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Nicely done! Love the rotation at the start and how it seamlessly blends into the level start, not too long and not too short. Gives me Wave Race vibes which is awesome. Only nitpick is the tilting of the camera made it hard to see / felt too strong, though I also get the balance needed to show to the user their input is working. While playing I figured it was meant to be representing the tilting of the whole level itself, but then in one level I saw it made a difference how you sped up being tilted in the air, so perhaps it’s mean to be the cat in the ball? if so, another idea could be to do some visual effects inside the ball to also help accentuate the current tilt/movement input, allowing you to do less of the screen tilt. Just some game ux thoughts as I have ’em! Nice work getting sound and so many levels together.

Glad you found the feedback helpful!

When I watched back, I saw the stadia controller actually did match the xbox buttons listed for pinball, I just forgot because I was initially trying via keyboard and then switched to controller after.

Yeah, I’d say both left bumpers for the left paddle + left click (which is already set), and both right bumpers for the right paddle + right click (not set), and then to pull back either or both X and A seems reasonable to me, I wasn’t expecting it to be a bumper so I ended up hitting just about every other button on the controller first.

I wouldn’t say you necessarily need a full-blown tutorial stage, truly a sign here and there to guide you could be sufficient, and then just intentional level design which tends to drive players to discover things in a useful order (tutorial through level design essentially). So, people will walk around, figure out jump in the first little section. Maybe ground pound is the first thing you’d want them to discover? And assume they don’t figure out wall jump right away, so you could flip around the position of the blue switch by the gate so you discover that first (you’d also need to cut off the upwards ramp on the right side as that’s an easy way out). Then if you want them to figure out wall jumping next, put some obvious feature right on the other side of the gat which shows it, maybe even some carving into the wall with arrows so visually players get the idea that “ah they want me to wall jump”. Then again, the back stone area actually conveyed that quite clearly to me, I just happened to discover the wall jumping earlier. This way, the first level becomes a tutorial, but anyone who already mastered the motions can easily wall jump past and go straight where they want. Whereas a dedicated tutorial can often feel rather heavy handed. Just my 2c of thought!

Hi there! Been following you on Blue Sky but never got to play till now (or is this the first playtest?). My partner and I gave it a ply. As a gamedev myself, I always find someone’s very first moments trying the game insanely helpful, so we recorded our play through. Overall very cute aesthetic, and fun gameplay. Characters are well styled and are memorable - notes below are just what I, if I in your shoes, would prioritize to improve the experience:

https://youtu.be/96-0hXvVafk

• Fought a little at the start to get it into a larger screen size, maybe don’t “capture” the mouse pointer until you move or click onto the window? And pressing esc should ideally always release the mouse (ie if the menu is up, mouse should be visible, capture again on pressing esc to get back in the game)
• Not a note but positive feedback: Loved the little details like the thought bubbles saying “hmm too small to fit in there” and the different text popups everytime you collect something; also, having a very clear objective was nice, and that it kept reminding you of progress and what remains
• As others have said, I’d add settings to allow for (un)inverting mouse controls, we both nearly stopped playing early on because of this
• More control hints early on, such as for ground pound and punching.
• Also having enemies right where you initially spawn, before you even know the movement controls let alone how to punch, is a little tough, I’d put the lil gophers on the other side of the gate or something
• There are some places where input controls are described, such as with the bird and your scientist sister, but otherwise not described. Signs or even just automatic toast popups when you approach an entity for the first time can be helpful. Also where the inputs were described, it wasn’t giving me the keyboard input messages (and when I switched to controller, I don’t think they matched the buttons on mu controller… I know, a super hard area to solve for). An idea: maybe an in-game action mapping screen? Where it lists the action name, then columns for the keyboard + controller inputs, and even if you can’t change the mappings, you could have it highlight or showcase which ones are being triggered as you press them on the keyboard/controller? That way you test to see how to do each thing easily.
• For the pinball machine, we had quite a tough time - no way to exit, and no clue on what the keyboard controls were. Using the mouse, I could only get the left flipper to work via left click, right click did not seem to affect the right flipper - had to go into he closet to get a controller. Likewise, because the start was zoomed in on the ball, I found myself laughing the ball just so I could have about 1-2s to frantically try a bunch of buttons to see which would get the right flipper to move until the ball inevitably fall through. If you started off the view showing the whole board and left it interactive, I could have probably self discovered the flipper controls. Then only zoom in on the launching once you hold the button down to wind up. Also on a controller, left + right bumper feels more logic than X + A (on my stadia controller anyhow), I had to hold the controller funny to play the pinball game naturally (left thumb over x, right think over a) as I want to be able to flip both flippers at once, but doesn’t work too well when it’s on the same side.
• Very minor nitpick, but was hoping for some acknowledgment or something once we got the last collectable, as I believe we got them all in the end! Even. Temporary “You got’em all!” title overlay that disappeared a moment later would suffice

