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Exylas

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A member registered May 13, 2021 · View creator page →

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It's really funny when you get 6 or 7 loops in and there are so many ennemies on screen, very little ammo and you're stuck removing them one by one while your past selves are just chilling. A little help, me? Please?

The theme is on point, the graphics work very well and the game is fun, great job! =D

Brother! Why must you destroy what I seek to create? The universe is just born, where did you even find a spaceship?!

The idea is really cool, and the game works wonders! Since every circle is bigger than the last (and more chaotic) difficulty naturally increases the further you run. It makes me think a lot to the no Internet dinosaur minigame, in a good way. ^^

The only thing I would have added: hearts should still spawn even when the life bar is above 3, their frequency inversely proportional to the player's current health level. Because since the laser takes you 3 hearts at once, having 1 or 3 in the bar doesn't really make a difference.

Also, I really the Credits screen, I've never seen it done like this! Great job to the team! =D

Of course, feel free to ask anything! I really like your game and it would be a pleasure to help you polish it! ^^

That's perfect! Unique pattern for every colour, player chooses which one(s) to toggle. To me, with purple enabled, I have no trouble left at all telling it apart from blue, thank you for the setting! =D

You should just make it more clear that the toggles in the settings are clickable since they are only lines of text.

Thanks a lot! =D

Energy was supposed to have more uses like converting to Endurance/resources, but I had to cut it because time :c
But I'm glad the skill tree feels rewarding: that's one of the main things to get right with skill trees ^^

Thanks! I agree, the start is a bit rough, both because of the lack of tutorials and resource scarcity, but I'm glad you managed to progress nontheless!

(3 edits)

For the tutorial: it is better! But I think the three lines with "Unique colors/shapes/styles" is a bit confusing since the top 3 already explain the same thing, personally I would have arranged the screen differently and underlined the important rules so that the player is sure to understand what is allowed or not, plus forcing some line breaks in order to put 1 clear rule per line:

This way, the three possible combinations are clearly visible, the special case of "All unique" is shown, and then you can put some random example to let the player get a feel of what works or not.

But still, I maintain that an interactive tutorial like yours is a genius idea, it already works very well even without a clearer display! ^^

(4 edits)

Ahah, don't worry, during jams accessibility often has to be put aside, you are far from the only game with colour issues, and yours is really minor ^^

But if you want to make a complete version, since colour is one of the major parts of the gameplay, you're right to think about accessibility, and I'm glad to be able to help!

The best Colourblind Mode is a careful design

By carefully picking the main colours, you can prevent the need for any CM! Introducing the colour wheel: try to get as far as possible between the selections in order to minimize overlap. You did a great job with the red, yellow and blue (see screeshot), but the purple is close to both blue and red (for obvious reasons ^^).

Since the purple is closer to red than blue (let's say around 2 reds for 1 blue), people with red-type deficiency like me will be mostly ok telling blue apart from purple (2 red + 1 blue - 1 red = still purple), but for blue-type ones it could be a lot harder (2 red + 1 blue - 1 blue = 2 red).

Of course, don't throw away all your design choices in order to pick the furthest colours possible, sometimes the "right" choice is far from a pretty one, and your game has its identity with the colours you chose.
If you want to keep the same ones, what you can try is to shift the brightness: a dark purple and a bright blue/red will be much easier to tell apart! And you don't even have to go all the way to black/white, even a slightly brighter/darker shade can make a lot of difference. ^^

Also, it helps to know the source of the confusion: the only blocks I really had "trouble" with were the line-style ones, since they don't have a lot of surface and the game needs you to act fast. Increasing the line thickness by a little could work too!

Colourblind mode

Even though an excellent design can be its own CM, when colour is a central game mechanic, it could be a good idea to add accessibility options, just in case.
Depending on the game, a CM can differ a lot. Here, since you need the player to tell blocks apart at a glance as soon as they appear, adding stripes or a letter to describe the colour could work! To activate the stripes, you just need a simple toggle switch in the options.

But if you don't want anything else than a plain colour on the block for design reasons, the best solution would be, if you have the time to implement it, to let the player choose its own lot of 4: you preselect let's say 6~7 colour (including the 4 ones you already have) and in the options, the player selects the four ones he's the most comfortable with! Something like:

(the two additionnal colours are only here for the example, feel free to change them for anything that fits in your current palette of course ^^)

------------------------------

And, voilà! All the advices for accessibility I have, tailored for your case! Feel free to pick and tweak whatever works best, these are just suggestions. Hope it helps if ou ever decide to work on accessibility! =D

You shall get out of my lawn! CLÖÖSE SESAME!!

