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WASD to move, E to peck (or controller left stick move, right face button to peck)
you don't know which chicken you are, so you must try move in patterns to identify yourself. Only player-chickens can peck, so if you see a chicken peck it must be you / another player!

I was determined to understand how I could usurp the king. So I adventured. A small shrimp, with a big dream. I told more about my dream. At first, we still just felt like a couple of wishful shrimp an an ocean of doubt. But we didn't give up. We went through highs and lows... and slowly but surely we grew. From tens to hundreds... to a thousand strong. We became the shrimp king.. but we'll never forget our humble beginning. 

 This was an enjoyable play! Despite there being no way to lose and a pretty chill experience, you still made something that gave the player a chance to react. The swarm growing and the feeling of heading towards a massive school to recruit invoked a genuine reaction. Your shrimp art was also very cute <3 

Thanks for getting involved and supporting the jam <3

Fun idea, you're game write up page was funny too. I am normally terrible at these sort of puzzles, where there's one gap and you have push everything around. But your twist on the game made it actually more accessible for me, as I was able to shuffle things in ways my brain understands more! I tried a variety levels from 5 up to 69, and succeeded! the 2 bit style did make it harder for me to identify some bits that were out of position, but overall it worked really well! 

I'm glad the real mona lisa was not harmed in the making of this production! Thanks for getting involved in the jam!

This was cool! You taught me that voice narrative can add a lot of immersion / tone setting. The background noise (beeps and blips etc) really added a lot to the atmosphere too. I replayed it to try the alternative lines which was enjoyable. I am surprised how much I liked the fact you used black and white - it kinda detracts from the whitebox aesthetics and makes it all feel more intentional.

I did notice the look down and up felt a bit unusual - its mostly that you move forward and down as you look down I think? 

Really glad you got involved in the jam, that was cool! 

This was very satisfying to play! The one downside I found was RNJesus could ruin things, giving you 4 x draw cards for example and no means score or merge. But otherwise, a satisfying puzzle, that feels like youre heading into optimal directions, but then you know you're at the mercy of hoping to get a score tile else risk running out of room. The merge tile was an interesting concept - gives you space back and you bank score for later, but my brain was struggling to know when was the right time to do it. 

With a little balancing / mechanics to let players avoid situations where they hit bad luck with their draws, this could feel real good! I got a score of 70, but the game had me engaged and thinking about every move, which was ace!

Thanks for getting involved in the jam, appreciate you!

I thought when I heard describe this that it'd be interesting but maybe a bit of a gimmick - but having played it, I can really say its a lot more engaging than I expected. My brain REALLY struggled to switch context for each ship, so when I need to quickly navigate one then the other to avoid situations, I start making mistakes... and the mistakes compound! I got 4800 as my best so far I think, so no where near the leader board.

The join together mechanic was cool and gave you that sense of feel good - which is interesting really cause all you do is give the player "regular" control during that phase. the burst fire gun seemed really strong. one thing I didnt know as a player was if I collect A and B, would it merge or replace? I assumed replace, so didn't try!

Visuals were cool, feel good to blast things - which is always what you want in a game like this.

Thanks for getting involved in the jam <3

I made it to round 53, where I realised my agents were doing all the heavy lifting and if I started missing my shots I was shafted!

A cool take on the balatro-like accumulation of items / agents to affect the game play. The 10 second shooting round is surprisingly simple but perfect for something like this. Then  10 seconds never feels long. You feel power spike due the mechanics that you implemented, and when a big cluster of them pop if felt pretty satisfying. 

the juice on this was great too - especially noticed the colour of the damage numbers changing after you surpass certain damage thresholds which was nice. The little animations on the items in the shop made a big difference too.

Worth nothing that it didnt really feel useful to move? I wonder if there would ever be more reason for the player to move than the items you already have in game? could there be +time collectables or $s perhaps?

Thanks a bunch for taking part in the jam and representing the Unreal game jammers :D 

I collected shells! So the swim mechanic was intuitive, though probably would feel even better if you added some deceleration over time, to help express that "floating through water fantasy" that this game tries to fulfill. I found collecting the shells difficult, I ended up just holding both clicks down and trying spin my way into shells to collect them - but I felt it would have been cool if it was more about clicking left and right mouse at the right time instead.

