A really great submission. Sorry I didn't get to rate it in time, but it would have been 4 stars in every category for me. I did get a moment where the game soft-crashed, after showing me I had 888 of every resource, but I'm not certain it was the game's fault, as up to that point I had no troubles (although I accidentally refreshed the page somehow when trying to open the Craft menu...).
The audio balance was a little off, but not enough to break immersion importantly. The voice-acting was really unexpected and fit the game very well. The tone of the dialogue was also great.
Normally I would encourage people to finish the game post-jam, but I honestly think the team has the capability to make something bigger than this, if they have not done so already. Whatever you wish to pursue, I wish you the best of luck and hope you find success, because this was a great indicator indeed.
Building the GUI took me between 6 and 8 hours, but a bit of that was learning about Godot GUI themes in order to do the theme switcher. The music was also myself and was less than 3 hours work, but this was very time-restricted haha.
Art was the amazing work of Defected Pixel Artist.
We're already planning on working on the game post-jam, and improving the feedback messages will be one of the most critical elements.
Will try to play and rate your game before time runs out, but I'll check it out and leave feedback regardless!
I think this person might have been referring to the fact that the UI is not scaled to the playable window, so the UI overflows the screen and you can't get to click the Start Game button on the explanation window.
I'm a web dev, so I've manipulated the page to be able to play the game, but most other people won't know (or care) to do that.
Making the UI scale to the window is something to work on next time, though!
This is one of those games where the bugs actually contribute to the gameplay. I particularly liked the speed boost glitch where it would generate so much impulse that you could skip across sections of track.
The lag everyone speaks off appeared to be worst when the player was near the AI. Fortunately for me, they couldn't conquer the grating with no collider, and this consigned them to their own loop of falling through the track and respawning. Truly, this is the most meta loop I have come across so far.
The ship handling was far too heavy for the track, the route was sometimes unclear, and parts of the track had missing or broken colliders. The power-ups were not obvious but did work, admittedly.
Despite all the issues, I can't deny that I did actually rather enjoy myself. Probably not in the way the developer intended, but even so, that's more than most AAA games can claim!
Always room for the greatness of Bach! Really great idea as a way of educating people of contrapuntal music through the medium of a game.
The timeline UI was a bit buggy and awkward to use at times, so spending some polishing time wouldn't go amiss. I'm also not sure if the "Next Excavation" button is bugged, or if its meant to load another part of the same composition, but then the phrase blocks bugged out.
I think it may have been helpful to have a real recording of the tracks be playable from within the UI, so people know what the goal is. As much as I love Bach, I must admit, I can't remember his inventions off the top of my head!
I had considered a game featuring music but couldn't find an idea that worked, so congratulations for pulling it off and submitting it to the jam!
A great and unusual take on the theme, runs fairly well (although I had some lag spikes) and a simple yet satisfying core game loop. For the amount of time you've been learning, this is an excellent submission, and I hope mine and others comments can inspire you to keep going.
Congrats on the submission and I hope you enjoyed the jam and learnt a lot whilst doing it.
A solid submission that fit the theme well, congratulations.
My biggest criticism would be that the boosts were extremely difficult to use. I understand that they are one of the key skill gates of the game, but they were frustrating to work with at times. I think this is why in Ori & The Blind Forest, the equivalent mechanic allows you to aim where you're going and fires you at a fixed velocity, so that the handling is predictable and precise without sacrificing player skill. I wonder if that approach would work better here?
100% agree on the differences in thinking and how puzzles can utilise that. I thought I'd mention it just so it didn't seem like some kind of game-ender, given the numbers of people commenting that they are struggling to figure it out.
Totally cool on the other points, I definitely know what's it like to have a massive to-do list and simply run out of time haha! I tend to write comments in a way that the developer can pick them up post-jam, as I like to pretend that every idea will become a released game eventually.
Don't know if it's just me, but I get an error: `Error msg is not defined` when trying to enter a code for the conference room door, and neither Button One or Button Three worked for me with the Basement bomb.
I'll have to rate it with this in mind, because it basically soft-locked me, which is a shame, but I hope others are more successful than I was!
I had an issue the first time of playing, where pressing the space bar after the first interaction crashed the game. The second time around, I waited until the cursor lost the loading wheel, and then it seemed to be fine.
