itch.io

Liferoot

• 3D navigation using the mouse inputs are fluid as hell. Very easy to look around—though I wish there was a pan function to better strategize movement. It happened a couple of times where I seemingly went past the world boundaries.
• The environment and plant generation is strong mechanical work. Good job!
• The all-important tutorial label is cut off past the bottom of the viewport (at least on fullscreen).
• Without a backstory or any type of player motivation, I couldn't really digest the gameplay, so initially just clicked tiles wherever available towards the nearest water source, and progressed like that. Once I figured out the idea is to do likewise and navigate adjacently to the required plants, this infused more strategy on my part.
• The jump in metrics is too abrupt, I feel, and it's difficult to get a sense of how much you're going to get taxed or incremented health-, projected decay-, and turn-wise.
• I wish some thought was put into what this world is, to more organically tie into the "Decay" theme. As it is, it feels very shoehorned in.
• The bright, cartoony 3D graphics and solemn music are very nice individually, but seemed a stylistic mismatch.
• Animation work solid! The way the herbs sprout from the tiles makes the game feel polished.
• Clicking "Setup" through the escape menu irreversibly forces the player to start a new game (was just exploring the UI).
• Like the font and style choices of the UI, though detest the awful template that's been going around on this scene for a while now (which shouldn't be allowed anyway, on the same basis that AI-generated code isn't permitted).

All-in-all, Liferoot is a solid effort by Godot Wild Jam veterans that makes up in style where it lacks in substance, and shines a light on the often difficult-to-achieve need for coherence. Evaluated separately, fantastic 3D graphics + animations, functional gameplay programming, and thoughtful sound are sure enough reasons to sample this submission.

The game never loaded for me after the chilling intro. Though thought this may have been an intentional design choice, so spammed WASD + space bar to see if I could "re-find the colours," but to no avail!

Music is badass however.

Another game that proves the old adage, "The best ideas are simple ones."

Being immediately confronted as a resource-grinding game design, it came off as slightly tedious in the beginning knowing the game loop that coming up (pre-judging by the cooldown timer of the candles). But once it was learned that completing the easiest pentagrams would lead to other cauldrons which could significantly increase the amount of resources one could gain at a single time, it became very empowering and fun.

Was initially amazed that the environment expanded out too. I presumed the entire game would take place in one room.

One of the things I feel people think is the easiest / most fun coming into game dev, but then eventually learn is extremely complex and difficult to get right, is coming up with rewarding and / or original game designs, and making metrics work in conjunction with each other towards a playthrough that's neither too short, nor too long. I felt Mystic Maggie's Magic Mansion had a particularly fulfilling design, and the term I used before, "empowering," is exactly how I felt throughout most of the gameplay. Became very interested to unlock all the pentagrams and get to whatever the end goal was, that I was willing to stick it out no matter how long it took.

The game is very functional programming-wise, and I noticed no bugs. Was quite impressed that the objects would carry without issue across the many tight collisions of the environment, and I chalk that up to excellent coding.

Some very tiny nitpicks (for the sake of post-jam refinement, if desired):

• Definitely enable "resizable" in the settings. I would've loved to have played this game full-screen (I downloaded the Windows executable).
• The volume of the BGM in the credits seems unusually louder than the rest of the game. Could also use an escape key here.
• For all the candles and the fireplace, the environment might be too linearly lit. More limited lighting / selective darkness might be something to consider, to give the environment a sense that this mansion is out of normal civilization, or older than present times.
• It didn't matter in my playthrough, because you (thankfully) stuck to a traditional control scheme (and I realize it's in the Itch description), but plastering the inputs in-game somewhere (like a "Press E to drop a candle in the cauldron" in the first room) could be a small UX improvement. Perfect controls, however.
• Like that the game ends on a cinematic, but a tad-bit empty and anticlimactic. This would be where to put a large bow on the story, if even just in extended captions.

