itch.io

I'd rather wait for this project to be fully realized, but if you would like to make like, a short spin-off title in the interim, sorta thing? That'd be neat, too.

Oh man, this looks amazing! Definitely gonna give it a try. Loved the Soul Blazer Tetrology, so this is my jam!

> Allowed most water-based jobs that use buckets to use partially-filled water buckets in addition to empty buckets.

Uhhh... I'm just imagining all the contamination spread this can cause. Are you sure this should be done?

The choice to sacrifice quantity for polish *really* worked out well for you! I'll never look negatively at someone putting effort into polish over just dumping more content out, frankly... I just wanted more to play, which to me means you did a damn fine job of making an interesting gameplay loop!

Frankly, a lot of native English speakers get the difference between "die" and "dice" wrong, until they're informed otherwise directly, so I really don't blame you for that. 

The movement on the ground was fine, and I think the issue with the movement in the air was more about the hitbox interactions, looking back on it; that would definitely make me feel they're stiff and unresponsive if there's more blocks where there were hitboxes that you collided with that wasn't meant to be there. 

I do think that there's a lot of promise here, and I think you could do a lot of neat stuff. Looking forward to what you do next.

A thought on that; instead of making the wave faster overall, why not a mechanic where the longer an enemy has been alive, the faster they get? An acceleration value, in other words. You can make it higher for the higher-tier enemies (so the reds would have a higher value than the blues, for example). That would make it still a safe wave early, but if you faff about too much without addressing the enemy, they can quickly overwhelm you, too.

That trademark Rad Codex aesthetic, in both the art and the musical choices~ Absolutely love it. The gameplay, however, let me down. The elemental dice really didn't get much of a chance to shine other than Fire, because the play field size was just too limited to really get space for the effects. Fire shone in that situation, however, because you could easily place it adjacent to two enemy dice and just eradicate them, giving you at least one space to place a die that they had, and thus giving you numerical advantage on dice played, which is very hard to overcome. If the enemy used elemental dice against you in return, and the playing field was a bit larger to accomodate the other elements being more useful, though, I'd very much enjoy it more. I also think that having the value of the pips work into if the enemy dice are captured (little like a more simplistic Tetra Master) would have been more fun as well, rather than just having it be end-of-game points in a variant Othello. EDIT: oh, right. Also, a replay button!

This is exactly the sort of game that I was hoping for when I read that the theme was "roll of the dice"! I love puzzle games where you have to figure out routings and there's modifiers to movements/placements so you can't just trace the easiest path all the time; the use of the faces for the number of tiles moved was wonderful because of how easy it communicates that important bit of information within the game instead of needing a tutorial! Most of my complaints are regarding it being too short (when I beat the last level I just sat still for a few seconds, going, "Wait... that's it? NO! I wanted more! q-q"), the first few levels being a bit too simplistic even for tutorial levels (but I'm an old grognard and comparing to when I was a kid, not kids nowadays, so may be being too harsh there?), and that the tiles/pads that modify distances don't have any visual differentiation other than just the + or - beside a number; some way to tell them apart more easily visually would be appreciated, with a mono-colour scheme like currently exists being something used in a challenge mode perhaps?

I absolutely LOVED that you could finish some levels without using all the pads, too, so while some were "figure out the exact pattern you need to move in", others were, "try to find the solution on your own", so it never got stale and always felt fresh changing between the map types. I also really liked the harp-like sounds used when moving, and how each face had subtly different notes from each other, too. Just all in all, very fun. I really hope you decide to take this game and fiddle with the visuals some, make it more your own thing, and expand on it greatly!

Honestly it already feels like there's a limit in that you need to roll ones with all of your dice currently available to get  another one, and even if you just leave the last guy, you still are on a time limit for killing it before it does too much damage to the crystal and kills you.

Most fun I've had going through the random submissions queue so far! Great use of the dice rolling as a form of attack (where the side value affects the damage dealt), while also paying attention to the sides rolled to get bonus effects. I didn't expect Pierce to be omnipierce for one attack, and I expected the status to remain when used for the extra die tower, but otherwise not bad. Two big problems stood out to me, though; one, it relies on right-click functionality but doesn't claim priority over browser, so with Firefox (latest version available as of this time), it keeps opening the right-click menu every time I click for in-game functionality. Immediate loss of a pip of enjoyment, dealing with that frustration.

