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This game kinda reminds me of an old game called McPixel I used to play. Not super similar mechanically, but the same general sense of humor. This game has some obvious jank to it, but it really is quite funny. A bit of polish and you'd have a great flash game. Well done!

This game is a fever dream. 10/10, would play again

My lawyers will be in touch

Something about the fish flopping sound effect had me laugh out loud. Well done

I really enjoyed the later puzzles. They weren't particularly difficult, but they displayed great creativity and use of mechanics. Thanks for sharing!

Yeah. I'm not sure what the correct solution is, but it's definitely a design challenge to be looked into. I was sorting by recent uploads, which is why it was so quick :P

I was smiling the entire time I played this. Your sense of humor is really good. Keep at it!

If you want some constructive feedback, there are 2 things I would recommend:

1. In the 7up level, you have several areas where the player has to jump to a bottle that they can't see on screen. We call these "leaps of faith" in platformers, and typically you don't want to have them. If you must have a platform off screen, use pickups (like how mario uses coins) to draw a line towards where the platform is, so the player knows what to aim for

2. If you're interested in learning more about creating robust 2d platformer character movement, I recommend checking out this project: https://gmtk.itch.io/platformer-toolkit It will teach you a bunch of stuff about what makes a platformer character feel good to play

I really loved this; I hope you keep making stuff. Good luck!

I really like it! It's a fun take on pong! 

My only suggestion would be I find every time I jump I get momentarily confused about which button goes in which direction, since left and right are effectively inverted when starting from the top of the circle. I would either make it so the button to head in a given direction changes based on where in the circle you started moving from, or just add button prompts on both sides of the paddle to be more easily readable. 

Thanks for sharing!

Uhh.... did you get to the jam late?

Really interesting concept for a game. This uses the theme super well. My only real note is I wish I was told what objects I was trying to photograph at the beginning of the level. I ended up intentionally failing each level at least once in order to see what the goal was. Keep up the great work!

That sound effect when the mannequins spot you genuinely made me throw my mouse, meaning this in fact a successful horror game. Well done (Not sure how it fits with the theme tbh, but still)

I'm not really well versed in horror game design, so I can't really give much by way of design feedback. Only thing I will say is after wandering around a bit I didn't really find my way to any sort of end goal. I just kinda wandered aimlessly while avoiding the mannequins. I would recommend using visual cues to guide the player where they need to go. 

Perfection. No notes.

Ok... fine. A few notes. I adore this art style. Fantastic. Unfortunately I live alone and can't play this to it's fullest potential, but the little experiments I can do by myself seem positive. The only thing I will note is this isn't a particularly interesting use of the theme. It's generally more interesting to build your core around the theme than to just add a one use powerup and call it a day. At any rate though, excellent job. Can't wait to see your future work!

I couldn't play this one for super long because it unfortunately triggered my motion sickness issues with first person games. That said, for the time I did play, here's my thoughts:

I don't really like the map design on this one. Normally games with dark maps use lights to gently guide the player where to go, but in this case I don't have any idea where I'm supposed to head and just end up wandering aimlessly. Also, the blinking flashlight is what really ended up causing motion sickness. As a general rule of thumb, don't constantly flash between light and dark, or it's gonna negatively impact the player. All that said, congrats on completing your game! I'm not a huge fan of the design, but I can still recognize that a lot of work went into it, and for that you should be proud! I'll be looking forward to trying whatever you choose to make next!

The physics on this one feel a bit like the car is made of styrofoam. The car doesn't seem to have much weight to it. That said, I loved the environment design. The art style is simple, but it works super well. I don't think this really maximizes the theme though. This feels like a normal racing game/walking sim combo that you just added a story to in order to fit the theme. It's generally more interesting when you directly reflect the theme in the core of the game. All things considered, well done! One final note: even for a game jam, you need to make preventing the camera from flipping uncontrollably your top priority. That's how you cause motion sickness

The game is simple in scope and accomplishes what it sets out to do. No notes on the gameplay. The only thing I might note is that using Unreal for a 2d game is like trying to butter toast with a chainsaw. You can do it sure, but why? In any case, congrats on finishing the jam!

