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Hi, I am also interested in this. I like both things: detective games and talking animals. I don't know how much time I'd be able to dedicate to this considering my work schedule and other obligations, but I'd be very interested to hear more. I'll send a discord request since it's right there. Hope you don't mind.

Good foundation, got a couple big problems. There's not delay between enemy shots, so they're just shooting a constant stream of bullets and if you ever get hit, you're instantly dead. Neither the enemies nor the bullets rotate, so the enemies are shooting the bullets sideways out the backs of their heads. And the bullets don't despawn, so once you've killed the 5 enemies, there's just a hanging taffy rope of floating bullets all around the arena. 

Other than that, though, it's pretty good. Little slidey and there's no sound, but whatever. I like the enemy design and having the ammo counter change to ". . . . . " while you reload is a really cool touch. All it's missing is a title screen and a "You Win!" popup after you kill the last enemy. Good job!

This was pretty alright. I only half-followed the story on account of I don't speak German, but a game like this seems like a fun way to learn.

I did notice some bus though, most notably that you have to go into the files and change DavilexGameJam2023_Data to DeVerdwijningVanDikVanDale_Data to get it to run. There's also some logic bugs. You can also just go right to the end cutscene by walking into the door without talking to the police or finding any of the letters, and talking to the police after you've found the last letter spawns the first one again but you can't interact with it. There's the obvious visual stuff like the characters lacking animations and the floating barricades, but did you notice Frank's run animation appears to be a run backward? Look at his feet, he's running backwards.

This was very cute despite the bugs. It needs quite a bit of polish, but it's a game jam game, so it's all good.

Your stuff's pretty solid! It's got that great background quality where it's really catchy with a few standout bits, but fades back a bit so as not to overpower and distract from the gameplay. Some of the intros and transitions are a little harsh, but that's just touch-ups and adjusting levels and stuff. I thought maybe your stuff is maybe a little too funky for what I'd be looking for, but then I thought, "That's preposterous, something being TOO funky." 

I don't have any projects that are far enough along to warrant bringing in a musician right now, but I'll definitely keep you in mind! I'll send a friend request on Discord.

Thanks for the in-depth review! I'm really glad the story was able to affect you, that's awesome!

My goal for this game jam was to focus on my artstyle and see if I could make an entire small game's worth of art in such a short time. The restriction to only 4 colors was what drew me to this game jam and I was hoping the art would be "striking" enough with that limitation to carry it. You saw my previous game jam game; I spent more than a day and a half just coding the gameplay and ended up having to cut art almost completely. I ended up with cube people and having to scramble at 4:00 in the morning on the last day finishing the level. Between that and recording dialogue, boy did I have my priorities backwards for that one. 

I was testing out different techniques with the art and trying to get it to look good, but I was also aware of the time constraints so that once something was "good enough," I didn't have a chance to go back and improve it. Thus why some of the buildings like have really thick outlines, some have really thin outlines, and some have none at all. I finished making the town on Wednesday and didn't figure out the aspect ratio until Thursday, so the whole time I was making the art I had no idea how it would actually look shrunk down, so I tried not to put in too much detail. I also shipped with a funny glitch nobody's noticed yet: the trees around the bridge are just floating in the void to simulate a gully 'cause I didn't have time to make one, and I added the cutscene and dialogue system the next day, so if you turn right on the bridge in the final section you can see the wolf standing in front of his jumpscare backdrop off in the distance. 

As for the wolf himself, yeah, I'm aware he looks a lot like Leenie Boog with his long narrow face and his weirdly big arms. I kept it 'cause it was funny and "good enough." There's a reason why you only see him from the front too, those big red eyes of his aren't even connected to the rest of his head. Originally he was supposed to chase you until you found a hiding spot so you'd see those eyes off in the distance, but I cut that and changed it to a simple countdown timer, which fit better with the story anyway. Good thing too, you can't see the eyes from very far away when it's scaled down.

