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MattTheWaz

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A member registered Jun 14, 2020

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That was fun to watch! We had last minute font issues and had to swap to this one, so the pixel bleeding issues were a result of that. 

Still, I was quite pleased for the game to be compared to Rogue Legacy, and to hear that you thought the game mechanics were good. Thank you for sharing this :-)

Yeah, I can empathize with that. 

I was fortunate to have a skilled artist on my team. Your animation far surpasses anything I could manage in a week. I would basically have had the opposite problem, where it would have ended up looking and sounding like garbage.

I wouldn't underestimate the value of aesthetics. They give a game its charm; without it, it's hard to get people to even give it a chance. Hang in there!

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MUST BECOME BIGGER THAN MOUNTAIN.

Game is currently not very game-y, but I had fun eating people none-the-less. Not sure the aesthetic changes did anything, but I did enjoy slowly becoming monstrous. Got flying ability on like day 15, was happy to eat beef for once.

Holy mackerel! This is a fantastic game! Love the music, love the art, love the humor and love some of the surprises. The game feels fresh as hell. It's a very cool concept that I don't really think I've seen anywhere before.

The game feels intense but fair, and learning how to knock the people out was quite entertaining. That big dude on the last stage was a real proper boss-fight.

Only obvious downside is that it seemed to take some time to load some assets when some of the animations were playing out the first time, and it caused the game to hitch. 

Probably the overall best game I've rated so far.

This scores high for originality for me. I think that trying to escape the wolves while trying to manipulate the dog is actually a pretty good mechanic, and could definitely turned into something fun to play for extended periods with just a bit more. I like the dog animation too.

I do wish there was a way to restart the game without refreshing the browser though. 

Hello! What a great character animation set. I really really like the way they run with the bat slung over the shoulder, and that there are separate animations when running left or right to keep the bat in the right hand. That's a small touch, but it really feels good.

It's entertaining to imagine a thug running through a classic Zelda dungeon with a baseball bat. I want to know more about the character.

There's potential here.

A fun little beat-em-up with a fantasy twist. I like the protagonist; it's fun being a mossman dual-wielding sword and staff.

This is a game that could probably benefit from some variety. Maybe variety in terms of creatures to fight, or variety in terms of storylines to decide. I also had a difficult time trying to predict when an enemy would block my attack or not, so I often just mashed the attack button while approaching the enemy. 

I did run into a bug once, where during a screen transition I walked a little to the left and got stuck in the previous section. Overall though, pretty clean.

That seems to be the typical experience. Thank you for sticking with it long enough to understand it!

"It took me a second to realize that the fertility levels of tiles in future loops could be increased based on where you place things, that's a really cool touch."

This is _exactly_ what I was going for. I really wanted the player to find out on their own that the decisions they made in a past generation impacted the fertility levels of the soil, and I was hoping the player would experience a 'eureka' moment. 

This is why some of the suggestions about making the game a little harder to reach explosive scores resonate so much with me. It's currently already possible to figure out the rules of the game, restart on generation 1, then go for an extremely long run. If it were a bit harder, then cross-generational planning would actually be important for getting a good score. 

Your comment made my day. Thank you!

The start of the game is heavily tutorialized, and I made it force the player to do exactly what we wanted by removing other options. I think I went overboard, since most people seem to be confused by the lack of options early on. This is something that would have benefitted from having some people test it out before we released it, but we just didn't have time.

I am glad you enjoyed it though!

Yes, your action menu feedback is pretty consistent with what I've been hearing from other people, but no less appreciated! If we work on this at all after the jam, I would probably make this a priority.

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I am very relieved that there were no game breaking bugs discovered during the jam. There certainly were some just mere hours before we released it >.< . 

Yes, the scope is pretty limited. It was hard just to make something that felt complete at all. Good thing Annikat is good at picking up any job and handling it. 

We have a lot of ideas for how to rebalance and expand the game. We'll have to see if we time around real life obligations to come back and explore its potential.

