itch.io

Okay, I'm glad I decided to play this one. I really enjoyed the stanley parable vibes of a narrator talking about what you are doing, and being able to sort of go against the narrator. I really like the experience, really nicely done.

I don't think the visuals were bad, kind of an aesthetic you went for with the blank rooms. But there was definitely room for improvement--in the maze room, in the distance I could see light seeping through between the walls and floors. The room with the big eye shooting a laser at you, while I get it it's a big fat laser, was way too bright I actually looked away from my screen or turned my character to face a safe wall.

In terms of audio, I like your choice of sfx when the player spins a thing that was nice and satisfying, and that it was just the narrator's voice most of the time. IMO what I think could be improved here is consistent volume throughout all the levels (perhaps sometimes you spoke louder or were sitting further away from the mic), and pronouncing your words better helps players understand better (this can be a factor at times if the player is busy trying to figure something out and not trying to pay attention to the narrator, a clearer speech makes it less effort required for the player to be able to listen.

Platforming, I mentioned this in the discord, but maybe the platforming for the pencil room could have benefited from a little more time making it a little more forgiving, especially since your game is not necessarily about being good at platforming.... I didn't struggle with the second platforming level. OR maybe I'm just terrible at platforming (which I am), and no one else faced this issue, in which case just ignore this paragraph :D

IIRC I read that you are considering making this an actual game on steam, then I would just request to have a mouse sensitivity and/or FOV slider in your menu. Oh and if you do put it on steam, you might need to change the head with the valve...lol.

The last thing ofc was the totally black room - nothing about it made me think I could leave the game and it would save my progress. Perhaps if this was a loading hint or a hint on the wall on the first levels, then the player might have considered leaving and going back into the game. 

In the end, I'm very happy I tried your game. Definitely the most unique game I've played during the jam, even if I am a little motion sick from it. Great job man!

This is quite a bit of silly fun, and I especially appreciate the Snake mini game. Takes me back and nostalgia is one of those feel good feelings. Also that this is your first game, great job! You made a complete package, didn't over do anything, and were able to finish it on time, definitely give yourself a pat on the back for that.

Now, a couple of things I would improve for future games. Pure black on pure white is always going to be very sharp on the eyes, a good design practice is to use an almost white gray and an almost black gray, and darken/lighten either side when you put it together. Don't be afraid to use two or even three steps off of black/white.

There was one spin that the wheel didn't bring me to a mini game, it looked like it landed in between two sectors, but I had a similar spin before that that also looked like it landed between two sectors which DID bring me to a mini game. Not sure if that was a bug or it just landed in between, but if it was in between sectors, maybe a clearer and more defined line between the two sectors of the wheel would be good for the player to understand what's going on and not get confused.

An in game instructions/tutorial is often overlooked and underrated. Since your game is  a few mini games put together and the player does not know what to expect the first time, it's good to have some kind of instructions per mini game, especially if the game instantly requires the player to react and play, like snake and flapy bird. You might think everyone knows flapy bird, which might be true, but the player does not know they are about to play flapy bird. This will just help the player not feel like the first time at each mini game is not a total throwaway.

The art is definitely no spectacle, but all things considered it doesn't really take away from your game, especially because you stuck to the same visual vibe throughout. Consistency really holds it together, and considering it's your first, it's 7 days, and I'm guessing you did not have a dedicated artist for this. So, not the most amazing, but it does what it needs to and still allows the player to enjoy the game!

Honestly, I did have some fun playing the mini games, and if it wasn't for my groggy eyes I would probably play more rounds. Good job mate!

5/5

Love the art, love the music and all the hamster sfx-never thought i'd be so amused at the death of a hamster at my own hands, the puzzles are nice and satisfying with a nice ramp up and aha moments, lots of variety in the puzzle mechanics. Nice use of the hamster in a cog wheel for the spin to win. I think the only things I could imagine would improve the whole experience is if there was some kind of sign which direction my platform would move when i spin the cogwheel left or right just to make the experience that little bit smoother and re-bindable buttons so i can make the puzzle solving as smooth as possible for the player.

I really like this and would pay real money for an expanded version of this. Great job honestly.

Love the concept, absolutely adorable cat flying off the spinning record sounds! Visually it looks nice and polished.

I do think the background music could have done with more variety (sounded like a really short repeating loop?) and I think the cat was just not fast enough to be able to get many snacks to hang on for very long - i guess that would have added to the enjoyability.

