Thank you for playing! I'm also looking forward to when I can knock out the basic pieces quicker and get to building more fun elements in future projects.
Take my limited game jam experience with a pinch of salt here, but I've played a couple submissions that attempted to build more mechanics and systems than they had the time to finish before the deadline. Playing those demos, you can feel where the polish rubs off pretty easily. For Catch Your Breath, I was first thinking a similar thing happened here, where you have the mechanic of dodging obstacles with the added complication of keeping a timer going in your head and holding/releasing a separate set of keys on a cadence. It took me about 3 minutes or so to really feel out the cadence that was expected, at which point the game really unlocked for me. But where I would have chalked that up to an idea that isn't fully felt out, suddenly this game felt very much realized. Sure there might be some polish that could be added in the form of simpler collision shapes for rotate objects (the pencils tripped me up for a bit lol) but that can be said for pretty much every game made in a week. I actually really like the core loop you're going for here. A lot of the objects reminded me of things I would have nightmares about as a young child, and I think it would open up the opportunity for you to tell a subtle narrative about what kind of person the character is (maybe have a few different profiles lined out so subsequent playthroughs tell a tale of a different kid? idk) Really cool idea here, well done!
I managed 1512 on my first playthrough. Very nice job building the suspense in the last few days with audio and visuals. You could have just had the core loop of drawing cards and playing them, but you went the extra step and added the whole caravan system, which really gave the game an added layer to it! Super awesome to have done in such a short amount of time. Awesome job!
Thanks so much! As it so happens, with my limited game design skills "atmosphere" was pretty much the only thing I had to chase after, and I'm thrilled to hear that it landed. Thank you for playing!
I had similar issues progressing out of the first room as other players, but I'll echo their other thoughts as well: the art style looks really promising, and great job building and submitting a project last week. Keep making games!
Really cool idea here, and the art looks sick. I think you nailed the theme here. Your "calm" phases all of a sudden get very much not calm when you realize you've wasted too much "attention" and now you're about to trigger a fight and you aren't prepared. And the core mechanic of (probably) not being able to do everything on the map before the next fight is really crucial. If you were to continue work on this, what if you took it a step (pun not intended) further, to where the bugs had more distinction than just how much attention they get when moving around: what if some bugs could actually see further? What if bees could gather resources "for free" while the other bugs still used "attention" to do so? Whatever path you choose, I think there's a really solid base here for something awesome.
I couldn't figure out the fishing minigame at all, but the visual effects of it were really nice. I'm probably timing something wrong or maybe could have used an on-screen element explaining more about what to do there. But the art and music crushed it. Amazing clouds, and the way the music builds to the storm. And the sail and mast even break down if you keep playing after the storm hits! Nice touch. Don't mind me, just gonna practice some art skills modeled after your designs here XD
Holy crap. The game-within-a-game reveal moment. Calling a customer support phone number to get help on the game. Freaking cheat codes! I don't even care if there are bugs or issues with this, it's just incredible. Hands down the absolute most I've laughed at a game in recent memory. Keep up the great work please, you're awesome at this.
Omg haha Well congratulations! Next game, I'll make a leaderboard for whatever random challenge I throw in at the last moment. Thanks so much for playing my game (over and over probably)
This game definitely made me the LEAST calm out of any other submission I've played so far hahaha I absolutely love the meta approach you took to the theme, making it to where the "calmness" needed to actually come from the player and the game actively challenges it. I straight up had to pull out my phone to solve one of the multiplication problems because the phones were stressing me out a lot more than they were stressing out the character in-game! So congratulations, you broke my ability to do basic math, even if just for a moment. Well done! :D
Wow, what a great take on the theme! The artwork really did the job of providing calming puzzles, and then capstoning each one with that deep breath and pounding heartbeat was inspired. Really really cool!
Thank you so much! I've been dying to try out parallax effects for months, and that was the top of my wishlist for this project. I'm pretty excited how it played out.
