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I won and then the game seemed to end. Or did it? I can’t really tell. Or, it seems like the mouse tracking became broken and laggy.

Feels like it could be fun. With proper grafix the dice rolling could be satisfying. Powerups made no sense to me. Like someone else said, maybe something more simple like score multipliers or dice adjusters (change one or more to a D12 or a D3 or something - could be a benefit or restriction depending on if you simplify the scoring system).

It’s sideways Tower Wizard. I played on the web version.

I felt that after getting each new building/unit type, there was little reason to use previous ones. Try to balance so older units have some reason to still be useful. Perhaps they get powerups later that make them relevant again?

Graphics are simplistic, could do with some polish, but hopefully you’re just saving that until after you have the rest of the game balance sorted.

I was hovering over tall house stacks, thinking they’d reached max, but later found out the mouseover area is only the bottom few houses. I think it should be the entire stack.

Nav could be better. The mouse wheel zoom was useless, holding left/right arrows to pan took too long once buildings started getting numerous.

I played it for 30-60 minutes, so you’re off to a good start. Hit a wall (heh) at Ka-boomers, so didn’t play to the end. Hopefully you’ve got some kind of prestige system, as that always makes an incremental game far more interesting. Failing that, throw in some weird/unexpected twists to keep it interesting too.

Huge improvement since the previous demo! Everything felt far more polished. New control system is way more intuitive. BGM is lovely and chill.

Managed to get a couple of OP books (mult on S, mult on frosty spaces) that carried me to the end, but they felt balanced enough that they were pleasing to get. Didn’t feel broken.

Tutorial is perhaps a bit much, I just want to get spelling. Maybe just let the player discover things for themselves? Would perhaps work better if the shop interface isn’t tabbed. Could make it a modal which covers the screen to give yourself more space (with an option to peak back at the board if you want to check its current state).

Other than that, juice it up some more to really pull people in and you’ve got a winner. Looking forward to release!

Thanks so much for the video, really helpful to see which puzzles are too hard/too/easy/unintuitive. Where you got stuck would fall under “unintuitive” I suppose: from there you need to backtrack then solve to alternate route to get to the other side.

Have been thinking about how to implement some kind of limited hint item, if I can figure something out that works will look to add!

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Some of those bugs in the secret area are a real mystery to me, I’ll try and figure out what’s going on.

Will work to get the puzzle balance better in the full game. Demo Days are tough as I don’t want to make the demo too long. In the full game I’ll take time with easy “tutorial” puzzles where the route is obvious, then more of the tougher puzzles with more, less obvious options to the solution.

The one you got stuck on took me twice as long to design as the others, so it should be tough! Here’s the solution:

Thanks for playing! The diegetic door idea is great; will look to implement something like that!

I enjoyed the writing. Dialogue never goes on too long, and it feels quite natural.

Being able to examine everything was nice, you could easily expand that into needing to read things to figure out puzzles. The boards in the lab were a highlight, really gave the sense of a wider mystery that I want to learn about.

The sokoban and sliding mechanics ( side note: <3 ) were introduced nicely: no need for explanation. The door switching was also a fun twist, even if it wasn’t explored too much.

Sometimes the visuals in the basement were a bit confusing: had trouble differentiating between the grey walls and grey voids and slightly different grey floors. Also boxes and floor items were inconsistent: some you could walk behind or on, some you couldn’t.

I paused and saved the game just after splitting up with Cade. Kept the Itch tab open, but when I reloaded the next day the save was gone. Might just be my tinfoil hat browser’s fault though. Didn’t take too long to speedrun back to that point.

Wanted to go explore after getting the gold key, didn’t like being forced to follow Cade. Didn’t matter too much though. Explored shortly afterwards, but wasn’t really anything to find.

Was surprised when it ended, felt like it was just getting warmed up and I wanted more!

tl;dr: sci-fi mystery is cool, gimme harder puzzles

Thanks for playing again. You’re too kind. oh_gosh.png

The plan for the full game is to make it less linear, so I’ll try to keep in mind “breather areas”. Hopefully being able to leave puzzles and go somewhere else will take away some of that brain tired.

