itch.io

Just too jank to be enjoyable, unfortunately. Platforming as the cat just feels awful (now that you have to hold a direction on a wall constantly or else you let go, and that now you slide backwards if you hold a direction while charging a jump), and the story just didn't hook me (I assume the twist ending is that the cat is sick? But I didn't really know anything about the cat, nor did I know much of anything about the narrator, so it just didn't affect me)

More than anything it just feels like all of you dramatically overscoped, especially given some of the concept art you've posted (and the fact that the title screen says "play prototype" and not "play").

What I absolutely will give you, though, is that the game is really quite nice looking, and the VA was quite nice (I don't actually think I've ever seen a jam game with voice acting, not first-hand at least).

I definitely hope to see all of you next year, and especially I hope to see all of you tackle something 2D -- that concept art is gorgeous and even prettier than the final game (in my opinion of course)

Still a bit jank, still a bit buggy (once I reached level 4 I got spawncamped by all 4 ghosts at once), but a fun time nonetheless. The physics are really improved from last week, which is quite impressive given the short turnaround. I really like the addition of the leaderboard too, that's always a fun thing to see in a jam game (y'all better not take my #2 Pac-Roll crown!)

I think the concept is interesting, but I don't particularly like the execution, unfortunately. It's a bit hard to tell which way you're facing, so occasionally you'll just whiff an attack or move backwards or something, and getting random attacks each time makes the game feel more luck-based than skill-based (not to mention how hard it is to extrapolate the timing, the enemies seem to act somewhat erratically so it's hard to tell "should I do a heavy attack here or a quick one?" "can I go for this diagonal attack, or will I just whiff?")

Couldn't really tell what was going on, unfortunately. I think you have a cool concept here, but it's pretty rough for 5 weeks of work

Super impressive what you guys got done between last week and now. The music and sound effects add so much! Definitely looking forward to the Colorfur version.

Looking good! I really like the artstyle and theme. I think probably my biggest note is just with the character controls, for one thing I think that the attack key should be rebound, it's really awkward to hit X while also using WASD (and while this issue doesn't exist when using arrow keys, it's still not ideal). I'd suggest making attack either spacebar or shift, and rebinding interact to E if necessary. The other big issue I've got is that Kibwe feels very heavy and slippery to control, they're slow to accelerate and slow to change direction. This issue is worsened by a bug in the game, where whenever Kibwe changes their facing direction they lose all momentum

The only other note I've got is that it's really easy to get softlocked with the materials. On my first playthrough I got 12 grass and 12 meat on my first trip to the forest, but the cook needs 15 grass, and there's no way to discard materials you don't need (that I could find, at least). Honestly, the way I'd solve this is I'd remove the limit on how many materials you can store in the village and just make it so you can only hold 25 items while in the forest (it's weird to me that for some reason Kibwe has to carry all of the supplies in the entire village and can't just set the materials down when they get home)

Roguelites are always crazy hard to do in a game jam, and it's really impressive what you've got done -- see you at the end of Polish!

I think what you've got here is interesting, but I think it's a bit too similar to Crypt of the NecroDancer to the point where it starts to invite unfair comparisons. I think my biggest worry is... does the game actually punish you for not following the beat? Like, in Crypt of the NecroDancer, if you miss a beat, then the enemies get a free turn where you don't move, but here, you can just stand still and not press any buttons and nothing bad will happen to you (as far as I'm aware, at least)

Did you forget to publish the Itch page? When I try and check out your game all I see is this screen

This is pretty crazy polished for a jam game, but I do have some notes

For one thing, I'm disappointed in how major of a game mechanic those "step on every tile in this room exactly once" puzzles are (like the kinds of puzzles that the water/bubble area is filled with). I see puzzles like those as the kind of puzzle that you throw into an action game as a change of pace (like the kind of puzzle that fits perfectly in a 3D Mario game), but I find it really lacking as a core puzzle mechanic. When the game throws a massive puzzle like that in my face, it doesn't give me the same excitement as other puzzle games. My instinct is to just guess over and over until eventually I either make it through or I get bored and give up. It's definitely too late to replace all those puzzles now (which, apologies for not saying this in the prototype sprint!), but I figure it's good feedback anyway.

Additionally, a lot of the puzzles revolve around timing, or inputting precise movement. These I would cut entirely. The character doesn't feel good to try and move around precisely. There's a significant delay between when you input a move and when the character actually moves (not to mention that if you hold two directions at once, the character won't move at all). There's a huge section in the fan area, where you have to escort this little puffball through a million obstacles, and if you mess up once it disappears and you have to restart from the beginning, and it's infuriating. If I'm here to play a puzzle game, I don't want to have to make precisely timed moves, and if I'm here to play an action game, I don't want to have to do any of the other puzzles.

