itch.io

I'd like to preface this review by pointing out that this is not a game - it's an anti-game. But by Jove, this could make even Captain Ahab let out a good ol' hearty chuckle! The anti-game humour is on point throughout, it's fantastic.

The presentation is almost immaculate, and does contribute to the anti-game philosophy. Opening every chest does feel very satisfying. The fish seems to have a new line of dialogue for every in-game interaction, and he's voiced pretty decently at that.

Extraordinarily creative, great job!

Wow, what a great game! Like others have said, it is a lot more complex than it lets on - while not being overwhelmingly so for the jam format. The presentation is fantastic, too. It's very impressive that you've made this in 3 days.

Getting over it with Eldward Droidy.

I liked it quite a bit. The level design clearly had some thought put into it. The gameplay is extraordinarily stressful, but it rewards skillful play, and you can feel yourself getting better and better the more you play the game. I wish the jump was a little more lenient/had something of a momentum to it, but you could make chalk this up to the dreaded skill issue as displayed by yours truly. Lol.

All I know is that the game had me on the edge of my seat, and that's a very good sign!

As regards the presentation, everything looks nice, and I like the transitions between zones. You said there was music though, right? Sadly, I couldn't hear anything on either the Windows version or the browser version of the game. NO WAIT MY HEADPHONES WERE UNPLUGGED!

Great job!

Very understandable. The camera is indeed a little odd, maybe it was too zoomed in for the pace of the gameplay. Ctrl to shoot... it should really not have been my first option, in hindsight. I should've stuck with my trusty Z-X control scheme, but oh well. Thanks for playing!

As someone who doesn't even really enjoy puzzle games, I thought it was a fun puzzler! Since I don't have a lot of experience with this genre it's hard to comment on the gameplay, except for the fact that I found the challenges well-designed and the gameplay streamlined nicely. The presentation is neat, although some things, like the goal could be more clearly defined. However, there's one thing that greatly hurts both the presentation and the gameplay: the algae/black masses obscure the view. Is it intentional? It led to some frustration whereas there'd be none, and that's a damn shame.

Great job on this game!

It took me a bit, but then it hit me: this game is actually really fun! It could use some more polish on the asset side of things, but what's here in terms of gameplay is really nice. I do wish you were capable of more precise movement by having access to full tank controls, but as it is it's enjoyably, refreshingly simple.

Like the earlier comments have said, there's a bit of choppiness. Seems like it doesn't figure in the Windows version. Didn't really bother me, though.

What was a bit hard to get over was wrapping my head around the game. An in-game tutorial could've gone a long way - I didn't even know how exactly to move the catamaran until I figured out it was RTS controls. I can tell there's a very solid game here, especially for the deadline and amount of team members (beautiful visuals!) but once I thought i had it all figured out the game would zoom in to an island camera which I have no idea how to untoggle. Thus ended what I thought would be a good run, and for shame. The game's idea certainly is nice.

Thank you! I worked really hard on the music on a very tight deadline, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it!

I must preface this review by saying that I have never, ever seen grazing outside of a bullet hell game. What a brilliant idea.

This entire game is somewhat comparable to that, actually. It's like a SHMUP level, except without the shooting. There's even a boss!

The graphics and audio are top notch. Great, great job on the graphics with beautiful sprites + what I presume is sprite stacking, and if you hadn't told me that the music is from Kevin MacLeod I wouldn't have even known because it fits really well. What a great atmosphere you've crafted here.

There's not much more I can say on this that doesn't amount to any variant of "see, this is how you make a game in 3 days". One simple idea distilled to its bare essentials - steer with the mouse, protect yourself with a click, but executed masterfully. It doesn't need to be more than it is, and neither does it need to be less.

If I have a small criticism is that you'll sometimes want to read the dialogue text at the bottom, but doing so puts you at risk of colliding with something. I would suggest moving all dialogue to the top of the screen since that's where stuff comes from. I would also say that voice acting would further enhance this game's atmosphere and make reading more optional should you choose to make a post-jam update to this game, which I firmly believe you should - this is a great portfolio piece.

It felt very Survivors-like, in a way. The presentation is rather great, and it was definitely fun to play.

I don't know if it's just me being bad, but it feels like the camera doesn't look ahead enough, and there's a disconnect between the player character's movement, aiming, and firing. The end result is that I would run face first into an enemy without really intending to, while trying to negotiate other enemies as I reached for the various cards. Ended up mostly using the basic attack because of that. Off the top of my head, something like using the scroll wheel to scroll through cards + mouse attack to fire, and a line protuding off the player that shows the direction you're facing and thus aiming at would've alleviated my issues.

