itch.io

On the top of the screen, a progress bar is displayed, showing the player how long they have to get to win the game. In the bottom right there is a oxygen-meter, showing how much health you have left. This will deplete faster if you get hit by obstacles, and can be replenished by collecting the bubbles that occasionally spawn (they are blue circular orbs, not the really fast moving ones).

As for your point on a few power-ups/checkpoints making the challenge the same, I disagree. If we had put in checkpoints, the game would be much easier to beat.

I personally dialed the difficulty so it shouldn’t be really hard to beat, but it might take you a few attempts or more (based on your previous experiences on these types of games, eg. Geometry Dash, Jetpack-Joyride, Flappy Bird, etc.)

Thank you for taking the time to play our game.

I understand your viewpoint on the art. We had different artists working on the background and the characters, so I understand there is a gap there.

As for my personal preference on the movement, I understand that you would like it to feel more responsive/snappy, as it would make it more predictable, and in turn, easier. However, since Jetpack Joyride was one of our main inspirations, we followed a floaty space ship kind of vibe with the movement.

But yeah, thanks for playing, and I’m glad you enjoyed the game!

Thank you. I feel bad for not having any sound effects in the game, but oh well, the time was breathing down our necks, and so it wasn’t a priority.

Nice seeing you again too, dzy! I really enjoyed playing this. I love the art style and the story, but I do feel like the opening cutscene is actually higher quality than the gameplay, so there’s some polish needed to bring the two in line.

Here is my feedback:

• Controls & Onboarding: When I first started, I had no idea how to pass the first orange orb-enemy (i’ll just call them orbs). I swung my sword at it for a bit before randomly pressing Right Click and discovering there was a jump button. It wasn’t listed in the controls, so having that documented would have saved me some confusion (and maybe other players too, but I usually have tunnel-vision in this area, so maybe it’s just me). One last heads up on this topic: Not all controls/buttons were listed on the itch page
• Hitboxes & Feedback: The gameplay gets tricky in the later rooms, specifically that sequence where you pogo from an orange enemy -> wizard -> blue diamond -> switch. The hitbox on the blue diamond felt a bit unforgiving, as I misaligned slightly and it didn’t refresh my sword. I got no visual feedback that I “missed,” so I wandered around thinking I had skipped a step rather than just missing a jump.
• Puzzle Clarity: The puzzles felt a bit abstract. I didn’t interact with everything in the levels, which made me wonder if I was missing requirements for an alternate ending. I’m not sure what the coin-like objects were for, but that’s my best guess! Clearer feedback on levers, collectibles, and interactions would help the player know they are on the right track.
• Quality of Life: One major complaint is the lack of a restart button. If I messed up a sequence or used my sword one time too many, I had to intentionally run into an enemy to reset. For a puzzle-heavy game, this is really tedious and breaks the flow.

Things done well

• The art style is fantastic.
• The story sets a great mood.
• The music really strengthens the atmosphere, and
• The cutscene is genuinely high quality.

Suggestions for future iterations:

• Introduce mechanics safely: Let the player play around with new mechanics in a controlled space before they are required to pass.
• Visual Feedback: Give clear feedback for everything. A lever pull, a collectible pickup, or even a missed hit.

Overall, this was a solid jam game with great vibes, I’ll give you guys that! Keep it up.

Thank you for playing, and the kind compliments. One of the things I think we could have improved are the projectiles. The fastball blue orbs are an obstacle, while the slow more shiny blue orb is an oxygen pickup.

Thank you for playing, and yeah, it was difficult balancing the projectile speed with actually being able to read them. I understand that most of the focus went into actually avoiding them 😅

Thank you, and nice observation 😉

First playthrough: yep easy questions, multiplication, oh, powers of two? well nothing I can’t handle- *sin and cos has entered the chat* Second playthrough: Oh, you can explore in this game, what is this, a note- *unit circle jumpscare*

This game was really fun. I love the sound effects, the artstyle, and everything. It has a certain charm to it. I love that you can shoot buoys at people who haven’t even jumped yet, and it just messes them up xD

My goal was 20, and when I reached it I just started to shoot people who haven’t even gotten up the ladder yet. Great way to spend my day job watching people (and afterwards get yelled at by the manager).

