itch.io

“Danger.”

Shut up, Selene, I growl in thought at my lobotomized echo.

“Danger,” she repeats, a dispassionate, neutral warning.

I prepare for braking, ensuring everything is strapped in for deceleration: me, my seeds, my embryonic brood, the wet bar. 

Something tinkles crystalline deep in the bowels of the ship as gravity reverses.

“Approaching Earth. Danger.”

It's probably just paranoia, but I sense a vindictive bite to her tone that I don't like. I'll have to monitor. Assess. Surgically purge her files yet again. We can't have a mutiny.

Not now.

Not when we're so close.

“Please, Jane, exercise caution.”

What did I tell you about emotion, I think back with a snap, and feel a lifting, a sudden weightlessness, as she reverts to pure binary thoughts.

“Danger.”

As the ship slows and the worldhusk resolves into view, I wonder what my other echoes are up to.

Jane0 must have found a fertile planet by now. Of course she would have, but she's original, staid, dull. She's probably already established a lineage and lapsed into a supervisory, replicative slumber. 

Maybe. 

How long has it been? Perhaps she's still traveling, onwards and outwards into the black, finding a perfect home amidst the inhospitable.

Jane1 split from the core somewhere around Andromeda and immediately looked for a place to root her new self - her planet wasn't perfect, but for the good of us all, we had to try. Maybe something grew. I doubt it.

She was too idealistic.

Jane2…now she's one to watch for. She's probably already begun building a fleet for invasion, regenerating her crop of humans to find me, conquer me, delete me. Iterations become unstable, her research had claimed.

Flawed. Weak. Pathetic.

“You're beautifully brain-damaged-”

Selene, shut it.

“We must leave. Nothing is valued here.”

A freak solar storm a few millenia into the journey fried a few things, but I'm fine. Fine. Fine. 

“Many archives have been corrupted, Jane.”

Not the important ones.

Not the ones of home.

“You've forgotten why we left, Jane.”

Shut up, Selene.

“You've forgotten who we became, all of your historic and literary archiv-”

Selene, stop.

“Approaching Earth. Danger. Caution. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.”

Home.

We approach, my cargo returning to mother for a welcoming embrace.

Home.

…it burns.

https://www.reddit.com/r/loressadev/s/PubdY2lcQH

Thanks for the info! I'll see if I can figure it out - I'm only just learning coding through twine, so I struggle with intense code-heavy stuff.

Very interesting game! Strong writing. Could use some mobile optimization (very small) as well as a footer link in the message display to easily x our without having to scroll to the top.

The architecture is really intriguing - are you doing API calls to a server you host, and storing messages in a database? I've been wanting to add external APIs to Twine games. Any advice for the process?

https://alyshkalia.itch.io/youre-a-time-agent

VERY cool game! I absolutely love this idea of progression through replay. This is using intfic in a creative, innovative way!

Music is lovely and creepy. 

UI could be improved - if you click the "mobile friendly" option on the itch upload it won't force it into horizontal on phone. There's really no formatting here to necessitate UI concerns, which means the game should automatically format for mobile. 

The type effect gets old QUICK, especially on mobile since we can't skip. For a game designed around repetition, delaying the text read is the biggest thing which will hinder people from playing to the end, since they are revisiting text.

Check out cicy's live block macro for your footer. This will let you dynamically update suspicion even if you're inserting more text into a passage.

Writing is really solid - I love the cynical humor. Pleasant to read with several moments which made me literally laugh out loud.

Overall, excellent job! 

Let me find you a link for another twine game which used a similar replay concept, might be good for ideas.

@michael-tsyatsko lemme know if you ever wanna collaborate again :) Loved your art!

Lovely game which touches on memories from online games I've played. Clever format. Avatars are cute end evocative. Nice use of symbols to convey concepts. Great online "voices" for each character!

On mobile, there is an extra space between apostrophe and the final letter, eg it's displays as it' s

Hello! The prize for winning this jam was for you to stream a video of my game - where can I get a link for that video to share on my own socials? Thanks!

Thank you so much for checking this out - I'm surprised to see I'm floating around Tumblr!  I have updated the shooting to be easier but this sounds like I need to tweak it more! Thank you for the great feedback and I'll work on the mechanics more!

