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Hey, I'm planning to fully commit to this jam and make something wild that also has an equally wild story based off of the theme.

If there are any artists or playtesters interested, DM me on discord or tell me your preferred way of communicating 763246009895616544 (also wow I did not see the new id change for discord like this lol)

I have a few ideas in mind, I won't go into them too much but they're just ideas I would like to explore.

• An Xcom style tactical game where all of the squad mates use the same healthbar (to show how they're a team and to lead to less narrative dissonance).
• A 2.5D roguelite fps that has 90º dungeon crawler movement but fast paced shooter gameplay.
• A metroidvania presented as a survival game where almost every walkable surface is covered in spikes and you need to walljump to reach areas (i imagine it would have a post-apocalyptic story in mind)

It's just a few ideas in my head, but obviously it could all change to something new when the jam starts. Again 763246009895616544 on discord! Cya.

Edit: also if you're an artist, I won't worry about the kind of artstyle you can do, anything works in my opinion and will make it feel more personal to your tastes. That being said if you are able of doing a variety of many different artstyles, that would be great! (I think it would be cool to use many different artstyles for the game)

it will be a gift from the past, games not for us

that's crazy

aight'

What if all of the sounds are square waves??

I just saw the theme now, I'm already excited

I know this sounds against the jam but can we do it so that the obsolete feature of the game (such as a game mechanic) seems obsolete and pointless at first, but as the player learns more of the mechanics of the game, the mechanic actually becomes an interesting part of the gameplay loop that isn't shown as one?

Like for instance (and this is a mechanic I would totally want to see happen for a game someday) there's a feature that changes the aspect ratio of the screen for a platformer game. Which would seem ridiculous, but what if this aspect ratio can be used to get the player character stuck "outside" the game world and exploring a whole different level? Then they can come and glitch back into the game through the aspect ratio change. And so the world inside the game is a linear platformer, but the world outside the game is like a metroidvania in which you can push the game screen into new areas of the world and use it to solve puzzles.

The biggest part of this mechanic would be that nobody would be directly told that you can do this! People can completely look over the mechanic and just think the game is a regular old platformer, but the "obsolete mechanic" actually unlocks a huge part of the game! I know it goes against the whole point of the jam, and if the idea doesn't fit the jam's rules, that's totally fine (I'd probably just make that idea on my own time because I still want to see a game like that), I just wanted to make sure if that's cool with you and this jam!

Thanks!

I have already provided the reasoning needed in my response to you, however what you've done is fail to put two and two together because you are either stupid or a fan of not listening. Probably both.

The idea that the hierarchy in capitalism is somehow voluntary is hilarious, also known as not true, also known as you are lying. This hierarchy is caused by a positive feedback loop or a "snowball effect" that makes rich people richer, and takes money out of people in poverty easier. This is done through how massive corporations are to the point where taxes cannot catch up with them, alongside the fact that smaller companies rely on these big corporations to keep their own business afloat means that rich people get a lot more money because capitalism encourages making people dependent on large entities to survive economically.

Freedom of trade allows corporate systems to overshadow smaller companies who cannot catch up with that market at a sustainable rate. This is why many family owned businesses suffer due to the fact that other larger companies take up their valuable space. There is absolutely freedom of trade in places like West Africa, and especially the USA. So you just ignored that fact at all because you don't even realize I made a point about America in the first place.

Scams predate capitalism, yes, but that doesn't rid the scams done through capitalism of connection to it. Crypto investments are inherently ties to neoliberal ideals of freedom of trade. Your argument is basically saying "don't blame the Casinos! Blame the gamblers!"

Capitalism causes isolation for many people because every aspect of it encourages people to be competitive and never trust each other. Celebrities and CEOs have experienced extreme depression due to how much money they have, they cannot trust anyone to be genuine about their intents because they think that everyone is after their money or fame. 

Either you can't use a single bit of that brain to put the puzzle pieces together or you are just avoiding my points. Regardless, all that I said here should have been extremely obvious through my response if you didn't just act like a dumbass for one second.

P.S, you have a lot of spelling errors and grammatical errors throughout your response and you couldn't even fix them with the two edits you made to your poorly thought out arguments. I think you just like pulling words out your ass, dusting off your hands, and saying "yup that sounds smart enough!"

1. Many corporations have had a tight grasp on "acceptable gender norms" throughout our lifetimes. It's a form of propaganda that's commonly used to easily place people into groups to sell to them easier alongside having more control on how people act. An example of this is how many toy companies (many of which are owned by global conglomerates) make it clear at a young age for kids that "pink barbies is for girls and robots and army soldiers is for boys."

