itch.io

Hi! Thanks for playing (and for the bug report)!

It's true, the jam versions had a bug that made it impossible to smash the final three melons (and another one which made overall balance nigh-impossible). We did not report it outright even after noticing because people were still having fun with the game despite that. My apologies for this little bit of mischief on my part ;)

We uploaded a majorly reworked post-jam version (as well as a Web-version) that, I promise, is worth checking out

The game in question being a jam entry is what makes it that much more sensitive to me.

Don't get me wrong, it is no laughing matter when a full scale game, which might be providing much needed sustenance to the developer, is being de-indexed. And though that developer probably has other channels to promote the game and ultimately overcome such hurdle, it still hurts.

But consider game jam participants. They've likely just finished an exhausting stretch of several days of full-time game development. For some it may have been their first game. For others, it was another step up from their previous tries. Most of them likely never released a game outside of jams. Some are on their last legs, while others have also put considerable effort into the jams, their blood, sweat and tears.

And then there's the rating period. itch.io is by far the largest, most popular jamming platform, and a lot of these jams use this site's convenient functionality for the ratings. Once again, some aim for the first place. Others seek a few precious drops of feedback. But being randomly excluded out of ratings for even a day, especially in the early days of the rating period (which rarely lasts more than a week), can effectively nullify the creators efforts. Nullify. Doom. All of that. And by no means there is a track record of swift responses to those issues from the support, so it's likely to be more than a day.

Of course, there are options, but those options put additional effort on the shoulders of jam organizers and cause friction with the participants, purely because using itch.io is the "status quo".

This is is a titan in the game dev scene. I am in no small amount grateful for the opportunities it provided for us jammers. But though there is no alternative, the issue at hand raises the question of itch being a viable platform for jams going forward.

Cool idea, I enjoyed the game. I also really liked the way the stations change orbits, tickled something in my brain.

Some tooltips would be really helpful: to the end I had no idea what different station upgrade icons meant

Cool idea! I tried doing similar mechanic (ability acquisition) for a GMTK 2020, but lacked the skill to pull it off back then.

My complaints for this game are mostly about lack of polish, but I must admit that there's quite a bit of content and it's no small feat to do such a game on a timer.

Congrats on making it through the jam!

Okay, this is probably one of the most creative game deigns in the whole jam. Would be lying if I said I understood any of it, but then again I don't really know art.

I agree with other commenters regarding the lack of feedback on hits. Also, I think some SFX for the reload process would really go a long way

Woo-hoo! Congrats, champion!

No joke that was one of the most enjoyable games of this jam! Had me hooked start to finish. Solid idea and execution, maybe lacking a bit of SFX

Nice twist on a track builder game. Fun too.

I may or may not have drawn a penis accidentally

As for the bugs: one time I got stuck because I tried to play the flute before the intro, and the other time I tried to open the letter and couldn't read it after

Couldn't hear anything when I tried to listen to or play with the musicians. Other than that, yes, it's weird in a best way <3

The movement is... interesting. Probably would be better with less inertia. And I think that there really needs to be more feedback on the bite itself, right now it's just "nothing happens, and then the level ends in a could seconds"

Congrats on making it through the jam!

Very hard, didn't manage to go far. Took me about 4 tries to figure that my hitbox is in the head, before that I thought the game wasn't possible at all. Some feedback when being damaged would be great (e.g. SFX and blinking snake's head during the i-frames)

Also, the controls were inverted from what I expected, so that also felt weird.

Anyway, congrats on making it through the jam!

Fantastic art, pleasant audio. Special thanks to the Cactus Conductor!

I like the idea, it's a really creative take on the theme. The art and audio are pleasant

That being said, this is probably the hardest game I've played in this jam so far, to the point of feeling unfair. The entire restaurant often settles on wanting the same thing, which is barely manageable the first time, and the second time it happens I loose before really getting into the groove.

Aside from balance, I think more feedback on successes/failures would improve the overall experience

10/5 Narrative

Full boss heal took me by surprise xD

Nice game! I managed 18 tasks in 9 loops, though it sure felt like an eternity.

Skid marks are a really nice feature.

I think my biggest issue was not being able to pause the game.

A bit too random, but still enjoyable. My PB is 4 kills over 29 turns.

Got to around 1600 on the fourth try.

The overall game loop is nice, solid game. The difficulty feels a bit steep. 

Some of the other issues that bothered me:

• Shadow directly below the cloud (rather than to the side of it) would be greatly appreciated
• There's a bug that prevents you from collecting water droplets if you "phase" into them
• I think this game would benefit from a vertically oriented viewport

Congrats on making it through the jam!

Didn't really understand how to land attacks and how to track its cooldown

Anyway, congrats on making it through the jam!

