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Thank you!

Yeah the visuals for the abilities are very much unfinished. My original idea for the aura visuals was a sort of plasma ball effect, but I very much did not have time to spend on any complex visual effects so I ended up with this very very basic version of the concept. Maybe it would've been best to just leave it as a simple circle compared to its current state though... And then of course the click has no visuals at all, I'll probably add a little indication of where you've clicked in a postjam update to make it a little nicer to use

I am curious what you mean by thinking there were alternate routes, I'd hoped all the ability gates were clear enough to indicate you couldn't go through them until later and funnel you into that first puzzle, were there any that had particular issues?

Thank you!

I did actually originally have those platforms just stop when they hit the player, but the way I initially implemented it lead to lots of issues with them stopping when they weren't supposed to in the big climb room with them, so I ended up just throwing out the mechanic and replacing it with killing the player when they get squished. Maybe I'll go back to that mechanic and see if I can get it to work a little more properly at some point.

The slow methodical movement here is really cool, but I gave up very quickly after getting the attack ability solely due to the platforming following it having no respawn points in it and constantly sending me all the way back to the bell to do the by then trivial but still tediously slow walk back to the actual challenge. Learning the right positioning to get through a sequence the first time is fun, going through the same motions again and again quickly turns it into a painful slog that I'm not willing to push through, and it seems like there's no way to get back out of that area without successfully completing that platforming, so I'm kind of forced to leave it there.

The game does look and sound really good, and again I do really like the core mechanics of this game, its just the levels need to be chopped up a little smaller to be palatable I think.

Decent game. I really really liked how the abilities play - the charge was really fun in particular, but the base movement was a little slippery for my taste. I feel like the death barrier could've been significantly higher too, it felt very tedious waiting to fall all the way down every time I fell off.

Pretty cool game. The timing on the jumps felt a bit too tight though, I think it could've used a little more airtime to give a little more leeway in the timing.

Hmm... Yeah, I've tried messing around for a bit to see if I could figure out what might cause that, but I'm not getting anything. I've ended up shrinking the platform hitbox slightly though, so if things somehow do manage to get misaligned they should be a little less likely to get stuck because of it.

Thank you!

Although, I'm unsure what puzzle you were forgetting the mouse click for... you don't get the mouse click until nearly the end of the game, after all the puzzles with the balancing platforms. Using it to make the climb up those easier the second time around is def intended, but I don't think you were forgetting anything the first time around, you didn't have the ability at that point :p

Thank you!

Yeah, there's def a few places the game could use a few more sound effects, and the ability pickups are def a big one - even the one sound they do have is a placeholder, that jingle was originally meant to just be for the clock shrines but I ran out of time to make another one for abilities. The creature chase was very nearly another awkwardly silent moment, I didn't add the sound effects for that until the last hour before the deadline.

Thank you!

Imma be real, I wrote that review right before going to bed and was really tired and not thinking the clearest, thinking back more clearly I don't think the fog really contributed to the depth perception issue at all. I mentioned it because I was mostly trying to think in terms of the background being a very flat gray a lot of the time, but most of my issues with depth perception happened at more close to mid range where the fog wasn't really in effect.

actually going back into the game for a sec I think a big missing thing that would've helped way more with the depth issues is object shadows. A lot of my issues were more with telling where objects were laterally in a room, so I'd regularly undershoot bombs or have a hard time judging where exactly to place my antigrav beams.

Decent entry. I collected three of the five key pieces and what I think are all the main abilities, but didn't feel up to scouring the map for the others. The visuals and level design are certainly minimalist, but maybe to a fault - there seem to be a lot of empty hub rooms and long confusingly windy hallways with no good landmarks to distinguish them, and it made navigation just really confusing. I also had trouble gauging the depth of objects, especially the enemies and my own projectiles, which I think was probably exacerbated by the visuals since all the perfectly flat walls and fog lead to a near complete lack of reference points to gauge depth from.

The actual upgrades themselves were fun enough, the concept of an antigravity field instead of a jump is cool, and the sticky bombs were pretty satisfying to use when I wasn't blowing myself up thanks to the aforementioned lack of depth perception. I found the stamina system for the skills to be mostly just an annoyance rather than a meaningful limitation, though.

