Maybe that's the point ;). You need to be a bit resourceful to keep the door closed to walk over it, as well as creating some sort of step to get back up.
You can also always restart a level by pausing (P) if you get stuck.
okAi
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Assign opposing roles to your constructs to solve puzzles
Puzzle
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Give the AI commands to control the level with your actions
Puzzle
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Cool little game!
I feel like this is one of the few games that gets window stacking correctly. In many others I found it hard to manage them how I wanted to, that be moving them around and picking the ones that I wanted, but this one controlled that great. The only improvement I would see for it is that they can sometimes overlap with the hotbar, which can get in the way even if its the only window on the screen.
I liked that there was a flower with some different effects, it shows how this game could introduce many different flowers all giving you some sort of bonus for having / growing them. Although I don't think any of the levels were short enough to make real use of the timer one, it shows good ideas.
It would also be cool to have the flowers behave with their windows a little differently. Maybe there are some flowers that have a high passive generation, but will always be creating windows even if it is fully planted. Or ones that grow quickly, produce a lot of windows, but give a good amount of gold once they are finished.
Having to lose the entire flower if you didn't complete a window in time feels kind of bad, especially when you couldn't get to the window in time because you had 3 other ones to do. It could be made so that it only goes down a stage or freezes for a little while. You could maybe keep losing the entire flower for specific ones that do require perfect maintenance.
If you introduced a few more window styles, (thus maybe a bit more time to do them) I could see this growing out into a larger game easily. You could have some windows for picking off bugs, trimming, cleaning the dirt before planting, etc.
The rate that the windows come at can be kind of controlled, I found that if I planted everything at once they would all appear at the same times. But if I just staggered my planting then they would be very manageable. Maybe introduce some more random elements that make it harder to control knowing when they appear.
Art is clean and simple, and the music is a jam!
Nice work!
The hitbox of the player is actually in the center, but I do agree that it needs some adjustment still.
I dabbled with the idea of having the dash go through bullets, but I usually don't enjoy that this makes dodging sometimes trivial. If I get around to adding more enemies and maybe some bosses that shoot many more bullets, I would want to keep the sense of skill of dodging through base movement and have dash be used as a simple position relocator.
Wow, that is a very filled garden. Little low on health, but I doubt anything is even able to stay alive for long enough to do so. Even maxed out the dungeon size!
Sickle drops I made the most rare, (being a 1/5 on tool drops), since I found them very strong to be able to repeat some strong seeds like damage or shot count to easily get full power. I'll definitely look a lot into the balance and how to change certain seeds so that actually farming them doesn't make you strong immediately. My favorite of this is the health seed, since you actually have a good reason to keep them on you to regenerate health.
Yep... this is probably the worst bug I found late in development. Originally I thought that it wasn't too harmful since you could kind of just reset by going back through it. But then I found out that all plants get destroyed if you place them before doing so. This will definitely be one of the first things I'll fix in a post jam update.
Wow! Great polish on this one, I was immediately impressed when I shot the first bullet.
I think that the tutorial segment could be converted from text to some pictures showing the actions, since there is plenty of room on the walls to have them "carved" into them. It can really help with the intuitiveness in a tutorial.
When doing the first level, I thought that the player speed was way too fast, and found it hard to make small adjustments. In which I was going to note that their acceleration should be lowered. That was until I got to move fast for awhile, and I figured that this was a game that wanted you to move fast. Since the movement felt really good when you were going.
But, I think there is a bit of an issue here, Speed Vs. Precision. There are some really precise saw placements which can make the player come to a halt if they want to get past it, especially if they are unfamiliar with the movement. Having precise jumps isn't a bad thing, but having them so early before the player knows really how to move yet can make it hard for them to enjoy the game.
I think that the general amount of precision should be lowered, and you should let the player fully embrace moving at full speed. Having long straightaways and empty segments for them to just use their speed. This is why level designing for fast speedrun games is so difficult, since they need to be very large to compensate for the speed the player can move at. (Often resulting in a lot of work for players to blow through a level.) But, if you get the player to keep trying to get a better time, that is where you get your value.
I think speedrunning games are at their best when you can complete a level, see the time, and think "I can go faster." And while I did think that I could go faster on some of these levels, they were just too difficult for me to want to do them again, let alone find a optimal route. Having difficult levels is not a bad thing, but you should give the player some levels beforehand with very little ways to die. And then they'll try to get better times and not have to restart the first jump a ton of times, thus learning how to move well.
