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I follow the same sort of a method (perhaps not quite as well defined as yours). In general, if it is hyper-serious or really ironically serious it gets a high rating. I consider the mechanic and any story/lore first. I also consider art/music/other design - if the art and music feel super serious I often score it high, but also if they seem really ironically linked (i.e. super cheery music in an ominous environment, etc.) I give it a high rating.

In general I usually end up rating most things around either 2 or 4. But yeah, ultimately my seriousness rating is heavily 'vibes based' on how much thought went into trying to make it serious. Stuff like a carefully timed goofy animation, taking every action really seriously (e.g. making it seem like jumping is a life or death decision) or a hilarious story generally convince me more than just slapping everything in a suit and tie or trying to add jokes in without linking them to the gameplay.

Thanks for rating! Glad you enjoyed the game :D

Definitely some interesting ideas there, we might consider something like that in the future. I think level design probably could have been improved - we spent a lot of time on the art and mechanics, and only created the levels in the final day of the jam, so some better time management might have helped!

Thanks for rating :D Glad you had fun

Thanks for the feedback!

Yep, I think your advice around the physics and grabbing is pretty reasonable - we've got a lot of similar feedback, and I think in hindsight having some sort of momentum based acceleration would definitely have improved it. Thanks for playing & rating :D

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed :D

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed :D

Thank you for the kind words! Yes, we tried to make the respawn fairly forgiving, to encourage taking risks!

Glad you enjoyed :D

This was a fun little game!! The music was really nice - it was different to what most games have, and that helped it to stand out!  I loved the low poly aesthetic :D The small details, like the fossils in the ground, really sold the game to me!! Loved it!

My only critique, like others have mentioned, is that an ending screen would have been nice. Good work!

The low-poly aesthetic is pretty nice! And the music is fun :D

Thanks for the feedback! 

l'll have a look at yours when I get home :D

Thanks for the review & kind words!

We've had similar feedback around the difficulty of hovering the anchor points. In hindsight, I agree that it definitely would have been better to include a keybind for it.

Thanks so much for rating it!

Reel lucky - The cosiest game I've played so far! It has the best music, and is a well thought through game https://itch.io/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4718203

Legally Distinct Battle Tops Fighter - Incredible graphics, a fun soundtrack and addictive gameplay!  https://itch.io/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4718491

An excellent new take on Tetris! At first I was sceptical of how well it would work, but having played it, it really does work! There's plenty of strategy and skill to be learnt, which makes it all the more addictive. The idea of power-ups is also very cool

My only critique would be the music... The spin SFX is alright, but I personally found the clicks and booms of the music, and the beeps in the shop a little annoying. That said, kudos to you for giving it a go and making it all yourself! I also appreciate you including granular settings, so I could disable it!!

Oh and the credit cheat was great! Often when reviewing I'm torn between wanting to fully experience every part of the game, but not wanting to spend ages trying to complete it. So I really appreciated the option to quickly enable everything for testing :D

Good work! 

Tbh I was really pleased with how our game came together. It's the first game either of us had properly finished and published, so I wasn't expecting a lot. There were definitely points where it wasn't a certainty that we would even have a game by the end, but we pulled it together and I'm proud of what we made! And ultimately, we had so much fun making it, which was our real goal.

The art is pretty neat imo, and (although we just used some royalty free soundtracks) the music adds to the experience, in a somewhat ironic and silly serious way. And look, there are a couple of bugs, which really, well, bug me, but I think it's a pretty fun game in the end. The last minute addition of a leaderboard was definitely worth it, cause it adds a level of competitiveness to it.

https://madavidcoder.itch.io/spin-phibian

Only got 9 ratings so far, so any more would be really appreciated :) https://itch.io/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4691258

THE MUSIC IS SOO GOOD!! Imo this was the cosiest game I've reviewed :D

We've only got 9 ratings, so it would be super appreciated if you took a look at ours :D https://itch.io/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4691258

This is the cosiest game I've rated so far, this jam!!! The music was not what I was expecting, but I really love it - it makes playing the game feel really satisfying and relaxing. The minimum energy per-day is an excellent mechanic imo, because it adds a level of urgency/stress to the game, whereas similar games without it quickly feel repetitive.

The art is really cool, and the idea of collecting fish is cool. The upgrades vs minimum energy increase felt well-balanced, so that the game gradually got more difficult, but still felt rewarding. I find it very hard to think of anything this game could have done better. The only tiny thing, was that the white circle for the 'reel-in' part felt a bit bland - some sort of art when you were spinning could have made it feel even better.

But nonetheless a really fun game to rate!! You should be incredibly proud of it.

This was really fun, albeit challenging!! The narrative is hilarious and I think the art was simple but very well executed. 

No obligation to rate mine, but if you want to: https://itch.io/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4691258

I love a good challenge, and this game sure provided one! I think you struck the balance between infuriatingly hard and engagingly challenging very well, in a way that simply kept me hooked on it! You addressed the theme really well, and the art was simple, yet well executed.

There definitely was an art to the game, and overtime I managed to get better at it. Well done on creating a mechanic where people can learn strategies and skills over time - that really helps to keep drawing players back in for another play. That said, the controls did feel a little unresponsive, and I often struggled to actually get through the doors...

The narrative was hilarious! I love the idea of an old disused spinning top trying to destroy the other toys that took its place! :D

Overall a well-design and executed game. Lots of fun! Well done!!

