Such a cool idea! The art and visuals were so cute and they all fit together very well. The controls were super hard, but I assume that was by design. A great challenge! I did run into some bugs - the key remapping didn't work, and even after refreshing the page the game didn't reset properly. Anyway, this was a lot of fun! I didn't notice until after reading other people's comments that the pun changes every time, so I had fun refreshing and reading the puns!

I like the plot and the humor! The minigames were a bit confusing for me, but I got the idea eventually. It felt a little brief/rushed, but that's totally understandable for a jam game. Much better to have something good that feels too short than to overscope and deliver a broken experience.

Cool game! Smooth visuals (great shading and animations!) and solid gameplay mechanics. The only thing it's missing is audio. I'd totally play a physical card game version of this if it existed. I did run into a bug, though - if I can't play my card, there should be a way to draw (or a "game over" if that's what should happen when I can't play).

Cool game! I didn't make it very far due to the difficulty, but I enjoyed the audio and the challenge of trying to make those narrow turns.

Great game! Satisfying audio and visuals, and solid level design. This game is also a good example of how even really simple animations (jellyfish movement, pearl collection) make the game feel way cooler. Would have liked to see more variety - new mechanics, other types of enemies, etc. Maybe that came later and I died too soon to see it. Regardless, I enjoyed your entry.

Awesome game! Loved the audio and the controls. Visuals were nice - I especially liked the jumping animation and the fish rain. Unfortunately I didn't make it far enough to get the second type of fish swarm, but I enjoyed what I was able to play.

Controls took a while to get used to, but this was so much fun! Oh, to be a dolphin whirling through the water at breakneck speeds to intense, hyper music! There were some things in the menu I never figured out how to do (e.g., aerials). Also I just realized as I'm writing this, I completely missed the SHIFT control to shoot bubbles, oops! I gotta get better at reading descriptions. Never did figure out the second game mode. Wondering if it has to do with the fishing cat?

Simple, easy to understand mechanics, and fun minigames. Nice art. Excellent puns! I wish there was more audio to go along with this. Also, it felt like a lot of minigame time would be required before I could upgrade my stats enough to win the battles, but maybe it's just that I hit your game after I'd already been streaming for a couple hours so I had less patience lol. Anyway, cool game!

Cool! I love the art and it seems like the beginnings of a really fun game, frantically trying to get everything in order. Let me know when the update comes out!

Fun! I love how each tower really fit the theme and had a unique ability based on what creature it was. Cool audio and visuals! Unfortunately, the balancing seemed to be off: I was getting lots of money and had no limit on the number of towers placed, so there were no constraints to challenge me. If you ever get around to updating the game post jam, I'd love to give it another go!

Cool game! I liked the visuals, including the background that moves. Appreciated the variety with multiple enemy types and the separation between diver and submarine. A new take on some classic platforming mechanics. Would have loved to see more audio, especially music and maybe a few more sfx, especially for things like getting hit. 

Fun game! I liked the spells and the sound effects! The ragdoll physics was innovative, but definitely a challenge. I wasn't able to complete the game due to my lack of skill, but I enjoyed what I was able to finish.

This was fun! I had a hard time finding the right balance between too hard and too easy, but I'm sure if I spent some more time tweaking the settings I'd find the sweet spot. Lots of cool mechanics and I appreciated that there were conflicting properties (e.g., frogmen scared by the light, but fishlings are lured by the light). I don't think I saw all of the enemies, but I did get to experience a few. I really liked the audio and the visuals. Also, points for originality! I've played tower defense, but nothing quite like this.

Creative idea and fun gameplay! Not as hard as I was afraid it would be, but still a fun challenge. Excellent job with the tutorial. With a game this complex, a good tutorial is essential, and you nailed it. I found the controls to look around a bit confusing, but otherwise things felt pretty smooth. Loved the sfx! Cool visuals, too! The only thing missing assets-wise is music.

Excellent game! A very clever game idea, thoroughly executed and well polished. I appreciate that you had a message about ableism and I think you did a good job communicating it without it feeling forced. You really got across the feeling of frustration from trying to live in a world not made for you. The personality and storytelling was well done and very coherent. And I loved the incremental gameplay how you keep building up skill over time (facing the way you want, using a stick), but it doesn't have an unrealistic happy ending. And I loved the signs at the end, too! Still can't get over how clever this game is and how well you executed it.

