itch.io

Good entry. I found it way too hard until I figured out (on my 4th play through lol) that you could upgrade your stats. Really helped a lot, really did! :)  The game got really interesting after that - each play though I was trying to figure out what stat to improve to have a  chance of surviving. 

I enjoyed the cyberspace a lot. Having a strong environment change is great. I enjoyed seeing that. 

I have mixed feelings about the visuals. I like the extreme low resolution strong choice, but also I found it hard to see what I was looking at. I got used to it and it was fine but I still had to concentrate to understand things like thin walkways and ramps.

I got shot in the face so hard the game crashed! Made me smile though.

I wasn't able to get the gamepad to work - I just kept spinning or walking forward. I think it was reading area that should be in the analog stick's dead zone as input directions. Keyboard felt good though.

The use of visuals was really good. I liked how it looked, particularly the forest.

The dialog popup was oppressive. It filled the screen and had a single sentence of text on the top. 

Really good. I like how the scope of the game was clearly defined "survive 7 times and become cleansed" was a great statement. I also enjoyed the energy it had - things attacked fast, moved fast, and generally felt much faster and more fun than many other crawlers can be.

The balance was really good. I had the option to heal, I pushed my luck, I got a TPK and then tried again with a "run to the cleric" a little earlier. Very nice.

The store completely confused me. I clicked on my weapons and they went away (sold I assume but I didn't find where my currency was shown). I never figured out what to do here other than see my items in place.

Making it an auto battle was a good idea I think, really worked well, but I couldn't tell what each individual characters' damage was because it went by so fast. I would like to be able to slow it down a bit.

Overall a very nice entry.

This is really cool! Very impressive. Visually stunning, I loved how it looks. The voxel effect and the torch casting shadows off of everything, so good! I enjoyed how the areas felt different, I really liked the tutorial (I enjoyed it more because it felt opt-in and because it was broken into small pieces.) 

I had a very hard time figuring out the combat - I kept bumping into a guy over and over and I saw cryptic icons in the bottom right that I didn't understand. Eventually he died (a slime I think?) but the combat gave no feedback so I didn't know I was attacking. It was also confusing to me that I couldn't put the torch or weapons in the attack slot, but it was a great mechanic having me hold them. It just felt a bit weird not being able to actually "equip" it? Dunno how it would be better, other than that the UI was fantastic.

I really liked the "inspect item eye" - retro in the best way.

Damn! This game is so good! It's really complete and has a full story through it, a twist ending, combat that didn't outlive its welcome, and a really awesome castle. I even liked how the ground in places wasn't just a rectangle of full world, but rather I could see the edges of the blue water and stuff. Really made it a lot more interesting.

I had little weird moments where I would click on the exit door and it would run me back to the big pink tentacle monster guy which is on the other side of the level. But I was able to abort by running to the side. 

I think this is a perfect amount of content for a game jam but of course more content and more challenge would work well in this game.

This is only of my top games this jam.

Very interesting creation. I like the design refinements on the gold box style combats you have over last year. I would have preferred even more QoL stuff like clicking on a tile to move without having to select the move action first and auto-ending my turn if I have actions left. Overall I think it's extremely ambitious and I find it fascinating to see just what went well and what janky and weird that your LLM cooked up. Turning was wild every time but the combat was very solid. Stuff like that make this a very interesting jam entry for me.

The game looked really good. The atmosphere was really dialed in, I like it. I couldn't figure out how to use weapons that were ranged - I have a bow in W but also W moves forward and if I move towards a badguy I walk, not shoot? Then I walk into them and kick them? I think some instructions (even on the itch.io page) would have helped with that.

Overall I think you made a good entry and you have all the bones to build a larger game onto it if you want to. Implementation of what you delivered seems really solid.

Wonderful concept. Really fun idea. As usual an exceptionally high quality entry. I think the UI is perfect - I can very quickly use the equipped items. I liked exploring the outside of the tower - completely unnecessary and absolutely wonderful. Touches like that make me really like your games.

I'm kind of a sucker for upgrading items so I'm glad I got to do that.

The combat didn't feel great to me, I basically felt like I was spamming attacks and constantly digging through the inventory to get to appropriate element attacks. Then I went up a level and the inventory problem went away but I still found it a bit tedious. 

The core gameplay loop didn't really hold me, I wasn't sure what I had to look forward to other than more levels and more hats. Still that was kind of cool.

I haven't had a chance to play multiplayer but I suspect it will be a very different experience when I do.

Thanks you so much! Yeah it was meant to be hard but that’s definitely not for everybody. I appreciate the feedback.

WOW! You really completed these one, well done. I'm always impressed by your ability to absolutely crush all of our game jam games each year. Thank you for playing. It seems to me my intended end condition doesn't happen, I think I should work on that for a post release. Anybody that survives the game this long should be given the win screen. Oh well.

