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Coolio! Yeah it's a tough one, I guess I just have complicated feelings on how idle games are like. number go up manipulation at its purest, and that always feels a little icky, even when it's not trying to get your money or anything? But don't worry, I'm not judging you for it or anything haha (either as a jam judge or as a person lmao) I thought I'd just share my thoughts

ily (i love you)

The Atari or even game-and-watch-evoking fidelity of the game was a very interesting choice! Holy moly, though, does it make Lasso Hero feel a bit painfully slow. With the big, slow, and discrete steps that everything in the game takes, it’s incredibly easy to overshoot, shoot too soon, or shoot too late, and while I admire the skill ceiling it creates, I genuinely struggled to get even one sheep! I like to see the mouse-circling-lasso-controls, but they require so much physical exertion to charge, and as someone with chronic hand/wrist/arm pain problems, it makes me a bit sad, and really limits my ability to engage with it. I think there’s a tighter version of the game in here, with some numbers tweaked here and there, but as it stands, I couldn’t get much out of it before my hand told me to stop.

Cute little puzzle game! Reminds me a bit of Ghost Trick, with everything you possess having its own abilities that you use in the chain of events, and some of them being delightfully arbitrary in that cartoon way, like a tree turning into a campfire. Bottles and cacti spinning into infinity was also very funny. I tend to bounce off of a lot of puzzle games because they are so focused on allowing you to parse very complicated things clearly – they tend to look a little simplistic, or not have much in the way of context/story/atmosphere that I tend to look for in game worlds. This game does a great job at that! I’m a fan.

The thing with rhythm games is that they’re made for fans of rhythm games. In my experience, so many rhythm games have boringly easy easy modes, but inexplicably mind melting normal modes and above. I was genuinely so impressed with how gently the difficulty increased, managing to keep me and my friend/OPPONENT engaged and having to get better each hoedown. I feel like this is some kind of DDR training tool, lol. The presentation is wonderful (I think it was a great move to have these exaggerated puppet animations so I can enjoy them even when only looking in my peripheral vision) and I’m such a fan of the adorable, tattoo-spotted procedural characters with lovely little names. Not many games in the jam captured so much of the whimsy and cute-southern-charm of a more twee kind of western setting.

Admire the use of what I think is mostly online art assets! Curation is a skill and an art as much as spriting things yourself, and the atmosphere is great, your relaxing little pocket of nowhere. If I’m off base here, sorry lol. I’m not really a big fan of idle/number go up type games for like, complex socioeconomic reasons, but I had a nice relaxing time in a stressful day with Frontier Farmer, so I want you to know that I’m a fan 😊

How have I never heard the phrase “singleplayer social deduction game” in a videogame description before??? Really effective, gripping, simple and scary concept made all the more atmospheric by using the western cowboy premise. There’s an awesome element of “nobody can hear you scream” about monsters in the dustbowl, and the gorgeous black and white illustrations made it all the more effective. Incredibly impressed by YOBWOC – if I had a criticism, I think it’s almost too effective to be able to send the monster in a direction that we already know the gate is in, to confirm that they’re the monster. I loved the randomness of the wood collection and the risk of sending the monsters to guard horses – in one case, you might get a false positive, and in the other, you might totally screw yourself. I did get very lucky with exploring, though, so it could have been more tense doing that! Either way, stellar work, and excellent choice to put your favourite cowboy media in the credits!

Very fun narrator character, and really fun premise! I love the idea of playing a stealth game where you’re really fast, and really high inertia, and a prop, so a guy just kind of gets obliterated, loudly, out of nowhere, but when everyone turns around, there’s nothing but a tumbleweed. There’s a lot of promise and slapstick in that idea! I do think, though, that the design leaves a lot to be desired. I genuinely managed to actually sneak up on an enemy once: sometimes they would detect me from what was basically the back, more often they would just turn around on their own AI paths (which happens instantly) the moment I went for them. It’s very hard to work around an AI’s routine when you need so much time just to maneuver and pick up speed. The game wasn’t too hard, though – quite the opposite, because the ground pound is a surefire way to defeat any enemy, even if I’m approaching them directly with no regard. I love what you were going for, genuinely, but I’m left more enchanted by what I think the game could be then what it is.

