itch.io

Totally understand! I saw on your website that you were using a (custom?) non-canvas web stack for this project, and being experienced with professional web dev myself I get how that could be a real challenge. I'm using the Godot engine for my projects which thankfully has many built-in options for handling window scaling, so it's something I occasionally take for granted.

(Btw I can highly recommend Godot as a general purpose game engine, it has some pretty good platform export options, although Godot 4's default web export has a WebGL 2.0 dependency which can cause issues with some browsers, mainly on Macs. It's free & open source, has a great, growing community, and there are a lot of great learning resources available! Maybe something to check out for future projects if that is of interest to you.)

This is really well done for a jam game, great work! I got a bit addicted to playing around with the movement mechanics- even though you're not the first to make a game like this (e.g. SpeedRunners), I still had a blast experimenting with it all. Here is all of my feedback:

• I agree with what a lot of other people have said about the collision & momentum issues, it feels unfun when you stub your toe or let go of a movement key and instantly lose all momentum. You're probably already making use of coyote time, but I think there are a lot more opportunities to 'cheat' with the inputs to make them feel player-friendly, for example by slightly delaying the character's hitbox shift from sliding->standing so they can still slide under a wall if they just let go of the button slightly too soon. I also think it might be better if the player didn't fall like a brick when letting go of the jump button, and was more floaty instead, with a separate button (s/down) that would let you fall fast/dive/slam/etc.
• I love the physics interactions you can have with ramps where you can build a ton of speed if you hit them just right, and would love to see maps with rounded slopes/halfpipes that the character could run on or slide down almost like Sonic. The more options, the better! And keeping the options generic enough/scalable is a great idea so they can all work within your level editor once that is complete.
• You mentioned that you were working on a fast restart that would skip the intro cutscene - this is a great idea, but it might be better if the skip would just happen automatically upon player input, as long as it hasn't been skipped at least once.
• Speaking of player input, I wish the game would keep track of my inputs outside of their relevant game states so they could transition immediately when possible. For example, if I hold the slide button while in the air, I want my character to slide right when they touch the ground instead of requiring a second input. When I restart the level, if I was already holding the right arrow button, I want the character to start running right instantly.
• I love the idea of the level editor, but I also think you should have a set of official levels to choose from, to teach the player the game mechanics, give 'base' options for players that can guarantee a good play experience, and to act as a guide for people when they venture into make custom levels (like Mario Maker).
• The concept of chasing down a previous version of yourself is very cool and is what makes your game fit the role reversal theme in the first place, but in all honestly I don't think it's that well implemented currently. At present, it just means a speedrunner would have to slow down for half a second at the start of each run to guarantee that they would catch the ghost at the finish line. I don't know a perfect solution to this problem, but here's one suggestion that might work:
  You could make it possible to go 100% full speed throughout the initial run, but have map obstacles that change in a predictable way once the finish line is reached, so that your future self has some options to catch up without having to intentionally slow down. For example, doors that open up, walls that slide to one side, speed boosts that become active, level inversions, and so on (the ghost doesn't necessarily have to react to these changes). You might also consider allowing the player to chase their past selves indefinitely so long as they are within a distance radius. So if you mess up slightly in your chase of a perfect past self, you're not necessarily out of luck even if the finish line is passed, as long as you can keep up within reason.
  At first I thought it might also be a good idea to count the chase sequence time as part of the total time in the leaderboards to reward players who do well in both phases, but that would only work if it's not possible for speedrunners to get a better overall time by doing poorly in the first phase, so maybe keeping the total time as a secondary non-ranked stat would be better.
• If you are open to expanding the scope of the game in future versions even further, I think it would be absolutely fantastic to build in a real-time multiplayer feature, as that is always a great time for these kinds of games and is very likely what would draw in a lot of new players who otherwise wouldn't be interested. There are a lot of interesting ways you could implement multiplayer, whether it would be a co-op only thing, or a lobby system with anywhere from 2 to 100 players, possibly with different gamemodes that all have their own implementation of the assassin phase shift concept. I'm imagining some crazy scenario where you could have 2 teams of players that get to take turns shifting between the assassin team and the runners team while both are playing simultaneously, there's a ton of potential for sure.
• I would love to have the option to either race or chase down a player's ghost from the leaderboard, or my friends' ghosts.
• A nice minor improvement to have would be an options menu with the ability to go fullscreen, and a game scale slider. I'm playing on an ultrawide monitor which this game could definitely benefit from if it would take up the extra space!
• Generic controller support would be very appreciated as well.