The other big thing that not just you have mentioned is that it's a little confusing at first. Because I made it, I knew where and what everything was and what you were supposed to do, so I just assumed it was intuitive. Likewise, I knew where all the dialogue triggers were so they never caught me off guard. Not sure if I'll update this after the jam, but maybe what I could do is add a call to disable input for half a second so that you don't accidentally skip the dialogue box.

I had a friend of mine play it over the weekend and he too got confused with the movement at the start. I definitely could have improved the art and added more detail to the sides of the road to make navigation easier, but a lot of that was just time constraints and exhaustion from working on it all day.  Instructions and a better opening would be a good addition, but I couldn't think of a way to do it quickly so I just put them in the download description.

Oh, and if you're interested in the music, look up Kevin Macleod of Incompetech.com. He makes tons of royalty-free music and he's amassed a huge library of it over the years. The music in this and all the music in Three to One Odds is by him.

I did end up playing this game, though my computer gave me like 3 warnings. I think it's because it's an installer rather than a zip file. Like, that's what viruses and keyloggers and such do. Every time I went back to the first screen, I got a pop-up telling me to log in and that made me a little suspicious, even so.

I actually kinda like the jump mechanics. It looked like you drift up until you hit a ceiling and then drift back down. It reminds me of that game VVVVV where you navigate by flipping gravity. You could make some cool platforming challenges with that, maybe make it so you have to bonk your head on specific things to keep from flying off the map or into spikes. It's kinda underutilized, though, with the levels being so small and simple. 

I only got 3 of the endings, loop, pit, and alien. I bet the 4th ending has something to do with the little white object on the 3rd screen but I couldn't figure out what to do with it. Pit and alien felt more like deaths than endings, but they were both out of he way so they weren't really level hazards or anything. The art style was pretty alright; I think it was the best thing about the game. I'd say the level design needs the most improvement since there wasn't really anything to it, no challenge or misdirection or anything. Some music and sound effects would be a nice touch as well.

Altogether, it's alright as a start, just needs a little more. And maybe look into a different way to pack it so it doesn't send up red flags.

I love the artstyle! It's got a very cheerful, poppy, corporate vibe to it, and little details like the cars turning gray when they leave the playable area add a lot to the overall polish. I don't speak a word of German so that hampered my ability to actually play the game, but that's on me. So hey, good job!

I was just in a Gameboy Jam and this captured the Gameboy aesthetic better than anything we had. The gameplay was only alright but I loved the art and presentation. The momentum in Redcat was a little frustrating because you couldn't slow down very fast but if you changed directions you did so immediately, so landing jumps was harder than it needed to be. Also, I swear you can beat A2 Racer just by driving on the shoulder the whole way and not dodging anything. For the time constraints of a game jam, though, this is fantastic.

Oh there's an ending. 2 endings actually. Look for something distinct and press interact. If you find something that looks important but can't interact with it, like the gates, you don't have the right key yet. I didn't think to add an "it's locked" message.

Yeah, the idea was to mimic one of those old 2D dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, or The Bard's Tale where they use 2D pictures to mimic 3D space. It's much easier to use 3D to fake 2D faking 3D if that makes sense. That and I wanted simple gameplay so I could focus on the art, which took a whole day, day and a half of the around 2 days I had to do this. Little easter egg, press Num + in game to toggle sliding mode. It adds a movement and rotation lag to the camera, so you're still teleporting between spaces but the camera slides along behind it. Careful, it's nauseating.

And thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed.

Aw, thanks man. You're choking me up.

Yes, I did all the voices and pitch-adjusted them in Audacity. Recording them was a pain because I don't have a recording setup so I had to use my phone out in the parking lot looking like a loon. And thanks, glad you enjoyed.

Heh, glad you enjoyed! Thanks!

I choose to believe we're attacking by throwing our ears at people. They're part of our head sprite used for our health bar, so yeah, those are ears. 