2. Many of the neoliberal economic supporters of systems such as Reaganomics who support your 'free markets' that encourage a harmful positive feedback loop for big companies to thrive and smaller groups to suffer, are the same people who are now -in places such as Florida- making decisions for the state that undermine gender equality, LGBTQ+ people's rights, what kind of media you are allowed to watch based off of how it shows social norms, you get the idea.

There are plenty of examples of families that suffer due to the hierarchical system of capitalism. Primarily families in West Africa such as cacao bean farmers who live day by day supplying the main resource for chocolate to America and Europe and are underpaid every single time. And because you absolutely seem like the kind of person that doesn't care about anything that doesn't happen in the USA, what about the family owned farms here in America that cannot compete with big corporate farming systems and resort to staying in farmer's marts while the corporations sell their produce for cheap at places like Walmart? What about the many crypto investments people have made that turn to duds and leave many people in the dust? What about the big millionaire and billionaire CEOs of our most popular corporations who are known to have severe depression from the isolation that living in a capitalist society brings? Not a single one of these people deserve the shitty life they live, and yet you go ahead and say that people who suffer from capitalism don't exist. Fucking disgraceful.

This is a pretty simple game, but if it ain't fun! I enjoyed this a lot and would love to see this be fleshed out even more!

This is super polished and fun! Like any rhythm game, it takes a bit to get the grasp of, but once you get used to it, it's really good.

I'm pretty sure everyone knows that a game jam can't stop capitalism on it's own; change does not happen simultaneously, but once enough people get the ball rolling, it starts picking up speed. Imagine telling a suffering family who has to work for their entire life harvesting resources for big companies to "grow up you man babies." By going against people who want to make art showing the fucked up world we live in like this, you are effectively supporting a toxic hierarchy that favors luck and heartless progression more than empathy for others and making the world a better place.

Also try to cut back on the meaningless swearing and bad punctuation because it makes you look stupid, which would explain the username but still...

I'm glad to see Atia pop up again ever since "You and Me". The washitape artstyle is looking good as ever, in fact it actually looks a bit more refined and shiny than the first one. I like how we've gotten more and more world building and character from Atia in this one, there was some backstory in the first part, however this one seems to focus more on Atia's point of view in her own life and the world outside of the temple.

I also know that this was made for a visual novel jam, but this sequel (for lack of a better word) about Atia has really benefited from the visual novel formula. To be honest, the RPG topdown style in the first game didn't create much depth other than some simple fleshing out of the temple and a few unlocking of doors.
This time around it feels much more refined, and it makes it easy to know that this is a story-based series, not a gameplay focused one.

Super happy to see Atia in one of your pieces again!

This game is simply sweet and super good! I loved the art style a lot, especially Atia's character panels that had some old text from paper in her hair, really great! The story is also really nice, it's short and sweet. I actually wish I didn't read the short description before this saying this was a love story because if I didn't know it before hand it would have been a really nice surprise that would feel just that better when seeing the end. Considering that the many pieces of text are told from the point of view of the Goddess, I would've felt more in the shoes of her wondering what the player character was doing. That's on me tho! 

This game in general is super inspiring for me and my own work. I'm really glad I stumbled into this because what you've made here is a really nice experience.

Please teach me your ways of optimizing a gamemaker html game this good master oogway.

Jokes aside, this is a really interesting twist on hollow knight and jump king combined, I really enjoyed... falling down a lot of times, and that wall jump mechanic added a lot to the gameplay.

Could I add minigames between visual novel sections as to add challenge and action? For example, a "no internet" style run section where you jump over obstacles.

Edit: Just to clarify, the minigames I'm thinking of wouldn't be much, you wouldn't need to put a lot of thought or effort into them to finish the minigames, they're just a way to add tension and stuff that text can't really get across.

This was pretty cool! I'm assuming this was based off of Florence, the interactive wordless storytelling alongside the little minigames that you do, and of course the love story that you get connected to.

I was admittedly not expecting to get connected to the story in the game, but yeah. Super nice! I was really wanting to see what happened next for the two when playing.

The artstyle was nice, very cozy. The music sellection went along nicely to that cozy feeling, although the audio polish itself was admittedly rough at times, but that's not a big problem considering this was a jam game.

Good love story, cool little interactive experience, 10/10

This game is really cool! I boot this up from time to time because the gameplay loop is super solid. I would love to see this fleshed out some more with cool mechanics, because this game would thrive if there was more meat on its bones.

One thing I would also like to see (which would probably never happen) is a full MMO racing game where everyone's in the same linear track like this trying to get as far as possible, and that's it. The way the obstacles are placed in this game are random and actually really cool, and it reminded my of how cool it would be to see a bunch of random ships controlled by other players racing through it trying to get as far as possible.

