itch.io

Hey Lukez,

Thank you for your interest! Unfortunately, I already found a team and have settled in.

I wish you the best with your jam, and I'll see you on the other side!

Thank you for the kind words <3

Best of luck during the Jam!

EDIT: FOUND A TEAM

Hello aquatic brethren,

I'm a music composer, sound designer, and audio programmer looking to join a team. I've been making game audio for a little over 3 years now (specializing in FMOD and Unity, and touching Unreal and Godot occasionally), and with my current projects hitting a slow spot, I'm excited to try a new game idea!

Sound Design reels: https://jacksondrichmond.wixsite.com/optimalystic/audio-reels

Music: A Bit of Everything: https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/sets/a-bit-of-everything

Feel free to reply to this thread, DM me in this Jam's Discord @Optimalystic, and/or email me at irkedibis@gmail.com to get in contact. Good luck, jammers!

EDIT: FOUND A TEAM

Hello Dungeon Jammers,

I'm a music composer, sound designer, and audio programmer looking to join a team. I've been making game audio for a little over 3 years now (specializing in FMOD and Unity, and touching Unreal and Godot occasionally), and with my current projects hitting a slow spot, I'm excited to try a new game idea!

Sound Design reels: https://jacksondrichmond.wixsite.com/optimalystic/audio-reels

Music: A Bit of Everything: https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/sets/a-bit-of-everything

Feel free to reply to this thread, DM me in this Jam's Discord @Optimalystic, or email me at irkedibis@gmail.com to get in contact. Good luck, dungeon masters!

Fantastic game, lots of fun! The gameplay loop is rock solid, the progression is immensely satisfying and never unfair, and the art style (visual, audio, lore, etc.) all tie this game together and make it feel so real. Well done!

What a beautiful game! The architecture is open and colorful, and the lighting brings the space to life. The puzzles were a little too easy, and hints were too plentiful, but being in the temple was fun!

Hey there! I'm not a chip tune "master" per-se, but I've made some music and sound effects in chip tune-y style in the past. Feel free to listen to this game jam OST and let me know what you think of it!

https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/sets/bakeryblitz-jammed-ost-1

Hello everyone! I'm a composer, sound designer, and audio integrator, and I'm looking to join a team and help with all things audio! I can create the audio, but I can also dig into Unity and put it in the game; I'm happy to help wherever I can.

My music can cover a variety of styles, including orchestral, electronic, and acoustic, and with a focus on background ambience. You can check out my music here: https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/sets/a-bit-of-everything?si=6c70f8080f264a5888ded69f45bf5cdd&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Reach out if you're interested, and best of luck with the jam!

Ah! I'm so sorry for the late response, I got totally swarmed with music stuff and lost track of time.

I did find a team, so I'm covered. Sorry for the sad news, and best of luck with the jam!

(FOUND TEAM, IGNORE THIS)

Hello everyone,

I'm a composer, sound designer, and audio implementer who's looking to have some fun making epic audio for this game jam! I work with both acoustic and electronic sounds for all my audio, and I can make music in the styles of EDM, vaporwave, orchestral, acoustic, pop-rock, and ambient, among many others. I also have experience in the integration side of game audio through Unity + FMOD, so if you're looking for someone to help support and invigorate your in-game audio then don't hesitate to reach out!

Here's my itch profile: https://optimalystic.itch.io/

My SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/albums

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to playing your games!

Hello Jammers,

I'm Optimalystic, a composer/sound designer who specializes in warm, relaxing music styles, whether that be acoustic guitar, vaporwave, Lofi, ambience, etc. I can also compose in orchestral, pop, and piano genres, so my style is flexible to your needs. I'll link a few of my albums down below:

My Vaporwave Album: https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/sets/deep-space-vapor

My Acoustic Stuff: https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/sets/guitar-music

Previous Game Jam: https://soundcloud.com/optimalystic08/sets/carni-ball-ost

I know the jam's underway right now, but if anyone needs some music/sounds for their game hit me up! I wish you all the best of luck on the jam, and I look forward to playing your games!

