itch.io

Ahaa I get what you mean! I'll try the game out again with that in mind!

Neat concept, however I feel like my choices mean very little as the AI is playing the game. There would be levels where I simply sit and watch as the game plays itself for minutes on end without anything happening. Perhaps some tweaks to the AI might improve the quality of things, mostly as the biggest gripes with the idle wait was seeing the AI only try to survive rather than to complete the level (and since it would get stuck on the edges of the screen a lot).

My brain as I was playing this was slowly realising how the puzzle was built up. Originally, as I jumped into the game I thought "oh, it's just making a video, how hard can it be" but the addition of moving clips, and ensuring that everything is getting screen time puzzled me a lot more than I thought. This is a really neat puzzle game, and the presentation is great + the addition of pulling random game jam games for thumbnails I love too!

Great game (despite that little rule break ;))

I do like games where I have to scare rather than be scared. Although that is the exact opposite of what you do in this game, this game has good potential to be expanded upon. I think maybe the puzzle design can be expanded upon, but you had 48 hours so I'm more so saying for the future. For this jam though, really good game, and might be a contender for one of my favourites so far from this year! Well done!

Oh this I like. From the pixel art style, to the controls of the level, I had a lot of fun with this game. If I had to give one critique, it would be that things feel too pixel perfect. I got stuck originally on the first level because one of the platforms was slightly too low. Another thing would be that I wish for a speed-up button, as some sections of the game felt just a little too idle for me, as I was waiting for something to happen.

But those are nitpicks. This game is really fun! Well done, you guys, you should feel proud!

I see what you're going for with this game, and I think with some polish it could be a lot better. But as a player, I felt very limited in my choices, especially since I don't know what each move does. 

Take the slime for example. You have the choice of "Slime Shot" or "Solidify". "Slime Shot" sounds like an attack, so I'll use that to attack. "Solidify", I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it'll brace some damage? Regardless, "Slime Shot" wasn't enough to kill the hero, so I reincarnated as the Phoenix. Suddenly I have "Fireball" and "Burrow". "Fireball" is an attack, but maybe so is "Burrow"? Some clarity on what these moves do would help a lot.

Also, I know that there was a 48 hour deadline, but when I become a stronger monster, it would be nice to have that monster's sprite as my own rather than the slime.

Overall, I think this game can be fixed up a tad, and then maybe the game is going to be a little bit more enjoyable.

This is good. Really cute, and feels like there is a lot of content here to play with. The modifiers were fun to play with and the difficulty scales pretty well. You should be really proud of this game!

I think this game looks and sounds great! The choice of three tones and that pixelated look paired with the audio definitely makes this game feel more horror-esque.

Sadly, that is where my praise ends (for now). It was impossible for me to leave the first two rooms because my camera would randomly jolt in a random rotation. I tried rebooting the game, changing my mouse settings, the kit and kaboodle. I just couldn't get it to work.

However, I seem to be in the minority on this. As such, if there's an easy fix, I'll come back and try this game again and give a lot more nuanced review!

Seeing as this was your first game for a game jam, you performed extremely well under pressure! This game has some issues, sure but most I could chalk up to being the 48 hour deadline looming overhead. Personally, I prefer my platformers to be a little less "floaty", but if I overlook that I could definitely see a great game here with some more polish! Well done!

I think this game has some neat presentation going! One thing however was (and I think this might be unintentional), there was a red goblin in the middle of my scene, and every so often a wave would come and attack him, killing me in the process as I'm taking damage. I looked over the explanation for the game, both on your itch's game page and in the game itself, and from what I could tell it seems to be something other people struggle with too.

It was quite hard to understand how to play the game, but eventually I got the gist of it. I think there could be a little bit more of telling rather than showing, as there was no indicator on how to actually work the knobs immediately. Something as simple as highlighting the knobs when you hover over them or them changing colours would do wonders for this game.

Good looking game, and I did like the gameplay. However, the intro cutscene felt just as long as the actual gameplay. I would have added a little more gameplay variety personally, some more traps or longer levels, but the little I played I had fun with!

I think this is a neat game, especially that clicking moment of realising the levels were tiled. I did feel like the physics were a little janky, and as mentioned by others, I think having a preview of the mirror dimension would do you wonders. But some polish here and there and the game can be pretty good! Nicely done!

The game concepts nice, but I'm struggling to understand what it has to do with Joined Together?

Additionally, the game looks nice but the gameplay is really difficult to grasp. I'm just speculating here, but putting the ball in the corner of the screen makes it incredibly difficult to put in the direction you want, and most of the time you're kind of going by chance as there is no follow-through line that the player can follow. If you choose to revisit this in the future, maybe add a line that lets the player see what direction the ball will take after the first bounce at least?