The concept is ridiculous, and I'm all for it! The idea to have friendly helpers that turn into battering rams if you attack them is really cool as it adds some balance to just spamming loops on the field.

The animation of the cat and the name of yhe spells he casts, chef's kiss.

Sometimes, the loops seemed to not close properly, but apart from that the game is incredible! You managed to include a level up system with reward rarity on top of the special spells and different ennemies, impressive!
With just some polish here and there, like a visual clue to tell if an ennemy is frozen, and a bit of balancing, you have a complete game!

Excellent work to the whole team! =D

I love it!!! It's kinda like Tetris: very simple concept, but flawless execution that makes for an addicting high-score minigame. Because of this kind of games, I sometimes wonder if Narrative should be in the score, since it would have a perfect grade without it...

The whole design feels smooth and bouncy, the three Ding-ding-ding! sound cues are really rewarding, they make you want to find more matches.
Also, the interactive tutorial is a great idea! I would have added that matches were exclusive (Ex: Same color, but different shape/style), but the fact you made it so the player can click and show different matches of the same kind kinda helps to understand that.

If I really had to find a flaw somewhere: I sometimes had a bit of trouble telling blue and purple (pink?) apart because of my colourblindness, mainly with the line-style shapes, but that's honestly nitpicking, you colour choices were mostly great.

Nothing to say, excellent submission! =D

Honestly impressive! :o

Apart from Narrative, you scored everything perfectly: the game is creative, enjoyable, the visuals are incredible (the swallowing effect, the use of dynamic colours to help the player see what to eat and what to dodge, the old screen effect)...

Easy to understand at a glance, the controls work perfectly, I can't find any negatives: for a game jam entry, you did very well!

And since you named your game after Shi-fu-mi... Excellent travail à l'équipe, franchement bravo ! =D

YEEEE-HAW 🐄

When the theme was revealed, I knew there would be lasso games, and this is a really good take on the idea!

Great visuals, sound effects and maniability, nothing to say!

Great work! =D

Thanks a lot!

Indeed, balancing had to be thrown under the bus, unfortunately :c
I know my strenghts and weaknesses well, so I chose to go all in on the Narrative and Creativity scores. I plan one day to remake all my GMTK GJ entries into full games (without any time limit) so I definitly will work on expanding it with more engaging visuals, a proper and balanced gameplay loop (heh) and sound design ^^

Ahah, you didn't expect people to be stubborn enough to poke their noses into every possible place, and you were wrong! >:D

Ah, I see! I tried ABYSS but couldn't find anything (apart from, you know, 👁️), so I figured it had to be an easter egg, but didn't know what for, I understand better now ^^

So jumping off into to void was intended! It's unfortunate that you couldn't write anything there on time, because it would have made sense within the established mechanics to hide a new word under the ground, but yeah time is never on our side during jams. ^^

No worries, thank you for this little experience! =)

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I chose Bob in the end exactly because I felt he was more nervous than the others, so you chose his dialogues well ^^

> I honestly thought that it would be a flop, cause the gameplay was "too boring" or something like that.

Well, it's true that there could be a lot more to do with the "time-looping detective" concept. I did got a bit "stuck" because of the lack of game mechanics... which I was able to get around thanks to your game design choices!
The clues, the nervous tone of Bob, the transfers are game elements, not everything needs to be a game mechanic. The game you created is played more in the head than on the keyboard, but it is still interesting to play thanks to that, which is why it wasn't a flop! =)
Plus, the graphics are really nice, and that helps a lot too. ^^

1st race: "Why is everyone faster than me? I'm in 5th gear and I feel like I'm driving in a school zone."

After some speed upgrades: "OK, this time, I'll maybe just try to shift into 2nd gear for the challeng- and I'm in the wall!"

