itch.io

oh, i see it! sorry, didn't try hard enough to find it haha

Now that I've played it, my critique is similar to what I was thinking even before I realised the goal - the results for the item combinations don't seem to be very intuitive. Colors, faces and type of object all seem to be decided randomly when combining and because of that layer of abstraction between ingredients and result it doesn't feel fair when I create something the spirits don't like - since there's no obvious way to know what you're making until you make it.
If this is meant to be a trial-and-error experience it's successful, but even in that case the solutions would seem to be brute forcing your way through combinations until you lucked out and found the one for the item the spirits wanted.

Basically, without a clear idea of what combinations might make there's no choice involved in the experience and you're at the mercy of the draw. The idea of goal-oriented item combining however is a good one and the setting of ghosts desiring results is nice! I like the levels having different things going on in the background, it made each one feel purposefully different despite the same gameplay between them.

that makes perfect sense! i understand the time constraint issue, and that the rough-ness making it not my kind of game skewing my impression of it.

YES, LOVELY GOOD EXPERIENCE i love the method of arriving at the last room, it really tied the whole thing together. beautiful, love it

This style of game is wonderful - I really wanted a longer story, really dive into the meaning behind not killing anything through the lens of growing up and getting a job, as I believe the plot went? It's artsy and interpretive and I enjoyed it.

I think as a GAME it doesn't engage much with the theme - as there aren't any choices to make gameplay-wise it's entirely contained in the story, which is an important element of a game but I think can be weaved more into the experience the player has by interacting with it - so I feel like I can't give it a very high score in that regard but that doesn't stop this being a fantastic piece that I want more of. I'll probably be going through your library for more like this :D

This style of game is wonderful - I really wanted a longer story, really dive into the meaning behind not killing anything through the lens of growing up and getting a job, as I believe the plot went? It's artsy and interpretive and I enjoyed it.

I think as a GAME it doesn't engage much with the theme - as there aren't any choices to make gameplay-wise it's entirely contained in the story, which is an important element of a game but I think can be weaved more into the experience the player has by interacting with it - so I feel like I can't give it a very high score in that regard but that doesn't stop this being a fantastic piece that I want more of. I'll probably be going through your library for more like this :D

Unfortunately there's an easy way to win - staying at the top of the screen. Avoid sharks if they randomly spawn there but it's a clear sail to victory in a very short space of time.

It's a simple little game, I'm sure with a few more mechanics it could become a more interesting and engaging experience - if it weren't for the exploit I mentioned above it would be quite solid for what it is, maybe another danger that encourages the player to stray from the surface?

As someone bad at using bow mechanics I had a bit of trouble with this one - I like the concept but wasn't very good at judging distance based on bow strength.

The speed of the game felt a little off, too - if there wasn't a timer it would have been a relaxing pace, but I think things moved a little slow for the timer to feel like a fair gameplay addition. Given the lack of music and slow movement maybe it would be a more enjoyable experience without a timer? Really lean into the chill vibe you've already got going on a little

Once I learned the first few mechanics I couldn't wait for the chance to combine them and it came very early, thank you very much.
I liked how some puzzles look like you're just repeating a previous solution but it's actually teaching you a new one - though as I wrote that I found the level I'm referring to (the one that's fire heads all the way down) was actually the last one, and instead of an easy solution teaching me something new it suddenly read as an unchallenging final level.

I think the adventurers could have been designed to read a little cuter (I wasn't sure if they were supposed to be actual babies or not, mainly since their outfits and bodies are more visible throughout the game than their faces which look the most 'cute') but that's such a minor problem.

My main problem was the left/right rotation tiles were difficult to use since directions change with the direction the adventurers had already been spun - once I started seeing them as 'clockwise' and 'anticlockwise' it became easier, but maybe leaning further into that instead of cardinal left/right could have read better.

Very good game, I enjoyed it!

It's difficult but cute! And I like the bits of comedy throughout the game - before I even realised it was a mechanic I laughed at the bullet weaving through the light fixtures, it was just a good moment.

I do think a better way of showing what's hittable and what isn't would go a LONG way, the background objects vary in how noticeable they are and it wasn't always clear what I didn't have to worry about until it was too late.

My main issue though was once depth got involved - it was a little tough to have to focus on the shadows of the objects as well as their actual position. I think it's due to the main movement mechanic being vertical meant players were trained to be looking at the approaching objects in a particular way spatially, then throwing another way in felt like a bit high a difficulty spike (at least for me).