This game is excellent. I think it was the best at emulating the Gameboy style out of any of the games in the jam, including my own. It's in the little things like the colored lines on the platforms. Very nostalgic. The gameplay is functional but got more fun once I realized there was no contact damage and I could just body the enemies and push past them. It's a little riskier but a lot faster. I even got one of those falling enemies stuck on my head during the final stretch, and that's fun.

It could maybe use some expansion, maybe some context for who or what we are and what we're trying to accomplish, maybe some more levels or a title screen, but for a game jam game? It's pretty solid, yeah.

I got a 1233. I got confused at first because I didn't realize I had to click the arrows instead of pressing the arrow keys. The randomized speed when you change directions was a cool way to add difficulty and that's ultimately what got me, when I was stuck in a corner trying to avoid a line of falling stalactites/candy corns/whatevers and then I went flying off the side. The sound's a little bloopy and the directional button sounds got a little grating after a while, but the random tones on the score counter almost make a little song. You know what this remind me most of? That T-Rex running game you can play when the internet browser's down. Good job, especially considering you said you didn't have a lot of time.

Congrats on your first game jam! That song is grooving! Gameplay is pretty simple but mostly decent. A third level would be nice, you know, rule of three, but I'm sure that's a time thing. The maze has that classic Unity collision problem where the character gets stuck on the wall they're trying to walk along so you have to zig-zag off the walls. I don't know how to fix that but I'm sure there's a way. Graphics were super basic. I won't knock some classic cube-on-cube action, but it could go a lot further to distinguish itself. 

But hey, the most important thing is you made a game, no matter how small or how basic, and you got it out for people to see. Congratulations, and keep at it.

Um... why is your download page quarantined? How'd that happen, what did you do?

I'll check back later to see if it's fixed, try your game then.

This was pretty alright. Nice clean style. A little more visual feedback would be nice; I couldn't tell if a block breaking was a good or a bad thing at first. Maybe the score counter could show your last score rather than the high score. Otherwise there's no way to tell how well you did if you didn't beat your last high score. I didn't notice any difference between selecting 1 and 2 music notes, so I'm guessing that's the map select that wasn't implemented.

Either my timing is really bad or the game was dropping my inputs, or possibly a combination thereof, but I was missing a lot. This is a very tough level for a beginner. Like Mando said, the best strategy seems to be just mashing all 4 buttons at once. Not bad for the time frame. I like the song, though it's (mercifully for the level) a little short.

Press interact to start the game. That's Z, X, Spacebar, gamepad face buttons, E, or F. Once the second scene loads you should be able to walk around. That or it's not loading properly for some reason.

I'm considering joining, but I work in 3D instead of 2D. Can I still join and fake it to look like it's a Gameboy game?

Cool. Sent.

Hi. I'm a writer and a programmer with a bit of experience in 3D art and design work. I might be interested. Sent.

Hmm. Sounds like you're trying to make My Friendly Neighborhood by way of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I might be interested. Sent.

Thanks, appreciate it! Fun fact, that spark effect isn't a particle effect on account of I have no idea how to use Unreal's particle system, so it's actually a group of projectiles that spawn with a random rotator. That's probably not helping the performance much. Looks cool though. Anyways, thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback!

Oh don't be sorry. You did good. It just needs some bug fixes and polish, which is not always possible in a game jam. The rule of thumb (I guess) is that the more experience you have the more you can do in the short timeframe and the less you have to figure out and fix, so the better your project ends up being. Game jams are just for fun and learning experiences, so any weaknesses in the final product are just indicative of where you're at as a developer. And no worries about the long response. You should see my responses, I talk more than anybody.

