itch.io

This game really caught me by surprise. Many of the things I was considering to levy as criticism I actually reconsidered to be good design decisions once I understood the game as a whole a bit better. My first run went pretty badly, but probably in the best way because I learned everything I needed. At first I was trying to aim the syringe with my mouse, and ended up wasting them all not realizing they were limited; or how powerful just one of them can be. More often than not on my second run I had more syringes than I needed. I thought the base move speed felt slow in the start, but I think its actually fairly well balanced against the zombies, and the slow pace of repositioning yourself ultimately synergises with the function of the syringes and waiting for the cure to spread while you carefully herd your horde of soon-to-be-living back to a safe zone.

The one main criticism I held from the start is that the audio balancing could definitely use some tuning. Some sounds are jarringly louder than most (like some of the cheers that happen when a rare item drops), and most of the sound effects are a fair bit louder than the baseline volume set by the music and steady ambient noises. The sound design itself, however, I think is very good! I wonder if you did all your own foley, because it was definitely worth it if so. I would consider maybe using a Volume Limiter on some of the sounds to bring their peak volume more in line with the subtler noises, so we don’t miss out on all that detail by lowering the volume as a whole.

I really really enjoyed the twist later into the run where you get to pick a perk/upgrade for the zombies instead of yourself! I think there’s a crazy amount of potential in there to spice up the game and make runs feel unique. You could even choose the “more zombies” perk in an intentional bid to get more XP, if you feel up for it.

Unfortunately, my second run met an early demise, as around the time I had rescued ~400 survivors, the game started to run progressively slower, down to 1 FPS territory. During this I noticed a very large number of zombies and survivors getting stuck in a small spot just above the pond on the right side. Rescuing a number of the survivors did improve the fps momentarily, but sadly the lag grew faster than I could rescue them. Otherwise I would have been happy to try to finish a full run.

Overall I love this take on the genre, and of the games I’ve seen this jam I think this one has some of the most potential. This game belongs on miniclip in my childhood memories :3

There’s definitely a fair bit of information overload at the very start, and I honestly felt almost more lost at the end of the tutorial than I did at the start. It was easier to understand the various game elements and their interaction once I actually used them a little. The tutorial might have been easier to parse if it popped up one piece at a time as you interact with each mechanic. Also, when you’re making a tutorial in-character, it can be immensely helpful to have indicators like bold or special colour text to express that the subject of the text is a mechanic and not just story or flavour text. Leaping into the game itself, I do love all the references to birds as a conspiracy, it’s a nice nod to the community. The art for the various events is super fun, though the lines are a bit thin so it can be hard to make out when you’re not fullscreen. The various values related to “flock power” are a bit ambiguous, I couldn’t find any explanation of what they represent. There are many numbers fighting for your attention at the start, so I would consider maybe moving the “flock power” stats underneath each bird into the menu that pops up when you click on them, because the “total flock power” in the bottom left is the number that really matters to the player. The resource values on the “end turn” button also fight with their twins on the bottom of the screen for your attention; it’s nice QOL to see what you’re going to receive next turn, but that kinda non-critical info might be better served in a tooltip or a popup menu. The bird sounds are nice, but also very intense, I would want to reduce the volume and the number of sounds. The feedback when you mouse over the event banners is very smooth, I’d certainly like to see more of that. Overall I think the flavor text is one of your strongest points, so I’d love to see you lean into that! A little cleaning up and I think you have something pretty charming here.

I really like this idea, my main feeling is I wish I had more than a few second window to try to get it right. With the grass, bunnies and foxes all being a population in their own right you definitely have a challenge when it comes to the balance; I personally feel like the grass disappears too fast, but that could be a symptom of the bunnies multiplying too fast, or eating too fast. Or maybe the foxes shouldn’t multiply, and eating just extends their lifespan. Maybe the grass should respawn faster. I wish I could point you in one direction, but there’s so many ways to approach the balance and they all change the game dramatically. That’s part of why I do really like the idea. I hope you fiddle around with it some more! :3