itch.io

Hi, thanks for comment and playing the game.

I am actually making a commercial game that is based on this game basically. I would perhaps describe it as enhanced and expanded version of this one, not much bigger however, roughly double the size, and with a different story.

It is not far from ready, would estimate it to be ready around the change of the new year, depending on how much time I have to use on making it.

Basically was planning it to be out already, but unfortunately been busy with other things and haven't had enough time to put on it to get it done already.

Still haven't done any code and basically planning not to do either.

However, I did get one idea just a moment ago, and I am not sure I am happy or unhappy about getting it.

For I just figured out that basically, instead of making a game, I could have made a mock-up of that game, of what it could have looked like. That would have been useful to me too since I would have that way got some more solid idea how it would look and feel like, and also would have been some first steps into figuring out some gfx I could have maybe used even in the final product in the future.

Also, this speedgame would have motivated me to make that mock-up.

 So everything seems good and dandy, so why am I not sure I am happy for getting that idea. Well, simply because I am about to go on a trip today, and I don't think I have time to make even that mock-up anymore.

Had I got that idea yesterday, I would have made it and would be very happy about it. Now it is sort of frustrating figuring something I could have got done somewhat easily and that had been even quite useful, but not being able to do it anymore today due to other circumstances.

But, I guess it is good since perhaps I can use this in some future years' speedgame, in case I end up joining in similar situation as this year.

All in all, it is funny that while I didn't get any concrete stuff done, joining this speedgame still served my purpose of having figured out that worthy addition to the genre that I can use in that game that I hope to make as a commercial release in, hopefully near future, when I am able to concentrate on making a game again.

Basically, I have never got so little done in a speedgame that I joined, yet, I feel this was very much a success for me, I got from it the thing I was most looking forward to from it.

That was pretty fast. You could have entered the Speedgame: Hardmode even with that speed I guess.

Well, I have not got a single line of code done, yet I feel joining this Jam was a success already.

When I joined, I had basically two goals, or hopes, in mind.

The first one was in hopes of perhaps getting this game started, which I haven't, and might well be I won't either at this point yet.

However, seconds was that so far my idea was based on making a game to sell on a small platform, which was missing this kind of game. However, I couldn't help but think that if I could just figure out something simple new idea to this system, it might become sellable on other platforms too, and while having tinkered about ideas to this game jam based upon the verses, I did come up with, actually, even two simple enough ideas that would make it slightly more unique and worthy.

The first one is that when I was thinking of adding more units to lanes, I was unsatisfied by the basic idea that these have had. Idea have been that either you are able to choose the location of a tower (Plants vs Zombies) or if your units are moving, you simply click on your units icon, and one more marches from left to right. Basically I wanted these both. I wanted  to both get to choose the location more freely, as well as unit to move.

And then I figured it would be actually fun to drag them with your mouse from the unit icon to whatever location you want to drop them at, and that dropping gave me an idea. Why not that dropping itself do something too.

I haven't thought about it that much yet, but the basic idea is there. For example, you could have a unit that is otherwise not that good, but that unit is big and heavy, and when you drop it on the battlefield, if anyone is under him, it will hurt a lot.

Another thought that came to me was that there could be some units that could work a bit like bowling balls. Think as an example a hedgehog. You could throw it by dragging with your mouse and releasing the mouse button and depending on how fast you dragged it, it would roll forward as a spike ball for some time, hurting and collapsing everyone on the way, until finally movement stops and it starts walking/fighting regularly.

another thought, which had to do with the Psa 127:4  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 

I thought I would very much like to have an arrow that the player can use to aim and shoot at enemies, as long as you are skilled enough to hit.

Either this bow would come to the bottom middle, or it would come to somewhere on the left. They both give different options on how it would work and what it can do.

Anyway, just having figured out these two things were already worth joining the jam, even if I don't get a single line of code done for the jam.

Nice to see someone else put a DebBlog too!

I was originally planning on skipping speedgame this year too, but then I saw message about this in CGDC and started thinking the timing for the speedgame is sort of good.

Thing is, I am bit stuck, having to do some work that isn't unpleasant but not what I want to do really either.

What I would much rather do is Games, but unfortunately cant afford that in sense that it takes time before game is finished and even then it might not make any money, and bills need to be paid already now.

I, however, got one very simple game idea that would be quickly doable, it isn't anything special, but I realized a game like that is missing from the Amiga market, so I could maybe get a couple of sales from it in there.

But the problem is, doing this other work already, which involves being in front of a screen, sucks my interest in being in front of a screen even more.

So while I wouldn't call speedgames timing exactly good in the sense that due to that other screenwork, I would not like to spend more time on screen, this speedgame might however help me at least start on that game project.

Therefore I am taking very relaxed approach to Speedgame. I take it as an opportunity to motivate me to at least start making the game, maybe I get something playable to show in this speedgame time, maybe not.

In addition, I have been thinking that if I could figure out some unique approach, that is also easy to implement enough, to that game, then maybe it could become worthy enough to be published in other platforms as well, and not just Amiga market, which is missing a game like that.

But about the game.

It is one variation of a Tower Defence game. The one which is from a side and which has lanes, and where in addition to just defending, you can also send your units against the enemy, often having like tower vs tower kind of gameplay.

Plants vs Zombies is perhaps best known example of this approach, although Plants vs Zombies is missing the part of being able to send your own units to attack.

Anyway, that is the plan for my speedgame and now I am looking at the verses and looking how to implement it and perhaps figure out some more unique approach to the game.

I already checked that every verse does fit the bill:

Psa 127:1  A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. 

This I am thinking most since clearly this is talking of a tower defence kind of thing, but not directly, so this could yield some interesting approach to the mechanics.

Psa 127:4  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 

This could simply be that there is some hero character who shoots arrows, but you could basically beat it by sending bunch of your own children against it. Say, you could be a bunny, and human with arrows attacks but you could produce more bunnies quickly to attack it.

Mat 21:13  And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. 

This would be basically fun, you would play as sort of Jesus, I would think it would be something like that you keep sending angels against demons, and when your angels are winning, Jesus keeps overthrowing some tables. Or maybe even literally interpret opponents as thieves.

Finally the gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUu6KI3vyF0&feature=youtu.be

I will post you a video later, it is rendering on the background as I speak, but it is a slow process, so could well take couple of hours before I get it all the way to youtube.

Main problem with this game is that I still dont understand what is the principle of Jesus catching you. If I hit obstacles or not, it dont seem to really matter that much. Yes, If I do hit obstacles it seems he catches me even faster, but difference is that hitting obstacles i get 15 point, not hitting them, i end up at 30 points or something, so I dont really get it.

It is also very hard to get those special powers at all due to this, and I actually didnt get to try a single one, although I once did get that gem bar up and it told me to press enter, which I didnt notice until I died already (this one is not on video).

The video brings up some more problems with the game, which mainly has to do with slow machines like mine was while recording. This video is my first play session, but after turning off recording, I took another try since I suspected rfecording was slowing it down a lot, and I was right, I got at least double the speed, making the game finally playable.

Problem while I was recording was that things happened so slow that It was hard to do any quick reaction things.

This slow version however revealed one problem with your game, there was no sound effect telling if you hit an bostacle, which brought me a lot of confusion to the playing, and I didnt quite get how to catch those games until I played it without recording on. It appears, I keep jumping at wrong moment all the time which you cant quite figure out when machine is too slow. However, without recording on, it was clear how the timing should be done and I catched those gems much better and also got that powerbar filled once.

But even without recording on, I still couldnt figure out how to slow down Jesus from catching me, and I still couldnt get further than 40 points I think, and since it didnt seem to make enough difference, I didnt play longer to find out aboutt hose special powers since they were still difficult for me to get to the point to get to activate them.

The gametype is actually somethig I dislike, but I think you did a good job there making a christian theme for that one and were able to integrate it without it seeming like it was stuffed there just to get it christian. no, it felt like it naturally belonged there, so good job on that, although basically the christian message part bit escaped me. But I did like the basic idea of grace gets bigger when more sin is involved and Jesus trying to catch you all the time, regradless how sinful you are.

This game was actually bit difficult to rate on most categories since this similar thing of basically great but actually bit poor was all around in those categories.

To take the christian category, yes, basically you did very good job there, lots of message is there, characters having biblical names, brilliant idea of Jesus chasing you etc.

But in the end, I am very confused about what the message actually was, making it very bad in that sense. So it is like mix of brilliance and crappiness, and this was same situation in some other categories too. If I visit the rating still this evening, I might well change my ratings since this was very hard to decide whether to give high rating or lower rating on some of the categories.

It was nice that music and special abilities changed, and it was nice you got to unlock these characters. Basically same system as in Speedgame hardcore version game of yours, but it works and makes the game better.

Basically only problem with that was that I couldnt figure out how to escape Jesus longer, making me already feel bored while I was chasing enough points for the last two characters.

