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Last Fuse's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #40 | 3.989 | 3.989 |
| Overall | #46 | 3.897 | 3.897 |
| Theme | #49 | 4.055 | 4.055 |
| Audio | #132 | 3.736 | 3.736 |
| Enjoyment | #136 | 3.868 | 3.868 |
| Visuals | #145 | 4.165 | 4.165 |
| Innovation | #270 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
Ranked from 91 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
The theme is about exaggerating a scenario so ridiculous that it’s almost guaranteed to go wrong. Building a bomb is already a risky proposition—building it in the middle of a city, under attack, while it’s slowly melting down? What can go wrong?
The twist: There are multiple endings, each based on how "wrong" you played and the decisions you made. To win, you must juggle these escalating crises with perfect execution. Only then do you unlock the best ending where truly "nothing went wrong".
Plus, every in-game dialogue choice tempts you with an attractive “Nothing can go wrong” option, constantly reminding you that perfection is the only way to survive this absurd, high-stakes situation.
(Yes, I wanted to achieve some irony and meme-ify the theme with the dialog choices. :P)
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
I focused on gameplay code and creating a highly polished experience. To save time, I used pre-existing boilerplate systems like the Settings and Inventory systems, but I wrote all gameplay-related code myself.
For visuals, I didn’t create most of the models, though I did make some, such as the bomb's construction phases unique to Last Fuse. My main focus was on lighting, post-processing, and cinematics to achieve the look and feel I envisioned.
Additionally, I worked extensively on game juice and visual feedback (things I wanted to improve in this jam). While I didn’t draw the explosion sprites, I did my best combining effects (like slow-mo), VFX, and timing to maximize impact, visual appeal, and the overall "cool factor" into a polished experience.
I did not create most audio, except for modifying some audio—such as reversing a sound to create a power-down effect.
How many people worked on the game?1
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Comments
Ok this one is a well polished game for one week. Congratulations. Great job.
Wow, this is a super polished game that looks and feels great! I can't believe how much stuff you fit into this for a one week jam. The title screen meta-commentary was a nice touch :-)
I started with the (wrong) notion that I should focus on cooling to survive, and that didn't work very well. Once I realized how great the cooling capacity upgrades were, the game became a lot easier! The unlock system was a great incentive for me to keep trying to get all the endings. I guess one of the cinematics isn't implemented correctly?
Hey there, yup! The trust aliens cinematic was an oversight. It was such a simple fix as all I needed to do was disable the bomb flying up but there was so much to do that I forgot about it :(
Incredibly polished game!! I loved every aspect of it, many congrats!
The random events were the magic touch that made this experience so memorable for me, they created very tense and dramatic situations, specially since every decision I made ended up somehow killing my people :')
I also appreciated the accessibility options, in particular so many graphics settings, which allowed me to seamlessly enjoy the game in my not-so-powerful computer :D Congrats again and hope to see more of your work in the future!
This game is extremely well made! I really like the concept and the gameplay loop, building and upgrading all the different buildings, turrets etc. reminded me a lot of games like Cities Skylines. The game is very polished and I like the replayability with the different endings, bombs and perks! The artstyle is pretty nice and the music fits this genre of game very well! Good job!
Hey yyz good to see you compete again (its GD noob, yes I changed the name again :) ).
In compare to the last jam the gameplay is a lot more fun, it might be because after I learned how to play (spam the electricity boost machines and the steel factories and later every thing else) I won every time and it felt pretty easy (I played in the first 3 maps I dont know if it gets harder).
I dont remember why but something with the sound felt a bit off, but every thing else was awesome even more then last time even though I found some bugs but they are not game breaking and thats what usually happens when you create a game in just one week.
Heya GD noob! So good to see you again too! I don't know what to call you now hahaha. On that note, I want to credit you on the Stormbridge credits page and want to ask how you'd like to be addressed there!