It takes some time to get the hang of it, but once you get in there, it's really fun! The graphics are very well done too, all it needs is some audio to pump up the races and it'll be close to a perfect submission! Excellent job! =D

Thanks! One day I'll manage to submit a Jam entry with a working tutorial I swear! ^^'

Glad you liked it! =)

(2 edits)

As a Game Jam entry, it is a nice game: the physics are fine, the goal is clear, even though I'm not sure what the chalks did when playing (I've read some of your answers and now I know it is to power up the shots ^^)

As a Game Jam entry on the theme "Loop" though... I didn't really feel the theme anywhere unfortunatly, although there's definitely something to be done with an 8-ball and the infinity symbol, good catch on the connection here.

Don't get me wrong, I had fun! I just wonder if the game might be off-topic. Regardless, good job, at least you submitted something that works and is entertaining in time! =)

(5 edits)

Wow. It's a short game, but there's a lot to say about it.

[SPOILERS]

Everytime you make it a step further, you get a very rewarding "Ah-ha!" feeling. It starts first when you understand you can type words into the void, then that you can type multiple ones, etc, and eventually, when you understand where the final words are... Wonderful.

The visuals are simple, but at least everything is understandable. I liked the music that plays when the loop is close to restarting as much as I hated it (because it meant my current iteration was close to the end). ^^

The only thing I would complain about: fast typing in the void. English is not my main language and even though I can type relatively OK speed-wise, I had trouble getting three words in before the loop restarted. This wasn't game-breaking for me, it just took some retries until I got it right, but I can imagine some people could be blocked because of it.

Apart from this small flaw, I really liked your take on the theme, and was very touched by the ending message, great work! =)

(Btw, who is "she" that waits for me in the abyss? I tried to jump into the void at the end of the plane with MOVE + ALONE but there was no one below :c
Open-ended easter egg?)

> I really didn’t expect anyone to care this much if I'm totally  honest

I love storytelling and mysteries, hence why I really wanted to see detective looping games this year!

Thanks a lot for the explanations, it cleared up everything! So I was on the right track with the ticket date, since I noticed it was the same as the murder, but since the year was off I brushed it off as a coincidence here to mess up with actual evidence, I didn't think to the fact that Bob would play his daughter's birthday as lucky numbers, so the ticket was his! I only knew it had to be the killer's since it wasn't in the room yet when the janitor cleaned up 1 hour earlier, I was so close!

Although, I have to say... Marcus, my boy, you're already knees deep in muddy waters because of the bank robbery, don't be a whistleblower for the company charged to mess with your brain on top of that! You have a death wish man! XD

As for the ending, it got me thinking about the implications, so the open-endedness worked really well, I was really engaged!

> maybe you are BOB!? >:D

NOOOO!!! D:

YE-HAAAW! It's such a simple concept, but the feeling of slamming enemies into each other is very well executed!

Also pleasantly surprised to find out there was an ending! Great job! =)

At first, I was a bit worried that the only link to the theme would be the "When you don't have any more moves, you restart" mechanic, which is already a core foundation of video game logic, so nothing new, but was pleasantly surprised to be wrong when the blocks that stay in place after a loop were introduced!

All in all: a simple idea that makes for an enjoyable small puzzle game, good work! =)

Okay, so I really like what you went for, but I think I'm doing something wrong because I can't seem to find how to progress the story at all: [SPOILERS]

  • Each tape aside from the victim have 3 dialog options, but the infos in all of them is not enough to sigle out one culprit.
    • The killer must belong to the company in order to tamper with the machine, so it's not the bank teller and probably not the janitor, but that's the only clue I have
  • I think I get that the victim found out about the shady payments to LoopCorp and went into rehab twice to try to get proof, but was killed the second time by an employee in order to silence him
  • What I couldn't find out:
    • Why the connection between the victim and the bank teller is important
    • How the machine was tempered with
    • What the date on the lottery ticket meant
    • How to confront the log keeper about his daughter's birthday
    • The ending message about successfully completing the rehabilitation (it seems to imply we are inside the machine reliving the events of the case, but why would the detective be put through that? Because the shady corporations stopped him from solving the case irl and got him arrested unter false pretenses to keep the truth confined?)

Either the game didn't work properly for me and I missed a very important part of the experience, or I'm just not smart enough to get it and need some help understanding the story please, because I'm really invested in it. ^^'

Apart from that, the graphics and audio work really well! I was looking forward for detective-type looping mystery games, so I really want to know if I got it right or if I need to try again with the pieces I might be missing ^^

Good work! =)

Ah, so it's not just me! XD

(1 edit)

Oh thank you very much! I love getting constructive feedback like this!