PS. The manager still notices the “dead bodies” even though you rescue literally everyone (including those who doesn’t want to be rescued), so maybe there is something else fishy going on at this establishment..

It’s literally impossible to dodge the projectiles, at least for me they are going mach 2..

I do love the mechanic that you have to get to the surface, and the art is great. I found the health treasures a little difficult to locate because of the big horizontal area, but I’m really glad that you put checkpoints in the game. One critique I have about some of the chasing enemies is that it is hard to escape their grasp. For example, when I was at the section where you’ve just gone through the wood place with the blue squids, I aggravated the shark, and he quite literally pushed me all the way back down so I had to redo the small squid area. Kind of weak interpretation of phantoms that you just play as a ghost, but I understand that the theme and limitation were difficult to pull off. Good work.

I enjoyed the game. I couldn’t find a way to win though, even after I found the cultist. I had some pretty funny interations with the table and the cultist though. Anyway, enough gits and shiggles.

• I really like the look of this game
• The phantoms actually gave me the creeps when they first appeared, so well done with the sound design and art there!
• I think it’s kind of confusing without having read the introduction text, so maybe that could be put on the main menu instead?
• I couldn’t read what was on the death screen, please help me out here!

I originally made it to level 6 before stepping away, but after writing this, I beat the game. I got 1 death and 1 hit total, so I have a pretty good grasp of the loop.

• Do I think you took the path of least resistance? Yes
• Do I think you should quit game development because of it? No, absolutely not

There is SO much dialogue, and I guarantee that for anyone who plays this game who isn’t scared away by the sheer complexity, they won’t read it. You likely haven’t read it yourself either, because it is entirely AI-generated. Even though it was AI-generated, the story doesn’t make sense in the context of this small little game. The entire game loop is you bringing white potions through portals, then escaping yourself. There is a threat in the levels, a singular ghost, who isn’t a problem at all.

To fix this, in the final level, there is a blue ghost that instantly kills you. Why are we introducing this enemy in the last level without explaining it? (It probably got explained in the story, but again, nobody will read that).

I’ll give you some feedback on the game:

• The Bottle Mechanic: The main gist of the game is to put soul bottles into portals, so I’d preferred if this mechanic was good and polished. However, the bottles follow you in a weird way. They smoothly follow you by lerping (linearly interpolating) after you. The problem is that they can get stuck on walls. I’d much more preferred it if they were either placed in my inventory, or followed me much closer.
• Unused Items: I never used any of the other items in the game. I was sprinting the whole time. That has to say something. If the other items are useless, or explained in a way the player “gets and forgets,” they won’t be used.
• Narrative Scope: The story is WAY too complicated for a small jam game like this. I have no idea what rescuing the souls did, what the portal was there for, where I was, or what was chasing me.

Things done well

• I love the main menu, it looks really clean.
• Scene transitions
• I think the art style was decent, but it feels a little like an asset-flip, as it’s kind of all over the place.

The main takeaway from this is this:

Alright, you got assisted in making the game (with the use of AI). Maybe it was your first game, your second, whatever. Instead of telling a chatbox what game you want, try to pick up a game engine (eg. Unity or Godot), and watch some tutorials. It will be way more satisfying knowing what you do, planning and coding your idea up (either entirely yourself, or assisted by AI, not “taken off your shoulders” by AI).

Good luck with your next projects, hopefully also game development projects. I believe that you are able to make beautiful games if you put in the effort.