the ice comment referred to when in real time. The quick time system worked well

I like this idea. I would recommend mirroring the movements though, because when I move my right arm it feels like I'm moving my left, even though it's an accurate reclection of the video feed (phone camera apps do this a lot for selfie cams). Would make it feel a lot better to play

Once I figured out the tutorial typo, I love this game concept. Running around as a speedster feels super good. I only have 2 notes:

The others being on ice when you push them makes them feel hard to control

Honestly, I feel like the greatest limitation of this game is the "only once" aspect. The game gives you the most strategic control when you're in the slow mode, so only being able to use that once, particularly in longer levels, puts you in a position where you either feel inclined to never use it in case you need it later, or frustrated when you did use it and then you can't save them. I think there are better solutions than the "only once" aspect. This has the potential to be something really special. I hope you flesh it out a bit more

lol, I used to hate Cilantro too. Looks fun. Wish I could have played. Congrats on finishing a game!

I don't have these dependencies installed unfortunately, so I can't play. Congrats on finishing a game though!

This is a really interesting concept, and a good use of the theme. I would be curious to see how this could be expanded upon with more time, but it seems to me this has the basis of a solid arcade game. The camera really needs to be zoomed out though. It's so cramped you can't really plan where you're going to walk next. Also, the boomerang behaves more like I would expect a flail to behave than a boomerang. You might consider taking some inspiration from the legend of zelda and having it chase you rather than just slingshot towards the center. Alternativly, you could just change it from a boomerang to a ball and chain, problem solved. This is a great jam game, and I'm really interested in this concept. Well done!

Congrats on making your game! Unfortunately I cannot play it on the grounds that I have significant ethical disagreements with roblocks, but I'm happy you were able to finish a game in 49 hours. I hope you can take the design lessons you learned and apply them to your next game!

I massively approve of more penguin themed games! Excellent job!

Gameplay wise, the design needs a bit of work. In the second level, the first jump is way too tight, requiring the absolute peak of the jump before dashing makes it hard to judge. Regarding the powerups mechanic, when you only have one use of each power up for the entire game, you can't design obstacles that cannot be cleared without the power up or you're going to cause soft locks and frustrate the player. Limiting the use to once per level would have been better. I know that was the theme, but I don't think this approach to the theme led to good game design. You should reconsider your approach. Also, the tutorial wasn't super clear on what the power ups actually did. I figured out the ice ball and rocket launcher, but I have no idea what 3 and 4 actually did. I couldn't pass the bone structure in level 3 as a result. I froze it with ice and shot it with rockets, and tried to use the other 2 power ups with no success.

Criticism aside though, be proud of what you made! Getting a game to a complete state within 49 hours is no small task, and I hope the things you learned here can be used on your next game! I can't want to see what you make next

Congrats on completing the game jam! It's wonderful that you were able to submit something finished. This project is obviously short, but I can tell you put some real work into the platforming controller. The variable jump height and coyote time are great touches. If you hadn't added coyote time in particular, the game would have sucked. But what you have here controls really well. Hopefully you can take what you learned here and use it when you build more stuff! I can't wait to see what you come up with

As things that aren't games go, this is well done. The writing is pretty up to par with the light novels I've seen. In only a few sentences, the characters feel like characters, and not the usual stilted writing I see in a lot of jam games. Whoever wrote this knows what they're doing. Well done (Though you may want to try making a game next time :P)

P.S. It's spelled "awful" (also, I have no idea what the second dialogue option was supposed to say)

In light of the fact this is a written work and not a game, I've decided to review it as a written work. That mostly came down to proofreading though. Here's my notes

When it says "is that right" at the beginning, show the player what they entered so they don't have to guess

Pro tip for writing, read what you've written out loud to yourself to see where the pauses and full stops are. "I know, it's a publicity stunt by that zoo, I told you you shouldn't trust them" is a run on sentence. You should place a period after the word zoo, because that's a natural full stop rather than just a pause in a thought. Also, probably don't put the word "you" twice in a row. People do talk that way, but it looks weird in writing. Try "I told you not to trust them" instead

