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You got a spiffy puzzle game here! I love that you have to factor in the mortality and reproducability of the robots into the solution to the levels -- a clever twist for sure. I do think there are some parts where you could slow down the fireball spawns, and I sometimes had trouble keeping track of which character was which (I know you have different colors to mean different things, and you use their eyes as a signifier of activity, but you may want to consider making it even more obvious -- perhaps a really obvious antenna on the top of their head that lights up or goes dark?)

But overall brilliant game! Keep up the good work!

Thank you for the in-depth review! I will definitely take your notes about probability under advisement as I work on the next game (here's a sneak peek: you will read words and roll dice).

[[BE PROUD OF YOURSELF FOR LEAVING CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.]]

[[IF YOU ARE NEITHER THE AUTHOR OF THIS GAME OR OF THE PARENT COMMENT, CONSIDER THE PARENT COMMENT AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK.]]

[[HAVE A GOOD DAY.]]

Thanks for the feedback!

I hadn't thought of it that way, but I do see it -- thank you for your perspective

That puts you in a position to reward players for starting waves sooner: maybe a damage multiplier?

I wish the barrels had done more damage to the red guys, but I get that physics are hard to come by in a tight time constraint and a WebGL build -- great job making it as performant as it is on web (though full screen tanks the framerate on my machine [using FireFox]).

I can't say I agree with the decision to kick the player back a level to "prove their skill" when success in the game is in no small part based on luck. It doesn't feel frustrating but fair, it just feels frustrating (that said, I could behind it if there were a way to die on Level 0 -- just introduce Death Mode into the array of glitches that can be served on the first level -- and get to "glitch" levels like Level -1).

That said, your use of sound and visuals are impeccable. Excellent work there. With some mechanical polish I think you'll have a stupendous game.

I didn't mind having to click all the time, once I realized that I needed to be hitting it fast, then I got the platforming down (though, for accessibility reasons, you may consider using OnKey/Button instead of something like OnKey/ButtonDown -- you can still keep the stepping movement, but let holding a key down allow the player to advance at a set rate of steps -- this allows you to still have quick button mashing, but also make the game playable by folks who find button mashing challenging).

What I did mind was the following bug: shooting green robots takes you back to the beginning of the game. This is absolutely too punishing. I quit playing at the level where you have to dance around all the green guys up the tower and then down those stairs -- I was sent back to the beginning twice from that level.

It's a shame, because I think there's a lot of potential to make a really cool platformer with an interesting story. I would definitely like to see a polished version of this game where there is a power progression: start with just your jump and side to side movement for a couple levels, then give players the laser, then give them the ability to shoot backwards, then give them a rechargeable jet pack they can use to boost in mid air.

I know time constraints are rough, and you did really well considering this was your first jam (it was mine too!). Your use of sound is on point, I think its spareness works in its favor (you can take advantage of a spare soundscape to make location-based sound/music even more meaningful by its absence from the rest of the game).

You have a solid foundation for an excellent game here. Keep up the good work!

I had the best cat! I wish I could have seen the competition though, maybe in the house next door (just a peek, enough to know if I need to be stealing their cats or not).

How would one go about failing here? Are there other mystery cats? Do I have to be holding my best cat when the timer ends?

Still, great game! Keep up the good work!

If you think about it, it is the apotheosis of your game's core thesis: the player wants to say something but the structure of the game forces the PC to say something else, undercutting the player's sense of agency and choice. Crashing the game just when the player's choices are about to pay off is the very epitome of "Out of Control."

Though I am curious -- and you may consider this if it isn't in the game -- do the player's choices in the first half have any bearing on the story in the second half?

This is cool little puzzle game! I would definitely take some time to really polish your input tracking and state changes, since I had a couple of failures that didn't feel entirely fair (namely getting stuck on grapple points).

But considering the time constraint, y'all did a great job. Well done, and keep up the good work!

I didn't hear any sound in the web-build, which is a shame, cause there's some excellent potential for Really Juicy Sounds in this game.