An excellent start! Would love to know more about the different types of attacks, see more kinds of encounters, and hear audio! As it was, it felt like a basic demo of some RPG mechanics. What you did have was well done. I also liked the art - you absolutely captured the style of classic turn-based RPGs. If you ever decide to expand this, let me know!

Cool game! A tutorial would have been helpful - I was very lost and confused. I did enjoy the art and sfx though!

Fun game! I didn't make it very far due to my lack of skill, but I enjoyed what I was able to play. I loved the music and sound effects! Good job with the graphics, too - that fish definitely has the blank stare of terror. I did seem to notice a bit of a pathing bug which was unfortunate.

Great job! This was a cute story and nice graphics. You made good choices of music and sfx. I would have liked to hear some kind of audio for the text (voice acting or soundfont (e.g., like in Undertale)) and been given the option to advance text myself or auto-advance. Other than that, this felt very smooth and polished. Glad you could make it to the stream!

This game was incredibly satisfying! The music, sfx, art, innovative mechanics, and well-crafted level design all combined to make an immersive, fun experience. Glad you were able to join the stream.

Interesting premise and fun gameplay! I liked the artwork, music, and sfx. The easter egg of the QR code was really clever! The controls were a bit confusing to me, even when I figured out how to find the menu. Glad I was able to play with you on the stream!

I enjoyed playing your game on my stream! I was a bit confused at the very beginning, but once I got the hang of it, it was a lot of fun! Satisfying art, music, and sfx. I liked the evolution mechanics although I wish I could have a way to see what evolutions I had so far on each species; I kept losing track. Also, great job with the tutorial, you explained things really well. Overall, the game felt very smooth and I loved it.

Great entry! I enjoyed playing your game on my stream. I liked the concept, the mechanics, and the art! I found a few bugs and also missed the lack of audio. Here's the link to the stream if you want to see it again:

I gave him everything he's willing to take. All I have left is soap and a key. Nothing happens when I put them on the transmogrifier, and the professor won't take them.

Same result as when I asked herbert about spider person. I've seen that text before. I think the issue is I need to get the corpse onto the rocket with me somehow, but I don't know how.

Thanks! I had a lot of fun writing it. I spent a week (maybe a little more) before the jam reading all the Inform 7 documentation to make sure I was limited by the capabilities of the engine rather than my knowledge of the engine.

I had a really hard time figuring out where to set the threshold for job offers. If I'd been able to get more playtesters I could have fine-tuned that a bit. However, it sounds like you played long enough to get an offer, which is what I was hoping for.

If you want to make sure you're getting the full experience, I have two recommendations. One, check out the action list in the help menu if you haven't already, and then try those actions with various items. As you said, items are modifiable, so you may get different results based on things like whether the item is wet, where the item is, etc. Two, figure out what the math is telling you, if you haven't already figured it out.

That thing you mentioned with the math is definitely a bug. The math should either give one or more correct responses, or the math should give an incorrect response. I just checked the code to confirm my suspicions: it's a misplaced else, so the incorrect message shows up in more situations than it should (but the correct messages show up only when they are supposed to).

Yeah, it makes sense to me and it's an interesting idea! If you ever decide to develop it further, I'd be happy to play more.

An interesting idea, but it feels too short, like the game is over before I've really gotten to explore its potential. Am I right in understanding that at that part where you have lots of options, each one gives its own one-sentence response and then you go the same ending (the mention of waking up with salad)?

I ran into an error after getting Santana's ID: gracelyn_ID is not defined. And then I couldn't progress. With no way to restart or undo, I can't experience any more of the game.

Ok, I got that far and now it's saying I need a companion? Lost again.

It's been a while since I've played a game where you were expected to die frequently! Nice little game about struggling as you search for something. I was really frustrated at first but eventually got into a groove.

It would have been good if you used a spellchecker, and also don't forget the spacing when you add in the item the player is looking for. Speaking of substitutions, it doesn't look like you used the player name anywhere?

The way the choices were presented was sometimes unintuitive. Maybe (n) would be listed before (y) or maybe the question wasn't properly worded as a yes/no question. The "do you stop" him for the thief was probably the worst case: (n) means you stop him, (y) means you don't stop him, but the last line is "Do you stop him? (y/n)", which is the exact opposite! Maybe this difficulty was intentional, but it was frustrating.

Items felt a bit shoehorned in there and not fully developed, but that's kind of inevitable with such a small game. Just including them at all was good!

If you mark that file as "play in browser" then your game should be playable on browser so people don't have to download the file.

Still confused:

>x watch

Looking back, this watch is the best thing you have ever owned. It is beautifully made, keeps excellent time and even has a second hand that moves with a satisfying silent tick. Its hands currently show ten past two.

