itch.io

The game is starting strong with a mission intro (and to my delight it is a 3D open world game). The mission starts easy enough: find the hidden EMP bomb, get it. The distance shrinks when I walk. Ok. A car tries to run me over, some street fighters try to stop me, I cope with it because I have a sword. The screen gets glitchy when the Character is hurt. Interesting.

On the way I notice some collider bugs: invisible walls, feet in the concrete. Does not stop me.

Then I have the bomb, get a new destination, about 70 m apart. But this time the distance remains between 67 and 70 m in the whole level - which is not big. I go everywhere, finding no elevator. There is one stairway but the character can't walk stairs. Can't even jump.

And that's all. Nothing more to do than running around. Checked the level three times. Don't do this to me! Just when it gets good!

By the way, some alleys end in nothing. Where there should have been a building there is only green emptiness and when you walk into it, you leave the game terrain and fall endlessly into oblivion. Man, simply put up a wall up here, a building, a fence, anything. ;-)

The game has no sound at all (I played two of the other GJ games on my test system and they had, so my sound works). And no menu so you have to Alt-F4 it when you want to leave.
So it feels incomplete, especially in the level itself. While the game has good assets to make a perfect visual impact, it falls flat on the movement (even the free Standard Unity 3rd Person Controller lets you jump and walk stairs). So the mission was not doable for me. Or maybe I missed a hidden clue?
The communication requirement/limitation was only visible in the intro (mission briefing).
Sound and a menu would improve the game greatly. Walking stairs, even more. But as it is, I liked it though. With more content in the level and a clearer path where to go from there it can get really good.

Stuck in the stakeout

A dystopian 2.5D cyberpunk game where you are not a rebel but the fist of the state, embodied in two police officers called Crank and Dozer, in a simple city of blocks. The game starts without a menu or any sort of exposition. There's some movement AI behind the Patterns of the citizens, and they go everywhere to do suspicious things, maybe. This is where Crank and Dozer, known from their own police procedural show, come in.

Stake out, search, find evidence, arrest. That's the plan.

Unfortunately, I was not able to execute it. I could order both to do a stakeout. Not more.

For example, Crank was the most useless investigator ever. The was suspicious activity in the abandoned office I sent her to, but she did not follow the suspects, did not search the office and did not arrest anyone either. Just staking out.

Of course that was my fault. But neither LMB nor RMB did anything after the stakeout started. The manual should say whether to click on the building or the box above the building. (Did both, did not help either.) Clicking on the Person in the box did nothing, too. And you can not send an officer to a new stakeout directly, you have to recall him first to Headquarters, then send him out from there while the trace of the suspect gets cold. Why?

More internal feedback is needed, I think. Maybe different sounds when new orders are set; high for ok, low for "cant do that now". Or a speech bubble. A status line, something. 

At least there is a minimal integrated user manual to explain what to do. For some players this may suffice. others need more. I don't care about a wall of text if I understand the game afterwards. But I remember the time when games came with printed mManuals, containing an intro, explaining the details, setting the mood. So when you want me to play it, knowing what to do, don't give me only 16 short lines. Don't expect anyone knows as much as you about your game. And the manual should explain KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) at least once. Not everyone is corporate.

Obviously I missed much of the good stuff in the game. Did not get to it. Would like to praise it because it looks smooth and well-thought. Just got stuck in the stakeout. No, it's not the player's job to know all similar games or try desperately anything beyond what you tell them. It's your job to make it clear. Really, I was looking forward to your game and was convinced it would be great. The greatness is hidden inside somewhere and waits for better controls / control feedback. 

I liked the music. It reminded me of the original Blade Runner Soundtrack. I am not sure whether it was one track or more, but it ran unobtrusively in the background of the game, conveying much to the feeling. Nice.

This is a mix of a Visual Novel and a Body-Implant Minigame.

The big strength of the game is surely the original artwork and the moody dialogue. It provides the right dystopian feeling and gives insights into the seven characters (including the Landlady and the Player). Five persons are suspects.

But the game, despite having a small exposition, delivers not enough context for me. The player character does not seem qualified enough to make these operations at all. A landlady is a strange provider of government missions. It's not very believable why the cyberware has to be replaced completely in the first place. And it is completely unclear why everyone - including a cop - should give you tribute (cyberware etc.).
We never see the full picture what is happening here, but this may be part of the FUD the game tries to provide. As a means of throwing the player in a situation like "Papers please", it works. For people who do not like to be forced in a gameplay loop of bad decisions, it does not work. At first it is interesting getting to know the people but later the loop just repeats with the same text until you put a certain chip on them. And then the game ends. No explanation given. Not much fun, honestly.

