It shares a similar structure with the Game Jam Simulator entry in this jam—having a major event node where you need to finish your tasks before the countdown runs out! It's a pretty nice game. However, putting the control instructions only in the page description and omitting them in-game made me think it was mouse-only—I spent ages just clicking around, haha! That said, the game itself is solid. With a bit more polish, especially on the art style, it could be a really great game!
A fantastic narrator-driven meta game! On my first playthrough, I almost wrote it off as a cheap, janky game, but the moment it forced a restart, I knew something clever was going on! Great job! That said, I personally felt the game didn't have a super strong connection to the 'Countdown' theme—looks like you kinda ran wild with your own creative ideas there! But the gameplay itself was still a total blast. Cheers!
The game is way too simplistic. Bomb defusal is a fantastic theme with so much potential to expand on, but the overall level of completeness feels quite low. As it stands, levels can be cleared just by mindlessly mashing buttons.
You could consider adding new mechanics to fix this—for instance, inputting an incorrect sequence could accelerate the countdown timer, or passcodes could be hidden and earned through deduction rather than handed to players right at the start.
In short, bomb defusal is a spot-on interpretation of the 'Countdown' theme, it's just a shame the concept wasn't explored more deeply. Nice try!
Let's be honest: the game really lacks polish. You had a full 96 hours to refine the user experience, yet the result feels more like a barebones prototype.
Let's start with onboarding. There is no tutorial or guidance anywhere, not even in the page description. You can't expect players to miraculously guess the controls on their own. Burying the Control Settings in a sub-menu makes it even harder to get started—not everyone has the patience to dig through sub-menus just to figure out how to play. What’s worse, the 'Control Settings' can’t actually be customized; they're completely locked.
As for the gameplay, the rocket moves painfully slow, making it extremely difficult to collect time bonuses while constantly crashing into asteroids. Beyond this, there are no other mechanics, so the game becomes dull very quickly. Age shouldn't be used as a shield here—this is the result of both poor time management and technical limitations. I noticed you used the pygame-ce framework. If you ran into hurdles there, why not consider switching to a better game engine?
Finally, on the topic of polish: the time bonus hitbox feels less like a full bounding box and more like a single line. During my playthrough, my rocket model frequently overlapped completely with the time bonus, literally clipping right through it without triggering a pickup. This is definitely not the mark of a polished game. Frankly speaking, I doubt you even playtested it yourself.
I'm sorry, but I really can't in good conscience give this a high rating.
Really impressed! Very fun game, and the puzzles are well designed. GG!
By the way, it would be a great QoL addition if the drawn path stayed saved after a failed try! Most of the time we're just a hair away from the right answer, so keeping the line would save a lot of tedious redrawing!
WTF HOW DO YOU GUYS FINISH IT WITH ONLY 96 HOURS???? Wonderful game!!! It's too short and I didn't enjoy it enough! Full version sell on Steam pls pls pls pls pls pls pls!!!
To be honest, the gameplay felt a bit dull, and the countdown mechanic didn't seem to be working properly. Also, a few areas can result in a softlock with no reset button available, forcing players to reload. Sorry to be blunt!
Thanks for playing! Sorry that the guidance confused you for a bit—the onboarding definitely needs some polish! But I'm really happy to hear that it all clicked for you eventually. Good to know those subtle cues actually did their job! Hope you have a great time playing!
It might not be the most revolutionary concept, but man, it is so much fun to play! A bit slow at the very beginning, but as soon as you hit the mid-game, the glorious beauty of stat inflation takes over. Watching the factories and logistics in motion is insanely satisfying! Visuals and sound really elevate the experience. Great game!
On a side note, major props on the optimization! The game ran with zero lag even with a massive amount of crates on screen!
Really fun game! My only note is that the moving enemies move a little too fast, so it's quite hard to keep them inside the bomb range without getting hit. Might be worth fine-tuning a bit! Still, the visuals, audio, and core idea are super solid. Great job!
