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Well, I take respect for the player's time seriously and I don't want to ever take other people's time for granted, especially when they've decided to try something I made. Not that I thought you were necessarily annoyed, but I like to show my consideration out of principle, whether it bothered you or not ^^

That's great to hear! Despite everything, I'm happy that 1 type of enemy was still able to force the player to have different approaches, those are the types of enemy I aim to create :D

The initial idea was that you were going into the inventor's house or the factory that created the robots to disable all of them so I'm in agreement that an ending would've helped a bit. I'll be adding that in the update.

Of course! ^^

Yeah dude, of course! What's your discord? I couldn't find it on gwj's discord

Nice! I will! ^^ Ye, no worries, I myself am going to tweak some things before I post my jam music on my youtube channel.

Fantastic game! It's so wonderful seeing something inspired by Myst. I love the atmosphere, how each level sounds distinct and how the sound matches the visuals and even how it gets more heavenly up top for instance. I LOVE the voice of Aeternum and how it's timbre changes depending on the range, where down low, for instance, you can hear a nice crackling in the voice. The puzzles weren't too hard but satisfying and they definitely felt like they fit perfectly with Myst.

That said, I did have a few problems. I understood what you had to do to open the door but on the 2 times I tried it I opened it as I was tinkering with it without exactly knowing I had done it. Only on my second time opening it, after the fact, did I understand how it was supposed to look for it to open. Could very well just be me not being very good at this though but, either way, I thought it could be useful information for you to have.

I also found a bug playing the first time yesterday where the paths of the cars weren't playing all the steps you find on the paper or even starting from the beginning so I thought any set of instructions could have a decent bit of shared movement and you had to find one small discrepancy based on a small amount of information to know which car is following each set of instruction and maybe later you'd figure out the rest of the path based on the layout of the map or something. It didn't help that the set of moves on my first go were similar. This time around the moves were much more different from each other and the monitor was playing correctly at which point the puzzle became so much simpler than what I had imagined.

The movement could be a little tricky at times but not that much of an issue. I could always get to where I wanted, it just usually took a few more clicks than desired. Some screens turn you to the right even though you clicked left for instance but, once again, not too big of a deal. I really like the subtle way the game tells you there's a screen on the right, for example, with just a gentle glow when you hover the mouse though. I found that helped to keep the atmosphere while being helpful to the player.

I liked the music puzzle, I always like when games have music puzzles, and it's nice that the answers to the puzzles are always different. And in regards to the music puzzle itself, I really like that there's a different melody and it's not just the same melody with a different note missing.

The bit of worldbuilding with Aeternum was also a nice touch.

Great game! Enjoyed it quite a bit. Would love to play a longer version for sure. Congratulations.

It was my pleasure!

That's understandable. Making a game in a short period of time is stressful as it is, making music for it on top is something else so don't feel bad about it. And btw, the music was still nice on it's own, the problem was more so that it was a bit short and didn't quite fit the scenario/ mood. It also had a nice bit of variation but it was more rhythmic and textural if I recall properly. I'd say it's the tonal content that may be causing some fatigue. Either more variation or some gentle musical gestures/ arpeggios (things that the brain naturally tunes out after a while and sit more on the background) would work better, even being a short track. I'm glad to help! I'm sure you'll get really good in time. I offered some more suggestions just because it seems you are looking for that but that shouldn't seem like it was that big of a deal, you did great still!

Ohh ok, I imagined there could be something I missed, but it's good you're tweaking it.

Fair enough. I wouldn't know the best way to balance a game like this as it's not what I play most and it can definitely be a challenge, even to more experienced devs so, all in all, you did pretty well actually.

I like that idea, seems like it would be cool. Hope it goes well!

Of course! My pleasure.

This was a wonderful game to play! I hadn't read the controls for whatever reason so when I found out I could redirect the rain I was delighted. It's a simple enough thing but it always feels nice to do and rewarding and the animation definitely helps with that. The game looks great and I really love the music. It's quite charming and really adds to the atmosphere. The puzzles weren't too difficult so it didn't take long to beat but they were engaging and clear nonetheless and not in the slightest bit frustrating or unfair. My only criticism is that I want more, maybe you could later use other elements as well. Great game!

Great game! Beautiful art and fantastic music! I loved how you managed to squeeze so much game from 1 single level through the different approaches you had each time and how that would take you to slightly different places. Sometimes you worry that that approach can feel a bit forced or lack variety but not so here, it felt quite natural and witty. There is the problem of waiting for the platforms and that you may miss one of those too (didn't happen to me) but all in all, you can see this had a great deal of passion and effort put in, from the player design to the level design to the pleasingly textured backgrounds to the way the game loops with blowing on the cartridge. Just wonderful. Wasn't quite of the time of blowing on cartridges but I still really liked that touch.

