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originally it was just gonna be the pot breaks and you’re just stuck while the cheery music plays and I thought that was funny. when I decided to submit to Trijam though I realized I had another hour to add another joke. I think I prefer the more simple version though.

Thanks for the detailed write up!

1. Basically yeah, never had plans to have a story element but now I kinda want to, and a potted cactus is my default character for game jam games cause I'm lazy

2. I was using a "spritefont" object for the first time, and could not figure out how to treat the sides of the I as ignorable (as in, each character is going to take up 10ish pixels of space and that's true for the I as well even though it's much skinnier) so I just added some dots to make that less jarring and to kind of give the font a bit of character. It is a hack solution and there's definitely a better one if I had time to find it but I kind of like it, lol.

3. I didn't know this was a faux pas! I love having all my platformer controls on one hand so close together. But yeah somebody else noted this, I'll rework the controls or add alternate keys if I update this game post jam

4. I agree, yeah. Most of this is just my lack of skill to execute this in my engine, but I'm sure I could if I sat down to figure it out.

5. Weird, are you holding shift rather than tapping it? The way it should work is that your dash is active while you hold shift for a maximum of 0.6 seconds, and for the duration you get a small propulsion but mainly your character speed is basically 10x what is normally, so you still have a degree of control over your character (which is why you have a slight increase or decrease in trajectory if you're rising or falling) I admit it's pretty odd but I grew to like it while playtesting and kind of forgot how obtuse it is. I have also had issues with people on other browsers having inconsistencies in gameplay so maybe this is that. 

6. I originally had some clockless levels which had more coins than average that I think maybe I should have kept because it creates an interesting dilemma on how long to stay in the level even though it's a pure time deficit. There are still interesting choices like that to make in the game regarding time cost vs coin gain, but I think it could be expanded on more. I don't know how I feel about mandatory death warps in the harder levels, I kinda wanted to show the player that it's a valid option to take the 3 second hit rather than the long way back to the elevator, but I realize that running into spikes doesn't feel like it should be the right thing to do intuitively. 

That’d take me like a minute but I don’t know if I can justify it as a bug fix. I’ll make sure to add that if I ever update the game post jam though!

Criminally low ratings at time of writing for this one, my favorite game I've played so far. Really cute little rule discovery experience. this kind of 2D immersive sim-ish thing is a really untapped mine of a genre I think. (It's also just satisfying to dig holes)

really well designed level, it's cool to have to ignore certain things and blocks as noise at first and then for the upgrades and return trip to recontextualize them. Fall damage could be communicated a bit better I think but I don't have any ideas for that other than maybe putting the game on a grid like Leap Year and that definitely has it's drawbacks

Really fond of this control scheme for bullet hell games.  Weaving through bullets with so much momentum is really satisfying. Great variety of bullet patterns and attacks. Made it to the second 45 sec level before calling it quits because the overlapping attacks just got to be a bit much and the levels seemed too RNG dependent.

blorgies...

fun little "I wanna be the guy" style game that's short and simple enough to not be too frustrating. I was worried about getting lost without a map but the design pretty well funneled me in a linear progression despite the multiple routes. Nice!

Smart choice to make this an endless type game instead of level based because I think if there were levels most people would rage quit level 1. Would be a good mobile game. Big flappy bird vibes (I consider that a good thing for the record)

I got NaN depth by flying left somehow so I'm taking that as a win

I had part of the minigame transition screen pillar stay on the left side of the screen which made the shield and whack-a-mole minigame difficult. My browser scale is 100% so not sure.

I really like the micro game format. I was impressed by the lack of repeats and how many there were. I guess my only complaint is that the visual clarity as it relates to minigames could be a bit better because some minigames I just didn't understand until I saw the minigame and some I didn't get at all, but that's difficult to do with just two colors. The shader is neat, are you willing to share what you used or did you make it yourself?

thanks! I was just gonna submit what I had because I wasn't feeling the spark anymore but then on the last day I had a bunch of ideas to make the game flow better and just grinded it out for the entire afternoon I think it improved it a lot :)

The random floor function is supposed to redirect you to the next sequential floor if it tries to send you to your current floor so yes it’s a bug that isn’t working, I’ll see if I can patch that before the jam ends 

fixed, sorry about that

Got a demon on my first selection on the last round rip

Usually I feel like a game with this much luck would be offputting, but having a core component of the game being knowing when to cut your losses when the odds are against you makes it feel very skill based. I do feel like siblings and king should maybe be considered more neutral cards since they force you to keep on playing or they're negative, but maybe having that as a 3rd category would overcomplicate things.

Fun gimmick, wish it had more levels, the last one is a bit of a jump in quality. Very economical art style, I kinda vibe with it.

Big drill is a specific gaming power fantasy I don't get to engage in very often. I always appreciate when you can really feel upgrades rather than just being +10% or so. Really good risk/reward mechanic because I have bad judgement and I kept dying constantly trying and failing to get a big haul. 

cookie mama! I really like the pixel art. I feel like some minigames could be a bit more unique from other ones.

Reminds me of Mosa Lina a bit. I really liked messing around with different biscuit combos.

Perfect synergy between gameplay and theme to make a game out of a dog jumping for treats. Really cute stuff.

I'm kinda confused what my goal even is, just to survive? I kinda feel like with all the objects I can yoink I should be able to sell them or something.