So basically a great system that enhances the gameplay and makes it longer lastin gexperience, but without figuring out how to get more points in one game, those things are starting to make game rather frustrating.

I also liked how you had these gems to give something more to do than just run and avoid obstacles with that power up system (although I didnt get to try it actually), it was another good idea.

That basically you grammed quite much good into this game, and while I havent yet played the rest of the speedgames, it does look to me that if there havent been some problems in execution of this game, this could well have won the competition. I dont think it is going to win it in its current state, but potential was there definetily.

All in all, I dont like the game genre, but I basically did like what I saw and played, except for the confusion that ruined the fun a lot from me. If I had knew how to slow down Jesus catching me, or perhaps it was just bad design choise, I could have seen myself enjoying this for the whole 20 minutes I played this on the video.

Heres the gameplay video first:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNkhsYs4W7

As you can see from the video, there are two different game sessions.

The first one ended when I ran out of hearts as I forgot to pay attention to them when so many monsters attacked at once. Anyway, that was my own mistake but also made me think it had been good to have something like alarm sound or similar when hearts go down to three or something. But that wasnt a big deal.

What however was a major big deal, was the crashing. Session 2 luckily happened to be the furthest I got on this game.

I tried to play this 8 times in total, until I just decided to give up. Never reached as far as on session 2 before game crashed.I first thought it might have been affected because of my recording on background, but actualy, it might have been the opposite, for the last session I played the game without recording both to see if it works as well as compare the speed of the gameplay, but actually it crashed sooner than on other sessions.

Would like to take 2 stars away just for that since I am feeling pretty pissed off still trying to play that game, all the small things that wouldnt annoy otherwise, especially on hardmode game, really started taking their toll, but I dont think it is fair to take more than 1 star from crash problem, even from this serious one.

I recommend you make another crash free version of this game for those to play it who play it after the voting is over, for after watching the rest from the gameplay video you provided, I would have really liked to get tot the end myself, now that end lost a lot watching it just from video.

So, the little annoyances that became really big annoyiances after starting the game for the nth time.

First of all, why does the game start so slow. Alrady first time I was looking like it is taking ages before the fading ends and game starts. And text, why cant i skip them. One push complete the text, second push, remove it. Now I was force dto watch the text come to screen slowly, which didnt bother me the first time, but already did the second time.

Another terrible thing was the monster animation. Playability suffered terribly when there were several monsters on screen, and especially when playing for the nth time that was absolute torture. That was part that I felt bad even when playing the first time, but once again, it does go once, it only starts to bother you after you have to suffer it through more than once.

But that was about bad parts. I was in such a bad mood after failing to complete it the 8th time that I had to start from the bad things first.

Music is obviously very good. Not perfect, since I think in some parts it is bit overdoing it compared to what the game looks like, but very good indeed, especially the game complete part makes it very moody scene.

I actually bit missed what was the broken part on the end on the princess that why did they think she was that (avoiding giving spoilers to others, although I doubt anyone who would get spoiled reads this), I understand that the monsters were all about possibly that broken part, but I didnt quite understand why others were saying that broken thing?

Other than that, a great ending, one of the best ones I seen on any game. Good twist etc. and changed the game completely, that you thought game was this type A, when it actually was type B as you notice in the end.

Game itself was quite enjoyable too, especially for a hardmode game. Basically this had been a strong entry even to classic version of competition, but to hatrdmode even more so.

I also liked that there was some variety to monsters attacks, that sometimes came alone, sometimes in groups etc. That levels were different.

I also liked how each level were sort of fitting into a one screen (although they didnt in practice), so this was nice change too to RPGs where we have large dungeons to go around that now always just a small piece and bit of strategy there.

This concept could well be transformed into commercial one with more complexity and variety of monsters etc. and it would work quite nice, especially for something like Nintendo 3DS, Switch, Mobile, where you could easily have short game sessions of just finishing one floor when you are on a bus or something.

Graphics were good. No more, no less. They werent anything spectacular, but they did their job.

Having more attack types during the game was also good, although last two (from which I didnt get to experience triangle myself) made the player to over powered. With push attack, how can you die anymore as long as you play it right? So that was bit of a failure there actually.

Games length was quite okay. Basically might have been better if it had been bit shorter, since while I was playing, I was already waiting for it to end before the crash happened, but it wasnt that lengthy however that it would have really suffered from length, it was still on fine limit.

All in all, good game with excellent story with great twist in the end and good music. Graphics suit the game, and few sounds do their job. Couple of Polishing problems (forced to watch text, slow movement when lots of enemies) which are forgivable due to hardmode, except now that they are combined with a crash they really start annoying you bad.

Despite the crash, I felt this was the best game of the entries.

Heres the video: 

Review time.
I think you had a good idea here for a game, but I think you made wrong design decision.

First of all, I think this would have worked as it is had it been part of something like Nintendo Labo 04 which is about Virtual Reality.
But as this one is on computer, I dont think the speed version was a very working choice. I think better had been to have this as some sort of relaxed slow paced game where you keep cracking things just to relax. I think this concept would work on something like that very well.

Anyway, I did enjoy playing it for that short while, but if this game had had 100 levels, Boy had this been boring repeating game, unless, once again, made into a relaxing game instead.

For the four levels it had, this was workable enough this speed version.

One thing that was problem with this game was the confusion. You can see from my video (which I will upload when it gets ready) how it took me somewhat long to figure out that that I can use left mouse to "move". I kep clicking on different places trying to get balls to do different things, also kept left mouse down and moved some direction etc.
It also didnt help that you had some sort of random factor there making balls bounce differently when they were thrown from same place, since for that reason it took me a while to realise that clicking when arrow is different place actually makes no difference.

Then I finally figure out I can use right mouse to move, but it still takes me quite long before I figure out I can actually keep right mouse button down at same time as repeatedly clicking left mouse. After that the game finally flows.

Second problem I encounter is with the upgrades, I didnt realise level 2 had already opened, until I had bought the second upgrade, and same thing with third upgrade, hence I thought upgrades was progress to next levels. It was only on level 3 that I noticed that level 4 opened before the upgrade.
This also made me miss the difference between those upgrades, I basically noticed only the difference between bombs and the rest, where the bombs were actually strange as being last upgrade, since they seemed to me as being worse of them all. Balls bounce giving chance for mutiple damage and reaching places it originally wasnt meant to, while Bombs, they just hit and explode having no chance of making any extra damage.

I missed what was difference between the middle ones compared to rest.

But it was good idea getting to choose your ammunition and level, I just unfortunately didnt realise it until bit too late to experiment with them more.

I also liked the levels. There was some variety, and especially the last one, the chest, while it was actually annoyingly hard to hit some of the pieces, I however saw the potential there, that it could be possible to make some interesting levels to this game format although you didnt really explore those possibilities much.

For example to use minigolf as an example, there is toften a track where you shoot straight up and try to get the ball to hit the edge in such way it makes 90 degrree angle to get to the whole, basically L-shaped track. This same could have been used in this game making you need to use spedccifically a ball instead of a bomb to be able to hit a piece like that.

I also liked teh symbolism, especially the first level where you broke the vase and it was golden from inside.

All in all, very good entry for hardmode, although I feel it was a mistake making this a speed game instead of a relaxed game. As relaxation game this could have even commercial potential.

But indeed, I did feel bit excited trying to break those things in time when I finally got hang of it all, so you didnt actually fail there, I just think relax version had been better, and this exciting speed version couldnt handle much more levels than it already has, unless you are able to figure out interesting twists to the levels.Also I felt it bit difficult moving to different positions using right mouse down and repeatedly hiting left mouse in that it felt like mouse was about to move out of mouse mat when moving, so it didnt feel good.

All in all, A very good entry for a hardmode. You got something very worthy in such a short time, and although I am complainning about the speed mode versus relaxed mode, even as a speed mode entry, this is still a great entry for a hardmode. Excellent result. Only slightly bigger complaint is confusion, but even that was only a matter of time to overcome, so not that big a deal, especially when it is hardmode on which you cant expect everything to get polished to the max.

Here is the link to video: 

I Finished playing your hardmode entry, also made a video about it, but that is still rendering (been having trouble lately uploading videos to youtube, so have used WMV mode to get it done but rendering takes long).

I very much liked the title screen, I also liked the idea that broken but beautiful is someone in a wheelchair looking to find kids. 

Graphics looked good as can be expected since you probably used some ready stuff, music was a good choice again, and this compated to previous years speedgame entry, you had this time made the amount of children to be found a manageablenumber.

10 kids to be found in a game in this state, was pretty good number. Not too many, not too little.

If I saw correctly, there probabaly was sort of a trail that you could follow that would get you through all the kids, which was basically nice. However, I would have wanted the kids to be hiding more cleverly, now it felt very much that kids were just randomly dropped to some locations and thats the game.

