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Hi! I'm glad you liked it!

So there are two main reasons for why the snail can go faster than the speed of light:

1) It's a video game :-)

2) The Alcubierre Drive is a theoretical faster than light engine. It is mathematically proven but It's still impractical now, and it's based in real elements currently existing in our universe, but the requirements are extreme, for instance we'd need a TREMENDOUS amount of energy and also negative energy (which has only been observed in small amounts, impractical to create a spaceship drive). Some technicalities about the bubble itself (like how to steer it or even how to close it) are still being debated. But it's really interesting if you want to look it up on  google or youtube.

Keep in mind progress goes very fast, maybe in a thousand or 10 thousand  or 100 thousand years people will understand how to create an alcubierre drive or any other FTL drive that will unlock the possibility for mankind to expand around the galaxy, and maybe even the limits of the universe (maybe even overcoming the expansion of the universe itself).

It's all theoretical, but remember that AI was theoretical, some even arguing it wouldn't be possible, up until a few years ago. If you were to tell people 500 years ago that we'll be flying through the skies in a long tube of metal, or that we could be speaking to a person in the other side of the world with something called "phone" they'd call you crazy, lock you up, or even burn you at the stake. :-(

Remember the third Clarke's law:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Right now it's just a game about a snail. But in the future, who knows? 

Thanks for playing!!!

Broke my own record :-)

Yeah, after really high scores it breaks. But I think what breaks is that "end of level" effect where you seem to recount the points achieved. Because it freezes on this screen and you can hear the "counting points" sound endlessly. So it seems it's counting like millions of points. Still, fun game!

That was fun! My only complaint is that sometimes the game doesn't seem to detect some gates when it goes too fast. Still, fun concept!

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

It is for now! I might add more content in the future though.

Thanks for playing!

That's amazing!! I love when people get to red, that shows they really liked the game, that's so cool!

Yeah, sorry, there's no more content for now. It was supposed to be a short jam game. In fact, the Alcubierre drive and the differents colors were added after the game jam.

I'm currently focused on another game (Masks of Madness), but I might come back to this in the future, add achievements, and add places to visit, like getting to the center of the galaxy, getting to andromeda, getting to the end of the observable universe and so on...

Anyways, thanks for playing, I'm glad you liked it! 

Awesome!!

Exactly, that was the idea. The game needed a quality boost while keeping its pixel-art style and overall vibe. Improving the visuals also lets me add new and more detailed environments to enrich the game’s lore.

The downside is that it’s taking a bit longer than expected, but I’m using every extra hour I have to push the project forward. Hopefully I can have it ready before Christmas.

Glad you liked it!

Really? I changed it so it doesn't get fast enough before switching to a different animation (the blurred effect). Maybe it depends on the fps on each PC? I'll check that again. Could you tell me which upgrades and levels of those upgrades you had when the bug appeared? thanks! and sorry for the inconvenience.

Haha, awesome! Still, there is no more content after that. I thought about adding a list of phrases after red, like every 100c or 1000c something like "you still there? please leave" and funny fourth wall quotes like that, but I felt like I'd be wasting people's time.

I might add "distance" though, like after the speed of light is reached, a progress bar reaching several milestones, like the closest star, the center of the galaxy, the edge of the local group, the edge of the observable universe and so on... and an achievement system to unlock those, so it's actually more content to keep you engaged and not just a phrase or a background color.

In any case, I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for playing!!

Nice!!! it does feel good to max everything, right?

You're only missing... the true ending of the game ;-)

I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for playing!

I gave it another try and got frustrated again in 30 seconds :-(

This is a classic case of you playtesting your game, it happens to me too, we are the worst playtesters of our game, because we made it, we know all there is to know, how to optimize your mechanics, how to speedrun, what the best strategies are, where the enemies are.

You are an EXPERT in your game, clearly, but for me, and apparently for the rest it was very difficult, assuming we only have basic FPS knowkedge and know nothing about your game. I don't know if that's what you were going for, but just to let you know. For me the fireballs were too hard to dodge, it's a barrage of fast bullets that don't even let you slip between them, the platforms are too pixel perfect (you need to learn about something called "coyote time") and the timer is unforgiving, starting with just 10 seconds, and the upgrades just give you 2 extra seconds which doesn't give you time to pause for even an instant.

