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Excellent plugin! I can confirm it works in MV without any modifications!

Oh wow, thanks a bunch for playing! Always exciting to see new people experience Axial!

Ah okay! Sorry I missed the required elements, I'll take your word for it that they're there!

Rating time!

Overall: 2 - I really appreciate you putting something out at all! This looks really neat and I'd love to see you return to this concept in a format you can finish. Unfortunately though, as you know better than me, this wasn't able to make it across the finish line, and it shows pretty hard. It's a real shame, I think this was off to a really cool start!

Gameplay: 2 - I don't know if a couple dialogue choices and Harold hiding behind a tree even really qualify as gameplay, but in the very least it wasn't upsetting or difficult to get through, so a 2 it is!

Music: 2 - I actually don't think there was any music here, although I think the silence did well to set the atmosphere.

Graphics: 3 - Honestly, putting aside the unfinished-ness of it, everything here looks really cool! I like the cute robot you play as, the atmosphere is neat, and I think the title screen is a total highlight. I really wish I could see what your plan was for this because the title screen and intro have some really cool implications.

Story: 3 - This is a stretch, but the intro was really strong, and it made me really hype to see what was gonna be in here. I went in expecting basically nothing, and then I was given something REALLY COOL, followed immediately by... nothing. And I'm gonna go ahead and say that on a meta level that's really cool even if it wasn't intended. The story appears to be about unfinished stories and it itself is an unfinished story, and I just have to deal with the frustration of that. Very meta.

Comedy: 2 - This is no laughing matter!

It's really unfortunate this didn't make it out the oven finished, but I again really appreciate you putting it out anyway. There's the promise of something really cool here, and unlike other games that are finished but have severe flaws, this one's only flaw is that it's incomplete, so I really hope something can come from what's left of this in the future! Thanks for submitting!

Heyo! Rating time!
Overall: 2 - Hrmmm, it's hard haha, I hate giving a low rating, but ultimately this wasn't a super enjoyable experience for me for reasons I'll get into shortly.

Gameplay: 2 - There was a lot of game to play here which is more than could be said for many entries! That said, the combat was pretty spongey and slow and for most of the fights there wasn't a ton of strategy for me to get into. The minigames were also a little rough, though not the worst thing ever.

Music: 4 - The music was neat! I believe KV did these remixes of Theme6, and I think the recursion is really cool! It's also just well done in general. I will nitpick and say some of the chord progressions felt unsatisfying and weak, but this is still much better and more effort than most people put into their entries.

Story: 1 - Unfortunately, the story has a lot of issues. I originally planned on giving a 2: not great, but harmless. On further thought though, I feel that the pacing is really off. Going back and forth between Harold and his friends felt arbitrary and like it wasn't leading towards much, and the narration really hurt the vibes (being told "meanwhile" every time the camera cuts away grinds all momentum to a halt every time)

Graphics: 2 - Now, the art here is actually good! Specifically the bust art, I think it looks good. However, the assets all clash a ton. There are like 5 different art styles here and none of them match each other. The worst instance was definitely the UI covering up the enemy HP bar during the Behemoth fight too.

Comedy: 3 - Admittedly, I didn't love the comedy here, but while playing we did get a chuckle here and there out of the dialogue in spite of it. Harold irritated me a lot as a character, but regardless he occasionally landed a hit.

So yeah, unfortunately it's not my favourite entry. I think this jam largely has the problem of just being a lot of adequately executed elements that don't match together. No single part of this game is *terrible*, but all of it combined leads to a mixture that isn't quite right.

To my knowledge the only change was that it increased the spawn rate of animal tokens, so I think it's okay if you played that version. I just don't wanna make a precedent of people updating their games a ton and fixing major flaws left and right (makes it hard to keep track of stuff and not fair to voters).

YO! Rating time!

Overall: 3 - This was really neat! The highlight of course is the cool 3D environment, but the dungeon crawling was enjoyable enough as well!

Graphics: 4 - I've played RM games that use this sort of dungeon crawler aesthetic before, but I think the way you made everything first person, down to the combat and even the menu, really brings it a notch above other games using this same approach! I also think the singular slime enemy, while annoying to fight, looks really cool and is well animated.

Story: 2 - There wasn't a ton here, the game did have a story but without really understanding Harold's whole deal, it sorta felt like stuff just happened. It wasn't horrible and I was surprised by the character deaths, but there wasn't a ton to get into here.

Gameplay: 3 - This was a fun little romp! It's just basic dungeon crawling fair, but the row system was nice to mess with and the combat looked really cool. My main criticism is that the main enemy slime guy is really annoying to fight, he seemingly splits in two when killed, and since that's the only enemy in the game it gets old faaaast.

Music: 3 - Not a ton to say here, the music worked for its purposes and it wasn't anything I instantly recognized, so it all works!

Comedy: 2 - Everyone watching me play this laughed at the deaths, especially the second one that occurred with the boulder, but that alone wasn't enough for me to put a high rating in comedy especially when I don't think that was meant to be funny.

Now, my one fatal issue with this though is that it didn't employ the required elements (the Archeologist, wildlife preserve, and dialogue line). I'm not sure how to go about this particular issue, but this is an otherwise nice jam game so for now I'm gonna leave it up, but if the other moderators disagree this entry could be disqualified. Sorry about that!

Hello hello! It's rating time!

