itch.io

left click to fire, hold for charge and alt fire, right click to dash? But nothing beats remappable inputs when it comes to accesibility, you will always make it hard for some people with any scheme.

I've found some people have trouble with wasd and using space simultaniously and end up using the same fingers for both, which makes especially dashes or jumps while moving difficult.

Just use JPG as you want, but add a final screen shader that restricts the game's palette to only the 4 colors you want, rounding each one up to its nearest one. That way you can save yourself the space while ensuring it's always 4 colors!

Except it's not at all about probabilities, pretending so is just insulting to the dev's talent.

Yeah, I'm ashamed I forgot to add a warning at the start of the game, I normally do. Added it to the page, big and loud, hope people notice.

Just wow! One of the best gamejam games I've played in years, period. Playing this made me feel both inspired, if not slightly envious of the skills on display. It's this close to feeling like a stand-alone game, rather than an entry for a jam - Bar some bugs it's short but a worthwhile experience. From the get-go the setting and mood make a lasting impression, reminiscent of late 90s adventure games and visually cohesive, each element feeling worthy of addition. From the short but well done intro to the first time you step outside. The narrative unfolds itself bit by bit, but the opening dialogue makes you feel like this world was already alive before the player enters it. Some of the best music I've heard this jam too, fitting neatly with the setting yet not the most obvious choice either. Models and textures were very good, giving the characters a lot of... character. The simple repeated animation of catching snow never bothered, and was always fun once someone stuck their hand out. The world felt believable.

I've written down some feedback while playing, please view this in the context of all of you doing an amazing job already, but I honestly believe with a little bit of tweaking and (slight, it doesn't need to be very long) lengthening this can easily stand on its own feet post-jam.

Obviously you know already about the mouse-controls. At first I attempted to play with a trackpad, big mistake haha. Sensitivity never quite felt like what it should be and looking around always 'dragged' a bit, a little too much smoothing applied for my liking. If you're going to make a game about precise mouse controls, you're going to need a setting in the menu for changing sensitivity at the least. I'd even go so far as to say a short 'calibration' intro to make sure everyone's mouse speed is where you'd expect would be worthwhile, rather than the player having to figure out what the intended mouse-speed is (aka 'Is it just me sucking or is it the game?')

Moving around in general feels a bit awkward, exploring this small world is a joy, but it's not the kind of game where I feel like walking on narrow ledges I can fall off is a necessary part of the game and I'd have been happier with slightly bigger staircases, walkways and hidden walls stopping me from falling.

In regards to the rest of the world, I'd have been more than happy to zoom in with left click on posters or statues and learn about them, though the mystery can also be part of the charm.

On first glance I'd have thought cooking, the core mechanic, might've felt like a minigame, but it doesn't. It deserves your full attention and it's easy to become invested and even feel pride in your work. I felt myself improve with each session, working on technique or trying different ways to flip / sizzle. Despite some control awkwardness it feels close to well-balanced, with a few exceptions: With too many eggs or fish there's a large chance of things overlapping, which is fine if you can shake 'em loose, but other times I could not. Once I had two fish on top of each other and couldn't even notice, another time I had proudly flipped 4 eggs in a single flip, only to find one egg was slightly overlapping onto the other and wouldn't cook.

Once you lose control of your pan, it's hard to get back and it feels like physics 'accumulate', often meaning you're throwing an omelette 5 feet high. It'd be good if there was a certain maximum to the player input, as to avoid flipping one to Narnia. Possibly it'd be nice to follow an item falling out of the pan with a camera, there was a moment I had failed but was uncertain why.

The scroll wheel was never used on my part, nor do I think it's necessary. The controls are better the simpler they are, in my opinion. Movement on it's own is already a lot to master. I discovered the movement keys also moved the pan, but I'm not sure why I would want to use this. I'd also have liked to tilt the pan with the mouse in all directions when dropping items, as 4 eggs in a row almost always meant some overlap. A small shadow would help indicate the drop point to the player, rather than guessing.

