itch.io

Neat and ambitious project for the time-span but it has a few things I feel need working out.

- Moving platforms don't always affect player velocity, causing you to slide of. It seems to happen whenever you walk from one moving platform to another
- In its current state, wall-jumping is really janky and feels more like it was a bug that was turned into a feature than an intentional design choice
- Jumping feels super floaty, which makes the more intricate platforming sections a nightmare
- The spinning platform does absolutely dreadful things to the player
- Whenever you run out of time the game seems to send you back to the start of the previous level, is this a design feature? If it is, it feels a little harsh.
- The hitbox for collecting children seems finicky

Beyond that its technically impressive for the time-span. Only real suggestion I got if some kind of pointer or something to help you find the next child. 

Good work c:

A superb experience with a good narrative and solid sound design. The only complaint I really have is the game is painfully short and on a very minor note not really much in the way of actual gameplay. 

Great overall, I really enjoyed it.

It's a festive Fantastic Game but with actual objectives to complete. 

As silly as it all is, it does actually communicate its objectives pretty well and there's some genuinely fun things to do here and there. The humor in this game is pretty on-point and there really is a suprising amount of content for a week's work. 

Really good work, overall!

Solidly implemented clone of balloon fight mixed with trying to stop your racist relatives from being racist twerps. Super fun game and I'm also expecting it'll do well in judging. c:

Good graphics, clever writing, My only real issue is the inconsistent difficulty I guess.

This game has a serious memory leak issue that quickly compounds and can cause systems to choke. 

It's a simple concept for a game that mostly plays out as expected but I feel what'd really help this game is better overall feedback for your actions. It's hard to tell if I've successfully given people christmas cheer or not (how many spirits does it take? It felt like it took anywhere between 1-3?).

 Attempting to cheer someone up without spirits should give some kind of feedback, some kinf of negative sound + a little message maybe?

There needs to be some kind of mini-map or indicator to let you know where people and spirits are, as the map is pretty huge and I'd often find myself wandering aimlessly in a white void. 

But yeah as said, well done for finishing something in a week. it's not easy. 

This was fun I liked it c:

Good art, good presentation, good music, fun concept!

I wish I had more to say really, had no major or minor issues with it and don't have any suggestions heh.

Nice concept for a game! A mixture of ghostly possession of objects and stealth. It's a super ambitious project for the time-span and overall comes across as an interesting sorta puzzle-stealth game. 

The graphics in this are really nice and communicate the important aspects of the game pretty well. Great use of sound for feedback.

Some issues I had with the game:

- Movement while possessing a present felt inconsistent, which made sneaking past places where timing mattered more difficult than it needed to be.
- I'm not sure chasing really added much to the game, might be better off just having the fail state trigger the moment you're spotted.?
- Any area which has synchronised moving enemies is put out of sync after a chase and fail, which potentially results in stages that are impossible to clear.
-The pathfinding seems a little buggy, which can result in enemies getting stuck on walls or objects.

Other than that for expanding the game further I feel like there'd need to be a wider selection of interactive objects; right now it just seems to be a TV. Something that could add to the puzzling element. As it is right now it's pretty interesting so solid job.

This controls surprisingly well for what it is. Overall solid work, only real criticism I can think of is some levels are a little claustrophobic.

I also encountered a bug where I got through the level but it counted it as a failure and sent me back a stage..

I was not expecting a katamari clone, nice work!

I like how there seems to be a sensible grading system for your snowman; it creates an actual objective to what otherwise initially appears to be utter chaos.

I love all the little models and their variety!

Main criticism is the controls are a little confusing; I know you're meant to be tilting the stage but due to the static background and the way the camera seems to work I never really felt like it was the stage that was tipping and in my head I'd be going back to assuming it was the ball I was directly controlling which caused a wierd disconnect between what I expect to happen and what ends up happening. 

That's about it, though. Good silly fun.

This has the groundwork for an interesting drink-mixin sim but it's currently in real rough shape unfortunately.

The biggest thing letting it down is the current approach to gameplay and the UI. Were it not for Krell's comment I wouldn't have been able to work out how to play at all.

