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As other commenters have said, the grading system is impressive and goes a long way to make your edits feel impactful. I'm sure there are a lot of interactions I didn't see! A great idea for a casual puzzle game.

Also, I wasn't sure which one was the Taylor Swift fan and which was the ex, so I just made more Swifts

It's like Cyclone + Cookie Clicker + Nubby's Number Factory! I love the look and feel of it, and it has a compelling loop, even if it's not too difficult. I think the negative particles add a nice wrinkle to the gameplay, but after a point, you gather so many that you just kind of have to tank the loss and buy more joy particles to compensate. Adding more strategic upgrades that augment the behavior of your particles (such as fields that slow/speed up certain types) could add a bit more depth to the gameplay. And some satisfying sound/particle effects could make the game quite addicting! Overall, I really liked it! Also, I thought the dialogue was pretty funny.

Great art and music, and I liked the enemy variants for all of the main classes! I managed to get to round 40 with the dagger character by waiting by the door for a bit at the beginning of each loop. That way, all of the clones from previous loops would stand by the opposite end of the room and I could defeat them all at once with a single use of Mara's upgraded dagger ability.

Really fun, and the audio and graphics are perfectly refined! Although it's up to luck whether or not you can make some shots, it's always satisfying to try a wacky angle and just barely make a shot that seemed impossible (and it's understandable why you wouldn't be able to guarantee solvable setups). I think it might be cool to have some powerups in the game that could maybe save you from a hopeless situation, though I don't know what form they'd take. The game is good and polished as is, though!

This has the potential for some tricky puzzles! The last one threw me for a bit before I realized that:

a) The first three instructions cancel each other out--mirroring over y, then rotating 180 degrees, and then mirroring over x produces no net change in the image. This was a nice "aha!" moment when I was solving it. You could use facts like these to make puzzles that look more complicated then they really are.

b) You can solve any puzzle by first placing the tiles such that they form the completed image in the frame and then applying each operation to the tiles in order. So if the first step is to mirror the pieces horizontally, you swap the tiles with their horizontal neighbors. Then, if the next move is a 90 degree clockwise rotation, you move each piece one space clockwise around the board. Following this strategy, the completed image will form the full loop, though it may be rotated.

Also, I noticed that the mirror operations in the last level seem to be flipped. So the horizontal mirror operation was flipping the pieces vertically instead. Still, I enjoyed the game!

My mom had an idea for a knot tying game. I'm sure this is not quite what she had in mind, but I bet she'd get a kick out of it!

Also, are the rings mentioned in the tutorial present in gameplay? 

I like how you enforce the rule that your past selves are not allowed to see you--it's a good twist on the past-life clones idea and is intuitive to understand if you've seen basically any time travel movie.

The puzzles ramped up in difficulty nicely, especially when the characters started getting more than one go each--it forces you to think two or more steps ahead at times. And every time I made a mistake, it usually felt like it was my own fault. However there were some times where I placed a block just a pixel too low, preventing the next character from walking under it, and the characters sometimes move too quickly to make minute adjustments to block placement. A grid snapping system and tweaks to character movement would go a long way to help make the gameplay more consistent. But still, I really enjoyed playing through all of it!

At first, I wondered what the little fly was for, but I realized near the end that it turned red whenever the lasers were firing in any level! That's a super cool little touch that makes the game much more fun, as you can focus more on trying to combine all the level layouts in your head and less on trying to count out the laser cycles.

It's rare for a puzzle game to evoke such an upbeat mood--that tone makes the game feel fresh and enjoyable to play, even when you're just thinking of the combination that will create the color you need. I wish there were still some music or backing beat playing when nothing was plugged in, though.

There's a lot of strategy behind the intuitive gameplay--if you follow the easy path now, then you might not be able to use it when you really need it. It's a great self inflicted difficulty curve! It's also a fun take on infinite runners in that you are basically just running in place, revisiting the same shop over and over, but each lap feels varied.

The art, music and character design all mesh well together and capture that mid-2000's tech feeling. The music+math combo also makes for pretty engaging puzzle design. I like the character's simple movements (which are easy to control on a keyboard), but I think it'd be cool if the beats you make affected the character's movement in some way as well--it would help tie the musical aspect into the gameplay more.

I really liked it! I doubt there are any other games in the jam like this. This is a great figurative take on the theme, though in practice I'm not sure if any of the suspects ever lied to me or actually threw me for a loop. There were a few times where suspect after suspect would only say, "I have the right to remain silent" and I couldn't gather information.

Also, this may be completely unrelated, but on the victory screen, as I was randomly clicking, I was redirected to a YouTube clip of the final scene of Breaking Bad...? Please tell me that this was part of the game and not some Breaking Bad Curse on my computer

Glad you enjoyed it! I agree, as you get used to the game, the dash and dive overshadow the basic swimming movement. In movement/combo based games like this I feel like it's helpful to have simpler movement options for beginners that require less skill/precision to execute and aid in simply moving around. The tradeoff for ease-of-use is that they have to provide less scoring utility or else they would make the trickier tricks not worth it. Though in this case, maybe the basic swim could stand to offer a bit more...

