itch.io

Pros:

• It’s a complete game, menu with settings, a full game loop and everything (which is more than I can say for the games I’ve been involved in)
• Sort of atmospheric
• Lots of assets, fairly cohesive style

Cons:

• Phone noise got real annoying, maybe that was intentional
• Couldn’t figure out how to answer it once I found it
• I was a bit confused about what to do, but I did complete the first level
• There’s quite a bit of input lag or something, the movement felt floaty on my computer, but that’s just how UE be sometimes

Mixed:

• Skills could be cool but I don’t know how well motivated that is in this context

I was very confused until I read the controls on the actual game page, but once I did and realized there were different mechanics and whatnot it was much nicer to play. I liked the variety in the abilities, there was some glitchiness, and overall the difficulty was about right. If I could change one thing it’s to add a listing of the controls in-game somewhere.

The camera mouse control is inverted, which is hard to get used to.

I like the ambition of making an open world game in a short jam

Hey! Thanks for playing the game

Our ambition got the better of us and we also got to witness a hefty dose of Murphy’s law where we spent an unusual amount of time chasing our own tails with every possible problem you could imagine (git issues, sound issues, inexplicable glitches and some inexperience with many engine features we wanted to use).

Things like the casino being enterable were on the to-do list, as well as a larger level with more dynamic and moving things to interact with.

The missing sound turned out to be a DSP plugin that only our sound guy had but I didn’t when building the game, which I would have realized sooner if I wasn’t too tired to think of looking for FMOD errors in the UE output log =D We ended up finding the problem a few minutes after the already extended deadline finally closed, so I guess that video is from a post-jam version

Our intent is to at least add the collectibles and some more missing sounds, so the game has a definite end state, some time soon so after the jam people can play it “the way it was meant to be played”

I like it, though it’s in that area where it’s both a puzzle and an action game at the same time, and it would only appeal to someone like me who’s into both. If you’re not good at action games and may have sluggish reflexes or whatever, the game may be too difficult.

Not saying it’s not a valid target audience – just something to be aware of.

In terms of the aesthetic and the feel, it behaves as I’d expect, feels responsive and I’m a fan of the style/look – although I might replace the wall sprite with something else, or overall try to work on making the style more cohesive.

This game is really cool, I was looking for something like this but I only had ten minutes until the end of the rating period. I’ll leave a rating now and then amend this review later after a proper playthrough.

First impressions are strong though, it seems like a creative take on the whole RTS/factorio type gameplay.

I managed to beat it once I realized there was no real reason to ever detach from the rapid fire carriage, final score 5825. Maybe there’s a better strategy involving more detaching that would yield a higher score but I’m not seeing it personally.

Overall I really like the concept, the art and sound is really polished considering the time frame. I’m a big fan of the look and feel of it and the gameplay was pretty compelling as well. It all works well as a whole and it’s quite competently scoped and executed.

Cool take on the Titanfall 2 type thing, I like the art style or the concept of it at least, although the implementation of that concept could use some polish. The scope is really ambitious so this is the exact right amount of polish for a jam. It’s headed in the right direction for sure.

I had some minor issues with the level design where it wasn’t always entirely clear where I was supposed to go. Another problem was that some of the colliders were a bit oddly shaped and I could almost fall through things, or climb things that didn’t seem climbable and so on.

The ending was maybe a bit of an anticlimax but honestly it fits the theme perfectly, and I don’t know what else I was expecting really =D

I really liked it. It’s a bit buggy and could use a bit of polish, but the important parts worked well and were engaging.

The puzzles provided a nice amount of challenge, the art and movement mechanics were pretty nice and polished, and the concept as a whole is quite creative.

There were some issues with collision and the past self pushing the present self around, the menu was a bit glitchy/unfinished, but those are pretty minor nitpicks. Another issue I had was that the “story” prompts embedded into the levels were quite easy to miss. In a full release something like a voice over narration might be better, or providing pauses in the level where they pop up as dialogue boxes (should be easily skippable though if this approach is taken).

Overall, really solid and compelling.

