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Never managed to play this one at the jam, glad I got to play it now.

I think it's very  cool to be able to have a game this interactive with only two controls. Nice job!

My only critique (and it's a very minor one) is that the respawing animation is just long enough to get annoying when you're dying over and over until you get the hang of it.

Haha clearly I just think like a computer ;)

I immediately went "right well if I don't to this grid-based and symbol-based I'm going to get horribly confused very quickly"

Also yeah getting criticism is my fav part of jams as well!

And yeah it's a tricky thing to balance, because you don't want to go too far the other way, and have it feel like you're just following instructions from the book

Sick game! I managed to recover the bodies - I'll attach the map I ended up with at the end because I think it's cool.

I love the concept of drawing out a map, and the concept of having to reference some out-of-game documents, but I will say in practice the documents were quite hard to understand. This was partially because the handwriting was hard to parse sometimes, but also it often seemed like the journal didn't really match up with the game world. Even after finding the bodies and looking back at my map, I couldn't really see how it related to the various diagrams and maps and instructions in the journal, which meant I spent a lot of my playthrough feeling like I was just blindly wandering and hoping I was going in the right direction (which was still fun, with the map-drawing, but occasionally crossed the line in to tedious)

Also, absolutely love the artstyle and aesthetic. 10/10

Really excited to see whatever you come up with next!

(SPOILERS FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO PLAY IT BLIND)

A solid concept executed very well! I think this might be the game I had the most fun playing.

Also the dynamic music slaps.

The only thing I'd change is that I'd love if the size of the target scaled as the gap size did, as when you get to very big gaps it feels pretty impossible to hit

Really sick game! Definitely invoked the Getting Over It "I'm going keep trying until I beat this" in me.

If feedback is welcome: I'd recommend looking into a technique called Coyote Time, and making gravity stronger when you're falling than when you're jumping, both of which can help the movement feel smoother. There's a cool "interactive video essay" you can play that demonstrates the concepts: https://gmtk.itch.io/platformer-toolkit

Incredible, can't wait :)

Also yeah having played a bit more since making my original post, I definitely did get used to the dropping vs jumping thing, and I think it does work well

Another random thought: it would be helpful if crystals that you've already collected turned grey / ghostly so that you know you've already collected to them - also makes it clearer that you don't necessarily have to collect them all in one run to unlock the sim mode, which I thought at first

Super cool demo! Fixed a lot of my gripes with the climbing in Hatch, while delivering more of my favourite parts of Hatch - the section near the summit with all of the long jumps onto thin platforms that have you biting your nails - here delivered with way more crunch and weight to them.

I also think this makes a really cool speed game, as trying to go as fast as possible leads to more daring leaps and in some sections a great sense of flow when you're jumping between platforms and slopes at top speeds. That said, the sections where you have to climb directly upwards break this flow, as suddenly you're just holding up for a while without doing anything  (it's worth noting that in the first playthrough of a level, when I'm not playing for time, this is totally fine, I'm slowly looking around at the environment and planning carefully and so the slow pacing of climbing directly upwards feels right). I wonder this could be addressed by  making jumping and regrabbing equally as stamina-efficient as normal climbing, so that if you're going for speed you have that option which is a) slightly faster b) slightly more dangerous and c) means you're still actively doing something

I also think it would feel nice if stamina instantly recharged when you touched flat ground rather than having to wait for it. It feels realistic to need to wait for your stamina, but again it breaks that flow when you're trying to go fast. It also discourages leaping towards platforms at the end of a climb (because it uses more stamina so you have to wait longer) which is a shame because doing that feels really fun. The slow stamina recharge could still be used when sliding on slopes though because then you have the fun tension of not being sure if you'll get enough stamina back or not.

One other minor gripe was that not pushing off when looking below the waist and jumping from a wall feels unintuitive to me. I feel like I should be propelled forward in the direction I'm looking when I press space (maybe not if I'm looking directly  down though), and maybe dropping should be a different key like control or pressing left-click again. This could even lead to the slightly interesting decision between jumping down propels you so is slightly faster, but uses more stamina, whereas dropping is free.

Backseat game-designing aside, this was a really fun demo that shows a lot of promise, and I'm definitely going to wishlist the full game on steam.

p.s. I saw in the trailer that there looked to be some sort of grappling hook mechanic, which I'm very excited for. Grappling / swinging mechanics make literally every game better :)

Thanks for playing!

10/10 would cry again.

In all seriousness though, I really love how the mechanics actually change as the narrative develops. I started off thinking "oh, another game where you have to switch between the two people in the two different worlds" but every new twist on how it worked before kept it interesting.

The trade off for this is that most of the levels end up feeling quite easy, because you have to re-introduce new mechanics each time, but I think for a narrative-focused game the levels should be relatively easy anyway!

Really interesting game!

One of my favourite games in the jam! The funky music was perfect, and the way it changed dynamically as you did better or worse was so cool! It also ended up being way more difficult that I expected to remember which key was witch when you wanted to switch, but in a goo way!

100% agreed, I intended to add text that flashes up when you pick up a component that tells you what it does but never implemented it in the end

(the shield is just able to take more hits that the rest of the components, so you can place it in front of your important pieces to protect them)

Thanks for playing and for the feedback!