Overall: 3 - This was a cute little game! It's a bit difficult for me to say I loved this because I fall squarely outside its demographic (I haven't touched a gacha game since KHUx back in 2017), but I enjoyed what I could out of it! The highlight was definitely the scenes in-between the gameplay segments, but the actual gacha part had a reasonable amount of depth for what it all was. It was a little weird seeing so many of these RTP characters given different names from what the engine originally titles them, but that's barely even a nitpick.

Gameplay: 2 - I ended up going with a 2, but it's not THAT bad. My main criticism would be that the format isn't really well suited towards a casual jam like this. This game is super grindy, which is obviously by intention, but it leads the majority of the core loop just being about running back and forth smacking monsters. Even the act of pulling was unfortunately tedious, but I did enjoy the levels of depth that the game provided in party composition and accessories, even if I think it was far too much complexity for me to sink my teeth into in an hour.

Story: 3 - The writing between the protagonist and her girlfriend is definitely the highlight here. The dialogue is... a bit horny, but it didn't come off as distasteful to me and it did a good job characterizing the cast, even if the "deadbeat gacha addict and her responsible office-working girlfriend" is a bit of a played trope. I liked the characters and was genuinely excited at the ending in spite of myself.

Graphics: 3 - It's just RTP, but there's good attention to detail in the UI and animations, especially given the vast quantity of junk in here. I imagine even just assigning prefab animations to all of these skills was probably tedious, but there's also a decent chunk of semi-custom stuff too that I appreciate.

Music: 2 - The music isn't egregious, but there are only a handful of tracks and I didn't find any of them especially enjoyable. The music choices seem mostly to just be filler, which is acceptable but not worth a 3.

Comedy: 3 - There weren't any laugh-out-loud moments, but the comedic tone and goofy writing warrants a passing grade in the comedy department

I appreciate you participating in the jam! Hopefully these scores don't come off as too harsh - I know you're new, so you might not know how the voting criteria works, but 4s are reserved for exceptional works and I only give out one 5 per category, so your 3s almost across the board is a perfectly good rating! I enjoyed this, even if the basic loop wasn't for me!

Hoo. This is gonna b a tough one, but here's my rankings.

Overall: 3 - This is a really solid entry! I really appreciate all the effort that went into it, and I think it does well on all fronts. With that said, it has a pretty fatal flaw, which, well, we'll get to that.

Music: 3 - Hard to complain here. Hand picked music choices, the Slimes one was a special treat but everything here worked. It is all aggressively Lumi music which isn't necessarily to my tastes but I appreciate that it fits your style so well. Also shout out to the funny noises Harold and Marsha make when they step on spikes.

Graphics: 3 - It's really competent pixel art! I thought the portraits were weird and inconsistent at first but that ends up being a deliberate choice I can appreciate. This comes pretty close to a 4, but there's a high quantity of games with great art here that unfortunately edges out this title.

Story: 3 - Good writing all around, it's got that edgy vibe to it that I'd expect from this version of the characters, and the plot revelations up to the point I made it to were pretty neat!

Comedy: 3 - I wasn't really laughing at much of this, but it's got an overall comedic tone to it that I think makes it overall good in this category.

Gameplay: 1 - Okay, here's where I have things to actually say. This is a frustrating case because this gameplay comes really close to being a full on 4. You'd think with that, I should meet in the middle and give it a 3 or a 2, but my main criteria for a 1 is that it overall hurt the experience, and unfortunately that is the case here. This game is difficult. Like, reminiscent of Celeste levels of frustrating. Now, I think there's plenty of appeal there and I think a lot of this is well executed, but in this particular environment, making such a brutal game mostly just feels sadistic.

Let's start with the good though! I like the mechanics. Two characters is neat, and you do a great job making them both feel like they're useful in their own ways. I'm not the biggest fan of Harold's jump mechanic, it's really difficult to execute and usually just feels kinda forced on me unlike Marsha's float which is basically universally useful even if the level design isn't explicitly made for it. I almost wish Harold just had some sort of double jump from the get-go to give him an even playing field with Marsha. Luckily, Marsha struggles a bit more in combat, enemies don't seem to get knocked back much by her fireballs, so Harold is usually my go to choice for fighting enemies with his wide hitbox and bigger hitstun, so I think that dichotomy is actually useful to keep me from just staying on Marsha permanently.

The bosses are also neat! The worm took a substantial amount of effort for me to beat, but the second boss felt really fair and was actually outright fun. I think if the rest of the game felt like that fight, I'd probably have enjoyed it much more.

That said, there's a decent bit of "jank" for lack of better phrasing here too. Whenever Harold needed to do his crystal thing I'd basically just mash the jump button while swinging because trying to time it was much too hard, but I think the main source of a lot of frustration is spikes with unforgiving hitboxes. It's especially easy to just casually step into a spike because you held the right button for 2 frames longer than the game wanted you to, and the levels love to throw random spikes on the floor for seemingly no game design purpose beyond taxing you if you fail a tricky jump.  Even the worm felt arbitrary for me to win, it hones in on you at weird angles and sometimes this leads to it just absolutely sniping you from the other side of the screen. The only reason I even managed to beat it in the end is because its pathfinding got hung up trying to reach a rift and I was able to get a bunch of cheap shots on it.

A precision platformer like this can be fun, and I maybe even would have had more fun if it was in a different environment, but in a game jam like this I expect to be able to make it through an entry without a ton of difficulty. I've got a lot of games to play (not as many as previous years, granted) and, more importantly, I want to see everything this game has to offer, but even with the generous time limit I felt the game kept knocking me to the ground and denying me access to everything it had. Reaching the third act right when my timer hit the hour mark felt especially cruel, like I was being taunted with this super visually striking segment and an interesting story beat but unfortunately the game doesn't want me to see it (or at least, that's in essence what it feels like). It's hard to make a difficult game while respecting the player's time, and it's part of why I tend to preach that it's better to be too easy than too hard. There might be some cool stuff beyond the point that I had to quit, but unfortunately I won't be able to see it until after I rate this entry.

