itch.io

Great game, I only played the practice though ,but the 4 players mode seems to be a good couch game experience. The music is also really solid.

11K is a true killer score ! According to the feedbacks, I poorly implemented the theme into the game, I should had tried to emphasize this charming aesthetic into my explanations to get more points...

Yeah, I clearly see your "appetite" for art in your work, specially for chara design. Relying on waifus only doesn't make a great game. 👀 Like a very popular game in this jam with more boob than fun, which doesn't even manage to appear on the judges radar like yours.

What was I said ? Congrats guys !

I'm not into the furry cinematic universe at all, but I must admit I had good time and I really find that game underrated as hell. Finally a dev who understand that juice and graphic don't make a good game, it just serve to transcend an already good base. This will surely get very high on the jam ranking, mark my words, very great work.

Thx mate, i'm glad you like it ! RNG can be really surprising sometimes.

Lol, that's why I put the game tag : "psychological horror" at first, but I remove it.

Off course if you want to... 😈

-I hate when devs put or leave an exit button on an HTML build, resulting on a freeze when you press it, but hey, it's a jam build so maybe you didn't had time for this...

-I find your tutorial screen graphics way too clean for the rest of the game, that create a small artistic dissonance IMO (but I'm an art nazi so...)

-I don't think the police car patrol seems to be balanced at all right now, it's a super cool idea NGL, but it's catastrophic to see all your effort destroyed cause you had to close the metal blind.

-I think the small RNG on the growing phase is questionable in terms of balance in the current game state, cause player can't predict sh!t with that.

-I think the intradiegetic approach of the gameplay is both good AND bad : good cause it's enhance the immersion, and that clearly benefit your game. And bad cause that really slow down the gameplay in a game where you really need to be quick an reactive. 

I think you could enhance the object pick up, switch or drop without destroying this approach. For example : the player could put the seeds in the pipes by just dragging them on top of it, without the need to click/release each time, same for storing the scissors, you could simplify the thing and energize the gameplay.

-I find the grow speed and clover death way too quick. Maybe changing grow and decay speed according to the level and difficulty could be interesting.

-Maybe adding a little more juice and feedback when the player interact with the game could be good, don't need to go full Michael Bay mode either.

-Not a problem in your game RN, but I tell you that for your future projects : millions of people around the globe don't use QWERTY (I refer to your tutorial) . As a AZERTY user, that drove me crazy to have to change linguistic settings of my OS (even with shortcut), EACH time I want to play to a WASD based game cause the devs don't know or don't give a F about us. I think the bare minimum should be a WASD and ARROWS support for each game, cause there are way too many keyboard layouts in the world to take care of all of them : How to gone crazy as a dev

-The music is perfect for the game, but very discreet (the lamps even make more noise than this one), and it seems to completely stop after a while or not looping correctly IDK, too bad...

-Your background art on the game page is not seamless (I'm still in art nazi mode), I can't recommend you enough to directly download some BG wallpapers from popular itch games to understand how there are made and how you can use them properly with the CSS theme editor.

I know how much it's hard to make a game in 72H, and you probably already know or realize a bunch of things I said here, but despite that I still think your game is a pretty solid entry in this JAM. Nice job !

Sounds like you people know a lot about hydroponics, sodium lamps and "exotic plants" culture :)

Simple, but really good crafted game, the art and ambiance are truly awesome, love the "streets" vibes too. Clearly not a novice work.  420/5

If it's not a joke, that's pretty crazy when we see certains similarities. Good game for a jam !

Do you know a game called "Metal gear solid" ? :)

I dunno why there are some random anime meme EVERYWHERE in the level X)

But I know that you seems to have a good level of self awareness, and that's a good quality when you are a dev, and accessory a human being. I don't think your game is that bad like you said, artistically speaking there is an intention and we can see all the work you put in there.

But I think you should learn and work more on what a game is, before even trying to make a pretty one.
Players don't care about 4K, particles, FX, screen-shake, and even COLORS. If you put a cherry on top of a piece of garbage, it will still a piece of garbage.