Overall, this was a great experience!

Thanks for playing! The laser issue is a problem that only exists in the web export version of the game, so I'll have to do some research to figure out what lighting changes to make for it to work right. Also, there is a button in the menu to reset the item positions so you can try again; there is also a shortcut mapped to f2 or gamepad left bumper to do that instantly. We're considering future changes that would make this feature more obvious and less necessary, because we'd prefer if nothing ever got permanently stuck.

This was a great puzzle experience! I had a great time with your game, and it's definitely the kind of thing I could see playing a lot more of if some things are adjusted. Here is my feedback:

1. What did you like more - placing tiles or watching the hero's adventure? The tile placing mechanic was much more interesting than the hero's adventure, because it is the core gameplay mechanic, and there isn't enough of a story element or worldbuilding for me to care about the hero specifically. But I could imagine you adding a story to guide the player through the levels and give some more explanation for why certain goals are necessary.
2. What was the most obscure/non-intuitive mechanic? It would definitely have to be the aspect of learning what each tile does. The biggest problem when you start a level is that you don't know which tiles you have, and when new ones are introduced, you have no idea what they will do until you get them in your hand. It would be great if there was a way to see all the tiles in your deck with a counter next to each one, and full descriptions when you click or hover over one.
3. Would you play this on Steam? What about the Switch? If a full version of this was developed, I would either play on the Switch or on a Steam deck. It seems like it would be great to play in handheld mode during travel or when resting in bed.

Other feedback:

• I wish I could see the effects of an already placed tile; it would be nice to hover over a placed tile or tile in your hand to see the effects.
• I also wish I could undo my tile placement steps in case I misplaced something.
• I think you should lean more into the puzzle game aspect, and instead of randomizing the order of your tiles, they should probably be in a consistent order (with a visible ordering somewhere), or all accessible from the beginning. As someone else mentioned already it's a bit frustrating that you have no control over that when it's the only random part of the game. It also means you can restart over and over until you get the best starting tiles in your hand. IMO randomness in games with similar tile placement mechanics makes a lot more sense when the goals are more abstract and you aren't playing a linear progression of levels.
• The mouse & keyboard controls were implemented pretty well, but when using the mouse right-click-hold for rotation I wish it wouldn't take me out of the tile placement mode. For these types of games on pc, I do prefer being able to do everything with the mouse if possible.
• I encountered a bug where the music stopped after I restarted the level, and then was gone for the rest of the game.
• There was another bug where some of the glowing enemy eyes couldn't glow at the same time, so it would flicker between them.
• If you turn this into a full game, I would love to see custom modelling and asset work done, and a bit more polish with the animations. The Kenney assets are great, but so many games out there use them to the point where it's very hard to stand out from the others if you use them too, even if your gameplay is great.

Great work so far!

Sorry about some of the ambiguity and confusion in my last feedback!

