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A jam submission

Clockwork CyclesView game page

Upgrade, dismantle and rebuild a clock that controls time
Submitted by Aizome — 14 hours, 1 minute before the deadline
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Clockwork Cycles's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Uniqueness (Originality of the game)#44.0164.397
Theme (How well the game fits the jams theme)#53.9534.328
Overall#73.2803.591
Fun (Overall enjoyment)#112.7413.000
Balance (Speed of the game)#142.4102.638

Ranked from 58 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Sheer misery.

(+1)

Beautiful game to watch run, a nice spin on the genre; nothing groundbreaking in execution, but a really nice fresh presentation that worked well.

Some of the upgrades didn't work for me, notably the last upgrades for automation, and they were so expensive that I'd done everything else before I could afford them anyway. Slightly disappointing, as I was hoping to be able to set the clock up on a cycle of dismantling, constructing and running.

I liked the tie-in of in-game time to the time on the clock, but the game was slightly hard to navigate after the sun set. Not a big concern in the game as presented because nothing that you needed to buy required night-time hours anyway.

Left me wanting more, which is always a good way to end it really.

Submitted

Fun- Had good fun watching the gears spin, though the balance was a bit off.

Balance- Kind of slow especially later on, could've been better

Uniqueness- Game is a fairly basic but surprisingly new take on the theme, having actual physical things incrementing just feels different. Would like to see this be expanded more

Theme- Utilises the theme to its full potential.

Overall nice work, though some of the upgrades seem to be a bit broken and the shadows graphics are quite jittery. The start is also a bit unintuitive. 

Ambitious attempt! Although parts of the gameplay were slower than I'd like, I always appreciate it when people try to push the bounds of the genre in presentation or gameplay.

The idea of taking apart something and upgrading individual parts was more engaging than I expected, even if mechanically it's the same as just hitting an upgrade button that increases output. The fact that you can see the various gears go back into the clock helps with this.

While I like that you can buy upgrades with time, I wish there was 1 other mechanic to tie it into that idea of "time" other than just as a currency. You have a cool, 3D foundation there, so there's quite a lot of directions that are available if you choose to continue with this game :)

First: I loved it! Great game, could be amazing with more work.

Pros:

  • Love the visuals, and how you can see everything in the clock turning.
  • Upgrading the individual pieces of the clock and building them together is a great idea, love the concept.

Cons (and Bugs):

  • Instructions are a little unclear, you should write more of them.
  • You can buy the same part twice if you don't put it in the clock immediately.
  • Some upgrades don't have descriptions.
  • The crank upgrade to auto-crank didn't work.
  • I feel like my max time was always a little too low

All and all, given the constraints of the jam, this is a great game!

(2 edits)

Interesting game! I like that its 3D. It’s fairly basic mechanically, but I enjoyed it. It was satisfying whenever I could make a specific tier in 1 crank + removal, so I could just buy all the parts without disassembling and assembling the clock. Especially as I improve the tools and more and more of it is automated. Fun - I absolutely love time being the currency, but only accumulating it with the weight and the clock. Mechanic advantage FTW! :)

I will say, as you get along the pacing gets a bit grind-y, which I’m not a huge fan of. Sure you get more time per cycle, but you need more and more cycles per upgrade.

(+1)

This is just bad. It looks like it could be fun if it, well, did anything. You put the crank in, you crank it up, you get currency, and buy gears and parts, and then you just repeat, with the gears and parts literally doing what looks to be nothing. At first I thought maybe you used the gears and parts to modify the clock itself, maybe adding parts to the clock to make it wind faster or do more things, but the gears and parts are completely uninteractable. Then I thought maybe Its me, maybe I just don't know how to pick them up but even the auto-builder doesn't do anything but put the crank in. Then I'm thinking maybe I just haven't bought the first gear yet, but I ended up playing this long enough to get all the parts. Nothing. Disappointing.

Developer

Unfortunately, the upgrades were quite rushed. After you buy an upgrade and remove that part from the clock, it should get replaced by the upgraded one. When you rebuild the clock, the upgrade takes effect.

I finally figured it out. I would like to say maybe make a small tutorial. I really wanted to like this game, as I did finally find screenshots of a few things in it, and kept seeing it work. Finally realized you could take apart the clock to then replace the old parts. Aside from that one hiccup it looks quite nice. I actually could see this being a full fledged game. Just, maybe make a tutorial showing how to take apart the clock to activate upgrades? Cheers though, a very nice game.

This is art.
Really like to see post-jam release with some music and storyline