itch.io

Thanks for feedback! Expanding the roster of summons with more utility is on my To Do list, Scouting is a cool idea.  Summon Encyclopedia will be incorporated into Dungeonomicon. Previewing other affected Summons would be a good QoL, I'll try to incorporate it.

Thanks for feedback and playtesting!
I'll add the bugs to the list of known issues and/or my to do list, as I try to tackle them with next update. I love signals, although this game relies on components and resources more than anything.

Interesting premise, I am not sure whether it is intentional, but you can pass the game without playing games, but that is no fun at all, which serves as interesting meta commentary if it's intentional. I like the helldiveresque mini-game of input commands but it's tad difficult to figure out a missinput, some audio or visual prompt would go a long way of helping players notice their mistakes. Overall, cool idea, but execution could use a little bit more polish.

If you find the time you can check out mine: https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3737111

Thanks for giving them a chance! 
If that's ok with you I'd like to shamelessly plug my jam entry: https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3737111

Fun game, but I concur with others that the movement is tricky. I like the sounds and retro style of this game.

This is a very ambitious project, that seems to be well on its way to be realized. Unfortunately there are many bugs and issues that still remain to be solved. Others have pointed out many of them, but one I haven't seen here is that dropping a item while in crafting menu will cause its sprite to remain interactible and its resources inaccessible in the middle of the menu until you leave it. When I handled the recipe book this way, my game crashed. Congratulations on completing a game for your first game jam!

I would love to hear your thoughts:

https://picarune.itch.io/core-contest

Thanks for playing my game! I wholeheartedly agree with the points you've made on stream. The music looping broke on last day for no reason comprehensible at the time to my sleep-deprived mind and I was too afraid to touch the code near dedline out of fear of messing other things. During last week, I've been fixing issues and making some improvements to Core Contest, and I'll try to update the current release as soon as I can when the Jam ends.

I did not have Western Time Loop story on my jam bingo, but it fits the theme briliantly. It was very fun experience to find out more about the townsfolk and puzzle out the solution to the game. I would have loved to play it some more, but with each added node the complexity would increase and timining window would shrink. I managed to complete the game at third loop, which I believe is just right amount of exposure to the game, great job!

Congratultaions on finishing a game for a gamejam! Fun take that has us literally chasing money. There are couple rough edges here and there, zooming through these busy background arts on double speed was fun but my eyes hurt after third run. I will not say that the game is complex, but it is certainly entertaining, the goofy visuals, great audio choices and disinterested intern in the shop had me replay the game's main loop more times than I expected to do at first. 

Fun premise, with great visual and audio design, which from litte portion of what my unskilled hands allowed me to see it is well executed. I have a minor nitpick, in that I somehow managed to get stuck in falling-while-damaged state after spikes led me to land on a 1 cell crevice, making it a literal corner case, but having reset button would be nice for such instances. Neventheless, game is awesome and congratulations on an outstanding job in your first game jam!

I like this game, I see it as an interesting mix of bullet haven with tower defence. I like the sounds of the game as ymesh well with its overall theme. However, around wave 11 multiple explosions and enemy hurt sounds become a bit much, and it sounded like my computer was bricking itself. Time as resource is an interesting solution, but it was hard to resist just buying everything everyround as my timer always oscilated around 10 minutes before my sudden demise. Despite these problems the game is enjoyable and innovative.
 

Hope you'll like it:
https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3737111

Making a playable game engine is a briliant way of adhereing to the gamejam's theme. A novel experience, that despite its bugs is quite fun and could be a useful tool for prototyping potential platoformer levels in the future.

I like how meta the game is, as well as it's progressive demonstration and implementation of features. There are couple bugs and challenge transitions that could use some fine tuning. Otherwise, amazing game that is extremely on theme!

godot ftw!
https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3737111

Thanks for feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I'll happily keep you posted about any further developments!

I don't know what power there is in avian-featuring games, but they are yet to disapoint me.  This is  jam entrance featuring birds in prominent role that is amazing. I love the dialogues and amount of things to do in this game, does not seem like a 10-day project at all. 

I am once again asking for your support. https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3737111
Also for more games to review, I would appreciate ones in line with the header, but if they are downloadable or playable in browser I'll try to review them anyway.
 

