itch.io

I've been struggling for a bit trying to come up with any constructive criticism... but I've got nothing. You've just polished it too well. Lovely game, very pretty, and a smooth experience.

I was definitely going for "mysterious computer in the middle of nowhere" and it had nothing to do with not having any clue how to model an actual building, yup, that's it...

Sounds like you puzzled the puzzle out in a nontrivial but short amount of time though, so I'll call that a win!

You've certainly got a vibe going here. Unfortunately the abstractness is working against the game - I've finished it and I still don't really know what any of the rules are. I've got some guesses at best, and that seems like a pretty big problem for a puzzle game.

The movement is certainly unique enough to make for an interesting mechanic. I think it'd feel a bit smoother if having the mouse cursor outside the radius didn't stop it from working outright, but instead acted as if it were on the nearest point inside the radius? Maybe a bit of easing near the edge?

Still, it feels like there's good potential here that just needed a polish pass or two to really shine. Pretty good for something you consider incomplete :]

This makes for a good demonstration that simplicity can be a strength. It controls well, the level is just long enough to make you wish there were checkpoints but not actually need them, there are zero Deadly Spikes, and other than that one time you have to jump up into a screen transition the dangers are well telegraphed. All in all, good game!

I appreciate the one-bit-at-a-time integrated tutorial, and the whole thing feels very smooth (godot's typical web build freezes aside). Though I don't think this can possibly be healthy for the poor bats. One minor issue - I only glimpsed whatever the warning about the portal was meant to be as I jumped through it - might want to trigger that a bit earlier.

Atmospheric is the key word here. Well done. The smallest bit of criticism I'd have is that at one point I apparently dusted off a console for three hours straight, but I'm assuming that's just random exploration barks randomizing in an unfortunate order. I'd also mention something about how it's a shame it ended so quickly, but I think I'd be throwing stones while living in a glass house :]

Freezing enemies as a means of non-lethal takedown is a pretty neat take on the theme, though the zombie elves sticking around once frozen meant that once I formed a barricade of ice-cubes it became a waiting game towards an inevitable victory. That's fine though, barricading yourself in is a time-honored strategy of zombie games :]

As a side note, if you're going to make a sound play once per second for the duration of the whole game, it really could do with a little bit of variety.

I'll be honest, holding down the left mouse button for fifteen minutes isn't exactly my idea of fun. The flamethrower looked nice, but it needed to either melt the ice faster, melt more ice at once, or have less ice to melt in the first place. Or have anything to do besides melt ice, or at least have a melted ice meter on the screen so I can see my progress.

Of course, I never really enjoyed or got the point of the various X cleaning simulators that seem to be a popular genre on steam, so maybe that's just me.

Or maybe its that I've watched a few too many Outer Wilds lets plays lately, and had a subconscious aversion of running around in a field of ghost-matter looking crystals :]

I'm going to be honest, I think the visual presentation is getting in the way here. I think there's a fine enough shmup underneath, I just can't really see it because of the heavy CRT filter over everything and all the flashing lights covering the whole screen every time I fly through a healing field or take damage. The audio's on point though.

I tried to hint at it by including the render resolution in the corner, but it is fairly unintuitive. Maybe it'd have helped if I'd have gotten around to making the size of the window changeable by dragging the borders? Glad you enjoyed it anyway though!

This does a good job at preventing bullet spam from being a foolproof solution to the whole game, so kudos for that. Some of those boulders felt like real cheap shots though, not sure if that's what you were going for.

FYI for next time (or a patch), the freeze with particle effects happens the first time that ParticleProcessMaterial appears in a scene somewhere where it renders, as that's the point when it needs to compile. Allegedly Godot 4.4 fixes it, but until then you can force it to happen by placing a particles node somewhere on the screen for a frame (right after a level load, for example, so that it doesn't interrupt gameplay).

Glad you liked it!

FWIW, there's a file with hints on the floppy you start with, just in case someone gets stuck (and another file nested one folder deeper which gives you solutions outright in case you get really stuck). Having tried to make a puzzle for a game before, I've learned that there's no such thing as too explicit a hint, as long as you don't give it to the player until they ask.

Glad you liked it anyway, though!

What I've learned here (or confirmed, really) is that I don't deal well with high-stress environments requiring multi-tasking. And you've done a great job creating a high-stress environment.

It's a bit of a shame that you have a 3D environment but it doesn't really (near as I could tell) figure into the game at all though? I'm guessing that's just you running out of time. 

And yes, we did use the same desk :]

I've started over on this on thursday (before that I was playing around with an ice ball), so while the plan was to make the start and the end and then hopefully fill out some puzzles in the middle I barely had the time to polish what I did have. Happy you enjoyed what's there regardless!

So my quick and probably wrong math says there's an optimal point at which to sell a stack of icecreams - the day adding ice would cost more than the resulting scoop of ice cream would be worth. That goes a bit against the idea of building a stack as high as you can, I think.

