itch.io

Yeah, that's an awesome prize, and thanks for your kind votes! 

I would be curious to know if streamers too would like it to have a chance to win a physical reward in the future (what if participants to the jam could vote for the best stream? ^^). Would you like it or not? :)

I received my 1st prize recently and it was amazing! Thanks Yazorius!

I'm sharing this with the hope to encourage more people to participate to the next Yaz Jam :) Really cool stuff!

I played this short game again after 4 years. Wow, it's still so unique and incredible! From the beginning you are put in the "hacking" atmosphere. 

At first I was completely stuck because I had forgotten everything about this game. It took me a lot of time to find out what to do with the cube (the serial to enter). Many players will stay stuck at the beginning and will give up, unable to enjoy the game because it's too hard or not a shooter, but it's a real shame. Use your brain, think out of the box, become the Neo of itchio and enter the matrix ^^ 

There aren't so many solutions than using a copy of the cube on paper, and rotating it over and over until you find your way (the serial). Start with a letter and look where it goes... The letter O can be read in all directions... Also are you sure that a P is not a d? What about Z and N? What could be the starting point of all of it, and what could be the end of the road? 

This is so cryptic and will make you feel lost, but finding the answer is so rewarding. Thanks for making it Yaz :)

Thanks for telling me

I finished it and really liked it. It's been difficult though! Playing a platformer game with keyboard + the choice of the jump button didn't help me, but I did it. The game is not too short, not too long, just great with a nice story. The atmosphere is unique. The 2d gameplay can remind of the old Castlevania games (the stairs, entering houses...) and classic platformers. The level design is good, even though the challenging parts can be hard all of a sudden (climbing the tower!). At some points I thought to give up because it seemed impossible to me, but somehow I managed to continue. I also had a hard time feeding the cat: I thought there was an issue with the game preventing me from giving the tuna box, but it was actually closed, and I needed another inventory item to continue. So there is a bit of an adventure game feeling too! The ending is touching, going from sad to happy end. Very nice game! Took me about 30 minutes to do the whole run. Be careful that there is no save menu, so don't quit if you want to try to see the end. 

Hi Matthew, thanks a lot for your detailed comment! You're right, Boklin's lowpoly art, and the genre of the game itself (adventure/puzzle), clearly don't make it a promotional game /or a game that can compete with other commercial games such as Cyan's! Apologies if the original message posted made you think that. Boklin is a free game and will remain such, and there is no objective of making it a big project. The message posted on the devlog was a call for comments and feedback regarding the current game (and our games in general) because we have had a lot of visitors on the page, but no new comment were posted. It's always interesting to read players feedback, and that's what we want to see more! We wish you the best of luck with your own games and projects. We know very well the difficulties of making a living for small indies, we are in the same situation. Regards, Simon

I'm not familiar with Android devices. I'll try to make a webgl version at least. Thanks for asking!

Well it depends. I created 1st person adventure games for 10 years, and giving a correct playtime is always a challenge for me :D I played your game quite slowly because I needed time to find the solutions to the puzzles. I'm not a beginner with puzzles, yet I got stuck here and there in your game, so I would say it is not on the easy side (not super hard either). That would make sense to increase the playtime, but I also see that you have uploaded a playthrough video. If the playthrough is a kind of walkthrough that gives all the answers, then it means that some people will not do the effort of finding all the answers on their own, and so they can end the game very quickly, in 20 minutes or less. It is probably better to write an average time. 30 minutes sound fine to me. In fact it doesn't really matter, only enjoying the game is important, and I did!

This game is really fun, it made me think of The Stanley Parable. The graphics are simple but the content is quite rich. Also the events are surprising, I didn't expect to fall in the basement! Then the serious things begin and it's quite challenging. The dev announces 20-30 minutes to complete, but it can take really more depending on how good you are with that kind of puzzles. I stayed stuck several times and had to think out of the box. The puzzles are interesting though, but the answer is not obvious. I liked the developer humor and the ending dialogue! Very nice game!