Fun and surprisingly tricky! Artstyle is clean and appealing, song was lovely, and some of these levels took some real precision and lateral thinking to beat. I noticed that if the big mamushka grabbed both the other dolls, the one she grabbed first wouldn't be inside her, which would make sense if she grabs the medium doll first because that one could open too, but if she grabs the small doll first the small doll is just gone. A couple animation variants for each scenario would be a very appealing addition, I think. I also noticed that the smallest doll seems to be able to stand on spikes for a moment, but then if you make any move she immediately breaks. Speaking of, I love that the death animation is just a sudden breaking. This was great, good job.

Cool game, awesome song. Adding the ability to change directions in the air is a real saving grace to a jumping system that could have otherwise gotten kind of frustrating. How about add the ability to walk on platforms between jumps to reposition yourself? I also noticed that sometimes the kitty would seem to bounce off the ground when she jumped and go the opposite direction of where I aimed. I didn't get very high up, but I still thought this was pretty great, so good job.

Fun concept. Seemed pretty easy to just build triangles of residential areas around commercial areas, but then I got stuck when I tried to build factories and didn't have enough money to end my turn. I tried again, but then I started my next city with only the 50 cents I had before so I couldn't do anything. Restarted the game and did a lot better next time. This was pretty fun once I got the hang of it. If you wanted to expand it later, maybe add more tile types or maps with specific goals? All in all, good job.

I liked it! Artstyle was super cute and the concept of a space carrot is adorable. Farming section was fun if a bit basic but the asteroid section was only okay. I did a lot better once I stopped being conservative with my ammo and started double-tapping, almost died but I did barely survive and get the special ending. This was pretty good, good job.

Awesome song, cool artstyle, cool mechanics with the angled shot jump, and good way to implement the theme. That said, I hate rage games so I didn't play for very long, but still good on you. Landing felt a little slippery but that's probably intentional. Very impressive for only 2 hours. 

I think I won? I was pretty low on health but I'm pretty sure I got the final boss and then it just kicked me back to the main menu same as had I died. Gameplay's not bad for what's there, although the warning that the 3rd bullet hurts you is inaccurate because they all seem to drain your health to fire. That is, unless you can hurt yourself more with the 3rd bullet if it bounces off a wall or something. Enemies have very short aggro range and you can shoot through walls so there's nothing stopping you from picking them off from a distance except your limited ammo/health pool. Only the 3rd room boss woke up as soon as I entered the room, though I did fight the room 2 guys legit to try to save on ammo with the shotgun. Speaking of, having 3 different weapons is a cool inclusion and having the rooms have 3, then 2, then 1 enemy is a nifty way to incorporate the theme. All in all, this is not bad.

Funny concept. Car controls were a bit strange, turning felt too sharp but too slow and you could brake really fast. Camera lurched behind the car really fast after a spinout. In the air, you go spinning out of control in a way that's very funny to watch but really easy to get stuck, and then I couldn't find a reset button so I just had to reset the page. I gave up on this game pretty quick as soon as I saw the suspended airplanes as platforms and heard the voiceover and realized what it was. I just don't care for that... Bennet Foddy crap... No offense, just no, not for me. 

Cool puzzle game, loved the presentation, nice artstyle, solid gameplay, great intro. Turns out I was making it harder than it had to be because I thought I couldn't hit walls. All it's missing is an outro once you beat all the levels, and a settings menu I guess, saw that was scratched out. Music was good but the loop was a little short. Altogether, I liked this. Great job!

Not bad, like the presentation and the artstyle. The clicking and timing for the attack are pretty precise and I don't understand the point of having to click on an enemy to attack and then press spacebar to attack them. More specifically, I don't see the meaningful difference between moving into an enemy in walk mode and pressing space and moving into an enemy in attack mode and pressing space. Why not just have click to move, spacebar to attack when you're on an enemy? Also, I got hit in the tutorial and the damage carried over to the actual game so I didn't last long. This was pretty good, just needs a little adjustment and polish.

