itch.io

My overall take is that I'm not sure the shooter elements really add much to the puzzle elements (or vice versa). The level's space is really well used. I get the feeling of a labyrinthine island but it is all tangled up together. I'd say it's a solid first draft!

Thanks for the color matching idea. I definitely have some presentational ideas I would have liked to do if I had more time - some common frames for the pictures, for example.  Maybe I'll polish it up and see what can be done...

I'm hoping to find some time to play some more submissions soon! 

I'm really happy you enjoyed it. Post-jam revisions are definitely going to spruce up the player choice aspects of the final sequence, so if you're interested, give it a follow!

As the guy who has probably played more Primetime Adventures than anyone on earth, possibly including the designer, I'm always up for a TV-structured tabletop RPG. This one has a lot of thought into structure but less into content. That's the area I'd suggest fleshing out in the post-jam revision times. I haven't seen these shows so when the game says "design a cool kaiju" I need more than just a few systemic prompts to help me do that. However, it's really well thought out in terms of structure, which is unusual for an itch.io jam game genre effort. Nicely done, you can feel the passion for the subject.

A nice start on a rhythm-based brawler.  I definitely see potential for more here!

Incredibly original mechanic. I love the challenge of focusing a camera through the bouncing ball. You could easily polish this up, add on some new city layouts, tee boxes, and kaiju and have a full, hilarious release.  Really exceptional, this was the game that had me the most excited about its possibilities.

Nice, very solid and focused experience. 

I think the design of the kaiju here is the real standout. Spooky, alien, horrific, well suited to the environment. Nice job

This game is cute as heck! 

There's a lot of prompt games on itch.io that don't really do much mechanically, which is a shame because good prompts are best when they're accompanied by good mechanics to carry you through them in a way that isn't just flat randomness. This game fully overcomes that with the decks of cards used by players and by the Threat.  It has a great deal of potential and could easily be polished into a real gem - the perfect compliment I can give to a jam game.  Exceptional!

There's randomtarotcard.com but the issue is that you need to pull cards and then discard them as you proceed through the deck.  Probably best to order a cheap deck if you want to play.

A shockingly polished game for a 2-week jam game. The mini-games made me laugh because of how varied they were, and the concept of the game is so cute and fun that I was just charmed from beginning to end. As someone who is just getting started in VNs, this is an inspiration for sure. My highest rating!

The atmosphere of this game is really nice (although I question the use of the hands in frame, from the time I spent with it it doesn't appear that the hands do anything. I definitely think there's a lot of potential here. The audio work and the style of the houses is excellent.

I really like the fun, lighthearted aspects of this game. You feel like you're on a goofy adventure the whole way through.

I downloaded it and this is a lot clearer:

"Centered" acts like it did before. Whenever I type, it snaps to the center of the page and as I type it pushes text off the top of the page.

"Sticky" allows me to select anywhere on the page, that line becomes the line that acts as "centered" above. This is my ideal portrait working mode. I put the sticky line near the bottom of the page (so I can see if there's something after what II'm writing) and still feel like I'm working on a roll of typewriter paper.

"Off" just types down the page to the bottom and then text above scrolls up.

Great job, it seems like it's working now! Thanks for the quick updates.

No prob.  It's a nice little thing and worth the cheap price.

Not sure I "get" this update. When I have "Centered" turned on, then I can click anywhere in the document and type and the cursor works its way down from the top all the way to the bottom, pushing text ahead of it if there is any. If I slide the scroll bar down (moving the text up) then when I start typing again it just behaves the same way. The text doesn't "automatically" scroll up until I'm at the very bottom of the page. This is the requested behavior I have above but I can't "start" the text scrolling anywhere - it only automatically happens at the bottom of the page.

When I have "Sticky" turned on, it behaves like it did before - I can click anywhere I want, but when I start typing the text jumps so that the line I'm working on is always in the middle of the page. Doesn't seem like anything I can do can change where on the page my work is going.

Awesome, I re downloaded and it looks great. Best wishes in this or future projects.

Got it. Yes, if it could be moved lower or turned off that would make portrait orientation feel a lot better. Right now if you're at the end of a file adding more text, half the screen is empty.  (When editing, of course, it's fine to have it on because being in the middle looks normal.)  Thanks and best wishes!

Hey, I really like this! I use a lot of "full screen" writing programs to aid in my process and this is one of the simplest and most effective. 

