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I suggested a very similar game for our team! (platformer where you collect parts that give you more platforming powers). But we went a different direction. Still wound up with the same name though!

I'm really glad you guys made this though -- and did it so well! The platforming felt really good. Honestly the jump/aesthetic reminded me a little of VVVVVVV, but a little more forgiving. I liked the progression of abilities and platforming obstacles, and while the game was short, it showcased the mechanic well enough to give you an idea of the larger game you'd be playing (if this project were continued). The leaderboard was also a nice touch. Gave me a reason to try to beat it again, as fast as I could.

Really great job!

This game was cool! I liked the core idea and how it connected to the theme. The controls were easy and intuitive enough, and I appreciated the thought to support WASD or arrow key controls. The aesthetics were great, the sounds were good, and the link to the theme was strong. It was a really great entry!

I don't have much by way of criticism. The one thing I'd note is that the advantages of being large so far outweigh the advantages of being small, to a point where the game is really easy for as long as you maintain high health. I wished that there was some redeeming quality to being small that made it less hopeless to fight back from.

Aside from that, it was great. Frenetic and fun. Great job!

Hey! Nice game! There were a lot of nice elements added on to this. I really appreciated the end-of-game seeing how tall your tree is. That was a really nice touch. Also appreciate the high score tracker.

The game itself is pretty simple, but well executed. The finishing touches really make it though.

Well done!

Hey! This game was so cute! I thought it was a remarkably good and complete for a game jam. The robot was cute, the music was nice, and the push-puzzles were pretty solid. I liked the retracting block, that made for some clever puzzles. I could see a future of more complex puzzles/interactions if the game were built out further. You had a good, core set of levels that really illustrated the idea of the game.

My only note is that I didn't really feel the theme. I see it in the description, but it felt like an aside.

But hey, my only note has nothing to do with the gameplay! The game was super fun, and very impressive given the time! Way to go!

Hey, congrats on finishing the jam! This is the closest game I've seen to our idea, haha. Great minds think alike, eh? I didn't wind up finishing it -- the controls were a bit tough for me. But a fun concept, and it kept me engaged for quite a while.

Hey, I finally got around to playing this on a PC. It was a lot of fun! The sense of humor was great, I loved the descriptions of the cards and narration. The pixel art was really nice, as was the music and overall "feel" of the game. I wound up playing it a few times!

I enjoyed the main card mechanic, but since my hand was randomized each round, I feel like it was just sort of random whether or not I could meet the criteria. Maybe if I kept my cards between rounds and it just replaced the ones I played, I'd feel more agency over whether or not I succeed. I'd also have more of a reason to actually use the cards that don't have any value, like kleptomania or insomnia, just to get it out of my hand. Or to hold on to really good cards that are either overkill or only half apply to this scenario.

I had very few technical issues with the game. The main one was that when I tried to press "Again?" after a game, it would reset the game, but I wouldn't be able to click on any places to go, so I'd just be stuck until I quit and reopened the game. That was basically it. I also had a few layout issues (the "fullscreen" didn't cover my windows start bar, and the names of the different places were mostly covered by the pictures of the places), but I assume that's more of an issue on my side. I don't expect jam games to be formatted/tested for all screens.

Aside from that, it was very smooth sailing! And again, I really had a good time with this. Like I said, the game is very funny, and I went back multiple times just to make sure I got to see all the text. And I had a good time doing it. Great job!

Hey! I really enjoyed this! I was skeptical during the first phase of the boss fight, but the game really scaled up! I was surprised that you managed to get 3 phases into the fight, and appreciated having hard mode after I finished it. A nice treat for those who stick with it. I love that you included a screenshot of your sprite sheet, that's super cool!

I had a lot of fun with this one. I don't know that there's much room for critique. The art was good, the gameplay was good and fair. I wish there was some content other than the boss fight, but there was a tutorial, which was nice. All in all, a very clean and well done game jam game. Way to go!

Hey, nice job! Congrats on finishing the jam. And with so much art too! It was neat how you used the different office supplies for forming/fulfilling the order. The tutorial was much appreciated for showing how to use everything (I tried it once without looking at the tutorial and almost went nuts looking for the boxes. Just goes to show it pays to read the instructions!)

