Wowie, what a great piece of work. First thing I noticed IMMEDIATELY was the visuals, clean animation, good visual communication. I was never really left confused at what I was looking at and what I was looking for. The gameplay is def a fun concept and got the Alan Wake inspiration right away (this was before I read the GDD mind you). There was a genuinely spooky atmosphere achived here, probably my biggest complaint however is that the shadow beings never felt quite like a threat. Maybe adding a variety of movement speeds (including a faster one) might create a little more unease and sense of danger. I quite enjoyed the one puzzle, was easy enough for me not to be stuck but hard enough where I felt really smart when I got it.
*SPOILERS* I was actually shocked when I saw the "Ending II" at the end of my first play-through. Although I thought "Ending I" was maybe a tad simple to figure out. I love the idea and the execution of not really letting the player know or communicating in any way that there were different endings, created for a fun shocking twist.
Overall, fantastic work and cannot wait to see more from Y'all!
The team mainly learned time and scale management when it comes to making a game. Our last game was for a 1 week long jam and it suffered because we were WAY too ambitious and we kinda burned ourselves. This time, the idea was specifically made to be a smaller but repayable experience, which worked wonders. We also learned to cut ideas that we deemed as "too extra" to leave for post Jam development (some are in our GDD as extra if we had time, which we did not).
I myself actually learned to code. Originally the team was formed with 2 artist, one of the artist being also a sound/music person, 1 coder, and me as the writer. But as we learned on our first project, me as the writer will probably not end up doing much, so I decided to take up coding to support our 1 coder by doing some of the simpler parts of the game (in this case the minigames) while she focused on the harder parts (the rest of the freaking game).
Oh damn just remembered another kinda funny one. Our game has a progression system, in which the higher your score is, the faster and harder the game gets. There was a bug in which upon restarting the game the speed and difficulty would not reset, so as long as you did not close the game it would get ludicrously fast. This was apparently cause by a single value not being in the code.
Oh man I wish I had funny glitches we encountered but we mainly had annoying and disruptive ones. I think the one that some people may get a kick out of due to it probably being relatable is that full screen would break an important aspect of the game (mainly that you can click the screen using "Z" rather than the mouse which we added cause we had wrist pain with just clicking). This was not fixed until the very end of the game jam because we thought adding fullscreen would be a simple last minute thing to do lol. Shoutouts to our lead coder and generally our leader IronicPomegranate for squashing so many issues in a timely manner.
Thank you so much!! Our team also watched your stream and appreciated your reactions and your criticism! We are very flattered by your kind words. The stream will be super useful to us and we will use it as a source for improvement in the future. Thank you so much for playing and sharing our game with your audience!
Warioware was definetly one of our north stars in this project. And yeah, the artists (Bones and Meowsa) def did a great job bringing this idea to life! Thanks for checking it out!
Absolutely was a question of time as we had about 2-3 cut minigames lol. But glad you enjoyed the music, Bones (our music person) is super talented and def deserves flowers!
Our game is called "Magnificent Software a Wario Ware inspired minigame collection that takes place within a computer desktop with a virus. You must the minigane in each pop up to close it and see how long you can last as the pop ups come in faster and faster and start overlapping each other. https://pompom-games.itch.io/magnificent-software
Our number 1 objective in the development of the game was to manage our time and expectations. This is our second game together as a group, and our first game suffered from poor project scaling and time management. I think we nailed it on that aspect this time and were able to get a better idea of what a workflow within our team looks like.
As for "fun", the main objective for the entire project was to be fun. Every time we play tested, we were looking out for anything that felt frustrating or unfair in an unfun way (since both of those COULD add to fun but its a thin line to walk). Many different balance ideas were changed to make the game have a hectic and fast pace to constantly keep the player engaged, while also not overwhelming them right away.
Whether the game will be further updated is still being discussed (with it leaning on yes) but we have a great idea on the direction the game could go in the future when it comes to more features and content. Hope you check it out and let us know what you think of it! (and your high score!)
Great first game! I really like the idea of having it be timer based rather than move limit like other batch 3 games, encourages faster thought and reactions. Also not sure if being able to move while a combo is going off was intentional, but it absolutely should be kept in for the future if you plan do continue development on this!
I really liked this games concept for its mechanics, there is a gem in there. I do have two main pieces of potential improvements however. First and the biggest one: The game felt a bit too easy!! Once you learn the mechanic, it is way too easy to avoid the fire, so adding more obstacles and distractions to encourage the player to trap themselves in ring of fires would create an more intense game play! The other thing is that the doors were maybe a bit disorienting, maybe try making them instant or a proper transition screen.
Oh boy trying to do a constructive criticism comment on this is really tough just on everything I want to complment. I'm a sucker for dark and abstract visuals so that's one plus.The music is relaxing and just the right amount of "blending in". The game play and its concepts are phenomenal. While I would consider this a 10/10 Game Jam game, it isn't without its flaws. I think the difficulty curve is off, some levels are way harder than others, causing the occasional level where you get stuck on followed by level you beat in 10 seconds. This might also be an absolute nitpick, but the red enemies may be a tad overtuned on how good they are at tracking you down, which caused some scenarios that feel a little TOO hopeless and "checkmatey". As I said tho, 10/10 for a game jam game, could've just been a game on steam and I would've left a positive review there too.
Neat Idea! Simple clicker style game. My biggest complaint is that its a bit easy! the addicting part of these clicker style games is that while you do you get to exponentially grow, the game constantly exponentially grows with you and that's just not here! also for being 7 days long, you kind of get into a bit of a repetitive grind by day 3 on normal play. I would suggest adding more activities and upgrades that help you grow your p2w games even more!
An intense platformer that really challenges you to keep calm and think about your timing with grappling hooks. I think the movement felt great which is the most important part of platformers so you're good on that! My only real feed back is to maybe work on some visual aspects, as some of the grappling hooks were a bit hard to see. Also a more kicking and intense soundtrack may add some intensity to the idea of having to hurry. Great job overall!
Somehow simultaneously really stressful and really relaxing. This is a neat simple idea fully realized. I really do not see a way to improve on this just really solid all around.
Quite the interesting experience. The visuals are great and are definitely the standout of the game. A game where you play as the zombies but is actually at a disadvantage is certainly unique. And the stealth focused game play along with the different kinds of zombies and enemies is absolutely seeping with possibilities.