This is a type of game I don't have a lot of experience with, but I enjoyed how much was left up to my imagination. You didn't overwhelm me with trying to show the trains, or feed me random information about who was on the trains or anything like that. I'm wondering how it would feel if you added a simple audio track of humming or whistling to yourself? The kinds of sounds we make to ourselves when we're alone in a quiet room. But jeez, the artwork you went for really feels good in my opinion. Awesome stuff!
Nice handling of edge cases, flipping the ship around at the edge of the playable area (and doing the same when running into the space station). It was a fun time zipping around at max speed and actively trying to avoid the storm shelters so I didn't get slowed down. Great job getting all these pieces together on your first jam! I look forward to seeing what you're able to pump out in your next jam.
I lost two of my guns pretty early on, but then started cruising with the rocket launcher level 2 and 3. I agree the collision detection didn't seem very intuitive, but could just be a polish thing (also, just use the rocket launcher, as the AOE feels pretty spot-on). I also thought it was cool that you had some of the missiles hidden in a smoke cloud. It offered some variety. If you expand on the game, expand on that too (different flight patterns, other complications). I had fun playing this one for sure.
I maneuvered two enemy ships into destroying each other mwahahahaha! I couldn't quite make out how to purchase the upgrades that are listed on the menu screen, maybe I just missed it. A tiny suggestion I'd make would be to have the asteroids slightly different colors based on what element they're going to yield, so if you're trying to chase after a certain upgrade you know which asteroids to mine. But it was still fun to fly around! Nice job.
I love the sprite animations. That was just the first thing that impressed me. While you said you didn't write the music track yourself, I think you made a great pick. Perfectly captures this "waiting for the other shoe to drop" sensation you're after. The stories and quests are relatable, accessible, and kind of bring me back to Majora's Mask (the whole "no one knows what's about to happen" kind of thing). Super, super cool.
That's right! I downloaded Audacity Friday afternoon, took a quick glance at Godot docs which suggested mp3 file format for web games (I knew I wanted to have it embedded in the browser), and then just started grunting and "whoosh"ing and....failing to imitate rain no matter how hard I tried. By the time I landed on the comical tree fall noise, I was feeling pretty lighthearted about it. If I were to do it again, I might just lean full force into the comical sound effects and see what comes out of that.
Thank you so much for your thoughts and your time playing my game! "Every journey begins with a single step. This...is step one."
Ha! I'm happy to provide some brain dead zoning out after the hard work! Good call on the aspect ratio, will take that into consideration. It was definitely a learning experience! And no, there's no way to avoid the storm. I was way too focused on delivering the functionality I initially designed than to come up with anything actually "fun" to do. Next time, look out!
I'm on Google Chrome. Oooh and I just double-checked. It only happens when I make the game go fullscreen on my 4K monitor. On my 1440p monitor, fullscreen works just fine. So it's a classic first-world problem!
I was stuck on level 2 for longer than I care to admit lmao Good job with the coding - it felt like a solid platformer (gravity seemed fair, jump distance felt good). I agree that seeing where you're needing to land next is probably helpful though.
Interesting premise, balancing some resources to acquire others. I couldn't easily spot why gold seemed to always go up in price despite any of my actions, which soft-locked me from winning (I assume?). Even despite the lack of graphics and audio, I think you've got the core of an intriguing mechanic. Nice job
Biggest complaint out of the way upfront: I was having some trouble with seeing the plates and bowls (the effect meant to hide the corner wall when I walked behind it was inverted for some reason). I was obviously able to play around this, and really had a blast. Not every dish is easy to figure out how to make at first, but it's kinda fun to accidentally figure it out in the scramble. The upgrade system is also a blessing (being able to move quicker and chop faster, etc). Fantastic project, well done. (No pun intended)
The visual and audio effects for the game are really impressive (especially given the time constraints and considering HOW MANY there are). The slower pace of the early game didn't land for me personally, but I still think it's a solid game design choice as it fits the narrative. Probably the best thing about this IS the narrative. I loved the journal at the beginning with the scribbles of the old lighthouse keeper! Also not sure if this happened by random accident, but I got my boat stuck inside a port somehow, and as if by magic after trying to navigate it away from shore it seemed like the waves eventually just pushed me back to sea?? So well done on preparing for that issue! Overall, I'm really inspired by what you all were able to create this week.