Super impressive presentation-wise for only 13 hours!

The gameplay itself is fun, but feels completely dependent on luck of what happens to spawn, I feel like I never had to make any actual choices

A neat concept! Unfortunately I ended up feeling like the optimal strategy was just to hold the accelerator down on both cars the whole time, but that's just a classic example of players optimising the fun out.

Really solid visuals too!

I simultaneously absolutely love and hate this game. I had a lot of fun but also probably about about 7 aneurysms playing it.

Flinging yourself about is super fun but it's really hard to understand what's going on while doing so, and the fact you can't see in front of you when holding the ball is super frustrating given you're trying to aim.

That said this is also one of my favourite games in the jam

Thanks so much for playing! I 100% agree, I think the core should have a weapon in-built, unfortunately I only thought of this 5 mins after the deadline :p

Likewise I definitely wanted to add pop-up text explaining what something is when you pick it up, but it was another casualty of the time limit

Had a lot of fun playing this one!

In terms of design I love the laser, it's a nice spanner in the works that makes the game a lot more interesting because now there's also something you need to avoid with the the tether, rather than wanting to catch everything. I'd love to see some sort of reward for catching the missiles, e.g. every missile caught instead of dodged would give like a tiny amount of energy back or something, I think it would make it extra satisfying (though obviously that would affect balance)

Really impressive art and music too!

(p.s. my high score is 92)

Unfortunately I found this quite hard to actually play - I didn't really understand what the goal was, as far as I could tell all I can do is click things until the lines light up, but that still didn't seem to light the lightbulb?

I also found it confusing that things only light up one way, and if you flip them 180 degrees they no longer light up, even though the two pieces look connected either way.

I also would have loved some sort of visual indication of which things I am allowed to turn and which things I can't

Super fun concept! Having to bounce your bullet back and forth makes it so much more interesting that just firing a gun. I would love to see more things that make use of the fact it goes out and then in again, like enemies with shields you have to hit from behind

Really funny concept, and it's cool how it turns it from a turn-based rpg into more of a puzzle game, where you have to figure out the right order to do things in

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I definitely would have liked to add sound and the restarting option!

This is a very interesting concept! Unfortunately I wasn't able to assess how interesting new tactics and such are as I didn't have anyone to play with, but I also really love it in terms of presentation! It made it effortlessly clear which pieces you had selected, and the fact that the piece the move is based on had a larger circle is a nice touch, just adds even more clarity. The smashing sound effect when you took a piece felt very crunchy too. Really liked this!

Thanks for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Really cute art, really cool concept, and well executed!

Would love to see some more levels that challenge the player and challenge the concept

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

As Mark Brown would say, "it's a game!"

Pretty smooth to control for your first 3d game and especially for a first jam, good job!

Very interesting concept! I wish there was some sort of visual indicator for how long a connection was allowed to be

I like a lot about this concept, like the risk-reward of how greedy to be with having more treasure slowing you down.

I think it would be more interesting if the player knew where the exit was, however, as I found myself just wandering around very very slowly by the end.

Additionally, I like that enemies don't kill you, you just want to avoid them because they're heavy and slow you down a lot. However, if enemies can't harm you, why does being slow matter? I feel like there needs to be some sort of motivator to stay light and fast, like a timer for the level or enemies that you need to run away from or something

A solid puzzle concept well-executed! Really got me thinking towards the end and had a nice smooth ramp in terms of difficulty curve. Excellent job!

Really love this concept, shooting things in slow-mo is always really satisfying.

Personally, I think this game might have been better if it were just 2-dimensional - that way you don't need a separate view for the gun and I think it helps let players understand what is going on so they can focus on doing cool stuff.

Really loved this though!

A good concept well executed! I found it was just the right level of difficulty for me too, well done!

Agreed! There's definitely much more I wanted to do in terms of balancing stuff but ran out of time in the end

This was a pretty cool idea! I'd love it if you were able to throw one piece into another to knock them both back

Really fun concept, gorgeous art, and I literally laughed out loud at the little animation of the word cursed sliding up when you pick up the flail. Excellent job!

Absolutely love this idea, but I really wish you were able to replace the items you've already picked up, and/or be able to put them on specific functions rather than it be random, just to give the player a little more agency.

Really enjoyed this one though!

One of my favourite games I've played in the jam so far! A solid puzzle mechanic, executed really well, and with some clever level design too!

My only grievance is that I found timing the ranged shot quite tricky which ended up meaning that even once I knew how a level could be solved I had to keep trying it over and over because I kept messing it up.

Ahhh I always add things last minute that go a little wrong too! Last year I managed to mess up all of the hitboxes on everything in the game about 10 minutes before submission, which was especially bad given it was a game about trying to precisely park cars in tight parking spots :D

I'm not quite sure, it's hard to put my finger on.

I think colliding with the side of platforms just looked a bit funky at times? and controlling the character while in the air just felt a little off. Sorry I can't really provide more specifics!

Really fun concept, being able to climb up walls and along ceilings is really satisfying.

Unfortunately I also found actually trying to control the characters and swing around to be slightly frustrating

Really cool game!