Still a fun little game with a good splash of humour! I will say the assertion at the beginning that you had "one life" immediately proved false when the level restarted but that's a minor gripe lol

I like the art style but I have to say the game feels a little bare. Gameplay wise there's nothing really wrong with it, but the level design is nonexistent which makes it a very same-y experience across levels.

"Exploring" the same area each level just with more leaves/ice doesn't feel like progression or very fun, and the random placement of the fuel and enemies meant there was only one challenge in the entire game: move here, but not there. That along with with the lack of difference in mechanics or ways to interact with the world - even on an aesthetic level like slopes, trees, rocks etc - the game really ended up being one-note. 

I found the choice of whether to let go of the sprint button was the only one that could be made in the game as far as playing goes, which I realised early on wasn't a choice at all because moving faster offered no downsides and felt better than walking, with or without the timer.

A good idea but some flaws with the execution - I do think the player being a lighter and the reason for avoiding enemies/environment being that they were flammable was a really good idea, it's definitely worth exploring and playing with!

Yeah babeyyyyyy this is the theme engagement I'm here for - it's not an outright "if you kill things you will be punished" thing, it's that progression requires you to USE your interaction with them differently to play the game YES.

Mechanically it felt a bit rough to only be able to 'attack' at intervals and at a specific relative angle. It still works and isn't UNfun, but being able to attack faster might feel better and having the option to control the direction just a LITTLE bit more could create for more engagement.

The art style is also good but the visual style is a bit 2000's Flash, if that makes sense? There's something special that separates the sprite-flipping animation in Don't Starve from that in old flash games but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's the walking animations or polished camera, idk.

Overall while the game looked and felt a little dated to play, the main mechanic more than made up for it as an experience. Enjoyed playing this as part of the jam, good work!

Solid main mechanic and nice use of minimalist pixel style - though the auras around the enemies was a bit overpowering visually. When I reached the end I realised I'd only just gotten into it and wanted more, but that's good! You made a solid experience that could be extended into something bigger.

A lot of times though, when I would click (and still had a shot left), instead of jumping the level would reset. I'm not sure if the game was pre-calculating my failure, I had misunderstood a mechanic or it was just a bug, but it was a little frustrating to get through sometimes. I sucked it up though, it didn't feel like part of the 'core experience' so I'm good to chalk it up to game jame constraint.

The poppys are a bit not clever. The number of times they had a clear shot to the goal and jumped the other way into the spikes was a bit frustrating.

That being said, I really enjoyed playing it! The painted art stile is really cute and the puzzles never felt constricting in their solution - it's an enjoyable lil fun time!

I want to protect my duck children. The duck and duckling models are great and with a little more animation or polish I could see myself imprinting on them.

Though I gotta say, it felt very unfair when ducks would die in areas of the map I hadn't even explored yet and be counted as "dying due to negligence". The ways that they could die also varied in 'fairness' - the mines I could understand, that's all well and good - but the poisonous gas seemed to appear out of nowhere and often my duck(s) weren't fast enough to evade it when (not if) it spawned where we were standing. Then there's the wildlife - they roamed a little too freely, able to clear out ducklings across the map and with no way of chasing them off they had free picking of the ducklings - as soon as their AI targeted one of my beautiful children they were essentially marked for death and there was nothing I could do about it, since my only option was running and our walking speed isn't faster than theirs.

Overall I think the concept is good and I could see myself enjoying playing a game like this, but I don't think its current form is particularly fun to play due to feeling unfair. If I could cross the entire map to protect the ducklings targeted by tigers I would, but it's literally impossible since it's happening all over the map.
If the map were segmented into zones and dangers didn't "activate" until you entered that area, the player would feel less disheartened/disappointed/annoyed when the number of dead ducks increased because we would actually have a chance to do something about it, and thereby be more driven to. Maybe it's the framing around 'negligence' that got to me but it felt less 'duck against nature' and more 'me against the game'.

To be cold: Less tigers, freeze them for later, no random poison clouds and let me quack at people trying to hurt my babies.

It's interesting to see a terminal text-based adventure today, but it's rough to play without a lot of quality of life elements modern games have. I know not having a map is part of the experience but when the feedback of my location is limited to a terrain type and direction options it makes navigation a very difficult task.

Speaking of navigation, it seemed to be the only real gameplay element. Attacking bandits seemed like it should be a risk but early on I figured out just trying to attack them makes them flee and ignoring them caused them to steal something I was carrying - which didn't feel like a price at all because having anything didn't feel like an asset.