There's another more insidious reason for why I'd wanna cut all of those "action puzzles" -- once even a single puzzle requires tight movement or timing, then suddenly (in the mind of the player) every puzzle might contain tight movement (even if it actually doesn't). For example, I played the fan section first, which starts with a timed button -- you stand on the button, the spikes go down, and you have a limited amount of time to get through the door. That meant that later on, when I was playing the bubble section, I would repeatedly try and pick up a bubble and then run through a gate before it closed, even though (as I later learned) that doesn't actually work

I also ran into a few bugs:

• When holding diagonally (like up and left or down and right), while holding a box, you can then place that box off the grid, which I assume isn't intentional
• Not all of the terrain has collision. For example, in the lower section of the bubble level, none of the crates have collision when you walk into them
• As mentioned before, when holding diagonally, the player won't move. Ideally, I'd want this replaced with a system that lets you buffer an input (for example, if the player is holding upwards, but then taps to the right, I want them to finish their current move, make a move to the right, and then resume moving upwards). I had to implement this for my game in this jam, so if you'd be interested and you think it'd help, I'd be happy to share some of my code!
• After resetting a level, it seems like button states don't reset -- for example, go into the tutorial, put the box on the button, then hold K to reset. If you go back up, you can see that even though the box is no longer on the button, the door is open (and even weirder, if you do put the box on the button, the door closes in front of your eyes!)

It's worth noting that, even with all my critiques, I played through almost the entire game! I've spent about an hour writing this all up, and I want it to be clear that I'm doing this because I think you have a shot here for this game to be great, and I want to do what I can to help make this game better! In particular, the absolute standout of this game for me is the art. The character of Michi and the world they explore is just so charming and cute (heck, even the little arrow keys in the movement tutorial look like a pawprint!), and though I've mentioned my issues with the puzzle design, there is still a certain level of nostalgia to all the different game mechanics (I remember seeing stuff like those sliding puzzles in Pokemon games and such). I really do look forward to seeing the new colorfur (hehe) version at the end of this week!

I think you've got some excellent card game mechanics here!

In particular I really like that timeline, it's super satisfying to see what your opponent is going to do and countering them perfectly (not to mention how satisfying it is to stagger them over and over again). The horizontal positioning didn't seem as relevant in any of my games though, whenever I played as Daybreak I just ended up directly next to Cadence, and when I played as Cadence I just ended up in the corner

My thoughts for what I'd like changed kind of depend on what you want to do with this game in the future. If the goal is for this to become an in-person board game played between two actual people, then I don't have a ton of notes, but I'd definitely nerf staggering for both players.

If your goal is for this to be a singleplayer deckbuilder type game though (which I am thoroughly in favor of, this would make an excellent deckbuilder), then I definitely have some notes -- for one, I think that the opponent should always have priority. It's way more fun to respond to your opponent than to have to just guess at what's in their hand and hope that they don't just pop off out of nowhere. For another thing, I'd make it so the opponent can't stagger. Stagger is the kind of game mechanic that's really cool and fun for the person doing it, and really frustrating for the person being staggered. To make up for it, you'd have to way turn up how much damage the enemies will do, but I think it'd absolutely be worth it for gameplay. I might also simplify the enemies overall, too. When playing as Daybreak against Cadence, it's weird to see Cadence building up and managing Appeal when I don't really care about that (what does it mean for me if Cadence has 3 appeal? Sure, they might play a big card, but it isn't something like "when Cadence has 5 appeal they'll do a super powerful attack", it isn't concrete enough for me to really care)

Did also have some technical issues. All 3 of the matches I played froze at one point or another. One of them froze pretty randomly (maybe after looking in the rulebook?), one of them froze at the start of round 2 (specifically, it let me mouse over and click to play cards, at which point they'd despawn and I'd be given a new card, but none of the cards would actually resolve any effects, and there wasn't actually a Timeline in play, just a pointer), and one of them froze after I right-clicked to discard a card

I really hope I see more of this game in the future though, beyond this jam -- I'd love it if in a few years I saw a Slay the Spire-esque Tempo Battle deckbuilder (or if you'd prefer, a Tempo Battle boardgame or TCG)

Had a great time with this one! The tech still isn't perfect, but I noticed a lot less jitter and a lot less trouble with getting the ball to go where I wanted it to go, and the rest of the chaos was honestly just fun (like when the ball would be close to a wall and the board would jitter just right for the ball to go flying, or I'd try and tilt the board too fast and the ball would clip through and fall into oblivion, it's all very slapstick)

There are a few bugs that I think could use fixing, though -- the game starts as soon as the QR code is scanned, which makes it possible to game over before you've even hit "Start" on the phone, and also in the first level all of the ghosts are released immediately, when in future levels they seem to be released gradually (which makes the first level the hardest, which ain't what you want)

With some visual polish on both screens and some nice juice for whenever you pick up a pellet though, I think this game could turn out really quite nice!