Small formatting error: Dr.Mist has no space between the period and the name

"We have Jason the Capybara, Mist the penguin and Joey the Bidoof" -- why isn't penguin also capitalized to be consistent? Penguins get no respect I tell ya

"A bit more sour" -- what am I? A sauce? "a bit sour" would be more accurate :P

GRUMPY OLD MAN? HOW DARE YOU. I've got a good 5 years left

I would rather be teaching a fish to code rn ;)

Joey Section:

"Though I don't know why that's it favorite number" -- another pro tip: throw the script into something like google docs to catch typos like "it favorite number"

lol, I'm beginning to see that the budget went into crafting my lines

Jason section:

"He was resuced, though I'm sure that you'll get to know his story better than I do". -- should be rescued

"We did captur him from Nintendo, so make sure not to get copyrighted!" - capture

Capybara ending is clearly the true ending

I'm starting to wonder what kind of reputational damages these games are causing me, lol

Congrats on finishing... well... not a game... but something! Now that I've been freed from this hell, you'll be hearing from my lawyers shortly

Really loved the music for this one. The gameplay is a bit rough, but that's ok. You should be proud you finished a game, and I hope this one is a great learning experience for your next one! Here's a few learning resources I think may help you:

I hope these help! 

I think you may be onto something interesting with this mechanic, all it needs is a whole bunch of polish.

During my playthrough, I wasn't attacked once. If I'm not taking damage, then all healing tiles do is annoy me for taking up inventory space. Also, I wish the return tile was less random. Having it be random means I just sit there desperately hoping it deigns to return an attack tile so I can progress the combat. Perhaps instead make it so it returns all tiles it attaches to, and then give it some openings or connectors to allow it to attach to things

I really think this could be cool if you polish it. I hope I get to see where this goes!

Reminds me a lot of Slenderman back in the day. It’s a simple but complete experience. The camera made me feel like playing it for much longer than I did would lead to motion sickness, but otherwise no complaints. Not much else to say for this one. Well done!

A fun mystery. This game kept me engaged throughout (though you are dangerously close to visual novel territory). The art was nice, and the writing was well done. I have some minor critiques regarding stuff that needed to be polished, but that’s typical for any jam game:

- text needs to scroll from left to right. When it’s centered like that I can’t read it until the entire line is finished scrolling

- dialogue font looks squished. Difficult to read. Would definitely have chosen a different font

- Uncle puzzle had a weird thing where after solving it it didn’t do anything for a bit and somehow I ended up back in the foyer. Definitely needs smoothing out

- accuse screen needs to save previous selections so you can fill it in over time – had to go check a couple things and wound up refilling the whole form, which is tedious

- final scene auto scrolls faster than I can read

- the [REDACTED] may have confessed, but I still think it’s the cat

Overall, super well done. Congrats to you all!

 Congrats on completing your first game jam! You’ve clearly put a bunch of work into your game, and it’s wonderful that you’ve made it over the finish line! I have some feedback I’d like to give you to help improve your future projects: For game jam games, it’s common to not have time to build in a tutorial or a controls screen. When that happens, you should put an overall explanation of the game’s goal and controls on the game’s submission page, that way players can consult it to figure out how to play. It took me a bit to figure out how to play because I had to solve it with trial and error

This game’s design doesn’t really have a strong central mechanic. It jumps between puzzles and rushing through mazes in a way that feels jarring. I would recommend watching this video on designing around a central mechanic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u6HTG8LuXQ and this video regarding puzzle game design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsjC6fa_YBg I think both of these will help you a lot when you design your next project.

With the maze solving portion of the game, level 3 is laid out in such a way that if you don’t know the perfect route in advance, you really don’t stand a chance against the enemy even with the power ups. When designing a game, always remember that the player didn’t design the game, so they won’t know the perfect path from the get go. You need to allow enough time for the player to make mistakes. That’s why a lot of players really hate time limits. It takes away the the ability to be wrong without having to replay content, and nobody likes replaying content because they failed; that’s why so many games don’t use lives systems anymore (See Celeste and Crash Bandicoot 4).

