The "water makes you go faster" mechanic was intuitive and I figured it out just from walking over it after killing an enemy. Design of the MC and the sound effects are great. Voice acting was good to include. This is a great start to a full game you could sell for money. Add voice acted cut scenes and refine the models and you've got a solid start here.
Main areas that need refining are the hit boxes and camera.
The shotgun part made me laugh. I love little random bits like that. The Angry Birds reference in the 3rd level was great. I absolutely want this expanded and filled out with more levels. Keep them on the same scale, but maybe add things. For example, a Canadian penguin who can cheat to reference the Olympics drama. The contrast of us, the heroic murdering penguin being round with the others being rectangles was a great choice.
The shotgun part made me laugh. I love little random bits like that. The Angry Birds reference in the 3rd level was great. I absolutely want this expanded and filled out with more levels. Keep them on the same scale, but maybe add things. For example, a Canadian penguin who can cheat to reference the Olympics drama. The contrast of us, the heroic murdering penguin being round with the others being rectangles was a great choice.
My main suggestion would be to allow us to get rid of Bludgeon after a certain number of cards are acquired. It very quickly ended up being a dud "penalty" card that actively dragged things down. One way to do this would be to require min 5 cards in the deck during load out, that way we can't soft lock ourselves with a 0 card deck.
Hands down my favorite game of both this jam and all prior jams. The digging mechanic is gloriously smooth. Love the humor (do more of that). As others said, you can easily flesh this out into a demo for a full game. Make the cure for mom more expensive, add more upgrades like more space. Add more random audio things. Another layer below to dig to create more machines. You have the foundation of a stellar hit here that could catch on with streamers.
I love how the allies were basically smart missiles you buy. Flying around was smooth and fun. This reminds me of a remake of a classic space game from the 80's. Would love to see additional upgrades for your fighter and allies. A boss tier "ace pilot" enemy would be a great addition. You could spot him by his fighter painted red!
I was able to get to the background shift at 10k. But my hand could not spam space ba rlong enough to hit 100k. I had to stop in the 20's. I'd say cut the high score at least in half, maybe down to 25k to be reasonable. Hit boxes were also a little wonky and I found a bug where the corpses could kill you.
Fun and light. This ended up being the game I played the longest because "number go up, brain goes brr."
I would have liked the quality of the food to relate to the boss. We end his threat by tempting him with food. Requiring us to hit a minimum level in a set time would relate to that.
The equation for the progression of food is way off from drink. The cost to level up a meal is simply worthless versus the return. While drinks are always the way to go. More control of the individual characters would make it a bit more immersive.
The graphics were pleasant. The writing was a STRONG stand out. Loved the dialogue.
I figured out the "tip to the side and pitch to turn" trick, as well as a fun loop da loop trick to line up with the runway. I wasn't able to land properly, but that was on me. A weird thing is that the yaw never really turned the plane. I'd start to move a little, but rubber band back to my prior heading when I stopped. I don't know if that was on purpose.
Definitely agree with varying starting positions with difficulty.
I actually dinged it for being a visual novel when I played it on stream. And now I find out we could click on things. My bad. The story was easily the best of any game. Felt like an actual Winnie the Pooh cartoon episode. LOVED the pun. Since there is a game element (my fault for missing it), this is my top choice. I would recommend making the flowers pulse or glow a little to make it more obvious what to do.
I figured out the diesel and the generator - nice "Pbbbbt" sound on the generator. But lots of issues. The fog seemed to get denser randomly so I couldn't see anything. Ships seemed to spawn unevenly, so I went a while before anything happened in a couple runs. Mouse sensitivity needed to be toned down. What was the purpose of the lookout platform? I couldn't see anything from it.
Giving us a look at the map and how ships move as an intro would help.
