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I agree with you that the priority should be on mechanics. And most indie jam participants aren't impressed by lights and effects as they are developers themselves and can tell if you didn't put much effort into it.

But I use game jams as like a mini test for what I'd like to do as I establish and improve my workflow, using the simulated limits that the jams provide. (Timeline, theme etc.)

That's why all my games, no matter how small have full menus, volume sliders, pause functions etc. I know most game jammers don't care and won't use them. But I personally cannot release a game without those aspects, even if its just for a game jam.

I used Godot for my first 2 game jams. I only moved to Unreal because it's workflow covers for many of my weaknesses and areas I dont want to put a lot of energy into (lighting and effects). I like to code but I'm not into the making things pretty parts of game dev, which unreal allows you to sort of cheat alot in

But it's clear that if I want to keep doing active participation in jams, i need to adopt either godot or unity on the side, at least for this. Im also starting to really hate the unreal file sizes

Agreed 100%. The other jammers cannot be blamed for exercising caution and being preventative.

No need to risk your hard work and computer over a game you'll likely play for 5 minutes.

What surprised and disappointed me is not getting even 10 out of the almost 70k ratings for the jam.

I'm aware that download-only games, especially UE titles, get downloaded the least in these spaces as I've done Game jams before. But, even by that metric, I was genuinely surprised given the sheer number of participants. It kinda killed my interest in the other upcoming big jams unless I use one of the other engines

I also saw the long list of games that had 8 ratings towards the end as I was trying to rate those ones exclusively. They were more than some entire game jams get in participants, while some had close to 100.

I guess you keep learning and keep it moving. 

TLDR: I kinda wish I'd used one of the web export engines in order to get more feedback

Simple and easy to play once you get the hang of it which only takes a try or 2.

Solid stuff

The art, music and 2d intro are really good. The gameplay could use some work. considering this just a game jam, there was probably no time, but just for the sake of leaving feedback, these are some that come quickly off the top:

A clear indicator of where enemies will come from, damage feedback(camera shake, red flash, sound effect, particles), audio when striking enemies, more health? (its easy to get swarmed and completely surrounded by mobs), sound indicators for when enemies spawn since this is first person and some come from off camera where the player cannot see them. directional damage indicator for damage coming from enemies not in front of the camera

in a nutshell, the presentation is top tier stuff. the gameplay less so

Pretty neat. The upgrades can get pretty addictive

Pretty nice. Well done here. 

I'm quite bad at it, soon as i got to the multiple enemies, it became super sweaty

This is fun and the music is a good choice for the mood. 

Would have really appreciated a volume slider or lower default volume though

Pretty awesome this one. It all ties together really well

Loved the theme, loved the visuals, loved the music. This was great

Love the look for both the cats and the environment, though the spinning was a bit too hard for me to do while driving (probably a skill  issue)

I think the levels are better. With each being focused on some sort of new addition to what the obstacles require you to do

Make sure your core loop is done and tested by the half way point.

The 2nd half should ideally be used to deal with polish, effects, music and testing.

This approach can guarantee you don't have to struggle or rush at the last second

there you go..

Rate Vertigo (Jam Submission) by TNdevour for The Very Serious Juniper Dev Game Jam - itch.io

There you go..

Rate Vertigo (Jam Submission) by TNdevour for The Very Serious Juniper Dev Game Jam - itch.io

Here's mine. Should not take more than a few to get through

Rate Vertigo (Jam Submission) by TNdevour for The Very Serious Juniper Dev Game Jam - itch.io

If you mean: can you get a thing to move on screen in a game engine and set up a game loop? Yes, you can do that in a few hours with one or 2 tutorials. Even 20 hours is a lot.

If you mean: can you learn game development enough to make whatever you want? No

I specially loved the music and the theme implementation. A volume setting would have helped as well

Surprisingly fun

Vertigo (Jam Submission) by TNdevour

Pretty charming art style and a nice implementation of the theme

The general idea is interesting and it's very impressive to see how much is going on under the hood here.

I have to say it seems like it might have been perhaps too much for the few days, given how many things seem incomplete, from debug and collision objects being visible in the hub (this could be intentional to show the player where to go), to stuff like there being a weird light when the player approaches a wall in the hub. Nothing that cant be fixed, but would have needed more time probably. 

Still, good stuff taking on such an ambitious project

Not bad. The ship does take a while to get to the action parts. Maybe it could have a sort of speed up mechanic?

This feels like a solid base that can be built upon

Nice story.

I like how the color is used to indicate the state of mind of the protagonist.

At about the half way point, the way  it's used gets really creative. 

Very nice little story and quite touching. Enjoyed it so much, it hits right in the feels

I like how much personality is in the objects that have to be dodged during the spin cycle.

These people have a lot of knives to clean

Absolutely love the aesthetic and use of color. The models are the stress animation of the arm add great personality too. Music was great too.

The phone mechanic I'm not a big fan of. It was a bit finicky

Nice visual, audio and art work on this. The menu though is a bit jank. Maybe because the buttons have a fixed size or image... Not sure. 

I loved the vibes

Very nice. Visually very fun and there's lots of stuff going on. Not sure what most of the highlighted objects do but it was still fun

I lost a lot. but this was very fun. The music adds a lot to it too

The fail screen and sound cue made me smile. cool theme interpretation too

Cool work on especially the event triggered voice lines and the theme.

I wont lie, the spinning platforms are a bit frustrating to try and finesse with the way the jump works and the camera angle. I was able to make it work but with a lot of deaths

Man, I love your aesthetic and the implementation of the theme so much (Plus your thumbnail art is very nice). The upgrade mechanic is also quite cool. The music, also very fitting.

But I'm not sure about that reloading mechanic.

There were times when I went for a while without being able to shoot at all due to getting only blanks for a while.

I think you could consider tweaking whatever formula is being used to calculate the reload result. Maybe after a number of reloads, if none is a bullet, you force the next one to be a bullet. Kind of like a player pity system to ensure the gun fights continue at a decent pace

Agreed 100%. Thanks for checking it out

Hey pretty sweet. Looks like we took on the same mechanic. Nice

Pretty fun and great use of the physics engine.

 Gave up at level 9 but that's just me getting tired of dying alot.

Unfortunately, the game is unavailable to play

I'm ashamed that this made me laugh more than once :). Great job. 

I hope you found renpy interesting. i hope to try itself in a jam sometime

Couldn't really figure out how to get it to work.

Clearer in game instructions or a demo clip would help 

The quixel asset textures also don't seem to be loading up. not sure if its a GPU issue (AMD)