itch.io

Great concept. The physics are well-made.
It might be a good idea if we can select objects by clicking on them.
The game inspector does make gameplay a bit slower compared to the alternative of being able to just drag to stretch the objects, but it does increase the atmosphere of being a developer rather than a player.

Very fun concept. Let's compare high scores here :D

Great game. Took a few trials until i figured out what i should evade and what i can't click on.
The art and sound were enjoyable and funny.

Great game concept.
I found it a bit hard to reflect lasers most of the time.
I guess it ain't easy to be a Jedi :)

Great game!

Thanks a lot for developing the game to the point it is today.
I've had a lot of fun with it, and still play it occasionally.

Sometimes amazing games do reach an end due loss of motivation, lack of time (shift of priorities) or being too complex of a mess to be maintainable. It's natural for these things to happen.
Often similar games have their last version played by more people than all of the previous ones combined.
While perceived as dead projects by the creator and the active community, they will Always keep on entertaining and inspiring new people who have yet to find them.

Thanks for making this possible.

An idea would be to not attach the second end of the line to the mouse but instead attach the first one to the ball.
I would also try to hide the cursor when doing that, so that the user doesn't get to see that the mouse is not where he's aiming at, and show the cursor again after the shooting is done.

Effectively you still have the line represent the relative mouse movement, but hide the mouse so it isn't visible that the mouse and the line's end are not at the same place because of the camera movement.

Well... that might or might not feel/look better, but you can try and see if you like it..

On a side note,
Could you not require that the player to actually click at the ball to start aiming a shot?
It's a bit hard to click on the ball when the camera has moved, and sometimes i feel like i do click on it but it just doesn't accept my clicks properly. Being able to start a shot by clicking anywhere would make the game easier to play.

That one might be a bit more about me having hard time completing the game and blaming it rather my skills, but would like to hear your opinion on it.
Keep in mind this is your game and you decide how to develop it.

Edit:
Huh, i can actually start anywhere when the ball is not moving.
And i can't figure out where i can and can't do so when the ball is moving.

Edit 2:
I think i figured that mechanic: You can't start a shot if the ball is moving too fast.
Now that i know i can actually start dragging anywhere, it does make sense why you did the line that helps with the aim that way.

Edit 3:
This has become a wall of text at this point... Sorry about that.
If the player is expected to play slowly (as you can't stop and redirect a fast ball), doesn't this make the game a bit speedrun unfriendly?

Very cool game!
I like that the game lets you stop the ball and throw it again.
The extra obstacles

A good feature you could consider adding is a free-camera mode to allow the player to spectate the level ahead.

The difficulty felt like it increased a bit too much on the later levels. Sadly balancing game difficulty is a hard thing in general.
One idea i would propose you is to watch other people play your game and see where they struggle, then try to find why.

For me the hardest obstacle were the rotating spiky fans.
I found it a bit hard to aim properly (more precisely, to pick the correct force so that it passes along multiple rotating spiky fans) and i had a hard time when there were a lot of these.
In my short observation (i finished level 17) most of the difficulty came from having a lot of obstacles that i had to overcome until the next goal/checkpoint. Maybe you can add multiple difficulties that modify the number of checkpoints on levels? (example: easy - a lot more checkpoints; casual - more checkpoints; hard - current checkpoints; insane - no checkpoints at all)

I believe i found a visual bug where when you grab the moving ball to throw it again the camera moves but the aim-line doesn't.

Attaching cropped screenshot below:

Overall the game was very enjoyable and fun to play.
Thanks a lot!!! :D

Thanks

The algorithm takes in mind how far is the place you make a new path, If you make the path too far it has to be a bit longer for the player to follow.
On side note, the hero won't go into a straight line in front of it (horizontal or vertical) if it isn't at least ~12? tiles long (with the last few being tiles that the hero has not been on. Turning a tile into wall and back into path does reset the tile-visit flag)

It's also very possible that i just messed up something, as that's my first time trying to make a path-finding algorithm.
I would generally ask you to help me reproduce the issue or/and run the desktop version.
(The desktop version has some debug flags enabled that show  info on the path-finding algorithm, but currently i only have Linux build set-up)

It's also completely fine if you don't want to spent that much time into it.
I'll eventually be reworking that algorithm entirely, since i didn't manage to add a lot of things i wanted to into it,
It also needs some optimizations to not slow-down the game when the map expands too much.