Thank you! It was fun to make, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out for the jam. For a while we weren't sure it was going to be a good game, but it really came together on Friday when we finalized most of the rules and I realized I was having fun testing it.

3105 is a pretty big score! My best was 6882, and it took quite a while to complete; it felt pretty awesome to score so high. While I was bragging about my score Partheas crushed it and discovered the score counter didn't handle 5 digit numbers very well. 

Yeah, a confirmation would have been a good idea, at least for things besides rocks. I think everyone I've shown the game has at least demolished 1 thing by accident, and it is really punishing.

Yeah hypothetically you could keep playing forever, and if you wanted you could raise the fertility of a patch infinitely. We didn't put an upper limit on fertility. I suppose you could get it high enough that you only need a single field that you alternate using for wheat and vegetables, and then use the rest of the space for shrines and bears. I wonder how high a score is possible.

Yeah the volume slider is a huge quality of life option. It would have been nice to allow the player to change volume while in game though. Partheas handled both the volume slider and the credits bear enlargening. He was absolutely delighted by it. Maybe we should include more easter eggs in the future.

I regret making the unaffordable options disabled in the menu. It is unfortunate that you can't see what things cost until you can already afford them. In general I'd probably want to rework the menu entirely.

Not my usual cup-of-tea, but this is a pretty solid base. The torch mechanic is interesting, though it pretty much just killed me when I was trying to figure out why having more light mattered at all. 

On my 3rd life the pool spawned just next to where I started, so I just used the torch to lure all the wolves over and took them out while taking a swim. After that, just kinda wandered around, wondering if there was more to see.

The music set the atmosphere pretty well and I really enjoyed the way the light played with trees to obscure vision. Really gave a spooky vibe. 

Also, I have to wonder why all the antelope want this druid dead.

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What an interesting game. The theming was great, and I like how the game stays neutral about which ending is best; the player can choose for themselves. The consequences for the choices are hard to predict until having started seeing the second run. 

There is a good bit of charm in this game too. The ox bit was really quite unexpected and funny, and so was the fisherman sacrificing himself to the waters. The sound the humans make was pretty entertaining too. EDIT: Also the frogs. So many frogs.

The controls are probably the weak point for this game, though certainly not a huge problem once getting used to it. Considering how little platforming the player needs to do, it was an interesting choice to have the player control a character, but it was surprising to see the landscape had changes over time.

Overall, a surprisingly ambitious game. 

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At one point during development, any time the player did something they weren't supposed to do in the tutorial, the message "BEARS" would float up from the mouse cursor :-D

The general idea for a farming sim / generational continuity came together pretty early on; it allowed us to get working on the project not too long after the jam started. Nature served well as the basis for folklore, I think because it is always doing its thing whether people are looking or not, which presents the opportunity for uncertainty and legend.

We had talked about having more interaction with other people, and allowing dialog to help drive the narrative forward, but there wasn't enough time to focus on the writing, the programming, the art and music all together. Big dreams.

Thank you!

Annikat really did a great job making all the portraits. I was really impressed; one night we didn't have any, the next night we had like 15. I think she really enjoyed making them. She also did the music, and she composed it really fast too.  I'm very impressed by her speed and skill.

That snake is serious business. I couldn't figure out if swinging the sword was damaging things, and if you're far into the maze at all and the snake finds you, it's basically over.

The maze itself does a good job at being a maze. Certainly felt lost at times. Finding furniture or the dragon skeleton and piles of gold, or the bookshelves/cupboards felt nice, because it gave a sense of progression, even when I wasn't finding any of the pick-ups.

Do the pickups do anything? I think the green one healed me, but aside from that I was having a hard time knowing if they were there to help the player in the maze, or if they were simply the objective.

Hah! I hope I didn't overstate it. It's maddening in the same way that crosswords are maddening. The answer is on the tip of my tongue, just out of reach. I don't actually mind the difficulty because there's no real consequence to not knowing the proverb. 