I believe Itch doesn't allow you to update an entry during the voting period, but I think it'd be fine if you were to upload it as a separate project. Unfortunately in the name of fairness, I have to ask that the fixed version not be used for voting, since being able to update mid-jam would lead to all sorts of issues, but I'd love to give the fixed version another run to give you more of my thoughts.

Heyo! Just doing the runs, this isn't your first rodeo! Here's my ratings!

Overall: 3 - This was close to a 4! The game is oozing in presentation! The art is phenomenal, the UI is great, the writing is good, and everything holds together super duper nicely! However, unfortunately I have to give it a 3 just because it feels like the presentation is the only area where the game excels.

Graphics: 4 - MAN I'm jealous you got THE Archeia workin' on this! The art here is phenomenal! Star of the show is easily this... extremely attractive Harold. But taking my eyes off that for... as long as I can muster, the rest of the art is great too! I really loved how everything held together, it all looks super duper professional, and the way that even the equipment overlays on Harold like that to create unique gear sets looks super duper good. The game just looks fantastic, could be my 5!

Story: 3 - It's got great writing and the premise works. Of course, this isn't a very character driven narrative, and Harold is a silent protagonist, so there's only so much to work with here. My chief criticism of the story is that after so many runs, the repeats of the same scenarios lose their charm really fast.

Music: 2 - Unfortunately, music appears to be the dump stat for this game. There are only 2 tracks to my memory, and while they work well enough, the main "gameplay" theme when you aren't fighting the final boss does get pretty old after a while.

Comedy: 2 - For the most part this game takes itself extremely seriously. You could argue that Harold being so hot is a punchline in itself... but I'm taking that completely seriously. I also laughed at the Indiana Jones jumpscare, I was completely unable to read his dialogue without hearing it in Harrison Ford's inflection (good work on the writing there too, you nailed it), and while there is nothing funny about such an adorable creature perishing, we simply must acknowledge the irony that Buffet Knight was a victim of the devourer (although lowkey it would have been so funny if Buffet Knight himself was the devourer)

Gameplay: 2 - This is the tough one. We have had a lot of entries this jam that come close to having good gameplay but fall to a critical flaw, and this is one of them. The basic concept works well enough with the dice rolls controlling everything, and naturally the entire premise of the game revolves around leaving things up to chance. I really appreciate the amount of calculated risks that can be taken too, and the sunk cost fallacy gets me constantly with the MP system. Ultimately, though, after 5 or 6 runs and 35 minutes playing through, it started to feel like I was completely stonewalled, running into the same scenarios over and over again but never getting anywhere in the final fight regardless of how often I won. The closets I got was utilizing the Axe to give myself something around 6 extra shields before the fight, but the final boss's damage is so high that I simply could not dent him even after surviving the first hit. After giving it a few more runs, it ultimately felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, so I had to call it quits.

Ultimately, still a fantastic entry, and I may be revisiting my scores as we draw closer to the end to increase the variance between entries (as we have a kinda small number this year). I had fun with this, and the presentation is insane for a jam of this scale.

You watched me play this live, but here are  my ratings!
Overall: 4 - Maybe a 5! I really really liked this! The graphics are phenomenal and the music was extremely catchy! The weaker elements are the story, gameplay, and comedy, but there's nothing in it that's *bad* other than the unfortunate softlock.

Graphics: 4 - It's the same art style as MILK Quest but the whole vibe works really well here! I love the urban vibes, the flourishes on the overworld, the animations, there's just a ton of great detail here. Easily a highlight entry!

Music: 4 - MAN talk about catchy! I imagine this is all royalty free music, but the hip hop soundtrack with the pianos and funky rhythms had me bobbing along the whole time. Super duper good shit!

Story: 3 - The writing is good, the characters are likeable, and I liked the themes about religion and belief and all that! It wasn't incredibly poignant or anything and I wasn't able to see the end unfortunately, but good work here.

Comedy: 3 - I got a couple laughs, everyone had a chance to shine and Lucius was especially funny. I appreciate the kind of humour that's spread all over not just in dialogue but descriptions and enemies too.

Gameplay: 3 - Cool concepts, but it's bogged down a decent bit by balance issues, especially with CTB causing speed to completely overtake any balance. Stunlocking enemies with Therese and Lucius is fun though.

Heyo! You watched this live, but I'll be typing up my ratings here for preservation and all that!

Overall: 2 - The concept was cool, having a little randomized dungeon, but the execution with animal tokens being so rare made the gameplay lose its luster really fast, and the other elements did not compensate.

Music: 3 -I just found the overworld theme to be a real jam. It's a normal RTP song, but I like it quite a bit.

Story: 2 - There's effectively no dialogue after the initial cutscene

Comedy: 2 -There may have been a joke here and there, but not a ton

Graphics: 2 - It utilizes RTP which isn't a bad thing, but it doesn't use the assets in a super thoughtful or creative way.

Gameplay: 2 - This one is close to being fun, I was enjoying the first couple minutes, but the shallow combat and endless scroll looking for animals made me lose interest swiftly. After about 35 minutes with only 22 tokens I decided to call it quits.

