This is extremely well done. The music is impeccable (I always love a bit of In the Hall of the Mountain King), the story is well done, and there's so much to do! Excellent entry!!
Congratulations to everyone who submitted a game. It's a huge accomplishment to get something out there, no matter how small or big it may have been. To take the time and put your creative endeavours out there is not easy. It takes courage to open your work up to feedback and criticism. So, no matter what you made, be proud.
This was only my second jam and I feel like I'm learning immense amounts each time I get something out there. Thank you to everyone that has played my game and to the discord chat for keeping it all entertaining.
What have been your biggest takeaways from this jam? Did you learn something new you could do within your games? Did something surprise you? Did you find a new game genre that you love?
A few things I learned from feedback and building for this jam:
Just because you can do something (like map a huge map), it doesn't mean you should. I can see only 5 people finished my initial game mode, but 21 finished the second mode which had a lot more immediate direction. (To those 5 that escaped the mansion, I commend you!)
Variable play modes: If you have a gameplay type that allows for a quick update to allow for an alternative play style, it could potentially reach a much larger audience
Fix those controls! If your controls are janky, it makes it a rough play experience, and this is your player's main interaction for your game.
Difficult may be fun for you, but be wary of your game being too difficult in a jam. Lots of us love Dark Souls type games, but when there are 400+ games to go through, being too difficult right off the bat can quickly scare people away from your game. My first game had a high level of difficulty and a tricky control scheme. I was able to beat it, but being the developer gives us too much built-in knowledge.
Find playtesters! This goes with my note above. You may have played your game and beat it hundreds of times, but you know too much. Find someone that knows nothing about your game other than what is in your description and just watch/listen to their experience. If you can, find gamers and non-gamers to get a wider array of feedback.
Thanks for reading my rambles, and I hope you all had fun! I'll see you in next year's jam!
PS. Rate those in the least-rated category! There are some amazing gems that have barely been rated.
I had a lot of fun with the mechanics of this. I eventually got stuck on a level with a bunch of reapers that I had to stay above, but I think I was just missing how to use the final gravestone in that area. Great job on this!
Those xenomorphs are super cute. Great entry with lots of fun replayability. I like the small details like the train coming in when you fail with 'Game Over' written all over it. Great entry!
Good start to a game here. I did run into a lot of glitching sprites where they would come in and out of view as well as a lot of framerate hiccups. I think having healthbars for the bosses would help it feel as not as much of a bullet sponge as well. Keep at it!
This was well set up and the ambience is well done with the balance between searching for the exit while also needing to keep your torch topped up. I did get into a few levels where I kept getting boxed in, but I think knowing the level layouts with more practice would help. Great entry.
For the comment before mine: I would assume they are talking about the turn by turn single square movement (no idea what the official name for that type of movement is), which I actually think is vital for how you've set up the monster movement and is key to the game. It reminds me of the movement from Cadence of Hyrule (Crypt of the NecroDancer) where each enemy type gets a movement each time you do.
I think your cat may need to see the vet. Took me a while to figure out what I needed to do, but that sounds about right for getting kids to do chores. Doing an outline/highlight of the 'target' items may help with readability. This is a really good start though and the art was done very well.
Solid start here. I did run into some collision issues with the doors, but I did like the music choices for the levels and the search for the key. Keep it up and I'm looking forward to more!
Solid breakfast choices. But seriously, this is heartbreaking and amazing. The 'other' being what you could have been due to your choices hit me hard. Amazing work.
Well done with the cleave to search mechanic. I did get stuck at the beginning not realizign that I had to get all the goblins before moving on, but I was able to go back and get that last one and get my first upgrade. Fun to play and I'm looking forward to what else you do with this!
That was really cool! I didn't think I'd run into an arcade shooter in this genre. Well done. It gets really hectic quite fast, but it's one that is infinitely replayable.
I haven't made it to the armory yet but I definitely plan on coming back to this to figure out where everything is! The bodies of your crewmates help as waypoints quite a bit. Excellent atmosphere and super well put together, amazingly well done!
I got knocked into the blackness when going through a text box. Even though that happened, I'm liking the direction this is going and your cutscenes are well done. I'm really looking forward to playing this more to try to get through to the lab at least. Great job and I'm looking forward to your updates!
Really cool, I haven't seen another turn based like this in the jam yet. It took me a bit to figure out the exact attack range, but the colour palette really helped with the atmosphere. Keep at it, I'd like to see more of this.
This was a really unique concept. It plays very smoothly and is easy to get a hang of. Great job, are you planning on expanding this after the jam? I think my kids would love this with some music and sound effects.
Difficult but really fun! Really glad there was a checkpoint system. At times I did feel I got hit really quickly in succession so a slightly longer invincibility after being hit would ease up the difficulty just a bit.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm working on a big update for after the jam to overhaul the Hunted mode. I'll be including an in-game map and a few other additions.
Thanks for the feedback! Hunter definitely seems to be the most popular mode, so I'm glad I had time to add that in. I have a few ideas to upgrade the Hunted mode afterwards to make it a bit more enticing, but I've gotten some great ideas for Hunter as well!
I absolutely love this, but I'm a sucker for cryptography. I've done two endings so far, and I'm curious how many more there are. Great story built in a single room and I love that the music was diagetic. Well done on the atmophere and really everything else as well.
Yeah I think I made the map a bit too big. It was my first time working with a tilemap and I went a bit overboard. I'm thinking of adding a compass and map pickup after the jam to help with guidance since the key locations are semi-randomized.
Cute game and I love that I could play as the reaper. My best score was 23 with some good luck on the blue doors. I'd love to see some hazards in the way to up the variance, but this is a great start! The music is perfect and I like that you had that hitch and speed up at 10 seconds. Good job!
Oh man I miss my Nokia and being able to type without looking at the phone using T9. Great little collection of minigames even though I seem to have a few I could never 'perfect'. Good start here.
I really like what you've got going on here so far. Looking forward to what you do next with it. I love that you went with an abnormal colour palette as it works really well for the vibe, and the soul-harvesting mechanic is done really well. Keep at it!
Never trust free candy or clown paintings, those are my lessons learned. The characters were well thought out and had very different play styles that worked very well. Excellent job all around.