Cute and silly vibes, great job!

Love to see another bullet hell! Yours looks really polished, and it was fun to play for a few rounds but my arm got tired really quickly from having to keep spinning around my player ship trying to get my damage up again. Other than that, I enjoyed yours!

Visual and audio is really nice. 

Gameplay wise, maybe it's just not for me but I felt a lack of something drawing me to want to continue and I was just roaming the halls aimlessly looking for gears and getting lost. I didn't really have a reason to keep going, unfortunately. Perhaps you ran out of time or didn't manage to put a hook together.

I also managed to walk OUT of the designated map into the dark brown areas and roamed a little out there, I'm guessing that wasn't exactly meant to be lol. 

Overall, good job completing and submitting something, also great work on the art and audio.

Visually I really love the vibe it's going for! Tutorial in the main menu is a great choice. Audio is such a vibe and very fitting. And the best thing? I really did just find myself playing it for the fun of it, and thinking to myself "I can do better!"

I did sometimes feel like I got yeeted off the map when I shouldn't have, but maybe that is just the unexpected momentum hitting me in just the wrong spot which caused me to fly further than I expected. I never felt like the game was unfair, so that was really nice. 

I really had fun, so great job to the team, and really love the vibe! 

As a person who really enjoys tetris, I really liked that you used that idea to make custom maze maps! Each run is a little different based on how the player themselves has arranged it, which made me want to try to tactically lay out the bricks... without success lol. 

Nice fun game, like the concept!

Ah I enjoyed this one! At first the controls were confusing to me, the WASD doesn't click as well with the head because the lines are going everywhere, and the tip to just hold the mouse button and drag just led my spider to have a loooooooong queue of actions and for a while I was really confused why it was moving on it's own. Only when I figured out how to control the spider properly and how to pick up caught bugs did start enjoying this game more. 

Nice music, but it was a lil too much for me for the kind of game it is. Visually really cute. Overall, I enjoyed it good job!

I love this lil game!

I really liked the music it was varied enough to keep enjoying it for quite a while, the art style and colour choice is really good-the lil spider is super cute. The idea of this game is also really great.  I liked how I started to have a lil strategy with not just eating everything at one go but pacing it out in between making webs to make the best use of all that energy.

By the time I the tutorial was over, I already forgot that I was supposed to go look for the spiderlings -- too distracted by wanting to catch flies at first, until I saw a comment here saying they found all spiderlings. So I had to go back, restart, and this time with a goal:

So I do think the tutorial could have been paced out a little more, maybe let the player build the web two rounds or so before explaining that they needed to go look for the spiderlings, just to ensure that the player is not too distracted by all the new info about how to play the game by the time they are reading about the goal of the game.

Overall, love it, I'm really glad I stumbled on your game! It was exactly the kind of game I was looking for tonight.

After a few days of voting on game jams and getting mentally tired from doing it, this is the first game I'm checking out today and this game is really so fun and put a smile on my face. What's more it's about bees!
The audio sfx works really well, the spin to boost mechanic is great, the in game tutorial was perfectly simple and easy to understand, the visuals work very well, the vibe is light, and everything about the game is just nice and fun. I honestly don't think there is anything to dislike. The only thing I can think of that could be improved is that the spin counter still goes after the time limit ends if the bee is up in the air--or maybe that's intentional and you wanted it to count until the bee hits the ground again.

Great job! I love this one.

Hey thanks and congrats on beating wave 10!

We've been taking note of these specific control feedbacks, so thanks for your input. Someone previously mentioned controlling where the player is facing with the mouse and a dash towards the mouse would then go very well together as well! Things to consider for after the jam :)

That is really odd about that bug, first we've heard about it, so thanks for letting us know. (woffel just told me he'd just seen the bug ystd as well) Do you mind if I dm you on discord to find out more about this bug?

This is a great lil game! Fun to play, I really like the stylistic visual choice, and the voice reminds me of the "bop it" voice lines and highkey really like that you made a game about disc scratching!

For the first few minutes I was a little confused on how fast or slow I needed to turn, but once I spotted the little hands on the bar on top everything became clearer!

I reckon instructions could be clearer, a little line that explains to look at the top to check the target speed, or a pointer to show the "sell it" when the phone goes off. Not the most complicated concepts, but it would definitely help the player to know what to look for, especially when visually you have a very magazine collage style that pulls the eyes everywhere and nowhere at the same time (unclear visual hierarchy).

