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aj atkinson

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A member registered Apr 22, 2024 · View creator page →

Creator of

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I appreciate the follow up! And for the record, I have absolutely no issue with the criticism :) I am genuinely happy to hear what players struggled with, or suggestions for improvements. And a number of things you brought up (shelving from the other side, or showing UI interaction prompts for example) were things I questioned during development, we just simply didn't have time to play around with some ideas or make adjustments.

I personally disagree with your complaint about movement speed, in my opinion that's where the challenge comes from as you get to later days. Customers are all unique characters with individually set stats. And we only have 4 customer "stats" to work with, so naturally when trying to present a variety of customers and introduce some difficulty scale, some are going to be faster than the player. We tried to balance customers with higher speeds so they also have lower min/max shelf visits (what leads to them mixing up shelves before going to the register), and made customers with higher combined stats not show up until later days.

For sure, the game would be easier if the player was faster than all of the customers, but I don't personally think it would be more fun. 
It's in no way supposed to be a "rage game", but it is supposed to be a bit of a challenge to make it the full 10 days. If everyone beat it on their first try, I would personally want to increase the difficulty. Again, just my opinion, but I think you should have to learn better strategies, and improve how you do some things before "mastering" a game (of this genre).
Just for a bit of perspective on that side of things, it is actually quite easy to not bump into customers, once you know to be careful in front of the return box, the paths customers move along, and that you can use the indents in the decor shelves on the left to avoid traffic.


All that said, I have no issue hearing that you had difficulty running into customers, or that you have other suggestions to make. I was simply sharing that I find it "wildly critical" that you would submit a game that is incredibly unfinished, with the same team size, state that you didn't have time to get further than you did, and then post a comment that included nothing but critiques of our submission.

Again critiques are fine, and even encouraged. But given the experience that you clearly had with your submission for the jam, I just find it odd that at no point did you say anything along the lines of a compliment, beyond "There’s a theory there" (which I guess is almost a compliment lol). You didn't comment on any aspects of it that were polished, that you felt were well done, or even acknowledge that we were able to put together a fully working game loop.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, and have the right to share it, and conduct yourself however you choose. But I find it interesting that you would point out so many pieces of constructive criticism, and failed to mention a single positive about the submission. 

But genuinely, you do you, the world’s your oyster, be free! <3 

as other have stated, D = right, but A != left  :(

Fun game idea though! Kind of like a super retro ikaruga!

Great job =) 

Haha loved it, very satisfying movement and collisions! Super simple idea, executed really well! 

I would have loved to have some thing counts how many moves/slides you make, and try to stay under a certain number, just as an extra challenge! 

But overall great submission! :) 

It might be unfinished, but I honestly had a lot of fun playing your game!

Great job :D 

Thanks for the comment! We did have plans to add typical menu options for adjusting volumes and thing, but ran out of time. 

I didn't even think about the zoom effect causing issues for people! Thanks for bringing that up, it's something we'll keep in mind for future projects! 

We definitely could have spent a lot more time tweaking some values...the end of the jam turned out to be a bit of a chaotic rush for us haha!

Thanks so much for playing and commenting :) 

Thanks so much for playing and for the comment :) 

Not a lot of people have commented on the difficulty scale! I'm glad you felt like it was decently balanced <3 

XD

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It's supposed to be challenging to make it all the way to the end of day 10 :)
But it's a little less challenging, if you know that you can cycle your held items with 'Q' and 'E', so you don't have to return items in order. 

Also... I mean this in the nicest way possible, but this is a wildly critical comment given the state of your submission. XD 

Good effort!

That's such a good point! I am definitely trying to beat everything I'm testing and rating, but I would guess I'm probably in the minority there haha. I'll definitely keep an eye out for that! :) 

I'm so curious what you would describe as the inspiration for this game! It seems like such a unique concept to me! 

It was really shorty, but I really enjoyed it. I found it pretty easy once once I got the hang of the mechanic, but I totally see how you could make longer levels with more stages and enemies that have even more complex attack patterns and turn this idea into a full game. And I REALLY REALLY hope you do!

Great job guys! 

Really interesting game! The first time I played it, I couldn't move the camera...I thought maybe it was a design choice haha. Made it pretty far without being able to turn the camera! :p

But after I died, I was able to rotate the camera, so I had to play it again for real!