Try to design the controls so the player doesn’t have to move their hands between control methods. Having to move my right hand from the arrow keys to the mouse and back again felt doesn’t feel good. I’d rather move with my left hand and control the game with my right hand always on the mouse. Same thing for UI. If the game is keyboard only, the UI needs to be controlled with the keyboard; if it’s mouse only it needs to be controlled with the mouse; if it’s both, mouse if you can only add one, but typically both is better

I liked the music for this game. Good job with it!

Also, I found a few bugs while I was playing:

- On the shop screen, you can use WASD to control the player, but in the levels, only the arrow keys work

- if you press the shop button while walking, the player will walk off into the abyss. I had to relaunch the game twice because of that error

- level 2 is unfinished (I think?). The demon noclipped through half the maze and then got stuck in the wall, and I wandered around for a few minutes before exiting out and skipping to level 3. I would have just cut level 2 entirely if it wasn’t finished

I hope this feedback is constructive for you. It’s wonderful to see someone finish their first (or nearly their first, apologies if I’m just assuming) game jam. I can’t wait to see how you improve! Fantastic work, and keep it up

 I love the paper aesthetic for the characters! It looks really good!

Unfortunately, I got blocked by my inability to solve the riddles. Honestly, I don’t really like riddles in games for the most part. Video games are an interactive medium, but riddles are just “you either know the answer or you don’t”, there isn’t really anything to interact with. It would be more interesting if I could find the answer to the riddles hidden throughout the playspace (if that is the case and I missed it my apologies). Having said that, I did play it for a fair while before giving up, and I have some notes:

For some reason on my first attempt I got soft locked as the stairs and Q/Esc wouldn’t let me return to my normal self.

The menu doesn’t properly remove highlights from buttons that are not currently selected. Also, if I’m controlling the game with mouse and keyboard, I want the ability to control the menus with my mouse. When the player pauses the game, you need to make the mouse usable until they unpause it

- When talking to the old lady, it took a while to realize I had to push Y for “Yes I want to play the game”. When the player is on WASD and Mouse, don’t use any buttons that require them to move their hands. Pressing Y made me remove my hand from the mouse, which is annoying. Your available keys should be Q, E, 1, 2, 3, 4, LShift, CTRL and Space. In any event, when you include check boxes in the text, I should be allowed to click on them anyway. Would definitely resolve that

- The camera could really use a crosshair. With the switches puzzle I kept accidentally hitting 2 switches at once. Also, I’m not really sure how I was supposed to solve the switch puzzle normally. I just brute forced it to spawn the dog

- When I move my mouse really fast the camera doesn’t move along with me. It kinda glides a bit, then slows to a crawl. Not sure why this is happening but it doesn’t feel right

- The one interactable bookshelf doesn’t stand out enough to make me realize it is interactable. You could use an “Interact” tooltip to make it clear what is and isn’t interactable

Honestly, I don’t think this works super well as a puzzle game. I’m not really having any “aha” moments in this game. There was only one puzzle that actually felt like a puzzle (the paper game). Other than that, I brute forced a switch puzzle, and found 2 riddles I couldn’t solve, and a bookcase I couldn’t translate because of the riddles I couldn’t solve. I fully admit this is at least partially a skill issue with the riddles, but riddles just don’t feel that interesting as a video game mechanic to begin with.

Alright, I’ve been negative for a bit, but let’s be clear. The fact you built anything at all is wonderful. I’m frustrated as a player certainly, but it’s still obvious that a lot of work went into this. The animation of the note falling out of the fan had me smiling, noticing how well done it was. I really enjoyed the character art (the dog was super cute), and I genuinely liked the paper puzzle. Honestly, I would have made a whole game just out of the paper puzzle instead of what is here. I hope at least some of this feedback helps you with future projects, and I can’t wait to see what you make next

 Genuinely loved this game. Had a smooth engaging experience. Super well done. During my playthrough I only took 3 notes:

- When camera zooms out I can often see other levels with letter prompts beside things, confused me initially

- font used makes G and 6 look really similar

- feels like the player falling out the bottom of the level should be a reset. Player was somehow able to crawl along the bottom of the screen

Had a great time here. Thanks for the experience

 Still hate level 14, but this is massively improved over the demo you last showed me. Well done!

