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Thanks for playing and for the kind words!

P.S. I love your avatar.

I absolutely love the blob animations. Getting to max size and eating every human, car, and rat in sight was a blast! You did a good job adding multiple mechanics to really take advantage of the change in size like the elevators, destructible blocks, tiny gaps to squeeze between, etc. A really strong use of the theme and a fun game overall.

Our team actually had "giant blob that eats everyone" as one of our initial ideas before we settled on our game--great minds think alike!

It means a ton to us that you remembered our little game from last year and came back to play this one. Thanks so much for following us. I'm off to play your game right now!

Yes! That's the experience we were hoping to create! Thanks for your feedback!

A very good point, and one we considered! Like many jam entries, we felt the siren call of making the game as difficult as the systems would reasonably allow, but we ultimately opted to give a bunch of extra padding for accessibility and to allow a non-stressful experience for the player.

Originally, instead of money, we had a turn limit that was fine tuned with each recipe. However, balancing was difficult, as a series of unlucky draws could make success trivial on one test, and nearly impossible on another test of the same round with the same turn limit. Blackjack has the same problem, but makes up for it by being composed of numerous very quick rounds that deal with smaller numbers. By switching to a money system, we made it more thematically intuitive to do stuff like give refunds, and have the savings from a lucky round carry over as a parachute for an unlucky round. And for a jam game, we made do with that.

Personally, I think the final form of this as a released game would look like an endless roguelike where the demands of a round gradually overtake the rewards, kind of like Balatro. We actually had it set up to procedurally generate rounds, but we opted for a more defined experience for the jam. If someone's going to only play our game for a few minutes, we want them to get the idea, get rewarded for using the systems we created, and leave with a positive impression.

But you're right that things like appraisal cost need to be fine tuned. We went back and forth on it. If it's cheap, there's no real reason not to do it every time. But if it's expensive, at a certain point it becomes more worth it to spend that money mining more for smaller ores, and then there's no point to there even being an appraisal tool! Interesting problems that we didn't get to solve because we were adding particles. That's jams!

It's the best concept I've seen so far from the jam.

It's so simple, in its art, in its premise, in its execution. It takes almost no time to grasp the rules, but it takes careful thought to figure out how far you can go within those limitations.

It brings to mind Baba Is You in its minimalist aesthetic and high implications. It brings to mind Line Rider in its potential for creative self expression. It brings to mind all the fun physics-based puzzle flash games of the aughts in its accessibility.

It would feel just as at-home in an art gallery as it would in an engineering student's software kit.

Scroll wheel zoom is backwards, and sometimes drawing on the edges of the frame will instead pan the screen, which in itself is a functionality that doesn't feel great to use in its current state. These are problems that can be fixed in a few lines of code. Those lines are all that separate this from being a complete and fully realized product.

Absolutely, utterly elegant.  Dots and lines. White and black.

L E W D

Not the prettiest game, but probably the most enjoyable I've played in the jam so far. Something about these games where you outcompete everything around you and slurp them up through a swizzle straw just feels really satisfying. There's not much challenge (so long as you prioritize offense and don't grow too big too fast) but I'm happy to see a game that realizes that driving the premise is more important than challenge in a jam game.

Though of course, any game based around "scale" invites potential problems of optimization. I decided to hang out around 38" height and try to pump up my upgrades as much as possible -- the game eventually slowed to a crawl. The only thing that should have been increasing load at that point would be the increased bullet count, but the slowdown persisted even when not firing and no enemies on screen. Could be drawing all those vines and spores and particles is just too much, or could be there's a memory leak somewhere. I played the .exe, not sure how the browser version performs. Something to keep in mind if you decide to expand the idea in the future.

All in all, I'm glad Mark showcased it. It's a very yummy game, and of all the games he's streamed so far, this was the first that made me want to go install it myself.

Oh I forgot there is one lizard billionaire. But we didn't put him in the game because he doesn't represent the game's values.

Congratulations! You unlocked a SECRET LIZARD!

There are no lizard billionaires. Just amazing public infrastructure.

Emma is NOT a math person

- Reed

Thanks for the thorough feedback! This is a game that went through a LOT of conceptual revisions during development. At one point we did have plans for a stage like what you're describing where you shape the scale. In the end, though, I think the gameplay element that we felt delivered the most value was the "blackjack with extra steps" concept. 

Was that the right choice? We'll have to check the history books in 40 years for the answer!

-Reed

(P.S. You're absolutely right, these are some precious little lizzos)

Not at all, the problem is definitely not on your end! We made it a goal to make a game with absolutely no text in it whatsoever, and while we're proud of our efforts, there's no denying that the game needs better conveyance. We had ideas for how to visually guide the player through their first round, there just wasn't enough time to implement them.

Thanks for giving our game a try and writing feedback! Genuine critiques like this are as good as gold!

- Reed

I love the idea, but I really struggled to figure out where my foot was going to land!

Thank you so much! This is such a nice compliment to receive and helps make the 96 hours feel worth it!

HAH --  you would not believe the amount of times our team would be playtesting and someone would randomly go, "...Oh, crap, I busted." So you weren't the only one accidentally overshooting a lot.  (Look, I'm an art person, not a math person!!!)

