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Thank you so much! I'm getting better with pixel art but it takes me a long time to make, so I picked a genre that I could get away without  animating haha. 

The sunset skies were a great use for the color palette swaps. Would've liked to see more from Mr Twirlstash. Too bad you didn't get a chance to do a soundtrack, the SFX were pretty good! I got about 115 coins after I learned to embrace diving. I'll try later to see if I can get them all.

Glad the combo idea had some juice to it. The feedback about progression is helping me plan for future jam games. Thank you for playing!

The melancholic monochrome and understated soundtrack are a vibe. The parallax in the rooftop scene is gorgeous. You spend a lot of time walking so it's nice to have so many walk cycle frames. I got a little discouraged from exploring from how easy it was to die, but I did spend some time underground too. Might come back to this when I feel a little more determined.

I was thinking about the way you worded this, and tried again without running jumps by positioning myself at the very edge of the platforms and finished the game in about 2 minutes. Very clever haha. I had fun with it.

A full metroidvania experience in a bite-sized jam game. Game design on point, especially by having the player pass by paths they needed powerups to access. Right after getting dash, I thought I could cross the gap to the west of the tree, only to find out no, not yet, and go searching for secrets. It was rewarding to find the cloud area. Music is well done and together with the gameplay and art style elevates the Game Boy Soul to full marks from me.

Not much to criticize. There are bugs but no showstoppers, and forgiving respawns help to mitigate their severity. Gold coins could serve a more interesting purpose.

I'm not very good at this game and the full restarts felt a little punishing but I managed to free the first level's crab before dying by jumping into the void. I may give this another go later, I'm intrigued by the what the other commenters found in further levels.

Love the music, relaxing and whimsical. The diagonal tile wipe transitions are really unique, I haven't seen other entries use something like that. 

Had an issue where the jump input binds suddenly stopped working. It seems to be a quirk related how Linux Mint treats the Alt key. I use arrow keys and ZX but alt-tabbed out to check on something. Not really a big deal, just something I haven't experienced before.

I really enjoyed being able to hookshot the museum curator to speed up my turn ins. Ambitious color scheme executed well. Scale a little too big for me to play in one go, but overall a pretty solid loop. If I could save, put it it down, pick it up later casually, it would help a lot, though I acknowledge this is out of scope for a lot of jam games. Very nice entry.

GBS may be the tool for you then. I personally love it too. I feel like many GBS games are carried by the templates, but you are figuring out how to bring things to life yourself, which will set you apart from the pack.

A simple core mechanic + upgrade and level variety is maybe the most important lesson I'm learning from my favorite submissions to this jam. Thank you for the constructive feedback!

Thank you! You're right about the audio mix. You know what's funny, I finished the BGM just before submitting and since there's only 4 bars of music I thought this is gonna be really repetitive. Well, turns out it's not the most repetitive sound in the game lol.

Hey thank you! I'm happy to hear you enjoyed the mobile controls. I miss my old Game Boy pocket and I really wanted to recreate that feeling. Nice to hear also that the combo bonuses worked for a little incentive. I'm planning to add more visual feedback for this.

I can confirm that it's possible to get to the end. Expect a challenge, but if you manage to get into a flow state you can succeed.

You're diabolical for this one lmao. Luckily I did lots of  coyote time testing in a platformer I was making earlier this year. The music was minimalist but did what it needed to: made me wonder if it was making fun of me after I missed a jump while the protagonist turns towards the camera with that cute smile. 

I got that bass from someone in the GBJAM Discord last year! Let me know if you want me to send it to you. It's just a hex string that you can plug into a tracker, works in Game Boy ROMs too.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm planning to do a little bit more with this post-jam. Some progression and/or a win condition would help satisfy while keeping the game bite-sized. I took some notes from GOLD RUSH 1898.