Bwahaha, I think this title reached its target audience! I've got plenty of response for the contents of this title, but I'm gonna save those for the end. First, let's get to my ratings!

Overall: 4 - No you didn't read that wrong, I loved this. I did not agree with the message, but this is a piece of art on its own that goes to great lengths to show its own appreciation for art. It's sooooo spiteful, and what was birthed of that spite is honestly a very strong entry. I don't know if other participants will think so highly of this game, but I am really pleased to see what you managed to put out with your own hands. Those hilarious end credits are a testament, despite their sarcasm: you did all of this yourself (except the stock images). If this is what you're capable of in a month with a time limit and what I perceive to be apprehension towards making your own assets, imagine what you're capable of when those sorts of restraints are taken off!

Gameplay: 3 - You have something really close to being good here! I actually almost gave this a 3, then went back to 2, then back to 3, but landed on 2 in the end just because of some design choices I personally feel hurt the experience. On the positive side, I think the point and click adventure stuff works really well! Man, if I had a nickel for every entry in this jam that involves using a time machine to travel through eras of anthropology and go back and forth bringing the right key items to the right place...

Anyway, the reason it's a 2 is because the combat, while seemingly deliberately bad, is bad hahaha. It's usually actually not horrible, I didn't hate the random encounters and actually think they're a good idea to add more spice to the point and click formula, but the grid based "click the square that does the most damage" system is extremely arbitrary. I died to every boss the first time, found their Perfect square, and then handily defeated them on the subsequent fight (except the final boss who I beat first try, thank god). This really hurt my playtime a lot too, while my in-game time was around 45 minutes at the end, my actual stopwatch I use for the jam had me at 57 minutes, almost exactly an hour! Thank goodness I upped that playtime cap, I feel like it's important I played this to the end.

I will say that at the very least, while the rest of the combat is, again, *quite bad*, the final boss was such a great payoff for all of it that writing this now, I think I'm going to bump that Gameplay to a 3. I really genuinely liked that part a ton, and it's gonna be a top moment for this jam.

Music: 2 - There are, like, 3 songs in the whole game. It was deliberately light on music, but nothing was so bad that it ruined my experience. A final boss theme would have been nice, but I presume that would conflict with your thematic intentions.

Story: 3 - This is tough. I mentioned earlier, I do disagree with a lot of the message of this entry. However, as a work that is an expression of an author's feelings, and as a linear narrative, I think it's perfectly effective. The antagonists are built up in a natural manner, they have seemingly clear motivations (although I imagine if you took those hoods off they would be comprised entirely of straw), and even the ending, in its deliberate shock value, is meant to send a message. I will say that the dialogue is aggressively preachy, but it is at least constructed in the form of a natural meaningful debate between the protagonists and antagonists. It's not a message I agree with, but the story works and I'm not going to dock points based on my own biases.

Comedy: 4 - This could easily be a 5, we'll need to see how the rest of the jam goes. I was laughing constantly, there were the giant blue checkmarks every time you utilized a required element, that shock ending, some of the quips about the enemies (I think the mummy description was my fav), even the credits! This was actually a super funny game, and the comedy is where it thrives.

Graphics: 4 - This is the part where I get to be spiteful! While no individual drawing in this game is especially brilliant, it's extremely coherent. The art is charmingly amateur, but even in its "lower quality" it depicts its subjects strongly. What really brings this entry's art over the edge from a 3 to a 4 is the way it utilizes famous works of art as backdrops. As I explored this area, I was reminded of all these brilliant works from the past, and the storytelling through this graphical choice was clear, that "AI art is just like all of this art that came before". You really used this hand drawn artwork to tell the story without dialogue, and it's a really strong and interesting choice. This is excellent!

Now then, let's address the elephant in the room. You're clearly disgruntled about the AI rule. I won't sit here and pick apart every argument in favour of AI that this game used. I'd even bet any argument I could use is one you have already seen and disagree with, so it'd just be a waste of our time.

However, firstly to clear the air, you were not directly responsible for this AI ruling. It was originally our intention to disqualify AI during the 2024 jam as well. However, I'd failed to add that to the rules, and ultimately we decided it would be unfair to change the rules during the dev period, so the mods all agreed that last year would be the final year we allow AI art. 

With that said, I really appreciate the way you voiced your thoughts about this here. There was no angry DMs, no blowups, instead you participated in the game jam, followed every rule even though you disagreed pretty strongly with one of them, and ultimately used that as a platform to voice your opinion on the matter. I think the last line was maybe a bit too angry compared to the overall composed approach to this game, but in the grand scheme of things I think this was a great way to send a message. 

But, I also think this jam entry defeats itself in a way. Through this unsubtle platform to voice your thoughts on AI and its detractors, the amount of sheer effort you put into this really shines through. I don't know what it is that drives you, maybe it's just spite, or perhaps there's a lot of passion in there, but what I see here is art in its purest form, and it's proof, at least to me, that you don't need some "equalizer" to make something great. I think one could easily argue that something like this could be even better if it were able to have beautiful generated artwork alongside the writing and gameplay, but I'm unsure if that's true. If you had the ability to generate all the artwork, how would you have depicted all of these famous works of art? Would you have simply used their original images? Prompted a new interpretation of them? Regardless of how you would have done it, to me it feels so much more personal and deliberate that you drew each of these works yourself.

This isn't an apology, I stand by our choice to prohibit generative AI, for reasons you touched on in this entry and for reasons you haven't, but even if I don't agree with the things you said in this game, I think this was paradoxically an excellent entry, maybe for entirely the wrong reasons. Great work, and I really hope to see you again next year!