Anyways, fun game!

Kinda' sucks that people like you are on here.

Really cool game! I love the fact that you have simultaneously created an interesting difficulty curve, an interesting set of decisions to make, and a unifying mechanic all in one, that one is the hearts as timer, ammo, and health. Because the game has you starting off with plenty of health and ammo, it's easy at the beginning, and difficult over time, unlike other roguelikes that have it as a set line of passage. The art is really good. Everything was juicy.

Amazing game!

This was a really fun game! It can be stressful, but that's not a big problem.

I see what you mean and (with this elaboration) agree.

I made a mistake for that specific quoted piece of my comment, I was meaning to say it was a political agenda that this Jam appeared to have. Now that you have explained that this is a piece of commentary you want to say in the Jam, the rule being put in place makes sense, it's just (without that context) feels slapped on.

For the specification of the tabletop submissions, I can see why now. I'm mostly a video game developer and I would expect that people would be able to differentiate a tabletop jam from a videogame jam, but of course it's convenient to lay it out like that.

Either way, thanks for your reply, sorry for making it look like I'm just shitting on something for no reason, I think this jam is really cool.

I just want to get out of the way that I completely agree with all of the rules, but I feel that many are plain unnecessary (unless the past game jam caused the rules to be implemented), and I'd suggest leaving them off, not because they're bad rules, but because they're obvious.

Firstly, "Table top RPGs only," of course this is only for tabletop games, if you talk about D&D, of course it's tabletop.

Secondly, "No Nazis, terfs, bigots, etc." I understand what you're going for when saying this, but like, come on man. This is extremely unnecessary and it feels very forced. I remember on a different online community of game designers coming across a tabletop sci-fi RPG, and in the instruction guide it said, "This game is meant for a specific audience only, if you are a Nazi, homophobic, transphobic, racist, or any form of bigotry, get a therapist and fix your mess of a life." No joke. I understand that feeling of wanting to share your frustration with politics at the moment, but I really suggest removing that because it makes you look like you have a specific agenda in mind when running the jam, it doesn't matter if it's a socially accepted view (for clarity I agree with your statement), putting that kind of thing makes it seem like you are not here to run a genuine fun event, and that really sucks because I can see that this Jam is created out of passion.

If I were you, I would change the rule to, "Any form of indecency or harmful political intent is prohibited," or just flat out remove the rule because it's really not a necessary rule to have, it's obvious when something has a harmful political agenda, and you don't need a rule to stop those people, those people would be breaking the guidelines set up by Itch.io (look at community guidelines - rule 1 and 2).

This is a really cool idea that is super smart!

I love the negative feedback loop that comes with winning a new piece of the burger, it gives the other player a better chance at catching up. And because your burger get’s taller (or longer? IDK), it means that in the later parts of the game when both sides have gotten many pieces, the burger actually makes it harder to hit it back to the other side, better solidifying who wins the game. Perfect party game design!

I could see this being turned into a four player game, one were people could play horizontally.

The initial controls (even with no burger pieces) is very slippery and sometimes uncontrollable, but other than that, really smart and fun!

Super unique take among the other pong games made! I really like it’s concept.

I will admit that the execution of the idea could be improved. 

One of those things was how slow your player went, not only did it mean that there wouldn’t be a great window to hit the ball back at the enemies, but it also meant that if you miss the ball, you would have to wait for the ball to come back to you automatically.  I can see why it was like that, to makes sure that there’s a punishment for not hitting the ball, but it also meant that it was super easy to be punished.

Another thing was the hitting of the ball itself, it felt like whenever I actually got the ball close enough for me to hit it, it would pass by me half of the time. 

I also thought the enemies could’ve been better, or at least more varied. What if there were enemies that could hit the ball back at you and (if you don’t hit the ball back) could hurt you? What about enemies that have more health but when you kill them give you a cool power up or something. Stuff like that.

Overall, I can see this being a very cool game with a bit more stuff in it!

Super cool game! I’m a fan of the fact that after the ball goes through a paddle portal, it doesn’t just go out the other paddle but instead it goes out a separate set of portals that you need to keep your eye on.

I’ve seen portal mixed with pong before, but not quite like this, the design (especially for portal frenzy) forces you to actually strategize where the ball will go to next.

The paddles are a bit slow to my liking, but I understand why they are, they’re to help make sure you think and strategize your position rather than just being able to zip instantly.

Over all this is just super solid, most other pong mixed with portal games I’ve seen use it as a one-dimensional mechanic as a way of showing “look guys the paddles are now portals.” But you clearly wanted to make a fun game with some value rather than a throwaway joke.