Thanks for the gameplay, it does show that you playtested your game A LOT and you became an expert in dodging fireballs and precise jumping, 

Exactly. I mean, you're going for the nostalgic element, so I'd fully lean into that. Bring back old windows media player, and winamp (maybe it increases productivity while listening to music) and old school applications so people can say "oh! remember when we used that one??". You can ask chatGPT which ones were the most popular applications on Win95.

Solitaire maybe? as a side quest? And you know what would be REALLY SICK? That the player can execute Doom (maybe just as a video or GIF of a gameplay, not the game itself) or another game, and every time the gameplay finishes you add a bonus to something, productivity or enjoyment. Sort of the same you're doing with the Copy-file Window, just play a gif.

Maybe enjoyment as a mechanic, it will decrease over time and you have to play doom or play a video on Windows Media Player to increase it back to green levels, otherwise you'd be penalized with slow productivity.

I know, I'm just brainstorming here, but you can do so much with the base you have that I'm excited to see what you finally come up with.

Anyways, good luck with your project!

The game is very polished, it really makes you think you're on a windows 95 computer, with clippo and easter eggs, really well done. AMAZING job there.

However, the gameplay is a bit bland, you only have clicks, to get clicks to upgrade clicks. I know all incrementals are basically that, but most of them hide it behind different and/or meaningful upgrades. For instance, you could focus on file copy, while you copy files to a different destination you'd get two currencies, KB copied and amount of files copied. And with that you can buy larger files or different types of files, or faster copy times with upgrades to your 56k modem. Maybe, since you made a nostalgic game, you could add nostalgic references, like 14kbps modem, 28bps modem, 56k, dsl... Maybe you could buy/install old programs to help you, like Kazaa or eDonkey to help you copy files in the background.

The generators don't really resonate with the game, maybe I'm missing something about the quantum cosmic generators, I don't understand what they mean in the context of this game. As I said, I'd probably replace them with file transfer applications or other nostalgic references.

So in summary, you worked so hard in this nostalgic game and actually made it into a Win95 experience, super polished, 10/10 on visuals and experience, but I'd make the generators and upgrades more meaningful in this nostalgic context and add a bit more objectives or currencies to it's not "all the same". But as I said, amazing job with the aesthetics! Keep it up!

Is there a way to win this game? I found it to be ridiculously hard. Maybe I'm missing something, but the time the red crosses give you is not enough to recover and the barrage of fireballs makes it almost impossible to aim correctly. I barely got to kill 3 or 4 at best. Have you played your game? I'm curious to see a gameplay of you playing it and how you beat it.

You actually have a great idea in your hands! That was fun! Might I suggest a few things?

First, that artstyle I think it's better for vector art than for pixel art, it will make the game look a lot more smooth.

About the gameplay, the steps to store the box are a bit complicated, like I have to remember the key combinations to open, put the box and close, and by the time I do that, like 4 cubes go by. Maybe Up, Down and P are enough, I think shift complicates things and it also makes me lift my hands off the keyboard to switch from combination to combination since one should be on W and shift, another on P and another on the Up and Down arrow, so I have 3 hands positions and... just 2 hands unfortunately :-( Unless I stretch them in an uncomfortable way I'll be moving hands around and looking at the keyboard a lot. Also, maybe switch P for Enter or right Ctrl? so with one hand I can cover UP, DOWN and ENTER/INTRO/CTRL to store a box. No SHIFT key.

If you read the rest of the comments they're telling you roughly the same, the key combinations make it confusing and/or too hard.

Also, the list.. it's hard to read while you're frantically trying to hit and store boxes. Maybe a pause when adding a new item to the list will help. I mean, it's fair if I lose because I didn't memorize the items, but not because I didn't notice a new item just popped into the list while I was storing a box. Also visual queues on the list might help, like a little green box and a hammer, or a black box and an UP arrow... Not all of us have lightning fast reaction time, some players are faster, others are slower so you need to find a balance between both, otherwise it will get overwhelming at first for a lot of people.