Secondly, having to click and drag or just click for every. single. attack. My joints aren't getting any younger, and the constant repetitive motion had me tap out at the end of wave 3, because my wrist started hurting. Maybe have it so that all dice in the playing field automatically roll towards where you click, instead of having to select them every time? Still keep a cooldown before you can roll again, so that you can't just spam click, though. Additionally, I encountered a minor bug where if the enemies walked forward onto the same space as any of your dice, that die won't do anything to that enemy and will pass through them as if they're ethereal; it should impact them and rebound off according to the angle of attack, not ignore them and deal no damage at the same time.

Also, pulling out the view would be nice, just to be able to see the entire playing field on a single axis (vertical or horizontal, don't care) so that I can watch what's happening with later waves; only barely caught the second spawn point's wave when they were coming up the path towards the crystal because there was only the one spawn point and set of towers visible from the initial gameplay moment, and had to work a little frantically to deal with them. Overall, a fun experience. I look forward to you refining it further.

While a servicable match-two card game, I really don't feel this matches the theming of "roll of the dice" very well at all. While you say that it's a, "personification of rolling the dice in terms of the game's art, direction, and outcomes", I don't really feel that algorithmically created art is really random, and while there is an element of randomness in card flipping games (since they have to be shuffled and dealt out into the playing field), I wouldn't really call it a, "personification of rolling the dice", either. Interesting experiment, but very simple gameplay, with it declaring you a winner after each set instead of proceeding to the next automatically, which felt very windows-3.1-solitaire-like. Not bad, but there's better mechanisms to continue playing than having to start a new iteration through a discrete button you have to click to reset, rather than a keyboard shortcut or auto-next-play. 

All in all, not fun (it's a match-two card game... they're not exactly hard or interesting gameplaywise at the best of times, especially when there's no limit to the number of guesses or dud cards); the visuals are interesting for being machine learning AI generated, but aren't really interesting otherwise, and the presentation is very simple beyond it being AI generated images. If you like that sort of surrealism, you'll probably like this game more, but for me, it really wasn't enjoyable at all.

Neat little snare beat for backing music. Visuals were pretty nice as well, reminded me a lot of asteroid's vector graphics conceptually, but with a neon oomph. Gameplay, however, was a bit offputting, though still fun in its own way. The concept that the dice are moving towards you and trying to kill you is fine, but the ship has a very slow acceleration, very fast deceleration, and no momentum to speak of, so it's rather unintuitive to control the ship. Also, since there's no penalties for missing, you basically play with space held down the entire time, to get the best fire rate and help you dial in the angle needed for a shot (since unlike your grid-locked opponents, you float freely through space), so removing that and just making it automatically shoot would probably be a little better.

Conceptually, the idea for only being vulnerable when specific faces (I believe it was any even face) was neat, but the dice don't actually follow the progression of a six-sided die, instead randomly flipping between any given face, so there's no real strategy in manipulating the dice to move specific ways and force them to show green faces; it's just hoping that a green face will show up when you're shooting at them. They also have a bit of an erratic movement pattern, where they can jump forward an extra space shortly after moving, and it almost seemed in time with an audio cue, but I can't be 100% sure of that (I did like that, either way, because it made it more interesting, but when I was slowly backing away from one and it suddenly jumped forward two and ate my ship, I got a little salty about that, since it was the first time I saw it).

The waves just getting larger and larger, throwing more dice at you with each wave, though, was uninteresting, and the primary point I'd focus on changing if you were to develop this game further, with the controls scheme right behind it (if I'm fighting the controls as much or more than the enemies, there's a problem, hah). I'd also work on getting the dice to properly respect the orientation that they're travelling and change face accordingly, so that each tile shows the die flipping to the next side as it rolls after your ship. Otherwise, a neat little Game Jam game.