Egg physics could be slightly better - I want my egg to flop over the edge, rather than keep its shape. I know, I know... But it'd be so fun. ;) I also managed to land an egg on its side twice. Sometimes fish would fall out of the pan after popping out of the can immediately and sausages could clip through the pan at times.

The difficulty curve could use some work. After the tutorial you ideally just want to do a one or two single eggs to feel more proficient before the challenge ramps up. I also tried to burn an egg in the tutorial, to see if it would, but it didn't. This lead me to assume that they simply don't, until it happened in-game.

Despite rarely needing to click fast in the game, it was actually the one game in which I was continuously button-mashing! Failing means having to listen to the dialogue again, entirely, which very quickly becomes annoying. Luckily one can skip through it, but lines with "..." would still hang a bit before progressing, as well as sometimes empty dialogue lines at the start not making it clear one needs to click. For a game like this, an instant-retry option is a must! I'd even like a way to trigger it without failure, if I think it's a lost cause.

Dialogue was solid and really helped with the world building, but a few times there was a little too much 'fuck yeah' and 'dude'-like lines that bordered closely to cringe for me. It never went there and to each their taste, but a bit more finesse wouldn't hurt, especially in contrast to the rest of the dialogue being on-point and only making you more interested in the world you're in.

Similarly, it'd be helpful if characters had indicators when hovering over them, to distinguish not just characters who have dialogue, but also whether you've talked to them before. In the end, I had missed one person and I had to sift through every bit of dialogue in the hopes to find the one I had missed, when an indicator telling me I had already talked to someone would've helped a ton here and saved some frustration.

Every now and then approaching someone from a specific angle and engaging dialogue would turn the camera in an odd direction, putting the camera far away (opposite side) of where I was. Similarly at times the cooking shot would place me outside boundaries, making it look like I was cooking whilst floating in the sky.

Visually, the font could be a little clearer. The amount of aliasing applied made it seem low-res than the rest of the game.

For being told to 'go make me some money', I sure didn't feel like I was making any, especially when asked to cook food that wasn't mine to offer but theirs to have (including the mention of rations). The last character also never acknowledged I had actually completed my 'orders', repeating the same line as the first time I met him, before transitioning into the credit scene. Since this is the moment the player feels the biggest accomplishment, it'd be nice if the game acknowledged that a little more, including a change to the text rather than '0 hungry left'. Another thing I wondered was what happened to all my failed eggs, I'd have been curious to know how many I messed up.

There was a part of me that really wanted to control the spaceship at the end with the same control scheme while credits flew by. It also made me wonder about what happened to the character, will it forever only be able to walk and cook and no more? The game restarting also didn't match so well with this ending, it'd make more sense if the escape would fail and it'd restart - But let's be real, who puts their attention on the end of a game-jam game when you know not everyone will reach it :)) Good & simple trailer, too!

Theme implementation could be better. ;) It never quite felt like mode, more as actions and was rarely referred to. The only thing in the way from an all 5 rating.

Please work on this game post-jam! Changing the difficulty curve to start slower and give the player some more confidence would already lengthen it enough without the need for more things to cook and it's a worthy game for release. Be proud of what you accomplished!

Had a fun time with this one! Really nicely polished, presentation is at a high level both graphically, musically as well as level design. I struggled a bit at first selecting weaponry, before realizing what I was in for! Has clear Stanley Parable influences and fun surprises, especially liked the hidden pile of segways hidden underneath the racetrack. Lovely touch with the voiceover. The constant recurring jokes were good too, the nukes, segways etc. I had hoped to drive off a cliff on one at some point, when the first segway was shown (And if you don't know that reference, please check how the inventor of the segway passed away..)