It all came down to my goal - I didn't know it. Foraging for items didn't feel worthwhile because I didn't know how owning anything would contribute to my goal - and thus losing anything didn't get me further away from it - and even navigating the world, which was difficult, didn't feel like making progress because I didn't know where I could go that would get me closer to my goal.

This feels like a barebones combination of a walking simulator and a sandbox game. Regardless of what my options are, none of them feel worth doing because they don't contribute to a goal (player-defined or otherwise) and while walking around I didn't discover anything that could have made the experience 'worth it'.

Maybe there is something further down the line, but unfortunately these elements combined into an experience I didn't want to stick out as I wasn't getting any impression that there was something I was struggling for.

I will note that these critiques are what the game was missing, not what it had. I'm sure with the right additions the base you've developed can evolve into something more.

It wasn't immediately obvious that playing meant moving pieces anywhere on the board but I figured it out quickly!

The pieces having different movement and attack patterns was a good mechanic but it wasn't always easy to determine which were which, or when attack tiles were fading in which piece was responsible. Even on easy mode the attack cycle happened just slightly too fast to account for but it didn't always feel unfair, just difficult.

The circular piece was a godsend because it was so aesthetically different from every other piece I could instantly recognise it and what it did - for most other pieces, not so much. Maybe their design could have used some color to differentiate them better, or a more referential style to help with learning to recognise them and their attack/movement patterns - it looks like the designs might be based on chess pieces but they're a bit too far from what is recogniseable to be... well, recogniseable in the game.
Seeing something that is obviously based on a Queen would easily read as something that attacks a wide range but even since the atttack/move patterns of pieces aren't the same as they are in chess (i believe?) it's another layer of learning. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but I didn't expect to be doing that much brain work to figure out how to play longer than ten seconds.
Maybe introducing a smaller variety of pieces early on to get the player familiar with their patterns before introducing more could help with this? And more visually distinct choices like the perfect sphere, I can't overstate how useful it was as a player to be able to identify a piece so easily due to its different to the others.

I'm sure playing a lot would familiarize you with the piece design so you would be able to think quicker but a lot of my play time was spent waiting for red/blue squares to appear so I could react to them, rather than strategically moving pieces.

This does seem like an "easy to learn, hard to master" game with a solid gameplay base. Some polish elements like animations, move/attack effects, and a more readable attack trajectory (like the moving pieces easily identified by the arrow pointing from them) would go a long way in improving the player feedback experience but the bare 'rules' of the game are good for a hectic burst.

Those menus are hideous tho lmao

It wasn't immediately obvious that playing meant moving pieces anywhere on the board but I figured it out quickly!

The pieces having different movement and attack patterns was a good mechanic but it wasn't always easy to determine which were which, or when attack tiles were fading in which piece was responsible. Even on easy mode the attack cycle happened just slightly too fast to account for but it didn't always feel unfair, just difficult.

The circular piece was a godsend because it was so aesthetically different from every other piece I could instantly recognise it and what it did - for most other pieces, not so much. Maybe their design could have used some color to differentiate them better, or a more referential style to help with learning to recognise them and their attack/movement patterns - it looks like the designs might be based on chess pieces but they're a bit too far from what is recogniseable to be... well, recogniseable in the game.
Seeing something that is obviously based on a Queen would easily read as something that attacks a wide range but even since the atttack/move patterns of pieces aren't the same as they are in chess (i believe?) it's another layer of learning. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but I didn't expect to be doing that much brain work to figure out how to play longer than ten seconds.
Maybe introducing a smaller variety of pieces early on to get the player familiar with their patterns before introducing more could help with this? And more visually distinct choices like the perfect sphere, I can't overstate how useful it was as a player to be able to identify a piece so easily due to its different to the others.

I'm sure playing a lot would familiarize you with the piece design so you would be able to think quicker but a lot of my play time was spent waiting for red/blue squares to appear so I could react to them, rather than strategically moving pieces.

This does seem like an "easy to learn, hard to master" game with a solid gameplay base. Some polish elements like animations, move/attack effects, and a more readable attack trajectory (like the moving pieces easily identified by the arrow pointing from them) would go a long way in improving the player feedback experience but the bare 'rules' of the game are good for a hectic burst.

Those menus are hideous tho lmao

It feels quite unforgiving but I'm bad at games, so maybe it's me. Given that, I'd have benefited a LOT from a checkpoint system or the style where instead of dying immediately, pitfalls only damage you and return you to the edge.