When designing the first few levels, you should make things that are super simple to you. Since you are the best player of your game. Think of how in other games when you go back to the first levels they are just super easy, that is you.
Many people say that there should be more bullets to shoot. And I think this is a difficult decision. Since if you give them too many, they can just go wherever they want. I do also like the idea of having to plan through where you are going to reload, and where you are going to use your shots. This is definitely a line you will need to test a lot for how many bullets are needed per level.
The amount of times I restarted instead of reloaded was... too many.
How many levels were there? I got to 5 and died in the very last spot.
Great work!
Nice idea!
I like the various takes on the features of an OS throughout all of these games, and a bullet hell is a very cool one!
Throwing the player right into the game can be a bit much, I found myself often getting hit by the first bullet of a boss just because I wasn't ready for the game to start yet. As well have no idea what is going to happen. I also only figured out that there was a dodge roll by just going "I wonder if right click does anything." So a bit more of a "tutorial" or introduction would be helpful.
I think that this game would be improved a lot if it had a larger screen / room size. It can feel very claustrophobic in the area, with very little space to move around. I was often hit by things and wouldn't be able to tell you what hit me or why I deserved it. I would also get hit by the boss itself, which I don't really think should be much of a problem in a bullet hell game. I wasn't every really able to tell what patterns a boss was throwing at me because I wasn't able to see them. If the room size was increased with a fixed camera I think it could play a lot nicer and allow for more actual dodging and less getting lucky.
I liked the windows ideas having effects on the fight, especially with the dragon even using the split shot as an advantage to shoot more bullets if I decided to get close enough. (Hopefully those shots didn't have reduced damage...) And I think there is A LOT more room here for more interactions with the windows. I usually try to think of ideas to add to a game when reviewing them, and I found these ones to come the easiest. Here are just a few ideas:
- Avoiding a cursor that can move the boss or player
- A boss using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste a large attack
- Selecting and deleting potions of the map
I think basically anything that was in within the Animator Vs Animation series can be used for inspiration for how the OS combines with the gameplay.
I also think that having a larger screen could help with seeing these windows and how they are effecting the gameplay. I didn't really know what the Octopus drawing applications were doing at first.
Cute visuals! I am a sucker for thick pixel outlines.
Nice job!
Interesting use of the theme!
Having to micromanage between many different applications is quite a literal use of the limitation, but I like how you added a bit more to it by having it be for controlling organs, rather than the usual desktop stuffs.
I think that the best thing that this game does is the few windows that have interactions that work with the window itself, like having to shake the stomach window to do its action. Things like this work really well at making unique mechanics and ideas with a limitation and presentation like this.
Part of the game was to be able to organize the mess of windows, and have to shuffle them around to get to different things. But I found it a bit too difficult to move them how I wanted, since sometimes it felt like other windows were overlapping them, even though they were visually separated. This may be a hitbox size issue? I also found it a bit easy to eventually rearrange the view so that I had all important information on my screen, and didn't need to worry about moving everything.
I think that using more of the windows and usual OS interactions would be great to add to this game. Having to think about where you place things and such. (Like placing the heart monitor to the right is bad since then you cannot see the bar that shows up when you use it) Maybe have some features to close and open tabs, or change the size of the windows to effect what is inside of them. Giving the player more actions to do with the windows themselves I think is the best route to take for this game.
The only other thing that I would have improved is the tutorial, I did like how your tutorial was more than just text and involved actually doing the actions. But, when a game has many complicated features it can be hard to tell the player what to do. When a player is given a mountain of text and information it can be very overwhelming, and often times players will just say "I'll just figure it out." and ignore the tutorial, leading to very bad gameplay. Although I do think that this game is pretty easy to grasp compared to some of the other "wall of text" games I've played before, if you add more mechanics it will quickly become impossible to do things on the first pass.
Likely the best way to teach the player would be to introduce the windows as the game goes, only add things once they prove they know what they are doing. Think about how Papers Please doesn't throw all of its mechanics at the player on their first day, but adds them all up over time.
The visual style itself is very nice! I like the vaporwave aesthetics.
It seems like the brain had no limit to buying things? I could just continue to buy things from it and it would just go into the negatives. Maybe forgot to add a check for that? :)
Good job!
I tried to give the player the most information without having them read a wall of text, but I do realize there is a lot more that I need to convey.