The intro level was a great little tutorial on the basic premise (though I'm not docking points for this, I do want to note that the singular form of dice is die and the plural is dice; "dices" is incorrect. One die, many dice), but the very next screen we're basically tasked with getting past a bouncer without any information of what the other faces of the dice do, only that two pips equals super jump. Little trial and error, hitting G to quick reload the map until you figure it out, okay. Little janky since it wasn't taught, and there's so far always been chewing gum available to forcefully choose the result, but not that big a deal since it's such a short screen. However, very next screen has some serious geometry issues due to being made so tightly packed, and if you fall down to the bottom area, you get stuck and cannot climb back up, forcing you to hit G to reset the level needlessly. There's also a space to the right that looks like you should be able to walk into it that has a solid wall there instead. With no other challenge here other than the simple platforming to get to the door(not even a die to roll), it feels like a hastily thrown-together transitional room just to pad out the playtime needlessly. The next map is where I actually closed the game in annoyance, because there is a piece of chewing gum above where you start, and platforms that look like you can easily jump along; great visual cue to explore a bit with roots in games going back to the NES era; unfortunately, the issue from the previous area shows up again, with several of the platforms having very bad hitboxes, and the nub sticking out of the wall on the left not actually working; it's a solid wall above where it shows it should be air. After attempting the jump a dozen times with varying distances, just to see if maybe it was the block above the platform beside it that was interfering, I just had enough of the annoyance and stopped playing.

Overall, the theming with the casino design in the backgrounds was great, but the gameplay needs a lot of tuning to get to a state that I'd call good; the jump was very stiff yet floaty at the same time, which felt quite awkward, and though it could easily be gotten used to with a little practice, never lost that feeling of awkward stiffness. The actual level designs beside the background casino theming elements also felt lacklist, being just rounded red brick-like shapes that had weird physics at their edges (I assume the rounded edges had semi-accurate hitboxes and so you'd slide down if too far off the edge?). Music choice was real good, though, so it bumps it up a little bit for me.

Stand-in-place simulator. First level is honestly the most difficult, because you're trying to figure out what to do, since the description on the game's page (where you play it, not the vote page's description) makes it sound like you're actively trying to die, same with the name of the game itself. At least after a few quick gameovers trying to look around the map, I realized that it was just a circular encasement (not a dome) and it was about *not* dying... and that since you weren't forced to move (even if it looks like you're constantly moving thanks to the cloud of dust that is at your feet at all times), standing still was the best way to (not) play. Got through all three levels untouched because of that. The music is also rather grating and a very short loop per stage, which doesn't help things.

Overall, doesn't feel creative at all, doesn't look good or even interesting, doesn't have any interesting aspects to it at all for me.

I think the one thing that would have made it immensely more interesting and fun would have simply been to have Jimmy always moving in the direction he's facing, so you have to actively move him out of the way of obstacles, instead of just sitting there while the game beats itself for you.

Better luck next time.

While the idea of a non-grid-based tower defense is interesting, the execution completely fails here, unfortunately. There's no sound (no SFX or music), and while the instructions are written out on the ground when you start (aside from basic movement, but decades of gaming have solidified WASD for that use, so it gets a pass), you can't reroll your tower selection, you can't take it back if you accidentally place one, placing one messes up the selection cursor so that you no longer are selecting the actual tower you're going to place unless you just place in sequential order from any given tower to the one preceding it, and within just a few short waves regardless of what you rolled, the board gets swamped with so many spawns of the twisting card enemies (that spawn all around you in a large circle and immediately bee-line for you) that are forced into a diamond grid pattern due to sheer numbers, that any semblance of fun is just... not there, for me. Maybe the towers were meant to recharge after placing them, so having more of a certain tower type rolled meant that you could place more of it over time since they had separate timers? But if that intent is the case, it was not executed at all. Playing on a giant casino table is also the only link the game has to the concept of "Casino Royale", so the theming there also misses the mark for me.

Surprised to see a Java game in this day and age; required me to actually go install it fresh. The fact that there's no instructions or direct executable for the game, and you instead need to dig around in the folders to find the JAR file (and then also know what to do with it, or at least have to google it) is an immediate knock against it for presentation, for me. A game should be simple to run out of the box when downloaded, not require rooting around in sub-folders.

That aside, the game itself is mildly enjoyable, but the repetition of the steps of machine learning algorithm setting quickly wears out its welcome, since it becomes a monotonous "find the two that best match or are nearest the properties set as the goal, and then iterate". Once you manage to iterate one that matches, it also just immediately jumps the queue and starts a new goal without even showing you that you got one, other than slapping it down at the bottom of the screen to wander around.

