itch.io

Hey, thank you for playing and leaving your thoughts. I know that the battle phase is a lot weaker than the narrative sections, but if I’m being honest I focused a lot more on the creative parts of the game than on the battle, and there’s no doubt it shows as that part is not nearly as well executed. I plan on continuing the game and making it a little longer, so that ending section would serve as an end to an introduction and would have a clear ending; with the time I had left, I thought that leaving the message on screen would be enough (maybe I should’ve stopped the health bars from reappearing at this point). Thanks for pushing through and playing to the end though, it means a lot :).

Thank you for your extensive feedback. You’ve given me a lot of things to think about :).

• This is my first game with Monogame, which is a framework not an engine, so I’ve had to build a lot of things over time to use. I agree however that even though I didn’t have anything immediately available, it needs a lot more to sell the effect of dealing damage.
• The lights you see at the start of the battle will get darker when you’re hit, although I wish I had contained the arena so that one of the lights is always on screen.
• Skipping the cutscene was a small thing I didn’t think to add, maybe eith some more playtesting someone would be seen it and I wouldve been able to add it.
• I wanted to force fullscreen, but this caused issues with the game - the lazer wouldn’t follow the mouse, and the game would sometimes sit partially offscreen. Under time constraints and without knowing how Monogame/KNI Web export worked properly (as I’ve never used it), I decided not to worry about it; that sort of thing can come later.

Thank you so much for the kind words, I really appreciate them!

Hey, glad you enjoyed the ending. I was really happy with how that turned out :)

Thank you :). I didn’t even think about using those colours in the game section, and I have no idea why. I guess I wanted to make sure they were separated visually. I also tried associating the purple with the enemy (for example the health bar), so I don’t think it would make sense to give the player that colour to use, but I certainly could’ve made the enemy black and purple to drive that choice even better through the game. You’ve given me a lot to think about, I really appreciate it.

Hey, glad you were able to see the game that way. I had hoped that players would be able to interpret the message of the game in many different ways, so this is proof that maybe I succeeded on that front :). In saying that though, I still think those concerns should be addressed if I do persist with this game. Thanks for playing though, and I appreciate the kind words.

Hey, I thought this game had a really cool concept, being under time pressure trying to find objects adds a level of depth to the point and click game I found really fun. I couldn’t get past the entrance pt 2 though, I don’t understand the hint you provided or how rotating the books is significant… maybe it’s a skill issue. I saw on another comment you stated you should give the candles a bit more time and reset them after losing, and I agree with both of those things, otherwise the game is too hard. The art style is really good, I love the visual style of the game, and your voice acting is really good. I think it has potential, well done :)

Thank you :). I’m really happy with how the creative side of things came out, although I agree that the action part definitely needs some work. Glad you found it interesting though.

Oh my god this game is so sweet and so beautiful, you knocked it out of the park with the graphics. Gameplay is so simple yet it works really well, and it’s used to tell such a cute story. Even the ending is so simple but it fits so damn nicely. You’ve done so well to capture the feeling of having a crush on someone and staring at them, suddenly looking away as soon as they turn your way so they don’t catch on to you. My only small criticism is that the characters look a little uncanny as they move towards each other in my opinion, but honestly that’s such a tiny concern when you consider the rest of the game being visually stunning. Well done.

Hey, the concept of this game seems like a cool idea, and visually the game looks really nice. The lights are clear and obvious, and the player becoming smaller in the lights makes it easy to tell when you’re about to lose. Unfortunately, the goal of the game doesn’t seem to be very clear as I got stuck in the second room after extinguishing all of the lights. I saw the text in the top left of the room but I’m unsure what that means. A little more clarity would be nice. Feedback for standing in the circle to finish the level would be nice, as I noticed in the first tutorial room nothing appeared; the classic circle of power with a magic rune being lit up (or maybe a lit rune turning black to be more fitting) would be good to indicate that you’ve completed the goal and won the game. None the less, well done; this is a really good game for your first solo submission.

Hey, I love this idea, I think it’s really creative to put yourself in the background of the theatre and make sure things run smoothly. I agree with a lot of the points to be made, the platforming is quite difficult (especially when you’re under time pressure to get to the next lever), and it’s hard to time them if you get to them too early. The consequence for failing (going back to the start) is understandable but a bit frustrating. I also think that having someone actually saying the dialogue instead of having to read it while under time pressure would make that element of the game a lot less stressful. None the less, I thought it was a cool idea, well done :).

I agree, something like that would be good. A little more time and polish and I think this could turn into a really cool short game.

Hey, the game is really simple but fun none-the-less; a really nice casual puzzle game. I’d love to see more content, but for a first game it’s really impressive to have functioning physics and an environment that can be interacted with like that. The shadows add an interesting touch to the visuals of the game but I feel like they could be leveraged more to make the game a little more interesting (so you have to use your environment to find where the ingredient is dropping from - this might be too frustrating, but it’s an idea).

In discord you asked what the most important things were, and I think enemies or global obstacles would be a great way to add more content and complexity to the game.

