itch.io

I do not know what's up with that, but it seems be having a problem casting the boolean output of the previous comparison into the number it expects for the comparison. I don't know why its broken for you, but if it does need to be fixed I think you would have to put a "branch" node to use as a ternary operator (true is 1, false is 0) and feed that into the comparison.

Seeing as you are excited about your game's music, might I suggest "MIX." by puddingdee

https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/2580810

Yes, although I had opened up the dialogue file and poked around a little after the alt-f4 so I didn’t end up missing out on the proper experience. Not really much you can do to fix alt-f4, unfortunately.

I was definitely aiming for it being unsettling (gotta match the theme somehow). Nice to know it worked!

Thanks for affirming my choice of default theme! And it’s nice to know the capsule* isn’t as obvious as I had assumed (definitely my “I’ve spent 6 hours with this game” blindness).

If you know unity (shader graph & c#) you can look at the assets, but I can do the summary here. I’ve already explained the basics of the audio in a different comment, and the visuals aren’t too complicated. I render normally (without lighting), then have a shader that randomly changes the pixel depending on brightness (50% bright (corners) = 50% chance of changing, 100% (capsule) = 100% chance, etc). I have to save and pass in the last frame to keep track. Then I have another shader that applies the theme’s colors.

*Not important, but I used yttrium because it’s an element I really like. It’s used to make superconductors.

Thank you for the compliments. If you can believe it, I even had a version without the “you win” glitch, but uploaded the wrong file!

Also, it’s my first time using shaders, so thank you even more for your thoughts on that! 

Yeah, I agree the movement was probably too slow. I balanced the movement when the enemies were harder to see, then completely neglected to update it. Oops!

Honestly, clearing the screen was more of a tech demo sort of feature (and made it take time frozen so not the entire game uses it continuously). Thanks for bringing it back into my attention, I definitely should have done more with it!

The actual gameplay wasn't the best, although I can tell that wasn't the focus. The combat doesn't really have any skill, or is very difficult to actually avoid attacks. Being good at the combat isn't necessary, however, as the focus is the story.

The story was a nice, short, philosophy question and a brief exploration of it. The actually way is was shown was nice and engaging, particularly the way it worked with the audio.

The presentation was amazing, I liked the art style and the artistic choices were nice. I do know some people don't like "pixel art" that is just downrezed 3d models, which is what I believe this to be, but I don't like the aesthetic. Particularly of those that you can fight.

Mine is https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/2574400

Very bold github URL.

Honestly, very underrated game (not as in "poorly rated" as in "I am the first person to rate").

It's certainly a small experience, but it's fun just a pleasant experience all around. I will say it is very easy to miss the content, however. I usually leave games with alt-f4, and to do something you need to hit the quit button.

Bank sometimes fails to properly dispense rat. 10/10 game

You seem to understand correct.

The base note always has a factor of randomness, but the range of possible values are configured based on the scenarios.

You don't actually need any plugins! If there is an audiosource or audio listener attached to an object you can use the OnAudioFilterRead function to set the actual values of the audio output youself as a float between 0 and 1.

Aight, imma write an essay explaining how I did the audio. Whether you want it or not.

I start with waves. I draw the waves in the form of a unity animation curve. Essentially just drawing out the wave (like how a synth might use a sine wave, triangle wave, or square wave).

Then I move into instruments. I hand made several instruments which are several waves played at various frequencies relative to the "note frequency," which is what it is being played at.

The next level is chords. A chord is several frequencies relative to a base frequency. These are used later by the bass and melody. I hand make a selection of these to be chosen from.

A side note about base frequency, every ~10 seconds I change the base frequency, which is like changing the note being played at on a piano. This change is relative to the past frequency and cannot exceed a certain range. It also doesn't need to line up with conventional tuning, these notes probably don't exist on most keyboard.

The bass and melody both work similar in the backend, except the bass is an octave down (1/2 the bass frequency). These are hand made selections of notes from the chord played in a certain order and for a certain length. Essentially just short clips from sheet music.

I then add effects after, primarily a static and modulation effect.

All of these things would ideally be selected based on the scenario (if you are looking at an enemy, how close, how quickly you are moving, etc.) but I was not able to do most things like that, so the actual responsiveness is limited.

Honestly incredible

To quote Maksymillian, "This is awesome"

To further quote Maksymillian, "I'm the worse sound engineer ever"

It's a really cool idea, but even having read the guide, what I'm doing is unclear. Playing with the stuff is fun, however.

Yes I did! The assets are available for download if you want to look for yourself, but if that's too much (which it probably is) I added up an average of about 6 waves of different frequencies and waveforms. Each of the waveforms I drew using an animation curve: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/animeditor-AnimationCurves.html.

Realized I didn't give it an informal rating! I meant to include that!

