itch.io

Congrats on the submission!! I was able to cook a burger and some fries(?) after reading the text tutorial on the game page. I found having to hold spacebar while cooking to be an odd design choice, as it didn't make the gameplay any more challenging or engaging and was just kind of annoying to have to hold down. I think before adding a mechanic to a game, it is important to consider why we are doing so (this is something I struggle with a lot myself too). Having to press the number keys as they popped up was a fun mechanic, and I think did a good job of simulating the overworked feeling of a kitchen. It fit the theme nicely in that respect. It was also cool that you could unlock different recipes, and that new recipes were more difficult to cook than the starting hamburger one. It was kind of hard to read the number text and I think having a larger game resolution would help the readability of everything. You did well to keep a consistent pixel style throughout the game, but I think the visual presentation has room for improvement. I would recommend using a color palette from Lospec to help keep the colors cohesive. Getting a friend or family member to playtest before submission would help too, as some of the confusing things might have been easier to see from someone else's perspective. Overall, I think you have a unique take on the theme and I liked that there was progression through the recipes. Keep up the good work!

super cool entry, loved the pikmin vibes and the lore was very funny, great entry! intro cut scene was a nice touch. 5/5 on presentation imo, there is a coherent artstyle throughout and everything feels like its part of the same world. I really liked the big slime and goon trapped in a lab experiment animations. The core mechanic is fun and exploring the world to craft stuff and feed their overlord was a compelling concept. I found actually manipulating the goons to be a bit janky (totally understandable for a 2 day jam) and think that is a potential area for improvement. For example, if I click an item and a goon picks it up, and then I click a work station or big slime, that goon will not automatically respond to the click. I have to click the goon again first in order to do so. It seems like a small thing, but when the whole game revolves around manipulating the lil goons, these minor pain points start to add up and effect player immersion. I think some camera smoothing would help with this too. Another area for improvement is with the sound design. The sfx used are good, but the lack of variety wears thin after a while. I noticed some variations in goon sounds (pause) but more "goons", varied footsteps, and an increase in background ambient sounds I think would make for a much more pleasing overall auditory experience. I only make those critiques because I think the game is a very fun concept and has lots of potential. Overall, I enjoyed my play through and your uniquely humorous take on the theme. The core gameplay is very neat and the presentation was awesome. Keep up the good work!!

Pretty cool platform puzzler, nice entry!! The start menu is absolutely gorgeous; animated title, optical illusion checkboard boxes, the hand-drawn character, snowflake particles, mouse joke. All that polish comes together very nicely, and makes for a lovely introduction to the game. The intro cutscene added to this vibe as well, it was funny and didn't overstay its welcome. The ragdoll-y physics movement was pretty fun and chaotic, even if it did cross into jank territory a few times. On more than one occasion I was able to skip giant parts of the level by just flicking across the whole screen lol. The player turning into a sonic the hedgehog esque ball and bouncy around was always enjoyable to see. I think larger level rooms may have fit the movement better as the chaotic controls didn't lend themselves to the typical precision platforming and jumping inbetween spikes kind of stuff super well. That being said, I enjoyed my time with your entry. There is some nice polish, funny moments, and good overall presentation. Nice work, and keep it up!!

Congrats on the entry team!! I'm a sucker for mixed media and having the irl image of the post-office juxtaposed with the pixel art delivery van was a cool touch. I found the car very difficult to control (which tbf it is driving on ice lol) and the environmental collisions to be frustratingly inconsistent. The car seems to turn much faster going right than left which also didn't make much sense to me. It was kind of cool to just be dropped in to the world and have to figure out where I was going and how to go, but some kind of player on-boarding would help too imo. The boost was a great mechanic and it felt great to use, plus the zoom particles were a nice touch. I think having a playtester or two, who don't have any prior knowledge about your game, would help make the gameplay itself much more approachable. The finger pointing to the next target was a cool way to indicate the goal to the player and more things like that would have helped imo. That being said, there was a lot of promise with your entry and the overall experience was very unique. Awesome job for your first ever game, and I hope you all continue to create stuff. Keep up the good work!

It's great that you are able to critique your own game so objectively! I had fun with it, keep it up!

