itch.io

Happy to help! Yeah, I learned about Geometry2D during this jam, and was thrilled to see so many useful utilities just built into Godot!

Hey! Yeah, it was tricky. For the outline I used a Line2D with the same shader as I was using for the rest of the line, which included some world-coordinate-based noise.

For filling the polygon, I had to generate the UV coordinates in addition to the positional coordinates for the Polygon2D (which involved determining the max and min x and y positions and then dividing each coordinate by that and multiplying by the texture dimensions, fun stuff). Then, I applied a shader to the texture to get the fill-in effect, which was based on the UV distance from (0.5, 0.5) combined with some world-coordinate-based cellular noise, plus a variable I passed into the shader so I could animate the circle closing.

The effect where the whole area bounces and shrinks uses the Geometry2D offset_polygon function. Geometry2D has a lot of useful utility functions for working with polygons.

Oh wow, you’re so right. I don’t know if it was my screen contrast or if I just wasn’t paying enough attention to my character because I was busy looking at where I wanted to go, but yeah, using the antenna for the preview lines makes sense!

And I’ll have to revisit this later and see if I can break the cycle.

For sure! We’ll probably try to revisit after the jam. We want to keep the high skill ceiling, but try to make some of the interactions a bit more intuitive. Our main goal was to make the mouse and the player movement both be equally important to influencing the quill motion, in order to keep the gameplay dynamic and force the player to really think about positioning.

Great game! Loved the puzzles, and impressed you made so many. There was a huge difficulty spike on NOWALLATONCE (13) and then it got easier for a while, but otherwise felt that the puzzles were all well crafted and fair (got to 19 and had to stop to rate you before the deadline). Also really liked the tutorial, and how each one ended with “Eat Tail”.

Awesome work!

Neat game! I feel like maybe some of the game state doesn’t properly reset when you start over, because the police car seemed faster on subsequent attempts and the helicopter started firing seeking projectiles immediately on one of my later runs, but maybe there’s some randomness and/or I was just getting slower at tapping. Also, sometimes it seemed like the car bounced back into the lane I was in when I tried to shift?

Other than those issues though, super stylish game. I loved the neon color scheme, felt very TRON.

Thank you! The controls definitely have a bit of a learning curve, but glad you figured them out and had fun! We spent so long iterating to try to find the balance of fresh and interesting while not being too obtuse.

Thanks so much! Yeah, we know the mechanic has a bit of a learning curve but we are glad to hear it is satisfying once you get it, which was definitely what we were going for!

Hello, fellow bug-circling game devs! This was a very stylish game, and very satisfying when you successfully circle a bug!

I found it very tricky to predict the radius I would get based on the height of the mouse. I wonder if some sort of preview line projected in front of you would help, so you can immediately see how the mouse position impacts how tightly you will turn. I ended up just leaving the mouse at roughly the middle of the screen and pulsing the left/right buttons to choose how sharply to turn.

I am curious, is there a way to break the cycle? I got all the enemies and it restarted, but the description implied there might be more to find…

Cute game, and fun to play! I see from the description and your other comments that this is your first ever game? Amazing work!

I do have a couple of suggestions. I think the pickup radius on the water particles could have been a bit larger, and a clearer signal for when the cloud is dropping water and when it isn’t would have been helpful (there seems to be an initial burst of rain but you can put out fires for a little while after that burst, but not forever). I found E to switch phases to be a little bit fiddly, since my index finger is also needed to move right, I would maybe suggest Shift instead, but that’s very much a nitpick.

Overall, great game, and extremely impressive for a first ever game!

Thank you!

Oh, gotcha, yeah that explanation makes sense and explains the behavior. It definitely worked well enough for the game, I was just curious if there was something I was missing. I hope you don’t mind but I clicked over to your page and found the stream, and I have to say, you picked up the drawing/throwing mechanic really quickly and were performing exactly the type of moves we were hoping players would figure out, which was really rewarding to see :)

Wow, what a great game! I love how it takes the player on a journey from “oh my god what is happening okay I’m dead” to knowing exactly what to do in what order and how to respond to every hazard that arises. It really captures the essence of a good time loop game. I honestly don’t have any notes here, besides wishing there was more to it. Maybe a bit more feedback for activating the terminals, like an audio cue, since sometimes I hit space a smidge early and then immediately switch over to another character and didn’t realize I hadn’t latched onto the terminal.