Obviously, in enthusing about the game design, I'm glossing over all of the other high points of MMMM (or 4M, as we've begun to call it in French Canada). The pixelized 3D art, UI graphics + fonts, fantastic main menu + escape menu, and overall aesthetic are wonderful, and were complimented perfectly by the soothing + thoughtful soundwork and audio direction. It was apparent that there was some real artistic and musical talent here.

There's so much heart and love put into this game, and in a space that's oftentimes flooded with lazy / last-minute efforts, it's incredible to see the passion of the developers shine through to a wholly consistent and polished end-product. I usually delete jam games after I play them, but this is one I'm holding onto on my hard drive. I feel it's the one to play whenever I'm mentally empty on game design and in need of inspiration.

Amazing work. What a homerun.

The physics of flying off the mushroom are fun. First-person jumpers are difficult to make work because the player doesn't have a sense of what their collision capsule looks like, so has to chance it every time, and it's easy to fall off and—in the case of this game—have to restart at the very beginning, which makes the loop a tad-bit tedious.

Zany music matches the art style, so there's great tonal consistency there. What makes the environment pop are the animations of the mushrooms, and the leaves growing out of the trees. Excellent work there!

I would've liked a more clearly defined goal, as although I did figure out the objective of the game was to climb the tree, the player motivation for "why?" was undeveloped (and saving an unseen character seemed a lazy / uninteresting objective). Then when I kept falling and restarting from the bottom, I hit a loss condition somehow while climbing up the tree again (so I presume it's tied into an unseen timer, but if so, these gameplay-affecting metrics should be represented either in-game or on the UI).

Good effort with Infinitree!

Very ambitious 3D shooter here with a weapons upgrade system. Blown away by how nice the graphics are. Wow.

Thought the in-environment tutorial was very well done.

Gameplay has the potential to be a lot of fun. The ants come at you from one side, so they're relatively easy to avoid, but it's nonetheless satisfying to eliminate enemies with guns.

Combined somewhat with the stable and slow pace of the ants, feel that the countdown timer is somewhat counterintuitive to the game design, as one can essentially outrun the incoming enemies considering they mostly come from one direction (though, I only played up until level 3 against the deadline of the jam, so unsure if this variates in later waves).

I nonetheless remain amazed at the scope of this game, with a functional combat system and complimentary environment design. Great work!

Cute 2D graphics and an appropriate BGM for the game design. Often wondered why there weren't more "hide-and-seek" video games, but here we have a highly functional one. 

I thought the onboarding with the tutorial boxes at the beginning were very clear, and rather the best one I've seen this jam where so many seemed to have struggled with explaining their game instructions.

The game was fun, and the enemy AI felt very organic. Only improvement I can think of is visually differentiating your critter from the others, even in a slight way (IE: greyer), as it was briefly confusing at the beginning what your WASD was controlling.

Glad to be ending this jam playing Critter Jitter—one of the more enjoyable and understandable games I had the pleasure of reviewing.

Died quite abruptly in the third stage after a couple of minutes of easily dodging stuff and statically holding down the left-click click to keep my shooting on permanent. Game was functional—just needs more to do and an overarching reason to survive the stages. The music was very nice, and I liked the art of the HUD. It feels like Galactic Pest Control is a solid start to something bigger!

Once I got the hang of it, I enjoyed the 1v1 combat game system. However, the onboarding was tough, since there are too many critters / effects to memorize off-the-bat, so a good few minutes is spent losing playthroughs, and referring back to the how-to guide to see what the critters actually do. 

Do feel that there's a balancing issue, and that the first (and presumably only?) level is way too hard off-the-bat. Not only is the enemy AI much more skilled at getting better critters than you, but it also seems to heal at a constant rate.

Gameplay would be improved if there are a few "gimme" levels at the beginning with very limited power-ups and either tooltips or a referable in-game guide as to what the critter does. But aside, I think the game design is quite good, the art + sound are complimentary to each other, and once refined, this will be a fun combat game!