I love the core mechanic, and the shooting and swinging both feel really good. I will say that there is a bit of a bug where shooting the harpoon into things automatically pushes your car to be perpendicular to the point of contact -- I used this to get out of a couple jams, but it may not be exactly the physics experience that you want.

But other than that, this was a really fun game! Keep up the great work!

This was the most soothing game I've played thus far. I was getting some digital clipping as the complexity of the soundscape opened up: if you revisit this idea, make sure to watch the volume of your audio sources as they all turn on, and be careful about balancing them.

But with that said, I think you could definitely make more levels for this game with different challenges, maybe have a "par" for each one so the player has an idea of how many shots they should be trying to take (though don't punish them for going over).

All in all, great game and excellent music. Keep up the good work!

I love the crunchiness of the SFX! I wish there had been some background sounds, but that's fairly minor.

I couldn't beat the machine on my own! It grew tired of my insolence and incinerated me.

You have a really cool game here, criminally underrated. Keep up the good work!

I played on hard-mode by using a notebook computer. Your next game should look at the internal thermometer and tell you to make your computer really cold or really hot.

But way to use the very medium of digital games to your advantage. Excellently done!

I played through until I got to the date with the boy when this cropped up:

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object oMain:

Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [0,10] out of range [1,10] - -1.convoTree(100038,10)
at gml_Object_oMain_Draw_64
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_oMain_Draw_64 (line -1)

But up until that point, I thought this was a funny little game. You've done excellent work on the audio and visuals considering the tight time constraint. Do watch out for fitting the lines into the UI, some of them were running off the edge of the game's window.

But great work over all! Keep it up!

An absolutely infuriating single-player experience: well done!

This is the kind of game that makes me want to have more than just my hands on the keyboard -- having to catch the food just killed me. Maybe consider having a small number of allowable "mistakes" for each mini-game, or an overall "customer satisfaction" slider that degrades as you fail in any mini-game: main thing to do there would be to make sure to balance it such that a player couldn't just let one game fall by the wayside and keep rolling on the strength of their performance in the others.

But with that said, y'all made an excellent game here. Great job!

I loved this cat-herding catastrophe. Your descriptions of the cats were wonderful, as was the general chaos that ensued once the starting gun was fired. I ended up coming in second place after staving off the lead cat with a few well-placed cucumbers.

I don't know how you would even polish this. Longer race-courses? A curved track? More cats? Maybe a lil' tickler with a long recharge time, or a laser pointer.

But that said, y'all did great work with this. Well done!

No: thank you for making a wonderful game

Wait, I could move the camera? I would maybe add a "How To Play" slide accessible from the main-menu, just to help dweebs like me.

That said, this was an incredible game. The first time I played the first level, I was struck in equal measures with shock, horror, compassion, and rage. Your use of sound is impeccable -- I would consider mixing in destruction sounds into your sound cues; stepping on different things yields far different sounds depending on if you're crashing through a building or swiping at cars with your tail. I think the cute sound of the foot-prints really works for what you're going for here.

Maybe use the terrain tools to make some impassable mountains that hem the player in, and are a bit more harmonious with your aesthetic than indestructible blank walls (though the LOOMING WALLS are my favorite part of any coastal city).

But over all, you've made a wonderful little maze-running game with a cool twist. Keep up the good work! I'd love to play this after you get a chance to polish it to a shine!

This is an excellent arcade-style game! I worked hard and my manager rewarded me. Truly, this is the best game about the folly and fury of supply-side economics and so-called consumer-discipline. This game made me a communist.

But in all seriousness, about the only thing I would add would be pick-ups: a big funnel to catch more things, a mouth-widener, a health-pickup to make it harder for my boss to fire me, an orally-mounted vacuum tube. Just something to help keep the variety up (though the items do an excellent job as it is!) and to help with balance once the game really starts throwing things at you.

But with that said, excellent work! This is one of my favorites I've played hands down. Keep it up!