Okay back to your comments xD. Cool to hear that you found this a step up in terms of fun and that you liked this one even more! (Yay, I am improving? haha) I will be making the game harder as it seems to be too easy after I added tutorials.
Is the sound referring to the background music, or sound effects? And was it off as in it was a bug (e.g. sound not playing) or in terms of sound design (audio does not fit) ?
Lastly, I just pulled the trigger to also put this game on Steam lol: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3558060/Last_Fuse/
Also if it's not too much trouble and if you remember any of the bugs, please let me know so I can fix them! :)
I will be updating the game once the jam period is over!
Edit: Just played and I will be commenting on your game shortly!
As for the credits thanks for adding me and you can write codeDog (for now).
If I remember right I think something with the sound effects felt off maybe they stopped quickly or something like that but I dont really remember.
I found two bugs:
1. There was no cinematic with one of the endings but I just saw in another comment that you already know about it:
2. You can place stuff that takes 4 block on the mountains which only have one block place.
Good luck with the steam publishing I also saw your post about it.
O_O very polished game! I'm actually imressed. Everythin looks so smoothing and finished.
Here is a video(with some timecodes) of my gameplay maybe it might help in some way
Some thoughts and bugs(?):
Pls, correct me if'm wrong (ㅅ´ ˘ `)
Please rate our game if you have time and feedback is appreciated. I wanna turn it into multiplayer, public/private rooms for fishing. To chill, chat and flex your fish with your buddies
Hey there!!! Thanks so much for playing my game and wow a 1 hour video! This is a nice surprise and I already know I'm going to have a lot of fun going through it. I will respond properly once I've properly reviewed all the feedback and the video - and I see you've even shared timecodes which is awesome!
So sorry I'm a little swamped right now so I don't have a timely reply, but rest assured I will watch it in full and reply once I do later this week, and will also try out your game!
I've watched your entire video and left you comments separately there!
Right mouse button now orbits the camera freely in v0.8, so it cannot be used to cancel unfortunately, but ESC does all cancellations.
A tutorial now locks all tabs in v0.9, preventing stuck in tutorial.
Build button fixed.
Middle mouse click isn't used in the game, though will see if there's a way to disable it on Unity WebGL.
Yes, I love frostpunk! Haha. Maybe this is frostpunk but with tower defense and bombs.
I like your suggestion of reducing buildings available at the start, I think the v0.9 update will solve this.
I will continue to provide updates every few days. Thank you so much once again!
Also I was a little crazy and pulled the trigger to put the game on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3558060/Last_Fuse/
Congratz with steam page! Wish you good luck! Wishlisted <3
Wow this is a well made gamejam game! Had fun playing it and obviously the visuals look great!
Definitely a step above many other games in the jam. I was engaged. Pretty sure you accidently spelled Detonate, "Deonate" for the epic conclusion by the way lol, so that was pretty funny.
YA I KNOW, THAT TYPO BURNS ME EVERY TIME I SEE IT!!!!!!
And it's going to burn me for the next 2 weeks 🙃
This game is super polished! I loved that you added save files and gave us five different endings to explore. Plus, it was really funny—I had a great time playing!
Hey! Glad you were able to get a laugh out of it!
This game should be on Steam! Amazing performance!
I've decided to YOLO and do it - have just created the Steam storepage, just need to pull the trigger now.
Now I finally know how to build a bomb, thanks!
Haha! *Insert mandatory "Don't try this at home" subtitle*
Awesome game! Felt very professional. Fried my gpu but worth it.
Haha whoops, sorry Riive's GPU!
Oh wow. The level of polish is amazing. I know you used assets to help you save time, but still you combined all of this in one week (how?). Great job!
Hey! Thanks for the kind words haha. Not sure if you were asking a serious question at the end, but I wrote a longer response to another developer below. Generally on the technical side, what I found useful was I enabled Unity's Fast Enter Play Mode feature and Hot Reload to allow me to have rapid iteration and instant compilation speeds, allowing me to very quickly make decisions, debug and test the game. I constantly iterate and base my execution on player feedback I receive from incremental versions.