• So I noticed the image flickering issue was the worst the first time I loaded the game up, but when I refreshed the page it was totally fixed. However, when I went to relaunch the game today, it was back, but only the menus were affected. I then tried relaunching multiple times and couldn't replicate the issue again.
• Regarding the time mechanics, I think I was partially confused when I played the game initially, because I was treating it only as a turn-based game with my decision making. In those kinds of games, you would expect to be able to take your time and make more strategic choices with a lot of thought put into them, and the card-based action system that you have lends itself well to that kind of gameplay IMO. With (I believe) minor adjustments, you could make your game work that way entirely.
  Right now you have the real-time countdown, but I think there needs to be more to it for it to be a valuable feature. As you said, it just ticks down the time - it doesn't tie into the gameplay loop beyond that (unless I missed something). If you decide you want to keep it, I think it would make sense for your hunger, thirst, and energy stats to go down over time, zombies might wander around automatically, and other world events should happen automatically too, wherever it would make sense. Your cards could still have an indication of how much time an action would take, but with it being real-time, you might have the option to cancel certain actions midway through. Longer actions like sleeping could still be greatly sped up to avoid too much idle time. I would also consider making the timer update in increments of 1 minute instead of 10 so you get more immediate feedback and thus feel more pressure to make quick choices.
• Here's a video that shows the Pokemon struggle mechanic I'm referring to:
  Normally each of your Pokemon has up to 4 moves, each with a certain number of 'Power Points' that determine how many times that move can be used in battle. When every single move has no points left but you still choose to attack, your Pokemon uses the move 'struggle' and deals a small amount of damage.

Nice, the borders look great! if you can find out a way to scale the whole window down when the width shrinks below the 16:9 ratio, it should also work well for older style monitors (e.g. 4:3) or tall browser windows too!

Thanks for trying it out, and for your thoughts!

My friend & brother helped me on this project during the jam, so thanks to them we were able to bounce ideas around and settle on the claw machine concept a couple hours after the jam started; without them, I might have been very lost with the theme as well. But one of the great things about the GMTK Jams's themes is that there is always room for interpretation, so there ends up being a lot of cool variety with the submissions. That's partly why we were so excited for this to be our first jam collab! We knew that there would have to be some opportunity to put a fun twist on more traditional game paradigms, regardless of the theme.

I'm glad you like the laser feature - I hope we can improve it a bit in a future update (especially to work more consistently on the web export version), but I'm happy enough with it as-is. This was actually partially inspired by the classic UFO catcher Mario Party minigame.

We'll definitely try to make the reset functionality more obvious if we do another update! But the main goal would be to make it so the claw can extend all the way to the floor consistently, so players wouldn't need to reset as often, if ever.

We were actually planning on having a lot of voicelines! My brother recorded a fair few during the jam period (both for the machine itself, and npcs), but during the 48 hours I sadly wasn't able to add them in due to the time crunch. After the jam ended and I was able to listen through them more carefully, I realized that there were a few things we could adjust to make them work much better in the game, so I decided not to add them just yet in our minor bugfix update. He's a busy guy, but I'm hoping to make some time to record updated lines and use them in a future update! He can bring a lot of character to the machine, and with the right bitcrush filters it should sound very fitting. This is a sample of one of the lines he recorded that might not need to be adjusted at all.

And I love the idea of having some basic face animations when certain events happen, I'll definitely keep that in mind!

I loved this game! You have a great visual style with the giant googly-eye monster shapes, and the audio fit really well with it too. Here is my main feedback:

• It took about 15 minutes in total for me to complete the demo, with about 8 minutes for the first boss (2 stars), 4 for the second (also 2 stars), and 2 for the third (1 star). I wasn't trying to get any high scores or perfect runs though, so I could definitely see other players that do care more about that stuff spending longer to grind better runs. I submitted my scores as SamuelK on the leaderboard for reference.
• I played on my mouse only, but I would have loved to play on a controller! Not sure if it is supported for other controller types, but my PS5 controller wasn't detected so I assume it's not (yet), or only for XBox controllers. The battle style seems like it would map perfectly onto a single joystick! I know in some game engines like Godot there is support for generic gamepad inputs, hopefully there is something like that for the engine you used.
• Speaking of controls, it's nice that mouse support is available, but I think it would also be nice to have some keyboard options for accessibility. Even if it's just left/right arrows or a/d for clockwise and counter-clockwise movement, some option would be better than none (it could be that this already exists and I just overlooked it).
• I think it would be a good idea to put a movement speed cap on your character - I found many times where I would fly right over the pickups because the character would teleport too quickly to my cursor's angle, especially when I'd move the mouse through the center of the screen. This also led to a couple times where I accidentally teleported right into a bullet because my mouse wasn't exactly where I thought it was. It makes sense for the character to be very quick because of the bullet-hell style of gameplay, but this just felt slightly too much to me. For mouse inputs at least, one idea could be for your game to consume all mouse input while it is focused, and instead of using the mouse's screen position to determine the character's angle, you might just make it react to relative movements to determine where to go - maybe this would work best as an alternative control mode, but I don't actually know whether it would be a good experience yet.
• I like the attack patterns overall, but there were a couple times on the second and third bosses that it felt like I got trapped without a possible way not to get hit, when there were multiple enemy attacks happening concurrently. I also found it a bit hard to make out the cross-beam attack shape on the first boss during their second phase before it would fire, which might be a monitor color issue on my end. I think both of these issue could be greatly improved with some minor tweaks though!
• Difficulty wise, aside from the things I mentioned above, I found the first boss to be reasonably challenging and the others to be pretty easy, probably because I got a better understanding of the game by that point. That's not to say they weren't fun though! I would have liked the second and third bosses to be harder though - maybe having multiple difficulty levels for each boss would help to keep things interesting while still being accessible for players without as much experience with these kinds of games.
• A fullscreen button would be much appreciated! I zoomed in my browser to try to make it as fullscreen as possible, but because I'm on an ultrawide there were still cut off edges on the left and right sides.