This is really cool! The concept is really unique, it takes the "game over isn't the end" theme, relates it to the brutality of insect workers always dying and being replaced, and then you implemented it really well into the story, gameplay, art, and audio. It was easy to get invested in the story, and the little variations of the worker bees made every death worth it. Lots of praise to the art, audio, and writing team on this one!

The one issue for me was that the game was too short. There was one boss with a fair amount of health, but it was really easy to cheese; I just jumped, held right, and spammed the punch and lick attacks. My bee would get stuck to the beetle (as in, my bee wouldn't fall to the ground; I could still back away from it) and the beetle couldn't hurt me, so I just poured damage into the beetle until it died. That made my total gameplay about 3-4 minutes. To be fair, punching and licking the beetle was really satisfying to do, but the challenge in movement or enemy attacks wasn't there (ignoring my cheating methods). I'd recommend that the beetle does some jumping attacks, or that the bee can jump/fly over it to not get cornered (then maybe the beetle throws projectiles at it to incentivize quickly getting to the ground, idk). These are just ideas to give motion to the gameplay instead of advance and spam attack.

Also, the kick attack is bugged (as of August 27th). Whenever I used it while moving forward I would hurt myself and die after two uses. Honestly I died more often from my own kicks then the boss beetle, so it was kind of funny after a while.

Overall, some bugs with the gameplay (pun ABSOLUTELY intended), but lots of love for the art, audio, writing, and concept. It's really close to being a great game, it just needs some polishing in some spots. Nice job!

Cool game! I liked the concept of using your corpse as a platform to continue the level with (my group's game was originally going to be something similar to this), and the art and audio were really calming and helped me get to the end of the game (I did beat it without the key, I didn't even know there was one XD). For a platformer-builder hybrid, making the main character a cube was a genius idea due to the simplicity of the programming and gameplay, and the rest of the art style worked really well with it. The lighting around the cube was also a nice touch, giving the level and the world some life around the player.

The main issue for me was the level design, because it was really easy for me to get stuck in impossible situations and have to restart from the beginning, and that got frustrating after the fifth or sixth reset. An easy fix (I think) would've been having the reset button take you to the most recent checkpoint, but I can imagine how it might've been difficult to save all the corpses for that reset. Another option would be to place the kill barriers in more forgiving places as to not soft-lock the player, or even add a "kill" button so I could kill my character wherever and make a staircase upwards. To be fair, these suggestions would make the game easier, in a way, so if its current difficulty is your intention then maybe just give the player more room to put corpses and less corridors to get trapped in.

Also a small thing I didn't like was the way you could cling to the walls. Sometimes I wanted to just jump over a ledge, and if I touched a wall then I would lose all my upward momentum and start falling. This was particularly difficult since the movement sensitivity playing on keyboard was too high and I would easily slip further than I wanted. So I think the game could be better with slower horizontal speed and no sticking to walls. No need to touch the jumping and falling movement, though, you did a great job with that and it feels great in the game.

Overall, cool concept, smart character and art design, a little slippery with the horizontal movement, too sticky on the walls, and just a simple, fun experience. Nice job!

Really cool game! The art, audio, and story all fit together really nicely to make a motivating arcade game. It honestly reminded me a lot of "Realm of the Mad God" with the RPG & Bullet Hell genres combined, but you made it into a side-view game instead of top-down, which I must say looks and plays better than ROTMG.

The gameplay also felt really good. The movement was clean, the dodging was satisfying and felt fair to use (especially against those orcs, they move so fast), and the shooting had good damage and fire rate. I did feel like the starting character's damage was too weak and that it was impossible to progress far with him, but it seems like that was intentional for showing off the "game over isn't the end" theme, plus the other 3 characters felt balanced against most of the enemies, so I guess that's fair.

I did find that it was difficult to survive properly because the intense particle effects from every single shot blinded me from my enemy's shots. Especially as the ginger hero, it was impossible for me to see where my enemy was shooting, so I died with that character really fast. If you make the shot impact smaller in scale, faster in animation, and with little-to-no camera shake, then it would feel a lot better to me.