This is one the best-feeling and most fun shoot-to-move games I've played! I'd say you have your core character controller down pat. I also like the decision to leave it up to the player when the next wave begins -- I think that's important when they don't have control, so good thinking there.

Where'd I'd love to see a little more polish is on the level art. It was sometimes disorienting to be flying way up high, and if there was a background layer with some kind of pattern or image on it (which nevertheless doesn't distract from fore-ground action or conceal enemies, items, or the player) that would make "grounding" myself easier.

Honestly, I'd just love to see more levels. I think you have a really strong game here! Keep up the good work!

By then, the game will be a bit better balanced (don't worry, you will have still have had to wait!) and spelled better in some places. Thanks for playing!

I love the way you tutorialized the "interruption" mechanic. I would weigh the option of showing the player how much time they have left to answer before things move on without them -- think about The Walking Dead and especially Oxenfree; the latter game especially sought to make silence as meaningful a choice as any other dialogue.

I applaud you for getting all of this done in just 48 hours! I'd love to play a polished version once you have some time to come through and touch stuff up.

Great work overall!

This is the best-feeling game I've played in a long time on aesthetics and idea alone. I love playing as an invincible god dog of joy!

I would easily drop money on a polished version of this game, provided y'all added:

• more levels
• more things to do in each level
• maybe a cute animation of the dog swimming around when you hit the ocean (e.g. let the camera finally come off the dog's back and hover above the water as they swim around)

I'm just spitballing, I'm sure y'all could come up with even better ideas than that. Overall, excellent work. I love this dog

Puns and honesty are my two favorite things, and I'm glad they are both on full display in this game 10/10

I want to play the full version when it comes out. You have a very strong start here, and a wonderful atmosphere. Squash those bugs and make this game shine! Keep up the good work!

The drifting feels so good -- y'all absolutely nailed it!

I do wish there had been more of an "easy" tutorial on what the green rings do. As it stands, the first green ring is only accessible after you pull off a pretty advanced drift. Be on the lookout for other little level-design-difficulty-scaling gotchas there. I would definitely encourage you to get a round of concerted playtests (besides this jam) where your players record themselves playing and provide spoken feedback as they play -- I think y'all could learn a lot from such a process, and really get some excellent insight into your game that you could use to polish it to a gleaming shine.

Great work all around! Keep it up!

Your art and animation are incredible! I love the way this game looks and sounds.

I do wish there had been more pickups to replenish my fire-extinguisher -- I definitely didn't have enough to win the game; I barely managed to put out one sector of fires as it is. I also didn't notice anything happening after I put out all the fires, so I was confused as to whether I had actually accomplished anything, mechanically speaking.

That said, you have a solid foundation for a game here. I'd love to play an action adventure game with this style. Keep up the great work!

This was the game I needed! I love the variety of characters and the relaxation that comes from relinquishing control. I do think you could have a bit more fog so that the level doesn't pop into existence so abruptly, but I do get that time constraints are tough. Great work overall!

I like the concept you're playing with here! If you want to revisit this idea in the future, I think it could be cool to have the Player Character slowly come to a realization that they are an avatar of the player. Keep up the good work!

I like the idea of an asymmetric race, and the execution of the core ideas is excellent. Considering the time constraint of the jam, y'all did great work. I'd love to see the game after you have a chance to really polish the aesthetics and AI -- as it stands, it feels like the racers get stuck on geometry easily; I was using my powers to get my opponents unstuck so they could try to keep racing me but to no avail.

That loop up in the top right corner is hard on the AI. Have mercy!

Joking aside, great job! Keep it up!

No joke, Flood is one of my favorite albums of all time

I wish the controls were a little bit more slippery -- take a look at the original Asteroids to see how they handle inertia and player movement.

