itch.io

Haha, thanks for the comment and yes - its not intended that they want to keep you there :D

Just some game-jam bugfixing and QoL that never happened. We also realized very late in the production that our invisible map border collision and trigger for the "dialogue" also collide with the cursor and this messes up the characters direction then ...

Nice! Cool that you plan to polish it a bit after the jam :)

Good luck and have fun! 

Pretty cool and very ambitious - Balduin here :)

There is a lot to talk about I guess and a lot already has been addressed by the other comments.

I really like the style and art direction - your screenshots, trailer and thumbnails look fantastic - the whole branding overall, really helps create an appeal for the game! Getting it to run in browser would be 10/10 so even more people can play (a must have on itch!! and lock the framerate if you make downloads otherwise people's GPUs go crazy rendering ALL the frames per second haha).

I liked the general gameplay and idea, however it should opt into being a bit more floaty or high speed oriented to really play to it's strengths (maybe I missed something crucial?!). I had the feeling I was a bit caged-in after a while and it started to be un-fun to traverse the somewhat large worlds. Also the camera felt janky - I was very amused and surprised that by reading through your comments I realized that it acts as a guide :D 

I think a bit more guidance would not have been too bad. I think a smaller teaching level (to be fair your first area does this kinda already) would be nice so that you can really make sure the players do know all the controls and have the necessary information to fully immerse themselves into and enjoy the game.

My last point for now would be the voice acting and general delivery of the story. It is very nice that you have VA, it is kinda clear that it is AI and for me that breaks the immersion a bit but that is only a personal nitpick. I encoundered a bug in the first and second region where the VA just faded away when I moved to far from spawn ^^ There were also some other situations where I stumbled upon some text on screen that immediately disappeared again... 

Again you did a very nice job! And your portfolios look awesome, keep it up! I hope this wasn't to unfair or harsh - kinda in a late night game critique mood right now AND you asked for it haha so yeah :) Have a wonderful one mates!

Heyyy, Balduin here - thank you!! That's such a nice and wholesome comment <3

You really appreciated everyone's individual work, that is so nice to see. It is also very reassuring and cool to see, that the "simple" mechanics and quirky dialogue (Mona's idea with the kind of radio messages) were well received. I don't know if Kurt was inspired by Toothless but I definitely agree with you - it's the same spirit and cuteness vibe hehe.

We are all really proud of Animal Time and comments like yours (and everyone else!!) make game-jamming really worthwhile! 

Also personal thanks at this point for the environment and dialogue appreciation :D very cool that you even found and mentioned the easter egg - 0451 is the classic reference to System Shock and the Immersive Sim genre as a whole and as a big admirer of these games I have to hide it in my games too - even if we do not have keypads that you unlock with that "secret" code haha.

Again, loved your comment - thank you thank you! Have a wonderful day/night and see you around.

Nice! That's very neat :) Now I am inspired to do something similar for our game as well!

Thank you :) Glad you liked it!

!! Nice first time someone mentions the photo haha! Glad you stayed long enough :)

It's has been an incredibly long time since I have done the 3D doughnut ^^ the Doughnanas actually started out as weird flowers and design wise we talked about "collecting apples" until one day I changed it and invented the notorious Doughnana.

Nice - thank you :D

Yeah the timer was adjusted and I think it is now at 10 seconds which is a bit fast indeed.

We actually did never go so far that the counter broke haha - so I guess you got the very rare "double quota" end dialogue (which we really added last minute because we could haha and it is very not special but says something that you were the BEST player right?).

This was nice to read! 

Yeah - that's what jams are for right :D 

I always love looking back at older jam games to reflect what I learned with each and every one of them :)

And I really like the "test grounds" style of the jams here on itch since you tend to get so much players and feedback and can really test and review your game with a bigger audience to see what works and what doesnt.

With our game I wanted to make something super super simple that works without much explaining AND gets you right into the action.

I also have the feeling that comedic narrative or dialogue works so much better on itch and in jams in general ^^ that's a bit of a bummer if you want to tell a more serious story.

I agree with the other comments - it seems you made a very ambitious game here but the lack of explanation makes it hard to play...

I like the idea and the key-art, very intriguing and definitely has potential. The gameplay however does not leverage that and with a little bit more tech-art, like proper layering of the assets the art could be way more immersive.

I hope you had fun creating your game and learned something for the next! Keep it up mates :)

Beautifully crafted game - I am sorry that you have this ending bug :(

Your art is very nice and the narrative very wholesome. I found the forest level kinda hard to read, what are walkable surfaces what is deco? 

The controls don't feel great. Especially the cave level gets very frustrating without your abilities which is not fun. Is there a reason behind the slow movement speed and weird "charge-up-makes-you-stand-still-jump" ^^

It's a beautiful game very original and impressive art style :) I like the music, too - very nice to see that you had your own composer as well! A bit strange how it fades in and out with changing the scenes tho ^^

I am not a big fan of the gameplay, it feels very slow and the pacing is a bit off - it doesn't feel as rewarding as it could, which is a bummer since the environments are so nice. I want to experience the story but the game wants to challenge me with some very narrowly balanced platforming - fells like you are right in the middle of the two sides and the hybrid did not quite work (for me!!).