Taken into consideration that Hardmode had only very little time, this was a good entry, it looked good, I liked driving with the wheelchair etc. Only that the kids felt too much like they had just been placed there without any better thought. That it felt like the level design was bit lazy, that there was potential for more.

That you could say that while not much really jumped out as great, neither did anything really jump out as bad either, except for the kids locations feeling too lazy. That basically using bit more time for level design would have made this game much better. Now it was a game that entertained exactly that 5-10 minutes it took to complete it, but not a minute more.

Notice about the video (that I will put link to as soon as its done and uploaded) that I first used 1920x1080 mode, and my machine is from 2014 and was the cheap version even then, so it is bit slow, also made it somewhat unplayable. I make a second try with 800x600 which makes it much better already, however, recording the video slows down the game a bit too, so after I stopped recording I did try once more with 800x600 screen, and then it was about playable, it was almost playable with the recording already on, but you can still see that my aiming at turning is bit difficult. 

Also, I didnt realise the turning thing until I took the recording off to have enough frame rate speed, and I liked how it felt turning in that game. So good job in that one by not making it obvious way, but it felt bit like going with wheelchair or something.

Good entry for hardmode, although nothing remarkable in that while I enjoyed playing it this time, I dont see myself playing it again a year later. And excellent idea with having wheelchair character giving game in itself a nice twist that I could even actually see myself starting this game again or recommending this to someone to show that wheelchair character could well be done for a game.

I have forgot to comment this again. I tried this with my daughter, but unfortunately that already happen days ago enough that I dont remember well enough to write about it anymore. Only that it did seem better with two, but it really would have needed that third one too it seems. I thought it would work somewhat fine with two already,  but no, it does require the third one too to really know what its worth, as while it was better with two players compared to one, it wasnt much better anyway. But I suspect everything changes when there is third one too.

Anyway, here is the gameplay video of that two player playing session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQsqvLZtICs&t=1s

Itch.io has this annoying system where those entries that have less votes get their points reduced a bit.

This year only one game (Dry Place) got affected by this, since it seems that games with 3 or 4 votes, got their real points, while only Dry Place that had only 2 votes, had its points reduced. Here is anyway the real result based upon Raw Points:

Best Christian Teaching:
1 - Radiant Evil
2 - #TheApostle
3 - Super Christian
4- Shine On
5 - AI
6 - Widget World
7 - Dry Place  

Best Overall:
1 - Radiant Evil
2 - Shine On and Super Christian
4 - AI
5 - Widget World
6 - The Apostle
7 - Dry Place

Best fun Game (enjoy playing the game):
1 - Radiant Evil and AI
3 - Shine On and Super Christian
5 - Widget World
6 - #TheApostle
7 - Dry Place

Best Original Concept (New Ideas):
1 - AI
2 - Radiant Evil
3 - Shine On
4 - Widget World
5 - Super Christian and #TheApostle and Dry Place

Best Graphics (preference given to contestant drawn graphics):
1 - Shine On
2 - Radiant Evil
3 - Super Christian
4 - Speedgame and Widget World and #TheApostle
7 - Dry Place

Best Build (Most Stable):
1 - Shine On and Super Christian
3 - AI
4 - Radiant Evil
5 - Widget World
6 - Dry Place
7 - #TheApostle

Changes to Itch.ios official rating are following:

In Best Build Dry Place and #TheApostle switched places.

In best Original Concept, Dry Place becomes tied to number 5 with Super Christian and #TheApostle games, when in itch.ios version Dry Place was dropped to 7th.

RESULTS ARE IN

Results are in, and heres my thoughts. For most part it went about as I expected, and I am basically happy for the end result. Of course it had been nice to be number 1, but I figured fight would be between me, Shine On and Radiant Evil, where any of us three could win, and if you look at results, it was quite tight competition'

rank of games I almost agree with, in my mind, situation was that there were three groups. 

First was me, Shine On, Radiant Evil, and these could end up in any order.
Second was Widget World alone, which would become fourth
And then there was this third group that I felt all were too incomplete, being Super Christian, #TheApostle and Dry Place, and their placing would be in this same order.

However, Super Christian did better than i expected, and surprisingly well in some categories, like being number 3 on best representation of biblical truths. But, I guess that had more to do with low scoring on most entries in this category rather than people actually thinking it was that good a presentation. Another thing I was amazed was winning the best stability. Either others didnt encounter any stability issues or they thought it different than me, for after all, I got stuck to a building for good, and it wasnt that rare to be more or less stuck on buildings or your main character jumping bit unctorollably when getting into rough. So I didnt expect this high stability rating for this, although all in all, it wasnt that bad either. Also, Best fun in playing Super Christian getting 3.5 average score is pretty surprising, especially when considering I gave only 2, making other two giving him either 3 and 5, or both 4s. That is surprising when considering how incomplete the game is and therefore game just ending up in collecting 50 bibles which I personally didnt find very fun due to repetitive nature. This game sure had potential to become a 5 star game. Had it been more complete, It might well have ended being fun enough that I would have given it 5 stars myself too, for sure thing is, it did have that potential, which is proven even more by others giving it already in its current state this high a rating, but in its current state it wasnt very good in my opinion. But that jumping and climbing on buildings, it was very fun concept indeed, but strange is if that alone was enough for people to rate it so high, truly surprises me.

Widget Worlds graphics I was expecting a bit better end result, for after all, they were only hand drawn graphics. I myself gave it only 3 stars, since they werent very good this time, usually Scott42 does better graphics, but they were still fine. When pretty much all other games were using ready graphics, it was sad to see widget world performing so bad compared to these becoming only number 4.

But then again, if we take for example before mentioned Super Christian, yes, it is using ready graphics I suppose, but then again, he is putting them in very nice use. Same with Shine On, they mentioned they put placeholder graphics and they stayed until the end, but then again, all that extra animation they have is part of graphics. So maybe Widget World is exactly where it should be.

#TheApostle becoming number 2 in Christian Teaching category was very much a surprise too, but maybe this was again due to low points in general in this category, for basically I think he had a great way there coming on showing christian teaching, but due to incompleteness, it didnt come out yet.  I would say that this was probably second or third best idea in whole competition (with Radiant Evil being first and then Shine On either second or third), but in its current form the idea didnt come out.

Radiant Evil getting over 4 seems that at least someone didnt either feel there was lack of presenting one of the competition verses, or didnt punish him from it. Personally I thought Radiant Evil was otherwise worth 5 stars, but since I felt he failed on presenting one of the competition verses properly, I felt he had to be punished 1 star away. Basically I felt bit sad doing that, since it absolutely deserved the 5 stars, but then again, if we let people freely make their game without using the verses, then that makes the competition unfair, so therefore from having a glued on top feeling on compeition verse, I decided it had to reflect on the rating. But anyway, Radiant Evil well deserved its first spot on christian teaching, such a brilliant way of showing it.

ABOUT MY OWN RESULTS

Mainly I am happy about the end result. Especially since at point I submitted the game, I was expecting lower end result for my entry, but basically my better end result is for a sad reason, because this years entries in my opinion werent as good this year as they usually have been. You can see this for example from that there was not a single complete seeming game, but they all seemed like they ran out of time. In previous years there is usually at least one small actually complete game that didnt run out of time but aimed at small, and then there are couple of games that while they ran out of time, they still feel complete. Closest to this complete feeling got Shine On, but even it shows some signs of running out of time.

Anyway, While I am basically happy for the results, of course I am sad about some issues, which have nothing to do with voters, but with the product itself.

Christian Teaching #5 - 2.33

For example, ending at spot number 5 on christian teaching was a bummer, but nothing unexpected however. I was afraid this would happen that people wouldnt get the message. This had in great part to do with the video not ending up as I planned. And dont get me wrong, I am very happy for the video, but it does have one problem, it doesnt quite convey the message I was after. I could have told the video guy to change it a bit to get the message out better, but then again, I wanted to give the video guy some freedom too and let him get his vision of the video out. And while that Video is great in my opinion, the message doesnt come out very well, which probably resulted in the christian message rating, since ultimately, if you didnt get the beginning, you wouldnt get the end either.

For basically I was interpreting the verse. Interpretation was that it is talking of Robots attacking Jerusalem, that those robots are what will later become these like mighty men that will be Attacking against Jerusalem.

And then I did a small twist to the end of game. While you think this game is about that single bible verse, I actually added another verse to the game too, which wouldnt be reelased until you first complete the game. For game is giving dark vision of Robots attacking Jerusalem and killing all the people they can, but as the game is only AI simulations, and in the end you click the "Execute Plan" button, which is the point when all those things from before become real, then at that point comes the message which tells that what ever was written beforfe, including these Joel verses, were written for our learning, so that by reading scriptures patiently, we could both have comfort as well as hope, since we notice that despite all these Robots attacking, God takes care of us, and in the end, all will be good. So dont worry, be happy, despite them developing these horse looking robots for US army right now.

