itch.io

This game is so cute. It has such a sweet and cozy vibe to it. The art is wonderful and the animations are delightful. I really enjoyed wandering around, and I loved getting to feed Nessie.

The exclamation mark during the fishing animation confused me at first. I thought it was an indication of a quick time event and so clicked again. My partner pointed out that I didn't need to do anything else once I started fishing, and that getting a fish seemed to be based on the fish jumping animation. Adding a quick time event or other interaction could be a nice addition to the fishing.

I think it might be nice if you used a different background color for the cave. The dark green color works really well in the forest, and worked well in the yurt, but it stood out to me in the cave. It made the cave feel less natural, and made it feel smaller. Using a similar color for the background that you used for the top of the rocks could help it feel less square and box-like and more cave like. The sharp lines between the rocks and the background may also be part of why it stands out to me. The transition between the forest and the background has a leafy feel and the general shape of the play area felt nice, and the yurt has curves that match the shape of it. The area you can walk in in the cave felt natural and cave like; continuing that shape instead of turning it into a square could be another way to make it feel less jarring.

Overall, you have a really good start for a game, and you did a lot of really good work. It would be fun to see where you take it if you keep working on it. (I love the idea of having a garden to interact with! Maybe you can feed Nessie more than just fish?)

This is a decent start for a puzzle game. I liked the core game mechanic of switching between day and night to help solve puzzles. I think it might have been better to use a single key to switch, instead of two different keys, as I regularly clicked the wrong key when trying to switch. I liked that you could move with either WASD or the arrow keys, even if you only mentioned the arrows in the tutorial.

On my first playthrough, the score had a lot of decimal places. I didn't even realize there were also number of keys listed because of score covered it up. I acknowledged picking up keys, but I thought they were simply another thing to increase score. The locked doors aren't very clear in game (I thought they were up arrows at first), which made the keys seem less important at first. When I reset my game completely, my score was a whole number, which made playing easier.

The controls felt very sensitive to movement. It was really easy to move too many spaces without meaning to, even when I was actively trying to be mindful how I pressed an arrow key. It would be nice to have an option to free movement like you have now and moving only one square per button press. I would personally prefer holding something like Shift for free movement and standard movement be square based, but I could see it working the other way as well.

I think it would be helpful if there was an undo button or some other way to deal with moving a block into a corner. With how sensitive the controls are, it was easy to accidentally move a block into a space I couldn't move it out of or use it to clear a space I didn't plan to.

The contrast between the walls and spaces was a little hard to see on the day mode. There were a couple of times I couldn't figure out why I wasn't moving forward because I didn't realize there was a wall there. The contrast was much better on night mode. It is possible the issue is my monitor settings, but having an in-game way to increase the color contrast, or using a sharper contrast in general, could be helpful for some players.

There were a couple of times when I switched from day to night and visa versa, and was on a "dodge" space without being sent to a checkpoint.

You have a cool idea here and it has potential. It just needs more work.

Nice to see you again, ChanceOfFire. Another enjoyable visual novel, as always.

This one felt very low stakes, causal, and sweet, and it did that well. While most of the choices were more about giving your character a bit of personality and didn't make a huge difference to the overall story, they still felt like there was a difference. At no point did I feel like there was a wrong choice, but I still felt encouraged to make choices that felt right to me. Sometimes it's nice to play a game that is just a simple and sweet walk in the park, and this felt like that.

I enjoyed looking for the magnifying glasses to collect the memories. I liked that I could look at each memory at the flower house, and learn a little bit more about the characters. I think it would have been nice if there had been a memory at each of the different locations you could visit, instead of only having six. The first several locations I visited all had memories to find, so once I got all six I wasn't sure whether or not the other locations didn't have memories at all or if they didn't have them because I already found six. I played through a second time going to places in a different order to make sure I didn’t miss anything. If you wanted to add more, I could see either only letting you find six in a single playthrough (thus encouraging someone to play again to see the others), or adding a second page to the memory page so you could collect them all in a single play working.

The watercolor backgrounds were lovely. They did a good job of setting the feeling of each location and were just pretty to look at. I think it would have been nice if the map had a similar look and feel to the other backgrounds though. The characters being a different art style worked, so that they were clear and stood out, but the map being different felt a little jarring to me.

I did notice a couple of typos.

When I picked "Aiden" for the hero's name, the name used in game was "Arthur". When I picked "Elaine" for the heroine's name, the name used in game was "Diane". The other names all seemed to match up just fine.

When deciding whether you wanted to use assist mode or not, the disable option said "moe" instead of "mode".

At the River, there was a point where it said "This should be a good spot for a wefie" which I think was suppose to say "selfie".

One other note I wanted to make in regards to something you said in the devlog (and it's something I sometimes need to remind myself of as well). If making VNs is something that brings you joy and/or comfort, it's okay to make more even if they're not getting the views and plays you might hope for. If it's something you enjoy doing, it's good to do even if it's just for yourself. Of course, if you are starting to feel burnt out by them or otherwise aren't enjoying them as much, taking a break is absolutely the right thing to do. Don't feel like you need to keep making more if they just aren't hitting right for you at the moment. I just don't want to see a fellow creative person giving up something they enjoy because it's not popular enough, you know?

Another thing to acknowledge, one of the best ways to get other people to view and play your games if you are putting them into jams is playing and commenting on other people's games. The first couple of jams we were both in, I didn't notice you being very active in them and that had me putting your games as ones to play only after playing other folks if time allowed. I was really happy seeing your comments on this jam (not just to my game, but others as well), and it makes me more likely to play your games in other jams moving forward.

I liked how you took a city builder type of game and zoomed it into a smaller community. The smaller scope felt like a nice difference from the usual city builder. The goal of kicking out BigRealty was particularly fun.

