itch.io

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this post.

[0.1.2] - 2025-09-18

Added

• Add UI rotation gizmo to view and reset camera position
• Add lighting settings menu to change HDRI & Tonemapping
• Add new materials: 
  • Cracks Texture
  • Grunge Texture 
  • Voronoi Noise
  • Perlin Noise
  • White Noise
  • Stylised Wood Planks
  • Carbon Fibre 
  • Wood Grain 
  • Stylised Craggy Rock

Changed

• Improve Brick Wall Material to make mortar more realistic
• Improve Grass Lawn Material by adding seamless tiling
• Improve Hardwood Floor Material by adding tiling and UV offsets for the planks
• Remove experimental 2D Pixel Materials & refactor to support 2D base textures such as noise and patterns
• Add stricter memory qualifiers to shader storage
• Improve hashing functions for ~10% reduced frame time in heavy noise generation sections

Fixed

• Fix a memory leak due to compute shader RIDs not being freed
• Fix a bug resulting in DirectX normals not exporting correctly
• Fix kernel coordinate overflows:
  • Sobel filter across all 3D shaders
  • Slope blur in Brick Wall and Castle Wall shaders

Ah yeah that sounds about right, It could do with a complete tuning pass to potentially make the materials a little more abundent on the middle and lower difficulties.

By starting early you were at least able to get through all the upgrades, which is great. I'm not sure how long a playthough on the hardest difficulty would be for someone playing for the first time - but it could easily be 2.5 - 3 hours I think (far too long I know). But then crafting probably gets better, at the expense of the rest of the game.

Many thanks for taking the time to play! Really glad you had fun.

The crafting was a fairly late addition to stay neatly within the fusion rules. To me it only really feels needed on Masochist difficulty, as I tended to move through things a little too quickly to get value out of it. Crafting lower rarity gear would have been a really nice addition. What difficulty did you play on in the end?

You are the first person I've seen to fully engage with the crafting almost as a primary mechanic which is really interesting, it seems many of the other players almost completely neglected it.

You are not the first person to mention WASD working in the menus however, so i'll certainly look to improve one-handed gameplay for future jams ;).

Thank you for getting around to this, really appreciate your excellent feedback.

That's correct, items I was clicking were not disapearring from the game world.

I'm going to see if I can replicate it for you and record a video, but there's every chance I won't be able to now!

EDIT: In trying to replicate, I'm unable to start the second level, when I click the start button, it jitters and nothing happens, I'm unsure if this is a known bug or not. I do have a video I can send to you on Discord if you like.

Love the aesthetic and all of the throwbacks to your previous games.  I had some problems being able to pick up items when my inventory got full, I tried to drop from my growing collection of swords but couldn't pick anything new up. Beyond that it's a charming entry, thank you.

Really glad to get my hands on this again; and the first thing I want to say is that the small refinements to the puzzles and little quality of life improvements have really elevated this game from the version I tested.

I think it being short and non-abrasive is a real strength of this game. Making it abritratily longer wouldn't add much at all. It's a strong, polished and accessible entry, really awesome. Well done.

Hi CryptRat, thanks so much for playing.

I'm so sorry, sadly yes there are a few issues, I've just logged on to upload a version that hopefully fixes those, and more importantly has saving and loading. I'm really gutted that your run was curtailed due to those bugs, I hope you had fun regardless.

I did honestly love it, I've played through it twice now. It's absolutely my favourite entry. I just want you to make a MUD ;)

Ohhhh Jimbers, done it again have we?

This is just wonderful, absolutely delightful from start to finish. Every aspect of the game is strong. Humane Tiger's art is lovely, Steve's writing is excellent, the music and Tom's sfx creates a fantastic atmosphere. 

