itch.io

11 out of 12. Break downs are in the Community tab for the jam.

The other comments have already said it. Sound would of helped this game and the campfire causing you to move blindly was probably not a good thing as far as player experience in my opinion.

As a concept its a cute little game though. It definitely kept to the theme :)

Hello everyone!

First, I wanted to apologize for the delay in getting the final results. One of our judge's had withdraw from judging due to personal matters. That said the wait is now over and I will announce now the top 4 games, the creators of which will be messaged directly, either on Discord or here on Itch.io if Discord is not an option, in order to determine their prize from the pool.

As a reminder all games were judged based on the following criteria : 

1. Game Design: Are the elements of the game’s design cohesive?
2. Fun: Is the game enjoyable, do we want to continue playing/play again?
3. Innovation: How does the game do something unique?
4. Theme: How well does the game follow the given theme?
5. Graphics: Do the graphics flow well to create an atmosphere that goes well with your game?
6. Audio: Do the sounds of your game bring your world to life?

Also the prize pool includes the following :

1. Jason Weimann's "Full Path Bundle" of beginner to advanced game dev training courses
2. Nature Manufacture's "Environment Bundle - Dynamic Nature"
3. 1-year Pro subscription to the Codecks game dev online project and community management platform
4. Chatterware's "Now We're Talking!" adds automatic mouth movements to low poly characters synchronized to voice clips

4th Place with a total score of 66 out of 90

Created by Bardent

3rd Place with a total score of 71 out of 90

Created by Joe Li

2nd Place with a total score of 73 out of 90

Created by Andrew

1st Place with a total score of 74 out of 90

Created by Slick Games

I want to thank everyone that took place in the game jam! You all produced great games and concepts that I hope you're proud of. I will be posting the full set of results in the post following this one so just scroll below.

The Livestream talking about everyone's games will happen sometime after this coming week! I hope you're able to tune in to hear what our judges have to say about your games! 

I know I have enjoyed each one and intend to go back and leave messages for everyone whom I haven't already.  Thank you again for participating everyone & I hope you'll join us for the next one!

I wish I could say I have finished this game but I haven't.

The art was great. I am a sucker for pixel art. I did notice that some assets seemed squashed, primarily on some rotating platforms but definitely not on the majority. It could be the lights playing tricks on me... speaking of which. A good use of darkness and lighting for sure, but if I had to give a critique it would be that the match lights up a bit too slow since you can't move. Even if I didn't change the speed of the light I'd maybe allow movement to stop the increase and dim it back down early so that players could choose to take smaller bursts of light for speed & game pacing.

I see in your description that you had added more audio to your game after submission & a level skip option. I'll probably be checking that out as I try to play through this game moving forward so my so I can finish the experience.

Overall a solid game I have thoroughly enjoyed.

This is one of those games that got me to keep coming back because it captured the essence of player stress & player fun perfectly.  The game ramps up nice, movement feels great, and each weapon feels unique in its own right.

I still haven't finished it but I have been getting progressively better as I'm learning the weapons you put in to the game.  I really liked the subtle UI touches with the splash of color for ammo also being the shadow of the weapons they correspond to, as well as the audio changing from upbeat to ominous as darkness sets in. It actually took me a second playthrough to realize the audio thing because I was so focused haha.

A great example that you don't need hi-res graphics to make a great enjoyable game.

As a prototype for the game this is has the core loop down. Having to be careful of enemy flashlights or your could be caught while having to manage your sprint ability with your hiding ability was a good choice in my opinion. It forces the player to choose between moving quickly around the stage or having the ability to survive suddenly being caught between a few lights. Great design in those regards. 

Obviously as you said in your description you weren't finished with the game but here are some suggestions I thought of. Some audio during gameplay (which is a duh right?), maybe working in some dynamic lighting would do wonders for the atmosphere to rein in the darkness part. I'm also not sure how much control you have over the lighting but if you considered adding obscuring weather, like flurries / a blizzard that lowers both the player's visibility and the enemies it could change the feel a little bit too. Lastly for the Ai, have you ever played Metal Gear Solid? Maybe there's a threshold where they start moving towards the last known spot of the player to add to the player tension and stress of hunting down the enemies.

Overall this was a good little experience, I think if you kept with the concept, expanded a little on it and had more time to polish it, that the game you'd create at the end of such a journey would be pretty good and I'd like the chance to get to play it if you do.

When we know the time of the livestream we will send out an email or you can join Tamara's Space, the discord channel we've been using for the game jam. We will make the announcements there as well.

Winners will be posted on the game jam page when then judging is finished, so after the livestream. An email congratulating winners will also be sent out.

winners have the option to decline a prize so thats not an issue.

The prizes were listed in the description. They were however not placed under the name Prizes so I have moved them to make it more clear.

Apologies for any confusion on the matter.

Brainstorming is usually the first thing you do in a game jam and so I was wondering if everyone has their concept figured out.

Depending on what "you want to do" in the jam determines how you should approach it.