It took me a bit to figure out how to move my character, as it didn’t really feel intuitive to me to click on the thing I needed to interact with and then click on the road to move. I did figure out how to move by selecting the building I wanted to interact with and then clicking a second time, but in my first playthrough I wasn't able to get it to work until I finished the tutorial. It might have been an issue on my end, because my partner didn't have any issues with it from the start and when I started a new game it worked just fine.

I didn't really acknowledge the Ratings on my first playthrough, which had me a little confused as to why I couldn't establish certain buildings even when I had the funds for it. On my second playthrough, after I had the basics mostly figured out, I was able to spend more time figuring out some of the other ideas. The Ratings felt like they were suppose to be an important part, but they felt a little outside of the core gameplay. I think it might be helpful if you were to expand the tutorial a bit to include more of the Ratings and what they are for.

I was regularly feeling like I was running out of money. One of the Goals mentioned finishing a job, but it wasn't very clear how to get a job. Even after reading the itch game page and the devlog, it took me several plays before I figured out how to do a job, and thus gain extra money for more buildings. The job listing looked more like set dressing than like something I could click on and interact with.

I didn't acknowledge that the background of the different houses was an indication of whether or not I could rally them. It wasn't until my partner pointed it out that I realized that that was what I was missing. Afterwards it made sense, but I completely missed it at first. I lost a few games because I couldn't figure out how to rally houses because the ones I went to were already rallied. I noticed that the first game I played after starting the program was fairly easy to win, but playing a new game felt more difficult.

I wish it had been clearer how to stop moving after I selected a location to travel to. There were a few times where I was traveling the long way around a gate because I forgot which one I had already opened, and I didn't know how to cancel my movement so I could go straight to the gate to open it up. Similar to the houses, I completely missed the change in the background color after rallying them. These could use with a more clear indication when they are open.

The UI in general could use improvement. I could figure things out, but it wasn't very intuitive to me. It wasn't always clear what I could and couldn’t click on, and some of the information when I could click on UI elements wasn't very clear. Improving the UI would help draw people in.

Once I figured things out, I did have fun with this. I played it multiple times, in part to try to give you good feedback, but also because I was enjoying it. It needs more play balancing and more polish, but it has a lot of potential to be a really fun game.

I got to the end of the demo and wasn’t ready for it to be done. Your world building and descriptions really drew me in and I wanted more. I loved the inclusion of the Codex, and being able to use it as a way to give the player knowledge that the character would already know. Your world is well thought out. It feels like it’s more than just the setting for this story, and that you could tell multiple different stories here.

I greatly appreciated the inclusion of trigger warnings, and the way you included them. I like that you gave each chapter its own warning, as it gives the players a chance to take a break if they aren’t in the right head space for what that chapter will include. I also liked that at the beginning you gave the option to turn off the trigger warnings for people who don’t want any sort of spoilers. I also really liked the fact that you mentioned on the itch page that your character is gender-locked female and will experience pregnancy as part of the story. It left me feeling like you are putting care into how you deal with triggering issues.

I also was really excited to see the mention of optional poly routes in the features. It’s a delight to see polyamory representation and to see it being treated as an option with certain choices. Far too often it’s either completely ignored, even if you can date multiple people it’s never mentioned between characters, or not allowed at all once you start dating someone. The story looked interesting even before I read that part, and seeing that made me want to play even more.

I liked how in game you gave the option to change the font size and style. When I was in full screen, increasing the font size higher than 130% resulted in the menu not scaling well and things were cut off on the sides. At 200%, the size drop down was almost completely off screen, and I could only barely click on it to change it to a lower size. When I was out of full screen, the menu scaled just fine with each font size and carried over the proper scale when I went into full screen.

I’m really looking forward to playing more when you release the next part.

You did a good job making your characters feel like real people. Even though I was only seeing a small snippet of their life, they felt like there was more to them. It helped me feel engaged in the story and had me wanting more when it was done.

I liked how when I finished the prologue, there was a score card letting me know how I did. It encouraged me to go back and play through it again to try to find what I had missed. The next part was also called prologue, instead of Chapter 1. I only acknowledged that it probably should have said Chapter 1 because of reading your devlogs, as that part still felt like it could be part of the prologue.

I was also grateful for the content warning at the beginning of the game. It let me mentally prepare myself and make sure I was in the right headspace before beginning. You may want to include a comment about child abuse in it. I know for some people that is a bigger trigger for them, so a little advanced warning might be a good idea.

I noticed a couple of issues. The next morning, some of the text for places like the bathroom and the puzzle on the table were the same as they were after you checked on mom and before returning to your room overnight.

The other one was after I completed the game and tried start a new one. It skipped the opening part, going straight to mom calling Sara down for dinner. It continued to the turning off the TV scene, where I could still see the New and Load options on screen. When I tried to turn the TV off, I got the following error message: “Video con ID 02 non trovato”. I had to close the game completely in order to restart from the beginning.

I can’t really say that I had fun playing the game, but I do think it is a good game and worth playing. So far you are handling a rough subject matter well and with care.

I know that trying to account of every possibility in something like this is a near impossible task, but there were definitely a several points that I wished I could have given my actual answers. As an example, in the first scenario, I wish there had been an option to talk to the cabin boy instead of just taking the captain’s word that the cabin boy was okay with sacrificing himself for the rest. I didn’t fully trust the captain, so I didn’t know if I actually believed him when he told me the cabin boy was okay with it. If the cabin boy said it himself, my choices likely would have been different. Even more than that though, I wish there had been an option to sacrifice myself to save the others. While yes, the later scenarios did have some self sacrifice type of options, spending money to save lives and paying higher taxes don’t have the same weight as offering my life to save others.