My high score is 265

Quite liked this. The writing really kept me engaged. I feel mixed about the gameplay itself. On one hand, it didn't really feel like my choices mattered -- as long as I placed tiles towards the goal, I made the same amount of progress whether it was meadow, river, or barrens -- but on the other hand, I did enjoy (whenever I had spare tile placements) just building the landscape, building a big continuous river, then putting meadows by the river, and eventually having the meadows transition into barrens, and I feel like making the gameplay itself more strategically demanding could pretty easily shatter that. I think with some nice art and music (and a bit more content!) this could be a very nice narrative experience though. I look forward to seeing the final version next week!

Thanks so much! Not planning on putting in a level timer -- don't wanna stress people out or nothin

I think this game has some nice potential, though of course with some room to grow

I like the decision to make the cat charge their jump, I can picture a really cute animation of the cat preparing to pounce, but I hope that the final game has a better indicator of how much you've charged and how far that'll send you (currently it's hard to get a handle on it)

I agree with you that the climbing could use some tuning, but honestly the thing that's stranger to me is... why can this cat climb omnidirectionally?! I don't own a cat, but I'm pretty sure they can't just spider-climb around wherever they want, even on the ideal climbing surface. It feels to me like the cat should only be able to climb vertically, and even then not super well I don't think (like, the cat can scamper up the wall a certain distance, but only so far)

My last note is just that y'all's camera controls are completely busted if you're using a mouse -- for one thing, the mouse doesn't lock to the application or loop around or anything, so at a certain point your mouse just hits the edge of your screen and you just can't look any further in that direction, but the other big problem is that you guys are normalizing the mouse delta; it doesn't matter how much you move your mouse each frame, the camera rotates the same amount (at first I thought the camera had a super high sensitivity, but no, you can swing the mouse cursor from one screen edge to the other and get the same amount of camera movement as if you had only moved the cursor a few pixels)

You've got a decent enough idea here, flying around is fun and you have an interesting environment with a lot of landmarks

Most of my issues are technical -- for one thing, opening your game made a firewall prompt appear, when your game doesn't seem to have online content, which is majorly sketchy, and it also opened up SteamVR, which was unpleasant as well (it's possible that your game supports VR, but if it does, you want to have a button in the menu to enable VR mode, not have it enable itself by default)

Also, as a heads up, when you upload a game to itch.io, you typically want to upload the .zip file directly to itch, so that people don't have to go to any external websites. Additionally, if you can, it's best to make a build of your game that's playable in-browser, because that's a lot more convenient so you'll get a lot more feedback from other developers (and here's how to upload it to itch)

In terms of the gameplay itself, I think that the core gameplay of flying around collecting those big orbs works well, but I wish that the orbs formed a clearer path and I wish that the plane moved faster overall (you've made a really big environment, but it feels like I'm moving at a snails pace!)

Overall, I definitely hope you continue working on this -- with the right music, this could be a really nice calm flying game

This is some very impressive tech for just one week of work, and I really like how smooth it is to just scan a QR code to pair between the computer and the phone

There are definitely still some kinks to work out though, like others have mentioned the tilt controls were inverted for me (using a pixel 6a), and I also noticed a large amount of jitter in the motion controls (for example, the ball couldn't roll through the top-right gap in the wall that leads to the goal, because the platform was jittering back and forth fast enough that it couldn't roll through), as well as the issue that if you tilt the platform too fast then the ball will clip through (though I believe you're already aware of that one)

In terms of the marble gameplay itself, I think it's a really smart move to use this phone tech for a physics puzzler; moving and rotating the phone is very intuitive and feels natural, and it's very easy to make light and precise movements of the platform (tech issues notwithstanding)

One thing I will say, though, is that it feels like this game would work just as well if not better if it was entirely on the phone, and the phone was just a top-down perspective of the maze -- I want this game to make more use of the technology, either doing something with the dual screen, or connecting a bunch of phones to the same game (Jackbox-style), or making more use of the touchscreen, just something to really justify the tech (something to say "this tech is cool because you can do X thing that you couldn't do any other way")

Overall I think this project has a lot of promise. You've got the communication between the phone and the computer up and running, and this idea is just so creative and unique that I'm confident there's something brilliant you'll be able to do with it. I look forward to seeing your progress at the end of the production sprint!

