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Nice write-up!  So the idea is going on the shelf for a bit or you've got a patch in the works?  I'm really curious what you've got planned for this.

Congratulations on second place!

Thanks :D as for the tileset, that was mostly intentional, it's a thin layer of grass, but I think it was a little too thin. It's my first time making that sort of asset and I was running out of time to spend polishing it more.  I'll have to make a point to revisit it when I start adding more levels.

I can see what you were going for here, and the concept works well, but a few areas could use more polish.

The wall jump feels a bit sticky, like I’m getting caught on the surface rather than bouncing off it. It doesn’t feel very satisfying right now. The dash could also use a stronger visual cue, such as a quick blink, afterimage, or dust trail to help it stand out and feel more impactful.

During the chase scene, it wasn’t always clear which objects were safe to jump on or move across, which caused some confusion and unexpected deaths. Improving the visual contrast or readability there would make a big difference.

These are all very fixable issues, and addressing them would really elevate the experience. I liked the aesthetic choices and atmosphere you created, it sets the tone nicely.

I spent about five minutes playing and here are a few observations:

The combat could use a bit more variety. Right now it feels very button-mashy, and it doesn’t seem to matter much which attack I use. The responsiveness also feels a little off, and it’s easy to get stun-locked or overwhelmed when several enemies attack at once.

The music mix might need some tweaking too, the high frequencies (maybe the hi-hat) were sharp enough that I had to turn the volume down.

It was also hard to tell how much health I or the enemies had, which made deaths feel sudden and confusing. Adding clearer visual indicators would really help.

That said, this is a good foundation. The idea works, it just needs some extra development time and polish to make the combat feel satisfying and impactful.

Sure, why not. https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-halloween-jam-2025/rate/3974413 Played your game a few days back but forgot to give a comment, it was really well done :D

This was a lot of fun, took me a moment to figure out how the game worked so you might want to look into making an interactive tutorial if you keep working on this.  It's a lot of words to digest before playing the game.  I've got nothing all that constructive to add outside of the graphics could use a little touch up, but it's consistant and that's not bad at all.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks :D I'm planning on adding more stages after the jam, just have to figure out how to do that properly. 

Well it's beatable now, that's for sure.  Just tried it, though I noticed this time around there was some visual clipping with some of the pages against the desk and other pages.  Not sure if that was always there.  Still, good job with the patch, feels more fair, though could of felt a little on the easy side because the older version made me rush more than this one.  Looking forward to chapter 2.

I tried downloading it but my Edge blocked it saying it deteted a virus, you may wanna look into if this is a false positive, could be why no one's playing the game.  Trojan:Script/Wacatac.C!ml

The core idea here is solid, and the game has a lot of potential. It could use a bit more polish, but what’s here already shows promise.

The main issue I ran into was bouncing off walls and right into my own bullets. Increasing the shot speed a little might help with that and make the combat feel smoother.

Still, you’ve got a strong foundation to build on, and this concept has plenty of room to grow. Nice work!

This is a solid start, and the theme is really fun and unique. An incremental game built around a pyramid scheme has a lot of creative potential.

That said, after a while the core loop starts to feel a bit flat. Once it becomes "wait for number to go up, then press a thing to make the number go up again," it loses momentum. I got to about three rows before I started feeling that repetition set in. It’s not bad by any means, but it feels like it’s missing an extra layer, maybe some kind of strategic choice, progression twist, or interaction that changes how the numbers grow over time.

I also wasn’t fully sure how or why I was unlocking new rows. It seemed tied to hitting certain thresholds, but the connection between the upper and lower rows wasn’t very clear. If there is some interplay coded in, it might just need a clearer visual or mechanical cue to help the player understand it.

Still, the concept and theme are strong, and I’d love to see where you take it. There’s a lot of potential here, so definitely keep going with it.

Aaaah ok, good to know. If you make a larger verison I'd love to play it, I followed you to keep up with what you end up making later.

Thanks for playing :D I'm glad you enjoyed it.  I'm planning on adding improvements after the jam from everyone's suggestions.

Cute game, I enjoyed it, though question on a potential bug, are you supposed to be able to hit a switch an die before a check point and the switch remains hit?  It could go either way but seems kind of easy if you can just avoid platforming that way.  Still, I really enjoyed this.  Keep up the good work.  This is a very good foundation for a longer game if you wanted it to be.

Many thanks!  I'm hoping to add more features to this after the jam that eases the transition of mechanics a little better, and add controller support.  I'm already working out a few things that I plan on launching soon after the jam ends.  Thanks again!

I've got some ideas for how to do that post jam, thanks for the suggestion! I think I'll end up doing smaller stages at least at the beginning.  But yeah, I ran out of time to think of a good narrative for this.  Welp, post jam I have all the time in the world lol.

On a post jam patch I'll be adding improvements to the trajectory, thanks for the suggestion!

If you find this to be a common comment, if you go forward with this after the jam, I'd suggest that you should add a few levels between that help introduce the movement slower so you'd get the feel for it before the training wheels are taken off.  A lot of games tend to go that route of explaining by doing.  This game is really well done. I bet it could work well on the phone if you add touch controls or something.

Very well made, I just suck at these kinds of puzzle games.  I struggled to get past the second level, didn't manage before giving up after failing like 30 times, not gonna dock ya for that though.

In options you can adjust the sound levels.  I'll look into not having all the audio start at 100% in a future version, though, thanks!

Thanks! I'm planning on working this concept a bit more post jam and add more stages to it.  I'm just glad the parts I spent the most time on show by how much ya'll are enjoying it :D

Requested Feedback

Since this is a feature test, here are my observations:

Combat Feedback:
Outside of the health bar decreasing, there isn’t much feedback to show that damage is being dealt or received. Consider adding sound cues and visual effects such as hit flashes, screen shake, or short impact pauses to make combat feel more impactful.

