Thanks so much for the detailed feedback!

You're right, we needed to establish that you could only jump/bounce at the end of the roll - we just needed better instructions for controls in general, which sadly became an afterthought. The initial intention for the jump mechanic was to home in on the keys you click on and leap over obstacles (i-frames), but that was never fully realised.

We were set on including the laser pointer for the sake of concept, which forced us into the point-and-click control scheme, but perhaps we could've included a little 'cross' animation upon clicking so you know where the cat will end up (like LoL or Runescape). Going with the basic WASD controls could've made this much easier, but we were set on the cat being lazy/immobile (plus laser pointer). You're right that this limits the game's accessibility too; we never considered that this game only working on PC/mobile would be an issue, but it's our first jam/game so we were just concerned about making a game that works haha. 

Thank you :) We will probably rework this in the future with your comment in mind.  

Glad you appreciated that touch, thank you!

No worries, you're not alone with that sentiment at all. We'll definitely be working on making the game more intuitive without reliance on instructions. 

Wow, thank you for taking your time to play our game and leaving all this feedback!

We didn’t have time to make more than one level, so we didn’t want it to be completed too quickly - but we took it a little too far! My friend and I really enjoy games with deeper learning curves, as you can probably tell!

I’m glad you like the little touches too to set the overall theme! Ah yeah, so we had a tough time figuring out what was best for the controls. Linking back to the difficulty, we wanted the baby to be a constant threat, so limiting the cat’s mobility was an intentional decision. Still not sure whether it was the best choice, though. We’re already thinking about how to rework all this!

Good to know the key info page helped too! Yeah we didn’t want to give too much away about the aim with the melodies, but we could have been smarter about it and should have put it higher in our priorities. The tip after losing is a great and effective idea though!

Ohh no way, you noticed the background noise! I set it quite quiet as I didn’t want it to be distracting, so I’m happy it didn’t go unnoticed :D thank you for the bug report too, I’ll look into this.

Ah, yeah so the jumping was intended for something else which was scrapped last minute. We wanted the cat to be able to hop over furniture, as well as hop between piano keys, but there was a lot of issues and bugs that I didn’t have time to fix, so we ended up scrapping it :( we kept the jump in as a way for players to simply get away from the baby a little quicker. 

Thanks again for playing and the write up! We really appreciate it.

Thank you so much! I’m glad you persisted and eventually won, it means a lot :D

Thank you, and thanks for having a go! 

Obviously on hindsight, ideally we should've put a little more direction/guidance to aid players to grasp the concept earlier on, but ah well - we've learned this for next time!

Thank you so much! I have Ramazir to thank for that concept with the music being part of the gameplay :D

Ah, that's a shame. If you liked the music pieces from the toys, I think you'll love the full arrangement once you win!

We'll be reworking this concept in the near future :)

What a wonderful comment from a fellow musician/composer, thanks so much José! Sorry about the controls, we will likely be reworking  this game to make it more intuitive :) I can't stress how much I loved your game by the way, so it means a lot to hear this from you. 

Thank you! :)

I think it's because we wanted people to play as 'the person watching the baby cam' rather than the cat itself. We were also weirdly stubborn about using the laser pointer to guide the cat to the right notes, but it made the controls quite awkward. 

Thank you!

Yeah, pretty much what Ramazir said. We wanted it to feel like you're using a laser pointer to guide the cat, but we missed the mark on that. We've decided we want to rework this concept in the near future, so hopefully will be executed in a more fun and intuitive way!

Thank you! :O 

I'm really glad you like what we were trying to go for! May not have been executed as well as we had planned, but I hope it's enjoyable for what it is!

I'm sure you've already seen my comment, but I have to say it again - we absolutely love your team's game. It's our favourite so far. Whoever's reading this comment and hasn't played it yet, please do.

Thanks Juana <3 this means a lot considering how great the concept of your game is. (I enjoyed drawing angry baby)

Thank you! 

Yeah it's quite a challenging game right now! It was our initial intention, but we clearly over did it a slight touch! The difficulty will be turned down a little post-jam :)

Thanks for playing though, and for your feedback!

That's very kind of you to say, thank you :) You're right. The laser pointer, rolling and jump mechanics didn't mesh as well as we'd envisioned - it was hard for us to tell whether it would be a 'steep learning curve' or just straight up confusing (probably the latter).

