itch.io

Very funny game, the controls are ridiculous, but it makes for very fun gameplay. Loved the procedular animations and the chill vibe this game has.

Super impressive entry for a game jam! Honestly, though it’s a bit rough around the edges, it’s cute, fun, and performant.

Some random constructive feedback I collected while playing:

• Mines and chicken sounds are very loud
• It’s not obvious that mines can only collect small rocks instead of large ones
• Resource counter to see how much stone / tree is remaining on the map before it runs out could be nice
• The game likely needs a simpler starting build order to not lose early, e.g. berry bushes to collect from unconditionally at the start?
• Houses producing gold seems a bit weird - besides is gold really needed as a resource ?
• Tooltips sometimes bugging out (appearing / disappearing many times on hover)
• It’s possible to zoom through the ground
• In the beginning, it wasn’t obvious to me that there was a moveable camera at all (and holding down middle mouse button imo doesn’t feel good for it)

Love it, great work on this!

An interesting and fun concept, but somewhat hard to execute in the actual game, as the movement is a little rough around the edges and the needle hitboxes are hard to hit.

Some polish suggestions:

• Use a spell-checker :-)
• Make it clear that the rooms are timed (maybe using a digital clock and/or clock sound effects, especially once the time starts to run out?)
• More sound effects - and particularly a variety of sound effects for the same action (e.g. the shooting sound effect gets repetitive).

Good job!

Beautiful and elaborate art, sadly somewhat taken away from by the fiendishly difficult fishing mini game (because of which I can’t progress beyond my first armour). A shame - this game is very pretty :-)

It’s a well-polished game and fun to play, but not very original and the board scaling does not seem to add much to the gameplay. Good work on the polish!

Hi, I’m running into a number of issues on Windows (running in a Sandbox):

• It complains upon unzipping that some files can’t be unzipped (due to encryption?)
• It doesn’t start up because “data/config/times.ttf” cannot be found. When I supply my own font at that path, it starts…
• … However it only gets as far as the tutorial screen (Press W/Up to jump) before spamming me in the console about missing assets and not proceeding further (tried to mash all kinds of buttons).

The error: Failed to load image “data/roomdat/walltemp.png”. Reason: Unable to open file Failed to load image “”. Reason: Unable to open file

The unzipped folder structure: | GMTK2024.exe | GMTK2024.iobj | GMTK2024.ipdb | GMTK2024.pdb | openal32.dll | sfml-audio-2.dll | sfml-graphics-2.dll | sfml-network-2.dll | sfml-system-2.dll | sfml-window-2.dll | -–data | Heroicon.png | Sarahico.png | Thumbs.db | Thumbs.db_encryptable

Very cool game, with a distinctive art style, funky rhythms and a pretty unique gameplay loop. Definitely gives some factorio vibes. Even though I’m a musician, I found it pretty hard to control this game, as you easily run out of space and need to readjust everything manually - a copy / paste function would go a long way, as well as being able to speed up or slow down an existing piece by clicking on it (disclaimer: I only played until level 3 because each level took me ages)

Loved it - one of the best games in the jam for me so far!

Very stylish game with a great ambience! Were you inspired by Inscryption by any chance? As I am pretty bad at escape rooms, I got stuck here and am completely unsure what to do, I’ve tried like everything (even glitched through the floor once, didn’t help)…

Super impressive entry for a game jam!

The slow growth requiring less water is kind of the point I was making - it’s the same reward for less risk. Though it does take longer and makes the game more tedious, never underestimate the lengths a gamer will go to in order to optimize their gameplay :D

The game is very difficult to control, even if you know what you’re supposed to do - though I do love the concept and it does get quite fun when you get the hang of it. I would suggest using mouse button dragging for moving the hand and autograbbing once the mouse button is released, that should be more intuitive. The walking only really worked if I dropped down a bit somewhere, so most of the time I was scaling even flat surfaces :-) Very funny game though, good work!

Thank you for checking out the game! Glad you liked it :-) I definitely agree right now it gets too much (especially at low apartment block quality, which you can increase by non-stop repairing). In a larger release, the problems spawning would have be tuned down quite a lot and the plan would be to replace it with more strategic decisions, which at the moment are basically inexistant.

You have to give credit where credit is due, you’re not wrong. I remember visiting the Tower of London in 16x16 and it looked just like this

This is a solid base to expand on, with an interesting, but maybe “cursed” mechanic of two axis gameplay. Cursed because you need to figure out how to solve the problem that with each draw, half the cards are basically dead draw due to focusing the wrong axis. Some ideas:

• Spell that switches all axes to X or Y
• Relic that makes you draw a card when playing an X axis card
• Power that makes axis X cards cost less energy
• Combo effects: playing X axis card makes the next Y axis card this turn more powerful, or free
• Stance switching: playing a card of an axis makes all cards switch axis.

Particularly more draw would likely be important for this mechanic.

Overall I enjoyed it, though I would have liked to see more content. Understandable if you ran out of time, it is a really big project to take on for a game jam :-)

I didn’t mean to sound dismissive of the scaled piece mechanic - it does definitely add to the game, as it markedly changes the feel of how the game plays, just I personally started to struggle more, as the AI is just that good - and I’m a pretty lousy Reversi player it seems :-)

Satisfying playthrough. I feel like it got a bit difficult especially after the first boss phase, but I did win (although it got close). The boss interludes with the little mazes are an interesting genre break but imo in their current form add little to the game - maybe if there would be more elaborate puzzles or exploration? Really enjoyed the bullet hell gameplay, and everything around it worked well. If I have one suggestion, it’s to add many versions of the shooting sound effect so that it does not get repetitive over time. Good job!