I think you mentioned in another comment that it's not much of a 'game' because it's more of a learning/training tool, and I agree with that. I don't think that's a bad thing, because it did help me learn some proverbs that I didn't know, and helped me realize that I had mis-learned some of them, which was valuable in its own right.

If you _did_ want it to be more 'game-like' and add stakes to it then I think you'd maybe want to address the 'stick', or maybe not. Trivia is a game, and though not everyone loves it, trivia is quite popular.

Being able to detach your head and use it to scout is an interesting concept. There were times when it didn't want to return to me, and I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong or if there was a bug. I do think the controls were a little difficult, since scouting usually involves dropping the head down a pit, and managing the jump and releasing the head took some time to get right.

This gets me thinking about what other types of interaction could exist with the detaching head concept. I think demonstrates potential, but is rough in it's current state.

This engages the same part of me that enjoys crosswords. The game is very simple, and I kept telling myself "I'll stop after this one" but the next one would pop up and I'd end up wanting to solve it. Spent longer on this than I expected.

Some of these I just didn't know, so it could have been nice to have a clue or two. Some of them were there in my brain somewhere and didn't want to come out, and it was maddening. Some of them are slightly different than I remembered and that was also maddening. I guess what I'm saying is my bad memory is maddening.

Had fun though :-)

The reward for spiritual currency is longer lifespan. I would like to do more to make it clear that is happening. I think most people I've chatted with about this have had something to say about the controls, so you are definitely not alone there.

Also, the pun was Annikat's idea. As soon as she proposed it we all pretty much instantly agreed it was the 'rite' name. It still makes me giggle when I think about it.

Wow! Very cool! I really enjoyed this game; it's really up my alley. I got to the 6 coin area before I got hopelessly stuck. Some of the jump puzzles are quite tough! At times I felt like I was solving it in some unintended way by abusing screen transitions to refill energy (like getting the 5th energy in the green area; I came from the room on the left by coming from below).

I might come back and try to complete it some time, but I worry about wandering around aimlessly. Also I found a way to get stuck in the 6 coin area right off the bat. Was I supposed to only have 5 max energy in there?

It took me some time to get an understanding of what I was meant to do. It was helpful that the controls were listed in the description below, and I didn't realize for a long time that I could move the trees. Occasionally the pathways would be spontaneously cleared out and all my traps and trees would disappear without warning. I think I'd like to at least have a clue that was about to happen.

Overall, the art is nice and the concept is quite original. The game feels hectic and it feels like you can't really stop the humans, only delay them.

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What an entertaining idea. No, there was no jumpscare moment in the game, so you didn't miss anything there. The dialog does make a point to tell a story about bears and nightmares; maybe it could have shown some visuals for that (though I wouldn't want to make the game any less chill!)

Is this inspired by Papers Please? This is an interesting concept, and I like how it gives the player a simple job while also feeding them stories about where the items came from. It's harder to tell someone no after you hear their stories.

Art style is great too.

Very cool! Honestly a very solid concept, and does a good job using folklore as a framing device. After working on my game all week, it was nice to let loose and just eat a bunch of people :-).

Interesting concept. The atmosphere is quite well done in the second half, and I really enjoy that the game starts by having you be naughty right after asking if you are obedient. Immediately puts you to the test. Turns out being naughty is more fun.

Thank you for your feedback. It is really nice to hear words of encouragment. 

I agree that it is a little unclear what the player is supposed to be accomplishing, and I would have liked to address it had there been time. 

Yes, a good amount of time went into this, but it was fun working with my friends on it. 

Yes, we pretty much agree the balance is off, and would like to make the cross generational buffs matter more. I also think that we would need to improve communication about the game mechanics, and provide better in game feedback about what is changing season to season.

I would have liked to add a replant option for the spring but time limitations make that infeasible. 

Thank you for the thoughtful comment. 

Thank you :-). I am glad the game appealed to you. 

Thank you for the feedback!

Yes, I suppose if you're looking for the next dialog, it is in your best interest to not try to succeed too well and skip ahead. That's a little unfortunate, but I'm very impressed you got as far as you did!