The game page is pretty blatant that this is didn’t get finished, but for a game jam product it’s a nice tech demo. And really good for a first jam game! For the mechanics that are there (moving, shooting, random level generation), it all works really well. The enemy spawns might need a little bit of work (it was inefficient to shoot them all, so I ended up just avoiding them and having a horde flocked after me!) but otherwise I don’t think it needs too much more on the gameplay side. You could even keep the minimalist art style, just add some plot/story or objectives 😊
zinar7
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Well, this was adorable – the intro dialogue was nice, and a really well-executed concept. I vaguely recall a similar game from a previous SGJ where the game interacted with your desktop, but I think this was a lot better and cooler and really clicked. I liked that the backdrop falls away as you play – it felt like there was tension building. I found some of the platforming bits pretty tricky, but I think that’s mostly because my coordination is not so good. But yeah, really cool little game; well done.
Loved this; really good game. Reminds me of a Flash game that would also appeal to Hidden Object fans – I kept going and hanging on to see if there was a story/plot point at the end: I liked how it got dark and the morning came up. Would have been cool to see more game mechanics (like the torch) emerge the next day, or find different things in the hay (letters maybe? that reveal a story or why someone is putting all the needles in the hay), but I think it was really nice and elegant for a small game. I also love how it started as a joke but turned into a lovely little game!
I totally didn’t realise about the sonar/radar (should have read the Itch page properly!) but found a pipe and the platform levels – eventually got stuck on one platform level (one that rotates with you on it, and you have to go over the edge and onto the other side; couldn’t do it) but otherwise enjoyed it. Wasn’t sure whether/how the platform levels merged into the story, was it like a dream sequence? Either way, I liked the terrain and environment deformation bit. Got a good “Lost and Found” vibe off it!
Yeah, polishing the rulebook was a pretty last-minute thing so I'm sure that things could be explained better. That's probably Phase 1 is explained better than Phase 2, because we ran out of time! We playtested this way more than we have playtested any game in the past, so I suspect that we didn't explain things perfectly because we were already confident in how to play and had had to do a lot of balancing/tweaking. We'll take it away and look at it :)
In our playtests, we found that it was much more efficient to put the survey tokens down and leave them there (rather than digging up straight away) because they're worth more points at the end of the game and you can then move on to try and dig something different up - but good to get feedback from people that have played it differently.
Personally, I never took some else's research cards (and preferred to take from the table) but the other fellas used the "steal" more effectively to pinch cards that would stop someone solo-finding a Relic, or which you suspect might be one that you need to complete a set. It becomes useful particularly late-game because you might be able to work out who has the matching card that you're missing, or to stop triggering the final round(s).
Either way, useful feedback - cheers. It's by far the most complex jam game I've/we've made before, so still really proud of it!
I like the premise (building up memories of the person growing up) – it would have been cool if the character got bigger/changed from level to level as they piece back their memories. And acquire new powers to complete new levels. I think I struggled a lot with the controls (jumping) too – they were responsive at the wrong times and unresponsive at the right times, so that might need to be tweaked. But the level design/objects are really coming on; would be good to see how of the memories emerge and build a story 😊
liked the sleuthing and the atmosphere – it had a good “escape room” type puzzle. You could almost make it in real life! But yeah, nice room/environment design. The last couple of puzzles were a bit head-scratchy, but a few tweaks/signposting (particularly for the seating plan one!) would fix it. I’d look forward to seeing the missing puzzle too. It would be cool if there was a mechanic with the flashlight for one of the puzzles, maybe? It’s a pity that you can’t pick up the gold at the end, but I just imagined a Scrooge McDuck-type dive into it 😊
Neat little pirate bury-and-find treasure game. The system worked pretty well – every map I was given was legible and accurate; I wonder how things will evolve as more people play it! I liked the low-poly sea and other art, really nice. Did get stuck on occasion trying to land on an island (once or twice the boat glitched into the land and wouldn’t spawn the little pirate dude) but seemed to work well. Stretch goals would be to make the map bigger and add more islands (maybe more islands that look similar, so it’s not immediately obvious which island it is buried on?) but pretty good for a game jam game!
I liked the idea of this – directing tourists is difficult even when you’re looking at the map! The system seemed to work pretty well but it’s clear that you ran out of time to polish it further. Hopefully you can iron it out a little more after the jam 😊
Hopefully useful feedback: it would be handy to be able to tell the tourist to (e.g.) “Go south three times” – that would make it easier for the times when the tourist wants to go across the whole side of the map. Also, maybe it would be easier for the tourist to always start at an intersection? Sometimes the tourist would spawn places where it wasn’t clear that I had to give them a starting instruction to walk the few pixels to crossroads.