This is a cute little game! The idea is very good, and the execution as well with regards for the 48 hour time period. There were some small problems however, such as the magnet polarity acting sometimes when I didn't want it to, and sometimes not acting at all (these were mostly in small bursts so it didn't really take away from the experience as a whole).

I didn't get further than level 3 unfortunately, that 3rd lava pit is hard to get past :'(

Really nifty idea! Ran into some issues but that is to be expected from a 48 hour jam.

The big issue that stood out to me was that the controls were a bit clunky to play around with. Maybe this is something that can be addressed if you continue to develop it after the jam's done! I also really like the trippy background you got going on! :)

There was also a definite lack of polish, I'd say. There should probably be a background track, some sound effects when shooting, a bit more animations and visual effects maybe, just an overall coat of polish would do this game justice

A cool game with a great art style, I love the spike in difficulty that shined through once you reached certain sections of the level. I have a bit of feedback on what I feel could be improved though.

• 1. There should be an indication when the player is charging up their shot. I thought I had broken the game when I held down the spacebar for the first time
• 2. Although simplicity is often better than excruciating detail, the menu felt lacklustre as the background was busy, but there was no title of the game, there was no text at all, just a play and a quit button.
• 3. This one isn't as much about the gameplay or so, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm fighting, at least when it comes to those fleshy eye things. From the title, I got the sense this was something like fighting robots or similar, but it felt like the actual enemies were more organic in nature. It's just a small thing, doesn't really matter, but thought I'd mention it regardless

This game suffers from the same thing a lot of the games we've developed so far suffers from: you're not scaling the graphics properly. I've done my best to squint through it all, and the graphics seems to have a level of polish behind that rough coat of blur. The game also lacks any sense of objective, which is necessary for it to be considered a game. The controls are also very floaty, which meant I crashed into enemies constantly, and there was no health that I noticed either.

However negative I may seem, there are some positives.

First, I love the animation of the sprites, it feels natural through and through. Second, the idea of the game does not sound too bad either, with the player going as deep as possible, rather than having a swarm of enemy ships like most other games have. Although this idea couldn't be followed through on, it's a great idea regardless.

I'll preface this by saying I did not play for long. If anything in this comment feels invalid because of it, please disregard that. My reason for not playing for long is because everytime I moved the ship, my frames would drop to 10fps. I don't know what kind of heavy code is in the background of this space shooter, but the fact that I can't run a 2D space shooter on a laptop from 2016 is a bit concerning...

Now onto my main critique. The art style feels very unfinished. There's a lack of consistency between enemies, player, and background. There are no animations, the logo for the game feels like straight out of Microsoft WordArt, and there's a lack of main menu UI. Maybe you were dealt a bad hand with a lack of artists, I don't know, but this feels very unpolished.

The part of the game I could play felt a bit janky as well. My bullets felt like they had little to no impact with the enemy, and I very quickly had my health reduced to 10% with a faceful of 4-5 enemies that would not die.

This game plays really well, and I have to give props to you for that. However, as many others have said, there was a lack of any clear objective. The methodology of using shields and ammo sparingly is a smart move, one which should trigger a sort of survival instinct, only used ammo when needed, etc. but I have yet to feel as such. My guess is due to the lack of objective. On the art side, the models all looked really good, as well as the main game UI feeling coherent with the overall game theme. However, the main menu (and you have to forgive my wording here) is atrocious. The idea of showing multiple crashed ships is a smart concept, but the default fire effect, the default unity skybox, and the default lighting braced me for something much worse than what I played. Remember, although your game page here on itch is like a book cover, your main menu is the first page. If it's bad, people will expect the worst.

I regret ranking other games so high on innovation right now, because this game is far beyond what I expected. The ship building mechanic is executed flawlessly, and balancing seems to be something that has also been thought through. The gameplay itself could use some work though. It's not so much about how the game plays that's an issue, it's more about the use of colour and sprites. An example of this is how the enemy bullets are such a faded red that they blend almost seamlessly with the background. This, combined with the fact that bullets are rendered behind buildings made for a lot of bullshit moments where I felt the game was being unfair against me. But when it comes down to it, all of my issues are with the polish of the game. Polish this game to hell, with proper UI boxes, a more coherent art style, maybe a few more visual and sound effects, and this game could go straight to market in my opinion. Well done, team!