I got to wave 5 before I died, so I don't know if there's unlimited waves or only a set few. If there's unlimited, then I'd recommend having a scoreboard somewhere to see who's got the highest score. It would really boost the "arcade" feeling this game seems to be exuding. If not, then I'll have to beat all the waves sometime!

Overall, great use of the theme that makes narrative and mechanical sense, simple yet elegant art style, fun and engaging gameplay, and a simple yet effective concept. Nice job!

Oh, I forgot to consider the gamepad perspective with the gun controls. You're right, it makes a lot more sense with the gamepad in mind, and it probably would've felt better if I played with it as well. That makes the controls less of an issue.

And yeah, you definitely made a good ending despite the lack of a boss fight. No worries there.

Thanks for the reply, it was my pleasure to play, and congrats on creating the game!

Oh wow, I didn't know you thought about the voice lines in that much detail, very impressive! I understand being shy about your own voice, I usually put all kinds of effects on mine to make me feel less shy, things like autotune, distortion, bass boosting, phasers, etc. By the way, I wasn't trying to say your game needed voice acting, it was just an idea to add on to this already great game and to get ideas rolling. You do what you want to do, and congrats again on making this game!

This is really quirky! Your use of the "game over isn't the end" theme definitely has inspiration from titles like "There is No Game" and "Dude, Stop", but you managed to make an enjoyable and well-polished game nonetheless. The narration was really quirky and enjoyable to progress through, and I bet having a voice actor for it would make it even better. I really enjoyed the art style, sound effects, and general feel of the game as well. It was simplistic to understand, it was humorous, and it stayed consistent with itself, so nice going

I also really liked all of the different game types you went through. It was exciting each time a new minigame showed up, and they all felt polished and smooth to play. No bugs, all fun!

My main problem was that the game ended way too quickly. For a game jam it's really good, but thinking outside of that context it would be nice to have a level or two with longer activities/puzzles. The pong segment padded out some time, but I'd recommend building some challenging puzzles in the same vein as the first 'game over' screen to sit on. It's not necessary, but it can only improve what's already there.

Overall, great theme, great concept, fun gameplay, but it was too short (for a game jam it's perfectly fine though). Nice job!

This was a cool game with some interesting story. The gameplay was as simple as it needed to be, and the objectives were always clear or easy to perform. It was bizarre to be a player who screwed with their character so quickly, but it was also kind of fun to see here things would go. It made use of "game over isn't the end" really well and made me excited to hit game over. The text-to-speech was kind of goofy as well, and could fit a bit better if it wasn't so intense all the time. I also caught onto how each character had the previous character's voice echoing to them, which is an interesting lore-bit that could go in a lot of interesting ways.

The art style was also really cool. The pixeled characters and environment had a nice charm to them and the animation for walking was satisfying to look at. The interactions with everything were also really nice as they built up the world (mostly). How could you take the dog away, I just wanna pet :(

There were two things that felt off about it, though. 1, it was easy to have multiple voice lines play over each other, and that can get confusing very fast. You could either have the current one stop playing as the new one appeared, or prevent me from starting the next one. It's not a big deal, but it can be jarring for the fast gamer. And 2, once the fence disappears with the first guy it's very easy to walk out of bounds into the white room. I don't know if this is intentional, but if not then you might wanna fix that.

Overall, cool game, great use of the theme, good art direction, and some interesting story elements. Nice Job!

Really cool game, especially considering you made it in 48 hours! The art style, music, sound, animations, and setting were all really well implemented and made the game immersive. There was a bug with the jump sound where the jump SFX would play whenever I pressed the jump button, so even if I used up all my jumps I was still hearing that SFX. Besides that bug, the gameplay was really well done. I also didn't find it that difficult, despite what others were saying, so from my view the difficulty was great!

The use of "game over isn't the end" was also conceptually really neat and had a lot of potential for secret pathways and alternate endings, but that's for games with more time. I'd prefer it to be implemented differently because I didn't like having to die after I died to progress (since the room would reset if I died after opening up the path), but if that was your intention then I can't complain much, I just found it tedious after a while.