Heyo! I'm running through each entry as we prepare for the voting period! This one is very interesting, so I'll leave my thoughts for you here!

Overall: 3 - There's a lot to unpack here, but the highlight of this entry is definitely the comically esoteric way that everyone talks. The prose is so over the top that it's amusing, but ultimately that seems to be the point, since the actual mysteries to solve here have nothing to do with the content of the text but rather the secrets hidden within. I think the way that gameplay is executed works well enough, although I have some complaints on the execution at times.

Gameplay: 3 - The core loop of this title is exploring masses of text and uncovering their secrets. I think for what it is doing, this is done mostly well enough, with relatively clear hints in each body of text that is fun to seek out but not too obscure as to be frustrating. The most difficult one for me to figure out was the gravestone near the end, which the water-bound creature alluded to but did do in a hard to understand manner at first. The game does largely consist of just walking around and reading, but I think it does this premise well enough.

Story: 3 - I almost gave this a four, I thought the writing was really amusing and well executed in the sort of fancy-pants scholar tone everyone talks in. However, this dialogue becomes really fluffy fast, and occasionally it trips over itself with an occasional grammatical error that makes the whole thing feel inauthentic. However, when breaking down the actual crux of the story, the plot, it is mostly weak in execution due to the majority of the plot being delivered in these long bodies of text that feel unrelated to the story until the reveal at the end, where it all comes together in a mostly predictable manner. It's not terrible, but it felt a little shallow.

Music: 3 - There's not a ton to write home about on this one. The music worked well enough, and I think I'd have to give a bit of extra points for going through the trouble of reading out all this text (although the rough mic quality prevents me from boosting that score to a 4). It was cool to see KV credited under the music as well, I had no idea he did music!

Graphics: 2 - This largely uses bog-standard RTP, and the mapping is mostly just executing on the bare minimum. Nothing about it is especially bad but it all comes together as the weakest link in this entry, with seemingly little effort put into that aspect.

Comedy: 3 - A 3 might seem like a weird choice given that the title has no overt jokes, but the way the writing is so flowery and pretentious made me laugh on multiple occasions as I made it through the entry. The whole time I kept chuckling to myself like "Yeah this is exactly how scholars write their nonsense papers" hahaha. That prose was definitely the highlight of this entry.

Overall Playtime: Roughly 20 Minutes

Good work on this! It was an enjoyable experience and a solid entry!

Heya! I'm going through all of the entries so far and giving my preliminary ratings!

I really liked this entry! It has a lot of rough edges though, so it's a bit of a mixed bag, but I'll give some proper feedback with my personal scores for it!

Overall: 3 - Overall, I really like this! It didn't do anything groundbreaking for me, and there are a lot of frustrating bits (the maps are enormous, and the time travel animation takes an unnecessarily long time), but I thought the basic gameplay loop of exploring, finding key items, and using them to unlock other key items was enjoyable! I think the maps looked really cool and unique, with a lot of cool details, and the music choices, while clearly stock, were all effective! Great work!

Gameplay: 2 - Unfortunately, while I found the core loop to be interesting, a lot of the mechanics and execution made the basic gameplay less enjoyable. While there is a note-taking feature, there's only one instance where taking a note is really required (the password) and unfortunately with no other way to check what that password is, players who don't write that down could be stuck. The big maps are interesting to look at, but at times the massive trees block my view and make it hard to tell where I'm going, and the very slow time travel animation makes going between time periods unpleasant. That said, I think the basic premise is fun and it wasn't a thoroughly unpleasant experience! Figuring out what items the NPCs want and how to get them was pretty cool! This actually reminded me a lot of Chrono Trigger, although I went in expected more of a Carmen Sandiego experience.

Story: 2 - There was a pretty barebones story here, and it was cute, but ultimately the writing was barely passable. A lot of the dialogue was repeated between NPCs, especially in the first chapter but present throughout, and the story ultimately just comes down to "Harold went to a bunch of places and then we found him". It wasn't the worst thing ever or anything, but it didn't do anything that I found especially interesting.

Graphics: 3 - The graphics are all premade, but a lot of effort went into the presentation with the custom menu screen, bust graphics for dialogue, and mapping. The way the trees cover the foreground was really cool, and I love how each time period feels unique while still having the same basic layout in the geography. I found 3025 to be especially interesting with the holographic trees and hexagonal synthetic grass.

Music: 3 - The music is also premade, but its choices are all well executed and interesting! I found the 3025 theme especially fun to listen to, but the time machine theme was also a great choice. The music never got grating and always felt like an appropriate fit.

Comedy: 2 - While there was some humour here, the only joke that I especially enjoyed was the basic premise of an outhouse being used as a Tardis. While that's funny, it didn't hold up the entry on its own! Still, the rest of the game was enjoyable even without much humour, so that's fine!

Final playtime: About 20 minutes

This was a pretty solid entry! I do feel it could have been made more brief, but it fell well within the time limit and ultimately provided a unique experience! I'll be surprised if any other jam entry feels like this. Good work!

Hello everyone!

As we approach the hour of voting, I just wanted to briefly recap my recommended voting template to help keep votes consistent! Of course, I can't control how you vote and this template is entirely optional, but this template can help to reduce inconsistency between games that are voted on by different people. The more games you vote on, the less of an issue this can be, but not everyone has the time to play every game in the jam! So, here's how we recommend you spend your votes!