There's also a game-killing bug where right-clicking a certain place causes the right side of the screen to turn black and renders the game unplayable.

Something to consider is to add simple labels to the bottles; just as an additional visual clue to let people know what drink is what without having to hover over them.  Visual cues elsewhere might also help smoothen out gameplay a bit. 

Overall, it's got a lot of potential and I'm curious what this would have ended up being had things gone better.

Making a platformer in a week? You ambitious mad person you.

Overall it works pretty well! The platforming feels alright, wall jumping functions and  the level design isn't overly harsh.

Sound balance is a major issue in this game, the first time I cleared a stage it near destroyed my ears.

Jumping is a little floaty, took some getting used to.

Wall-jumping is particularly strange, but once I got used to it it complimented the gameplay quite well I felt. 

Graphics are a little simple, but it didn't obstruct gameplay in any major way (though it was sorta difficult to tell that the health pickups were indeed health..). 

Nice work

Pretty ambitious objective-based stealth game. For a week, there;s a good amount of things to do but unfortunately a lot of design issues bog it down in my opinion.

I appreciate the feedback you get from enemies when they've spotted you, however it's kind of hard to anticipate when you're going to be spotted. It feels inconsistent, like sometimes I can be directly in front of someone and they don't see me. Some kind of vision-cone system might help alleviate this issue.

The artwork is a little simplistic which makes aspects of gameplay more difficult than they need to be, for example it can be hard to tell that some rooms are connected but more importantly for a stealth game it can be hard to tell which direction your enemies are facing. 

Punishment for being spotted feels too severe; you're instantly thrown right back to the start of the game

The labyrinth in the basement wasn't much fun..

But yeah, super ambitious for a week and congratulations on getting a project complete, relatively bug-free (as far as I could tell) and submitted.  

Works well enough. Only major thoughts I have is around ghost spawning rules, as it feels like ghosts can spawn on top of you. Looks like the only rule for spawners is they'll only spawn if not in the frustrum? Maybe a rule that makes it so the player has to also be a certain distance away from the spawners too.

The game could also use some sound, as without it it's impossible to tell if a ghost is behind you.

The audio in this was _so good_, that combined with the art made the game feel spot on. 

The interface was clear and the puzzle mechanics themselves were well explained. Alas, I'm not terribly good at picross so I couldnt really get past the first puzzle but thats on me more than the game. 

Only real issue I can think of is the grey and black indicators are visually too similar to each other. 

This game was an adorable bit of fun! Clever writing, good visuals and sound. Interface was straightforward.

The controls for the player felt... sticky. Like they were heavy to move around, it's hard to describe. 

For some reason the player would crouch every time they were near certain geometry. This didnt seem to serve any purpose so not sure why it was there.

Collision in the game felt buggy. I was getting stuck on things where i shouldn't have (particularly trees).

Seems like progression isn't lost when restarting the game.

Good fun overall!

There's a lot to love about this game. The graphics are on-point, the motion feels good and hitting enemies feels fantastic. Music was great too, though it could have used a different track for the bosses.

I honestly don't think hitting down to pick up items is a necessary feature. There's never really a reason you wouldn't want to pick the items up I think, so it might as well just be contact.

Slippery corners makes jumping on single-block platforms far more frustrating than it has any right being. 

The whip is... inconsistent. When it's on point it feels outright amazing but when it randomly gets stuck on geometry it feels terrible. I know you included a "get unstuck" button but honestly the way the whip interacts with physics would probably need some careful thought if this project were to go further imo. 

Areas not resetting when you go through a warp is pretty annoying as it can lead to you taking unavoidable damage if an enemy is camping the exit. You can also hit enemies through the screen though, which somewhat equalizes things. 

The game would occasionally respawn me above spike pits, causing me to lose half my health before i got to do anything.

The length of time you're stunned for on taking damage felt a little too long to me... Due to how long it was I felt it'd end up getting me locked into taking additional damage. 

I only got to fight 3 of the bosses (was there a 4th?), the chicken, the bat and the... crab.. thing. Only the bat really felt any good to fight in my opinion, the other  two just felt too simplistic. 

