itch.io

Haha, sorry about that.
I wanted the tutorial to have a slightly different vibe to the rest of the game; to "feel" like a tutorial.
By all means, feel free to grab a copy of the source code, and add that option in.
:P

Thank you very much!
I'm glad that you enjoyed the game and the talk.
You made my day with this comment.
:)

Please don't be afraid to ask me any questions if you think of something later

This is good news! I am especially keen for the 3rd major change.
Congrats on the new job as well!
:)

Please make sure to post when the updates are done.
I need the continued motivation from everyone updating their jam games to help me believe that I'll eventually move my planned patches from "notes on phone" to "code in game".
XD

Sorry, I meant to ask this earlier, but I forgot: why release an android build if the game already works in the browser?
Can't android people just play it online?
Or is it not showing up properly, or something?

Thank you very much!
Yeah, I pushing my artist skills to the limit with the single piece of ascii art.
XD

"WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN, MASON?!"
This game really needs a tutorial.
It doesn't have to be in the game; just a paragraph on the itch page to explain the UI and goal.

Save the world from aliens by driving in circles in your car.
I feel like the devs were drunk when they came up with this idea; but, in a good way.
XD

Only thing I would have wanted is hints about where the 5 beacons were.
I wasted a lot of time driving around getting lost/stuck in the houses.

This was lots of fun!
I was quite happy when my "just swap all weapons clockwise" strat didn't work.
I actually had to pay attention to who was moving into which room.
For this sort of game, not being able to cheese it makes it more fun.
:)

The only 2 things I would suggest changing relate to the tutorial:
1) make it so that x+c resets the tutorial, rather than jumping you to the main game (I suspect you didn't have time in the jam); and
2) add, maybe, one more explanatory sentence that explicitly tells dumb dumbs like me that we are trying to prevent murders - at first I thought that I had a target of my own to kill.

Congrats on your first game!
It's got a good idea, and it is implemented well.
:)

I would suggest making the day and night longer; but also make each sun/moon tile disappear after a short time.
This should make things more interesting because it will force the player to move around.
They can't just find a nice spot and camp for the cycle.

I starved to death while trying to get rich.
Excellent!
XD

Thank you very much!
:)

Didn't expect to see a Metroidbrania in a game jam.
Well done!

Although, I was confused by the second half of the final combo instructions...
I thought they said that we could create fire *anywhere*.

Also, even after watching the walkthrough, I can't pull off the final jump.
I can't summon the dung in midair - it just stays on the ground and ignores me.

I do not like idle games - I tolerate them.
Even in this jam, a few times I've written something like "good for an idle game".
This, however... I like this.
This isn't "good for an idle game" - it's just good.
:)

I'm not 100% sure why; but my best guess is that it leans into the idle nature by trying to be chill.
The other idle games I've played seem to have a desire to compensate for the lack of interaction by spamming a million blinking lights and noises; and I just find that overstimulating ,while simultaneously having not much to do.

Oh, I did have trouble reading the text though.
Could we get a bigger font size?

You had me at "again".
XD

Just a note: the first kill on both web and PC builds caused some staggering lag.

This is a solid jam entry that makes good use of the theme.
I agree with the squirrel fan that planning the combo moves is a really good idea.
I would have preferred it if the game leaned more heavily into that direction.
I made a decent amount of progress just by having more and move knights spamming attack.

A very good entry for the loop theme.
I usually prefer games with a win condition to those with high scoring systems; but with this year's theme it makes sense to have plenty of infinite high scoring games.

This is ridiculously good for a jam game!
The platforming, and camera movements (even for dialogue) feel so smooth.
I had some trouble with the puzzle part; but I'm planning to come back to it later to try again.

This looks and sounds very nice.
Unfortunately, in both the web build and exe, I ran into a bug that cut short my experience.
After the reset mechanic is introduced, I can only walk for about 5 seconds before the character gets stuck and I am forced to reset to start moving again.
Thus, I couldn't actually finish the first area.
Please try to fix this after the jam, because I think I would enjoy this game.

Ah, that's a shame; but I understand.
For what it is worth, I'm up to 79 reviews now; and this was my favourite game in the jam (I mean, I *might* find something better, but there isn't much time left for that).

Is your long term project also a platform  puzzle game?