Overall, the game is fun, and I hope you keep making things :).

I loved your story; you set it up well explaining how the world works, and had a bit of a nice twist at the end. I love the use of colour throughout, and the art generally was really pretty and well done considering the time constraints. I would like to see a little more from this game, I think it has a lot of potential for something bigger. The sounds were also really fitting as ambiance, although I think actual music would do wonders to make the final scenes even more emotional.

I don’t know if it’s intentional, but some of the enemies swords are much faster than others; I noticed it was more prominent when I was further away from the enemy, so I’m wondering if the vector to get the direction of the player gets normalized? It’s only a small thing because I think the game was really good, but little things like that add a lot of polish to the game. I’d also like more use of breaking pots, seeing as you added them in, although I’m sure if you expand on the game in the future you’ll find a way to add them in.

As I made a game with similar ideas, I like the way you’ve chosen to interpret the theme, and I think you did it really well, so nicely done :)

I love your character design, your little alchemist is so damn cool. The game was a lot of fun to play, although in my opinion a little harsh; I would appreciate a few more checkpoints, or a little more lenience when touching the black mist (shadows?). The game felt really nice, with movement and jumping all good, and I liked having to use the enemies to throw the jump pad gel thingy where you needed it. All in all well done you guys :)

Thanks for playing :). I definitely worked hard on the creative aspects of the game, and I know as a result the gameplay is a little scrappy due to less focus and testing, but I love the ideas I’ve created and I think with some more work it could work out pretty well.

This game is so creative, I’m really impressed. The puzzles are all really unique and interesting, and I found myself wondering what the twist was with each level as I loaded in, really well done. There’s a few small glitches, such as getting stuck in the floor on some jumps, and touching the fireballs killing you seems a bit harsh in my opinion as there’s not much room to move (same thing as someone below). The cutscene is awesome, really well animated especially considering the short timeframe, and the music fits really well, although it gets a little repetitive; silence could work well in a game like this, maybe only playing the music once you’ve thrown a light? Overall I thought this game was great, definitely one of the best I’ve played so far :)

Really cool game, it’s definitely got potential post-jam :). Visually the game is stunning, and the audio fits so nicely. A better tutorial is definitely needed, as I got very confused at first (I closed out of the PC without creating a pet at first and the game didn’t work properly, so I had to restart it), and a little more clarity about what the failing conditions would be nice too, as I got a sudden game over without really knowing why.

I’m not much of a pet simulator person so I’m not an expert on the genre, but I feel like some sort of real time element with pets losing happiness or fullness over time would make gameplay more interesting; you’d have to manage all of your pets, switching between them, making sure they’re all happy to ensure you don’t game over that way. Maybe that’s not the direction you see the game going in, and that’s alright too - while it’s a really charming looking game, it’s probably not the sort of game I’m going to want to sit and play constantly enough. I’d also like to know how you plan on expanding the core mechanics further; at the moment I’m unsure of how much depth the systems you have would keep people playing for longer than a few minutes at a time.

None the less, the game looks amazingly polished; the game as is looks almost ready for Steam, I just think it needs a little more depth to keep people interested for longer.

Fun game, although I would’ve liked more of a focus on alchemy. The movement felt fluid and it was satisfying to dodge attacks and get yourself into the right position to deflect multiple bullets in quick succession. Enemy variety is great, and the bosses are fun to encounter. I think the player’s deflection hitbox should be slightly larger, a little more polish in some of the boss fights (notably - the first boss probably shouldn’t spawn bullets right on top of the player), and maybe adding a way for the player to heal up would be nice, but it’s a really good start how it is :).

Hey, really really cool game, especially for a first gamejam game made without an engine. You’ve got everything, from a fun game loop to effective visuals and great sounds. I especially like the portal design and how you leveraged what you could do with the tools you had to make it look mystical. Everything is there, and it works perfectly. If you continue to work on this game, it only needs a little more detail in the graphics, some more balancing/scaling and a little more polish (things like a retry button on the game over screen to take you straight back to playing without the intro). Well done.

Loved the music (gave me og doom vibes, I was almost expecting a boomer shooter from the sounds) and the visuals are really nice. I also encountered a crash at the white potion door; I did not open all of the gates to get to the end, does that make a difference? Only other thing I’d like is some sort of visual in the centre of the potion making screen to show what potion you made once you brew it, as it looks like there’s a spot for it but I never saw it while brewing. None the less, I had fun playing :)

Thanks for the feedback. I wish I’d contained the arena a little better so it’s not infinite and keeps the lights that you wouldve seen at the start of the fight to use those as a permanent reference for movement. What browser were you using?

Thanks. There’s a few subtleties to the later that I wish I could explain a little better. I have a few ideas for ways to continue this game, and I’m thinking if I do go ahead with it I’ll probably scrap the top down element of the game and replace it with some RPG battle mechanics, although it’s not set in stone yet (and before that I’m taking a break from gamedev for a week or 2 to recover from making what I did make in 2 weeks :)

Might be the second one. Is your tutorial level 0? When it reset I noticed it showed level 1 in the top corner but didn’t pay much more attention. I might have another look with this knowledge, thanks.