Really enjoy the concept of using a hotkey to navigate two layers of the same world, as well as making visibility a scalable metric. Though I felt there were too many things taxing the energy meter, and it made all-the-more likely one would hit the loss condition for short playthroughs. 

Would've preferred the usual "WASD + space for jump" control scheme for right-handers, at least as a dual input option in addition to the arrow keys, so had to arrange my hands on the keyboard in an unfamiliar fashion to navigate the game. 

I like the pixel art and sound for an 8-bit experience—one of those games where one thinks, I could totally see myself playing this on the NES back in the day.

Nice solo effort here—good work!

This reminds me of a 3D version of Papers, Please—yet even tougher (with the critters hopping about)! Particularly liked the functionality and animations of the X-ray machine, the laser thermostat, and all of the mechanics which seem to work fluidly to support the game design. One of the rare games where the big standout is the coding.

Congrats to the team!

Holy cow. Talk about a game that's commercially viable.

Just insane levels of fully realized ambition and polish put into this one. It's difficult to believe something like this can be achieved in nine days, but here we have it.

I love the art style, and the autopilot combat system is impressive, though wish the creatures were controllable to even a minor extent, and that their HPs were displayed above their heads permanently throughout battle.

My biggest gripe would be with balancing. If you fall slightly behind (like one of your creatures dies off-the-bat), you spend the whole rest of the game trying to catch up to the ever-increasing difficulty, because all the limited gold you receive is spent reviving dead creatures instead of buying items / snacks to level up your fighters. On my second playthrough, I was able to stay slightly ahead, but after a couple of my creatures died in the final battle of the minor league, I was eliminated rather quickly by the powerful enemies of the mid-league.

But obviously when the scope is this wide, there's bound to be overlooked areas of refinement, and I'd say this is a big success regardless. Congratulations on grubkins! What a portfolio-shiner!

A strange, horror-y experience that is still making me scratch myself. Holy cow.

Sadly didn't make it to the boss, as I'd broken through so many rooms that the game began to lag on my browser towards unplayability, but this will undoubtedly be one of the more memorable games of this jam. Very good work on animated critter integration and the shake-off + walk breakthrough mechanics, as well as the procedural level creation.

Loved the 3D art style and direction. Feel that with some core features made here, this is more of a prototype for something more expansive and interesting.

The game makes no apparent attempt to onboard the player as to understanding how to play, so like others, I couldn't really wrap my head around what I was supposed to do. Which is a shame because it seems a lot of work has been put into the pixel art, UI, sound, and mechanics. In those areas, Dice Critters excels. But I found myself randomly clicking the interactables and hoping the game would progress enough to provide a context for why?, but it never did.

Couldn't really make heads or tails of this game at the beginning, and thought the initial screen was like an inventory before the real game would begin. Then took a closer look at the rules, and realized this *was* the game!

A very creative twist on Solitaire by adding some idle mining elements to the mix. Didn't realize for the longest time that the store menu was scrollable, and thought other packs would spontaneously appear after some level of star-accumulation.

Once I got into the heat of the game, realized what it was all about, and went about building my decks. After building several, saw the multiplier deck available for sale, and was like, "What's this... ?" Imagine my surprise when it significantly expedited my quest for the 100,000!

Functional programming made for a bug-free experience, and cool art + sounds rounded out the experience. Great work!

Likewise—very cool to be jammin' alongside you once more. Us OGs from 2023 are like senior citizens in the GWJ scene now. :D

Unique vibes as always from an Anonymyst submission! A functional tower defense this time taking out evil rabbits. Appreciated the "last chance" screen, which was initially helpful in keeping the game going while trying to figure things out.

The build menu could use some UX improvements. I particularly wasn't sure what each option did, but figured it out eventually, though think I broke the game by placing a turret in the closing gap of a wall, which prevented the "Start Wave" button from working (and then wasn't able to get rid of the turret; pressing the red x and clicking on it triggers the gold particles flying instead of deleting it). Otherwise was finding myself constructing a maze using the walls, and wondered how far I could take it, haha.