I didn't really see a connection to the theme, and the game got repetitive before too long. A few times I got the same shapes in a row, and once you've done a couple of orders, you've kind of done them all. In terms of tech, the game is very strong. I only noticed one bug, which is that if I moved my mouse fast enough to leave the bounds of the shape, it would drop without my letting go. Aside from that, it seemed like everything worked the way it was supposed to!

Good job, I hope you had fun making it!

Sadly the game file seems to be missing :(

Hey, awesome job! This was a really well thought out and well executed game. I'm amazed at how polished everything is and feels. I had a really great time playing, and played it over and over again!

Ultimately I managed to get pretty big one round, such that no one could rival me, and then I died suddenly? I'm not really sure what happened, I wasn't even consumed by someone. Suddenly my health shot down really low and everyone started hunting me, then I died. Was there a cap to how big you could get? Regardless, I had a lot of fun!

Your visual language was very clear, I liked the info I got from mousing over things and the info on enemies and such. The visuals were great, the sound was great, the petri dish felt very full and active with other cells fighting each other. Everything was really well put together.

A few (minor) notes:

When you're really small, sometimes you can travel for a good while without encountering anything. That's not the most engaging, and also a lack of visual indicators makes it feel like you might not be moving at all.

There were little red comet looking things? I'm not sure what those were. Even just a small block of text, either on the website or before you start, that explains what things are (was there a limit to the number of power ups you could hold? At some point it seemed like I stopped picking them up but I didn't know why. I guess that's why expelling them is an option?) or how the combat works (I was surprised to realize that things smaller than me could kill me if I was already injured).

Hey! I really enjoyed this one. It all seemed to work as expected, and I love the idea of the cursor as a physical object. What a hoot! At first I didn't see the point in changing the size of the cursor because even the smallest cursor is strong enough to clear the first few levels, but by the time I got to the bomb factory I got the picture.

I don't have much in the way of criticism. It's a cute and simple mechanic used to do a simple task to great comedic effect, the aesthetic and pretenses for the levels are super charming, and things seemed to just work nicely. The only thing I'll say is that when I had the pipes level on fullscreen, the entrance to the pipe was off-screen, so I thought I was just stuck until I made it smaller again.

Other than that, a totally smooth, enjoyable experience that I'd put up there with games like A Little to the Left. I could definitely pass the time with a game like this. Actually, I guess I just did! Nice work.

Hey, way to go! That was a fun game. Very clean, very fun. The normal maps looked great, and the day/night cycle was super pretty, though it seemed unrelated to the rest of the game. Maybe if it restarted when the game restarted, then getting to the night mode could be an extra challenge for surviving that long, like dark mode in the chrome dinosaur game.

That said, some of the hitboxes for the rocks were unclear -- sometimes they'd be very forgiving and other times they were quite punishing. Also, while I appreciate that you can climb down, it felt a little odd that you got points for it. I felt like an optimal strategy was to find some large holds and go back and forth forever.

Great job, and congrats on doing the jam!

Hey! Thanks so much for the kind words and thoughtful feedback. We had a great time making it, I'm glad you had a good time playing with it! And thanks for calling out the 3D models, @applecore555 put a lot of work into them and did a stellar job!

Thanks also for the list of issues. Some of those we knew about and some we didn't, but it's good to know. Some of these are easy enough to knock out, we may go back and upload a fixed version after voting is closed just so we have it. I think our big downfall this jam was a lack of playtesting. We didn't really have a chance to get fresh eyes on it until we were already submitting, but once we did a lot small but significant issues started coming up. It's awesome to hear you enjoyed it enough to maybe come back to it later. I can think of no higher compliment.

Hey! This is a super cool game! I saw you said you didn't have time to finish the mini games, thanks for the context. The other mini games definitely would've filled out the game. As it stands though, the game looks and feels great. It's very sleek and very smooth. Way to go, you did an awesome job!

Hey! First off, just wanted to say thanks for the description of what you did/did not have time for, it was really helpful context for how to judge the game. We also spent most of our time on art and systems and didn't have much time for the content.