This was such a cool game, and the art style is incredible imo!!

The spinning mechanic of the ball is tuned really well and feels fairly natural, albeit challenging, to use, which made it all the more fun. The SFX possibly could have been improved a bit, and some music might have been nice, but all in all an amazing game! Good work :D

(the dialogue with the villagers was a great addition as well!)

Love the art :D

Incredible art and visuals (by far the best I've seen in this jam), but mediocre gameplay. The minigames are a bit strange and the final boss battle feels really out of place compared to the rest of the game. The storyline has the potential to be amazing, but needs to be fleshed out a bit more.

(I am also amazed at the size of the dev team lol)

The sheer number of devs astonishes me! It was hard enough to collaborate on a team with only 2 people...

A nice little game! I like the premise - it reminds me of a clicker game, but with spinning!

I did notice that there is a bit of a scaling bug. On lower resolution screens, parts of the UI are a little broken, so I had to manually zoom out. The pixel art mining rig was cool, but it would have been even better if you made the other buttons match the same pixel art aesthetic.

A really cool game!! The visuals are incredible and the soundtrack makes it fun and relaxing to keep playing! I really like the countdown timer rather than an instant loss - it makes it feel a bit more forgiving, but also increases the stress when it starts ticking down, making it almost addictive!!

My main issue was the text - I personally found it quite hard to read. I agree with what others said, about maybe including more of an explanation of how you had to match the rarity levels of slices, although I worked that out fairly quickly, so for me it was a minor issue. The other minor feedback I have is that it would be nice if there were more upgrades early on - I had to play for a while before it felt like I was actually starting to get lots of upgrades and level up. Given this is a game jam, its often good to have a quick start to the game.

But genuinely, all of those are very minor things. This game is incredibly polished and super fun!

Nice game design! The visuals are very clean :D

This game is too good! I can't stop playing it :D

The visuals were incredible - quite genuinely, they are on level with what indie devs spend months trying to make!! The music also really fitted the vibes :D

My only real feedback is that some enemy health bars would have been nice. Not that I'd expect it from a game made in a week, but some sort of showdown animation would also have been really cool, if you made like a sprite for the opponent. Also I disliked that one loss sent you right to the beginning, but fair enough if that's the challenge levle you were targetting.

But genuinely, such a peak game!!

A really quite fun play! It was a little hard to get the hang of at first, but it became really quite addictive after a bit! The simple mechanics help it a lot, and the visuals are really good. The only thing that I didn't manage to work out was balancing pushing boxes with raising the platform... The platform seemed to go down very fast as soon as I moved to clear off boxes and I couldn't work out how to balance keeping spinning it with kicking boxes off.

Perhaps some music or other sound effects would also have been fun? But I loved it nonetheless!!

Unfortunately I can't rate this for the jam, but I downloaded it and I really love the vibes - the sound effects, simple art-style and brightly coloured text evoke retro vibes, which really suit the game! The gameplay is pretty fun, and oddly addictive (I think the SFX help lol), with some very unique mechanics. My only issue was the I found it rather confusing, especially to begin with. Partly because a lot of the circles have similar colours, and partly because I wasn't fully clear on the aim. But like I said, it was actually really fun when I got the hang of it, and I could totally see this game having serious potential with a couple minor improvements!! 

A solid start to the game, with a fun concept! You pretty much said it all yourself in the description - a little bit unfinished and could have used some more time to finish off. But good work on building a decent foundation.

I totally empathise with the lack of time - our game was a bit cobbled together, through several late nights, because we had a lot on during the week, so kudos to you for still getting something published!!

A simple and well-executed game! There were a couple of small bugs, like getting stuck in corners sometimes, but nonetheless, you should be super proud of your game :)

Oh and I loved how the music was oddly calming - it made the game feel all the more serious ;) 

Very funny! And the art is really good - i could instantly tell who it was supposed to be!

YIPPEE!!

YIPPEE!!!

This was a pretty fun game to play! I feel like with a little bit more polish it could become a truly amazing game! The core mechanic is unique and fits the theme well (plus what's more serious that racing around in spinning office chairs!). My main issue with the game was that the controls were kinda hard to learn. For instance, tutorial.txt never mentioned that you had to click something to spin - i spent ages trying to click empty space, until I accidentally clicked a wall and it worked...

I loved the title music, but the music in-game was a bit inconsistent - sometimes there was music and sometimes there wasn't. Overall I think that it was a superb game, but little things like these held it back a bit. Nonetheless, good work!!! (the art was peak!)

For a first game, this is pretty good! The art is nice and the core gameplay system works reliably, which is always the fundamental point of a game. As others have said, potentially fleshing out the upgrades system, with cool animations/SFX/minigames/other unexpected mechanics would make it a bit more engaging. My other feedback would be to make it a little bit clearer what the upgrades do - perhaps with a hover label.

Good work nonetheless!!

Incredible game! Super fun and really hooked me in, right from the start :D! The logo and art made the game look very polished.

The death SFX were pretty funny at the start, but did feel a tiny bit repetitive later on. The only real bug I noticed was that enemies can walk through walls, which caught me off guard. But overall you struck an excellent balance where it fitted the theme really well without the spins becoming overly gratuitous, and it was a really fun game!!

Like everyone else, the fake start was hilarious! My only critique is that the SFX were kinda a bit annoying...

Ohh. Maybe I didn't make it past the tutorial... 😭 (I'm not very good at gaming lol)