Thanks! Congrats for escaping the cell, it's not the easiest part!
Yes unless there is an unknown bug, it should be possible to continue after you escaped the jail.
Where are you stuck exactly? 1/ After going through the tunnel behind the metal plate, or 2/ did you open the door and could go back to the dump?
- In the first case, you should be able to walk to a deadend and find a key item. Use it with another item (spoiler: the spoon), then use the resulting item in the cell again.
- In the second case, talk to the agent who asks 3 things to let you pass. You need to buy plenty of things at the vending machine. If you don't have enough Coins, talk to Sonny who gives you a tip for a new minigame (with Phil again). Talk to Kikinou too who gives you Coins. Use the new items to repair the toy and to make a hat (wear it). Give a certain item to the Iron Giant and play with him. Give a certain item to Pim. When you have gathered 4 items that you can't use anywhere, put them to the recycle bin and obtain a complete access card.
Hope that helps! Please let me know if you're still stuck!

I love the character design! Everything is interesting and creative, and the story is well developed and nice to follow. The atmosphere, colors and art are mastered, and while playing I ended up forgetting the pixel art and was like watching a super cool cartoon/animation. I haven't finished playing, I'm stuck and want to take my time, but the setting and ideas are the best.

Very interesting and a unique style! I love how you managed to mix your drawings with some geek/programmer things in a way that makes sense. Oh I miss Lan Parties! The best one and last I did was in 2000 with my best friends from college. Anyway great game!

I really liked your game! The use of a 3d engine adds a lot to it (it doesn't seem to be Unity, there is not the logo on game launch). It's very funny with interesting characters, and the pixel art is really cool! I had a virus warning when I copied your files, I don't know why (you're not the only game in that case). Someone else told me that there was a virus notification with my game too (trojan, wacatac), which has never happened before. I mean, I made a Unity build with no additional file, and my antivirus doesn't find anything on my computer. Could it be that viruses were added after the files were uploaded to itchio? It seemed like itch was under attack all the weekend. I don't know... Anyway cool game, great job in 2 weeks! Congrats!

Oh I wish it wasn't just a demo, there's such a strong LucasArts vibe! I wish I could play more, I really liked it. Classical point and click is all we love as adventure fans! That made me think of Crocodile Dundee lol, because of one of the characters with a hat. 

Great game, I could play it yesterday evening. The art is very nice, neat pixel art, nice colors, plenty of details. The gameplay is cool with some interesting puzzles. I liked the music and atmosphere and the story was interesting too. Well done!

Thanks Ben! If you played the Jam release, unfortunately there was an issue and one of the hotspots wasn't working. I have fixed it yesterday in the new release. Hope it works! There might still be other issues like that, I just don't know. I couldn't test the game properly because I lost my time with itchio which wasn't working well on Sunday. I need to find a moment this week to play through the whole game and fix the last issues!

Thanks a lot! :) Plenty of small references here and there ^^

When I first played this game, I thought "what is that?". It looked so strange (and it is! in a good way). The gameplay is very simple: move and jump. And then you go where you want and write your own dream -or nightmare. Indeed in my first attempt I stayed in the bedroom to jump on the bed, like a nasty kid who doesn't want to sleep. But I didn't imagine that an horrible monster would come from nowhere to catch me! On my next plays I moved, didn't want to see that monster again, and went to explore the basement with a tv, went deeper underground and found a mysterious place with a lot of terrible faces in the dark. Yikes! Looks like I always end up in the most nightmarish situations! Happily I went back to the bedroom (I don't know by which miracle) and I explored differently again. This time I went undersea and could enjoy a very interesting world, after which I "fell in the sky" where a rain of food was waiting for me, and I rolled over a spherical burger (or what looked like it). It seemed like a happy end to the dream, so I decided to stop here. I'm sure there's much more to explore, and I might give it another try later. It's fun and well done, with plenty of excellent idea. I just thought that it lacked of story/narration, even if it might be best for the dream and the experience without it. The art is simple but works well, if you like pixel art and funny shaders, you'll love it! 

This game has been quite a big surprise to me. I had never seen before such a visual novel made with video, and it works great. I can imagine the amount of work needed to create the videos and images (even if it's AI, because you had to obtain footage that was making sense all together, including the characters that had to look quite similar), and then to make/script the game itself, with all the writing. There's a unique atmopshere. I love the black and white parts particularly, and I would have enjoyed it even more if the whole game had been like that. I think the recipe would work greatly for a film noir. Excellent ideas!

