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SIDS's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Soundtrack/SFX | #34 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Graphics | #34 | 4.294 | 4.294 |
| Interpretation of the Secondary Theme | #37 | 4.294 | 4.294 |
| Overall | #99 | 3.671 | 3.671 |
| Gameplay | #194 | 2.941 | 2.941 |
| Gameboy Soul | #280 | 2.824 | 2.824 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game match the theme?
The concept was a game about maneuvering through the spaces of a space station, while avoid the hazards of space; namely, zero gravity and low air pressure.
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Comments
That title sure is a pun, huh.
I hope this wall of text doesn't seem harsh. You all are trying to do a lot of extremely difficult things at the same time: make a physics action game, perform macabre comedy, and create a game in 10 days. Doing even one of those is an achievement in and of itself.
The art is great, and so is the soundtrack and sound effects! "Baby down" is a funny animation. The character design is endearing! The concept is a good double-take on the theme. It's fairly accurate to the Game Boy aesthetic. Using zero-gravity tether physics to transport babies is a good conceit for grim slapstick humor. There are a lot of good ideas here. It's an easy 5-star in almost every category.
The gameplay is bad. It's wildly random and frustrating. It took me hours to beat the first section, and it was only after I lucked into finding Mom and the babies in the span of 7 rooms.
The level is labyrinthine, and it takes so long to find anything if you get unlucky. Even failed runs last forever. I didn't even find Mom in most of my runs. Having to keep the entire layout of the level in my head didn't help matters. Maybe the player could start at Mom? A Metroid-style map would also be helpful. The level should probably be shrunk as well.
The saucers are awful. One of them is a cool obstacle, but 3 of them in a room and 25 of them on the station turns the game into an RNG nightmare. They're so erratic, and their grab ability is so powerful and constant, that most runs were entirely at their whims, especially when one decides to go mach-speed with a baby in tow. There was this one time I was bringing the third baby back, only to find that saucers had dragged the other two away from Mom; that's how powerful they are.
This would all be problem enough, but the frustrating gameplay also kills the humor like a saucer with a baby. It was initially funny that I was entrusted to use a finicky physics-based tether system to transport fragile infants across a crumbling space station. It was funny when I would take a corner wrong and they would bump into something and I would be like "oh dear! I can't believe I did that!" It's funny when it's the player's fault, is what I'm saying. It's not funny when wild RNG saucers kill children, I just think "Damn, I have to do all that again!"
I was pleasantly surprised by the boss fight. The twist was amusing, and I was glad I wasn't going to have to worry about random rooms. Unfortunately, it had similar problems. It didn't seem possible to tether the babies to the poles (I tried a lot!). The poles being up for only a couple of seconds was needlessly difficult. At one point, after Mom grabbed the children from space, she got stuck on something and caused a physics freak, killing basically everyone.
Then, I got softlocked because I vented Mom and the babies, the ship wouldn't close, and I couldn't untether myself from the pole.
It's not unsalvageable. Most of it is very impressive! It's just marred by a few bad design decisions.
Also, I'll be frank: it probably warrants a content warning.
All-in-all, great work. Congratulations on the submission!
Been a while since this post, but yours is such a good breakdown that I felt like responding. I actually avoided looking at comments for this long because I knew what a flawed experience it was. I'm at peace with it now.
Very much of the game's problems came down to time; the scope was too large for a single programmer, (myself). I actually had a lot of systems that I didn't have time to properly implement. The map is procedurally generated, but I didn't have enough time to make as many room layouts as I would've liked, so it ends up having the unintended side effect of making all the rooms look the same, which makes things super labyrinthine and frustrating. I wanted to create a navigation system, whether it was a map or an arrow telling you where to go, but I ran out of time. I also had ideas for more enemies, and more powerups, but nearing the end of the week I crammed the boss fight into the last day to give the game a proper ending, and then posted it, very stressed. As a result, the only enemy I had was the UFO, and that was implemented the second to last day. Didn't have much time to test spawn rates.
Put simply, I appreciate and agree with all of your criticisms. I had plans for most of the issues you brought up, but had not enough time to make them happen.
Before anything else, I want to say: Congratulations on the scores! Top 100 overall is impressive in a competition of this size. The Graphics, Audio, and Theme scores were especially well-earned; the aesthetic is polished to a glowing shine!
I definitely liked the game more than I didn't; there were many less-frustrating games in the jam that I still enjoyed less than Space Infused Daycare Simulator. The protagonist's physics-based movement was polished and fun, and I should have focused on that more in my original comment.
I'm not surprised that there were planned features that fell on the cutting room floor; most problems with game jam games tend to be the result of a lack of time to implement and iterate, and difficulty is the most difficult design problem. GBJam 11 was also particularly hard for me, and I was not entirely satisfied with my entry when the deadline came. It is what it is; it wouldn't be a jam if it didn't put us in a jam!
I still vividly remember my first playing this. Even after seeing the thumbnail and title several times while scrolling the entries, it was only after the infants were let loose in the station that I remembered the other thing SIDS stood for. You got me good; it was very funny!
I hope life is treating you well.
Very funny game! My run ended up with too much furniture in the way of the goal, so I lost many babies in the process of playing this one LOL.
Would have been great to have an easier introduction to the mechanics, say just a few babies and barely any obstacles.
The sprite-work is incredible. I found the controls to floaty, I know it's supposed to be like that, but still. After cluelessly floating from room to room, I stopped playing. It grew frustrating to look into each room and finding mostly dead-ends.
With some polishing, a mini-map or some other way to orient myself better, this can be really cool, though. Especially with the great art-design.
Very impressive artwork. That mother was sure in good shape for just having 3 babies! :)
xtremely fun game, great graphics and soundtrack. The initial cutscene is incredible too. I managed to take the 3 babies alive and well to their mother *SPOILERS* BUT WHAT WAS THAT PLOT TWIST??? I couldn't save all 3 in the end. Very good game, good work!!
Neat gameplay hook. I struggled a bit to get used to the controls, but at least I got to see the comical "baby down" graphic because of it!
Great concept, loved the opening scene, its got alot of "appeal" to it, id like to see this expanded upon :)
What an absolutely bizarre concept... I love it.
The opening cutscene and all of the art is so incredible. I love how this game was able to establish story and lore that made sense despite being so goofy. The tether mechanic is really fun. My only wish is for a map showing where you have already been. I spent most of my time feeling lost and frustrated because I couldn't figure out where I was and kept wandering into rooms I'd already been in. And my babies kept dying as I was spending so much time with no clue where I was going and a mishap would happen along the way.
This game is actually really impressive though. Great submission!