Pretty cool concept, nice work! I liked your hand-drawn art style, it adds a lot of personality to the game. I think the game needs some more player feedback, it was difficult to tell the impact of my decisions or even if I was doing the right thing by clicking on the fireplaces. I could never get higher than like 25 seconds and I had no idea what made one run go longer than the next. Maybe it would help to start with 1 fireplace and the let the player upgrade to more fireplaces as they go in the game and start to understand things more. I think you had a really interesting take on the theme, and the idea of playing as a fire wisp desperately trying to heat the inn all by himself was a fun one. There is a fun clicker upgrade game here but I think it needs some more player feedback and on-boarding to take it to the next level. Fun entry, keep up the good work!!

Fun little vampire survivors-like, cool entry! The music fits the vibe very nicely and the visuals fit together mostly cohesively. There was a bug in my play through where the health and exp bars didn't really show up, just the vague outline of them. I think you nailed the speed/movement of the player and enemies,as long as you keep moving you are able to stay away, but if you get lazy they will catch you. I think this balance was very well-executed. The gameplay itself could use some kind of shop phase or level-up upgrades to add more variety and depth, but the core loop you have already is pretty fun. Another minor critique is that sometimes the snowballs would pass right through the enemy instead of hitting them. I think maybe increasing the size of the collision box of either the snowball sprite or enemy sprite a bit would help a lot with this. Some background decorations to break up the white background of the level would be a nice touch too. That being said, I think you have a good foundation of a game with lots of potential. Keep up the good work!!

Lol thanks for playing anways, and I appreciate the comment!

Pretty fun game loop, nice entry! The difficulty progression is spot on, I really liked the pace at which you introduced new gear/drinks/food, it made for a challenging but still fun difficulty. The time delay for making hot chocolates was great and added a nice layer of depth to the management of everything. The art style is clean enough, but has strong AI vibes imo that bring down the overall charm and personality of the aesthetic. Some more variety in sfx (especially the wahoo!s from satisfied customers) or some ambient background noise would be nice too. Adding a small amount of time to partially completed orders was also a good design choice. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for playing and the thoughtful comment! I agree that the game is missing the overworked feeling, some element of racing against the clock would have helped a lot. Maybe some kind of system where you need to complete 5 orders in Day 1, 10 orders in Day 2, etc.

Thank you :) Its definitely confusing, I didn't even have gameplay until the last few hours (worked on art and sfx for too long). It's my fault for not making it clearer, but if you click the list on the right it tells you which present each child wants and if they were nice or naughty. Then you are supposed to accept or reject the gifts based on the toy that pops up. This is done by clicking the blank paper, making your choice, and then submitting your answer by clicking on the far left paper. It is super confusing lol, maybe I will add a short description to the jam page. Thanks again for playing my game and the kind words!

Cool entry! I really liked the tilt animation of the player as he runs, helps sell the feel of slipping around on ice and adds a lot to the overall goofy arcade vibe. The concept of rushing around to deliver coffee to eskimos fits the Winter and Constantly Overworked themes well. The pixel art is lovely and the animated water in the background was a nice touch. Colors are great. Some more variety to the gameplay would be nice (powerups, enemys, obstacles, upgrades, something to add some depth to the gameplay) but for just a 2 day jam I think you've done a great job. Keep up the good work!

Pretty neat game, good job team!! The physics of the props and their collisions feel pretty good and I liked the funny sound and kicking animation the guy made every time. It was the first snowman I've ever made by grumpily kicking snow around and I liked how the full sculpture came together at the end. The presentation is the biggest area for improvement imo. The game would benefit from a more consistent aesthetic; there are large pixels, small pixels, vector images, blurry backgrounds, and sharp resolution objects in the foregrounds. I think picking a color palatte from somewhere like Lospec and sticking to a specific art method (for example all pixel art with 1-pixel density) would help the overall presentation a lot. That being said, I had some fun with this silly entry, keep up the good work!

GangMaker Game! er, wait GameMaker Gang!! Maybe my next GameMaker game should be a gang maker game called GangMaker? (sorry had to). Thanks again for the incredibly thoughtful comment! You have a real knack for blending valuable critiques with genuine kind words that makes it easy to accept the criticism. I really appreciate the effort you put into this comment.