5 - This game is the best entry in the jam for this category. Personally, I only vote for a single 5 in each category.

4 - This game is exceptionally good in this category. Save this for games that really blow you away!

3 - On a binary of "good" and "bad", this game is good in this category. A strong default, but this veers on the positive side!

2 - On a binary of "good" and "bad", this game is bad in this category, or does not execute on this category. Use this for games that are poor in a given area, or if they fail to deliver in that category at all (e.g. an arcade-like game with no story would be a 2 in story)

1 - This game was so bad in this category that it actively harmed the experience. Save this for the most egregious cases, like gameplay so bad it makes you want to stop playing, or screeching music that makes you take off your headphones!

Once again, these criteria are optional and we can't control them! We hope that however you vote, you do so consistently, and rate as many entries as possible! Thank you!

Heya!

It's a big honour that your very first game is in our jam! I appreciate it a lot!

I'm just running through some of the early submissions to help get them out of the way, since I try to play every entry in the jam. I also like to give feedback on the projects and let people know how I'll be scoring them! It's your first game so my score is a little more generous with that context, but I've got some constructive criticism for you as well.

Overall: 3 - Just to clarify, in my rating system, a 3 just means "good"! This didn't blow me out of the water but it wasn't extremely flawed either, it more or less executes its intention. I do have to dock some points due to the lack of audio, as well as the frequent grammar errors. Navigating was also difficult at times, such as in the Archeological Site where I think my only way back was by pressing the back button a bunch of times (though I could be mistaken). That said, I really enjoyed the artwork, as well as the themes of conservation and environmentalism! I also thought the concept of Harold this time being a  Lynx cat in a preserve was a creative twist! I rarely see Harold depicted this way. Keep up the good work!

Gameplay: 2 - Normally for a visual novel like this, I give a 2 for the "lack" of gameplay. A 2 usually means that this element is "bad", or it simply doesn't exist. In this case however, there are small bits of gameplay: examining the scratch marks, and explaining what happened to Harold at the end. Unfortunately, I still have to give a 2 in this category because the execution of the gameplay was a bit weak. The scratch marks were pretty ambiguous and I felt they really looked like they could belong to any of the three species listed. I imagine this sort of ambiguity exists in real life as well, but in a game like this I think making it a little more clear might be a good play. Navigation was also a bit slow, and there was the aforementioned error of me having to use the Back button to go back. That said, I appreciated having a mystery to solve! I actually got a bad ending the first time, as I had gotten the burned forest area confused with Zone 3, but I enjoyed seeing multiple endings too!

Story: 2 - This is cute! I liked the tension of Harold's fate being up in the air, it made this issue feel urgent. The themes about climate change weren't too hamfisted and felt appropriate for this setting. It's hard to make a game that takes place in a wildelife preserve that doesn't touch on climate change as a subject, but you handled it in a way that wasn't annoying or on the nose. Unfortunately, I do have to dock some points for the frequent grammar errors. I'm assuming English might not be your first language, which is totally fine and I respect it a ton that you were brave enough to make this game in English anyway! Nonetheless, there were a decent number of instances where words weren't capitalized or spelled correctly that makes me remove some points. That said, Harold himself is also pretty cute, and I'm glad he's okay!

Graphics: 3 - I have less to say in this category than others. The art is nice! I do think it is "sub-professional" in terms of quality, but for a casual game jam and especially your first project, I think you executed on the art really well! 

Music: 2 - There's no audio at all! Luckily, at least it isn't bad audio, so you get a 2 hahaha

Comedy: 2 - In this case, the game plays itself straight, so a 2 just means there weren't many jokes. That's totally acceptable and there's nothing wrong with that! I did get a bit of a chuckle seeing Harold depicted as this realistic Lynx cat, but I wouldn't really call that a joke in and of itself.

My final playtime was roughly 10 minutes! This was a lovely entry and I think you did great! Keep up the good work, and I hope you return next year!

Hey there!

We're considering extending the playtime limit from 45 minutes to 60 minutes. This shouldn't affect most entries, but will help longer entries get in a little more time to fulfill their vision.

If you don't want the time limit to be extended, please let me know your reason why!

Thanks a bunch!

Make a game with Lucius and we can have the best of both!

Yup, Therese is from MILK Quest! Lucius is from Paragon, from the 2023 Harold Jam.

Thank you for playing!

I'm glad you liked it! 

I tried pretty hard to make each of them at least followable if you haven't played their original games just because there are like 6 of these guys, but I can totally see the sequel issue since that's literally what they are.

Super happy that my music is finding people that like my work!

Super cool, I had no idea you were working on this!
This is quite fun, it's got a pretty addictive loop. Always great to hear some new Hazel music too!

Thank you so much for playing!
This was kinda a redemption comeback for me hahaha, I felt so bad after realizing a couple streamers weren't allowed to play last time due to the game being unannounced!

I haven't watched the stream yet, but if the bug you're reporting is what I think it is, that would actually be a weird quirk of the fact that the game accepts mouse inputs as well as controller and keyboard (if your mouse happens to be hovering over a party member, the targeting constantly snaps back to that character, preventing you from targeting anyone else!)
I did add a feature to disable mouse inputs in the settings, but I think I'll probably need to take more drastic steps to prevent this since it is a relatively common issue people experience. Thanks a bunch for the feedback!

This was a pretty pleasant puzzle game! I think the art is charming and the UI fits very well, and vibes in total work for the cozy Autumn feel you're going for. It's got some pretty tricky puzzles, but the star system helps balance difficulty by allowing players to get more or less ambitious, which helps with how open the system is. It almost feels like a puzzle game by way of tactical RPG, where controlling your character's movement is the big factor to winning.

