itch.io

H 4 I L T H 3 C R 0 W S

(I only got like 5 fps due to bad laptop for 3d graphics so I didn’t get very far, so Enjoyment and Gameplay were given the benefit of the doubt ratings)

The ambience was well done.

Rain was a good sound effect.

I noticed one bug, if your score went above 6 the dice sprite would go back to 1 but the score still counted as 7. The same applies to going below 1.

The simple math and hand-drawn birb theme make this a great introduction to video games for little kids.

I was giggling out loud when I wrote FIRE = BAD. Toilets are actually worth a decent amount, it’s just that 45 kilos of lumpy porcelain is not super easy to carry at speed.

Thanks for playing!

Yeah, I overscoped a little. This would have been great in the vastly superior 9-day jam format (7 is just long enough to make me think I can do quite a decent amount of fleshing out but not actually enough for that).

Refresh the page to go back is what happens when I have 30 minutes to deadline and my “back” button isn’t working.

Thanks for playing!

Just a few days after you posted this, a new beta arrived.

Oh that might be a bit broken, but it’s not necessary to progress, as you only need to fix the typo above the error code and then save it to progress.

Found that exploit about taking the items from the cauldron while crafting to keep them, was very helpful in preserving my sanity (make this a feature where it just always gives you the materials back, 100% we love QOL like that), my sanity lasted until I could not progress anymore (stuck making algae, worms, compost, and plankton),

The game’s graphics were solid, not much to say about them.

Having a rock track play over a simple and slightly gimmicky merge game didn’t fit very well, but it was fun to hear.

You definitely hit that theme, in fact the only thing I don’t think you made a resource is the text box which would be redundant as you’re already 5 stars here.

Good game!

Bugs: settings reset between acts. Easter egg movement speed is too fast because my particular setup leads to lag and moving while lagging is just very tough

Epic voice acting. Very rare to see that.

There were no noticable flaws with the game’s design.

Tiny random details could be added to improve the experience (such as player looking at the books to see what they are before burning them). Little polish like that goes a long way sometimes…

I agree with a lot of the stuff others said.

This is probably gonna end up in top 10!

hopefully it’s not based on a true story…

Took me a couple tries to figure out that I have to actually move the bugs.

Unfortunately I forgot to screenshot my winning run, I got about 519 points by the end.

There was a bit of missing synergy, as there was never a reason to buy more than one different colour so the undisputed best strategy became quite obvious very quickly: just make the minimum amount of beads as possible to not need any more, with all the same colour and decoration.

Also the other strategy of just not buying anything is viable for some reason.

To resolve both of these balances, I would make it so that there are extra valuable benefits to synergizing different kinds of beads. For example, you could make it so that when a bead is next to one of each other colour, it could add extra base cash, and maybe apply this to the decorations as well but it adds more multiplier instead of more base cash. This way, the players have a lot more opportunity to plan. I’d also like to get more points per bead but with less starting money just to increase the opportunity for scaling.

Of course, this doesn’t have to take away from the coziness, since players aren’t at all required to maximize their score.

The sounds were very nice and the art was about the same quality as mine.

Congrats on your cozy game! It is of my opinion that this is one of the harder kinds to get just right.

I found that this game has the same inherent flaw that plagues many “get rich” games in that you’re just clicking around to make a number bigger. However, this isn’t a huge problem as some people like that kind of game, so it didn’t affect your score. You could try to resolve this using mutual exclusivity or synergistic interactions that synergize one thing more than another if you plan to update it.

However you nailed the theme perfectly! Everything did in fact feel like a resource. Easy 5 stars.

Another gameplay wish is that clicking the button to get rid of a material instead sold it, with pitiful values being applied to non-crafted items.

Nothing to say about the visuals and sound that hasn’t already been said.

Well done!

It took quite a while to properly understand how it works, partially because I didn’t notice you could talk to the guy until attempt 3.

I ended up optimizing a bit too much, and grinded all the materials for both elevators on the first floor since second floor was a bit agressive and the limited ammo mechanics made it quite easy to find yourself in a situation from which you can’t recover. My game actually suffers from a similar problem, if you remember!

This was a jam-packed game, the overscoping is noticable but you made it all work.

I got the same bug that Guds did.

Well done!

Had 2 seconds left…

I kinda wish I could drop items, could feel.

Kind of annoyed that after I misclicked, you tried to insult me so I dropped a star off Fun, but since it then helpfully corrected my misclick, I put a star on Gameplay (they’re the same category this jam lol it’s all a meme)

The music was really well done, I liked it a lot!

The pixel art also worked really well. Character might need a little work, but that’s just me being picky, you still scored highly here.

Overall I liked the submission!

It might be the combination of WebGL + Linux, which is known to have issues sometimes. I did try in both Chromium and Firefox, both gave the issue. I won’t rate your game since I am unable to experience it properly, but from what I managed to do it seemed quite fun.

