itch.io

Too late to rate now, but I can clearly see why this ranked so high. I was legitimately disappointed there weren't more levels (which frankly, is a rare feeling while playing a jam game). Extremely polished, and it reminds me of that old Lemmings game I loved as a kid. Well done!

I really like all the elements that come together here. The art style is great, and the faded/bright rooms are effective for indicating what I need to do.

I definitely couldn't parse what rooms bugs wanted to go to beyond "sunny/dark - up or down," but that wasn't a big deal. I do have two critiques about hunger:

One, I think clicking on the bug (or even the room) itself should also work for bringing up the food menu, not just clicking on the tiny hunger bubble. It seems like the game is trying to test your multitasking skills, not your precision click skills, but maybe you meant for both.

Two, there's no easy way to put this - I'm finding the sound effect you used for hunger to be deeply unnerving, and it's the main reason I stopped playing lol. I know it's just a funny sound effect and I may be the outlier, but I feel like it works against the charming vibe the game is otherwise cultivating. Some gentle music would also go a very long way.

Nonetheless, this definitely has potential, and works well! Great job!

Very satisfying physics and controls, which is really all it takes for "fun" to occur. Of course it'd be nice to wrap it up in a game framework but there's the beginnings of something good here. Well done!

What a lovely game! Haha I love the attitude of the people being like "hey yo the hare's talkin' smack, we gotta help our world tortoise out!" Okay that's not what they said...but I love the vibe, which the music was perfect for, and I really loved the first two minigames (especially the second one, with the cups).

Where you kind of lost me was the memory card one, and especially the baseball one. I don't love the memory one because all of the "gameplay" is happening in the span of a few seconds as you memorize some cards (though thankfully it's easy enough to memorize one row and steer sparingly). The baseball one did not explain itself, and it felt random which side the "ball" would go. I suppose in both cases my critique can be boiled down to "RNG."

I wouldn't mind either of these things if there were checkpoints.

But critiques aside, I'm still very impressed with this one. That's a lot of minigames to implement in such a short span! Awesomely done!

This was a game made with a lot of passion, and I'm really impressed you got all this done by yourself. Robust mechanics, great aesthetics, and an innovative idea!

I agree with some of the other critiques I'm seeing about jumping, but would further posit this question to you: Would a triple jump make the game less fun? I personally think it'd help with navigating the space without meaningfully breaking things. Though I also didn't realize you could even double-jump until I just tried it on a whim, so I think a specific tooltip for that, maybe floating in the air near the tree when you start, would go a long way (even if it is in the tutorial text). It can be easy to miss that kind of thing.

But hey, overall this is seriously awesome work, well done!!

Very creative, splitting your attention. I could tell the game wasn't intended for keyboard, but I wonder if controls-wise, it might work to just allow spacebar to work for both sides?
In terms of (unintended) bugs, it seemed if I missed a fly but still attacked that square, I'd get credit anyway.

But it's an innovative concept that I bet feels even nicer on a controller. Well done!

This is such an inspired design, honestly! The game concept works really nicely for repeated attempts, it's sufficiently challenging while also being straightforward enough to understand, and the assets and music are great!

My only critique is that the game seemed to stutter a fair amount (this is a pretty beefy rig, so I doubt it's a hardware issue, and I had graphics acceleration enabled but I suppose it could be another settings issue). There were periods where it was smooth, but I just wonder if there's some optimization that could be done with the 3D models maybe.

In any case, magnificent work, and great name too!

Very satisfying! Crunching on aphids, flying between leaves, moving a little faster while flying, the firefly glow...all very nicely done.

The only (unintentional) bug I encountered in the game was that the ladybug seems to vanish when entering fullscreen. Not sure why that would be.

But overall, great work!

I think the main thing I'd love to see would be a preview of where the object will be placed, but very impressive for your first game project! Nice work! :)

"We are not forest cultists, you piece of sh-"
The funniest line and I almost missed it.

Really cool to see the beginnings of a JRPG. I think the setup is quite intriguing, and it leaves me curious about the world and how it works. I also think protecting a wagon is a great way to kick things off! Gives an excuse for action while carving out a clear-cut goal.

