itch.io

Genuinely love that you appreciated this stuff! Probably spent a little too long fussing over it, making sure I had gotten the player used to the "normal" transitions, then constantly tweaking and testing the timing to get the feeling right when it did something different. The extra beat to make people realise "hang on something is wrong" but not too long to make them think it is a bug/broken, the music fading out and then into the dialogue sequence, and trying to carry that "something is off" feeling into the actual story/narrative.

Makes the effort worth it to hear it landed the right way!

Great concept for a game. I saw a progress pic during development and was excited for this one, because the mechanic reminded me of the golden idol type games but used in a completely different way.

I wasn't sure if it just goes on infinitely or if there was some kind of further progression, if there was I never reached it but I had a blast making silly headlines. 

The art, sound, and general aesthetics were cohesive and worked really well for the premise, I enjoyed the extra little things to click on and cut words from.

I wish on the score screen it was possible to see the headline as if it was printed on the newspaper in the same style it is initially given to you - like your goofy headline but without the cut and paste bits, as if they've reprinted it. That would make it more fun when you want to share your creations. 

My favourite:

Argh! I'm sorry to hear that, I wish I had more time to polish and balance the minigames. They were not supposed to be as difficult as some turned out, definitely not enough playtesting when there was still time to make changes to make sure they all had clear instructions and were not frustrating.

Thank you! So I regretted writing "make 6 minigames" in my plan so many times. After the 3rd or so I decided I would just make the other 3 reskins with the same mechanics, then once again decided I do in fact hate myself and that they need to be different for no real reason except sheer hubris and stubborness.

Then when planning the flow towards the end I added a 7th and I'm not sure what's wrong with me. I'm so cooked.

That's an interesting perspective and not something I considered, actually the exact opposite! I imagined people would be annoyed if they had to search around for the semi-arbitrary exit when my backgrounds are mostly a little vague, which is why I added the arrows fairly late on.

I think that actually might work well if the game had a bit more detail and density, maybe more little decorations and things to explore/interact with in each scene and clearer "this is not an edge you can walk through"!

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

Agree on the collision boxes, they annoyed me several times in development too, I kept meaning to do a full pass to polish them up but never managed it due partly to time but also unfamiliarity with the engine. I iterated through art/sprites quite a bit (I was learning pixel art during this jam and I kept having to fix up old terrible placeholders to try and keep up with the later ones that looked nicer!) and sometimes forgot to change the collisions to match. I am also vaguely aware that using very specific polygonal collisions is a lot less performant than basic squares/circles or at least it was last time I touched game dev 10 years ago but I just didn't make time to look into how much of a problem that still/really is now so stuck with inaccurate primitive shapes.

Thanks for playing and your comment, appreciate it!

In terms of inspiration, narratively, the main goal was a study based on a conversation I had recently about "earned" vs "unearned" emotional payoffs in writing, specifically with only a short amount of time to lay groundwork. The only very successful example that came to mind was the intro to the film Up.

Apart from that I guess the primary influence is late 90/00s JRPGs, obviously not the full gameplay, just certain story telling techniques. I think it was in FF9 they used this thing a few times where they'd interrupt your normal scene transition to show a scene happening elsewhere - with a temporary tonal shift - revealing something to the player but not the relevant characters and it really stuck with me as an effective tool for laying emotional beats.

Oh and Echo from Hades 2 influenced how Parrot talks, not identical but a similar vibe because it fit very well and I thought it was super cool.

Ugh, the art is disgustingly good. Thought the gameplay/fishing mechanics could be a bit more involved, or have some other dynamic going on to spice things up a little.

Also had a fun bug on the space level where a fish got stuck on my hook, and every time I cast I was throwing it out there too! I could still catch other fish but he stayed stuck on my hook the whole round, so he became my friend his name is Burton.

Wow the art is so nice, exceptional illustration. It's a cute game, and I love Terrence, I want to go on adventures with Terrence.

I think mine sounds like what you're after, it's a cute narrative driven game about animals

https://absent-dev.itch.io/a-good-turn

Fun, short game. The art is exceptional, I really enjoyed the visuals. The gameplay was okay, I think it could have been a bit more interactive, like being able to hold more items and choose which ones to offer. It could get a little tedious going out to find the same things every time, especially because all the positions reset so you can't build a little stockpile either. 

Fantastic art, loved all the visuals and the general vibe. I'm not a huge platformer guy so I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but something about the movement felt off, I think it was the amount or immediacy of friction when landing? I'm not sure that makes sense, but I know these types of games take a ton of hand tuning for movement feel which I'd imagine is tough in a jam environment.

Overall, very enjoyable to play, great work!

What a game. Loved the art style, gameplay felt good with a nice difficulty curve as you start getting overwhelmed with requests.

My one slight worry is with regards to whomever heard "spin to win" as the theme and thought "ah yes, well obviously shrimp pole dancing with crabs shouting times and throwing money at them". It certainly fits, I just worry about the thought process that reached this point.

Great job!

Interesting take on the powerwash simulator type game, I love that you are in an aquarium (not sure if very big aquarium and fish or very small cleaner, I like either). Struggles a little to feel great control/movement wise, not sure how you solve that while keeping the underwater physics though. I'm sure you can figure it out if you plan to keep working on it post-jam - maybe some kind of bracing against the surface so you don't bounce off trying to get close enough for the tool to work?

Impressive output for a 7 day jam nonetheless, great job!

Oooh look at me I'm a wizard I go round stealing burgers and casting fireball and spawning robots and I have too much HP. Grow up mate.

Fun game, the parry thing was interesting, would've liked to see it do more, like I dunno one-tap the wizard or something.

