itch.io

I think you’re a bit hung up on the “existing base” part which i kind of kept short in description; the engine is actually just 7 days old and is a refactor from previous jam which has messier code.

When the jam started the engine ONLY have bullet and rudimentary stage sequence system, and rough dialogue system (still inefficient from old system). Healths, Lives, Continue, Scoring, Ending, Menu, Settings, etc didn’t exist at the time, with Scoring and Ending page being last minute addition in last 2 hours. Death is also added mid jam; previously there isn’t even dying.

The repetition also come from the fact I was refactoring the entire stage script system mid jam as well, if somehow code is dug each 3 section has entirely different scripting system, first using velocities, second using lerps, third using Tweening. So 90% of the complaint is more of a result of the fact I was still working on engine DURING the jam lol

I realize that it sound strange since some of the feature should be pretty fundamental and higher priority; this is because this refactor is more of a coding project side in terms of organizing game architecture so that it have long term maintainability and can be extended by other people for their purposes (it’s open source atm, or planned to), so the focus was put higher on architecture heavy side such as Scripting and Dialogue event sequencing. Theoretically if eventually I had to make custom mechanic like Shoot the Bullet for example it should be very easy to modify, etc.

(also I think you meant to comment in the jam page not here lol)

One of Toyohime spellcard was initially going to name drop “Taylor Series”  when she started talking about technology and wave analysis stuff lmao. It’s way shorter because jam reasons.

The shield was red which blend in with items yeah, initially it was fine but it’s the fact the power items drop were added way later so it was a bit missed

You know who else was brought to life

The pinnacle of writing is name dropping the name as much as possible while not feeling too off-topic

Also second area might be the Red shield the fairy has that gets ejected on death; The shield acceleration happen to match the power item drop speed majority of the time so it's bit hard to look at initially. The backstitch one usually wouldn't be cheesable if the boss had collision which disappeared for some reason while I was exporting, so you're able to stay under.

it's peam

The general idea is good like the other says, with the main flaw being mostly communication in terms of mechanic and potentially UI. Color grading/contrast could be useful here, and potentially early stage slowly introducing new mechanic having player use certain thread/needle in practice, then build up the mechanic. 

Character requirement can be a bit vague too, which could be intentional but it can be counter intuitive on what factors to which degree, such as elemental damage factored in physical damage requirement. The specific numbers are not too useful either, unless there is specific formula. The only reason to show number is potentially related modifiers (Such as Crit Chance and Crit Damage when both buffed would be multiplicative) should probably compound. It might have did already, but it's not noticably different compared to doing two category instead.

There's a set amount of move shown in the bottom left of the board (or right of shinmy). It might be hard to tell from UI lack of color contrast with background lol. You basically work with what resource you get from doing the thread, with holding Alt key showing info.

Absolute Cinema

Other than the theme use, the writing compliments both the style and the theme as well. It's simple but it works for what it needs to do and concise in presentation. The writing gets down the smaller mannerism detail as well to show personality, without being off. The ending also gives a reference to the starting point of the story, making it an all wrap-around ending.

The only downside would be some of the item hitbox and the text layering sometime being behind each other. The game is very straightforward but it's fine for what it needs to do.

There are 6 or 7 games to play

The game main focus seems to be more on the writing side, with the game composed of bunch of simple games. Though because of it's large breadth it suffered a bit from most of the game being relatively shallow, but that's understandable as it's not really the main focus, so it make more sense to treat it closer to the visual novel standard.

The writing is mostly lighthearted, leaning a bit meta sometimes so it's not entirely in character, but it's not to the detriment and fine for the tone. The general running trait of the game is mostly the breadth of it, so it explore multiple facet, but never got to deep into one thing which is probably partially due to the size being quite big for a 3 day jam.

The initial few stage is a bit of a slow burn until the upgrades start to kick in. When it does though that's where a lot of variation start to come in, it just might take a while to realize. Also might want to make it clear that you could un-upgrade

The main aspect that makes it a bit hard to get used to is probably the controls, There's a lot of different buttons when many of the buttons could have shared functionality. The friction is a bit slippery too at least for no-upgrade platformer. I eventually got around to A+ on every stage though, so it's not detrimental tier it's just mostly the early game that might turn off new player.

My first rating was ABS. Thank you for the obvious

i love playing with hecatia's balls

masterpiece

Cannot butcher the music. This is not tailor-made to my tastes. Literally unplayable.
(it's good)

These Nuts

I can't believe hard mode is hard.

Also the little detail like music transition between intense and idle version is a good touch.

Was gonna comment but basically same as this

I killed tewi with 100 slice of lime. Tewi out of ten.

I'm not a stealth game person so I can't say too much about it. The second stage is a bit of a spike though, especially with the "recovery" period after you get unseen again breaking the vision visual. Also might want to make the vision field contrast better with the ground yeah. Most flaw are understandable limitation from the jam, so I'm just focusing on the one remediable easily.

The mood is oddly terrifying, probably because of the music. Would be funny if it rationalized with full grim setting context.

Matching silhoutte as a general idea does have potential as quick game, building on top of previous comment with challenge, the build up should introduce character one by one since the player would not know what they look like full body yet (especially in different art style)

Absolute Cinema.

Even though the game is a bit of a joke, the game could have potentitial to have some form of gameplay mechanic, since it had similar energy to "Calm Down Stalin" where you have similar view but managing stuff like phone calls or management but over the topic. Could even keep the classical music.

Also might want to make the arrow clearer

There's not much penalty to scrambling at the moment though other than fire counting turn. It might technically dock points from using  up a turn but it's usually still much faster to resort to Scramble if the word is 2+ turn away, and higher score from not using as much turn sorting character together.