My question is this: I use a portrait-oriented screen (for that classic typewriter sheet experience).  As I write, the text only flows about halfway down the screen, and then begins to scroll off the top, leaving the lower 50 percent of the screen blank.  Is there a setting that I can use to completely fill the whole screen (or to customize where the scrolling begins, perhaps?)  

Great work and thanks!

I came back to re-download this for my archives and realized I forgot to mention that sometimes when I run it I make the witch a real witch! But she still just really wants to have some nice visitors every so often. And she really likes soccer and listens to the games on her radio.

Great atmosphere - I never found the whispering face and plenty of people seemed to get into the ritual without doing more than I did, so wasn't able to proceed. I think the pixelation is fine, but maybe limit the launcher a little more; just don't let people launch it at the higher resolution, because it makes things very hard to make out. And I'd suggest taking another look at the boundary behind the buildings - unlike the one across the road, it often appears just as a big black blank with some pixelated wire (?) at the top.  I love the path through the game though, and the soundscape is top tier.

Really really solid. The brevity of the experience makes it so that each little bite of emotional memory is sharply in focus. The "stores" are both simple and intriguing. Sharp and incisive.

Cool stuff. I love the use of color. My only thought for improvement is stuff like allowing quitting and adjusting visual and sound for accessibility. In terms of what's actually here, maybe I might make the "leaving" ending a little more aggressive. Don't let me turn around and walk back in...but that's all I can think to say. Great job!

A very nicely done and creepy VN scene with a lot of promise for the future. I'm not sure the choice adds a whole lot - either put more in or less. :)  Anyway, I hope your next project goes as well!

Good:
* Amongst a sea of other lo-fi horror games where they just look crappy, the VCR effects really work here. 

* The gun, sound effects and level design really seem like a 90s shooter that isn't quite ready for prime time. In particular the textures and map just look perfect. (On the other hand this doesn't look anything like a 1984-5 game. Here's a link to a screenshot of a first-person game from 1985, for example. The game should be from 1994-1995 - still quite advanced for its time - like a Quake mod - but within the realms of that period's imagionation.

* JOHN_DEV is a funny, good character. I interacted with many people like him in the chat windows of games like this. I'd love to have even more interaction with him.

Needs Work:

* But why is it on a VCR tape? Is the idea that the player recorded this in 1986? If so then why are all the servers empty? The "found footage" element of this doesn't mesh with the concept of finding these ancient servers still running.

* What, exactly, is the "other player" doing? Are they perceiving the level this way? Are they capturing the flag as well? I guess not because if they captured the flag the servers would go down. But then why are they another player? Are they a threat or is it just a misunderstanding? Remember that we are TWO levels removed from the threat - watching a screen on which someone watches a screen. We really need the  other player to pop in order to make it through all that.

Nicely done and can't wait to see what you'll do next.

Really nice job. I think you could even do more with the "dad who is the escape room guy". Is the main character tired of his BS, or is he sort of fond of the puzzles, or are they really excited for dad's latest game?  (How about mom, how does she feel?)  Then there could even be some tension when the danger arises; is this part of the game or not? 

Honestly the best thing about this game is Mrs. Burnwood. So often in horror games with a youthful protagonist, adults just don't behave like adults often do - in a protective or supportive manner. Nice to see a character of this sort.

Usually the "haunted PS1" vibe is meant to elicit feelings of dread - like you're playing a cursed game. I think the low fi aspect to it here could be explored a little more. Is this the memory of someone who played a lot of PS1 games? Etc.

Best wishes on what comes next!

I'm always a sucker for meta bullshit so this one is right in my wheelhouse. However, I think a little bit more attention to user experience (quitting easily, etc.) is always welcome even in exercises like this.

Really solid pacing make this a harrowing and exciting way to spend a bit of time. My only critique is that you should consider adding a gamma slider. In, ah, part two, especially, this might be an accessibility issue for some. Great work and best wishes on the next thing.

Really nice demo. A few notes:

The white UI elements (back arrow, and sometimes even the cursor) can be invisible in the high-brightness backgrounds sometimes.

While I approve of the webcam idea in theory, it's hard to ethically pull off. Unless you tell a player up front that their camera may activate, it really isn't the right thing to do. You don't know who else may be in the room or what the camera may catch. I know it isn't transmitted but it's the difference between talking to someone on the phone and putting a bug in their house.  And if you tell the player up front you will certainly miss out on the surprise of the reveal.  I'm just not sure the needle can be threaded.

