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You're almost exactly right about the light symbolism. We thought it was a good visual for representing your courage and how small it can feel compared to your anxieties. But all it takes is a little bit of courage to get through the day!

It was supposed to loop back to the main menu. Unfortunately that broke dur8ng export :)

Excited to see what comes next from you!

The only thing I'd say for a critique of the game is that there isn't really a core gameplay loop. It feels like walking around a museum. This could be a conscious choice, but if it is I have to question the choice given the setting of a game jam.

Such a crunchy game. Very visually set apart from anything else I've played so far. It feels like an avant-garde art exhibit where nothing quite makes sense and everything is just a bit uncanny. The PSX filter is such an unrivalled vibe.

Criminally low ratings for the quality of the game.

At first I was a little confused, then I started to get the hang of it and thought it was a bit boring. THEN THE CUTSCENE AND THE MUSIC KICKED IN. Dude it was such a vibe. The calm was really boring (calm) and then the Storm hit like a fucking truck and hooked me instantly.

The cutscene was a perfect setup for the ceaselessness that the game hits you with directly afterward. The music fits the hectic-ness of the gameplay like a glove. Don't even get me started on the building starting to fall apart behind the conveyor belt, such an inspired design choice.

You deserve so many more downloads and ratings. This is quality and I hope you continue to develop and refine this game.

Thanks for sending all the games y'all! I'm going to be taking a break now. I'll start working through the list again either later tonight or tomorrow after work!

Rated and reviewed!

The only real complaints I have is that there isn't much to do other than waiting for dialogue to end. I feel like some kind of core gameplay loop is missing from this project and it makes it fairly un-fun. You're telling a story. The music, atmosphere, and visuals all aid you in that respect leading to a 10/10 on the vibe meter, but the gameplay is closer to a 2.

Something I might like to see to spice up the game and make it a little more interesting to play would be branching story decisions, even if it's something minor like picking which chocolate bar to eat, letting you flip between 2 or 3 channels, something like that.

I really appreciated the somber tone and storytelling, as well as your take on the theme. You really nailed the "Calm" vibe.

Rated and reviewed!

The only real complaints I have about this game is that it feels more like an experience than a game, which isn't bad per se, but doesn't sit with me quite right in a game jam.

Very serene. I really appreciate your creative take on the jam's theme. I think you really nailed the feeling and vibe you were going for and in that regard your game really worked for me. I just wish there were more to do.

Rated and reviewed!

In terms of gameplay this was very very basic, which isn't a bad thing! You took the very limited game mechanics and gave the player a unique way to deal with enemies by giving the player unique platforming designed per enemy.

I would love to see you pursue new mechanics and some more sound effects next time around.

I love your take on the theme, it's actually very similar to ours in Spiral. The idea of the game and story being the calm before the storm in lieu of incorporating it into gameplay.

Thank you for playing! I was very conscious about enemy/spawner placements and the rate at which enemies spawn (It's random per room after level 1). I put a lot of effort into making the combat feel engaging, but not overloading the players with enemies.

The boss theme goes so hard! Sending this straight to our composer. He's gonna love the feedback/critiques. Thanks for playing!

Rated and reviewed!

The only real complaint I have is about knowing when enemies invade. There were 3 bars on my screen and none of them communicated when I was safe to mine until. I felt very pigeon-holed into only mining the closest rocks to my ship because invasion could happen at any time.

Otherwise the balancing was phenomenal. I found myself escaping round after round by the skin of my teeth. Every weapon upgrade felt meaningful and impactful and I love the game being set in space, it's such a unique setting for a roguelike.

What a bangin submission. I hate roguelikes and I'm still left wanting more from Asteroid Jumper

Rated and reviewed!

I did run in to quite a few bugs however. Placing furniture would stick to my cursor and wouldn't let me place it, patrons would sit where tables never existed seemingly randomly, and sometimes menus would refuse to do what clicking the button was supposed to do until I pressed it 5 times.

Apart from being pretty buggy I like the core concept. A cutesy tavern-builder/management-sim was a really interesting take on the theme and you killed it with the visuals/audio. It felt like a cozy rainy day at home.

I'd love to see this project at full scale if you decide to keep working on it down the line

Rated and reviewed!

Solid homie, I failed my first attempt then beat it on my second. The art was quite charming and I really appreciated what you did with the lighting for the second phase of the game. Very similar to what we did in Spiral, I was really happy to see another game going for it.

Rated and reviewed!

Definitely a bit on the janky side, but your core loop is there and I genuinely had a good time.

I ended up just dashing behind enemies and smacking them early on, but as the archers started to spawn in larger and large numbers it became more difficult, then when the longsword guys started spawning in and turning faster than any other enemy I knew I was cooked lol.