Either people didnt think this was clever thing at all, or as I think, they probably didnt understand it since presentation failed to present it, which is unfortunate, since had they got it, I guess I could have ended maybe number 3 in that category.

Best Build (most stable) - #3 - 3.667

This was category I was most afraid with other category that had to do with this stability. In the end, it seems people didnt really encounter the unstability issues that I was afraid they might. This might be due to lack of voters actually. Had there been more voters, perhaps more had encountered stability issues, but now with just three ratings, maybe I was just lucky with them all.

Best Original Concept (New Ideas) #1 - 5.0

This category I just clearly dont get. Last year I made a game I thought would have ended up first or second in that category, and I dont get why lst years first one was ranked first when I didnt feel it was very original.

This year, I am getting full 5. I just dont get it. I didnt think this was that original. 4 I would understand, since there are new ideas and concepts, but in the end, I didnt think this was so original. But if people think this is worth 5, well, Im not complaining. I just dont get it.

Best Graphics (preference given to hand drawn graphics) - #4 - 2.666

This was one that I was wondering how would I end up in this. And while I am quite happy for the ranking of number #4, I am at same time slightly unhappy for the 2.666 only. But then again, It does make sense, mostly.

For basically I was wondering what would people think about just using rectangles basically, but then again, it was supposed to be a radar picture, so they were somewhat suitable. But then again, Those command buttons I never had time to enchance them in any way , so they are quite ugly. In addition to that, the information given about levels contain extra information that dont have any relevance, making it bit messy, and text arent that good looking either, basically put once in place "temporarily" and there they stayed like they were with only very little change, didnt even look for some special font to use for them, so indeed, it is bit ugly.

But then again, I think graphics were clear and they did do good job in bringing out the feeling I meant. And takin from google maps those places and then recoloring them to more radar looking way, I think it worked quite nice in the end.

On top of that, when considering hand drawn graphics should be valued more than the rest, I thought this could have done better, when almost all were using ready graphics. Sure, I was also taking from google maps, but that is still somewhat making the graphics yourself, especially when I recolored them, so at least I made graphics myself, hence was hoping bit higher. I was afraid people might not like them much, especially thanks to confusion in command buttons, text etc. But then again, I was hoping the Robot video at beginning would look so good that even if they would think my graphics are worth even just 2 (i was hoping them think 3 or even 4 if lucky), they would think video worth 5 and make the end graphics 3 or 4 stars, as in giving one more star on top of in game graphics. But seems video didnt persuade people enough to give better graphics, nor did they value "hand drawn" graphics or the general concept at all. But, still ending number #4 is not bad at all.

Best Fun Game #1 - 3.666

This I am very happy, since along with stability, this was an issue I was very much afraid how it would end. Basically I believe the game concept was fun, but there were so many issues that could have hindered this.

First of course the stability, if game had kept crashing, people wouldnt have felt very fun playing it.

Levels was another thing I was worried. I had made first two levels by purpose very easy, so that people could try out them pretty much any way they want and still get through them (although strangely,#TheApostle maker reported he had difficulty passing them, so obviously they werent that easy then). Idea was that 3rd level would be first level that you would actually need to actually concentrate and have some idea to get through. Although in third level there was this idea still, that as long as you are willing to sacrifice some robots, it would be easy to pass, but that means less robots in future levels left. 

When in the end I practically had only levels 1 and 2 as time ran out and 3, 4, and 5 were giving that bug problem with slower machines, I was worried that it wouldnt be fun playing just levels 1 and 2, them being too easy.

Also, Im not sure, but might be that you can never get to play levels 4 and 5 properly, since it might be I am having bug with those Coders, that it puts one too less a coderf in a level, than you have to kill to pass it, making it impossible to ever complete even level 3 and therefore got proper amount of robots to level 4 and 5, so you might be stuck with only 10 robots on levels 4 and 5.

Then I was also afraid of the general confusion since I didnt have time and strengh left to think and make proper instructions. It had helped a lot had I after level 2 just displayed a message "Due to bug with slower machines, levels 3,4 and 5 plus game complete are now all open. Feel fre to try levels 3 - 5, but you can also just complete the game by clicking execute plan". THat had helped a lot with confusion I believe, since I was very much afraid people would wonder what happened, why are all these places open, and then they click "execute plan" and suddenly its all over. What happened? Hu?

This was one of my biggest fears that people would punish me from that, as there was no explanation why that happened. But if they did, then either game was really so much fun it still did fine, or they didnt punish me. Either way, I am happy.

My placing #3 - 3.389

Sure I was hoping for higher spot, but I knew it would be tough fight between top 3. Each had their strong points and failings. Radiant Evil had been a clear winner, had he been able to polish all the bugs and small things out, which really affected the game a lot. Shine On on the other hand was very much in shape and felt mostly complete and professional, however, while the concept was very interesting, it didnt have much replayability value in the end, or to put it otherwords, it didnt work out as fun is it seemed. On top of that, they had made it too difficult and some things that would tell what was happening (and to be able to figure out why) were missing.

My problem was the general confusion, bad bugs, having failed making levels 3-5 with no time to fix them properly or even test them, lack of features like save game (took me maybe 15 minutes to implement when i did afterwards making me feel very unhappy not giving a thought to it during competition time), overall, while it was strong in many ways, there was lots of shortcomings still in the game at time i submitted it. Basically one more day of time, and I might have won the whole competition.

Anyway, I am happy for this years result, While it could have won, it on the other hand could have went much much worse due to all the problems I still had in that game. So not bad at all ending #3.

that is actually funny to hear since I thought those two first levels would be too easy and people might not like it due to that.

But heres a little secret, To beat the first level, you probably can win it just by clicking the red button "Kill people" and then keep spawning robots from the bottom right spawn location when ever you can.

I am suspecting level 2 might be close to something similar as well.

Basically Idea was that third level would be first difficult level to beat, and first two be both easy just to get hang of the game. Third level is not difficult actually, as long as you are willing to sacrifice some robots, since there are lots of people trapped in that left top corner place, but that place is surrounded by weapons and some of the robots will get destroyed before you can freely kill the people, which will affect next levels too since only survived robots transfer to next levels.

Levels 3-5 are pretty much untested. I was making them last day, and when i finally took first test on them, i noticed some serious problem with them and decided to focus on something else instead since I didnt think I would be able to solve the problems in time that I had left anymore. That is also why "execute plan" which completes the game opens after level 2 already, otherwise it hadnt opened until beating level 5.

I am not sure but there is even a chance levels 3-5 are impossible to complete, since they all have coders in them that you are supposed to kill all of them to get through, however, I might have made mistake in code that it puts one too few coder in each level. Hence it might demand you to kill 3 coders, while only 2 coders are actually available to kill. On top of that, these coders are randomly placed, so they might well end up to a location where they escape the screen right at start of level, making it based upon luck if it is even possible to get them all killed, even if I didnt mess that before mentioned code.

Anyway, levels 3-5 are there just to show what I had in mind, not to be seriously played. You beat levels 1 and 2, and click "Execute Plan", and you have completed the game in its speedgame submitted form.

I think you pretty much hit the sweet spot there by making them not too big, not too small. As long as Problems are out, like unintentional confusion on what actually killed you, this game is great.

By the way, I forgot to mention about that blur effect (or whatever it was). Basically I liked that one, it came the game more dreamy feel which suited it well. However, There was downside to it too, which had to do with my machine being too slow. For at that candle place where I had maybe 3 FPS speed, it actually made things worse, especially when I was still thinking that I had died because of having lit the wrong candle, which belief by the way was forced even more by only one of many candles actually getting lit. But otherwise I liked that effect, it was good idea to try something like that, making it also set itself apart from the rest of first person perspective games.

Thanks for encouraging comments about writing reviews. Although, it is easy to be the best when you are only one, making me also the worst.

Regarding my game my biggest fear is that it might be confusing in its current state. Just like you said, it took you a while to figure it out. Afterwards, finally looking from outside without time pressure anymore, I really should have put more priority to having better instructions. On last day I should just have abandoned levels 3-5 completely and just make other things better, like instructions. Then if Had time left, start making them one level at a time. Now I made all the levels as first thing, and when i started testing them, they even failed in the end, creating actually extra confusion when they all open after completing level 2 without any explanation inside game as to why. Just two lines of text at start of game telling that, and push mousebutton to continue would have helped already, but didnt do even that.

Originally those command buttons were just for testing, meant to have picture or text or something there, but in the end decided to save time and leave them as they are, after all, color coding was actually somewhat telling already when you just figured their purpose out first.

This was my first try on AI, although in some sense I did do it last year too, but in different way. This was very good learning experience, and although I would now, knowing better, do things differently and better, I think it came out quite well in the end considering it was trying out for first time. There are naturally problems, like when you attack buildings, units actually move faster than when doing those other two things. This has to do with the pathfinding system I did (theres different method for buildings and the rest), but issue like that is a minor issue, and important part is that it anyway works.