Two things did stand out to me, the first being the theme, where in game modes it felt very logical, but after the CS mode of the shooter, we're shipped off to different games, rather than modes. Most importantly though, I think it lacks reactions to the players inputs. It nails some of the vibe and humour of Stanley Parabole, but feels very linear - I feel like my expression as a player is often not recognized. When I discovered I could simply hop over the barrier and walk around to get 5 second laps, it'd be fun if the narrator recognized such actions, acting surprised at my record or had hoped for a fun quib when I tried to stall the connect 4 game by making obviously terrible plays. Similarly I expected some dialogue with the pile of segways hidden underneath, I had that feeling of finding a secret, but with less of the reward. Some jokes also lingered a little too long, it could use with tighter pacing.

Then again, what you've accomplished in such a short time frame is already amazing, great job!

Very clean and very classic indeed! Feels very polished, controls smoothly and plays well. At first I also thought you had remastered a game, which I also get is what you're going for but also just confused me greatly at first, searching the internet to compare it to the original. Part of that is because while I like the remaster mode as a concept, it doesn't feel like the actual gameplay mirrors this. The graphics and music change to a lovingly crafted retro-look, but it makes less sense to me that the platforms would be in different places or would swap around, which for me feels like it has very little to do with remastering.

I'd have liked to see a deeper dive into the use of that theme, perhaps needing to use modern platformer convenient gameplay mechanics like coyote-time to overcome difficulties the 'original' version could not, or changing the way the character moves. Adore the music, also enjoy the idea of picking up concept art, fun to get some more insight into how it's made.

Also props on having settings and re-mappable keys at all!

Some small feedback notes (please view these in the context of having accomplished a great game!)

The original control scheme (S+Shift+Space)is uncomfortable for my hand, it doesn't feel quite natural with the S and Shift being so close. Pressing 5 times Shift on Windows is also a default shortcut for enabling sticky keys, which is unfortunate.

When using the staff for jumps near walls, sometimes the character would cling to the wall a little too easy.

The triple jump feels great when making horizontal distance, but due to having to hold it longer for higher jumps it doesn't feel as satisfying to use for making vertical distance, usually only reaching about 0.8 times higher than my original first jump using all 3 extra jumps.

Some even more minor things: The whole game is keyboard-controlled, but the menus are mouse controlled. The menu also immediately told me I had to switch to remastered mode to see the extras, but I hadn't even learned how - Perhaps this text could only be visible in the retro menu.

The 1controller2games and streaming menus were a bit lost on me. Many remastered games have this option, and it doesn't really feel like you're playing 2 games at the same time, but switching between them. This would have made more sense to me if both were visible at the same time taking the same inputs (which could be a mechanic all on its own!)

All in all a great entry to be proud of, congrats to everyone on the team!

Adore the presentation on this! The vibe is impeccable, graphics strong and cohesive as a whole, great music and sound effects the whole lot! I also appreciate the continuous narrative while progressing through the game. Sadly the moment it reaches windowed mode it crashes for me, so I could only play up to there. I tried it a few times up till there, but while the window opens and I hear some sound, nothing else happens and it crashes to desktop. No worries, could be my not so up-to-date laptop.

The following is a list of notes I wrote down while playing, but please view these in the context of really liking the game (The more you like it, the more small things become noticeable in my experience!) If you're not interested in player feedback at all then feel free to ignore (we all know we'd want to polish a hundred things but can't within the time-frame).

While I like the animated and timed textboxes (great pop-in animations too), I would personally prefer to be able to move onto the next textbox with a keypress myself. Sometimes they were too fast and I couldn't read what they said. My eyes would first have to find where the new box is and wouldn't always make it to the end, or other things were happening on screen. While replaying after the crash, I would've liked to be able to skip through the textboxes instead.

While most controls are labelled quite clearly I was a little lost at the start of the game, when asked to move the control sticks. My bad though, should've read the text yo posted here! Similarly when asked to hit start or f11, I pressed start on my keyboard, before realizing that was a controller-only option.

