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Huh... I was reading the scores backwards until coming across your post. It seems we are in the same boat. I was under the impression that the judges/curators were doing their own thing as far as picking games for the packs, and that Vinny's winners are entirely separate from the jam scores.

As far as jam scores go, in our case, I think the biggest mistake was uploading a busted web build instead of just going with the Windows & Mac builds. Lesson learned for next time!

Thank you! So happy you enjoyed it <3

Thanks for powering through! Very happy to hear the end game gave you the vibe we were going for. 

If you don't mind, could you post your rig's specs? it would be great to identify some areas of improvement. 

High praise, thank you! I absolutely loved your submission.

Thanks for the pipe path. It may not have saved you time, but it saved me time =]

AOL meets MYST with some FromSoft sprinkled in? Sign me up. This was a super cool experience, and you perfectly pulled of the shared messaging system, player ghosts, and object placement! Well done. It will be super entertaining to watch this streamed live. 

Fun concept and solid execution. I also was leaving the phone off the hook when my (mental) queue was full. The requirement for additional content on a single tape was a great inclusion. I also liked the dual-inventory system. The only thing I could think to add would be a way to slide between the TV/VCR combos without backing out. Bonus points for being able to mess with the TV channels from the main menu =]

Wow, this reminds me a lot of Dark Seed, which you should definitely give a shot if you haven't played it. I have to try the downloadable version before giving a full critique, but this was a unique twist on the jam theme and dripping with style. Nice work!

This was a fun take on the theme for sure. Clever interface to jump between the games, too! 

Don't be sad, melting is simply a state of mind for Meat. In fact, you can still talk to him =)

We appreciate you checking out the game! We are looking at the performance hit during the ending, thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for checking us out. We are having issues with the browser version that we are still looking into. If you want to try out the game, please consider the downloadable versions. I'll reply again if we have any luck stabilizing the browser build =)

Thank you for the kind words <3

We are working on a small change to how the portals work that should help the web version be more stable. Unfortunately we didn't have time before the deadline to test in the browser... lesson learned!

Thanks for checking it out! We are working on a small change to how the portals work that should cut the performance requirements. Hopefully that helps the web version be more stable as well, but that is to be determined =)

Glad you took the time to download and had fun <3

Awesome! But for tonight, we slumber.

[Edit]

I didn't realize the list of rules expanded with more information! Still, I would appreciate confirmation on if we should replace the game files or attach new ones. Thanks again.

[/Edit]

I promise I read the other threads before asking this, I just want to be 100% certain we don't break the rules =)

While we managed to upload our game just in the nick of time, there are a few bugs that snuck in and QoL features that were left out:

• [General]
  • credits do not always play correctly
  • quitting to the main menu and restarting from there prevents the player from advancing
• [MacOS]
  • cursor doesn't position properly
• [Web]
  • some parts of the level don't load
• [Gamepad support]
  • no way to trigger certain interactions on the gamepad
• [QoL]
  • no in-game control instructions

Are any of these acceptable to address now? If so, should we upload the Windows build as a new file and leave the original one on the submission page?

Also, thanks to Vinny + Moderators for organizing the jam. This was a lot of fun, and the submissions I checked out so far are extremely impressive!

Thanks for checking out our game <3

One thing we didn't reserve enough time for was adding in-game instructions. I will update the game's page with that info!

Your interface and UX are an 11/10. Gameplay mechanics and effects are cleverly implemented. Extremely cool vibe, nice job.

Hey, in case you didn't see it, reply to this thread for a late submission link:
https://itch.io/jam/shroomjam-2025/topic/5535981/late-submission-thread

thank you! we hope to get missions in there eventually

thanks for the kind words!

ah, that is supposed to be a hand holding the selected tool, but it definitely has a few quirks. we wanted to add additional features to the cursor, but ultimately ran out of time:

• make the cursor hand transparent
• change the hand and hide the item when highlighting something that was already place (and add a universal pick up feature)
• change the visual when selecting invalid blocks for the current item

if you have any other suggestions, i would like to hear them =)

good call! we considered (and later ruled out) locking the mouse to the middle of the camera, but not automatically moving the camera based on the mouse position. that wouldn't even interfere with the existing camera movement. i will add that to the list of enhancements. thank you for checking out our game!