Unfortunately, I could not progress at all after the jumpscare; every situation appeared to be unavailable and I don't recall any info before that giving me any clues. Clearly it's possible as other people have commented on later parts of the game, lol!
For that reason, I haven't rated it because I think my rating would unfairly skew the current ratings. I'm clearly missing something (I am extremely tired so that doesn't help) but, in this scenario, I would consider my rating to be too harsh a punishment for that.
Personal preference, I think I'd prefer a cleaner / non-pixelated font for the UI, just to make it easier on the eyes. I think a good choice of font will still work with the pixelated visuals, but it's totally subjective - maybe the option to change the UI font could be a nice feature and could please both crowds perhaps?
This is probably the best game I've played so far, and that includes the game I worked on haha! Tonnes of levels for a jam game, all of the necessary elements were there and functioned without issue. There were some nice QoL touches, like the variable speed buttons and the programming bar re-ordering instructions when dragging-and-dropping into another slot.
I see a lot of people talking about level 17, but I actually found that one fairly easy; I definitely took longer on a previous level (maybe 9, can't remember now) and I stopped playing on 19 (only because I'd seen enough to comment and there's a lot of games to get through!).
Something I think a lot of games miss, particularly game jam games, is levels that introduce new concepts in an easy but interactive way (ours definitely did because the levels were rushed...). I thought you did an excellent job with this and it's subtle and often goes unnoticed, so I'd thought I'd point it out.
If I was to be picky, my only suggestions would be to sort the spelling/grammar (totally appreciate the time constraints and the fact English may not be your native language), add some more tracks and make it possible to click on an instruction to add it to the next available slot in the programming bar. Other than that and some more content, you've pretty much got a production-ready game imo.
Awesome work, and I hope this gets the ratings it deserves!!
As others have said, it's a very simple concept implemented really well. I, personally, could not get to grips with the control scheme, but that's a skill issue rather than any fault of the game. The visual were good, and I think having the health large and central, but behind the playing area, was a very clever and effective decision.
Congratulations on the submission, and hope this rates reasonably well!
Totally agree. As mentioned in another comment, we had to cut a feature which allowed you to upgrade the feedback panel, and this would have provided increasingly obvious clues as to what exactly was failing the conditions.
It was a tough decision, and trying to tune the messages without it in a short space of time was tricky, and I will concede we didn't quite get it right.
Thanks for playing and for commenting, it's much appreciated!
As the person who created the puzzles, I totally agree. That last level was shoehorned in last minute to demonstrate how new colours would be unlocked, and to give a sense of how the game progressed even though we essentially ran out of time to implement progression.
We also cut a mechanic (again due to time) which allowed you to upgrade the feedback panel; the idea here was that the messages would become more useful with each upgrade, providing more detail about which colour was involved, where in the grid it was etc.
Yep, I thought the vibe was great; it reminded me of Halls of Torment but with a cleaner, more modern art style (in my opinion, Halls of Torment is an excellent game, better than Brotato and probably even Vampire Survivors).
Best of luck with the ratings and I hope Unity lets you turn it into a full game, haha!
Thanks so much for the play. As @DefectedPixelArtist said, if there's anything we could do to make the puzzle feel challenging but within reach, do let us know!
I'll be sure to check out and rate your submission, either tomorrow or the day after!
No worries. I think it is the role of players and developers to fairly critique and praise games; the benefit is circular.
Good to hear there will be a "next time" though, and always remember that many successful devs started with a whole load of janky, incomplete, busted ideas to acquire the skills they needed to be successful...
Ah, that's fair. I think I programmed our game end screen (which simply loaded the credits screen) in the last few minutes of the jam, so I completely understand.
Have edited my original comment to reflect this change.
Thank you for the explanation, and having played to lose, I can see that I did misunderstand what was happening the first time around. I think the UI could maybe have indicated this clearer, but I think it also falls on me to have read and understood better.
Like another commenter said, the background texture negatively impacts the game. Personally, I would have considered either black or maybe a shade of blue, to make it less challenging on the eyes.
I second this. But it would be interesting to hear what the original idea was, because I thought this was a great effort, particularly if it was effectively a salvage of the original idea as the author seems to indicate in the game's description!
I WINNED! Great submission, congratulations! The idea was great and, like Soul888 said, there is potential for a really fun game.
