itch.io

I'm not 100% sure if I have the very latest version, but I am happy to report that your chamber is intact in this build!

Peb was so prolific. What a loss to see their enormous library of experimental games suddenly disappear.

Could we keep the colors but ALSO use traditional numbers? It takes my brain WAY too long to look at a set of 8 colors to assess which one is missing.

Great first outing in bitsy! Nice work, Tom and Dad!

The art style here rips. I loved this. The 1-bit transparent pixel art transposed over the gradient white-to-blue is honestly stunning, and the "you're freezing" textured layered on top is a cool effect. I'm not crazy about the black wall blocks, (I wish these were another transparent sprite) but otherwise this a beautiful game. I would love to make something in this style. The 8-directional walk cycle was also extremely well-polished.

The concept was interesting. I'm on-record for liking the collect-and-defend gameplay loop, but adding the ability to quickly run or slowly carry your fire added a nice extra wrinkle. It did seem like ultimately the easiest and safest strategy was to simply carry the first through each level from start-to-finish, but I think there is some juicy decision-making to be found here with a little tinkering and balancing.

Huge congratulations to you on your first jam game. This was such a pleasant surprise. Nicely done!

The cake look delicious, but it also seemed to have little teeth/horns in it, which was a cool touch.

This was fun! You have made enormous progress into 3d development this year. I think I agree with some of the other posters that the shooting was not super satisfying. But for me, that did not really hamper my enjoyment of the game because of how compelling the "collect-and-defend" loop is. It's really exciting to see incoming enemies and gauge whether there is time to grab that last cake before scurrying home to defend your slimy baby.

Your world was a little empty, but all of the assets you did create look awesome! The animations are all extremely charming, and the level design was reminiscent of the classic Quake 3 deathmatch arenas. And similarly, I felt empowered to use verticality and make huge jumps between platforms as I scrambled to fill my green child with frosting.

Oh, you have to feed cake to the BABY?! Okay, I need to try again lol.

I am so happy that you decided to include the auto-fire QoL feature. I know that some players prefer to hammer the first button, but this made the game far more enjoyable for me personally - especially since the best strategy seems shoot constantly. I did need to mute the SFX, since the shooting "bloop" sound overlapped so aggressively with the music.

The art is extremely cute and charming. I love the wiggly 2-frame animations, and the thick lines in the spritework made the whole thing feel hand-drawn. This combined with the charming intro made this feel like a storybook.

The level of challenge was great! I was able to finish in my first attempt, but not without a few tense moments in the final waves.

I liked the variety of enemy types - although the shield guys did not feel wildly different, since my approach was the same - shoot 'em until they disappear! I did love the evasive charge of the skeletons, which was exciting the first time it happened. I think the shooting would feel way more satisfying if there was a slight knockback or slowdown on damaged enemies, but that is more my personal taste then a genuine critique.

This was a wonderful entry! I continue to be a big fan of yours, Achie!

This was super hard! It seems like the main skill required here is reaction time, and there just wasn't enough time for me to block the arrows as they arrived. Not necessarily a bad thing - I'm pretty slow on the draw, so this might be perfectly tuned for a fast-twitch player.

The art assets looked good - in particular the horse's walk cycle was impressive. The parallax scroll in the background didn't totally work for me, and some of UI in particular feels a little out-of-place - but not a dealbreaker!

The music was cool, but didn't necessarily fit the mood of the game.

This is such an ambitious submission! I love that your team took a big swing here. There are lots of janky implementations and minor issues, but the experience as a whole is much better than a smaller scoped version with lots of polish, in my opinion.

The atmosphere is great. The pixelated filter helped make the variety of models feel cohesive. The weapons were fun and satisfying to use.

It almost feels like there is some immersive sim DNA here - it's cool that the player dictates when to leave town, and I was floored to hear on-stream that you could use the axe to chop bushes for fuel in the desert between towns. So cool! I wish some of the features and gameplay systems had a little more explanation. I do like a game that doesn't hold my hand, but for a jam game that might only be played for a few minutes, it's nice to have more instructions right away.

Nice work, and congratulations on your submission!

Playing this made me deeply nostalgic for playing zombie defense flash games in the 2000s. I would have happily played this for an hour.

Your gunshots, explosions, and splatters were all satisfying to see, hear and feel. The pixel art was nice and cohesive.

Seeing the zombies destroy the wall and then climb on top was a huge surprise the first time that it happened, it is was a genuinely scary and cool moment.

I do wish the game was a little faster. I would personally prefer faster zombies that die in fewer hits with more drastic upgrades - but that's simply my taste. What you have here is nails the atmosphere of a slowly approaching horde.

Really fantastic entry!

I am a perennial fan of Acorn Jelly - and this is another datapoint in a long series of wonderful games!