I have full confidence in my writer, so I’m going to send this to him to put more pressure on him.

Congrats dude! Well deserved for all the feedback.

You’re right about all the points here too, added to the list!

Thanks for playing it again! And for the detailed feedback. Always really helpful.

Yeah you’re missing the secret areas and the prize book. I think I hid it too well this time; I don’t think anyone’s found it. Will probably put a hint in the thread soon.

what’s with the title change?

Reverted to the working title while my writer friend comes up with new lore

gamepad didn’t work for me, using a Dualsense on Linux. Is that intended?

Intended only because I didn’t add controller support because I don’t use one. Top of the list for next time.

the movement sounds are a bit grating […] also seem weirdly out of sync

Still trying to find the right balance between BGM and SFX levels, perhaps they’re too loud. Also, trying to be authentically Game Boy Color, so have been working with just a noise channel to try and design the SFX. Will give that up if I can’t make them nicer. Re sync: yeah, this was a quick job using animations to trigger audio clips, I think I need a better approach.

ice trails […] gets a bit messy looking though. Maybe consider making specific tiles

Good idea. Again, the messiness is largely due to being a test implementation. That’s a good idea for improvement.

it blocks you from walking off edges […] convenient suicide

Someone else mentioned it this time too! I think you’re both right, have seen other testers struggle with that. Will take away that “safety” “”“feature”””

the transition between tracks could need some work

Just a simple crossfade at the moment. Agree on the messy sound between tracks: planned future improvement will be a dynamic audio system that matches beats etc. (at the moment I’m just reusing tracks I wrote years ago and lost the source files.) I’ll change it to a full fadeout before the new track comes in for now.

the ice blocks could need some glint animation or something

Absolutely agree. All interactables need animation, really.

when you push a minecart or ice block a long way it’s a bit annoying how long you’re stuck in place

Yeah not sure how to fix this: if I let the player move people might think a solution is to “race” the moving item. Could make for some interesting new puzzle twists though.

some broken y-sorting in a few places

Yeah I’m dumb. Noticed but not enough time to fix before DD.

Thanks for playing and the kind feedback! I always doubt the art and am constantly thinking about redoing it all. I suppose that’s a natural result of over-exposure and self-criticism.

Glad you enjoyed the backtracking. I think it was a bit more elegant in previous demos, so hope you’ll enjoy when I have a bit more time to improve the puzzles.

Web optimisation will be fixed in Godot 5.0 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

A lot of these issues should have been resolved in the latest hotfix version: books not being saved and that push block solving itself leading to a softlock.

Planning to have less linearity in the proper game. The idea being if you get stuck on a puzzle, there are other routes you could take.

The extra bridge tile on “Bat Country” is an accidental red herring. I spent about 2 hours making that map (usually they take me around an hour), but just before DD submission I realised you couldn’t backtrack from there. Bridge was a quick, messy fix to save me from having to redesign the whole puzzle.

Thanks for for playing and for the detailed feedback! The video is really helpful.

01: Noticed a flashing frame after compile, never took the time to figure out what it was because deadline. That should be easy to fix.

02: Yeah the hand focus logic is really janky. Will need to redo entirely.

03: A few reports of this. I think adding in some more safety stop() commands should sort it.

04: I think this happens when you’re standing on ice/gold. I recently rebuilt the movement controller. Spotted this late, should be a simple fix.

05: That’s a new one! Thanks for the report.

06: Yeah saw this in late testing. I’m dumb and let the icon set its own start position every time. Just need to make it a constant.

07: I think I fixed this in hotfix #1: put some custom logic in room “Storage” to prevent that block behaviour. Will make a more robust fix later.

08/09: That’s strange, there should only be one turtle in the first water room.

10: There’s a deliberate “illusory wall” tile somewhere that leads to a few extra challenges and the final book (I don’t think anyone has found it yet). Hint: it looks like a misplaced tile. Maybe I accidentally put another non-blocking wall in an unintended place.

