itch.io

If you're open to another writer, Unity developer, Low-Poly artist, poet, and/or ex sailor to perhaps join this project, that is me, and I'd love to come in and collaborate on this. If nothing else, hit me up for a play test. Best of luck in your pursuit on Steam. ✌️

https://discord.com/users/311208356373331968

Thank you so much for this detailed review, very insightful. Our character artist modelled, rigged, and textured the mouse hero while also completing her final exams, impressive stuff! She also did the village houses of Mouseholes (btw Mouseholes == Mouse Souls).

Those mouse hits are painful so I wanted the SFX to hurt a bit too. There's a story blurb on the itch page, but mostly I was just going for a vibe to not interrupt the action.

I absolutely loved your guys' game. Drop me a message here or somewhere if you all decide to expand it, I'd love to be a play tester or somehow involved.

Cheese seems appropriate for a mouse too 🧀 😊

Incredible atmosphere. It all comes together beautifully, the low-poly environs, the water shader, and best of all, the lighting when the towers flicker on. *chef's kiss* I'd happily play a couple hours in this mood, exploring the mysterious writing, you'd just need another couple mechanics in there, but in my experience, developers are never running short on those. Great work.

Ah, great to see another rodent game in the jam. I really enjoyed this, like Overcooked meets Bomber Crew. I enjoyed it both when things were going haywire and for the maybe 20 seconds when everything was calm and there was just the plink-plunk of the rats doing their work. The only issue I had was some difficulty in getting my mouse clicks to register on the machines - it felt kind of finicky to click on them "right". That's ultimately a very minor issue. I think if you added some flow control levers to direct cheese onto different belts while one is being repaired, the complexity is just at the right level for some more fun pandemonium. Great entry!

I think it was an inspired design decision to make dash and attack just the same keypress and action to keep the complexity down and not have to deal with the issue of a tiny character having a tiny melee range and it being difficult to position correctly in a sidescroller like this and give the player dashing as a mobility option. That's always my big hint it might be a good design idea, when it solves a slew of problems all at once.

Oh no! You discovered the secret strategy! Our character artist told me she does exactly this tactic, so in my cruel depravity, I went and added a little behavior AI where he tries to move and quickly turn out of the way if you come at him from the rear angle, but it's still sort of possible (it has to be possible, after all).

skill issue git gud

Just kidding i just always wanted to say that. I tried speeding the roll up but it made the whole thing way too easy - ultimately boring. Making this, I sometimes felt like I was choreographing a dance, where each move and its response was a set of animations. Surprisingly tricky stuff!

Pretty enjoyable, a classic game loop. I think I'm in the boat with the guy who mentioned hotkeys below, clicking those little targets above the towers felt just a little bit off when things eventually got heated. Why not make use of the numpad? It's got the same shape.

We talked a lot about the game Grounded while we were concepting. I bet you guys were too!

My favorite touch here by far, is the little wiggle you added on the clover and other plants when you bump into them. Immediately the world felt 10x more immersive. I also liked that I could get high on mushrooms in your game 🍄😂

Ah, I know you can do it. It's not that hard when you get the hang of it. Here's my Prima guide:
Don't button mash, only press Attack and Dodge one time and do so deliberately.
Don't be greedy. If he attacks and misses you, get in there and land one (1) attack on him. Then run away again. You're just a tiny mouse.

Do that just enough times to find the rhythm and you've saved your village.

Very cool. Loved the aesthetic. Almost had a horror element to it, like Subnautica, paired up with Descent, if you've heard of that game. One of those games that makes you wonder what a larger version would look like...

The Itsy Bitsy Spider Went Up the Water Spout

Down Came his Vengeance on Those Who Messed About

Up Came his Gun and he Webbed Out All Their Brains

And the Itsy Witsy Spider Went Up the Spout Again

Ugh - I was so worried about this. I almost cut Jumping solely so that there would be one less button on the tutorial. I also thought about having a little fade-in pop-up in the lower right corner that would remind you of the main controls each time you died. But then I worried that that might interfere with the aesthetic / immersion, in addition to making some players feel like... patronized? Yaknow?
What do you think? How could I have handled it better?