When I played I often found myself (literally) in a skeleton when I switched in/out of phantom mode, and I feel like it’s kind of unfair to the player to have to keep track of both layers at the same time, especially when they don’t know when the skeletons in the opposite layer of the player have moved, and where. Adding buffering for the controls would also have made a better user experience instead of having to press WASD repeatedly. I didn’t get to the end personally because I lost all three lives to skeletons on another plane of existence, but well done making this in the time frame given.

My best score was 102m. I enjoyed playing this game, but I feel like the stats were kind of complicated, and I had no idea what they meant. Maybe simplifying it to “Oxygen: Good, Coal: Needed, Energy: Meh” or something like that with symbols would enhance it. Because when I played the game, I was only focusing on my tetris, and less on my current statistics. It’s also kind of difficult building up good stats because the blocks are random. But all in all it’s a good game.

Thank you for playing. The so called “snowballs” are meant to be oxygen pickups, to fill your oxygen bar. I’m glad you found the game straight forward, as I was worried the game might be confusing without some extra story put into the game.

Hey!

I am also a game designer/developer, and I’d like to team up with you! I am a programmer, and I know both Unity and Godot. I am also capable of making music, and a little art if we need it.

Sent you a friend request on discord, I’m sabifiedsab!

Hi, we’re currently 4 people, if you’d like to join and/or haven’t found a team yet, add me on discord: sabifiedsab

Hi, I'm looking for an artist, sound designer, and/or a music composer. I'm currently in a team with one other, and we'll be using the Godot game engine. Everyone is welcome to team up, and I hope we'll be able to create something fantastic! 

Feel free to reach out on discord if you're interested: SabifiedSab

Thank you so much! Love that we stood out to you :)

I'm really happy you enjoyed the good mix of gameplay, visuals and audio. I went for a relaxing, almost children-y soundtrack, and I think it worked out well. Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you liked the background music, I put some effort into the atmosphere of it ^^ I get your point on that the player is able to spam to find the differences, but how are we going to moderate how the player wants to play the game? If they want to cheat and just spam the canvas without finding them, that's on them! Thanks for playing!

Thanks! I hope it wasn't too challenging to find the differences. Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks for playing! The tutorial was next on our list ;)

Yep, some bugs did slip through the cracks. And the project didn't get finished to the point we wanted to, but I think we are expanding it to a fuller project

Thanks! The tutorial would be the next priority

Of course! I thought the video was pretty funny, and I adore your editing style! Good job

That is what game jams are for :) Figuring out what works, and what doesn't. What you need to work on, and what you're good at. Managing time, and working effectively; creating your own workflow. 

The money won't go in your pocket before the end of the day. You will get a paycheck up on the screen summarizing your day, and how much money you've made. I'm sorry there is nothing to explain how the game works or anything, because we just got a "minimum viable product" (meaning a version without any juice/extra details you'd normally see in finished games). Would've loved to come to the "tutorial" part of our task list, but unfortunately because of time and our lack of experience in tycoon games, we didn't get to it in time. Glad you played our game though!

Thanks for playing. Nothing is buggy, the washer increases a hidden stat called "quality", and makes the eggs not lose any worth at the end of the process (eg. if they had a bad quality level, they wouldn't make as much money). I've said this in other comments, but a tutorial was next on our list. I'm bummed we didn't have time for it though. 

Thank you so much for playing! I know the mechanics aren't explained that great (if you could even say we explained anything). A tutorial was the next thing on our list, and there was so much more we wanted to do, but didn't have time for (because this tycoon type of game was new to all of us programmers). I know it does "work" to wind them up with spamming, but it won't be as effective. 

Of course. Because of our planning and lack of experience in making tycoon games, we didn't have much time to expand on our minimum viable product, meaning no time for tutorials. And I feel kind of dirty if I'm going to modify the game after the deadline, so it will have to be like this at least for the remainder of the voting. Again, it isn't your fault if the game is hard to understand/enjoy, that is on us. 