[EDIT: I just noticed the game has 69 ratings, and many of you would probably say that I should leave it unrated to maintain the “nice” number. However, I think that would be considered bad form so I have to ruin it by leaving a rating. Sorry everyone.]

I had a lot more fun with this than I was expecting. The levels were really easy, but they had a sort of flow to them that was just fun to watch, and the music choice (although not made for the jam) was pretty on point, too.

I liked the visuals and the game feel, I just wish there were more levels and that they got a bit harder. Although if you made them harder the design might need to change a bit. Currently the player has to take these “leaps of faith”, assuming that the obvious move is the correct one, and only after landing several seconds later will they know if they made the right move or not. If the levels were made harder there would probably also need to be some way to predict what result an action would have rather than taking these leaps of faith.

So overall, it kind of feels like it’s “on rails” currently, which may be exactly what you’re going for and frankly I find that to be a pleasant experience as well.

I like the western theme, and the lassoing is cool in principle. I played the game to completion and there were a couple of things that bothered me, but overall it was a pretty decent experience.

The good:

• Art style, color palette, etc. were pleasant
• The lasso mechanic, when it worked, was pretty satisfying
• I liked the open world design of the game, very RDR2 of you

The bad:

• I pressed R to reload the revolver maybe five times before learning to avoid that reflex – a different keybind (escape?) might be better for me
• Lasso hit detection was super demanding, you had to hit the things exactly center mass or it wouldn’t register. Quite often the lasso would seemingly pass right through objects or animals.
• If you lasso an object, there’s seemingly no way to detach it and the only way I found was to respawn. If there’s some keybind listed for detaching the lasso I didn’t find it.
• At first I didn’t realize there was a boss and I thought I had to collect an infinite amount of the regular bandits – I thought the Diggle picture on the board refered to the bandits. This one might be on me though since the bandits are a different color.
• Diggle had a tendency to run away from the traps and escape into the rest of the level which was a little bit annoying because the only way to capture him is with the traps as far as I know
• Some music to further improve the atmosphere would be nice

Overall it’s a reasonably well polished experience and most of my problems with it are fairly minor. I think you guys did a pretty good job, congrats!

[EDIT: in retrospect I should have split this up to “the good”, “the bad” and “the ugly” to fit the western theme, but that might have come across as a bit harsh]

It’s not the kind of game I usually play, and I’m not sure how well I can review it.

I liked the atmosphere and the art style, and it was definitely evocative in a way. The puzzles weren’t too difficult, and personally I might have preferred a bit more of a challenge. In terms of the theme of the jam, I think this game fit that pretty well too.

Minor nitpicks:

• Mouse clicks don’t count as “any key” for the screens shown between levels
• Characters could get stuck in the black rectangles/platforms
• The “flatline” sound towards the end was a bit too loud in the mix

Overall I think it’s a pretty well executed game, and a complete package. Solid narrative, alright gameplay, plenty of levels. All around pretty good if you ask me, although I’m probably not the target audience.

Yeah sorry about the tutorial UI, we had a bit of a git mishap and Mark’s last UI updates (pause menu, main menu, probably those tutorial prompts too) as well as the ending he added got wiped out (although it was just another door into a white light exiting from the last room, so mostly a placeholder I guess).

Thanks for the in-depth feedback! I’m still working through a back log of things to review but hopefully I can get to yours in time.

Thanks for playing! We’re working on a bugfix patch to be released some time after the uploads unlock again.

It’s a fun idea, although it’s a bit hard to tell what order the pieces are supposed to be in. I got all the similar wall pieces on the same walls but it didn’t give me any kind of “solved” message, so I’m assuming they need to be in a specific order vertically as well. I think some of my windows are upside down but it’s a bit difficult to say for sure.

Uh, I’m running 1440p at 165hz – it’s hard to say what the problem’s about

It’s unfortunate I couldn’t properly see the full game but hopefully it’s just my system having issues with it (I notice other people in the comments seem fine)

Thanks for taking the time to reply

I like the visual style, the theme and the atmosphere. The chair physics are unreasonably well polished.

The game is challenging, took me at least a dozen tries to complete it. Definitely took a while to realize the intended ways to do a couple of things (initially I was climbing on top of the filing cabinet with the plan, not realizing I could use the drawers – d’oh!).