Easily my favorite music of the jam, and that's with some really strong competition. Unconventional harmony in a catchy structure. It feels right at home with OSTs from HAL Laboratory games, like the raw personality and weirdness from Earthbound/Mother series meets the chippy allegro of Kirby. 

I trained for Captain Nefarious back on Yoshi's Island, and luckily main an Xbox controller on computer. I think this was a good mechanical choice for solo developing a jam game that allowed you to work on art, music and story, which is what really makes this game fun. Polly's a G. The palette change in the boss fight is cool, but the way the whole scene became spooky was more than just colors. Just really good design all around. The continue without losing progress is highly welcome for a jam game, allowing for some difficulty without discouraging the player too much.

The water shader looks awesome, I like how the layers suggest foam and tide. It is a little difficult to appreciate when trying not to get shanked. Sometimes you just gotta make what you find fun though. 

Overall, a well-rounded entry with a ton of personality.

Thank you so much for the comment on the music. I get task paralysis when composing/producing, that only time pressure forces me to overcome and worry less about it. But I ended up having fun with this one, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

Your expectations for the movement are well founded. I noticed in my IRL guinea pigs playtesters (my poor family) that they were trying similar maneuvers. To be honest, due to running low on time, the scrolling is entirely an illusion, one that the mercury doesn't adhere to. Under the hood it's more like a platformer with Zelda-like hazards. I'm doing some post-jam improvements and the movement mechanics are going to get major attention.

Thanks again for your thoughtful feedback.

So much to like about this one, where to start. All the pixel art is good, and the tiles and title screen stole the show. The shop UI extremely Game Boy. Font selections are great. Palette swapping is very fun, though I felt like some had performance hits, unless it was from the level itself. Gameplay is easy to pick up and addicting. Oh and the music is killer. Strikes the right mood. Good subtle modulation. I love triplet or 12/8 whichever one you'd call this. I saw that you used LÖVE for this, which I'm not familiar with but very curious now. Overall fantastic entry.

It took me a sec to realize I was breaking the tiles most likely to destabilize the mining shaft and not the ones with loot. I went broke a couple times, one time from buying gear before my first dig, and just hung out with the NPCs, but I figured things out eventually. The vibe is cool, reminds me of Dredge in some ways, maybe in part due to the pirate accordion music. Overall, a solid concept with a good core loop.

Contrary to expectations, it's rare that a GBS game really captures the Game Boy soul, especially of a proper adventure. This game manages to do that from the get go. I did find some humor in its demo state, like the sage telling me how useful the book is and the protagonist is just like "nice, happy for you". 

The sunset scene is a banger. This would be a choice use case for GBS's tile animation IMO (which I saw used in the water, also a great use).

The music puzzle was pretty fun. It took me a sec to realize it was one because I was thinking about the sound effect and how GBS should bundle its own solution for them, before I realized it was a "wrong" buzzer. Soundtrack overall enhanced the world, with a feel like Pokemon Red/Blue.

I almost gave up vs the Pegasus Knight, but they ragebaited me enough to stick with it. Then after I won, they stood on same tile as me to prevent me from moving. (I got out using the pause menu)

Feature request: let us pet the dog.

Good humor, good failable tutorial (I had to try). I'm a believer in "parallax backgrounds for any reason" no matter how implausible. I felt 3D was used well here, it is risky to overdo. Title music has some mystery, normal levels have nice tempo both relaxing and helps you focus, and the final level is appropriately tense. One of my favorite entries so far.

Thank you! That is high praise.

I couldn't resist trying out the spikes, and the way the music cuts dramatically was funny. The trap switch that spawned spikes from below was cruel, but also funny. There are a couple trick walls that you can walk through and fall forever, it would be funny if you make this feel intentional and spawn you back at the start. I got well acquainted with the dead end room (I assume, maybe there was a way out I didn't figure out).

I recommend disabling the itch.io full screen button, it changed the aspect ratio for me. 

Thank you!