Thank you very much for the feedback! To address your points:

• I agree that the font readability is not that great, it was something I really noticed when I put together the main thumbnail imagery for the itch page. At that point it was a bit too late to change it though, since we were right up against the 48 hour deadline. But if we get around to updating the game, I will definitely look into finding a better font that still gives the arcadey feel we were aiming for!
• I'm glad you like the text animations! Godot (the game engine we use) has some really nice built-in tools that helped a lot to make that work.
• There is actually a button in the game menu as well as a shortcut (f2/joypad left bumper) that resets the prize positions in case one falls on the floor or is otherwise unreachable. We should probably make this a bit clearer though! You're not the first person to miss it. I just don't know what the best way to present that option would be...
• Thanks for the compliment on the style, I really like it as well! We had some experience working with more detailed, high-res texturing, but given the 48hr time limit and the game's theme we decided it would be best to keep it simple, and that worked out for the best!

Thank you very much! I agree that the music is great, we didn't actually make it ourselves though. Most of it was sourced from an 8-Bit Adventure Music Pack by Steven Melin, with the main game track being "Mysterious Cave". I would love to add some custom-made music at some point if we ever expand the game further!

After we posted the game and I gave myself some time to actually play it, I found myself enjoying the claw-based gameplay much more than I expected to. To me, there is something therapeutic about the simple gameplay loop where you really only control the claw's starting point, and leave the rest of it up to the wacky physics engine/logic. I'm sure it frustrates a lot of other people though, you are not alone! If we get around to doing another update, we'll probably make it possible to cancel the automatic retrieval motion and give the player more direct control options as a way to mitigate that. We would also focus more on the claw physics, and try to make it less buggy and a bit more consistent overall.

Thanks for the feedback! We too were very happy we got it working in the 48 hours timeframe, I just wish we could have submitted it in time. In response to your points:

• We had a button that would reset the position of the claw in case it bugged out, but that function itself was bugged, so I temporarily removed it. But rest assured that it will definitely come back if we get around to doing another update! I also want to look into reworking the claw wire segments' physics properties so that button would hopefully never be needed in the first place.
• Originally we did plan on having the prizes drop down and fill up the machine! We just didn't have the time to implement it that way, but I think that could be a neat update. We were also going to have grabbable people in the arcade that would shrink down when you drop them in the machine; who knows, we might still do that at some point! I was even considering making a minigame where you could play the claw machine again, with the toys that you stole inside of it, but I have no idea how that would fit into the gameplay loop in a meaningful way.
• I was also originally planning to give you the ability to cancel out of the default motion after you've grabbed a toy, and cancel the motion if the toy is dropped partway through, but the jam's time limitation halted that effort. I haven't decided yet whether it would be better to give the player the option to permanently toggle the automatic retrieval motion, or just let them cancel out if it each time manually...
• I think it is fun to have some extra slack in the rope sometimes, but I agree that it can sometimes extend way too far. The potential solution I already had in mind was to implement a height check on the claw itself, where it would stop extending if it had not moved significantly downward within a small time threshold. But this would only apply if a prize is not detected under the claw, because we already have a raycast condition in place to make the claw stop it a prize is found right under it.
• We actually do have some shortcuts to reset the prize positions, f2 on keyboard or left bumper on the gamepad - I should probably update the controls list with this information! If we do a bigger update to the game at some point, I would hope to get it to the point where the claw could extend all the way to the floor, making it less necessary to reset the positions at all. I still think an in-game button would be necessary for some cases, but I don't know whether it would only exist in the menu, or be always visible in the corner of the screen somewhere.