P. S.:  You should make sure the path is actually connected.
The web version of the game is slower and it handles less mouse events.
Building path doesn't work fine when you drag the mouse too fast.
I didn't have the time to fix this.

Can you please specify in which part of the tutorial?

The hero is supposed to go towards any path you open for him to explore it
(very short paths or paths that are too far away don't count, and the hero has some area of sight, so he won't visit every tile.)

I'm glad you noticed the source code being public. :D
I should've left a readme.md file with build instructions there.
The instructions are actually as simple as install SDL and `make run` on Linux, or setup SDL and include everything in src in one project.
The web-version of the game on itch.io's page does load now.

Sorry about that.
The issue has most likely been something with itch.io servers.
The game does load now.

Sorry about that.
The issue has most likely been something with itch.io servers.
The game does load now.

Sorry about that.
The issue has most likely been something with itch.io servers.
The game does load now.

Sorry about that.
The issue has most likely been something with itch.io servers.
The game does load now.

That's actually quite a feat!
I am ready to say my game is entirely unplayable without a mouse.

I'm a bit doubtful that orientation can fix this kind of an issue.The reload indicator is a good idea that i should add.
Until then, you can actually hold mouse to fire.
Holding the mouse key might not be a good idea when playing on a laptop, because some laptops disable the touchpad while you use the keyboard. (And they call this a "feature")

Sorry, i am used to place a jam-specific description of the project in the jam page of the project.

I have the SDL2 requirement described under `Install instructions` on the project page as well.

I couldn't think of a smooth way to insert the `used software` list on the project page, so i had put it here. (vim, GCC, GNU make, GIMP)
It references the "... bonus point if your game is developed with open source tools." from the `Game Jam Rules` and feels out of context on the game page.
Same applies for the description of the common source code i reused from before the jam. (engine branch on github)

Amazing game! The grass watering effect was pretty satisfying. It even compensated for my impatience with the slow movement.

Animations were amazingly nice, i didn't know using pixel-art without sticking to the pixels themself would make it so much better. The eyes of the water droplet were very cute.

___ Gameplay Spoilers below ___

Movement mechanics have pretty nice details.

You can decrease your falling speed by holding the jump key.
I personally would complain for slow movement speed, but i suppose its purpose is letting the player get immersed in the story. If so, it did a good job. I can't really complain about that considering there isn't enough content to achieve the immersion with just gameplay time.

___ Story Spoilers below. ___

The endings were pretty neat, there was a good twist and a nice warning before it. After getting the two endings i also did doing a perfect peaceful play without extinguishing a single fire. I didn't got a special ending, but was an interesting idea.

I got the peaceful ending first because i was too lazy to approach the boss with my movement speed. :D

That was a lot of fun :D

Highscore: 1525s

Stats:
Max HP: 100
Gun Pierce: 7
Gun Damage: 85
Sword Cooldown: -0.4s
Sword Damage: 100
Axe Cooldown: 2.3s
Axe Damage: 55
Axe Amount: 6

Side notes: (web version)

- I managed to get negative sword cooldown (i tried to make it like killaura, but this didn't turn as powerful as i wanted it)

- At one point it really gets overcrowded and leveling up gets slower and slower.

- I experienced some strange movement behavior - sometimes the player just goes wherever it wants to. It started appearing a bit after the screen started being overcrowded, so i guess it happens after you play for a while.

- Highscore is measured in time. I would suggest levels (update count), killed enemies or XP collected instead.

Overall it's one very enjoyable game. Thanks a lot :D

Collisions with yourself dont kill you (Except if your shadow shoots at you while you're next to it)

Collisions with red enemies kill you. 

Friendlyfire is on. (Your bullets damage you)

Bullets wrap around the screen, so you should fire carefully (or just enjoy the bullet hell)

Great game! Thanks for making it. :)
It would be interesting to have another type of enemy for later game (with more health?) or something to make it harder, as once you get 3+ shurikens and insta-kill from poison the challenge of playing is gone.