The last level was very satisfying, especially with the loop-de-loop!

Nice score! Thanks for posting a screenshot of the bug, too. Now maybe I can figure out why it happens...

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! And thanks for pointing out that bug!

I like how this incorporates not just the circular shape of the loop into the gameplay, but also the inner and outer sides of the loop.

Also, I think a splorp must be something like the triangular cousin of a pipis

I love this concept! It's a great take on the theme. I just wish there was some sort of scoring system after you submit your tiles. I think this could make for a fun casual puzzle game if expanded upon.

I like the theming and the concept. For some reason the hieroglyphic person's stance really suits the act of hula hooping.

By the way, I got a score of 533 because I am skilled and definitely NOT because the hoop got stuck on my head

I agree, peer-to-peer connection would be ideal. I'm sorry to say that we don't have any immediate plans to implement it, but it could happen at some point in the future.

Thank you for playing! This build of the game is indeed very glitchy. I released a refined post-jam version here: https://joey-g.itch.io/vitruvius

If you’d like, you can access the level select through the pause button in the bottom left of the screen to skip the levels you can’t figure out! I could also give some hints if you want…

This is a great take on the theme that makes a lot of sense intuitively! I was able to get a score of 94 by throwing everything at the kaiju at once, and then spamming thumbtacks, since you get them infinitely. I'd love to see what other objects could be incorporated into the game, given time.

I was pleasantly surprised by the dynamic music as you zoom in and out--that's such a nice touch!

Was this inspired by Wayang Indonesian shadow puppetry? If so, that's a super cool basis for a shadow puppetry game!

Around level 6/7, I got stuck because I couldn't shrink down enough to fit under a block. Is there a way past this, or am I missing something?

Taking a page from Katamari Damacy's book, maybe new obstacles could be revealed as you grow larger. Like you'd need to avoid hitting birds or people riding a ski lift, etc. Or else you could just have the playable area expand and reveal new paths at a different scale as you grow larger. Though features like that would definitely not be trivial to implement because you'd need some way to dynamically switch level elements. Or maybe, if you get hit when you are big enough, the snowball could split into several smaller ones that you could control simultaneously (like the Double Cherry powerup from Super Mario 3D world), though only one ultimately needs to make it to the end. They could even recombine together to give players a chance to regain their lost size. The game is already polished and refined mechanically, but these might just be other things to explore.

Or you could go for something completely nonsensical... Like if the snowball gets big enough, smaller snowballs start orbiting it, or it accretes enough mass to become a small planetoid and it starts generating a magnetic field by rolling down the mountain... I'm mostly kidding about those, but since the game is already kind of goofy, maybe you can explore the behavior of the growing snowball in a more non-literal or wacky way.

In terms of presentation, it would also be cool if the music changed dynamically with speed or size. Even without changing anything else, I think that could really add to the tension of rolling at high speeds!

This is an intriguing take on the theme with really interesting puzzle opportunities! I love the mechanic of moving the light source to raise/lower the character/shadow. However, at times it could hard to tell which was actually standing on the ground. Maybe an indicator or highlight could be added to whichever character is actually in control of the jumping? And as others have said, it would be helpful if there was some indication of the light source.

There are also some small glitches, but they didn't detract too much from the experience, and I was able to mostly avoid them once I knew about them.

This game kind of reminds me of old Indonesian shadow puppet theater called Wayang. Thematically, I think it would also be cool if the main character was like a shadow puppet of some kind.

Overall, this is a really cool concept, even if it is a bit rough around the edges!

I like that the goal you are defending is also responsible for defending itself! It's a cool twist on the tower defense formula. But the bricks could be kind of unruly. It's kind of easy to knock the tower down while you're building it. The only way I could beat the final level was by holding the Ten Commandments on a brick and holding up the brick inside the end goal for thirty seconds. It might help stability if the brick you were currently holding couldn't affect the others. Or maybe parts of the tower could lock in place if you successfully complete a wave? Then again, it can be fun and hectic to have a heap of bricks.

The art was also gorgeously done!

This is a great concept for a clicker game. The "infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters" adage lends itself perfectly to this sort of game. The number of monkeys increases, and the prompts get longer, but I wonder how else the game could incorporate the theme. Maybe you could hire bigger monkeys, or maybe different types of monkeys could type longer/shorter words, etc. Of course, clickers can potentially go on forever with a million different upgrade tiers, so there's a lot of room for this game to expand.

The sprites and animations are really cute, and the upgrade descriptions are funny! While the sounds help identify when a new word appears, I kind of wish that valid words that you have already collected would be a different color, like blue or at least a darker/less saturated green.