Like maybe other players, the white skull got at floor 10 got me! 

Great job! :) 

Thanks so much! I genuinely really liked your submissions art and style as well! (also the game play!)

Thanks for playing <3 

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Thanks so much for the detailed comment! I'm so glad you liked it! 

Our artist did such a good job with the art, and with the variety of characters! Seeing all kinds of wacky customers keeping getting added made it way more enjoyable to test mechanics during development too :D

Thanks for playing <3

Way to go! Day 10 isn't easy haha!

We totally wish we had time to fit some sort of ending like that into the game, but we were really cramming towards the end! 

Thanks so much for playing...3 times! =D 

XD

Thanks for playing and commenting :) Glad you liked it! 

Loved it! Really great system for serving customers, and classifying movies. And I really liked the idea of the radio telling you what's trendy for the following day!

Great job :)

Movie rental submissions UNITE!

Thanks for playing! :)

We're definitely trying to capitalize on people's OCD :D 

Thanks so much! I really liked your submission as well!

Thanks for playing, and the positive comment =]

I have not encountered the bug like you described :( Thank you for letting us know!
If you happen to remember where you were on the map, what you were doing at the time, etc. I'd love to investigate it for possible future versions of the game.

We're flattered that you encountered a game breaking bug, and are still saying it's one of your favourite submissions <3 :) 

Very original idea, and short and sweet! Nice job.

I loved this submission. It's short, but a lot o fun. 

The jump mechanic is genuinely so fun and satisfying! A little more variation to the music could help the experience though! 

I made it! My demon is taking a hike! :D 

Loved it! Super original idea, super interesting concept, super cool art style! 

Great job guys! 

Super fun, and very well polished game!

My only bit of feedback would be to include a new ability for the player to unlock that allows them to revisit areas they've already been but now be able to access paths that were blocked or unreachable before.
Maybe even just not being able to wall jump at the start, and unlocking it by finding an upgrade or new equipment, and adding some upgrade computers near the start that require you to return with wall jump to get to.

I know jams are short on time so scope is tight, but I think some form of an ability gated map is what defines a metroidvania.

Overall, really great submission though, and I really enjoyed it!

I really liked your submission. I somehow forgot about pinball games! But this brought back a lot of nostalgia! 

Really polished, and really satisfying flipper controls and interactions!  

Well done :) 

Really cool game. I see the love and ambition for sure! 

I struggled a bit with the interactions and menus at first, but I kind of think that adds to the charm of it being a retro NES inspired game.

Overall really great submission! :) 

I really liked your submission! It's a great take on the theme, and it fits perfectly.

I also love the movie look up system, and the fact that you clearly put time into making all the parody versions of so many different classic movies. Incorporating the map for delivery drivers was a great idea!

Super well done! Now I'm going to go get some pizza!

Thanks for the super detailed comment!(I also absolutely love everything our artist made for the game <3  it even forced us at times to add mechanics like zooming in on the desk to try to showcase things he made in more detail)

I'm so happy you noticed the CEO in the window, and that you enjoyed the kids in the trench coat! XD

I'm going to check out your submission right now! 

Thank you so much!
We worked really hard on it, I'm glad that you enjoyed it :) 

Thanks so much for the positive comment!
Our artist did such a good job on all the unique characters and design. As a developer, there are many things that I wish I had time to add or improve on, but I'm incredibly happy with how it turned out visually! 

Loved it!
I found the grapple button to maybe not be the best choice for me. I would have loved the option to grapple with left click and dive with right click. But overall it's a super fun game with a lot of different obstacles and mechanics that force you to use your abilities in creative ways.
Fantastic jam submission!

Very interesting game! I love the idea of a 2048 type game that triggers effects. And I'm a big fan of the minimal pixel art style!
I quickly ran into issues with frame rate when there were a lot of enemies on screen, but this is the exact same problem we faced in our submission 😅

Great job! 

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Thanks for the review! It actually does tell you how many "souls" you've collected in the top right, but we didn't configure the viewport properly so it's not visible on most resolutions 😅 We definitely could have given some instructions including mention of the dash ability haha, next time! Thanks again 🙂

We ran out of time big time, and didn't even leave ourselves enough time to export our game, add our names into the credits, or balance the abilities.

But we did our best! :)