itch.io

I had a ton of fun learning  to beat this game. It is very arcadey which I primarily see as a good thing.
There are a ton of aspects which make a lot of sense in arcade games, but are completely unfair.

Dying in one hit is way too harsh.
Especially when there is no hints as to how enemies will attack.

(New enemy attack patterns shouldn't instantly kill players that can not possibly be prepared for them.)
I personally would have preferred dying in two hits with some form of recovery mechanic.
It would still be difficult, but players would then be able to take a hit and learn from it in the same run.

As others have commented, the controls are highly unusual. A radial menu is cool and keeps the number of input devices down, but it's also slow.
Players have to drag and drop select which ships they want to command
Then they have to move the cursor again to where the ships are supposed to move/fire
Then they have to move the cursor yet again to select the desired action.
In a game that leaves such little time to react, I'd prefer the actions to be instant.
OR: if you insist on using a radial menu you can at least give the players more time to react.

However: The game being this unfair made me want to beat it more.
As I got better, the earlier levels went by quicker and the wasted time from having to start again felt tolerable.
There was always something for me to do and try. Dying gave me the instant urge to try again.
If I had to insert coins for every attempt, I'd be a poor man. Incredible job!

The main mechanic is interesting enough to make for a good game.

Others mentioned looking up common platformer mechanics.
This interactive video essay might be a good start: https://gmtk.itch.io/platformer-toolkit

The level order is fine. I like that different enemies spawn different platforms.
I wish there was some way to recover from bad placements other than starting again.

Making the summoned platforms turn back into enemies after a couple of seconds might be a solution to this.
This could also spice up the mechanics even further with linked enemies, where only one can be a platform at a time.

There is a lot that you could do with this mechanic. Given the time frame of this jam it's cool how much you were able to accomplish.

I have played this game for a while now. It is very enjoyable.  Every now and then  everything started to flicker and turn black though which prevented me from continuing the run.  

Since the game doesn't seem to have an end and since towers can not be removed, the game is very end game focused. The towers I got, weren't the towers I needed. I didn't want to waste precious space. I think a "remove a tower" card would be a great addition as it would allow for more experimentation in the early game.

My plan for the late game was this. It splits the maximum available dps evenly across all lanes. I sadly wasn't able to see it in action because of the flickering issue.

All in all  this game has some very interesting mechanics. I feel like combining it with deck building aspects could be even more interesting since the players will be responsible for the cards they get. I am interested to see if you develop this idea further.

When you release spacebar, they will spread out around you.
When you then press it again they will individually swarm to the flowers that are nearest to them.

I enjoyed the main mechanics but was missing gameplay at the later stages.

Letting your swarm focus on one flower, letting it spread our and swarm to all nearby flowers was super satisfying.
You managed to really capture the swarm feeling. (Not that I would know what being a swarm would feel like :D)

Maybe a circular map with the hive in the center could have worked better.
The rectangular approach led to some very long and empty journeys.

It was interesting to discover new flower types and learning which ones give the more pollen.

It took me a while to understand that left clicking allows attacking the larger insects. It cost me half my swarm in the early game and led me to restart since there was no way to get the bees back. (You can only get new bees, but you can not fill the empty hive)

I wish that spreading pollen would have caused more flowers to grow. At the end there were no flowers left and my swarm was doomed to starve. :(

I went back to the game afterwards to check what happens when you lose all your hp and your swarm. Turns out you just get softlocked. There is no way to get any more bees and no death screen or anything. I guess you had bigger plans than the deadline allowed.

Nevertheless it is very impressive what you did accomplish in the time frame.
If you update the game post jam, I'd be very interested to see what else you can think of.

This was pretty fun to play as a rage game. Some mechanics weren't explained, but these were all simple enough to just stumble across them. (Wall jumps, wall climbing and how to defeat the boss)
I struggled a lot on the wide jump with spikes above the player character's head, but that's basically the only point I'd consider unfair.

I didn't expect the twist after the bossfight, but I guess it makes sense. You defeat the program's executioner, but the program just tells you to restart so it can send another.
This is a very well rounded game (not only story wise :D)

Thanks for elaborating!
That is some very good criticism.

We have a restart button actually, but we forgot to tell players where to find it :D (It's R)

Hey there, teammate here :D

I didn't read the description at first and was confused. Once I searched for instructions I figured it out though.

I like the idea of being a barkeeper and having to customize drinks for the individual guests. That's very creative!
I struggled with the language though since I didn't know all the words and failed a couple of times because of that.
This game is also not really friendly for colorblind people, but I don't see a way around that.