I also have experience in rapid prototyping before, a skill which coincidentally is very applicable and useful in game jams, as you similarly have to create a high quality vertical slide in a short time (so skills like task prioritization are relevant and transferrable to jams). I also have what I think is somewhat extensive background in art (specialized in Digital Animation and I have created cinematics and trailers for companies before), as well as programming (was a Lead Developer at my previous company, before I set up my own game studio), and being able to speak in both art and code lingo allows me to "sync with myself" and envision exactly what is needed for the game, evaluate how much time or more accurately estimate the difficulty of each feature implementation.
Overall that high-level clarity as well as the strong vision I had of the idea I wanted to execute allowed me to prioritize very carefully what should be cut, as well as have greater intentionality over what exactly I wanted to have in this jam, and work accordingly. That said, I'm not perfect and as always, execution can always be improved when you look back at your own product. I received some valuable feedback from people here and I will work to fix those once the jam rating period concludes!
Lastly, I kinda make games professionally so I think that helps. Participating in this jam was not my initial intention (I was very busy irl). But I think I enjoy having fun and coming down here to occasionally unleash creativity and exercise some creative juice!
It wasn't a serious question, but I am glad you still answered. Your answer helps me (and probably others who will read it). =D
It was clear you already have done these types of games before (you can see that you have experience). I teach Game Programming at a University and I organise a Game Jam at the start of every semester. I will tell my students that it isn't about succeeding the first time (getting a character moving from A to B is already succeeding at that point), but knowing how to succeed the next time and even improve after that.
Very cool! =D
And I have full respect for teachers! You remind me of my mobile games programming lecturer, who inspired me to make games. I did not go the mobile route, but I think I at least went somewhere HAHA.
Big respect to what you do and your teaching style, I think your students would appreciate it!
You did amazing with this game. Fun tower defense game play and a awesome style. Y'all should be proud.
Oh, this is an amazing game. I'm impressed with your time management in running this project. Even though you didn't do everything yourself, using existing resources to create a quality work like your game is not easy at all. Your work has opened my mind about the limitations of solo projects.
I think it would be very useful if you made a Devlog video showing your management process and decisions about which elements to polish. I think developers would find it helpful.
The game is fun!
Hey! Glad I was able to be an eye-opener!
I don't do devlog videos but generally I base my execution on rapid prototyping and fast iterations, and I was very fortunate to have playtesters during this jam. They helped catch areas where I found people got stuck at or confused by, and made me prioritize UX a lot more than I otherwise would have.
I will consider writing a longer devlog, but as a start, if one is using Unity, what has helped me a lot on the technical side of things is enabling Fast Enter Play Mode which allows one to instantly test gameplay, and using Hot Reload which is a plugin that allows for instant compilation during Play Mode. Combined, these keep my iteration speeds at its max, allowing me to focus on develop and iterate constantly and debug any issues on the spot. Being able to change values on the fly and see the results instantly accelerates my decision making skills a lot!
Once that is done, the bottleneck is less on the software, and more on how fast your brain can think and how fast your fingers can translate those ideas into code - mainly a lot of it is execution and maybe experience too.
When it comes to the jam, there is a lot of task prioritization involved - I focused on creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) where my key priority is to make the bare minimum of what works - for Last Fuse, this was the building system in v0.1 - which does not even include combat - this is so that I can at least deliver what I believe to be a working prototype of what I want to showcase and get a feel. The benefit is also being able to have a working prototype for people to play and get early feedback which is super crucial for UX
Additionally, although I had a lot of ideas at the beginning, I made sure to design them in a way that I could cut them if needed (5 endings down to 3, removing meta upgrades, so that in the event of a lack of time, I would still have a solid MVP). This meant I would regularly prepare versions that incrementally improve the game from the early playable prototype. At each stage, this allows playtesters to give me feedback well before time was up, and it is through that playtesting session that equipped me with information on what to prioritize in the remaining days.