Reading through that game synopsis put just a huge smile on my face. The idea of playing as a simple slime created by this mad alchemist is just incredibly charming. The thing that worries me though is that you don't seem to have a very thorough plan beyond that -- you have a list of potential level mechanics, but many of these are very vague ("temporary power-ups", "mutation mechanics", "trap mechanics"), and you don't say how many levels you plan on making or what mechanics any individual level will contain (other than being chased by the Alchemist in the first level), which is a very bad sign to me as your scope is completely unknowable until you nail down these kinds of important details

I do have a couple nitpicks with your more specific listed mechanics, though. For one, you mention that the Alchemist will only chase behind the player in the first level, which... feels backwards to me. A first level in a platformer is usually pretty chill and relaxed to give the player a safe space to get used to the controls and physics, but being chased removes that safe space, so your players might just end up dying repeatedly, since they haven't had a chance to get used to the physics (though, to be clear, I am not saying to throw this mechanic out, it sound super cool for like a final level). My other nitpick is that you describe giving the player a short tutorial whenever they pick up a power-up, which... I might hold back on. If the power-up is just something simple like a speed-boost or a high-jump, the player will notice the difference naturally. I'd only give the player a tutorial if the power-up has special controls, or something else about it that the player won't just pick up on (picking up a power-up and having time freeze around you as you have to read what it does just doesn't feel good)

I'd also say that I worry a bit about what's gonna make your game stand out among the other 2D platformers, like I really like the premise of the story, but it's not clear to me how that story is gonna interact with the gameplay (like, I'm playing as a slime, but how does that change how I platform?)

However, the charm of your project is off the charts. I really like the underdog story, your concept art looks great (though I wish there was more!), and again that synopsis is just wonderful

(my final note: I'd workshop the title a bit more, neither Slime Time Crunch nor Amorphia capture what enchants me about this game, that incredibly trope-y fantasy setting, that underdog story, the Alchemist as a villain, neither of those titles capture any of that to me)

Thanks very much!

The idea for how the "relay" is gonna work is that after you beat a level, you get given a "save code" which has all of the saved info encoded in it (all of the players' names, the rats everyone has chosen, which parts have been acquired, and how each part has been customized), that can then be passed on to one of the player's friends (via text, email, DM, etc.).

When that friend boots up the game, they'll be able to input the save code, and then they'll get to create their own rat and join that same relay (seeing the part their friend found and customized, before getting to find and customize a part themselves).

After that friend beats their level, they then get a new save code and can pass that code either onward to another friend or pass it back to the first person in the relay, and then the game gets passed around some more until all 4 parts have been found and the rats escape

Alright! I'm writing up as much feedback as I can, so here are my notes:

• As we discovered in the playtest, the scanner that the zookeeper has is far too useful, to the point of overshadowing the other game mechanics (after all, why use the other game mechanics when you've got the position of the alien(s) right in the palm of your hand). I think there's a version of the scanner that works quite well, but I'm not sure what it is
• I wish that the zookeeper could see what animals that the aliens have to abduct, I think it could add some interesting strategy of "hmm, I know that the alien needs to abduct a lion, and I've got this awfully suspicious-looking penguin in the lion pen". I don't know how that would work thematically (how would a humble zookeeper know the ambitions of an alien), but I think it might work mechanically pretty well
• It really feels like the zookeeper should be punished if they accidentally tranq one of their own animals, at the moment there isn't any incentive for the zookeeper to not just machine-gun tranquilizer darts at every suspicious thing they see, which feels weird both narratively and mechanically (narratively, this zookeeper loves their animals so why are they fine with tranquilizing them, and mechanically, it lowers the tension if the zookeeper faces no consequences for an incorrect tranq)
• I think the visuals are pretty good (as I'll speak on later) and perfectly fine for a jam game, but I think they could be a bit better if you decide you want to continue work on the game, mostly in terms of the environment (like if ya peek too far over the fence, you can spot the edge of the world)
• I noticed (in solo playtesting) that on time-out, the aliens win, which is potentially dangerous balancing-wise (as if the aliens never abduct any animals, then all they have to do is manage to blend in for 5 minutes, which seems fairly-easy without the scanner, but also it sounds like no fun at all, so it'd be good to make sure that that isn't a valid strategy)
• Burrowing doesn't work great as an escape strategy when you're one of the larger animals like the elephant, it's pretty easy to spot an elephant suddenly materialize into existence after the alien burrows. I dunno what there is to be done about that, but I figured I'd put it out there (maybe auto-transform the alien into a meerkat when using the burrows? who knows)
• I think that abducting might take too long as an alien- if the zookeeper is on your trail, then you can't really risk the (what feels like) 5 seconds to abduct an animal. I feel like it could potentially be balanced where abducting takes less time, but has a longer cooldown
• I wish that there was a crosshair for the zookeeper, as it is the tranq is reeeally hard to aim (sometimes it even feels like the dart is being shot somewhat downwards from where I'm aiming, which feels weird), and it feels a little strange when the zookeeper has found the alien, but the mechanism with which the zookeeper tells the game "hey! I found the alien!" malfunctions