Inspired in basically every way I can think of. Interesting but silly high-concept elements, from the strange magical branding-themed hero’s journey, the imagining of the cowboy as defined by his relationship to a single cow, giant adorable isopods instead of horses, and all so understated, all left for you to marinate in, done all for the fun of it and not for the sake of capital W Worldbuilding. Paced wonderfully, jumping between mildly internet poisoned quips and some of the best prose I’ve read this year, all hilarious and touching. I’m just familiar enough with Reese’s work to say that he’s got a unique grasp on the solemn moody car/bug driving montage. Also, one of the cutest depictions of new love I’ve seen in a game, as a random silly event that means nothing for the plot or gameplay. I love everything about this game.

Beautiful holistic moody piece, taking most of the classic vibes and iconography of the cowboy genre but adding to the infinite desolation and loneliness by stretching into the vast emptiness of space. I love cowboy bebop too. The use of prerendered 3D and crunched up images is super delightful, full of personality, and has details in all the places it’s needed, and I’m always here for the soft queering of a genre that is so straight it loops over to being painfully homoerotic. I think, in a world where everybody is broken and the world is infinitely massive, that intimacy would be worth chasing across the galaxy.

Absolutely amazingly cinematic. The opening credits, both kind of delightfully exhaustive and also very silly, add so much anticipation and fun to your long ride towards the watering hole. The subtitles being deliberately wrong in a amateur/overly literal translation kind of way was really cute and a fun nod to how much of the western genre’s history coming from low budget films from Italy and such. I found the voice lines to get a little grating at bits, a little too ironic, a little too embarrassed with the premise, but I can tell everyone was having so much fun, and that’s infectious.

Really fun and tight arcade game! Always a fan of leaning into the awkwardness of physics systems, putting the magnet on the end of a long silly rope. The difficulty and complexity escalates pretty fairly, although quickly, in a way that meant I was never really just going through the motions, and mechanics like the dash and laser cows became more and more central to the strategy as the game went on. I think it’s cute to make a cowboy game that centres the cows like this, although I feel thematically there’s so much fun to be had with the idea of cowboys and the themes of the western that I wish they weren’t just kind of a stock bad guy/coat of paint on the game. The talk sounds in the intro are funny but holy moly if it went on for another five seconds I might have died.

I absolutely LOVE the premise of selectively removing parts of a contract to change the wording in your favour. Like, this could absolutely be a much bigger game, and if I could see the effects of that changed contract (i.e. changing “a new carpet” to “a new pet”), even superficially like through a little graphic in the room, would be awesome and really funny. The western theming doesn’t feel obligatory at all, even though the premise could work in a whole bunch of settings – the bluntness of literally shooting parts of the contract out, and the tension between the free and earthly cowboy versus. the encroaching capitalist that threatens to turn the frontier into the same orderly society that the outlaw has cast off, is just sooo tasty. I’m always here for verbose parodies of law and business language. Awesome project!

Not gonna lie, I was suspicious when I saw it was a card game – I feel like it’s a bit too much of a trend at the moment. HOWEVER!!!!!!! I had no idea what I was in for with Card Wrangler, and I’m happy to say I think it kicks ass. I had a lot of fun playing multiple times, trying to figure out what upgrades to prioritise, getting a sense for what animals tended to appear where, and aiming for a better score (my high score is 57). I’m not sure how the hell to play good enough to get to the point where cattle/horses/bandits are relevant, because I was still catching chickens/sheep/pigs by the time my best playthrough ran out, and I thought I was playing pretty damn well. I’d love to see the devs be absolutely cracked at it some time. The art is also suuuuper cute!

Legitimately kind of fun premise for what is generally a super tired cliché kind of genre (the parody dating sim), but seems to either be broken or not made past the introduction of the first gun character. Would have loved to see more!