This game definitely starts to explore some interesting mechanics - i think it could be quite a fun mechanical game if you were to get the swimming feeling really good with momentum, and perhaps if you could have the tentacles reach to the cursor location to grab things (up to a certain distance), perhaps that could feel good. I'd also potentially look at reducing how much other shells block your movement. Perhaps running into shells and knocking them in a direction could be a strategy if you made the shells knockable. 

Thanks for taking part in the jam and sharing your progress on the discord throughout.

Hey this was great! Really good atmosphere. I know the music was generated, but it fit in well with what you were trying to deliver. The main downside was onboarding, for my first few runs I didn't really get it and there was a risk of a player quitting before getting to engage properly with your mechanics. The swarm itself was visually cool, the controls when you possessed a human was great too, and having to try avoid patrols / insecticide added some extra challenge. I wonder how this could feel if you could do more than just use the humans to feed, but instead you could manipulate them - in order to give you access / distract other humans. Examples: imagine you take control of a pc using one of the humans to open some doors. Or you take control of a gun wielding one and use them to shoot at another human. 

Overall really liked the concept - it was very fitting for the theme - and I loved the aesthetics and visual delivery. Thanks for taking part <3 

initially I worried that the puzzle landscape would not fully be explored, but as I got into some of the high levels, I saw that there's use of having books that could fit on different shelves, and you have to deduce which it needs to go on (rather than simply matching). The game-play matched the theme well, and as much as I have ideas how you could add some more mechanics to the game to spice things up a bit - that may detract from the vibe / genre of game you were going for. 

The ideas you had for increasing score based on order within a book shelve would be an interesting thing to see. I'd like to see if you can make the act or switching between shelves feel more fun. Maybe I should have been going to the library view and back again, but I was justt using the arrows to switch between them which didnt feel great and didnt help me keep a concept of all the shelves and their configuration in my minds eyes.

Thanks for taking part in the jam, and for checking out so many other people's games!

awesome! the soundtrack whilst reading helped set the tone :D Soundtrack definitely had a vibe to it that matched what you peeps were going for - would been interesting to hear it in game as an audio backdrop to see how well it fit. So the idea is great, the interpretation of the theme especially. "Individualism must dieeee". I liked the idea of mini games for when you're grabbed and fighting away the mind virus, as a way to get different input / challenges into the game within a gamejam without overscoping. the art assets were flipping fab! be sure to either carry on with the game or reuse the assets sometime, because the style and polish is wonderful - well done!

awesome! the soundtrack whilst reading helped set the tone :D Soundtrack definitely had a vibe to it that matched what you peeps were going for - would been interesting to hear it in game as an audio backdrop to see how well it fit.

So the idea is great, the interpretation of the theme especially. "Individualism must dieeee". I liked the idea of mini games for when you're grabbed and fighting away the mind virus, as a way to get different input / challenges into the game within a gamejam without overscoping.

the art assets were flipping fab! be sure to either carry on with the game or reuse the assets sometime, because the style and polish is wonderful - well done!

Thanks for getting involved, and goodluck with your next game <3

I like the idea, the jumping over to cut a tree is chess-like, yet the animation is cool and it feels good. The win conditions of the tree felt a bit harsh - hard to actually achieve. I once did it, but one of the 8 directions was on the edge of the playable spaces, so maybe it didn't count?  Either way, festive and fitting theme and implementation! Never realised all the christmas trees I've had over the years may have been hand chain-sawed by Santa himself :o 

Thanks for taking part in the jam! 

Interesting story! Initially I worried, as with most visual novels, that it'd be a bit low on interaction. But the choices were a nice touch, the mini phrase selection games too (though think it was kind of obvious which words not to say cause they seemed quite harsh), and choosing the cute shop item of choice. The achievements too help you think "oh I coulda maybe had some differences based on my choices). The story was an interesting one, good to introduce people to the challenges that others face. and the fact you need to help your partner to get through the episodes is in line with the together theme too! Thanks for getting involved, and good on you linking all the resources used on your game. 