In terms of positives:

• This game is just plain fun. There's a reason why there are so many hide-and-seek games that let you shapeshift and blend into the environment, and I like the twist (which I haven't seen before) of the hiding player having to do things that drop their disguise.
• I think all of the animals, aliens, and zookeepers are all very cute, and having all the animals just bob back and forth to walk is both cute and efficient (in terms of time spent developing)
• There's a wonderful tension when you're an alien and you've got the zookeeper hot on your trail, and you're trying to transform or burrow to try and shake 'em off of you for long enough to snag another animal
• There's also a lot of tension as the zookeeper, watching the alien gradually tick off their checklist as you go around watching the sky to try and get an indication of where the alien is
• In particular, I really like the balancing decision of having the alien see from a third-person perspective while having the zookeeper see from first-person, it means that the alien always has the upper hand in terms of seeing the zookeeper coming, which serves to escalate the tension as you can watch the zookeeper narrow in on your position
• I don't know what kinda dark magic you pulled to manage to get online play working (and working pretty flawlessly) in a game jam, but dang that's pretty impressive all on its own
• Put simply, the game left me wanting to play more, and that's one of the best things a game can do

I think overall you have the guts of a pretty good deckbuilder, but there's one thing that's spoiling it for me, and that's the starting deck. Traditionally in deckbuilders, the starting deck is a plain, vanilla, uninteresting, but reliable base for you to build your deck off of, and it's nice and thin too so that you have some space to add cards before your deck becomes too bloated.

Like, in Slay the Spire, a character's starter deck will be almost entirely Strike (deal damage to enemy) and Block (stop damage from enemy) cards, with a couple special ones thrown in so you can touch that character's main mechanic.

In Panzer Decks, you get a starter deck that's already pretty bloated to begin with, and which has no duplicate cards (you don't even get a second "Advance" card, it's brutal), and it's even random, which takes away some of that deckbuilding agency when the game throws in a weird card and is just like "hey, take this Strike Left card, it's super hard to use but that's not my problem", and it just bogs down the experience when (depending on the cards I draw), some turns, I just can't move, and other turns, I just can't shoot (I've had turns at the start of a round where I'm just like "well, I can't move towards my opponent, so I guess that nothing's gonna happen right now). I'm used to that feeling in deckbuilders, but I'm used to it happening as a consequence of my actions (taking too many cards and making my deck too bloated, never deciding to remove cards from my deck, etc.), whereas here, it's the default.

I'd really like it if the keywords were simplified some and you got some basic "Move", "Rotate", "Shoot", and maybe "Block" cards, rather than having individual cards for each movement direction, rotation direction, swivel of the barrel (which I think could totally just be made a thing that you don't have at the start! it could be a cool thing to get from a card drop!), two different ways to fire,  three different ways to block, and two random cards.

I really wanna play this game! I think you have a really interesting deckbuilder! I just want my starting deck to be good!

Hmm, when I click to try and rate your game I'm met with a message telling me I don't have access to that page. Are you sure you have your itch page set to "Published" and not "Draft"?

I don't have much to say! This game continues to be excellent. The only note I have are:

• I wish I could both grab the wall and shoot the bow at the same time. Don't ask me how this would physically work, though -- it seems hard to both hold onto a wall and shoot a bow with the same set of hands
• I wish the arrows would bounce off of the bouncy blocks. I don't think that would have much of a practical purpose, but it'd be a potential interaction between objects and maybe you'd be able to find a use for that

In terms of positives

• You've done an excellent job keeping up with the standards of quality you established in the Prototype sprint, all of the new music, artwork, code, everything, is still of great quality. Honestly I don't have much else to say, this demo was fun and I look forward both to the full demo next week and eventually the full game!