I hope more people see your game!

thank you and I ALSO BELIEVE IN YOU!

Hey thanks for trying our game and for your feedback!

We actually did add a little diamond at the top of the player sprite to assist with being able to see which way you're facing even during a spin, BUT perhaps it is still too small. I also really like the idea of having an entire part of the ship that doesn't move during the spin just to add visual clarity, something for us to consider for sure!

We also really wanted to keep the game challenging, as bullet hells usually are, and it just wouldn't be as satisfying to beat if it were too easy, so there was a lot of tweaking numbers in that regard, and if not for the deadline we might have continued to do so. To top it off, I'm simply not as practiced at bullet hell games in general, so it's likewise a bigger challenge for me and usually takes many more tries... lol.

Really hope you still had fun though, and thanks once again for the feedback and suggestions <3

Thank you and glad you had fun! 

It's really interesting to hear the tactic you went for, definitely something for us to consider how to get the player to move (or discourage the player from staying put). Thanks a lot for this feedback!

 "Really hard but not unfair" is something we're really glad to hear you say! We wanted the game to be a challenge, but also still make the player feel like they could be in control and know that it's possible to beat with some practice, so that when they do it would feel great! The fact that you had fun even though you're not the typical target audience makes us happy that we were able to provide that fun.

Thanks for your kind words!

Hey thanks! I totally get what you mean about the controls, I also had to get used to it at first, but the more I played the better I got at it >:)

Hey thanks, it's so fun to hear that you were able to get better and better! And thanks for letting us know about the bug as well! Fortunately it seems to only happen once in forever

This is a fun one. The audio, visuals, and writing do very well together to put the player in the appropriate atmosphere. It's meant to be difficult to bike so you find yourself crashing all the time in silly ragdoll ways and that's always entertaining even when frustrating. As you keep going you will you get better at the controls , but now it throws narrow path ways so you'll still keep crashing.

I think at the start of the game the slides with text could have stayed a little longer on screen- often times it switched away before I could finish reading. And maybe allowing the player a little more practice before a race would have been nicer, or perhaps a slightly better camera angle so it's easier to see the position of the legs (and therefore quickly learn the timing) since the tips does say it's better to pedal when the corresponding legs are at the highest point.

Overall, I enjoyed my time at penny farthing. 

I have now opened the door. Can confirm, it's wonderful. Don't give up, look for the patterns, and you will figure it out.

The only annoying thing about it was when I didn't stop the wheel to be reborn on the right creature leading me to look for a quick death repeatedly, but considering the theme, I get that was implemented to suit it better. :)

Amazing job.

Very solid! 

There was some visual buggyness at the start when going in and out of full screen, but nothing unsolvable with a little refresh of the page.

Once in, I ended up with this game open on my screen for I maybe about an hour going through each level at my own pace and in between doing other things--basically like how I would for other puzzle games I've purchased on steam in the past. I literally forgot I was supposed to rate it during this time, and only remembered about 10 minutes ago. So 5/5. I think the music fades into the background but is not silence, you can forget it's there but it's still putting you in the right mind frame. Visually very clean, I would only make some small changes: a line or box to highlight which row your mouse is hovering on during the level selection(I'm guessing this is more a problem for me with an ultra wide monitor so everything is farther apart) & a label of sorts on the start and end gear which would make that clearer. But this is literally me nitpicking of what last bits could be improved. 

This is great, I want more levels, and I'd love to sit down with this on my deck.

This is a great take on spin! The most unique i've played for sure. Visually it looks spot on. Audio was great, the typewriter sounds were very fitting, the music is a long enough loop that you don't quickly get bored of it, but since I took a long time trying to figure out what words to put together, eventually the bg music DID get a little much of the same jingle. Personally I think a little quietness included in the loop can go a long way to not wear out a player audibly.

In terms of enjoyment, while I loved the spin (hah) and the core game play, it wasn't easy to figure out what good words to put together with such a limited choice. Sometimes I thought of titles but the word options just weren't there which meant I had to read every word every time to figure out what I could possibly do. Now taking into considering this is a game jam game, I can very much understand that's not easy to finetune in 7 days all the word options, connections, and scoring.. at least I assume that was not a simple task. An idea would be to have a smaller world library per round so that there is less reading every round, or a bigger shared library of words so it's easier on the player--then again wanting there to be a certain difficulty is definitely a fair choice to make.