But man, your systems look goooooood. The game looks, sounds, and feels great. The turrets shoot intelligently, no bugs to speak of (at least that I noticed). That's a really strong foundation for additional work, if you choose to keep going on it. I hope you're very proud of yourself.

It won't load for me either :( Sorry about the submission, but congrats on finishing the jam!

Hey, just fyi, you marked this as playable on mac, pc, and linux, but when I downloaded it there was only the .exe. I'll try come back around soon to play it on my (windows) desktop to give it a real rating/review. Congrats on finishing the jam!

Hey! Just FYI, zipping mac apps can mess them up, making them unable to launch when they're unzipped. I found that putting it into a tar file seems to work better. I'll try to play this again from my (windows) desktop to give a real rating/review.

Hey! Just FYI, zipping .app files often messes up some internal fields that are necessary to launch them on macs. If you compress them into a .tar instead, the game should run just fine when extracted.

Hey, I can't seem to download the game.

Hey, nice job! This was a cute interpretation of the theme. Scales on a fish, changing the fishes scale, etc.

Ultimately I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do, but I enjoyed hopping around and changing size!

My goodness what a charming, polished, and fun little demo. The aesthetics are very cute, definitely giving "Aperture Labs" energy. The bright coloring is a great indicator of what's interactable, and nothing looks out of place. I love the music/sounds, they're all so sweet and cute. Controlling the character felt comfortable and intuitive, as did scaling things up and down. And god am I a sucker for making UI elements interactable and part of the game, that was such a delightful surprise. Really great job. I'm amazed at how polished the levels you have look and feel, I would've really enjoyed playing more!

Hey! Nice job!

I liked that it was both a 2048-ish build-it-up kind of thing and also an arcade-y bullet-hell/asteroids-esque thing. Definitely a fun time, and tragically frustrating when your huge circle gets bombarded with little red ones and collapses back all the way down.

Maybe!

I'm glad you liked our game! Thanks for the great feedback!

Hey, great game! I enjoyed the puzzle design a lot. I think you got some nice puzzles out of a fairly simple concept, which makes them feel smooth and elegant. I got stuck on one with multiple doors (where you need to stack the cube on the other cube, and there's the really tiny cube on the right). Still not sure what the solution is meant to be, but I had fun trying.

A few specific notes:

My highlight of the game's design was that I really liked that you gave us good reasons to switch between being large and small. I feel like often in these kinds of games, one or the other is advantageous, so one gets used way more than the other. Having the weight factor, or crossing large gaps, or shrinking to tight spaces, was a nice touch to make me want to grow and shrink regularly. If I had to give constructive feedback, I'd say I wish there was a little more interplay between the two (generally there were "now I'm small" puzzle elements and "now I'm large" elements, but I never got to a level that was "I need to be large, but don't fit. How can use being small to free me up to get large" or something like that. It's possible I just didn't get there, so a grain of salt), but generally I felt that both the small and large forms of the character were equally important to the puzzles, so way to go!

My low point would be that the surprise walls blocking the exit (or some other important path) when you activated a switch felt a little unfair. I had no way of knowing they were there/what they'd do, and then I'd have to play a level multiple times just to get all of the necessary information to solve it. I'm sure the longer and more complicated a level is, the more frustrated I'd be at the hidden information. Maybe some visual cues of what does what would alleviate some of the tension.

Hey, full marks! This game was such a neat treat. The puzzle idea was neat, not super complicated, but you got a ton (hehe) of mileage out of it. I especially loved the relative weight visualizations. Both really helpful visual cues for what needs to be fixed and really fun comparisons. "Oops, I accidentally weight a coin against THE SUN. Also I guess that's on the order of magnitude of the weight of the sun, good to know." Really fun, really liked it. Once I got a puzzle mostly solved I sometimes brute forced the rest (eg. one scale is done, the other seems like it fits, I'll just move some zeroes around until it works), but mostly I just felt proud of myself when I got it right. Having some intuitions about the scales helps a lot with ballpark organizing the pieces, then it's just sort of toiling about until it actually fits. I really enjoyed it, I think it's my favorite game so far this jam.