Overall, cool use of theme, great gameplay, and beautiful environment. Nice job!

What a cool game! Even though your use of the "game over isn't the end" theme was sort of predictable, it was implemented so well that it didn't even matter! In that twist I completely had that "OMG no way!" reaction and was excited to see the new skeleton. Great job with the transition!

As for the platforming gameplay, it was stylistically consistent and fun to play. The music was great, the sound effects were responsive, thematic, and never got irritating to hear, the level design was effective and had the right amount of challenge (for an experienced platformer like myself, anyway). It got a little uncomfortable for my hands once I had to do multiple hovers and jumps simultaneously, mainly due to how I twisted my fingers around the keyboard, but over time I got used to it and I managed to beat the game. Also for the last spike level I was able to jump on top of the spike block and skip most of the level, so I'd recommend removing that gap unless you intended that shortcut to be there, because most players will go through that gap on their first playthrough.

The boss fight gameplay was super cool as well. It was a great contrast to the platforming, and it made a lot of stylistic sense due to the story writing. The artistic style was also a great contrast and it reignited my attention to what was happening on screen. The gameplay of throwing the bone to do damage was really clever, and it became a lot of fun as I got used to it, my one issue is that it's easily spam-able. It's clear that the devs are aware of this because they made the boss spawn in more goons then my casual bone-throws could take down (by the way, the boss fight's AI is fantastic, and all of the attacks were fair and balanced). I'd recommend making it so that you can't pick up the bones until they've stopped moving, that way you don't have to rely on that one playstyle to win. I also recommend that tweak because currently if you click fast enough, you can pick up the bone you just threw, making it disappear as soon as it appeared. These aren't huge issues, but just things to think about.

Also, having some sort of story transition back into the platformer would be nice. I more-or-less know what happened, but having it spelled out for me would be consistent with the game's theme and style, and it would explain what's going on.

Overall, great game play, fun story, fantastic 8-bit and adventure styles, and great use of the jam's theme. Nice job!

This game has a lot of good ideas behind it! As the point-and-click 'explorer' you're put in a creepy, maze-like area that's very easy to get lost in, and for a game about escaping that's a really good thing! The colors (or lack thereof) set a great atmosphere, the repeating but varied rooms make me pay close attention to every move I make, and the fact that they're edited images of a real office space make the space feel so real yet unfamiliar. The main issue was that I explored every nook and cranny I could see, and I still couldn't find an escape. Regardless of whether it was implemented or not, having some sort of clues on the goal within the game would keep players much more engaged.

Also the role of the 'controller' was very confusing because I couldn't tell what I was doing or why I was doing it. It would make sense that the 'controller' is providing support for the 'explorer's escape, and that's a really cool concept, but it just wasn't implemented yet. I could open a map and see red dots flashing at specific rooms, and it made sense after a few minutes that it was signaling where the 'explorer' was, and even then I could only tell them where they were, not where they needed to go. The PA system made sense for voice chat (which we fumbled around with key-binds to figure out holding V did the trick) because there was an audio cue when I pressed or released the key, but the voice chat would break after enough time, so that's an unfortunate bug. The bit-crushing on the voice chat was designed really well though, so props for setting the tone with it!

Overall, I know it's not a finished game, and I hope that my comments go over things that aren't so blatantly obvious to fix. There's still a lot of quality in the style and theme of the game, and the concept is definitely there, so I hope things work out better next time. For what there is so far, I'd say nice job, and best of luck next time!

What a fun and chaotic game! The simplicity of the story, driving force, level design, art, and gameplay all come together to make a simple, fun game.

I really enjoyed the art and AI design of the enemies; they were easily recognizable and easy to shoot, their health was just right, and the danger they posed to the player was perfectly balanced. It was clear how much damage I was taking and giving, and that made the gameplay very fun. The level design also helped give the combat intensity and excitement, and it really made me feel like I was progressing somewhere, even if I was always surrounded by bricks. The tutorial was also easy to understand and worked well with the simplicity of everything else, making it feel very natural to enter the game afterwards.

