner that I just haven't seen elsewhere. Beautiful execution gameplay wise paired with a simple elegant art style that it's difficult not to find this incredibly charming. Great work!

Simple good fun that I wish there was more of! The dice is a perfect medium for this gameplay as it's sides are a well-understood concept and rotation offers quick access to almost any face. Well targetted game idea for this jam, hope to see more gimmicks and updates introduced!

I really appreciate the criticisms and ideas for the game as somebody who played it a lot. I had the same thoughts about how the dice should be forced to change or adjust in future waves and we'll definitely look into that depth in a future update if we go that route. As far as a game jam build, we made a priority of leaning into an easier difficulty and generally allowing the player to make decent progress at the start. Thank you so much for the detailed comment!

Insane production value for a jam game and you overall made such a cohesive and complete experience. I wonder if others felt like the base movement speed should've been faster, as I found that actually getting back to my dice could feel slow and awkward, especially since the angle that you hit the dice matters. The strategy and depth behind placing powerups felt so fun and rewarding to plan around and may have been my favorite aspect of the game. I loved the idea that a powerup could be more useful on a lower number, or that you could assign a single powerup to multiple faces for a better chance of using it. Such a simple but engaging gameplay loop I'd be surprised to not see this in the top 100, kudos!