If no one finds the secret in a day or so I’ll pop a hint in the thread.

11: If I’m thinking of the same part, should have been solved by hotfix #1.

12: Agreed. Going to redo menus entirely, they’re a bit “dev-mode” at the moment.

13: Another victim of the new movement controller (04). On the fix list.

14: Interesting! Will try to replicate.

15: Not sure what you mean here. There was a bug where books weren’t saving between sessions, should be resolved with hotfix #2.

Thanks for playing again! This is all really helpful.

Text bubble on restart is a bit annoying

That was my concern. Some people seem to like it. Will consider removing if I can’t make it less obtrusive.

I can’t walk left to kill myself after the bait minecart, feels like a bug? I guess it’s like how you don’t walk off the edge unless you slide into it… still.

As you say, That was put in as a bit of a safety. Probably not needed though if it’s unintuitive

Lack of undo is getting annoying.

Someone said this in a previous DD. Considered, but thought it might make it too easy. If it had undo though I could make longer puzzles that are less frustrating. I think you just convinced me!

book select [is janky]

My custom focus code for the hand icon is shit. Will be rebuilding the menus.

The 1/2 in the corners of the book feel kind of pointless, since it never seems to be longer than two pages? […] remove them.

I think I’m going to replace the books with just a single page note for these reasons and because it’s difficult to read when there are only like 3 words per line.

erroneous prompt to put down the head

The prompt logic is still a bit messy after I refactored the player controller. There are lots of other cases where it isn’t working too. On the list!

I can see the top of the save icon in the bottom right at all times.

Spotted this late in testing. I’m dumb and let the icon set its own start position every time, so if it’s called twice quickly it gets a new, on-screen start position. Just need to make the start position a constant.

Ice blocks being unpushable on ice feels odd. Would help sell it if you did an animation where he runs in place, to show it’s too slippery to get traction or whatever.

That’s the exact reason behind not letting them be pushed on ice. Will add that animation!

I get stumped on the 1 ice block 5 icicles room.

I think this is the hardest puzzle in the demo because there are so many permutations. You have to push the block right then down (still on ground), use that to bounce off and destroy all icicles, then push the block into the hole to escape.

stuck on the monkey and minecart area

Get the head first without bridges. Bump both minecarts. Place head. Escape bottom bridge.

no controller support is ridiculous

You’re right! Simply didn’t cross my mind for these early demos. Will add for next time.

Interesting idea. Controls a bit clunky, but I’m sure I could get used to it.

Maybe copy 3D design program controls: use mouse click+drag to orbit around a central point, and wheel to zoom. I think the extra rotation option (Q/E) that you have just helps me lose orientation faster.

I think you’re using an orthogonal camera. A perspective camera might help with intuitively figuring out the depth of nodes in the cube. And/or alter the size/opacity of the empty points: closer larger/opaque, further smaller/slightly transparent.

Improve control and visibility, add some juice, and you’ve got a solid game!

Thanks for the detailed feedback! I kind of rushed you into the deep end for this demo. I’ll make sure to have a puzzle to explain that you need momentum to hit objects next time.

I think the puzzles just south of the /agdg/ logo are the toughest in the demo: so many permutations with the ice blocks. This whole demo was a bit of a rush job so I don’t think I balanced it properly: the alternate route going right of the /agdg/ logo is much easier so gg on getting through hard mode.

This is now fixed. Turns out it was a known Godot issue: I was using the new resource UIDs to save references to the books you’ve collected, but resource UIDs don’t work after compilation ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks again for letting me know!

Oh that’s weird. Seems to be something to do with how the built versions of the game are saving the collected books. Would have never spotted that, thanks for letting me know!

Really liked the whole presentation: chunky pixel art, chill music, juicy effects.

Enjoyed the simple up-down solitaire style. I liked the different “board” layouts, added some tactics to it. Don’t think I fully understood the nuance between heat/draw/attacking/skipping turns. The “wild” card effect was more interesting and immediately understandable, wonder if there’s more of those.