FOR ANYONE WHO IS ABOUT TO REVIEW THIS GAME COMPLAINING THEY COULDN’T PICK UP THE KEY: YOU HAVE TO PRESS E

Anyway onto the review.

The game itself was quite a fun little concept. I feel like it needs one more mechanic (for example a door block that needs a key to be opened and gets in your way).

There were a few bugs I’d like to highlight: firstly, the game got really confused in situations where I had both blocks and keys in my inventory. I’d be able to turn keys into blocks and blocks into keys. I also had no way to decide which would be placed when I pressed Q. I think the solution to this issue is to add a way to switch between them and also separate the variable determining how much of each item you hold.

The puzzles gave me quite a few more resources than I felt like I needed (for example the second level is doable with one block).

The game also felt quite short (only like 5 levels and each one like 40 seconds to a smart player like me)

However the 4 minutes it took to complete the game was quite fun!

I recommend, in future game jams, to add a thumbnail when uploading the game. Currently, when we are looking through the catelogue, almost all of them have enticing images that make us want to click, but since yours doesn’t have one, no one wants to click it. Luckily, the people who have time to play them all are still getting to it, so you’re still getting feedback.

EVERYTHING is a resource…

Thanks for playing! And thanks even more for showing your son!

Thanks for playing! Vampire Survivors was a pretty big inspiration for me considering I’ve never played it…

His AI seems kinda strange where he just stands there eating your trashbags until suddenly he runs at mach 10 and knocks a third of your healthbar at once. The gameplay is quite similar to mine actually, where you are being chased around while having to pick stuff up off the floor and hurt the enemies with it. We diverged when you focused on skill/execution whereas I focused on strategy.

A solid submission.

I managed to go get the normal victory with just the beam and the drone, though I imagine the railcannon is useful!

Your team did very well for a first jam! With a few tweaks (and the addition of a pause button please) this would give all the same feelings an old flash game would!

Also is railcannon an ULTRAKILL reference?

Aha! You have fallen right into my trap! I succesfully created that feeling of a relentless uphill battle without making it so hard that you can’t see most of the content (the Crystals are the final enemy you encounter and if you see them it pretty much means you won).

Anyway yeah I need to make some upgrades stronger, the damage one in particular is percentage based and probably needs a significant change.

Thanks for checking it out!

Even midlevel Shooting Stars can easily one shot lategame enemies with both the starfall and the ammo. I think I need to make the pierce of both barrels and star fragments scale with upgrades.

Yeah I think I forgot about the fact that some players may experience issues going around frantically clicking stuff for 8+ minutes (which is when there are no new enemies and they just start scaling in stats over time). I think the solution would be to add a “hand-safe” mode that automatically picks up ammo as it enters range, since tha balance is pretty tuned already.

Thanks for playing and the useful suggestions!

Is it just me or is anyone else getting severe rubberbanding + getting stuck in corners + framedrops?

A good one here!

The SFX and music fit very well and the game was super engaging, the VFX were nice and you nailed the theme! All I would do is make it so that there are more props to the right as well as forward when the camera zooms out and make some UI contrast improvements. And maybe make the player’s grabs less finicky.

Getting the bug reports out of the way:

1. after completing a wave, the button will display the correct wave, and then default to wave 1 again after entering and exiting a building.
2. drag and drop to add a plant to the cauldron does not work unless you have at least 2 of that plant.
3. drag and drop to plant a crop was just super finnicky and some plots inexplicably refuse to let certain plants be planted.
4. partially filling the pot, then exiting and reentering, will reset the pot without giving you your crops back.
5. the info button next to the plant counters contains a scroll bar that is not usable.

On to the actual review

As stated by other reviewers, the game was unintuitive. However, since strategy games are my jam, I was still able to figure out the mechanics after 2 attempts.

It was slightly annoying not really being able to think strategically, as it was a very “solved” experience, as in, it’s very easy to know exactly what to do to play pretty optimally.

However, adding a few new mechanics to complexify the scene and implementing a bit of variety in playstyles/synergies and adding mutually exclusive foods/upgrades would remove the entirety of the previous paragraph.

Visually a little shading would go a long way I think.

The overscoping is crazy with this one

I second everything Mechanical Duck said

This could be a decent RPG with a few weeks to finish it into a full game, but something definitely needs to stand out that makes your game different to all the other bajillion decent RPGs in the world.

It’s clear you’re in a good mindset, it feels like you partially followed a platformer tutorial, but didn’t just copy and built your own unique game using the tutorial as a sort of base. That’s pretty much exactly how I started, I’m doing pretty well right now.

The non-colliding platforms were a bit evil but I suppose you didn’t have many other choices for adding difficulty.

I noticed this is a multi-submission (submitted to 3 different jams), I don’t suggest that for the future.

Overall, good job for your first game!

You must not have noticed it, but enemies do indeed drop parts of themselves as usable ammo!

Thanks for playing and noticing my clever logic!