In general, I felt like the choices I was given were very limited for discussing moral dilemmas, as were the interpretations of those choices. I wasn’t going to eat the cabin boy, not because I am morally against the idea of sacrificing one to save many, but because I didn’t trust the captain was telling me the truth. Fixing the car part made the most sense, not just because lives were more important than money but because knowing this was a problem and doing nothing would be worse for the company’s image than stepping up and fixing it. Not wanting to government to read people’s personal messages has more to do with my government showing itself to be untrustworthy than because of thoughts of personal freedom and privacy.

I tried playing a second time thinking of my character as someone different instead of me, but it still just felt flat to me. I felt like I was being lectured more than taking part in a game or even really a discussion. It felt like it was pushing one idea of what morals should look like, and I didn’t feel like I really had the option make a different argument if I disagreed. I may have had some choices I could make, but it felt like I was being pushed in one direction.

I think the idea of this game is interesting, but it feels very limited for the topic.

Thank you so much for explaining how the spyglass works.  I completely missed that I could click on it to use it.  I will have to go play around with it!

This was so much fun. The story was super cute and gave a nice backdrop for the game play. I liked the interactions between Grandma and McKenzie; they were really sweet and wholesome. The artwork was beautiful and made me want to keep going back to see what else I could see.

I would have liked a little more control with the camera. There were times where I felt like I got more of my character into the shot than I had thought I would. Maybe include a “no character” mode or something similar, so that you can get pictures without worrying about the character being in the way of the shot.

It would have nice to be able to enlarge the pictures when I got back to Grandma. For me, part of the fun of games with picturing taking elements is being able to take a closer look at the pictures afterwards and look for details I might have otherwise missed before. Similarly, it would have been nice if there was a way to look at old pictures you had taken. I know only being able to keep the last 3 pictures I took in each run was part of the gameplay loop, but I would have loved to have an option to save your best/favorite photos for a photo gallery. Again, for me part of the fun of these kinds of games is being able to take a bunch of pictures and look back over them again. Sometimes I just get that perfect shot, and even if I go back through the level I can’t quite recapture it.

I played on my computer, and mostly used my keyboard. I found the controls to be alright. The in game explanation made sense, and I was able to pick it up fairly easily. I think the biggest thing I was missing was the ability to move backwards. I feel like that would be easy enough to do for keyboard, but I don’t know how best to implement it for mobile/touch. Since you are designing this as primarily a mobile game, I understand why it wasn’t included.

I would have loved to be able to spend more than a minute at each location. They were so beautiful, and I wanted to spend more time exploring and enjoying. Having multiple spawning locations for each world was wonderful, but I still wanted more time. That said, I think the 1 minute time limit lends itself well for a mobile game. It gives players a very clear and defined amount of time they can expect to spend on any one run, and the short time works well for someone who might be on the go and only have a few minutes of game time. It was easy to be able to return to the same location if I wanted to go back to it and spend more time there, and the multiple spawn points did allow for greater exploration.

I liked that you had a score for the photos, without making it a requirement for getting to new locations. They gave a low-stakes goal to work towards, while still encouraging me to just take pictures because I liked the shot.

I wasn’t completely sure how the spyglass worked. Other than letting me see the dwarf NPC that one time, I didn’t really notice it making much different in game. Was I missing something, or is it going to be more of a feature as you continue working on the game?

I really enjoyed playing this one. Sometimes it is nice to be able to just wander and enjoy looking at beautiful things for the sure joy of it.

This felt unsettling and left me with more questions than answers. I had a pretty good idea what sort of deal had been made between the two villages early on, but I still was left wanting more details. I wanted to learn more about the village and your role in it. I wanted to know more about the relationship between the main character and her sister. Were things different this time because of who was picked, or was it because of how long this arrangement had been going on? You don’t need to answer any of them, of course, but I was left wanting more.

The art style has a surreal feel to it, leaving me with more of an impression of what I was seeing instead of a firm image. I think it worked well for the game, helping give it that unsettling and supernatural feeling.

Some of the sound effects felt a little loud compared to the music. I was pretty sure in some cases that was deliberate, to be startling and make the player jump, but at times the sound effects felt too loud. I liked that I could adjust the music and sound volumes separately, though it would have been nice if there had been an example sound effect when adjusting the sound to help let me balance things better.

In the Help menu, it mentions being able to use the mouse scroll wheel to go back to earlier dialogue or move forward to later dialogue. In game, the scroll wheel did not seem to do anything. I had acknowledged that the “Back” option in game was greyed out, so had figured you had disabled that feature completely. You may want to see if you can change the default Help text so that it doesn’t include options that aren’t used in your game.

I found the game to be a little overwhelming, but it’s also not the kind of game I usually play. I think someone who plays and likes this style of game would enjoy this.

The warning about Esc on a web browser and giving the ability to change the keyboard shortcut at the very beginning was greatly appreciated. I often play games in fullscreen, and have accepted that in many cases I have to hit Esc twice (first to exit fullscreen, second to do what I need to in game) when playing. It’s always a plus when games give the option to remap keyboard keys, and I liked that you gave that option in the settings page. The warning about Esc felt above and beyond the usual remapping options, and manually changing it resulted in smoother gameplay for me. I also liked how when remapping keyboard keys, when I changed something to a key that was already in use, it swapped the two keys automatically. When I reset one of the two, however, it did not reset the other one, so you could still end up with two different things set to the same key.

Some of the background flickering on the main menu when on High and Medium graphic settings was a little fast. I liked the idea of what you were doing with it, but if I looked at it too long it could get a little headachy and might be a problem for people who are more sensitive to that kind of thing. You could try slowing the movement of those lines down to see if it reduces the flickering. I didn’t notice it on the Ultra or Low settings at all.