Although you've made us destroy our glorious leader Ted, I will forgive you this time as the game is enjoyable to play. Some things I have to say are expected to be working 7 weeks in, such as a high resolution intro picture when the player enters their ship. There is a bug when firing the missiles as well that makes them not be able to move which occured a bit too often in my opinion. I also want to say that the boss was very simple to kill and all be it had a fancy death animation, but his allies had no feedback once they were killed, making their death seem almost anti-climactic. I know you had an explosion effect, why not spawn that on the enemy?

There's not much here to dislike. The old-school aesthetic is nice, the game plays super well, the controls are simplistic, and although it isn't strictly a metroidvania, I do love the interconnected rooms that make this feel more like a dungeon crawler. If there is one change I would make it would be to make it more metroidvania-esque. If anything, I'd recommend using Mark Brown's Dungeon Graph to plan it out.

This game goes far and beyond what I expected. This is a great 3D submission for the fact alone that it is so well polished. The bouncy animation of your character, the introductory cutscene, the explosions when an enemy is killed, the hidden tech of flying sideways with left shift, all really cool tech. The simplistic art style is something to love as well, with the colour-per-object mentality most of the time. That is one of my two gripes with this game, that the levels that follow the tutorial seem to break from that one-colour aesthetic. My second gripe comes with that of the enemies, as on certain levels, they spawn a bit too far off the edge, meaning you can't shoot them.

This is an alright beat 'em up style game. The art style is fine, but I feel as if the use of colour could have been better (the enemies are vastly different from the backgrounds and player). I noticed that my E attack was not as responsive as my Q attack, and it was a slog using that over anything else.

Regarding the rest of the game, there's not much to say. The player not having any noticable health removed any sense of urgency or survival, and I went in guns ablaze. The lack of feedback when attacking an enemy made me unsure if the hits actually went through or not. The ending was abrupt, as I still had an enemy in front of me when the game anti-climactically went back to the main menu.

I feel as if there is some work to be done here, but with a bit of work it could definitely become something proper.

I don't want to seem overly harsh, but I found the tutorial that was followed here, and the game is a 1:1 recreation. Although yes, the game works pretty well with the fighting and the enemy and such, singing praises here would not be fair to the original tutor.

Let me start off by saying that the sprite work for this game is some of the strongest this week. It encapsulates that classical arcade style in my opinion, with great attack animations and variety. However, the lack of combos seemed off to me, such as only having one crouch attack and no jumping attacks. There were some issues to be had, that's for sure, such as player two having their horizontal movements reversed for some reason, as well as ducking not serving a purpose. There were a few other bugs that have been highlighted in other comments, but these were the ones that stood out the most to me.

Overall, I find this game to be not exactly on par with the classics of old, but it is getting there. With a bit of polish, and a bit of "juicing", this could develop into a proper game.

Overall, the game is alright. The art style properly gets the theme going with a real vaporwave/80s vibe going. With a bit of polish and clean-up, it could be really good.

However, the gameplay is not really that exciting. The action does not feel very responsive from neither the player nor the enemies, which makes the fact that the health bar depletes within seconds on a normal playthrough. I also found that stopping to attack was 9/10 times the dumb move to make, as the enemies would just teleport further ahead, meaning that you would still need to fight them whilst you took a hit. Powering through with the occasional jumping was the only way I got to the second level. This could be fixed by simply deleting the enemy upon a single strike, stunning the enemy rather than teleporting him, or by making the enemies deal a lot less damage.

This is a really interesting premise that you don't really utilize to it's full potential. Maybe it's a matter of there not being enough time to put into the project, but it felt as if you stripped away the theatre aspect of this game, there won't be any difference. A change to consider would be to implement some sort of audience that responds to the player's action, such as cheering when a blow is delt or groaning when the player gets hit. This would not make sense without the theatre aspect, and thus making the theme fit better with the game.

Ignoring that part, the game is still pretty good. Sure, there were some bugs once I got to the second level, such as walking of the stage, moving the exit further away from me without walking towards it, etc. but the overall experience was still pretty good. The graphics were a part of this project I thought was handled best, as the textures felt coherent and thematically fit each other. Although they are a bit unpolished and could use some clean-up, it was one of the better aspects of the game.

This is a really good fighter, I have to say. Everything from the graphics to the sound effects, from the different characters to the different stages. This game is polished enough to be considered "marketable", in my opinion, with the biggest deviation from a marketable state being that there are a couple of bugs at the end of the rounds. With a bit of work on this, adding a couple of characters and stages maybe, and working out the issues in the code, I could definitely see this on the market.

Thanks! I guess it would be common courtesy for me to actually give you a proper review now!

The game looks stunning, with the graphics really delivering on that consistency in colour palette, pixel size, and theme. Really feels proper to a professional level. Unfortunately (for me), I was alone in my flat when I tested this game, meaning that I didn't get the full experience of fighting another player one-to-one, but I'll do my best to summarize my thoughts here regardless.

