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Absolutely entrancing. It's like navigating a maze, moving around nodes and hopelessly trying to optimize worker placement as everything breaks down around you. 

It's an amazing feeling, entering a new level and getting absolutely flabbergasted by the sheer size of it, lines pointed everywhere, and slowly but surely breaking it down to manageable sections and Getting Shit Done. 

Valeuuu!

'The void has the game' is such a fucking cool concept. Non-existence as a place with a captor, wow!

Great read. I was a bit taken aback by the title, general people pleaser that I am, but I've found myself agreeing to most of your points. There's a certain yuckiness about it, the way how games are commodified, how they must be "marketed" with a "hook". Can't my heart be enough?

On the other hand, I do get it. While every game has a right to live, as soon as a game gets published, I don't think that game belongs solely to the author anymore. Of course, ideally it shouldn't be made *for* an audience in mind, but at the end of the day it's still an experience communicated to a player. I do think of the audience when making games, how it's going to be perceived, how a plauer might react to this or that. The craft of the experience is what attracts me to this medium, to speak in lines of code and notes of music, and while singing alone in the shower is definitely fun, nothing beats singing along with an audience. I hope I haven't misinterpreted your point.

i love the animation. Very simple but quite effective, the posing is absolutely wonderful

cINEMA

!

This kinda reminds me of CODA's games from The Beginner's Guide. I assume it's not a game made to be understood from an outside audience, but instead a silly product created by commitee during MAGfest (which I assume is some kind of convention?)
Anyway, that was definitely a trip

I appreciate this game's honesty. Each attack and each move aren't metaphors for a supposed hypothetical battle that occurs in-between cutscenes, but actual events in the canon of the game.

You attack the ground, and in the next fight, the hero comments - 'I'll have to jump next time'. And then, sure enough, they jump next time. It's simple, but this connective string between gameplay and narrative ties this whole thing together really well.

I say this because, well, the story isn't revolutionary or anything - it's the inevitability of change. A well-trodden narrative, ranging from washed up athletes growing old and letting the new guard take its place, to systems of government falling to, hopefully, a better one in the future.

But the way this story is presented, well, I'd say it actually is innovative. The experience of determination against a difficult boss is basically part of gamer canon, and this game leverages that experience to convey the idea that everyone can change, any system can change, given enough effort.

It's an elegant, simple stroke of design, but damn, does it work. I really enjoyed this game.

I think I've lost the ability to differentiate between shitposting and art. Maybe the two were one and the same all along!

What a great little experience. Excited for any upcoming updates!

Aw, bummer. Something I'll mention is that at least one of the coworkers changed their password, and that password is mentioned in the cat's owner inbox. Maybe you were trying to use their old password?

Hey! If you're having difficulties, I suggest looking at our walkthough! It's available under Download.

Yep!

Conceito interessante, gostei bastante da pixel art! O movimento do Dominic é um pouco lento, mas creio que seja intencional?

Gostei bastante do jogo e do conceito! Só a fonte da terceira fase que bugou, aí não consegui passar =(

Ayy thanks =)

Thank you! I'm really glad you liked it. Loved to watch your gameplay on stream.

Ooh, I see! Makes sense, then.

Thank you! Telling the player about which ending they got was kind of a last-minute decision, as my original plan was to just leave the player in the dark  to give more finality to their ending. Game design dilemmas, haha. Really valid feedback!

Thank you so much!

Interesting game! Overall, I really liked this game's artstyle, soundtrack and concept, especially the stress and energy meters - a good mechanic to show how some options are sometimes less viable, despite good intentions.

I guess my only criticism are the caution and knowledge meters, as I didn't quite understand their impact. Were they mostly a mood indicator, instead of a gameplay resource?

This is immaculate, I loved it. Everything works together really well here - the main character's arbitrary task to collect petals displayed as a gameplay objective, the soundtrack's build-up as the mountain is climbed, and overall, the writing behind both characters' dialog is just... great.

You really know what you're doing, honestly. I have almost no criticisms - this is a great little narrative about trust, ambition and support, and it fits itself perfectly within its gameplay. It kind of reminds me of Celeste, in a way.