Everything seemed to work fine for me except for the tier two upgrades. Maybe it's because I'm playing on Windows?

It reminded me a lot of the old "Impossible Quiz" flash game... very silly and weird, but it had a classic old-internet sort of vibe.

Scaling the tower also scales your damage, so it fits the theme in more ways than one! Having your height interact with the gameplay is a cool concept.

the core gameplay is solid, but It I'm not sure if I was able to strategize effectively. I usually just picked the strongest cards I could, especially the climbing cards, and I got a score of 1020 that way. The height stat might be a bit overpowered, since having a height advantage also gives you an attack and defense advantage, making blue cards almost as valuable as reds and yellows combined.

It would also be interesting if you needed to lower yourself back down the tower at times to dodge attacks, hit an enemy's weak spot, hit enemies that are climbing up towards you on the tower, etc. There's a lot you can do with this!

Super stylish, especially for 48 hours. Seriously impressive! I'd like to see how else the snowball size could factor into the gameplay if you develop this further. 

I love the idea. I think it's the only sponge-type game I've seen in this jam, and it fits the theme so naturally. You could easily run with this idea further. I think it might be interesting to explore the water as a resource/health system. Instead of letting players shoot indefinitely, maybe give them a set amount of water at checkpoints/hydrants, or maybe let them absorb water from saturated sponges, etc. There's a lot you can do with this!

The style is already quite polished, but some small additions like sound effects/particles/juice would help the feel a lot. I only encountered one small bug where shooting a sponge repeatedly from the same side can cause it to extend past the red barriers that normally stop it from growing further. 

Besides that, everything felt great to play, especially the character. I'm sure the game would feel even better on a controller.

The black and white line art style is very clean, though sometimes it was hard to tell when I could be detected by enemies. It was also hard to tell solid walls apart from background elements you could walk past. Just a small amount of color could be used to clarify this, kind of like how the doctor glows red when she spots you.

I like how the other rats seem to be on the doctor's side--usually in stories like this, the rats team up in some way. It's a neat subversion of the "experiment subject escaping containment" trope...

I also like the idea that the way you hide from rats and the way you hide from the doctor/humans is different, though I think you could push that idea even further. To exemplify the difference between the two enemy scales, maybe you could actually fight the rats in some way. Lean more into the action/combat when in darkness, and platforming/movement/stealth when in the light.

I defeated 22 Jeremies! There was a good amount of strategy here for how seemingly simple the gameplay is. In order to defeat the more difficult Jeremies, you have to carefully consider their upcoming moves and use your blocks accordingly... I found it best to save up a lot of attacking pieces over time to try and take Jeremy down in one hit, avoiding having to bypass the armor repeatedly on different turns. This meant that Jeremy's healing turns became good chances for me to build up shrink power or attacks before I have dealt any damage.

I liked the Tab key hints, and it's nice that they highlight everything. Hiding the hints most of the time also keeps the screen clean and clear. But I wish the blocks would maybe snap into place a little easier. It can be a bit difficult to move the block just enough to not touch the wall without having it touch another block. There's other small UI/UX things, too, like the blocks spawning on top of the piece frame, but these are mostly just nitpicks.

I also like you only have the power to shrink the blocks. A lot of games in this jam give players the power to scale up or down, but making larger pieces an undesirable effect controlled by the AI is a cool take on the theme.

With more features/polish, I think this could be a really engaging puzzle/strategy game!

I assumed at first that the scales and burners came from some asset pack, but it's super cool that you actually managed to make the models during the jam. 

I didn't realize there was wind at first, so it was a bit hard to tell why the scale was leaning, and without knowing the strength of the wind or when it starts/stops, it was hard to adjust my kernel placement. But I like that the kernels pop at random times, as that makes the scale shift suddenly in a way you can still react to. 

This is a cool little game, and it reminded me a lot of a WarioWare microgame for some reason... It's pretty wacky and charming.

I like the idea! It might be cool if Mausa's size changed more drastically, potentially taking up more than one tile at a time... And maybe the goal size could change as well? I liked the random effects in different levels, though it might be good to give the levels names/hints that identify these gimmicks in case it is not clear to some players. And I like how some levels were more about strategizing your movement while others were about going as fast as possible! Maybe Mausa could also gain different abilities/stats as he grows, too. There are a lot of ways you could develop this idea in the future!

I like the comparison between cats and liquids, and having a cat that drastically changes its shape to fit into cracks and stuff is good take on the theme. And the sprites for every form were a good touch! It would be cool to see the cat transform in other ways as well, such as flattening out or slinking into holes. The wall jumping could be a bit unwieldy, but it still felt good to bounce between two walls quickly. With more time, I think this could be a cool action or puzzle platformer, depending on which way you want to lean.