Well done! It's really interesting to see the progression of this game from the Prototype jam to now. My notes are:

• At first, I was confused by the different symbol designs for each color. I pretty swiftly realized "oh, wait, duh, they're for colorblind accessibility", but I didn't immediately and so I suppose that's a critique
• I wish there was a dark backdrop behind the game over text so it was a little bit more legible, you can mostly read it as it is but it could be easier
• It seems like the new tile spawning and the x2 bonuses are time-based rather than move-based, which strikes me as odd (in the rest of the game, the only thing that's time-based is the move timer), and it punishes the player a bit for moving quickly if the faster you move the more walls you have around you, when I was having the most fun moving quickly and making snap decisions
• I wish the menus were mouse-based instead of keyboard based, the rest of the game you can play quite pleasantly mouse-only and just let one arm relax, but when it's menu time I've gotta hit a button just to replay (when it could very easily be either two clickable buttons or "left click to play again, right click to go to menu")
• The two numbers displayed on the game over screen... confuse me. "Highscore" makes sense, but "Highscore this run" sounds like "Score" to me, but it isn't the score. Additionally, the player's score this run isn't even mentioned
• There could be some more juice when you're getting points (the score display is so small in the top left that I didn't even notice it while playing, it's just not anywhere near where my eye goes), especially when getting those big x2, x4, or x6 bonuses

In terms of positives:

• Wow this game is addicting. I've easily done 10+ runs just while writing this message, pulling myself away to do just one more run. If you decided to make it one, it'd be an excellent mobile game
• The new mouse movement fixes every criticism I ever had with the controls, they're incredibly natural and easy to use
• The simple sound effect for movement is very satisfying
• I'm really happy to see the icons are colorblind-friendly
• This game looks incredibly close to finished. You've done really excellently with this, for my money

Enjoyed this one a lot. I think you might be closer to release than you think, at least depending on the scope you have for that visual polish, but I don't know your project as well as you do. My notes from my play session are:

• The animal display while placing an animal tile seems to be bugged - it displayed right for the first tile, and then for every subsequent tile it displayed the wrong animal (which updated to be correct once I placed the tile). Additionally, the end screen seems to have a bug as well (it just displays the total points as 888888888)
• I'm sure you plan on communicating this, but I wish I knew what the animals did! Mostly I use them as a free 50 points every few turns, but they clearly do more than that
• The game is very hard. On my play I got to a score of 2979/4700, over a thousand points away from even the third goal. If I were to blame anything (other than my skill) I'd blame all of the tiles which serve to cap off connecting sections (any tile which doesn't have 2 of the same area adjacent), sometimes it feels like there are a few too many of those. But then again, maybe I'm just salty lol
• Gimme the calming music! I don't care if it's just royalty-free classical music you downloaded off of the internet, give it to me!

For the positives:

• The change to allow rotating the pieces I really enjoyed, it added a lot to the strategic thinking
• The artwork looks nice, I like all of the 3D trees and cacti, and the animals are cartoony but very easily readable, I like them
• I enjoy the depth on the ocean block (the thing the play area sits on), I can't pin down why but it looks a lot nicer than I imagine just a thin sheet would

I wanna get at least one of those working in the Production sprint for sure!

I really enjoyed this! I'm gonna keep this brief since you've gotten a lot of comments already, so I'll try to just point out a few notes others haven't

• I feel like the keyboard controls aren't entirely thought out, which I think is evidenced pretty heavily just by the fact that everyone else has mentioned them lol. To give a specific example, the grab button. It's right above the jump button, Z, which means that in order to both press it and jump you have to change up your grip, which breaks my movement flow a lot
• Your controller bindings aren't all working, at least for me :P. Neither of the L2 or R2 bindings worked for me, so with a controller I could neither grab nor dash
• The arc of the arrow shot when you shoot upwards or downwards feels natural to me, but shooting forwards feels like the arrow goes... too far?
• I'm not sure that dashing along the ground needs to consume stamina, you regain so much stamina both during the dash itself and during the cooldown period that it barely costs any stamina at all, so I feel like you might as well do the player a favor and just make it free
• You've got a bit of sliding at the very start of the movement animation (the character starts moving before they lift their feet, which looks a bit off)
• You can wall jump off the side of the level, which feels strange in what appears to be an open clearing
• It wasn't immediately clear to me that I could stand on everything I could stand on (the carrots, for instance, just looked like background objects to me until I landed on one)
• I think that if I hit the dash button while standing still I should dash straight forward, as I do when I hit the dash button while sliding down a wall, rather than doing nothing
• I think your dash animation could be a little juicier

