itch.io

Very well animated. It took me a while to understand the mechanics, I think the game crashed when I finally hit the bottom though? If I'm to criticize it the first thing that comes to mind is a faster way to let me play again once the monster gets you, I was just refreshing the page. But other than that, 3D pixelated games are already hard to make pretty, let alone 1-bit ones, and you pulled it off flawlessly. Very atmospheric too, good job!

That was intense, one more week and I would have died for sure! That's a very different gameplay loop you got there, maybe could make for a cool mobile game? I could see this being improved by adding personalities and banter to each crew member, as well as new mechanics of course. As is, I didn't understand what were these competences, did they do anything? I also didn't understand what the stress levels did, you said in the description that you couldn't implement death, but what does stress means mechanically? I did figure out fixing the breaches and how bad each one was. Maybe if the game was longer, like, had more weeks and there were fewer breaches we would have time to understand these other mechanics. Oh well, points to think about if you're ever going to work more on this game. Dither art was pretty good though, the faces looked great. Good job!

Thank you!

Hey, thank you! The rooms not resetting was actually how I was going to make the game in the beginning, but I noticed the boxes become way more complex as you can smuggle many more from one place to another. I ran the risk of instead of having the player read the logs and analyze them, they would just stack boxes and never find out about the double jump and the other "power ups". I also wouldn't be able to have the ability to blow up the boxes, or I'd risk the player blowing up all of them and softlocking themselves. There are ways to solve these problems, most notably not having mechanics like stacking the boxes and blowing them up, as well as being extremely careful and thorough with the puzzles to make sure all the multiple solutions wouldn't prevent the player from reading and paying attention to the logs, but the easiest, safest solution was to split everything in screens (they weren't screens at the start, they were just one big seamless map) that would reset when leaving them. That solution also made the game feel more retro (and more like Animal Well, lmao) so I thought it was the best one. But if I were to turn this game into a commercial one, bringing memory to the rooms would make them more alive, for sure would be the way I would go with.

So we just hit the last 24h of voting and I wanted to give a shout out to some games I liked or touched me in some way. I played and rated a total of 47 games.

OUR CUBE, Elioud, Mine to Death and The Deep Session are very artsy, different style type of games. I'm a sucker for these experimental weird stuff that I only find on game jams, and it's one of the reasons I like taking part in them. Some of these have very little ratings right now, so rate them while you can!

What Lurks in the Shadows and Lost Fathoms are extremely well polished, well made games that I think went under the radar somehow. Very good games, really, rate them while you can!

I Found the Well, Deep Memory Machine and Emerald Rush are also super well polished and well made games but these are popular and have a bunch of ratings, but who knows, maybe you missed them? They're really good, try them out!

That was the most different take on a platformer I've seen. You can't control your speed once you're in the air, kinda physics based, except the swing has no momentum, it's like you record the horizontal speed the character had when he tethered something and give it back once he untethers. Combined with the jump mechanics, that means the speed you will come out of the rope is the same speed you had when you got out of the ground. If you jump in place and tether, you will come out straight up. If you go in and change your mind and try to release when you swing back, you're still sent forward if you jumped forward to tether. This is very unintuitive but fine, once you learn how it works you adapt to it and plan accordingly. It all combines into this game where you completely lose control of your character once you jump/fall off. You might as well let go of WASD and just focus on K, and keep in mind you must leave the ground with the correct speed (which is usually full speed, at least this is easy to find).  Now, tethering was another beast too, you only had a very small window to tether, given how short the rope is. But the window is even shorter because you couldn't tether too close to the platform or else you bonk your head while swinging and lose all vertical speed. But it gets even shorter at times because you have to tether while falling from high up, meaning your character is falling quite fast by then. Point in case, the game is extremely precise, very hard execution. The fact that instead of dying and respawning at the last checkpoint you just fall to the start of the level made it like a rage game, like Getting over It. Was that the point? It reminded me a little bit of Jump King too. Anyway, I yapped for too long. Unusual take on a platform, but not a bad one. I think if the swing momentum was more physics based it would have been better, but who am I to know what you're actually trying to make, right? Good job anyway, cool game.

