Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

NetscaleView game page

Scale Your Network
Submitted by DefineDoddy (@definedoddy) — 5 hours, 17 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Netscale's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#5063.8794.026
Style#5154.1514.308
Creativity#8073.8544.000
Enjoyment#8083.6323.769

Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
Build a network of computers that scale efficiently

Development Time

96 hours

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted

Crab shady approves! Vey cool and I love the progression!

Developer

Thank you for playing!

A really great submission - it’s one of my favourites from the jam. The graphics were very nice and I thought the gameplay was well thought out and well balanced. The music was amazing as well. Very grateful for the tutorial being available in game as well for when I got stuck. Great job! :))

Developer

Thanks for the kind words, it means a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed the game and thank you for playing :)

Submitted

I love the graphics and sound design of this, the particles along the top and the wires coming down just look great. I did have a few instances of a wire spawning in the mess of particles up top, so it was difficult to notice. The active management gameplay is fun, however once you're a couple minutes into it, it becomes very unforgiving of any mistakes. If one server breaks, that's 5 wires disconnected now and the entire system quickly overloads in a cascading effect. I also wasn't exactly sure what to do about more than one string of bad data. Typing one string after the other seemed to work, but a new string would appear before the first string was finished coming out, so I would have to wait until the first one finished, and then quickly catch up with the second string. In the case where two computers near the top of the screen were being hacked, it was possible to have two strings of bad data that were longer than the wire. By the time the first string completely revealed itself, some of the second string had already gone into the computer. If I didn't have the second string memorized while I was paying attention to the first string, then I just had to let the second computer get hacked.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! You've made some very valid points which I agree with - there could definitely be some improvements to how the bad data system works. I also get what you mean about computers breaking and their connections, which maybe could be fixed via some kind of repair mechanic. I appreciate the review :)

Submitted

Visually retro-esque with minimalist UI. Still not really understand what I did here since I am not familiar with the network engineering context though. The sound effect feels solid to play. Good job for this one. :)

Developer

Thanks for playing! If I had a bit more time I wish I could’ve made an in-game tutorial as I think this would’ve made the game easier to digest. Thanks for leaving a review!

Submitted

This was a interesting experience, it's a difficult one for sure, but manageable.  The graphics are simple but the icons for the servers and computers look like classic windows Icons (and that's not a bad thing).

Streamed today on my livestream!!

 
Developer

Thank you for playing! I appreciate the stream - it was very insightful! In hindsight, I think I could’ve explained the hacking system better as I’ve noticed people tend to detach the wires instead of using the command prompt. Thank you for the review!

Submitted

Really excellent entry, and a unique take on the theme as well! Only feedback really is more clarity on how the hacking mechanic works, but that's really my only critique.

Developer

Thank you for playing! I completely get what you’re saying - the tutorial was something I did towards the end so I definitely could reword things to make more sense. Thanks for the feedback :)

Submitted

Really neat game - great theme,  music and graphics and feel works - I loved the pulsing numbers, and also great take on the theme. All round well done!

Developer

Thanks for playing. I appreciate it!

Submitted

this game is pretty damn stellar. it's hella creative and has a fun and challenging enough flow AND its visually pretty too omg

Developer

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted

Really cool game, the style, music, sounds and graphics are so cool, the gameplay was really cool and addictive, there doesn't seem to be any glitches it is very well made and polished, the ui was clean and responsive and everything had really good impact like the effects are very cool!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. Thanks for leaving a review!

Submitted

Well-executed! It's a bit hard to earn enough bytes to be able to spend them, and honestly I'm not quite sure what stress is and how to reduce it, but it's a pretty game that runs well. I like the routing and rerouting mechanic. Great work!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! To clarify a couple things: stress is the amount of data waiting to be processed inside the computer (note this is different from the binary data stream - that is solely for bytes/upgrading/bad data). There is currently no direct way to reduce stress without upgrading, but temporarily disconnecting some wires will reduce the amount of data being sent, and thus decrease the stress. Thanks for the feedback!