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Here is the story:

First 2 days I have been thinking on ideas, I have made the prototype in next 2 days, then I found Dāku post about entering a jam, I showed him the prototype and we joined to make the game. He made all of this soundtrack in just 5 days AND polished my prototype sprites + made a lot more of them, like the mountain icons or logo. He made it crazy fast. In the meantime I was working on code and polishing everything to make an easy kit for creating levels. I made "bigger fragments" from smaller elements to design levels (few patterns of forests, villages etc.) and last two days was a coffe and pizza level designing marathone. I was playtesting the game on my monday morning, and submitted one hour before deadline. Dāku is from Japan and I am from Poland, he had middle of the night when I had a day but he works nights and sleeps days so we were almost aligned with work time. We both work full time and I had some private events in the meantime that I did not wanted to be interuppted by jam.

It was a crazy journey to make this game, but we are proud of our work. Thank you for playing! :)

A solid entry! I was suprised, thought "a classic platformer" and then bam, metroidvania! A really smooth tutorial on how to use your powers (give player a easy level to test them out freely before removing them). I did not finished it, propably that soft lock you are writing about, no way to exit an area, no more upgrades in range.

But it was really fun watching how the main character is growing back with each upgrade, a fun idea :)
I liked both the music and graphics but some sprites were badly readable, I would trade some of visual attractiveness for readability, I could not tell what some of the sprites represent.

A solid entry! I was suprised, thought "a classic platformer" and then bam, metroidvania! A really smooth tutorial on how to use your powers (give player a easy level to test them out freely before removing them). I did not finished it, propably that soft lock you are writing about, no way to exit an area, no more upgrades in range.

But it was really fun watching how the main character is growing back with each upgrade, a fun idea :)
I liked both the music and graphics but some sprites were badly readable, I would trade some of visual attractiveness for readability, I could not tell what some of the sprites represent.

Wow, thank you for this amazing comment :) You passed the game!

You actually... understood what I had in mind designing the gameplay. And what's more, the ideas you gave here are awesome (map showing, the smoke from house!). What I thought about gameplay after reading most of the comments is that I made it too hard to be enjoyable by anyone - and that's my mistake. I thought about more "Mario" way of doing it, one main path down the mountain thats fun and smooth with not a lot of points where you need to "do something" (ex 1-4 depending on the difficulty) to pass the level AND alternate routes that give you more possible points or optional Medal, that are hard.

That being said I must admit - I have done the levels design on last 2 days. It was a long coffe and pizza marathone and I focused on making them stand out so every one has something orginal, to not be repepetive. Tatra Twist has a... Twist, Ever Everest is the most vertical and has sharp edges, Fiery Fuji has stairs, Japanese structures and the biggest forrest in game and Over Olympus has everything mixed plus some crazy designs.

Thank you for playing!

Thank you for playing! Gameplay came out a bit unbalanced in later levels for sure. :)

Thank you for playing! :)

Yeah, level 3 is a bit too crazy. I wanted to make it the most vertical level in the game, so most of the time you fall and miss things. How unlucky! Thank you for playing! :)

Thank you for playing!
I tried to leave a lot simple edges and faces on terrain polygon to make it look authentic, but without freeform envrioment this game would not exist :)
Yeah, gameplay came out a bit unbalanced, too frustrating.

Thank you for playing!

I haven't heard of the game, I was inspired more with games like Elastomania, Line Rider or Rock of Ages.
Gameplay came out unbalanced, players need a lot of replays, skill and luck to get past the levels. It gets frustrating - but some could say it's gameboy soul ;)

How unlucky! Thank you for playing! :) Gameplay came out unbalanced, needs a lot of replays, skill combined with luck to pass the levels.

How unlucky!

Gameplay could be better balanced for sure, I was rushing with level design. Thank you for playing! :)

I thought about Line Rider when I came up with game idea :) Thank you for playing!

Thank you for playing! :)

Thank you for playing!

The timer and score race for sure turned out to be a bad idea. But actually... the unlucky mechanic is that... you miss things. There is even a tunnel trap, if you accidentaly fall to it, bad luck, you miss the house above.

Yeah, our unluckness relies more on the story and game events overall, not a specific unlucky mechanic.

Thank you for playing!

The tunnel is intentional trap, less points than destroying the house above. But sometimes trees block you from getting out and that's a bug! 😅

Hey! I did not not said you wasted my time. Every entry is worth spending time on. I said it's sad the game is unifished because this could be interesting if you had a bit more time to finish it, maybe do something creative. I just said that for me gameboy means creative games and the template you have used for this demo is not. It's too simple for a gameboy game (even if it was finished). For me gameboy means: Pokemon Pinball, Trip World, Kirby, Gargolyes Quest etc. And it's a bit disappointing to see next game that is RPG maker style point and click. It's a honest feedback, if the theme would be "blocks" every obivous tetris clone would be a bit disappointing.

Amazing style! Graphics here are top tier. The music was ok but it's really short so get's annoying really fast. Gameplay is sadly boring, most of the time I just mashed the spacebar during fights without looking at the dices or cards because it is pure... luck. Oh an the humor is amazing too.

Sad it's not finished, It could be a interesting entry. I like the music. What's a bit disappointing is that it's a n-th game I play about unlucky cat, too obvious. And gameplay is also terribly cliched, sooo simple (even if it was finished) it's a n-th game I see, rpg-engine-style about unlucky cat that is "walking around fixing unlucky things". Could be more creative on that.

These cutscenes are really detailed and well drawn!