I think the frustration of people playing the wrong tune was also something we were concerned about, since we didn't have a chance to introduce a more obvious indicator when the wrong tune was played besides observing the states of the baby (neutral, angry and sleepy). These states weren't always easy to notice as it's dark lol. I was thinking of reflecting those emotional states by animating the cathead on the bottom left of the screen, but that would've been a little tricky. Feature creep at its finest haha.

Thank you!

Haha! Originally we had a wholesome game in mind, and when I was messing around with lighting options and thinking about the setting of the environment (baby was put to bed by parents at night before leaving the two unattended), I ended up with this. And then after a rather short discussion, we leaned into it! Then added the shadows to the baby and suddenly it looks like a horror game - then cue the creepy looking cat piano! 

Ah, yeah it’s not the most intuitive to understand the lullaby mechanic right now. So, when you hit a musical toy, a tune plays and the baby reacts to each toy differently - which one is the lullaby? In the UI, the 3 eyed cat at the bottom left of the screen will display the colour of the piano keys you should attempt to play in order. The red buttons on either side of the cat piano will reveal the piano key colours for a short time. 

Thank you, I'm glad you found the concept compelling :)

Yeahhh we tried not to make the indicator of the lullaby too obvious, but since the baby was relentless and the mechanics were tricky, I think most players were more focused on being able to input the correct notes for ANY of the melodies without dying rather than figuring out the "puzzle". 

Really enjoyed the concept of your game by the way, the art style was a treat.  

Thank you, D4yz!

Ah, I really should dial down the difficulty post-jam. Thank you for trying though!

That’s hilarious haha! Babies can indeed be quite a great opposing force.

We loved your team’s game by the way. Hopefully one day we can get to that level! 

Really appreciate the comment D4yz and inspiring work on Catburglar, the pixel art animation was so impressive (I now know the pain of animating a roll). 

We were borderline sadistic with the difficulty of this game it seems - we put too much emphasis on the baby moving like a little crackhead. We may return to this concept down the line and rework some of the core mechanics so that it feels more intuitive and cohesive. You will likely see us at upcoming jams, this was a blast. 

Also,  thank you for leveraging your cat's baby trauma to justify our wildcard <3 

Haha our logic was that humans are the real enemy of cats (unethical genetic engineering and abuse). We figured dogs aren't necessarily the opposite of cats, but we're just reaching here let's be honest ;)

Thank you, so glad you liked the music! <3 the game turned out to be stupidly challenging, we underestimated it considerably. 

Thank you!! Hahaha cats do love their laser pointers! 

Ah... that's our bad. We didn't make it clear! You can only jump at the END of the roll animation. There's like a 0.3s window you can jump.

Thank you for the kind words, I'm so glad. The jump controls were my bad, probably should've included it on the little tutorial slate XD even when you know about it, it's tricky to execute.

Thank you, John! Hope you enjoyed it.

Yeahh we stuck with the idea of the baby being a constant threat early on when we came up with the concept, so we're quite happy with how it's turned out! In fact, we originally wanted the baby to be able to bulldoze through toys and obstacles haha! I'll work on the controls though.

That means a lot, thank you John. You nailed our original intention regarding the cat's lack of mobility, we needed the baby to feel threatening. Turns out the musical puzzle ended up being quite tricky to navigate in the midst of the surprisingly rapid baby. 
(We absolutely loved your game, really inspiring work for just 9 days) 

Thank you! 

I'll widen the collision box gaps between the keys and reduce the baby speed after the jam! We intend to develop this concept in the future :D 

Thanks again for playing and for the feedback! 

Really appreciate the feedback. When I drew the 'angry baby' face, I screamed then lost the aseprite file. 

Thank you so much!! Ah okay, yeah I'm seeing that it's the main issue so far and I'm kicking myself over it as I saw it coming early on! 
But I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thanks again for playing our game :D I hope you were able to win at the end because the music is really cool!

Really glad you liked the art and music :) Even I found it difficult and I know the notes I used XD

Thank you!!
Ah yeah, we were afraid the controls being a little difficult, especially with the jump which was intended for another purpose which ended up getting scrapped last minute :( We were trying to find the right difficulty (like baby speed and max roll distance) with the fact that we only had time to make one level, so we didn't want it to be completed too easily, but I think we took it a little too far!
We really appreciate that feedback though, and for playing our game! 

Thank you for the kind words :) it means a lot that you liked the music. More content is on its way soon!