itch.io

Thank you very much for taking the time for a review and the good suggestions :) Happy new year!

Haha okay, I see :) Great game for your first jam as a team! I always work as solo dev until now and I think working as a team is a whole different challenge. So nice work and keep it up!

Thank you very much :) Oh okay, interesting! There actually is no real speed increase, only your mini-me's are slowing down over time :D

I believe you put your blood, sweat, heart and tears into that :D As I said such kind of game rarely gets committed to a jam (most give up before the deadline I guess lol). So kudos for delivering such a great game! A little more polish and it could, as I said, be a full sized game :)

It's a cool game, but I'll be honest by saying that the wall of submissions on the game page look a little sus. The rules state that you must not submit a game you already made and I'm pretty sure the other jams have similar rules as well. Now we can begin to argue whether that means that the game needs to be done specifically for THIS jam only and I think noone would mind if you submitted it to two jams because on chance your game idea fit both themes perfectly. But first, you submitted it to 20+ jams at once and then it does not even match the theme of this jam at all. The prerequisite is somehow fulfilled as you basically play against yourself somehow.

I rated your game without these thoughts and only focused on the actual rating criteria, because I'm not the one to decide whether the game violates the rules of the jam or not. But I still wanted to point it out in case the jury misses it.

Thank you :) And sure thing I did, also left a comment ;)

Sounds great and I really liked it! With a little more time I think this could be really awesome :)

Yeah, I get it with the core mechanics not fitting the theme :D The subrequisite broke my plan entirely lol

But I honestly think your game has great potential as a standalone game! I did not encounter any issues during my test plays. Maybe you give it a shot, depending on what your plans in game dev are. It could be a nice small start into publishing a game, as the game mechanics and graphics are already done ;)

Looks really polished, the graphics, the music and audio fit well together. But for me it was too repetitious. Now, I also made an endless runner, so it may sound ironic. But I think one of the key differences is that here, you cannot die. You don't face consequences for messing up. You just get realigned onto the track and the story goes on. So at some point, I just pressed the forward key constantly and tried to jump wherever I could, hoping I would get out of the bosses way. But there was no thrill in it, like "I need to focus on aiming correctly", it was more like a brute force attack on your game controls lol This should not be offensive, I really mean it in a constructive way and hope you can take something from it. If that one detail was changed, the game would easily be one of the best games in this contest IMO :)

Haha sure, no hurry ;) Wish you the best for 2025!

My bad... Should've added that as well lol

I can only imagine how this could have turned out if you had more time or a team to help you with the deleopment and assets! Didn't know you could do something like that with Godot lol

An edit is not enough, so I'm commenting my own post...

So I finally figured it out lol Previously I thought it was a bug that the screen kept changing, because incidentally I always pressed a movement button when the scene switched. (One bug remains, though: The character disappeared somehow in my first try.)

The concept is cool and unique, but a quick introduction tutorial would add HUGE value to the game! Just a simple one where you see a speech bubble above the character's head that says "seems like the world is shifting" or something similar. I now read it in the description on the game's page, but in-game would of course be much nicer. Anyhow, well done for the time constraint!

Would make a great casual mobile game, but I miss the theme. Sure, it's the dream of a duck, but the game itself does not pick up the theme except for sharp objects mimicking the duck's moves -- okay okay, got it lol

I played the game twice, the first time on my phone and the second time on my PC. It's really awesome! I love the mechanic, the atmosphere, the lighting, the sound design and it just looks so polished! I read comments saying they would like more hints. I find it especially great to study the shadows, guessing whether I will launch myself into some spikes or make a safe landing. So, if you're going to work on this game as a full version (which I could totally envision), then maybe let the player choose by implementing different difficulties. But for this jam, you crushed it! Only the theme is not really followed ;)

Edit: I wanted to say that on mobile it's way harder to guess the shadows right and also the aiming is pretty tough. Like another commenter suggested, it would be great to have an aiming mechanic, e.g. hold left mouse button / finger to show the line and/or anchor point and on release, actually launch the grappling hook. Could be combined with some assistance (indicators for spikes, etc).

Okay quick feedback and some  questions: Overall I love the atmosphere and the controls are also nice! As far as I can tell, the theme is only incorporated in the description of the game that the holiday spirit is now a nightmare. That's kinda vague for my taste, but okay. The music adds a lot to the game, but it only started playing after my first death (I DIED ON PURPOSE TO TEST IT, OKAY!! :P).