The jam's criteria are:

Gameplay, Really quite fun, though there is definitely some possible improvements. 8/10

Presentation, the atmosphere was AMAZING and it definitely was well made. The only problem I had was the text being a little funky, but that's just clashing with my style. 9/10

Originality, the enemy isn't much more than a generic look and run/chase enemy (like the bracken from lethal company) and the pac-man objectively isn't anything innovative. The start was top tier, however, and the meshing of the elements is done in an interesting way. 7/10

Great Game! The aesthetic is great, and audio designing really works to build it up! The environment is well designed and the intro is engaging.

The gameplay isn't anything new however (fair given that you made it in two weeks), I was super excited for thinks changing depending on where you look like in the introduction. Also, it is frustrating to have the enemy seemingly randomly decide whether to kill you or run away. You can't really do anything to stop the monster.

I assume you are talking about unity. I tried to use a custom shader and it didn't work. I suspect built in shaders all work, and there is likely a way to get custom shaders to work.

It's not going to be easy to find free hosting for a server. Those cost quite a bit to upkeep.

If you really don't want to pay another service, you are going to have to host it yourself, on your own computer.

Composing music is for NERDS. I'm doing a procedural music system (it sounds even worse than one might expect).

But for real ambient noises seems like it might fit better than music with the aesthetic.

Hints are good! Especially in jams, where you don't have the time to make sure all the puzzles are the right difficulty.

Rad so far

Non euclidean geometry is a mess to render. How do you plan to go about doing so?

Voicemod doesn't use AI. It has been around since 2009, it is just traditional audio processing techniques. No neural networks or anything of the like anywhere, unless they have a voice replication service in addition to their normal filters.

The only relevant rule is "all submissions must be open source and hosted on GitHub"

This does allow you to upload it after completion, as long as all the files are there.

I will say that using github while doing the project is easy to do and error resistant (so a crash doesn't ruin everything). Github desktop has plenty of explanation and isn't too difficult to use: desktop.github.com

I would like clarification on whether or not the reuse of old files is allowed if they were made by the creator but not publicly published before the jam starts.

Obviously a game can't be remade using only those assets due to the theme, but could, for example, a creator reuse a character controller that was previously used? Or a shader they made to achieve a specific effect?

Yes. They should be able to rebuild and modify your game with the project files you upload to github.

Doesn't that contradict it being open source? Open source implies that it can be modified and redistributed. If you want the developers to maintain all rights, you should change the phrasing from "all submissions must be open source and hosted on GitHub" to "all submissions must have their source code publicly accessible."

The project files need to be stored on the computer, so as long as you upload everything your computer uses to open it, it should be good.

skill issue

Very bell curve.  Average is 14-15.

30 is far more than average. I'd legit say you are in the top 20%. I still rate yours anyway because more is always better.

If you want to you can rate mine https://itch.io/jam/wowie-jam-4/rate/1662496

Thank you. Yes, the lack of prediction is a part of it. I tried to go for reaction being the main interface with the game.

Thank you.

Thank you. I enjoy the bloom and basic aesthetic. What would you have changed to improve the visuals if you can?

Simplicity: Very simple, just run and gun.

Fun: Controls were kind of awful. Actually really awful. You having to hold the up arrow to jump? Not just jump higher, but jump at all. Also, maybe the bullets shouldn't be a child of the player.

Creativity: Creative story and concept, not too creative of mechanic.

Visuals: The UI is great, but you know how the game itself is.

Sound: Great music. Really adds to the game, rather than just being there.

On topic: Don't know which AI you are cooperating with. Because you play as the AI.

Great job going through the effort of a leaderboard.

Simplicity: Super simple, but in probably the best way.

Fun: Gloriously hard. Not for everyone, but I absolutely loved the difficulty! It was fun to restart, though I wish there was a key that would allow you to speed it up. It was still super satisfying even while waiting.

Creativity: Super creative, both in terms of story and in terms of mechanics. 

Visuals: Loved the aesthetic in every way.

Sound: One of the strongest soundtracks I've seen.

On Topic: I'm normally very harsh on controlling the AI rather than cooperating with it, but the way you did it feels like cooperating.

If you look at my past feedback it is normally much more harsh than this, but this is an amazing game. Legitimately the best I've seen in this jam. I'd pay for an extended version of this. Heck, I'd have payed a dollar for the experience you did give me (if I knew how great it'd be).

My average wowie rating is usually a 2-3. I gave this a 5.

Simplicity: Hyper simple, hyper awesome.

Fun: Very neat game feel (juice) and solving it is super satisfying. I wish there was more, as most of it felt like a tutorial. I do wish your tiles clicked into the perfect spot and you would know which way the robot would start moving in.

Creativity: Not an entirely original idea, putting instructions for the AI, but it was creative to put it on the board rather than elsewhere.

Visuals: Loved the design for the tiles, but the robot and the trail felt quickly done.

Sound: The audio restarting every level was a little annoying, but I still liked the sound.

On Topic: Felt like controlling the AI, not cooperating, but that is a super common interpretation of the theme.

Great ideas!

I'm not trying to justify myself, it is how it feels that is important, not how it is, but I'm just going to say that the game would be FAR harder without it. I probably should have made it more of an ally though.