Speaking of the cards they're all very good at what they do, and my favourite aspect of the game is that it rewards skilled play. Throw the right cards at the right time? You feel like you could card combo the entire store! However, something about them is.. they're hard to get at a glance. You'll have to get familiarised with everything and what it means. For example, not to backseat dev (!) but the slow cards I feel could rather have been represented by something like a traffic light. Instantly recognisable.

I like the setting, it was pretty funny. The graphics are somewhat mixel-ly, but that's just an old man sprite artist's pet peeve, don't mind me too much - everything does still look nice. The music is rather superb, great job on that.

This is great for a MiniJam game, fantastic job guys!

PS: I tried replaying it one last time to be as fair as possible to the game, and I do find that like some have said before, you get used to how it plays with time. I do still stand by what I've said, just a quick note.

PPS: I forgot to mention social battery/health. I think there should be more of a cooldown state when you get hit by an enemy that disables enemy collisions so that the player can get mobbed a little less. For that matter, the vending stations are fairly readable, but a tooltip above each of them could've helped. Maybe compass arrows indicating where each station is, but that's just too much for 3 days of jam.

Thanks for the play and the review. Enemy balance is something that kind of went off rails due to both the method used to deliver enemies and their attack patterns:

• They fly in from offscreen at different speeds, not even an universally set speed because I would only figure out to do that after I'd eyeballed the entire level.
• Their patterns are a basic "shotgun" spread, only a few of which track the player. And I believe I overdid it on the amount of bullets.

So yeah, I would say that balance was rather spray and pray, and that unfortunately held the rest of the game back. As an experienced, not the best but experienced player of those games I'm familiar some tricks like micro and macrododging that do help.  For example, the tactic you used, going fast around the bullet patterns for the cards is actually macrododging, and to a point it was intentional. To a point.

Thanks for the review. If I had had more time with it it would've looked like a fairly different creature, but I greatly overshot my scope this time around.

Yep, the background and the collectibles are 2 things that do need a major revamp. I'm thinking a full revamp of how the bg works (semi-monochromatic shmups like this ought to have a simpler bg really), and as regards the petals to make them stand out a bit more by both adding a white outline to them as well as making the player attract them if they're near them. Thanks for the feedback, I'm def planning on a 1.1 of the game!

The platforming is very enjoyable, especially the double jump! A bit tough, though it's very fair (aside from 2 instances which I'll discuss in a lil). The level design is really solid for a game like this. Not supremely challenging, not too easy. It's at just the right spot to encourage getting better.

The two issues I had were, you can bug out in the ceiling, especially later down the line, which is a bit rough. Additionally, I wish the hurricane hurtbox was a little more generous, that would make the platforming even better.

The controls did throw me off a lil at the start, but after getting used to them it's not such a big deal. Regardless, it would be cool if everything was mapped to the arrow keys eg. if you're on top of the dragon you and the dragon enter a state where pressing left or right get it moving in either direction.

Solid game!

PS: I like the fact that you used 1bitdragon for the music, it's very thematically appropriate.

I enjoyed it. The sprites are quite alright, the fx is quite satisfying. Mechanically, I think that the dragon's hitbox might be a bit large, so you have a hard time reacting to the balista shots.

Also, there's a little bug that makes it so that if you collide against the side of the screen you'll move ahead at incredible speeds, but it doesn't hamper enjoyment at all tbh. Solid little shooter!

For something made in 3 hours it's quite good! Otherwise I'm sure you realise that the gameplay loop is a bit simple, etc. I can't comment on Trijam, but in Minijam it's still decently enjoyable for what it is.

The presentation has a sort of Atari/Java mobile game vibe that I like. Some real neat sprites for 1 person working for 3 hours!

It's very charming, and the presentation is very good. I really like the music. Overall, it gave me fond nostalgic memories of old Flash games. I do have to say that some parts of the presentation are better than others, the dragon is a little odd imo.

I wish the game had a fail state, however. I understand it's supposed to be a more chill experience, but the concept is really solid with the strategising around upgrades and a fail state would've been really cool. Makes me wonder what a Recettear style game like this would look like ;

The art is great and sold the mood really well! I wish there were effects for every ship you sunk and a little more challenge, but that's about it.

I enjoyed it quite a bit! 

The level design and the platforming was spot on, except for maybe one too many pitfalls. The boss fights are a bit too easy though? I mean, I just spammed them dead.

The audio was good and appropriate, but it's a bit loud.

Overall, I can see that you really took your time with it, and it shows in the level of polish the game has.