Really solid game! The concept of a collection of mini-metroidvanias is really creative and each of the missions were pretty well designed and fun to complete.

My main gripe is with the camera behavior when moving downwards - it was really bad and would in some cases end up several tiles above the platform I was supposed to be jumping towards forcing a completely blind jump. A way to manually look down would've been much appreciated!

minor issue: the time at the end of each mission says "time left", but it seems to actually be tracking the time spent

Thank you!

For the audio issue, I have to turn my volume way up to hear anything after the footsteps, and frankly it just seems like a normal part of the footstep sound - it sounds like it's some little bit of squeaking in the person's shoe or something. I'm a bit confused as to how that could be so jarring, so maybe the actual issue is something else that I'm not hearing?

Tried this for a bit but I could not figure out a single room. The only rooms that seemed at all approachable with just the gravity switch ability kept breaking due to objects clipping into each other or the walls. Reset room was often also really jank since depending on gravity direction you could easily end up just dropping right out of the room before you could register what was even happening.

Really good game, had a lot of fun and you managed to add a lot of depth to the auto-attacking combat, the HK-style pogos were a nice touch for that. Art was also really nice and successfully gave off a minimalist vibe even with the amount of detail present.

Like the first review I had some issues with enemies immediately ambushing me on room entry - the ravens in the final room in particular were a huge pain. That room in general was kind of disappointing and felt like just enemy spam, but considering its the last proper room of the game I think it's understandable to be petering out by that point.

I found a lot of the vertical platforming sections in the green area to be really frustrating - I think the camera was the biggest culprit here, it tends to lag behind the player when moving vertically which makes it hard to see where you're going, especially when moving downwards. There was also just some general finickiness with getting the hair grapple points to activate, I found them to be rather frustrating in general at various points - the slight slipperiness of the player doesn't really combine well with needing to get specifically her head to contact the points. I also wish the runes other than the final set were shown on the menu as well, I had a hard time keeping track of them. Also the menu button could use adding to the controls list, enter was pretty far down my list of keys to check so I didn't find the menu until a good ways in.

Otherwise this is a pretty straightforward and solidly executed metroidvania, I don't have a whole lot to say about it. Map is fairly large and varied for a jam entry, and the visuals are appealing although I don't really get much minimalist vibes from them even with the limited color scheme. The music did feel much more minimalist and I really enjoyed how it kept the same overall structure the whole time just with different instruments coming in and out for different areas, was very clever.

Thank you!

I def agree that some of the timing esp later on was probably a bit too tight, I kind of lost the slower puzzle-y vibe a bit over the course of the game as I was rushing to just get some kind of level out to fill out the game - with more time for refinement there would've probably been more slower paced puzzle rooms, and a bit more leeway for the rooms that do require tight execution.

The bug with the block not fitting into its hole is a bit concerning, all the linear blocks are supposed to move on fixed paths and not be pushed by anything else so there shouldn't be any way for them to get misaligned like that. Do you remember which room and platform it was that happened with?

The unusual control scheme is interesting and I really want to give this a proper shot, but the enemies are just way too obnoxious as is. Just getting around normally is plenty difficult enough with the controls scheme, and being constantly knocked around by enemies that move faster than I do and are so tanky that they'd take significant time to kill even without having to finagle your positioning in order to even be facing the right direction to hit them is just. not fun. It feels impossible to make even the slightest dent in exploring this game without being killed in one or two hits and being sent all the way back to the start, and every time I think I've found a relatively easier passage it just leads directly into a dead end.

Maybe I'll try to give this another shot later, but right now I just feel no incentive to attempt pushing any further.

Incredibly creative application of the theme and a really fun game! I don't really have a lot of deeper thoughts on this, the sheer quantity of upgrades was very entertaining and fairly impressive, and the movement and exploration managed to be pretty deep and engaging even under the two button limitation. Just a really impressive entry overall.

Pretty fun little entry! The upgrades were clever and played off the clarity mechanic decently well. As far as said clarity mechanic itself, I found the revealing platforms bit to be pretty meh, but what I actually enjoyed the most about it was the slowdown effect when activating it. It was really helpful for gaining some extra precision in platforming and sold the idea of heavy focus a lot more. I think expanding on that could make for a really interesting mechanic.

