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This was quite fun! I liked going around the seas and finding different cities to dock at and discover. The upgrades definitely were a nice touch, as it made each voyage feel like progress gets made, no matter how small. I think the art and music is pretty good, too.

The idea of ship battles is cool, but I didn't invest a ton into firepower (not many cannons), so the ship fighting felt a bit shallow; maybe that could have its own "battle phase" as opposed to the traveling style of gameplay here. I also ran into a strange bug where enemy ships could chase me on land, which was interesting; not game breaking, but it was funny.

I enjoyed this game a lot, and would love to see another iteration of the game! Maybe you could trade goods with other cities, or the map is even larger and you have multiple travel options. Well done!

Cool idea for a game, it's not often you see a visual novel as the entry! I think the controls could have been conveyed better; for example, the "Continue" button that's mentioned on the blackboard (which can be interacted with, but it doesn't look like anything tells you that) is Enter, but that's not mentioned anywhere. Also, during the investigation phase, there was a "New Text" UI box that didn't go away, and when I tried interacting with the blackboard again, I just saw a bunch of square prompts and didn't have the right context to solve the mystery yet. It also looks like a screen resolution issue, as I think more prompts showed up on the right side off camera.

The art looks really good, well done on that! Though I think it was a bit weird that the female characters had the exact same portrait, but one was green. And the music sounds good, but feels a bit weird in the beginning when nothing tense has happened yet.

Again, really cool idea, and I would love to see this expanded out into a larger polished game. Good job!

Really fun game, I liked this a lot! I got really close, around 953 atm, before the pressure mechanic got to me and I got killed by fish I couldn't dodge. The upgrade system is really cool since there's a risk/reward system; I was able to get far because I got the health regeneration upgrade. Having treasure chests to find in the sea was cool too. The knife and harpoon combat felt pretty good, though personally I wish the knife had just a little more range. Overall, this was a very fun entry, well done!

Interesting game, I like the high score system of trying to get as far down as possible, and it's cool that there's a replayable aspect to the game since you get more energy relative to your best depth, though I don't know if it feels significant enough of a energy boost to matter.

I think one thing that could make the game more fun is reworking the controls, as they feel kind of weird; Q and E to rotate probably could've been A and D, or the left/right arrow keys, as that feels more natural. There's also a lot of mechanics to control; I know the controls are listed on the side, but I think simplifying the mechanics would make it easier to play, as I only need to keep track of a few keys at a time.

Overall though, this is a really solid game for your first game jam, well done! Great job on submitting this entry!

Interesting idea, I like that it's about trying to come up with a game jam idea, that's funny lol. The music is catchy, and the voice lines were great! I smiled and laughed a few times while playing, it was entertaining to play.

In my opinion the gameplay is too difficult for 2 reasons: the movement of the gun feels too heavy and makes it hard to line up shots with bad thoughts, and the ratio of bad thoughts to good thoughts as the game progresses gets a little too high. I feel like I ran into situations where I was doing pretty well, and then all of a sudden large bad thoughts swarm all around me, and it's not possible to shoot them all down.

I think if the gun moved faster and more precisely (i.e. it stops immediately after letting go of the button), and if the waves of bad thoughts were less in number, the experience would be more fun. I ended up shooting a lot when things got crazy, and it felt like the good thoughts were destroyed in one hit regardless of how large it was, which felt a bit unfair as well.

Overall though, I think this is a cool idea and would be really fun with some additional polish. Great job submitting this entry!

Absolutely fantastic game! The detective/deduction kinds of games are always really fun, and the fact you were able to implement one for this game jam is awesome! The memory diving mechanic is really cool, where you select the mismatched emotion; theme wise, it reminded me a lot of Ace Attorney and finding contradictions. And I love that you have to piece together the whole story by talking to and diving into everyone's memories; it's also great you worked in red herrings too, like possible motives from many people.

I also like that there are different endings; I laughed when I tried accusing someone immediately, and got a ending for not even trying to investigate lol. The art and music is also excellent; the pixel art reminds me a lot of Tails Noir (haven't played it, but seen it before and it looks cool). Seriously, great job on this submission, I had a blast playing through it!

Pretty fun, this reminds me of those old flash games like Learn to Fly where you try to go as far (or in this case, as deep) as you can. The sound effect that plays when the potato is shot out is pretty funny, and it was also funny how the potato got mashed up if it collided with a wall. I think adding some upgrades or other goal to each level would make them more fulfilling (e.g. could have a level where the goal is to get 100 deep, and upgrades help you dive deeper). Otherwise, very fun game and fun time with this one!