Loved the humour in the intro of this! The art was great too, really cohesive and added to the humour / vibe of the game! 

Took a while to understand the way to play, but the info on the game page helped. Having the "prompt" player needed to do to steal princess from the opposition was a good idea, made it less simple and made it not as simple as just getting close to the opposition. 

Woulda been great to see some "amount of time each player has held the princess for" on the HUD, so players could tell the closeness of the contest (and help remind players of the objectives). The red enemies were a bit aggressive, which made it hard to understand the mechanic initially - so maybe having them further away from the princess at the start to help players learn the capture mechanic without getting killed could be good. But their following and "giving up the chase" behaviour was otherwise good.

Thanks for getting involved in the jam! 

thanks for explaining :) 

"maybe we found it together" :D when I finished it the theme link was just about made haha! 

I enjoyed the cat, I enjoyed the shadow monsters spirte having the hat onn. The combat was fine, but prob not balanced - biggest strat seemed to use the damage boost then just attack!n The heal all was super strong on last encounter!

The one thing that would risk players not exploring all the game was that the interaction points weren't always obvious. So entrance to grave yard and side alley may be too easy to miss. So maybe some indicator that you're standing somewhere you can interact or something?

Thanks for taking part :) I can imagine you make  a few games for this party of friends! 

I like the idea of pulling tthe level obstacles towards you to solve the puzzle. Got myself stuck on the second level. I feel controlling the character was tough, which made it hard to position yourself to pull things the direction you want. That same movement also contributed to the PVP feeling a bit slippery / inaccurate. Maybe its one of those that requires players to get used to the movement quirks to master it - but if not intentional, be good to work on that movement feel more in future. The music was good, did you make that yourself? Thanks for taking part in the jam!

Found this a good idea for the theme. I like that you did more than just have "jump on each others heads" mechanic, and started adding more as the levels progressed. I didn't understand immediately that the characters weren't equal too in their abilities. I found the out of time animation a bit.. intense lol. As a platformer, probably needs a bit of grace afforded to player to make jump timing easier. 

This was an amazing project, well done both. From the start I felt like a small kid, with the table and TV looking huge. The underlying story that you're telling, left me wondering whats going on, but having discussed with boats its super clever - and even if it wasnt explained to me - I think the open interpretation style is really engaging. 

The building mechanic is REALLY well done. its clunky enough to make it hard to be a perfectionist, and the monster design is loose yet restrictive enough that you can guess roughly what it might look like - but you can be creative and it genuinely sparks some joy. Big shoutout for the atmosphere from the music and art, and the create art is what makes people laugh as the create some "special creations". 

Envious of your vision and creativity, thanks for making time to take part in my jams <3

Clearly a brainoid specical with many mechanics, depth and ambitious scope! The only drawbacks really were the bugs you didnt time to fix, and some of the UX issues with gnome placement. But overall, I thought it was an original take on the tower defence, where the garrison arrangement bonsuses added a real layer of depth tthat appeals to my brain. The downside is it would ttake an age to view all tthe perks and work out the bonuses and actually get them in the towers you want them to be in - but then the battle would probably be over in no time, meaning the time it took to strategise ended up superseding the time it took to "play". 

The art was superb, and that intro really set the tone. SNAILIENS. I loved that the bg music for the game kept that theme song going, keeping it in mind. The enemy types were also real fun and on point. Being able to control the heroic barrowman also was quite original take on tower defense - being able to try and block or reposition enemies in my favour.

thanks for always making great games for my jam Bora and friends!

Gave this a good go with Elysia, it was a lot of stress to begin with "You are reading the symbols too slowly" to quote my wife. But once we started to come up with ways to describe things, we got a lot better. We failed to complete it but got through 3 of the 4 required puzzles at least!

Initial onboarding could do with some work - to help players know / visualise where to find the "ship markings" so they know there's only 1 (for example). Also, understanding the 4 terminals are 4 mini games that need solving to win, and arent worth touching until you know the type of ship you are on. 

The manual and choice of symbols / shapes was well done. Especially under pressure, its simple enough to get complicated when things start going wrong. Some mechanics were a bit harder to understand, like the power and number of lights on a terminal - but once you understood it, it is good. Some original ideas too mixed in, such as your power level reducinng each time you get a wrong answer - meaning you have dynamic data to deal with too.