I'm honestly hesistant to pull any form of critique out of my backside, but I guess I'll try to nonetheless. I think because this is a Jimbly game (frankly I wouldn't hold anyone else to this standard), and because of the calibre of your team, I think this game is too safe. It's not my place to tell you what you should or shouldn't do, but as you know I was giddy at the thought you were trying something experimental (and not really to sabotage you :D). I really do hope you'll consider trying something out of your comfort zone next year. But equally if you keep pumping these out, we're all going to remain happy!

Beyond that aside, once again it's my favourite game so far. Fantastic, thank you.

Yep I fixed the drive and flew away into the sunset, and grabbed most of the upgrades along the way to one-shot everything (sans chicken...) en-route.

Thanks again!

2.5 hours in and that chicken still eludes me, however I've had a blast looking for it.

This is a giant game in terms of scope, and pulls it off for the most part. The item progression system feels great; your investments are noticeable and plays well into an overall power fantasy.

I think, like you have said, there are significant challenges by building two games at once and mixing them, risking both being half-baked. That isn't the case here, both the space shooter and crawler are fleshed out and have the expected features. More impressive is the level of polish on both. This is giga polished overall, and I think the only rough edges that I noticed across the entire game were some z sorting issues with enemies being occluded behind derelicts, and perhaps 1 item in the wrong category? But that's literally it, which is insane. It does make one wonder what they might have been like given full attention for the whole jam.

I would have preferred a little more story, but I'm actually not sure what I would have had cut for that to happen. I feel also like I haven't appreciated the procgen enough for how tough that can be.

Really strong, and kept me entertained for a significant amount of time! Thank you.

I love Vampire Survivors so your genre fusion really worked for me in a big way, and as always, you just edged me and left me wanting more...

Once again, very cool from a technical point with your custom tech. The movement controller feels really nice, I was prepared for the spinners and illusory walls this time around ;).

As i've touched on already, I think that your application of the themes is excellent, all three you chose are strongly represented and done really well. The art is truly charming, if not slightly disjointed between the tiles and the character art, but it's pretty minor in my opinion. The giant cat monstrosity has got to be my favourite :D.

The pacing is really nice, it's short, but I would say that's a strength because it never outstays its welcome. I honestly would've loved an endless mode or something for the survivors minigame, but I think I'm probably asking for too much there!

Great entry, thanks.

I have survived and reached Sunday for my D&D session! This is a true horror game for those of us that have worked in those soul-crushing open plan corporate offices (This took me back to a vomit-inducing public sector job).

This is a really interesting twist on the crawler genre, and the anomaly aspect is superbly implemented. It's a case of not really knowing what you're looking for, but you'll know it when you see it. Positive notes in an office kitchen? HA! I don't think so!

I think I agree with Apoly that I'm mixed on the boss, but I do think it works. The boss pacing around added alot of anxiety and friction to the gameplay and made me really uncomfortable, but that's exactly the point of him. But when I switched to instant movement and could search in a much more systematic manner I was able to enjoy the anomaly part much more. So I think it's a tricky one, in that the boss very much serves his purpose, but his purpose is to make you miserable.

A small note on performance, this absolutely cooked my 1660, which is an older card that this point, but I didn't see anything in terms of geometry or texturing that should have been an issue. I'm guessing it's either the reflection tech you've using, or some expensive realtime lighting / shadows which wouldn't be needed in this type of game.

The models are really great, and it's fantastic that you were able to produce so many original assets for this jam, and it really adds to the feel because everything fits together.

Overall this is one of my favourite games of yours that I have played and I'm loving that you've added 3D to your arsenal now.

This game is properly funny to my sense of humour. I laughed out loud in several places at some of the monster names, dialogue and descriptions. I can imagine you chuckling to yourself while Mrs Mass rolls her eyes across the room (or maybe she's the funny one?).

The art is fantastic, and as I understand it's from a variety of places but is blended so nicely together. Please send my regards to your better half for her contributions too on this front.

I think it was you who mentioned the difficulty of essentially creating two games for this theme and jamming them together, at the risk of both being half-baked, but I wouldn't say that's the case here. Minimal perhaps, but the execution is really nice.