Tabletop games would be a fail otherwise and it's not the case, why ? Because there are fun, and it's what matter the most for a game. I remember in school, I was playing a turn based RTS game we had created with a friend on a god damn paper sheet to play in class. The goal was to drawing units on the sheet and then destroying them by sliding a pencil in a particular way to "shoot" from a unit to another, and that was super fun !

I think your game would had been better if you'd put the most work where it need the most : the GAME part.

I can't recommend you enough to read this (if you want to OFC) :
https://www.develop.games/#nav-skills

One of the most criminally underrated game of the jam

Jeez, I really need to give a try at those softwares, I absolutely need a tilesets maker BTW. Maybe it's time to upgrade ?

We never know what the future holds for us. Your game is in my "spotlight" collection, hoping to see this baby grow up one day or another !

You're welcome, I like the new guitar x )

You mean Little Fat Boy 2 ? I can guaranty you that the jam version was less cooler than the one you played. Cause I also continue to work on the games after jams ends when they deserve it. 72H is really super short for complex games like that.

I don't know, I never collaborated with anybody, and I really tried (to try at least). But I just can't, too solitary I guess, and having total control of every aspects of a game is mandatory for me. I love too much making art, then 5 minutes later coding, then making music, then adding my own bugs, etc... And that's precisely why I loves making games, they just calm my ADHD.

There are a lot of games here (I won't give any names), which were made by 1, 2, 3 or even more people, even talented ones, but the result looks like a complete waste of talent. Due to all the artistic, design or thinking divergence the devs had, especially when you make a team on the fly for a jam.

The judge are basically geeks level max, they would have seen it at the first glance, hope they did'nt see it already ! Yeah there are so many rules, maybe the jam with the most rules I ever seen I think, because there are prizes.

Like Antoine Lavoisier (one of the father of the modern chemistry) said : "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed ". And I agree, you can't escape all the obvious plagiarisms, inspirations and references that are absolutely everywhere, and as a dev you even try to dodge this too obvious things you can put on your game ! I wonder what the creator of the original Snake would think of that : https://itch.io/games/tag-snake .You can't even reach the bottom of the page, and I suppose someone has already made what we had made here, in a way or another, and that's pretty terrifying...

I never heard about Pixaki before, so you making art on a Ipad ? Crazy. Aseprite seems also very loved by the indies here.

An untitled charming game would be awesome for sure, seriously imagine a magnetic field snake, just with that the possibilities are endless, that would make a good crossover, and I will buy it ! I don't know if you guys realize the marketing potential of what you have here ? Some people would spend money on that if it's cool and completed, I'm pretty sure...

SSB is like the Marvel Avengers of video games to me, and I can't stop seeing this game as gigantic fan service bait sadly, some kind of playable ad and a box that Nintendo had to check to say : hey we have a versus fighter game too ! But I'm maybe wrong. And neither the fan service or gameplay worked on me, even if the design is very well made, for sure.

I love the art, your game is the proof you don't need to be Da Vinci to make a strong and unique visual identity, that is a truly inspiring work to me.

As creators we are ALL inspired by what is around us, consciously or subconsciously. If I tell you to create an original fantastic creature from scratch that doesn't exist anywhere, I think you simply can't, your brain will pick body parts, colors and basic shapes it has already seen somewhere. Cthulhu is just an octopus and centaurs some man-horse, pegasus = birdhorse etc...   

You were certainly influenced by Mark's videos, above all if you like the guy and his content, like I was influenced by the mario 64 eel , In fact my game will probably never exist if mario 64 wasn't.

I literally hate Photoshop, I think it's way too overkill for making pixel art and indie stuff, my digital art professor in school also traumatized us with what is supposed to be a good workflow on this piece of alien tech. The reality is you don't need Adobe for making gorgeous art : MS paint can be enough. 

I prefer using the built in editor of my engine, for the more sophisticated stuff I use Paint.net and GIMP in the last resort. The side by side montage literally took me, I think, less than 1 or 2 min to make with Paint.net.

