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Samuel Hollywood-Summers

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A member registered Feb 21, 2017 · View creator page →

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Yes, do let me know when you make changes!

Thanks for the tip!

I love the visuals and the music! I don't know if you watched the post-jam stream, but there was some weird pitching happening with the streamed audio, and the resulting lo-fi de-tuning effect on this game's soundtrack made it sound even better! I was a bit disappointed when I realised it wasn't meant to be like that, ha! The music would work even better if it looped seamlessly: currently the loop point seems a little abrupt and not clean. I would also want to hear more sound effects in general. Footsteps, environmental ambience, some UI acknowledgement of my clicks, etc. Also, I'm sure there was probably more game to the right of the knight, but I could not get the jester to move any further to the right no matter where I clicked. The aesthetics were a strength of this game, and it is always an achievement worth celebrating to finish a jam game in a short weekend. Well done!.

Any chance the music was based on Melting Chariots? 

I had fun playing this, even alone. The movement and inflating (and exploding) beasts was amusing and a great approach to the theme.

I would want to improve this by adding sound effects for more events/interactions, such as eating the fruit, collisions with the environment, player movement etc. A more polished win screen with the option to restart etc, would also be nice.

Well done for finishing the game and thanks for sharing!

Cool concept, and I was able to work out the 'SHRED PAPERS' task eventually, but I could not work out how to pump up the chair at all. Also, it would be nice if the file you drag out was displayed on top, the text when you start to move it is always different from what you read before clicking.

I love the aesthetic of the 2D raygun and phone in the 3D world, it works really well. Similarly, I love the music: was it written by one of the team? There were a lot of places where it felt like sounds were missing, and getting coverage for more events and interactions in sound would be a worthwhile bit of polish. Also, on dying against the boss, I very abruptly accidentally progressed straight back to the start, and did not feel like redoing the whole game from that point up to the boss battle. It would be nice to implement a kind of checkpoint system.

Thanks for sharing the game, I love the aesthetic :)

A good concept and you have a full gameplay loop here, well done. I would like to be able to see my score at the end though: the counter disappears when you finally hit a meme, which is disappointing, as the player can't see how well they did. Similarly, it would be nice if the music was set to loop (it played once then stopped) and if some ramping difficulty was programmed in: either more memes spawning over time, the movement speed increasing, or both. I stopped having fun after a while as the difficulty never changed. Well done for finishing and submitting  the game, and for implementing some interesting tech.

Who's Mars Volta?

A brilliantly charming jam game. The music was well selected for the game, and the art style was coherent and also suited the game well. I enjoyed dressing up my chicken and the colour palette options. This was a well scoped weekend project and came together really well. Great job! Maybe next time you could find a composer to write a charming little tune that might fit even better!

Let me know when you publish the updated version, I'd like to try it :)

Congratulations on getting a game finished and submitted to the jam. I do have to echo some of the sentiments in the comment below though: I also get a crash at the moment of failing, and I lose interest in spamming the left mouse button after a while. It might be nice if there were other things happening to maintain engagement: there could be a sound effect for each click that changes to become more rewarding the longer you have been playing for, you could have a visual response beyond the face changing, etc. I quite liked the music. Was this selected for the jam or did one of the team make it?

Thanks for sharing.

I don't feel able to rate the game as I am not able to play it as intended, but I have some comments:

I love the introduction sequence, it sets the narrative and explains what the player needs to do in an entertaining way, and provides a high level of polish for a jam game.

The visuals, too, show a high level of attention to detail and are impressive for a jam game.

Great music, reminds me of some cobald that I used to know...

Advice for getting more ratings and comments post-jam: web player compatible games always get more people to play them (I also suffered this jam from making a game in Unreal with no WebGL build, which always results in fewer people bothering to play). Multiplayer games suffer from fewer people being able to play them, again. Finally, why compress the build with WinRar when a zipped file will do? Many people will not want to have to have specific software downloaded in order to play your game. The less friction there is to someone trying your jam game, the more people will get to enjoy it.

From watching the post-jam stream, and from watching your YouTube video, I can see that you have a great game here, and it is a shame that I can't enjoy it directly until I can bother to download WinRar, and also get a couple of friends to try it with me.

That said, excellent work from everyone in your team!

A short and bizarre little flight simulator! Thanks for sharing.

I love the premise, and the music was really good. I would like to hear it it looping seamlessly though. I found the controls a bit (sq)awkward, and I could not make the points go up, despite successfully stealing the little yellow squares (placeholder stand-ins for the chips?). I'm also not sure if dashing into the villagers was intended (funny and satisfying) or to be avoided (I was always immobilised temporarily afterwards) and I think that using sfx to reinforce the perception of either 'well done, do that again!' or 'oops, you crashed' would be helpful to guide the player to do what you are intending. A great start! Thanks for sharing.