HI! Thanks for playing. No, it doesn't mean you don't have a brain, it just means us developers didn't make a good enough job at explaining our mechanics! I totally understand that you think the gameplay is boring, because there's not a lot to do when actually maintaining your machines. If you hover over the machines, there is a gear, and if you hold down Left Mouse Button on that gear, you wind up the machine. If it goes all the way down, the machine starts wasting eggs, so keep the winder above 0 at all times!

To set the scene: I played for roughly half an hour, and managed to make it to day 5. 

Firstly some bugs:

If I open a menu (let's say the illegal shop) and hit escape, it unlocks my mouse and brings me to the pause menu. From there, if I exit the pause menu, my mouse is locked again but I still have the shop window open. 

Again, with the pause menu, if you pause the game, and click "Exit", it takes two escape presses before the menu comes up again. I'm guessing it has to be because of some "pauseMenuActive" variable not being toggled by the button. 

You can interact with most things through colliders. This made it really easy to accidentally try to pick up an item in a purchased box instead of the actual box. Bonus! You can turn on/off the radio through the refrigerator. 

There is also a method to duplicate hot dogs. If you line up two buns so you can drop a wiener perfectly so it hits both buns at the same time, it makes two hot dogs. This way you can focus mostly on buns, and don't need to purchase any hot dogs until the first purchased box of buns is all used up. 

I don't know if this was a bug or not, but I got taxed $0, and never met the guy again. 

Guiding the player

At first it took me a while to understand that all of your wieners and buns start out moldy, and there's nothing you could do about it (at least, that's what I'm guessing, because putting stuff in the sink gets blocked by an invisible collider). While the sausages were easy to see when they were done cooking, the buns were a different story. Either you can't see it, or it's a pretty small difference from the uncooked to the cooked (if there even is one, or if it's a huge troll cooking the buns). And from experience, it seems like the buns gets burnt much faster than the wieners. 

The first time I played the game, I didn't know that there was a shop (even though it becomes pretty obvious when you exit the truck), and again with the moldy stuff I think even a small tutorial would enhance the player experience, so most people don't have to figure out the mechanics of the game they chose to play, and get frustrated. (At least, if you're not expecting everyone to come from the video). 

I also think the difficulty scaling is a bit steep, because I can't see myself ever acquiring the Dirty Accountant upgrade, as you'd have to sweat pretty hard the early days before rent becomes $80+

And one last thing from my playthrough, I actually never got over 3 stars. I made loads of money (getting up to $130 the first day), but never got a higher rating that 3.

Playtesting is pretty crucial to creating good or even great games. And I've said this several times, but a friend, family member, or a dedicated game development discord server are all great options for just another perspective. Because as a game designer, it can be difficult sometimes imagining a beginner play your game, and get in their shoes without seeing anyone else than you play it. 

Good luck on future games, and I hope the video is received well!

Hi, I'm a coder first, however I can also compose music when needed and work with sound effects (again, when needed). Although I'm not incredibly good with pixel art, I'm able to clean up or modify assets, and even create original work. 

I use the Unity game engine along with VSCode and Git/Github for version control, but I'm open to trying Godot too!

I have participated in quite a few jams now (11 to be exact, but it's not really important), and I hope to figure out something fun together as a team!

Feel free to reach out on discord if you're interested: SabifiedSab

Hi! My team and I was looking for a sound design/music composer for this jam, and would love to have someone as experienced as you! Sent you a friend request if you haven't already gotten a team yet! SabifiedSab on discord :)

Hi, I'm also a coder, but do a lot of other stuff as well as sound design, music composing, a little bit of an artist (although I don't have to worry about that for this jam), and I currently have one other teammate! Sent you a friend request on discord: SabifiedSab

Hi! I love it when music isn't rushed, but you can hear that it took time to compose it. I'd love to work with you. I'm hoping for a team with 3+? I mostly code, but sometimes do the music aswell, and I KNOW it sounds better when its taken time to cook up. Looking forward to working with you, hit me up on discord: SabifiedSab