Can you explain not being able to shoot after planting everything? The only softlock I know of, is if you plant a firerate seed without any damage upgrades, you can get stuck dealing 0 damage.
Yes, the seeds only give their effects once you enter the next floor. I should've made their effects show up right away within the garden to better convey them affecting you.
Can you explain how you got that bug not being able to shoot? I just tried both entering the teleporter, and going into a new room with my inventory open and I could close it to shoot both times.
I did the most I could to tell the player what was happening without having a bunch of text, since I've been trying to improve my tutorials without just telling the player what to do. So highlighting seed stages and the small tutorial textures were what I used to clarify things. But I do know that there is a lot more that I would need to do to explain everything.
I realized how much I needed a stat window after some of my final playtests, but It was a bit too late to figure out how to implement nicely, as well as all of the icons I could possibly need for that to work. I will definitely look into this with a post jam patch.
There are a ton of balancing things that I need to do lol. I knew that players could farm acorns, and I debated having them not drop items, but I figured for now if a player really wanted to farm them they could. The enemies health does scale depending on the floor you are on, but I didn't make it too much since I wanted players to get a long enough run to really see what the game has to offer.
I'm glad that you had fun and couldn't stop! I also played it for like 30 minutes straight when doing some finals funs :)
Nice job!
I really liked how you game a little bit of time to get used to the movement before collecting the robot, since it lets the player understand your game more without giving them too much to think about right out of the gate. It can also make getting the robot feel a bit more meaningful than if you started with him. Reminds me of how Portal has a few levels before you even get the portal gun.
The level design in this game is actually really good. I liked all of the challenges that the various diamonds gave the player. They were all unique and required a bit of thinking to get their solutions, which is great for a platformer to have more thinking on the solutions vs more precision. Once the player knows how to do the solution it shouldn't be hard for the player to achieve it, and I think many of the diamonds succeed in this. Although, I do think a bit of it is taken away when the robot tells the player how to get the diamond by jumping off of them while falling, since it would feel great to figure that out. (And the player could also backtrack after they get the double jump if they can't figure it out.)
I feel like I was supposed to backtrack to get some more diamonds, since I ended up with 6/8 my first playthrough. I tried doing another run, but when I went to the spot I was likely supposed to back track (double jumping over the door controlled by the switch), I found that the loading zone for the next room was too large so I wasn't able to do so. If the other two diamonds were not back there, then I have no idea where they were.
The movement mechanics of the player being separated from them creates a really unique dynamic. You never really always have the power to double jump, especially if you are using the robot to hold down some button. I think there is a lot of room here to explore different movement types using the robot. Maybe even allow for switching out which processing the robot is capable of doing, limiting the player in what options they want to use for a level.
There are a lot of small things that this game could improve on, mostly things that you can learn over time by making games or reading about all the hidden features platformers give to the player to make it more responsive. For example the players hitbox I assume is nearly the size of the entire sprite, when many gives actually make the players hitbox much smaller than they think. This is prominent when you try to drop down and there are spikes on the wall right below you, you will hit the spikes even though you really shouldn't. The player shouldn't have to account for what the sprite looks like to dodge certain things. There are also a whole sort of features to make a character feel more responsive, (This website has great examples) but I didn't feel like this game was in need of any of them, so maybe you did implement these.
Another thing (that I have also struggled with figuring out) is buttons. When you leave a button in this game it will always un-press, even if the robot is also on top of it. Which can make it a bit tedious to get the robot to hold a button down in small spaces, since you cannot be on it when they also get on it. A simple fix for this is: When a body leaves the button, have the button check for any other bodies within its range before it actually un-presses. If it still has overlapping bodies, it stays pressed.
This game is very good! I think this shows a lot of promise to your ability to design a game, since most of the flaws are things you usually pick up along the way while making many games.
Nice work!
Interesting idea!
Having the multiple applications combine two game ideas is a smart use of the limitation, since many games find unique styles by doing exactly that.
The pacing of this game is definitely slow, and I think that the most engaging moments of a clicker game should be those first few hours, but this one seems to really slow down after you get the final soul gain upgrade. I think a part of this may be just from how gigantic the battlefield is. It takes so long for a unit to get across to the boss, combined with the fact that the swordsmen need to carry back any souls, which effectively doubles the size of the field. (It also doesn't help that the framerate tanks after you get a few units going)
Because units have to move back when they collect a soul, it can make all of them floating around after a large fight look more like a punishment than a reward. It can feel more like a roadblock that is allowing the enemies to regain their ground.