  • Ah, yep, I know that bug, I mentionned it in the "Known Bugs and Issues" section of the game's page: it is caused by the Transcedent Memory skill, which causes the in-tile flag [explored] to stay true even after the map is reloaded
  • Well, you want to know the funny thing? There are tooltips for every tile, detailing the terrain cost and event name! Tooltips are one of the first thing I implement in my games because I love what Old World does with theirs, it clarifies game elements so much. Why aren't they visible then you may ask? Because, in order to make the tiles hexagonal, I used a CSS clip-path. Which would have worked fine if I had put it on the tile's background, not the tile element itself. So tooltips are there, just cropped. And I didn't notice until submissions were closed. T-T
    • As for the letters, it wasn't even supposed to be letters at first, but a small unique illustration for each event type, so I agree it isn't a good visual clue at all. It was one of thoses "I'll do this for now and change it later" things ^^'
  • For the movement button, after some playtesting, I'm convinced it shouldn't be on the tile, but rather on an arrow pointing to the destination tile. Because if you put it on the tile like I did, you're bound to have superposition that hides information, exaclty like you said
  • The whole game's economy should be reworked in fact XD I didn't have time for playtesting during the jam, so it is very grindy and way too slow compared to what I initially wanted to have. I even left in a dev command when submitting the game in case player wanted to explore and see the endings without having to bear the slow/grindy parts (I put it at the end of the "In-game clarifications" section in case you're interested)
  • Indeed, I though the same thing! If you already visited an event, you shouldn't have to go back to the tile to see the choices, they should 100% appear in a tooltip

Thanks a lot for all of this, it reassures me that people are seeing the same problems as I do, and coming up with similar solutions, that way I know I'm on the right track for improvement.
I have a project of coming back to all my GMTK Game Jams entries since I first participated to try to rework them into complete games, so I will one day update this one, but I'm not sure when exacly it will happen. ^^

Don't worry about the accessibility, it only concerns one or two lines at most in the game, deosn't hide any vital info, and during jams you can't account for every case. It made no difference on the gameplay in the end! ^^

Believe it or not, I only spent 4 days on it! Crazy right? :o

Jokes aside, thanks a lot! Since I'm not really good with coding/design, I put all I got all on the narrative, glad to see people noticing it! ^^

Ahah, I see, so that wasn't intentional, but it worked out in the end! ^^

Okay, so. On the last room, I searched every object before coming back to the phone to try to get a clue from N°13. The lightbulb moment I got when reading the text displayed by the phone was the perfect way to end the game!

The puzzles themselves aren't mostly fleshed out (except for the mirror and Room 13 ones, that I loved), but the story and the small moments (the math test without 0 or the fourth wall break for instance) really kept me in the game!

The only two advices I would like to offer:

  • The lamp was teased all game, but I could never turn it off. I'm sure it's because of time constraints, that I understand perfectly, but still, I wanted toooooo... :c
  • When you have an action that needs to be repeated a lot (the coins in the couch), you should change the dialogue every time the player interacts with the item. Then, they'll be encouraged to keep trying! For instance:
    • Oh a coin!
    • I already searched the couch.
    • No, I really can't find any more coins here.
    • Have I searched under this cushion? Hm, nothing.
    • Am I stubborn? No, there must be more!
    • Still nothing. I don't know what I expected.
    • (Add as many as you want)
    • OH! 9999 coins!

But apart from that, you did a great job, even with limited time for the puzzles! It's not the best submission I played this Jam, but it has a special place in my heart, well done! =D

(1 edit)

Wow! The "stuck in a time loop where you have to dodge yourself" idea was done a lot, but I really like your take on it!

The visuals and audio are really impressive too (like the color inversion before the loop), and the small things like allowing the player to move a litlle before the next iteration make for a really good experience.

I'm not a fan at all of the bullet hell genre, so I mean it whan I say: excellent job! =D

What. A. Title. And the game delivered: I was a wizard in a plane casting spells! :o

It's interesting to try to balance survival with taking down ennemies, since the mouse-cast is limited and you have to put yourself in danger in order to circle around them. But I felt pretty whimsical, so I had to try to juggle between the two!