That's actually the exact idea I wanted to make during the past 4 days! But due to time, I couldn't implement it in 4 days, so I gave up in the end. If I decide to make a full version of the game, I will definitely add this effect! Anyway, thanks so much for playing!
The visual cues showing how the hills affect the ball's trajectory aren't clear enough, which made the gameplay pretty confusing to follow. Sorry to say, but I couldn't really enjoy this one.
The game lacks a bit of friendly onboarding. Just dumping an instruction manual in the player's face makes it hard to get into, which can easily lead to frustration and a quick loss of patience.
THAT SAID, the level design is absolutely brilliant and super fun to play! The audio and art are top-tier, and I'd give the level of polish a solid 9/10. If you ever add more levels and a proper, gradual tutorial, I would gladly buy this on Steam! Great game!
Oh, by the way, it would be awesome if you could add a preferences setting for the mouse controls. The game automatically keeping the block selected after a move really bugged me. I prefer clicking to select the block every time I want to move it, as it makes me feel more in control. I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way, so having a toggle for this behavior would be hugely appreciated!
It feels like a point-and-click version of Fruit Ninja. Playing it on a PC with a mouse actually makes it quite challenging and fun. The art and audio are really solid too. Overall, a pretty nice game!
The AI is extremely well done—it constantly caught me off guard and kept me on my toes! It definitely triggered that 'just one more round' feeling for me. The art style and audio are top-notch, and the concept is really creative. Fantastic job!
That's really something! Such an unexpected take on the theme, but you executed it with so much creativity and it turned out fantastic! Really well done! GG!
Thanks for the great feedback! The speed of those gates was actually timed as part of the puzzle mechanics, but I probably went a bit overboard in a few areas. Really appreciate you bringing up such a key detail, and thanks a lot for playing!
Thanks for playing! Those tight precision jumps are definitely unforgiving, but I made sure every single one was carefully tuned and fair! Congrats again on clearing Level 5!
Great concept, awesome onboarding, and fantastic visuals! However, the controls in the levels are a bit tricky to get used to, making it quite challenging. Still, a really great game overall!
Awesome concept, audio, and visuals! I particularly enjoyed the smooth tutorial—getting into the game was practically effortless.
If I had to give a note on balancing: the start feels a bit sluggish, and once special ball types show up later on, focusing exclusively on them gives such huge value that normal balls become almost redundant.
Still, the overall quality of this entry is top-notch! Really well done!
Great concept, and both the visuals and audio are pretty solid! However, the main issue is the lack of proper onboarding. At the end of the day, it's a game—if you throw a massive instruction manual at players instead of teaching them the mechanics step-by-step in an intuitive, digestible way, people will easily make mistakes, get frustrated, and lose their patience real quick. With better guidance and a smoother, progressive tutorial, this could be an amazing game!
The art and audio are completely top-notch, and the idea is super cool! That said, the game feels a little too easy. Enemy kill feedback could use a bit more punch, and there isn't much tactical choice involved, making it feel more like a mindless button-mashing game that lacks replay value once beaten.
Adding a bit more challenge and creating situations that force real decisions would take this game to the next level! Still a super solid job though!
Thank you so much! Yeah, my time management wasn't great near the end, which caused the difficulty to spike pretty steeply right after the first three tutorial levels. That's definitely on me!
Since you mentioned you'll give it another go, here's a friendly pro tip: the time extension bonuses (+10s items) are NOT one-time consumables! They reset every time you respawn, so you can collect them again on every loop. Knowing that, if you re-plan your route a bit, the puzzles should become much easier to solve!
I thoroughly playtested all the levels multiple times, so I can guarantee there are no game-breaking bugs—I just ran out of time to properly tune the difficulty curve. Sorry if it felt overwhelming or confusing!
Anyway, thank you so much for playing my game and giving it a try!