When I wasn’t in fullscreen, the Settings, Import/Export, Achievements, and Change Log menus where overlapped by the Credits, Discord, and Steam buttons. It was more noticeable with Achievements and Change Log, because some of the text was under the buttons and harder to read. While in fullscreen, I didn’t have an issue with the Settings, Import/Export, or Change Log menus. The Achievements menu, however, was far enough left to still be overlapped in fullscreen. The buttons were also solid in color instead of the slightly transparent when the other menus were open, so I couldn’t really tell you what the last couple of achievements on the left were. Moving the Achievements menu to be in line with the other menus would help with that.

I think the tutorial does a good job showing the basics. I was able to follow along and was pretty sure I understood what I was doing. I felt a little lost afterwards, though. I built the Wire Bonder, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it to start working until my partner mentioned that I needed to start a new source machine using copper. I think expending the tutorial to include connecting the Wire Bonder to two different source machines would be helpful to new players.

I like the art style. I think it fits the overall feel of the game you are going for. The different pieces that I saw all looked distinct enough that I could tell by looking at them that they were different. I think if I played long enough I’d be able to recognize each piece by simply looking at the art instead of needing to mouse over them.

I think you have a lot of really good things going on here, and with a little more polish it’ll be a really good game.

The biggest problem here is that you added a price tag to this.  Players are going to expect a more complete product, even if you currently have it listed as being 100% off and have "Beta" in the title.  If I had come across this on my own and picked it up, the state it is in would turn me off from picking up or playing any other games from you.  

My recommendation would be to change the "Beta" in your title to "Pre-Alpha", and remove the price tag.  You may also want to start with fewer animals to give the players a demo and let them have a feel for what the complete game will be like.  Showing how the game works with 3 to 5 animals will let players see that there is a game here to play, even if it's still in a very early alpha state.  You can then worked on adding animals slowly, without feeling quite so pressured to get it all out at once.  

I had been looking forward to playing this one. I enjoy games that make learning fun, and the idea of a game that teaches the scientific names of different animals seemed right up my alley.

I’m disappointed that the game is still in such an unfinished state, particularly since there is now a price tag on it. Yes, it is currently 100% off, but it’s still implying that this should at least be in an early access state. This doesn’t even feel like it would count as an early beta. Sure, you can get questions to show up in the different languages, but that’s it. There are no images and no answers. There is no gameplay and nothing really to do.

You’ve got a good idea here, but there is nothing to back it up.

This was a neat idea and I liked that you can play alone or with friends. I particularly liked that the upgrades were for all players, instead of each player needing to collect their own coins and buy upgrades individually.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the gameplay very clear. I figured out what the coins were and that I was suppose to try to collect them. I was pretty sure I was suppose to avoid the grey and purple areas, but sometimes I would end up on one of those spots and nothing seemed to happen, while other times I would lose. It also felt like sometimes I would lose when I hadn’t stepped on a grey or purple spot. That made it hard to come up with any sort of strategy, because it wasn’t clear what was and wasn’t safe.

Showing how many lives you have left would be beneficial, particularly after you purchase more levels. It also might be nice if you listed the number of coins you collected during a run as well as your total number of coins on the game over screen.

I played the web version, using Vivaldi.

The font on your game page is a little hard to read. I like the greens you used, but the yellow font doesn’t have the greatest of contrast against it. Using a darker green for your background with the yellow or picking a darker colored font would help make things easier to read.

I liked that Normal was the difficult you used for the web version. It gives folks the ability to get a feel for your basic game and then decide if they want more options.

I think you could have made your game board a bit larger. Playing on a computer, there was a fair bit of unused space on either side of the main playing field. I liked that you added colors to that space, but didn’t add anything that was too distracting to it. What you could possibly do is enlarge the board a bit more and move the scores, directions, start, and pause buttons to the side. It is fair to acknowledge, though, that the layout as is would probably work well for a mobile device in portrait mode, so depending on your target audience you may or may not want to move things around much.

Everything was fairly easy to read in game. Your color choices worked pretty well to convey information, and I could read the text on them.

I didn’t notice any sound on the web version. Having some background music and basic sound effects for things like collecting a piece and game over would help make the game feel more complete.

I’m not sure what I thought of the shadow effect at the end of the snake’s tail. It makes the snake feel longer than it actually is and was a bit confusing at first. Once I got use to it, though, it was a cool effect.

When I started a new game, using either the “Play Again” button or the “Restart Game” button, there was a brief afterimage from the previous game. It showed both the old snake and piece of food as well as the current snake and food briefly before the old disappeared.

The game also sped up each time I started a new game. The first couple of new games it wasn’t really noticeable, but the more I played the faster my snake moved. Refreshing the page altogether returned my snake to the starting speed, but starting a new game from the game itself resulted in a faster moving snake.

This game has the feel of flash era games in all the right ways. The mechanics were simple and worked well. The art and music matched the tone and humor of the story. The story itself was amusing and was a nice break to read between levels. The achievements were a fun touch and encouraged experimenting and playing around.

I wish there had been an option to open your pager with the mouse instead of needing to hit “Esc” or “Z”. In my experience, point-and-click adventure games are generally playable with mouse only. Even without it being a point-and-click adventure, needing to use the keyboard for that one interaction while everything else could be done with just the mouse pulled me out of the game a bit. Being able to do other interactions with the keyboard, such as switching pages and shooting, was a nice option; I just wish I could have done clicked a button or used a right mouse click to open the pager.

I also think it would have been a nice touch if you could have seen the achievements you got in game. Having the list on the first or last page of your pager would have felt like it fit the rest of the feel of the game, and would help the players make sure they got everything if they wanted to. The achievements were fun, the names of them were great, and being able to see them again would have been nice.