Great first pass, hope someday it comes together!

A lovely little puzzle game - not too hard, but there are a few levels where if you haven't been careful looking at all elements of the game that you could get yourself in trouble. As most of the people here mention the colors, music, and design are all immaculate and extremely pleasant. I'm not sure the story adds up to much but it certainly doesn't take away from the accomplishment. Nice work.

It's an interesting work, in which you construct certain issues in a 32 issue miniseries about a trans teen superhero. However, the miniseries structure somewhat works against the conceit - you roll a d8 after each issue and skip that many issues.  While this means that the average length of play is 8 issues long, there's going to be many playthroughs that are much shorter and longer.  With only d8 tables to add thematic complications to the issues, you're going to get a lot of repeats if you roll low, and might not have a great picture of why the final issue is the way it is if you roll high.  The complication for the last issue is "you come out", though you do come out in one of the individual issue complications to a friend (and potentially more than once, accidentally or as a result of enemy action). I get what the game is getting at - here you come out to a more public degree, and of your own volition (though not necessarily in circumstances of your own making.)

I would suggest that the advantage of the miniseries format is not just in the finale (although this finale is definitely well chosen) but in the ability to aim for that finale over a set course of issues.  Not knowing exactly when you'll get there impedes the sense of pacing you can develop as a creator, or, if you prefer, the sense of continuous growth you would experience as the player of a character in a RPG.

I think the best ways to alter this are:

* Make the miniseries a set length. Give some ideas for different sorts of pressures that might make for a good finale. (Though maybe this part doesn't need to be mechanized. I like the idea that on different playthroughs we can have finales that are more or less under the control of the main character.)

* Incorporate more tables into the development of each issue.  That way if you get the same thing twice but don't have a second idea you have some variation in the prompt. Tables could also be a fun way to create villains, fellow students or supporting cast when you're not sure how to proceed.

* It's all very well and good to say "oh this can be any kind of setting you want" but actually that's not true, the teen super genre is very different in different contexts.  I would instead pay some attention to fleshing out the setting in terms of its themes. What is special about 1) the school environment, 2) the superhero environment, 3) the rest of the world as it relates to trans characters? In shifting between these environments what does the main character gain and lose? How are the pressures different? These are all questions that can help a writer guide the character through the issues.

A solid first attempt, very enjoyable to play.

I did a fan game recently and used manipulations of public domain photos for the background:

https://www.pexels.com/

https://www.rawpixel.com/category/53/public-domain?filter=all&sort=trending

https://unsplash.com/

And http://freesound.org

I've always suggested that the sitcom was a natural fit for tabletop RPGs, but few games have truly figured out the combination of holding environment, recurring supporting cast, and balance of "straight" and "funny" to make the sitcom setup work.  After Paranoia, there's a long break in the sitcom RPG world. Primetime Adventures had "ensemble cast TV show" as a remit, which can include sitcoms, but usually in today's prestige streaming world, everyone wants to make the new Sopranos or Haunting of Hill House.  

My group ran ACP for a few nights - not all the way through the season, but far enough to really absorb the cycles of play.  ACP does a fantastic job of creating a funny and evocative sitcom premise, and then even provides the episodes itself!  A "season" of ACP probably lasts around eight or nine episodes - although sometimes you can get through two episodes in a night there are also downtime and refit episodes, as well as a season finale.  We had a great time and highly recommend it.

Ironically, another great zine-style game came out recently with a sitcom premise and structure: Visigoths and Mall Goths.  I'm excited to see what others do with this underserved area of tabletop RPGs going forward. Congrats to AlwaysCheckers on a successful project and best wishes on their next one.

Great work and looking forward to your next thing!

Our team of three did a four night campaign of this game. Here are our impressions:

* Don't think that because it's a zine game that you'll play it to completion in one night.  Setup is fast, but to make the epiphanies of the characters meaningful you will have to give them highly detailed lives and that means taking a lot of time on the first few loops.

* It's possible for a character to exist entirely on their own and not interact with the others if the other players (the Loop, the Home and Away Teams) permit them to and the player wants to do it that way. This is fine and the game works fine if you do it that way, don't worry about it.

