itch.io

The battery upgrade indeed make the charge last longer, making their impact stronger is on my to-do list for  the post-jam update! Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks a lot for discussing the game on stream! I watched the VOD and I will try to adress your points of criticism in a game update after the jam. 

Thanks so much! I'm glad people are noticing my efforts for accessibility, often overlooked but very important :D

Fits the theme so perfectly! I think you did a very good job, the only thing the game is really lacking is a bit of design for the itch page, maybe a better cover art and a prettier UI, just to get people to actually click on the game.

Thanks haha! I think you get an idea of what I went through in the developing process help

I'm glad you liked it! 2.6x speed is very impressive, I only rarely got that far lol

It took me a moment to understand everything, but it's a great concept that can be turned into a good polished game by improving the  UI a little. An issue I ran into is that you likely used emoji characters of something similar that cannot be displayed on all devices: 

This was a lot of fun! Reminds of a calm and fun version of Stick With It. You can definitely continue adding more levels and improving the UI after the jam!

Thanks! I was a little concerned about people not understanding the upgrade mechanic, but I'm glad you got it figured out. I will make it more clear after the jam.

Great execution of the theme and wildcards, my only point of criticism is that it was a bit difficult to understand the controls and the frequent getting stuck in a level makes the gameplay feel a little cumbersome

Cool game, very good job for your first game you made together! I hope you'll take part in the next jam too. I think some indicator to show how much your attack is charged would be a nice thing to add

Awesome job at using the theme and the wildcards! I really like the game. Some input prompts would have been nice and I believe there is no option for making the game full screen yet

Cool (and slightly terrifying) game! Reminds me a bit of a project of mine about probabilities, check it out on my itch page if you want to maybe get some inspiration. You should also include a flashing lights warning within the game, just to be extra careful. I like how you are constantly a little bit on the edge, but still want to press that button. Good job!

Nice work! But, I'm here to try to give you some honest advice, so here are my points of criticism: I feel like the game did not really match the theme, I get that the enemies use charge attacks, but they often just walk around normally, so you could have for example added a mechanic where you also need to charge up the light. It would have also been nice if there was a bar indicating how long the attack is going to last and if there were indicators to show when you are gaining materials while you are being attacked

Thanks a lot! It's actually the first time I tried out vector art for a game and it makes everything look so much more clean, I will definitely practice more with it in the future

I (as a physics guy) love the idea for your game! One thing I would change is to allow the player to make mistakes. Right now, you cannot really lose, just win less. It would be nice to be able to combine two elements even if their electron counts do not match up and have some randomized destructive reaction happen. I understand that graphics were not you key concern here, but for your next game, I would recommend you to at least create a higher contrast between the letters and the background colour of the ion for accessibility reasons. People with vision restrictions will have a hard time playing your otherwise very educational game.  Overall, you managed to explain a rather complex topic very simply, great educational value!

Thanks! I really wanted to use the Cutie wildcard and got inspired by a cute sticker of a quokka that my girlfriend sent to me 

You're a game design genius, thanks! I didn't think of that, I will definitely implement those things into the game when the jam is over and add the finishing touches to it!

The theme was implemented very well and the shooting felt very satisfying. I do however need to leave a bit of criticism so you can improve for your next game! On a godot-technical note, the laser beam sometimes overlapped with the UI, be sure to check out if the z-indexes are all correct. The font size was very pixelated at the beginning, if that was not intentional, you can simply change the font size to a high value in the Label's theme / theme override and then change it to a smaller scale to achieve a high resolution at a smaller font scale. In addition, the music matched the game but was a little hard on the ears / repetitive. I would also keep in mind to add a clear goal in your next game, even a simple thing like reaching a trophy or killing a specific number of enemies would motivate players to keep on playing. Keep on improving, I hope to see you back in the next jam!