The simple controls reflect that rock-paper-scissor vibe that most fighting games have, with the attack-deflect synergy. I would have liked to seen that being fully implemented, switching the deflect for maybe a counter and making it so the counter could be overcome by something like a grapple. Now, maybe I'm wrong here and the system you have in place works a lot better than what I'm proposing, and I'm just unable to properly test it. If that is the case, disregard this last paragraph!

In general, I have a hard time to put into words what makes this game feel professionally made, but I think I could summarize it all by saying "Juice". This game feels like it has been juiced to bits, to get everything feel more impactful, such as the small shake the samurais go through when they deliver a killing blow, the impactful sound that goes along with that, and more.

There were some issues I found though. When an enemy goes down, you could keep on spamming the attack key on their corpse and the game would not continue. It would be stuck in some cruel limbo. Also, if I timed it correctly, I could skip an entire round, because I killed the enemy again between frames. It's not the biggest bug in the world, but it is a bug nonetheless. The lack of walking animation did bother me a bit, but it is not something that's really that important.

Unable to launch the game as there is no love.dll file. Shame, as I thought this game looked dope.

A beautiful rendition of the "I'm Sorry Jon" (creepypasta? meme?) circling around the internet at the moment. The art of all characters is astonishing, but a bit of work could be put into the platforms perhaps. The controls are rigid, yet there is some problem when jumping off of platforms. There is also a high level of threats in the very first area, making it extremely difficult to get past the first screen. On top of this, the long game over screen, the slow menu and the repeat of the controls makes it all the more tedious to get back into the game. Would this be a project that will recieve further support, I would make respawning a bit shorter (think Celeste's respawn rather than Mario's)

An interesting premise with great graphics, rigid controls, and a unique gameplay element. It does feel as if it is missing some classical platformer tropes, such as enemies and destructable bricks, but the fact that I realized that after playing it means that it would not be integral to this game's success. Congrats on making a good game, just a bit of polish and juicing to make it feel extra special!

Talk about beating the competition here! This is the most polished game I've played so far, and I don't expect to see any better games in my reviewing session. The art style is polished, coherent, and fits thematically. The basics of a Mariolike platformer is in there and to a high standard, which many games could only dream of matching within a week's time. On top of that, there is the additional swinging mechanic which is also executed flawlessly. Do a bit more polish on this maybe, come up with a more interesting and unique mechanic that flows well with this game and this is easily market standard. A job well done, and congrats to the whole team!

This is one of the few platformers from this week that felt the most similar to the traditional moveset of a platformer. The movement was snappy and the jumping felt natural, what more could you ask for? The art style was simple, with perhaps not the strongest consistence or coherence, but it gave that sense of retro games that many platformers rely on. There were some bugs, such as enemies floating in mid-air, slowly falling to the ground, and double-tapping the jump button could make the player super jump. Yet overall, a pretty good game that I enjoyed playing.

This is a quaint little game which looks stunning. The problems with it are that the art styles don't really match up. For example, your knight has that black outline whilst every thing else has a soft shade surrounding it. The movement of the player feels off as well, as with no air control platforming becomes a real drag. I would work on the player movement a bit more if the occasion arises, but for now, my honest praise of this game is that it feels like a proper game, juiced and all.

The idea of making an unfair platformer was something I expected to hear about, but not play. This was an unfair platformer, in all of its glory, but just because you label it as unfair does not mean you have an 'out'. There will be bias here, as I find unfair platformers to be a dumb concept. This is as there is no enjoyment value of such games, only frustration.

First of, the movement script is solid, I am a fan of how responsive it feels, and there is a feeling of when something goes wrong with the platforming, it's my mistake rather than the character's.

I did enjoy the art style, although it is fairly unconsistent due to the variety in pixel sizes between the different sprites. Might I suggest following a scaling template for the future?

Finally, there is the game itself. This is a flawed unfair platformer to the core. First, there is the 3 and a half minute monologue, which could be skipped, but as I missed the prompt telling me that I had to press it 100 times to skip it, I sat through all of it, scrolling through Reddit, waiting for it to end. Second, there's the level design. Yes, it is unfair, but in my opinion, an unfair game is a testament of memory if anything, remembering where traps are placed and carefully avoiding them. This game is a testament of memory, hand-eye coordination, and luck. Testing all of these abilities bored me after the second level, yet I completed the game.

Overall, this could be so much better if it was not an unfair platformer, but I know there are people who like themselves a challenge. This means that to execute this properly, the game needs to feel more challenging than tedious. If you can solve that problem, this would most likely be a better game.