My critiques would be that it was not obvious which character I was actually controlling versus a multitude of clones, and only a couple of the clones actually worked, the rest were essentially prop decorations. I would lean into one or the other; so either have all clones shooting or just have the last N clones be on screen and shooting (this limitation could make for some interesting situations for the player and for level design?).
The visuals were great, and I was having a good time. Unfortunately, one of the enemies clipped themselves out of bounds and that soft-locked the room because it was impossible to shoot them. A little more thought needed with the level design as I found ways to clear out most of the room before even entering the trigger which closes the door behind you.
I died, but I didn't see my previous self as a threat. As an entrant myself, I've rated Creativity based on the premise, though I myself didn't witness this. Well done for submitting something though, that is always an achievement!
Neat little game, congrats on the submission! I was honestly surprised to see a boss fight in a game jam game, awesome work getting to fit that in. Unfortunately, the game soft-locked for me after beating the boss, which was a real shame, but otherwise I had a fun time with this.
As a fellow developer, I say this with empathy but this game feels like it needed more time (as do we all, haha).
I had almost finished when I somehow got the bird, and noticing the jump compared to the alpaca(?) made me appreciate the thought put into how each character plays differently, and from there I then saw how the level design attempted to utilise the shapes and movement of each character.
Congratulations on submitting a playable game though!
Congrats on the submission! The concept was pretty unique and I think it could well have been explored, however the embed size combined with the chosen font really made the game suffer.
I don't know if there is a way to retrieve the riddle again after seeing it, but I could find no obvious way to, and it was a hard search in amongst the pixels. The guitar jangle at the beginning was barely audible, and my headphones were at max, and it was odd how it was in the right channel only.
I think a quick playtest on Itch may have caught the embed size issue first-hand and made the game much more playable (and probably enjoyable too). But the game does work, which is more than can be said for some, so well done for getting something up to rate!
Not sure if I didn't play long enough, but I'm not certain the upgrades did anything. In fact, I feel like I was moving slower with 2 speed upgrades than with none. I also had 1 damage upgrade and it still took 3 hits to defeat an enemy. As I say, maybe I should have let it roll on, but the gameplay didn't exactly inspire me to keep playing.
Note to other players/raters: full-screen is necessary as Start button is otherwise hidden in the embedded version.
Hey Silver. I appreciate this is your first solo game jam dev and congratulations on getting a playable game submitted! Honestly, I had several last year that weren't even functional, so that's already an achievement.
I have a fair bit of feedback which I hope is constructive, should you want to take the project further.
I really like the concept of the loop here, both in terms of lore but also feeding back into the gameplay. Unfortunately, I didn't really experience that in the gameplay which is a shame, but the premise is good and ripe for further exploration.
The collision detection could be improved, as several of my attacks went through enemies. I appreciated the enemy knockback as visual feedback of a hit, but overall the 'weak' attack felt very underwhelming. It was also add that you could build up to a combo without hitting anything, and in fact, this was my main strat for the game.
I personally didn't use the dash at all. The keybind of F felt a bit awkward to me, but that is purely personal preference, however the game didn't seem to need it. Ironically, the endless loop of being reborn removed any threat of dying, so I never felt endangered enough to really care about dashing or focussing on what I was doing.
The health bar UI is also bugged and was basically invisible for most of the game. The only times it appeared correctly was when I stopped moving, or if I was in front of the back rocks.
If you decide to carry on with the game, I wish you the best of luck, and I hope you learnt a lot during this jam. Last year was my first and I was solo then, so I know of the struggles to reach the point of submission!
P.S. Your partner's artwork was awesome, and the sound was great too. I also appreciate the detail on the game's page too, and sorry to read that Unity did a Unity and curtailed your participation; I'd like to have seen how much difference one more day would have made!
Neat little game, congratulations! I personally got stuck on level 10, and had to put it down after several attempts (simply to go rate some more games), but it seems like you had a clear vision for the game and executed it according to that vision.
The intro did well to introduce the concept of why we were collecting roses, but it may have been nice just to elaborate on that a little more, but I can understand that time constraint may have played a factor.
One little critique, it would have been nice to have been able to hold down a movement key to repeat the movement on a set timer. That way I wouldn't have to spam a direction key for multiple movement, but also avoid the pitfall of moving the player on too quickly and inadvertently messing up the whole level.
Well done for submitting, best of luck with the scoring!