The theme was implemented very well and the shooting felt very satisfying. I do however need to leave a bit of criticism so you can improve for your next game! On a godot-technical note, the laser beam sometimes overlapped with the UI, be sure to check out if the z-indexes are all correct. The font size was very pixelated at the beginning, if that was not intentional, you can simply change the font size to a high value in the Label's theme / theme override and then change it to a smaller scale to achieve a high resolution at a smaller font scale. In addition, the music matched the game but was a little hard on the ears / repetitive. I would also keep in mind to add a clear goal in your next game, even a simple thing like reaching a trophy or killing a specific number of enemies would motivate players to keep on playing. Keep on improving, I hope to see you back in the next jam!

Solid idea! In my view, this just needs a few finishing touches you should consider for your next jam: Some sounds are better than none, so you can just grab some from a website like pixabay. Generally speaking, accessibility is often overlooked, but is a crucial factor. You should try to add some sort of way to change the difficulty, since not everyone will be able to click fast enough due to physical constraints. I would also choose a more readable font (can still be pixel art though!). Overall a very good job and a unique idea, maybe you'll manage to add the finishing touches after the jam is over!

Thanks for the thoughtful replay and the positive feedback! I was unsure  about which metric to choose as a score, since there are many things you could theoretically keep track of: The upgrade level of the batteries, the time multiplier reached, the time you survived (as you suggested)... so I left it open for interpretation. I think if I had got more time I would have come up with some scoring system, but now I will definitely add one when the jam's over! I would have also liked to add a difficulty slider, since right now the difficulty is changed by altering the game speed, which would make it very unfair when comparing scores based on the time you survived, since you could literally just slow the game down

Awesome game! I really hope this wins. This is the epitome of a jam game to me, a simple, but unique mechanic, minimalistic design, attention to detail and most importantly a complete game. Good job! I only got to level 10, but I would love it if you checked out my game for a minute, you seem like you would be very qualified to give an honest and reasonable review :D

Good job! As another comment mentioned, it just takes too long to get an upgrade, which makes the game a bit too difficult when just starting out to play. I would have also liked a bit more UI design apart from Godot's default buttons, you can try out themes and styleboxes in your next project! I also made a game about charging batteries, check it out if you want to get some inspiration

This might be an issue on my end, but I cannot really do anything in the game. After starting, I cannot move the character around for a while, then I suddenly can, but the whole game is very dark (I'm guessing that's the night time another comment mentioned) and I cannot move past the two walls that surround me. I tried moving with the charge attack, but I couldn't figure out how to do it.

Very creative idea! I just feel like it was very difficult to understand what to do at first. Simply adding some sort of highlight like a white border around the different pieces of equipment would really help. I also think the PC should be set apart from the other things, since the stats shown on it are essentially the core of the game. Keep developing that art style, it has a lot of potential!

Playing violent meme cat golf-pool will have a lasting impact on my mental health (not sure if it's positive or negative yet)

I think you accidentally uploaded your project folder contents and not a .exe game file, be sure to check out how to export correctly

Nice, very cute little details and the charging feels very satisfying. I just feel like it takes too long to charge the fist, making the game feel a little slow

Neat little game! It's nice to see people starting out with gamedev in Godot. The game I submitted is actually very similar to yours, you might want to check it out for inspiration: https://pionprojects.itch.io/quokka-cooler 

Probery

Hey folks!

In today's world, probabilities are getting more and more important. Prediction markets, AI and quantum physics are all based on probabilities. In other words, the future of our technological innovation will rely on people understanding probability theory. 

The problem: Humans are not naturally good at judging probabilities.

This small game is my attempt at helping people train their intuitive sense for probabilities in a playful way. 

You accept or decline a lottery in which you can either win or lose points. However, if you accept a lottery that would have been mathematically likely to lead to you winning, you lose expectation points. 

Have fun! (A more detailed explanation is given in the game).