The flying also has this problem in my opinion. I think a more generous (no pun intended xD) flying would have been nice - right now it breaks with the rest. The duration is so short and the controls are not snappy enough for the duration :(

I was also a bit hung up on the early level design - especially the first door haha did I miss the interact prompt or is there none that tells you tu use "Z" - that is the danger zone of losing players in the first minute if they did not read through the controls on your page.

Its a very cool package and a jam game! I am sure you have learned a lot and hope to see more of what your team will be making in the future! Keep it up mates - gonna go pet my cat now :)

Thank you - this is super nice to read and we are very grateful :) Thank you for playing and your kind words.

Nice and ambitious - I really like the online social games in this jam and you made a great one, too! 

It really reminds me of this swiss tile laying game "Tantrix" if I remember right :D The game plays very nice. However the social feature didn't seem to work for me - I think I only got cards by nature and not other players.. Is it only current online players or do I also get cards async from people that donated while they played?

Thank you - really appreciate it :)

Isn't their game a survival? Haven't played it yet.

Nice - and not I did not know that you could pull them up ledges :) there was no situation to teach that to the player.

And yeah I also tried a lot of tricky jumping in the first level but could not find any exploits.

haha thank you! I hope you still found your path and some animals monsters :)

Nice game, well executed if a bit slow for a 3rd person platformer in my opinion.

Is there any drawback to sharing energy with the forest spirits (I found 2/6 and one that I gave up on reaching xD)? I was a bit confused since I accidentally skipped the first spirit dialogue to fast and they did not seem to have any gameplay impact.

Overall I liked the presentation a lot and after a few minutes the game really immersed me in a feeling of nostalgia :) Of the three levels the second was my favorite! Had nice flow and was very easy to understand what the designer intended - just pure fun. The first was the worst - I solved it once and then had to restart because of the order of blocks I used that was very frustrating and made me nearly exit the game - yikes ^^ I guess it is recoverable even if you placed the blocks in the wrong order but it is way harder to read than the second and eventually feels like a "gotcha" moment for the designer which is not fun for the player hehe and dangerous as opener. The third level was fun again and very nice use of the blocks, hooks and platforms that by now are well known by the player. Third level exit was a bit confusing and I nearly jumped down since there is nothing leading me to the right where the elevator is placed...

The hub world was also a bit confusing since I started solving the puzzles without effect before visiting the village. I would have liked it more to first visit the village and well and after that get introduced to the gates. Also right now the entrance to the village is just an uninteresting opening in the forest in contrast to the very interesting level gates - so the players might miss the well and get lost and quit ^^ 

But enough yappin - sorry haha I hope that helps, I always get carried away giving feedback... Overall really well done game! Amazing presentation (the characters aren't my taste tho but they work) environments and interactable objects work well :)

Keep it up! And have a wonderful evening

What a nice game!

It is so small but so impactful! Great great job on the art and audio work - just the few scenes made me imagine this world - one of the most original games I have played this jam!

As a nitpick, because I like to add one to my reviews haha - transitions between the scenes would have been nice, especially from the sheep to the lab. Felt a bit like my alarm clock was ringing and made me wake up from the most calm and beautiful dream I ever had :D

Please keep it up - I wanna play more novels in your style!

So cool! 

The environment, sound and art in general is so well done :) 

It is a bit sad that the flowers that I delivered are so small in the end - I wish they were bigger so that I can have a better look at what I have accomplished ^^

Also the camera is a bit janky - the level size feels very good, but it gets annoying fast that the camera is clipping a lot with the border-hedges and so on... Would be nice if there were some more space for the camera but yeah this is only a nitpick at this point.

Very well done game - I am impressed :) 

Sure - still very impressive! 

I think the GPU situation is not that the game doesnt run well but that my GPU wants to render ALL OF IT so fast :D

And yeah web builds are always tricky with fancy graphics stuff - if you really want to get some decent itch numbers to see if the game has potential web is getting a lot more views and plays than download - I have been really into Chris Zukowski's blog on howtomarketagame.com and he did some really insightful itch articles lately - might be interesting to you too! 

Anyways keep it up and good luck mate

Nice one! And very hard haha had a hard time getting through.

It is not quite clear how large the character is which makes the precision platforming a bit frustrating in places ^^

I like the idea of going down and exploring this cave - it is quite unusual and the overall theme and intro images were very cool! 

Great job! Are you planning to continue working on this after the jam?

It is a working game :) Very cool - was this your first project?

I liked the dog! Was wondering what the treats were for :D

Also cool how the sprites are changing once you help the people and very funny idea that I would brush someone's hair as a receptionist - well thinking about it.. the world would be a better place if more people thought like that :)

Well done and keep it up!