There are some things I'd probably reconsider - the letter "J" in the font you used looks a lot like a 1, or even an I, so it took me  a bit to proceed from the main menu (I'd just make multiple keys work, or at least Enter).
Doors in the middle of an interior space look...a bit odd. And the collision seemed a bit hazy.

But beyond that, you had me wanting to see what happened next! Well done.

I seeeee, thanks so much for clarifying, that makes sense!

Love the music track you used, haha. The sprites look good, and the recoil was a great touch, nice work!

Excellent, very polished game! The sounds/music were perfect, the jumps are SUPER satisfying with the jostling of the cart and all that, and the general gameplay loop is fun!

I do think...that I must have missed something, or perhaps experienced a bug. It doesn't seem like distance traveled (or backflips) have any impact on the amount of gold I earn? Which means the only gold I'm earning is from pickups, which means the gold costs in the shop feel...far too high. I dunno, maybe I'm just really really bad, but currently it feels like there's a pacing issue and it doesn't sound like anyone else is experiencing it.

I'm curious what your thoughts are, but in any case, still a fantastic game with a ton of polish and hard work put into it!!

Very unique submission. The typing was extremely satisfying with the sound effects and the pure way in which the visuals are presented. It compelled me to type/listen through to the end, and I feel like there's a lot of potential this format could have...like the further you type within the time limit, the more stuff that happens in the scene you're about to hear. The story could even branch based on the typing.

I dunno, just some vague inspirations that hit while playing, but I really liked this submission! Great job!

Fair enough!

To be honest, we're currently undecided on whether or not we'll continue working on it after the jam. Last year, we submitted a game for this same jam that also got moderate praise ("Extinction Denied" if you're curious), and we thought "oh nice, people seem to like this, maybe we should make a mobile build and pursue it seriously." But after about a day of working on it, we kind of just stopped, lol.

I think it's a similar situation here. If we were to pursue it we'd likely pursue it primarily as a mobile game rather than a PC game, and that comes down to how patient we are and how much we feel it may pay off. It's one thing to make a game that's engaging for 10-20 minutes, but another to make one with more longevity and monetization and all that nonsense.

Nonetheless, very glad you enjoyed it! Good luck with this one! :)

Thanks so much for the kind words!!

I really liked the voiceover, and the way you casually slipped "tiny worlds" into there haha.

The mechanics are quite satisfying. The little screen shake and feel of blowing the asteroids up is great!
My only critique would be to include some meaningful progression between planets, like better blasters, maybe a temporary invincibility + speed boost, and perhaps have random asteroids careen around at great speeds the farther you get.

But in any case, very nicely done!

Okay, this presents itself as a goofy game about potty humor, but I recognize effort when I see it, and this is honestly one of my top picks for this jam. The pixel art, the cursor with its clean drag-drop, the mechanics, the music and sounds all come together so perfectly...to be frank, the only thing keeping me from absolutely loving everything about this game is my aversion to toilet humor, but that has nothing to do with how polished and well-crafted this is.

To be fair, I'm a sucker for idle games, and you really nailed it with the mechanics and upgrades. This has a ton of potential, fantastic job!!

We felt the same, and agreed that if we were to pursue this game beyond the span of the game jam we would likely switch to a points-buy system so that making it further means you can purchase more upgrades. For the purposes of the jam we went with something simpler and decided game speed settings could help soften the issue somewhat (I consider it a completely valid playstyle to just set the game to max speed and focus on dying a lot to gather up the passives!).

Appreciate the critiques, and thanks for playing!

I'm amazed at how many "hue" puns hue were able to make, lol.

I think my only critique would be to consider fewer options on the left side in terms of your distribution ratio - it felt like only a few of those options were really necessary (I'd probably just do 1%, 35%, 50%, 100%). But admittedly, I didn't beat every level so maybe more finesse is required.

In any case, great job!!

I love the music choices you made for each level, and the general concept is charming and sweet. I agree with the comment about adding a stronger shadow to the character, but I know from experience that's easier said than done.

Nice job!

I'm sorry, you made a STOP MOTION LEGO GAME?? That's gonna be an instant 5 stars on theme from me haha. Very creative, well done!