This was a clever take on the theme. Using an espresso machine to make liquefied hot dogs, burgers, and pizzas was silly and fun.

Using different head shapes and eye colors as clues worked decently. It tripped me up a little when some of the squares had pointed corners and others had rounded corners, but I think it added a nice bit of difference without needing to add another food type. It also took me a bit to realize that aliens with two different colored eyes wanted both things taken into account. Friday’s rule was not very clear. I think I figured out what the aliens with two of the same colored eyes wanted, but couldn’t figure out the ones with two different colored eyes.

I think this would have benefited a lot with a tutorial. It took me several tried before figuring out where I was suppose to drop the food and what I was suppose to do after I added everything I needed. Once I figured it out, adding the food to the grinder and clicking on the alien to give them their food made sense, but it’s not very clear beforehand. Walking the player through the whole process with the first drink would help.

Giving a better indication when the player got a drink right or wrong would have been nice. The sign board wasn’t the clearest and it was very easy to miss the lives on it. The drink pouring into the cup was did a decent job of showing the player they got it right once you knew what to look for, but it wasn’t super clear at first. Changing the alien’s expression, some sound clues, or giving some type of notification (such as a a smiley face or “good job” text when right and a frown or “too bad” text when wrong) would be a good way to give the player more feedback.

I also would have liked a way to dump a drink if I made a mistake, giving me the chance to start it over and try to make it right within the time limit. There were a couple of times where I was moving too fast and grabbed and added the wrong thing, and would have liked to be able to fix the mistake for the customer instead of having the loss.

If you sat on the game over screen for too long (in some cases as short as a few seconds), the game would restart on Tuesday in the shop. My first time playing while trying to figure things out, I lost on Monday. While I was processing the gameplay, it started up on Tuesday, leaving me to wonder if I had actually lost or missed something. After I lost on Friday, it restarted on Tuesday again because I stayed on the game over screen too long. In both cases, it took me straight to the shop, so I didn’t get to read the rule for Tuesday. Clicking on the main menu button in time would get you back to the start screen.

Sometimes when I added the cup to the machine too early, right after the previous alien left and while the next was moving up, it would trigger that I got the order wrong, causing that alien to leave and losing a heart. I liked adding a new cup before adding any ingredients, to make sure I didn’t forget it. I would pick up a new cup as the previous one was filling and wait until the machine was no longer red to add it. It took me a couple of times to acknowledge there was a bit of a skip in the animation and to check around to realize that the costumer number skipped one and that I lost a heart. It didn’t happen every time, but it happened a couple of times so I wanted to mention it.

Once I figured things out, the game was fun. Using clues to figure out orders instead of being directly told was pretty cool, and the way you changed orders while using the same basic shapes and colors was clever.

I did not expect it to get that hard at the end. Good job! The level progression felt right, and you did well showing players how to play the game throughout. The later levels were definitely challenging, but not so much so that I felt I couldn’t succeed. I think the hardest part I had was trying to pick up the right character when there were two or more close together. if I picked up the wrong one I’d often end up taking a quick moment to decide whether to wait a little longer to see if a house changed to match or not.

The characters were cute. They were simply, but still had personality. It made me feel bad whenever one would kicked away from a house, which made me try even harder to get them all right.

I think you found that good sweet spot for game length. It was long enough with good game play to feel satisfying, without feeling like you were just rehashing the same thing over and over again. I had fun.

The story was intriguing. It left me with more questions than answers, which feels exactly like what it was going for.

I wish the enemy wasn’t quite so fast. There were times when it felt like I just did a sweep of an area and it would just suddenly appear beside me. I know it was suppose to help give the horror vibe, but I found it more annoying than scary. There were also a couple of times where it just hung out in a doorway, meaning the only way I could get through was letting it kill me. I wish there had been a way to distract the thing or otherwise make it move away from the direct area you were in, so you could get around it.

In my first playthrough I got stuck in the area with the self destruct computer, between the right wall and a piece of random equipment. No matter how I moved, I couldn’t get out. When I realized I couldn’t get out, I tired running to decrease my oxygen faster, thinking I would die when it reached 0. Even after hitting 0, my character didn’t die and I had to completely restart the game.

The art and sound fit helped set the tone and mood of the game. I appreciate the warning at the beginning of the game. I personally didn’t find anything too bloody or visually upsetting, it was good to give people the heads up so they could make an informed decision.

You did a good job with your first game jam. I feel like there is a lot of potential here. Unfortunately with the crashing bug, it does make it difficult to play. Something you might want to think about adding for the future would be a level select screen or a skip level option. Even without the game crashing, having the those things can give players more options, particularly if someone wanted to come back and play more later but doesn’t want to replay early levels.

I liked your use of the color swap when switching gravity. It could feel a little flashy if done too quickly one after the other, but it felt like a good way to quickly and easily convey information to the player. I thought it was particularly useful at the start of level 4, when you started on the ceiling instead of the floor. On that note, I really liked that level 4 started on the ceiling, since you ended level 3 that way. It helps give the game a connected feeling, instead of a bunch of individual levels.

I sometimes found myself wanting to push the down arrow when I was on the ceiling to jump, so a couple of times flipped the gravity when I meant to jump. If you decide to change the flip gravity button to something else, like space or shift, you may want to have jump switch between the up and down arrows based on the gravity. That said, I also think it’s just fine to leave the controls as they are, with up always being jump and down being gravity flip.

This reminded me of NES and SNES era games with the art, music, and difficulty. It was definitely a challenging game, but it did not feel unreasonably difficult, nor did the difficulty level feel wrong. I really enjoyed the retro feel of the art and sound. The animations looked great and did a good job conveying information to the player. I was particularly fond of the way the jump looked different based on how long you held down the jump button. The starting cutsceen was a nice touch and helped set the feel of the game.