This was a nice experience! Although I will say that I ran into some visual bugs the first time I tried playing it - the menus and my character dot would disappear and only appear briefly when hovering over other interactible items. I was playing using the itch.io sandboxed app, in case that helps at all.

Most of my feedback mirrors what Jakub & Jay already posted, but I have a few other things to mention:

• I found it a bit difficult to select specific cards that were sorted on the right side of the pile, and it also felt pretty claustrophobic with all the cards visible at once, at least at the size they currently are. Have you considered adjusting the card layout so only one is maximized at once, with the rest shrunk down or pushed out of the way a bit? I think getting that UX just right will help a lot especially with the very packed areas of the game. You might even be able to do something completely different, like having miniaturized cards hovering above the objects they represent instead of all stacked in a pile.
• I'm not a huge fan of having a real time counter that ticks down while also having turn-based mechanics that eat up time from the same pool - I would prefer only going with one system or the other. I could see the gameplay becoming more strategic if it's all turn-based, or possibly more hectic/manic if it's all in real time. If you do narrow it down to just one system, I think you should really lean into it!
• A nice to have feature would be dynamic aspect ratio scaling; I played on an ultrawide monitor, and it would be really great to see more of the map or at least some simple decorations on the sides rather than darkness.
• I think it would be nice to have the option to run away from a battle (probably at a cost), or have some basic 'struggle' attack that kicks in when you're out of weapons, like in Pokemon. Early on, I didn't know what I was doing and died after only doing a bit of damage to a zombie, so I had to wait quite a while for my character to die while standing around doing nothing.
• Minor spelling error: I noticed on the game page that there is a section titled "Scounting, Rest & Sleep", but I assume it should be "Scouting".

Great job on this game!

Horror games are definitely not my favorite genre, but I can appreciate when they are well done, and I definitely think this has potential! In my opinion, there is a lot that should be updated still; because this is a horror game, getting the immersiveness just right is critical if you want people to really enjoy it when it's released.

This is going to be a longer post, because I've got a lot of nitpicks about the experience that I had, so bear with me! Here is all of my feedback under the categories you asked for, focusing on immersiveness over all else:

Sound/FX

• The ambience sounds/music should be balanced more, in a way that accentuates scary moments, and also provides lulls during less intense moments. For example, I found the ambience track to be too loud while I was inside the cabin during most of the initial exploration section where you have to find the tapes. It would be better if that track would dip down, change or turn off until there is some significant event like a jumpscare/etc. Likewise, in the corn maze section, it would be nice if the track started less intense and grew as the time limit approaches or when the farmer is nearby.
• I found some of the footstep sounds to be too loud, mainly the ones inside the cabin - sometimes it almost sounded like I was hitting the ground with a hammer!
• I personally did not like the AI voices that much - they overemphasized certain syllables and words, and didn't bring out the emotions that I would expect from real people. None of the characters really sounded scared, worried, or distraught in the way that some voice acting could accomplish. I especially found the main antagonist 'alien guy' to be quite nonthreatening, partially because of the voice.
• The farmer guy in the corn maze should make sounds as he moves around, especially when he's walking right through the corn stalks. Also, he should probably have more of a cooldown between voice lines so he doesn't repeat himself when he attacks you, and maybe should occasionally say things when he's far away from you so you can get a general idea of where he is. Some explanation for why he's there in the first place would be appreciated.
• In the corn maze, there was some crying/screaming sound effect (not exactly sure what it was) that played when I was walking through some of the corn, only to cut off abruptly when I walked forward a bit more. I assume that is a bug?