That's very fair. I wanted to make the game a bit more of a very casual, easily understandable SHMUP so I did away with things like visible player hitbox, focus mode, etc. Replacing the missing bullet hell stuff with some acceleration on the player controls is a great idea.

I'm very likely to make a 1.1 due to how quick and simple it would be to improve so many things in the game, so I'll be definitely be implementing that + a bunch of other quality of life features.

All fair points. I was balancing the game out after basically a day of continuous devving lol, so the stuff I decided to implement last minute like difficulty scaling over time was a bit busted. Originally, the enemies would spawn at closer to the rates you see at the start of the game and nothing else, so that influenced their hp pool quite a bit.

A lot of the dissonant art stuff you see in the game is the result of overreliance on in-engine colouring and image blending over adherence to the palette due to trying to make everything look alright while being pressed for time

As regards clarity of the upgrade buying option I was so mushbrained at the end of it of it all that I was going to implement a simple "-(number of petals you lost)" draw call whenever you picked it up, but I was just too exhausted

There's a certain Atari-like charm and an interesting gameplay loop idea to this game, but imo it needs some polish. During the shmup section of the game, some of the little enemies are liable to almost teleport in front of you. I also had to maximise the window because some stuff, like coins, were hard to identify at first? I thought they were enemy shots.

The cave is an interesting concept, I just wish that the controls weren't divided between mouse and keyboard. Fortunately, the keyboard controls are pleasingly simple so it's not too much of a dissonance.

I'm on Windows 11, and it just won't open. Doesn't throw me any errors though, just completely fails to launch the application.

The presentation, the music are really good! I love that vibe and artstyle, feels very PSX.

Gameplay's a bit rough, though. My fire meter also froze, and well I thought that was a good thing because I... couldn't find my way around very well. In a maze game like this, it's ideal when you have landmarks to help guide you around. For example, the walls in one section of the maze are made of rock, there's a rat tunnel in this one here corner, a skeleton in the other one, that kind of thing.

Everything was so charming and nostalgic though that it kept me playing, really reminds me of one of those old collect-a-thon games, only in first person.

There are some hiccups with the performance. Idk if it's my browser, but whenever I look up I get crazy frame drops. I get stutters while the map first loads too. Additionally, I had to Unity fullscreen it really fast after reloading the page, partially because of the drops.

Good experience all around, though!

This was a pretty cool experience, the presentation reminds me of Yume Nikki quite a bit somehow! I think it's the lamps, the cheery atmosphere contrasting with the dark, and the fear of what might be in it... Inspirational, for sure!

However, as regards that I do wish that there was something slightly unsettling in the dark that you had to avoid. But that's just me, really. 

I do however have to say that the objective of the game feels like it's the game, the experience itself, like something like Flower. But like Flower it's simply good, so it was a joy to play.

Great lil experience, gave me some stuff to think about!

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The concept is really unique and brave, and at no point it feels like it detracts from the fun puzzle-like experience. Got an uncanny sense of atmosphere from the shadow people just walking in front of me out of nowhere, to the point it felt a bit like an horror game lol. The presentation is really good, I wonder what a game like this would look like if it emphasised those creepy shadow people even more though.

Great job!

The DPS build I made was pretty fun, it reminds me of some of builds I had the most fun with in Holocure, one of my favourite games of all time! Neat Survivours-like!

That being said, after a while I just... wasn't picking up upgrades? They stop the flow of the game dead on its tracks, giving me more stuff that I had in order to deal with the same enemies as before. 

I don't know if I'm saying anything that other people haven't said here. Maybe an original thought I could add is, you don't necessarily need to remove the many books on the floor. But instead make it so that you select a "loadout" like in Survivours, and then everything that drops afterwards gets autopicked, doesn't stop the gameplay, and buffs your entire loadout by 0.1. Something like that.

Good job, was very enjoyable despite the flaws!

First of all, stellar use of the limitation. Not only in the obviously great gameplay mechanic, but also in the other ways the theme can be interpreted (Paladin).

I really, really like the game feel. Scavenging for good dungeon crawlers like this isn't easy! A lot of games in this genre offer weak gimmicks, and/or fail to offer you enough tools to deal with your enemies. A great example is Hexen II, a game that by all means should be a great of the genre but has so few ways of dealing with ranged enemies as a melee-oriented class that you simply have to take mandatory damage at points. Like the Quake it was based on, but only with the melee weapons.

But I digress. This game is the opposite of that. Each of the 3 enemies require different strategies that revolve around the effective use of your melee and your throwing light. It was very satisfying figuring out how the robot is bested. This strategic AND innovative approach to first-person dungeon crawler combat is a breath of fresh air.

