Thanks for playing and recording it! It looks like some sort of bug is happening because you're supposed to be able to aim with the mouse, which lets you extinguish those floor fire, have more flexibility with the cat fires, and rescue the monkeys while standing. I haven't seen that happen yet.
I'm glad you were still able to stick with it despite that happening and I appreciate all the feedback!
I actually had the temperature in Celsius for most of development but switched it to Fahrenheit as I sort of associate it with firemen and dystopia because of the novel Fahrenheit 451, maybe I should add the temp type as an option.
Wow this was incredible. Clicker games in a way are like a distillation of RPG mechanics, so it was really cool seeing them brought back into an RPG context. It probably took me around 10 minutes or so to figure out exactly how all the mechanics worked. The boredom mechanic and having the battles play on auto is another great way the clicker game theme is brought into the fold.
The Break Free easter egg blew me away as well. That could have been an entire jam entry on its own. It was very tense, and the (narrator?) creature was super creepy. Was the implication that I was one of those creatures all along as well? Did the clicker games turn me into that?? It's amazing how that whole sequence is optional, and it has some sinister implications for rest of the game world. I found myself having flashbacks when I went back to finish the main ending haha.
This has probably some of the best and most responsive crawling controls in the whole jam. The input queue might have been a bit overkill for my tastes though.
The narration is great and funny but sometimes it was hard to tell what element the narrator was commenting on, as they would get interrupted by different actions I would take.
Also, for the second half of the robot world, I got stuck with one of the v3 enemies with me for almost the rest of the game. It was blocking almost all of my attacks and I was blocking all of its, so it sort of was stuck with me for a while. That sort of made it easier to walk around without worrying about boredom for a while, I feel like that probably wasn't supposed to happen?
Super cool, I think my favorite part was facing off against the Orochi Burners. Before getting the water orbs, facing the one in the library was a tense encounter with a really nice reward. I like the hand equip system and the limited ammo for most of the items. Nice work!
One thing that annoyed me was that turning and strafing felt a bit touchy. I generally like to be able to press those while still holding down W, with those actions overriding it, so I can then quickly return to going forward after turning/strafing.
P.S. did you make the enemy models yourself? I really like just how low-poly they are while retaining a sense of realism, I've been trying to pare down some human models of mine recently haha
Super cool theming, the diegetic HUD elements are really cool.
I like how you sort of have a game manual on the title screen; it also kinda reminds me of the mission briefings from the earlier MGS games. I love when games have expository files and stuff like that you can read before getting into it. I feel it helps immerse me into it more, especially in a sci-fi world like this.
Thanks so much!! Thanks for the kind words and for saving the endangered cyborg cats :)
In regards to your comment about the grid, I agree, this was using some ideas I had come up with before, then once I heard about this jam I figured I would try using them in a dungeon crawler context. I think next time I would like to try playing around more with the dungeon crawler-specific "timing" elements.
Super cool!! I love how the town is made up of named characters and how they helped me out when I came back to the village wounded, really feels like I form a relationship with them. Also the begging mechanic and its dialogue was super funny. For the battles, given the tight graphical restrictions, I was surprised at how nice the UI is and how cleanly my and the enemies actions and stats can be read at all times. P.S. it's really nice how many options there are for the CRT shader haha, more games should have that.
The theming and atmosphere are incredible, and having vocal tracks is amazing! I love the environmental details like the corndog chapel and the little text blurbs that come with them. Naming my character in a game that's in a mall made me feel like I was actually playing as myself in a way.
The combat is also super cool! I was very confused at first, I thought I just had to scribble, but then I saw how the gestures worked on the main page description. I wasn't able to quite nail defending the dog cop's attack patterns, so I always was losing a lot more health than I could gain on those battles.
Just wanted to say the narrative elements here are incredible. Feels like the Team ICO/GenDesign games with all of these details and implications I'm realizing after playing. So much is implied in so many creative ways, like the damage flashes and stuff
The time skip premise is super cool! I saw you mentioned Earthbound in a comment and it kinda reminds me of the vibe of the ending of that game, and some of its movie inspirations. The art is beautiful!
The hero gear or other remnants a good idea. If I end up coming back to this project I would consider that to add some meat to the bones. Thanks for playing!
Thanks for playing! Yeah I watched some other people play and they were having some similar issues with the fires on the cats too. How were the ground fires' hitboxes?
Thanks for playing! I actually haven't played a lot of firefighter games but this was inspired by some similar natural disaster kinda games. Kinda interested in seeing what's out there.
This was super cool! The visuals are fantastic. I especially loved the battle system, all the slimes had cool characterization with their mechanics, setting them up for battle and using their unique abilities with their trait meters was so cool.
I love the look of the levels, feels really organic. Some cool secrets too. Nice Troll 2 protagonist haha. Is the flyer the best melee weapon in the game??
Thanks so much for playing it and recording it! It was super valuable getting to watch someone else play it. That bit about the extinguisher was super enlightening, I was playing around with some different methods of how it would work but didn't think of looking up how to use an actual extinguisher for inspiration! If I move further with this project that's definitely one of the first changes I plan on making.
Thanks for playing! I hadn't heard of The Fireman before but I had suspected it was a Human Entertainment game right as I read that! Their game SOS on the SNES was actually partial inspiration for this project.
Loving this! Making my way through nightmare mode right now. I heard you guys are working on rebindable inputs, one controller request I have would be to assign peering into the distance to the right stick click.
I love the premise of controlling drones, I liked how the interface was diegetic and you could see your human character controlling the drone. The enemy art was awesome.
I still need to go back and finish the boss, but I love the theming and aesthetic of this game. Having it all be a program that defrags your hard drive is super clever. Really feels like it could be an extension of existing Tron lore. I love details like your health being cpu usage going up, and how the fragmented/defragged blocks looking like how I'd see them in my head. Also your guide on the page was really cool, felt like an old-school game manual.
This was fantastic, totally up my alley. I love unconventional controls and diegetic flourishes that immerse you in the character, and this had all of that. The combat was tense and it was fun trying to manage all of my terminals during it. The visuals were great, I loved all the little drawn details and notes on the mech, like even gameplay tips inside the cannonball cover. Drinking the cheese tea was a cute addition too :)
In terms of critiques, I felt that the enemies' animations were hard to decipher and it was hard to tell when their attacks were going to land, which made the combat feel a bit mushy, especially before I upgraded to have longer attack range. I also think it would have been more consistent if the claw could activate the levers and button. But these are small critiques, I really enjoyed it.
The stamina mechanic for turning is a great idea. I also like the visuals and sense of space in the final area. Navigation in general was a bit confusing, there were a few times I got turned around or couldn't move somewhere I thought I could, but it added to the tense horror atmosphere. Nice job!