I know I've raised a number of things I didn't think felt great, but given how short a time this was developed in it's still an impressive effort.  Well done!

This game felt like an earnest attempt at portraying the suffernig felt from certain kinds of mental illness and for that I feel this was a fantastic job. Great aesthetics, game played smooth enough, great sound and poignant writing.

Unfortunately I ran out of patience with the game after I could not find the blue pills for the life of me. This was especially frustrating as I really wanted to explore this game more but those infernal blue pills were the barrier I could not cross.

To remedy this, I suspect the game is going to need some kind of signposting or hint-giving if the player is lost for a while. Maybe the protagonist magically remembers something that might help the player after a certain amount of time has passed. 

I played the judging build, if that helps.

This was overall a pretty nifty game. Just got a few thoughts for it:

It's not terribly clear on the map screen that the alternative paths are no longer selectable. Darkening the unselectable icons or changing their appearance in some way might help with that.

It ultimately didn't really feel like the !, !! and !!! icons really meant much of anything, as occasionally lower-tier enemies were a lot tougher than higher tier ones. 

Aside all that, the interface is great. Had no real issues piecing my islands together, shopping, really much of anything. Solid effort all round.

Art and sound are on point. Gameplay generally also felt good; the yoshi jump helped correct some mistakes I made which felt fantastic. 

Couple of minor issues;

Early on theres a part where you can bump into an enemy the instant you warp into the area. That felt pretty awful, so you might want to make sure that enemies can't wander too close to warp points. 

It wasn't really terribly clear what levelling up did? The first level added more range and damage and then it didn't feel like the second level-up did anything. 

Game is a little short right now and the final boss while silly is pretty much just a dummy (who for some reason never finishes dying). Not sure why the debug text is in there, either. 

I was not expecting a wierd fusion between bowling and chess nor did I expect it to work so well! Really nicely made.

The lack of sounds is a little disappointing.

The HUD seems bugged, as it doesn't display the amount of points you need to pass until you actually score any points.

There needs to be a better explanation of what the rules are, I think? It doesn't take very long to figure out at least, so that's not too bad.

I think you need some idea of the point-worth of each piece as otherwise the only way to find out is by trial and error. Make it kinda tricky to plot out what might be the best move.  

The game is disappointingly short right now, but what there is has definite potential and was more fun than I expected it to be!

The writing, sound and art are all fantastic. 

Unfortunately I didn't really feel like there was much in the way of actual game-play as it didn't feel like you could actually lose? To a point I guess that's the humour of it and for that it kinda works if so but it does kind of take away from the investment in gameplay a tad I found. 

It wasn't terribly obvious I needed to click on the Day X buttons to start a day, or rather it wasn't clear that they were in fact buttons. This left me kind of flailing at that screen wandering what the heck I was meant to do. 

I take back my previous comment about the shotgun that I made during the playtesting phase! Now I know you're meant to use it counter enemy attacks it became extremely powerful! It feels fantastic to land it :D. It probably could be better explained that this is in fact its purpose as otherwise I only really found by accident.

I appreciate that you split up the red-eyed raccoon spawn, that was a bit of a sharp difficulty spike in the earlier build. On the other hand, random difficulty spikes are something I sort of expect out of a Souls game so hah...

But yeah I don't really have anything in the way of suggestions, I had a great time with it!

The music was amazing and I generally liked how the game felt and looked.

Pickups desperately need to play some sound effects (unique to each pickup).

The player needs to play some kind of sound or have better indication that they're taking damage. There were plenty of occasions where I was dying and had no idea it was even happening. 

Perhaps some kind of indication as to where I'm taking damage from? I realise old FPS didn't do this, but...

Some kind of low-health indicator might be useful, even if its just the modern red aura along the sides of the screen or something.

The katana felt kinda useless to me, a little too useless! The Pistol felt great! The Railgun I didn't really get enough time to try as I ran out of patience by the time I got it. 

Combat needs better feedback, generally. When swinging my hanzo steel at someone I had no sense I was actually hitting them or not. Some enemy grunts and slicing sounds + blood/sparks should be enough for that. 

Enemy variety is a bit too thin. 