Once I'm able to scale up, I work in the order of first getting the mechanic to work without bugs. In the context of the combat system, it's making sure the enemies shoot the right thing, increase heat correctly as the core mechanic, and being able to die properly. That's the minimum. Then comes balancing, which was a challenge in itself as I wanted the game to be challenging, but not too hard because not everybody here is familiar with the strategy genre. I didn't do the best job, but I tried to balance it according to a wider spectrum of audience to have the lowest barrier of entry.
And finally after that comes polish - adding muzzle flashes, bullet VFX, explosions, randomizing spawn points and pushing the presentation, using Slerp() instead of LookRotation() for turrets, etc. However, that's not to say I leave polish to the last thing all the time - sometimes I add polish during development which accelerates it because from the start I wanted a quality end product. And once I get the game-feel down, it starts to paint a clearer picture of the over-arching vision and further enforces what needs to be worked on.
This is getting to become a wall of text and I wasn't expecting to write this much haha. This brief devlog, I wrote goes a bit into how I slowly scaled up from an MVP and the order of which I developed the various systems - in what I believed to be decreasing priority. Even the end product had things I needed to cut as I lacked the time to make it work, so I will be working on the game post-jam to further improve it and address the feedback that I have gotten from the players who have left their thoughts here! :)
Thank you very much for this information. I can tell that you have a lot of experience and capability.
For us, we find it difficult to draw a clear line between what is MVP-0 and what isn't. For example, people in the Art team feel they need to create visually appealing images to call it MVP-0, while 3D artists often say there must be meshes and animations that communicate with players to qualify as MVP-0. Working as a team makes it challenging because each person has a different idea about what constitutes MVP-0.
Ahh, I don't know if I can answer that for you as team dynamics can be challenging and it really differs from team to team, and I agree that each person has different priorities, and if there is a lack of "alignment" it can be conflicting to determine what MVP-0 actually is!
This is obviously only my personal opinion and there will be people who think differently from me:
If your game is a game that relies on visuals, such as a visual novel, an atmospheric game, or in rare cases, the art is the hook (very rare, I only count top 1% of games like Cuphead and Bodycam into this category - they sell because they've made something nobody has seen before, this doesn't apply to just any game that looks pretty), then it may be okay to have MVP-0 require visually appealing visuals. As you can see, this depends on your genre.
The other case I may consider is when your game relies on animations to convey the gameplay and genre. I can't think of examples, but maybe some animation-driven game would fall into this case.
However, if your primary hook is gameplay (in the case of genres like roguelites, city builder, and possibly majority of games), then what you really want to do is test if people even like your idea - the art is there to support and sell the game. Yes, the art can help attract new players, but whether the game has retention or makes the player feel value for their time spent, hinges on gameplay and possibly its unique selling point. If the MVP has great art but ultimately fails to convey its genre or hook, then its purpose is debatable. That's not to say leave art all the way at the end or to ignore it, art has a role, but but you have to ask yourself what is the purpose of making your MVP. Is it to make a pretty thing sell your concept? If so, then you might want to consider making a vertical slice, instead of an MVP.
In the context of games in the genres above, I think the MVP is to let players play it and gather feedback on if the concept is viable, which is the "V" in "MVP".
Note that what is considered the MVP depends on a lot of factors - concept, so what I said here may not be applicable - I don't know your context, so it can be a case by case basis.
I always write way more than I expect haha, so the summary is: What are you trying to validate?
"Is this game fun?" -> if trying to validate fun, and you find that it's fun even with a bunch of placeholder white squares, you know your concept is a banger! In fact, not having polished art makes this easier because you're judging it "objectively" without being distracted by visuals.