Overall, cool concept and pretty well executed. I’m not sure what I’d improve about it, although it’s not immediately obvious to me how it’s related to the “joined together” theme – but I can kind of see it.

It’s a really ambitious game, and it plays like an alien fever dream. It was really hard getting past the super dark parts, and a lot of the time it was really unclear to me what I was supposed to do so I just sort of wandered around aimlessly.

I’m not sure what improvements to suggest. I’d say the user experience needs to be streamlined and clarified, but that’s partly what creates this inscrutable and alien atmosphere where the player feels constantly lost, kind of like some retro games from the 80s or 90s. I guess it comes down to what the game is intended to be about.

I liked it, though, as I haven’t seen other games like this in the jam so far.

The hookability is high, I had fun playing this. I’m a big fan of the old C&C games, so the art style is cool – although it could probably use a bit of polish.

The primary thing that bothers me is how close to the edge of the screen the buildings are and it makes things a bit unpredictable/unfair in the sense that it partially takes away the player’s ability to respond to threats appropriately and it’s partly up to chance – although there are strategies to mitigate this too. Personally I’d prefer a slightly more zoomed-out view.

Once I get more time I’ll try to see if I can get above 500 points, the best I could do in a reasonable amount of time was 480 so far. For now there are tons more games to review =D

What am I doing wrong here? https://gfycat.com/EverlastingIllegalBighornedsheep

[EDIT: I mean the character sometimes glitches forward if I swing the torch but not always… Is this framerate dependent? What’s going on? I never even got that far but as soon as I recorded the screen the behavior changed]

Ah, I gave it another shot and I guess I didn’t notice that the “game over” and “you won” looked basically the same. I was expecting it to do something else =D

So it’s basically using the midpoint method? I’m not sure if RK4 is particularly expensive but it’s a bit more of a pain to implement than these explicit methods. Implicit methods are nice though because they handle numerically stiff problems without exploding, and can usually do much larger step sizes.

In any case, you guys did a pretty good job with it =D

Pretty cool game, definitely a unique concept.

I’m a sucker for physics simulation, and n-body problems are tricky in general, although here I guess you’re getting away with it by keeping the number of planets small (as in, not thousands or millions). I’m not sure how physically accurate this implementation is but it doesn’t seem too bad.

Anyway, I had fun playing it and it’s an interesting take on the theme, could use a bit more polish in terms of the UI and other visuals, but it’s alright for a jam game.

The main actionable criticism I’d give, then, is that in the beginning it wasn’t really clear what the green and blue markers were and what the win conditions were. The guide does sort of explain it but it doesn’t really tie the rules together with the actual visuals on screen, and there’s a bit of a disconnect there.

It would also be nice being able to position the objects and set their velocities with more granularity, perhaps with some tools to aid with precise alignment (e.g. getting three equal mass objects to orbit each other a third of a full circle apart from each other at the right kind of tangential velocity to get them to orbit in a stable manner, not super easy to do with the current grid-based solution)

Cool concept, good presentation, level design was good too. I encountered some bugs with the checkpoint system and in particular had to give up when I got stuck in this state: https://i.imgur.com/y4HlX05.png

But yeah, I like how the spring is simple enough to predict the behavior of and how it works both in compression and extension which lets you use it in creative ways.

The control scheme was a bit difficult to internalize but the characters weren’t too difficult to control once I got used to it, so maybe they’re fine as they are, but there could be some room for improvement there. Like you could for instance experiment with controlling both simultaneously.

Oh, and one thing that confused me is that I’m still not sure what surfaces I can stick to and which ones I can’t – it seemed kind of unpredictable since sometimes I could stick to walls and other times I could not. It even let me stick to the air sometimes.

I couldn’t figure it out… Really interesting/unique concept though =D

[EDIT: I mean I think I ran through all the possible combinations too and even that didn’t work for me]

Yeah I noticed all of those keys – how do I complete the first level? I hold D and die before I get to the trees

Yeah I can totally relate on the whole running out of time thing – ours is a complete mess

Cool game, really creative art direction.