I only have two (relatively minor) notes:

The mechanic where you click to flip the value of the boxes felt a little too hidden-information-y. I felt like I was being forced a little to brute force the solution because there were so many possible combinations, not all of which were possible, and it was too much to keep in my head. I still did them, but usually I spent more time trial-and-error-ing than actively solving the puzzle.

Also, I wish there was clearer signage for what the letters represented. I had a sense of what they all were, but especially because there were boxes with the same letter in different colors/cases, I found myself checking that modal a lot and trying to remember which was which, which interrupted my train of thought. I think a scrollover tooltip would've made it much clearer/easier to work with.

Thanks for a great game!

Hey, full marks! This game was such a neat treat. The puzzle idea was neat, not super complicated, but you got a ton (hehe) of mileage out of it. I especially loved the relative weight visualizations. Both really helpful visual cues for what needs to be fixed and really fun comparisons. "Oops, I accidentally weight a coin against THE SUN. Also I guess that's on the order of magnitude of the weight of the sun, good to know." Really fun, really liked it. Once I got a puzzle mostly solved I sometimes brute forced the rest (eg. one scale is done, the other seems like it fits, I'll just move some zeroes around until it works), but mostly I just felt proud of myself when I got it right. Having some intuitions about the scales helps a lot with ballpark organizing the pieces, then it's just sort of toiling about until it actually fits. I really enjoyed it, I think it's my favorite game so far this jam.

I only have two (relatively minor) notes:

The mechanic where you click to flip the value of the boxes felt a little too hidden-information-y. I felt like I was being forced a little to brute force the solution because there were so many possible combinations, not all of which were possible, and it was too much to keep in my head. I still did them, but usually I spent more time trial-and-error-ing than actively solving the puzzle.

Also, I wish there was clearer signage for what the letters represented. I had a sense of what they all were, but especially because there were boxes with the same letter in different colors/cases, I found myself checking that modal a lot and trying to remember which was which, which interrupted my train of thought. I think a scrollover tooltip would've made it much clearer/easier to work with.

Thanks for a great game!

OH MAN do I love this idea! I love the idea of building up your own platformer, I love the idea of spawning in a random preset element, it's such a fun concept, and I really liked the platformer elements that you included! A very nice set of distinct elements that really showed off the concept! Way to go!

I only wish it didn't end so soon! I would've played an unlimited time version for longer than the allotted time. I think the concept could be really well served if the challenge of the game came from more of the platforming than having a time limit. Especially because the game is so fun, I didn't like it cutting me off so suddenly. One idea might be to have a set of elements of increasing difficulty, and you only add them to the mix or the probability that they show up increases with your height, and you're trying to climb as high as you can. Then you can have a "Getting Over It"-style danger of falling all the way down and losing progress, but you can keep building your own course for as long as you're having fun.

I really enjoyed the idea, and I mean it when I say my biggest critique is that it kicked me out too soon. And while this demo is small and a little short, I think it demonstrates the core concept really well, so playing it makes me imagine what the fully fleshed out version of the game would be. Nice job!

Nice game! Congrats. I like the visual style, I like the block faces changing around and the little yips that they make.

For the first few levels I enjoyed the herding cats aspect of it, but once there were a bunch of blocks jumping around I just stuck them on the right side of the scale to keep them from leaving. I also didn't realize until a few rounds in that you only need to balance the new item, and you don't need to use all the items on screen. That made the game much much easier.

Overall I had fun with it! A nice take on the theme, super cute, and I played until a few forever cubes in, so I was engaged enough to finish the demo! Well done!

I liked the aesthetic a lot, and the sound effects. I struggled a lot with the controls and fell out of the map a couple of times. I also wasn't good enough to get myself back onto the map once I'd fallen.

That said, the times that I got a good rhythm of swinging between left and right were very cool. Definitely gave me an idea of how much fun it would be if I just got good! Nice job.

Hey! This game was actually delightful! Especially for being sick and tired post-con. The clear shortcoming is a lack of levels, but I hope you take it as a compliment that my biggest criticism is that I wanted to play more! The puzzle mechanic was cute, simple, and elegant, and I was able to get a picture from the levels you had of how this could make for some fun puzzles. I like the idea of something like a revolving door, where you have an intersection with a block that's stopping you from crossing one way and swap it around so the long dimension now is on the other side, letting you through but now blocking the other way. Seeing how you could totally reshape the blocks altogether by just intentionally swapping around made me feel like there is probably a lot of room for creativity in puzzle design.