Hey! Thanks for playing, I’m glad to know the pacing is good and not challenging to the point of causing rage.

The ball-paddle mechanic is admittedly different from traditional pong games and -also admittedly- poorly implemented. There is a way to change the ball’s direction with your paddle with something I called “Spiking.” Spiking is when you move your paddle while the ball collides with you, and the ball moves in the direction you’re going regardless of it’s original trajectory. The mechanic wasn’t taught to the player, and (because it’s not how the ball usually works in pong) people didn’t know beforehand. The mechanic doesn’t have any “coyote time” style quality of life improvements.

The enemy variety also is due to this lack of telegraphing of their mechanics. I’ll explain them now because why not:

- The enemies with a circle on them are the run-of-the-mill pong opponent, they follow the ball, but don’t do anything to really catch you off guard.

- The enemies with a triangular looking design are like the circle enemies, however they can spike the ball in a different direction.

- The enemies with a square (the enemy that people remembered the most) follows the player, and sometimes move away from the player to make them more of a challenge.

One thing I’d love to do with the square enemies is make it so that the ball can bounce in both directions depending on if it was in front or behind the enemy, because that would make the square enemies that much more interesting, making them not only an opponent, but also a tool.

The sound in the game (or extreme lack there of) is the part I’m the least proud of for this game, because there was originally going to be sounds, but because of many domino effect-like mistakes, I couldn’t have them in the game, even though they could’ve made the game that much more juicy, (there was even going to be a roar sound for the boss).

I’m actually working on an update to the game that smoothens some of the rough edges that coincidentally cover many of the critiques you had about the game. And thankfully, you actually gave me an interesting perspective on ways to help fix these problems, which I’ll be using for the update. For instance, the undercooked spiking mechanic was one thing I wanted to fix up for the update. But then, after you brought up the more traditional way that the ball could be controlled when hitting it, I’m testing out a build that has that mechanic on top of the spiking mechanic. And hopefully if it feels good enough to use, I’ll probably keep both mechanic in the final update. I’m also of course going to do other stuff like adding sounds, music, a proper tutorial, and some juice such as that wall breaking “animation.”

And again, thanks for playing. :)

Thanks man! I'm glad to know it's got a good flow to it for people.

That slice animation is so juicy, holy hell this is good. Super short of course, but wow is it good.

There is tons of stuff you could do with this concept, moving enemies, boss battles where the weak points help you reach other platforms, or maybe even enemies that give you a one time powerup, like a double-jump.

Easy to learn. Fun to play. Not really hard to master (but that's because the game is short and not fleshed out).

I totally see this going in an awesome direction.

First of all, great game! Second of all, that juice is super good, it was hella' hard, but it was still satisfying.

Interesting, I liked this.

I specifically like the way it uses cell based sandbox mechanics to make a chaotic game that has some interesting ways to strategize.

My thoughts on this game are a blend of mixed and positive. I'll just say out of the box that I am probably not the right audience for this game, apparently it's a fan game for something I don't know anything about. 

With that said, I enjoyed this quite a lot! It doesn't really to too much different from Everhood, but that's clearly the point, it's a sort of reskin with a totally different aesthetic, which seems to be the thing this game is trying to do. The aesthetic of this game is the best part of this game, the mixed fonts and scrappy yet clean nature of the interface and artwork is super appealing and I liked seeing all of the new things this game was showing.

The gameplay is good. However, there's a problem that I think even Everhood faces, which is that I don't feel like I'm going with the beat at times. This is a rhythm game, yet I don't feel like what I'm doing is alongside a beat. There's an obvious explanation for this, which is the design of it, it's guitar hero but you're trying to avoid the notes that fly at you. The game is built around avoiding things and while this can work, it means that people will play efficiently rather than playing alongside the beat, because avoiding things requires options (which this game has at times) and those options ask which would be the most efficient way to execute. Either way, I still had fun avoiding things, even if I didn't enjoy the fact that the rhythm element wasn't present.

The music was good, I know that the music was made by someone else (that I think is a part of the fandom this game is in). I'm not a huge fan of rap, but those parts where the melody kicks in are enough for me to enjoy it. There's not much else to talk about it though.

Sorry for the long winded review on this lol, thanks for your time.

This take is hotter than the dragon in this game.

Bro same lol

This would be the perfect mobile game!

Amazing graphics, simple but fun gameplay, just overall good :)

Edit:

Also the dash is so cool

What... um... I uh.............. I pressed buttons and stuff happened

This is really cool!

It reminds me of those old adventure rotoscope games, but this one has a scifi twist, which I like!

My favorite part of this game was the color palette, it's really good! And some of the scenery caught me off guard by how good the colors were.