In terms of positives:

• As mentioned by everyone else, your artwork is adorable
• I enjoyed that the 2.5D effect was weaker on objects that worked as walls than it was on objects that you could walk through, though part of me wonders if that should be the other way around?
• Your sfxr sound effects work well
• That explosion animation on the bomb is gorgeous
• Your movement system is very smooth (I enjoy that I can one-sided wall-jump with the dash, but only a little), though perhaps a little bit slippery
• I've just spent 20-30 mins (while writing this) just running around, even without an explicit goal

I had a bit of trouble figuring out exactly what was going on, but after reading your Ideation document my best guess is that (for now) the only scoring is just to match up and make blobs of neighboring letters, and I had a pretty nice time doing so. Most of my notes just have to do with things that I'd guess you're already planning on implementing, but I'll say them anyway

• This game is begging for some calming music
• I'd love to see some more clear feedback on what exactly is scoring and giving me points each time I put down a tile, as well as just some general juice to the tile placement to make it extra satisfying when you make a good move
• Of course, I'd love for there to be an in-game how-to-play or tutorial
• Sometimes the animal words will cover up what letters are on each tile, and while I understand that those being letters are temporary, I'd say make sure that the animals in the final game don't cover up too much of the tiles
• I think that it's a lot more satisfying to have frequent smaller goals and smaller rewards rather than infrequent big rewards, like I much prefer the earlier 100pt and 800pt rewards to the 6400pt reward, just because then you're waiting a whiiile without the satisfaction of "ooh, more playing space", and each individual tile placement becomes less satisfying as it's a smaller portion of the larger goal
• Also, I wish I could rotate my pieces! There are a lot of times where I find a spot I really like for a piece, but then I realize I'd have to rotate/flip it

In terms of positives:

• I really like how you've done the orthographic perspective, I think it's a really smart decision
• The "upcoming tile" animation (when you place a tile and the next tile moves up) is really slick and nice looking, honestly that exact animation could be in the final game and nobody would bat an eye
• I think perhaps the best compliment I could give your game is that the entire time I've been writing this I've been playing a game of it, and every sentence or two I'll tab over to make another few moves, it's just a really nice simple puzzle and I'm excited to see how the animals and tile stacking will factor in. You've got a good base for sure!

Really liked this one! You really nailed the intensity of operating a railroad station, and having to do so much learning on the job of "X train is coming right now!" and also learning what all the different levers do made the game very tense. I'd guess that most of my notes you had a plan to include anyway, but I'll write 'em out nonetheless

• I wish that turning around was bound to a button (like right click) instead of being a hidden button on the screen, it took me a good while to find out how to turn around (and, at least if you play like me, you're turning around pretty constantly)
• It felt super unsatisfying to me every time I lost just because one train went too fast and collided with another, it feels like that should be on the train operators, not me -- they're the ones who're going at maximum speed right behind a slower train
• You can open the pause menu on the lose screen, and if you then click "Resume", the game starts playing again with the lose screen open and you can get a rather funny looking end screen that reads:
  
• Anytime a train was named "X:XX Local" my instinct (when reading the train text quickly to ensure I read it before it disappeared) was that I should let that train go at that time on the clock (so the 6:43 Local made me think "oh, so I let that train go at 6:43 then")
• It felt really strange to me while playing that I couldn't look forward at the tracks, especially because the pixelart shows that there are windows on that wall. I'd encourage you to either allow the player to look forward at the tracks or to remove those windows
• Whenever two trains arrived simultaneously I had genuinely no clue which one was which. By the end of my play session I think I determined that the one with the mix of squares and capsules was mixed freight? But I'm not totally sure
• Part of me feels that (at least in this easier first level) the rails at the very top and bottom give the player an out to not use any of the rails between the two main lines (once I got into the swing of things, I only ever used the first and last switch and the 2nd and 5th signals), though if the difficulty is going to ramp up from here then I could see potentially having to use those middle switches so you can keep 3 trains stopped at once
• On the rail diagram, it took me a while to figure out what the difference is between a signal on top of the rail and a signal below the rail (and the first time I messed it up it felt a little frustrating)
• I wish that there was more clear feedback for where/why each crash happened, instead of just a popup on the screen.
• I'd like to have a notepad or something to use to write down the names of the trains I'm waiting on

In terms of positive stuff:

• I really like the animation of the trains as they turn, it's just really satisfying to watch all the individual parts rotate (that train that's just made up of a bunch of boxes in particular is really nice to watch)
• The sound design of the constantly ticking clock is on-point
• Once I got the hang of it, the switches felt like they were laid out really logically (which makes sense, the signalbox itself isn't designed against you)
• As someone who's not really a horror buff, honestly I'd really love to see a no-demon mode in the final game (though only if you've got time, of course)
• The pixelart is very nice
• It's fun to run a signalbox well!