This is very beautiful and calming :)

The game in itself is generous - giving you time to take it all in and start reflecting on it and nature haha 

Exactly what I needed after a day full of work - thank you!

Thank you a lot! 

Very very well done! I agree with most of the other reviews.

The intro dialogue is super nice and the controls talk - right down my alley. However it went on a little bit too long eventually making me stop and listen while I was already at Dockton - that could be handled a bit better especially using the intro river to maybe show some thing the guy on the radio is telling me (lights going off one-by-one for example). Also the message that you can rotate the camera comes very late which makes the first scrap collecting a bit awkward since you are completely blocked by trees there ^^

The dialogue is well written and fits the game.

Really like the 3D presentation of the world - sad that it does not run in web, did you try to make a webversion? It also seems like the game has an unlimited framerate and my GPU is going crazy haha would be very nice to have a limit or vsync option :)

Overall very solid dredge-like :P The presentation and narrative are superb, the level design is calm and easy to follow, cover art and screenshots create appeal and make you want to play - you know what you are doing (but the webbuiiild) and this has potential :) keep it up and thank you!

Thank  you so so much for this heartwarming feedback ! This is what GameDev should be about <33 Definitely screenshotting this and telling the whole team to read and have good feelings. Super glad you had a good animal time :) 
You just made my morning !

Ah - cool that is a neat idea with the multiplayer!

Very nice short game.

It worked perfectly on our end, the person playing was so nicely distracted by the tea and snacks - it made it so hard to follow the serious discussion.

The game creates an immersive feeling for a situation only few of us really experienced in real life, I guess - and this makes this one stand out since this is a quality "only" games can do really well :) Thank you and keep it up mates!

You are welcome :) and I hope this helps 

I was SO confused of how to start it haha

Nice one - works great and once you wrap your head around it is quite fun :)

I do not see a huge connection with the theme tho - I guess there is the "seeing the other character / power them up" mechanic - was this intended as generous mechanic? 

Overall really a fan of the presentation (I mean the thumbnail made me play it basically!) - great simple sokoban game hehe

Haha you have tiny critters as well!

I am sorry that you have a bug in your release :( hope that people will acknowledge the fixed version...

Your game is difficult! I never made it. I mean it is late here at my location but even after trying at least a few times... my closest would be around 80 meters from the obelisk :D

Presentation is nice! It has a cool vibe. I do not really feel generous however - I kinda need to give my live away to the others so it technically feels more like an investment because I cannot make it otherwise (I actually never tried not reviving anyone - does that work?).

A webGL build would have been cool, too - makes it more accessible ;) Great jam game, mate! Keep it up. 

Haha thank you! 

Kurt?! Are you reading this - more, the people (and me) want MORE critters!

I agree with nesobaka - simple and nice :D

I was sceptical at first but then it calmed me down and I enjoyed it - it made me think eventually. 

Point of critique - I could not really make a connection between sending hears through the "lamp" and receiving letters. There was no meaningful feedback or so - then again, it felt the game was working perfectly without it :) 

Well done mate!

So after day one - this is the first hidden gem that I found!

Thank you very much for making this game - it really moved me.

In its own way this is perfect and does not need anything else. 

I agree with vofgofm - it is super creative! I missed a bit of the narrative since the text disappears a bit quick here and there, or there are multiple things to pay attention to. And from the lumberjack onwards my keyboard input did not work anymore ^^ don't know if that was an error on my end - the trees turned out interesting nonetheless :)

Cool game that definitely has a big vibe! Did you do the music by yourself?

We played the game without reading the description first and actually came to the same conclusion - cool interpretation through the mechanics :)

On the design - it works and your game has a lot to offer, a lot of content. We felt a few of the puzzles being very tedious and that limited the fun here and there... It would be cool to polish some of the rough edges by positively reinforcing the player.

But again overall a very solid game and the amount of content is impressive (also given that a bunch of your puzzles seem to be very hard to balance and fine tune)!!

Yes worked better on my PC than the Macbook ^^

Really cool game - very relaxing. The presentation is top, especially the bird models and sounds, well done! 

It took me a little while to figure out what I was supposed to do but then the game is also chill enough to not stress the player. I found it still a bit difficult :D

Thanks a lot mate! 

Do you mean the floor texture with grass shader?

Oh Thanks for the reply :)

The grass-swirls finally acknowledged haha (it took SO-LONG to place them all haha).

And regarding the quota - don't worry about it. I am sure other will do a double quota anyways (and get the special "good ending dialogue" hehe) - thanks for playing mate!

Thank you, thank you, props to Kurt for his amazing animations and creativity! That was exactly our plan hehe a life well spent - well a game session well spent but you got the idea :D

Your game is also on my list (Balduin writing) - I played it this morning on a Macbook Air (2023 Silicon) and it ran terribly :( wanted to try on my PC later - I'll write a comment once I did.