Of course there are a couple of areas in which you ran out of time, but I completely forgave those aspects because the game is so self-aware to its flaws. In-fact this general, tongue in cheek, self-depricating humour throughout was just so well done, that I spent the whole game eagerly awaiting the next piece of dialogue.

The music and general atmosphere gave me a real flashback to playing "Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown" on PS2 - the games are truly nothing alike, but it just has the same vibe that really clicked with me. Loved it truly, well done.

Woohoo, I got to the end at last! Got stuck a couple of times, one was absolutely my fault, the other maybe not so much. But we got there. Great game, I'm not entirely sure that the expected playtime is; but you got over an hour out of me, so that should say something at least.

Visually it's nicely presented. I love the voxel style, and I especially enjoy games that take me out of a 'dungeon' and into another setting. Additionally the world feels properly put together and contiguous. The only 'weak' part of the presentation were the sprites and ability icons. As I understand it the icons were placeholders, but the sprites felt a little too high fidelity for me and clashed with the rest of the artstyle. I think if they were much more 'pixely' it might have fit together much better.

I felt your narrative was really strong this year, the story was quite cookie cutter, and that's not a bad thing at all; but what I really like is the way that you told it. I enjoyed the environmental storytelling and that when information was delivered via text, it wasn't done so in an omnipotent narrative style. Great balance of show, don't tell in places.

If I may be so bold as to say, I think at this stage in your gamedev 'journey' RPG in a box might be holding you back, and even putting some limits on how you're able to express your creativity. I get the feeling that you are having to fight the engine somewhat to get what you need out of it, and I would love to see what you might be able to do in a more free environment in the future, should you wish try that.

Overall; great entry, fun heist, saw some chickens, very interested to see what you have store for us in the future.

I think the method is is_action_just_pressed() if I remember rightly just tracks a single keydown. I probably should have worded it better as in if I held Q or E for more slightly more than one frame it double turns, as I assume it does 1 turn and then is still registering the press without a keyup and gets fired or goes into a buffer.

Super minor anyway :D. Thanks again.

This is a fantastic interpretation and application of the theme. I went in a little unsure as to whether I would enjoy a rhythm game, but oh boy I did.

I think the thing I'm most impressed by is all of the small things that collectively improve the experience. The rhythm notes being timed to the beats correctly for all the different songs. Also how the music was thematically match to the foxes' identity.

The final music was an absolute banger, I now realise it was a cover, but gah it really hit just right. The difficulty seemed pretty well placed, I played on normal and had quite a bit of corn left, still felt like I missed fairly often on the triples.

I would have perhaps liked a toggle for the CRT shader, and for just a single turn on 'QE' keypress as I double turned occasionalyl. But these are small preferences and not critique.

Overall this is really great, a very solid game and interpretation of the theme. Thanks very much!

Now don't you worry about that yellow stuff. In the words of the great Patches O'Houlihan; "It's sterile and I like the taste".

Thanks so much for playing and your thoughtful feedback. I certainly erred on the side of caution in regards to the handholding, I think adding a timer or at the very least making the clues a touch more cryptic would have been a really nice addition, but even getting it working in the first place was a nightmare. Honestly, it's the most brittle thing I've ever produced and held together with sticky-tape behind the scenes! It's certainly something i'm going to work on in the future, and I hope to be able to carry some learnings through to future jams.

I'm really glad the environmental stuff worked for you, and that you found some enjoyment from some those aspects. Many thanks for your time and for playing!

Thank you for playing, and for such a lovely comment. I'm so pleased you liked the environments; I wasn't confident in making a map so I'm glad that everything is unique enough to not need one.

I totally agree about the combat, but I was wrestling with how to actually make it fun and not slow down the gameplay too much. It's a question i'm still wrestling with!

Thanks again for taking the time to play :).