I remembered this game from the past, but it was a funny /good idea to put it in this year's Yaz Jam! It's still a good game with interesting ideas and an original design. Of course it is short and limited, it's more of an experience than a game, but it's still fun, with different possible interactions, and I really like the world in which it takes place. It's just so weird! Those hands out of the walls are like a nightmare, while the giant white tree on the contrary looks like a beautiful dream. We're totally in the theme! Very good job.

I really liked it! The visuals are interesting, with all the grey and the few color touches, the strong aliasing/low resolution, etc. It has a unique style! The gameplay is very good too. I like how the world is built, so strange, losing the player in a kind of maze. The theme of the Jam and the diversifiers have been used properly and overall I think it's a very good creation for something that has "no big ambition, just a practiced game jam"! Well done!

Thanks Nigec! I think the maths are easy even if you don't really like that, I didn't want to include anything difficult - it's more a matter of logic. Have you tried using the tips in the "mini guide" that I provided?

Thanks Nigec! :)

Oh thanks a lot! I'm glad you liked the game so much and the narrative part! Being compared to Little Big Adventure is an honor ^^
I agree about the hammer minigame, it breaks the "rythm" of the game and makes it a little painful to go to the inventory 3 times... I'll try to improve in a future version!

Thank you Hex! I replied with more details to your other comment (on the page of the game), but I'm really happy that you liked the setting and the use of the painting :)

Thanks Hexenwerk for your kind words! I hope too that what comes next will be interesting (it's difficult to renew ideas and stay "fresh and unpredictable" over the years ^_^), but at least I am quite happy with what I did here on Boklin, even if it's not perfect.

If you "cracked" the generator puzzle instead of solving the puzzle normally, that's fine for me. There can be several ways of solving a puzzle, and the most important is to find a solution to progress in the adventure!

The colors and numbers puzzle is not very difficult in fact (it is the last puzzle in the game), you just have to be sure that you gathered all the clues found previously - Spoiler: The plan of the temple, the columns with their colors, the code on the portal at the center of the island, and the color code on the paper with the 0 to 9 digits). Just make the link between the colors, their position with the roman numbers, and the value in digits, and you should get a code to enter in the temple.

I'm glad you liked my interpretation of the painting! It was fun to recreate my own version of it for the game. All credits for using this specific and inspiring painting go to @BlurredGames (Juanjo).

Hi! Thanks for playing! The game is not easy. I hope this helps: https://the-icehouse.itch.io/boklin/devlog/823127/mini-guide

Like all of my other reviews, I'll try to be objective and balance the pros and cons on this project. It is not intended to be negative in any way, I'm just trying to be honest and help the creator to improve the game and their own skills. 

So the Mighty Sloth takes you in a funny spaceship in which the situation is critical, because the rest of the crew has been killed by an alien, the terrible Polymorph, and you're the last survivor. Of course the Polymorph will try to kill you too, and your only chance of survival is to... err, what is it? :D I'm not sure you really stand a chance against it in fact, because you're just supposed to stop thinking! Isn't that synonymous of being dead? ^^

In this funny context, we awaken in a stasis pod. Immediately the player has to press one of the 2 buttons. I like to try the less obvious solutions so I immediately pressed the red button. I've been asked 3 times to confirm my choice and it ended up in horrible screams and the death of my character in the worst sufferings! I don't think I was prepared for it and I don't want to live this experience again! So next time I was asked, I immediately pressed the green button and could finally walk freely in the first room. Phew! 

The art in The Mightly Sloth is nice with a cartoon style, which might not be my first choice for an alien scifi game, but still is ok, particularly because there's humor and second degree in the different situations. Technically, the textures are quite detailed and there's a surrounding inking around the modeling made with some kind of cell-shading tool. There aren't a lot of objects in the rooms and they are quite lowpoly, and the 3d render parameters (lighting, shaders, global illumination, ambiant occlusion etc) are very basic, probably to save rendering time, and I have absolutely no issue with that, knowing very well the complexity of that kind of technique. Overall the game looks like a solid game from the 1990s, with the addition of high resolution, and the graphics do their job. I find the art mainly lacks of post-process (visual effects) to add a more modern touch, but we can say this is mainly a question of personal tastes. Once you start playing you don't even care about the art, the renders are neat and do their job, and overall the game looks fine.