It didn't run great in my browser, with some occasional lag spikes and choppy audio, but my computer isn't great so this doesn't mean it's gonna chug on all devices. 

More importantly, this is a really difficult problem to address, but from a marketing perspective I think this game's appearance and title could be misleading enough to detract players who may otherwise enjoy it, or vice versa. The title "Forest Farming" combined with an isometric grid view immediately evokes imagery of a farming sim a-la Farmville or Harvest Moon, which the game most certainly is not. I could envision advent puzzle game fans passing this one by simply out of the game looking like a genre it isn't, which would be a shame since I'm certain fans of these types of puzzle games would really enjoy this!

Unfortunately, it's hard to come to a solid "fix" to that problem short of changing the name or aesthetics, but I definitely think it's something worth keeping in mind since "perceived genre" is a huge part of game marketing. Of course, if that isn't important to you I fully respect that, in which case I think the actual content of the game works fine!

In terms of puzzles, I think one aspect I would like to see is a way to tell easily which house belongs to which hedgehog, and how many steps "non-player" entities such as humans have, to make it easier to strategize without resetting. It'd be a minor quality of life improvement, but one that I think would help make the puzzles more "fair".

Overall though, this is very good at capturing the cozy and cute vibes it's trying to! The accessible nature of the star rankings helps improve the game's overall reach without dumbing down the difficulty, and it's pretty solid all around! Very nice work here!

OHOHOHO this game is very fun! But it's also TOUGH AUGH!

While the concept of a "record a set of motions and then replay them while you record a new set of motions" puzzle game is not entirely unique, this is the first time I've played one in which your previous recordings are an active hazard, in both a way that makes thematic sense and adds a ton to the gameplay. I found this super enjoyable, and quite challenging (I was only able to clear two levels after the tutorial before my head started to hurt hahaha)

I think the character graphics look very good, but one of my absolute biggest criticisms would be that the distinction between your "current" self and past selves is not super clear. My brain kept assuming that when I'm going back in time I'm returning to the start, when in reality you actually stay in place where you are, so even with the red indicator below your current self letting you know which you is you, I would frequently get tripped up unsure why my motions weren't registering properly. I think my personal recommendation would be to make the past selves more distinct, perhaps with reduced opacity or saturation, something to make it very clear that these guys are not the character you're controlling.

My other main critique would be the UI, which I assume is largely placeholders right now but nevertheless is deserving of criticism. The arial font text, grey blob buttons, and general underwhelming natural of the whole UX does detract a little from this game. It feels to me that when this game is in a more complete state, it would benefit a lot from a real stylish UI to sell the tone and add a premium feel, especially when the character sprites are, once again, very good. This game would also definitely be improved with some music (although there is a chance my computer simply failed to load any music, Itch games on browser take forever to load audio).

All in all this is a very creative puzzle game and one that I think has a ton of potential, especially with a mobile market which I have to assume you intend on catering to thanks to the low price and use of touch controls. If this were on Google Play right now I'd certainly shell out $2-3 for it in a heartbeat! I do think it could also justify a bigger price tag with a more substantial content loop: not just more levels, but more story and biomes to help it feel like more of a "full game", which could definitely justify a more premium price tag. Nevertheless, the game definitely seems to know what it is right now, and it does it very well! Super strong puzzle game you've got here.

Heya! Thanks a bunch for playing!

I'm really glad you liked the story. One of my biggest concerns with this demo is that it takes too long before the "real" game starts, so this feedback is really helpful to know what the game's hooks are! The full game is very story driven and I feel that's one of its bigger selling points, so this is great to hear.

The battle system is mostly unique to this game! It does take a lot of inspiration from many other games, and the core "skeleton" of the turn based combat is just standard JRPG fare, but the unique mechanics such as equipping cards and the EP-balancing special attacks are a wholly unique feature!

It's great that the game over screen in the tutorial made it easy to jump back into things (I forgot that it's even possible to get a game over there!) but I don't think it's ideal that there was confusion about which character you're playing as hahaha. I assume since you were accidentally attacking yourself, you must have been using the mouse to play (since keyboards and controllers default to targeting the enemy), so I should look into seeing if I can make it more clear which character you're controlling in that scenario.

Save files do persist in browsers, so feel free to continue playing if it strikes your fancy! You've only scratched the surface of what the demo has to offer!

I am aware of the music issue, which occurs due to very long load times for audio on HTML. Different computers seem to load the music faster or shorter, but it's really unfortunate you couldn't hear the music at all! This is a problem I'd love to fix (although I'm at a loss for how I might go about that), although the full game is a bit too big to host on Itch's browser, so while I don't want to treat this build as an afterthought, I would consider it somewhat lower priority to other issues for the time being.

Once again, thanks a bunch for playing, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any additional feedback if you end up playing more!

Thanks a bunch for playing!
I'm not necessarily ashamed of the engine I use, but we all know the stigma that's carried with it, so it was pretty important to me that I created a game that doesn't visually evoke that stigma. I'm really glad it paid off!

It's really great to hear you played longer than you expected, for a jam like this I sorta consider that to be the highest honour possible so it means a lot to me! As for the aspect of getting lost, I think I could definitely add some green arrows to the cafeteria for sure. I don't think it's a huge deal if the player has to explore that area a little since there's really only one way out, but I know the intro is a little lengthy so any way I can reduce friction is very important.