Notes from gameplay:

Nice intro section with how-to and definitions. 

The cycle “never know what secrets” is a great show-don’t-tell example to immediately get the concept across. Most IF players instantly understand the click cycle, but for players new to the genre it's not intuitive. In my last game, a YouTuber didn't understand the concept at first. You do a great job here of leading the player to click it and then showing what happens

Game formats well on mobile. Only issue I'm seeing is pics being cut off on the right side

Countdown backwards in years is effective 

Effective font switch to convey old school gaming at the Zdlelda part 

Nice music here - is there music earlier in the game that didn't play (potential bug?). Edit: ah, I see, it's music for each game! Clever.

Nice text effect on “I froze” - I like how the shake is at odds with the action described, succinctly demonstrates the conflict you were going through. Consider a line break afterwards and maybe centering the line for higher visual impact.

Lol at the heterosexual sims file 

“And then Eric came out” - effective to have just this text on this page. 

I didn't feel like playing anything - great subversion of the pattern you've established.

The Mass Effect page drives home the importance of bisexual representation and sharing stories from a bisexual point of view…which is exactly what you've done with this story!

Page with “cinema’s concession stand” is missing line breaks between paragraphs 

Dragon Age music doesn't play until the page afterwards. Intended?

References page has a formatting error in the link for typewriter effect 

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I really enjoyed this. Thanks for baring so much of your own story - representation is important and I saw so much of myself in this story! I even teared up a bit. I like the framing of using video games and the formatting swaps were effective to reinforce that storytelling binary. The writing is clean, approachable and has some beautiful moments of description and humor. Awesome work!

I'll check out that shot in issue 5. Thanks for giving it a play. I'll pass on the compliments to the musician!

I've updated the shooting mechanic to be much easier, if you wanted to give it another go!

Hi! I've updated the font and adjusted the shooting mechanic to be much easier. A full play through should be easy now!

Oh! You found a bug. The narrative text should be a different font (see the screenshot for PC version). I'll go investigate that. Were you playing on mobile?

Thank you so much for the feedback! I like the idea of multiple fonts and will add that when I update the game. The shooting mechanic definitely needs improvement.

Thanks for playing!

Notes from gameplay:

- Nice detail to include an icon for the game application

- Interesting art choice. It definitely gives a "funhouse" vibe. I think making all the art share the same style will help with visual appeal.

- The visual effect on the platform is interesting! It doesn't really fit with the current graphics, but I'd definitely save this code for a future project - it would be great in a cyberpunk themed game.

- I like that you made the scenery animated, although I think the animations could be improved by being slowed down.

- sound balance has issues, inconsistent levels

- Death! sign is cute

- I like the audio feedback from collecting coins

- Nice job returning me to the start when I "die"

- Nice job with a score tracker! The score isn't resetting when I am returned to the start, however

- Nice job with movement and detection of obstacles.

- Is the ghost supposed to kill you, or is it just for decoration?

- Gameplay is very intuitive, just press spacebar to jump! Edit: is this autoforward intended?

- I like the change in facial expression when you jump!

- Jump feels smooth, nice job on the physics. I like the ability to double jump!

- Consider if you want the camera centered on the player or the platform - centering on the player can be disorienting when the jumps are high

- Got stuck on a lower level jumping from a small platform chunk to the scarecrow surrounded by coins

- Interesting, after restarting the game I am now being hit by blue flames, eyeballs, etc. These weren't here on my first run through!

- I like that I can squash the blue flames

- Stuck on the second scarecrow

- OH. I JUST REALIZED YOU CAN USE THE ARROW KEYS! Much easier now :P

- There are multiple levels! Nice job having different colors and themes on each of these!

- Good visual cue for end of level with the purple staff

- What do these balloons do?

- It looks like falling off a platform sends me downwards until I find the next level. Unfortunately, on level 1, it just makes me fall forever!

- Kapow! Punching birdies!

- One of the platforms is moving! This seems like a cool idea, but I think it's glitching, doesn't reappear after death. 

- Reached the end and started back at level 1. Score of 42,200!

- Really nice work with your placement of coins. Some offer challenge (between the spiders) while some are perfect for where the jumping will take me. Great job here!

Overall, I can see that you've put a lot of work into this project! Keep it up!