Noticed you had limited time in the jam, so that's understandable. Amazing to output anything when racing against the clock!

Wow, almost never see a racing game in Godot Wild Jam. I appreciate the ambition!

The Parc Fermé reminds me of breeding grounds in the Pokémon games. I'm not sure how cars breed, but hey—that's the fun of video games. :D

I was initially going to complain about the control scheme not being posted anywhere in the game nor the Itch description, and had no idea how to play the game—until I surmised that you can't really play this game, but you just have to breed cars and let it race on autopilot.

Sadly couldn't get past the second race, since Shaquille O'Wheel's offspring, Tiger Would, couldn't seem to advance past eighth place. But without losers, there wouldn't be winners.

Tons of creative ideas merged into one here, complimented by the nifty music. Very unique idea!

Some of the best UI I've seen on the jam scene. Lovely scene transitions and buttons!

Art and audio adds a ton to the exciting summer vibe of the game. Gameplay was a little too unforgiving for me, and I couldn't really make it out of the first few seconds of the first level. Quicktime events also too challenging, I feel, particularly because I think WASD would've been enough, but adding Q and E within the very limited timespan made them impossible for me (and then not being prepared for the instant transition, the critters behind you catch up immediately and trigger the loss condition).

Could use some balancing (or at least an "easy" option for low-performing gamers like me!), but otherwise, I love the style of Critter Rush. Very well done!

The most stylish game of the jam that I've played thus far. What a fantastic menu. I loved the ambition here, and how it was pretty much achieved. Bubbly music adds so much to the zany art and UI. The progression of obtaining characters with accumulated score? Amazing.

I feel the gameplay programming, including the arc of jump, and the level design are good. The main issue obviously is that the visual design of the level makes no differentiation between what's an obstacle and what's not, nor what's a foreground interactable vs. a background object. As a result, the gameplay at present is mashing the jump button hoping that you successfully hop over an otherwise unidentifiable obstacle that's going to take a heart.

But almost everything else is done right. The character model and animation is beautiful, and the environment is as well. It just needs to be slightly more optimized for understandability.

This is excellent style and premise, however. I hope you guys continue to work on it—I think you have something here.

I like the premise of this game, and it's rare to see a hyperrealistic art direction in a game jam. But I think for a game that relies so heavily on movement, the "charge-up" jumping mechanic was counterintuitive to the game design—especially considering there's a timer running. 

If you missed the jump (which was likely, given its unpredictability), you'd have to do a charge-up jump on each previously cleared shelf, and that's quite tedious—as was trying to get up the stairs (upon reaching the summit, it was very easy to spin back around quickly and fall off again to the last step).

I'd much preferred to have a regular jump function, and would have probably still found it challenging, but more achievable. But again, the idea of being a cat breaking expensive art pieces is a fun premise, and I enjoyed the interesting atmosphere you cultivated here. Was also highly impressed with the way the ceramic broke into shards. Great job!

EDIT: I didn't realize there were simplified jump + no timer options. Good accessibility!

Good to hear some of my feedback was helpful. Finished the third level today!

Again, very fun Match 3. :)

Just a heads-up: I continued to play this game after leaving my review, but got a "level failed" after just crossing all three thresholds in my last turn:

Okay, this Match 3 game was awesome, LOL. Very enjoyable, great art and aesthetic. Could use a tad-bit of "puzzle music" to go with the deep thinking needed to clear the levels (others have already mentioned this ad nauseum), but otherwise the SFX was very apropos. 

Liked the integration of the narrative intro as well; gave the game a lot of flavor, and provided a context for why? 

Only improvements I can suggest are pausing a tad-bit after each elimination and emphasizing where the match 3s are when they occur, otherwise sometimes the combo happens, and you have no idea why because the eliminations fly by so quickly. Also, selections could use highlighting / outlining. Was initially confused how to swap tiles (thought it was click -> click, and not click + drag).