Overall, really nice work and excited to see where it goes! Also as a sign of success, this inspired us to play Spyro on the gamecube for an hour or so afterwards :)

It is distractingly mesmerizing to watch little cars wizz around a track hehe. Thanks for giving it a try even in this limited state, biggest one indeed the debug state I forgot to turn off which made the toll booth have an impact even when not built yet.

Thanks for giving it a play! I’ll be sure to drop another reply once it’s enough further along.

Thanks for giving it a play - I’ll give another reply at some point when it’s indeed further along!

That feeling when you realize the debug state got committed and pushed in the final build 😅 it was intended that you’d only have the booth present initially, but because the other was was present it messed up state var which would cause cars to act as though the tollbooth were already there. Whoops.

Glad you gave it a try, and hopefully you at least felt those 15m were somewhat worth your time! Planning to evolve this into a tech demo for the Road Generator, I’ll drop another reply one day once it’s a decent chunk further along.

Thanks! I’m planning to build it out more over time as an interactive demo for the Road Generator, I’ll drop a reply when it gets to a respectively-updated state one day

Glad you like the potential of it! Hoping to expand on it as a continual demo of the Road Generator plugin. Happy I got at least something together, thanks for playing

These citizens are indeed hard to please! Thanks for giving it a try and the candidate feedback

Thanks for giving it a try! Yeah, there’s definitely a vision that deserves the light of day, someday

Oh man, that actually is one mechanic that WOULD have been doable during the jam - road work you can’t even see haha

Thanks for giving it a play!

Well done! Fun details that you get to rename your cars. I was going to saw I wish there was more of an indicator of the difference between a regular upgrade and a resetting one (once that’s unlocked), but I now realize it’s blue. Still, maybe other strong button outline or something could help. But yikes otherwise, solid entry with top marks. Nice work.

Edit: I won’t post the screenshot to avoid spoilers (as awaiting to see how the track unfolds and what unlocks is half the fun), but got to “the end” and then cross the $1M mark, I guess that means I made it!

Tbh maybe it’s even a good thing, cuz it gave me chuckle :) For a jam, there’s plenty to be said about good enough is the best option, and you spent time on the part that was actually fun to play, so kudos there

Nice job, definitely a creative interpretation of the theme, short and sweet! A good amount of time to encourage replays, and showing your own score and personal best is a good touch to motivate pushing it a bit further. Only nit pick would be the rope kind of looked like breadsticks heh and when jumbled up, was hard to see where the actual lines were meant to be connecting

Definitely too me a minute to understand what was what, almost walked away thinking all I could do was move the rope around (which itself, is kinda neat). Fun idea to make a tower defense in this style. And a fun tradeoff of frantically trying to slow your trains down to move the tracks then speed back up as baddies are coming.

Color contrast with text definitely could be improved, had to squint a bit for that. Still, nice work overall

Edit: my results first time

Really nicely done! Great polish for the short time period, little story elements and all. Fun way of jumping between the sections too. I have to say, adding the little secret keys was a really cool way to let me manage my own fun levels - going for the extra reach when I had the motivation, but then focussing on just the obstacles when I was getting towards the inevitable end of my play session.

Main point of feedback: I was having a though time making some jumps from ramps after speeding up. Intuitively, I wanted to keep pressing in the direction I’m going after doing the charged speed boost, but it seems like applying my own direction to that would cancel the extra interia, nerfing the boost, and I was never too sure when I could start taking over again. That had me stuck in one section, and based on the screenshot of the overall level loop (which is super slick btw), I probably only got something like a quarter of the way through.

Edit: Almost forgot, but the little tactile sound of the clack of the marble landing was sooo good, good touch.

Thanks for taking the time to play all the same! Hey, if by submitting something less than stellar, it means someone else gets boosted up in ratings, so I’m perfectly content with that. Glad you appreciate the directional idea.

