itch.io

oh yeah I knew I remembered this from somewhere !

I love the tie-in at the end :D awesome job with this game, I love how each mechanic is introduced throughout the levels, makes it super easy to learn them

Hi Niven! I'm so glad you liked it :D Thank you so much for taking the time to play this and for giving us this feedback 
I'm so glad you like the atmosphere, I always enjoy how you create such a strong disturbing atmosphere in your work so it means a lot that you liked ours too :)

No worries about the video, my friend, I hope you feel better soon!

Gestate still has a lot of room for improvement so we're not too concerned with marketing the game in this incomplete state anyway - Getting feedback from such a skilled developer as yourself is what's most important to us for making improvements to the game :D 

that's awesome, your hard work definitely paid off ! kind of an odd question ik, I just wanted to get a sense of what the timeframe looks like for making something like this. 

Thanks so much for playing, Alex :D

We're definitely with you about the UI needing some sprite work, right now they're basically placeholders, thematic stuff like the hunger bar being intestine-like would be so sick, and more occult-ish themes too :)

our main goal moving forwards is more variation between days, as like you said it gets a little repetitive. I can usually win in about 5-7 days by just seeking out rabbits and birds until trust is maxxed out, and then hitting it with poison and hedgehogs until i need to raise trust again, but evidently the player isn't really given the understanding of the game to optimise their approach like that, so I will make note of this as something to work on.

Since the Game-Jam we've been mainly focused on setting a strong foundation to build new mechanics and features onto, so that's why at the moment it seems like a really minimal game with a weird amount of QoL / tactile stuff, we've been making sure we first redesign any inherently flawed systems before we extend from them if that makes sense.

Thanks again for taking the time to try this out, your advice is going to really help us with improving the game :) I look forward to seeing more of your work too ! keep killing it out there ;D

Thanks so much for sharing your process :D You definitely succeeded at making it expressive, you clearly have a great intuition for what feels right. I would be stoked for you to try our game, I just pushed a little update/patch thing today. Your feedback would really mean a lot because of how your taste is.  also, may I ask how long it took to develop barbotine?

This is amazing, I love the visual style and animations, the whole vibe is so neurotic and dank. the combat is wicked satisfying too. I'd love to get some insight into your approach with this project, we're aiming for this kind of vibe in our current project, Gestate. There's so much flavour in your game's style, it's positively writhing :)

I love the claymation and voice acting, really funny, especially the little "oowup" sound when you pick up health. the player dinosaur is also really cute, and it's awesome how your upgrades show up on the character. it was really funny how the dinosaur kept saying "oh look, bees..", it got more funny the more times in a row I got bees

such a cool puzzle game! I love the visuals and temple theme, very addictive and satisfying when it lines up

you knocked it out of the park with this submission, the graphics and sounds are amazing, I love these kinds of escape room puzzle games

awesome fast paced gameplay, I finally defeated the boss :D  health pickups would be a cool addition i think

Thanks for playing :)

a pause mechanic is a great idea, especially for a time limited game like this, thank you for your feedback!

Thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

I've played your game, it's one of my favourites in the jam! I always get knocked down by that line of crowbars 😅
your team's feedback means a lot :D

thank you :D

glad you enjoyed it !

Thanks for playing !

yep, the feeding menu is far from intuitive in this build, we've had a lot of players confused by it's design, so we're making sure to address this in our next patch

the objective is to fully weaken the creature, though we've also recognised a need to rebalance the items so this won't take as much time to do. 

Thank you for your kind words about the graphics :)

Thank you so much :D

The notes are definitely going to be expanded on, both to teach the player about the game's systems and for narrative exposition

so glad you liked the PSX aesthetic, we've been working to build on this atmosphere in our upcoming update, stay tuned  ; )

I'm glad you liked it :D

well you can feed the monster multiple items at the end of the day, so this could be useful if you want to gain a lot of trust in one day, or perhaps slip in a little poison with the food >:)

we were actually planning on doing a jumpscare 😅 we were going to have the day start like normal, and then some time into the day a monster would fly out from the shed towards you screaming 😂 we were just going to use a jpeg for the monster, kind of like a nextbot, unfortunately we got a little caught on getting it to billboard towards the player correctly and it didn't get done in time. We will try to get something like this in the game in an update :)

Thanks so much for the feedback, I played your game earlier today and it was so awesome, it's amazing how many systems you put in your game all in the space of a week

this game rocks, i love all the different aspects to it!

