itch.io

(Please use "Lex Joy" as the submitter name. Thank you!)

Inspired by the Medamaude effect egg from Yume Nikki.

I also have this little wheeled friend:

I did enjoy the jam! Thanks for hosting it -- and thanks for your kind words.

To answer your question regarding the name pool:

• There are two sets of names in the game: "surnames" and "given_names".
• There are approximately 400 entries in each set, give or take. (I'll be adding more in a future update, because why not.)
• When snails are made, they have an equal chance of selecting a name from either pool, or having one from each (in a random order).

If you want to see all the possible names, download the .p8 file from the game page and open it in PICO-8. You can use the free Education Edition if you do not have or do not want to purchase PICO-8 (but I highly recommend it -- best $15 USD I ever spent).

I don't plan to implement a 1+ player version at the moment -- I was far more interested in the zero-player concept than anything else. But I might make a version down the line that implements the gambling system people have been asking for, and if I do, it would be more of a sequel to preserve the hands-off flavor of this title.

Full disclosure: I couldn't find someone to play with me at the time of this review, so I am going off of a study of the systems and a perusal of the rulebook.

This is a lovely little game. The aesthetics in the book are top-notch. I love the digital painting style and how much personality it infuses into the document. The unobtrusive but noticeable changes in color throughout the pages also do a good job of adding visual interest.

I enjoyed the theme, and like the idea of the "ritual" being a regular occurrence for the players. This looks like it would be a fun warm-up to a denser RPG if you have a regular play group.

Nice work!

Wow, this one has some great ideas behind it! I love the intrusive time goddess. I don't think I've seen anything like that before.

I was not a fan of the lighting effects. I don't think they added much to the theme, and the shadows blocking out obstacles added an unnecessary layer of difficulty to an already challenging setup. Then again, if the point was to make a punishing platformer in the vein of I Wanna Be the Guy or the like, then those were a good choice.

Nice work overall. Lots of imagination on display here.

My opinion isn't much different from what's already been posted. I was promoted a lot, but I'm not sure why. I also didn't see a whole lot of the "consequences" that were supposed to follow from certain admissions or rejections.

That said, it was genuinely fun to weigh whether I liked a person's vibe, and the process of figuring out why I felt a certain way was instructive. Also, when your manager first appears, I laughed out loud at his unexpected model. Those unexpected moments made this game feel worthwhile to me. Good work!

I was impressed with this game's 1-bit graphics. They're visually striking! And the whole "lightning in a bottle" approach is a clever take on that turn of phrase. There's a nice dramatic tension involved with the audio cues, too. It's a surprisingly involved game for such a small package.

This was an ingenious use of the theme. I really love the entire mimic mechanic. I was surprised at how endearing the googly eyes made everything, too.

My only complaint is that it was pretty easy. I would have expected there to be some kind of "penalty" to transforming back into a mimic, like a short interval where you can't copy anything and are vulnerable. But hey, it's a jam game! It's going to have rough edges.

Great job on this.

I am thrilled that you enjoyed the game! Thank you for the kind words. They mean a great deal to me.

I went with the "Enemy-controller" theme (#7). I tried to approach it from the perspective of treating the game controller itself as the enemy, and therefore created an experience in which no controller needs to be used (beyond the bare minimum necessary to start the program).

Looking for help working out some numbers.

I am developing a manual for bringing golems into the game (whether as loyal followers, dangerous enemies, or interesting NPCs). The main idea is that a golem, like any other being, can be assigned a Tier from 1 to 5. (I am also imagining zero-Tier golems that work like accessories -- more fun trinket than NPC.) I figure the main aspects of a given golem are its material, size, and complexity.  So those is what players want to be deciding on with their golem.

Right now, I have material/size/complexity each graded on a scale from 0 to 5, with 0 being "trivially weak/tiny/simple" and 5 being "strong/huge/sophisticated." But I am having difficulty imagining how to translate these meaningfully into Tiers. For example, if Tier 5 represents the toughest creatures imaginable, would a gigantic mud mannequin (roughly a 0 for material, 5 for size, and 3 for complexity) be a 5? And if so, how should I grade the tier of a golem that's a 5 in all categories?

Basically, I'm trying to puzzle out a reasonable formula for translating my 0-5 scale for three separate values into Tiers. Any feedback is appreciated, because I've been going in circles with this for a while. Thanks in advance!

