itch.io

The mechanical theme is cool!

I like the jump mechanic it made it fun out smarting the snake and leading it to a wall.

One thing you could add is obstacles/walls also spawn when you beat a level or predefined levels but I still had fun good job :)

Thanks for playing!

You can restart a level by clicking 'R' at anytime, but it looks like this wasn't obvious thanks for bringing it up :)

No not all the levels. Level one was great good size and each room had a clear purpose i.e. new mechanic or there is an enemy to avoid.

As an example this is a room in level 2,

there's no enemies or items so I think making the room simpler would serve the same purpose but like I said it's minor

haha thanks :)

Are you talking about generally or me specifically since I'm the only reply?

If you are referring to me I made that post 12 days ago so ratings weren't open yet.

Generally speaking there's not much people in the post jam. 122 entries so most likely you will only get 4 or 5 reviews/ratings from the assigned games.

Give it time participating in the Post Jam review exchange will assign people to play, review and rate your game

Sure thing. Video and step by step process. I also tried on Chrome same bug but all the test below are in Mozilla Firefox

This step by step recreation is not from the video it's another test after opening a new instance of firefox

1. Open Mozilla Firefox browser tab https://ravernt.itch.io/time-to-strike
2. Wait for load and click 'Run game'
3. Click 'Play'
   
4. Beat first level
5. Transition into upgrade/choose ability 
6. Unable to click or hover over to see description
   
   
7. Click UPGRADE INSTEAD. Same bug. Reroll upgrade also doesn't work
   
8. Click SKIP which also didn't work. But it did work last time as soon as I clicked it.
9. Click SKIP again which worked this time
   

Trying again after refreshing page with different variation

1. Beat first level
2. Transition into upgrade/choose ability 
3. Unable to click or hover over to see description
4. Click REROLL which now work

I have no idea but every time i refresh or try to recreate i get slightly different results?

I tried to recreate the dying bug to help you but couldn't I think maybe i clicked outside the screen and the game paused and I mistook it for a bug so you can disregard that.

The upgrade bug is still there it happens on the first upgrade so easily reproducible

It was a bit long but that's because in the description the length was "the time it takes to have breakfast" which i presumed 10-15min max or shorter.

But i guess breakfast is subjective haha

Great game i like the artwork and the concept!

I didn't really fully grasp the game and won most of the time with mountains and lost when i didn't get any haha

But even though i didn't understand, the theme and art alone is great and with a few tutorials everything will be fixed :)

Fun game good concept!

How fun is the main gameplay loop?

Fun! Watching all the villagers running is entertaining since there are so many of them haha
The open levels allow for many areas to place traps which is great

How could the level designs be improved?

I found stage 3 to be slightly easier than the other levels due to the long corridor at the bottom so the arrow trap would kill everyone there.

The bear traps are cool but they don't feel as impactful so the level design is more about placing the arrow trap, maybe make them come back off a cool down? or maybe have spikes instead but then it might too strong not sure but basically arrows > bear traps.

How much could it be improved with a bit more variety (more traps, levels, etc.)?

The concept is solid so more traps and levels sounds like a good idea!

A more obscure idea is when roles get reversed it would be cool if the traps were placed where you placed them to try to stop the villagers so that there is strategy for,

1. Stopping the village

2. Making it easy enough for you to escape

Happy to hear that we surpassed your expectations and that you had fun!

The first snake level was debated whether it should be included or not so your feedback on this level was helpful thanks!

It's great that you were able to grasp the difficulty balance with the apples and mice it's something we wanted to do since the previous games/version had a lot of feedback about the single difficulty of the game.

The art and sound is definitely our weakest area and something we need to improve on.

Thanks for the feedback it addressed many things we wanted to hear about :)

Thanks for the feedback and glad the Linux build was helpful!

First time hearing coyote-time and looking it up sounds like a great idea thanks, it definitely sounds like something you would want in all games with this movement type!

The apples were meant to be an easy way to clear a level if you had trouble but looking at it again definitely 1 apple is enough.

You can reset a level by clicking 'R' and return to the menu by pausing and clicking 'M' but it looks like this wasn't obvious and not user friendly something we should address.

Difficulty were ordered based on perfect clearing (Collecting all the mice) but the better solution is probably to have normal clear and perfect clear kind of equal so that order works both ways.