Thanks! A number or something more visible/eye-catching to show that different blocks break at different times makes sense, I originally conveyed that by reducing the opacity of blocks, but it would be good to know what's easy to break before you start drilling. Green is supposed to be the fastest, another thing I probably could do is make the time it takes to break other blocks larger, so there's less of a gap. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for playing and the feedback! I didn't realize the resolution didn't adjust in full screen, I'll take a look to see how to resolve that, as it should keep a 960x600 ratio. And point taken about drilling and moving being the same button, I do think that would make more intuitive sense. There might be some other mechanic that incentivizes drilling in other directions when moving, but I can't think of one now, so that's a good point, thanks!

Solid game, I liked the combination of using WASD and arrow keys for movement and attacking respectively, though a nitpick I have is that using Space for jump would've felt a lot more natural. I also didn't understand why I kept dying in 1 hit, cause I noticed 3 heart icons whenever starting, so I assumed I had 3 HP, which doesn't seem to be the case. Based on the description, I can see how it relates to the theme, though it feels like a majority of the time is spent climbing the tower, so it doesn't feel like it fits while playing the game.

Overall though, this was pretty enjoyable, I liked the combat the most. Great job!

Pretty cool idea of having an animal grow and eat other animals so you can become the king of the ocean. I got up to a D+ fish, but couldn't figure out exactly what to do after; I tried reincarnating but it looked like the 2 reincarnation options were the same fish, which felt strange since I got up to D+ before, but these other options reincarnated me to E. I also thought the plankton that you eat as an E fish could've spawned more frequently, as I spent a lot of time just dodging fish trying to find plankton to eat.

Really solid idea, with good graphics too; could use some music as well, but overall this was a solid entry, great job!

Neat puzzle game, I liked that zoom out effect to show that there were a ton more neurons to look at to find the right pattern. And it was fun trying to find the right patterns, it felt like playing Where's Waldo or reading those I Spy books to look for a specific thing/pattern. I think having more patterns or levels would be really fun too; great job on submitting this, very enjoyable puzzle game!

Very solid entry, I realized this had elements of a horror game once I saw the "hide" signs on the floor and I started freaking myself out, wondering what was going to happen when the light started flickering; great atmosphere! Controls feel good, and the voice acting is solid, nice job getting that in there. Enjoyed this entry a lot, it unsettled me in a good way. Great job on the submission!

Pretty cool concept with this game! I like the idea of being an AI that is diving through wires and trying to get to another location. I think for me, the main gameplay mechanic could have been conveyed better. There were a lot of times when I was definitely in range of another pipe, but clicking it didn't move me there; I was only able to move to specific pipes from where I was, or I had to search for the right place the click, and it didn't feel consistent. I think that could be fixed by having all pipes in range of you be clickable, or making it really obvious where you have to click on the pipe (e.g. clicking on ends of pipes only).

I reached the 3rd level with the house, but the inconsistency with pipe switching made it hard to move on. I think if that mechanic is made more consistent, this would make this solid concept ever better, so great job on the creativity!

Pretty fun game, it's cool that you were able to fit in RPG elements like leveling up and equipment! The controls felt pretty good, and the art and music looked and sounded nice. I saw in the description that there was a shop, but I couldn't find it or figure out how to access it; but I feel like I didn't need it as the equipment I picked up as well as the level up powers were pretty strong. One suggestion is to make the game a bit harder, maybe by lowering the amount of health you regenerate. It felt a bit too easy to shoot a bunch of fish, then when you're getting surrounded, just run away and your health regenerates almost instantly.

Overall, great job on this, it plays really nicely and was quite fun!

Really excellent entry, this was a ton of fun to play! The art is really good (love the little dance that the divers do), and the music intensifying when a shark starts chasing you is excellent sound design. And the gameplay itself is really fun; one thing I love about this is that you really don't need a map to locate the divers, because you can see sharks/divers in the distance based on the colored lights. That's smart design!

I think my two nitpicks are that I would've liked the camera to be able to show a wider view around the submarine, so I could see how close a shark chasing me is getting, as well as making the lights in the distance a bit brighter so it's easier to see. Sometimes lights would flicker and then disappear, so having them be brighter and more consistent would be a good touch.

Overall though, I have to say this is one of the best I've played so far. Really great job on this!

This was a really cool idea! I like the idea of trying to solve these math equations, but you have to solve them by redirecting the ball to hit the different numbers on the walls. For me, I found that hitting the ball was really difficult, as it moved pretty fast, was a small ball, and the orca's hitting range was very short. I think a combination of changes to address those (i.e. slower ball, bigger ball, larger hit range) would make this much easier to play, and maybe as the game progresses it gets more difficult.