* The character types include a LOT of information about their personality and problems in the moves.  The Tastemaker literally can't keep a promise without spending a token, for example.  If you play the Tastemaker and you don't have any tokens you can't keep a promise. So don't.  The regular moves are "your normal bullshit".  It's what you revert to.  That tells you a lot about who the characters are.

* Dramatically, you want the strong moves to work out well for the characters and the weak moves to not work out well for the character.  But the time loop means that the "real" impact to the decision only comes in the epilogue.  So feel free to mess with them on the strong moves too in a way you wouldn't in another BOB game.

* The first loop is normal, the second is usually confusion, the third is where you panic and do a lot of loop oriented things.  If the Loop hasn't gotten a good idea of what to do before the third loop, then they need to take a break and get a good idea. They can share it too.

* Don't rush through the epilogue because it's the end of the session. Give it plenty of room to breathe, it's the only time there are genuine consequences to anything that's happened in the game.

Good stuff, we really enjoyed it.  Perhaps more comments to come!

Here are a few thoughts:

1 - Overall great job. I like that the computer feels like it's "just user friendly enough", with the unexplained blinking light next to things that are "new".  You might actually enhance this by starting the game with some of the lights already blinking and turn them off as we explore.

2 - In the video sequence, you have to return to your guest several times to trigger the sequence proceeding, but there isn't a clear reason to. Perhaps you might include something in the report.  "The next door neighbor said they heard them going in and out of the bathroom all night long" or something.

3 - In the 3D maze, you might make the photos from the photo viewer come up more often; you also might prompt to press escape to leave it behind. (I clicked a bunch, hit space bar, etc. but didn't think to use Escape as I never used it before.)

The sound in this game is great, the graphics are top tier. I especially love the deer picture. Felt really weird and creepy.  All in all a really fun experience!

I recently started working on a RPG "miniseries" length campaign with two fellows who told me "JD, we are both Jewish. We'd love to have Judaism, somehow, be connected to what happens in the campaign, or even a central element." I, raised a Southern Baptist kid, embrace the challenge of doing this effectively and respectfully.  Trying to delve into different expressions of these cultural points of view is one way I'm looking to prepare. I'm very glad I was able to review this material as it will definitely help.

I should note that I haven't had a chance to play any of the games in it, so I'll just touch on the work as a whole. The games here are mostly of the "prompt and play" sort - you roll on tables, or trigger mechanics (whether fictional or not) via things you say and do rather than with elaborate standalone systems.  The wide variety of games in the book is excellent, as is the introductory material. In fact, the first two sections are extremely useful even on their own, beyond the games themselves.  The games are brief but well detailed.  Although one game is a dinnertime LARP, another is a frankly hilarious drinking and songwriting game, and another is a wrestling RPG, the introductory material helps ties the feel of the games together. 

It's an odd kind of hobby we have. I certainly would not say my knowledge of Jewish culture, thought or art is significant, but here are fellow creators working in the same space I am, offering those perspectives through a medium that I do have expertise in.  Approached in this way, this work is highly valuable.

I recommend this work even or perhaps especially for tabletop RPG fans like me who are not very familiar with Jewish culture or thought and have never considered bringing it to the tabletop in more than a superficial way.  Best wishes to the team and good luck on whatever comes next.

Played a session of this with four experienced players. Here's what we thought:

Strengths:

* the four character types are iconic for fantastic setups, we did a steampunk game with some hidden sorcery and it worked just great

* The setup is great, the bonds are interesting. As a situation generator the game works well. "We could play this in Primetime Adventures or some other game!" was a comment we all agreed with right before we did the last page.

Weaknesses:

* the resolution doesn't seem completely functional from a game perspective; with four players there's no reason for any player to defect from the group. Further, with that many cards being dealt there's really very little chance of failure or even partial failure. We had to pick something other than "complete success" if we wanted to explore any other ending.

* the game directs you to keep some cards and discard others, but you never use the ones you keep and the discard pile never comes back. not sure if this is a mechanic that was deleted at some point

Suggestions:

* if you wanted to flesh out the strongest part of the game, the situation creation, with some specific rules for playing out particular bond expressions or the appearance of the obstacle, etc., this could be very interesting.

* because each of the character types has their own sections, you could easily create playbooks which each character stepped through as they played and create a unique artifact for everyone at the end.