itch.io

I really like the visuals and the fixed camera. It really felt like classic survival horror.

The only big issue I had is that it's really easy to die in unfair ways. In the first room with the rat, I died to it because I couldn't figure out how to close the note after reading it. Soon after, I died several times due to walking off a ledge because I had no idea where my character was (see screenshot).

Eventually I got the "entry 3 from linwood" note and I couldn't get it to go away, so I couldn't progress.

I liked it, but I wish the text was faster.

I walked around for a while, but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. Cool aesthetic though.

Cool atmosphere, it's really tense swimming deep underwater. Unfortunately, I ran into a bug where I fell through the water and couldn't swim out (just walk around normally on the ocean floor).

The way the boat would sway in the water felt really well done.

Interesting blend of horror and turn-based RPG mechanics. I really like the design for the enemies; they're spooky and unique.

Really unique game, ambience was spooky and drawing the runes was fun. Who could resist obeying a rabbit?

I played in Chrome on Windows. I think the overall difficulty was fair, except sometimes you get unlucky and lose on the first or second click. The gameplay loop was fine (I like minesweeper), but I think it would be more interesting if there was a mechanic that differentiated it from the original game.

Incredibly polished in so many areas. The visuals, sound design, and UI are all really high quality.

Love playing a voiced game. The visuals and audio were great and the last segment felt intense.

This was a lot of fun, I really like the dialog between the player and the demon.

Agree with the other comments; the cutscenes were great. I like the visuals and the red fog. The atmosphere was solid, but held back a little by the lack of much audio.

My favorite part was walking through the culty "church" area near the beginning.

Interesting way to subvert expectations with this one. I really liked the art style, but I'd suggest making the uncovered squares a different color than the covered ones, because the board can be confusing to look at sometimes.

Also, is there supposed to be an ending if you win? I tried a couple of times but the game stops working after I solve the board. I had to lose on purpose to see how the game ties in the "cult" part of the theme.

The computer password is some unintentionally leftover cut content, sorry.

Thanks for playing!

Do you mind letting me know if you played the browser version or the downloadable one? Also your monitor refresh rate, if you know it?

I actually spent quite a bit of time trying to get the camera/movement interpolation to feel good (and I'm not seeing this issue on my end), so I'd like to fix the issue if I can figure out what's causing it.

Thanks for playing!

There's only one ending. I meant to remove the computer password text; some scope got cut to make the jam timeframe.

Thanks for playing!

Sorry! Wish I had a mac to test on; it's possible it's just very slow to start up, it can take a while I've noticed.

This was fun! Had a cool loop, and I liked the combination of the random upgrade choices and deciding where to play the upgrades.

The first time I played I lost immediately because I didn't choose a weapon option. It also felt a bit unfair how enemies would spawn right next to your ship.

The variety in enemies was really nice, and they also looked really cool. It's nice to see a good amount of enemy types in a short jam game.

Cool ideas here that doesn't overstay its welcome. Does a good job of communicating what the player should be doing.

The only real issue I had was the beginning part felt slow and repetitive after you fail a few times. You spend a lot of time waiting on the planet rotation. Also, I ran into a bug where jumping on the enemy didn't kill it, I kind of just rode on top of it.

The cutscene with the void encroaching on you is really cool as well.

Very cool concept for a game. I struggled on the last level but eventually got it.

Would have been cool to add a second mechanic besides only moving the black holes at some point in the game.

I like the visual effect for the black holes.

Loved this one! The sound and animation for level transitions felt really really good.

I do think the dash impact effect was a little too much, and would have felt juicier if it was a bit shorter. Also I saw that there is a music volume slider, but I never heard any music.

You nailed the theme with a totally unique game mechanic.

Very cute game, very different aesthetic from other submissions.

I just wish there was more happening between levels, the difficulty seemed to get slightly easier, but just more tedious over time. I think fewer levels with a bigger focus on progression and balance would have made it better.

The arrows earlier on were a really good hint to get me started in the right direction, although I didn't stumble with the controls before I read all of them on the game page.

Love the cooldown system and different abilities; easily my favorite use of "give me a minute" so far in the jam.

The art style was super unique and fit the theme nicely. I wish you had had time to flesh out the visuals more, because I really like the hand-drawn look.

This game had a really good sense of progression as you unlocked new abilities at a steady pace while the enemies got tougher and more numerous. Great work!

I think either weapon upgrades or enemy variety would be a good place to start.

I grapple/hook mechanic was really cool. There was a brief moment where I thought a wheel came off of my space car 😅

It was easy to miss messages if you weren't paying attention, but otherwise I like how the game communicated objectives.

Lot's of cool VFX in this one. I liked the weapon fire animation in particular, it felt satisfying.

There were a lot of levels to play through, which was nice. It would be cool to include a bigger sense of progression as you play through them.

I enjoyed the physics impact of weapon hits, it felt really good to knock enemies into black holes.

This was great! Cutscenes and voice acting were wonderful, made the game feel really polished. I really like the use of camera cuts during the cutscenes.