The core mechanic is very fun and the animations are cool, I think you just have to tweak the gameplay to make it more fair, comfortable and fun  for everyone. But definitely (despite my observations) a great entry for the jam, good job!

That was actually super fun!! I'm surprised it didn't get many votes. I was just looking through the least voted (mostly .exe that for security reasons I'm not downloading) and I found this gem! It's actually really good! Sure you need power-ups, like wider radious, shield from projectiles that could regenerate, even a shield from the bomb itself... but it's super fun! This should be at least top 10% of the jam. Really fun. Great job!

I see this is one of your first games, you finished a full project, with menus and animations and sound and all, that's great! You need to spice up the gameplay a bit, like adding power ups, maybe different kinds of enemies, goals, levels. But it's still a good base for a game. Good job!

OOOOOH I get it now!! The first time I played it I didn't understand what to do, I just collected all the cubes and the time would run out and got 0 score. then I read the instructions.

It's always better for games to be clear by themselves. Maybe once you collected the cubes you'd highlight the main platform, or make it glow or something so it's clear you have to go back.

Next step would be to add personality and environment, nobody wants to play as a cube, maybe something memorable, like a platypus or a frog and for them to be on a forest or on a swamp. There are hundreds of free environment assets available everywhere. And maybe for it to be random every play (though I think it it should stay like this for the whole duration of the playthrough since ghosts should jump to the same places)

Other than that, interesting idea, feels like a solid tech demo and a good base to build upon, it gets really hard very quickly since at a certain point it's hard to dodge all black ghosts, so maybe a powerup to delete some ghosts or cap them? There are a few things that can be polished about mouse sensitivity and camera, but overall a decent entry with a promising future, good job!

Hi Nishurato!

So... I'm not really a fan of rage platformers. I failed to jump more than 4 or 5 platforms in a row and to be fair the whole experience was a bit more frustrating than fun. Some of them are waaay too hard, close to unfair. I don't have enough control mid-air to be able to decide where to land, so just a few milliseconds off and I knew I've already lost and there was nothing I could do about it, and I don't even have enough tools to calculate with precision where to land.

Also presentation is simple, there's a difference between minimalistic and unpolished, I know it doesn't seem important, but it goes a long way to play as a bunny, or as a kangaroo or whatever you want to imagine than if I play as a rectangle.

But the important thing is that you pushed your limits and made a game and presented it, that's a lot more than most people do, so good job on that!

I don't give bad ratings because maybe I'm not the target audience of rage platformers, so I prefer not to rate it and give you my honest feedback hoping to help you improve your game. Hope it helps, good luck!

hi samwie!

Thanks for being so understanding about the review, some people get offended if you point out stuff about their game, which is understandable because they put their heart and soul into their game for days, it's their baby, and we all want people to be as exited about it when playing it as we were while developing it. I still thought it would be more helpful for you if I was honest than if I was like "hey, great game, good job" and gave you a bad rating. As I said, I didn't rate it because it would be unfair for you, I'd rather give you honest feedback.

But it's all good, we're all here to learn, I learn new things on every jam and on every project I start. I made a LOT of mistakes in the past, and I still make them. In fact, I made my game too "clicky", it lacked an idle option and people pointed it out. It's really important to be open minded and learn as much as you can from the experience.

In any case, I have to tell you that your game is very polished and unique, so you have dedication and creativity, those are already two great things to have in your toolbox. Good luck with your next projects!

Hi! Yes. It's fixed in the next update along with a few other things. Hopefully 'i'll upload it tomorrow when the game jam is over.

Thanks for playing!

Hi! thanks A LOT for uploading the web version.

So... the idea is unique. I like unique. But the clicking on the banners is too fiddly and more annoying than fun, like they move a lot, the clicks don't register correctly sometimes, you should be a little more generous with your hitboxes (at least a few pixels). This is a common mistake and here's an why you should be generous with the player.