Unironically I really dig the art style. The game's vibe kinda reminds me of Mr. Sun's Hatbox. I did have a few bugs like crates colliding in a way that slowed my game down to frames so I had to restart, and the second time I played the house generated in a way that I couldn't get out the front door. 

Nice visuals and platforming gimmick. I'd have liked to see the screens built to use the gimmick more like bouncing off the ground then the wall for additional height

Also, you can definitely cheat half the files by going on one of the higher paths and holding left or right to go to the end of another path but I'm sure you probably know that. It makes it easier to replay at least.

Cute simple arcade game. I got 23 points.

I think there are some modifications that could be made to make the spotlights more fair, there could be an exclamation point as a warning where it's about to come from a second before they do. Or the movement could be modified to allow for getting out of the way more quickly, maybe a dodge roll on a cooldown or something.

You'd know better than me, I think it could go either way. Sometimes it's nice to be thrown into a pit and have to learn your tools, I just don't quite have the patience to get all the way to the end when I have a lot of other game jam entries to play. Out of the games I've played so far this one was my favorite.

Grapple Dog is just a game I like, lol. No other similarities other than I thought it was funny to mention there was such a game that exists, and I wondered if you had heard of it before and that was part of the creation process of this game in any way.

Difficult game but I really like the concept. The obstacles are hard enough I don't know if bumping into a wall needs to cause you to lose all of your boxes. I didn't read the description so I laughed out loud when I realized the game wasn't just going back and forth in a factory but heading out into the parking lot and onto a busy street. I was also amused that the robot just trips and never gets up again.

Have you heard of the game "Grapple Dog" by chance?

Really solid movement mechanic, I thought the grapple bounce was always logical and consistent so it was fun to learn. Swing almost felt like an unnecessary to me and a step towards a much more timing based game (but maybe I didn't get far enough for it to grow on me)

Creative idea to use minesweeper as a gameplay gimmick. I could see a lot of ways this could continue to be iterated on. If treasures don't have gameplay functionality (which would be cooler) I wish I could at least sell them.

This is a really neat way to force you to keep changing your build constantly instead of finding one really strong combo and continuing to upgrade it. Felt a bit too at the whim of randomness for my liking but I think it's effective for what it's trying to do since luck is supposed to be an aspect of the game.

I really like this movement mechanic. I could imagine the cursor being a tiny cookie or something so it looks like the hand is always trying to get it. 

Was frustrated by a few dead ends (immediately to the right from the start for example) but I think I won in 5 tries (at least, I purchased the biscuit in the shop and saw the character at the bottom who emitted a pulse but I wasn't able to interact with them)

I've played so many slow incremental mining games that I was expecting this to be the same, so the arcade vibes and energetic music was a great surprise. With some added meta progression I could see myself easily getting addicted to this.

Nice game feel on this one, the SFX and knockback go a long way towards making destroying the enemies satsifying. Was a little confused on why my weapons kept turning back into a wrench, if they're gonna break after using it'd be nice to have some visual feedback on that and maybe weapon slots to switch back to the wrench for a bit if I don't wanna use my stolen weapon

Really clean looking simple platformer. Great work, especially for your first jam, you're already better than I am after a year of making stuff. Some of the jumps were a bit questionable in terms of fairness but it was short enough that I didn't get too frustrated and reached the end

Love the character creator and the vibes. I get the impression from certain aspects that are very polished that the un-polishedness is an intentional choice rather than lacking skill to fix it, and I simply must respect SOUL

Wasn't clear to me at first that I had to defend the stump but once I realized that I won on my next try

I really enjoyed all the pixel art in this. So many details to take in. Extremely impressive work given the time frame of the jam. Gameplay is pretty simplistic but it's an interesting challenge. I kinda cheated in the last part of the game by phasing bullets through the floor.

Maybe I'm just dumb but this needs a tutorial I think. What I was able to play is really cool looking though, the Shump part is super impressive for the short jam period and the upgrading does seem really ambitious. This entry deserved a lot more ratings.

Really fun and original feeling game. I love the dynamic music and how much quick decision making there is about where to place stuff.

Super cool concept, I was sad it ended so soon but I'm also kinda glad it didn't overstay it's welcome. The non-linear progression is really interesting to me.

One of my favorites I've rated. A little repetitive but that's kind of a given with this jam. I could really see this expanded into an auto pets type game with unit synergies and such. Great entry.

I realized that might be confusing from the very start of development and just didn’t fix it, to the point where I tried making the name asteroid dodger (maybe the most awful name ever) to try and bandaid the solution. And then I somehow forgot I was doing that and named it asteroid shooter instead?? Somehow an equally bad name that doesn’t clear stuff up at all??

Appreciate the art compliment I don’t get those often (some might say it’s “bad” I say it “has soul” (bad))

That’s exactly what I like to hear, thanks!

Very creative take on the theme. I am not smart enough to get very far because I just like placing stuff instead of reading. But I think somebody who plays more of this style of management games would enjoy optimizing it, there's a lot going on in that regard. I like the clean minimalist artstyle.

You weren't lyin you do have to tap real fast

I actually think it's a really fun challenge having to button mash while also needing to dodge stuff but I kinda wish the difficulty started off a little more lenient so you can get a handle on making the car go faster. It's also a little annoying getting flashbanged by the logo every time I restart :P