itch.io

Hi,

I am working on improving how my game engine LittleJS interfaces with AI. LittleJS engine is a tiny fast JavaScript game engine, currently at 4K stars on GitHub. I recently have been working on a custom GPT for LittleJS that seems to work really well. This is all totally free and open source. Would be great to hear feedback from users. I will try to make something for the jam with AI!

LittleJS GPT - Make games inside ChatGPT without writing code

LittleJS AI Info - More about LittleJS AI and a library of demos

Hey Brian, congrats on getting 3rd place! I’m not sure how else to contact you so please reach out to me when you can to receive your prizes including 3 months of GitHub Copilot Pro, Newgrounds supporter status, and most importantly a physical mailing from me. If you put your game on Newgrounds we will make sure it gets front paged, it’s a great way to get people to play your game. I’m also more than happy to help with ideas for small improvements to make the Newgrounds version a big success. Thanks so much for making a LittleJS game!

Very cool and addictive game! I loved the simplify and would be interesting to see how you could build on what you have. Some ideas could be different shapes for the player, or different shapes for the hole area. Great sound effects!

Very cool concept! I would love to see this explored further, it seems like there could be come really interesting puzzles. I also really like the music, very chill and ambient and goes well with game game!

Wow, incredible work! Everything is super solid.

• I love the start menu, cool font, and background. Nice use of parallax!
• Awesome to give player choice of characters.
• Super low pixel style is working great.
• I love the stage variety, both visually and with gameplay changeups.
• It could be more eventful when the player gets hit, sometimes it's hard to notice. It might be better to have that ship explode the spawn the player back, like in Stinger. There are other mechanics from that game that could be swiped, like when you die, your ghost floats off screen but you can grab it to keep your upgrades.
• Would be nice to have a way to continue from your highest level, so players can complete the game and see everything. Then maybe you could unlock an option to play with limited continues or something.
• More powerup variety would be cool, like maybe a way to get more health, or also a way to choose or influence what powerup you want.

Awesome game, I love wombats and how the facts are included between levels! A few thoughts I had while playing.

• Very cool that you have a name entry option. We need to add that to the LittleJS UI system.
• It could just remember your name. Then just have an option/button to change it.
• Cool effects like the trails and particles!
• I was unsure how to play strategically but managed to get pretty far by spamming jump and kick.
• Slowing down the pace of the game could help with that, though I'm sure real wombats are probably crazy fast.
• It seems like it is still not using the pixelated setting so the sprites and text are a bit blurry.

Awesome game and concept! Reminded me a bit of Ratchet and Clank meets The Minish Cap. I love how the camera zooms in when you jump out as the robot. The pixel art style is also looking really nice. Would be awesome to see continued work on this game!

Cool game, awesome work with the animation! Not sure if it was a bug but after I played a few times I noticed the amount of attackers seemed to increase every time, and it was actually really cool trying to fend off hundreds of enemies at once! It would make sense to have the dragon die on game over, even if there is only 1 frame of animation or it just falls off the screen. I love the subtle animation of the airship and the vibe of flying through the sky with the clouds moving past, very cool!

Very cool game and interesting mechanics.

• The controls feel smooth and good.
• Good presentation on start and end screens!
• Really nice animation and fun visuals.
• I like the variety in the enemy types like the nematodes.
• The radiation was fun to use, would be nice if it messaged better to the player how long it was going to last.
• I didn't have a good indication that the radiation was damaging enemies.
• I wasn't sure what the dancing did other then bring fans. Maybe it would make sense to combine this with something else so it has an in game purpose, like it could move you forward. Or maybe it is a trade off like you cant move at all while dancing so there is risk/reward.
• It could add excitement if there were other smaller things to pick up that are floating around.
• I got the song stuck in my head now.
• Great work!

Awesome game! A few thoughts I had while playing...