I think that this issue could be solved by having a fixed distance between the boss and the players tower, and defeating a boss simply spawns a different one in. You could also make this fit all onto one screen so the player can watch all of the units move and not feel lost as to what is happening. Thinking of games like Clicker Heroes or Tap Titans which present you with different bosses after defeating one, which can feel like progression. (And allows players to fight previous bosses to grind their strength)
Although, I do think there is a lot of room to explore within mixing these two games. Originally, I thought that not having any auto clicking upgrades would make it more tedious, but I realized that the auto clicking is basically your units. Which made me think of how you could get a lot more interesting interactions between the two gameplays. Being able to upgrade your units in ways that gain you more souls is a unique idea. Here are a few simple ideas:
- Upgrade a units movement speed, to effectively get souls faster
- Eventually turns into a teleport souls automatically
- Increase the amount of souls a unit can carry
- When clicking, units become more powerful
- Gain more souls related to the ground you have covered on the battlefield.
Having the fighting gameplay also gives a bit of incentive to holding a mass of orbs, since you can more often make a larger dent on the battlefield by having a ton of units go at once. Which creates a bit more of a dynamic of having to micromanage two different games at the same time.
I think there is good potential here for a new type of clicker game, but likely a lot of experimentation will be required.
The art style was very unique! I liked the look a lot. Its a shame that I couldn't really see the animations due to the limit frame rate.
Managed to beat the final boss by just having the game run while I wrote this review :)
Nice work!
Nice game!
Sadly, this game broke for me twice once I got to the doors. I assume this is more of an itch problem than yours, but I wasn't able to tab back into the games after inputting the password. So hopefully there wasn't a ton more left after those.
When the "multiple applications" theme was announced, many people were afraid of the scope of having to make windows of a game, since that can be a complicated task to manage within a single week. I didn't think about how you could build 2 different versions of a game and have them play out in different tabs though!
Although, with the games being separated into two actual different games, it can be hard to design things that are more than just "this screen has a invisible platform that is only visible on the other", this is where I think having two "games" be ran on a single game is better, since you can have more intricate and complicated interactions between the two.
I was trying to think of ways to have more interactions between the two games without making them into one, and it definitely is very hard. I can only think of more things like the door, where other information is revealed that is different than an invisible platform or spike. You could also have some more complicated interactions with the invisibility. Like maybe have some laser that keeps turning on and off because an invisible enemy is hitting a switch somewhere. So you can time when the laser is going to go off with the other tab.
The worlds themselves also feel very similar, which is part of the point, but I think that having them be a little more unique might make them more memorable. Maybe having some sections where a single world has an entire path that one side doesn't would help in making the sides feel different.
The actual platforming controlled well. But, I think there are some minor design flaws in the level. It opens with a blind fall, which is normally a big no no in platform games. It was also hard to tell where I was going, and felt like I was playing some sort of sonic level with many branching paths. And I think that more distinct and linear experiences would be better for a game like this.
Having some little decorative bits next to the spikes and such were very nice, since they remove a bit of the frustration of navigating invisible objects with some subtle indicators.
I think that there could be some more visual distinction between the two games. When I first started I felt like it was the same game since nothing was different on the very first screen.
All of the art was nicely made! Very simple and clean, all fit together nicely.
The music was also good, but had the problem of playing out of both games. Good thing you added a mute option :)
I'm interested to see how the two different games get rated as well, hopefully they all get rated the same and end up near each other.
Good work!
This is something that I definitely thought of a lot. I like having the player choose the roles and have to decide which one they need and what combination before the level, but it does absolutely make it hard to choose what you want before a level. (And makes you do one of my least favorite puzzle mechanics of playing the whole level out in your head.)
Contradicting Constructs jam comments · Replied to Cozy Construct in Contradicting Constructs jam comments
Thanks for the recorded feedback!
- The 2nd level goes to my preset layout I would use to make a level, I somehow forgot to connect it to the actual 3rd level. You can solve this by going to level 3 on the level select screen.
- I think buttons break when they get reset with sometime on top of them, and the only way to fix them is to completely reload the level.
- In level 6, you actually don't need the box. (I put it there to confuse mostly, so I may get rid of it then) Assuming that the buttons don't break on a reset, you can make one of them a Light-Brain, and other a Heavy-Brawn. Just use the heavy one to push the button, and have the brain open the door, then both can leave.