Last few levels were pretty different, the narration got really good. I fell in a hole on the level of the last gem and it didn't kill me, I just got soft locked on the bottom of the level and had to restart the game. I would also say not having fine jump height controls hurt the game a little bit, especially during that second to last level where you're being chased and having to go through a bunch of obstacles, you're forced to lose time bonking on walls until you reach the gap at the bottom. The last level was pretty good though, and the glitches looked nice. Good addition to the game jam, good job!

That was fun, even though I died to the Lord of the Depths! I tried pumping armor, cause I pumped damage once and didn't really felt any difference. Armor kinda did but not really? I think the damage numbers showing up never changed, goblin always did 12, rat sorceress did 10, but the amount that my hp bar was going down was not the same. Still, I'm not sure it was enough, given how strong the Lord of the Depths was. I like the random generation that each room had, gave that old school RPG vibes pretty well. Work on the art a little more and you'll have a cool game! Good job on this one!

Thank you very much!

Very cursed moaning, lmao! Audio was a big highlight overall, the radar sounds with no music added to the unease and isolation pretty well. If I'm to critique something I'd say it took way too long for something to happen. First time I think I loaded into a blocked off spawn point, I don't think I could go anywhere. Second time was the opposite, I didn't see any walls (or anything at all)  and almost gave up playing, but I'm glad I tried rolling a third level, where I finally could navigate and eventually found monsters, health packs and figured out the radar (I think). However, the X in the radar was blocked off in the level, I couldn't reach from any direction, and then I gave up. Overall I think you had the foundations of some good atmosphere, with a bit more work on the graphics (and maybe level generation) it could have been awesome. Other than that, the controls are pretty good, the monsters sound scary and they can sneak through the blind points of your lights, which is great mechanically speaking. Good job!

Hey, that's pretty good! I really like the art, everything is very well drawn, very cute style. If I would critique it I would say that you went too heavy with the tutorial. I would also say not letting the player wake up when they want felt a bit punishing, I like that no cover stays on forever but just praying nothing will hit you after it got blown over feels bad too, especially because we have to sleep. I think overall, for a game jam game, this is really good. Good job!

Wow, incredible! Good writing, good art, good music, no jankiness, no bugs, I can barely think of anything to criticize about it. I think even the common problem point-and-click games have of going into "scan every pixel" mode in this game is very well dealt with because not only it is super low res pixel art (which, by the way, good job on it, you kept the pixels in place and 1-bit, I see that!) which means scanning every pixel is easier but you also took care to make stuff clearer, not much confusion on what's supposed to be clickable. I don't know how to stretch and find something to improve upon, really, good job!

Hey, it's jump king! First of all, I see you! You did a pixel art game with a triangle-ish shape that spins around with the mouse and it remained pixelated!! Not many people these days do this, they have the pixels spin around and rescale like they're PNGs, so hey, good job! Mechanically, the jump and light complemented each other really well, and you eased it in to the player extremely well with the level design, the initial monster and spike placement was really good. I don't even know what to complain about, maybe locking the player's position while they're charging a jump would let us hold the direction we want to jump to right from the get go instead of making us try to push it as soon as possible, makes more sense with the puzzle-like focus of the game. I really like the art too, chonky pixels will always have my admiration, making these monsters with many teeth and eyes in so low res is extremely difficult, at least to me. Good job!

I managed to reach the corrupt cop, but not to find the painting. Something was killing me, I think it was fall damage? Wall jump mechanics were also very hard to do, especially on keyboard. I switched to controller and it got way better, but the controller would bug out sometimes and open up the controller menu every time I pressed jump on it. I couldn't interact with the elevators too, Controlling the light with the controller was almost impossible too, especially because we need the thumb to jump and to control the light with right stick, but even then the light would never stay where I pointed it at. Playing fell a lot like trying to find a needle in a haystack, since we couldn't see anything but I guess this was the vibe you were going for, right?  Other than those, I'll commend you for your attempt at a different type of platformer mechanics, I'm sure if you had a bit more time you could polish out those pain points I mentioned. Good job overall!