Alright I sort of hate you for making this, but you did make it well. Good job!

Really good idea. I sent that definitely guilty cashier down!

Was slightly fiddly in knowing what to do and when I was "done", took a while to realise I could just go and submit my picture at any time.

This game cracked me up, it's actual insanity. Bends your brain a little trying to control your body and saw head at once, and the visuals are an assault on the eyes, but in a good way that works with the game.

I really enjoyed this game. The sound effects were so fun and it had a nice curve with gradually escalating difficulty/mechanics, but would enjoy more levels. I also played it again with arachnophobia mode on to see what you would actually do with that, so cute!

It would have been a good idea to export for web as well as (or even instead of) the executables to get more plays and ratings. It's a shame more people won't see it due to that.

I always thought we should make gambling cuter and more child friendly!

My favourite part was when I tried to cheat by jumping on the wheel and then getting dizzy, neat little addition.

I'm a sucker for this type of game, and you managed to make it feel so fleshed out for 7 days with all the customisation options.

Loved the palette choices and art, seriously great job!

Gorgeous art and overall aesthetic. I wish there was more to the gameplay! Just attaching the blue thing to the box was so satisfying and I was expecting/hoping the puzzles would be a variety of weird things like that.

Very cool balatro-like, you really stuck to your theme (the game theme, not the jam theme, but you got the jam theme in there too, theme... theme)

I liked the art style and colour palette, it worked well with the overall vibe and sound design was satisfying and not annoying. I'd be down to circle back around and try again if you develop it further after the jam.

Cute game, those ghosts are so lazy though, they can't reach over like an extra half a foot to grab the sushi they want so bad? Do ghosts even eat sushi? Why are these ghosts in my sushi spot? I need deep deep lore for this deeply serious game.

Man screw jud, what a silly place to put a shack. Unfortunately, after conquering the shack I hit the car at slightly the wrong angle and sent my fish into orbit.

10/10 - This game was extremely serious, and I can't wait to purchase the OST.

Good atmosphere building. A little more direction would've been great, and definitely something off with the RNG with the minigame wheel. Duck hunt will haunt my nightmares!

I know you didn't finish it but you were able to submit a functioning game and it was pretty fun. Apart  from your other planned tasks, It would've been cool to have little tasks or some sort of variation instead of just holding space bar.

Enjoyed this more than I expected. Would have liked to see some more progression, the levels could've kept going to 100%!

The sound effects made it very satisfying, and the music made me feel super rad which is always good. Only downside was it stopped playing after a while and I stopped feeling quite so super rad, that made me a little sad. Overall, not bad!

Hey man, it's not just shitty mario, it's YOUR shitty mario. You made a thing and put it out there, great job!

It was a little difficult to figure out the mechanics, I'm not sure if things weren't implemented in time, or not working, or I was just too dumb to get it though. I saw there was a current score vs saved score, but I didn't figure out how  to "save" score so it just got reset every time I had access to purchase upgrades.

This is such a cool concept. It's definitely hampered by the control scheme/camera, which makes the whole thing quite difficult and disorienting, but there's something here. 

It's the foundation of a very cool interactive visualization of chemistry/physics concepts that I could easily see being used to teach and learn (or have fun with, for NERDOS). Great work!

Platypus.

70/10 no notes.

Cool take on a golf game. The car club was a really fun idea, a little clunky to use but it worked well enough (the sound effect for driving was a little aggressive though). I found it got quite challenging and sometimes just because of fighting the mechanics, but also because I am bad.

Great idea! The art and sound were very cohesive, and matched the theme well which made the experience very enjoyable. Some of the clues/hints were a little vague (or I'm slow), but I love the concept.

PS. I'M NOT A NOOB UR A NOOB :(

Thank you for playing and commenting!

There is actually music and ambient noise the whole way through, it is fairly low volume (mostly because I hate games that blast your ears when you open them) and I didn't get round to adding controls for it so it might have been hard to hear.

Really fun gameplay and solidly executed art style. It's very reminiscent of Luftrausers, which I also loved so it's a win for me. I was bad at that game that too!

I think I hit a bug the first time I played, I only had 1 generator and ran out of doors to go through, not sure if it stopped generating or an enemy was outside the map or something, but I enjoyed the gameplay enough to try it again and it worked properly then.

Fun aesthetic, and the art worked well. The guns/shooting felt good but maybe a little too easy  to scale up - I'm not sure what I was spending in the shop but apparently I had a lot of it. Music and sfx were decent with the exception of some crackling/peaking at times. I wish the big spinny things did damage or knocked enemies around, I think that would've helped with fitting the theme better.

Enjoyed the game overall and would  like to see it developed further, however there is one major major issue in that you can't pet the shop cat, would pay for cat petting DLC.

Stunning visuals, the art and animations are gorgeous. The sound design was good but the music felt a little off? It fit the context of what we were doing, but not the setting if that makes sense?

Would have liked to see some of the UI fit a bit better with the rest of the lovely art, but assuming time constraints. Functionally everything seemed to work well, but I think the money income/pricing needed a bit more balancing, it didn't really feel like I was ever going to be able to afford a lot of the upgrades I wanted to experiment with.

Overall, I enjoyed the game and can see potential!

https://absent-dev.itch.io/a-good-turn

If you get time I love to watch people play it! But you do have to do the voices, it's actually a requirement yes yes. Very serious requirement.

I hate that I can't blame somebody else for deciding there should be 7 minigames and as many NPCs. I'm tired boss.
https://absent-dev.itch.io/a-good-turn

The art is so good, especially the animations. I couldn't make it far into the game, I'm sure the babies are okay though right?

PS. Hmm...