I think the other posters are smarter than me - I'm 4 runs in and I haven't figured out how to get past the green guy with a sword and shield. So I'm posting my progress here and when I figure it out I'll post more. So far a great game, I think the very puzzle like design is perfect for a jam game. Also I'm very engaged with it. Like, I don't want to quit I want to figure it out and that's a really good sign IMO.

Okay I went back immediately - it took something like 6 runs before I found the first health potion. Lol. When I first saw a sword I thought "you're putting it in a cage where I cannot reach it because you're trolling me, curse you!" and then 30 seconds later I had a sword and I was very happy.

Thank you for making the doors permanently destroy themselves and for making turning not cost a turn. Very good design decisions. The smooth turning and movement all felt really good. Also the length was exactly rat for a jam game.

I have now been reunited with my one and only love Miranda and I am really feeling good about this game. Well done!

Very creative theme interpretation. I liked this game. It had just the right combination of strategy and mindlessness for me, and the levels were a very good size. Personally I prefer a different control scheme but I got used to it (I would guess maybe 1 in 15 crawlers each annual Dungeon Crawler Game Jam use the same control scheme you did). 

I've played twice and I think I made it 5 levels in? I'm going to revisit again to try and beat it.

Movement feels good, the turn is especially smooth and polished. I'd love to see what you could make with this. All the bones are there, give me MOAR!

Absolutely brilliant! I loved it! The word puzzles were really fun "vasectomy, rhinoplasty, colonoscopy, screwdriver" or whatever it was made me laugh out loud. Having backtrack not cost health and make the maze more navigable was a really smart move. The length was perfect, the level design was very clearly different from level to level, really masterfully done. 

I think I found a bug - if you run out of juice exactly when you land on a mushroom you are forced to sacrifice a letter for the discount price (20 / 50) but the mushroom is gone. That made one stretch pretty savage to my vocabulary but it added to the fun. I especially liked seeing the credits with 3/4 of the letters missing!

Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm very happy with how it turned out, and I'm really happy people let me upload a version with the memory leak fixed. So definitely re-download it if you want to revisit.

That is really nice of you to say! Thank you so much. You really made my day.

I look forward to playing your game, probably this weekend.

Thank you! Let me know what you think

Thanks you so much! 

I think Luke is correct. I’d highly recommend asking for clarification if you haven’t already. The “no gen AI” rule usually refers to in game assets like art and writing, not using code writing tools.

Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I'm very familiar with that jam - I'm one of the more active members of their Discord and I came in second place in the jam competition this year. You might find it interesting to know that none of the highest placing games in 2025 used generative AI. Cheers mate :)

Were there any previous years this jam happened or is this the first year? 

I think you succeeded. It was like an Elden Ring boss - hard until you learn the patterns, then not hard anymore, and overall both fun and satisfying. I think it will help telling people they can place multiple bombs, that information is super key. 

Oh man, I was so into this game! Then NEXT! Oh no. Hopefully I can play a complete game next year, this was really good. I was very impressed with what you made so far. Map overlay, changing inventory, quality movement mechanics, you've got a lot here and I would love to play a larger game with it.

Really nice entry! This is a really good looking game. I was engaged by the spacecraft, I enjoyed the puzzles, and I love Vampire Survivors so seeing that combat and progression mechanic was really excellent. It was a lot of fun. You have excellent level design skills and I look forward to playing more games by you.

Amiga! WOW! This is so impressive! I loved that it played quickly with autocombat and simple conversation text that wasn't cumbersome to get past. This let me focus on getting around. Super impressive job, well done!

Very nice level design, I really enjoyed finding the hidden items and the bombs felt very satisfying. I'm not sure which game specifically it reminds me of from my childhood but there is one. The maze was split into areas of just the right size, I feel the automap appeared just at the right time, and the introduction the final boss received was very good. I found that fight a bit rough, he took way too many bombs, but otherwise I really enjoyed this game a lot.

OMG absolutely amazing! I really enjoyed this one. Very complete game! So much going on. The writing was fun, it made me laugh a lot of times. Honestly I don't think you can ever have to many palette-swap jokes. I am impressed by your ambition, building two games at once is quite the challenge!

I was able to walk on air at the final area and I made it outside of the flaming area, both of those moments were fun for sure.

Really nice entry. I loved how it nailed a JRPG feel and gave me very clear, fully developed areas to play in. I particularly liked finding the entrance to the secret "get your team" area, it felt very smart. I then had a lot of trouble finding out what to do next. I watched a YouTuber play to figure out what to do to proceed and apparently I had missed the money in the debriefing room. I went back and the money was there but I couldn't pick it up sadly. Things to fix with a restart I guess :)

The arcade was my favorite area, it looked and felt really good.

Overall I really liked this one. 