As far as playing the game went, hoo boy! It felt like one of those rage platformers where every few steps is another trial and error pass/fail test that teaches you how to play by killing you instantly. The 'citizens' (having been transformed into robots) looked like enemies and classic gaming instincts took over, attacking them and dying. The block that deals damage didn't look like a damaging object so I touched it and died. Some jumps were bigger than I thought they were and I died. And after every one of these I was sent back to the start to repeat the process - which, after only a few loops, became very tedious.

I have to admit I didn't finish the game because I ragequit after a few attempts, which given the design may have been the intention, but personally it wasn't the kind of game I wanted to see through to the end because the cost of "getting gud" wasn't paying off.

But anyway!
I like the saw arm mechanic, Serra feels very cool to play as a character, and I love the first frame of the cutscene and thumbnail. It's a minimalist but very cool design and I wish that art had been applied more to the game or the second cutscene image. Serra looks too good to be going up against an MS Paint square with a face or even pixel art. The parallax background was great though, that added a lot to the visual style.

From my perspective a lot of gameplay-specific nitpicks are also aesthetic, not out of appreciation but function. The citizens looked too much like real robots to read as people not to kill and the dangers weren't signposted enough - though this may all be from my taste. Again, this could have been a rage platformer for all I know in which case mission accomplished.
Still wish I could have reached some checkpoints tho lol

I like the idea, but the sliders reducing to zero while the game played felt a bit like any change I had on the scenario wasn't fully real. I understand that just rotating the map so the plane falls into the ring isn't how the game should be played, but each effect only being brief felt a bit fleeing as far as "arranging the environment" goes.

I also have to say (respectfully!) that not including enemies in the game or the concept of death at all does technically 'fit' the theme, but it isn't a very strong engagement with it.

I truly think I need a tutorial for this game ':D I understand the dragging and combining element but I can't make out what the bottom row of UI is trying to tell me, or what my goal is.

EDIT: also, there's no quit button to close the application

I liked this approach to a rougelite! It's a good concept of going into the 'dungeon' not to kill a boss and reach the final room but reach the final room and make your way back while avoiding enemies. I think there's something there to build off!

I agree with some of the other comments that an easier way of determining the doors' lock state would make things easier. I can see how doing so would make the 'solving the maze' aspect of the game easier but given that there are four doors in every room it's actually quite difficult to feel like you're solving anything while playing due to the lack of feedback in terms of progress. A minimap slowly being filled or a visual hint of the fact that you had changed rooms would contribute to this.

Another things is that the player's walking speed was a bit painful at the start, to the point that finding the pill that increased your speed didn't make the game better so to speak, but made it playable.

Last details were that I know the difference in function between nurse and cop means that interaction with them needs to be different, but the way the player automatically kills a cop when they touch one and not a nurse feels unfair. It makes sense that you shouldn't be able to kill the nurses from a gameplay standpoint, and that encountering a cop putting you in danger ovverides your instinct not to kill, but when the aim is to "not kill anyone" and you don't have the option when encountering a different entity it makes it feel like the narrative applied to the game didn't mesh with the game itself. In a nutshell, this didn't feel like a game about not killing anybody because it played as though you were just trying not to get caught by the
If there was a mechanic in place that made talking to the nurses harder because it risked your instincts taking over it would have felt much more cohesive as a theme.

Overall though the art style matched and the concept was solid, just a few tweaks to increase player engagement and thematic cohesion would make it even better!

I'm sorry but this doesn't include the .pck file that Godot packages their executables with - when you exported it, was there another file?

Thank you very much for playing, and for your detailed feedback!

I do feel like I should say there is both a restart function and a way to return Kayden to the last door she went through, both are described on the game page with the rest of the controls.

it being a later one is good in that more of the game is playable, but bad in the way that now I'm even less sure of what the problem is

whelp first game jam down the drain, maybe next time

oh dear
no, the end of the game is very obvious, i think you might have encountered a bug. do you remember where you got up to?

EDIT: i just replayed it and found the transition it happens in, however looking at the project in the editor I'm having trouble recreating it. I'll have to look at it in the morning if I have time (it's late where I am).
Especially gutted that there's a problem like this where it is, the very next scene was where the 'plot' started getting good haha

i love the sound of that SO MUCH please do keep going!

I agree that the art style is great, definitely a strong point.

The platforming is a good challenge too, the dashing feels very rewarding when you get it right and just plain fun even when you don't. Though once I came to where wood was introduced I became aware of just how frustrating it was that other stone platforms didn't work in the one-way manner wood did. Wood is the best platform, change my mind.