• Nice style for sprites and artwork and use of theme.
• Great use of particle effects!
• Raging out is an interesting mechanic but I was unsure how it worked.
• Maybe would be fun to have some enemies to avoid like adventurers?
• I had some trouble moving down the corridors. This can be a tricky problem, when trying to move down a perpendicular passageway, it could check if there is an opening and move or snap the player to the grid coordinate so they can move down that direction. At least that's one way it could be done.

Amazing work, it is so cool to hear that this is your first proper game. Hopefully the first of many!

• Good visual presentation and main menu.
• Awesome work adding poetry and flavor to so much of the text to build on the concept.
• The player should be more visible and stand out. Usually the brightest thing on the screen and maybe a different color/shape.
• Very cool to see procedurally generated levels. You could add variety by changing small things like the colors and shapes. Maybe there could be stuff around the outside of the play area too.
• I was confused at first about what lights to get or not get. It would help if the bad lights look more scary. Like instead of just being yellow circles, they could be like spinning red squares.

Awesome work! Very cool and high quality production. Great use of the theme.

• The initial load and main menu feel very professional.
• The story with the characters talking is very well done. The script could be edited down a little bit.
• You could change out the music when the cutscene happens. Like when your master dies, the music from the main menu would have been a better choice 
• It would streamline the game if the player gets to Level up at the end of each segment. No need to level up mid combat. This is also a psychological trick to entice the player to play the next level right after they level up.
• The gameplay was pretty cool and unique but maybe a bit too fast, I had trouble understanding what was going on.
• After game over I accidently clicked through too fast! It would be really nice if it saved the players progress to continue where they left off.

Awesome game, I am a big fan of twin stick shooters!

• Core mechanics feel nice, moving, aiming and shooting all feel good.
• Add something on the ground to make the playfield more visually interesting, or even effect gameplay. Even just small trees/rocks that block your shots and enemies would add some variety.
• You could also have persistence like when you kill an enemy it could draw to the canvas layer that matches up with your background. So you can get splats and stuff on the ground.
• The enemy ai needs to be more varied. It's ok to have the base type be direct seekers but there needs to be more AI types to mix things up. The large ants need a different behavior pattern for example.
• Maybe you could have a few different colors or types of ants that have different behaviors. There could be ants that lay eggs and if you dont destroy the eggs in time they hatch into more ants!
• Juice the players gun. Instead of tiny bullets make them bigger and they push ants back when they hit them and maybe takes less hits to kill but make the ants faster also. Take it up a notch.
• There were powerups but they shows up very infrequently. It would help enrich gameplay if there were more powerups more often.
• Maybe instead of choosing from 3 upgrades, you could let the player purchase upgrades. Then there could be coins to pick up scattered around each level.

Cool game, I love the funny story intro, ending, and game over!

• The effect when you get a branch pickup is very disorienting. The sound and camera motion was making me think I did something wrong. When the player gets a powerup you want them to feel super good.
• The smoke effect and dogs barking is confusing. Focus on things that matter to the player because otherwise it can be distracting. Sometimes just removing certain things from your game can improve it, less is more.
• Maybe when you jump the stilts could go with you into the air, so you can jump over dogs.
• There could be some stuff to avoid in the air when you are jumping around to add more challenge.

Very cool idea, I think it has to do with shifting the gears but I was unable to get it to work! It seems like your fix to set it to use controller 0 did not work. Make sure your functions to get gamepad stick input are also looking for index 0. It would also be really nice to allow keyboard control. Maybe the dpad could work like the analog stick. This way people can play even if they don't have a gamepad.

In the latest version of LittleJS we added a new variable gamepadPrimary. The way it works is the first gamepad to press a button becomes gamepadPrimary. It only changes if that controller becomes disconnected. This is to fix the issue of sometimes a gamepad being on index 1 even if it is the only gamepad connected.

I am looking forward to giving your game another shot when you get it fixed!

Incredible work! I love the dark and moody atmosphere. Gameplay was solid and I would have kept playing for much longer if there was more content. Very cool to read about the asset pipeline, this is something I need to look into. For the main character I think you need to set up lights better before it is rendered out.

Awesome game!