Neat idea and, good-looking / sounding, but I found the difficulty curve, despite the simple mechanics, scaling way too hard with the introduction of the different modes. Maybe make shapes start out somewhat slower, and cycle through modes less fast at the beginning? By the time you get used to one, the next mode starts :^ Also the reverse keybindings mode makes me furious :(

Good work, it definitely is an interesting idea and take on the theme!

You had me when it was a PolyBridge clone :-) Interesting inflate mechanics, they definitely add something to the puzzles provided (except the joints at the bottom, which I straight up skipped and built top only). Do you have more mechanics stored up for a post-jam version?

Obviously this is a game jam version, but Copy/Paste, deleting segments and adjusting segment angles (with Shift click muscle memory from Poly, rip my bridge - it gets deleted every time I try that) would be my top QoL improvements to add. Good work!

Great use of the theme! Musical games can be difficult to design beyond rote pattern memorization, but the story telling added a nice touch here. The walking felt a bit slow, but I can understand if that wasn’t a priority. What was your thought process going for a 3D game?

Fun game - the idea is interesting, and the lovely assets support it well. More obstacles could have been nice, although I suppose this is only the first level. I got stuck on some walls sometimes due to some pixel overlap, and also felt that midair collisions with pixels sometimes seemed to stop my momentum. Overall a good entry :-)

Cute fish, 10/10 gave me rayman underwater vibes. We’ve all been there :-)

Very creative entry - but extremely difficult to control. The sliding mechanic pairs nicely with the sling. One thing I would like to see is if you sling yourself at a wall while stuck, you don’t just go up in a straight line but bounce off, to make it easier to get unstuck. Nice use of the theme!

An enjoyable game with a peaceful ambience - I dig it. At first I thought I was a giant beanstalk growing, then I realised I’m like 3m tall lol. I think a high score game needs a steeper difficulty curve, as especially on normal speed the game’s challenge does not increase quickly enough (it took me a while to figure out I can do growth spurts, which make the game a bit more difficult). More birds maybe? Here’s an idea: add risk-reward for using the growth spurts, for example less water usage or higher point scaling, or add a count-down timer (maybe the sun setting on you, and you have one day to grow as high as you can?). Great work!

PS: I generally like the assets, the music and sound effects, but especially more sound effect variety would go a long way, try to have multiple versions of the same sound for max enjoyment :-)

Took me a little off-guard - great use of the theme! Also loved the opening cut scene - it’s action time :D

Chaotic, I love it! The controls are very difficult though, and made especially the start of the game rough (I almost gave up (without playing the tutorial first)). I think also a remove button would be practical, but maybe you left that out for game design purposes?

It just occured to me that this is one of the uses of the scale theme so far :D

Very fun, thank you!

I was sadly unable to play the game, as pressing space to pick up things did not work. Am I doing something wrong? One advice from me would be to make controls more readily available, as it took quite some time to understand and button mashing what the controls were supposed to be :)

Great artwork - the gameplay itself is simple but works well. One thing I would have liked to see is more difficulty: scarabs should not only drop things from the right, but also from the left side. The drop-off point was interesting but not actually required to win the game. More scales? More scales would be good!

Interesting entry!

The take on the theme definitely is interesting, but as it is, it feels (maybe understandably) difficult to control. Got a couple of levels in before giving in :-) Definitely something though - and the aesthetic, while minimalist, works well here. Good job!

While the take on the theme is not surprising, you combine the simple mechanics into several engaging puzzles with a lovely atmosphere and aesthetic. A larger size game likely would need more mechanics, but the potential is there. Very fun entry!

Overall solid - the gameplay is straightforward and works well for what it is trying to do. The missing assets do not detract - although animations, and especially sound effects (many, and for every thing happening in the game) would add a lot to the game. Good work!

Very stylish, and exactly the right cosy ambience for a chill board game. I’m getting obliterated by the AI, but I did manage to win once :D While the larger blocks are interesting and fit the theme somewhat, I am unsure what dimensions they add to the game beyond being easier to take from all sides. Great entry!

Really loved the unique aesthetic, though the tetris-mechanics felt a little weird to control. As always an insane amount of audiovisual polish!

Hi, glad you liked it! This jam my main focus was the atmosphere, so I’m happy that hit the spot for you :-)

Thanks for checking out the game!

Funny game - I got to 42 points. It’s simple, yet enjoyable. A larger dictionary would go a long way. I think the best strategy I found was sadly not walking but sliding across the keyboard. Still, great entry, and impressive for 2 days!

Great pixel art, and decent level design, although the mechanics aren’t ground-breaking :-) The music, as it is, gets quite repetitive. I would have liked to see more fantastical Alice art, even though it already is a pretty game as is - well done!

Really liked it - definitely a creative take on the theme. The levels are well designed, explore various facets of the game mechanics and their difficulty scales well, although starting from level 6 the levels have a noticeable difficulty bump and get very difficult. I liked the sound design too, especially the scaling sound feels good (though the level finish sound could use some work).

On the improvement side: I first was confused on how to start playing, so some indication could help. The menu options “Main menu”, “Retry” and “Next level” are in the opposite order of what I would expect. Finally, some levels got a little finicky and especially those with fast movement involved could get a little tedious to get right (like level 12).

Super fun entry altogether!

Thank you for playing!

Thanks for playing! I just thought that doing only one thing - at least you should do it well (and cranked up the spawn rate of monsters to the max :D). Unfortunately performance is significantly worse on the web build, and that kinda only surfaced on the last day so I didn’t get enough time to fix it - glad you had fun regardless :)

Never played more than half an hour of Stardew Valley, but I can see the resemblance! Glad you liked the sound design - I agree that our sound designer made a phenomenal job here :)

Thanks for the review! The collision library I am using promised no tunnelling through walls - apparently that was a lie :D Found out before releasing but couldn’t find a fix in time. Glad you liked the design though!