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Really impressive art throughout the introduction particular. I would have liked to see more life in the in game sprites, even if it was just some sweet battle poses (instead of standing straight). It looks like you created a very solid RPG system and some fleshed out builds, however I did find the loop very grindy. There might have been a better sense of progression to start the characters with fewer moves, have a few more encounters before the boss and maybe balance to gain ~1 new ability per loop?

Forgot to mention - the music was awesome!

I found the key! I think you did a great job creating a surreal experience. I also really felt 'stuck' as I was trying to retrace my steps and get back to my room and somehow ending up in new worlds. I did come across several items in my play, but none seemed to do anything - not sure if there is something I was missing there. Great job creating such a unique experience with this format!

I had heaps of fun with this! My first few runs did feel a bit grindy, but once I was familiar with the map and had a few upgrades I was really enjoying running (and sliding) around and shooting enemies.I thought the Ominous Voice had a lot of personality, and really helped make the loops feel meaningful. I'm also a sucker for upgrade games, and noticed the ledge just at the cave entrance, so keep dying on purpose to get my jump force high enough to climb up and over it... I would have loved if there was an easter egg up there... but instead I think I just ended up falling off the edge of map! :D

Fun game! I really like the concept of increasing the difficulty each loop. That said, I was only able to get 6 loops in, which is a shame, because I was looking forward to seeing what the remaining changes were. If the difficulty is where you wanted it, maybe a 'continue' type feature would be nice, e.g., starting 1 or 2 loops back from your last run? With the presses, I would have liked more of a hint of when they were going to drop, e.g., maybe they jiggle for 1 second or something. I also felt like the hitbox for the presses were maybe a little too big, because it often felt like it had just started coming down and I was already dead. FYI, I also experienced the freeze at the start of each loop (playing on web).

What a cool way to tell a story! I understand time was limited, but I would have loved a few more loops to learn more about the PC and Ann. More generally, I feel like there's so much potential for some non linear story telling with this format, and could see myself getting lost in the loops while exploring different aspects of the narrative. Could the NPCs have their own stories? How might they react to the events (would the grumpy old man reflect on his behaviour)? How else does the town react?

Thanks so much for the kind words! I was worried the difficulty might discourage people to push through to the end, but very happy to read at least few have made it!

Thanks for playing and glad Radical Rat has a fan! I agree regarding the ranged rats. Their attacks and player movement weren't in quite where I'd have liked them to be in terms of balance, but unfortunately we just didn't have enough time to playtest and adjust very much. With the time we had, my (imperfect) solution was to help players tank the damage by adding extra health upgrades. And sorry I wasn't able to sort out the bug with the levitate button in time for submission, but glad the game was still playable!

Thanks for playing, and happy to hear you had fun! As this was our first game, getting the code and graphics ready took almost all of our time, which unfortunately meant designing the level itself ended up being one of the last things we did. We would have liked to have had more time to playtest, which might have allowed us to find better ways to guide players through the game, e.g., including making the short cut more obvious. Thanks also for letting me know about the bugs. I'm aware of the levitation bug, but the cage bug is news to me! I'll look into fixing these after the jam.

Super impressed that you've made an actual SNES game! As someone very early in their game dev journey, I can't even begin to imagine making something like this without a modern game engine (let alone in 4 weeks). I read below you had many other plans for this, but I did enjoy what you got done. In particular, the boss fight somehow really gave me a sense of nostalgia for SNES games of old.

:( Same for me - can't get this to start.

I think you 100% nailed the SNES style graphics! This really looks, feels and sounds like a SNES game to me! I was able to get to the boss, but not defeat it. The platform section being so easy and taking as long as it did to travel through did make getting back to the boss a bit of a chore (perhaps a common issue for games in this jam using a 'restart' style mechanic to address the constraint, mine included!). I also have no idea how close I got to defeating the boss - a health bar might have motivated me to keep trying! I think you've got some good foundations to keep building a fun retro-style platformer here. :)

Excellent bite sized and irreverent fun. Love your take on the constraint!

Very cool. I enjoyed the puzzles and thought the bird animations and overall aesthetics were excellent. I only really found the loop resetting a little bit frustrating in one level, where it felt like I had to use a lot of trail and error to spit the cog out at the right spot (I also didn't realise some of the platforms toggled on/off, which led to a few surprise falls/resets). But that really didn't detract too much for me - a really enjoyable and satisfying experience.

Congrats on escaping, and thanks for the feedback! Agree with all of your suggestions - they were all on the list to address if we had more time. I did actually add controller support just before submitting, but didn't get around to adapting the in game instructions (or detecting gamepad input on the title screen!). Thanks for playing!

Thanks! Appreciate that!

Cool mechanic and clever take on the theme. Movement took a bit of time to get used to, and some sections did feel quite punishing, but I really enjoyed the concept here.