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Nonvolatile's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #92 | 3.182 | 3.375 |
| Sound Design | #154 | 2.711 | 2.875 |
| Overall | #172 | 2.711 | 2.875 |
| Theme Integration | #178 | 2.828 | 3.000 |
| Gameplay | #178 | 2.711 | 2.875 |
| Art | #208 | 2.711 | 2.875 |
| Fun Factor | #270 | 2.121 | 2.250 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game bring our theme, The Error is the Feature, to life?
I might have forgotten to fix some major bugs, or maybe I left them in on purpose who knows?
Did you include a fake publisher splash screen at the start of your game?
No
Did you use the Audius API in your game?
No
If AI was used in your game, let us know how you used it.
No AI was used to make the game.
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Comments
I am just gonna begin with, that I didn't get past level 4.
I feel like this could be an amazing puzzle game (at least a better one than the one I created for this jam). The mechanics are really innovative even though it's base is just a sokoban game. A big problem is that the first big mechanic is rather clanky to use. I feel like this would have been somewhat alliviated, if your last moves or even the moves you'd do when pressing z would be shown. I also would have liked a reset button for the current room, as sometimes I made a small mistake making me get all the boxes away from walls and a reset just would have been easier.
A mistake which I also made in my game is in the level design. You have lots of cool mechanics but you don't leave room for the player to fully grasp them/get used to them. The first two levels show the player the basic movement and mention Z and ESCAPE. The third level then uses those in a new way, maybe Z and ESCAPE should have been mentioned here or there should have been hints torwards goin into a previous level. Anyway the third level also introduces doors... which don't work like in other games. This would be fine, if you didn't introduce two new mechanics in the same level. I spend a few minutes trying to find a solution with the door. Then in the fourth level you immidiatly seem to introduce another new mechanic, while I feel like the previous one wasn't even properly introduced yet.
I understand that it's supposed to feel like bugs, but the gameplay takes a big hit without a proper introduction of the mechanics.
Thank you for the detailed feedback.
1. my bad, I just didn't play enough
2. I see that door not working as a new mechanic, it is nothing you do, but it is a new obsticle you have to deal with and in a puzzle game where you need to figure out the rules yourself. It being the thing you can ignore isn't a thing the player will know, because who knows, maybe it blocking you is only conditional and you somehow can go through it?
3. Yea, the numbers really made me feel like I need to follow the order, especially as the first two levels seem like intoductory levels
4. My bad then
5.I'd say that the wordless solution is the ideal one (at least for the type of game I enjoy). But in a jam it can be quite hard to do it properly, so it's hard to say when to use words.
I really need to try this again and ignore the level numbers!
I found it very interesting and challenging but I think I'm pretty bad, I didn't get past the 3rd levelv, please rate my game too.
I really liked the idea, but I think the execution needs a bit more polish. I got to level 3 and got stuck there. I somehow got through level 2 because it somehow solved the puzzle in level 2 by resetting your steps and I think this is the feature of the game here?
But the problem is that I barely understood how I solved the level 2 puzzle (i just accidentially sovled it by pressing that a few times) and it really left me clueless of what to do in level 3. So I tried several things and mashed Z afterwards, but nothing worked. Which is where I quit.
I think you need some sort of tutorial, or even better, clear player feedback. If your game does something the player does not understand, you need to give the player good feedback, because that is all the info the player has. I think if you can improve on this, it will be an potentially a fun game. But in its current state, it was kind of a puzzle where you did not understand the logic behind it and that is somewhat frustrating.
Otherwise, it is fine. Movement feels good, sound and visuals match. Just the lack of player feedback seems to be a major hold back for this game.
Levels 1 and 2 are solvable without using any bugs. The main mechanic is suppposed to be (rot13) Gur haqb fgnpx qbrfa’g pyrne hagvy n yriry vf fbyirq, nyybjvat lbh gb whzc orgjrra yriryf naq fgvyy haqb. I did try to hint at this by having the move counter, but in hindsight I probably should have made it more clear. (The idea was since you can’t complete level 3 you go to another level and discover this). It doesn’t help that the levels can be cleared in any order. Maybe I should add some hints to the page description for now?
honestly, that is a really cool idea and I am quite amazed by this creativity. Just, that it probably comes 30 years to late :D
I mean, in the 90ies when people had 3 games on floppy discs, this would have worked well. Kids safed their pocket money for a game and if you could not beat a level, you just had to go back to the levels you can beat and beat over and over again.
But, in 2025, with digital releases on steam, gamepass, mobile games and thousands of games on itch.io you can play for free, I don't think people will go back to level 1 or 2 when they are stuck in level 3. they probably just play something else I would assume. At least I did. So you really have to tell players what to do somehow and hold their hands I think.
But curious if other people figured this out and actually went back to the levels. I am probably just too impatient here. I still do not know what I did to solve level 2.
again, I think it is a really cool idea. I have to adjust my rating a little bit after understanding how the game works!
Thank you for the feedback!
I've updated the description to hopefully encourage going to try another level if you get stuck as well as a few mechanical hints.
It's difficult to tutorialize these mechanics while still making them feel like unintentional bugs or oversights, which was part of the initial idea.