I like the concept of failing by being made to laugh: George just wants to stay grumpy! You also did well to include a settings menu and several mechanics are implemented, but as with the comment below, it feels somewhat unfinished. It is always a good idea to implement a full gameplay loop, however small, and being taken to a win screen would do a lot to improve the perceived level of 'completeness'. I see from existing comments that for at least some of the team, this was a first jam game and first time using a game engine, so huge congratulations for getting this put together and submitted! Thanks for sharing.

Some great elements here! A very ambitious jam entry that shows promise. Unfortunately, none of the three mini-games feels like it is in a completed state, which is a shame. It might have been better to focus on just one of these having only had a weekend to work on the game. I managed to get the debug 'win' text for the shooting/bottle mini-game, but it took a while to figure out that holding space for longer would make the ball be thrown higher. This could be better communicated to the player, both through SFX and a HUD UI element. I loved the visuals, especially in the pinball tent. Thanks for sharing!

I really liked the music and the images that combined ancient and futuristic elements, during the introduction narrative. Unfortunately, I had no idea what to do once reaching the gameplay section. Whether in the game, on the submission page, or on the itch page, it would be good to give instructions and a control scheme. I understood the goal as I had copied the description into Google Translate, but I need to know the controls in order to actually play.

Thanks for the feedback! On the theme, I guess a lot of the humour is in the form of climbing-related in-jokes, but I found the idea of launching your own body as a projectile onto a cliff inherently funny, especially with how the combination of limb attachment and physics simulation works in our little prototype. Thanks for the compliments on the audio. The base ambience is pretty much lifted from a library and made to loop seamlessly, but the rest was all designed and/or composed in the jam, being one of our main focuses in the jam (mine at least). Thanks again for the kind words!

Very ambitious! I can tell a lot of work went into this, and like many jams, not quite everything came together in the end. Highlights for me were the stage layout, gameplay was fun, and the dialogue lines that I heard were well performed. I would advise all jam teams, especially large ones, to test early and test often, as sometimes it is better to polish a smaller amount of content than have loads of brilliant work from team members who then don't get to see their work shine in the way that might hope. On the plus side, and always the biggest compliment to a jam game: I was well engaged, had fun, and managed to get to what I think was the win screen. Great job!

Brilliant for a solo submission. I love the concept and the visual style. It is nice to have quite a serious, calm, almost sombre approach to the theme. I think it would help to have more of the events and interactions accompanied by sound (UI button highlights and presses, depositing the endorphins at the receptors, player movement, endorphins spawning off-screen etc) and the glitchy-ness of the sounds feels like a bug at times, rather than a stylistic choice. That said, the overall aesthetic was beautiful and I was well engaged by the gameplay, and managed to complete the game without getting bored. Great job!

I like the idea of combining two phases of 'gameplay', with the narrative elements and (slow) 'bullet hell' type gameplay. Is the audio intended to be that distorted and glitchy? It sounds like the web player is struggling with the audio to me. Charming visuals and nice character design: the paw guy just can't land a joke. I'll see myself out...

An interesting action-puzzle game. I found the controls a little too clunky to properly carry out my ideas for some of the more difficult puzzles, and it would be nice to have a moment or two to celebrate a level being complete rather than immediately starting the next level, but I enjoyed this. The music and visuals are charming and there is a consistent style. Thanks for sharing!

Lots of visual polish and a coherent visual identity. I also liked the creepily tense clown music. It would be nice to give more player feedback through the audio though (SFX when interacting, hiding, picking up keys, being apprehended etc). Your game is also quite a bit harder than you might realise: I couldn't get beyond where your demonstration video shows. Is there a trick I'm missing for the section beyond the two doors? I love that you have a custom game icon. Those things can be missed in a game jam (for example by my team). Nice one. Thanks for sharing!

This is an interesting concept and I like the visuals and how they respond. It would be nice if the gameplay involved more challenge, though, and I would love to hear some sound. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the feedback. A throwable chalkbag would be a nice touch for sure. The greyed out next level button was due to our intention of having multiple levels, and not removing the button when we de-scoped the game mid-jam.  If it ends up being funny, that's a happy accident! Knowing that your own game also makes use of the amusing characteristics of physics simulation, I'm sure you can also appreciate the humour in happy accidents!

Well done on making a game with a full gameplay loop. The wobbly characters were fun to control, but more feedback to tell the player if a 'hit' with the feather has registered would be good. I like the touch of the laughing pirates, but an impact sound would help the combat controls feel more responsive. I survived 8 waves, is that any good?