First time I played the last door wouldn't open, even though I had the key. I restarted and it opened. Restarted again and I figured it out: dying causes you to lose the key even though the HUD says you have it and the level doesn't respawn, so here's some bug for you to fix in case you ever feel like working on it again. Oh well, I'll commend the art, good pixel art is always commendable and I'll say that the controls were nice enough. Usually a wall jump launches the character away from the walls, which usually allows for combinations with other movement options (like chaining wall jumps from two walls that are facing each other, or dashes) but your game doesn't really have any of that, nor does it actually requires you to wall jump to complete it. You can't also control the jump height of your jump, which is usually important for platformers but the level design also didn't really required fine jumps that much, I didn't really needed it but I noticed I couldn't do it. Overall, good addition to the jam, you did a great job!

Can confirm it still crashes, I'm playing the Linux version. I made some tests and I can tell it crashed whenever I sell a sea ruby in particular. Oh well, from everything else I could notice, first thing is that the mazes generated are very RNG dependent, one time I got all 6 treasures clustered together and collected them before half of my oxygen ran out, other times they were impossibly deep and separated. Other than that, I'm not sure pressing E to collect them was adding anything to the gameplay, might as well let us collect just by swimming into them. But I wish I could play more to find out more. But good job making a game for the game jam!

I think there's something wrong, most of the text don't fit inside the box its in. I managed to expand the UI a little bit and read the ToDo list by clicking Unity's fulscreen button (itch io button doesn't work) but it still seems to not show the entire screen, text is still being clipped. I did the cycle over and over and nothing happened. There is also no sound, it says there are loud noises but maybe I just didn't reached them? Oh well, I understand game jam deadline is difficult. But for what is there, I can say the art is unique and well drawn. Pretty cool!

I could never in a billion years pull off such a game in 5 hours, well done! It has quite a few different attack patterns and a great push and pull mechanic with standing still and moving. I would only say that the "flashlight" attack is nearly undodgeable (skill issue on my part, okay, fine...) and there seemed to be another move that had a bugged hitbox, cause I was nowhere near it but got hit, lmao. But overall, you had the idea and executed it absurdly quickly, good job!

Hey, thank you very much!

I played this game multiple times to make the different choices and see if there were multiple endings. Did not disappoint. I also found out the levels are actually procedurally generated, so quite the amount of work went into this. I'm a sucker for these more artsy type of games so you had me hooked from the start there. I think the atmosphere was pretty good, the writing was also cool, the music is top notch... If I were to criticize something, first thing that comes to mind is those traps. I don't understand what were they doing, did they actually do anything? Mechanically, they made no sense. I think the idea is that they were important for the endings and the theme of the game of self sacrifice or self defense, but mechanically they weren't there. Art also was cute, but could use a bit more work. Overall, I really loved the vibes of this game, great job!

I think something went wrong, because it was unreasonably fast. When I opened the music menu, things would slow down randomly. I woud ask though, why not have music automatically? Anyway, I managed to play the game until the end. I also have a keyboard with no arrow keys, not easily accessible though, but I managed to play it because I didn't need to press the arrow keys and space at the same time. Anyway, I really like the idea. Only in game jams I see pogo jump platformers, and I genuinely think it's an unexplored area we could tap into. While I can't say for sure due to the high speed I had to deal with and my limited keyboard, I didn't notice anything terrible you did with the controls, the times when the speed was reasonable it felt really good. Maybe just figuring out these bugs and you'll have a great game! I like the two songs I heard in the menu and I also thought the art is cute. I particularly liked the 3D intro but maybe I'm biased for 3D 1-bit art. Good job overall!

As I dug, I thought to myself: What am I doing with my life?  Am I supposed to reflect on myself? On my past mistakes? Is this therapy? Am I actually searching for a cube? Am I searching for God? Or actually am I searching for myself? I started thinking about my current situation, my cats, my family, my friends, my job. I think I even hallucinated some harp playing in the distance, or did you put that in the game to play tricks on the player? Either way I don't care, I'm sucker for these artsy type of games. Not sure what it is, but I experienced something.