The atmosphere is so so good, I found it to be very unnerving in such a great way. Alot of games really try too hard to be scary, and it starts to self-satirising, however this really hits the nail on the head tonally for me.

Sure the movement isn't super snappy, but to me that feels correct due to the setting so I quite liked it, it also added to the tension of the combat while I was frantically trying to kite the shark.

Everything is really consistent visually and I liked some of the little easter eggs in there. Overall it's really great and was the perfect length for me. Thank you.

Hi, thanks for playing. I would have loved to have made it longer, if I could have kept it interesting, however it was simply a case of having enough time to implement new and interesting systems, as repeated the same ones over and over got boring fast.

There should have been a quit button when you finished the game, so I'm surprised you had to ALT-F4 out, it would be great if you could clarify where you got stuck and couldn't exit. Of course a menu with an exit button would have been lovely, but for a 10 minute game it was quite low on my list of priorities. I will be adding it post-jam however!

Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback, appreciate it.

Card games are always so tricky to implement in other genres I feel. While I'm a Gwent fangirl until the day I die, this was absolutely brilliant.

Already stoked for your post jam update with some more card variation. I would love to see an additional progress based mechanic introduced that would allow for the player to create a build or deck specialised around a certain type of abilities or playstyle. I understand that is an enormous undertaking and very aspirational, but this is really such a great foundation!

Art was beautiful, sound was excellent (bit loud, but you know that!). From what I can tell you're already addressing everything I have to say in the post-jam update and therefore there's really nothing more I can add.

Wonderful entry, thank you.

Such a great entry! Loved this. Honestly this is such an awesome self-contained experience, that didn't outstay its welcome.

The art was absolutely beautiful and everything felt nice and consistent, I take my hat off to SandySketches for that. By the same expression of admiration to you, the level and systems design was also excellent for the size and scope of the game. 

It is a very polished game and frankly I don't have anything bad to say at all. But as this is a jam I will at least try to give something I think could theoretically be better.

The sound mixing was a tad inconsistent on my headphones, I adjusted the volume a little in the beginning for the footsteps and music, then my eardrums were blown out for the rockfall / entrance collapse (I had the exact same issue in my own game in a particular moment). This might just be my setup, so take with a pinch of salt!

Secondly the narrative is lovely, but the writing I think could be even better (this is personal opinion only and doesn't affect my score one bit, so please absolutely disregard this if you don't agree!). I'm a big fan of 'show don't tell' and I prefer not being told something that I can already see or already know. Examples include the character's internal monologue pointing out the footprints or telling me that the view is beautiful -- you already showed me a beautiful view so you don't need to tell me. 

There was a conversation a little later on which was an example of the "as you know" exposition trope, where the two characters were talking about something they both already would have known as crew members, it just felt a touch strained, but I promise I'm literally just nitpicking so I can give you some feedback!

Genuinely amazing entry, it's the type of game I aspire to make. Like the other commenters I would love a puzzle perhaps, and I think you can really flex those storytelling muscles with some environmental storytelling to supplement your narrative.

The cutscenes were gorgeous and it was a great way to end, very well done and I can't wait for the next one.

Thank you for playing!

It's safe to say some thing were left on the cutting room floor, although many a few of the items you can pick-up are used for 1 quest as an optional objective.

Thanks for your time and feedback!

Cool game!

The art is nice and consistent, and everything feels very thematically correct in and place. I really liked your implementation of the sanity mechanic, and but I think the tuning is a little off, so much so that I abandoned my first run when I got locked in half-a-dozen fights in a row and just assumed it was a bug and restarted.

The combat mechanic is excellent, really cool concept and it's such a great design that it's immediately clear what needs to be done without instruction.

I agree with some of  the other comments regarding the flashlight.  It is an excellent way to create friction and adversity, however it's mostly just an annoyance, I would prefer a lit environment with the 'scary' elements coming from elsewhere, but that's just my own preference.