Yeah, it felt like an artistic choice, so you did very well there.
:)

It wasn't how I hoped it would go; but sometimes leaving it open is better.
There have been plenty of mystery stories where the explanation was clearly thought up at the last second, and it can ruin the whole thing if the "reveal" doesn't make any sense.
For a game jam, leaving it open is probably the best way to go.

This is a charming little game.
It is very unique, and well polished.
Good job!
:)

I would suggest 2 changes:
1) make it a bit more obvious during the day which statues need repairing - I know there's the night scene but it's easy to forget, and for a new player it can be easy to miss the differences between a broken and healthy statue; and
2) add a pause button.

This is a neat little game that is well polished.
I didn't notice any bugs, or any features that seemed unfinished.
The art fit the game style well; and I liked the upgrade options.
I also liked that I could shoot 2 or 3 souls at once if I placed the beam carefully.
:)

In terms of improvements, I agree with what other people are already saying: more variation, smaller gap between SFX volume and music volume, and gradually increasing difficulty.
Is there currently a win condition, or does it just go on forever?

Thank you very much; and, yes, it is based on my life!
I am currently in the Chaos part.
XD

The idea to "rewind the level" without rewinding the player is an interesting one.
However, I think the game takes too long to show how this mechanic can be interesting.
We spend several levels without this power; and then several more basically just showing it off.
Also, it's a little confusing that switches don't rewind.

It's not a bad little game; but there is room for improvement.
The core mechanic is probably okay (though some sort of twist on it would be nice); but most aspects of the game need some polishing.

A fellow Python dev!
:D

That was a nice little game.
I like that there are multiple reset abilities that reset different things in the level - I haven't seen anyone else do that.
More levels, or twists on the mechanics would have been good; but the small amount of content that was there was nicely polished.

I really like the idea of the generations eternally fighting over who last killed the previous lord of the castle.
:)

However, as another user said, the combat is not very smooth.
The hitboxes for everything are bigger than the sprites, there don't appear to be any i-frames, we can't tell when an enemy is preparing to attack, and there's no feedback that our hits landed (flashing the enemy red, or play a grunting sound or something would be good).

I really love the flowing movement.
This is going to sound strange - but I think you can remove the left mouse button.
It felt so much more satisfying, and looked so much prettier, when I was snaking around the sky like some sort of celestial serpent (although, this made the levels harder).
I also love how such a simple idea can make things so complicated in non-obvious ways.
:)

One thing that I would suggest changing is the hitbox for the big wide laser beam.
On level 10, I died instantly, even though I was at the top of the screen, the ship was at the bottom, and (visually) the beam hadn't hit me yet - I should have had *just* enough time to escape.
I suspect that when the beam activates, you just turn on a collision rectangle that covers the whole area it will cover?

In hindsight, it was a poor decision on my part to play with at half past midnight with my 3 week old son sleeping next to me (don't worry, I had headphones at least).
The good news is that I feel awake enough to keep gaming!
:P

Everything about this game seems well done, especially for a game jam.
If you asked me how long I thought it took to make this, I would have guessed 1 month.
Very well done on the visuals, sound, the controls felt smooth, and I loved that I could change the radio station.
:)

I don't like the horror genre, in general, so I'm not too sure how this rates as a horror experience.
One thing that I, personally, would have liked is a bit more clarity on what the heck happened in the past, and what is going on now.
I kept driving and driving because I wanted to solve that mystery!
I used your advice on the game page to get the secret ending, but I am still left with questions.
However, I suspect that this is deliberate, and perhaps even a semi-standard thing for horror stories?

They were inherited from grandma, who was a vase hoarder!
We couldn't get rid them, or sell them, without mum guilt tripping us - but, oops!
The toddler broke them!
XD

This is a solid 1st jam entry.
There isn't much to do, and the win condition wasn't coded; but it is not a bug riddled pile of inconsistent garbage.
There is plenty of nice and consistent pixel art; and I didn't encounter any bugs.
:)

My advice for next time would be: try to scope smaller, and focus more on the mechanic first.
This game felt like you started with the idea of "buy/sell loop", and then built up a little world and a backstory around a trader, before finally settling how buying and trading would work as a game mechanic.
I highly doubt you started with "we need to hit space on something spinning around a circle" and then built the peddling stuff around that.
:P

Despite seeming a bit unpolished/unfinished, this was actually a lot of fun.
Good job!
:)

Obviously you didn't have time in the jam for this; but I would appreciate it if you added an initial tutorial that was more forgiving while introducing the mechanics.
I'm not familiar with parkour games in general.
So, it took me multiple attempts before I even discovered that you can walk on the walls (I kept trying to time instant wall jumps).
Then, as I did manage to progress, I had to sort of guess (in midair) how to do the next section, or else start all over.