But aside from those nitpicks, a perfect jam game, and one of my top picks thus far. Great work on Forest Foraging!

The art is very nice, and between that and the music, got chills of the first time I'd play a random game on the Sega Genesis back in the day.

I hope you and your dev partner get a chance to finish the game! Slow but steady wins the race. :)

Before anything, obviously much glowing praise for the art, design, and music. You'll get the term "cute" a lot, so I'll instead say it's "soothing."

Unlike seemingly most, I actually do like idle clickers, but they are challenging in the fact that they can grow infinitely if not balanced correctly, and there ought to be an overarching goal as to what you're clicking towards. As it is, I was mindlessly clicking away at the pig and occasionally clicking the upgrade / job buttons whenever they became toggleable without really understanding what they would do for me, so after several minutes of this, figured there was no endgame and concluded my playthrough.

Nonetheless, Truffle Snuffle could be the basis for something more immersive if the progression matches the functionality of the mechanics. It's wild that this is a solo effort, since the programming seemed to be clean from the surface, the art and animations were wonderful, and it was apparently all a solo effort. Wow. Fantastic ambition and achievement!

Probably my favourite game of the jam so far. Surprisingly challenging, and goes to prove yet again that the best ideas are simple.

The gorgeous art—both the clay character design and the UI—set the right tone off-the-bat, complimented by the charming UI music.

I couldn't help but to imagine a "hardcore mode" version of this game where:

• The timer counts down from a set time.
• The number of clicks the player is allowed to use are limited (and changing the navigational input to the right click; it happened plenty of times where I accidentally clicked when I meant to move the screen; current WASD controls could use a speed boost from the shift key).
• The amount you're allowed to navigate is also limited.

But I might be a masochist. It's otherwise a very chill, yet thought-provoking game as it is.

Well done on this one!

Enjoyed the music and environment design. I'm terrible when it comes to rhythm games, however, and couldn't really keep track of the towers I placed versus the three different rhythms I needed to control with them, so was slaughtered in the first wave. For UX, it's probably a good idea to start off with an easy level (IE: only one rhythm) to onboard the player. Otherwise, I feel Keep the Beat is a cool concept to innovate on the tower defense genre with a stylish aesthetic and sound.

Haha, I'm not really sure what to make of this game? Very unique vibe, and obviously an amalgamation of many different ideas and minds. The walk animation would freeze (possibly not set to looping?), but could be reset by hitting the sprint button. Once I found interactables, like the minigames / upgrade system, realized wow, there's like a whole game here (though the critters nipped at me while I was reading through what the upgrades did).

A standout for me was the UI. Loved the main menu and HUD—some very creative ideas implemented there. And the minigames are fun + rewarding, though as mentioned, I think it was a bad design decision to let the main game continue as you're trying to understand how to play the minigames and engage with them—because there's not much you can apparently do to avoid damage with the interface still up.

Some areas of refinement:

• Spawn distance is too close (to the point where the critters will spontaneously appear near you).
• Definitely enable "resize" in the Project Settings, since 3D games are typically best in fullscreen or maximized.
• The restart function after losing doesn't seem to work.

I feel like there's the germ of an interesting world here, bolstered by creative story, minigame designs, and sound, but is currently hampered by not being able to meet the intended scale and a lack of refinement—possibly due to having to collaborate across a very large team without a dedicated producer keeping things in check, within achievable scope, and consistent. Sometimes less is more.

Interesting combination of real graphics and stylistic art for the models. Along with the jazzy theme music and unconventional aspect ratio, makes the presentation quite unique.

First attempt: I immediately got caught in the collision shape and ejected from the tutorial level, falling into an endless pit. Had to refresh my page to get a new game going. Though did notice you'd noted that as a likely scenario in the tutorial, thus it may have been a good idea to throw in a restart function somewhere (or have plane colliders above and below the level that automatically restart the level if hit).

Second attempt: Game crashed and closed the Brave browser tab (first time that's ever happened) when I used Ctrl to slide in the tutorial level.