Import magnet level > import charms level on a new layer > scale the smallest layer to match the edges of the biggest one > erase the top layer at ~50% to give that smooth transition effect. > FINISH

Your cover image suspiciously looks like something an AI would do. And based on what I saw on the game and after a quick analysis, there are a bunch of obvious red flag which looks like typical AI bias if you look closely.

In fact some AI detection tools flag this picture at more than 75%.

So my question is : do you made that yourself ?

6K ? Well done. Yeah the game looks easy at first but the difficulty is incremental and everything become worse the further you score.

I hope you now understand why I had so high expectation about your project. And If the judges have good taste, you guys will surely be very high on the jam leader-board...

I don't know I find some similarities in the way you use color, shapes, pattern, in the minimalism perhaps. Maybe it's that green checkerboard, the "Portal" empty test chamber vibes, or maybe I seeing things X ) , the old magnet game version was maybe more speaking also.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit harsh, I doesn't wanted to criticize your art skill in any way, and taste is a very subjective thing.

I see what you done on the page, I'm almost 100% sure that's will benefit you. And you guys do whatever you want after all. It just drove me crazy to see a game like that on a blank page...

Edit : god damn WHO made concept art of that quality level for a jam !?

Jeez ! I was about to cite Mark's Untitled magnet game in my previous comment as a good puzzle platformer design example and also his "courses" on game design are a must watch to me. Now I fully understand "what" you are, and why your game is that interesting, have so much potential and have so much in common with this guy's design philosophy, also the art intention looks pretty similar, the "magnetic field" too.

I Love that guy and most importantly his content, and he is totally right. Hitman for ex, can both be seen as a TPS stealth action game and a puzzle game. In fact I think if we can even expand the thing further more : each little action your player make, can be a micro puzzle in whatever the genre of your game is, that just don't need as much brain processing power as a real puzzle.

And also I think puzzler are "easy" to make during jams, many of them doesn't even have a controllable character or complex animation. For example : I think you can literally remade all the visual assets of "Baba is You" in less than 1H. That's typically a programmer and game designer wet dream.

Is that... the GIMP bell pepper brush I see there 👀

Really cool indeed, some kind of vampire survivors base mixed with an hidden rhythmic game, basic, simple but efficient, you clearly know where you wanted to go with this.

Also, this kind of art style is not my cup of tea but I must recognize that you guys have made a good job artistically speaking.

The intro song literally killed me, I listen it to the point where the music stop playing 

x ) I heard there are a real reggae scene in Germany, although I don't know if its true and if we can call that song reggae or not. And If you made this Electro swing banger by yourself, kudos ! Even If I find the gameplay a bit slow for the BPM, but that's very subjective.

You also seems to have made some research about why chameleon really change their color, demystifying the urban legend... 

I only manage to reach a score of 117 at the 4th try, and I really tried to think of the best way to score, I find that staying static tend to stuck some cham on the rocks, leading to less score I guess ?

Don't worry, I always check the work of the people commenting on my submissions, we are all learning here and I think feedback is really important for us, and above all when you don't have any playtesters like me. 

I WILL DESTROY YOUR LEADERBOARD 👁️ 👁️

I will be 100% honest with you guys : I don't think your game cover and game page give the credit your game deserve.

If I hadn't seen Potipot comment's, I probably would have never paid attention to it . And I know no one should judge a book by its cover, but thats what human brain and its 250 cognitive bias do.

You should really pump up that cover art up, black outlines on a dark background ? 3 fonts with 3 colors ? Making gorgeous chara design to hide them in the dark ? I really get what you tried to achieve here, but damn I didn't wanted to click on this thing even with a 5 miles pole.

And foremost : you have made an absolute MADLAD work of pixel art and animation (LucasArt level), but why I must launch the game to see that ? Put screenshots, screenshots everywhere, tattoo them on your dog if you want to, but players NEED screenshots, If some people doesn't care about your cover, and your game page, nobody will ever experience what I think is a super cool and original experience.

6/5 but I must take 1 points away for this non sexy branding, so 5/5.