Also I've somehow managed to create a tile with -1 ice on it, which won't let me add ice to it, so it just consumes any ice cream planted in that tile.

But other than those issues, its a pretty good prototype, especially for a last minute pivot - and maybe its the music, but it does a good job of generating a chill atmosphere :]

The menus are taken straight from Maaack's GWJ template, and after some teething issues I didn't want to risk breaking them by trying to customize them. It's definitely something I plan to keep in mind next time as worth improving.

And glad you enjoyed it!

It was part that and part trying to reduce the about of time I'd accidentally shot myself in the back while testing. After a certain point I did realize the best way to kill the boss was to let it kill itself, but like you said, it felt fitting so I left it that way.

Thanks!

I was actually going to do a stealth-ish level, but I'd not gotten around to implementing patrolling enemies by the time I got to the level design phase. Maybe next time.

Thanks!

Some of these puzzles felt a bit too simple, almost filler-y, but disregarding those there were plenty of good ones, and I appreciate that you didn't use the undo wildcard as an excuse to make a bunch of levels where one wrong move means you have to reset :] The plot was simple but well told and tied into the mechanics (and there was one in the first place) so well done there. 

One complaint I have to make though - there's nothing wrong with tile based movement, but requiring a keypress per step isn't great even if the last few levels in your game aren't just a long, straight, hallway. Other than the contribution to the erasure of the label of my keyboard's D key though, I've enjoyed my time with this game.

I did not expect to get trapped in a character creating screen in a game jam game. Kudos for that.

Also the rest of the game is really good and a unique take on the theme, but that's the bit that really caught me off guard. Maybe the mazes were a bit too big? It took me a while to wander in the right direction on the last one, even after I've realized the best way to meet up was to have both character and reflection meet up at the same edge.

A few particles really go a long way, don't they? In the future, if you're going to play the same sound over and over, I'd suggest using a AudioStreamRandomizer to vary the pitch a bit to keep it from being so repetitive.

It's a pretty unique take on the theme, especially since its done in three dimensions. 

The jumping feels awkward, but Elidef covered that better than I could - though I also suspect there's some weirdness going on with the math that makes the jump favor cardinal directions?

I'll be honest, I don't think the reflection mechanic feels good as implemented, at least the way I ended up using it - if I want to go somewhere, I first have to look at it, rightclick, wait for the camera to zoom in, then turn around 180 degrees and left click, and then let gravity to do its thing while I'm too disoriented to know what's happening.

Still, with a bit of work and some tweaking this has the potential to end up as a pretty good Portal-esque FPS puzzler, and I want to give credit for going 3d :]

Just a few notes. 

• I'm guessing this is just you running out of time, but the theme-related part of the game kicks in a bit too late, even if I do appreciate introducing mechanics one a time otherwise.
•  The fact that the astronaut continues nonchalantly walking in place after getting spiked is a bit jarring, though I'll give you credit for making only the pointy bit of your spikes deadly.
• Did the pushable objects benefit from being able to rotate? At one point the big barrel spun around with me on top of it and did its best to pile-drive me through the floor.
• I'm not sure if the rewind mechanic always rewinding the full three seconds was an intentional limitation? If not, it might have been worth considering a second press of the button cancelling the rest of the rewind.

I definitely wouldn't mind playing more of this, were there more of this to play :]

There's a good game here, but it's held back by itself. The visual sfx go so far that the intro causes eye strain, and the on-hit slowdown lasts too long, giving the player way too much time to plan their next move. Not to mention that often I'd be getting slowdown for an enemy I've hit that I've already stopped paying attention to when I was in the middle of aiming at another target. Tone it down a bit and I'd bet it becomes much better, though!

Solid arcadey shoot-em-up. I won't to repeat every other comment, so just a few extra notes I have. 

• It'd have been nice to be able to regain a color I've lost somehow - as it is once you lose one it both makes the game easier (because you have to pay less attention to dodging) and also make it take longer to increase score because of the dead time when the target's using I color I don't have access to anymore.
• On a a related note, there's a lack of difficulty increase - probably coupled to the problem where standing still means you shoot down all the bullets coming your way.
• It'd have been nice to have which color corresponds to which key somewhere on the screen. Probably just me, but I found it easier to keep cycling through all of them rather than try to remember.

I too have some notes. First the negatives:

• It was a bit disappointing that finding the tetris lock pieces boiled down to just looking on shelves and behind things.
• Speaking of the tetris lock, getting a preview highlight of the held piece while placing it would have been nice.
• The placeholder t-pose was pretty distracting, thanks to the omnipresent shadow, though I guess it had to be there for the mirrors.
• Took me a bit to realize there was sprinting and jumping. My expectation for this sort of game is that you're limited to walking. Not sure that's a problem, but something to consider?
• Could have benefited from some more ambient noise or music.  The silence got deafening after a while, with the occasional door creak only reminding me of it. Footsteps, rain outside, anything really.