Now my question regarding gameplay: Is there any way to heal my character?? I watched the video on your page, but there's a cut after the first phase of the boss and the character is suddenly full health again - which of course I was too, because I didn't take any damage. But hypothetically speaking, IF I had taken  damage, how would I heal between the phases? :D

Snappy controls, easy to learn (hard to master lol). I played on easy and I wished the level would have made more use of the new double jump mechanic. But maybe I missed out because I didn't play the harder levels :D Overall really cool casual game!

Oh okay! Thanks for the feedback! Did you play it on mobile, full screen desktop or embedded in the page?

Umm... you can :D Use the arrow keys left and right!

Thanks a ton! I played it now and I enjoyed it a lot <3 Probably it's a web build issue, but as soon as more than two enemies approach, the framerate drops to minus 80 lol ofc I did not calculate that into the score.. The game is really nice and it's a really creative approach for the theme!

Cool idea! Like in real life, the distractions killed my goal lol

You really need the backstory for the game to match the theme lol But apart from that, it's a funny idea and good implementation. I would have loved a mechanic to lower the heart rate (or did I miss it?), so that you can pick up more energy drinks to shoot.

Instructions unclear, character sprite stuck in nimbus lol I cannot reach the platform on the right and when I go to the left, the character disappears and doesn't come back (although the scenes switch back and forth when I press the movement keys)..

Super challenging platformer, a little too challenging for me tbh lol Overall, good work :)

Cool idea with the chasing shadow, implementing the prerequisite. But in a platformer, the controls need to be very good! It's super frustrating if I can't jump in front of a wall and get eaten by my shadow lol But: Thank you soooo much for the respawn points! That's a mechanic too often overlooked for these jam games. With so many games to play, I don't have time to start from scratch in a huge level every time I die. So, well done!

That's a vague take on the theme in my opinion, but okay lol The game has a lot of potential and I could imagine it as a full version, but I need more guidance on what I should do. E.g. when can I rotate a tile? Why do I need to hit space again to reveal adjacent tiles? An adventure game is a huge take for a 48h game jam and for these constraints, the game is super cool!

Love the controls, kind of addictive! Sounds would improve the experience even more (if chosen wisely ofc) :D Another tip: Setup the game page on itch.io early on, so you can already write your game idea down without publishing it right away. Your page is really empty and not very inviting to play the game ;)

Love this game! The concept is great, but too complex for my 4 brain cells to master lol

Ummm so in the second level I didn't place any obstacles and made it to the shelter, but the shelter stopped firing and now I'm stuck with the "you need 6 kills" text covering the "retry" button :D Don't know if it's reproducible, but maybe you can simply place the retry button to the top of the screen to avoid this?

The controls are out of control lol Maybe it's just not my type of game though. I guess if someone enjoys "warioware" it probably is really neat :D

Very cool use of theme and prerequisite! I enjoyed it very much, only the controls are not as snappy as I would like them to be. And it's too hard for me. I'm stuck before (or in) the deep hole before the fridge in level 4 lol

Nice jumpscare lol I would like to have an indicator for when I reach the max bad dream count. I had the feeling that there's not end whatsoever until out of nowhere the ending screen appeared. Apart from that it's a cool game and the theme and prerequisite are met.

Also to me, it's the best game so far. Snappy controls, clean and nice graphics and you matched the theme and prerequisite. And on top a compelling story and message to the player. Chapeau!

Kinda meets the theme, but could use a little polish ;) Anyway, you finished and submitted your game, which is great! Keep it up!

Seems kind of unrelated to the jam and downloading an apk is really sus to me :/

Really nice concept and well implementation. I would have loved if a little more effort was put in the graphics and "animations", but overall a very good game.

Really cool concept and decent implementation! I like the art style and you got both the theme as well as the prerequisite right :)

The description sounds very promising, but I can't play it, because I don't have a Windows PC :( Is there any way for you to publish it as a web version? :)

Until now it's the game that best incorporates the theme and prerequisite in my opinion. I love the music and the graphics. The controls disturb the chilliness a little. With easier controls I would put this in the zen category of games, but the controls add a bit of frustration to the experience. Nonetheless, very well done!