As for fire there's basically no recovery on first fire spread unless you use all adjacent 5 tiles at once which is a bit rare. Bombs and rock didn't really play much mechanic since it is relatively rare, and beer tiles kind of shares problem with scramble.

Funnily, while the dialogue didn’t have time to mention, the reason Toyohime was there initially is mostly to make a joke that both her and Junko spam spawning stuff around you, I was gonna make the dialogue just accusing each other of stealing lmao. (It could just be lunar-related patterns in general, like Doremy ochre and Eirin earth in a pot)

### Input issue
As for input issue,  I was looking into it and it seems to be trouble with Windows and the app itself rather than than code issue, after digging it seems to be caused by Vsync being on and windows treating full screen differently to windowed. I’ll have to look into disabling that as main setting but for Windows 11 it had to do with computer setting with “gaming optimization”

### Pattern visibility
As for pattern visibility, it’s kind of funny because there’s critique in both way in terms of bullet, the blemish was low enough opacity some people barely noticed, while to some its apparent enough to mistake it as one.

Unfocused doesn’t feel as good to use too when I tried it yeah, but that might have been to reduction in density of the radial shot late in development. It was causing readability issue as well, creating constant bright cluster spawning from the player which gets dizzying. Before there used to be more bullets but lower damage, so the damage is more consistent and there’s much more “oomph” when it hits each time.

Similar thing with laser, though that was due to Z layering being off, as if the items are ABOVE the shot (iirc) it would’ve been much more apparent. I might lower opacity further; it’s actually 10% opacity already but due to Additive material it becomes brighter as more spawns

I did everything except the music which is from an archive

It's uhhhh metaphorical daughter

This is actually formatted closer to three stages not one singular stage, there's just no stage header or difficulty so it might be hard to tell. Lol.

Also can't believe people read the smh

The game is overall good, the balancing and structure is essentially Plant vs Zombies, but that game also have good structure in general so it also propagates here as well. The main carrier would be the art with animation specifically, considering jam type it helps a lot. There's also details such as higher energy version of the music playing when there are more enemies (though the fade in should be a bit slower).

As for the compression issue, you might want to check type of interpolation/aliasing and make it something like average pixel or bilinear, it seems to be using Nearest neighbor. Some sprite such as bullet could also be on the top Z layer instead. Itch Io has an option to make the game open to new screen on HTML version below the upload, might want to look it up.

I can become Renko and steal all of Maribel's food, 10/10 absolute cinema would order sushi and watch the stars again

I was deliberately making the game harder for myself as I tried to do only press hit timing rather than hold Lol. After i figured out hold works i just wait until bullet fill board and went to slap all of it at once and speedrun spell card under 10s

The only thing is probably I kind of expected the shoot button to be replaced rather than new button like spacebar, though it's rebindable in engine so it's not a big deal just more of a first instinct thing

Also peak writing

When there is only 1 enemy left it's like playing a game of chess trying to checkmate, peak

Map / grid type game isn't my main type but surprisingly got myself through it, the visuals and stuff got pc-98 aesthetic so I didn't think of it too deeply; the writing is a wall of text-y but also it's kind of how the genre goes so Lol.

Absolute Cin-nue-ma

finally, celeste for trans  people (were to wolf)

Playing this game looks very wrong out of context to other roommate because it looks like I just frantically clicking to beat up women how do I explain this.

10/10

The bullet is actually not pure reflect, the direction is Bullet position relative to player, for example if bullet is 45 degree to the right, it would hit 45 degree right back, (not true reflection with normal vector like light bouncing off a plane, did that and it’s uncontrollable Lol). I tried a few time and it’s very consistent to reflect a certain direction, if you want to hit left ward just put your self to the right relatively. It’s better than Auto-aiming as you can aim a certain direction rather than the game deciding too, and larger bullets later on have incentive to aim in different direction like towards the wall or specific big targets.

Some bullets is very sparse to hit and that’s actually very deliberate, it’s mostly to emphasize the fact that you should hit the large cluster bullet or larger bullet (splitting, lasers spawning, etc) instead. The jam time ran out early so didn’t had as much time to design stages, but it is 80% deliberate that some section have very little “hittable”. For example Section 2 the green spike spam is too spaced out to hit properly, but occasionally a red fairy spawn cluster red ball that can clean entire board if hit fully charged (as charge also increase range, making it possible to hit entire thing)

Edit: Section Before Junko is a few exception though, there is no real deliberate cluster so you’ll have to figure it itself, 

- 3-1 you can hit when red circle groups inward; 

- 3-2 you hit the circle intersection fully charged, you save the hit only when the the star fairy comes in, then do little hit to clear gaps

- 3-3 is aiming heavy, you hit the rain/ice bullet to kill the fairy before it spawn the red circle which gets out of hand fast. This section is just a Stage 6 LOLK reference lol

- Junko herself you hit to the side of her, the laser deals majority damage and can hit her without her able to hit back. If it’s too fast paced you can slow hit a ball sidewards on your side and it remains stuck

Nue is a more interesting case as it’s either a hardest or easiest. The idea is that you get to close proximity to the circle, and right when she spawning bullets it’s very concentrated so you can basically 1-shot her (if it’s fully charged - as all 240 bullets hits her lol)

Getting there you can do small spam to clear a little when it’s circle spinning, then move in when she’s spawning laser lines.

Renko and Maribel fumo

The second to last room got me stuck around for 10-15 min because i thought i missed something and went back to interact with all the objects and didn't realize you can hold onto the box (since previous arrow box are not pushable

yukarilotl

The last stage is harder mostly from figuring the deeper side mechanic of When the mirror does mirroring specifically. Some stage repeats almost exactly but not in a bad way, a rehash of previous stage with variation with new info

celeste mirror temple reference (celeste invented mirrors)

slay