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Your insight will help a lot with untangling our poor approaches to jamming and game dev in general.  Following your advice, we will be sticking as a two-man team for the next jam as well ( + our name kinda loses its meaning if we change the number of devs or temporarily split lol).

We'll also be diving into the next jam following along with your advice and practices,  while also creating a time slot for to playtest games during jams.  Since the game wasn't done - the feedback won't be that useful and a time sink since they are missing the "bigger picture" - was a kind of dumb generalised mentality we had during jams (especially since it never got to the bigger picture) and won't be the case anymore since we will using the iterative approach you recommended.  These changes will hopefully drop the flop factors by giga amounts so that we can actually put something out that we can feel overall good about. 

Since we will be (attempting) to make a fun and exciting mechanic driven game first and building around it and instead of the reverse, we'll hopefully be making a bit more of a splash next time around!

Again, thank you for the time you put into helping us!

Hey Evan thanks for the feedback!

We tried making a kind dystopian corpo environment(twitter¿) where you used your free-time in-between work quotas to setup a power ranger-megazord  fusion by combining robots together after unlocking all of them - but instead of happy ending, you setup a doomsday Skynet scenario. 

Instead we a made meh framework with no juice or paid any attention to the player experience. 

What we have in our heads is never close to what we submit, and I'll be honest I get so disappointed It takes me a few days to get back to looking at the submission page or project.  We overestimate how much progress we will make towards the game and take long breaks and sleep-in and when the final days comes it just ends up as a submission rather than a game since all we do is get some basic sounds, remove some bugs and make the game possible to complete, which people won't because it isn't engaging, and submit a few minutes before the deadline without playtesting feedback.

We don't approach game jams with a jam mentality, and everything falls flat since the time that should put into making it fun keeps getting pushed back to later when "everything else" is in - which ends up not happening.  We know this isn't new feedback for us, and we were even like "hey lets keep it to one room this time" and it just ended up expanding again. 

Going forward we will probably experiment with maybe adding a third person or doing individual submissions to get a better bearing of each other.

Even though the game did not meet our expectations, we still thoroughly enjoyed the game jam and are looking forward to future ones! We appreciate the SA GAME JAM and Free Lives for hosting it!

I wasn't confused too much like the other commenters -  I thought the game was clear in how to progress after a few attempts and I actually enjoyed the mechanics. (but maybe hints after a few failures idk).

I did feel as if there could be a final level at the end where it takes elements from all the levels in a sort of boss format ( but as a single dev I guess there was time constraints).  I really enjoyed the phycology theme and game, thanks for making it!

This was a trip! I feel like it could've messaging clearer at what the different ages represented but it was still understandable.  I also struggled with knowing whether I was playing effectively since I was always progressing at a fast pace irrespective of my clicks.

PS.I didn't get to try the extreme/hard mode even though I won.  :(

Damn this one of the more interesting tactical turn-based shooters i've seen on itch. Its  XCOM meets plants vs. zombies (minus the zombies). Definitely a marketable game if its polished and expanded upon!

If only it was this easy...  I really enjoyed the loop, and who knows - maybe like midjourney/dall-e certain aspects of game dev will be streamlined like this.

Pretty sure I beat the game on the first attempt - hit her all way out of bounds! Would've been cool to see the distance numbers rise from the legendary klap!

A lot of surprises left around in the house that returned some good (and bad :[ ) memories. lekka vibes though!

insanely cool, slow and steady wins the race - but I can't help but trying to speed run it everytime x_x.  Would be interesting to have some obstacle like birds or something that you can dodge when you are halfway across (for the MLG players haha) 

No one should ever have to be ashamed of being themselves or  judge themselves  through some artificial standards! Loved the story and the art - own who you are!

The pixel art was cute and the idea of bringing of awareness to aggressive poaching of endangered species is a big plus! 

Almost got a heart attack with the blue screen. Three laptops in three years does a number on your mental!  -.-''  the music fits the assets really well!

Amazing UI that  adds to the game's theme! The camera was a bit clunky but I loved the way the level was presented!  You also managed a first  - dying in the menu! It brought a lot of laughs and I think it should stay in, even if it is an unintended bug!

I was so disappointed it ended so early! Amazing assets, I hope this is developed further.! The game has a lot of great juice for the animations and movement, the only nit-pick is that I wished the jumping distance matched the impact/travel you travelled - it felt short compared to the "power" of the animation.

Astonishing art, and a well written narrative - although the story progresses quite fast compared to the gameplay elements. I sadly couldn't make use of the decoy/attack action, but that aside I'm definitely looking forward to the your next submission!

It took a few attempts,  but I only managed to get 4 gems(seems I got two per gem pick-up). The camera and feel of the character felt great, but the mechanics were somewhat confusing - a tutorial would have been great! The decoy also mechanic fits the gameplay and theme perfectly as well!

I only managed to get to 49 after a few attempts - hopefully I didn't miss anything at 50,  lol. Simple but entertaining!

I liked how the city-scape se-up, especially the depth of the different images.  The games were a bit difficult, the bar was draining faster than I could pick-up the sweets at the first shop! The aesthetic and themes were great though!