As it stands, the game feels a bit too easy -- I only ended up losing controls because I flew my ship into an asteroid on purpose. There are a few ways you could go about adjusting the difficulty:

• introduce inertia to player movement (see Asteroids)
• have more asteroids moving faster
• restrict the play space to a single area overseen by a static camera; when the player goes out of bounds at one edge of the camera, they are teleported to a corresponding point on the other side (again, see Asteroids)

I would also encourage you to make sure your UI scales properly: It took me a bit to notice the elements in the bottom corners: consider moving them to the top of the screen, since I think players' eyes are more naturally drawn there in arcade games.

But considering the time constraint, y'all made an excellent foundation for a really fun game. Keep up the good work!

I think you have a solid foundation for a game here, but it could definitely use a lot of polish. It seems that you over-scoped for the time constraint: consider refining just the racing part, as there's still a lot of good work you can do there.

For instance: I was able to get my bike into a space between lanes where cars didn't spawn -- I didn't have to touch the controls for the rest of the game; I could have gone on that way until my computer died or the power went out. If you introduced some control drift, then the player would have to be more actively driving (and you would have been more in line with the prompt!).

The "unlockables" system becomes broken because the core racing game is easy to cheese -- I got 50,000+ coins by just getting in a sweet spot and doing a wheelie until I got bored and crashed my bike. Then I was able to unlock everything.

Here are some bugs I noticed in the core racing game:

• distance counter doesn't count right
  
• trying to start a level without actually selecting the level locks the player in a broken loading screen
• clicking on "Watch" does nothing -- I presume this is supposed to serve me an ad?
• initial acceleration with forward doesn't work -- I speed up by using the brake

I'll say again that -- for the jam -- you should have focused on making a tight core-game-loop so far as the motorcycle racing is concerned. Such a game would be really fun, and it's unfortunate that -- as the game stands -- the racing is hampered by a buggy and, frankly, unnecessary menu system.

If you want to make a game to monetize, focus on making it polished and fun before you try to start integrating ads.

But overall, you have great potential. Be judicious in where you apply your efforts, and you'll be making absolutely astounding games!

I love the concept! I would love to see a post-jam version of this game where you've had the chance to really put some polish on it.

As it stands, the controls are kind of difficult -- I was able to stack a burger, but pressing Right Shift didn't cause me to send it out. I'm not sure if that was a mistake on my part or a bug in the game, but in any case it made it impossible for me to really make any progress. A shame, since I think you have a strong premise for an Overcooked-style crisis-management-cooking game.

But considering the time constraints, I'd say y'all did a fine job. Keep up the good work!

Your character controller and the sprite-work are excellent! I love the enemy designs and the aesthetic of the tower.

I wish there had been some background music, the soundscape felt a little bit sparse. There's some great opportunity to let the soundscape reflect the player's decision to lose control.

Do give some serious consideration to your level design: if what you have is a perfect mirror image on either side -- and if there is no incentive to explore "side areas" -- then at any point half of the traversable space in your game is wasted. If you trimmed out redundant areas, and/or put meaningful collectibles in them (e.g. armor to block enemy attacks, speed bonuses, health pick-ups, etc.) you would have a much more engaging experience.

I had wished there were more mechanical consequences for my choice to lose control. As it stood, I was happy to get revenge on that lil' spongebob-looking guy for all those times he messed me up. Maybe make the player's controls actually rebel against them, and introduce tougher enemies that don't take kindly to your being out of control.

You have some great bones for an excellent game. Give it some polish, and keep up the good work!

I love the deadpan nature of the voice acting, and I think your use of SFX really captures that early-2000s MMORPG aesthetic. I kind of wish there had been an indicator of where I was going & attacking when I clicked, but this is not a game-breaking omission.

I think y'all could make a really cool adventure game on this framework if you added more levels and challenges. The idea of using voice-chat to influence -- but not control -- your AI partners is a strong one. I think you could make it stronger if you had different avatars for the different characters (could even let the player choose their own), but I understand that time constraints are a factor in a jam game.

Overall, great job. Keep up the good work!

This was a fun little arcade game! I love the aesthetic work, and you did an excellent job of conveying the mechanics. When are you going to make a game to teach me my numbers?