At first - game makes amazing first impression, well done! Music and graphics are charming. I have few gameplay objections:
- the idea with abilities is nice but levels are so "open" that most of the time best strategy is rushing with double jump, if you lose it then you are forced to use rush or something else. Otherwise double jump is always best option.
- combination of camera and player movements are bad in this small resolution screen, too fast/instant/not sticked to character, I am not sure hos to "fix it", propably would be better if camera was more static on character like in Gargoyles Quest 2 (GB/GBC). I got a bit of naussea after playing for few minutes.
- reloading level animation on falling of the screen is frustrating, you feel like you lose time while you could be trying again, take inspiration from modern platformers like Celeste, after failing you need to get going as fast as possible, 1-2 seconds of animation is enough.

I lost the witch battle, could not figure out what to do. Did not wanted to play again from the start so I did the same I would do with gameboy game - trun it off! The gameboy soul for sure is strong in this one! I liked overall style. I am not a fan of beat-em-up's but the game was well done! Nice work!

Thank you for playing! The game turned out to be too hard, therefore frustraiting for many players...  Gameplay design has some obvious flaws but let's keep saying it's a part of gameboy authenticity! 😜

I beat the game.  (sadly no ending screen? just infinite bugs minigame) Here is a honest review with things that could go better in game:
- Pixel scale is changing beetwen images and that looks bad (some sprites have pixels 1x1, some 2x2 and envrioment elements are even bigger
- Music is a bit squeaking, It gets annoying over time.
- Gameplay is planned badly, there is no hidden design how directing the player so you just wander around some empty fields clicking on everything
- Shatter bugs mini game had a lot of lag in my case and bugged out with collision from up side so I had problem gathering them from up.
- Secondary theme not very creative here. I feel like it's just an rpg maker game that was pelted with symbols of bad luck

Neverthless congratulations on finishing the game jam sucesfuly! Every game deserves a moment of time in game jams. I bet this is one of your first games so that's a success in itself.

Haha, missclick? How unlucky! Thanks a lot! That level select thing would be intuitive ui upgrade for sure :)

Thanks for playing! We are proud how the game turned out :)

Thank you for playing! :)

Thank you for playing! 😁

Hi there! I just released the demo of a game. Brotato-inspired game with unique weapon elements system, nice effects and addicting drawing engine. Demo is a complete vertical slice of what i plan to do with it. Play and leave me your feedback :)

You can watch a trailer bellow.

Download link:
https://anatomia-gier.itch.io/cowboy-cheeze

If you played the game and liked it please leave me feedback at this form: https://forms.gle/nxCKMBHZ4vHBt7oe7

Thanks!

Its hard to say something bad about this game. Everything is so smooth, solid and polished! This game is small pice of art. Well done!

Thanks for playing! :) I am happy that you have noticed my attention to use of colros! Sound - as mentioned in description - is a little bit awful because these were my first attempts to creating my own sound and music. I used LMMS emulation of real GB sound chip. But lack of knowledge where you land is the essention of gameboy games! Gargolyes Quest is one of my first real gameboy cartridges and oh boy, i hate this game. You jump into the pit where in the end there are spikes, and you need to click jump in time to be able to float for a second and stick to the wall. In here you can also jump just before spikes or enemies, just be quick.

Thanks for playing and feedback! :) I agree that sometimes it would be useful to just tap the jump.

Thanks for your time :) I agree, it would be nice to make checkpoints after every door but you know - the time has run out for me. Have a nice day!

Really great game, came back to play again after first time (revewing). There should be an option to "trash cargo" or something, because i came to the moonbase having 2 2x2 items and they already had 2x2 items so i could'nt swap them...

Its soo cool that you made a rouglike type of game! Its really missing soundtrack - next time try making something in LMMS (there is gameboy chip emulation) like me, it will propably little anoying (like mine) but thats better than complete slience :) Neverthless game is really addictive - i really like rougelikes and even being so short - its a good one!

Thanks for playing! I wanted this game to have as much personality as it can so even monsters have their iddle animations. I wish i managed my time better during this jam because i wanted to add kirby-like dance winning animation after you defeat boss :)

Hej, gra jest super! Bardzo podoba mi się ścieżka dźwiękowa i wizualna. Przyznam że to najoryginalniejszy typ gameplay'u jaki widziałem na tym gamejamie, podoba mi się :) Jedna rzecz której się czepię (bo czepiam się zawsze jak widzę) to coś o czym sam napisałeś, utrata ducha gameboy'a przez upscaling i nie przestrzeganie "pixel perfekcyjności" wyświetlacza. Pixele grafiki nie zgadzają się z pixelami ekranu. Byłby dużo lepszy retro feeling gdyby było zrobione 1:1 :) Ale wszystkie gry na Unity które tu widziałem zrobione są w ten sam sposób - upscaling i brak pixel prefectu. Nie mniej, gratuluję dowiezienia tak dopracowanej i skomplikowanej gry na gamejam, moja jest znaaacznie prostsza mechanicznie :) 

Hej, miło Cię tu widzieć :) dzięki za opinię, muzyka była tworzona naprawdę na szybko i to są moje pierwsze w życiu próby tworzenia muzyki, użyłem programu LMMS z emulacją oryginalnego soundchipu gameboy'a.  Też uważam że jest zbyt piszcząca i przede wszystkim zbyt krótka. Zależało mi na klimacie gier typu Kirby Dreamland, Gargolyes 2 czy Mario Land i cieszę się że to wyszło :)

I really liked it! Clever idea, nice graphics, music. It has a soul! Good job, awesome game!