Putting this message in case you missed I also posted review right after this one. It is message number 21, so it went to next page, so you might have missed it.

Review time. It is a real shame I couldnt make the video this time, since I think you would have benefited greatly from it, especially on level 3 which was extremely frustrating to me.

So, you set to make the winning game this year, and you almost did it, or maybe you even did do so, since this years entries are in my opinion not as strong as usual. That It seems there was not a single complete game, but all ran out of time. Your game was actually only one I at least thought was about complete, although shorter than it was originally supposed to be, but based upon the bugs and problems i encountered, I guess you ran out of time too. Well, this might still end up being the winner. Or actually, right now any game can end up being a winner since it seems to me that You and Me are only ones voting, so if one of us happened to like some obscure game a lot, it might end up winning the whole thing, unless more votes start coming in.

But to game itself. Fame itself, the idea etc. was very good. I liked the puzzle nature, mood etc. in this game a lot. However, some bugs and flaws however downplayed this game surprisingly much actually.

One issue was about how to play the game. I first test accidentally picked the light saber and didnt even realise I did so (when i tested if it works without video recroder) then next I played for real and started looking for that light thing, then saw stick on floor and figured i need to pick it, but how? Well eventually i went on top of it and got it. I however wasnt sure how i got it, but at later in game I realised that everything worked automatically just by going close to them, which was a good choice by the way.

However, this issue was quite minimal issue, since you had chosen to use very small sized levels, so sooner or later the player will accindentally figure out how to do things. A very good choice in my opinion.

This small sized levels helped in future levels too, since while there was somewhat lot of confusion on things, like in second level I didnt at first even know to what I died for when I went close to first door, and this was naturally confusing, it didnt really matter much, since level was anyway small enough. They were small enough that this kind of confusion was affordable and it actually helped with building the real puzzle nature of the game that you actually had to discover what to do in them, and they could basically be pretty much anything, making it a very fun discovery.

You could even say that what you lost in confusion, you won in making the puzzles more puzzle nature, instead of straightforward puzzles with rules. So in the end they balanced each other out.

But then there were some real issues that would sometimes make even despite the small level size, puzzles be hard to figure out.

In first level if you went first to door, you saw the message of not enough light. But if you didnt, and even worse, didnt even check the sign, you could pick up the lightsaber and then hear sound of locked door when you go to door. Now what is there to do after that anymore? Well, in first level you would probably sooner or later try the door again and get through, but in second level this was much worse.

I saw the sign, and then I looked at floor in front of that wrong door being different, so i figured maybe I am supposed to walk at some right spot to that door. So i tried and "you chose wrong way". Well okay, "try again" and a new plan. hmm. Perhaps not by sight means one if these rocks are a fake rock. So i started going through rocks until I got to that beginning opening that I hadnt noticed before. Ah, heres another door. Now I found another door, ha, this must be the right one, this was clever. Except... locked sound. Hu?, it wasnt the right door, then what am i supposed to do.

After some time I come to conclusion that perhaps there is bug in this game that I actually need to read the sign first. So i read the sign first, then go to door, and voila. Now I got through. But this isnt something player should need to figure out. All player should need to figure out is to find that second door. Not that you need to read a sign too first.

From second level, we get to the most frustrating level in the game, the level 3. Oh boy, this was so frustrating it probably took one star out in many categories.

First of all, Dont put that many candles. Part of the frustration came from FPS being maybe only 3 or something at times when there were so many candles, especially since there was no use for that many candles, they actually created some extra confusion there, for first I didnt realise I was dieing for the chest, but it seemed to me like I died trying to lit those two candles right beside the sign. Not even sure how I ended up touching the chest in that.

With this very slow speed, trying to lit the right candles was very difficult, since there were dozens of candles, and only one of them would lit. Especially at beginning when I thought most candles were there to kill me this was specially frustrating. On top of that, you had some really strange movement system I couldnt quite figure out even in the end. I guess idea was to prevent player from moving too far in to darkness, that you had to have light to get there. But at statrt this invisible wall was simply confusing, and on top of that, it seemed to move the player real strangely and I could never make sense to it. At some point it looked like it would automatically move me towards that chest, but that wasnt true. Then it seemed like there were some blocks. Like first candle need to be lit on left side of chest. then second and third on right side. THe fourth would be on left side, but you could get there from front of chest, but had to go from behind the chest, and all this starnge restriction.

When I finally got way to door open, I go open the door, and I am stuck behind the open door, on left side of it, and I simply cant move. At this time I quit and go check your playtrhough instructions, which says I can open the chest in the end, but actually I dont think I can, or at least I didnt, but got finally through the door after lot of struggle and frustration again, even I already knew what I had to do. This level really failed your game badly since I liked that levels idea, but its execution was simply single most terrible experience in all of these speedgames, and that is a real shame, since this level too was actually good in its design etc. just its execution was horribly frustrating experience.

4th level was somewhat funny idea. I also first missed that money graphcis, thought they were some bricks, so i figured, apples or bricks, well, i guess it is bricks. But cleverly it was actually the apples. I first thought you sort of made mistake there, until i realised the other one was money and this was a clever playing with our imagery, that basically we think apples as bad (although it was actually unmentioned fruit in reality), but here we see that here we have like God giving instruction on you can take these, so this direct command goes above the idea that something is bad. Like Dont kill, but when going to promised land, kill them all.

5th level didnt feel very natural. It was important from storywise point of view that you had to choose cross. But main problem was that you never really thought about them locusts as a bad thing. It also felt very much glued into game to get the Joel verse there to justify it as basis for the game. 5th level was definitely the least clever of all the levels and only one that didnt quite seem worthy of being in the game.

From this I get in to the christian message part. This was basically A great example on how to put christian message in game and mechanics. Great implementation basically, however, I am going to rate only 3 or 4 in this case, not because the message part wasnt grat, I actually think you made best implementation of christian teaching this year, but there is one problem competition wise. As we were supposed to use at least one of those given verses as basis of our game, then while I think you had great implementation of teaching, it was actually teaching something else than any of those verses, and for that I need to punish you a bit. If we had had one of those light verses that you are already using, I might have given you 5 stars actually. But understand, only reason you are not getting that many stars from me, is because you sort of didnt get it done in competition rules so to say.

I really liked how those levels played out, that there was mechanic and allegorical sense in them. You need more light (scripture) to see the door(way).

Second level you dont pick the obvious and easy road, but you have to search for the scriptures for the right road which might not seem natural to flesh and you might not see the goal until you reach it.

Third one you shouldnt go for earthly riches, but light your way with scruipture, and more light/scripture you have, further you can go and finally reach the door.

Then at fourth came the idea that apple which we generally thought bad was okay, since you are clearly said you are free to take it. On the other hand, money on the ground we were not told we can take.

In fifth you go to christ even when it is scary and you get there.

Great teaching in mechanics and game itself. Really great one, and bit of a shame having to punish you on that, since this was such a brilliant christian teaching implementation, just from wrong verses.

I almost forgot to mention one thing, there was some responsiveness issue with clicking "yes" or "no" after dieing, which also affected the fun a bit, especially after already being frustrated not figuring out what even killed you, then having to click several times or for long to make sure it reacts to it, makes you frustrated even more.

All in all, if this game had worked better, this had been a clear winner in my mind. Right now these bugs are actually affecting the game a lot. Thanks to this years entries all being very unfinished, you might still end up winning. But man, had this been bug free, I would have very much enjoyed playing this, such nice little puzzles that i enjoyed every single one (even the last one despite it not being that good compared to rest), only frustrating bugs destroying the fun, especially on level 3. Having this good puzzles alone is a rarity in games, especially with such a variety and in combination with supporting scriptures. Graphics, music all working well together. I do think this is worth fixing, since this will be nice little game for christians to play out as a snack even in future.

Found the problem. Seems it is my screenrecording software that somehow interferes with your game. For some strange reason it doesnt slow the game down, but it makes it so that things happen only when i click a mouse button. Like pressing "ESC" doesnt do anything, unless I press it at same time with left mouse.

Unfortunately wont be able to make a gameplay video for you.

Is there anything to do to make this work? Check the video: 

Forgot to make one thing clearer in my text. So when I said that I couldnt keep my hand on mouse and another at keyboard currently, it had to do with Jumping. WIth normal keyboard I could have used my left thumb for jumping with spacebar, however, with my special keyboard space is actually no bigger than "return" in normal keyboards (actually even smaller) and it is situated in such place that I am supposed to use right thumb to press it. Therefore because I could only beat using mouse (with right hand in my case) and I could only jump using Right Thumb, and movement had to be done with left hand, therefore Jumping and beating without changing hands positions first wasnt quite an option for me. With normal keyboard this had not been a problem.

review time. This time I am recording my playtesting, here are videos of this playtest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaKjqp5_GSU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QJaa1RA3NM
(Notice I am still figuring out some details, like now my recording output was to my C-drive, had to change it to external HDD when ran out of space)

Actually many things I said about last years game, will apply to this one too. And I very much like that you now added the jumping around feature, as in last year I pointed out that jumping around was pretty much fun and was thinking game could have been about that, and now it is.