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Beautiful game! Best audio of the games I've played from the jam so far. I loved the music and the sound effects were all super satisfying. The menu screen makes me think that if I was better at the game and could collect all of the pickups before surfacing to grow my mushrooms, perhaps  I could unlock two more levels in the bigger jars?

I noticed a few small issues with the audio (you should hear my submission...) but only because I was having such a good time playing and was appreciating the sounds. There is one point in the music where I hear a click/bad edit, and another with a strange and abrupt transition. Also if you trap yourself in a small area and cause many collisions in quick succession it creates a cacophony on top of blocking your path to the surface.

This is a great achievement for a weekend and I had a lovely time playing. Well done. 

Lovely music and visuals. There needed to be more information about what I was meant to do though, and whether my actions were helping. I didn't know how much health I had, or how much the enemies had, and I couldn't tell when damage was being dealt or taken. I knew when I'd lost though. That slow fade to black was devastating...

This is a great start. The next thing I would focus on would be getting movement working smoothly (no juddering near boundaries) and communicating to the player how combat and health works. This can be done through feedback in the sound and visuals in-game, but a text description on the game page or submission page would also have helped (one to remember for future jams).

I got stuck at the bottom of a shallow pit and could not jump out. There were several ledges I would get stuck on and be unable to jump, but was able to fix that by dropping down and jumping back up. Unfortunately there was nowhere to fall to from here.

Later I left the cave assuming I could climb up by jumping up above the cave entrance, but I guess the monkey is the last stage? I mean, the name of the game should be a clue I guess...

Great idea to have the adaptive soundtrack. The different stages work well, but the melody becomes very repetitive. It might be nice to have some sections where the melody instrument drops out and leaves room for the accompaniment, or to have a contrasting B section for more variety.

The visuals are charming, but I think the DNA could be made more obviously an interactable pick-up, whether through animation, a glow or particle system, or better contrast between background, platforms and collectable objects etc.

A final improvement to make would be a final win condition. Maybe there is one I didn't find?

Fun stuff. Good job, and thanks for sharing!

A fun game, and it feels rather complete for a short jam. I liked the art and music, and they worked well together. The use of audio was generally good, and enhanced the experience, though the voice in the boss level did get quite annoying and repetitive. It would be great if the weird fade that happens when returning to the menu screen could be fixed too. Good job on getting several enemy types implemented with different behaviour that I could quickly learn and develop a strategy for. The difficulty level was also well balanced for a jam game. I've played plenty that were far too difficult, but I was able to complete this after a few tries.

Haha, thanks Gerben! Glad to make an impression :)

Thanks Mato! I hope to add some more puzzles and implement more sounds/fix some bugs, but then I say that after every jam, perhaps this will be the one!

A great way of interpreting the theme. I was surprised how much fun I had typing. The music and dynamic crowd cheers certainly egged me on as I attempted to do the same for the runner with my typed cheers. Great game, good job!

Agreed about the diagonal movement. I found the game too challenging to complete despite understanding what needed to be done. I always got caught after picking up the third gem. Also, have you noticed that most sounds are panned way over into the left speaker? Strange. I like that there is a state for the beaver chasing you and not (I think?) with the music changing to be more intense, and the colour/lighting change.

Great game! The most fun I've had playing the jam games so far. The controls were awkward on a laptop tracker pad, but I still played for a lot longer than I expected to since I was hooked! Some music would round out the experience really well.

Fun little game. The main menu UI felt responsive and the use of sound for highlighting and pressing buttons was a nice touch. I'd be tempted to have a deselect sound too for added juice, and to mix the button press sound louder. I found the dash jump controls to be super fiddly, but that might just be me. I always like it when I can play a jam game from start to finish (I did manage the dash eventually!) Thanks for sharing!

Fun little game. I really liked the music and felt like it suited the game well. Some interactions or events were missing sfx, such as the enemy stumps dying, and adding sounds for this would help improve the player feedback. Good job!

Thanks

Thanks a bunch! There was a lot more I'd hoped to do with the gameplay, but I'm glad you enjoyed what was there :)

A really interesting concept. I got stuck at one point, unable to interact with one of the lamps, and also one of the switches. I enjoyed the parts of the game I was able to play though. A simpler tutorial puzzle, or more on-screen prompts explaining the mechanics would probably have helped. I loved the UI select sounds in the menu, but it was frustrating not to have a similar sound for going back/closing a window. Some great sounds in the main gameplay portions helped to elevate the aesthetics overall, and set a tone for the game.

Thanks for sharing.

A pleasant and simple game. I enjoyed talking to the characters, who all seemed well spaced out. All very generous with their bread, too, which is always a positive. I like a jam game that is easy to complete, and holds my attention throughout. This did that. Some audio would be great...