Good game, my brain is now tired. 

Firstly, I really respect the choice of subject matter which you managed to balance out with the 'I'm not taking myself too seriously' style writing, which made the topic laughable. Hats off to you for not shying away from it.  

You've managed to put together a bunch of systems for a strategy game in a WEEK, ALONE.  To me, that's crazy. Ultimately that led to the tutorial dump at the start. Other comments have already mentioned this, the tutorial was very crucial and helpful in game playability, but it could have been done better by pacing it out (which you also mentioned in a reply yourself). I found myself clicking around a little trying to rmb what's what and where everything was. Understandably though you only had a day to put it all in, and with a game like this there is bound to be a shit tonne of information. I also appreciate that you tried to iconise most things on the top bar so that it wouldn't be a words-galore situation, but perhaps some icons could have used some tweaking for player understandability (or perhaps the slower paced tutorial would have already helped with that).

I'm not sure how I feel about a strategy game where you can eventually just sit back and watch the centrifuges go (or in my case had no choice but to, since my money got stuck at 50k from stupid spending), but perhaps for a gamejam that IS better. I am also completely unable to comment on any of the balance for a strategy game cos I don't know shit about that, so I won't :) 

The choice of bg music is nice, it doesn't pull too much attention to itself, fades out for a bit which gives the player respite, but still adds to the atmosphere, I really liked that (I still have it playing while I type this lol). Visually, it's no spectacle, but it did the job and carried the message, so all things considered it doesn't take away from the game.

(I just read the tip about economy before centrifuges. Damn.)

All in all, good job, I appreciate that this exists.

I genuinely think this was such a good idea of a game! Thanks for initiating it!

It's also the one game I keep going back to, gotta get them gears!

When the jam theme was announced, any idea we came up with that has puzzler we instantly took off the board for the simple fact that a good puzzle progression is something we felt would be a very fine balance and need loads of experience to properly balance. The fact that you made a puzzler with good progression is ace! I could definitely get lost playing this.

https://w0ffel.itch.io/serious-space-spinners

This was very well executed. A treat both visually and audibly. Great/clear UI and very well explained! Good job!

Enjoyed it in playtest, enjoyed it now! Good job with the improvements, it really makes it a nicer experience!

Katamari but you are a tornado? I'm glad someone did this! Good execution and feels very smooth - the physics of slowly being able to pick up an item is also very well done. Visually also looks very nice. Never thought being a tornado would be so chill.

Thank you so much! 

Our initial idea that kicked this all off was actually a spin to parry, but while making and testing we realised it didn't feel good hence the switch to this so the player could have more agency over it. That's interesting feedback about the boost, we'll definitely have to keep that in mind. :)

Hey man, thanks! Yeah this was really made for a mouse and keyboard situation. That's a good idea for the dash on shift -- perhaps if we decide to take this further after the jam.. might consider it!

We initially wanted to take care of music and audio ourselves since the idea was to see if we could work together to make a game, but since it was our first game  project we quickly realised we had a lot more to learn in our own sections and wouldn't have time to dabble in the audio ourselves too, so quickly decided it would be better to get some free available works out there (esp with the time constraint). Totally agree though, if this was a full version with plenty of time, we'd have wanted to either do it ourselves or get someone else to do it for us. :)

Thanks so much for your kind words! The best thing for us watching you was how we could tell you were trying to lock in, the fact that you retried even though it wasn't your kind of game, and how you were getting better at the controls with every retry! Thank you so much for playing it for us to see you made our night <3

We did update it!  If you're up for it, do give it another try :) They're not big changes though, just lil tweaks :)

Really disappointed we missed seeing you play our game, but ultimately very glad you had fun (and even got kinda addicted) that's the best compliment we could ask for <3 Thanks!

Thanks and glad you had fun! ^^

Thank you! Glad you liked that part about the tutorial, we were really hoping that would help with learning the controls :)

Thanks man! 

Yeah the controls are not for everyone, especially if you're not used to it. Hope you enjoyed it anyway :)

Hey thanks!

We did have the idea to add more bullet types, other power ups, bullet power ups, and even maybe an upgrade tree, but well... we had to prioritise for the jam so we decided to stick to the core stuff haha. 

This is such a cute and fun little thing. Visually looks very good, really love the ink blood when I take damage. I think the hitbox could have been adjusted a little bit, but overall, I enjoyed this!