Really nice entry. I loved how it nailed a JRPG feel and gave me very clear, fully developed areas to play in. I particularly liked finding the entrance to the secret "get your team" area, it felt very smart. I then had a lot of trouble finding out what to do next. I watched a YouTuber play to figure out what to do to proceed and apparently I had missed the money in the debriefing room. I went back and the money was there but I couldn't pick it up sadly. Things to fix with a restart I guess :)

The arcade was my favorite area, it looked and felt really good.

Overall I really liked this one. 

Absolutely excellent. Thank you for using scancodes instead of keycodes, I didn't have to toggle between Dvorak and Qwerty to play :)

When I saw the G.O.A.T. I thought it was going to be a game final boss it looked so scary, but then I didn't find him that tough. Pretty much typical to what I found on floor 3.

I loved the progression system, random eggs I could drop onto players was fun. Like, a loot box in the best possible way :P

Really, really impressive ambitious game! Really well thought out combat, lots of good actions, some strategy, and very polished. I would love to see this expanded into a larger game. The dice rolling feel was awesome and the mechanic wasn't that hard to pick up.

I guess I'll give some feedback instead of just saying things I liked - I would like a few fewer clicks during the combat, or full keyboard control, because I found it moved a bit more slowly than I would like. For example have the movement always on the screen and then just click on a guy to attack, no need to click the action buttons. It's a small thing though.

Overall a very good offering, definitely one of the best this year!

I really enjoyed what I played but I sadly wasn't able to get very far. The first door hacking experience was awesome, I really enjoyed the Mastermind minigame. Excellent idea! When I see lockpicking minigames I usually don't like them much but this was pretty great.

Unfortunately the door at the end of the hallway didn't let me do the minigame properly. It let me type it something like 7 entries despite it was only supposed to have 3 and I couldn't proceed or do anything other than Escape.  I started a new game and the same thing happened, I was only able to do one door lock puzzle, but I did the important door first so I was able to proceed. I made it outside and wow, that was a cool surprise. It was awesome being able to do that. 

Overall a fun entry. Game Jams always have bugs, that's the way of things, but this one is very complete and the premise is really compelling and the ideas were very good. I enjoyed it a lot, good entry.

I really liked this game. It was one of the most polished games I've played all jam. I really liked the movement, the bounce in the character's step, the little 3D details everywhere, the humorous notes (no fish in micro = very good idea!), things like that. Even the boss reminded me of Bill Lumbergh and you had an Amir desk. So perfect. 

I spent a long time trying to find my first anomaly, it took over 20 minutes. I was really happy when I found it. Then I found something that I was sure was an anomaly and I was wrong, Thursday became Monday sadly. Even though it wasn't an anomaly I won't share it here.

It says a lot that I'm still having fun at 30 minutes, not many game jams can do that.

I think you should be really proud of this game, it's very good.

Thank you for playing and saying nice things! I really appreciate you calling it "well-crafted", I often don't feel that way about game jam games I make but this one seemed to come together.

 I'm very curious about the slowness - I'm doing things that might be slow on some computers but I wasn't sure that would be the case. Could you tell me what you played it on, and what the graphics card was (if any)? I'd really appreciate knowing, since on my machine the movement happens instantly when pressing a key and the FPS is in the hundreds.

Whoa, don't hurt yourself!  There is a treasure map, make sure to study it before heading to the island.

Thank you so much for playing and all the kind words. I'm not familiar with UnMetal but it sounds hilarious.

I like the ending you got, it's a pretty decent one.

Thank you so much for all the kind words! I'm really happy to hear your level layouts work out well for you. 

The pirate island has a hint inside the curio shop (home base area) - so you should already know the secret to the island or you won't be able to figure it out. It was meant to be a hard puzzle and it seems to have clicked for maybe 1/3 of players.

I won't make a longer version of this specific game but I do see myself probably making something else with this engine.

Thank you so much! I would also like to expand on this engine but there are things that would need to happen to make that a reality. I agree the combat is very basic, I figured since the game was mostly about avoiding enemies that would be fine but honestly you're right, a couple more options in there would be better. The mirror portals were my favorite idea, I'm glad you liked them!

OMG you made a Win 3.11 style GUI for the game, it's so cool! I loved it. I also love how the look of the game kept changing, it reminded me of Inscryption. I found it very difficult, particularly at first, and that's a good thing in my book. Also implementing slot-based inventory is ambitious for a game jam and awesome. 

This is one of the most charming games I've played this jam. Well done!

Very interesting game. I really like the premise and the art style. It's incredibly charming. Using procedural generation was a smart move. I especially liked the mirrors, stuff like that makes crawlers really interesting. Well done!

Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it and were able to sail away with your shiny new ship :).  There is a puzzle to the island treasure, let me know if you want a spoiler.

I'm glad the mirror level worked out, I was trying to figure out something that wasn't too combat heavy and I really like this solution. As for more, I think I want to make more stuff with this engine but only if I can figure out a less cumbersome art pipeline. It was about 4 or 5 hours to create a single wall texture and I'm not doing that again.

Thank you!