h̶o̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶c̶r̶u̶l̶e̶t̶y̶ ̶s̶q̶u̶a̶d̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶d̶r̶o̶p̶p̶e̶d̶

No but really, this was great. No bullshit, all style. Having a CROSShair and giving you infinite ammo is ascended game design.

Clean concept, clean execution. As hard or as cheesy as you want. Good shit.

Hi, the game was originally created as I was learning Unity. The code does not support localization in any way and rebuilding it would be very time-consuming for such a small project. Unfortunately what you see is what you get :(

טוב לראות ישראלים בתגובות. במבט לאחור הייתי צריך ליצור הייפ עם התקשורת הגיימרית כדי שזה יגיע לעוד קהל אבל ויתרתי כי לא ביקשתי מאלישע רשות בהתחלה. בסוף שלחתי לו את המשחק והוא מאוד אהב. תודה רבה ושמח שנהנת!

Hold right mouse button to raise your weapon, then, while it’s raised, hit the left mouse button

That white bar is a loading bar, I think you countered a launch error! Either your device doesn’t support WebGL or there’s some sort of server problem.

I had the chance to handle a single action revolver of some kind before The Pandemic. Think it was a S&M but don’t remember.

The fact these old guns have a genuine learning curve makes actually loading and firing them oddly satisfying, and that’s what I was trying to replicate with this game. Glad I managed to hit that very specific niche:)

For a first game jam entry, this is actually pretty darn good.

I don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but conceptually it seems you avoided pretty much every rookie jammer mistake: you focused on a single, core gameplay idea with a small scope. You crafted a striking style that fits that gameplay idea. You tried new things out. You even had time to polish things up with writing and 2D art.

I understand that you want to keep developing the game, so outside of tips like “more enemies and variety”, which I’m sure you’ve already thought about, I’d like to focus on three things that kinda bugged me:

• There’s a noticeable delay between hitting LMB and the sword actually swinging. This is maaayyybbbeee due to the game waiting for the idle animation to “finish” before transitioning to another animation, but don’t quote me on that. Either way, it makes combat feel sluggish and “off”.

• Readability issues. I loved dashing about - it’s great and satisfying. I gathered that it has a cooldown, but couldn’t find a UI indicator for it. Also, I believed the lantern had an internal HP meter, and by filling it up with light I was “restoring” it. This led to an issue where I was stuck in the dark with zero light and had to blindly flail about (I would mash E to fill the lantern with light). I don’t know if I was right, because the game doesn’t really telegraph that. Both of these are examples of gameplay-critical info the player needs clear, concise info about.

• Focus on “juice” or “game feel” as it were. Faster movement, camera animations, more impactful sound effects, explosions, particles, the whole shebang. If your main focus is first person slashing, it should feel great to do for 5 minutes.

Other than that, capitalize on the 2D art a bit more. It’s genuinely well put together.

Anyways, that’s what I had in mind. I love the core game design and I feel like you pulled it off extremely well considering it’s a 7-day game jam and it’s your first one. Y’all got potential. Good luck :)

P.S. Unreal packs every damn engine feature into its builds, which results in overinflated file sizes. Not really your fault, Unreal’s just like that. I’d recommend looking into optimizing builds in the future.

Feels great, looks great, just as long as it needs to be. I particularly enjoyed the contrast between the adorable, pastel-colored aesthetic and the obscene enemy names. You can add a random name generator in there to have really capitalize on that.

I did find the controls a bit odd at first. Having to lock unto an enemy to fight makes for smooth 1v1 combat but an awkward extra step when fighting two or more enemies. Also, though I love the idea of mouse movements to dodge in theory, I found it a bit inconsistent and opted to just disengage from lock-on and move manually.

Overall though, it’s an immense amount of polish considering the short timeframe. While I suck at it I can still appreciate the effort. It’s a bit of a button masher, but that’s the whole fun of it.

Which was also something I threw around in my head! But opted to not use it just to keep it tight - one hit and you’re dead.

Y’know, in hindsight I think that had movement been a 2-character command instead of 4 or 5 players would instinctively move more just by virtue of how easy it would have been. Thanks for the kind words though, appreciate it.