That was fast. Thanks a lot!
The Linux version works great :D,
and the bug with keeping money from previous playthrough is fixed.
Now we know that Aka spent all her money to rest after the workday. :P

Now i just wish it had more content, like a whole work week (or unlimited work days) and shop updates and save/load option.
(I'm taking ideas from Penguin Dinner, a flash game series that i used to play often.)

The current version here is a great short game.
Dialogues are also a nice part that can't really be brought to a game that doesn't limit work days.
If you decide to add some of the ideas mentioned here, i think it would be more appropriate to be in a new game (different game from the same series?), as this one feels pretty good and complete.

Thanks for making Minimum Mage Effort.
I had a lot of fun playing it. :D

Amazing game!
I managed to collect all collectibles in one play-through. :D
Can we get downloadable version? (Linux)

On another note, are we supposed to keep our  money from previous playtrough when starting a second new game? (new game+)

I found out you can pass two-lanes traffic with only one jump (for the finish) if you align more than half of your car outside the left road (at the right of the left road).
This might be a strategy for perfect time on it, but it took me 7.58 to pass it that way, since i couldn't do the alignment part quick.

Cool game!

That game was a lot of fun! Very neat idea, and i really had to fight for these seconds with myself. xD

But.. i would like to complain it's a bit hard to control/shoot. The camera movement is very slow, and if i move the mouse even by a pixel the ball is being shot. Could you please disable camera rotation while charging a shoot instead?

Pretty cool, but it's a bit hard to remember some obstacle values.

Hold jump when bouncing, you'll bounce higher.

Hold jump when bouncing, you'll bounce higher.

Had a lot of fun with this one. 100% will play again.

I did mess up my particle-player collision a bit. It calculates the particles 17 pixels higher and lefter... not exactly right, but time wasn't enough to fix it. I'll upload a fix after the jam. This also reminds me, i should add powerup description on the game page. Thanks for the feedback :)

It has a linux version :D

Good idea, i like it. There is space for improvement, but given the time limit and it being your first game on itch it's pretty good. Be sure to improve it once the jam ends, people like being cats that throw dice xD

Creating the game was a lot of fun. Creating it without engine was a challenge. Every single image is drawn by Alaka within the jam time, as is almost all of the source code by me. We're happy we got to take part in GMTK Game Jam 2022. I'll add github link after the game jam. Hope you enjoy the game.

It's interesting that most of the levels can be solved without using the obstacle shop.
Definitely a good game.

A pretty cool game, I definitely enjoyed playing it. Keep up the good work!

That game's insane! Keep the great work!
Had a lot of fun twisting time, and i haven't yet gotten to the time jump point.

On another note, the difficulty progresses a little too fast, but that's not a bad thing, because it actually forces the player to improve faster. Maybe you can let the speaker say something short after every few failed attempts, it will introduce a little bit of variety and will point that replaying a level to achieve a skill level is by game design.
There were some rare cases when i actually managed to get out of the map somehow (when i was too fast or got pressed by a door), and i would request you to add "invert mouse Y" option to the menu and an fps limiter.

Still, 11/10, time-twisting mechanics are my favorite. :D

It should've had ending scenes, and they should've lead you to the main menu, but didn't have time to add them.

Adding sound would be an interesting feature.
For example knocking down a guard with ranged attack should alert the guards nearby, because his body will fall on the ground and produce loud sound. Melee knockdowns should not, since the player can put him down slowly.

This will also make it impossible to fail the second tutorial by shooting at the guard that's supposed to see the other guard's body.

But on the other side, doing this will make ranged attacks harder to use, so maybe it should be classified as Hard mode.

Edit 1: Maybe set drag distance to 1.05, because dragging is somehow hard to do. It doesn't always work.

Amazing game, really builds a stealth atmosphere with the soundtrack, provides cool mechanics like knocking down and dragging guards, ranged and melee attacks. The player does start with quite slow movement speed, but i guess that's necessary since he tries to not produce noise.