Third attempt: Tried on Opera, but it inadvertently closed the tab again. This prompted me to check the comments, and I saw shp's and JMC's explanations that Ctrl+W is what's closing the tabs. So looked for a download, but unfortunately there wasn't one.

Sympathetic to unforeseeable bugs, since in the midst of development, it's not even on the radar to know that basic input keys are going to conflict with a browser's shortcut keys.

The fix for this for future players: always be holding the W key. Letting go of it, and pressing Ctrl first, will trigger the browser's shortcut input.

Fourth attempt: When I got the game going, the level was fast-paced and very action-y! The speed jump of the crouch encourages a player to spam it, but the boost is what makes it so fun. Given that you've incredibly done this in 3D, I'd love a future level with twists and turns on the other axis. Perhaps even something that launches you in the air. The potential for what this could morph into is exciting.

Cool vibe and aesthetic on this precision dropoff game. My best score was 637 (I challenge anyone to beat it and post your screenshot here!).

Enjoyed Shish Fish. Perfect length for a jam game. Not to mention, one of the best Controls screens I've ever seen.

Absolutely lovely.

Exceptional skills on display, as usual from JG. The AAA-style menu and camera programming is unlike anything one sees on the game jam scene. The character models and animations also need to be isolated for praise. For so many devs, it's such a daunting task in and of itself during the limited nine-day timespan to get a basic game loop done, that one rarely sees this type of third-person environmental exploration with fully functional models. It's just a one-man army.

I do concur however that the gameplay was a bit bland for me. Usually need more of an incentive to overcome the more head-scratching parts of the level design puzzles, but it wasn't established enough what the overarching reason was to surmount them.

Not sure if it was by intention (to help overcome the aforementioned blocks), but the camera clips through the walls.

Nonetheless, any time I see a solo John Gabriel game on the submission list, it's a must-play to see how far the envelope has been pushed in the Godot Wild Jam. Excellent work as always.

Okay, I went back and speed-clicked to where I left off. Was very surprised at the depth of game beyond that point, with multiple environments to search, an inventory system, and the character interactions (particularly with the monster beyond the ropes). Wasn't exactly sure how the left / right demon escape maze worked, but essentially quick-saved / quick-loaded my way through it until it got me to the next part. But yeah, a lot of the polish in the scene / text effects and storytelling made this one an enjoyable visual novel experience. Really good stuff here, and looking forward to the full game!

The visual novel medium is a difficult one to maintain interest, but Faint Echo sure did. The scene effects, scene transitions, sound and atmosphere, and engaging story made this a breeze to get through. Just a slight bug in that the dialogue box is susceptible to double-clicks when only a single click is pressed, so it's easy to skip a dialogue screen, but having the "Back" button there is a big help when this happens.

I ended up leaving the apartment, though wish I was vigilant enough to save before that point so I could experience the rest of the story. Perhaps something to integrate in that ending, letting players return to the crossroads of choice so they can get the other ending without having to play the game from scratch. Was nonetheless quite impressed with this horror game.

Enjoyed this art style and atmosphere. Wasn't sure why the host's voice was modulated as if he was speaking over the phone (he's standing in front of you...). Events and jump-scares triggered as intended, and made for a good horror experience. Story seemed rather basic, but do appreciate the effort in making it come to life with voiceovers. Just a heads-up the "Exit" function on the main menu doesn't seem to work on Windows. Otherwise, cool ten-minute game.

Starlight Odyssey

• Liked the opening sequence a lot. Backstory gives increased importance to the game.
  
• On the topic, I like the 2D art and UI design as well. Very sci-fi retro.
  
• Good idea integrating control scheme into the game itself via labels. But the instructions are a little bit too much in succession. Would rather have them spaced out / triggered by an event (like when the first food comes onto the screen, that's when to slap the "Press 'F' to eat food" label on the screen).
  