Thank you very much!
:)

I actually really wanted to put in some sort of vase counting system that would acknowledge that nobody should have that many vases; but I didn't manage to get to it.
Either that, or some code to randomly swap the item being broken - just something to freshen up the text.

Congratulations on your first jam submission!
:)

I would suggest 2 changes (after the jam):
1) jumps feel better when the player goes up quicker than they fall down (we want to be in the air quickly, but we want to have time to decide where to land); and
2) consider adding a hint about how to get past the "wrench" obstacle - I got stuck there, and I wasn't sure what to do (is it a well timed jump? am I missing an ability or an upgrade? is there a different, secret path? etc.).

The core of the game is fine; but, as others have said, it could be improved (and there are bugs to deal with).
For a first game jam submission, this is decent.
I would be interested to see what the game looks like with more time.

Their screams... still haunt me... but I... I did what I had to do... to survive!
This is... hilarious? horrific? both? Both.
XD

My experience is similar to others: a good time; but with some annoying bugs that need fixing.
Usable powers (e.g. chopsticks and teleport) were unreliable at best, and never worked at all at worst.
I also managed to glitch the physics at the world championship so that my sushi roll was always spazzing around, and managed to escape towards the outer edge of the table.
In general, the physics has issues if 2 sushi are stuck together for a period; and this persistent physics glitch happened after I left the game running in the other tab (with the sushi stuck) for about 25 minutes.
So, it's not likely anyone else will do that; but I think it's coming from something more fundamental that will cause other problems.

This is the 65th game that I've reviewed this jam.
So, believe me when I say that I have seen a lot of puzzle+platform+clone mechanic.
HOWEVER, I think this is my favourite.
:)

Key novel points about this game that I like:
1) being able to choose when recording starts and stops;
2) being able to summon/dismiss the clone at will; and
3) turn-based movement (surprisingly an amazing addition to this mechanic cocktail!).

You also did a really good job with the "clone can be stepped on" and "clone can go through spikes" tutorials.
I saw another game that had the same rules; but it wasn't clear that was how it worked.
Having transparent clones makes it ambiguous about what they physically can/cannot interact it; and you handled that potential confusion very well.

Also, I know you have a list of known bugs; but I didn't run into any on my run.
So, as far as I'm concerned, the game has no bugs!
:P 
 
You also did a great job sucking me into the puzzles.
They all looked so tantalisingly achievable and fun that I couldn't put the game down; and the difficulty was perfect.
This is the only puzzle game that I've actually finished in the jam.

Are you planning to add more levels after the jam?

(Oh, also, while I feel bad for the cat, your story was funny and novel too - who else in the jam has a cat with a crippling gambling problem?)

Thank you!
Yes, more variety (even in just acknowledgement text prompts) is one of the few things that I definitely want to improve.
I think just cycling, or randomly picking, from different text blurbs about (e.g.) putting on laundry would be a good improvement.

I am also conflicted about changing the husband happiness.
My logic for most of the actions was: "well, I feel better now because my home is less disgusting".
At this point, I'm leaning more towards taking the husband penalty out of the tutorial (because that sets up a false expectation); and taking down his happiness more with random events.
I designed a whole random event system; and then I only put 3 in the game!
XD

Thank you very much for your kind words!
I do hope that when people see the acknowledgements they think "oh, THAT'S why it's a text game".
(When, really, it's because I have no art skills)
XD

Thank you, also, for your patience in downloading it separately when the app didn't work.
I didn't even know Itch had an app!
I only joined for this jam, so I don't have experience with the website.

If I were to guess, I suspect the app probably doesn't like it because the exe is just a wrapper.
The game is written in python and bundled with a copy of the python interpreter (using auto-py-to-exe).
That trick works really well for just running straight on Windows; but it has failed me for getting engagement on literally any other platform in the jam.
Next time: web build!

I didn't understand if the buddy copes the moves from the current loop, or if it copies the moves next time (after pressing R).
I also didn't understand why it stood around doing nothing a lot.
I'm guessing it does nothing when it runs out of inputs?