 Also, sometimes you can't really see the powerups coming, they are too small and don't make good contrast with the background so while you're focused on clicking the ads you can't really see with your periferals that a powerup just passed by.

With the speed the game is asking of you to close the banners it's hard to react to bomb banners, you just see red crosses and try to close them as soon as you can, you don't have time to read the contents of the banners before another ad just pops right in front of the one you were reading. So every time I clicked a bomb banner I was like "oh cmon, seriously?".

Or maybe it's just me, maybe it's a skill issue, maybe I'm not the target audience to these fast reaction click games, so it would be unfair for me to rate your game because maybe it's made for another audience, it's just not my cup of tea, sorry, but I'm not giving it a bad rating because of that.

The idea is not bad per se, the problem IMO is the execution. Maybe the powerups could appear for a second like the cookie clicker's golden cookie instead of being a skillcheck at the bottom of the screen.

Still, don't worry too much, that's what game jams are for, to try and to be creative. You got a unique idea and you executed it, that's more than what a lot of people can achieve, at least you didn't make a puzzle platformer like most people do in jams, so that means you're a creative person. I hope the feedback helps. Keep it up!

Hi! I'm glad you liked it!

Well, technically you should spam click after you get a skateboard. They don't push you by their own, you have to make the physical effort of kicking the ground so it makes sense you still have to click. Oh, BTW, spam clickers are still VERY popular today, I know because I study the idle/incremental market and I see all the time spam clickers with thousands of players, even paying money for them. I'm glad you're able to express your discontent here but at least this one is free.

Still, as I said, the idle thing was a bug and I already fixed it. The game will go idle and give you coins over time depending on your upgrades' levels, it's coming on the next release after the game jam.

Keep in mind I made this game in one day for the jam this sunday, so a bit of patience would be much appreciated, I'm not Ubisoft, I'm just a solo dev, I didn't really have time to polish it and I can't update it until the jam ends so hopefully I'll improve the gameplay and a few elements soon. A new engine is coming, a tooltip with stats/information about the upgrades, MAX BUY button and a few more fixes.

Thanks for the feedback.

See?? Just a few simple things and it improved so much! It's more fun to play as a bird than as a circle.

Also the achievements and shop are a good way to keep the player engaged.

I'd add a coin counter on the UI and I think I'd still replace the platforms for terrain assets and add a few clouds in the background and you'll see how much it would change from your first iteration.

Good job! and I've got a secret, I made a game just like yours last year (well, the same idea at least)

https://x.com/wiredpixelsdev/status/1805746074142863511

It's a bit glitchy but man is this fun! I ended up messing around with the grappling mechanic for some time, I even went through the finish line from below, like spiderman. Fun game, good job! I'd probably tell you if you want to make this into a full game, forget about the spider-bike and focus on the grappling, it's just too much fun.

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

That's exactly what it is. I made it in one day for a game jam, I'll probably add a few more elements when the jam finishes. Thanks for playing!!

Yes, it's a game made for a game jam, I wanted people to get through the content in under 15 minutes. I'll probably add more elements and goals to keep people enternained for longer. Thanks for playing!

I'll add that to the backlog, thanks for playing!!

Yeah, sorry about that! it was supposed to be for a game jam, I wasn't expecting people to reach 1000 speed of light! I'll fix it when the jam is over (I can't modify the game during that period). Thanks for playing and for your feedback!

Oh WOW! That's a lot of "c"!

Did you make the art? I got to 500mph.

Vamo carajooooo!! No sabía que había más argentinos en esta jam!!

The game is fun and challenging, the art is beautiful! you guys are really good at pixel art even if you used some kenney's assets. I LOVED the concept of course, fun mechanics, I love how free you're to jump around and move so if you lose you can't blame the RNG. Presentation is amazing, super polished pixel art and the limitation is there so overall amazing job guys!

Nice! I'm glad you had fun!

Is there a win screen or is it just a sad game where I always lose and my babies die? :-(

Still, the mechanics are fun, and I feel you could spice it up with some upgrades, like you can open your wings for a few seconds so you can catch more balls or another where you slow snowballs down for a bit.

Still it was fun. Good job!