Story

• I really liked the presentation at the beginning of the game with the flashback scenes and the radio-like voice filter, but, I think it could be better if you find a way to integrate some simple gameplay into it, or build it out into the first level of the game. As it is right now, the cutscene just feels a little longer than necessary, and that can be a big turn off for a lot of people. If possible, I would suggest starting with gameplay almost immediately so the player feels more involved.
• I would highly, highly recommend getting a writer to help clean up the characters' dialogue; currently there are a number of grammatical errors, and some phrasing that feels very unnatural. This is a very common problem among other horror games out there, often because the writers either don't speak English natively or don't have much writing experience, but IMO it is too underrated. Getting the dialogue just right (including using real voice acting) is paramount if you want to truly captivate the player.
• Having an element of mystery is definitely a good thing for horror games in general, but I think it works best when you have more context/worldbuilding to work with. It can be a tough balance between overflowing the player with too much story at once (Metal Gear Solid anyone?), possibly taking away from the interactiveness and making it feel too much like a movie, and not giving enough context for players to feel like they care about what's going on. Right now, I think the game's introduction falls a bit into that first category, while the remaining portion falls a bit into the latter.
  As mentioned earlier, I think having some gameplay in the introduction could help a lot, but I also think you may want to consider doing more worldbuilding before the main threat of the game is made clear. I know that this is an unfair comparison, but just for reference, games like The Last of Us and The Walking Dead do a great job of building up the characters' backstories both early on and throughout the entire story so the players can get to really care about them. In your game, I want to care more about the main character, his daughter, the woman who communicates to you, and the antagonist. But with the way it's currently structured, I have to do some crazy unexplained scavenger hunt to apparently save some people that it feels like I don't even know, from a guy in an alien mask who, to me, just seems like an angsty teen wearing a party store halloween costume (again, voice acting can help here tremendously).
  To summarize, I might suggest clearing up some of the mystery surrounding the story earlier on, leaving only one or two big ones to direct the main plot point of the game, and doing more worldbuilding to flesh out the characters a bit more.

Visuals

• I like the general aesthetic that you're going for - going with a stylized look instead of a realistic one is usually a smart choice for any developer without a large budget. The green texturing in the logs and other wooden elements gives a unique vibe that helps to make the world feel even more unreal, pairing well with the blue fog IMO.
• While I think the materials are pretty good, I think more work needs to be done to give consistency between the texture and object scales. The floor and ceiling of the cabin had a noticeably larger texture scale to them compared to the walls and other smaller details; those should be scaled down, or you should create a higher-resolution version of those textures so it matches up better.
  In a similar vein, some objects felt too large or too small, though maybe this was intentional? Idk, but certain details did feel out of place, like the large doll toy compared to the tiny keychain.
• The flashlight definitely needs some work, it cuts off at such a short range to the point where it feels like you're holding a candle! It should probably have a much longer range. I also noticed that the light would sometimes show up on the wall of the cabin beyond the point where it faded out on the ground, leading to some visual bugs. And certain objects are a bit too reflective or uv mapped in ways that don't interact well with the light, mainly the photos in the cabin that required me to move the camera to a weird angle to decipher.
• The characters could use a bit of polish too. It would be really nice to give the character models some facial rigs so they feel more alive when they talk, and just a bit more cleanup so they fit the rest of the stylized world a bit more.

Even though you didn't ask for feedback on the gameplay, I feel like I need to mention a few things:

• I was not able to make it past the corn maze section. I replayed it 5 times, and really, actively tried to find the remaining toys, but no matter what I couldn't find anything beyond the keychain on the ground, the doll on the tractor, and the ufo on the well. After the 5th try, I just didn't have the patience to try again. I even was able to jump up on top of the tractor to get a vantage point, but that sadly didn't help.
  
