Thanks for playing! I took a deep dive into experimenting with shaders so I'm glad you enjoyed the results! I kind of lost sight of the 3-hour time limit and just wanted to explore it as much as I could since I was feeling inspired the 2nd day.

For the custom cursor —I'm not sure if it's a new feature for 4.1, but for me it is found in Project Settings > Display > Mouse Cursor. You can even change it during runtime with this:

var arrow = load("res://custom_arrow.png")
Input.set_custom_mouse_cursor(arrow)

Niiiiice! This makes me feel like I'm the alien spaceship in the old Space Invaders worth 500 pts, and all of the players are trying to get me.

Really crunchy and heavy impacts! Really satisfying to play. Love this game!

This was really creepy! I think you are onto something with this Minion Survival Horror genre!

The lighting effect was really dramatic and effective. Very spooky when you turn suddenly and see not only the zombie, but even more scary was their ominous shadow.

Fun concept and fun execution! I especially liked the background art

if you wanted to expand this into a rhythm game, you could name this DD-"ARRrrrr"

You are correct! the background is a large panning image but the warping effect kind of hides the fact that it's panning and has repeating edges. I'm definitely going to try expanding this world and create some variety of enemy types! Thanks for checking out the demo

The scope of this is crazy impressive for 4 hrs! This is a nice & polished game. The camera pan from the mimic family.. that's some production value :)

As another reviewer mentioned, i had some issues with controls getting stuck as well. But partially my fault cus my browser kept losing focus somehow, forcing me to refresh the page.

Not that you should have to work around that weird technical issue — but perhaps mouse buttons or a mobile-centric design philosophy would have been a good route for this genre since it would be so good as a phone game. One automatic benefit would be adding buttons for the Z and E keyboard shortcuts that I only knew about from reading the full instructions. A clickable button would have been intuitive at first glance without needing any guidance so no player would ever miss it.

Had a lot of fun with this, I love TD games. The music and graphics are excellent!

awesome!! gameplay is fun and super smooth, although starts a bit too slow imho. I had fun once I started racking up the score and pumped max damage to 1-shot everything!

The music was really nice, and fit the pacing of the game and that helped me enjoy the slow start of the game. Then the music took on a strange anxiety with the repetitive ascending and descending runs of notes, as I watched my ever-ascending score. It started to become trivial for me to keep max damage and attack speed upgrades flowing in and I knew I wasn't going to need any HP at all to survive. I was unstoppable! And that's when I exited the game because I think I was lvl 99  ^_^

That reloading mechanic was INTENSE. I actually felt really strong immersion into the anxiety of this atmosphere, with the sound design and melancholic music foreshadowing the inevitable, as I was eventually pushed to reload one bullet in between every single kill shot, barely keeping up with their numbers at 60...61...62 dead — i can take out as many of these 'bad guys' as i want, but in the end, what will I really accomplish? No matter what, they will overpower me and breach my stronghold... except I will have their blood on my hands now, too...

Very well done!

nice! :) 

I love the touch of the squash and stretch animations. It has a nice feel to it.

Wanted to point out that if you stomp multiple enemies at the same time, the jump height gets added together for a super jump. I kind of wish I was able to actually control the super jump better by timing a button press right as I stomp them (like in super mario rpg), or from chaining bounces!

From a certain perspective, this is a fun little twist on the classic vertical space shooter!

One bug I encountered was if I shoot somewhere unoccupied, the cannonball gets stuck jittering around at the target - but it also serves as a land mine and can take out unsuspecting bad guy!

Love the music when the castle falls!! This was a solid little game, perfectly executed in the spirit of Trijam!

Love the art, music, and design overall. Impressive 3-hour crunch!!

If you save 4 coins, you can spend upgrade and get -1 coins! :O

Nice concept! It plays well I like the nuance of the curved surface creating a bit of unpredictability.

This is just personal preference, but I'd rather the paddle follow the mouse directly instead of being 180 degrees opposite. It felt a little unintuitive, but I know that's just me (like whether or not you like your Y-rotation inverted in FPS games)

But that inverted control actually did make me more engaged and focused while playing! 

Weeeeee! That was fun!

What do you think could be a way to expand this into a full game, even if it's a tiny game loop like collecting coins for a high score?

Unfortunately I can't seem to understand how to play this. I'd also like a restart button instead of having to submit my score every time.

 It seems like a cool start of a game though!

very cool lighting effects and atmosphere! The sound was very creepy, but also sounded a little crunchy on my browser maybe due to performance issues?

(PS I had one glitch where I could accidentally clip out of bounds near the exit by going between some trees)

I like how the light aura decreases and you really start to feel lost in the forest.

Players may choose any snacks they wish haha! 😅

Thanks for playing!

thank you!