On the positive side:

• The Amnesia style world interactivity was a good choice and worked well.
• Once I figured out I just had to look for the tetris pieces, things slid right into place. Escape room games have a bad habit of relying on moon logic, but this game made sense.
• I liked the mirror transition, and the subtle difference in lighting helping to differentiate between the normal and mirrored bathrooms.
• The box glowing on the inside was an effective way of marking it as weird and unusual.
• While they were a bit hard to spot, every room having a light-switch  is handy for marking where I've been.
• 3d gets a bonus point :]

Maybe a bit too short, but that's better than a puzzle game you don't finish. A great first time entry, if you ask me :]

A little bit of sound would go a long way, and it was maybe a bit unintuitive that you can only stand on your shadow copies if they're dead? That's all I've got for feedback, really - it is a short and simple game, but implemented pretty well.

Oh good, I was beginning to worry I'd made it a bit too obvious you're not meant to fight in that last level :)

Happy you enjoyed it!

I suppose you've made a lag simulator here. Interesting take on the theme. I was going to complain that sometimes the screen just fills with logs and there's nothing to be done about it, but that's my fault for forgetting there's a jump button. Still got a score of ~1300 (forgot to write down the exact number) so it didn't hamper me too much - whenever I'd get hit, the reflection would also get hit, which I think was resulting in no real net change? 

The screen did fill with so many obstacles that very quickly I was too busy focusing on not getting hit to worry about trying to maneuver my reflection into danger, which seems unintended. 

The lack of animation is understandable, but it'd been a good start to have the player and their reflection at least rotate to face in the direction of movement. As it is it feels more like I'm controlling a carnival game - though you could lean into that instead :]

As it is it's a decent way to burn a bit of time, and there's plenty of room for improvement. Not a bad game, especially for a first time entry!

In fact, I left making most of the levels until Saturday, but I did make sure to have a fair portion of the level elements (turrets, levels, shields, weapons etc.) ready to go by then. Previous experience with modding games taught me its really helpful to have a toy-box full of stuff to reach into when coming up with level ideas :]
Thank you and happy you had a good time!

I've got some notes. First the negative:

• The Spikes With a Large Square Hitbox seem to make an appearance. Bit of a pet peeve of mine.
• Not being able to fall straight down, only change direction makes the jump feel floaty.
• Speaking of jumping, like a lot of games I'm required to try to move in the direction of a wall to wall-jump off it, instead of the direction I'm intending to jump in. That one's probably just me.

As for some specific things I liked:

• Good use of the Memento Mori wildcard. The bodies help see deadly spots once you've died there once, acting as a kind of adaptive difficulty.
• Also the head popping off is cute.
• I appreciate the inclusion of a tutorial, checkpoints and optional objectives.
• I finished it despite being terrible at this kind of platformer, so it's clearly doing something right :]

It's fun, the audio is fine to my untrained ears, and the graphics agree with my sensibilities as you might be able to tell from my avatar ;] Good job!

Its unfortunately pretty easy to cheese most of the levels by bumping the enemies/yourself against a wall that doesn't exist in the mirror until shooting directly no longer earns you a bullet coming back the same way. That issue aside the execution's pretty good, especially since going by the comments you only had 3 days to work on it? And I weirdly enjoy the max-saturation aesthetic.

For this jam I relied on the level loader from Maack's game template which takes care of loading (and reloading) level mostly for you, but a simple way to do it yourself would be to load the reload popup over the top of the current scene instead of it being its own separate scene. That way you have access to all the data in the scene, which should make it easy to find out which one you need to reload when the retry button is pressed.
As for the UI, you got that right in every level except the first, so just do it the way you did it in those levels :]

I might have tuned the boss fight more, but I ended up enjoying how it turned out the best strategy was to duck behind cover and let the boss shoot itself to death. More on theme that way, I decided. Glad you had a good time!

Right back at you!

The compliment that is, not the bullets.

I'll echo the comments re: large spike hitboxes, and camera taking its sweet time to zoom out while being chased by said large hitboxes, spikes included. That aside, the difficulty felt just right, with tight but not perfect precision timing required to progress. Not bad!

The idea of the last level was to pay a bit of homage to the Shadow Man from the original 2d Prince of Persia, so most of the room is actually just a red herring to bait the player into shooting themselves a few times. What I did run out of time for was having the negative clone show up in a few of the earlier levels to be an inconvenience, but oh well.

I did not expect so much variety of upgrades based on the simple premise. Got pretty into it - about the only thing I'd change is increase the default movement speed a little bit (but I'm one of those people that will pick speed upgrades over almost anything else, so take that with a grain of salt), other than that, it's a game that is exactly what it wants to be. Well done!

Prototype or not, I appreciate how the gameplay and the story both tie into the theme in a different way. Shame about the linear passage of time getting, I would have liked to see the finished version of this.