The games has several bugs in the dialogue part (people get mixed up, pronouns are wrong, two different dialogues in one panel).

The music has only one track which gets stale after some time.

The aspect I liked least was the minigame of the operation. You see different icons falling down. There was no explanation how to react, and you have to react quickly. Well, there are arrow keys with these symbols so it seemed that you have to press them when you see the corresponding symbol. There is no feedback while they fall, only later you get a "Failed". Maybe there is another way to react. Klicking on the symbols does not help. And the result does not seem to be important for the success of the Operation at all. All in all, this is horrible for people who don't like reaction games, and combining it with a Visual Novel where you have all time in the world to select an answer/action seems an unlucky idea to me.

I played it for half an hour because I wanted to see how it plays out, so the abrupt end was disappointing. All in all it felt neither as a good story nor as a thrilling game to me. But I saw how much work was put in there: the characters have personality and background; unfortunately your interaction with them is very limited even when time passes and they tell you a little more. Maybe it is best to get rid of the inconsequential minigame and concentrate more on the story part.

An amazingly small game. I was only able to interact with three objects in a sparse room. But the developer explains: "Unfortunately very bare bones and unfinished but I signed up to the CYBERPUNK JAM 013 and gosh darn it, I'm gonna submit something." I respect that, and looking at my own game I can wholeheartedly agree.

Well, the game ends just when it becomes interesting, and while the concept "Explore the life of a notorious criminal as a cyber agent of the government" is promising, it is not implemented yet.

There is no music, but a humming ambient and a SFX for examination. Sparse as the room. Communication was not to be seen (I don't consider opening a data file as communication).

It's the light what makes the room somewhat cyberpunky and dystopian at the same time. Without it, the room could be in any low-poly game of any contemporary genre. And I found projecting the info on the wall rather original.

But with so little gameplay, so little to see and hear it seems to me not more than a prototype. Well, your explanation says it all.

Well, on another PC the game worked normally. You've got a story there but it is only in the itch page, not the game itself. This is not optimal, and even with the text why a droid blows kisses, who the other creatures are and why they are against you. So it feels more like a cute FPS in a simple environment.
Bugs:
- I was not able to defeat the grim end boss even when I fired my hearts onto him (head and center keyhole as well) for several minutes. (His AI needs an update because he mostly fired into a wall I used as cover.)
- The text "Why did you do this..." appears at the transitional door no matter if you did fire a single "kiss" on someone or not. If you didn't, there should be another text, or none.

I'm not quite sure whether this was really cyberpunk. SF, yes, of course, but I missed the classic ingredients of cyberpunk. More context, a richer environment and more of the typical colors would have benefited the game, I think. But I liked that the "kissed" androids get pink, wave and vanish; that's a hint of closure, even when it is not very clear what it does actually mean for them in the game world.

I don't know how much votes were given but at this time, the Theme Poll does only say:

Form over quota.

This form has exceeded its allocated quota.

I would like to give points for originality. "Rouge Droid" is an eccentric take on "Rogue Droid". (At least, a droid was there.) Whether a word play leading to this is conforming the theme I leave to the host of the GameJam. Regarding the game itself, it was not very clear what to do - it played mostly itself, leaving me only the options of choosing the level-ups. After completing the rounds, it ended with "undefined". So I'm sorry to say that seemed not "fun and great in all aspects". But the wacky droid with "cosmetic animation" was a nice idea, and the overall design was retro enough.

Did not run on my testing laptop (which normally is able to run "light" games - and "Rouge Droid", too). The only what was initially there was the godot logo and the music. It blocked even the task manager. I had to shut down the PC. So no vote for this game.

Thank you! Will check the pause menu. There are plenty of droids around, and all are marked in your compass HUD as red. But they avoid you as good as they can... too good, actually. Their AI is flawed. And I have to look into the foot thing; I think the avatar and the animation just don't fit right. Had not the time to fix this in the Jam. I hope next week it gets better.

Yes, the story is a big plus in the game.
But don't tell me you are really considering using ESC for jumping? Escape is almost universally acknowledged as the key which "escapes" the normal flow (hence the name) and brings you either back a level (UI level, not game level) or calls a Pause menu. On most (PC) games which include jumping, the "jump button" is SPACE. That's even the Default in some game engines.