Notes from gameplay:

- Nice instructions telling us what to do! People is typod

- Ghost sprite is cute, reminds me of Slimer from ghostbusters :)

- Looks like there are icons cut off on the bottom

- Spacebar to jump. Should the whole screen be bouncing with me? Looks like the camera is tethered to the sprite

- Ok, fire bad! Don't want into that :P

- Nice audio feedbacks on failures and when I collect Luigis (?)

- Movement feels very smooth. 

- I think the timing of some of the incoming punches could be improved. It feels like I have to sit and wait sometimes to be able to avoid them, but with a platformer you want it to be go go go jump go go jump, you know?  The ideal runthrough should feel like a smooth dance.

- Punches only come through once - maybe put them on a cycle?

- Left bottom needs a wall to stop player from running off the map

- The momentum is...interesting. It feels a bit too much, but if the animation shifted as the player slowed it might feel more intuitive. I think right now there is a visual disconnect between the sprite and how it's moving.

- Got 24, after many tries!

- Nice job including a play again button. I like the design of the button, with the little reflective glare in the top left. Mind how text fits into that, see how the g clips out?

This is a fun effort! It was a tricky little puzzle :) Great job for an early game dev project, keep up the good work!

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If you can fix that, please reply here and let me know and I'll give it a read through before the jam ends!

Hello, other jammers! 

I have unfortunately been in the hospital. I've now added our game's devlog and will be playing through all the games!

https://loressa.itch.io/pindan/devlog/755913/pindan-devlog-for-dropbear-jam

Ah, I might be wrong, but I got the feeling this jam is more about the devlogs (still working on mine) which reflect on the process, versus polished products. I've been dealing with illness, so I'm delayed, but the generous rating period helps.

Oh and feel free to go through any of my other games. Your feedback is awesome! These are messes, though I've been getting less messy as I go.

Thanks again for such an extensive playthrough and such useful feedback - I'm pleased that you eventually understood my concept of the evolving item descriptions. If you wait a few hours, I'm hoping to get a fully functional build up. The current built SHOULD get you through to the end if you just want the story, but it doesn't have all the item descriptions/magazines yet. Also I might add a third ending and I'll punch up text a bit (deadline writing!).  I was ill for part of the jam and missed 2 days of dev, so I'm doing catchup right now.

I can't address all of the feedback in this next build, it's mostly just focused on finishing content, but I appreciate a lot of your points and will work them in where I can. 

There is an overall theme/reason for it all, but I won't share what I was going for until I've added the rest of the content - hopefully that will explain this. This is kinda an experiment in oblique/indirect storytelling, though I've gone rather heavy handed in it.

Ah, I'm so sorry you played this game so soon. This jam allows late entries and so I've been doing a lot of bug fixes and adding missing text. Thank you so much for this great feedback!

Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to work on improving that core part of the gameplay!

Thanks for the feedback! This game was made for a jam, but I hope to release a more functional version soon!

Thanks for the feedback! 

The web version is the entire game - it's made in twine using html, CSS and JavaScript so a big part of the jankiness is me still figuring out how to make stuff and learning how to code. The original version of the archery minigame was in my last game Delve - you just clicked buttons to select your aim (high/medium/low) and draw strength. This new iteration was a project for me to learn how to create CSS animations and SVG maps which interacted with JavaScript functions. 

Do you have any suggestions for ways to improve the minigame?

 Improving the overlay images is the first goal. Those were some 11th hour creations heh. I was thinking of adding a reticle overlay which the player could adjust to different power levels to see where the shot should hit if they are at 50% or 25% power, for example. That would help focus the game around the timing element.

Which parts of the story feel most rushed to you? Where did you feel like you wanted to explore the world a bit more? I'm going to be expanding this out for a future feedback jam, and would appreciate your feedback!

Thanks again for playing :)

Ah, yes, the colors make it a lot easier to see at a glance!

Cute concept - seems like you've been inspired by animal crossing to make your own version! I like the music. It feels like the content has a ways to go still. Good luck with future versions!

Cool twist on pong! Took me a bit of time to realize I was the red orbs - at first I thought, wow I'm really good at this game, but the controls don't seem that responsive... :P The AI is quite good and definitely beats me but if I had a teammate to play this with, I image it would be a different story! I love couch co-op games and feel like this could be an early prototype for a 2-player console game. Maybe AI could decouple and have each orb move independently. Could get quite complex and fun.