The art is also superb, and helps sell the feel really well. The only minor issues I have are with the sometimes unclear minimap and a lack of a suitably dungeony tune to accompany your dark voyage. But of course, none of that is a requirement in a game jam game already this polished.

On the controls end, it's mostly excellent but the double esc for volume control is also a bit weird, maybe it could've been another key? Also, the game, the light mechanic might be liable to being misunderstood by a few players? I don't know, wasn't an issue for me but maybe it's something to think about.

Amazing job all around! Please take this forward. I would buy it immediately. There's such a dearth of good, handcrafted games like this that we end up being down to Lunacid and... Dread Dimension? The latter of which isn't even in the same genre.

This is a really fun Survivors type game! I echo what other people have said below, and would like to add that clicking gets a bit much. Maybe if you held the mouse button down as opposed to clicking it? Also, some of the powers could have been more visually impactful and such, it's hard to tell what you just did sometimes.

Either way, you did a great job!

Well, from the initial presentation I wasn't expecting it to unsettle me lol.

It's an interesting concept for sure, and I do like how the artstyle clashes with the underlying survival horror element.

It's a bit finicky, the barrels could've stood to be accessed from all sides. The gem meter doesn't seem to count down? The sprint is not too obvious, but you get used to it.

Overall, it's a good job!

Will do!

Doesn't launch for me :(

Thank you so much! Your words are very welcome and encouraging, I'm glad that the vision resonated with you so much. I don't check itch.io too often, so I didn't see your comment for a little while. We're continuing the game, and have made a lot of progress on the engine front, as well as have sketched out a bunch of extra levels and bosses.

If you'd like to follow the project, we're based on this Discord https://discord.gg/E7ufMJRZ

First of all, the presentation is immaculate. Amazing job on that! I love the creatures, the music is very catchy, and the pixel art is great.

The gameplay is really good, the platforming is rock solid, but suffers from a few flaws here and there. The biggest of which being unclear hitboxes (i try to crouch bullets but they still hit me?) and not being able to see faster enemies as they approach you from offscreen. Furthermore, the boomerang weapon is a bit complicated to hit enemies with - I found myself using the creature catcher bottle on enemies I had already captured just because it travels in a straight line.

Overall an amazing job!

Ahhhh! I forgot to rate quite a few of the people who rated us, so this comment is gonna be quicker than most of mine.

It's a very chill game with a very unique concept, closest I can think of is Atomicrops but that isn't a platformer. But it suffers a bit from a general lack of variety. The enemies are mostly simple walkers that don't interact much with the environment, and walk towards you and the terrarium without much strategy. Also, it would be cool if you had the choice between leaving the plants there to act as tower defence towers, or harvesting them for the upgrade. I do realise that maybe what I'm suggesting is a bit overscoped, given the 3 day limitation.

Solid game, guys.

Submitted rating just 1 minute before ratings close lol.

Thank you!

Great art, and a wide variety of mechanics that help in keeping the gameplay fresh! Very solid entry.

Interesting, unique concept, very in line with the limitation. There were a few bugs such as the sprite staying in a white state after dying, and one of the slimes deciding to track my position. 

The camera is also a bit much, had to play zoomed out as much as possible because I was getting motion sickness.

The overall presentation is good, and immersed me in the game.

Solid game!

No problem at all, glad to give my opinion when I can!

The game is already quite insane for a 3 day production, so I totally understand how and why some things didn't make the cut. 

I'm glad to hear you're continuing the project, and hoping to see what you guys come up with in the future!

It's a really chill game, but the wallrunning is a bit unforgiving. Took me a while to understand how to even do so, didn't know you have to press a direction as opposed to looking at the wall, no idea if it's just me. I like the presentation quite a bit, reminds me of playing Mirror's Edge back in the good ol days.

Actually beautiful game

This is a masterclass in making use of a limitation/theme. At no time did the one bullet mechanic feel like a contrivance, it was always organic and original. The gameplay is simply amazing and epic, I felt really cool timing my jumps in order to create cool "set pieces".

What an astounding presentation too. Impeccable art, a cutscene, and all of it in 3 days? Wow.

If I have to say anything slightly negative about this little gem is that the dash got me killed more often than not, but I don't know whether that's a skill issue on my end. Also, enemy variety but I'm not going to pontificate here saying you needed a boss and more enemy types in a game made in 3 days lol.

All in all, you have an amazing product here with very solid core mechanics that if you wanted to, you could extend and release on many platforms, even smartphones. I would definitely play something like that!