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A map or UI element would be a great idea, I'll add that in. The energy to move goes up as a proportion of your power, keeps you from being able to move across the whole map in one go later on. The obscuring and selection problems when you get bigger are definitely an issue, and somewhat a product of the jam-game nature of the design. Different colors for other devourers is a good idea and should be easy to implement.

During the jam, I attempted to avoid having too many on-screen elements and keep things as one-buttonable as possible, but the scope definitely grew out of the realm where that is convenient to do. For the next pass, here's what I'm thinking:

• More information on placards near what you hover over instead of in the corner
•  UI elements for defending yourself and healing, so you don't have to try to click on yourself and accidentally do other things, or vice-versa
• Past a certain size ratio to planets, a UI bubble that appears when mousing near the planet that you can click instead of the planet shape (for when the planets are relatively small)
• A minimap showing the location of planets and other devourers, with basic size information

Thanks again for playing and the feedback, I can't express how much it is appreciated!

Thanks for the feedback! I added a bit to the instructions on the page to cover that mechanic - when devouring, planets defend themselves with a per-turn damage debuff. Spend energy on yourself to remove this debuff, and once it's gone you can spend energy to heal yourself.

A fun game enough game, made so much better by the dedicated first-person perspective. A lot of attention to detail throughout. Thoroughly enjoyable, and I could see the idea being expanded upon and finding it on Steam someday.

A pretty good little maze runner, and you made it better than 90% of jam games in the category by including a simple outside map instead of making me look at endless walls. Loved that quite a bit. I can't say I was especially spooked, but it's really, really hard to get that right for me on a jam timeframe, so no loss there. 

Unfortunately, the theming felt a little tacked on - the game could probably have been virtually unchanged without it and just as easily explained via "it's magic" or "because game logic". A little bit of sound or visuals upon events triggering and the enemy spawning or approaching would help sell the glitchy nature, since the disappearing doors and walls definitely feels intentional as opposed to "glitchy". 

That all said, don't think at all that I didn't enjoy it, because I did, very much so. In particular, keys were placed in what felt like a very natural way, without feeling like it was tedious to find them (which is a huge potential problem in item hunt type games). I felt rewarded for playing the game, and went back again after dying to finish up because I was so close the first time!

I know my 7-zip can extract .rars, might be an extension though, can't quite remember what I did with my setup.

For two hours? Pretty good stuff. The weapon was a clever way to make a simplistic (by necessity) game genre still feel like it had some extra thought put into it. Great submission!

Tons of character! I quite enjoyed this. I especially liked how the levels built on one another, it's something that seems to get neglected often in jam games. I think what Pug is referencing is that while the bullets, blood, text, and background had a polished look owing to the post processing, some of the textures on the blocks and player were in a conflicting style.

I think the simplest way to fix the incongruity would be to up the stroke size on the details for each of the latter items (e.g., character's outline + eyes, cracks in the platformer stage) - could go a long way to giving it a bit more overall cohesiveness. Also as Pug said, not really an issue, and your consistent use of color helped to tie it together anyway. Excellent submission, and hope to see your work in more jams!

Thanks for playing, I appreciate you taking the time to check it out, and genuinely appreciate the feedback! If you don't mind sharing, what portion tripped you up, so I can maybe tweak the balancing a bit once the jam ends?

Due to technical difficulties, the downloads are presently hosted at this Google Drive.

Thanks xystudios! Yeah, I had an old tab open and when I went to save the updated description, it took the files down x/

Itch had a bit of a fit when I attempted to change the page description, and unfortunately the builds were removed. You can access them on this Google drive. This'll upend my Itch metrics, but I'm mostly interested in hearing what people have to say about the game.

Thanks for the feedback! Not sure what to say about the crash, I wasn't able to duplicate. Sorry you had issues!

Yeah, I was rushing at the end to fix some camera control related issues and forgot to migrate the cursor hiding bit. Ah well!

By far one of the most polished jam submissions I've seen. At first I was thinking "oh, another Portal-ish puzzle game - this'll be quick," but then the hidden bits just kept coming. I loved the way you encouraged the player to seek out all the endings too. Very cool!

As a developer, I often struggle in coming up with interesting level design in a game jam setting. I'm curious if you'd mind sharing how you designed the game's level and layout, either here or in a dev log?