Kind of mindlessly brute-forced my way through my first run. I’d like it more if it were a little more difficult (make failing fun!). But then it’s be less of a zen play-on-autopilot game. Suppose it depends on what you’re going for.

Solid game though. Enjoyed my chill 30 mins with it. The “Average” assessment made me kek

Also would be nice to be able to control the camera with my right hand on the keyboard so I can adjust it while left had does WASD duties. J and L maybe?

Second all of this

From the start the game menu felt nice and polished. Great music. Reminded me of Dreamcast-era Sega: super energetic and exciting.

Dialogue test looked good.

First time playing, the opening level was surprisingly challenging. Took me just under 5 mins to complete. I’d suggest having a few shorter levels to introduce each mechanic (basic movement, jumps, combat, etc.) then have your current opener as a test putting it all together.

Played on macOS, game ran well and didn’t experience the shrinking ball glitch.

I definitely want to include a map! Thinking of a simple SotN boxes-and-connectors thing. Just need to decide on implementation: auto-generation or one big manually drawn sprite.

I don’t have an Anbernic device to test an ARM port on, but will look into it.

Thanks for playing! You should be able to skip the splashes by using the action key (enter or E), but I suppose that isn’t obvious when you first play.

Thanks for playing! That’s about the half-way point of the demo.

Thanks! Minecarts have a spawn orientation variable, I’m just dumb and forgot to set that one (and probably more)

Can’t beat a good game of Scrabble.

This is a fun idea, but I felt like the controls were a bit clunky. Made it harder to experiment with words like I would IRL. Consider:

• Mouse control: allow the user to drag and drop tiles wherever they want on the board. Obviously only do your scoring logic when there’s a single continuous line. Maybe give the currently placed tiles a really obvious outline or subtly animate them so people can’t lose them.
• Let me reorder the tiles that are in my “hand” via drag/drop to figure out words.
• Clicking an empty tile then arrow works okay, and I’d like it as an alternate control scheme if I could then type to enter my tiles. Was my first instinct but that didn’t work.

Books are a nice substitute for Balatro’s Jokers. Having references to real books is a great idea.

Shop is perhaps a bit too cluttered with all the various types of powerups. I didn’t feel like browsing every tab after every round.

Bounties is a great idea, and the Vamp Survivors-like “powerup” option on completing one was cool.

Edit: also tough timing, YouTube gamedev man has just released something similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuXrwA9nzM8

I got 15 on a shitty trackpad.

The “WarioWare meets Hackers” concept is brilliant.

As a comment on the page said, most games are pretty cryptic and require failing first. I think part of the WarioWare magic is that most games are easy enough to be done first try, but only become a challenge at higher speeds or harder difficulties/variations.

Got to 156 kills when I ran out of ammo and a big boss-looking laser-shooting plane showed up and killed me.

Only got that far due to previous comments tipping me off that there wasn’t infinite ammo. Felt weird, but I suppose dodging is the purest part of the shmup anyway.

Progression could be faster/more interesting. I was just in a featureless desert the entire time. If the terrain changed every now and then it would make it more interesting, even if you just went from sandy desert -> rocky desert -> desert settlements.

Enemies could also have a bit more variety. Everyone was grey, hard to distinguish at a glance.

But overall, pretty fun.

Stopped it with 70 people murdered. I have no idea what I did.

I liked the aesthetic and I’m glad the little cat didn’t die.

I didn’t like the stutter, but I did play in the browser so maybe I deserve it.

Production is great: nice art (handsome squidward spider monsters are neat), bitchin’ music, and seems to run smoothly with a screen full of enemies.

But echoing others: it needs some kind of twist on the Vampire Survivors formula to make it your own. Otherwise, it just feels like a simplistic reskin.