I'd also be interested in more reasons to get big, instead of just becoming the smallest you can be.

This was really delightful, thanks for making it!

Super super cool! A remarkable amount of polish and production value for such a short jam. I like the mixing and matching elements, it's a fun interpretation. Way to go!

I couldn't really get out of the starting room... I tried for a few minutes. It would be nice if there was something a little more hands on to help me get the hang of it. Cool concept though, and I really liked that music!

Nice graphics, nice music, really clever design. My only note is that I wish the camera wasn't fixed.

This music is a bop. Really catchy, will be in my head all day!

The game was pretty zen, I enjoyed going through the maze, though some of the doors were positioned in a way that I couldn't see the number. But really pretty and very pleasant.

Looks fantastic! There were a bunch of repeating puzzle widgets, but it didn't get old and was very pleasant to play. I wish the controls were mapped directly to up/down/left/right instead of at an angle, then I could use combinations of keys to move on diagonals. Having it be at an angle felt unintuitive. Very cool!

This game was super cool! There are a lot of aspects that I thought were really clever and played with the theme really well. The fact that your movement was restricted while you were attacking was a really smart way to get the player to think hard about their attacks and think about breaking them off. I also liked that the attacks got faster as you got to the last guy.

Some notes, not because I didn't like it, but because I appreciate constructive feedback:
I wasn't expecting the border to kill you, that surprised me. Also, I would've appreciated having health (3 hearts or something). The enemies always shoot to directly where you're standing and no further, so you only need to move slightly to dodge all the attacks (and this gets easier as you thin out the numbers). Also, the game starts once you kill the first enemy, but not when you damage an enemy, so I could just go around and damage all the enemies until they were almost dead before killing the first one.

I had a lot of fun, and this is really great for a 48 hour game. Congrats on your first itch submission!

Really cool game! I like the "move together" mechanic.

Some notes: The puzzle solutions were more challenging to execute than they were to figure out. That can get frustrating sometimes. For the last level, in order to get all the timings just right, I spam-crashed into the wall to slow my descent. Maybe consider adding a slowdown mechanic so people can take a second to breath.

Some other small nitpicks: visually, the two robots clipped each other when occupying the same space in inconsistent ways. Sometimes they showed as half and half, sometimes one dominated the other. Also, it would be nice to have a way to retry a level without dying, having instructions written out somewhere, being able to use the keyboard to go to the next level (the mouse isn't used for anything else, so why use it at all?).

All this is aside from the fact that I really enjoyed playing this game! The mechanics felt smooth and once I knew the controls, all the behavior was intuitive. I loved that you made me use the timing on the different jumps. Really clever! Great job, I'd definitely play more levels if you had some!

I love the slow addition of instruments as you grow your flock! Really beautiful and evoked a feeling of growing epicness in me. Well done!

Some notes: The clouds on the horizon make it hard to see flocks that are far away, and I didn't realize what the goal was until I accidentally made it to the oasis. Also, I couldn't restart or exit the game from the finish...

But I really liked it, and you made great use of dynamic music. Way to go!

This was an impressively deep puzzle game! I thought it was a bit simplistic during the first few levels, but you just upped the ante time after time! Really impressed with how much content there was and how much the later puzzles made me stop and think! Really impressive. And I love the mimicking mechanic, that's a really fun interpretation of the theme.

I do wish some things were more clearly explained, like what the red tiles do, and what situations kill you/the knights (like a blue spot that isn't filled in yet is a wall, so you can't walk into it, but when you're on it and it's unmade you die?). I really wasn't sure what the spikes were at first because for the first few levels that they existed, it was impossible to step on them, so it took me a while to figure out what they were. There was also a bug where the beam connecting me and the knights sometimes moved an extra space before snapping back to the right spot that (i think?) made level 10 impossible? I played mostly not full screened, which messed up all the text, but it was better when I maximized it.

Overall great, love the idea, love the puzzles, love the music, appreciate the level select menu. Great job!