The designs themselves aren't very interesting as well, being width, height, number of arms, and number of legs... with the first two shown by the width and height of the rectangle that is the trunk of these designs, and then single lines branching off from the side for arms or from the bottom for legs. Some of the designs are so tightly packed that there isn't even a gap to separate them, and you quickly end up just reading the values off the information sheet beneath each display instead of looking at the designs, making it feel more like you're playing Amazon MTurk: The Game, confirming values from receipts, or something similarly lackluster.

Even the music, which is somewhat decent, is a fairly generic drum-like beat that wears at your nerves after long enough, since there's no variance to it and you're left feeling more like it's a hammer pounding between your ears after awhile; it doesn't synergize with the gameplay or evoke anything specific, just feels like a backing track added just so it wasn't silent gameplay aside from the SFX bleeps and bloops. Overall, just not that fun to play.

The atmosphere of the game was absolutely fantastic; the music was very evocative, the rune stones in the bowl thrown onto the mat was a great take on runecasting, the book to give some basic instructions was quite nice... but it had some rather glaring problems, in my eyes, though some of these are probably due to the short time period for the game jam. I could easily see this becoming a fun little game to play if it was fleshed out more and had more time to bake in the oven, though.

First off, the fail state comes far too quickly after making a bad selection, so it's far too easy to accidentally brute force options you're unsure of, especially when many of the non-directional selections only consist of two or three options.

Secondly, the rune mat itself, or "board" as it's labelled in the book, doesn't have any explanation for the various sections and what THEIR symbols mean. While there are some example expressions in the back of the book that showed the way, not understanding what each section of the board meant for which runes left me uncomfortably frustrated feeling like I was lacking some important bit of understanding- or worse, that it was just window dressing for theme and actually had absolutely nothing to do with anything, which is what it felt more and more like as I continued to progress towards the end, and if so, is a rather big let-down.

Thirdly, you throw the runes exactly once per questioning period, instead of throwing them for each question, which means that the questions tend to spread out amongst the runes (unless a simple yes/no) so you learn to disregard runes that would have been involved in previous questions, generally. This takes a lot of the mystique out of the experience, and pulls me, at least, out of the immersion that the tent, the low lighting, the beautiful background music, the awesome visuals, everything else works together to present.

The fact that there are so few questions I'm attributing directly to it being a Game Jam game, and a more fleshed out release would likely have many more questions and more variability to it. Because it is just a single path that doesn't change, it lost some points in the enjoyability catagory for me; there's no replayability really once you clear a section, since everything else (that I did not exhaustively test, but I did test a few alternatives) is a fail state. Also, incredibly unfortunately, clicking doesn't advance text to the end of the current block so you can read it all right away, but progresses to the next block of text entirely, meaning that clicking will erase what is being said and skip to the next part unless it's the specific question; good for speedrunning and getting back to where you were off a fail state, bad for frustration with getting to a new part and accidentally skipping it. Combine that with the issues above, and that's why my final score is 3/4/3.

Interesting concept, but the execution felt lackluster, especially with the lack of any instructions on how to play. the enemy rhinoceros beetle can hurt you but just touching you, but even if you hit it from behind you cannot hurt it, so strategy quickly devolves into just luring it into attacking the die by charging into it, since almost all of the die's effects are close-range PBAoE (Point Blank Area of Effect) attacks, rendering gameplay quickly stale.

It was still fun to play as a neat little one-off experience or maybe a mobile phone time waster when sitting on the bus or something of the sort where you play it for a single session and you're done, but it needs a lot more to it to be replayable with any real enjoyment for me; maybe some variables that you can set, more varied attack pool that the die randomizes, the die not activating on simply being touched but needing to actually experience enough rotation to reveal another face, perhaps touching it forcing it to "pop" into the air or something (getting the enemy to sit there touching it on two pips without actually rolling it rapidly cut down its HP), that sorta thing.

Thematically, the game is what it says on the tin; bugs, on a pizza. Never expected an arena battler type dice roller thing, though, and that gets points for creativity from me there. The lacking variety otherwise within that format is why it only gets three points, though. I actually like the pseudo-drawn & paper aesthetic, and think that if given more time than just 24 hours to work on it, that it'd be a much better game.

"Note: There are versions past c5m1.1 available. They're over 500mb in size, which is the max I can upload to itch. Check out the patreon/blog for the newer versions. I'll keep c5m1.1 up here to people can find Harem on the itch service!"