Aside that, I like the cutscenes and the writing was entertainingly silly. There's also quite a lot of content given the time-frame of the jam! Good job overall, just needs a few things here and there to really bring it together imo. 

This is wonderfully cute and generally plays like a dream. Mechanics and controls are introduced well! 

It seems like corner collisions are slightly buggy. It doesn't impact game-play much, thankfully. 

I wonder if just having pressing down as going into ball mode and up to leave it as good enough? Haing ball mode on Z was pretty confusing I found as I'd often accidentally hit it when going to jump. Maybe I'm just clumsy, though.

That's all really, I don't have a lot to suggest cause what's there is mostly amazing.

This game is incredible for the time put in! I like me some Terraria so the game was mostly up my street. The visuals, lighting and sound were especially good.

Only real thoughts I got are it's pretty easy to get lost in the labyrinthine abyss, plus it's occasionally tricky to tell what you can break and what you can't at a glance. 

The traps didn't feel too useful, felt like I could get away with just using throwing spears.

Likewise, as food heals you (which I like, btw) it does make Bandages feel a bit redundant. Especially with how plentiful food is in the sea. 

I feel like mouse-wheel should change the active slot on the hotbar. Just something I've some to expect from games like this, heh. 

Perhaps consider adding a button like in Terraria where pressing it consumes anything edible in your inventory? So a button for using any healing item you have, a button for using any food item you have and a button for drinking any fluids you have. Play a tone to let ou know that the attempt failed because you dont have any items for that task or something. This would free up the hotbar for weaponry. 

This game is goddamn solid, nice job! I only really have a few minor suggestions.

The time it takes for the projected path to be drawn out is a bit slow, definitely wants to be faster or even instant.

The level art for the lander segments needs work. It's not clear what objects are in the foreground or background.

The lander controls are a little strange, but idk I got used to them over the session.

Launching needs work; your lander just kind of teleports from the platform halfway into space rather than having an explosive launch or anything. The effect is a wierd disconnect between the lander and the launcher which doesn't feel great. 

This game is incredibly cathartic to play. The look and feel of the physics is spot on! 

I feel like the game could use some kind of cross-hair. Even though the bullets are projectiles rather than hitscan I feel a crosshair would at least help you line up distant shots. 

The kick hitbox felt really inconsistent. When it connected it felt fantastic but there were a number of occasions where i felt like the kick should have landed but it didn't and also the opposite. 

Other than that, the game does lack a little variety. Perhaps different enemy types with their own mechanics might help, or some power ups that spawn around the arena? There's also nothing really discouraging me from just kiting the silly boys around the arena for 5 minutes just to clear the stage. This paragraph is mostly suggestions really, I have no idea what might improve the game or clash with its current design, to be honest. 

Online worked really nicely. Loved the graphics and sound.

I managed to get a partner to play the game with and honestly the pair of us were kind of confused. We could not work out what the rules of the game were? I'm not sure if there were any instructions or something I missed, but in the absense of them the game just seems kinda random. 

The hit-reg on the bat felt really inconsistent.

It'll be interesting to see how this is during the gong show or if it makes it into Vinny's pack!

This was a genuinely fun little Visual Novel! I like how it felt to get little clues of how to get in with them birds. 

Presentation, sound, writing, pretty much all of it was great! 

The only minor issue I had was initially I had no idea what the goal was or how the heart mechanic was working (having the same sound for raising and decreasing heart-rate might have confused me, not sure).

Game plays great, looks great, sounds great. 

My main issue with it has to be the extreme difficulty which by itself isn't a huge issue; I did find after a few tries I was sort of getting the hang of it. The problem is twofold:

1) No checkpoints. Having the difficulty be this extreme in combination with having to start again from the beginning felt absolutely awful. Having checkpoints would mean I'd get to trial and error the same part of the game over and over, without feeling like I'm losing too much time for daring to experiment or have that dread when I lose most of my fuel just attempting to take off at all!

2) Having to manually restart when you run out of fuel. This might need to be carefully implemented (afterall, 0 fuel doesn't mean your momentum wouldn't carry you to the goal) but it feels kinda rough having the game just sorta stalemate when it's impossible to do anything. 