Plays smooth as butter. Sprite art is next level. Music very classic chiptune. The falling rocks being so interactive is awesome, satisfying to use as a trap, funny when the knights do it to themselves, enraging when I did it to myself...

I have similar critiques as others here, but I'll add one: on first play, by loading the level with Z it also consumes one of my flame charges.

Crazy, I never played Jet Set Radio but I recognize a lot from the OST. The Amen Break in DnB is so iconic, but has a really sad story about the original drummer. I wanted to share this specific sample for you to check out: https://www.whosampled.com/sample/20334/Hirokazu-Tanaka-Boris%27-Cocktail-Leroy-... this was used in Earthbound and Toby Fox uses it to great effect by assigning it to a keyboard. (edit: had wrong link)

This game is full of whimsy in its art and music, and even the "console" layer which I had to give a try on my phone. I've got to learn how to do touch controls like this for my mobile D-Pad. The shading of the block tiles create a nice optical result when I'm not focused on it. The flapping glide is very satisfying and reminded me also of Yoshi's Island. Heartwarming credits that could be felt throughout.

Classic Game Boy vibes. The game looks great at smaller viewport/screen sizes. Reserving the use of the darkest shade for sprite outlines works well, and I like the stone path tiles in particular. I had some issues with the controls, but the whimsical music kept me patient as I learned the quirks. I figured out that "pacifist runs" are possible, and even the sword is optional. Intended or not, it brought my enjoyment up a level.

Ah that makes sense. I have some code somewhere that snaps analog stick to 8 directions and -1 to 1 vectors, but I ran out of time to implement, even on my target controllers.

Thank you, I'm glad you had fun with it! I was hoping my controller binds were flexible enough but lesson learned, I'll have to figure out how to handle the SEGA layout. Looking forward to trying your Zelda-like!

There's the thrift shop Bame Boy. To be honest, the audio stuff is catching my attention more. You've got some interesting modal stuff going on. Seems like you'd be great at wavetable chiptunes. You can get some really unconventional harmony out of that too with sampling, like some of the stuff out of Earthbound.

It felt like it would inconsistently grab, but it's hard to say without seeing the wall. I'll give it another go after I get some sleep.

This definitely gives me some ideas. I would love to expand with some real "stages" that can be completed, with different hazards and strategies. A small amount of narrative could also go a long way. 

Your tiles are really nice. I know you said you took inspiration from browsing lospec (same tbh) but I really think you have an eye for it. I liked the atmosphere of this recycling plant, though I could not make it to the second area with the green palette before dying. The outline around collectibles worked well. The environmental hazards I wish stood out a little more, but I learned to be more careful after getting hurt a couple times. I thought I was doing pretty well with 95 points until I looked through the comments. I'll come back later and try and get to the green zone.

Hey you added the other idle animations. Definitely makes it easier to position myself and attack, but these skeletons death explosions are pretty punishing. There were times I went from full HP to dead in under a second, and I think invincibility frames could help the sense of fairness. 

You did a great job with the music, especially for your first go at it. Sprites and UI have a nice 90s aesthetic, and for tiles the staggered planks and the grills are well done in how they break up the sense of repetition. Overall, a vibe.

The vibe is very dreamlike. I love the use of color. I haven't tried PICO-8 yet but this makes me want to soon. I saw the commenter on the public page talk about wall jump, that's about as far as I got myself.  The physics and state management for these nice platformer tricks can be really challenging. As a player, platforming from memory is also challenging, but the mysterious and beautiful world motivates me to try.

Surprisingly engaging. Short and sweet.

This was really charming. It took some getting used to the controls, but once I did, I enjoyed exploring the small world. I didn't manage to catch a fish, was that what I needed to progress? I wouldn't mind playing a blackjack minigame.

Sadly, no. Everything past the core loop was sacrificed at the altar of scope management. I'm planning to do some polishing after the jam, let me know if you have any suggestions! Thanks for playing