• Great main menu! Very cool to have buttons for the music, github, etc.
• It could be fun to mix up the rhythm during a song, but it needs to be synched up.
• There is a function getCurrentTime() you can use to get the time of the music to help synch and trigger things.
• Cool transition wipe effect!
• The bell sound is really rough but I'm sure you can fix that easily.
• While you are fixing the bell sound, the sound when you click to the next message like in the tutorial is also a bit harsh. With Zzfx sometimes you need to try a few times to get a good sound. You can also just use a wave or mp3 sample if you have one. All the sounds here could use some tweaking, with a music based game you really need to try to make the sound effects jive with the music. You could even use different sounds depending on the song.

Fun game! I loved the variety of powerups and interesting choices. It reminds me of a dos game we had in the 90s called "Pong Kombat" that was a parody of mortal kombat. Here are a few of the ideas I had while playing.

• Powerups or money in the playfield that give a bonus.
• Bad items or blockers in playfield that player needs to avoid.
• Enemies with special abilities, like maybe they can shoot at you, or have 2 paddles etc.
• Multi ball is very fun, more balls would be even more fun.
• Put a limit on the minimum angle the ball can travel so it is not bouncing vertical so much.
• Speed up the ball, maybe each time you bounce it back and forth it speeds up to make volleys build in excitement.
• Simplify and make it more challenging. Maybe get rid of score and just let players focus on reaching a high level.

Great work! Awesome music and plays very well. Decent length and good variety of gameplay! It was a tough game but I am proud to say I saved the cat.

Here are a few suggestions...

• Use the littlejs.release.js version, this is slightly better perf and will remove the debug watermark from the top right.
• The shift dash mechanic would feel better if it recharged instantly when you land. At least I found it somewhat frustrating. You could do this by checking if this.groundObject is set.
• There is slight bleeding in your player in some of the animation frames. There are 2 ways to fix. The easiest is to use setTileDefaultBleed(.5) which will shave off half a pixel around the character. The more correct way is to use the padding setting, and modify your sprite so there is a 1 pixel padding around each frame. The platformer example is set up like that for reference.
• The intro is great but it would be nice if there was a way to click through for repeat plays.
• It would encourage players to finish if their game was saved. You can just store some json in local storage.
• There is good progression of mechanics but not of scenery. Even just simple things like colors and shapes can make a huge difference. For example one idea I had is maybe as you progress to the right the sun is slowly setting which changes the colors in the background a bit.
• You could integrate the cat more, remind the player that is the goal. Like maybe at each checkpoint the cat is sitting there but when you get close it runs away.
• I also thought the shrinking mechanic was under used but I just had a funny idea for the end. What if you shrink then the cat chases after you trying to eat you! So the cat is like the final boss, a chase were you need to keep moving.

Thanks for the submission! I noticed the result is a little bit blurry so you might want to enable both setCanvasPixelated(true) and setTilesPixelated(true). Increasing the canvas resolution could also help.

Don't forget to add a cover image for your game! You can use AI to generate one if you need help. 

thanks!

Thanks! So those are the achievements, they are mostly set up for newgrounds but work here also. Maybe I'll add a better display for them sometime with more info.

thanks. James!

In the how to play section, i didn't realize there were multiple pages of text. I think it would make more sense if next to the OK button there was another NEXT button. I see your game is on NG now! They can be a tough crowd for sure. It can take a while to build a following, and gradual improvements to your game are a big help. If you release any big updates be sure to post about it too because that will make people notice.

I would suggest maybe lowering the bar for some of those achievements. Players can be motivated by achievements but you have to give them some right away and pace them out so they have achievable goals. 1000 points would make more sense for first achievement. High score boards would also help bring in players, you probably could use 4, for each combo of sheep/chicken chill/stress.

I did not realize the timer was going faster with each hand but honestly I don't think that's a good idea. Players expect timers to go at the same time. There are many other ways to achieve the same thing without changing the the rate. Maybe just give less extra time for each hand and start off with less time initially. If you give less time, presumably as little as 0, and have an upper bound on time, you can put a much better time lime on the game.  More options to increase difficulty would be add random junk tiles, add more colors of sheep.