Thanks! Figured I won’t be the first to make a first person parser, but at least I can try going for style over substance.

It’s true, you can cheese out the game. I did try to implement a constantly depleting HP meter you fill by killing stuff or by moving. It solved the issue, theoretically at least, but it felt like cheesing the player right back. I wanted a tight game with no wasted commands or superfluous elements.

Eventually I opted for a simple combo system and a few enemies that block your path and change lanes. Is it enough? Not really, and had I had more time I would have enhanced the spawn algorithm and added more enemy variety to truly create a more dynamic experience. But I’m happy with what I got.

I saw your progress on the #7dfps hashtag on Twitter, and I was immediately hooked. The artstyle and audio effects are on point - even if it wasn’t technically possible on old arcade cabinets :)

I did think the movement is too floaty; gravity and air control are low while movement speed is high, leading to an unresponsive scheme. I also thought there was a weird amount of mouse acceloration which discouraged me from aiming.

But the game design is solid. Mechanics are introduced in a safe and contained environment, levels are tight, objectives are readable, and nothing is really wasted. If you do keep working on it (which I recommend you do), I’d tighten up the movement and sell it as a speedrun game. Good stuff.

The main inspiration for this game came after spending an hour chatting with ChatGPT and thinking, “huh, I can make a 7DFPS game out of typing.”

The secondary inspiration was revolvers and, uh, yeah, funny word.

First of all I’m glad to hear itch is still a focused service in your minds. I’d rather have itch do one or two things really well than 6 okay-ish things.

There are a few creators use virtual PDF readers or zine makers to publish essays or comics here, and it’s a damn good workaround for writeups. I reckon folks will use the blogging feature to talk about anything that doesn’t fit into any particular project or product: game design, tutorials, personal ruminations, reviews, rants, comedy, or even just travelblogging.

A good example to look at to fit all these different categories into one uniform design is probably Medium. It’s easy to work with, easy to share, and has a minimalist but extremely versatile design. It means devs who wanna pull off a #screenshotsaturday can have a place while also giving a place for longform tangents.

As for the blogging platform’s placement in profiles themselves: Notifying followers is a good first step, but it’s extremely hard to find them organically. Itch already has options to add a website link and a Twitter link in one’s profile settings menu and have them show up at the top of your creator profile. Why not add a link to a profile’s “blog” or “blog posts” there? Sounds like a plan.

Horror-comedy done right. Legit made me tense while also suitably making me snicker at the absurdity of it all. A tad too frustrating for its own good, but that’s kinda the point I suppose. I would not be surprised if this kind of customer service is why the cold war lasted for 50 years.

never have i heard such high praise for one of my games before

(The game was designed as the most literal interpretation of the jam’s theme, as well as a tribute to the self-aware, crudely drawn games of 2000’s Newgrounds. I don’t know if I’ll ever expand it and how, as it’s a very dumb game, but if I ever do I’ll let you know)

Hi, just released a patch that expands the sensitivity sliders’ values. Thanks you for your patience and for giving me a heads-up!

Heh, fair enough. Early in development the ever-important issue of “what if they stand around swinging in circles tho” was even more prevalent.

I think making short swings against trash enemies coupled with smart AI kiting and dashing is the best way to reliably get an impressive score. Then again, the game also accepts players who just want to take the spinny way out and watch the fireworks. If slashing meeps ain’t fun, why bother?

Addictive, punchy, satisfying, readable yet extremely appealing art, and it’s all inspired by the peerless Inscryption, which is always a win in my book.

Not a big fan of letting the player character run around aimlessly, but once you get used to the different powerups and attacks it’s a bit more manageable. You can cheese the game a bit by spamming left click and increasing the size of your bullets, but the visual spectacle is worth it. Good job.

It’s immensely polished and satisfying with heavy Vlambeer vibes, no doubt about that, but it suffers from a difficulty wall. Took me a bit to realize the game auto-attacks, for instance. I tried different things to find a good strat yet the number one thing that worked is spamming spacebar to win. A bit frustrating but it’s juicy enough to keep my interest.

Ayy thanks! And yeah, I agree; balancing a jam game is hard. I had plans to introduce more powerful enemy tiers but they were scrapped for the sake of polish (game feel/audio design/the intro). None of it is worth it if meeps aren’t fun to slice in my book.

