Ha, thanks! That was my favorite part as well.
boxgaming
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Interestingly, game development was a major factor in the origin of QBJS. It grew out of an effort to build a 2D game engine for QB64 (GX). One of the experimental features that I included was an "Export to Web" option. The goal of this feature was to make it easy to share games online without needing players to download an executable. As it turned out though, there was more initial interest in this feature than in the game engine as a whole. Long story short, QBJS spun off as its own project with the larger goal of providing QBasic in the browser with as much compatibility as feasible with QB4.5 and QB64 while providing near-native performance.
Regarding point 5 of your post, I definitely think that if someone wants to create tools for games, the best way to know how to build those tools and to know what game devs need... is to make games!
Interesting concept and I like the old school ASCII art. It was a bit difficult to get going at first. I found that if I bumped up my screen resolution all the way I could almost see all of the lines, at least enough to play. (There's probably a way to change the font size on the windows terminal but I didn't look too hard for it.)
It seems like the antonym dictionary might need to be expanded a bit as I felt like I had some pretty valid answers that the game said were wrong.
One definitely feels like they have limited space in this game! Reminds me of the wooden labyrinth marble maze toy in concept and difficulty. I didn't have enough finesse to make it past the 3rd level. Dialing back the sensitivity of the controls might make it a bit more accessible... or maybe I just need more practice.
It's a bit of a lift to find, download and install a separate emulator to play the game. I did find that I could load the .d64 file in this online commodore 64 emulator:
https://c64online.com/c64-online-emulator/
But even at that and looking at the source, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. I can move back and forth, but that just seems to result in "goblins making me broke".
Also, it looks like the assets were uploaded 65 days ago. How was this built during the game jam?

Good effort for first game jam submission! Fun stick figure character. A few things you might consider if you keep developing the game post jam:
The difficulty ramps really quickly and the player needs to learn all of the moves almost from the start. I think you could have simpler levels at the beginning which would also serve as a tutorial. Introduce one new mechanic for each of the first few levels. Initially just jump, then double jump, then ground pound, dive, etc., with a level tailored to introduce that new move. Then you could just continue to ramp up the difficulty with each successive level.
This might just be me, but I would find it a bit easier to control if I could do the jump/pound/dive with my other hand. Space, Enter, or J... something like that. That would help me hold my direction a bit steadier as I'm switching between double jump and dive.
I like the hand drawn art style. Creative interpretation of the theme. I thought the balloons were some sort of bonus and didn't realize they were hurting me at first. Some kind of kick-back or visual indication that you've hit a hazard and received damage would be a nice add.
There is also something trippy about those ceiling and floor animations. It plays some sort of trick on my eyes. Once the game stops it still looks like the screen is moving for a second or two.
Beautiful pixel art pack chosen. Well written short story. This would be a nice cut scene.
Could be interesting to use the simultaneous, two-character movement mechanic for some enemy interactions along the way. Maybe each character could do a different attack at the same time...
"Remember when that highwayman tried to rob us and we used kung fu to dispatch him..."
Nice pixel art style and the farm sim mechanics all seemed to work pretty well.
If you decide to expand on this after the jam here are a few suggestions:
- It was a bit difficult to figure out what to do at first and that the table and stool was actually a shop. Perhaps switch out the assets to something more shop-y and/or at least have an NPC shopkeeper of some kind to attract the players attention.
- The action menu for the growing plots was not very noticeable at first due to its very small size relative to the rest of the game text. Probably would help to make this larger and more prominent.
- This style of game is typically pretty relaxed and chill, but even so, it might help to either speed up the growing cycle, or, as others have already mentioned, give the player something to do while you are waiting to harvest.
Nice concept, I think a lot of people can relate to getting lost in your imagination as a child!
If you are wanting to take it further, a couple of things that could help the feel of the overall gameplay:
- Consider making the hit animation quite a bit faster and give the enemies a little kick-back when you hit them. This will let the player know they successfully hit the enemy and will prevent the enemy from just rolling over you regardless of whether they've been hit.
- Try adjusting the walking mechanic. The player seems to glide over the playing field. It feels a bit more like flying or sliding than walking. I little bounce in the walk animation might help this. It also looks like perhaps the walk animation should be a bit faster to match the speed of the movement.
You nailed the Gameboy look and sound! It definitely feels like playing an old Gameboy game.
As was already suggested, some additional mechanics might make the gameplay a bit more interesting. I found that I could just concentrate on feeding the closest animals. You might consider some sort of penalty if any one animal has not been feed for too long.
Good job!
You nailed the Gameboy look and sound! It definitely feels like playing an old Gameboy game.
As was already suggested, some additional mechanics might make the gameplay a bit more interesting. I found that I could just concentrate on feeding the closest animals. You might consider some sort of penalty if any one animal has not been feed for too long.
Good job!
Yes, definitely still working on the game engine. You can check out the GX project on github here:
https://github.com/boxgaming/gx
All of the example programs are in the samples folder.
You can also view the source for the sleighless demo and run it right in the browser here:
https://boxgaming.github.io/qbjs-samples/#src=sleighless.zip