Thank you so much for playing! :)

-Emma

Great idea and execution! The pixel art is very nice and the game fits the theme well. I found some levels took a few too many throws into the void before I actually hit what I was aiming at (it's interesting how hitting your target gets progressively easier as its size increases!), but the fun of the game kept me around to complete the full thing. The moments where my little robot would careen through space as I crossed my fingers that he'd land where I intended made for a satisfying payoff.  Nice work!

Very polished and slick design work here! Apt commentary about the state of AAA games aside, I really enjoyed the tetris puzzle against the clock mechanic. So much so that I found myself wishing I could just play that over and over again! Nice work!

This is by far my favorite game from the jam so far. Our team of four all played this together and were laughing out loud as the game got increasingly chaotic. I couldn't get over how funny the music and sound effects were, and they perfectly fit the vibe. Incredible job!

Also a TRAILER for a game jam game?! WHO ARE YOU GUYS?!

When I started playing this one I was a bit skeptical as to if the theme was going to show up in a meaningful way. because at first it felt like just navigating a pretty dry maze. Thankfully, once the theme kicked in, the excellent game design choices got to shine. 

The pixel art is of course also phenomenal. Seeing the light produced by the bullets cast onto the skeleton's head showed how the artist pays attention to the little things in a way that really elevates the aesthetic in the smallest of places. (I loved the spider on the webs!)

Congratulations on completing your first jam! When I first booted up the game and saw your art, I said "this is their first game?!" Really a fantastic accomplishment!

I really like the setting. Finding clever ways to cheat using stuff lying around is a fun game premise!

Very cute art style! It stood out to me right away when I saw the title image. The music was also super cute! I loved it!

This is a different team member from makegamergirls. This was super impressive! The controls never fully clicked for me, but mechanically I love the idea and the light action-puzzles were very satisfying. I have a running joke with people about adding a boss during a game jam and how it's a disastrous idea, but you pulled it off!

The assets on this looked amazing! Really polished and loved the goofy items you could buy. My favorite was the punching hand with spikes. Nice work!

I played this game mostly based on the aesthetic of the title card and the experience did not disappoint. I love the art, the cozy concept, and the funky music. It was relaxing and very satisfying. Now I want to eat some cabbage. Great job!

I think that the low-res art here really emphasized the bleak scenario, and the elementary understanding of the situation that the robot seems to have. Condensing a whole dramatic worldwide story into the background of a singularly focused robot is a really cool narrative trick, and I think the gameplay of just doing one single thing forever drove it home all the more. My biggest request would be for more clarity with the mechanics. I also let go of right after clearing the first screen, which then made me fail and less interested in replaying. That aside, very positive impression! Thanks!

I really enjoyed this game! The art looks great, I really felt like I was a little ant in a big world. Music was super relaxing and really enhanced the experience of making little trails for my ant friends and upgrading my colony.

This is a really impressive game to have been made in only 96 hours! The tutorial is a great touch and makes your game really accessible. The assets are beautiful -- love the dragon and the shiny gems! Having both game mode options is really nice -- chaotic was super fun, but tactical helped me learn how to play the game more easily. Great job!!

This game was really cute! It was fun to get a giant army. I loved the little clinking sound of the swords.

The sound effects and voice acting were great!! This was a really unique concept too. Nice work!

LOVE the art! What amazing talent!

This is a really cool concept! I can see you were starting to think about systems that would require you to work both inside and outside the shell -- as is, there isn't a whole lot to do outside the shell aside from make readjustments if the opening is against a wall and the one spin block.

The music and scenario made me feel like there was a sense of urgency, but the gameplay was about slow, fine control. I think what would make this mechanic REALLY sing would be if there were some external tasks that required attention -- you need to defend or maintain something outside your shell, then go spelunking inside a shell, then race back to repair/refortify whatever fell to pieces while you were gone.

The neck mechanics feel so good, especially the retraction sequence. The moments waiting for it to complete are phenomenal, and could be a great source of tension if there were something you were rushing to get to ASAP. Really driving the feeling of being "overextended" if you'll pardon the pun.

This is a really creative take on the theme, with a lot of juice and a core mechanic that just feels really fun to use! Very very nice work!

The little doctor is adorable!

Thank you so much for playing and commenting!

Also interested in a physical copy!

Oh, man! Well, our "Enjoyment" rank this year was the highest we've ever had for a single category, so we were still very pleased! Next year we'll have to allot time to make a flashier Title Card to attract more reviewers.

This is brilliant--had a blast playing it!

Absolutely love the cat and mouse sprites! The visuals and sounds overall feel like a perfect fit. Our team actually thought about pac-man briefly, but I deemed it too difficult for me to pull off in a weekend--bravo for going for it and doing a good job on the execution!

Wow! Thanks so much for playing and rating it so highly!

This looks so good!! I love the art. If you reply once you upload after the jam period, I’d love to play it!!

Thank you for playing! I love that the main complaint is wanting more levels—a good problem to have. We squeezed as much as we could in the time, but alas!