Some more polish on the attack hitboxes would make the combat feel a lot more consistent, on top of that some visual for connecting hits like the enemy flashing red or getting knocked back by your attack would go a LONG way to improve the feel of the combat.

Genuinely had a good time though, even through the jank, and that speaks well toward your game design decisions.

Rated and reviewed!

I really appreciate the new addition to the tower defense formula in way of a "Interest" system. I only played two attempts but after dramatically failing the first I went hard trying to min-max interest on playthrough two and it made the genre more exciting than it has been in years for me.

In terms of artstyle I like what you're going for generally, I just have a few minor complaints about readability. As a new player coming in it wasn't easily discernable what the different towers did, I think some kind of visual feedback on the tesla towers would make it significantly clearer to the player what role they play and how they work.

Rated and reviewed! It was fun!

The core gameplay loop is fantastically chosen for the theme of the jam. It really was calm, then it really was storm.

Of course there's a lot of bugginess, and I don't blame you for that. This game has ambitious ideas. As a proof-of-concept it succeeds. It definitely needs to be balanced a little better for a single player, but for what it is I did enjoy it.

I'll definitely give it a play and review. I gotchu.

I'll load it up in a few minutes, I'm excited to check it out!

I'd love to try some interesting games and concepts. I'm mainly interested in games that chose a unique way of interpreting the theme of the jam, and games that mix-up pre-established "rules" in their respective genres.

If that sounds like your game, send it my way and check out mine while you're at it! I'd be happy to leave some solid, constructive criticism and tell you what I appreciated about your game and your vision. I just ask that you take a few minutes to check out mine as well.

Edit:

I'm not feeling too well so some of my teammates might review your game in my stead. We're going to try to get to all of the games sent to us. Thank you for your patience <3

https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-12/rate/2972227

Unfortunately I wasn't able to progress past lab 1 due to a bug. The timer seemed to be going down twice as fast as it should have. I'm wondering if it's a high framerate issue? I've had similar things happen in old Assassin's Creed games.

From what I can gather however there was a lot of love put into this game, I think the visual style, while a bit bland, fits very well with the music chosen at least for the Lab 1 minigame.

If the bug I encountered gets patched I'll come back and give it a proper go. I'm excited to play the rest so I'll leave a preliminary rating right now and update it once I'm able to play the whole thing.

In Spiral you battle manifestations of your anxieties in an effort to stop your spiraling mental health. But once you finally conquer your anxious paralysis you find that the world is still as scary as you thought it was. But that's okay, you're ready to face the storm now. https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-12/rate/2972227

I'll be checking your game out right now.

In Spiral you battle manifestations of your anxieties in an effort to stop your spiraling mental health. But once you finally conquer your anxious paralysis you find that the world is still as scary as you thought it was. But that's okay, you're ready to face the storm now. https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-12/rate/2972227

Your game definitely has character. It had a really fun vibe to it and the music (I hope Nintendo released this for public use) was a solid fit.

I do have to question the gameplay being the right fit for the theme however. Framing your game as a speedrun - do everything fast kind of game doesn't really present any calm, it was all storm.

Overall pretty fun. I appreciate the spin on the standard PvZ style tower defence by having you fishing for your towers between rounds. Though to that end it never really felt like the calm before the storm because of the strict time limit making me want to rush as many towers as I could between rounds.

Switching music to the more rock guitars during the defense portion was a fun choice, definitely changed the feeling when it came on.

I liked your artstyle I thought it was pretty charming. It reminded me of those old fish games where you keep eating other fish and grow your size, I would have loved to see a feature like that just to spice things up a bit.

Otherwise pretty solid submission :D

I appreciate the feedback! Balancing ended up being the last thing we did and due to the time we took setting up core functionality, we weren't able to get it exactly where we wanted it. I'm glad someone mentioned it, we'll be allocating our time better on our next project.

sweet, I'll give it a proper go and make a proper feedback comment soon

A very solid visual concept. I really appreciate how you tied the theme into not only the gameplay but the visuals as well.

As for critiques I'd say that there was some weirdness with the changing platforms. It didn't feel particularly fair that some platform timers would change not just depending on whether you were in heart or mind mode, but seemingly for no good reason within the same mind mode stage. Maybe this could be remedied by a more visual indicator of when they were going to change? I'm unsure.

I'd also say that the movement felt pretty floaty.

Other than that I think you're one of the more creative takes on the theme and I really appreciate that about your game.

"So with all that in mind, we aimed to build a misinformation, grift, deck builder." What a hard fucking line to end on.

A little disappointed there isn't actually a game, but I appreciate the commit to the bit.

"What a loser... You can't hold your taco bell?" Instantly hooked.

It reminds me of those old flash games where you needed to deduce the right order to do things to accomplish your goal. Except this game is infinitely funnier.

A blast from the past with modern humour, I love it. I especially love your justification for the theme. Taco Bell creates a storm like no other.