- I'm glad I took the time to add little things like that then! I'll try to maybe think of more ways to interact with the environment directly.
Contradicting Constructs jam comments · Replied to Deeperbeige in Contradicting Constructs jam comments
Wow! Thanks for the mountain of feedback!
I will definitely look into more of the visual aspects to help with managing the things the player needs to remember within a post-jam update. I'm thinking highlighting the construct you are currently using, and other things like that. I can also try to have a few more levels between the ones with longer / more complicated solutions (akin to the first 2 levels) so they can get more used to the mechanics.
Nice little game!
I really like the idea of this, it feels very unique compared to many of the other games in this jam, which to me is a important thing.
I think there is a lot of room here for more object types and abilities they can give you while controlling them, like lighter objects also being pushed by fans or being able to move in different ways (only horizontally / vertically) due to the objects limits and structure.
Although, as I've found myself within games like this, designing puzzles can often be very difficult when you give the player a lot of freedom with the mechanics. Since the player can move basically every single element of the puzzle, it can allow for easy puzzle breaks and thus hard to make a puzzle that can only be solved in a certain way. While puzzle break aren't bad, and can often feel more rewarding, designed solutions are also crucial for getting players to get a "aha" moment.
I didn't realize at first that everything that I controlled had the same movement as the player, so I was trying to figure out how the get the box on top of the button, before I realized I could just jump on top of it. Some indication for this would be nice. I did like the use of having the controls directly in the level itself, but I think they could be more visually contrasting so they don't blend in too well.
The art itself is very clean, but I think it is a bit clashing it its themes. Things like the pipes and arrows don't fit as well with everything else. But it is super close to all being connecting and clean.
The movement is also a bit floaty, which doesn't seem like the type of movement you would have for a game like this. I think there could be some more improvements on that, making it a bit more snappy.
Overall nice game! Well done.
Cool idea!
I like that there is a bit of variety and extra steps into making a wave. Having the extra things like number of units per module, as well as the bonus they will get if they are placed there are very fun to play around with. I find that most of the "you are the boss" games are fun when they let the player have a bunch of decisions to upgrade their arsenal and become super strong. I think there is a lot of room here to add more effects, and unit types.
There are also some issues that should be changed, like being able to keep watching the fight after you die. Or the issue of the game crashing when you touch the player with a shield (I'm guessing that was the cause)
I think that the shooting units were way stronger than the charging melee ones, since they can keep doing damage while the melee ones die after doing damage. So having a bit more balance on this could help, maybe melee units can keep attacking multiple times?
I would also be interesting for units to have some form of "value" that if they are killed gives the player money. So you wouldn't want to make your entire team the strongest unit, since the player will get a lot of value from clearing it out.
The visuals were nice a simple, but they worked very well.
Nice job!
Contradicting Constructs jam comments · Replied to HolidayPictures4You in Contradicting Constructs jam comments
Contradicting Constructs jam comments · Replied to TingGame in Contradicting Constructs jam comments
Yep, I found this out when watching a steamer play my game.
The button actually does work normally the first time, but the problem arises when you reset a level when something on top of the button. I guess I somehow forgot to make the button fully reset on a level restart. The work around for now would be to exit to the level screen and then reload it, which is annoying.
Contradicting Constructs jam comments · Replied to PebbleWheat in Contradicting Constructs jam comments
I definitely agree! I was trying to get a good balance of screen transparency on the role selection screen so that you could see the level, but your attention was still on the role select. Since having it be too transparent would make it feel like you were playing the level. Someone suggested having a button to hide the role selection which I think could be the solution.
Contradicting Constructs jam comments · Replied to Deeperbeige in Contradicting Constructs jam comments
Thanks for the detailed review!
I thought about having the role icons on the bottom of the screen be above their heads, but thought it would get too distracting / visually cluttered. I had also thought about the idea of making them wear different things / look different depending on their role but it seemed a bit out of scope due to the time restraints.
I'll have a look again to inform which is active, currently I just have one you swapped to do a little grow animation, but I know there are better options.
What puzzles did you find to be hard to preform? Obviously I can't really know which ones are hard to preform, since I got used to the movement by making it.
Contradicting Constructs jam comments · Replied to BloodAssassin in Contradicting Constructs jam comments
Nice simple game!
