itch.io

Oh this is adorable! And it’s your first jam? I mean, it’s a somewhat basic concept, but you absolutely NAILED the execution! It’s really polished, and the level design is pretty great for being the first few sections. The only “big” thing I’d comment on is the lack of music, but a lot of games here don’t have any, so it’s not even a problem. I really wanna see where this goes in future!

I think the concept is really strong, but I think you should be able to influence the board a bit more. This could mean just drawing more cards per turn, but it could also mean having a certain number of “tile swaps” per turn, being able to interact with enemy tiles, and/or being able to use cards to “lock” certain tiles for a number of turns. Would also be nice if you could defend yourself from damage in some way, like swapping tiles for some kind of shield tile or, as mentioned previously, being able to overwrite enemy tiles.

The music is pretty good, despite the fact I got fell in a mirror dimension by going through a loading zone diagonally.

This is good foundation! I like your concept, and feel there’s some real potential if you add things like wand upgrades, more minion types, and enemy variety. I’d love to see where this would go if given the chance to polish and refine it more!

The game’s plenty cute and fun, I just can’t seem to figure out how to control whether I launch high or far. The tutorial does well enough showing controls, but I can’t find any hints about this. I will also note that I think it’s really cool you have controller support! Not a lot of games on here have that!

You have a really cute concept, but I don’t feel like you do quite enough with it? Because from what I played, it looked like what you did was try to make levels with the vibe of going backwards, but at times it was sort of just standard platformer design except you go left? I feel like to really sell the concept, you could’ve made it so first you need to beat the level normally, then double back and beat it backwards, y’know?

It’s a really cool concept, my only real concern is how much more you can really do with it? Though in fairness I’m pretty inexperienced in puzzles, so I really don’t know how much you could do with it. I’m sure there’s something you can do with adding more mechanics to augment the main level design, maybe something like an enemy that has similar death mechanics to the player, or some kind of switch that needs to be held down by a past life? I dunno! There’s certainly some potential!

Oh, forgot to mention the sound cues for when zombies attack are very helpful. A little jumpscare that gives you the chance to react and protect yourself!

This is a very solid game! I like the limited vision, ala Project Zomboid. Took a while to figure out where everything was, but once I did it all clicked! It’s very “lock and key”, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The only real problem I had was that the collision on “dead” zombies was inconsistent in a way I can’t really figure out? Sometimes I’d get trapped by a corpse and just have to wait for it to get back up and try to kill it in a better position, while other times I could just walk through. Oh! Also, I want to ask, do the loading zones actually load other scenes, or do they just teleport the player? I’m curious!

My only real notes are that the breaking and maybe acceleration should’ve been a bit stronger? That way the player feels more in control of their movements. Granted, in a game like this, the player isn’t supposed to be in full control, but I feel like it’s just way too difficult to halt your momentum. Oh also the game randomly bugged(?) at one point and the music just stopped completely, and it’s really funny how ominous the game becomes without the cheery music backing it.

Your pixel art is very solid, and the concept is pretty cool! The only things are I felt it was a little bit on the punishing side, with dying in a single hit in addition to the lightbulb being an alternate lose condition. Additionally, the movement felt a little… Off? I don’t play a ton of platformers, so it’s hard to say why exactly (plus I’m not used to using the arrow keys) but I’d say it’s a combination of particularly harsh gravity and a lack of coyote time that makes it particularly difficult. Also, being able to hold the fire button instead of spamming it would’ve been nice, but needing to spam it gives the game a more frantic feel, which might’ve been the idea.

Oh this is an adorable little puzzle game with plenty of charm! Honestly, I feel like it would make for a wonderful little mobile game to play on a train or in a cab with its entirely mouse-centric control scheme. Oh, and I have to mention, making puzzle games are HARD, I honestly don’t even really know how to approach it from a design standpoint… So great job! Especially for your first jam!

Yeah, I agree. I tried to help that by adding a short delay after each action, but it really needs actual animations to feel punchy. …The delay also caused a gamebreaking bug that had to be fixed shortly after submission, oops-

So now that I can play the game, here are my notes: I quite like the little dirt creature you play as, and I quite like how they’re animated! As a roguelite, it lacks a real sense of progress, y’know? And it could really do with added variety, in rooms, enemies, and upgrades. You do have all the basics down, you just need to expand on it to make the game more in-depth and exciting! Oh, and as for the enemy spawning, there should probably be a reticle or something before they spawn, because they can and will spawn directly on top of you.

That is a very valid critique, and we did intend to have that, but couldn’t fit it in with the time crunch…

A very cute idea that caught me off-guard, taking the idea of ability upgrades and making them into upgrades of the game itself! The only negative things I have to say is that dash probably should’ve been bound to [Shift] and maybe be able to move the camera around with the arrow keys to help with knowing where to go, there’s a part where you need to go down but can’t see where you’re going, so you just have to mess around and find out. Other than that, pretty dang good! Especially for your first game!

I’m so sorry, but you seem to have messed up uploading the project; You only have the .exe file, but lack any of the other files needed for the game to actually run. If you talk to Shovel he might be able to help you with that?