What a great way to provide feedback. Here is couple of great games I've found (hopefully avoiding repeats).
Draw Ball - https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3738877
Project Chain Healing - https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3734939
TOP - https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3735339

It might have been me being lucky, but by using Duck & Cover I negated every action the slime used against me (without needing to click on stars). The same move sometimes deals damage, and after couple of exchanges the slime got tired and I won the battle without having to interact with the enemy actions.

here's mine:

https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3737111

Interesting game with a chilling twist. The pay-off is worth the wait.

Fun game, gives off The Binding of Isaac vibes, in a good way! I was positively surprised to see four different playable characters, and the rougelite mechanic of being empovered by previous deaths. I do believe that the bombadier character is a tad to slow to avoid final boss's projectiles, but you can kill him in that time when on full health so it's not a major issue.

It is a nice game, the constant evolving of the daring crustatian brings freshness and new tools to the arsenal every couple of minutes. Most obstacles and platforming were fun and intiutive, with the exception of the stalactyte that I couldnt' really see that well against the cave's background and the part with two acid pits that changes camera position mid-jump. Another aspect of the game that I enjoyed was the art, especially the sun rays falling into the cave and the changing forms of the character.

Took me three attempts to "get" the flying mechanic, but once I did it was smooth sailing. The visuals and sounds are nice and calming, and game is satisfing even if its end is a bit sudden. 

Really enjoyable dungeon crawler, I like using gold as both health and resource. I was rewarded and punished for my greed in equal measure which fits with the game's theme. I like that in the game players are renting weapons and each time they choose to enter shop, they have to pay for the rental, I am not sure if players should get away with cashing out gems without paying for the rental weapons. The art and music is very good and on point. 

First of all, I am extremly humbled that you chose to spend that much time with Core Contest. Luck of the draw is an important factor in this game, especially since due to time constraint the rewards for different playstyles are not equal. Focusing more on puzzle element is an interesting idea that I will give more thought to. 

The game is difficult in its current form, and the difficulty is also uninetionally amplified by the lack of proper tutorial, but it should be beatable*. If you have more thoughts about the game, balance, or whatever else I would love to hear them as you are probably the person with second most experience (I am on ShovelJam discord under the same nickname).

*There may be some extreme circumstances that I'm not aware of, but having completed couple of runs without random spawns to test this issue it can be beaten, but I am a dev so I'm basically cheating.

quack!
https://picarune.itch.io/core-contest

Characters and dialogue were the absolute highlight of this game. The combining mechanic is nice and adds fun twist to the combat, although Duck & Cover move trivializes the final adversary. Overall, I really liked the look, sound, and feeling of this one, definietly some of the best presentation I've seen in the jam.

Thanks for the words of encouragment! I'll try to keep you posted, a QoL improvement patch is already in the works ^^

Amazing game, music and art go hand in hand, and the latter is outstanding in its own right. Scailing difficulty is a nice option, accomodating tactics veterans and newbies alike. There is a minute feeling of dissonance with purely defensive abilities having to be played on one of the opponent's cards, but that is a small smuge on an unreasonable quality of the game for a 10 day project. 

The game idea is a unique blend of card game and autobattler, one that would greatly benefit from a greater deck variety or a deckbuilding element. That being said, the concept is like nothing I have seen before and timing reordering of cards while having to focus on the gameboard is very nice and can be very rewarding when done just right, for example when hitting multiple opponents at the same time. 

I love the visual representation of the rythm and the art of the game in general.  At first I though that the colors were going to be incorporated in the awakening of people and was surprised that it wasn't required to be on a right color to do so. Neventhelss, as a person that is abysmal at rythm games and tends not to enjoy the genre, I had a blast with this one.

Interesting experience, I was captured by the hand-drawn collage visuals. The minigames were also quite satisfying if a bit short. The plot itself feels like a intimate part of a greater story, and it made me curious about the gameworld. 

Congratulations on finishing a game for a jam! The gamestate does not seem to reset between the rounds, which allowed me to bruteforce my way though the enemy in the pit that requires doublejump to get out of. However I really liked the parallax background and music you chose for The Soul.

and what a card game it is, reviewed and commented. 

This doesn't feel like a game that was made in 10 days. I love how the "deckbuilding" aspect of the game plays out (rock carried me through the runs).  Enemy roster is suprisingly robust, especially since they arrive in many variation and positioning on the field. Alternative win-condition was a very good inclusion, as were enemies attacking various resources and allies. Some of the virus links do not work and one out of dozens of fights was against three empty health bars (which weirdly was ontheme for the game and quite amusing change of pace, judging by description it might be by design, or with codes skill issue when it comes to typing on my part. Overall, this stuff is amazing, phenomenal job.