I think those are solid titles, but you could swap the more common words with ones that are a little more unusual:

Back From the Tavern -> Return From the Tavern

Deer, You Are Being Hunted -> Deer, You Are the Prey

Red Balloon of Happiness -> Scarlet Joy Balloon

I think you get what I mean, you can sometimes try to look up synonyms for the words in your title to make them stand out more

Thanks!

Hey folks,

This is something that came to my mind recently and which I did for my own project after careful consideration: Changing the name of your game.

Of course, when a game is already successful and generating revenue, there is no real need to retitle it. This post goes out to all those working on beta versions or even prototypes and are unsure if their game's name will be beneficial to their marketing strategy.

After putting some thought into it, here are the key aspects of a good game title I came up with:

• Unique
• Memorable
• Well-sounding
• Representative

Unique: This can be checked easily by using the itch.io search or going to steam. If there are many results with a very similar name to your project, chances are it won't stand out well. For example, there are already tons of games with "platformer" or "rpg" in the name, so "[...] Platformer" will not make for a good title, since it won't appear high in searches and will not stay in the heads of your audience. This brings us to the next point

Memorable: "Extraordinary cactus man and the swashbuckling adventures of the King of Romania" is a fun title, but nobody will remember it (now that I think of it, this would be a banger game). Keep your game's name short and interesting, try to use words that are not found in every day vocabulary, but don't use words that nobody knows.

Well-sounding: A game's title needs to roll of the tongue, even for none native English speakers or people speaking another language, if you're planning to reach a large audience. A good rule I found is to start with a harsh consonant to catch the player's attention. An awesome example of this is the "Kiki" "Baba" experiment I saw once in a youtube video. When given the two options, people will name a pointy shape "Kiki" and a roundish shape "Baba". You want that pointy shape, because that grabs attention

Representative: After all, a game title serves no purpose if the title has nothing to do with the game. This can also be a little nuanced, since a poor choice of words might convey that your game is more brutal, more comedic or more peaceful than you intend it to be. 

Always think carefully about your game's title before publishing, I made this "mistake" with my project currently still named Gorilla Driving, but I will rebrand to a more unique animal soon, since gorillas have been fairly overused and there are many similarly titled games on itch already.

Maybe this was helpful to anyone, see you in the next one!

Cheers,

PionProjects

The first beta version of Gorilla Driving is OUT NOW!

Have you ever wanted to become a gorilla that drives a taxi for a living? Well now you can! Drive through the city, pick up passengers, give them a ride and avoid other cars crashing into you, the police arresting you for murder and watch out for the train! Have fun!

https://pionprojects.itch.io/gorilla-driving

This is the first beta version, so expect a few bugs here and there and possible performance issues. Please let me know if you encounter any game breaking bugs, I will fix  them as fast as I can.

I was thinking of instead of just clicking on a building to start production, the player could have to perform some action specific to the building, e.g. chopping wood by dragging the mouse cursor to produce timber

Awesome game! As a big Dungeons & Dragons fan, this includes some nice references to the game. I really think the only issue lies in the graphics and the UI design, but that can be improved quickly. Gameplay wise it's a good blend of 3D movement and UI navigation! I feel like it would improve the visuals a lot if you used a pixelated font instead of a regular one, some more combat animations would also be very cool. I hope this gets more traction!

This is so funny omg

This is fun already! I can really see this going somewhere, obviously it's still a prototype, but if you add more features this can turn into a full on strategy city builder. I like the clicker-like gameplay in the beginning, if I were you I would focus on developing some mechanics that force you to directly interact with the buildings to generate resources, most strategy and city builder games lack that, you usually just press a button and the thing starts producing forever. Good luck!

The free, first beta version of "Line Of Shrines", a small project of mine, is out now! 

In this fast-paced, 2D, dungeon-crawler-like game, you have to connect all shrines in a level without getting killed. Good luck! 

I'm open to all suggestions and criticism, please leave your opinion on the game in the comments!

https://pionprojects.itch.io/line-of-shrines