itch.io

I love this game. Challenging but chill  👌

The music is absolutely bangin

EDIT: the gameplay is also bangin

This game is great - the gameplay is fun and the humor is 👌

Simple moveset + varied enemies = amazing fun
I really enjoyed this :)

I just watched a playthrough of this via Alpha Beta Gamer - it's so cool :)

That was sooo much fun! The controls are easy to pick up, but hard to master  👌. And the aesthetics are beautiful - really cutesy in a 90s Nintendo-esque way. I have to ask: do all the different animal have different AI and attributes? Or are they different in how they look?

Came across this randomly on reddit - loved it! This definitely gave me slay-the-spire vibes. Loved the sprinkling of horror too, that really scared me haha!

As a fellow pico-8 dev, I really appreciate how you managed to keep the text informative but short so it would all fit on the screen. Some of the tutorial text went to quickly for me to read sometimes (my only gripe).

Games like this make me wish there was something similar on the gameboy back in the day...

I really wish I had a gameboy that could play this game - it has such a nostalgic, chill and engaging vibe. Nice touches like the weather and the depth affecting sight underwater. I really like the contrast between the land vs underwater atmosphere (the music is great at emphasising this).

In an age where games tend to give you a map and instruct you where to go, I love the sense of discovery here - buying better equipment and exploring the world myself means I get greater joy when I come across a pocket of yummy fish :)

I hope you finish this game one day, I'd love to play it with the fish:money ratio balanced out.

Really cool game, very addictive! I like that the sound of the saws gets louder as they get nearer, nice touch  👍🏾

Jeez, the thunderstorm idea is amazing!! In fact, I'm gonna run that past the team now, it would be really fun to implement. Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback

I love this game! Super original idea, and it is really funny 😂

I really really like the tutorial - really simple step-by-step intro to the control, gameplay and objectives. Once the tutorial was over (and it only took a minute), I was equipped with all the knowledge I needed to play the game.

The controls were very fluid and intuitive. The level layout made the game challenging without being too hard.

The visuals and sound are my fave things about this game - the chalkboard messages, the random things the teacher says (so teacher-y  😆) and the mad out-of-control kids all made me laugh.

One suggestion I have - it might be nice to have the kids slow down as they lose health. That way it's easier to catch them and save them from dying - it might help balance the game out a bit.

Overall, fantastic game really enjoyed it  👍🏾

Thanks so much for the feedback!

Glad you enjoyed the animations, we have our artist to thank for that - they still make me chuckle when I replay the game  😄

Did you have any ideas for making the game more challenging? We are working to improve the game, so any suggestions are welcome :)

Thanks for the detailed feedback!

Good point about the difficulty. Did you have any ideas for making the game more challenging? My team has been thinking about adding 'hazards' inside the robot, like spikes and exposed wires that the scientist has to avoid.

I think if we had more time we could have built out the out-of-control theme a bit more. An intro to show the robot entering the city and the 'autopilot' function breaking, forcing the evil scientist to manually control a now out-of-control robot would be one way of consolidating the theme. Definitely something to think about for future versions!

Thanks so much for the feedback! I love how the game ended up looking too :)

Nice idea! I really liked the controls in this game, especially the dash - it felt good to dash towards an item when it was in my sights (and it's definitely something I woukd do in real life haha!). I liked that you couldn't dash if you were holding an item, that added a bit of tension to the game.

The layout of the area and items is very balanced - the spread of items didn't make the game too easy or too hard. It would be cool if the items were randomly placed every time you started a new game.

One thing I found difficult was determining which parts of the scenery I could walk over and whick parts I couldn't walk over. Maybe an outline on 'solid' objects could help. Also, I couldn't hear any audio - not sure if this was intentional.

Thanks so much for the feedback! We were lucky enough to have an artist on our team, hence the great artwork :)

Hey I just re-read my feedback and realised it wasn't constructive and I sound like an a**hole  😂

What I meant to say is: I completely understand that you didn't have an objective for the game (I think you even explained it was more of an experiment). I really dug the atmosphere, and the silent out-of-control replicating cells gave the whole thing an ominous feel - in fact it made me feel scared (in a good/entertaining way!). I'd love to know what gameplay here could look like in the future - do you have any gameplay ideas at the moment or are you still collecting feedback?

No worries :) I enjoyed the game, so I wanted to give detailed feedback to make it even better!

Falling off the screen: during gameplay if I don't stay within the play area, then I will fall off the play area and it leads to game over. I know this is intentional, but it was quite difficult to stay on the play area, especially as I was learning the controls. To make it easier, especially for new players learning the controls, maybe a border around the play area would help in the first level, then if you make another level you can remove the border to make it harder for the player.