I like how many characters there are and the dialogue for them.

the debate system is really cool and interesting idea, there's so much you can do with it !

the UI and assets seem a little underdeveloped, compared to how intricate the mechanics are, it would be cool to see where this project goes if you're planning on continuing it :)

thank you :D

yeah I was interested in going for that grungy vibe that the PSX aesthetic is good for, I'm glad it had that effect for you :)

this kind of reminded me of project zomboid, i love the visual style you went with. the vision cone mechanic is great, the weapon hitbox was a little weird for me, but i really liked playing this

awesome game!

i love how the cube's legs move around, is the animation procedural? the art style is super clean and minimalistic, the sound design is beautiful. 

i thought he would come from outside, i walked up the stairs and opened a door, picked up a scrap of paper, cool, then i went to the other door on the landing, opened it and this tall silhouette guy is just hovering there i didn't even jump my heart just sank bro that's real terror 😂

you did the jumpscare really well

really neat game!

i love the art, and the way the arm follows your mouse.

the sounds are really good too.

One issue I'm sure you've been made aware of is that you can just spam space and click to always get the signature, perhaps make the player lose time when they press space on a closed door?

really fun and original concept, and well executed :)

cool game :D

really addictive. on my first run i died at like depth 22, then on my second run i saved AP to focus on training attack until i could one-shot enemies, then the income of potions outpaced the 1 turn of damage i would get from a battle, so i just got stronger and stronger. got pretty hooked on it ngl

this game seriously rocks!

the scene looks awesome, really aesthetically pleasing style. I was expecting the castle door to be the theme part, but every tower is a door ?? that's so creative! the level of polish is remarkable; different enemy types, door upgrades, different sets of doors to place on and off the path.. this game goes crazy. how have I not seen this one until now..

if I had to find something to be constructive about, I suppose it is quite difficult, could just be a skill issue though.
It starts off fine but ramps up super quick, I feel like my funds don't increase proportionately to the funds that I need to deal with the later waves? seeing the enemies' health would be cool too perhaps.

this game is insanely well put together, you should all feel really proud of what you've made :)

I'm so glad you enjoyed it :D  

thanks for sharing how it went too, it will help us with improving the experience

I really like the art style, this is a very cool concept for a game. 

perhaps the player could lock-on to enemies, like in elden ring?
The third-person-shooter aiming was kind of tricky for me to get the hang of, i think the way it swings around quite far from the player feels like you're throwing diagonally sometimes.

i like how walking on the burning ground deals damage over time so you have to stick to the path.
the writing is very creative too.

Thanks for the feedback Wayne, these are all great ideas :D

we had a similar idea at one point that maybe the fish could rot during the day, so depending on when you gather them they can add or remove strength, but didn't have time to explore the idea before the deadline :/

we have also considered maybe a crate or cooler that you could put items in to save them for the next day or something, I guess I was concerned that this would make the game too easy, but I'm sure there's a way to balance it into the game.
I think that it would be a good move to incorporate more features that have an effect between days like that in general.

we also thought about maybe being able to lay a trap on one day and then a dead animal would spawn there the next, and I think this would still be cool to pursue, like depending on where you place them it will spawn different animals or something. 

I've locally changed up the feeding menu so it should be easier to use, I'll update the game in the itch.io page once the rating period is over.

it's a shame that there are ideas didn't make it into the submission, but feedback like this helps to direct us forwards with the game :)

awesome art style and music, it reminds me of World of Horror, really fun just running around trying the different dialogue options.

Thanks for your feedback DelightfulDev, I really appreciate it! 

I think there's a note by the fence near spawn which kind of explains the objective, but it's definitely easy for the player to miss it, which it shouldn't be because it's pretty vital information. 

I think that many of the game's flaws in this state come down to our lack of perspective whilst developing it, and assuming the player would have our context/understanding of the game, we neglected to provide context effectively enough in-game, a lot of people also didn't know to select items before clicking 'feed', as our UI doesn't explain the process at all.

one of the things I liked about your game Night Shift is how much UI is present to help the player with controls and contextual info.

I haven't heard as much feedback about the map size, but you make a really good point, there's quite a lot of empty area of the map that serves no purpose at the moment, which is unhelpful to the player trying to explore it.

This was our first game jam, and I kind of got the team together quite spontaneously like a day into the jam 😅 it was such a blast though, I look forward to doing another one, or just doing more game development as a team.