All great improvement ideas thank you for the detailed feed back :)

Interesting game!

As you asked I'll give feedback on the user experience which is good, it's simple and easy you click and make choices no problem there!

I kind of sped through the game, visual novels aren't my favorite genre but does the timers or choice really matter aside from the last one?
Most of the time I needed to click all the options and i let the timer run out a few times but there is no real consequence?

I'm probably not your target audience and haven't played any visual novels to compare this too but I hoped some of my feedback helped :)

Fun game!

Game play is fun shooting and melee feel responsive and weighty. The short range and reloading makes it difficult but I assume upgrades would fix this.

I couldn't really try out upgrades though since I encountered a bug where i couldn't upgrade anything, when i hovered over it nothing happened no description appeared and clicking it did nothing. Then it worked after i click skip but after i clicked reroll again it stopped working and if I do make a selection after skipping the next upgrades are also unclickable.
I tried refreshing  the page and few other things but I couldn't get it to work.

I also encountered the not dying bug but also sometimes I would get the game over screen and restart button not sure on that one.

Platform: Browser, Mozilla Firefox

But aside from the bugs the concept is good and it is well made good job!

Fun game I completed all 5 levels!

The game play is simple and fun! It's easy to understand what to do while also be challenging from dodging enemies and collecting cards to get treasure/money.

The leader board and timer system is a great touch which adds replay-ability if you want to go for the top time.

The only thing I would change may be to decrease the map size. There were some areas that were open and didn't have enemies or anything. But this is just a minor thing overall good job!

Fun game!

Here's my feedback based on what you asked for,

Favorite Part?

The different variety of traps and enemies trying to stop you from collect the berries. Each one of them was unique making it fun and challenging to get to each different berry :)

Least Favorite Part?

The camera kept moving and was a struggle. Perhaps have a fixed camera that tracks the player from above or fine tune the camera.

What would you add?

More emphasis on platforming and tighter controls so that each jump and movement required more precision to dodge the enemies and traps

Fun game! I tried a few levels but some required too much thinking for me haha

Positives:

• It's unique, the switching mechanic and the effects different obstacles have on moving the orb adds a lot of variety creating complex challenges.
• The undo and reset is really great and I'm glad you implemented it in a way that you can perform them quickly
• The levels that I played felt different so it didn't feel repetitive

I read some comment below and agree with most of the points and I wanted to look at the stage '1.4 - Narrow Passages' in detail and find the difficulties there which may overlap with other levels.

First it's not a difficult stage once you know the solution however it's extremely difficult before that but why? Well there are a few reason for this:

• The push of the human and pull mechanic of the square is not very obvious. And even though the levels prior required the use of them; it's hard to believe but honestly I was just randomly moving until i solved the 1.3 and only slowed down to find out that the rectangle pulled when examining 1.4.
  So why could I do this in 1.3 and not 1.4 it's because 1.3 is a lot more open with empty space so if you make a mistake you can just keep moving and fix yourself while in 1.4 a few wrong moves and you are forced to reset or undo which may frustrate some people.
  Of course adding more empty areas may comprise the level design so you would have to be careful or be willing to make the stage easier by doing this.
• Secondly, the square goes in the square but the orb also goes in the square this is confusing even though its an essential part of the game. I think players will always initially try to get the square to go in first since they are the same shape and then think about the orb after and *spoilers ahead* since you need to place the orb first in 1.4 unlike the prior stage it feels unnatural. Maybe visuals will fix this? But adding a few simple levels to ease them into 'you need to place the orb first' will get them to think about it before 1.4 where there is a puzzle and you need to do this. Think of it like every tutorial/easy stage adds a way to solve future puzzles and since there wasn't an introduction to place the orb first before the square the player won't have this option in their tool kit and won't be able to solve the puzzle.

That's my long take on 1.4 and more generally easing players into puzzles hope it helps :)

Thanks for playing!

Happy to hear that you played using the apple and without it. As you found out yourself it was intentionally added to ease the difficulty :)

And thanks for the feedback! Yes having better contrast or style items/obstacles is important and is something we should consider!

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes I can see how the exit is still hard to find with just text, ideally it would only take a few seconds to know where the goal is. Thanks for letting us know :)

Thanks for playing our game!