I only have two major gripes with the game - the first is the enemies. They take a good few hits to defeat, which wouldn't be as big of an issue if they weren't so efficient at depleting your health. A single enemy can shoot me three times before I manage to kill it, so finding another a short ways down the track can kill me immediately without giving me a fighting chance. It's frustrating and makes them feel more road-blocky than they deserve to be.

Finally, the notion of absorbing souls to get stronger is great, but it wasn't expressed strongly enough to feel like a 'core force' of the game, even though it is. Finding a new soul feels more like a classic "obtaining a new skill" moment than joining forces with other souls to become stronger. This wouldn't have been so noticeable if it weren't for - in addition to the theme of the jam influencing my interpretation - the death screen reinforcing the notion of 'together'.
At the moment it doesn't feel like there's anyone to be 'together' with, which is frustrating if only in the sense that I know contextually there is, it just isn't reinforced enough in-universe. I really like the concept of working together with other souls, I think it's a great aspect of the game that deserves buffing up. I think a bit more work on this could really make that element shine and I'd really love to see it!

Very cute aesthetic, the enemies didn't have as much effort put into them as the rest of the models clearly did which was a bit of a missed opportunity, but that's alright. The visual style of the game is excellent, I would only suggest some indication of which heart piece you're controlling and maybe some more attention to the enemies than the setting, since players pay a lot of attention to the entities they're supposed to avoid/interact with.

The jumping mechanic feels like it needed some work, it was hard to see how high in the air the hearts were which made some levels harder than they needed to be.
There's also the side-effect of the constantly rotating camera of never developing the muscle memory/training to complete levels you struggle with. Because the timing is never exactly the same, the controls never line up in the same direction you had the last time you encountered a challenge, so while the camera movement adds some visual variety it detracts massively from the experience, unless the player completes every level on their first try and never needs to get better at the challenges they're facing.

I think there could have been a little more thought put into the 'controlling two pieces' mechanic. Every level I played had some challenge to it, but not once was it necessary to switch control to the other piece. Even when the third enemy type showed up I found I could manouvre around them if I tried hard enough and switching control to divert attention couldn't really be used - especially since my other half starts in a 'cage' of bombs in that level. While switching control was possible, it didn't contribute anything to the game aside from bumping up the theme's relevance - which, after reading "a full heart is stronger than 2 halves" I was excited to see played with, but once both hearts make their whole the level ends.

In its current form, the game is more about getting to the goal (the other half) than working together. That being said, it's a very cute concept and the setting is made well, so I think it could go far and be a really good game in the future.

Good mechanics and execution, police died a bit easily sometimes and I hoped there would be a decent amount more to find to make up for my lost numbers and for the most part it seemed there were. A real pikmin meets katamari experience, I had a good time

There doesn't seem to be a goal outside of killing the enemies, and once it looked like I'd done that there wasn't anything further to do. If there was a level exit or the like, I couldn't find it.

Given the ranged nature of the enemies and the player's own way of attacking, it was rarely necessary to get anywhere close to the enemies, so for a while I didn't realise the pet could attack. The design of the game worked against it being useful.

I'd also recommend looking into raycasting or the like for determining where you're shooting, as having to click the enemy themselves detracts from the in-the-moment action of pointing and shooting.

All that being said, I love my dog an I'm glad he was there

My health didn't visually deplete, I thought I wasn't taking damage at all until I died. Also, once you get game over you can't replay the game as it just takes you back to the game over screen, you have to close and re-open the program.

The base weapon seems powerful enough to not need to merge with anybody, as I could just mash spacebar to kill everyone onscreen and gain my health back immediately.

The AI on the allies is a bit off, too - they find it difficult t o be around me sometimes, which hurts.

I love the concept a LOT and I had a great time with the game!

Love the team graphic as well, I also love trigger

Good mechanic, good execution! The mix of combining colours and finding the right combinations of who to bring in the level and which walls to use which pellets on - I like it!

One possible polish you could add is being able to switch to a particular color rather than cycle through them - a little cycle left/right indicator so you can control other squares while keeping one in the air and not having to re-jump it to where it was before would be nice.

Simple concept, decent enough execution.

You can kill enemies no matter how far away you are which makes things easy, but also kind of necessary since they notice you from far enough away that they converge on you pretty quickly so pre-emptive crowd control is too good a tactic to pass up.

One mechanic I don't like is dying if you're in front of the payload, it feels like too much of a punishment for something so simple. Even enemies literally trying to kill you deal less damage than a friendly unit you physically NEED to be close to at all times.

I think that's a great mechanic of things being easier the more you bring with you, definitely make that more known (even just in the description) because it's VERY in line with the theme :D