LOL! you're so right. i must have channeled some subconscious memories of that time everyone lost their tooth and sprayed juice out of their missing tooth

yeah, if you pause at 2:34:39 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1772103020?t=02h34m39 you can see the 2nd red sprite (that's Ecaroh!) appear below the swamp monster. I'm really not sure how he didn't follow you from the beginning - because in my game scene, both characters were placed next to each other and should spawn on screen as soon as you start. I'll investigate further myself, but may I inquire what browser and OS you're using?

I appreciate the critique! I think your last point is important so I am more mindful of the rule: "show, don't tell" in my storytelling from now on.

Thank you for playing! My dream game is definitely an ARPG genre, so I hope to get there one day!

really appreciate the stream! Because watching you play, I noticed in your playthroughs Ecaroh and Horace were not seen on screen together until randomly at the very end of your dark path playthrough. I wonder if there was a browser compatibility issue from my web export that broke some of my code... i'll definitely investigate now that I know that can happen! They were supposed to both be on the journey together from the start.

Thanks for your feedback!

i really loved the premise! i kind of expected to continue playing as the little ghost inside a new dream world when i first started. So I was a little disappointed when i got my first minigame which was the block sliding puzzle and no ghost hero :(

but overall really great ambitious scope, and executed really well! Great work !

i caught all the fish! maybe the ghost could have said something after each fish to keep the story continuing. I liked their personalities!

really nice game! I liked the variety in storytelling mechanics and going through multiple scenes.

🐞one thing i noticed in the 1st paper notes section, the number glyphs were missing in the font. And i had a little confusion as a player how to progress past that section. Of course i eventually figured out i had to let the teacher catch me and got to experience the rest, but I was stuck for a little bit

Really nice work though, and very relatable storyline haha

the swamp monster will never let you leave >: ]

you make a good point though - i don't indicate that you are stuck forever. maybe if you tried to move with the arrows, i could have prompted a dialogue to tell you to refresh the page or include a restart button. that's good design philosophy i should keep in mind from now on. Thank you for that feedback, and i appreciate the kind words :)

this is so charming! I love the music and atmosphere. a little glitchy at times (some of the wall climbing was tricky until i rebound to use arrow keys - which was an appreciated feature!), but it was very ambitious with level design and so many areas and mechanics! the idea of being inside a cat's nightmare - water and vacuums - pretty funny.

now that's what i call rocket jumping!!!

i had a lot of fun messing with audacity + Paulstretching to make some cool sounds. I'm glad you enjoyed thanks for playing :)

thank you! yes i unfortunately did leave out actual boundaries in this quick game, sorry that i let you get lost in the void!

i hate to admit this, but i just clicked through a lot of the text right up front and didn't grasp the game very well. That's on me and my attention span, 100%! But i prefer jumping right into games without needing to read multiple instructions before starting

that being said, the art was wonderful, and the design was solid. I can see a lot of time and effort went into building the framework for this. I didn't encounter any bugs. Nice work!

very interesting and cool screen bending effects! My browser was very lagged by it though, but that might be cus i have a bunch of tabs open... anyway when the lag passed it played fine again! The e key to interact with WASD felt a little awkward though, like the keys are too close together for comfort. But overall it was a really unique and interesting experience, nice work.

i really like the art style as well like others have said! The thumbnail image is really cute and is the reason I clicked!

I'm curious if the punishing restart was part of your intention, to capture the feeling of sleep paralysis, not being able to wake up, yet trying so hard to over and over. I had a slightly frustrating experience when I got really far in the level, but missed a jump and had to start over again ... but it sparked some thoughts, so good job!

waves and shaders!! I love the exploration, and saw some trippy things on my dream journey in your game

my experience, pressing esc and clicking the tiny slider buttons was a little tricky since it was small on my screen. I also wish i could cycle dreams more rapidly! But overall i enjoyed it, especially one when the waves were intersecting and making crazy optical illusions. cool sandbox!

really amazing work. my favorite tiny detail is the sound design! The ticking clock and minimalist approach gave it such a sense of foreboding dread that this dream may never end. The repetitive nature of the rolling also led itself to that feeling, like being trapped playing Jumanji for eternity! Amazing work!

i love the ambition and amount of systems put into this game! I'm very impressed by the scope and execution. A lot of enemy types, satisfying machine gun attacks, I like the shopkeeper graphics.

As others mentioned, it was a little too difficult. Maybe in this case, less enemies but more balanced combat loop would have caught my attention longer :)

Very nice work though! The music had me feel like I was stuck in an endless dream/nightmare, constantly ascending and descending. I like the concept of enemies being created out of the dream world!

Yeah good call, I think there is some disparity between the animation and when the shield becomes active/inactive. I'll investigate!

Thanks for playing and appreciate the feedback!

Thanks! I'm glad you liked the mechanics.
My plan was to have you absorb bullets and shoot them back at the boss! But I ran out of time

Thanks for playing!

And thanks for the feedback. Next time I will 100% make sure I get a win/lose condition in my jam!
I always wait till the last minute and run out of time!

https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UyL2phbS8xMzA5NS8yOTA0NDI4LnBuZw==/original/3ny9JC.png