Uncanny valley was the vibe I was aiming for so glad that came through to you. It was the only possible aesthetic that could make my terrible artwork somewhat presentable lol. Focus on drawing fundamentals is a great call and this jam has made it clear that I need to level up bit. Starting with shapes is a great piece of advice and I plan to follow it. Hopefully the next GoedWare Jam there will be some visible improvement :)

I had a blast making stupid sounds at like 3am on the day of submission, so its nice to hear you enjoyed them too. The ending seems to be confusing to everybody, I didn't do a great job of communicating my ideas. Its all a bit too messy and abstract. I'll put a paragraph at the bottom that I've been copy pasting that hopefully shows what I was thinking a bit more clearly.

Thank you again for the kind words and sound advice! I plan to work on my art fundamentals (starting with shapes) next. Every jam I get a little bit closer to an artistic identity, like you said, and I'm really enjoying the process. The GoedWare Jams/Community are the best. Hopefully see ya again in the next one :)

P.S.
So I actually made my scene in the dumbest way possible lmao. There are 17 different scene objects. Each object just plays its sprite and then on Animation End it spawns the next object and deletes itself. Each sprite I made one frame at a time in GIMP and then exported as individual pngs. So there's no sequences, or movement code or anything else like that. Just playing the sprite that I hand animated in GIMP lol. It helped for managing the audio because I could just go through each object one at a time without getting jumbled up. For your audio issues it may be that your sounds are set to Mono instead of Stereo? GameMaker default sets them as Mono for some reason, and I have to manually switch every single sound I import to be Stereo (there's got to be a better way but idk it).

Re: the ending. The irl sketch is supposed to be a marionette/puppet kind of thing that has been ripped apart from the strings. The idea is that the main character has finally reached a point where he can't pretend to be someone else any more and the opening of the curtain was showing him kind of escaping. The parents coming to talk to him are 5 seconds too late, as he has already made his mind up. I don't think I did a great job of showing this in the cutscene lol.

If you make that complete Dick Storm project, I'll be the first to buy it! Big fan of the Storm cinematic universe. And maybe not a Grammy then, but an EGOT, Mr. Storm is a true Renaissance Man after all.

Really cool artstyle and nice dramatic scene, cool entry!! I liked how we didn't see the player's face until the very end after her mother has died and the deep emotion of the scene is revealed in her expression. The twist about the government executing her to prevent some kind of plague was a really interesting one and does a great job setting up a game world. I wish there had been a bit more urgency (both in character action and cinematography) in the early parts of the cutscene. There's quite a bit of time where the camera is slowly panning or when the mushrooms are fading in/out that makes it feel like the situation isn't very urgent. It feels like the characters has all the time in the world, and that she is kind of meandering through the forest. This felt at odds with the idea that her mothers life is on the line, and I think maybe some more quick cuts, maybe a montage of the mushrooms instead of fading them in one at a time, some things like this would help show the character's motivation a little bit better. That is just my opinion though, and that being said I really enjoyed your project! There are lots of beautiful moments like when the omen butterfly soars across screen. The moving backgrounds was a nice detail and helped with the overall immersion. Music fits well and is pleasant to listen to. Overall, you nailed the visuals on this entry, and the twist at the end made for a really cool take on the theme. Great entry, and keep up the good work!!

This was a really enjoyable watch, great entry! I really liked how you handled the theme. Many entries I've seen explicitly say/show "5 seconds too late" in the scene which I find a bit immersion-breaking, but I really liked the subtle twist with the wizard NPC popping out just a few seconds too late. It was a cool choice to have the audience (but not the wizard) be aware of the hero's fate. There are some great sfx like the player jump at beginning, wizard pulling out sword, slime emerging. But there are also a few places where I wish sfx had been added like player footsteps (in house, on grass) and maybe some kind of button mashing sfx for when Dude chooses to play Car Stealer 5 instead of adventure. The visuals do a solid job of conveying the story but don't stand out as particularly interesting or stylish; I think there is room for improvement there. The story itself was funny and I enjoyed how there were 3 distinct characters with different motivations and personalities, not an easy thing for a 3 day jam. Fun watch, keep up the good work!!