Hey, thank you very much! The music was all done by Trevor Lentz, I just selected the ones I thought made the most sense with the game. He has a ton of good stuff, and it's all Creative Commons. There is a bit more you could do with the box, some of the notes hint at a way you can use them to gain more height than just dropping them and jumping from them. But I really appreciate the praise, thanks again!

Thank you very much! I appreciate the love!

That was really good!!Not exactly the same light mechanics a lot of us were trying to make work but a similar one with the same idea. My first death I got jumpscared and screamed, my cat looked at me like I was stupid and I started laughing lmaaaaao. Took me a while to realize the things could get killed by the pulse, once I realized it the game got way more interesting, the mechanic to prevent spamming works great here too, obviously. If I were to criticize something it would probably be the lack of animations and simple graphics. The sound effects and game mechanics made for a very good atmosphere, but a little more work on the looks would have elevated it to new heights. The sound of footsteps and static were really good, and even the lack of music kinda made it feel more dark and lonely, but background noise would have added to the atmosphere. Pretty good game overall, great job!

Hey, thank you very much!

Thank you very much, I appreciate the kind words! Yes, orchestrating all the mechanics and the level design and notes placement to make them click was fun. Doing it without playtest felt very wrong though, I wasn't sure I was making it too hard or making it too obvious. I also had a ton of other ideas, like a harpoon that would stick to the dirt and work like a grappling hook, which would combo with the box + red shard combo that would create more dirt in some spots for you to hook to. Luckily, I got a hold of myself and did not let scope creep get the best of me.

About the graphics and audio, the 1-bit rule gave me the idea of a retro type of game, one you could imagine running in the old Commodore or older PCs, so I made everything 1-bit-ish, which meant low res with pixel perfect alignment, chiptunes music and low bit sound effects as well. That menu that always shows on screen was very common at the time, even Shovel Knight had a form of these menus with the black background. It was also a good way to make up for my lack of art skills, you can see the pixel art itself is not good (just playing the other games here I can see A LOT of amazing pixel artists) but because everything felt like it belonged next to each other, the game "looked" better.

Thanks again!

Very well animated main character, and cute sound effects too! I didn't understand what oiling his peg leg did though, other than losing oil from the lamp I didn't noticed the point. I'd say usually, blind jumps tend to be bad for platforming but this one doesn't really suffer that much, you can just jump trust it that you usually land somewhere, but you gotta have some oil in the lamp to make it less risky. If I were to critique something I'd say even though the character is pretty, everything else isn't and I think the game would have been better if less time was spent on him and you gave a little more to the environment, it's a huge source of atmosphere for these types of games with the light mechanics. I'd also say that there was a bug while landing, the character floated a bit for some reason just before landing, and adding jump height controls would have been good too. But it's a good addition to the game jam overall, nice job!

Thank you very much! Yes, I've been doing this for some time now actually, hiding bad art and animation behind shaders, particles and other code is a trick I learned, lmao! This game was supposed to have more particle effects, dirt flying off, water droplets and other stuff, but I couldn't figure out how to keep them 1-bit in Godot for some reason. I'm sure I would if I had more time but oh well, we do what we can.

Among the best physics based controls I've seen so far. You damped the fall speed so the ship doesn't go out of control once you start thrusting and it won't spin uncontrollably too. The use of pico8 also guarantees your game is 1-bit and correctly pixelated, even chiptuned to go well with the graphics! I love everything about it. If I were to critique something I would say shooting felt almost pointless, having to look at the direction of something you're shooting means you're risking not dodging it in case you miss, plus you can't really spam shots, it's way too risky for too little reward. But yeah, other than that I think you did an amazing job.