Another small thing I noticed. I am not an expert player but it doesnt seem necessary to show the next piece for all 5 pieces. I'm sure it could help plan in theory but just feels like information overload. Or maybe since you already implemented that, only show it in the chicken mode since that is a more advanced mode? 

Amazing work, this game is beautiful and so complex. So here's some of my thoughts as I played a bit...

• Pacing is a bit difficult, especially at first when figuring things out. Like right away the first customer is asking for a monte cristo sandwich. Maybe just send customers in one at a time at first. For the first customer at least give the player unlimited time just to get started and start with something easy. 
• Remembering the recipes was really hard, maybe it could just show you the recipe for each order?
• It would be nice if was possible to put food items out on the counter. this way it makes it easier to juggle multiple things at once. Also there could be multiple sandwich stations and multiple coffee stations.
• Trash can to far away! generally it is better to not punish the player when they are already down as it just makes it even harder for players to recover when they are doing bad.
• Great music! It would be kind of cool if there was a radio in the store and you could switch between different tracks.
• If i take bread and put it on the sandwich station, and pick it up again, it shouldn't be bad!
• It would make sense if food burned if left on the stove for too long.
• The time limit for the day would be good to show so players know how much time they have left.
• Maybe it would make sense to start with a more limited menu at first. like day 1 it is just a coffe and sweets shop. Day 2 they have sandwiches. day 3 more recipes. etc. This would also help break up the gameplay into more digestible sections. Maybe you can even buy upgrades and rebuild the shop?

There are lots of really great things going on in this game. I hope you keep working in it because I wouldn't even recommend adding anything, just tweak and improve what you have. Help players to get in the zone of making food and they won't be able to stop!

This game is really ambitious and fun!

• I love how many different animals you managed to include here.  Great use of the theme!
• Thanks for putting in a little extra work to optimize it, seems to be running quite a bit better now, though there is still room for more framerate. 
• Awesome to hear the speech system being used. 
• It was a little counter intuitive at first to click through end turn to get some initial resources. Maybe the bovine tech should be unlocked on start?
• I like how the player can control the research.
• Great work integrating the tutorial into gameplay. 
• I'm not sure how the auto end turn works.
• It didn't seem that useful to explore with the dogs, maybe there could be more resources to find?
• I was afraid of humans the whole time but never saw any.
• I was able to eventually launch into space but was not sure exactly how to raise the level of my village.
  

Really great work, thank you for making this game, it feels very unique. I hope you continue working on it. With a game like this it can take a little while to figure out how to balance everything you have so just keep tweaking and listening to player feedback.

I love this game, incredible work! It really feels like a complete retro game experience. Here are some thoughts as I play.

• I love all the different kinds of animals you rescue. 
• The music is nice and works well with the game.
• The background art and atmospheric effects like snow also work great.
• The default time limit is a bit high for each level to make it impactful.
• Feels really nice with gamepad.
• There is a weird glitch with the camera when you respawn. I think you need to reset the camera pos to the player so it doesnt try to lerp.
• I got stuck on the boat once and my jetpack wouldnt refill.
• I like how the animals follow behind you, it feels like another subtle mechanic to take into account.
• If there were more levels I would keep playing!
• Great Tutorial! You should consider just including that tutorial in the first level automatically

This was an awesome experience and I hope you keep working on it. What you have here would also be great to show live if you ever get a chance, because it's a short game with easy to learn gameplay I bet a lot of people would enjoy it!

Interesting concept! Everything is working really nicely but some art would help a lot! You could consider using open source art assets or even having AI help make the art. The round end screen works really well.  It's great to see that you already have something setup for upgrading weapons. It would be fun if the animals interacted with each other and the level in a more interesting way. I hope you keep working on this and consider arting it up. Also you can use the release build of littlejs to prevent the escape debug feature and it runs a bit faster! Great work!