This was a really fun watch, awesome cutscene!! I was surprised how invested I felt in the lil robot guy's endeavors. The snow scene with the limping animation really made me root for him. And the desert scene where he's crawling and the dialogue becomes single words/short phrases (in contrast to the full sentences he is speaking when in a more comfortable environment) was a really good little detail that helped give the robot a lot of personality. As did the line where he says "I'm late. I'm always late." or something like that, really helped show him as a kind of goofy/klutzy (but charming) character in such a short period of time. The scene at the end with the dog was cute and it felt like the perfect starting point for an alternate universe Pikmin type of game. The only critique I can really think of is that there could have been more sfx throughout the scene (footsteps when walking though different terrain, space rockets, etc) to help emphasize certain moments. The music was a great fit though and really worked well in the long hike scene and the final scene. Great effort for a 3 day jam, keep up the good work!

aha thank you!! uncanny valley was the vibe I was going for. I definitely need to improve my art ability, I think that will be my goal after this jam: lots of art practice!

thank you for watching and the helpful comment!! It could definitely use more polish I agree. I tried to not use any text(besides what is written on the note) but there were certainly things I could have done to make the story more coherent. Thanks again!

Too bad the scene didn't meet the length requirement, but props for still submitting something! Pretty impressive scene for only 3 hours of work, would be cool to see what you could accomplish with more time. The perspective switching was pretty cool and using the countdown timer of a pedestrian street walk sign was an interesting take on the theme. Some ambient background noise of cars driving by, birds chirping, etc would help with the overall immersion. I was kind of confused on what was actually happening, but reading your description on the itch page I think it was a great take on the theme. Keep it up!!

Thanks for watching, appreciate the kind words! I definitely could have done a better job of explaining the story.

Pretty fun watch that doesn't take itself too seriously, and gorgeous art on top! Great work team!! Really dig the evil character and hero portraits. The way the enemy's eyes pop against the dark hair/hooded silhouette is amazing and the level of detail in the character's hair is really impressive. The color choices are also absolutely on point. One critique is that the grass at the end when the hero walks into the evil lair felt a little out of place stylistically and like an asset that was added in last minute. The ending scene with the voice acting and animation of the enemy sprite worked great. Music was great and the sfx helped with immersion overall (dragon sounds at end in particular). I thought the story was fun and had a couple nice comedic moments like the super close up to brush teeth or the coffee dance, but I found myself wishing the scene deviated even more from the kind of generic hero has to stop bad wizard guy from summoning dragon trope. Some more context to why the evil wizard was being evil or what was at stake for the hero to save would take it to the next level imo. That being said, I really enjoyed my viewings, and think you all have a project to be proud of. The art especially rocks! Keep it up everybody!!

Thanks for watching and the thoughtful comment, I appreciate it! I think you're spot on that it needed more room to breathe. I actually had a second note writing scene where the main character writes "Dear Mom and Dad," before crumpling the paper up and tossing it, but ran out of time and had to cut it. Letting the final shot linger for longer is a good call too.

Also I've been copy pasting the following from other comments to help explain the ending:

Re: the ending. The irl sketch is supposed to be a marionette/puppet kind of thing that has been ripped apart from the strings. The idea is that the main character has finally reached a point where he can't pretend to be someone else any more and the opening of the curtain was showing him kind of escaping. The parents coming to talk to him are 5 seconds too late, as he has already made his mind up. I don't think I did a great job of showing this in the cutscene lol.

Ohhh that makes sense, I guess it worked perfectly because it made me feel the same sort of disorientation and panic. Really cool you made that with your guitar, creative stuff!

Awesome entry, I very much enjoyed watching it! The opening scene where the alarm sfx is synched to the cut to black and the character runs through the hallway one pose at a time is excellent. Such a smart way to "animate" the character given the limited time frame of the jam and is a great example of cinematography. The sound design in general is on point and makes the scene very immersive. Your artstyle is super charming and I was very impressed with your ability to convey emotion through a few wrinkle lines in the characters brow. Black and white in the dream/nightmare sequence and then switching to color in the irl part at the end was a cool touch too. The only critique is that I think you ended the cutscene 5 seconds too late (ha ha). You did such an awesome job of conveying the story/mood without any text or dialogue, and I felt that the ending text kind of betrayed the subtlety of your earlier storytelling. But that is a minor nitpick on an otherwise stellar entry. Keep up the great work!!

Thanks for the kind words, glad to hear you liked the visuals and sound!