Yes some of the levels are easy to clear but hopefully get harder as the game progresses! You can also challenge yourself to perfect a level by collecting all the mice and not using any apples but, this isn't necessary to beat the game and rather an optional challenge to 100% the game

Thanks for the feedback on the controls! Could you elaborate on the frustration you had with the controls and the invisible buffer (I'm not familiar with this)? 
You can use the arrow keys to move if WASD is unfamiliar and you can also hold down a key to go that direction. Any extra details you can give would be extremely helpful thanks!

Fun idea resetting the rooms for the dungeon.

I liked that there was a mini game for resetting the traps, adding a variety of mini games would make it more interesting as well!

Having a goal would make the game feel more complete.
I played similar games during GMTK2023 which might give you some ideas.

1. The Dungeon Janitor by mathman05 in this game you go through levels resetting monsters and traps in a dungeon with the aim to do it as fast as possible to get a better score

2. Escaped Room by avianthefirst in this game you are resetting puzzles in an escape room by thinking backwards on how they were solved.

Let me know if you want any more specific feedback. And also thanks for giving feedback on our game Basilisk it was very helpful :)

Thanks for the quick reply!

After reviewing the game it's not obvious what you're supposed to do which is something we should add so I do appreciate the feedback!

Good twist making you fire the enemies gun.

I managed to get down to the last two enemies but I couldn't make them hit each other so I had to stop after 10 minutes of trying haha.

Making projectiles easier to aim or having other ways to damage the enemies would make the game easier but still good job :)

Thanks for the feedback!

If you don't mind could you let us know what was confusing?

Example: 

• Controls
• Goal wasn't clear
• Mechanics
• The things on the map e.g. tiles or different color objects
• The snake the player

Any further feedback is appreciated

Great art and unique idea using lights for the puzzle.

In terms of Game Readability I had a lot of issues with the controls, ZQSD was hard to use for me but i luckily found out that you could use arrow keys so that was ok. I had a similar issue with the interact 'space' key I didn't know it was a key until I randomly pressed it since MENU -> Controls didn't have the space bar I didn't even consider it and thought the only keys were: Escape, ZQSD, A/E and R.

An easy solution for this is just add text during the first level of the controls.

I also had another issue where if I was too close to something I couldn't interact with it.

Unique game concept!

The mechanics are simple and easy to learn and each puzzle is unique!

As an initial game it's good but to really make it stand out you should add a theme to it and add art and sound.

Thanks to everyone that played and left feedback on 'Mouse' I had a great time making it and had an even better learning from your feedback and comments.

Thanks and see you in the next jam :)

This is the first time i've played a TD where creating the path was the main goal!

It's a great twist on the genre, I've played traditional ones where you build towers and a few ones where you spawn enemies but never one where you are the path creator good job!

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you like the provoke/hide mechanic :)

Fun game! I completed all the levels!

The power ups and mouse hole are great mechanics for making the snake game unique good job!

Thanks I'm happy you liked the difficulty increase!

Creative game, I finished all levels and the bonus!

I liked how the game eased in the mechanic of the game 1 level at a time rather than everything at once it makes for a great user experience!

The puzzles were fun and I liked how there were multiple ways of solving the puzzle!

In most puzzles I did have to cast magic to see the direction before attempting to solve it so perhaps an indicator for the direction would be good but it just save one extra click haha

Overall I enjoyed playing good job!

Thanks for the in-depth feedback, very helpful!

Yes the slow effect is quite strong when you get close to winning which makes it difficult, I hope you still had fun though :)

Thanks for the positive feedback I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Creative game!

I like how the player talks to you and gets suspicious!

I was a bit confused with the skills but I still had fun!

Thanks! I appreciate the positive feedback!

I'm glad it was balanced!

Ill try out your game too :)

Thanks for playing!

Everyone has their own unique spin I wouldn't say anyone is better than the others it comes down to the player's personal preference :)

I got a score of 179. Wasn't able to make the leaderboard :(

It's a fun challenging game! I like the difficulty increase as well as the variety of enemies.

I had fun good job!

Cool idea!

I like that there are different level designs!

If you add more health to the hero I think it would make for more of a challenge but I still had fun good job!