Apologies if the suggestions sound harsh. To re-iterate, I really liked how the game felt to play and the feeling of getting the hang of a good approach to get to a goal feels great in light of the difficulty. The difficulty isn't the issue imo, it's how the difficulty clashes with other design choices I feel.

The game-play, graphics and sound are all on-point for the theme. The art is kind of crude, yeah, but it has its own charm to it and bug's face is brilliant. Great sense of humor throughout the game!

Only real suggestion I have is the game's balance is a little bit out of whack, with Bug being hilariously overpowered compared to some of the other fighters (though him vs the girl is a fun fight of carefully timing those insults to hit her as she's coming down from the air).

The hit-boxes on the attacks also felt strangely inconsistent. Like sometimes a full-on hit would do variable amounts of damage. At first I thought it was punishment for using the same insult too many times but I don't think that's the case? Something wierd might be happening with collisions, not sure.

For how complicated this game felt the interface was smooth as butter. I had pretty much no issues interacting with the game, 

The graphics style is great, the game plays a bit more like a roguelike than I would have expected. 

My main issue unfortunately is the balance and progression doesn't feel terribly good beyond the green enemies... I felt I ended up having to grind for way longer than I wanted to before I'd started to get some significant gear upgrades, only for it to still not nearly be enough to tackle any red enemies reliably. That combined with the excessive punishment for death ultimately ended my play session, heh. 

Some kind of radar might be needed to give the player some sense of where to go.

I found that mob spawns can occasionally be completely overwhelming. You'd go in to attack one enemy only have 4 spawn up your arse and murder you out of nowhere. Perhaps enemies should not spawn on-screen? 

But what is is so far is really good. Some numbers tweaking and balancing is desperately needed but it otherwise plays real nice. 

This was much more fun than it had any right to be! Clever, funny writing.

The games themselves were simple but mostly effective. The one I had the most issue with was the maid cafe one where it felt like the hit-box for giving people their not-orders was extremely fussy.

I was also terribly confused by the dress-up game as it didn't really feel like my input beyond giving the boy clothes did much of anything.

It's also a pity that the sounds weren't finished in time. 

It's improved a bit from when I playtested it! Seems like there's more sounds and hit feedback is a lot nicer than it was.

I have to echo my earlier issue with not really knowing where to go, however. I felt like I was just wandering around aimlessly during my run of the game. Some kind of signposting or indicator to the next nearest cartridge might help!

The map layout is kind of confusing. There are warps that you take out of the top of a map that spit you out from the top of another map. That is _really_ disorienting. 

Aside that, game played fine. 

Shooting felt good, but it needs some kind of auto-fire feature.

The sound and art were great.

I found the game takes a little getting used to but I had a surprisingly decent time playing turn-based Basketball! I'm not very good at tactical games so I may not be the best judge of this, but I felt like the AI was brutally difficult in the first game then it kind of was a pushover in subsequent levels. 

My thoughts on what might it better include better or more consistent feedback that any player on the field still has remaining moves. It seems like its meant to be that dudes that are brighter and jigglin are the ones with moves left but this system seems to break randomly.

While the AI is very difficult, it does feel very well made. I imagine its gonna be a rarity to make a comment on a game-jam game that the AI is too good lol. 

Interface was solid, though I was initially confused how to actually start a move on a selected player. Cancelling also needs to be clearer, I'm not sure anywhere indicated that hitting escape would cancel a move, Some kind of undo feature might be appreciated too for accidentally confirming bad moves.

The art is kinda rough, but the game actually plays really nicely I thought! You introduce mechanics one at a time at a good pacing, letting me get used to things before adding new things.

Unfortunately the depth of the actual game is a little thin for what's in it so far, but it's something that could easily be expanded upon I think.

As some general game-play comments, you might need some way to detect that there's no way to generate any more plant matter so that if that's the case and you're on 0 matter you should probably get some kind of prompt to let you know. 

The last encounter I was at felt a little bit lazy in my opinion, just a giant room full of predators. 

But yeh! It plays really nicely and the interface is good. Well done!