The first time the game console starts and you're welcomed to the opening screen, there's an exit placed below the main TV, but it remained non-functional. Because I walked over it and expected something to happen, my brain registered this as just visual extras, meaning I didn't recognize the first exist as being such.

I enjoyed the volume up/down mechanic, but up until the last puzzle that forces you to use it I felt very little need to do it, the optimal route felt like putting volume on full and just running it. Moving my character on the sound waves also felt a little off and unpredictable, the speed wasn't always what it was moving on ground and moving left/right had different speeds, meaning I had trouble timing the soundwave walks.

On the first red/white split puzzle I got stuck by moving both characters to one of the exits, but there was no way back or way to restart the level and I had to re-start the game. I also found these puzzles (especially the one after) to be good in theory, but difficult to execute due to the movement of the character. The slow acceleration start and de-acceleration after letting go of a key made it tricky to do the precise movements the game was asking of me, when movement felt slightly like being on ice.

All in all great presentation, hope you polish this up post-jam as it seems so close to being complete and fully polished, very impressive! Love the glitchy shaders that change over time, too, rather than being the same effect repeated.

I'm glad to hear! I had hoped as much, and seeing people just scrape by on lanes versus seeing someone like bonejackal completely nail a sequence of 16th hi-hats is a joy, I've seen people do things I thought would be physically too demanding and yet!

Yeah definitely a little too much of everything, but I hope it adds to the fun :) Thanks for playing!

Yeah it's definitely confusing and chaotic. I've previously made a jam entry with similar techniques (but more lo-fi, Ambrosia), which was even more chaotic and confusing at times (The visual chaos would increase when you made errors, only making it more likely you'd me another). With that in mind I did my best to make this one more structured and less busy, and while it is a little, it's still far from the goal of clearly readable gameplay. For next time!

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks! I feel like Thumper still has more of that visceral feel and speed, but I'm glad I captured some of it.

Sincere apologies & a wakeup call for next time, will not forget!

Very impressive to see you hit those notes! Your score wasn't a measly 42069, but 140699! No matter how hard I try I seem to peek out at around 120000 haha, congrats :)

Apt analogy & glad someone enjoyed the rumble, with REZ you needed an extra peripheral called the 'Trance Vibrator' to get such buzz to the music :D

& supa close

No problem, glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for playing! I'm afraid I discovered many bugs with the lane switching, I noticed a few before release but ran out of time sadly! Will make sure to have pause and escape next time, didn't even cross my mind.

There's definitely some heavy Thumper inspiration here! It's in the description now, but you noticed before I even mentioned it :)

Ha, first time seeing this we only pressed the button twice, said 'huh' and quit! Fun one, played games like this before and not all land, but the pacing and humor was well done, good twists along the way! 

Yes, and North Korea is officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Do you also believe North Korea to be democratic, simply because it is called so? Please.

"to move up finically based on competency"

hahaha

haha

ha

Was this in the downloaded version or the webversion? I've updated it about 15 min ago with better camera controls for web, but the downloads are staying the same for the jam. Hope they help.

The spawn killing I'm aware off x: Thank you so much for playing! Godot is great.

Thank you! The work of Escher and Gérard Trignac was definitely an inspiration, glad you picked up on that.

I indeed noticed the drifting camera too late, I had built a function to zoom out to give it some nice visuals and zoom in when necessary, but the latter happened way too little.. I've since fixed it in the web-version to make it playable, was definitely an issue on my part!

Thanks for playing & the feedback.

Thank you! I noticed the drifting camera too late, it's indeed problematic. I've applied some small bugfixes to the webversion (with disclaimer) to make it playable, should be greatly improved now. Reduced the distance & smoothing.

I also noticed watching my partner play (didn't really get to test it during the week) that it's hard to noticed the NPCs at the start of the game, but the idea is that there's always one near.

Thanks so much for playing! :)

That means a lot, thank you for playing!

Yes, I noticed this too, albeit too late! Thank you for playing. 

Fun game, feels nice to control and looks nice.