The music was nice, but it possibly felt too nice and relaxing? The movement felt excellent, nice and snappy and I had no issues zipping around.

All in all it's a great entry, thank you.

Lovely little game. The autobattling is very welcome and as a result the combat has a nice pace and feel.

The itemisation is done very well, with a number of vectors for scaling. I like that the base stats scale with level, so if you're feeling brave you can hang on to your rerolls. With more difficulty and more levels this could become a really great mechanic in seeing how long you can wait.

There are a few colliders missing and I walked through a wall next to a fountain. I would have loved a little more tile variety, but as it stands this is a solid entry with a nice enjoyable gameplay loop and meaningful progression of player power.

Thank you.

What a wonderful entry, all the more so its 3-day production timeline.

I found everything clear and easy to understand, and the game's simplicity is very much a strength in my opinion. Visually, the game is really appealing and i'd love to know what's happening under the hood to make it look the way it does. Mechanically I have no complaints, yes it's simple, but I sort of prefer it for nice and quick jam games.

I have very little in the way of critique. Of course I would want more, but I keep telling myself '3 days' and I'm enamoured. I wasn't keen on the mouse being locked to the window, however I can see you're aware of that and I could have freed it with escape. I can also see that you've commented previously on improving the movement, so I won't rehash that.

All in all, this is really fantastic, I would like to see what you can do in 9 days if you can do this in 3. Thank you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to play and your generous words.

A fair amount of content I wanted just didn't make it, as is the way with jams I suppose.  The camera is certainly not well placed, and I quickly learned my lesson when I picked up Dungeon Master after the jam!

Thanks again for your feedback, it's really appreciate and I'm over the moon that you enjoyed the game.

Hi, thank you for playing!

I couldn't agree more in the sense that much of the stakes are completely self-imposed and there is really no threat or stakes. I was quite concious of not having any saving and was concerned if I killed players that they would just drop the game without finishing, so I made everything way too easy. But you're absolutely right, it needs something to fight, or something to kill the player. 

I love your puzzles idea, and I think extending the problem solving should be something I try to add as I update, I'll certainly look to put something like that in as it sounds really fun.

Thank you for taking the time to play and your really helpful feedback.

This is far better entry than you would have had me believe from your comment to me. Genuinely very feature rich, and while I understand you are perturbed by having to cut content; this has alot going for it.

The environments are stunning. Many will put that simply down to Unreal, but the scenes are dressed well and a considerable amount of thought has been put into which assets to use and where to place them, which is a skill in of itself. The menu, UI and other 2D elements are solid and warmly recieved, there's a great deal of QoL baked in which is really nice. The collectibles and flavour text are all nice little touches that really build on the exploratory portion of the game.

You've had some really outstanding feedback from the other commenters, so I won't add to things that you already know. However there might be a few things I might be able add regarding my experience as a beginner. 

It certainly seems that filesize is directly correlated to the number of plays, and this is a beast. I'm not sure what resolution textures you're using, however I would assume due to the filesize that they are on the larger end. I have been porting my game to 3D and in my own learning post jam, I have realised that you can be really efficient in dungeon crawlers, as many meshes are only ever seen from one side within the grid. I've been manually unwrapping the UVs and shrinking all but the visible face to 1 pixel. You can essentially squeeze 4k of resolution into a 1k texture at around 1mb compressed and it's doing wonders for my filesize.

My firewall also popped on running the game, while I understand it's probably just Epic doing some data collection, it's not ideal considering I couldn't run this through the itch client.

All in all I think this is an great entry and I think you need to give yourselves more credit for what you've achieved. Especially considering your working commitments alongside the jam, well done. I hope you will considering entering again next year, because I think you could produce something really special with some tooling ahead of time and after applying everything you've learned. 

Thank you.

Thank you for playing, and thank you for such a lovely comment.