Maybe it should show you where the directions would have taken them if you got it wrong? Then you could find out where you’re going wrong (but perhaps lose points for wrong directions!). Either way, I liked it – I look forward to how it develops further!
A lovely little text adventure thing with some lovely little funny bits. The text system seemed to work really well, and I liked some of the incidental moments (e.g. the appearance of Crocodile Dundee). The isometric art was really nice!
I also liked that you can pet the dog. I think I completed it in just over 100 turns, but I think at least ten of those were petting the dog and trying to see if there was a bonus achievement or something!
Yeah, I think it gets easier after a play or two. As I was playtesting it as I was going, I was definitely aligning on better ways to place the tiles in Phase 1. I guess it depends on what tiles get drawn, and you could be unlucky and draw all the dead ends right at the beginning of the game, but I figure it's a light enough game that people would just reset and try again. Thanks!
Yeah, this is a nice little arcade game (despite the hefty loading screen!) - It felt pretty smooth and pretty intuitive. I think there might be a bug insofar as when you start a new game it doesn't reset the old score; instead, it seems to just subtract 15 from it (at least on Medium mode it did). But perhaps it's just taking the "Legacy Game" diversifier on board and letting your score roll on from the last time :)
It worked fine with my X360 controller; I agree that it's a little fiddly to backtrack and shoot (maybe there could be a button which locks the firing direction?), but overall a nice little game. I like the fact that the pair were chained so close together, that could really open up some interesting puzzles, especially if one character has to perform an action (e.g. lockpick a lock) whilst the other fights off waves of enemies. I like it!
This looks great, I super adore the art theme (particularly the logo and the title screen) - was there a plan to have a broader story/theme involved that got cut because of time I struggled a little with the controls a little (and glitched into scenery a couple of times which required an ALT+F4), but eventually completed the levels. Would like to see this expanded on, it felt a bit like Mirror's Portal Edge or something :)
This was neat - I wasn't expecting to work quite as well, it was only partway through that I realised you could say multiple things and it would figure them out. It was when the blocks started moving and killing me that it really got tricky - I struggled to work out where things would be moving, but I think that was just me. I think it'd work really well as a smartphone game, but I'm well impressed with how well you got it working for this jam. Good job!
This had a nice little narrative, good job! I'd like to come back to this again later, and figure out what/if anything changes if I do things in a different order; I might've lucked out on the right order by chance. But yeah, this was well-written and I love that it had kind of the same feel as those old browser escape room games, but in a text adventure.
Yeah, it's a shame that there wasn't time to add more things to do or upgrade, but I get the voxel art is time-consuming! It would be cool to have this as kind of a "daily chore" simulator but letting you interrior design the room and buy objects. Changing seasons would be kind of nice, too - like, log on in December and the clothes thrown on the floor are scarves and gloves; in the summer they'd be shorts and t-shirts and things. Maybe players (who are each in their own rooms) could write messages and send each other post that arrives in the mail each day but you don't know who the other person is, a bit like Journey.
I really enjoyed this - I like how it how that community (alone/together) feel, picking up notes from previous players to guide what to do. It'd be a lot of work, but if the city could be randomly-generated (or, at least, a bunch of different cities so a single player wouldn't get the same one twice) then that could really bump up the awesomeness of leaving notes. Either way, that concept was really cool. It was cool to see how much of the town was mapped before I got there, and the joy of finding a building that no-one had mapped before (but then dying because there were zombies inside and from the other buildings I'd been in I didn't think zombies could enter them, ha...)
This was a really interesting mechanic: I think there are a ton of ways that interesting puzzles could be themed around this and manipulation of the game window. You should totally keep going with finishing more of the game :) I seemed to have some resolution troubles so couldn't scroll down when at a lower level so not sure if I missed anything down there, but I'd be keen to find out what The Oracle actually is!
I felt like I couldn't play this properly (couldn't do multiplayer), but the mechanic was really good. I too had the "left/right arrows sometimes look diagonal" thing, but hopefully that would easy to fix in future if you so desired. It was hard but seemed to work really well - I particularly liked the chalk outline; I'd love to know what happens if you completely fill it!
This was good - I really liked the concept and general mechanic, it really fit the current situation! FPS mode was a bit disorienting at first but worked well; perhaps a future/alternative iteration would give you a bonus or benefit to manually controlling the turrets: maybe a special move (explosives that take out groups of viruses)? I loved how the handwash dispensers got fatter as you upgraded them.