Below you said you’re not an ideas guy, so here’s a few ideas:

• A different way to earn weapons: maybe the player has to explore the map to unlock them, and levelling up is just for base stats
• Items you can drop on the map, tower defence-style, to help you out. Things like gun turrets or shield generators
• More reasons to explore the map: find CPU-controlled players who can fight alongside you
• Some kind of variation on the movement, like a dash or roll with iframes, or sprint limited by a stamina bar.

Perhaps terrible ideas, but hopefully they’ll help you think of something. Either way, looking forward to seeing progress.

I only played until pickaxe, but enjoyed the sense of exploration and Blorb.

Good:

• Music is nice
• The dev graphics are charming and have a decent amount of variation
• Writing is fun
• Blorb’s portrait brings me great joy

Not good:

• Collision detection is a bit janky (can’t go through what looks like 1-til gaps between trees and walls, sometimes empty parts of Blorb’s sprite gets caught on corners of scenery)
• Enemies can shoot across screens
• Some walls don’t line up between screens (it looks like there’s a large open edge you can traverse to the next screen, but the next screen only has a 2-unit high gap that the player can’t see)

Other:

• Being frozen while picking up mushrooms initially felt strange (I expect walk-over pickups to be instant), but I suppose it adds to the tension during a night time run

Fun little game, neat aesthetic.

• Niqle’s slotting fish idea is sweet
• Any plans to add more to the game? Could add powerups (fish magnet, faster/slower fish, multiple lines) or score reducers (picking up junk or something)

Repeating what others have said, it would be nice to have a bit more time to pick your weapon. I like the idea of pausing on new weapon pickup so you can decide if you want it (Vampire Survivors-style), or having the ceiling freeze after defeating all enemies and then be presented with new weapons as a reward.

Echoing SPECXHT’s comment, I’ve never played a game like this before. Not really my sort of thing, but the artwork is great. Consistent and charming. Looking forward to seeing more.

After viewing vignettes that zoom the camera in, it doesn’t zoom back out. Not sure if this is a bug, or by design to increase difficulty in finding the next thing. Giving the player control over the zoom level would be nice.

After I found the three items in the first level I wasn’t sure if I’d completed it or not. Some kind of win confirmation, even if it’s just something basic for these early builds, would be nice.

It’s a less violent Besiege.

• The simple, clean, low poly 3D is perfect.
• Water shader could be a bit nicer though.
• Level names as clues for the solution can be a bit difficult. I have no idea what an “ell” might be. Maybe this is some train nerd thing. And I’d call that “cross” layout a “figure 8”.
• On the other hand, I thought “chain” was a great descriptor
• So some other clue as to the solution could help on the more difficult layouts. A limited number of auto-placed pieces? You could put a badge of shame on the level select to show the player cheated and is small brained.
• A way to reposition the already-laid pieces would be handy (chain level fdfsff)
• UI (buttons etc.) needs polish, needs some nice chill BGM and SFX, but I assume that’s all on the to-do list

Not very clear what do do from the start. But otherwise an interesting idea for a puzzle game. Could be really good with a bit of polish.

Suggestions:

• Some more visual hinting might help, like displaying an outline of the shape you’re about to add on hover (rather than just enlarging the tile)
• Rather than have an instructions page, let the player learn the rules through playing the game.
• Tooltips could help with this. Have a little explainer when you hover over the other tile types like grass etc.
• Win/fail state not very clear. After a playthough I think the goal is to survive for as many turns as possible, and failure is when one of the shape types is extinct.

Possibly a bug or just an oversight:

• Once I clicked on a rotate button, I couldn’t exit that state. Tried right-clicking, Escape key, clicking the button again, etc. Playing web version.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah will be putting in a sound slider, the toggle was a quick fix after destroying everyone’s eardrums with no way to adjust at DD50.

It seems the consensus on the big screen puzzles is that they aren’t fun. That “leap of faith” description hits the nail on the head. I’ll either figure out a way to have an overview of the level, break them up into smaller sections, or just get rid of them.

I’ve found it difficult finding a readable font that fits in the GB tile size limitations. Will hopefully find something better for the next demo.