I like how you have to rethink when a bright person comes in, but I struggled with pleasing them and ended up losing the day a couple of times.
Is it encouraged to restart the entire game so you have a chance of having a bigger money buffer at the start of a day? That would be weird, but seems like it.

Overall this is a very creative entry. The graphics and sounddesign are both done incredibly well and the gameplay Idea is cool. I like how there's so many steps to making a drink. This made it very immersive.

Very nice and small game. I love how you are able to interact with the other person's world this mechanic made it very unique. Would have been cool if there were more levels and maybe even some levels where you escalate the main mechanic further. (e.g.: the upside down guy can disable and enable the regular guy)

I like the idea a lot.
It's a very simple, but effective mechanic that's explored throughout some levels.
A bit more polishing would have been nice (e.g.: No friction between the two players, to make it easier to move stacked player characters horizontally)

It took me a while to figure out how to move efficiently and how to stack the player characters. Once I figured it out the remaining levels were pretty easy and it felt very good to nail the execution and see everything play out.

For a post jam version (If you plan to make one) It could be cool to have even more ghost players and some torches in the walls (or something) that make them visible too. This way the potential for puzzles would open up immensely.

This is a very solid entry with a very cool interpretation of the theme!

We are aware of some inconsistency issues, but the ones you described are new to us. All enemies of a type should move according to the pattern of that type across all levels (some enemies start rotated though, which is bad since it makes it impossible to know what their first turn will be). The green, blue and yellow bacteria's pattern should always make them stop for one turn when something blocks their path.

There is the issue that it's impossible to predict which enemy will take priority, when two enemies try to move onto the same spot. Is it possible that you stumbled across this issue and mistook it for another?

Otherwise that'd be a pretty severe bug I'd like to know more about :D

Thank you for all the kind words and for taking the time to report this issue!

I love the simplistic artstyle and gameplay concept.
In the end it boils down to move randomly though, as dodging the bullets doesn't work that well and you don't know where the crates will be.

With a little more gameplay elements that steer away from the highscore aspect this game can turn into something amazing though and It's totally worth making a post jam version of this.
 
I imagine there could be a larger living world, different wagon types, quests that drive a story, settlements, currency and bandit hideouts. (Just throwing some random ideas here)

It's incredible how many possibilities there are with this simple concept.

You aren't too far off with Rhythm game :D

The core mechanic is kind of inspired by Crypt of the Necrodancer, but way simpler because we couldn't have managed a more complex game in the short time we had.
I'm glad you enjoyed your time with it and thank you for your comment!

This is a very interesting concept and super fun to play!
I encountered a couple of bugs where two shapes moved onto the same tile and drag and drop stopped working, but apart from these the experience was flawless.

It's cool how the player is able to consistently defeat any shape in a 1v1, but once more shapes appear it gets more and more difficult.
At first it seemed like the tetrominoes weren't necessary, but soon i realised that using them helped a lot. I started saving powerful ones for useful situations and it really got me to make some tough decisions.
All deaths felt like they were my fault and I think I could have been able to avoid them with better strategies.

Good Job!

People have already commented on the art style, but it truly is great!
In it's current state the game lacks a bit variety. Most enemies feel pretty similar and i didn't really bother with the bribing aspect since levelling up seemed like the better choice.

Rewarding the player by providing more and more bits to the story is a fun idea.
I like how you have written the GM Character to doubts themself while also making no sense of the dungeon.
I kind of expected the GM to turn into the final enemy by trying to make sure you can never leave the dungeon so you'll never stop playing, but a random fire dragon that almost one shot me did basically the same :D

It's a fun game! Good Job!

As a Spelunky nerd this game was pretty fun, even though I didn't make it very far across all my attempts.

I'm glad to see how the ABC rule also applies here :D (Always Be Carrying)

What confused me a little was that bombs need to be thrown once you light them, as the tutorial didn't mention the throwing aspect, but I guess it's partially my fault for not understanding that the timer is the bomb. (I ran into it multiple times on accident and had to restart the entire tutorial :D. Good job on making the tutorial short enough for it to not become annoying!)

Level Generation, Sound Design and almost everything else was pretty epic.
I like how you are encouraged to avoid combat.

I'm a bit sad that only few of the core mechanics of Spelunky were transferred to this game (I guess that time was a huge limiting factor), but the parts that were transferred were very well executed.

If you plan to expand this after the jam is over, I'll gladly check it out again. :D
(Please add tunnel man from spelunky classic as a playable character! 2 hp, 0 items and a mattock.)