As far as issues I had, the checkpoint sound was kind of grating especially when it would play repeatedly when moving through the room. I think maybe disabling the sound for already active checkpoints or just placing them in places you're less likely to repeatedly pass through would help with that. The lack of animation for enemies getting hurt or dying also made it kind of hard to tell when I was actually hitting them, especially when there were multiple enemies present and the sound cues got muddled together.

I also had a bug with the boss where the game didn't stop when the dialogue started, but it did take my control away - the boss just kept walking and attacking while the dialogue played, until he ended up pushing me out of the room. 

Overall though this was a decently solid entry, and def had some pretty interesting mechanics to explore!

Is there actually a game here? I see some cool art and concepts in the screenshots here, but actually playing the game it seems like none of that is present and it's just a very small prototype. Am I missing something or is that the entire game?

Yeah, sorry, I'm not having any success recreating it. If anything like it happens again, could you give a screenshot of what it looks like when it freezes?

As far as saving goes, you can manually save at any time by quitting to the menu - it'll place you back in the exact room you were in when you reload. I know it's a bit hacky to have to do that regularly, but doing it after major milestones should prevent any progress loss. I'll def make sure to fix upgrades not autosaving the game once the ratings period is over.

Shoot I completely forgot about autosave... I normally have the game autosave after each upgrade but I added the save system last minute this time and it slipped my mind to add that. Really sorry you had to start over, def not intended at all.

As for the initial freeze though, I can't recreate that at all. You should be perfectly able to jump and use the aura ability at the same time. Could you give some more details about what else was happening when it froze? Were the beast or platforms in range when you toggled the ability?

The definition used by this jam is based purely on ability gating - as long as the player gains abilities that unlock new areas, you're good as far as the official ruling is concerned. Several past winners have been 3d non-platformers, so its absolutely possible to do well in this jam with those, and one of the prizes this time around is even for 3d games specifically - so if you're leaning towards 3d, go for it!

Yes, you can start working on it now - you just run the risk of your initial work not lining up with the theme if you don't know what it is.

The rule is intentionally a bit odd since this is going to be one of the last instances of the jam and each of the final jams are planned to have a twist in the rules. This one's twist is that materials made early are allowed, but using third party assets is not.

best carpal tunnel simulator of 2025

combo not breaking when you missed keys gave it a nice strategy element of deciding how many hoops you could reasonably handle without breaking combo, really liked that element

fun little game! very curious what kind of potion would use an entire grand piano :p

took me a couple attempts to figure out what i was actually supposed to be doing but it was very satisfying once i did. really love the sound design, everything felt nice and impactful because of it

thank you for playing!

the reason the camera can get a bit awkward is because there isn't actually any real camera controller at all, it's just locked to the player position at all times... i tried copying over some camera code from a more standard platformer project to this but it turned out to suit this game really poorly and i didn't have time to make anything new for this game, so i resorted to just locking the camera a bit above the player as it worked better by comparison. but it does create a lot of difficulty with moving down especially, yeah. it probably could've been mitigated with more careful level design but the levels were largely done even more last minute so i didn't have time to put that kind of thought into them. improving the camera is probably the first thing i'll do if i come back to this because it really does need some lookahead for sure.

the loop mechanic is a really clever twist on the line drawing controls, and feels pretty satisfying when i was able to pull it off. unfortunately this felt really inconsistent since the game seemed to keep treating my strokes as multiple lines and cutting off my loops in the middle? im not sure what the issue is exactly that's leading to that but it made the game fairly frustrating. i just went back in and that's just not happening anymore? i don't know what was up with it the first time i played but its working fine now. it might've just been an issue with my mouse since i don't see anyone else complaining about anything like this.