Ah, art. Only a mind completely fed up with current day internet would come up with this. I hope you're doing well! I like how the correct link is the one with no shaky-shaky whatsoever, so visually parsing through the spam is easier. The music fits the premise pretty well, I could probably hear that in a super market during black friday, hahaha. The art was very well done too, the use of dithering was pretty good, nice choice of colors, the sketches were cute and the links felt very familiar to anyone living right now, everything was very pleasing to look at. If I were to critique something I'd say the game itself is pretty simple, it works as a one of gag but to expand it you'd probably have to change a few things. Overall I liked it, I had fun with it. Good job!

Damn, that was a difficult to control rocket! I guess one can become quite good at it. If I were to critique it I would suggest putting some damping on the rotation speed, it gets way too uncontrollable way too fast, having the ship at least stop rotating once you stop pressing buttons would make it smoother. Physics based controls are always a blast in my opinion, getting good at them feels great. Good job!

Couldn't crack the first fish, lmao, but that's a skill issue on me, for sure. I loved the concept though, you'll probably win for originality, at least I think you should! I love the idea of "the depths of the mind", very well thought. The use of gen AI here is perfect too, goes to show it has good uses. If I were to critique something, I would say the AI sometimes is a bit confusing, I'm not sure it could remember the conversation super well because it would contradict itself multiple times and sometimes I felt I was just going in circles. Maybe that's how therapy is in real life? I know my therapist has to pull me out of the same hole multiple times a year, hahaha!

Very bold. I love the visuals. It is also a testament to how difficult it is to make 3D 1-bit games, you have to be very careful with lighting and dithering or else everything meshes together. In your case, you limited vision a lot and used the darkness to create a more horror-like atmosphere, which is what I liked the most. Finding the relics was still hard, as you move around in circles without being able to tell much what's in front of you though. I think the atmosphere was the big find here, which unfortunately suffered a lot from lack of sound. I guess we have to make do with the limited time that we have. Good job!

Very hard game, the things kept moving a lot. Might have been a skill issue on my part then, but I could not for the life of me shoot more than 1 thing at the same time, lmao. I think also bugged the upgrade monster man, I shot him before he fully came to the screen and I think I ended up shooting one of the upgrades he was offering before it spawned in properly and he wouldn't leave the screen, shooting the other available upgrade also didn't do anything, not sure if I got the first upgrade or not. Overall it's a neat concept.

Not really 1-bit I guess, but I think you had a cool concept. Of all the dark games, the way you control the light on this one felt the most impactful, revealing stuff that was right in front of you was cool, plus the beacon of light that the pearls would shine was really nice. Game suffered a bit from the lack of audio though, it would have been super atmospheric with a simple bubbly watery background sound.

Audio was a big highlight of the game, well done! Art was also very beautiful but I can't help but notice the grey pixels everywhere, every transition from black to white was smoothed out, a couple transparent particles, it's really stretching 1-bit but oh well, at least it's very beautiful to look at. I also like the story, the ambiance, very atmospheric. Gameplay was too simple though, a bit too RNG dependant sometimes and there really wasn't a good way of telling when you were about to lose. But a pretty good game overall, good job!

Probably the best art I've seen so far, masterful dithering like this is commendable, just dragging the window through my monitors with different resolution showed different patterns, great job! The gameplay felt way too button mashy though, and the character still felt uncontrollable. Can't really get mad while looking at such great sprites well drawn marine life. Good job!

That background must have taken so much work to draw! Good job, very nice pixel art skills. I'm not sure if the spell was doing anything to the bats, there was no feedback that it hurt them other than clearing up the mist a little bit. I also think the game would have greatly benefited from some control of your jump height. Overall, good addition to the jam.

I loved it! There was a jump I thought was too overly difficult but then I had an epiphany and realized I was just doing it wrong, a telltale sign of a good puzzle-platformer. It took me a little while to understand when was something was for which color but once I figured it out, everything fell in place. I also liked the shader for when something was both colors, very nice touch of polish to keep it pixelated. I barely have anything to critique, I would say some jumps felt janky because of how the physics interact with you changing colors while intersecting something that now collides with you, but I guess I'm just stretching to find something good to comment. Very nice game, good job!