Mid-to-late 2000’s Newgrounds is best Newgrounds <3

Thanks for your kind words and feedback! I’m glad you enjoyed the intro cutscene too; I went for a “self-aware, overly-dramatic” vibe, but it was mainly an excuse to have a cool title card reveal :)

Unfortunately I couldn’t get itch’s fullscreen mode to support a 4:3 aspect ratio, so I had to keep it in a small window. What you can do at present however is zoom the actual browser in a bit (CTRL and +).

Towers can be destroyed by dashing into them. Their spawn rates are too high if you aren’t used to them yet, I’ll agree with you there.

Ayy thanks for playing, I def have a soft spot for the golden age of Flash. There’s a reason why every single enemy has the iconic Newgrounds angry face :)

I suspected someone was going to make a game about cheating but didn’t think it’d be a physics puzzler. Charming voice acting and kickass presentation. I think generally the difficulty’s on the easy side up until it loops back to being difficult as shit in the last level, but hey, it’s hard to balance a jam game. Good job, Jimmy Blitz, they never saw it coming.

A “roll to determine weapon” idea isn’t wholly unique, but this one’s got a lot of charm going for it. Jazzy soundtrack, high quality models, slick UI, game feel, unique weapon animations too!

Physics are wonky (hard to move a cube /shrug) and one mistake can get you curb-stomped. But damn you guys know about presentation.

Ouchy ouch my fingers

Cute mini-idle game with a definite ending, which is great for your game’s scope and my sanity. As others have said progression’s a bit slow but the experience is short enough for it to not be a bother. Couldn’t get a three-of-a-kind for the life of me, though.

Out of all the “roll for new attack” games here, this one’s very much up there. Having two different dice makes things a lot more hectic; the game almost feels like a one-room tower defense game. Cute story comic, too! Physics are a bit wonky and the ice spell’s underpowered, but nothing a good hard shove can’t solve.

Artstyle is cute as hell! I will say that the cursor hitbox is a bit too large for its own good, getting stuck in the stunzone a bit too often. But damn, that’s a clever little Slay the Spire x Bang the Dice Game joint that’s also extremely polished!

Thank you for your kind words!

The dash serves to get you out of trouble, combo-strike a bunch of meeps, or, most importantly, destroy guard towers. I will admit it takes a bit of getting used to, no doubt about that!

Very cute, addicting, and fast-paced! If I do have one criticism (which isn’t really one considering the time limit) it’s the fact that patterns aren’t weighed; waves sometimes wobble between easy and super clutch depending on how the playing field looks. Nevertheless, great entry that’s a very clever way of doing things.

Is this after modifying your mouse sensitivity in the options menu? If you did and it’s still janky, I’ll increase the maximum slider value.

I’m aware of it. I can’t replicate it for the life of me. Even the speedrunner who originally discovered this bug doesn’t know what’s causing it. From what I understand it happens in very specific circumstances that do not hinder casual play. Unless this becomes something truly gamebreaking I’ll let it be, if only for speedruns :)

Thank you very much for playing, O, חשמאלי סמכותי

Are you using the latest version (v1.0.3)? I thought I fixed that particular softlock bug. Or are you referring to something else entirely?

Nice job, put it on speedrun.com

תודה אופק שמח שנהנת :) מטרת המשחק היא באמת להאיץ בך לרוץ ולהתקדם כדי למממש את המומנטום של השיר. זה נכון שאפשר להספים קפיצה ולנצח, אבל זה די בכוונה כדי לתת לרוב השחקנים את החוויה המלאה של המשחק - אחרי הכל זה מיוזיק וידיאו עלילתי עם התחלה אמצע סוף.

לגבי כמה זמן לקח לפתח את המשחק

Damn managed to beat me, nice

If you recorded it, you could prob submit it to speedrun.com and get world record

Any specific bugs you’ve encountered? I am looking into the clipping, but the game is fully playable and beatable at the moment at any case.

תודה אח(ות)י שמח לראות פה קהל ישראלי :)

Thank you for playing, and for your kind words! I’m very happy you enjoyed it. As for the bug you’ve described, I’ll look into it.