I found the controls fun to use; it would have been nice if there was a chance early on to play with them a bit before worrying about the depleting oxygen meter.

The objective on screen display was really helpful and fit with the other visuals really well. Made it easy to understand the objective.

I think I miscommunicated a little--I really like the difficulty level actually! Beating it the first try would be boring. I was just saying:
1. I wish there was a way to see how far I got after I lose (I wasn't paying attention during gameplay).
2. It would be interesting to see how the game felt with more oxygen, but with a more fragile hull. I would expect it to make the pace slower but with a similar difficulty level, which might make tension higher (but I don't know that for sure, it might be less fun). Moving slower could also force you to ration your sonar more.

Thanks for listening and thanks for making a super cool game!

I enjoyed this one so so so so much. It has such a unique aesthetic. It's the only game I've played so far that went for a deep sea void, but it works so well to capture the theme. I really felt alone in an endless empty space.

There isn't much I would change about this game. Very subjective, but I think maybe that increasing oxygen reserves a bit and compensating by making the hull weaker could make the game feel higher stakes. After my first attempt when I ran out of oxygen, it felt like it was better to just try and speed through the game spamming the sonar than to be more slow and methodical (and going slow increases tension a bit, I think). ALSO: Would be nice to see how far I got on the loss screen.

The HUD was really cool and reminded me of classic late 90s games. The art style really fit the game. The sound was really terrifying. And you integrated the "void" theme into the game mechanics in a way that I really wish I had done.

The main one was that I was able to sell items multiple times (selling didn't close the menu or otherwise prevent from selling again) for infinite money.

And I'm not sure that it was a bug exactly, but after buying the two items in the garage I could just use those two forever to finish the game.

I like this take on the theme.

It would have been nice to have more variety, but the loop that was there is very solid and seems bug free as well.

I really liked the weapon fire effect, it felt satisfying to destroy the spirits.

Interesting combination of rhythm and platforming mechanics.

The core game loop was pretty fun, but I think the difficulty ramped up too much and too fast. I beat 3 levels and gave up on the 4th.

The visuals were really good, and the soundtrack paired really well with the game.

Really beautiful game! The main menu especially was really top notch.

The idea for switching between characters with different abilities was really cool, but I didn't find any use for the minion. Jumping didn't feel necessary because of how strong changing the gravity direction is.

With just a little more polish on the controls and level design, this may have easily been my favorite entry in the jam so far!

Very unique submission, glad I had the chance to play it. Was cool to experience a slice of the characters life through the narration.

I did run into a few bugs that broke the gameplay a bit, but it was still fun to zoom around.

It's also always nice to play jam game that's fully voiced.

The cat is really cute, and I think the game perfectly encapsulates the theme of this jam.

Definitely feel like there should be more rocks, I spent a lot of time waiting. Also, maybe it was a bug, but after getting the jetpack I went to (-1000, -1000) like they told me, but nothing was there :( I was never able to get the ice cream fuel.

I really liked the concept though!

I had some ideas for relating the ghosts to different emotional states for coping with stress/trauma/emptiness, but I ended up cutting it (with a ton of other stuff) for time reasons. There is a little bit of expanded dialog for players that beat the game twice, but I think in the current state the dialog will come across sorta opaque and confusing no matter what.

I was hoping that with the smaller amount of exposition, players could ascribe whatever they wanted to the core idea of consumption/emptiness.

Thanks for playing! :)

This one was fun! I'll come back later and try to get a higher temp.

The only real complaint I have is that the audio is really loud, and there doesn't appear to be a volume setting.

Really cool twist on the void theme, and the gameplay is solid. Even though a bit loud for me, the audio really fit well with the visuals; and overall the game had a very cohesive art design.

Wow, there are a lot of levels! The main mechanic was interesting and the early levels do a good job of communicating core puzzle-solving mechanics.

However, I do think a lot of the levels felt unfair, where you would be killed quickly before even having a chance to get your bearings. Particularly, jumping on a trampoline often meant dying at least once before you could know where it would have you land.

The game looked great, especially the character design of the rabbit in a hat! The void effect was also really well done.

Beautiful game. Visuals and audio work really well together.

I only wish maybe the game had a little more interactivity, it would be really interesting to tie the themes together with a meaningful game mechanic.

Love seeing a developer tell a personal story through their game.

Really cool! Great looking and solid music as well.

It would be nice if you could skip/speed up the transition screens; the ratio of wait time between days vs. time spent voiding contracts seemed a bit high.

I really liked the idea of making the contracts between humans and demons, it worked really well for this game.

I like the unlit art aesthetic, it's very cohesive and cute. The trees especially felt very lively.

Would be interesting to see what the game would look like if you had more time to work on game balance / difficulty. Right now it seems like the only strategy that is effective is building a dense array of turrets early, because it's easy to be overrun if you let anything get destroyed.

Appreciated that the game has a full settings menu and let's you rebind keys.