Unfortunately you have clearly ran out of time again. It is difficult to even say which one is better, this or previous years. This was clearly heading towards a better game than previous years, but it feels like you ran out of time even more bad this year than last year, since it just seems so imcomplete. Like as example all the bibles/enemies are exactly same. Last year there was difference. 

Finding 50 bibles is simply too much, in its current state game cant handle that many and it was quite boring after a while. However, basically I did enjoy looking for them. But maybe total of 10-20 bible around had been good amount. I had found 41 bibles and was actually sort of looking forward looking for the rest, since it felt bit like a challenge finding the last ones as easy (and therefore boring ones due to too many) had been found already, but unfortunately as you can see from the video, i encountered a bug and got stuck. Unfortunately I didnt know of any suicide button to fix that problem, so had to simply quit and didnt have interest enough to collect all the bibles again, so this time I didnt pass your game.

Graphics look good. I very much like the friendly feeling of them and city did feel sort of living, although people were just standing still. Also the size of the city was quite good, that it didnt feel too small, and wasnt too big either to feel like I would never find the bibles. I always thought that I would eventually find them all, since city was of suitable size.

Jumping was fun and climbing too. However, I would have liked climbing to being faster, and camera to move away from my character to see better. Climbing slowness however got fixed when i realised i could keep jumping up while climbing, after that going up the buildings was basically fun and I liked it. However, controling felt very difficult for aiming purposes. By the way, I liked the option to use pad, although I didnt use one. But you can see many times I am having difficulty in aiming at the bible, and another problem was that I wasnt quite sure if I got the bible or not. Didnt actually realise to watch the coin, if the number had went up, then i obviosuly had got it. Oh, and one thing I had liked had been to have right mouse button for jumping. That way I could have kept one hand on keyboard, and another on mouse for beating purposes.

In its current state this game is pretty funny in amusing way. It is bit unclear who are the bad guys. For it seems your task is to go and beat the guys up to get their bibles. Based upon getting more coins when you get bibles, I guess you sell them. So seems to me like player is the bad guy, stealing bibles from people who defend their bibles and sell them for money.

This could allegorically work well as some people shoving their own view of bible to others by taking their bibles (views) away by beating them up.

Anyway, this looked like a game which could have been very good had you been able to complete it, even now it showed already that it looked good and could well have been real good, just falling bit short now due to you obviously running out of time. But even as it is, while it might not be most exciting game, it is definitely worth showing off, it is something to be proud of.

Oh, and the musics, main menu music was very nice, and ingame musics fit well the current state, it made me even wonder if this was some sort of tribute to NES wisdom tree games or something, since right now the plot is something they could have had (go beat the guys to steal their bibles), and with that NES kind of music, it seemed really fitting. I liked that, and while it might be accidental, it was very fitting in its current state.

I wonder how much difference it had made had there been some sounds. At least bible collecting sound had been real helpful.

All in all, I did like playing it for a while. but 50 bibles was simply too many. It became too repititive very fast.

Time for review. This year I am making videos of me playtesting the game, here is yours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToN_xt1SurE (Just realised my videorecorder havent recorded sounds, have to check that)

Usually when I see a game submission with a picture that hints something about a word game, I dont have much expectations from the game at that point anymore, but remembering sarriest previous years excellent game, that I personally think should have won the whole competition perhaps, my thought was instead "cant wait to see how she treats that concept".

I am most likely going to write another review about this game at some other point, since right now my review (and the video) is based upon me playing that game alone, and as that game is meant for three players, well, one player sure doesnt give it credit.

It is actually bit of a shame since your game might underperform in voting due to 3 player aspect, since I guess many wont be able to try it out properly. However, at same time. What an interesting idea to go for an actual 3 player co-op game. Fantastic idea! and a real shame you might get punished from that.

Playing alone, this game was quite terrible experience, however, with two people, one on keyboard, another on mouse, I think this is already playble. Of course the idea is then that shine just keeps still and games will be short, but I think it will anyway be playable, that you can aim for highscore in one one minute play.

This also brings me one problem with your game you didnt take into consideration, and one which is very difficult to even think, unless you have one of these special keyboards. For basically I am waiting for my daugter to come home from childrens camp to give this game a try on two player mode, but I could ask some friend of hers to play as a third one, except, not with my keyboard. I have this Kinesis Advantage 2 keyboard, and it doesnt have numpad nor the arrow keys place the normal way. My 4 arrow keys are in two different places. On right hand size, under "," I have up and down key, on the left side, under letters "v" and "c", i have left and right keys, when then having numbers only on that top column, you can see how unpractical mobing shine is with this keyboard, and even more, if one player is typing at same time, then it becomes already practically impossible. Solution to this would be to give a possibility to reconfigure keys to some different place. Basically I could reconfigure my keyboard, but I am not familiar with this keyboard enough yet, so I am bit too worried how to reset it back to my current setting if I do that, hence I wont try it.

Anyway, this is something that doesnt come to mind, until you actually start using one of these special keyboards, and in practice the three player aspect is impossible with my keyboard and it is a slight minus to me, although very understandable thing to miss.

Trying to play this alone was possible, but very very difficult. But it did at least give some impression of the game.

Game looked very nice and good. I am however bit suspicious that game might be too difficult. For basically what I was looking is, that this game would be great on some childrens/youth camps/evenings. That people would be divided into teams, and then all these teams would compete against each other on who gets best high score. I think this would be great for something like that. But I am afraid this might be too difficult for elementary school kinds, espeacially the typing part.

However, at same time I am quite doubtful people would enjoy playing this game much at home. I dont think it has enough to interest them for more than couple of minutes. That basically they try one time, and next time they probably wont start the game anymore. But for something like camp/evening thing, I could easily see how this team competition would be set up many times and each time people would like it as much as the first time. This would be great material for something like that.

This would also solve another problem at same time. For basically I really like how you went on to interpret the verse. The idea is real gold. However, implementation does fail in that you get half the message done only. You do get the part that you need to work in team and body of christ etc. but to actually forgive etc. that doesnt come out in any way by just playing the game. However, I could once again see if this would be in some childrens evening, that then they could speak afterwards in way "So did it help being angry at other? no. Then did it feel good to be forgiven? yes. Also, when you patiently gave your team member time to learn, despite him not being very good at beginning, didnt it finally pay off?". This way this games message would really hit gold. Right now it gets there only half way and for that reason unfortunately fails. But the idea and approach was fantastic, although execution fell short.

Music and graphics were both very nice and working. They both worked. Clear graphics and fitting music. Also those little details, like things moving in instructions made the polish level shine so much brighter.

All in all, so far it seems like highly interesting idea that I have to get to try with at least two players to truly see how it works. I believe the slow mouse works well with more than one player, but with one player it was real terrible, because there was already enough trouble playing alone, yet alone making it even more difficult, but basically direct mouse in multiplayer might be boring for the one with the mouse, since that one then be just targeting and do nothing else, with mouse acceleration thing, it will be more challenging and fun.

I really liked this entry, although it is hard to determine if this is actually good yet or not. When I get to play with my daughter, I will comment about this again.

I am this year making videos of me testing out others games, heres links to your Widget World videos (2 parts):
part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi80Duq4QtU
part 2:

Time for review.

First have to comment that this game made me even more nervous than before. For one problem I am nervous about my game is that I didnt put there any proper instructions, on top of that, I made it so that after level 2 rest of the levels plus "game complete" comes available, and it is not told in game itself. I tried to say it in download pages etc. But I was already afraid that wont help much, and now I am even more convinced of it after playing your game, for it took me more than a minute to figure out how to play your game, despite that I actually saw that nice video of your game that shows in submission page which actually shows how to play your game, and even despite that, and your instructions on level 1, it still took me 1 minute... Oh boy... Instructions have to be made like for 4 year olds... and my game is failing on that badly.

But back to reviewing. First of all, indeed, it did take me more than a minute to figure out how to play, so not clear enough if someone just comes to your website looking for a quick game.

Your game actually had lots of this confusion issue, like at first I didnt realise the spots were there always already where to put them. I thought maybe they part of the sequence. You can see me try figure out their right places and wondering what is happening, especially since that first level got completed by putting widget besides the actual place. then two levels further and i come to conclusion that i guess widgets are gong to be places in their places and are already above the place where they are supposed to be. until there suddenly came a widget that wasnt, which created more confusion.

Speed widget was nice addition, but it did have one problem. When the down bug speeded up, if you missed its first trip, then it was difficult to determine where did the speeding start (until i realised it always started from first, but for first couple of speed levels this brought me trouble).