I loved the diegetic UI and controls. It was hard to focus outside the match 3 area when I was actively playing, but the entire game in motion is a real spectacle to behold. I was impressed with the digital face reacting to my moves in real-time.

I did hit some of the same minor technical issues that other reviewers reported, but other than the rare "cursor lockout" bug, there was nothing that really hindered my enjoyment of the gameplay.

The variety and quality of sounds was impressive. I especially liked the clicking typewriter effect for player button presses. The "falling block" sound felt a little out-of-place, but absolutely not a dealbreaker!

I almost missed the fully voiced intro cutscene, but it was really fantastic! The painted art style was extremely cool. I really loved the second scene in particular with the stylized earth with square continents and the gorgeous detail on the meteor's fiery tail. The voiceover sounded suspiciously like Fletch - and he knocked it out of the park!

All of the music was good, but I am completely in love with the "game over screen" music. The record scratch effect that leads into the first chord feels like magic. Super cool.

My (unfinshed) jam game:

https://turdboomerang.itch.io/ashfall-at-dusk

Not only was your version newer, but you also had peb's original json - which is a big upgrade from my placeholder sample, since it better showcases what's cool about the engine!

Great minds think alike! I want to use nswengine for an upcoming jam, and I hope more developers and designers latch onto this thing.

When I get the chance, I will compare my git repo to your upload to see if you possibly have a newer version!

The wayback machine preserved a lot of Peb's work, but not the source code 😞 I scraped mine from Mind Ape:

https://mindape.itch.io/violent-dream-games

Peb (the creator of nswengine) has disappeared from the internet! Do you have any idea what happened, or where they went?

I have restored and re-uploaded nswengine to itch and github. I will gladly delete my upload if Peb ever returns!

https://turdboomerang.itch.io/pebs-nswengine

Peb (the creator of nswengine) has disappeared from the internet! Do you have any idea what happened, or where they went?

I have restored and re-uploaded nswengine to itch and github. I will gladly delete my upload if Peb ever returns!

https://turdboomerang.itch.io/pebs-nswengine

I restored and re-uploaded the nswengine to itch and github. But if Peb ever returns, I will gladly delete my version!

https://turdboomerang.itch.io/pebs-nswengine

Do you know what happened to Peb? His website, itch page, bluesky, nswengine source on github etc. are all gone!

Another banger from the prolific Adam Saltsman

And this is the perfect use case 🐐🐐🐐🐐

Incredible.

How did you do this? Did you export your Google Slides presentation as html somehow?

"Better" is subjective- I like this one!!

You're the best! I have always loved your work at Finji, but your pico-8 run in the last year has really solidified you as an all-time great in my eyes. Thank you for all of these incredible free games!!

What is your favorite thing to do on a snow day?

Thank you, Adam! I was so delighted by this when I realized that (other than this one obscure edge case) that this is solvable with no undos or restarts. Good game, and absolute banger year for you!

Is this a soft lock? :

Any chance of a CorgiSpace 2 with another batch of pico-8 games?

Chasing that big 1 mil 😎

There's a new sheriff in town!! 🤠

You're on a hot streak, brook. Every pico-8 game you release is gooood.

Is there a known world record high score for MATRISNT?

Every time I launch the game, I set the resolution and windowed mode - and every time I load the game, it resets to fullscreen and the default resolution. Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?

I'm glad you liked it enough to come back for a second helping! Thank you for playing!!

I'm so glad you had this takeaway. I know sokoban puzzles are more suited to the tightly-choreographed single solution style, but I really love the immersive sim "toolbox" approach, so I try to inject a little of that into everything. Thanks so much for playing, and for leaving such a thoughtful comment!

Thanks for giving it a spin! There are only 10 levels in total, so you were almost at the finish line!

Thank you! 🪼🦀🌊

Thank you! Puzzle script doesn't support music out-of-the-box (and this was my first puzzlescipt game!) But maybe I will try to inject music into the compiled html - or port the game to pico-8 in the future.

Thank you! Your feedback on the sea creatures is helpful, I have been on the fence about sinplifying or clarifying, so this is a good data point!

Thanks so much for playing!! 🦀🦑

I spent some time hitting my head against some of the limitations of puzzlescript - and ultimately decided to take the hit on the "authenticity" score for a chance to learn puzzlescript and submit something. Oh well!

Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback - I always value your opinion!! One of the biggest notes I heard during testing was that the jellyfish movement behaviors were a little unclear, and that some of the puzzles were too long. Did the jellies give you any trouble? And do you see any merit to breaking up some of the levels into smaller chunks?

I played through the first four levels, but I'm not 100% sure I understand how to play. It felt like there was an invisible path that weaved through each image that I needed to discover by moving the mouse and observing the ghost's expression - but it was never exactly clear if there were other clues to follow. I like the idea a lot - but if there was a consistent solution or expected approach, I didn't find it 👻The art looks great!