You are right about the droid reactions. As I said, their AI is flawed. Next week it will be better, I hope.
I used the CRT to provide the "retro" look but without it anything becomes sharper so I'm not sure I keep it.

Oh well, mainly it was the colorless person which stood out more than the robot, and both against the 3D backdrop. Mixing 3D and 2D is not very usual, but I've seen it here and there.

Comparing this to the original Streets of Rage from 1991, your game scene could still be a little more colorful.

The game text on the page promises a lot, e.g. "Fast, unforgiving combat, scanlines, synth noise, and retro UI". It does not deliver any of this, and the onboarding was miserable. I did not know what to do here. The only keys which did anything were SPACE and ENTER, and they only changed the level layout. Else, nothing happened. This game does not work. I tried it in two different browsers.

I do not expect a perfect game in a GameJam - mine is not perfect either, not even good at this time - but to have a character which can do something, at least move, is the minimum in my opinion. I hope the game gets fixed and can rise to the expectations it has risen in the description.

Nice. While it is not very clear why it is helping when a droid punches random people, the game works.

The environment style and the people's style do not fit very good together, I think, but the end screen is pure cyberpunk and the music is classic... even when it is only one loop. Maybe that's part of the "retro feel".

I am not the right one to rate this game as I don't like 2D platformers at all. So at the question "Is this game fun" I can only say "I think people who play platformers probably would like it because it gives the original feel these games convey". But for me, no. It is not your fault!
The idea of a far future where cats are agents in coats is cute nonetheless. But from (the short time) what I saw in the game and the screenshots I would have presumed that it takes place in some sort of dungeon, not a cyberpunk environment. Maybe such screens appear later.

The game is very retro - wow, a Gameboy variant! I And I like that it has a story, with dialogues.

In the beginning, Z sometimes acts as ENTER, sometimes ENTER itself works. Z as jump is an unlucky choice, I think, for jump lies mostly on SPACE, and in some countries the positions of Y and Z are exchanged on the keyboard.

I played the Web version of the prototype. The concept of fixed camera angles is definitive retro, but is the game cyberpunk? Not yet, there is only a character walking (sometimes with animation, sometimes without) through some empty rooms until he is trapped in a room with two nonfunctional doors. With interaction, more environmental details or even a story this could be the start of a nice little retro game. Maybe you could give the character a more fluent walking animation, there are several free ones in the asset store for a start.

I'm glad you like the design. Music is planned, I did not have the time to put it into the game during the Jam. I have placed the character in front of a box where you can get one of the weapons so you already can "run around shooting everywhere".

When the rating time is over, the Droid AI will get an overhaul and the players can do what I had planned for in the first place.

I am not quite convinced.
- You seem to have used the same house for the location of  Sarah and Emma. Not very original or believable.
- You should have removed Sarah's glasses - it's night! Maybe you could fix her open mouth, too.
- The dialogue is not bad, but the constant "hmm"'s are annoying.
- The Zombie model looks cheap (especially compared to Sarah and Emma) and has no convincing movements.
- There is no feedback about ammunition. Obviously the shotgun is able to shoot on and on and on.
- The story progression was rather ok, I think, but some may say that there's much walking and too little action in the first ten minutes. I liked the bird sounds, they gave the woods more life.
- The rifle should have a crosshair; shooting seems very unprecise at this time and the player does not know which place on the screen he should point the rifle in the first place.
- The flashlight is too bright in short distances.
- The ambient sound is not very interesting; I recommend a more wood-like sound instead of this neutral noise.

All in all, it did not convey a thrilling experience, no real danger as the zombies could be taken care of rather easily. But, it was only the prologue, with more dangers and thrilling events to come... I hope.

Ah, a low-poly FPS, starting with a message dialogue to set the story and tone. Well. Good sound and menus, by the way. Some explanation on the walls as tutorial. Alas, no info how to regain health and what the bars stand for in the first place. Red may be health, ok, but white goes down permanently and I can refill it by buying something from a machine. After "earning" some money by shooting at very simple constructed enemies I am out of ammunition. My rockets are not able to destroy doors and there is no other obvious way out so I am stuck in the start area. Some hints would help here as the screenshots show there is more. Aside from the message and the skyscrapers far away it feels not very cyberpunky yet, it could be any other FPS prototype. But it is a decent start. And it was playable OK on a laptop with only a weak but dedicated graphics card.

