itch.io

Gotcha, thanks for the help! I'll give it a second shot when I have the time!

Man, this was great. I love the low poly art style, the multiple camera angles (which actually come in handy because the camera can be a little jank sometimes), the hacking system, the puzzles, the writing and ESPECIALLY the voice acting. Durst cutting off gargoyle all the time had me chuckling like a person that chuckles because he's enjoying the game. Nothing detracted from the experience whatsoever. It was just fun and goofy. Durst and the King Of Terrorists are going to stick in my head long after the jam ends.

Splendid video game 20/20

It's a neat little game, although it is a bit linear and the jump button doesn't work... I liked the faded color palette-- it gave the game a soft, sepia sort of feel. The interpretation of the "shell" theme was super unique and I like the concept. Meeting [spoiler] was a cool little moment that took me by surprise. The area design for both "layers" is also striking, with the blue tones of the second layer juxtaposing to the warm sandy beige of the first layer. I loved the little detail of the fading soul meandering in the second layer. It felt very otherworldly and lent to the air of mystique the game has going on. Nice work!

The story is definitely the star of the show here and it got me completely invested. The addition of difficulty levels and audio sliders is heavily appreciated, because the audio is pretty loud by default. Like others have pointed out, the sfx get repetitive and grating VERY quickly, but I do love the sound of the shotgun. It's very crunchy. The logo is also very eye-catching and well designed. The gameplay is simple but gets pretty hectic on hard mode and in the later waves, with the enemies' increased speed and tankiness feeling challenging while still remaining fair. I did have an issue where I accidentally clicked out of the tab while aiming and somehow got wedged onto the bottom track of the map, but since I was on the 12th wave it didn't bother me too much because I was almost done. Overall, the biggest praise I have for Shell-Shocked is definitely the interpretation of the theme, which was original and unique!

I'm a sucker for ACII art so as soon as I saw the banner I knew I wanted to play this game. What really dragged me in was the cryptic gameplay and the immaculate sound design. The crunches and MIDI notes that trigger when hitting enemies, the nostalgic pips of navigating the menus and the understated yet cohesive main title theme all made this game feel SO GOOD to play. The little screen shakes add incredible tactile feedback to what is otherwise a standard survivor-like experience, elevating it to the next level. The upgrade names favor immersion over immediate understanding, but also are elegantly straightforward. My initial burst of confusion was amped up by the frenetically increasing pace of the final waves on the first playthrough, but it felt intentional. By observing how the character moved in response to each upgrade I could intuit what the upgrade names implied and craft a more intentional build on my second playthrough. That feeling of discovery made me feel more immersed and was just really well integrated. A gameplay element I really liked was the "full screen wipe" QTE move on loop every ~15 seconds or so, since at first I didn't know whether failing the QTE would negatively impact me in some way and it thus added further tension. I've never seen someone have that as a base move in a survivor-like but it works really well! 

Tl;dr this a great game taken further by a good sense of aesthetics and tactical SFX. Thoroughly enjoyed.

Funky! The chiptune music and the pixel art are both top-notch. It feels very satisfying to play, and the stamina mechanic got me to strategize as I memorized wave patterns and puzzled out tactics for each of them. It feels like an arcade or handheld game with how easy it is to "pick up and play." I really liked this!

I'm not smart enough to review this game, but I respect the unorthodox genre choice. The music is pleasant, the visual presentation is really cool and the little crunchy typing SFX noises make the game feel really cozy. Unfortunately, I can't wrap my head around the tutorial and couldn't make the crab follow even a single command. I probably forgot a bracket somewhere because that's how these things always are. Nevertheless, this is a cool game. I'm sure its intended audience would love it, even if it's not my thing.

Took me a moment to figure out how to play but then it was fun. Very neat.

This is a really unique idea! The UI is very clean, and the game in general feels very good to navigate. I appreciated the little quality of life features like the "full row select" you can do by clicking on the row or column name. The level of polish is really impressive, especially for a small team and a short jam. A small detail that broke me out of my flow in the game was how there isn't really an indicator to tell you whether or not you've sleuthed out the correct house (at least, not that I saw). I was a bit confused for a bit on what to do when I had cleared the board except for one correct square but still had plenty of hints left. Once I figured out that you're just supposed to refresh once you've found the right locations, I had fun making deductions. It's a cool game!