aside from that, since lines never disappear on their own and stick around through resets, it's possible to end up with an entire gauge's worth of lines sitting offscreen on respawning and be completely unable to move. really feels like r should be a complete reset and also reset the currently drawn lines so you can't get stuck like this. theres also a lot of jank with the collision - i ended up getting pushed inside of things fairly often, though i assume you're probably already aware of that since the reset button does feel like a bandaid fix for that (and works well enough to fix it)

was very cool to see another game using the whole line carry mechanic though (and reassuring to see that i wasn't the only one who struggled to iron out all the jank that comes with it :p)  im curious if you guys were inspired by canvas curse as well? you definitely put a very creative twist on it if so

yeah i had already been wanting to make a canvas curse clone so pretty much my entire thought process when coming up with an idea for this jam was "hey i could justify doing that here if i stuck a hole through the protagonist" :p  its a thin justification to be sure.

glad you had a good enough time with what's here though

thank you!

being able to build up speed by leaping off small lines repeatedly wasn't something i had planned for but i was very happy with how that turned out. it made up a bit for the lack of a dash mechanic or otherwise more intended way of gaining speed

thank you!

i dont know that this prototype is in a state that i'd want to build directly off of, but i do have ideas for this style of gameplay that id like to come back to at some point. we'll see if anything comes of it

thank you!

very cute concept and art but the mechanics are honestly just not that fun. with how sparse the enemies are and how wide open the map is its very easy to just give them a wide berth and eliminate any danger which makes the game devolve into just tediously lugging sheep around painfully slow. maybe it'd be more interesting if you made the map a little tighter and played up more of a stealth angle with avoiding the dogs? and im not sure the heavy slowdown when holding a sheep is necessary - although it'd probably be more tolerable on a smaller map. i do feel like it might be fun to be more able to rush in and grab a sheep straight from under a dog's nose, but maybe that role would be better filled by the speed ability if it wasn't only one use per loop.

the jump in the time limit from thirty seconds straight up to five minutes with the time upgrade also felt really awkward. i feel like the base time should be a little longer, and maybe there be multiple tiers of extension. as it stands you can basically only grab a handful of the closest sheep without the time upgrade, but then getting the time upgrade suddenly gives you plenty of time to scour the map, which feels off. there also doesn't seem to be much use for the magic beans beyond slightly extending the radius of your collection zone - i think more of an emphasis on stealth might help this as well since there could be situations where you'd want to lure a sheep away from its guards.

overall i wasn't particularly satisfied with this game as it stands but the art was really good and i could definitely see the game being made into something more fun.

ahhh that makes more sense. i had a bug where a baby got stuck at the edge of the screen and never finished running off with a donut, is that the same bug that causes the delayed game over?

i couldnt tell what actually triggered a game over? i assumed it would be when i had no more doughnuts on the conveyor but that wasn't the case. the tutorial just vaguely says its when the babies steal "too many" but there's no indication of how many that is

the actual gameplay was alright. the ever increasing baby spawn speed quickly gets unmanageable though and there ends up being nothing you can do to stop them from fully surrounding the conveyor. the point right before that happens where you can just barely fend them off is really tense and fun but its brief

got softlocked after making it to the other side of the room with the bull thing, couldn't get past it going the other way

As it looks like someone else has mentioned there's a bug where the character will sometimes get stuck in the floor after a room transition. Because of this I wasn't able to get very far in the game, but what I did felt pretty good! The visuals and sound design in particular are really nice.

The gravity on the player felt just a little too high, I think decreasing it slightly might improve the platforming a bit. I think the player's jump attack having a shorter range than their grounded attack is also really awkward, and it made it feel impossible to properly fight enemies on ledges. Aside from those small things though I think the core gameplay of this was very competent and well done.

I also appreciate that the game has a keybinds menu, though the way it's implemented is kind of strange. Granted some of my frustration with it might just be from not knowing Spanish and having to more or less figure out how it worked on my own (I'm assuming you guys just ran out of time to translate that one bit of text?), but I think it's also awkward having to rebind every control in the list in order to get to the ones lower down. A more conventional system where you select a button to rebind and only then are asked to give the new input would be better I think.

Also agree with the previous comment complaining about the moving platform sync. Easy solution would be to code them to have a consistent period instead of consistent speed, so they always take the same time to cycle. I wasn't able to make it farther than the first room with those as I gave up on the platforms and went back to explore more elsewhere before running into the softlock issue with getting stuck in the ground. Was able to find the wall jump before that though so at least I got a taste of the metroidvania elements.