Thanks for the feedback! This is actually the first build with keyboard only controls after converting it from the aim at mouse mechanic. The new control scheme favors controllers and keyboards while simplifying the controls for some who found them cumbersome. Will definitely be converting the laser to a timer. It's meant to be a cathartic release and it definitely doesn't feel like that at the moment. 

Will definitely take some time to reflect on this feedback and make changes accordingly. Thanks again!

Thanks for your feedback! I'll take this into account. My only concern with the full recall every time is it will make the mechanic feel a bit shallow. There's a lot of depth when you're able to dodge the bullet and pull it in a different direction, but I think part of it is I don't tutorialize that well enough

I love the music for this game. Really great stuff

I have some gripes with the game mechanics unfortunately. The game feels like it constantly oscillates between super easy and impossibly hard. The enemies spawning in are easily cleaned up by stacking all your defenses up front, but the shopping carts are nigh unkillable. They blow past all your defenses and leave you scrambling to chase after them, at which point they just. won't. die. The method of consistently defeating them isn't super obvious to me.

Other notes:

- I wish I could tab between towers. Having to remember which button is tied to which tower is clunky to me

- Honestly, once I position my other 2 towers initially I just stick with the third for the whole level. If there's a reason to switch between them I haven't found it

- I wish there were more options than just spike traps for the static turrets. Also, it's never really made clear how upgrading them improves their performance. They just feel very meh

- I didn't like how the cart text moved with the cart when it first appeared. I struggled to read the cart tutorial

- the l33t speak in the UI (example: return 2 map) confused me on several occasions. Please replace it with normal english

I think this game has potential, but the core definitely still needs some polish. Thanks for letting me play!

Took me a while to figure out how the game works. The game page tutorial is not nearly enough. Only reading other people's comments did I figure it out. Having said that, I had a fair bit of fun with this one, but I don't like just how much of it is dependent on RNG. It feels less like I'm really strategizing and more like I'm just rolling the dice and hoping for the best. You have RNG both in what cards are available to you and if the card actually does anything or not, which ends up feeling frustrating. RNG should be used carefully and sparingly. This game kinda beats you over the head with it.

Thanks for letting me play!

The sound effects had me chuckling. I really enjoyed silly take with the writing and sound.

The controls feel a bit sluggish. Specifically, the sword is slow enough that I quickly started just dodging through enemies instead of killing them with the sword because I couldn't find ways to attack them without taking damage myself. I have a few suggestions to help combat this:

1. Allow the sword to swing while moving. Otherwise, enemies just swarm you while you swing

2. Decrease the time between sword swings - see Zelda: The Minish Cap for reference. Basic enemies in a game like this should feel like coins in Mario. Satisfying, not tedious

3. Increase knockback or reach or both for the sword. I find even if I hit an enemy I often end up taking damage from it. The sword speed increase will help, but hitting with a sword also needs to push them out of range of hurting me, or the range needs to be bigger

With all of these things combined, I'm guessing you mostly playtested this with access to the bomb ability, because once I acquired it I never even considered using the sword. The bombs are so much better. That said, the bombs could also use some work. In games, players always hate waiting, and the bomb mechanic is a double whammy. It takes time for the bomb to explode after being thrown, and then it takes an excruciating amount of time to reload after being thrown. I would consider making the bomb explode much faster and reducing the cooldown timer. Honestly, it feels like you're more interested in the bomb mechanic than the sword. You might be further ahead to drop the sword altogether and focus on making the bomb more fun

When fighting the wolf in sheep's clothing, I bombed him down to one hit left and very clearly connected with a final bomb but he didn't die (I did this twice and then died shortly afterwards both times). I can't prove it, but did you make the final hit invincible to bombs? Cuz if so that feels terrible to fight against, especially given the state of the sword as mentioned previously. If not I'm super curious what went wrong when I fought it

Oh, and one bug I found: enemies can kill you while you talk to npcs. I died talking to the sheep in the first area. Would definitely freeze all enemies while talking

All that said, I did find myself having fun while playing this game. It's a bit rough around the edges, but the writing is funny, the sound effects are silly, and the boss fight was engaging. Good work!

Thanks for the feedback! Looks like my tutorialization needs some work. Will give it some thought