As you write about the very early prototype stage here are some ideas.
- Colors and textures, of course, to provide more depth and details
- A better onboarding. Not all controls which are mentioned on the itch page are mentioned in the game itself.
- Make clear how to interact with the environment aside from moving and shooting.
- Better models for the gun and the enemies.
- Explain the HUD. You say it is "retro-inspired" - be inspired by DOOM or be more original, but tell us!
- For a better punk feel, change the Skybox.

Oh, I'm sorry - disregard the marker for now. It is part of the map system which is not working yet. The mission is hacking an antenna on the roof in the city center, not far from where you start. The game does no hand holding how to get on a roof (but its gets easier in every new version I upload).

In my country, it is just not allowed to use the "unlicensed copyrighted material of others" so I am a little surprised that it is used here in the first place. And while some of the videos you can see in the simple violet grey-boxed apartment may be trivial (cats, dogs, train view) at least two them are from famous movies.

The description of the game is more cyberpunk than the game itself. You can walk through a few rooms and activate some video "boxes" to show their content on a curved screen. You have a first body perspective with an Unreal mannequin body. When you manage to leave the apartment, you are not going very far. I would consider this less of a game, more of an experience. The only "cyberpunk" connection is a movie clip and the description. The concept itself is dystopian and has potential.

I think it would have worked better when there would have been an in-game story which provides the content of the description. I would have liked a setting which is not only a greyboxed one... Unreal can do that easily. And: a better body for the protagonist. More interaction. A bigger area. Something which makes me return.

Without that, it seems to me not more than a overelaborated way to watch some random video clips. And probably this is not what you had in mind.

I played the downloaded version: a dystopian work simulator with survival mechanics... and a bitter end. Gameplay-wise, it worked flawlessly. The machines, the lamps on them, the timing, the falling box physics, the card access mechanics - technically all very well. The just-what-you-need-design of the rooms was believable bleak and industrial. I wouldn't call a dystopian backstory with a brutalistic design very Cyberpunk (where is the Punk?) but in my taste, it is close enough. So technically... ok. And I liked the different signs and (needed) explanations on the walls, especially the tiny contract.

But was it fun? Hell no. It conveyed the feeling of doing repetitive stupid work perfectly, and while this may be counted as game design achievement, it is a boring chore for the player. I only did it because I wanted to give a rounded assessment of the game, and because I wanted to see what's up on "the upper floors".

Don't get me wrong: there are people who like "simple work" simulators (power wash simulator, lawn mowing simulator etc.) but I am not in this audience. So my conclusion is: while the game gives an experience, I am not enthusiastic about it. Maybe I overlooked an important part? But the message of the Upper Floors is clear.

I unzipped the archive, klicked on the .exe - and was informed: "RPG Maker 2003 RTP is not found". So you may have the Runtime Package, but not any user. Provide it, and someone will be able to play your game in the end.

You are right, many of the topics are there. I thought about it again and my main point, at last, is only the "-punk" part of Cyberpunk. For me, it means some sort of rebellion against the system (e.g. runners against corporations, in most systems as Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun). But here, the player characters do not rebel against the system, they are the system. Having this in mind, your ttRPG is still a good "high SF" one, and it has enough cyberpunk elements in the details to count as... cyberpunky? It is just not the main focus, in my eyes. This is political intrigue on the highest level.

Wow. A compact, interesting RPG concept - spanning whole solar systems, condensed to some pages. I can see Dune and Warhammer 40K shine through. Having made a ttRPG myself many years ago, I know what work it is to care for all details, balancing and character generation. So I can only applaud you.

But, as it was submitted in a Cyberpunk GameJam, I have to ask: is it really Cyberpunk? You write that it is a "political sci-fi ttRPG"; yes, it is. The political aspect is rarely seen in these details in cyberpunk media, and cyberpunk itself often follows the motto "High tech, low life". Your characters, however, are "high-life", as they are governors, colony leaders, diplomats, warlords, members of the Nobility and so on. All this would fit perfectly in the Star Wars universe, for example, but less into the shady streets of a classic cyberpunk adventure. I wouldn't dispute that both can be combined but in its core, to me it seems less cyberpunk and more (very) far futuristic sci-fi like its role models or the Necromongers worlds of The Chronicles of Riddick. But at least both are dystopic views of the future. Well done.