this felt like a modern re-imagining of Chip's Challenge, which i put way too many hours into when i was a kid. i love the room reveal/hide visual, very slick!

a lot of my sentiment has been said in the other comments... quite charming, but a little sound would have added a lot. i agree, never enough time!

i watched your progress in the jam channel (#tech) and you pulled it all together quite nicely! the player speed is just right for corralling the swarm while remaining in danger. good call to go the doomy shotgun route without reloading. please add a double barrel (super shotgun) for V2.0 =)

i was surprisingly able to play this in the browser on an M2 MacBook, but the final boss was my trackpad. will give it another go with a mouse later!

i was very happy i could bunny hop over the shoulders of the swarm!

nice touch, you should call that out drag-to-select in the tool tips (assuming i didn't miss it)

on another note, i also appreciate the level advance option, not just for skipping one i can't solve, but also being able to go back to the browser and jump back to the level i am stuck on =)

regarding the UI, throwing this out there because i feel like this game would be nice on mobile:
maybe try expanding the currently selected instruction set with with 8-way arrows, like an arcade stick. the square can act as the toggle since you can't change the primary color, and once you click away, you could compact it down the way you already have it.

not sure if this would be an overall improvement... i usually iterate UX until it feels right, versus being able to visualize an immediate solution. it would solve the size of the hitboxes, though.

unique puzzle game mechanic and great level design. it feels quite rewarding to solve the increasingly complex levels. i appreciated the video tutorial, nice touch.

thank you! it's funny you mention that... we decided if we went with dominos we had to nail the feel. at the half-way mark, we knew that level of polish was going to take significant effort. i am happy to hear it was the right call for the jam.

thank you <3

your comment has added +5 to inspiration for getting back to work

many thanks!! we are in recovery mode,  but we are going to discuss if we keep working on it soon. i would like to at least get one puzzle level in to get additional feedback.

i am going to wait until i play the native build before voting, but i wanted to drop a note that i love the style, especially the background!

fun game! not sure if this was inspired by Uplink, but it gave me those vibes. highly recommend playing that if you haven't

fun game and mechanics. as others have said, some of the rules can be a bit confusing - understandable you were not able to add all the bells and whistles. the pixel art and overall designs are superb. nice job =)

high praise 🙏

I was watching your progress in the jam channel (@tech), and want you to know this came out beautifully. It's both technically impressive and a joy to interact with. Really great job, something to be proud of producing for sure!

fun concept! i very much like what you did with the zoom/shake effect when activating a turn. i think it would be a great help if you could see the item descriptions if you highlight them after placement. bonus gold for distance covered might also be an interesting addition

Very clean layout and nice color selection. Fun mechanic with well designed brain teasers, too! I am currently racking my brain on level 10

glad you had fun. we appreciate the kind words <3

glad you enjoyed them! we found ourselves making configurations to make beats

thanks for checking out our game! i'll be sure to return the favor later today

thanks for the feedback! agreed about the camera rotation being a bit jarring. we wanted to implement something to intelligently reposition the camera, but we ran up against the deadline getting the camera bounds to work right with the isometric perspective. i appreciate you checking out our game <3

Thanks so much for trying our game and for the positive feedback! We missed the notification for your message until just now. Due to the crunch, we didn't have time to implement a "bunny cap" or address the crashing issue =[

How to win:

Bunnies have an internal level (1-3). Spawning new bunnies has a chance to spawn a higher level (bigger) bunny. To win the game, you have to keep swapping out the bunnies in the generator for ones with higher levels. This will power up the laser and eventually start to power the houses on. Powering all the houses is the win condition.

The laser is fully automated, but starts at such a low power that it doesn't stop the enemies from nabbing your bunnies. As power increases, the beam gets wider with improved penetration power. We had some ideas that were scrapped (do to time) that would have the different generators affect different properties of the laser turret. We prioritized procedural systems over polish, which led to some jank in the "final" product =]