Being able to play as a super strong boss is a very fun feeling, and dishing out waves of bullets is very satisfying.
I really like that there are some upgrades to get after each fight, It really adds to the excitement to see what strong ability you will get next. The thing I would look forward to the most in future versions would be more abilities and upgrades to get, maybe even some paths to go down to get different builds.
I think that hitting the player feels a bit like luck most of the time, it could be nice to have some skills or abilities to force them to move in certain directions to catch them. Although, this may be an intention thing because you can dodge most boss attacks.
I also think that games like this should really lean into the generic tropes that are seen in boss fights. Having to worry about certain things within a boss fight that you don't usually do in normal games adds a nice gameplay dynamic. These things could be : The boss having a weak spot, Getting hit by things within the arena, player skills and abilities to get an advantage, etc.
The visuals are very nice, creating a cool underwater aesthetic.
Cool little game!
I feel like the concept of a reverse peggle is one of the few game ideas that hasn't been used too much within this jam.
The first levels in which you can place as many pegs as you want made it feel like I was playing a different version of sugar sugar, but I'm glad that the gameplay got more varied afterwards. But I think the later level with the pegs as targets solves this issue.
I liked placing the lines, since they were more limited in the amount I could use so I had to think a lot more about where I got to place them. It felt like I was in more control of where the balls were going to go overall, instead of being able to control the direction of a single ball once.
The last level was definitely the best, and I think that this is just because of the predictability of the shots. You can actually make the ball go where you want it to. In the previous levels, half of the targets I got seemed to just be be chance, and I wasn't able to effectively redirect them how I wanted to. I think you should have more consistency on where the balls will go, so the player can more effectively bounce them around.
If you wanted to keep the randomness of the shots, since we technically aren't supposed to be controlling that, you could also have some sort of slowdown mode. So we can place the pegs in time to where the balls were shot.
The piano effect was a cool idea, but I think it got a bit overwhelming when there were a lot of balls on the screen. It really sounded the best when there was only 1 ball on the screen.
Nice work!
Nice game!
Immediately I was impressed by the presentation, having lots of little animations for things that don't really matter to the gameplay goes a long way.
I like the idea of "being the level" and you are essentially guiding a player to the end goal. The flipping mechanic is used quite well, and there were a few mechanics thrown in that help with making it do more overall. I especially liked the springs, and how you could use them when falling as well as walking. The stone in the last level was also nice, too bad there wasn't more of it.
I think there is a bit of "weirdness" to the puzzles. In that you need to keep focus on which direction the player is facing before you turn the room, since the direction they are walking is very important. Sometimes this felt like it was hard to line up, or predict what was going to happen. I'm very glad you added the slowdown feature, which makes puzzles more of a puzzle then a skill check. (But I do think the spike hitboxes were just a bit too big)
It would also be nice to be able to look at the level before the player starts moving, since it can be hard to think of what to do directly on the fly. If the player is always moving, it becomes way more of a puzzle-platformer game (where it feels like you are controlling a character) than a puzzle game.
I would love to see some more things that we could do on the player side that would differentiate this game from other "rotate the room" games. Things that really make me feel like I am the room itself, and not a player. If there were doors that I could open myself, or other usual dungeon crawling traps and such that I had the control of. I think that those additions could help give this game become more unique.
Well done!
Nice simple game!
I think that this game relies too much on the randomizing of pieces, which I think becomes a problem for skilled play. Most of this game is luck at getting the correct pieces, since nothing else you have works.
It took awhile to get adjusted to how this game works, getting the "Tetris eyes" and being able to see what goes where without thinking took a bit. But, I wasn't ever really able to think multiple steps ahead quickly, and it was a slow process.
Its interesting to see how the pieces value change when you change the game like this. Line pieces become much more a hinderance then a blessing. I also found the 2x2 cube to be the most useful block.
I think the main thing to fix here, the difference between "You CANT do anything" Vs. "You could've done better" In actual Tetris, you cant never not place something, it is simply where you place it that determines who is good and who is not. Sometimes, within this you just cant do anything at all.
Despite all of this, I just kept playing it. Even though I had determined that getting a full clear was just a matter of insane luck rather than skill, I kept trying to get it for 10 minutes. I think that this shows how close this game is to being a really good, simple, addicting game (like Tetris).
Maybe a feature of rotating pieces could help with this, but I think that the actual answers to this problem may be a bit fundamental. But, nothing that a creative mind cant solve.
