itch.io

• The game works!
• The controls are nice and simple
• The art is great
• The theme doesn't really fit here because a lot of the debuffs are actually good and not inconvenient (such as invisibility or superspeed).
• Overall pretty decent game, just needs more of a connection to the theme.

- Yax Patel

Thank you!

We believe the issue should be fixed now. The fixed version has been uploaded and you can download it now. Thanks for letting us know.

Thanks, we will look into it and fix it.

Check out the game on Itch.io https://mash-backslash-studios.itch.io/backend-bruno.

We, 2 high school students have finally released our first game that we have been working on for 9 months!

You are a backend developer, and one night you get sucked into the game you have been making for your company. What do you do now?

Earn points by mowing down hordes of zombies every round to buy better gear and skills!

Play the game to earn bits which can be used to buy cool weapon camos.

Don't forget to explore the game because there are secrets waiting for you.

Enjoy playing Backend Bruno and good luck!

I like this! A randomly-changing and unorthodox control scheme challenges your keyboard knowledge and gives the game a real sense of urgency. I found myself rushing to hit keys in order to finish a level before the controls switched. I really enjoy the concept and take on the theme. A huge bonus to this project is the leaderboards: I was very impressed to play the game and see how my time stacks up against the people in this jam's community! This is a super creative and well-thought out idea, and fits your game perfectly.

I think an area of improvement for the game is art and polish. Although the inner workings of the game are very impressive, the exterior appearance can be a bit simple at times. While navigating the main menu, I sometimes ran into blank grey screens and got confused. All in all, I enjoyed playing this game!

- Justin

An overall cool entry! I'm a fan of rhythm games and I also play the piano, so I found this to be a fun challenge. The selection of songs as well as different control scheme options made the game quite replayable. The timed gameplay made me wonder how the code behind the game worked, so that adds to Technical Achievement. My favorite part of the game is the value it brings educationally: due to the constantly flowing gameplay, it tests your ability to hit keys without looking down. This is especially fun and hectic when you check all of the available control options. I could see this game used as a fun way to teach someone to touch-type. Good job guys!

There are a few bugs that could be squashed to improve the overall polish! If you press a key more than once while it's supposed to be held, you can get more than 1 point per key. This can be repeated to get a higher-than-perfect score. See the screenshot below for my extra high score!   - Justin

I think this is a fascinating and extremely creative interpretation of the bonus theme! Using the keyboard to navigate the safari while learning more about various animals was very charming and enjoyable. I am impressed with the art style for two different environments as well. The game had a good amount of levels, extending its playability. Overall, I think this game fits the Bonus Theme like a glove and has a good chance of winning!

An area that could be improved is variation in the gameplay: once the player learns how the lion encounter and navigation works, there is not much else which challenges them throughout the experience. If you added different encounters (like a pitfall for example), that could have added to the drama of the game!

- Justin

This concept is wacky, creative, and almost perfectly executed! This game clearly shows high levels of Technical Achievement: the game is made in 3D, runs smoothly, and features impressive animation work. It is also polished: given the time frame, implementing a good tutorial is a big bonus. I also really enjoyed the slow-motion cutscene when throwing the super chalk, it definitely added to the flow of the game. The creativity and skill which came together to make this submission is very, very impressive!

Although I thought the gameplay is excellent, it had a few small flaws. I think the game could have been improved if there was a penalty for hitting students that weren't being loud: I found myself simply spamming my keyboard in the later levels instead of using muscle memory to precisely aim. If this system was implemented, I think the game would be a perfect introduction to touch-typing. Additionally, there was a bug where I could push Enter/Return repeatedly before a level started, and that would allow me to skip levels very quickly. Overall, I am highly impressed, well done souls-panic!

This is such a great game especially considering you're a beginner to coding and game jams! The art style is super cute, which definitely adds to the project since you created it yourself. While playing the game, I did think it was quite technically impressive: Pygame can be hard to work with sometimes, so many of the gameplay aspects made me wonder how they were made using that library. I really liked the "swiping" control scheme: this is exactly the type of innovative controls that we envisioned when we created this jam.

I think the main area for improvement is Polish and the length of the game. I did run into one crash, but it's forgivable since it's  ✨Pygame✨. There is only one level, which makes the game short but sweet. Nicely done!

- Justin

I love almost everything about this game! It fits the theme perfectly, the art style is quirky, gameplay is super fun, and the tower defense concept is so excellent. The technical aspects of the game are really quite impressive, and the fact that everything (including sprites/art) was made within 60 hours makes it even more so. 

An area that could have used some adjusting is difficulty. I did find the gameplay to be really satisfying when mowing down 10 waves at once, but I never felt threatened by the enemies in the game, even with an incomplete board. That being said, this is a really awesome submission that should be admired.

- Justin

This is an excellent entry! It's a really creative concept which translates beautifully into a simple, yet rewarding arcade game. The gameplay is engaging: little enemies crawl across your keyboard on screen, and you have to "squash" them by pressing the real keys on your keyboard. Over the time I played it, I developed a few strats like double-hitting enemies with two keys. There's also a key cooldown which prevents spam to a reasonable degree. This shows that the game is well thought-out and really fits the theme.

I would say that something that could be improved slightly is polish. Once you run out of lives, pressing play again does not replenish your lives, preventing you from playing again unless you refresh the page. Otherwise this is a very solid game!

- Justin

This is an excellent entry! It's a really creative concept which translates beautifully into a simple, yet rewarding arcade game. The gameplay is engaging: little enemies crawl across your keyboard on screen, and you have to "squash" them by pressing the real keys on your keyboard. Over the time I played it, I developed a few strats like double-hitting enemies with two keys. This shows that the game is well thought-out and really fits the theme.

I would say that something that could be improved slightly is polish. Once you run out of lives, pressing play again does not replenish your lives, preventing you from playing again unless you refresh the page. Otherwise this is a very solid game!