Satisfying movement and camera control, in addition to some cleanly designed obstacle challenges! Hit that perfect mark between challenging-yet-doable for me, though I do wish there was a checkpoint at the start of the stormy level.

Great job!

Aww, thanks so much for the kind words!!

Very nice, so educational! Love the presentation, the beep boop sound effects were funny, and in  general it has a cozy and charming feel to it.
I do agree with the comment further down about the metal plates and how I didn't think I could walk over them at first.

But overall, great job! :)

That was sweet. I'll admit I wasn't sure at first about having to target for all my towers, but I think a healthy smattering of bee towers takes enough of the edge off of having to aim. Nice work!

Thanks so much!!

In your comment you said you had to keep the visuals simple, but I actually really like this approach and feel like the "simple glow" effect can look quite nice, as it does here! Great job!

Ah oops I missed that! Fair enough!

Dang, this might be my new favorite game of the jam so far. LOVE the 2.5D aesthetic, the pixel art is perfect, the world was well-crafted, the combat's great (I recently started playing Expedition 33 which has a similar "either you do the quick time events or you lose this turn-based combat" kind of thing, and I really like it). I think there were a lot of creative ideas implemented within this design space to represent different enemy types.
Of course I was hoping to see leveling/progression to keep the combat fresh, but I understand it must have taken tons of focus and effort to make this much.

Kickass job, love it!!

Aww, thanks so much! To be honest, the two of us spent some late nights trying to get everything done, and we were still adding things in the final hour haha.

Appreciate the kind words!

I'd love to experience some type of power ramping from both sides as the waves continue, maybe just make your cell move faster each wave but also add more enemies to compensate? So then by the end you're zipping around like crazy but it's super chaotic?

In any case, great job! :)

I'll be honest, this one really surprised me and I liked it quite a bit more than I expected to. The music tracks are all awesome, and the rhythm game felt very accurate (I feel like there's usually some latency issue or something with game jam rhythm games). I personally would have put all four keys next to each other because I think using the four fingers of one hand would be a lot easier than two from each hand, but I'm glad you had the songs play perfectly even if we made mistakes haha. The dialogue was also very funny, well done!!

I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FINGERS!!
Haha creative concept, and well-executed! Nice work!

Very adorable, nice work!

Really cool mechanics, reminds me of a game I used to love back in the day with a similar node generation/capturing system.
Two critiques: Right-clicking the tower seemed to be very unreliable for pulling up the options on changing its mode. It would pop up several seconds later, or sometimes not at all.
And I would just absolutely love a "restart level" button. I ended up struggling with the second level too much and felt like the kind of start you get in that level is so crucial to how the rest of it plays out.

But great concept, and awesome job overall!

Yeah I found it funny how similar yet very different our games seem to be. My buddy programmed everything in Unreal Engine 4 (since UE5 can't do browser games).

The graphics for the game were largely made in Blender, but rendered out as 2D sprites using fresnel and emission shading. I used a seamless voronoi texture loop (same as you did, I think) for the watery animation, made that partially transparent, and then made giant blurry cells which my buddy programmed to float around randomly underneath the transparent voronoi animation. He also coded the color to shift with each wave by color-tinting a desaturated background image.

Thanks for the kind words!

Last year, you had such kind things to say about the game my buddy and I made ("Extinction Denied") that I wanted to play your game this year. Just a bonus that it happens to be another lovely Ren'Py visual novel!

The art is super charming, as are the sounds (both the music and the vocalizations). The intense chanting music for the coffee brewing is hilarious, and the dialogue's great! Got the Expert ending, heck yusss.

We almost called our game the same title so I felt compelled to check it out. Really nice work!
I appreciate that you can start the wave over, and the mechanics play nicely into the "do I go for economy or military" type of strategy. I do think it would have been worth it to find a song and slap it on there just so there's sound, but still an impressive submission. Well done!

Love it! Rare to find the "reverse tower defense" style games, and permanent upgrades are great! I did notice a bug where upgrading the warriors seemed to also raise the archer level as well, and upgrading the archers did not raise anything, though this may have purely been a visual bug.
I really like the take on "tiny world" being a tiny world seizing back its right to be its original size. Great work!