The controls felt pretty good, though I did find myself wanting to push space to jump instead of z a few times. I thought it was neat that you pushed left or right start moving in that direction and pushed down to stop, while how long you held z affected the height/distance of your jump. I also liked that your jump was based on your movement, so jumping from standing still meant you jumped straight up instead of the direction you were facing.

I didn’t make it very far, but that speaks more to my skill level than to the quality of the game. The check points did help me get farther than I might otherwise have, and I enjoyed it enough that it makes me want to play more to improve so that I can try to make it to the end.

This was a cute, little, idler game. I liked that once you got you enough funds, you could just have fun making various designs with the different colors. When I realized you could overlap the generator grids, I was slightly hoping I could make additional colors in the spaces where they overlapped. I’m not sure if being able to overlap grids was intentional or not, but I could see it being a fun way to add new colors for layout designs, or potions for additional funds.

The chests opening when you clicked on them was a nice touch.

The SFX worked well. I did find it a little odd that you had a music volume slider, though I didn’t hear any music, even with it and my computer’s volume at max. Background music could be a nice touch, though if you aren’t planning on adding any you may want to remove that slider.

The white text on the light colored background was a little difficult to read, particularly the smaller error messages such as not having a generator selected. Using a darker font color or adding a small background like you do for the money or the options menu would help a lot with that.

The potion art was nice. I liked that they were all slightly different in shape and that you used contrasting colors for the shapes that were closer to each other.

The Roblets are cute, and I felt bad scarping them. You did a good job giving them personality. Chunky and Peppy were close enough in color and shape as to sometimes make it hard to tell them apart when moving quickly. I think it would have been beneficial if there had been a greater color contrast between those to shapes.

The SFX felt pretty loud compared to the background music. I turned my volume up before starting to hear the music, but had to turn it back down to handle the SFX. It would have been nice if they had been balanced better or if you had given an option for manually setting each one.

The level progression felt decent. I liked that in the last two levels the conveyor belts could switch directions as well as shapes. It allowed for an additional challenged without needing to increase the speed or add another belt.

Once I figured out that you could only jump once and that it was always the first thing used, I changed my way of thinking and solved all the levels. I think it would be beneficial if you clearly stated this from the beginning, so that people aren’t confused by it. The level design was well done, and they made sense once I understood the rules.

The SFX worked well for the game. I agree with another commenter that background music would have been nice.

I liked that you started on the settings screen, making it easy to get into fullscreen. I also liked that you played the SFX when adjusting the sound slider, so I could get it to the right volume easily.

This was a lot of fun. I would not have thought of making a game inspired by a combination of Pac Man and Snake. You blended the games in a way that made it feel new and unique, while still allowing the inspiration to shine through.

I wasn’t sure what I thought of being able to push a direction button in advance, so your snake would turn when you reached an intersection at first, but it grew on me. It gave a little more space to plan without needing to move quite as quickly all the time.

The level progression felt good. I liked that some of the levels had a more maze-like feel to them, while others felt a little more open while still requiring planning. There were a few levels I really had to stop and think to solve, and some where I had to take a step back to make sure I didn’t lock myself into only looking at it in one way. It felt good when I solved a level, as the solutions always made sense even if it took me a bit to get there.

This was a cute and cozy little game. Using a laser pointer to control the cat was a clever mechanic. I enjoyed watching the cat move; you did a good job with the animations.

I didn’t realize at first that I could move the balls around, so in the first room I ended up moving the box to them. It wasn’t until I reached 100% on the first box that I moved a ball and laughed that it took me so long to figure it out. You may want to have an arrow pointing to the ball closest to the box in the first room, as well as one pointing to the box, to help new players acknowledge that they are important and things you need to interact with.

I liked that you could turn the lights on and off. I really wanted to knock more things to the floor. Having things on tables and such helped make the space feel lived in and like a real home, and I totally got that they were meant as set dressing. But the “I’m a cat and I want all the things on the floor!” impulse was strong. I also think it would have been nice if I could have jumped down from higher surfaces, even if I needed to use steps or ramps to get up them. I understood the decision from a gameplay point of view, but from a cat point of view not being able to jump down pulled me a little out of character.

Some of the text was hard to read, particularly the credits at the end of the game.  The white text was nearly invisible against the light background in much of the kitchen, and I only acknowledged the text because it scrolled through a darker section.  

I liked that there was a simple objective to the game. I also liked that I had fun being able to just move the laser pointer around to watch the cat run and play. The achievements were also fun and I enjoyed trying to get them all.

This game was so much fun. I enjoy 2048 and this was such a great take on it. It took a few runs to really get the hang of it, but even as I was just learning I was enjoying myself. The basic game mechanics were fairly simple and straightforward, but to really do well I had to take my time with it and plan my moves carefully.

The art was well done and fit the game nicely. I liked the animations in the tiles, it gave them personality. Having the sprites change direction based on which way you moved was a very nice touch.

It was a lot of fun finding different enemies and items based on different combinations. If you are considering doing more with this after the jam, it could be nice to have a list somewhere showing the combinations you discovered. There were a couple of monsters I got that I didn’t acknowledge what two things combined to make them, and I would have loved to have been able to look at an “unlocked” type list to learn so I could plan for the next run. I also wasn’t sure if there was a way to see your achievements after the pop up went away. Having a way to view all your achievements would have been a nice touch.

This game was a lot of fun and one I can see coming back to after the jam has finished.

My kids played and got all the achievements.  One of them discovered that if you had Dev Time selected before starting a new game, and then paused the game, you could select Ignore Timer and visa versa, and have them both show as being active.  The Ignore Timer seemed to take priority, regardless of which order you did it in.  