Thank you so much! Very happy to hear you liked the music. The music you made for Super Jump Guy may be my favorite in all of the jam and just really good overall. I wanted to do something similar for my game but I'm still struggling to compose in that style. I meant to ask if you were going to upload your music for the game somewhere. Definitely want to hear it a bit more in my free time. I'm glad you enjoyed the art too!

It's not that the punch should be more effective, it's that there were supposed to be weapons in the game and the punch was just a last resource or for when you didn't have ammo, but you're totally right, there definitely are times you can't do anything. There are checkpoints, they're the benches, though it's totally understandable that you didn't pick up on it as there's nothing to suggest to you that you can interact with them or what key you have to press.

Totally fair to have lost interest. I'll see if I have the time to fix some of these things after the jam. Thanks for playing! 

Thank you so much for playing and for giving such detailed criticism, I really appreciate it!

Regarding the ending, I don't think there is one unfortunately. I thought my partner may have put something at the end and I think I may have seen something somewhere about an ending possibly being there but maybe I misread. I didn't have the time to ask or play enough to find out but I guess I shouldn't have suggested that there was an ending in the description if I wasn't sure. I apologize for having wasted your time, I will change the description and, once again, I thank you for generously giving so much of your time to try the game.

Regarding the lag, I never experienced any when play testing myself, though I didn't try the browser version for that long so maybe that's specifically a browser problem, but what I did try seemed pretty stable for me on that front.

Being my first jam, it didn't cross my mind to have a level select or cheat. I guess I was coming into this with the mentality of not having an easier way to progress that isn't the core mechanics of the game but in the context of a jam I can see how that can be very helpful and useful so maybe your approach is better. I'll keep that in mind and do that in my next jam.

I figured the newspapers would be obvious to be interactable with E but I imagined the benches wouldn't. I didn't get to tell my partner that and if he noticed that too I guess he didn't have the time to implement it but it's a totally valid criticism.

There was supposed to be a lot more than the 1 punch and the punch was intended as a last resource so I'm happy that it didn't feel easy while still being fair. The game was supposed to have a vendor where you could get weapons by collecting money from killing the robots, kind of similar to Ratchet and Clank. I had already animated the vendor and designed some of the weapons. One was a sort of vacuum cleaner that could pull the enemies to you so that, in the few instances where they spawn near a ledge you can't get to without being hit, you had a different strategy. The punch was initially meant as something you could use when you had no ammo, as well as jumping over them or luring them. Unfortunately, none of this was implemented but I'm happy there was still a level of strategy and satisfaction in your playthrough.

I do like to aim for a level of grounded realism in the games I make so I'm very happy to hear that you got some of that.

I think the different way the robots fall was more so an happy accident then something that was intended but it's still great that that's in the game. I'm now wondering if there could be a weapon made specifically to confuse nearby robots at the press of a button to further develop that idea.. I don't know how well it would work in practice but maybe I'll add that after the jam is over and see how it works.

I agree with the need for a coyote jump. In fact, it was something I mentioned right at the start of development but my partner had never heard of it and I guess he forgot about it. Definitely something that will be added after the jam as well.

The initial idea for the benches taking a while to heal was because there would be a bit of dynamic music that would play. There was something for when you were at full health, healing, a robot was approaching or a robot was approaching while you were healing. It was a way to add more tension and strategy to the game while also giving a bit of rest with some relaxing music if there were no robots nearby but that didn't get implemented either though all the music already existed.

Ahahah thank you! I was quite happy with how silly the robots looked myself. I didn't think of zombies but definitely went for noodly limbs. Probably my favourite of the animations I made.

I'm glad you liked the visuals!

Thank you so very much for playing this much and giving such thoughtful criticism. I'll be sure to take as much away from this as possible and also change the description. Very sorry for wasting your time again.

I had an enjoyable time playing this. The music is nice but the loop is too short so it can get a bit tiring after a while though it definitely has potential. A more ambient approach would work to fix that and to match the tone more, though, if the game had a bit more of a comical/light-hearted touch, the music might have suited more as well, I don't want to say it couldn't work for this scenario.

I liked that there was a malfunction during the night at random intervals as it meant I had to strategize more and stay on my toes, but a bit more clarity on what you get for each upgrade could have made it even better. Either way, it didn't feel frustrating or unfair so that's great.