Congratulations to the pictures! I like the style and the details. The text however, in big, all-caps letters, is difficult to read. This is the text style of TOS and an EULA, when the author doesn't want the text to be read. In Sourcebooks I know, the text is printed in two columns and rarely all-caps.

You make only hints at the stats so they can be used for any system. This is flexible.

So the content itself is good but the print is a nightmare for gamemasters who want to look up a bio detail fast.

Thank you - although the game you played was another game I uploaded in the night by mistake. Rainy Knight is a satirical critique of consumerism, inspired by Minority Report, so it has quite an influence by cyberpunk. But it is not the game I made for the Jam. Meanwhile I uploaded an older version of the "real" game. The final Jam version will follow as soon as I am able to make a build again.

This seems to be a entertaining and wacky game with funny characters in a unique setting - but I don't see why this game is placed in a cyberpunk GameJam.

Very calm and inspiring! You could only make it more immersive by adding a slight wind sound.

Very nice. Classic PS1 mood. A bit more of story and/or interaction would make the game still better, though. The viewing range is rather short but ok, it runs in the browser and not with the power of a dedicated graphics card. For a week, very impressing, all in all!

On the first glance, the game looks very "cyberpunky" with the synthwave colors and the Tron-like grid. The music adds to that impression. But would it - given another colors and music - feel the same? It's an isometric puzzler with necessary powerups for progression and a "die and try again" mechanic. I admit that's not my type of game but I managed to get through several levels which felt smooth, and the moving enemies symbolizing the electronic countermeasures were threatening enough to convey the "netrunning" feel.
I have to agree with Ofihombre - these elements would have made the game more complete. I had to end it via Alt-F4 which is only an emergency solution.
What I did not like was the "generic capsule protagonist" you find in every controller demo but should always replaced by something more fitting to the game as a whole - or here, the theme. Maybe a little robot, a glittering snake, a funky ghost, whatever. The enemy design was much more fitting.
But I liked that there was a story, a controls page and a sound switch. This made the game more professional and complete, in my eyes. Though, in the beginning I had to experiment how the powerups work (meaning, how to get them to good tactical use, and I'm still not quite sure how to use the mines). And the barrier key (Z) was misleading for me at first - in the first tries I used it and nothing happened, until I recognized that I had to use Y for that. This is not the fault of the game but it had would have been more "suitable for international use" to use F or X for it.

So, although it dazzled me with classic cyberpunk elements, I couldn't quite warm up to it. But this is very subjective, of course. It surely is a good game on many levels... and with many levels :-)

I am still working on a final version with some interesting enhancements. Will announce it in the fitting discord channel when it's ready. 

But thank you for your honest opinion. I knew the game had flaws in the beginning and don't complain.

Thank you! The game will be enhanced in the next days.

And I made a comment to your game as well.

Strange. On my PC, neither Edge nor Firefox had such messages. They quietly downloaded the file, and there it is.

I would have tried to make a WebGL from it, but in the jam there was no more time (I submitted 5 minutes before end), and later I assumed that the game would be too big anyway. Maybe it has the largest playable area of all jam games: I used a complete standard terrain of 1000 * 1000 units. Well, it's an open world after all.

Ok, it's a downloadable Windows game. I understand if you're out now.

But it would be nice if someone could have a look into https://dimension9.itch.io/rainy-knight - it is a dystopic but satiric run&stealth miniature open world game, and you're not bound to run around aimlessly.

Now that the initial bugs are patched, it's... not just bad. And here's a hint: listen to the mage. He'll tell you what you need to escape. But run! ;-)

Thank you for playing the game and the detailed description.
The "run or buy"-principle and where to go finally is explained by the NPC. The prompt for investment depends on the angle you look at the corpse (it's a raycast, maybe I should make it collider-based). A single investment is nice, but combined investments are better in most of the cases. There will be more clarity and content in the final version after the jam judgement is over.

Thank you for the explanation. I rarely play horror games and the assets were new to me. Though I wouldn't count their use as uninspired per se but ok, when one sees them over and over again it gets boring. But what I really meant with "locations" is the use of episodic segments which drive the story forward, regardless of the asset quality. So I am not disappointed at all.

Well done! Very good use of the theme, a surrealistic puzzle, good interactions. 

Impressing. Felt more like an interactive movie. Very well done locations and interactions, especially the surreal dialogue with the creature. Though, I survived :-)
I liked the style, use of theme and the story.