My friend and I both screamed “oh shit!!!!!!” when we realised you could swing the bandits around on your lasso. That shit is sooooo cool, and feels incredibly satisfying to take out a whole line of guys!! The low-fi presentation is very clean and nice in that sort of modern indie luftrausers kind of way, keeping me in the action and coming back for more. I think the overall balance and pacing of the player’s abilities and enemies could use a bit of work: spinning enemies with the lasso is obviously the most fun thing to do in the game, and the most rewarding, but I found increasingly the optimal way to play was just to whip the enemies, because the overwhelmed me too quickly to position myself for a lasso swing. It escalates soo quickly! I really enjoyed what you were going for here, though, and you should be really proud.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Not just being able to spin my gun, but having to actively physically spin it with my mouse, is so fucking inspired, especially in how it ties into the core gameplay. The best thing I can say here is that I was left wanting more, soooo much more, that I went through again immediately, just because I was still riding the high. Jumping on sheep, the gun jump, the horse and lasso, all of these mechanics are delightful and full of potential, one of the games in this jam that I would most love to see expanded upon, made more silly, more elaborate. Dedicated yeehaw button is always appreciated, and boy, is it a lively one!!!

Surprisingly layered little shooter game! Having to play a sort of pseudo-pacman running around collecting crap in order to even be able to defend yourself is great (if anything, I wish it was a little scarcer by default to really pile on the pressure!). I can’t tell if enemies blowing up on contact with the environment is intended to be a tool for the player, a funny joke, or a way to deal with pathfinding bugs, but it ends up being all three, and it’s hard to get more delightfully economical in gamemaking than that! Naming the cowboy that killed you is awesome and such a nice tiny little touch. You’ve put more effort into accessibility than most submissions in the jam, and that really can’t be underestimated, huge props, I think that’s awesome. If you’ll permit me to put my ideas guy hat on for a second, I think it would rule if scoring was more closely linked to the coins you have, since they’re literally coins, and it encourages you to be more accurate (I kind of assumed that was what was going on until I got more of a feel for the scoring system, haha).

Vriska.... :)

Absolutely phenomenal oh my godddd

I think this spiritual series with city of piss and monomyth will keep getting new installments every now and then... I'm not sure when But these kinds of places pop up whenever I'm experimenting with visuals :) I'm so glad you liked it!

thank you for playing!! i love your work :)

What an incredible series. I'm blown away by the beauty of every single set and the slow increase in ambition from episode to episode. Inspiring and propelling for my own practice. Thank you so much!!!

aaargh that means so much :) i have a tendency to undervalue my stuff for its tendency towards silliness, but i do love what i make. i'm in a biiiig writerly mood lately so I hope you'll enjoy the next few things I have in the pipeline!! When I have time to work on them again!!

I read it!!! holy shit!!!! amazing!!!! i can aspire to write something that incredible someday.

i have not!!!!!! i will do so ASAP thats fucking awesome. thank you for playing!!!

RIP BENNY BARASSI YOU FUCKING LEGEND

Thank you!!! Your sona looks awesome btw!!

hahahaha a reminder to always be funny and work hard. or else.

uhh i had no idea the streamer you were talking about was vinny!!!!! holy moly what a special surprise

that's so sweet :) thank you so much for enjoying it!

cum mario

commenting in advance... i feel like we are on the same bullshit lookin forward to playing

Thanks for giving it a play!! :)

Thank you so much for the kind words <3

hahahaha good job getting out of bounds!!! We didn't make it easy!

I came back to try and actually reunite them and it was tough as hell but i succeeded. shockingly beautiful game and ending :)

 is one of the most thoughtful comments I've ever received, thank you so so SO much!💜

I  wanted to show a whole smorgasbord of dysfunctional masculinities, and I'm really proud especially of some of the subtler ways that the characters suck, like the Wagie clearly looking to the Gambler for approval constantly because he's the most Big Boy Alpha in the room.

I really love hearing about people's favourite character! Somehow they're all good. Will I ever pull that off again??? Hopefully! The stranger is such a like, if you're the right kind of person it's going to shoot straight into your soul, which makes sense, coz they're comprised at least partly of mine (although not quite autobiographical as some folks have assumed lmao). Personally, I just can't get over my beloved cowboy as like basically a flawless beautiful kind humble fellow who is also maybe the biggest freak of them all, but in a way that's so ridiculous it's hard to take seriously.

Thank you again so much for playing and sharing such beautiful thoughts :) i'm gonna keep telling weird stories about weird people and I hope you enjoy them! (Perhaps chuck me a follow? :3) I think you might like City of Piss a lot too, by the by!

Absolutely incredible. The little cheat code twist destroyed me.

honestly one of my most inspired last-minute choices hahahaha. people were finishing the story too quick and I was like uhhhh how do I kill time? bro country, of course!