Overall fantastic jam entry!

Hello, fellow bug-circling game devs! This is such a cute and charming game! I love the bug designs and all the animations, and the web and yarn physics are pretty cool!

One small suggestion I have is that I wish there was a bit more juice/feedback on stunning the bugs, and maybe on closing a web loop (since on the enemies that take multiple hits the only real feedback is the health bar draining).

Overall, great game!

Thank you! Glad you liked the quill-flinging!

Thank you so much for the kind words! I went and checked your game out and had a great time!

Hello, fellow bug-circling game devs! Dilly commented on our game and I had to check you out!

Delightful game! I very much enjoyed the writing and character design of the various merchants, and stunning and collecting bugs was also pretty satisfying.

I wish there was a bit more of a goal to aim for, but to be honest, just getting to talk to the merchants kept me going for a good while.

I am curious how your loop detection worked. It seemed like sometimes it would count as a loop early, and sometimes it wouldn’t count even though I had fully enclosed the bugs.

The overall aesthetic of the game was fantastic! I loved all the writing and doodles on the ! notebook tab, and even your volume slider was hilarious.

UPDATE: I found the bug stats. 10/10. I always wanted to know how affable and leg each bug species is

This is such a creative take on the theme. Skywriting was actually one of the ideas we came up with during brainstorming but didn’t know how to go about implementing it. This. This is how you go about implementing it. I love every part of this, from the drunken cursive loops I ended up performing because I was laughing too hard at my previous drunken cursive loop, to the background story where love succeeds despite my awful job at skywriting their confession, it all comes together beautifully.

I was riding the high of getting 5/5 on my first two jobs, and then it was all downhill from there.

The only real issue I had with the game was that the guide in the bottom right covers a lot of the sky that I needed to use on some of the jobs, but arguably that’s my own fault for writing the first line so darn big.

Super unique art style! I like the idea of figuring out clues in the world and assembling what you need to succeed. I really wish the inventory system was easier to understand. I think either a click-and-drag system or at least more highlighting to indicate what is “selected” would go a long way. I found myself very frequently confused as to whether I needed to left or right click, and sometimes it seemed like the same button did a different action (probably because something was secretly selected).

I also think visual feedback when your mouse is hovered over an interaction point and what to expect it to do when you click would be helpful. Things like changing the cursor to be an left/right arrow for changes pages or a “return” arrow if clicking will back you out of whatever you have open.

I absolutely could not figure out how to combine the gemstones with the crown (which I think was something I was supposed to do) or how to combine the colored water with the clothes (never found a bucket, and the workbench didn’t seem to do anything). I tried many combinations of having the items in my various inventory slots and various ways of clicking on the workbench, but eventually had to give up due to lack of success or feedback.

One more note though, I think it is super cool that you have a fully voice acted game for the jam!

Oh, yeah, the fast moving blob enemies are tough. We kind of intended for them to force the player to draw a loop ahead of them and close it right as they get there. Glad you found the game to continue to grab you!

That’s a really good suggestion about including a taste of gameplay before the narrative. What we’d probably have done if we’d had time (or will do if we revisit) is have a short tutorial level that introduces the mechanics, possibly with a tiny bit of story woven in, and then go to the narrative section that is currently at the beginning.

Thanks for playing!

Unfortunately we ran out of time for controller support. But yeah, I recommend approach #2 from my list above, as the most intuitive way to close loops. Basically throwing your quill at the tail of your ink line to close the loop you are dragging out. Approach #4 can lead to some really dynamic gameplay but is tough to pull off.

Yeah, the controls definitely have a bit of a learning curve. We wanted the mouse and the player movement to both be equally important to influencing the quill motion, in order to keep the gameplay dynamic and force the player to really think about positioning.

Copying from another comment I made earlier, you basically have 4 main options. Roughly from easiest to hardest they are:

1. Just run in a circle around the enemies while dragging the quill with you.
2. Make most of a circle and then throw the quill across to finish the loop (holding the mouse button makes it go further).
3. Make most of a circle and then dash across to finish the loop. You do have I-frames during the dash so it’s a good tool in your arsenal.
4. This is the hardest one, but also the most satisfying. Get some momentum by dragging the pen within your spell circle radius, and then click and hold to let it fly. The pen will make its way back to you, but by moving somewhat perpendicular to the direction you threw it and adjusting your aim direction you can make it take more of a looping flight path. It is even possible to get it to miss you on the return and orbit a bit (but you must keep holding the mouse button to do that).