Thanks so much for getting involve Bix!

A lovely balance of role playing a doggo, whilst exploring a minimalistically beautiful island. The herding mechanic was satisfying and worked well, awesome character you've got in a doggo with animations and woof (text + audio). The pacing was good, and you got the duration just right - since the mechanics weren't massively deep - and I think if it went much longer it woulda started to lose its charm. The fact you tied objective to a heartfelt narrative was a great extra feature, making the game give the player something to ponder about, rather than it simply be about the mechanic/fun. A classic "Bauk" :D 

You set the tone really well with the character art and the music used. The writing helped paint pictures of distinct cities. Whilst there was not too much choice to make to alter the story, the writing and pressure of the 14 days still had me engaged. I enjoyed meeting <spoiler> the magical creature in the woods </spoiler> :D With a game like this I'd be interested to see how it feels when you can have deeper / branching story, where choices in a node will affect the story / choice availability in other nodes! I worry it'd turn into branching narrative spaghetti very quickly (from an implementation perspective!). The main objective of the game was super in-line with the theme!

The visual were cohesive, though probably a little too neon / bloom overlapping in parts (UI / checkpoint). Music, although not original, fitted the vibe of what you were going for. The theme was a very fair implementation, and a rolling + magnetism mechanic felt fresh. It'd be cool if you could make a few more levels out of the content you've got, where you build up the skills of the player a bit more gradually. The challenge was fair, but some of the mechanics could have been onboarded a bit better.  Thank you for taking part and keeping me company during the jam <3

Good start! be interesting to see what other ideas you have to take this game further :)

really liked this. I liked giving the player a choice of words, as it made you think back to which you preferred. Good mood with the BG effects and music too.

this was surprisingly fun :) just took a bit to get used to the flying :D

I did not see you say in chat sorry boats :( would have enjoyed having you get involved! Grats on ranking 1st!

WHAT A BEAUTY!  Such a big game for the jam! appreciate the effort and dedication. As you saw on stream, I had a great time on this! Most of the time designing levels, but had great fun trying everyone else's maps too!

This was silly, I am glad you submitted it! The way the lizards jump on their own is silly but also feels like it'd work well as a marbles on stream sorta thing. The setting of the cheese wheel chase was also a lovely touch <3

We always talk about doing a "Lick" mechanic like this for some Overcooked style game. It was nice to see an interesting platformer. I was a fool and first I could just use WASD to begin with, and only on level 3 I realised I can move with arrow keys! It worked well, I liked how the movement ended up progressing. I did end up getting stuck though on the last level!

Finally, launching your tongue at ice is DANGEROUS! Thankfully this frogs tongue was not vulnerable to the dangers we face!

Had a good time with this one! I really loved the idea you worked on this with your daughter :) the game actually felt like it was more skill based than I expected. The addition of a dash really made a difference, combining with what seemed like an increasing speed over time? The lore was nice too, shame not enough to flesh it out but it sounded solid :)

As to be expected from Boatsyboy these days, another great game. You give a great a aesthetic (minimal) to your games. This was an original puzzle mechanic that a liked, and you managed to embed yet another underlying "curious" narrative! Well done!

I enjoyed the aesthetic of this one Wendel! Obivously was always going to be challenging to do amusic composition game in a nes interface. Playstation managed it with Music back in the day, JUST! The main thing that was missing for me was being able to select a small region and loop it - so I could figure out the looping. Was still fun making a quirky sounding tune regardless :D

Thanks for submitting this, we read through it on stream together. Anything that challenges people to face up to difficult topics to face is good. There's not enough natural opportunities to talk about taboo or sad topics in life, so finding ways to encourage it is admirable. Thanks for getting involved.

Hey both, thanks fopr getting involved in the jam! I forgot how fast characters move in Doom! FYI, issues running the doom engine on intel integrated graphics on windows 10. I completed your puzzles! Only small thing I'd have liked is sometimes the far side lever meant you couldn't observe what it was changing while interacting with it! It was neat to have the puzzle let you jump back over a previous puzzle, I liked that.