• Not sure how I feel about the shifting camera exposing Godot's grey viewport on the sides. Think it would've been better to have expanded the canvas beyond it. (EDIT: Okay, it's not a viewport; it's just a container for the tutorial section that happens to have the same colour as Godot's viewport, lol)
  
• Got annihilated on my first playthrough, since I didn't realize the ammo running out was the reason I couldn't shoot anymore. But considering how many enemies you can encounter on the way, and difficulty outrunning them, ammo should be unlimited I feel.
  
  
  
• Second playthrough: landed on a planet, and I'm somewhat amazed at the depth of game. Characters and a narrative system. Very cool!
  
• Feel the narrative system should return to the main dialogue menu rather than closing. Have to initiate the conversation each time to access the next dialogue option.
  
• Wish the planets had some sound / music to them.
  
• I liked the timed assassination challenge, but couldn't figure out how to shoot the guy (whose name in the dialogue box is different than the one in the photo).
  
• Wow, even a mixology feature. Holy cow. Yeah, there appears to be a lot of work that went into this submission. Frankly, not sure how you did it in nine days!
  
• Slightly disappointed that all three planets are the same: with the same characters, assassination challenge, and mixology minigame. But can understand the limitations of the game jam.
  
• I disagree with some design choices, like the life energy draining while you're on a planet, or the timers continuing to run after you've pressed the escape key (which I was doing to pause so I could write this review). For a game like this which is all about space exploration and learning about characters / stories of this unique universe, I'd much prefer a patient playthrough where planning for journeys trumps rushing through them.
  
  
  
• Visited all three planets, which again were the same, and wasn't sure how to progress from there or if there was an actual win condition to work towards, so concluded my playthrough after the third planet.

I liked Starlight Odyssey. A ton of imagination and functional mechanics. Good job!

A perfect combination of everything: pixel art, music, fun mechanics and game design. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do most of the time, and had trouble connecting the animated sprite models to the slot machine UI above the enemy, but somehow won the game anyway, LOL:

Liked also that the sprites you're supposed to feed and slide into the enemy don't adversely affect your own health + life (otherwise, I would've gotten merc'd very early on). Lots of Super Mario World vibes in terms of style and gameplay. A highly enjoyable arcade-y game, and perfect for a jam.

The germ of the survival and settlement-building ideas here are fantastic. Perhaps a little inelegant to instruct the player explicitly as to what to do (deviating from it results in an unfunctional game where the pluses / minuses cease to work), taking away their agency off-the-bat, and it would've been better UX to start the player off with a few pieces of food and wood so they could determine for themselves what the diminish rate is when the player ends the day. The actions menu should also reset all action variables to zero, and restore the idle points variable.

I suppose the big flaw here is that there's not much to do / experience except to grow the stats infinitely. There doesn't appear to be any story or progression beyond the initial dialogue box popup (I made it to Day 21, until I was just maxing each action in the suggested order and ending the day, over and over). Not sure if something is supposed to trigger at any point, but if it is, should've happened sooner.

Nonetheless, the game appears to be functional in terms of scaling upwards and the action points interacting with each other, so the seeds are set for something that progresses and expands on one of Anonymyst's creative worlds.

2D art and visual design is great. The CRT filter is way overpowering and affects readability in a game that depends on it. I couldn't really make sense of the vending machine and its connection to paying rent, why ducks and squids are appearing as characters, nor exactly what the game is. 

The game design appears to be trying to luck one's way into landing in the green safe zone of the spinning circle over and over, but assuming you do, the rent scales up past your winnings anyway—triggering a loss condition. Cute as it may be for a valid metaphor about capitalism, it makes for poor + unrewarding game design and user experience. Much like the uninspired title of the game, doesn't seem like a whole lot of thought went into this one, which is disappointing.

The best ideas are simple ones. Add fun art and sound to the mix, and it's more than enough to have a good time. Just a minor note about the background TextureRect of the menu + other Control nodes not scaling up on varying resolutions. But other than that, the game itself was enjoyable and challenging. Good job team!