That is completely fine with me! If you're looking for the source code to build it in PICO-8 or another Lua engine, you can find it on Lexaloffle here. It is licensed under CC4-BY-NC-SA, which basically means you can't charge money for software made with the code, and should link back to the original somewhere. If you're only looking to make your own spin-off without my code, no acknowledgement is necessary. Best of luck with your project!

Commenting to say that this project is brilliant, and I hope for a full version. I'm amazed at how evocative yet appropriate the PS1 aesthetic manages to be.

I have also pushed an update that removes some debug code I accidentally left in. Sorry about that!

If you encounter any bugs, post about them here. Please include as much detail about the issue as possible, including any error messages. Thank you!

Hello! Thank you for reaching out. You have my permission to include my Diedream adventures in your supplement. I appreciate being included in the credits. Best of luck with your project!

Thanks for hosting this jam! I'll try to start things off...

What do you want to make?

I am going to make a simple digital toy/game that allows you to ponder an orb. I intend to call it “Orb Pondering Simulator.”

What text (i.e., any media, fiction or not) that you want to draw from?

Two sources provided the inspiration for this project:

• Kenta Cho’s Paku Paku, which has been dubbed “1D Pac-Man.” I appreciate that this probes the absolute minimum of what's required to constitute a “game” – and it’s staggering how little it uses in the way of space, inputs, enemies, and objectives.
• Bennett Foddy’s “Eleven Flavors of Frustration,” specifically this remark: “A game that is completely devoid of frustration is likely to be a game without friction, without disobedience. Games that are perfectly obedient are mere software.” I agree with the sentiment, but I found it interesting how it presupposes that the source of friction should come from within the game. It had me wondering whether friction from outside the game could be a viable source, and set me to thinking that the presumption of playability, when foiled, could perhaps provide that friction. For example, what happens when a game has no need of you – not because it plays itself (cf. beanborg’s Endless Marble Racing), but because it does not necessarily allow itself to be engaged with like a game?

I am also motivated by a series of hermeneutics-related questions that are liable to become their own essay, and I hesitate to try articulating them here for fear of never finishing this post.

What mediums or tools you want to use and why?

I’ll be using PICO-8. It helps keep the scope of the project small, and I find its flavor of Lua a much more comfortable programming language than, say, Python or C.

Why are you scared of participating?

I am a latecomer to coding and game design, and am largely bad at them. Coding is also foreign territory for me in general. I never formally studied programming or computer science, my day job does not involve anything comparable to coding, and I have no friends who code. I’ve never really felt like part of the indie dev community, and I fully expect to embarrass myself.

Diedream is a truly remarkable system. I can't believe how elegant and intuitive it is. I am grateful that, with your rules committed to memory, I always have a game engine to play with in dull moments.

Your work has inspired me to make a few modules of my own:

• Village of Dolls
• A Route Like Water
• Tales of the Blue Tower

If ever you host a Diedream jam, please let me know. I will come running!

It was a delight to see this in the Google Play store! Does this mean there's a chance 868-HACK might come to Android, too...?

That was definitely a bug! It seems Bitsy moved the exit somewhere inaccessible, for reasons I don't fully understand.

An updated version of the game has been released, so now you should be able to reach the autumn and winter parts. Thank you for your kind words, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the game.

Thanks for playing! And thank you for reporting this bug. Crows are supposed to spawn only at the screen's edge. I will look into correcting the error.

Update, 1-3-2021: The bug has been fixed in the latest version. Thank you again for finding and reporting it!

Thank you for the kind words! I appreciate it, especially since this is my first project that didn't start as a Pico-8 tutorial.

This is a wonderful utility! Thank you for making it.

If possible, could you please add some code samples for putting GIF images into P8 files, or for "faking" the GIF effect in P8? Your other tutorials are good, but I did not see anything like this.

I'm the one who submitted the cartridge art.

...I had no idea it would have so many takers.

A much-needed laugh in these trying times! Who knew simple sounds could be used to such humorous effect?

Probably the most creative use of "isolation" I've seen in this jam. Coupled with its zany sense of humor and surprising wordplay, this game is a joy.

This game will make you smile. Lots of heart. It also makes clever use of scene transitions to build a steadily more interesting map.