(copied from another comment

Re: the ending. The irl sketch is supposed to be a marionette/puppet kind of thing that has been ripped apart from the strings. The idea is that the main character has finally reached a point where he can't pretend to be someone else any more and the opening of the curtain was showing him kind of escaping. The parents coming to talk to him are 5 seconds too late, as he has already made his mind up. I don't think I did a great job of showing this in the cutscene lol.

Funny scene lol, cool entry!! I really liked the transition to the battle scene between the bacteria and the immune system, it was a funny twist and a quite different take on the theme. I liked the style of the opening scene, all the 3d models look good, and the 2d sprite for the character's faces was a cool touch. I wish there had been a bit of opening dialogue to help introduce the characters and maybe show the sandwich falling to the floor to give the viewer some context of the situation. The sound design for the military scene was great and really sold the idea of combat well. The opening sandwich scene would benefit from a similar level of care towards sound design. Another area for improvement would be to have the special weapon look a bit more epic than just a rotating white square, as it is supposed to be the grand finale of the scene. That being said, I really enjoyed watching your cutscene, keep up the good work!

lol it was a bit too confusing and abstract I think. Glad you liked the art and sound, thanks for watching!

 I really dig the artstyle on your entry, the sheriff has lots of personality in his facial gestures and it makes the whole thing charming. The first scene has a great level of background detail that I wish the was also present in the later scenes. The spaghetti scene feels so full of life with all the props in the background and when compared to the last scene where it is just the characters and a table in an empty room there is a noticeable difference. Props for making your own music, the intro track is really good. I didn't understand the nails-on-chalkboard screeching notes after the lady gets shot, I found the sound at this point to be very grating and a bit out of place. Cool cinematography to show the camera from the sheriffs perspective after the lady gets shot as he looks down at himself and takes in the gravity of the scene and assesses what to do. Overall, I enjoyed the action packed storyline and unique aesthetic. It was a fun watch, keep up the good work!

Thanks for watching!!

(copy and pasted from another comment)

Re: the ending. The irl sketch is supposed to be a marionette/puppet kind of thing that has been ripped apart from the strings. The idea is that the main character has finally reached a point where he can't pretend to be someone else any more and the opening of the curtain was showing him kind of escaping. The parents coming to talk to him are 5 seconds too late, as he has already made his mind up. I don't think I did a great job of showing this in the cutscene lol.

     Very enjoyable watch, would be a great intro to a new Dick Storm adventure! The realistic environment + 2d hand drawn sprite artstyle is striking as always. Everything looks great; monster design is neat and Mr. Storm's run animation was fun. The music is awesome and the sfx are well-done. The candle scene with the camera cuts and different wind sounds worked really well. The screenshake and overall earthquake effect when he is first in the house I also thought was very well-done.

     Dialogue was a good read and the text message style presentation of it is immersive and unobtrusive. A small nitpick for a 3 day jam, but I do think the font could fit the scene's vibe better. I liked the cut to black to end the scene after hitting the tree, but I think the actual moment of the crash could have been a bit more epic. The scene where the monster first spawns is this awesome moment with lots of screen shake, explosion particles, etc and it works really well as a high tension moment. I think the crash scene could benefit from the same treatment. Maybe some particle effects, more sfx, screen flashing white, etc right before the cut to black could help sell the drama more. That being said there are many times throughout the scene where the level of polish and detail stands out for some special moments. The tree particles and rumble when the car speeds off and scrapes the tree line and the part where the monster leaps down from the air and lands with a thud and cloud of particles were a couple stand out examples to me.

     Overall, this was a very fun watch and a great way to set the story for a game. It immediately puts you into the action and shows enough of our hero's personality to get you invested in the outcome. The artstyle and sound design is on point. We need a Dick Storm 2 hour feature film, it would win a Grammy.  Awesome entry, and keep up the great work!!

Thanks for the kind words, I very much appreciate it. Glad you liked the mixed media attempt.  I had a lot of fun experimenting with it and I think there's a lot of room for improvement with some extra polish like you said.

I made all the sounds in the very early morning hours of submission day and felt like an absolute madman doing so lol. Cool to hear you appreciated the effort. The cinematography is definitely odd. I think I leaned to far into the indie film artsy fartsy realm and lost out on a more cohesive plot development. This did result in a pretty unique look, but I don't think the lack of story clarity was worth the trade off. I wonder if adding things like walls (like you said in the first paragraph) would help bring more reality to the overall presentation and bridge that gap a little better. Something to consider going forward.