In fact the electric eels body shape is pretty aggressive :

But, you are right, the thing looks more like fur than electricity during gameplay, due to the chaotic movements of the beast.

I like some of the different Snake approach that was made during this jam, your game and this one in particular : https://itch.io/jam/winter-melonjam-2023/rate/2446663 are by far my 2 favorites. Because I see in them an infinite buried potential that wasn't fully expressed during the jam. This kind of puzzler are super cool, you "just" have to make few elementary game design bricks and then you can build an endless combination of levels with them, by just adding a new brick each X levels to keep the player invested, you guys just need to make more bricks.

And if you have a really big brain you can even mix that with procedural generation, and you have basically nothing else to do apart from designing the bricks, the system auto designing itself by constraint and basic logic rules, your puzzle are just some kind of big mathematical equation.

I can't remember where I saw that (on LD community post maybe), but a nerd had analyze all the Ludum Dare winners games, and most of them appeared to be puzzlers...

I really tried my best to make the worst room a human can possibly can :

Why painting everything in white when you can use some kind of PANTONE 448C, the worst color ever made.

Why putting doors at floor level when you can actually do gym by climbing them ?

Why bothering with gaming chairs, and going to the bathroom when your chair IS the bathroom.

Why using a PC master race mechanical keyboard for coding when you can use a MIDI one.

Why using an adjustable expensive gaming desk with dual 4K screens when you have 2 gaming doors and 2 cathode screens, that's also muscle your programmer neck.

Windows are also put at the good level for the neighbors to see the duke coding on his throne.

And the most important : ALWAYS have a fireplace in your room, carbon monoxide is good for your health and far less dangerous than heaters.

You and I had the same idea : using snake as a dynamic part of the level design, allowing player to manipulate this one to complete the game loop. Your game is basically the big brain version of this concept, and mine the action one, so I'm really not surprise if you like it :)
The eels has been going through a LOT of different designs, the most important for me was precisely what you said : the affordance ( the object's sensory characteristics intuitively imply its functionality and use ), and the readability.

That's precisely why I thought :

-Wall eels = psycho-rigid squared shape with 90° moves and non aggressive color = safe

-Electric eels = chaotic sharp triangle shape with 0 predictability and aggressive color = danger

I though it will be sufficient to teach the player, but that doesn't worked for you. I will also considering what you said and tried to enhance the affordance while trying to not ruin the simplistic art style and readability. Thanks a lot for playing and for your feedback, there is always space for improvement.

Fun fact : My game isn't glitch proof too : )  you can also going out of bound cause the map size is actually limited, but you will probably die in game or IRL before ever reaching the edges. Thx 4 feeding my girl.

Don't worry I really enjoy the game though, You and I had a similar approach of the theme. I had as much fun destroying the game as playing it normally. 

And since you seems to be on the UTC+1 time zone : 🥳  Happy new year ! 🥳

The recursive acronym really feel forced (that's the point I get it), but I don't think you had to do that since your interpretation of the theme seems good and clear enough IMO.

Otherwise, that was surprisingly good, so good that I want you to burn a bunch of my brain cell with more complex and sophisticated puzzles, why not some emergent puzzle design with multiples possibilities like in Portal for example ?

One of the thing I love the most with video games is breaking their rules, outsmarting the developers by acting outside the boundaries. That's why I find speed-running and tool assisted speed-runs so interesting. Because the players impose their own set of rules no matter what you devs had intended. And jam games + open world is the perfect combo for that X )  

I was literally cooking spaghetti for 8 min in my kitchen while the game was running in background and making score for me.

69/10 I will out of bound again.

Thx fellow snek enjoyer.

Can't wait for the "pet the cat update"

I didn't made that for a jam to reassure you ! 

This represent weeks of work, for 0 game design proposition and 0 originality. Its just another uninspired clone with golden paint on top of it. Don't be fooled by the art, this thing may be fun, but it's shallow as the hell...

Recently I changed my mind about what a good game should be, and now I think this was a terrible dev mistake. 

I'm more proud about my melon jam entry made in 72H than this game made in 2-3 weeks, because at least it try something new.