It's working great!

Howdy! I was heading over to give your game a rating, but it looks like your Google Drive folder isn't public (getting a "You need access" screen when I click the link)

Could you make sure that you've got everything set up right? I know that recently they've made it so you have to manually set it so that anyone with the link can access, instead of it just being a shortcut link for people who already have access to the folder.

I think this game sounds amazing! The core train management system sounds engaging, and I think you're on just the right track with that comparison to FNAF. I'm also getting some 'Papers, Please' vibes, if you've ever played or heard of that game (it's a masterclass in that "getting into the groove" feeling), which is absolutely a good thing. One thing I would say, though, is that your scope sounds absolutely massive- most game jam games are roughly 5 minutes long, and you're prepping to create a game that's, at minimum, 15x longer than that (5 levels 15 minutes long = one hour and fifteen minutes of content), with all kinds of different levels and imaginative demons and unique puzzle solutions, and while that full game sounds amazing, it sounds like a lot of work to get done in only three weeks. I'd encourage you to make a single level with only one or two of your favorite demons, and if you've still got time you can expand from there. Either way, I'm very excited to see where this game goes, you've got a wonderful idea and I'm hyped to see you execute on it.

All this sounds great to me! I think you've got a really rock-solid plan, I think your scope might be a little wide but it also sounds easily trimmed, and you clearly have a real passion for the schmup genre.

If I were to give two suggestions, I'd say:

1. If you have the time, I'd love to see some accessibility options (stuff like being able to put auto-fire on a toggle, decrease game speed, replace detailed sprites with flat colors for readability, etc.)
   Nothing in your document really jumps out at me as "THIS is what sets this schmup apart", it mostly just sounds like a further refinement of the formula. I concede that I'm not at all a schmup person, so maybe to someone whose more familiar with the schmup formula there's something that's clearly really different in there (I'd guess that bomb gauge?), but it didn't come through to me. Though, again, I really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to schmups.

I think your game sounds fun! In particular I think the idea of being able to play each card either as defense or offense sounds really unique, and strategically interesting (if I have a +3, do I want to use it to make sure I don't get killed by that enemy, or use it to take out this other enemy?). I think your theming is really cute, especially having the enemies be different forms of litter. I would say, though, that your scope seems a little wide, at least to my ears. Having 4 types of enemies, other types of hazard, and treasure chests sounds like a lot, not to mention that you also want to have 5 full levels and a boss fight at the end. Maybe you'll be able to get it done in the time, but it never hurts to have a plan for what to cut.

I think this looks really promising! I think your idea is fleshed out, your story is compelling, that concept art looks fantastic (in particular the "nonbinary??" note gave me a massive smile), I think you're doing great! One thing I didn't spot directly in the GDD would be to have content warnings displayed on the title screen or splash screen, and I'd highly encourage you to include those (potentially even in the prototype), as you're telling a story dealing with issues of abuse and suicide, which is a sensitive thing for some folks. Other than that though, I'm excited to see where this goes!

The original concept was a sort of "less light is more" idea, actually, the first idea was for the vampire to be scared of the dark, but dev time ran low so we compromised and just made it so you could only turn off one light at a time. I definitely agree we ended up straying from the theme some, glad that it's only one of the judging categories lol

Surprisingly enjoyable experience!

Great game!

Massive props for creating (at least what seems to be) a real leaderboard, that's crazy impressive

The momentum feels great, and I love the mastery that comes with the wall-running and sliding, jumping at just the right angle, or sliding as little as possible.

At first, I didn't realize that sliding decreased your speed, and I slid too long during the first level to be able to make it past the first jump

I also think the tutorial prompt for the double jump isn't onscreen for long enough, I sped past it very quickly, I still managed to read some of it and understand I had a double jump, but it still coulda stuck around a bit longer

Also, the second level's start and death text is a bit messed up, though I imagine that's fixable within a few clicks

Honestly just about all of my nitpicks fall into that category, could totally be fixed with just a few clicks and a reupload

I also really like the addition of the blue orbs, I think there's definitely an imbalance in challenge between them, but I guess it balances out since if you want the best time you can you have to grab all of them

My last nitpick is just that I wish there were more levels, I wanna play more of this game!

Definitely let me know if you decide to do a postmortem on this, even if you don't add any new levels I'll prob check it out again