This is the "first" game I reviewed since I didn't know how the itch.io queue works, so I left a comment on the page instead of here. I saw the thumbnail and it drew me in instantly. To summarize-- this game is fun and it does all the things I like in video games. If you haven't tried it yet then you definitely should. An earlier jammer said that this is your first jam, so if that's true then PLEASE KEEP MAKING GAMES! If you ever feel like expanding this I definitely want to play it because it's really something special.

Radical interpretation of the theme and I love it. Everything about this game is funky fresh. I wasn't expecting to see an HTML game in this jam in the slightest but I am sure am glad this one was made because it's extremely tight. The scanlines, acid green font and nostalgic bleeps all give off the hacker vibe the game is trying to establish in a classy, understated fashion. The gameplay is simple, but enjoyable nonetheless, speaking to that primal part of my brain that wants me to make the numbers blow up. Whoever wrote the description is a wordsmith because it definitely helped set the scene of the game for me and got me more invested in playing. One minor issue I had was that the text prompts are all in uppercase, but the game wants you to type in lowercase, which confused me at first as there is no indication to communicate this. However, once I figured that out through trial and error I had a good time.

There was a lot of depth in here! The ring out death mechanic is unique for the genre and there's plenty of enemy variety, which is pretty awesome! I also loved the drifting lights over the rooms-- they added an extra layer of atmosphere to the game to really sell the feeling of being at the bottom of the ocean. The game is also surprisingly unforgiving, which I enjoyed because it's the fair kind of unforgiving. The enemies and most of the items feel really well balanced! 

Two factors that frustrated me were the wonky aim controls of the bombardier shell and the existence of the shell-less form. These may be skill problems, but they still took me out of the experience. There isn't any indication that the bombardier shell is tied to arrow keys/directional movement, so coupled with the fragility and lack of movement options that it has it felt very frustrating to play. The range that was meant to make up for those options being absent felt too unreliable since I didn't know whether it would actually go where I wanted or off in a diagonal direction because of how I was moving. The shell-less form (unless I just couldn't figure out how to use it) has no way of interacting with enemies, so being knocked into it is basically a death sentence anyway. It feels strange that you don't just end your run immediately after getting your shell broken because there's no functional difference. 

That being said, Shell Collector keeps me coming back anyways. It's fun and easily replayable for sure.  I wasn't sure what to expect coming in, but now that I'm here I'll definitely stay beyond just a few runs. 

This game grabbed me by the eyes and I wasn't disappointed. Vanitas Corpus has a unique dreamy atmosphere reinforced by the dithered outlines and a soft color palette of its excellent environmental art. Tactical blends of altered photos and hand-drawn pixel art lend further create a surreal atmosphere that was both comforting and disquieting. The repeated iconography of hands and the repetition of blue and pink give the game a strong visual identity. While the art is clearly the star of the show here, another element I appreciated was the area design-- the hub world format gives players greater freedom to choose where they explore and break up what would otherwise be a linear experience. The factory puzzle in particular was really cool and original. I also really liked the mirror room, with its inspectable hints providing a general guide to where shards may be found. If the map was larger I could see how it would prove exceptionally useful. The modularity of the layout seems to hint at such an expansion in the future, which I would personally welcome.

My experience was relatively frictionless, with the exception of the transitions into different areas interacting strangely with the movement. In the factory, the doors were arranged so that one could accidentally enter a second door by accident during the transition out of the first and go to an unanticipated area. The player character would frequently drop in the middle of a path instead of where one would expect them to emerge. I also found it jarring when the door to the mirror room (which goes up) spat me out facing downwards (back towards the door), which seemed a little counterintuitive.

Overall, I loved Vanitas Corpus! This is a fun, short, digestible dream explorer with a unique genre choice for the jam format and a solid execution. It doesn't overextend itself and leaves a strong impression. If it ever gets an expansion I'll be right in line to play it for sure.