Solid SFX and the orca art looks nice. Personally I also don't see the relation to the theme, as it didn't really feel like I was diving deeper into anything. Overall though, excellent job on this, and really creative idea!

This was really fun! I liked digging into the ground to find ores, make money, and level up my skills so I could dig deeper. It's a really solid gameplay loop, and it was fun trying to see how far down I could go. It's also cool that each level/day is randomly generated, I liked exploring new random caverns as I went deeper. I guess a tiny nitpick is that it takes a few seconds to load the next level each time; maybe one idea could be to generate bits and pieces of the next level as you explore the current one, like you generate a couple of blocks per frame, so that way when your oxygen runs out the next level is already generated.

Overall, very well done with this game, I enjoyed it a lot!

Really fun arcade-style game! Movement feels really smooth and I like the recoil effect from the gun, it definitely made platforming and jumping a bit tricky. It's also cool that the level is randomly generated as you progress. At times the recoil felt a bit too strong, so maybe that effect could be a little weaker or smaller. I also think the jump and shooting controls feel a bit weird; my gut feeling is to use Space for jumping and Z for shooting while moving with arrow keys, you use probably use a key on the right side of the board if using WASD for movement.

Overall though, this was very enjoyable! Great job on the submission!

Pretty interesting game, I think for me the attack range of the knife is far too short, so it got frustrating trying to attack fish while avoiding their attacks. The environments and art look nice, and sound effects are solid, though some background music would also be good. If the attack range was larger, I think it would make fights feel more fair. Great job on the submission!

Thanks! Those are great suggestions that would make this game more playable and interesting, especially the first point; a better way to explain the controls to the player would be good to implement. I appreciate the feedback!

I really like the look of this game; well done with the pixel art! Personally, when running this game, I was getting really low FPS and it lagged a lot (inputs felt unresponsive), which I'm guessing is related to pathfinding that could be optimized, based on the game description. It made the game really hard to play; I ended up just heading left and found a hole that I jumped in, and the credits showed up. I can't say much about combat or the use of the flying drone because of that, but the idea is pretty cool. It feels like you could turn this into a Metroidvania style game where you explore the caverns.

Overall, well done on submitting this entry for your second game jam! Would love to see you add more to it and optimize even further.

Very neat puzzle game; I liked the Lost Woods-esque maze you have set up, remembering the turns and moving through the corridors. I got stuck on finding the tome mentioned in the letter; I couldn't find one anywhere, but the rest of the letter seemed to make sense to me. Art looks pretty solid and I like the ambient music; solid job on this entry!

This was a very cool game! Art looked great and music sounded great, and the gameplay was engaging and fun, though I found the classes to be kind of unbalanced. The warrior feels much weaker compared to the archer and mage, as you have to get up close to attack things. The mage also felt around as strong as the archer, but the mage's staff got in the way of my view at times, so the archer was my main choice. I think the classes could use some tweaking to make them all more equal in terms of effectiveness, since the archer/mage were the only ones that felt usable to me. The enemies were cool to fight, and sniping them with arrows was really fun. Overall, great job on this, it's very well polished and fun!

Interesting idea here, I like that the goal is to go a deep as you can, but you can't go down multiple platforms or else you'll break. The controls feel a little finicky; the yolk flare doesn't feel super helpful as I noticed it tends to light up a very small area around it, and the ambient light tended to be more helpful for me over the yolk flare. I also kept trying to move left and right in midair and that didn't really work, though that makes more sense as I think the idea is that you have to commit to your jump/movement when not grounded. Just felt a bit awkward to control, at least for me.

The art is solid! I like the egg character, it reminds me a lot of the art style of Edmund McMillan (the Super Meat Boy guy), and the atmosphere is pretty great; same goes for the sound/music. Really great work on this submission!

Really neat game, and cool take on the theme! I like that there's 2 endings; the easy to get one that's a bit sad, and the other one which is happier, though it took a few minutes to get to that ending lol. I think there may also be a bug in the second ending where the audio doesn't stop properly, so restarting the game causes 2 audio sources to be playing at the same time?

My only nitpick is that I think the gameplay is a bit too simple for me; not trying to say that these kinds of simple and straightforward games can't work, but having some more actions that I could take other than walking would feel more interesting, just my two cents. You could explore more parts of the mind and this person's relationship that way. Otherwise, really great job on the submission!