I liked how your character changed as you collected more junk. It was nice to see the growth in the art as well as by looking at the number.

I think the puzzles were overall good, but I wish there had been a better indication of how the enemies were going to move. It was most noticeable in level 6, but there were times when it felt like the enemy stayed still, even when it felt like they should move, and other times they moved when I was sure they were going to stay still. I think I mostly figured out the direction they were going to move, but I was surprised by them more than once.

I wasn’t a fan of the text shake. It made things harder to read and felt a little hard on the eyes. It was also a lot more noticeable than the color change, which resulted in my not realizing that “im done” was a button until after I pushed it by mistake.

This took me a bit to get into it, but once I did, I enjoyed. As someone who isn’t the best at spelling, I appreciate games that can make spelling fun. I’ve played games were you are given a single word, or just a group of letters, and told to make as many words as possible. Being given a quote to work from was a cool way to do it. I didn’t acknowledge it at first, but, when I did, I really liked that you were limited to the number of each letter in the quote. It rewarded trying to make longer and higher scoring words early on, but still let me make easier words instead of just sitting and staring at the set of letters.

I also greatly appreciated the different difficulty settings. I lost my first round on normal, so went to easy to better figure out how best to play and get myself into the right headspace to focus on spelling. After a couple of plays on easy, I went back to normal and won.

The background feels a little busy, making it a little difficult to read the quote. I realized that it was better to wait until the end of the round to try to read it than try to read it at the start. The sound started rather quiet, though was nice after I turned the volume up, and, in all honest, it’s better to err on the side of quieter and let folks turn it up over too loud to start.

I think you did a good job of making a fun spelling game.

The ones I didn't get were "Faster than the devs", "I can see clearly now", and "You need to read the Manual".  I'm pretty sure I know how to get the "Faster than the devs" one, though acknowledge I just might not be fast enough to get that one.  The other two I haven't figured out yet, though I have a few ideas as to what they might be.

Adding more items and art would be awesome!

This was a whole lot of fun and a clever use of the theme. I played through several times because I was enjoying it so much. I managed to get three different endings and all but three of the achievements.

Your options menu was really nice. I liked that you could add addition buttons for clicking. The ability to ignore the timer was a really nice way to let people play around without feeling rushed, as was the option to mark unused pieces. The dev timer was also fun to give myself in extra challenge.

The art and SFX worked really well for the game. The shapes of the pieces were clear, which made it easier to plan things quickly before moving anything. I loved the names of the items. Part of the fun of replaying was seeing all the different names you had.

I would have loved for it to have been a little longer, because it was such a fun game.

Cute little game. You did a decent job with the level progression. Each level felt reasonably harder than the previous level. Once I figured out the rhythm of a level, I didn’t have issues completing it.

Having the first 5 levels be mouse only, and then needing to use only keyboard for level 6 was a bit shift. I could understand using D for dash, but it felt a little out of place at first. Giving the option to use something like middle mouse button as well as D for dash, and/or the option to use something like space as well as the left mouse button would have helped the dash feel more tied in with the rest of the gameplay.

Using a bucket in different ways to help the cat was fun. After using it to cover spikes in a couple different ways, using it as a more standard bucket (picking up water and pouring it out) made me smile. It would have been nice if there were a few more ways you used the bucket (such as made having the bucket push the cat faster instead of just the cat dashing) though understand not wanting to add too many features.

This is a cool take on Tetris. It took me a bit to figure out all the shapes, but once I did, I could see the similarities. I really liked that you didn’t just change the shapes of the blocks to pipes, but had the pipes carrying water be an active part of the game. Trying to connect water from the bottom to the side outlets adding an extra layer of strategy that was a lot of fun. There were several times where I had a piece that was the right shape to fill a spot, but the pipes were the wrong way to connect water, and I had to make the quick decision as to whether or not I wanted to place it there.

I liked that you had multiple music tracks and that you could switch to a new song if you didn’t like the current one or wanted to listen to the last one again.

It would have been nice if there had been a fullscreen option. The game was completely playable without, everything fairly clear to see, but I do think it would have been a nice touch.

I also think it would have been a cool touch if you got an extra point or a different clearing animation for clearing a row that had water flowing through every pipe. Even though I knew the bonus came from connecting the water to the side outlets, I kept wanting there to be one for connecting water in every pipe in a row as well. It did look like there was extra bonuses for how many pipes the water went through when reaching the outlets, though I wasn’t 100% sure exactly how that worked.

Tetris is one of those games I tend not to get very far in, because I start to get a little bored with it. You did a really good job giving it an interesting twist that made me want to keep playing longer than I normal play Tetris games.

Getting saving to work well can be a pain, so I totally understand.  Right now the game is short enough that it's completely reasonable to finish it in one go and not worry about saving at all.  I honestly found it by accident, as I had needed to stop to do something else the first time I pulled it out to play, and didn't know how long the game was at that point.  I played around with a few other things first (mainly the disappearing email reply thing, but also double checking all my notes and searches) before thinking about testing the saving.  Even there I think I only thought about it because you mentioned it was a new feature, and I know how easy it can be for bugs to slip through the cracks when adding them.  Hopefully you can figure it out without it giving you too much more of a headache.

I really enjoyed the story. I played through several times so I could see all the different options. I liked that you gave options for both healing what was broken and continuing the harm and that both options were well written. I’ll freely say that I enjoyed the healing options more, which is often the case when I play games that give those types of options. I would love to see you expand the story more. There were several times when an option adjusted the “Soul of the Heir” stats, but didn’t seem to have any other effect. Adding a little bit of flavor text, even if it’s something simple as “You call out into the darkness, but all you can hear is the sound of the storm” and then returning to the set of options, would help make the story feel more complete and your choices feel more impactful. Adding flavor text to the “Relics of Power” would also be nice, instead of just the “Examining *name of item*” currently at the top. That said, I’m glad you did include that, so it felt like something happened when you clicked on an item, but right now it feels more like placeholder text than anything else.