Just figured out what was going on. Turns out the web build is having trouble properly capturing the location of the cursor. I'll put up some standalone builds while I work out how to fix it. Thanks for the quick response on the issue!

Thanks, just got finished playing yours (awesome stuff) and will leave a comment on your page too! 

Could you describe the issues you had when interacting? Did it seem like the hitboxes were too small, or was it that clicking on the same spot would only sometimes focus?

It's somewhat purple ish on my screen, with the other sprites being muted in terms of contrast. almost like there's a slight blue filter. It definitely could just be my setup interacting weirdly with PyGame though based on what you said about how it looks for you.

Pretty fun and concise top-down shooter. Since there's no cooldown on shooting, having a rapid-clicker kind of breaks the game, but it was honestly sort of fun that way! Good work!

I would second the adjustment to the density, easy fix though! I liked seeing a racing game since there really weren't many at all this jam. Mechanically, the controls work pretty well. A few more arrows on the course would be helpful since it's not always 100% clear what's coming up given the camera zoom and that requires you to be decently timid with your speed. Died on a few tracks that way. Lastly, setting the player to the proper rotation on death when respawning at a checkpoint would go a long way to upping the gameplay feel. All in all though, not a bad little racer!

Delightfully weird game. Like everyone else has said: wonderful concept. Expand it out and spruce up the graphics and you have something that would play very well on the Switch (and other platforms, simply feels like it would be a good fit). Great submission!

I also agree with other commenters - gameplay could use a bit more tweaking for fun, and the intro should 100% be skippable for an arcade game like this.

Looks like this is a repost of something made for ludum dare. Even if it ran during the same period (which I don't think there was one), kind of goes against the spirit of a jam to cross-plug a game like that, in my opinion, which also kind of sours me toward the submission from the get go. Something to think about.

Any possibility of a web or desktop build for your submission? Would love to give it a go if you can post one!

I quite enjoyed this one, and I could see the concept being taken to a full-scale game. I personally liked that it wasn't too easy to collect and aim the moons. After a bit of practice I got the 'physics' down pretty well - which means you just have skill curve which is also a good thing. All in all, fantastic submission!

Very nice use of PyGame, and great for a first original! Definitely feels like you accomplished what you set out to make. Only thing I would consider changing would be the overall vibrancy of the game - it feels a bit dim when playing. But that's a very minor stylistic thing. Awesome work!

Very nicely polished, and I actually felt like the controls worked very well and were just the right tightness. My favorite part though, is the cheering guys in the background. That adds so much for the overall feel of the game. High marks overall!

I've updated the tutorial and added some more instructions to the game's page.  Would you mind giving it another going and letting me know if it makes things a little more clear? Thanks!

Wow! Can't believe I forgot to mention it that - it's turn based, so there's an end turn button in the lower left. Once you're out of energy, you need to end the turn. Thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely modify the tutorial to make it more concise and clear what the mechanics are.

Thanks for giving it a go!

Sure! It seems like the areas for placement don't exactly match up with the lilypad graphics, so sometimes I'd find I was unable to place frogs where it looked like I should be able, especially once you get a large number in the same area. Hope that helps!

Thanks!

I look forward to hearing your thoughts! :D

No kidding about the large amount of interactables - great idea using the thought bubbles, they made this a genuine joy to play!

Both and interesting concept and (I'm sure everyone will be mentioning this) a positively adorable art style. Took a couple tries to figure out what I was doing, but once you get over that curve it's actually very satisfying!

The art style is quite distinctive, and all goes together very well considering the amount of different pieces you have. Placement is a wee bit clunky, but that's easy to fix, and it was fun making a little bullet hell for the bugs!

Very unusual concept (in a good way), could see something like this getting to be a full-fledged project. I like the color palette as well, very vibrant and fun!

A fun little clicker game! One thing I appreciate is all the slide-in menu items and transitions - adds a touch of polish. Great submission!

Love getting to play as the evil alien, and your art is superb as well! Great submission!

Really cool take on the block-pushing puzzle!

Loving everything about this series you have going - art and music are perfect, and adore the unique way the player moves through the story with the continuous scroll.

Enchanting art style - did you pick specifically for the jam, or are you honing it for another project?

Very cool interpretation of the Billy Hatcher mechanic in 2d!

Wonderful, coherent art style, and it's great to see a narrative with some time and effort put into the lore behind it!