I really think that this is a few steps away from being a very good game.
Visuals were nice a clean. The nice animated background goes a long way to presentation.
Nice work! Excited to see if this gets expanded!
Great game!
I love how intuitive and simple this game is. With many other jam games often having a bit of a learning curve to understand how the game works, it is nice to have one that just makes sense by playing it. The only thing that I got tripped up by was that my dashes didn't do damage, but instead killed the enemies and blocking is the only thing that does damage.
This is a very cool idea, and it really makes you think differently about bullets within a bullet hell game. Normally, when you dodge a bullet you just forget about it and keep looking at what is coming, but now you need to keep track of everything on the screen no matter what.
There are a lot of opportunities for new mechanics to be added as well, I was thinking about the possibility of different bullet types and such. Maybe some bullets that split into more when blocked, or ones that can bounce back into the arena after leaving only once. Lots of room for more ideas here.
The arena itself could also have a big effect on gameplay, a gap in the middle of the arena makes it harder to traverse and get to the other side if you need to be there to reach a stray bullet.
I realized how much of this game is about positioning, and enemy priority. Being far away from enemies that shoot many bullets can be detrimental since they will just go everywhere, so you need to be near them to get them while they are still clumped.
You could also continue to look at what various things bullet hell games give you to help you, and think of how to implement them into this. One that I thought of, was many bullet hell games give you some sort of "clear everything around me" option to get out of a tricky situation. What if, in this game you had the same thing but it pulled in nearby bullets?
I think that this game could benefit from a health restore when you complete a level, or some other form of saving, since it can be annoying to work all the way back up to the later levels. But I can see it not being a priority since there is only 15 waves.
Visuals were nice and simple, and the music fit well. (I loved the part where it stopped did the few beats, before coming back in)
Great work!
Man, this game is running super fast if all of those actions are a single frame.
Nice game!
I really like the idea of being the controller of the game, and simply following some commands given, I think that this game pulls it off very well. It actually got me to feel like a computer by having to check through every single thing each frame.
Having a list of rules is a cool idea, I had to refer back to them a few times to memorize what I was supposed to do in a situation and the order of operations. I think that this idea could open up to more possibilities, like more complex games (with a longer amount of time to work with) that have a lot of rules so referring back to a rulebook is almost needed.
Although, I think that some of the rules are a bit forced, like the bullet going right by default and only left if there are more enemies on the left side. Yes, it does make one more step of counting which side has more enemies, but I feel like it should be based off the playing direction or something else.
This game did also had a bit of learning / understanding curve. I had to play it about 3 times before I understand everything that I had to do, and how to do it. It took me awhile to realize that I needed to press 'D' to spawn in a monster.
I think that forcing the order of operations can also make it a bit confusing. You could maybe play with the idea of the player changing everything that was told to happen, THEN pressing space to confirm the frame. Which could help by letting the play think things through in their own order, and checking if they got it all right before confirming. But, I can see the value of having the same order of operations every time since that is how an actual computer would work.
Another good thing, would be that this game gets me saying "Just one more time." which is a very good thing, you really did make me want to continue trying to get further and better at the game.
I love the visual style.
Good work!
Nice little game!
I had briefly thought about the idea of a tower defense game but reversed, but it didn't seem like it would had much depth. I could only think about the previous GMTK game where you had to avoid your own defense shots. But, you made me realize that there could be a lot more to it!
Placing roads was an idea I just hadn't thought of, but it makes a lot of sense as the main framework of how the game works.
I think there is a lot of room for more mechanics and ideas here as well, I kept thinking about how in BTD battles, you can purchase the waves sent to the other player. Maybe it would be beneficial exploring into the ideas of having to buy your own waves, giving the player control of what they send out.
There was also a bit more depth to the road placement, but I think there could be a lot more added. Most of what this was is : Place roads away from turrets, create faster roads where they are many turrets. (If we ignore the exploit of placing unconnected roads to spawn towers away from the real road...) I wanted to create branching paths, but found it less useful since the tanks go in seemingly random directions. Maybe you could add a feature that allows for you to add logic to your path, (maybe costing a price) that allows for the player to add controls like: Every other tank goes, only X color tank goes, Send for half wave, etc. I think this could open up a lot more thought when having to design a road structure. It may also make the player need to deal with throughput?