Man I get Gregg (I too am chronically addicted to coffee). I thought the game was a really good start, gives me solid mobile game vibes; I can see myself playing a single day or two in game as I’m waiting for a train or something, because the gameplay is simple and a session is really short. It also reminds me a lot of rhythm games, and I think the game would be 10 times better if you had more feedback when you grab a coffee (a sound and some sort of energy), and some sort of indicator that the bottom of the screen is a cafe, because it looks like people (myself included to begin with) didn’t quite get it at first. Overall, a fun little game, especially for your first; hope this encourages you to keep making more :).

This game is so atmospheric, I really think you’ve nailed the ambiance. The story you’ve told is great given the short time of the game, and the puzzles were good from what I played, although I wish we had an easily accessible reference for all the symbols. The game froze for me shortly after looking at the recipe, so I didn’t play through it completely, but I’d love to give it another try, because it felt like it was going to be really good (maybe with a desktop version to try and avoid the issues WebGL might be causing).

I like this simple concept and think it could be a fun game (multiplayer maybe? I can imagine driving around with friends in a car mafia, although I know multiplayer probably isn’t the best place to start with making a game). I agree that sounds would be great for the game, but it’s a good start in my opinion.

Hey, I love the overall aesthetic of your game, it really makes me feel like a hacker trying to break into the system. Unfortunately, the game seemed to reset all of a sudden at the end of the first round, and it wasn’t very clear why it did. Am I only allowed one round to defeat the antivirus? It started letting me type commands after I had completed one round (ran a networking command, then started typing ‘run stealth backdoor’), it stated that ‘’ is not a valid class and then went back to the start screen. It’s really unfortunate because I can see you put a lot of attention into making the command system and a cohesive battle all from within a terminal screen, and I would’ve loved to have continued playing if it hadn’t reset on me.

This is a cool idea, and I like your take on the theme. I’d love it if you were forced to draw one line from bill to tina instead of breaking it up over multiple shorter journeys; it would add an extra challenge to move boxes around while bill is moving, instead of letting him come to a stop to slowly move the boxes around. The music is charming, really fits with the aesthetic (although it was really crackly on my end; I assume that’s a WebGL issue, not how it’s meant to sound).

Really creative game, and a really cute artstyle to go with it. This idea definitely has potential, and I’d love to see it taken further :)

Thank you! I agree that it should be more obvious when the lazer starts charging, a different animation curve should’ve been used.

Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed.

Loved the vibe of the game, synthwave music was awesome and visuals were cool. The alchemy system is not very clear from gameplay, although I appreciate the little tips at the bottom of the screen; from what I gathered in my short time playing the game you need to move the cauldron around with different places granting different elements based on the yellow/red things nearby, without the sentinal seeing?

Great use of the theme :) I love the idea of using the shadows to determine what the ingredient is. It’s nice and simple and easy to get the hang of. Well done for your first game jam.

Would love to know more about your shadow casting system, purely out of curiousity; I think that effect is really cool.

I absolutely love your AI dude, he gives me claptrap vibes and I think it’s great. I wish the icons and the background of the tooltips contrasted more as it’s hard to see costs and rewards.

I like the style of the game, and I think your lighting system is very cool (I was working on 2D lights before this jam started, so I have a bit of an appreciation for them). I think with better gameplay this could be a pretty good game.

This was a really cool little experience; really unsettling like what others have said. The way the music got more jarring as each loop occurred was really offputting in a good way; it gave me a little bit of a jump the first time the guy came back.

I can tell this little experience is close to your heart after reading some of the things you’ve said, and I think I can relate to the story you’re trying to tell. I think you told it really well too; good job.

Thanks, glad you like the music :). I’m proud that I was able to get that music done in such a short span of time. I wish I could’ve polished some of the visuals more, like you said with layers, but I’ve never used Unity tilemaps like this before so I really just wanted to get something playable.

Hey, that was fun :). There was no sound in the game; I don’t know if this is due to the web emulator being strange or if there isn’t any sound. I would’ve loved some glass smashing sounds as the gerbil hits the test tubes and stuff.

I think it’s really impressive that you’ve made a game for an ancient system in such a short span of time; I’ve not looked into genesis development before but I imagine it’s pretty difficult, so pulling together something playable in that space of time is impressive to say the least. The boss battle was fun, a bit of a memory game, but satisfying once I beat him for good :). Really cool game, well done.

Hey, this was a lot of fun. The game looks really good, colourful and vibrant, and it was fun to watch enemies burn with the particle effects placed on them after being killed. The game felt really good, with the movement system being really nice to use. I didn’t need to use the blocking system because I found the enemy attacks were easy to dodge, and meant I could continue shooting near constantly, so I would’ve liked a clearer or more obvious benefit to blocking over just running around, but overall I enjoyed playing it :).