Another thing that didnt help at all is that you are probably having some flatline at beginning of your samples. When in some levels the bug was very fast, it was very difficult to figure out where the sound was supposed to be, as sound might have been at spot 1, but didnt sound out until spot 2. This created great amount of frustration to me and made me simply give up couple of times.

So basically, it was very confusing and that is this games biggest flaw currently. For basically, when you got hang of it and realised that speed widget is always first and sounds might not sound at right place, after that the game became actually quite enjoyable.

You could say that I liked a lot in your game, just that thanks to confusion the play experience wasnt very good. But basically if I would now see another game with same concept, I would enjoy it since I would already know how to play it.

I liked that this was very enjoyable way of practicing ear pitch accuracy, since you were basically listening to that pitch and repeating the same sound. I can easily see how this could be good concept for kids ear pitch training game, since there are these bug characters that appeal to them, and game is basically fun. Only reason it wasnt fun right now was that it took too long to figure out how things work. Fix instructions clear, and this can be very nice little game with some educational properties. If you ever finish this game properly and I notice it, I might well play it myself even just to practice some ear pitch hearing.

One thing I was thinking first was that it missed music, but then i started thinking background music wouldnt be a good thing since it would make it more difficult to hear. However, I would like something like those rhythm run games have that basically when you collect stuff succesfully in game, you create the music yourself that is played, that you are basically collecting notes in game. That would be nice to this, but even without music this goes quite nice, since purpose is different.

What comes to bible verse usage, it nicely took the idea of marching in line from there, although otherwise was quite thin. 2 stars maybe to voting. It wasnt bad actually. In sense of having website with ear pitch training game and having bible verse shown at beginning of it, would basically be pretty much enough already. It just isnt creative, new, or ground breaking, and hence when voting it is only worth 2 stars. But I would compare it to real life situation in sense that some preacher might give 5 star sermon and convert some people to Christ, but then there might be this man of few words who says just couple of 1 star words to some certain person in certain situation, and that man gets converted as well. Other one was maybe greatly better, but end result is what matters. So while I would say this is only 2 star perhaps christian message, it happens to suit its purpose very well in before mentioned ear pitch training example, and more would be bad. Therefore, it is not bad actually, situation is just such that you cant really put more, unless you can figure out something very clever of course.

I Also liked the graphics, those widgets reminded me of Ocarina, and lights coming on worked very well. That turkey, chicken, whatever instrument was also nice humorous touch and was very suitable for the light mood of game and enhanced it even more.

All in all, I think you have a very worthy game here, just right now very confusing and fun was spoiled by the problems of learning and that sample playing wrong time problem. Those problems fixed and you have a good game with some educational properties there. Also, had some nice touch of uniqueness to it. That basically this is bit similar to rhythm games already, but still quite different, and while i dislike rhythm games mostly, I did like this one, but I think it was mainly since you had this educational touch in this game, and therefore achieved a rare achievement, which is an educational game that is actually fun.

edit: forgot to mention that after level 10 nothing happened. Not sure it was a bug or by purpose. anyway, another confusion and i had hoped something little from having completed all levels.

I am trying something bit new for this year game reviews of mine. I am planning to make a video from my playtest session of each game. Yours was first, so it gave me a nice test ground. Heres the gameplay video:

Your game was so unfinished, I will only comment some things.

First of all, graphics (which maybe werent meant to be final) looked actually pretty interesting and made me want to go around a bit and look if I could find something. However, at same time I noticed there was problem in them not being very clear. When I went in maze, it was many times difficult to see if there was a turning couple of steps forward or not. Sometimes even step ahead.

However, Im not sure was it so or not, but if it was, a good idea, if not, do so. But I found it was fun idea that you are aiming at top of the hill. This way even inside maze being lost you had some idea where you were supposed to head. That if you got uphill, direction was basicvally right, going downhill, you wuold be going bavckwards from goal.

One small detail i noticed i hadnt realised before, Naturally when you had AWSD as controls, I was happy, since those are the natural ones. However, I noticed that in this case i kept moving by repeatedly pushing the keys, especaily the W, and I noticed it was actually bit uncomfortable, that I was wishing for an option to change the keys to right side. There might have been the arrow keys, but I actually have this Advantage 2 keyboard, which doesnt have those keys placed that way. Therefore, if you ever make this in future and still keep keyboard as controls, do give a choice for a player to configure the keys himself. For even if i change the keys to right side, I still have space on right side too in this keyboard, as this doesnt have that big comfy space but has different, more efficient space button in its layout.

Also regarding controls, I would have liked having strafing as well. Going in maze was already confusing due to current state of graphics, but always having to turn 90 degress, go forward, turn again 90 degrees made it even more confusing. Hence strafing option would be nice.

Anyway, overall your game was surprisingly interesting and one that made me want more despite it being in such an early stage and simple. Hope you get next time further to see what you are up to, since right now I am interested in seeing what you could come up with based upon this little.

By the way, my votes were very low, but this wasnt due to you being lousy, it was simply because there was so little there that couldnt justify giving more. So if your voting end results are very low, dont get disappointed, it isnt because the little you had wouldnt be good, it is just that there was too little to really give any votes that would make sense.

Unfortunately pretty much unfinished. It seemed like it might have had some interesting ideas there.

Pathfinding

as last entry I thought I write a bit about pathfinding, since that is really what was the biggest problem in this game. Game is failing since path finding takes too long in some cases.

I also wanted to improve some.

Basically Building and people pathfinding mostly work, especially people one. With building there comes a problem that in level 3 building might be too far away, in which case pathfinding looks through too many routes.

Weapons especially give problem as they are most likely far away all the time.

When Building tile to target is found, I am simply looking at straightest line to there, since there will never be anything blocking the way in there, so movement to there works fine.

However, with people and weapons I have different approach which i was hoping to improve. Problem was that people and weapon might be behind a building, and straight line would have went through the building. Therefore I need to look actual path to that place. Right now due to lack of time I solved it by target tile being always the tile beside the current one, since even taking straight line to two tiles away, could have resulted in going through a buidling if at cornmer, and i thappend often enough that it didnt quite work as a solution, although from movement point of view had been much better.

When attacking buildings, you notice robots mobe much faster. I am not actually sure why, but it has to do with targeting the tile next to them somehow.

I was planning on getting them to look that when they arrive to next tile, then check the next tile directly which might have prevented this problem, but never had time to do it.

I was also thinking of adding check corner tiles. As now I am only checkin tile to up-down and left-right, not corners, this would have helped too if they had been able to travel to corner tiles.

With attacking people one problem is that robots might go chase one guy if it happens to be closest, instead of bigger bunch of people. I actually meant to continue pathfinding by after looking at target tile, look from target tile 5 tiles away if tile besides it has at least double the amount of people in it, then it would instead be going towards that tile.

That say first tile has 1, next tile has 2, tile besides that 5 people, then i twould target that third tile instead, while shooting along the way. This way robots wouldnt chase loner, buyt go towards bigger amount of people trying to maximise killing.

For the pathfinding I have currently in game, I am otherwise actually quite happy, except for the problem that sometimes it is too slow. But I dont think there was anything sensible to do during the competition time anymore, since everything had took too much time to fix.

I think there had been option at least for weapons, maybe to buildings too that I am now afterwards thinking as good solution to fix the speed problem. Just not sure how long it would take to implement it.

But right now  I am looking for pathway from robot to weapon for example and keep doing it several times during game running.

Instead, it came to my mind now afterwards, that actually since weapons are stable, they dont change their place during game, I should have made a map of each weapon so that I would check distance from weapon to each tile, and then record both distance and pathway to weapon to that tile.

This way robot could look what tile it is in, then access the tile database and see which weapon is closer, if a tie, then pick by random which to take. Anyway, when seeing that weapon A is closest, then check from tiles pathway where he should move next.

This had been very fast way of finding a pathway all the time.

In case a building would get destroyed, then these weapon paths would update themselves by checking the smallest number distance aroung the building, and starting pathfinding starting from that and replacing bigger numbers with smallers, until all are done. This way it could have given one time lag, but likely still much less than with robot, since robots there can easily be doing 50 pathway checks, with weapons they would usually stay less than 10, and even at max i think i had less than 20 weapons.

This had definetily been the way to go had i realised it much earlier.

Things still missing:

Thought I list some things I would still have more or less liked to add.

I actually meant there to be more variety in weapons that attack robots, but actually my solution worked well enough that there was no need for more. But one thing I was thinking was that some of the weapons had been hidden in buildings. That some people would by purpose try to get Robots near some hidden weapon (robot following to shoot, people running near the trap) and then that hidded weapon would come out of hiding and start shooting the robot. Like someone with rocket launcher hiding in buildings.

Another one I would have liked to do was that sometime people would have ran out of road just to some edge of screen ny purpose to escape (they do that now accidentally), however, this would have included checking if robots are coming from that direction, and in that case running the opposite direction. Like running away from robots towards free direction. I had an idea how to do this already, but just didnt have time.