  • Please, please, please make it so you can skip the audio playback after the first time you listen to it. In fact, that should probably be how it works by default, so players like myself who die over and over again can get right back into the gameplay afterward.
  • There need to be some in-game visual and/or audio clues, or text clues that can help the player figure out where the items are when they get stuck. Get creative! Make it make sense in the context of the story, there just needs to be something. Like how the keychain was lit up on the ground - maybe there could be some other lighting effects for all the other toys too?
  • Please show the 3 minute timer in the game somehow - maybe the main character can set a timer on his phone or watch or something? It's important to be able to tell how much time you have left so you can make better decisions about where to look and what paths to take.
• The character's walking and sprinting speeds felt far too slow - to me, the sprint felt more like a brisk walk. If you don't want to increase it for some reason, you might consider just making the sprint the default, and removing the walk altogether.
• In the parts of the game I played, I did not find any need to jump. Perhaps it becomes useful after the corn maze section, but I wouldn't know. Regardless, it would be nice to give it slightly more purpose if it's going to be a prominent game feature.

Even though I was very critical in this review, I still did have a good time while playing your game! I just want to see it be the best it can be, and live up to the full potential. I wish you the best with your future  development efforts!

Thanks for the review! We have some plans to address all of the issues you brought up, although we're definitely going to keep the wire as a more complex group of physics objects. I have some ideas on how to make the wire physics less janky, and we're also planning on drawing a single wire mesh as a multi bezier curve between the segments so it looks less odd too.

In future updates, we would love to add new objectives, possibly even different levels with unique mechanics in them. But it's a bit of a balancing act between working on this or working on our main, as of yet unannounced project. We hope you'll stay tuned for further updates!

I like the goofy visual style going on here but I have no idea what to do. The concept of being a food critic within a tycoon game is a good one though!

Sorry that you didn't finish your game, but I really like the concept at least! I also think your art style is quite good and could definitely work well for the theme if you update it into a full game at some point.

Was there an issue with uploading the game, or did you delete if afterward? Because I don't see it available to play on either page...

It's a cool idea, but pretty difficult in its current state. I think something that could help a bit in a future version (if you continue with this idea) would be if you gave each player their own character with dialogue, possibly face expressions or other 'tells' that would cue you into their intentions. You could also consider adding a bit of lore explaining why you're helping the player; maybe you split the pot and win a percentage of what they win, and can use that money to unlock other cheating abilities in the game. But overall I think this is well done for a jam game!

Thanks for trying it out, we really appreciate it! We're most likely going to be pushing some updates for the Post-Jam Jam that's happening this weekend up until the end of July, and then possibly beyond that point too.

This is very well done! You have a great theme going on here, and I love the physics of how the teddy bear interacts with the claw. I also made a claw machine game for the jam in Godot with a couple friends (that we sadly weren't able to submit in time), and this is inspiring me to think about updating some of our prize objects to be a bit more dynamic, and incorporate ragdoll collisions like yours do. If you ever make some future updates, I think I would like to see a bit more character put into the bears possibly by giving them faces and having them scream or something when they get grabbed. There's a lot of potential!

If you do have any interest in checking out our slightly late (and still unfinished) game, you can find it here: The Claws of Victory

I really enjoyed the visual style & animations that you have going here, but the combat definitely needs some more going on (and it's much harder to lose than win at the moment). I like the idea of the rock-paper-scissors like action but maybe you could add some more strategic elements in a future update, like traps that influence the player's choices, or an ability to summon troops to help out when the player defends. Overall though, nice work!

Really fun, but I really wish there were some more levels!

I think the grey box isn't working unfortunately, I can't get the food bar to go up at all. But still, good effort getting a game submitted to the jam!

This is amazingly well done, I really hope it makes it to the top 100! It's a really creative take on the theme. And I loved the Princess Bride reference/pun at the end!