Attack Design:
Right now, there is little reason to use jab when a basic punch can rush down opponents with minimal risk. Adding a cooldown, stamina cost, or counter window would make the choice of attack more meaningful and add strategic depth.

Controls:
The one-handed control scheme takes some getting used to. I understand the design intent, but offering an optional two-handed layout could make the controls feel smoother and more responsive.

Overall System:
As a foundation for a future project, the combat system works. It is readable, responsive, and easy to build on, but still basic and could use additional polish. The main design challenge will be keeping encounters from feeling repetitive, especially if combat stays on a single horizontal plane. Adding vertical movement, attack variety, or different enemy behaviors could help maintain engagement.

I'll evaluate that based on what you've said.  Would you rather my feedback go into the gamejam's submission page or on the main page of the game?

I’d like to offer some free gameplay consulting during the final stretch of the game jam for anyone who wants to take their project to the next level.

If you’re planning to keep developing your jam game but aren’t sure where the pain points are, I’m happy to help. I’ll play your game from a consultant’s perspective and share clear, actionable feedback on what’s working well, what’s holding it back, and what areas you could focus on improving going forward.

I’m offering this as a free service during the jam to help up-and-coming devs who want serious and thoughtful advice. I’ll be doing this on a first come, first served basis and will prioritize projects that show genuine effort. I plan to spend real time with each game rather than a quick five-minute glance.

If that sounds useful to you, reply here with a link to your game. I'll only be doing this for games entered in this Jam, and while I'm there, I'll also rate your game.

Yeah... I'm gonna totally admit I slapped that stage together in about 30 minutes.  I put all my focus on the gameplay to make sure that was solid and ran out of time.  I think I'm going to work on the game more post jam and add more stages to it, and adjust the starting stage or nuke it from orbit.  Thanks for the suggestion!  I'll check out your game in a few.

That's the best part, getting freedback.  I see the potential you've got so keep it up :D

I noticed a few bugs, but of the ones that weren't already reported are that some of the light polls don't let you walk behind them, pretty sure it isn't intentional because the ones next to it allowed it.  Also I'd recommend a little extra audio feedback for when picking up candy and clicking on the pumpkins. I'd also suggest that when you click on the house you shorten the time for waiting to do the mini game, maybe cut it in half,

I like the atmosphere of the game though, but I'll admit, it took me a while to figure out what I was doing and I feel like I still don't know what I'm doing, ended up just clicking on the houses to do the mini games because everything else didn't feel all that clear to me.

Yeah that sounds good, just going back and forth about it mentally on how to do that properly. I should experiment with it for later. Thanks for the suggestion!

I can't remember if during the soft lock I hit escape or just reloaded. I will say though that the trick to getting the high jump I did on accident. Was frustrating till I figured that out so might want to nudge people towards that better later.  Still, I really enjoyed this one.

If I remember right it was pretty easy though that might be because I repeated the earlier stages enough to be used to it.

It could use a little more polish, feels like the game ends very quickly and that there isn't much you can do to do better.  Something you might want to consider is instead of teleporting between the lanes you could have the character do a quick jump animation so it feels more natural.  Also it felt like getting hit by the ghost didn't have much feedback and that once you get hit you're gonna lose all your lives.  And speaking of feedback, I'd look into adding some addditional audio feedback that isn't voice lines.  Also, just noticed, if you don't play in full screen you get none of the feedback of lives or candy, so I was playing totally blind till I tried going into full screen.It's a nice start, but needs a few more fixes before it's something I could see myself playing casually.

As for controller support, yeah I agree, just I need to figure out how I'd handle the throwing mechanic though I guess thumb sticks would do it... hm.... that should be the first thing I patch in if I keep developing this, thanks for the suggestion!

Ok, finished playing all the stages, didn't get 3 "Stars" on all of them though, but I felt myself smiling as I played the game, good job, I bumped up your score from my first assessment.

Hmmm... maybe a dodging mini game, like the monsters will do an attack that you need to press a directionto dodge away from on time then some kind of flee animation to let you know the doors are coming up again, maybe different monsters have a different number of attacks to dodge.  You could also consider making it instead of instant death when you don't do a door that you have to face a monster instead, maybe make it a longer monster encounter so it's a punishment instead of a game over.

I really like the job you did with the music and sound design and visually this was a treat to play.  One suggestion though, you might want to darken what is considered in the background, I was confused on what I could actually jump on/touch because it looked the same to me.

I wasn't able to figure out how to get all the candy on the 3rd stage but that was more of a me problem.  Didn't play the other stages yet because I managed to soft lock myself by falling on the edge of a fence and getting stuck.

All in all, a nice sort of platformer, you have plenty to work with if you wanted to make more stages.

I gave the 1.1 build a try.  Here's my thoughts:
You nailed the Aesthetics and theme, the only thing you were missing was a good ambiant sound or music to seal the mood of the setting.  The gameplay was kind of confusing, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing.  The combat needs a some polish, could use better feedback on when you take damage and when you deal damage.  The story kind of implies some stuff happened before we started playing, but it felt compelling to me to feel like I wanted to know more.

This feels like there can be a full game here if you can put some more time into it but in it's current state it's a decent proof of concept.  Still, you are going in the right direction and you should be happy about it.

I really like the art direction and the music, the story's ok though it didn't have a payoff to it.   There was one bug I noticed with the combat, you can click as fast as you want and it plays the sound but it only registers the animation at it's normal speed.

Still, not bad and quite well done, just could stand for some more game mechanics but it's not a bad "one and done" sort of experience, doesn't overstay it's welcome.