And yes, to say there’s really any strategy is a stretch I’d say. I see you stuck with it for a whole 233 days 🫡

Nice work! I loved how you turned the audio settings screen into a sort of atmosphere building opportunity with the rambling.

I got a little confused as to when I could click through or not, I guess it was only once the color changed to indicate I could move? At one point or another I thought it didn’t go through or even “remembered” I had gone through another door. A bit short, but leaves some room for imagination of how different loops or more of a sequence of clues or actions could build up.

A very lovely, touching title - I was worried it was going to turn out darker or sadder than it did, but still hit a genuine tone! Lovely work, great use of color.

Thanks for giving it a play! Yeah I definitely am thinking of revisiting this project one day, really seemed to resonate with a lot of people and it’s just plain fun to slide around in a paper world :)

Thanks for giving it a try! It’s been in the back of my mind to revisit this to make an actual fuller game out with the art style, been thinking some kind of blend between a track creator and mini racing game

tbh even if you didn’t score high, I think it’d still work nicely as a mobile port regardless! Hope it does well nonetheless

Really nice work! I wasn’t necessarily expecting a victory, but I got there with a bit over $2K cash earned and a very decked out rainbow princess suitcase.

I’m sure you were thinking of it, but I love the idea of the actual jetways being themed after each actual airport. Tbh I get some level of ptsd thinking about running between (super-)terminals of charles de gaulle.

Ended the season with 3993 for my first attempt - nice idle game! As others have echoed, if this were to be polished further, would love the increased confidence of what will happen with a preview placement - sometimes I thought the run below would attach instead of the run above where my placement was, but otherwise a nice contained experience that was easy to understand.

Does seem odd why a subset of testers have issues when we’ve been able to get it to run on Chrome ourselves, but thank you for trying! If you have a chance, you’re welcome to download the Windows build also included, which should be more stable.

And you did a fantastic job, they really helped pull together the Memphis group design aesthetic!

Thanks for playing, that’s a pretty good score!

The bridge is definitely the buggiest - added hours before the deadline, we really wanted this min-size obstacle to complement the other max-size obstacles already in. But with the time we had, we had to relied on the physics “just working” to get it to work. Collision meshes and handling could definitely be improved, thanks for bearing with it 😅

Thanks for playing! The whiplash is real indeed 😅

Fun title! Took a bit to realize I could only pick items in a single line, a slight explainer for that would have saved a fair bit of me thinking “is this broken?” early on. In the end, I got to level 9/15 before moving on :) It definitely is all about scaling!

Very fun mechanic! Style fits together nicely, whimsical and all. Took me a moment to figure out the placement and the way that worked - I think if you animated the placement of a first one for the player to jump on, with a little “right click” icon directly over when the action occurred, it would have been a buttery smooth onboarding. Minor detractor though, nice work!

Fun title, the models and textures work together nicely. I got through a couple green levels, but I think it wasn’t working quite as expected (and seems text isn’t rendering? I think it’s supposed to be a text box?). But still, I did like how you led the player to discover new mechanics, nice!

Thanks for playing! For sure, I feel I’m still somehow getting used to the controls, but also certainly an area for tweaking. I guess that’s one of the challenges of game dev, tuning one param means affecting other parameters (e.g. if we make the character speed up/slow down faster, then we’d also need to tune distances between obstacles lest it get too easy). Also helps to fix lil bugs and near-impossible to surpass sections too. Actually that gives me the idea that maybe we could have enforced the first couple sections to be the easier flat ones to let you ease into the gameplay, hmm.

Appreciate the feedback!

Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for playing!

Thanks so much for giving the game a play! (Also, as I said, loved your entry too)

Thanks for playing, glad it was running well for you! Had some major stuttering issues we thankfully sorted out just hours before publishing. Lesson learned on accidentally triggering new shader compilation unnecessarily 😅

Fun cross of Conway’s (RIP) game of life while still being a puzzle to come up with moves, pretty neat

Very fun, charming, and relaxing title! Made it to the end, I only discovered the charm interactions about halfway through which made for a good acceleration, but then had to stick it out. Would have been fun to layer in some mechanics of some charms doing more than just an additive on the rate, was a bit of just waiting to unlock each next tier, but hey that’s also part of idle gaming and for a 4-day jam this is incredibly polished (far better than my own entry, that’s for sure!)

Thanks for playing! It’s definitely a bit of a challenge, and I definitely won’t claim that we got the perfect balance of speeding up / down during the timeframe. But 783.4, that’s still pretty good!