This is a really neat concept, and pretty underrated imo! I wasn't so sure about how I felt until I saw the mechanic in the second level (level 1) where you actually control the baddies after you've won the stage; that was a twist I wasn't expecting, but I loved it! Having very limited controls while you are the bad guys makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, as it is, it's very unbalanced since you can sort of intentionally make bad decisions as the hero to make your job as the baddies easier. Also for some reason the 'restart' button didn't work for me most of the time. But putting those issues aside, I had a great time! And the character designs were pretty cute too.

Definitely a unique concept, but I think for a game like this it might be nice to give the gun its own personality/persona somehow, and give it some reason why it wants to choose a certain target. There definitely needs to be some sort of buildup to the standoff scene, otherwise it feels like there are no stakes for shooting the wrong target. But I would be interested to see where you take the idea in the future!

Pretty fun concept, although I think it could be more fun if you started the game by either aiming your gun or having the assassin aim their gun, then fire you out, so you start with a lot of momentum. You could make it so you lose momentum over time and start to fall, so it could sort of be a puzzle kind of game where you have to make strategic choices about which targets to aim for. There's a lot of ways an idea like this could be iterated on!

Thanks for trying it out, we really appreciate it!

This is a great take on the theme! I would have loved to see a more visual element to the player's actions, but the concept as it is is still pretty fun. I could totally imagine future updates that could add branching paths, procedural generation, possibly some other forms of randomization as to which rooms you have access to or where you could place them. Nice work!

The art direction and music choice here is so good! I really enjoyed the attention to detail, though I wish there were more levels or mechanics that happen as your score goes up. It is a bit easy though once you understand how the claw's AI works.

If you are interested, our team also produced a claw machine game for the jam that features a blue teddy bear, but unfortunately we missed the deadline by a slim margin. We would still appreciate feedback though! In this one you play as the machine itself. https://comfymittensamuel.itch.io/the-claws-of-victory

I love the gruesome theme you went with here, and the sfx made me laugh! I think you could do a lot with the idea in future updates and maybe make the claw itself more of a threat. I did notice an issue where I could spam the spacebar to have infinite invincibility, but it was still fun regardless!

If you are interested, our team also developed a claw machine game for the jam, but unfortunately we didn't quite make the deadline. But in this one you play as the machine! https://comfymittensamuel.itch.io/the-claws-of-victory

I like the stab at the claw machine physics! I noticed that you used Godot as the base engine, so I can relate with how challenging it can be to make it work the way you want - coming from a guy who also made a claw machine game in Godot for the jam (but missed the deadline ever so slightly). The mechanic of launching your character to avoid getting picked up is pretty interesting, and I'd love to see where you might take this in the future!

Pretty neat idea, but the physics were pretty messed up for me since I kept warping through the walls. But I think if that was fixed up a bit it would be great!

Well if you ever do turn it into a full game, I would love to see some custom animations in that same vein! Maybe you could have a concept of rounds, with animations that play depending on who you lost at the end of it. There's a lot of potential here for sure!

This was pretty fun, but really unbalanced since you can just save up a ton of money and overwhelm the player all at once. The catapult mechanic could help deter that in theory, but a different thing you might consider doing in a future update is having the game pause between waves and cap your resources so you're incentivized to make better strategic use of your units.

I'm glad to see some fellow Godot devs in the jam, and I thought I recognized that pepper texture! Anyway, this is a really funny take on role reversal and definitely not what I expected to find. Love it!

10/10 best Papa's game ever!

In all seriousness though I thought it was a nice detail making the screen go dark when the player looks away, as if it was a game optimization technique. And I love how absurd the order is at the end, just like a real player's would be!

This is a surprisingly great jam game, I'm just sad that I couldn't beat it! I saw your post about the possible broken win conditions, that's a real shame. I'd love to see this become a full game with multiple scenarios, an ongoing lore between them, possibly even going with a branching paths approach like the Zero Escape games so your implications could have unique repercussions, there's so much potential!

This is absurd and I love it. Possibly the best Papa's game yet!

I love this interpretation of role reversal, and I'd love to see it improved upon in the future! I think it might be a good idea to remove the random aspect of it simply because you can get into situations where it's impossible to win; or, the randomness could be an option that you unlock after you complete a few levels. I love the donkey sprite by the way!