I love all avians! My only problem with this game is that you can kill them… (and crow beaks aren’t yellow but that’s forgivable)

I had one major issue I had with the game’s design: I was never forced to use my powers. Simply platforming is enough to complete the game no problem.

I also had a major issue with the code: when backtracking on the final loop that leads towards the end of the game, it’s pretty easy to fall off because the player tries to turn too early. This is very annoying when trying to get the platform to the end to go see that Easter Egg.

I did like the design of the powers, however the Earth one seemed to always fire the leaf towards the same spot no matter where the player is.

Overall I like this a lot, however it could use a bit more playtesting to resolve issues like these.

The enemy counter anmd timer only appear once you lose since I don’t want to overcrowd the screen with UI at all. The effects were considered but I wanted to focus more on mechanics since that’s where I shine in game design. Ammo progression exists in the game, but it’s only tied to killing enemies. Thanks for playing!

Was ChatGPT, by chance, involved in writing your comment? Just curious.

Ammo is a bit scarce, but that’s intentional so that you cannot infinite combo off of enemies and have to upgrade with that in mind. Since I’m a strategy gamer at heart, I focused very much on building the game around making both micro and macrodescisions so that the game didn’t play itself for you.

The player size was a bit of a mistake, my strategy of building the game then applying most of the graphics afterward often produces this kind of problem. In most of my past games, the player character looks a little wonky in some way.

Thanks for the detailed feedback and for playing!

Before I finished making the game they were 20% faster…

Thanks for playing!

Thanks for playing! The duplicate upgrades showing up repeatedly is actually intentional, it’s designed this way so that you can spec your build harder into one direction instead of having to hope the upgrade you want to focus on shows up enough! The regeneration is because I’ve found very consistently that giving players no options for recovery ends up being unfair game design. I also made it so that the later enemies will eat the healthbar extremely quickly so you don’t end up out-regenerating them.

Absolute comedy that in my game, a green slime is the first enemy and an identically shaped crystal is the last enemy and in this game they’ve joined forces.

The puzzles felt a little easy, so I went ahead and redid them without collecting ANY slime from the pools. Slime is only consumed when you are moving along the ground, not the walls or ceiling, which is what made that possible. Also level 3 is VERY tough with this modifier.

The game’s art is definitely the highlight of the game, but the sound was quite good as well.

Could not pass level 2 because as I descended, I killed everything and picked up all the diamonds, and then reached a door that didn’t open.

Also I have minimal idea of how the Rage meter works, it ticks up over time and then playing the game normally makes it a non-threat.

A few bugs here and there and the strategy of spam clicking wherever I might want to interact.

However the idea of the game is very fun, and actually comes close to what I made. Good job getting it done! Remember that submitting means you did better than the average participant at this jam.

Thanks, when I update this game I’m definitely revisiting the garbage music (it’s garbage)

It’s a Tower Defense game that I poured a lotta heart and soul into. I love how it turned out and would love to reach 16 votes, a power of 2! (haha unexpected factorial but it still works)

https://itch.io/jam/gamedevjs-2025/rate/3493629

The game is quite esoteric (it’s hard to know what impacts a resource will have, how much a resource is worth is not displayed, there’s no tutorial) so I was not very sure on what exactly I was supposed to do.

I do however like the game concept of manipulating 2 kingdoms to fight against each other for economic benefit, it’s exactly the kind of thing that would happen in the middle ages, and you fit the theme quite well and the art of the thumbs-up knight is good.

There is a softlock possible, if you end up with 1 “point” left to spend on a trade, but you’ve ran out of Wood and Stone, you cannot trade anything because the iron and gold can only be traded with more than 1 “point” and thus cannot activate the next war cycle.

Can you please update the game page on itch io and explain the controls of the game in the description? I’m having a hard time understanding why Windows 10 has a mind of its own.

I took a nap

I found it strategically advantageous to save up coins then find a well and spam it so that the majority of the world is covered in space and it will last much longer this way. The game’s concept is very unique and I loved it. It looked and sounded pretty solid.

I cannot see how this interacts with the theme.

The Nest is my favourite tower and the max level Gatling was the hardest to code…

I’m glad you liked it! The progression would have been a LOT harder but I decided to add Gold Mines so that it’s guaranteed to be possible. Then someone did it without them!

THIS COMMENT SPOILS THE SOLUTION. SCROLL DOWN AT YOUR OWN RISK

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I have found a bit of a cheatcode, I ended with 100% balance by simply spamming carrots into existence until the time ran out. I would have liked for the populations to affect eachother (perhaps every 30 seconds, the number of rabbits would go down by the number of wolves, if there are more wolves than rabbits any wolf that didn’t eat disappears, every 10 seconds the carrots would go down by the number of rabbits, so on). An economy mechanic (giving the player limited cash and making it so that adding things costs money, maybe more interactions with it) would be a nice pairing.

The theme interpretation was quite creative and I like the thumbnail art.