Just completed your game "Roastmaster Rumble" btw, awesome game, some of the insults cracked me up
I'm inspired by what you are able to accomplish as a solo dev
getting feedback from someone so prolific and experienced with game jams as yourself, it really means a lot :)

cool game!

the animations are really good, and the combat is solid. i love how people just go spinning away when they die lol

Thanks for the feedback, we totally agree with this point, it takes quite a long time chipping away at the strength, we'll make sure to address this :) 

What an awesome game

I love the visual style you went with, the retro shaders really add to the moody, murky atmosphere.

the controls feel great, and interacting with the environment is really intuitive.

correlating the demons' appearance to the item they want is a really cool and unique game premise, it kind of reminds me of the monster in lethal company that you give trinkets to through a slot. 

the story is interesting, I felt intrigued by the dialogue while playing

(p.s. if you wanna try my game out, it's also about offering items to a demonic creature behind a door which will kill you if you don't satisfy it 😅)

cool game, it has buckshot roulette vibes :)

ahaha i killed the spider and it screamed so loud i did not expect that

i really like the visual style, and i was actually pretty tense whilst playing this, it has a creepy atmosphere for sure.

cool game :)

i like how there are different types of enemy, mixes up the gameplay.

it's really cool how you give the player the decision of how long to watch the ghost for, encouraging risk taking. the vignette effect when enemies appear is a good way of alerting the player to danger. 

Awesome game, I sense some Caves of Qud inspiration perhaps? unbelievably impressive for a solo dev to make this in less than a week.

the jam's theme isn't very prominent imo, it seems like a really cool trading-based roguelike and "what's behind the door" is only loosely connected.

This game has a great visual style, music, UX, the gameplay loop is addictive, and i love the wacky character designs. there's something so compelling about making an investment, taking a risk, and then reaping a reward, and this game captures it very well.

regardless of its relation to the jam theme, you should be really proud of what you've made here, sometimes one must detour from guidelines in order to make something great

Awesome puzzle !

It took me a few minutes to understand, but I really like how cryptic it is, feels rewarding when it clicks.

I had to click on this game when i saw the name and vibe you were going with, believe it or not, "Appeasement" was one of the ideas we had for our game too ! It's so awesome to see another person who made their game about giving offerings to a demonic creature behind a door 😅 though we took completely different approaches to the concept. yours turned out great, the art is fantastic, and the puzzle an addictive brain teaser that fits the whole tarot-card ritualistic occult premise, and using candles to signify your remaining moves is genius !

the randomisation is also super neat, mixes up every round so you can't just brute force it, and I imagine the random hand of cards always has a solution, like by working backwards from the solution when you're generating the hand. 

and yeah the hints are the perfect blend of cryptic but helpful, so that it still feels rewarding when you figure it out.

come check out our game if you'd like, you might notice a few parallels between our games, it would have been funny if they had the same name too.  quick disclaimer: in one of the menus of our game, before clicking the "feed" button you have to select the items under it by clicking them first, we've had a lot of players get confused by that menu design 😅

very cool game ! the clues really make sense for this jam's theme, though the notes being in chests kept me hoping there might be some loot like a new spell in one.

 I liked defeating all but one enemy and then keeping them around while I get back to full health and mana before clearing the room.
really fun Binding-of-Isaac type of exploration and level generation, the static positioning of the characters encourages strategic use of the AOE spells, and the free fireball and mana regen spells mean the player will never get beached  during a fight, but they may have to take some free hits if they don't manage their resources.

if you ask me,  the game would benefit from another spell or two to collect in the level, or perhaps occasional choices e.g. between +20 mana or +40 health or something,  or maybe buff/upgrade a specific spell? I think this kind of thing would let the player build the character differently per run, adjusting their stats to suit their playstyle.

good visuals, cute crunchy pixel art, perhaps you could switch out the particle sprites from gradients to something in this style too.

I like how the health and mana bars are on either side of the screen, making them both large but obscuring very little of the stage, good design.

the different enemy types add a lot of variety and strategy to the gameplay too, though leaving a healer alive allows the player to fully regenerate health and mana since the healer couldn't attack me.
if this sounds like an exploit to you, perhaps the mana could regenerate when you kill an enemy, or maybe the mana regen spell could siphon it from another character or something? It didn't make the game less fun though, just a slightly cheesy strat 

i got a little confused by the turn system at times when a character would get 2 consecutive turns, and I wasn't sure why or when it would happen next, but the combat is very engaging and fun, I like how enemies can sometimes miss and hurt each other accidentally

the game left me stoked to see what's through the portals :)

feel free to check out our game if you'd like, it's a bit of a strange one though lol,
if you do, I wanna let you know that in one of the menus, before clicking the "feed" button you must click the items from the hotbar to select them, we've had a lot of players get confused by that menu design 😅

hi there,

you first have to select (by clicking) the items which you want to feed the monster from the feeding menu, and then click feed.

 our apologies for the confusion, this is a very common misunderstanding of that ui :(