I really like your take on the theme, and the story you made around it! Great job! =D

Ok, so. I have a confession to make: when I first lauched the game, since the focus in on the little kid, I though he was the main character. Then a bad demon arrives and tries to encircle me, oh no! And I try to dodge him but I can't figure out how to move "my" character! Wait, but it doesn't matter: the demon always ends up falling in his own holes, haha, I win by doing absolutely nothing!

It took me a good minute to figure it out. XD

But! Not counting this false start, the game is impressive! The concept is ridiculous and I love it, excellent execution, great visuals, simple yet very fun gameplay loop (heh), and I love the small details like the camera zooming in on new skaters to let you see the new challenge closer.

Excellent work to the whole team! =D

So the title didn't lie, it was a generic clicker game. Go to 1000, and that's it, I see. I guess there was that button at the start, but the disenbodied voice told me to not click it, so I didn't. End of review, good job, bye!

More seriously, this game has the same vibes as There is no Game. Obviously, some polish is needed to really make the core idea shine, but it was nice to try out all the different mini games ^^

By the way, are said mini-games inspired by the jam's theme too, or am I making things up? Loopings, jumping over a rotating log, walking non-stop all kinda fill the "Loop" theme. If it is intentionnal, well thought!

I saw you were trying to make it into game developement, and that's a good start, keep improving, good job! =)

Mwahah! You wanted me to panic each new iteration, causing more and more chaos to dodge for myself, but joke's on you I love working with loops and knew exactly what to do: absolutly nothing. >:D
The first clone is used as a timer (n° of head bounces), and each new cycle you launch the assault 1 bounce earlier than the last.
Is this cheesing? Absolutely. The Council should have thought better of the rules of the challenge, what can I say?

That "strategy" apart, the concept is really clever and if you go for max chaos, it becomes a perfect mix of hard/fun!

If I really had to pick something to complain about: red text on dark background is almost impossible to read to me because of my colourblindness, and as a lot of other people said the loops should restart at the last one, not the whole room, but that's really nitpicking ; the game and the concept are excuted very well!

Excellent job! =D

Thanks! No worries ahah, the game's economy couldn't be balanced in time, so I know the exploration can unfortunately become repetitive fast (I even left a dev command in that gives player free Endurance/resources/map revelation to allow them to reach the ending cutscenes without the grind). Coding is not my strong suit, so I had to put it all in the story and concept.

Wow, thanks a lot! I am very aware of the flaws of my game, so it means a lot to me that some people find it really enjoyable! :o

From the start, I knew graphics could not be on the priority list, since I am not an illustrator at all, so I went for a mystery-narrative approach with some hints in the dialogues about the character's appearance, in order for the player to have more freedom to imagine what they wanted, and I'm glad it worked! The story needed to do all the heavy lifting to compensate the coding/visuals ahah! ^^

Thanks a lot, I'm super glad you liked it! =D

It is indeed very inspired by boardgames and the 4X genre (especially the eXploration part).
I wanted to create a "detached but still caring" feeling, hence the cozy vibes, since the protagonist is a being that transcends beyond mortal realms but still has affection for these abandonned worlds ^^

It isn't the game that'll win this year's Jam, but it's honest work.

Thanks a lot!

I'm glad the story keeps the game engaging, since I'm much more of a concept/story creator than a developer.
Since I couldn't balance the game's economy in time, I was worried it would be impossible to even progress pass a 3-tile radius, but it seems that people don't let themselves be demotivated by the simple design and gameplay, haha! ^^

Very glad to see that the Endurance progress works as intended!

Ha ha ha ha! XD

"I am going to project my ethereal being into a physical envelope in order to... Wait. What is that... feeling? I sense it is called... anxiety? Oh. Oh no. Nevermind I'm not helping."

(1 edit)

Unique Curiosities!

  • Towns, Treasures, Camps ans Ruins are common Curiosities, there to either let you Rest for exploration or earn currencies (Food, Gold, Influence or Relics respectively)
  • These currencies can then be spent in unique Curiosities to unlock skills, which help you explore further in order to find the ending events
    • Skills are retained between incarnations
    • They are only active in their respective world, unless you unlock the Ethereal skill [Shared Knowledge] branch on the hub screen

> Shows up in town
> Refuses to elaborate
> Dies of exhaustion

Truly a higher being worth praying to.