Having more tower types could also lead to more dynamic paths and creations. Maybe ones that have piercing shots, but can only shoot in 1 lane, which would prevent long stretches of roads. Currently, there is also no real reason to have a slower path other than to save money. Maybe there could be some tower types where it would benefit to move slower.
Not having time to think about my road placement was a bit stressful, since I wanted to create something that was logical, but was only given 10~ seconds to do so. I would dabble with the idea of a keeping a forced wave timer or not. Since it makes sense to have the waves out of your control, since it is the opposite of the Tower Defense game. But, it may be more beneficial and fun to make it so the player can take their time and send waves when they want.
Some other QOL features would be nice, like being able to place better roads on top of old ones without needing to dig them up first.
Nice job!
Nice game!
First of all, I love the unique visual style! All of the assets go very well together and makes for a cool look!
I like this idea a lot, and I think there is a lot of room for more mechanics and additions with this concept. Having the player be limited by what is normally given to help players in stealth games is a cool idea, and is fun for those who are used to the usual stealth game tropes.
Speaking of those stealth game tropes, I think that this is where this game could shine. I think the best way to implement new mechanics would be to look at what is common within stealth games, and how would they effect you when you are playing the guard? Here is just a few ideas that I came up with:
- Distracting Sounds
- Some enemies could maybe throw coins or other items that force you to walk in that direction. Or you get some sort of punishment for not checking out the noise.
- Footsteps
- Places that you have been will leave footsteps, in which enemies will attempt to avoid.
- Vents
- Usually stealth games have some form of movement like this, maybe the enemies could use the various vents around the map to get around.
- Cameras
- Control and place cameras yourself. Create a setup of angles that you can lure enemies into.
- Teasure
- Knowing that the enemies will want to get to a certain location within the building can help with planning. (But maybe sitting in the exact room will just make it easier for them, since they can lure you out.)
Obviously there are many more to think of, but those are just a few initial ideas.
I think this game could be elevated from a simple "walk around and find them" to more of a "How did they get over there? What path did they take? How can I outsmart them?"
Currently, the awareness system feels a bit too tight. I like the idea of having to think about where you will go, but I found that it more often than not just made me perfect my movement around the map so that I couldn't waste a single step. And it was hard combined with the WASD movement on a diagonal angle, I found it difficult to move around without having to think beforehand on which direction I would go due to the angle.
The dialogue is very well written for how short it was, I love how the guard only speaks with emoticons.
The "Hey!" matches very well with the music, was this intentional?
Overall nice game a great idea! I would like to see how this gets expanded!
Great idea!
I was really excited for this game when I saw its title, since I thought it would be a fun game idea to be the one behind the HUD and need to set everything that the game usually does for you. I am glad that this game was essentially that!
Games like this benefit from overloading the player with commands and things to do, but I think one of the tricks to getting it to work is by making if feel more stressful and constant than it really is. This reminds me of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes with its modules.
With that, I think that this game asks a bit too much of the player. Tasks come in at an insane rate once you get to controlling the minimap, and I couldn't get past much further once the emotion panel came around. Which made me sad that I wasn't able to see what was behind the other screens. But, if it was keeping at the same pace as it was with 3, I don't think it is possible to do more than that without absolute perfection.
The best thing of these games is allowing for the player to quickly jump around the different modules and do a task quickly if they've done it many times before. So, things like the health bar slider is just to touchy. As the player I know that the health needs to be set to a number but I am just moving my mouse slowly to make sure its the exact one, which may be something you want, but I think it would benefit to making the health slider 10 notches that can be easily hit consistently at a fast pace.
I think that the commands given shouldn't tell you to do a module that already hasn't been completed. Having them stack up on a single module can make it annoying to keep moving it around, and adds little satisfaction of the "got that one out of the way for now" feeling. You could also instead have each module have its own screen, which shows what it needs to be. This could also help with making the game feel more hectic when there are numbers all over the interface.
Having some sort of "weight" to how difficult or time consuming a module is would also help a lot with the overflow of commands. The minimap module by far took the longest amount of time, but didn't take into account the players skill in the amount of time to complete since you can only move so fast on the minimap. Although, I do like how you can move on the minimap while doing other modules, it creates a cool dynamic of doing multiple things at once. Having modules like these are good though, (ones that are mostly just a time sink), but they should go off more rarely than others.
Overall, I think this game is a great idea. I would like to see an iteration that slows down the pace of commands a bit, or implements some way that you can't fall behind a ton. I would love to see what else the game can offer with this!