It is quite possibly all style and no substance, but I'm glad it is appreciated. I wasn't sure what to do coming in, so I simply decided to try and start and finish in a visually nice way and then figure out how to fill the middle in!

It seems that jams are a museum of tradeoffs and you've hit the nail on those, I certainly intend to address many of those elements in the future. I've been working my way through all of the textures and recreating them in 3d this weekend for a nice boost.

Thank you again for your thoughtful words and helpful pointers for me to take this further.

Hi! Thanks so much for playing and I wholeheartedly agree on all your points.

The freezing is completely my fault due to having loads of transparency calculating right at the start (oops). The shaking is a little much, sorry for the motion sickness! Oh and the walls, yes! I'm currently updating all the meshes and textures to get some nice chonky walls which should hopefully bit alot nicer.

I'm so pleased you touched it :D, I didn't know if people would want to, and would actually see the animation.

Thank you for your time and all of your really helpful feedback. I'm going to fix all of those points.

Thank you for your kind words, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Most people think the pixel dungeon was accidental, I'm so pleased you noticed the intention so thank you!

Blimey that was outstanding.  The combat, art, sound and level design are all incredible.

I wasn't aware of the secret passages until the 3rd level and seem to have missed a bunch on my run. That's completely on me though and didn't prevent completion. 

This really shows what is possible in one of these jams. Thank you so much for putting this together.

Such an impressive party system, both in the various interactions within the system itself as well as then losing those interactions through a run.

The art is great, shaky for sure, but it works really well and is consistent throughout. The sound is really well chosen and I would say that this is just a really cohesive experience. 

I think the challenge of losing party members makes for really interesting choices to be made as one becomes more experienced. Losing automapping in the first run is extremely punishing, but becomes less so with familiarity.

I don't know what you're intentions are going forward; but I would be interested perhaps in a kiss / curse system alongside this mechanic. Something where it doesn't feel like you're always only losing power, and might gain an alternative power or system to combine with other party members, and end up with interesting run diversity. 

This is a really great submission, tough for sure, but very well made and was really enjoyable. Thank you.

Bomberman meets Minecraft is very cool concept. I echo what the other players have commented that it just needs a little more to help it along and add some variety.

The destruction is excellent, and creates a great foundation for developing this further. Some additional block varieties / biomes would be great. I would love a little more varied lighting too, I think it would really bring the space to life. 

I enjoyed having to think about approaching the combat to not get blown up or trapped, and some telegraphing to the skeletons will help make it a bit more snappy.

Thank you.

The scope of this project is seriously impressive; doing all the art and design yourself is an incredible achievement,  and the art is of venerable quality. I never realised how challenging pixel sprites are, and to actually make them look nice and consistent. I would gladly insert a pineapple violently up my back passage to have a scintilla of the skill on display here.

Yes, I did encounter a range of bugs, however I was pleased to learn that simply speed-running through each objective was possible and made getting back to the same point nice and quick to finish the game.

I loved the RPG elements, they feel fleshed out for a jam and still extensible enough for this to be turned into something really great and commercially viable, should you be so inclined.

All in all, I think this is one of the strongest entries. I fear that the bugs might affect the score more than it deserves but I really loved this one and think it's a real achievement, and is aspirational for those who are new to this game and need projects to look up to.

Thank you.

This is so cool! I'm a big sucker for the entries with voice acting, especially with a humorous spin and this absolutely delivered in that regard. I just finished King Lear and I didn't think I would hear someone use countenance in a sentence unironically for a while, but here we are. Great dialogue.

I'm rather new to the dungeon-crawler eco system, but as I gather this is faithful to the older titles which is really cool. I wasn't aware I was 'supposed' to be doing the two step combat stuff and just face tanked everything and it seemed to work out. Loved the art and how almost all of it was done during the jam. 

Also the game page is excellent: It's clear you've put significant care into both presenting and explaining the game clearly, which can't always be said for the other entries.

Amazing game, I loved it.