itch.io

I like being huge.

The game is 95% idea (which is genius, I would play a game like this), 5% implementation.

There's no animations, the visuals are messy, game screen isn't fitting on my screen (on chrome. Had to scale down the tab, maybe it's working on standalone). The controls were driving me crazy and I've had a hard time going through the basic obstacles or doing basic jumps. Then eventually I got stuck after drinking a potion that made me very tall and breaking the ceiling with my head. The potions placement seems kinda unintentional and aswell.

I feel like a real hater right now, but it's to help you improve on the concept that has THIS much potential. I took a look at the source code and it's all in one big 2000 line file - it must have been a mess trying to make the game polished, when the code itself needs polish.

Have I mentioned the concept is great?

Well, it's really really great.

The hook mechanic is kinda rough around the edges - there's not inertia or hanging from the hook or swinging. You can just stop midair and levitate.

But the concept is good, just needs some polish!

I kinda respect using game maker with it's limitations.  Also I dig the idea of murder case mystery and the game being story driven. The BnW noir style fits it well.

Few  issues:

-Movement is pain due to lack of the diagonal movement (I see there was a reason for that in the comments below, but still). I've had trouble walking through the doors lol.

-Tiles blacking out are kinda cool, but I've had hard time finding a way to progress from the first area because the stairs were hidden untill I was few tiles away.

-Controls  -  I decided to go straight into the game, and I could not even skip through the first dialog box. Had to restart and enter Controls first to learn the controls. It's kinda not needed to make a separate menu tab for controls, when there just arrows and e key -  you could just add ("*press e to skip the dialog or interact with stuff*").

-The story - seems kinda basic. On the other hand the game wanted me to take a decision on who's the killer before I even gave it a thought or walked around , so maybe there's more to it.

I like it! The graphics use is basic, but gives me nice Dwarf Fortress flashbacks, which I aprreciate. Sadly there is not much opportunity to look at the graphics, because all your attention is needed to manage the 3 gobbers you have. Sometimes it's hard to remember which one is doing what and being where. It could use some UI shortcut showing all three of them. And the customer patience is running out fast - which is not a problem, becausepenalty for unhappy customer is not significant, but I would rather have them have more patience and give bigger penalties.

I like it! The graphics use is basic, but gives me nice Dwarf Fortress flashbacks, which I aprreciate. Sadly there is not much opportunity to look at the graphics, because all your attention is needed to manage the 3 gobbers you have. Sometimes it's hard to remember which one is doing what and being where. It could use some UI shortcut showing all three of them. And the customer patience is running out fast - which is not a problem, becausepenalty for unhappy customer is not significant, but I would rather have them have more patience and give bigger penalties.

The concept is genius. I mean it really gives chess vibe, even through my first thought was "Ah, so it's just TD game with chess graphics". It's something I enjoyed playing - which is a lot in game jam projects, because most are just prototypes with no real gameplay value.

That said:

-sometimes you cannot move a piece anywhere. Bug.

-sometimes you cannot move a piece because it's surrounded with other pieces or the path. But you can still save it from destruction by just selling it before the rocket hits. Seems kinda exploity to me.

-sometimes there is just no time to move all your piece to safe spots before the wave ends. It's frustrating, because you literally get punished for something you had no influence over.

-After moving piece it should leave piece submenu automaticaly. It's annoying to click "back" every time, and it consumes a lot of time which sometimes is not enough.

-It could be neat if I could see what piece could be moves, and what could not without checking every single one individualy.

The core mechanic is well done! It feels good walking around and shooting.

There's no real reason to do it tho, other then maxing out the score. It could use some progression mechanic like unlocking new weapons.

Also, ui scaling

I aesthetics are VERY nice. Everything is smooth and consistent. There is also this mysterious 'simulation' vibe. Gameplaywise tho, it's very basic with no real challange or developing mechanics.

#rfr

https://re4der.itch.io/pacelite

You need to buy ratings from some sketchy indian guys that speak no english. No other way around.

Wow, you have A LOT of playing to do now. Have some more, who needs a sleep anyway hah

https://re4der.itch.io/pacelite

I will give cookies for a feedback!

Also, my first jam, dont spare me!

https://re4der.itch.io/pacelite

Thanks for the feedback! Appreciated. A little behind the scenes:

There were a diff levels on my todo list, but I scraped the idea due to time constraints. 

Also, I wanted the pacer to hit on a beat, so the game speeding up would not allow it.

Also also, orginaly it ran at 160bpm which is 1.5s per beat and I've had trouble making decisions at times, so I was afraid it will be too intensive for players that dont know the mechanic yet.

Really polished and giving a vibe of a game that's finished. Also the essets are used in a very creative and standing out ways - I could barely recognize most of the sprites, even tho they are obviously from the 1-bit pack when you think about it.

Gameplay-wise there is not much going on. It's basicaly logic game, where you need to collect the gems in the correct order, otherwise the planet explodes. Not much else is going on really - no new mechanics introduced, no developement, so the thing that drives everything forward is player's curiosity to know the plot. 

[*]

That's pity.. you will definetely do it the next time! If there is no Miz Jam 2 then on some other.

Also, design is everything when there is so little time. One bad decision at the begining may cost many hours in the end. You got the most valuable thing even through your game is not ready - experience!

Hey creative guys!

It's 5 hours remaining and my submission is already done. It was my first game jam and I am excited to share my experiences!

1. Design is CRUCIAL. you cannot afford changing core mechanics later on. There is just not enough time for this with 48h time limit. Its better to spend few hours thinking about the concept that will work then 12h later fixing the bad mechanics.

2. 48h is plenty and very little at the same time. It can be really quick to create a working prototype, but fine tuning mechanics and hunting bugs takes significant amount of hours later on.

3. Being orginal is important. At the time I was publishing there were exactly 420 submissions (yeah, I was this close to greatness..). Whoever will be the judge will stop differentiating between the games before he reaches 100th entry. The game needs to stand out!

4. I learned a lot! My game was something I would never create otherwise. Some highlights are: animations, feeling and responsiveness of the actions and even sound design. I even hoped to create some dedicated music for my game, but ended up recycling my old music instead, because well, time

TL;DR

Thanks everone for participating with me! Good luck with your submissions and visit my game, feedback appreciated!

https://re4der.itch.io/pacelite

I suppose you can make everything in 3d as long as you are using the tileset assets.