However, the mechanics could use a bit of polishing:

• It shouldn’t be possible to enter the level end portal without picking up your loose parts, if you happen to be on top of where it spawns when you kill the last enemy you’re screwed
• The colliders of the dice should be the size of the base of the die rather then the size of the entire silhouette – currently you get stuck between the dice way too easily because the colliders are unintuitive
• Shots have a tendency to fall short of your target. I’m not sure if they have a maximum range or if they drop from the air exactly where you click but it’s a bit annoying
• I feel like the slow down for having more health makes moving around a bit too annoying as well, and I’m not sure it’s a meaningful trade-off or not. I’m not sure what to suggest as an improvement…

Overall, it’s a cool way to make art for a game, and it’s only the second game I’ve seen so far in this jam (out of a few dozen) with a similar approach and the two are completely different. So there’s definitely some freshness in the presentation.

It’s a cool concept but it’s really unfriendly, kind of like a 90’s adventure game where you have to sort of guess at what’s possible and what’s not. There’s no real reason why blowing on candles would open gates or whatever, it’s completely arbitrary. Also nothing in the game says what the goal of the game is, so you’re just sort of dropped in and told what you can do and expected to figure it out by trial and error. Also nowhere in game does it tell you what the keybinds are, so I just walked around aimlessly as the yellow guy until I read the game page and found out I could scroll to switch between them.

Overall, it’s a cool and pretty original concept, but it needs a ton of polish to be playable without making most people rage quit almost immediately.

I like the concept, although it could use some polish and some features. The UI/UX in particular could be improved somewhat, maybe deselect with right click or allow removing pieces without restarting.

It could also be cool if a solar farm only produced X amount of energy and each house required Y amount, or some other additional twist on the concept.

I like the art and sound design, although it took me a game or two to figure out I was supposed to avoid the green ones too. I wish the character moved a bit faster to make it possible to survive a bit longer – right now it kind of sets a maximum possible length to the game (personally I couldn’t make it past 35s) and lowers the skill ceiling.

Overall it’s a fun concept and solid execution, though I do wonder what more one could do with this mechanic or how one might explore this further.

It’s a cool concept, but even after a while I found the controls a bit annoying, and the hitbox was very unforgiving. Maybe if there was a health system or checkpoints or something it would be less frustrating to play.

I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to beat even the first level. Even holding D the whole time, the character can’t even get to the first tree before being set on fire. Is there a sprint key I don’t know about?

Very nice! The game feel and art and music are very satisfying, and the whole implementation shows sound application of fundamentals and there’s good polish.

If I had to change something, I might rework how the ball is controlled, because as it stands it’s a bit hard to make go exactly where you want. It got better with some practice though, and the ability to walk through the ball and it having such a large kill radius compensates for the inaccuracy, so maybe it’s fine as it is. I can’t help but think it seems like a bit of a patch solution.

There’s good variety in enemy types and the difficulty seemed alright. Overall I think the stand-out feature is the look and feel of the game, I think you guys did a really good job with that.

It took me a while to figure out a viable strategy, but my run ended when it spawned platforms so far apart that it was physically impossible to jump high enough to proceed.

I like the art style and the concept is workable, but the mechanics definitely need some polish imo. But yeah, I like how the characters move at different speeds so my obvious first try strategy of moving them on top of each other and playing them as a single character was thwarted.

Thanks! Yeah, Unreal has a lot of common stuff built in which makes prototyping things pretty quick, although it was still a struggle to get all of this working as people can tell from the hefty amount of bugs…

I think I won?

Anyway, the art is charming, but the gameplay could have a bit more to it than going around moving items to people. I guess if the moving was made more interesting or if there was some more difficulty in figuring out who wants what it could be made more interesting. I’m not sure what to suggest as a mechanism for that, though.

The movement and interaction could use a bit of polish, and it could be signaled a bit more clearly which parts you could actually go through, but it didn’t take long to figure out what to do and where you could go. So it’s already pretty good I think.

Overall, it’s nice and relaxing and I like the art, but wish there was a bit more to it. This sort of game seems difficult to make content for quickly since there’s such a huge amount of things to draw and every level or segment you add means a ton of time spent creating art assets.