This was a very cool idea and executed well! The color reflection mirrors was a cool mechanic, especially when you would bounce it off a colored mirror and the resulting laser would only have the colors of that mirror. It felt like the levels were in the wrong order, though. Levels 1 & 2 were obviously tutorials and did a good job introducing the concepts, but then level 3 was way tougher than levels 4 & 5.

You asked for feedback on how to make the target destruction better, I'd say a short windup animation where the mirror pulses, then have it flash and explode into the same particle effect as when the laser reflects. I also have an idea for how to expand this idea if you wanted to continue it. How about instead of losing a color every round so it's always white-yellow-red, you have X number of lasers per level shown in a corner of the HUD, so maybe you could have a level where you need 5 lasers or one where the order is blue-blue-green or something. You could even give the player extra lasers and have using less than the total correspond to a star amount if you wanted to make this a mobile game or something. (I personally don't like those kinds of games with the 3 star ranking system, but the idea just popped into my head.) All in all, this is pretty great and you could make something really awesome out of the concept.

Cool little game! I thought I was doing pretty good until I realized I had failed to get enough power to my emitters and my defense lasers were about to run dry. It's a short and simple game, but it's very well polished. Nice job!

This was great! Really clever implementation of the 3-2-1 theme by having us lose an adventurer every level, I didn't even realize what was going on with that at first. Artstyle was very charming and cute. Gameplay was very interesting playing as a healer instead of a fighter. It was a lot of clicking though, maybe a different system where you hold down the mouse button and it heals in a small area around the mouse cursor? The hardest part of the game was Square being suicidally stupid and rushing into every fight, chasing enemies into even bigger fights and pulling every enemy. Kinda hilarious that the moral of this story isn't that you can overcome impossible odds with the aid of friends, but rather that it's sometimes a lot easier to handle problems without them. At least if they're Square.

This is really solid. The gameplay seems simple at first but really comes into its own once you get to higher numbers of enemies and have to prioritize your mouse movements to click them all, which is neat because it's almost like you're the mouse dashing through all the enemies and cutting them one by one rather than all at once. I only made it to wave 27. I could barely do 8 enemies and then one misclick sealed my fate. Still got 5 of them though.

The art and presentation are where this game really shines, though. The spinning cartridge on the title card, the animated comic on the page, the old screen vignette over the gameplay, all awesome. The only thing I can think to improve is that the music, while good, is a very short loop and gets repetitive. Other than that, damn near perfect for what it is.

This was really good! I love the artstyle and the song. Awesome that you can choose from 3 characters, a little strange that their selection quotes are so inspiring considering what kind of game this is. My original plan was to play as all three and switch out when I died, but then I didn't die so I only played as the cowboy hat guy. Only things I can think to improve would be balancing, a couple visual bugs, and an AI bug I encountered. 

For balancing, I was able to put all my points into damage and do more than 200 in a single shot by day 3-5, making it so I could one shot all enemies except for octagons, which I could 2 shot. By the time I had 1000 health and a 100 round clip, nothing but the missile triangles could touch me and they couldn't do enough. The health regenerates very slow by that point too, still only +5 every few seconds, so I never made it to full health. The visual bugs are just little things, like the day counter saying day twice and the ammo counter flipping when you look left. The AI bug was with the hexagons, which would all rush to the bottom of the map and stay there. I also couldn't kill them and they'd slow the round count and the enemy spawn rate. Other than that, this game is great! Well done!

Decently funny and kinda fun because of that, but a little buggy otherwise. In the first level you can shoot but not move before the text crawl, in the second level I could only hail the taxis on the 2nd row from the bottom for some reason, and on the third level I found out I could cheese the fight by standing directly in front of him and then the missiles would only be able to hit me if one of the others bumped it and tipped it over. Megaman inspired sprite work is fun and probably the best part of this game. Gameplay was kinda nonexistent outside the bossfight, since all you do is walk a block right, not get hit by a car, then click a taxi. Altogether, yeah, it was alright. Nice job.