I think your lay out could use a little bit of work. At first I completely missed what happened when I clicked “Whisper of Fate” because I missed scrolling up to the top to see the change. I did figure it out, but there was a bit of scrolling up and down to see it, particular if I clicked it after clicking “Read Prophecy”. I think it would have benefited from having the text in the space next to the button instead of near the top. I did enjoy the inclusion of both “Whisper of Fate” and “Read Prophecy” as a way to give more lore and information. You may also want to make the box with “Soul of the Heir” and “Relics of Power” a little wider. The “Dragon Bond” and “Shadow Resistance” boxes were a little bit past the lines of the box below them, giving it a less clean and finished look.

I liked your color and your font choices. The colors looked good and felt like they worked for the story. The contrasted well where they needed to without being harsh on the eyes. The font felt like something you actively decided to use, and it was easy to read.

I would have liked a little more information on what the “Soul of the Heir” stats did. It didn’t really feel like they made that much of a difference to the overall story. I don’t know if you really needed them to make a big difference, but watching them change made me feel like I was possibly missing something in how they worked with the story.

I would also recommend adding some music and/or sound effects. Something as simple as some quiet background music would help it feel a bit more complete. You could also possibly do things like add the sound of waves at the beginning, or wind through the trees while you were near the woods to help really draw the player in.

I think you have a really good start here and that it’s worth your time to continue to work on it if you are enjoying it. I liked the story quite a bit (I love a good dragon story), and I would enjoy reading more.

You did a good job of giving a creepy, otherworldly feel to the game. There was a sense that your decisions mattered, even though your character seemed perfectly safe through the whole thing. The story was interesting and had me wanting to learn more. Your world feels well crafted and like there are a lot of possibilities to add more cases to solve.

The art was well done. It gave the feel of early internet days and underground websites. The bars going down the screen were a nice touch that added to the general feel of an older computer. I liked different looks of the different websites; they felt like they were created by different people. I did wish the search result stayed when I went back from a website, or that I could have opened multiple websites in different tabs, but it wasn’t hard to take notes and simply retype my search if I wanted to go to another site.

I did run into a couple of issues. If I replied to an email, went to a different email, and then returned to the first email, I could no longer see my reply. It did seem to have sent the email, because the next day’s email with my results from the previous day showed that I sent the right information. But no longer seeing my reply did make me worry whether or not it would.

The bigger issue came from the reloading a saved game. Sometimes when I continued a saved game, I got the fired email, even if both emails I sent had the right information. I tested it a couple of times where I sent the exact same emails, the first time where playing straight through, the second time where I quit at the start of the second day before sending out an email and then continued, and the third time where I quit at the start of the third day and then continued. When playing straight through, my results emails showed that I sent the right information both days and I got the summons email on the third day. When I continued from the second day, the results from the first day showed I sent the right information, but even if I sent the right information for the second day’s issue, the third day showed those results as if I didn’t and I got the fired email. When I continued from the third day, both results showed that I sent the right information and I got the summons email. Since the emails where the exact each time, I think the issue came from loading the saved game.

I really enjoyed the game and think this could become a full game if you wanted it to.

Thank you for playing and the feedback.

The kids have been really enjoying helping us make games and it's been great watching how their skills have been developing.

Moving the "Jump to station" icon closer to the energy and the health is a really good idea.   We have a pulsing effect but didn't want to overdo it, so we gave it a delay and pausing between pulses.  We may get rid of the delay altogether to make it clearer to the player that it's ready.  

Thank you on the ads.  They were fun to design and they gave us a direction for some of the flavor text for the ship upgrades.

I feel like this has a lot of potential. Reading through your devlogs, it’s clear you have a plan for where you want your game to go and are moving in the right direction to get there.

I really liked the different animals. It was nice that not only did different animals have favorite foods but also foods they wouldn’t eat. The animations made me smile and gave the animals a lot of character. Watching the animals move was my favorite part of the game.

I wasn’t fond of the glitchy/distortion effect on the dialog boxes and information screen. I think you were going for a poor signal type of effect, but I personally found it to just be distracting and was giving me a headache. It took away from the enjoyment of the overall game for me.

Having more details in game would be helpful. It wasn’t at first clear which healing item was used for each issue, though I was able to figure it out through trail and error. Adding shops are another thing I think will really add to the game. I know you had mentioned shops weren’t ready yet, and having the “press to add” option was a nice stop-gap until you finish them. I don’t know if you want to add more information on what each item does in a shop or in something like an info tag elsewhere. I would also have loved if there was a little more info on each of the animals/animal types. A few more clues as to where would be the best place to release them, maybe a little more with favorite foods vs. foods they’ll eat but not a favorite, that kind of thing. I could see that working as something you unlock as you take care of them animal, ie the more of that type you care for, the better you are with them. I’m not sure if that’s within the scope you had in mind, but I feel like it would lend itself well to the game you are making. More story in general would be nice, though fully understand some of the challenge of balancing story and gameplay.

This feels like a really ambitious game and I think you’ve got a good start to it. Best of luck.

This was a cute story. The characters were sweet, and the story had an overall wholesome vibe to it. The fortune card game was a fun little addition. I liked that each card had a different design on them that fit with what the card said. Giving the non-romanceable profile images was a nice touch and gave them a bit of personality.

The background were nice, as were the character sprites, though the contrast between the two styles felt a little odd to me. I don’t think it was bad, but it did make the characters really stand out from the scene as a whole.

The achievements worked well. They felt reasonable to get and were a nice touch.

All in all, I think your updates and additions worked well for your game.