The main interest of The Mighty Sloth resides in the setting and ambiance. We are mainly between horror/scary spaceship on the one side, and humour/cartoon on the other side. That works very well, and despite the fear that the Polymorph can induce, every situation is just fun and absurd, which is accentuated by different jokes in the texts. The game never bored me, I wanted to see the end of it, and the challenge wasn't unfair. I was only stuck once or twice, because I couldn't find a hotspot (yes I'm talking to you stupid chest next to the "work bench"!) but the game is fair and never too hard or too easy. You progress in the story in a very usual way, and it's interesting if you like the genre. 

Technically the game is not perfect. I've talked above of the art, which is subjective, but there are a couple of other issues here and there that can bother you if you're a perfectionnist:
- I went through a few bugs that I listed to the dev, so there might be a new version available to download than the one I've played.
- Sometimes when an object appears on screen (such as the blender) you see that it's a cropped picture that was placed over the background, but it causes a shift of a few pixels, which makes it obvious that the blender doesn't have transparency around it. Anyway I might be one of the only players who notice it, so it doesn't matter.
- Along the other issues I found, I think some of the sound design and music is not always at the same level, and for example when the main character dies and screams, the sound is very loud (even more shocking!).
- I finally noticed a few typos here and there. 

Globally, as a conclusion, I would say that The Mighty Sloth might not be the most polished and the most impressive game ever, it is quite classical in its form and might not impress young players, but what it does, it does it well. I really enjoyed the experience, I laughed a few times, was caught by the story, and the Polymorph idea is interesting. The dev of this game (and another person I think) said that this project finds its inspiration in an old UK tv show called the Red Dwarf. I don't know it, so I can't compare, but if you saw it and are a fan of it, then just go ahead and play The Mighty Sloth without hesitation: it's really a good game, quite long for a Jam, and with plenty of good ideas! I liked it!

Thanks Yaz! You're too kind :D
Regarding the size of the file, I do agree with you, it's incredible (I'm surprised myself). Unity is great for optimization (even if not perfect, real programmers still complain). I think it's been thought on purpose because of the compatibility of the engine with smartphones: these games have to be small and optimized.
Also, Boklin is small because there is no texture, no image, no video, on the contrary of some of my other games. Textures and images are what increase the size of the game most. You can see it with Catyph, 2GB of size! Here there's only polygons, colors, text and data. 

When you work with images, you need to optimize them a lot "for the web" (the photoshop feature is good for that). When you save a standard JPG, even with a low quality setting, it will still be bigger than a JPG "saved for web", in which everything is optimized (color palette, level of detail, etc). You have to use all the techniques that exist in order to optimize your games. Using PNG is usually not recommended if you want to lower the size of the game, unless you absolutely need transparency (which can also be avoided with some techniques: I saw it in the Mighty Slot game, he did like me in ASA using no transparency on some buttons/interactive objects that appear of disappear in a cropped area).
If your engine supports it, you can also use "newer" compressions such as webp for pictures and webm or ogg for video and audio, etc. It's always a sacrifice to do and a balance to find between the size of the project and the result in game... And it is way easier with full 3d and no texture than with prerenderend games!

Of course Josh people enjoy it, I'm sure you have already seen in during the stream of TigerJ and in the comments on our Discord :) Be proud!

Roger, I hope you didn't see my review as negative, I just tried to be honest and list the good and bad points. Overall your game ("game" or experience) is balanced and has many interesting ideas, and think you have been doing great with the tools at your disposal and your knowledge. I hope you are not discouraged and will want to keep learning and try to make new "games" in the future, that I will be more than happy to play!

This game is terrible, it's a pity that there is such a character such as Gerard. The robot is useless and doesn't even know how to make a pizza, typical of an AI. One of the worst creations in this Jam!