This is an overly ambitious project with a large scope. Granted, I don't know what level you're at, as your profile is completely empty. So, you could well be a professional with years of AAA experience. If not, then it would be better to make much smaller and simpler games before venturing into AA/AAA territory.
Sundler
Creator of
Recent community posts
I played the latest 0.9 version.
I really like the idea and admire the audacity to take on a physics based Jenga game. It's a tough challenge.
The outcome is very janky. Perhaps that's the intention? Play is obviously very tricky.
The difficulty is very high right from the start. You could let the player start with a simpler tower and work up to increasingly larger ones.
Selecting blocks needs a little work. It's often not clear which blocks have been selected. You think you're removing just the central one, but a neighbouring block is also removed despite the direction being clear. The small black outline isn't enough.
One game play issue, is that although there are different types of blocks, you can only safely remove the ones at the top. So, you don't really feel like you have much of a choice.
Really could do with some music too. And some optimisation, the load is really high.
The concept is a good one and is well executed. It fits the theme perfectly. Visuals look decent. I'm not sure about the guy yelling. in the background though. Level design is really great. It has so much tactical game design potential.
Using the R key for restart isn't a good idea in a FPS game. I instinctively pressed it to reload.
This is such a great game. The graphics fit the style of play. As does the music and sound effects. There's so much variety of mini games. They're very simple, but that's fine for a short game jam. It was definitely enjoyable, especially as no single activity drags for too long. It was easy, but again, that's fine for a game jam and suits the game style.
I wasn't too sure about the theme though. It seems like quite a stretch. You clearly put a lot of work into this, so you could easily have spent more time on a more fitting game.
The artwork is very cool, as is the audio. But without any feedback as to whether we're right or wrong, no score, no win or lose states, it doesn't feel like a game. It's also seemed way too easy to determine if someone was a demon. Also, wasn't clear how you select them. You seem to have to drag the people to the right UI, but that wasn't explained.
The download doesn't run. Did you forget to include the pck file? If so, you should mention remove the download.
The visuals and music create a seriously great mood. The theme is very clear in the level layout. But, I'm not sure about the actual game mechanic. It wasn't satisfying just walking and clicking green buttons. My character died when trying to reach a lower platform and I really didn't want to go through all of that repetition again.
Nice Balatro like.
It works well, which is impressive. I won't comment on the polish, as it's clear how hard you worked on the mechanics. I still feel that you could have come up with a much simpler idea that centred on the actual theme, given what you're capable of. A 4 day Balatro clone is a tough task. Scoping is crucial during game jams. Yes, Balatro technically has "looping", but I think you know it's a bit of a stretch :P
Brilliant graphics and lighting/shading. Great art design and colour palette. The audio was highly impressive, but really needed subtitles. The writing and voice acting were amazing. Nice level layout too. Excellent creepy atmosphere.
Collisions all work. I found no bugs. Being able to run would've been nice. Clearly showing what is interactive made the game far less tedious. I'm not a fan of having to mouse over every single object to find what you can actually click on.
Is there no way to break the loop? Does the game repeat endlessly?
My take is that this is limbo. The voice maybe that of someone the player character harmed.
Cool idea. It fits the theme nicely. Being able to go back to where you last were is an interesting twist on these types of games. Perhaps, outside of the short game jam, you could explore it further.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the description says you have 1 minute, yet the game only gives me 15 seconds. Making the space bar the interact key would've made it easier to play, especially given the very short loop duration.
I just participated in the GMTK game jam. It has nearly 10,000 entries!! I spent yesterday scrolling through submissions and playing some of them. It'll take me ages to get back to where I was at. Most games are just completely buried.
I get that infinite scrolling was all the rage 10 years ago, but we now realise why it's bad web design for anything other than endlessly delivering memes on social media. Please can we just have pagination? Or at least more filters, for example, by type/tags.
It's a very mellow, relaxing game. Looks and sounds good. The writing is highly creative and compelling. But some of the questions aren't answerable using yes/no. I played until age 7000, but was unable to break the cycle. I saw the same questions coming up over and over, no matter what options I picked.
This game could be improved by adding more cards. Will you, yes or no?
The animation was excellent. So much was conveyed with so little artwork. It's a nice interpretation of the jam theme. The video was great. As a little touch, it could have been more grainy, but that's very minor. I'm not sure the final music fits the game, just my opinion.
I got a little confused at the beginning, due to matching the hair from the photos. So, I'm not sure that it was necessary to add the last 2 images of the perpetrators.
The art in this is wonderful. As is the music, but I feel that sound effects, particularly for getting something right, would really help. Nice font too, btw. Clicking on an object at the correct time would just lead to people clicking them every hour. This seems to be something you realised, given the tutorial features having to click twice.
The note, attached to the plant, isn't readable.
Very simple, but a nice game. It was very well drawn and had a good colour palette. Music was nice too. The descriptions were quite interesting. Giving the player a finite number of lives would have added some tension, which is important in horror games.
Maybe I missed it, but there didn't seem to be anything loop related, which was the game jam theme.
This is a really good concept and well executed! Every element is strong. The artwork (I'm guessing 3D with pixel shaders?), music, sound effects are just excellent. It looks and feels great.
But the glaring issue is difficulty. It's a very, very tricky game. Targeting the enemy ships is so hard. I would make the shooting mechanism much easier and start off with static targets.
Wow, this was amazing! Such a great puzzle platformer. It's beyond just a game jam entry. The physics and mechanics are so well polished, as is the artwork, music, and sound effects.
Limiting it to 6 shots was a good idea. Each level resets quickly, so it's not annoying to die. Just great game design all around.
A very addictive game loop and novel mechanic. I wanted played for quite a bit, but it's quite a grind. Seems almost like a satirical commentary on grinding in RPGs. Artwork is nice, especially the animations, but maybe the background elements should be fainter. Really nice variety of weapons and items.
Recommendations:
- Cool and funky chip tune, but it shouldn't restart on looping.
- I got overconfident and left the stones behind and had to recover them when meeting a more powerful enemy, but the character moves so slowly going backwards.
- Mouseover the enemies should reveal their names, so I know when I've encountered the boss.
This was a great and completely unpredictable game. I didn't know what to expect. I have a few recommendations though:
- White text isn't readable when overlapping the white dress, for example.
- Brilliant artwork, but it could really do with music and sound effects.
- Mouse cursor should be made invisible in games with first person views.
- There was a fullscreen issue.
- You may want to run a spell check, or is the doctor supposed to mispronounce words?