Thank you,
that's some pretty good feedback!

This is such a great game!
It's super fun to see different animals interact with each other. You did a great  job at making the world feel alive.

I feel kind of bad for separating a family of Dison and putting water animals into dry containments, but I guess it was my choice.

In it's current state the game only gets easier as you progress, but I guess that the second area may have required some higher stats.

It amazes me how much you managed to do in this little time!

It took me a while to figure out what counted as a turn.
If i understood correctly you can first activate any remaining abilities and then either reroll or move.

The camera movement is a little annoying.
(Maybe a view of the entire room would have worked better.)
The enemy ai is very basic. There is little variety and this game kind of lacks an objective for the player.

BUT:
All of this criticism is superficial and can probably easily be changed with more development time as the core mechanics seem to work well. (room generation, combat, progression)

The main mechanic of rolling a dice to get abilities is cool and may be a nice alternative to some deck building card games which solves the problem of running out of cards in infinite worlds.

Overall it's pretty impressive for your first project! Congrats on finishing!

The core concept is great. Fusing monsters to create stronger or weaker ones is very cool. It can easily be expanded upon and has great potential.

At the moment the combat system is very prototype like. Once you figure out the ideal strategy (use what the enemy would have won against in the last turn) there isn't much to it. I think that type based combat would fit the game well and if you plan to expand on it please consider adding different damage types/resistances.

I didn't really understand how catching monsters works. Catching them in earlier areas worked more often than trying to catch them in later areas. (Is it dependent on the level difference between your monster and the other monster or was I just unlucky?)

What I really like about this concept is that you can either grind to get better monsters (by leveling them), or search for combinations that are stronger than your current strongest. (I don't know in how far this works in the current state of the game, but I think it's a very great idea to get rid of grinding without getting rid of grinding)

Is there any reason to have multiple monsters of the same type? Maybe catching a monster of a type you already have could somehow replace/level up the monster you already have. This would make grinding easier and not flood the monster list with useless duplicates.

It took some time for me to get used to the game. Once i got into it I started enjoying it. I'd love to see this developed further.

At first i was overwhelmed by the increasing amount of enemies.
It took me a while to realise that you can use the platforms to remove them. The floatiness of the grappling hook made the timing of this very difficult, but it adds a nice unique challenge.

Linking this form of combat with the continent building is awesome. You have to position yourself in a way that causes enemies to move to the position you want to build in while also moving the platform there without it colliding with the island.

The only thing that bothers me a little is the enemy spawning/movement. They can come from any direction at any speed and you'll have to be prepared to dodge them. The fact that they can spawn inside you doesn't help with being able to plan ahead.

Apart from that it's a great concept and a good entry overall.

This is a good entry!

The only thing that bothered me was that the ending came very aprupt. I was expecting an endless top down pve with stronger and stronger waves and suddenly I win out of nowhere :S

I love how you are able to lose the weapons and have to collect them again to survive. That's a very great interpretation of the theme.

The enemies being designed to steal your weapons fits well with the overall concept and the fact that you managed to create different enemy types in such a small time period is impressive.

I played for a few rounds and am not really sure what's going on. Hitting everything perfectly keeps the ziplinee straight which allows to hit stuff more easily. Missing once causes a fun downwards spiral of chaos.
I'm unsure if it's possible to get back to the straight zipline when you play perfectly for a while (because i didn't manage to play perfectly with a roller coaster zipline :D)

The music, sfx, sprites and animations are great. I like the aestethics. Would have been cool of the level moved left instead of the zipline, but it works the way you have it currently.

Overall you did a good job. The fun bits were very fun and it is also challenging.

Thanks for taking the time to give so much feedback! All your ideas are pretty cool!

I may create a rogue lite with the concept and I'll surely experiment with your ideas a little.

I am against hotswapping though. To swap a specific item you either have to get rid of all items on the left or all items on the right. This can lead to some tough choices. (I didn't implement enough item variety and enemies for this choice to be meaningful in any way though)

I thought about creating a rogue lite from this. I haven't thought about taking it further though!
I really like your idea of giving the player other abilities instead of making them lose the ones they have.

Maybe it will be about life and death and the borders between. Each item could have 2 abilities (One when the ability is alive and one where it's dead) The dead abilities should be stronger so the player can easily escape the dominoes, but doesn't necessarily want to.

That summarizes my game pretty well

The concept perfectly fits a rogue lite, but i couldn't manage creating one in time.
I'm glad i got this unpolished and unbalanced scoring game working. 😅