Interesting game, personally I couldn't really figure out what to do even after reading the description. I didn't really understand how build the ship effectively to dive into the ocean and reach the top secret box. And having the hold C + press L trick to gain money didn't feel rewarding; I guess this is technically a debug tool, so that could explain it. One other minor nitpick would be not being able to view an item description in the shop, you have to buy it and check it, then re-sell it if you don't want the item; hovering over the item would be a good way to show the item description.

This is super ambitious though, making a ship-builder game, so great job on the submission!

Solid game, I have pretty poor reaction time so I wasn't able to get a super high score lol. This was pretty fun though, I think the idea of skydiving and going as far as you can is neat. The music was a little repetitive, but the graphics look great. First entry I saw that didn't use a standard game engine too, so great job submitting something with Pygame!

Really cool game and idea! I like the application of diving deeper in this context, and the fish catching minigame is really fun! Sometimes it felt like I made it into the 1 ring but didn't get a fish, so at times the collision/reward felt inconsistent, but this was a really short and sweet game that was quite enjoyable. The art is also really solid; it's simple yet effective, and the particle effect on diving into the water looks great. Really excellent job on this!

I had a lot of fun with this! Playing on Mac so I had to play in browser, but the performance felt alright. I thought the premise was interesting (basically Inception), and the voice acting was really cool to hear, if a bit ridiculous (the scientist reminded me of Rick from Rick and Morty lol). Gameplay was also quite fun, basically just a simple FPS. Moving around made it easy to run away from enemies and kill them, though I ended up stopping at the 3rd level, when you re-fight the necromancer, just cause it got tiring running around in circles, so maybe enemy health could be lowered/bullets could be stronger so fights don't end up going on forever.

I thought this was a really fun entry overall, so great job!

Pretty neat game! I like that there seems to be a story to the game, I just couldn't make it all the way to the bottom. I had similar problems as others here, like getting stuck on walls or not being able to see upcoming walls or obstacles. Personally, I think having some kind of indicator to show when and where a rock will fall would be really helpful and make things feel more fair. Overall, this is a solid entry, well done!

Pretty fun game! I kept dying early on because I found the submarine to be pretty hard to control; it feels too heavy, in my opinion. I saw that there were sonar and mobility upgrades, so I'm guessing the mobility upgrades would help make the submarine feel less heavy, but I think it would've been good to make it easier to control from the start so it feels a bit better to maneuver.

The sonar idea is pretty cool though, I like that it lights up the obstacles in your path, as the game is pretty dark overall as you sink deeper, so it clearly shows you what to avoid and collect. Great job on this!

Liked this one! I had some resolution issues that I worked around by increasing the game window size in browser, but was able to play after that. I liked the timing minigame with the drill, and rescuing miners was a simple and fun premise. I think the timing is a bit strict; maybe the two holes that have to overlap could be bigger or move slower to make it easier to time. I got up to needing to rescue 5 miners before I missed too many overlaps and ran out of fuel.

Overall, this was a solid entry. Great job on the submission!

Interesting and definitely tough game! I think the art and music is solid and fits the game, and the gameplay works well for a hard platformer like this. The double jump mechanic is interesting when combined with the fact that you regain your double jump from touching walls; I guess I find the mechanic tough to master for sure. Maybe some kind of indicator that your double jump is replenished would help, because sometimes I feel like I didn't regain my double jump.

The jumping velocity also felt a bit strange; holding down jump makes you jump higher which is pretty normal, but the stretching of the character made it harder to know if I was jumping the right height when platforming. I think if the double jump mechanics were polished a bit more to feel more consistent in terms of height and regaining your jump, this would be a super fun tough/rage platformer! In either case, well done on the submission!

Thanks for playing! And thanks for the feedback, I would've liked to change or update the drilling controls to make more sense if I had more time, but good point!

Short and straightforward game, I like the idea; my best score was 169, though I started seeing the same obstacles over and over again, so it felt a bit repetitive, even when it started speeding up. The art looks solid and sound effects were good, though some background music would fill in the gaps too. Great job on the entry though, it's a simple and enjoyable game!

Here's mine if anyone's interested! https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-10/rate/2236694

Here's my submission, thanks! https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-10/rate/2236694

I'm just starting to work my way through playing entries, when I have some more free time I'm definitely going to give some others in this thread a try :)

Fun arcade-style score attack game! Love the aesthetic, and it's fun to play; the hover mechanic is well implemented, though I do find the game pretty challenging; I couldn't get a super high score, but I enjoyed this entry as it's quite simple. Maybe having simpler levels that get progressively harder (i.e. could start with no skulls) would make it easier to get into for most people. But great job on this submission!