Want to develop a solid game? 

Really you should always strive for a solid game but the newer you are the more daunting this can be. Dont worry everyones code is spaghetti at first. Or is it just mine?

•  Anyways make sure your scope is small enough you can finish the mechanics in good time so you can focus on polishing the game. Its looks, its feel, all aspects take time so dont forget to account for it. If you think it'll take you 2 days, assume it'll take you 4 to finish in order to give yourself good time.

Want to learn and have fun? 

Honestly i hope you all manage to do this regardless but as someone who learned from game jams heres my word of advice.

• Find something you want to learn. Make the use simple enough you can focus on getting it right and really learning it. No need to be too fancy or you'll over-scope. Trust me. I'm infamous for it lol.
• Brand new? I found a good starting point in platformers (2D) or exploration style games (3D) but thats my opinion.

Whatever the case is never feel you can't ask for help or advice. 

Im from south carolina, united states 

if they cost money you cant use them.

Team up with someone who can make them or find free ones to use. 

Some people fall in love with their concept so much that the prize condition is having been popular enough to continue the project outside the jam. There have been a few games that released to decent or great success that originated as jam games.

I of course would relish that but am also realistic.  I need more experience first.

Are you on discord? I use this same username on the GameDev.TV discord if you're still looking for a team.

This was a great game and experience. It felt very polished and handled well. Loved it to the point I actually didn't notice the last room's door open for a while. Things got crazy haha. Good job!

Great game! I was watching this one on the Discord during the jam. Good job Neia!

Great game and concept. Only complaint I really have is the double jump not being able to jump over some ledges sometimes but overall a great experience. Loved it.

Thank you for playing and for the feedback :)

Thank you again for your interest and your feedback. I'll let the composer know you liked it, its his first time having music in a game.

I'm sure we will release more as I really enjoy learning during the process and just making games in general. Also we may expand on this concept in the future but it may be a while yet as another game jam is starting on valentines and depending on the theme we may take part.

I did. I just resaved them to be sure, but i was pretty certain I had rated already.

:)

Nice game. The difficulty definitely spikes if you're not managing your ammo / gun.

Fun and cute game. My only complaint is the tiny shmush are a bit too tiny for me. I was having a hard time getting it to register I was clicking on them. Other than that I like the game. :)

You definitely got the theme of less is more as far as I'm concerned. If you flick too hard you can die off screen so its more useful to hold back AND if you get less health you split and the game becomes more challenging to micromanage the shmushes. You get a 5 on theme from me.

Fun and cute game. My only complaint is the tiny shmush are a bit too tiny for me. I was having a hard time getting it to register I was clicking on them. Other than that I like the game. :)

Cute game. If I had any complaint it would be the jump of faith. At least the first time I did it. Obviously once I knew it was there I wasn't bothered by it too much but I found myself stopping each time I got to it out of my years of gaming teaching me to be cautious lol.

Anyways good game.

The atmosphere, music and gameplay were nice. I really like the way you use darkness for your theme. I only have two real critiques:

1. the artwork doesn't feel consistent on some things like the trees in particular. 
2. the follow distance on the statues is super tiny. Now it's also on me for not wanting to touch them until I got cornered at the first fish but I had assumed that being touched by them was bad.

I do like everything else and can see the game expanding from that if you added harder puzzles.

This theme was a hard one and I feel like by taking away your "sight" you were providing the less and the more was in the hints you provided by doing so?

Either way I enjoyed that experience and that's what games are supposed to be, experiences. Your team did good and I hope to see you guys do more in the future :)

I could try sending it to you over discord or something. I'm not sure why you're having the problem and I'm sure if showing me a picture will allow me to help you in any meaningful way. I just tried myself to make sure it was working and I'm also on PC (Window 10) and it downloaded without any issue =(

Thats strange as people have downloaded it already. Did you get a specific error? 

PC, Mac or Linux? 

Thank you for playing and for your feedback. I'll make sure to check out your game and comment soon. :)

As for the colors part our goal was to make those paint buckets on the stage interactable and capable of dying the parts on the table at the expense of some of your earned points/currency. Instead of adding more parts anytime  a part goes through the conveyor belt it would have a chance of being one of its colored variants otherwise you'd have to wait too long to see a part you need.

But the art was definitely something that held us back as this was my partner and I's first time doing pixel art for a game. I agree we definitely need to make the parts more distinct if we continue with it which I think we will.

Shame right off the bat one of my game breaking bugs is found. When you get the 3 batteries you won't be able to complete unless you put the battery closest to the battery bay into the middle slot. The one furthest from the bay will hard freeze the game.
 
Such an easy fix and yet instantly broke everything since i can't update the file.

I'll admit when I read the title I thought "That sounds stupid." I was proven very VERY wrong. It is silly but I loved it. Shared it with my gaming buddies and felt so accomplished when i reached the final level. It's great.

I found myself wanting to keep going through the levels. Great game!

If it's based off the video series. I believe the theme is the art pack.