I'm really glad to hear you've enjoyed my last couple entries. Without trying to sound too pretentious, I've been trying to make stuff that is more self-expressive and its cool to hear positive feedback on that. I will definitely keep grinding, I'm having a blast making stuff and GoedWare Jams/Community is as good as any I've come across on itch. I think learning some art fundamentals might make a good new endeavor.

Thanks again for the comment, and can't wait to see what Dick Storm is up to this time!!!

This was a really fun watch, awesome entry! Could see it working very well as an opening cutscene. The story has good pacing, giving each plot point enough time to breath without repeating itself of dwelling too long. The twist of the asteroid being 5 seconds further away than they thought due to the effects of space on light/time was super cool and a great take on the theme. The art style works and has a nice consistent minimalist vibe throughout. The voice acting was a nice touch. Like another comment said the dialogue presentation could be improved. It feels a bit rushed, and the font/colors/presentation don't really fit the rest of the cutscene. But it was still good to have subtitles. I also appreciated the slight screenshake when pressing the volume keys, fun detail. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for the detailed feedback and great comment, I appreciate it. More variety of sfx would be nice, I agree, its just kind of the bare minimum as is. Art is a big weakness of mine, so I tried the irl picture with badly hand-drawn 2d animation combo to try and mitigate my lack of skill lol. I agree it doesn't work all the time, its definitely an odd look. The only part I'm super happy how it turned out was the opening the door scene.

Re: the ending. The irl sketch is supposed to be a marionette/puppet kind of thing that has been ripped apart from the strings. The idea is that the main character has finally reached a point where he can't pretend to be someone else any more and the opening of the curtain was showing him kind of escaping. The parents coming to talk to him are 5 seconds too late, as he has already made his mind up. I don't think I did a great job of showing this in the cutscene lol.

The main areas of improvement I would suggest is to improve the optimization so that the scene does not lag and stutter so much, and maybe to have a more clear story progression as opposed to just shots of the scenery. Good entry though!!

Pretty fun little platformer level, great job! I really enjoyed the challenge of timing jumps and the obstacles felt like they had the right amount of difficulty. It was challenging enough and not too punishing, and the multiple hit health bar was a good design choice. Perhaps the hitbox of the spikes could be a tad smaller. The flashing character sprite after getting hit + i-frames was also a good addition. Sound/music would help improve the atmosphere. The art style is pretty neat, and you did a good job sticking to a consistent color palatte, pixel size, and style. The cohesive visuals help the overall experience a lot. The ending could fade to black or something to make it a bit more clear that the game is over, I found myself waiting for something to happen for a little while after it ended. I enjoyed my time playing your game, but it's too bad you didn't realize it was a cutscene only jam xD. Fun entry, and keep up the good work making games!!

It's a cutscene, not a game. It would not be a very fun game xD. And this is the Cutscene Jam btw. Glad you got a laugh out of it, thanks for watching :)

What an awesome entry, such a fun watch. The stop motion action figure style is rad as hell and the overall world has a pretty cool alternate reality Toy Story vibe going on. The overall aesthetic really worked for me, and I found the t-posing to be in service of it. I think the stiff movements of the characters fit the world better than smooth animations would have. The voice acting is a great touch and I found myself laughing on more than one occasion. The part where the guy t-poses up the stairs while yelling was hilarious. As fun as the voice acting was, it was a little hard to understand every word at certain parts, and I think having subtitles at the bottom would have gone a long way. Cool entry, keep up the good work!

Dude, wtf this is awesome!!! I still have a lot of entries to watch, but I suspect this will be easily one of my favorites from the jam, I loved every second. I have never seen an art style like that before, its iconic. The repeated lines technique for shading looks incredible and your balance of lines/empty space is stellar. The visuals hooked me on the very first frame and kept me glued to the screen for the entire scene. Sound design is equally well-done. The car engine rumble is great. The part at the restaurant with the background conversations felt very realistic and immersive. How did you go about creating the audio for that part? The story was decently emotional and I felt invested in the characters. I think one area of improvement in the overall story would be to show a reason for why she is unable to make the date on time. Maybe you could show her getting stuck in traffic or something like that. Overall, I am absolutely in love with this art style and think you have an excellent overall entry. Keep it up!!