Haha I love the concept!
I've never used this type of control mechanism before - it was tricky at first to know how to move, but after a couple of goes I got it. Although, because the controls are not straight-foarwd it had two positive effects: 1) it made the me feel out-of-control but not too out-of-control 2) it made me want to keep replaying in order to get better
I think the game is a little too difficult, especially because there is no collider around the game border (I died a lot because I fell off the screen). It would be nice to have easier gameplay (more time/more loo roll/borders) at the beginning before getting more difficult as time goes on.
Graphics are super clear and I like the music, it gives it all a humorous feel :)
Overall - had a lot of fun!

Thank you so much for the kind words!
Haha I'm a developer on the team, and I still can't believe we built everything from scratch in 48 hours! We are planning on making improvements to the game (infinite levels - you read our minds  🙂)

No worries, and totally understand the time issue. I had some features in my game that were missing because of time too (I'm sure this is the same for everyone). I like the big bullet button because it felt like an accessibility option to make the game easier (somthing I know Mark Brown is keen on  🙂)

What crazy game haha! Very original, I enjoyed playing it a lot.

The music and sfx made the game feel very hectic in a good way. The graphics were fun and clear and the controls were very responsive. Although after a while, clicking the mouse a lot made my hand ache - using agamepad/keyboard would be easier.

I'm not sure why you needed the intro where the player just clicks on the cookie? I think the game would be tighter/more-to-the-point if you started with the AI talking to you.

Overall, a fun game!

Really interesting mechanic, super original idea. I like the simple music too, it fits the game really well. The graphics commuicated to me well what I needed to do, even without a tutorial which is great design.

I found the game quite difficult - the fish movement is a bit too random. It'd be great if the fish had an anticipation frame ie a clue that it was just about to change direction. The controls were sometimes not that responsive - sometimes I would click once, but the hook would change direction once.

I'd love to see a bigger fish game with this mechanic with easier and more fish to catch - it would make for a nice chill game :)

Hi, just tried playing your game in my broswer and it is not loading

I wasn't entirely clear about the objective of the game. It has a great feel to it (the music really helps with this) and the way the cells replicate feels ominous in an entertaining way.

Because there isn't much gameplay at the moment, it didn't feel super fun/replayable.

Original idea!

I like the fact that you don't know what is going to hatch from the eggs. I also liked the responsive controls.

The game gets a littke repetitive after a while - more enemy types would make it more fun, although maybe that would take too long to develop.

Super original idea! The graphics and sfx are really cool - they make me feel like a hacker while I'm playing  😎

The puzzle difficulty increased in a fun way. I think I completed the game (there isn't a success screen, which is a bit confusing - see attached image).

The controls took me a little while to get used to - it wan't immediately obvious what they did.

Overall a great game!

The idea is very original, I've never played anything like it. The music and SFX are fantastic, they really give the game a comedy vibe.

The gameplay is simple and I though the controls were very easy to use.

The game itself gets a little repetitive after a while, and there isn't any sense of progression, but I understand that we only had 48 hours for a small game :)

Really original idea. The music and atmosphere made me want to keep playing the game. I really like the speech bubble/heart and sfx for a successful delivery :)

The flower art could be improved a little to make them stand out from the back ground and from each other, as well as the different grwoth stages. Since picking the correct amount of each flower is the goal, being able to tell which type of flower is around you and which flowers are fully grown is key to winning. I also couldn't tell when I could walk over a flower and when I couldn't - again, I think this could be signalled more via the art.

Art improvements aside, I liked playing this game!

First off, great to see a game using PICO8! :)

The idea/story here is so original, I love it. The pixel art intro of the sheepdog with the dead shepherd (so sad!) is a great way to add a little bit of story to the game - I really care for the dog and its mission haha.

The gameplay is just as original and yet so simple to understand. After a few barks I got the hang of it (bark radius, sheep trajectory). The graphics are clear and have a cute vibe which I really enjoyed. The sfx are perfect, I like the mission complete jingle  🎶

You even included a map for selecting levels  🙌🏾 I really don't have much negative feedback except maybe the sheep pen could stand out a bit more (maybe with a flag or something?).

I've saved this game to play later with some tea :) Overall, amazing job!

Original idea! I love the beginning starting with the instructions written in large, so there is no need for a tutorial - great design :)

The controls felt super fluid, I liked them a lot.

The mechanic is interesting - although the gun moving in random directions means there is no 'strategy' to shooting. If the gun had more predictable movement (but was still outside the player's control), then it could lead to some interesting strategies to take out the beer enemies.
I like the option for big bullets, but I'm not sure what the lock direction button does...?

The screen shake and bullet noise sfx were very cool.

I wasn't sure of the aim of the game so after a while it just felt like I was wandering around aimlessly - this felt repetitive. Different enemy types would help it feel less repetitive too.

This game is brilliant. Simple but engaging gameplay and beautiful pixel art

I absolutely love the art style for this game 😍 And the gameplay of city managment + exploring sounds like an engaging combo. Please, more devlogs 🙏🙂