On the subject of the intro, did you feel it was too long? I know there's a lot of ground to cover in the beginning, but it's like 4 scenes back to back so one of my biggest concerns is that players might get worn out from it all before the "real" game starts.

This was very nice to read, it really helps knowing the game is moving in the right direction! Thank you again for playing, and I appreciate the feedback!

I never knew that about Jigen! It was something that didn't even cross my mind, but it makes me happy that so many people saw this interpretation before it was solidified in canon.

The queer experience is something I don't spend much of my own time thinking about, so these sorts of things often go under my radar and I think it was very important that I read this so I could get a better understanding of that blind spot for me! This was very cool, and I think it goes far beyond our relationship with sexuality and gender identity in fiction but towards the broader relationship we have with fiction as a whole (not to discount the importance of the queer lens that this is presented through, of course).

Thanks for giving me a new perspective of things I hadn't considered! Before this was a matter I simply didn't care about at all, but now I think it's a very important part of how we engage with art!

Oh man, I totally forgot to do that, my bad!

I've gone ahead and set that up now, enjoy!

Hello hello!

I've compiled my notes during my playthrough which you can read here!

SO! This. Is. AWESOME! I love it!

I love the robot, I love the oppressive atmosphere, I love the collectable audio logs with actual audio, I love the combat, it’s all really really cool!

This game is occasionally a bit slow, but it has that survival horror energy that I think allows some leeway for pacing, and it works really well! This is super lovingly crafted and I cannot wait to see more. Instant wishlist, instant follow, instant Discord-join! I will be watching this title with great enthusiasm!

I found very few bugs (mentioned above), although I feel I only scratched the surface of what this game has to offer. I may return later to finish the demo, although I feel a little disheartened after losing so much progress because the save point was so far away.

I was so enthused with this title that I rushed over to the demo page in hopes of giving it a positive review. Unfortunately it looks like the demo doesn’t have its own page, but please let me know if that ever changes so I can give you a thumbs up ASAP!

I do think it is important to make clear that the gamepad issues with Steam Deck are really worth fixing. I almost didn’t play this title at all because I thought it wasn’t going to work with my current setup, and I am so glad I went through with it but I was split seconds away from giving up! It’s a very easy fix, so I highly recommend looking into changing your Gamepad settings!

Other than that, this is a glowing 5 from me! Definitely an awesome title, both for Feedback Quest and out of the games I’ve tested overall!

This was charming and short! I found it very difficult, but the strategy I ended up employing was just bringing a whole lot of cargo and one extra fuel tank so I could make the journey. Ended up pulling through with 26 cargo left!

I think without any fuel tanks at all, it's impossible to win. I tried making a beeline but it just wasn't happening. Shields are also hard to justify in exchange for more cargo, since the shields going down could leave your cargo vulnerable anyway. I'm also not sure if there is any way to maneuver around the turret fire; I thought maybe I could weave past missiles, but they seem to hone in on you which really means defence is the only strategy there.

I found the music pretty haunting in a good way, and the atmosphere was solid even with the primitive graphics. It was an overall cool look! Cute little title!

Heya! I've just played a solid 90 minutes or so of this, and compiled some notes as I played which you can see here!

SO! Overall, it’s really cozy. The vibes in this game are off the charts, it’s very reminiscent of trips I’ve gone on in the past, and quite nostalgic. The music is GREAT, super duper uber fantastic! If you ever put out a soundtrack release, please let me know! The art is also really good.

The story, though… it’s… well, okay, this is gonna sound mean, but the story is really boring. One of the very first lessons in writing I was ever taught is that a story must have conflict. While some of the scenes in this game have conflict, such as not being able to find a place to stay or falling asleep on the bus for too long, the overall plot is devoid of any real conflict and even the small issues Zinnia runs into are resolved within a few minutes. So far, very little has happened at all, and if the story is leading somewhere more substantial, I think that should be foreshadowed a bit better.

With that said, I think it’s possibly okay that it’s boring. It’s somewhat meditative and grounded, and it is a nice vibe especially with the music. I’m far outside the typical demographic for a game like this so it’s possible that for people who are into this sorta thing it’s perfect. At the very least, I didn’t get sick of it and turn it off after an hour or so of playing which is pretty great for what it is! Overall, this was very cute, and I had a good time enjoy the atmosphere.

This looks super fun, and I think it's certainly worth the $5 price tag, but it's a bit difficult for me to justify purchasing a game for a feedback game jam. I might return to this later since I think it looks genuinely fun, but at the moment I think I'll have to pass which is a bit of a shame.

This was super fun, what a great way to start the jam!

The gameplay concept is extremely cool! It's fast paced without being overwhelming, the movement feels very cool and intuitive, and learning to utilize the gravity physics was very engaging. It's got some neat powerups as well, although I think the POW block might be a little too strong, I got some cheap shots off of it a few times.

The UI is very slick for the most part, but I find the fonts and button shapes to be a bit uninspired for how good the rest of it looks. I also originally clicked the Online Multiplayer button only for it to softlock the browser build; a back button would be very nice to mitigate that.

The graphics are pretty good! The art seems pretty consistent, and while the zooming effects do lead to some jaggies, it's nothing that I feel looks terrible.

The music was also pretty strong, it has a lot of energy and it's nice that it's randomized on each round. This is definitely a neat little game, and I think the additional gameplay modes will add a lot of appreciated content for something that would otherwise be a pretty short and sweet deal. Maybe if I can get some friends in on this I'll provide some feedback on the online as well.