Wow, the 'vertical slice'—I love it! It’s such a spot-on solution. I’m deeply grateful you sacrificed your time to write such detailed guidance for me, and I hope these valuable insights can be shared with other developers too. Thank you so much!
I am more than happy to be of assistance and to help everyone as much as I possibly can! I wish you all the best with your team, the jam, and your games :)
Also if you have any constructive feedback and criticism - feel free to share them too! It will not just help me a lot to learn and improve, but to also make the game better for other people!
Wow super impressive work for just one week of solo dev, honestly with a tiny bit more polish on the UI I would believe you if you told me this was a steam game, not a game jam game submitted a day before the deadline.
The core gameplay loop is simple but satisfying, I can't complain about an upgrade/defend cycle. It took a couple attempts to click but each time I failed I felt like I knew how to avoid the previous pitfalls and immediately wanted to go for another attempt. All of that is reinforced by some really strong visuals and theming. Not to mention the sheer quantity of content for a game jam game.
Shout out to the little bit of the game's writing as well. It's fun and establishes tone really well. All in all a really solid game with an impressive scale for one week of work!
Thank you! Very few people commented on the writing so I appreciate that haha.
I am looking to improve so some feedback would help me if you can offer them - are you able to pinpoint what you would polish with regards to the UI?
I've also decided that I want to bring this game further, so this is more of a fun optional question: if you have ideas on what content you may want to see in the game, what would they be?
Brutal!!!! is incredible that you made this in six days! well done! quite pulish. The only thing, and maybe is because I played in web, when I click once, the ambient sound and soundtrack stops, but the rest, I did really enjoy! well done
This is incredible! I cant believe this was done in just a week with just one person. While playing I was thinking there must have been 2 or 3, but seriously congrats!
Nice game.
An incredibly polished masterpiece, especially being a solo project! The combination of strategy elements with tower defense mechanics and a narrative loaded with humor and irony makes every gameplay a chaotic but addictive experience. The way the game embraces the theme, taking it to the extreme with absurd decisions and multiple endings, is brilliant.
The visuals are spectacular, with well-crafted effects, cinematics and clever use of lighting and post-processing that elevates the tense atmosphere. The gameplay is fluid and tactical, forcing you to balance resources and make decisions under constant pressure.
While perhaps tweaking the balance a bit more would make the choices even more impactful, the game already feels incredibly complete for the short development time. It certainly has potential to become a successful indie - it would be easy to imagine it on Steam! An impressive project that leaves you wanting to keep playing and discover all the possible endings.
Hey there Victor! Wow your feedback is the most detailed one I've seen so far and I really really appreciate that! I'm so glad to hear you enjoy it - I would like to know more about how you would tweak the balance? Feel free to share as much or as little as you want! I am quite motivated to push this onto Steam so any ideas that would help refine the game to make that a possibility is welcome! :)
Hi! I’m really glad that my feedback has been useful to you, your game really deserves it. It’s great to know that you’re thinking about releasing it on Steam, because I really think it has a huge potential.
About the balance, I think adding more variety to the emerging crises could make the decisions even more intense. For example, random events that force you to temporarily sacrifice resources or disable certain defenses could add another layer of challenge. Also tweaking the difficulty curve a bit so that decisions in the beginning carry more weight in the end could make each game feel even more unique.
Anyway, it already feels super polished, and these are just ideas to experiment with. I’m sure with a little bit more tweaking people would love it on Steam.
Oh, and I’d love for you to try our game too and give us your feedback - it would be great to hear from you! Big hugs. 🚀
I love your ideas!
Disabling defenses is soooo evil....AND I LOVE IT! *cackle
I will increase the difficulty all around and think of writing more events! May introduce a way to let players influence weather, which can work for or against you (eg lightning storms can strike enemies, but also your buildings).
I have opened your game and will be giving you feedback shortly! Big hugs to you too Victor~!
Thank you so much friend ;))