Nice little game! The graphics are really nice and give me a retro vibe, feels kind of like a master system game. The gameplay could use a little more polish so the player has more interesting combat decisions and higher level goals. One thing you could do just to juice this version is greatly increase the amount of animals and player firing rate. 

Great start sequence, it is very exciting to see LittleJS used for a big ambitious project like this! It looks like you have a lot of the core systems in place and nice intro going. I see there is also an integrated editor which is very interesting. I can see the jam is just a start for this game and I'm excited to see more of this game as it develops!

Great game, reminded me of old school puzzle games like tetris and dr mario. Fun idea to let the player select the music like in those games. Great overall presentation with start menu, how to play, achievements and all! I like how it highlights any matches. Maybe there should be an upper limit on how much time you can have banked, like one minute or something, this could help increase time pressure. Maybe also reducing how much time is added when making matches. Strategy wise I found it hard to plan ahead but was easy enough in the chill sheep mode. Maybe instead of subtracting from score there could be a limit to how many times you can remove a piece, or a powerup you collect allows it or something. The chicken mode was more difficult though I still haven't fully figured out how to play that one yet. You should consider putting this game on newgrounds, I think they would really enjoy this there and it is easy to hook up your achievements to their api using the littlejs plugin!

It was a lot of fun looking for all the animals. Great use of the puzzle game starter project! It felt kind of easy to be able to move tiles around as much as you want without penalty, but with so many animals it would be impossible otherwise. You could maybe start with less animals at first and as player makes matches introduce more.

Great to see that you were able to mix LittleJS and Three.js, would love see more of this idea expanded into a playable game!

That was fun, I managed to finish in under 1 minute after a few tries. The mechanics are very simple but felt fun to search for the animals I needed left. You could definitely expand this with more stuff. Just keeping with emojis you could have another level with people, and another with sea creatures, etc.

Cool idea for a game, reminds me of my cat when he's hungry! I'd like to see this idea expanded more, I want to know what more animals sound like. The player interaction while simple worked really well like the red tint and shaking when wrong and green with particle effects when right. All you need is more content and I would keep playing!

Amazing work with this game! The art style is so good and vibe you created feels really complete.

• i want a button to just drag the screen around. i had issues with it moving the screen automatically.
• i started to get overwhelmed with how many humans there were at a certain point
• the npc voices are great
• initially it is a little overwhelming how to get started. it might help to start smaller, maybe with just one man and one woman then build out from there.
• there ends up being a lot of micromanagement when you get a large population and it can be difficult as a player to understand what is going on. streamlining this kind of thing so the player can work faster and more efficiently would help.
• it would be interesting to see how this plays in real time without the advance time button.

I hope you keep working on this game, it's off to a great start and you nailed the visual execution! It has plenty of content already so really the next step is just to rework it a bit and polish more.

Works really well with a gamepad, I noticed you even have the in game instructions auto change, nice touch! Good music too. Here is some feedback for you...

• gravity feels about twice what it should be. this contributes to the platforming being frustrating
• there is a weird bug when you attack, it puts effects in the place of the last thing you damaged
• the screen turning red can be a good way to indicate health, but it really only works if it refills quickly, otherwise the player ends up with a reddish screen. even after i died it didnt refill
• i dont think you need lives for the player for this type of game, just let them try as much as then need.

This looks like a great start to a game but just needs more content. Here's a little more feedback after I played for a while....

• more things to buy would really open up the gameplay
• have a way to buy an auto clicker so the animals can auto generate the resources
• the sound effects can be a little bit distracting when they are coming from offscreen. instead maybe focus on what the player is doing, like when you click on things it would make sense to give auditory feedback.
•  would be cool if the animals react to the environment, like maybe there is grass for the cows to eat.
• id like to see the alien also building outwards, it would really cool if you were building out a farm and the alien was building some alien stuff up there.

This is great start to a game, it felt like you could continue building this out into a large experience. The graphics and animation look awesome! Music works well to create good atmosphere, just needs more gameplay and I would keep playing!