The "game over isn't the end" theme is used really well here, all of the power-ups are fun to use with my favorite being the speed-up one. I wish there was a way to know when you've acquired a new after-death powerup, like if it dropped from the enemy that killed you, but that's something to address with more time on development.

I will say that once I started dual wielding I would get confused about which mouse button shoots which gun. In all of the CODs I play, LMB shoots the left gun and RMB shoots the right, while in this game it's inverted. That part tripped me up due to built-in habits, so I understand if it's a me-thing. Besides that, the bullet damage, spread, and cooldown felt very satisfying and it only needs minor details like audio/visual cues for the cooldown in order to be absolutely perfect.

And lastly, the story was fun; it  reminded me a lot of Doom with the serious radio partner and the indifferent player. It was nice being given hints about the upcoming level (yay, new guns!) and it made me excited to play them. And the ending was very goofy and almost made me wish there was a boss fight. It's a very satisfying ending despite the abruptness of it, so great job!

Overall, nothing to complain about and a lot to enjoy, so nice job!

What an interesting story! This game fit the visual novel style very well, having all the accessibility and saving options so that anyone could enjoy it. Plus, all the art and music that was created/found fit really well together and created an immersive experience.

The writing was really awesome, as it was engaging and had a lot to chew on from beginning to end. I was stumped on a lot of the questions, and while I disagreed with some of the "correct" answers in the game, the writers made it clear that the judges weren't logical to begin with. One gripe I had with the writing was that we never learn how Logos dies, and that's unsatisfying when the setting of the game is based on that death. I know the game touched on how the reason doesn't justify the means, but I'd still like to have my curiosity satisfied :'|

Lastly, the use of "game over isn't the end" was implemented really well into the story and gameplay, making "wrong choices" breathe new life into the game as opposed to resetting the save point. I think the potential for this mechanic would be truly reached if it led to multiple endings and/or unique dialogue after multiple deaths, but I know that's unrealistic for a game jam. Besides, this already has multiple endings, so I'm really happy with how you implemented the theme.

Overall, great game, philosophical story, clean gameplay/interface, and immersive art. Nice job!

Cool platformer! The design of Blink, the spirits, and all of the cutscenes are really endearing and clearly have passion put into them, and the level design for the platforming was pretty good for a week of game design. The main issue is the speed of the player, as you move too fast and cannot position properly as the levels get harder. If you keep the sprint feature, turn it into the speed we're at now, and then half the current movement speed (walking, jumping, falling), then the platforming will feel much better, and I can better appreciate the character animations.

I also don't see how this game fits into the "game over isn't the end" theme except for the story where you're reviving a spirit, and/or the platformer checkpoint system (which isn't explained in the story, so I'm treating it as a non-diegetic game mechanic).

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this game, just wished the movement was more player-friendly. Nice job!

This is really cool! Your use of the theme is really fun and engaging, and it completely changes my playstyle for shooter games like these. Sadly, I think the mechanic inherently makes the game flawed because it becomes more valuable to tank and sprint through the level instead of kill the enemies, but the endless mode makes that less of a problem. I think if my health didn't drain over time and/or when I shoot, I'd be more inclined to kill the enemies instead of  suiciding and then taking them over, but that's a relatively small issue.

The movement and gameplay feel great, it's very intuitive and satisfying to move, shoot, and infect; the art, music, and story all work together very well to keep me immersed, and I had a fun time. Nice job!

Nice game idea, game objective is simple and gameplay variation is built in nicely so it's easily re-playable. I find that trying to herd the cattle can feel clunky since they push away from the wall, and that usually works against my favor since I push to the left wall and they go to the right. Also the geometry between the player and the cattle is inopportune since you're guaranteed to only push the cattle for a second before they slip off of you. I'd like to see an an easier way to push the cattle, either with a bigger player hitbox or having the cows slowly avoid the player as we get closer. A time bonus for each cattle you herd could be nice as well to incentivize the player a little more. Lastly, I got all the cows to the left and didn't get a victory screen, so I'm confused as to what the victory conditions are. Overall, great concept, useful albeit simple use of the game jam theme, and pretty fun once you get used to the controls. Thanks for sharing!