It looks interesting but I didn't really understand how the minigames work, and if I pressed "Q" multiple time it seems to bug out. Maybe I just had a brain fart though, lol.

Sick! Judging the ending you are planning to make a sequel where we find the creatures? If so, I'm looking forward to it! My only criticism is that there were a lot of spelling/grammar mistakes for a game based on description/story and it takes away from the experience slightly. 

I don't know who hates me more, my fingers or the keyboard x). Jokes aside - I really enjoyed the music, look and narrative, I also felt really stressed by the enemies (in a good  gamey way).

I enjoyed the dark theme/atmosphere, I wished there was more to explore!  It took me a few attempts because the monsters didn't let me move when they were ontop of me  haha

Loved the look and interactions! I think if there their was some kind of soft chiptune background music to accompany the gameplay it would feel even more cozy.

The visuals and the way the game played made it feel nostalgic but also unique in its execution. I'm terrible with direction, so.....  completing the game took longer than I feel comfortable sharing  (>_<).

 I didn't feel the need for the gun since dying wasn't very punishing, maybe the player could lose a random item on death?

PS

I'm more of a dog person so I didn't feel too sorry for the tormented felines. :p

Simon Baumann (TwinHydro)

Very aesthetically pleasing! The way the game handles the 'don't look' theme is done in a fun and engaging way, - but it could be slightly more punishing!

The  only problem I had was knowing whether I opened a door or not since there was  no audio/text feedback.

Simon Baumann (TwinHydro)

This almost seems to be commentary about people with schizophrenia, I don't know if it was intentional or not but it was quite fascinating!

I really enjoyed the atmosphere that the writing and imagery brought together. I think some point-&-click type of gameplay mechanics/puzzles would have greatly added to the experience of  this already great submission!

I have a friend who takes medication for their anxiety and doesn't even leave her house unless she is with someone due to the stress it causes (due to prior experiences). 'To Walk Alone' allowed me to experience just a  small fraction of what she experiences - and it was extremely unsettling. 

Thank you, this was very thought provoking!

Simon Baumann (TwinHydro)

Its good to hear we that we made some people scared/anxious! Ironically, the fact that the sanity mechanic was poorly implemented is hurting my sanity , lol!

We definitely need to plan story/pacing and a bunch of other things for future Game Jams. x)   Thanks for the feedback! 

Thanks I appreciate the feedback!

We mistakenly messed around with the Sanity just before submission. Whoops! We will definitely make time towards better playtesting in the future.

Super polished and was fun to play! I really enjoyed the way you interact with the fireflies and how you progress by using fireflies as coloured gate switches. Although, I do have a problem with sacrificing my babies! Hopefully they are in firefly heaven... :s

I did feel like I cheated a bit since If I moved my cursor far away quickly the fireflies followed extremely quickly trivialising the timing of the lights slightly. Possibly making them de-select automatically when your cursor is too far away. 

I also thought the game could do with additional challenge by making touching the walls remove/hinder the fireflies in some way to increase the amount of precision you need to guide them on the journey to the jar.

Simon Baumann (TwinHydro)

Super polished and was fun to play! I really enjoyed the way you interact with the fireflies and how you progress by using fireflies as coloured gate switches. Although, I do have a problem with sacrificing my babies! Hopefully they are in firefly heaven... :s

I did feel like I cheated a bit since If I moved my cursor far away quickly the fireflies followed extremely quickly trivialising the timing of the lights slightly. Possibly making them de-select automatically when your cursor is too far away. 

I also thought the game could do with additional challenge by making touching the walls remove/hinder the fireflies in some way to increase the amount of precision you need to guide them on the journey to the jar.

Simon Baumann (TwinHydro)

A 3D steampunk-esque platformer/puzzle game is quite the unique idea! I also like the story of your targeting system going rogue, fits the theme perfectly. 

It took me a minute to realise I destroyed my only method of progress when I destroyed the two pipes by looking, but I restarted the game (the load time *screams* ) and finally progressed to the ending(? I'm not sure if there is more). 

I enjoyed the challenge! I'll link an image of how I got to the end since I couldn't make it from the platforms in the last area. Maybe I missed the end game trigger since I might've gone the unconventional wall-jump way.

I felt deceived when I went down the path to the right and didn't receive anything for my arduous journey!  *angryface*

Jk! I really enjoyed the humour and  the menu + fight scene animations . I feel that adding sound effects to events/actions would add a lot to the experience.

I'm looking forward to your future submissions.

Simon Baumann (TwinHydro)

The lighting and music  and general atmosphere left me with quite the feeling of dread! I had to google some cute shibas to get back to normal levels. Also, one of the eyes is friendly until you try to leave - the BETRAYAL!

Simon Baumann (TwinHydro)

Really enjoyed the experience! If you ever decide to further develop this game,  it would be cool to have some moveable reflective objects, objects which cause refraction(crazy shenanigans :D) or/and split the time ray.  

Would love to see this developed further!

Simon Baumann (Team TwinHydro)