There are some GIFs on the upload page which demonstrate some of these techniques.

Thanks for playing!

Thanks so much! Yeah, we wanted the mouse and the player movement to both be equally important to influencing the quill motion, so there’s a bit of a learning curve. We iterated a lot, but would have iterated even more if we’d had more time. You can pull off some pretty cool maneuvers with practice, but it could definitely be a bit more intuitive.

We would have added an endless mode with a highscore table if we’d had more time, so definitely agree on that suggestion!

Thank you, glad you liked it!

Thanks!

Thank you so much!

Yeah, the controls definitely have a learning curve. We wanted the mouse and the player movement to both be equally important to influencing the quill motion, and after a bunch of iteration this is what we were happiest with, although some more post-jam iteration might be in our future :)

An endless mode is a definitely something we’d like to add, along with additional levels. We had some other biomes planned, each with a boss at the end, but we ran out of time to implement them.

Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you!

Thank you! Yeah, we wanted the mouse and the player movement to both be equally important to influencing the quill motion, so having it follow you but be influenced by the mouse, and then have the ability to fling it was what we liked the most, after lots of iteration.

Thanks!

Thank you so much!

Thanks so much! Yeah, we wanted the mouse and the player movement to both be equally important to influencing the quill motion. Glad you enjoyed it!

Hey! I gave it another go. After a few attempts I finally managed to get across the gap. I would definitely recommend making it more forgiving at least for the tutorial in the future, especially since tight spacing like that didn’t seem to be necessary for the actual game levels, so it was just a frustrating block while you are first learning to use the move.

Anyway, now that I was finally able to try more of the game, I have more feedback! I like your art style and the big open levels are definitely ambitious for a jam game!

A couple of issues I encountered:

• The shift time counting down during the tutorial dialog was a bit stressful, and made me feel like I had to rush through it instead of read it thoroughly.
• I would recommend using a sin function or something for your function movement rather than just reversing direction. The first time I tried to jump onto the platform I missed because I wasn’t expecting it to change direction so suddenly.
• I imagine this is just a game jam issue and will be fixed post-submission, but the full game restarting if you die was very frustrating. Especially because I died on level three by glitching through the floor on the hill on my way to clock out, and it took me all the way back to the tutorial (so I gave up there).

In terms of the main mechanic, I think there’s something interesting there. I’ve never seen a game where you need to buy uses of things like jumping and dashing. It has the potential to make for interesting decisions that the player has to make, but also the potential for frustration. My main concern would be that the player can probably soft-lock themselves pretty easily if they run out of jumps/dashes that they need for progression.

In any case, good work on making such an ambitious 3D game for the jam!

Beautiful game! I can’t believe how many puzzles you made! I got to level 37 and had to call it there because I could not for the life of me figure out why the game wasn’t considering me as wrapping the fruit while I was part-way through the portals. Is the exit portal not considered part of the snake when you are part-way through?

Anyway, up until the portal issues I encountered, every puzzle felt appropriately difficult and fair, so it’s super impressive that you built the game and 30+ awesome puzzles!

I also really love the use of different fruit to take up different configurations of grid squares.

Thanks so much! Glad you liked it! And yeah, the story was sort of a late addition but we really wanted to get it in.

Haha, you are the second person to mention Pokemon Ranger. None of us have played that, but we looked it up and definitely agree that there are similarities. Good call on the dash indicator, some sort of persistent at-a-glance indication that the dash is ready is definitely something we’ll add if we revisit the game after the jam. A wave counter is also an interesting idea that we will certainly consider. Thanks for the feedback!

That’s great to hear, we’re so pleased that the difficulty curve felt good, and that you liked the art style!

Thanks so much, glad you liked it!

Thank you!

Thank you for the kind words! Our team members who worked on the music and the story will be thrilled to hear that!

And yes, that was very much the goal! We wanted the mouse and the player movement to both be equally important to influencing the quill motion.