If I have just one piece of advice, it would be a small Godot trick - you can switch to 'Characters After Shaping' in the editor label (inside the 'Displayed Text' tab) to avoid having text at the end of a dialog box suddenly jumping over to another line, while the characters are being loaded. It's just a little visual improvement.

No problem! It's a really good game overall.

Really liked this one. It's simple, and it's short, but it's effective - like a sword. Polished to a brim, and really impressive for someone just getting started with Godot! 

Speaking of which, are you a gamedev veteran? Maybe I'm assuming too much from the narrative, but I don't know, this game seems really well-made for someone just starting out.

This... This is actually a really well thought-out game. If you ever need help from a programmer, shoot me a message - I really liked your writing, and the only thing hampering the experience, really, were the lack of proper assets and overall polish. This has great potential!

Really liked this one. It's simple, and it's short, but it's effective - like a sword. Polished to a brim, and really impressive for someone just getting started with Godot! 

Speaking of which, are you a gamedev veteran? Maybe I'm assuming too much from the narrative, but I don't know, this game seems really well-made for someone just starting out.

Overall pretty polished game! Couldn't find the last donut though...

Thanks! Baroque Brawl is probably my favorite of the bunch, excellent work!

Is there somewhere we can listen to the soundtrack? I love it so much!

Really cute game, I think I needed that. Thank you =)

Thought provoking to say the least. I would argue however that the examples cited all have a certain assigned explanation (humor, dread, sadness) which do point to the fact that even this nonsense does need to have a certain impact (perhaps not intended by the developer, but an impact nonetheless) on the player.

Which yeah, that might sound redundant, but what I mean is that "pure nonsense", which simply confuses everyone and doesn't evoke any other emotion or theme, perhaps is not an interesting place to explore. As you yourself said, excessive nonsense makes the player numb to the whole thing. I wouldn't say that the developer needs to have a rational explanation behind everything in the game, but I do think that they need to have a purpose. Maybe the purpose is simply aesthetic/emotional, as in "I think it's more impactful that way" or "I just found it funny", but it's still a reason to do it.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not really sure what you mean by "nonsense". Your examples may not make "logical" sense, but they still make "artistic" sense - you've identified an emotion that resonated with you, and the nonsense cited contributes to that experience. It's a piece of the puzzle, an ingredient of the cake, the product of an artist's mind, like any other.

If you suddenly discovered that what you saw was entirely generated by IA, and as such, the nonsense you saw was just the result of a glitch in the system, would you view it with the same eyes? I'm personally in the camp that the player's experience is all that matters, not the process behind it, and even I would feel at least a bit disappointed by that. I guess I still need to know that what I'm seeing is intentional. "Pure nonsense", as in someone just randomly putting stuff in, may be impactful or enjoyable, but it will never resonate with me as strongly as feeling connected with another human through a game.

Well, that's up to you! Personally, I like to think the two remained great friends, Sarah and the friend stayed together, and the protagonist eventually met someone who reciprocated his feelings, roughly a year and a half later.

Thanks! Making this game helped me a lot to deal with my feelings back then. I'm glad you've found it beautiful =)

Loved the concept, the soundtrack and the writing! These kinds of synchronization puzzles are always very creative to tinker around with, and everything comes together nicely as a themed package.
My only gripe with this game is its fail state - I think the game would benefit from a 'planning mode' where characters can move freely, and then an 'execution mode' where all actions fire at once. As of right now, I have to keep doing multiple runs to make them move correctly, which can take a long time. For a jam game, though, I can understand the lack of such a feature.

The concept is creative, but there's a reason why most games have you play as the tiny little guy - playing as the ship doesn't lend much agency. I found that the optimal strategy was to simply mash all four buttons, as there's no limit to their usage. As such, the game ended up a bit boring for me. With a bit more design polish and balance, this could become a really interesting game.

The artstyle, music and overall presentation reminded me a lot of old flash games, for some reason. I really enjoyed this game - the panic of getting overwhelmed by enemies suddenly turning into triumph as you become the Hero - very reminiscent of Pac-Man. Overall, nice entry.