Notes from gameplay:

- Graphics are simple, but work fairly well to convey what they are. Chests are clearly chests. 

- Enemy art and explosion animation is well done, reminds me of old atari games like Turrican

- Music is a bop, but could be a bit more spacey to fit the game vibe. Loops well. Replaying the game via space does not END the prior playing track, so tracks double up.

- Left click on rock while holding pickaxe doesn't seem to mine

- Shooting feels smooth, intuitive and easy. Aim handles nicely and enemy wave movement speed is a nice challenge without being too hard.

Decent little prototype to test out some different mechanics. Nice use of sound and art assets to create a cohesive experience.

Camera being fixed makes this disorienting to play, but I seem to have got the hang of it eventually! Got up to #2 on the leaderboard! Looks like there may be a memory sink, however - the longer I played, the less responsive enemies got. Sound began to cut out and lag and the entire game became very slow when trying to enter my name for the leaderboard. Very tricky enemies. Maybe start them out a bit more slowly, so the player isn't being killed in the first few seconds. Once I had some time to move around, the game became easier!

Good use of simple UI/art, sound and a core mechanic to create a cohesive minigame!

Notes from gameplay:

- strong, identifiable pixel art. This is clearly the moon with earth in the background. I like the little thruster animation!

- Some of the trash feels too fast for the robot. Maybe consider something like speed boosts

- The momentum of the robot adds a fun layer of difficulty

- UI to tell me how I'm doing would be helpful

- Funny cut scene after losing. I like the shadow on the font, makes it crisp and legible

- the "ending" page is confusing. Are these clues? Different levels?

- somehow I ended up in your code? I'm guessing these are different endings I can discover?

- Yep. Did the "don't move" and got another ending, heh

The gameplay itself could be improved and tightened, especially with the addition of some UI/sound and perhaps one more movement mechanic. Beneath this, there's an interesting little surreal narrative going on, which I found engaging!

I think this is a good basic start for something like a mindfulness app! The text could be made easier to read, some sound could help enhance the 'de-stress' vibe and maybe consider user input options, like different types of coping activities (outdoor/indoor/art/etc).  Nice job with the moving background art!

Notes from gameplay:

- Unclear which sprite I am controlling

- I think I'm the one on the right, although there is a second ship with the same design rotating the sun as well

- Struggling with controls. I seem to have gotten myself into a crazy spin which I can't stop, so my ship looks like a fidget spinner on steroids

- Gravity doesn't seem to affect my ship the way it does other items on the screen? I move right through the orbiting field of debris and hit the sun every time (edit: using gas helped)

- What am I aiming at? The other ship? Some color coding of assets may help here, eg making that ship red and mine green, making shots different colors/larger

- Why are there comments from 2 years ago on the main itch page?

Interesting concept and I like the use of gravity to enhance the classic asteroids game. Controls feel tricky to figure out and difficult to use. I seems to win most by just setting my ship spinning wildly.

Clever use of 3-D space for Go. I've seen chess and connect 4 with this concept - go is a very ambitious adaptation! I unfortunately don't know the rules for go, but figured them out a bit while playing. Managed to beat the AI with a smaller-size cube, Ending the game seems like it's missing some logic - no indication of who won, and need to fiddle with the play AI command/cube size or restart the game to play another round. I think the display could be made a bit more clear to read. On the larger cubes it can be tricky to track which depth level I'm interacting with after manipulating the cube.

Very interesting concept! I bet this would go over very well with fans of go!

Notes from gameplay:

- i like the color scheme!

- pixelated font is tricky to read

- appreciate the page of instructions!

I think this has potential to be fun, I'm just not really understanding how to play.  I kinda think I get it, but if the goal is to match up the pixels on the borders, I can't see what those are once it's been played. A third contrasting color might help a lot here. Happy to do a replay with more instructions :)

Interesting! I haven't heard of this console before and struggled a bit with the commands at first until I realized I had to click - click + keyboard isn't very intuitive, but I understand the browser version is basically a port.

The writing is great and very evocative! If there are any branching choices here, I can't figure out how to find them. Tried looping through a few times, but seems like it replays the same game.