I wish there was a way to zoom out to not have to wait so much and so I can just glance around to get an idea of what to click for what I need in the moment rather than go around searching for it.

The end was a little easy. Once I had a decent amount of upgrades it became pointless to upgrade more as simply sleeping and saving on the resources would be a faster way to get to the goal, even with malfunctions. Maybe only having 1 thing for each resource would've been better? It's hard to say and I'm no expert on these types of games but it's just a suggestion I think could work.

Regardless of my criticisms, I had fun and the game had me working more to get the needed resources than I expected. Well done!

I'm glad you liked it. The robot also had an alert state and a different state for every hit it took but it didn't get implemented in time unfortunately, but I'm happy to know you liked the touch on the player.

That was my partner. I really like it too.

Thank you for playing!

Speaking for myself, it worked exactly how it was intended, I even died once right at the beginning and won the next try like I saw you mentioning in the comments to someone as the "ideal" playthrough experience. The ending definitely made me work hard after I was just cruising ahahah.

Ye, these games seem to always end up struggling with this kind of thing and to be fair, it's understandable, it's a difficult thing to know how to fix but something that is also easily noticeable. I guess panning could help (I don't know if there's any already or not as I didn't play with headphones) but only for headphones so the only other thing I can think of is to try to make the sounds for each thing be on a different range of frequency, like, the horizontal lasers could be a low tone, the green shooting middle and missiles more high pitched. Basically, you'd first focus on making it so that all the sounds playing at once in the most messy way would still sound harmonious rather than choosing a sound for each and then try to make it work together.

 Another idea could be having slightly different rhythms for each thing so the chance of them playing at the same time is lower. Then, even if it's still a bit messy it's not as constant which might be better. For rhythms I mean you could have something firing on slow septuplets and something else that also needs to be just as slow could be on a slow sextuplet. The septuplets are a bit faster but it's a minimal difference that I think would keep the mechanics of everything still balanced and by having a rhythm everything is a bit more harmonious, hopefully. But those are just some suggestions ^^

As for mixing, it can be hard, take your time and if you can get someone who already knows something about it to help you.

My Pleasure!

One of the few games in this style that doesn't feel like it exists just to kill time but is rather quite engaging.

At first I felt the difficulty tuning wasn't quite right as it seemed much harder in the beginning but afterwards got much easier. I guess my expectation was that it would just ramp up as it went but, in actuality, this ended up being a story through gameplay.
The challenge is at first daunting but, with a bit of effort, you overcome it enough that it's still a challenge but no longer the impossible task it first seemed. Eventually you start to get so confident and self-assured in taking the probes down that you don't need to even try anymore, that is, until it starts to get a bit tougher near the end again to humble you right back down and make you take it seriously. I always love when you can get a story like that through pure gameplay.

However, it can get a bit tricky to click the right thing at times or keep track of all the ships as you get more and more of them and the sound gets quite messy with all the shooting and drilling. I also found it weird that a malfunction would give the probes the ability to self-replicate but all in all, a great submission to the jam! I'm pleased to have played it!

Of course!

Totally understandable. Should be perfect with a few fixes afterward

Loved it!

This was a really nice game! I really enjoyed the way the cube moves and the sounds that accompany it though the alert sound for when you're in the walls for too long is too loud. 

The inclusion of characters you can interact with was unexpected in a puzzle game but a welcome surprise for sure though I almost missed it for thinking it was just part of the environment (as maybe a thing to reinforce the malfunction theme?)

The puzzles were well thought out. They were a bit challenging but never frustrating and I especially like how it also requires a bit of skill in the movement, it's enough to want to play again while trying to get through it as fast as possible.

The enemies were placed in such a way as to make a specific kind of obstacle each time which made each section feel different from the others and really made you feel like you went on a little journey.

Also liked how you can revisit each level in an instant and how the world is all connected. Would definitely love to see a longer version where this is used to the full extent to tell a story.

The credits were also quite charming and unique.

I did find a few bugs though. If you fall on lava but keep moving it seems the cube will be misaligned upon respawning which isn't a big deal but it makes it lose the satisfying quality of the cube movement.

If you press r repeatedly while moving it seems the cube gains a bit of momentum but more importantly starts shrinking and will eventually disappear. The increased momentum didn't seem to do much after an initial boost and you still die upon touching lava but maybe with more tinkering there could be a way to skip levels..

Regardless, a fantastic game through and through. Congratulations!