Okay, looks like you know about the issues with Z-fighting or multiple procedural generations occurring on top of each other or whatever it is. so I won't reiterate that here or rate just yet. But I will note instead that I enjoyed the graphics, the music, and zipping the little robot around to do his chores. It's a very pleasant aesthetic, and I hope you get your browser-buid issues sorted out promptly 🤖

It is by design yeah, and I do believe it that it can certainly be frustrating for the uninitiated. I took the From games as my rough blueprint, and the Heavy roll in Elden Ring is about as long as mine. If the player is able to zip around dodging everything, then the boss quickly becomes pretty harmless (unless you resort to them doing looong fake-out wind-ups before actually swinging, but that has its own frustrations). Like the rest of this genre, I wanted the player to have to learn the boss, time their attacks and dodges carefully and not just button mash their way through it.

Noted! Thanks for playing

An artist's studio is indeed their own Tiny World. Nice take on the theme.

Thanks for playing!

Roll is on Spacebar, I actually thought it felt better there during development so I moved it over, swapping it with Jump which is on Control, but not very useful in the end. Fair point though, Ctrl should probably be a no-go on browser even if its a staple for PC. Thanks for the kind words 🙏

Freedom for Rodents Everywhere!

CHEESE DEFENDED! Glad to see another rodent entry. Why did I get 2 / 3 medallions when I didn't take damage?

Pretty cute! Nostalgic too

Love it. Condensed Factorio right down into its essence. Full Catorio release when? 🐱

Incredible aesthetic. A film noir saga that evoked everything from Blade Runner to Max Payne. The pastries. They sing to me. A return to the time of Yeast. Ye gods, what rolls may yet come?

Great, another career path discovered that I'm not at all suited for. 😂

Never played a game quite like this before. Some interesting strategy in the layering of the elements. Got me thinking.

Thanks! I did experiment with faster animations for the player later in development, but it made the game an absolute cakewalk. So it's more like a Heavy build in a From game than anything else - I kind of had to pick just one.

Not his fault you're so delicious. Tale as old as time.

I just played your sister game in the jam!
https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2025/rate/3575446
Overall a compelling concept and marrying the cookie click upgrade concept with essentially tower defense is an inspired design. I know you know this, but the game needs sound effects to make it juicy enough to truly enjoy. Overall, I had fun with your game, good entry!

The combat rhythm in games like this can be a challenging initial adjustment. The key is strategically trading hits and not button mashing. Dodge, hit, dodge again - don't get greedy!  Thanks for playing :)

Bahahaha, what a great game idea. If somebody had suggested this to me, I would have to make it. Excellent sense of humor/carnage, we'll see how long I can stay on the Leaderboard but I suspect it won't be long.

PREDATOR FELLED! Good job, hero. Ultimately I had to go with Heavy Rolling just to give all the From Software veterans PTSD 😂

Now I know why my printer is always running out of ink! Great graphics, wonderful take on the theme, enjoyable puzzling, cute character, this game has so much to offer! If I can offer some feedback, I'll say I didn't love the physics box part, it was too tough to control and interfered with the enjoyable puzzley route planning. maybe if it was very heavy and just slid across, or if you could aim/position it a little easier. When it got introduced, the chaos factor went up, so I really needed to know if the already pink tiles were supposed to be pink or if they were correctly colored, some distinction there after coloring would be helpful. All in all, this is a super creative entry and executed at a high level. Excellent work! 🖨️

Thank you! I enjoyed your game a lot as well! 🦠

Very good stuff. A mix of cookie clicker and Vampire Survivors. Crucially, it has that feeling where you just know you're on the verge of a run that's going to pop off like crazy. Autoclick was an inspired design decision, I honestly think you should make it default and get rid of clicking altogether. Well done!

Thank you kindman. Very kind, man. Yeah, unfortunately our environment / prop artist couldn't join us this time, so we had to make due with a bunch of free assets to fill out the scene. Glad to hear you feel it worked out.
And I agree, I think it's the best scoped project I've done in a game jam of this length. Thanks for playing! ✌️

Thank you!

The music had me feeling like I was Paul Atreides but meanwhile I'm just making some dude sneeze. 🤧Overall a pretty chill experience! Maybe that's the vibe you were going for, but I personally would have been tempted to make it eventually ramp up more like Vampire Survivors as the body eventually reacts and attempts to fight the disease. Great use of the theme!

2nd try! That's pretty good. I dub thee a certified Gamer. 🕹️