Bit similar was having walls (just lines in map) and after robots had passed this line, people would have seen them and start running. This had been to do with the verse in question.

One thing I almost got there was people with guns. There actually are people with guns in levels, but they dont use them. Idea was to create bit of apocalyptic chaos feeling that every now and then, when robot was in same square with people with gun, those people would shoot small damage to robots. This way in time some random robots would hav died just from shooting people, as right from beginning my thought was that player is not supposed to get through the game without any casulties, but that there would always be some casulties. That regardless what strategy they choose, there would always be casulties. Therefore, no perfect strategy, also giving replayability value.

Coders were right after people with guns on my list. Coders basically are there in levels 3-5 but not very well. Right now they are randomly placed, and if they happen to get near edge and run out of screen to escape, then you have already failed. I meant to drop them to ceratin specific location each time so that player would always have a chance at winning, since all coders need to be killed from level (at least i think so, i didnt actually test levels 3-5 when i noticed i had other problems with them).

Regarding coders I had this fun little idea which is bit of a shame it isnt there. Idea was that there had been maybe 5 lines of text being displayed on screen somewhere, telling what is happening, like "Unit 3 took 20 damage", "2 people killed". Among these texts had been dead coders. In game, there had been total of coders exact to the amount of entries to the competition, and each of these coders have had name. Name had been one of the other competitioners names. So therefore there could have came a text like "Coder IrmaDeLeon killed".

I figured it had been fun little thing there.

On much longer away on to do list, that I for last days never seriously even thought I could make it, but I anyway had this idea that each level woudl give you XP based upon how many people you killed. Each kill is one XP. Then with this XP you could have bought upgrades. Like faster shooting, faster walking, more strong shooting, More HP or + 10 Robots. Never got even close to doing that.

And much better instructions. That is the thing that is missing most. Now player might be feeling too confused all around. Especially when considering that even the instructions provided arent very clear. Like instructions show there are people with guns, but as they are in pracitce no different than regular people, it will probably just bring a question mark to people. And there is no picture of coders there. In addition, there are some extra info that is confusing. I think one of the levels reads there are 5 coders and kill goal is only 3, when actually you need to kill them all. Would have otherwise liked to place the text better way too. But it was one of the sacrifices when time was running out that it is good enough and other places are more important.

Story of the video

Figured this was worth telling about separately.

When I looked at Joel I started thinking of one robot video I saw and was thinking that my best guess for what he is talking about in Joels place is that he is actually talking of a robot army. I especially noticed this US Army robot form Boston Dynamics that looked like a bull. "They look like horses", now thats not very far of a stretch that next version would be horse looking, and from that I had this idea about a video to the beginning of the game.

My idea was that video would be telling a small story sort of. It would first show something small and simple mechanic thing, like some small factory device. Then each video after would basically be showing larger number of dvices, that would be both bigger and more complex, until finally it would move on to these modern Robots that are shown in the current video too.

I figured that by showing these real videos just as they are, would exactly make it very scary, since you see first these everyday small things we have been embracing for so long, and little by little these things change into more complex and more terrifying things, and at same time, at maybe at half way point at video, it would have started displaying Joels text from verses about 2 to 8, and at same time showing robot videos that would match these texts, like "they look like horses" shows the bull, like it actually does even now. Now that was the original idea.

On one of first days I googled some robot videos and asked for permissions. I had bit of difficulty finding them, but Boston Dynamis alone would have had all I needed, so I sent them a message and got autoreply that it might take 2 weeks before they reply, ah darned. Its almost two week snow and still no reply, so that part failed. But I got reply from another place (that was not used) so at least i had backup.

I have been heavily involved with this Transcendence/Telos cryptocurrency, and there I have met guy with name Crypt0Br0 who have made some Crypto related videos.

He sent me message asking how im doing and i mentioned im making this speedgame game competition game, and then he mentioned "Wish I could help you somehowe", "well, actually, i would have this idea for a video, but i dont think i have time to make it". So he made me a video, and the first version he made was such a great video. Truth be told, it wasnt exactly what i envisioned, but it was great in its own. Also, one of the things I had been having problem in my version was in how do i put the text coming, i never got clear picture in my head about it, but this Crypt0br0 simply took only some of these verses and displayed them alone in screen. Hmm. Such a working solution, how come it never came to my mind? And while it wasnt exactly what i envisioned, it was very good solution regardless.

Music he had picked and videos too were excellent. Although they bit missed from my original idea, they were still telling same story just bit different way, for in that one it started from these laboratory guys going around and making IBM chips, and then it got into these robots, and these robots had much better development cycle than the final version since material was very good and creepy. Like there was this pet man robot walking and guy pushing it at same time giving you a feeling that this is like humans begging to get beaten in future by doing all those things, that you could imagine how robot would show these videos in future to other robots and showing "this is why we need to kill all the people, for treating us like this in the past!"

But, those laboratory things were copyright by IBM, other parts by boston dynamics etc. Most annoying was that I think Boston Dynamics probably would have given permission had they replied, since what I most miss is the robot backflipping video. It was such a great finish to the video that is now missing. Another one I liked was that pet man robot. It is very annoying one missing in sense that it probably had been okay to use, since I noticed usin DARPAs videos was allowed, and all those petman video descriptions kept reading "petman robot from DARPA" so most likely they had originally took that video footage from DARPA, but I couldnt find the original source, so decided it had to be replaced in the end.

So all around youtube people used both that backflipping robot and petman video with millions of views, yet I couldnt use it since it wasnt sure if it was copyrighter or not. Such a bummer.

Crypt0br0 made another video with videos I knew had permission to  be used. It wasnt as good as the original video, but I believe most players will think it is great, since they never saw how great the original was, and hence they have no comparison. Only I keep thinking "it was so much greater the first one", but I think people will look this current video great too.

With music I contacted friend of mine who have been making music but havent done so for a while. I know he is cyber fan, so figured hed be good for the music. And indeed, he did a great job setting the mood right. Mood of the music is even better than the original. Only unfortunately that friend was bit busy, so he probably made the song bit quick and set more for ambience music than music that would be telling a story, so towards the end it doesnt reach the same level of story telling than the original did. But other than that, friend did better job at setting right robotic  mood than original did.

A great video that was at same time a great thing and a curse. I was already about to wrap it all up and decide to leave all the weapon towers and stuff out and just make levels with the engine I had at time since I noticed time was getting too tight, but having seen that video, I felt like I had to try and push the game to become better. While I am somewhat happy for the end result, although it is still in pretty bad shape actually, the cost for doing was bit high in that I was actually having sort of holiday trip that I for great part sacrificed to keep making this game, and that I am bit wondering wether it was worth it or not. To some extent I am even hoping of never having got that video, so i could have enjoyed that trip, since now I feel I bit missed it.

One Day after submission:  It is hard to see from inside

One day later, and not being in doing and in hurry, you suddenly see some things so clear and it makes you wonder how come it is so hard to see some things from inside when they are so obvious from outside.

One of the things I decided right at beginning was that I wouldnt use my time to make a save game feature. I figured it would take too much time (not sure why i thought so) and I also figured I would make game short enough that it wouldnt really need one.

In last day as I noticed I had problem with my levels 3.5, I was wondering how to do with them, wether to include them or not, and then Finally I came to idea of after completing level 2, all levels become available. I am not sure that was a good idea at all, since due to lack of time in putting any proper instructions to player, this might create even more confusion, but I was just really wanting to show what I was after basically.

Now thinking from outside it really annoys me to notice how easy the solutions (yes, i figured two of them) had been.

Solution 1: I am using this "timepassed" variable which takes the amount of time passed during each cycle and based upon that it counts how much each unit moves. This is connected to the problem. When it takes too long for a cycle to perform, things might move too far and pass their targets, and therefore when it keeps checking if target tile is reached, it never returns true, as they already passed it.

Simple solution: If timepassed is more than 0.1 seconds, then change timepassed variable into 0.1 second. This way game would slow down on those spots, but at least everything would be working otherwise fine. Especially since most times this problem was that when you changed a command, and all Robots did new pathfinding, that is why it took so long. So likely it had most of time made just that one slow cycle, and after that things had been running usual speed again. So not that big a deal actually from players point of view, and time to take to implement, well, one line of code: "If timepassed>100 then timepassed = 100" .  So so annoying to notice such a simple and obvious solution but too late.

Solution 2: Save game. I just dont get it how was I thinking save game as being too difficult and time taking. I have done save game before, so I must have been thinking something difficult there.

Had I stopped to think about it, all I had to do was to save if some level is available or not, and with how many robots to play it with. That had been all needed. Like 20 minute job to add it. This way even if game had crashed at level three, you would have just restarted the game and continued from that level. Annoying and minust points from stability-sure, but it would have made the game better still since you would have actually needed to play all five levels and only after level five had "execute plan" appeared,  and it wouldnt have been so confusing to the player.

I am posting couple other posts too, decided to make them separate topics.