>x hands

You can't see any such thing.

>take hands

You can't see any such thing.

>take hand

You can't see any such thing.

>x hand

You can't see any such thing.

>x watch

Looking back, this watch is the best thing you have ever owned. It is beautifully made, keeps excellent time and even has a second hand that moves with a satisfying silent tick. Its hands currently show eleven minutes past two.

>take time

You can't see any such thing.

>look back

You can't see any such thing.

>x watch

Looking back, this watch is the best thing you have ever owned. It is beautifully made, keeps excellent time and even has a second hand that moves with a satisfying silent tick. Its hands currently show twelve minutes past two.

>x watch

Looking back, this watch is the best thing you have ever owned. It is beautifully made, keeps excellent time and even has a second hand that moves with a satisfying silent tick. Its hands currently show thirteen minutes past two.

>take best thing you have ever owned

You can't see any such thing.

>take best thing

You can't see any such thing.

>i

You are carrying:

  a watch (being worn)

  a signalling mirror

  soap

  an elaborate brass key

  a communication transceiver

>drop watch

(first taking the watch off)

Dropped.

>look

Laboratory

You are in the laboratory of your boss, Professor Herbert. The dusty room is filled with strange equipment, placed precariously on heavy wooden tables. Spider webs adorn the solid stone walls, lit by dim amber light bulbs and flickering sparks from several humming machines.

A door to the south leads out of the laboratory.

You can see a watch, a Transmogrifier and Professor Herbert here.

>take watch

Taken.

>give watch to herbert

He's not interested in this, yet.

>x watch

Looking back, this watch is the best thing you have ever owned. It is beautifully made, keeps excellent time and even has a second hand that moves with a satisfying silent tick. Its hands currently show nineteen minutes past two.

>take nineteen minutes past two

Only four of those are available.

>take minutes

You can't see any such thing.

>take minutes past two

You can't see any such thing.

>take four minutes past two

You can't see any such thing.

>take past two

You can't see any such thing.

>take two

You can't see any such thing.

>take four

You can't see any such thing.

>give watch to herbert

He's not interested in this, yet.

I like this game, especially plot and the NPC! Unfortunately, I've definitely found some points of frustration. 

It's not clear to me which verbs are supported in this game (you can see in my game I made a menu where you can see all the verbs I used, which helps reduce the annoying activity of trying to guess what's acceptable). 

It's good that you have some version of in-game hints, but they aren't easy to find. I eventually figured out I needed to mix stuff from the hint after turning the transmogrifier on, but it took me a long time to think of turning the transmogrifier on. I kept trying commands like hint and help and they didn't work. I did eventually think to ask the professor about the rocket, but that was hard to think of. If you want to stick to interactive hints, maybe look at the "acting confused" example in Inform 7 documentation?

The descriptions are a bit lacking: some things are missing descriptions entirely, and some things are described as being in the room yet when I try to look at them I'm told they don't exist (so flavor text doesn't translate to actual items).

I'm stuck now. I picked up everything that could be picked up (including stuff to the west (I got the key)) and I headed back to the lab. I told the professor about the spider person and he wants me to make the stuff to fend off the aliens. All that's left is something to run the countdown, but it says he's not interested in the watch yet. I tried waiting, but he's still not interested. I tried giving the transceiver to him, but he just gets all concerned and nothing changes as far as I can tell.

You're the first to mention difficulty telling the voices apart. The "me" voice is not very distinctive since it was added last minute for accessibility. I could see mixing up the Wizard and the Rogue, though I did give them some variety in pitch, tone, and mannerisms. I'm surprised the Sorcerer doesn't stand out since I did give her an accent too (British - basically what I picked up when I lived in Harrogate which is near Yorkshire), but maybe the accent is a little too understated lol.

With the wrong questions I was trying to hint at it with the fact that two questions had the exact same wording at the end, but I guess that wasn't as obvious as I thought.

The 1, 2, 3 options was because I couldn't get the buttons to show up properly when the text was longer. It was a clunky workaround, but I didn't have another idea. And as I said, the voiceover with  that is a bit bugged.

Thanks for the detailed feedback!

2880 x 1800

Too hard for me, but I like the idea!

(Timestamp)

Cool concept! I especially like the use of the dare to fail wildcard. I'm not sure how the waiting wildcard was implemented though. I found it really hard to keep track of all the weaknesses and as you can see I didn't make it very far.

(Timestamp 59:10)