Cute art, perfect sound design, insane amount of content for a jam

Most of all, I liked the soft/hard apples idea

CHONKY BOI

The snek is super cute, overall art and SFX are nice, and the puzzle design is really smart!

Couldn't get past maybe level 4 or 5, where the gloops are coming up from two paths.

Otherwise, great music , pleasant visuals, good job

Great execution, great puzzles, lots of content. An incredible game for a jam!

Totes did not expect to find an old-school racing game here.

While the core gameplay feels pretty nice, the meta of having to do 11+ laps was pretty boring. With some more interesting goals I think this could be a great game!

Really liked the idea, but the implementation didn't quite do it for me, mostly because of the balance. 3 hp on enemies feels like a ton, considering track speed and having to dodge their quite fast bullets. And then by level three you would have to get extremely lucky with the upgrades (think 2 jackpots in a row) to even strand a chance

Still, I think this game has great potential and it would be nice to see it live past the jam

I must say I really didn't like Mosa Lina and didn't understand why everybody was so hyped about it.

But your addition is what made it all work for me. With persistent levels, it actually feels playable and even balanced.

I really liked your take on this gameplay and the art is solid. Nice Work

Ok, so you asked for feedback.

"Is the idea good or not" is not really the question. It's all about execution, especially with platformers and/or shooters. An idea will not make a game good, but thoughtful implementation would. I wouldn't say that the movement here is implemented well, but I like the choice of mechanics and the "kickstart" feels nice.

Specifically in this prototype, I was mostly frustrated with having to skip over 1-block platforms. This was probably what kept me from "getting into the flow", being forced into a precision-platforming segment before figuring out the metrics. Speaking of which, I think I often got frustrated because I had to make small jumps, smaller than I felt like doing, but only until I discovered the dash. 

That being said, I imagine this would be a much different story if this was not the start, but somewhere in the late game. As I understood, the idea was about getting through the same track decaying with each loop. Okay, why not start  with an almost uncorrupted track (think solid bridge) and then, after it gradually decayed over several loops, presenting us with increasing challenges, we could arrive at precision platforming we have in current prototype? This would also be backed by player being more invested in the game by that point.

Anyway, congratulations on making it through the jam! Don't linger on thinking you "don't know what's good" — you will learn, by playing your game and other games and answering the question: "why it feels the way it feels?" 

Once I painstakingly made it through the tutorial, I actually quite enjoyed the game. Still not sure what I should have done to buy the sugar, did three loops with plenty of money and it never showed up.

My main issue with the game is having to use the keyboard, since most of the action is mouse-based. Maybe right-clicking through the dialog could do the trick, if you tried to avoid accidental click-through in the heat of the moment. Also, a little SFX would go a long way to support the art

I kind of didn't have it in me to play past a couple of rounds, but mad kudos on the gameplay: really liked the idea and how it played. Could be a nice battle mechanic in a "big" game 

Also, great art and music+sound design, yours is a great team!

Love the core gameplay, reminds me of Dojo of Death.

The camera system felt kind of janky and I was not able to get used to it, so that made me quit

Congrats on making it through the jam!

This game is the definition of "weird flex, but okay"

Loved the art. 

Somehow managed to win in the race itself after about 10 tries fully upgraded. Feels like it's just by luck, since there's definitely way too many damaging obstacles, like, walls of them. Maybe the only thing this game lacks is better distribution of objects on track, so that the race feels more skill-based.

Also, maybe some more SFX would be nice

Wow, nicely done!

ok ngl them neurons do be activating tho

Also, my shoelaces turned into earphone wires after being shaken 6_9

Btw

no pins

Okay, pretty creative! I had quite a bit of fun with this one.

Some of the thing I would suggest:

• Mirror height controls for one of the hands. At the moment, finger controls for both hands are on the inside, and pin buttons for both hands are on the inside, but e,g, button for raising  the hand is on the right for both hands, which seemed strange to me.
• Maybe add mouse controls for camera, since it is not taken anyway. I sometimes found myself wanting for a different camera angle than the ones provided in camera presets

Also, I was a bit confused for the brief moment that I had to switch away from camera 1 and discovered that direction controls are camera-dependent. Not saying it's a bad thing, but I was half-expecting them to maintain orientation regardless of the camera angle.

Thanks! I usually participate as a programmer and, sometimes, game designer, so this my first time actually doing art for a game

Oh, okay, I did not understand that from the instructions XD

Maybe I'll play again

So, okay, the execution is superb, but the balance felt very hard and unfair.  I did not understand the rules behind my tail constantly falling off. I understood that it does, periodically, but couldn't make sense if it was time-based or had some trigger or if it's just random.

And then I either tried to chase the orange guys and fell apart faster than I grew, or tried to gather the pieces falling off of me as fast as I could and still failed 6_9