Definitely cat behavior.
Personally, I would have liked a volume slider, because while the meowing is cute, it does get a little obnoxious after a while (and triggers memories of my own cats keeping me up late at night, like just get your snacks yourself you little buggers!).
A restart button would also have helped for when you misplaced a box to quickly start over without having to sacrifice your other lives first.
It took me until I finally reached the end of the road to get the concept. Good idea, but I feel the pace could use some further adjustments since it takes a long long time and the end seems illogical when you reach it with barely any speed. The art is simple yet nice, but some parts of the level are rather unpolished with some overlap leading to unclear collisions.
Tasty Jam indeed, good rat. I like how the background changes with each different character but i wish it was better communicated what each of them do. If I hadn't be told, I doubt I would have figured out that the ice and black one allow you to jump off their sides. Exploiting them is really fun though. Personal Record for me is 3 lives.
Maybe I missed it but it wasn't clear to me what the fail state was because the game seemed a little easy? Maybe it's just cause i'm not used to these kind-of-cozy-games.
What i can tell however is that i would have liked some more art as some things, especially the UI (which in a game like this have extra importance because you absolutely need to look at it to win) should have had more than default unity sprites. The fishes and catch movements also felt a little jittery. Further adding to the "unfinished" feel is that the fishing rods sprite just cut on the side? It feels like it should have been placed on the border of the screen but it wasn't.
I do like the shop items though, even if i would have liked to see price shields and/or a description of what they do.
In that case, i feel like the game doesn't communicate this to the player enough. Personally i felt very confused when playing as they didn't even do much to help. My best distances were always the first for some reason? The clock doesn't add enough time to really notice a difference, and the fish, i'm still not sure what they do? Does it have to do something with the inconsistent jumps in mid-air?
Oh, and there are some tiling issues in the backgrounds.
I think you have an interesting idea there, but it's poorly communicated to the player so it's hard to even grasp.
My favourite thing about this game is probably the feel and flavor of the Time-Slow and exploding (this game has to be one of, if not the best sounding one this jam. I especially love the shepherd tone and clock). Next would be the level design, unfortunately however, either i am missing something or the game cant be beaten right now. But the direction it's taking is already very cool. Similar thing goes to the art, i like the higher fidelity pieces of environment and the player character, but some of the filler in between walls and floors seem mismatched, and the background behind the factory one looks completely out of place and breaking into the visual style of the game (oh, and you might want to fix some overlap in the left of the map).
Despite not being able to beat the game, i had fun trying. Good job.
I'll be honest, I don't really see the connection to the jams theme, but oh well.
But what I do have a hard time overlooking, is that due to the randomized spawns enemies are often overlapping, and since neither the hitbox for the leg, nor the would-be-passengers are clear, it's impossible to cherry pick out a michael jackson overlapping with a cop, leading to some frustration where it's entirely up to luck how far you can get.
The setting however, oh the setting. Delightful! Very creative, get's all the points.
I'm a big fan of the base concept. Having a platformer where you have to throw around light-sticks and pick them back up, or be careful not to waste them is pretty fun.
And while the game doesn't have a lot of sounds, the 2 for throwing and picking back up again really adds a sense of tactile-ness.
My one complaint about the mechanic is that the light-sticks are a little too slippery, and often end up sliding of a platform, leading to a (perceived to be) unnecessary loss of a vital resource.
While I enjoyed the games art, the characters and environment, for these purposes also UI, seem rather mismatched in their style. (except for the crocodile. That could be in a photorealistic game and I would still love it)
My last 2 points, I know to be due to the jams time limit, but the "ammo count" for the game jam appears very rushed, using the default font and being partially off-screen. And finally, after you fall, you respawn, problem is, at least for me, that only happens once. After that, I have to manually reload the page to start over.
While the idea was interesting (see other climbing games like Cairn, Juasant or Peak) I feel the execution, in essence, made stamina management completely trivial. You can just hold down space to ascend and the anchors will replenish your stamina the moment you touch them (which is right as they are placed). Maybe if the player had to touch the ground, or another anchor first, it would have added a little more challenge. I think it would also be more fun and challenging, and realistic, if the player didn't move so smooth like they had a jetpack, but in shorter or longer jumps (giving player choice and more risk/reward).
2 more things I noticed, is there supposed to be a win state trigger at the bench, because if there is, it didn't work for me, leaving some initial confusion. Lastly, if you just keep holding space while crossing the top, you can just keep climbing infinitely into the sky.
I very much like the core concept, however there are some points in the execution that I feel could be significantly improved. Mainly, the pace. For a game jam, completion takes way too long. I think it took me like half an hour to an hour explore the entire level, with some frustrations along the way. With out your firefly, visibility is almost zero, and with no way to regain it, you might as well reset yourself to the beginning and start the arduous journey again. Additionally, during exploration, you might accidentally die without having used your firefly at all, basically wasting the time spent. I believe if the player automatically dropped a firefly upon death, it could improve the players quality of life. There's no checkpoints throughout the level, and while adding them would lead to faster exploration since you don't need to go through areas you've been in already, adding them, i believe would distract from the main mechanic of lighting the path. I think speeding up the movement would be a better way. Maybe even a dash?
Some other minor things i noticed, the players gravity feels weird? The player character falls very slowly, suggesting a low gravity environment (which i thought at first), except the fireflies flap too quickly for that. With the player character being a kind of mage, i think adding some magic particles could suggest a kind of slowfall spell?
The slow-motion on death feels poorly implemented and more like the frame rate is dropping than an intended feature, and there's a bug where an intense force is applied to the character on death, pushing them quite a distance.
(oh, and the level completion trigger isn't working so I didn't even notice I won the game)
With that out of the way, the level design, while sadistic would have been fun to explore if it wasn't for the issues above. And the player characters art is delightful, and I love the fireflies (though their light could be a bit warmer.
One of the best ideas I've seen this jam. If I were simply tallying the points I gave, this would get the most. Now I'm not sure how qualified I am to rate this, since I haven't actually beaten the game myself (severe skill issue on my part), but I have seen others do it.
The artwork is almost perfect as far as i'm concerned, aside from some clipping of the conveyors and a bug on my end where there is no explosion on death, which is strange because I have seen it before, or at least I think I remember there being one? Oh and the controls being shown in UI elements would have been nice.
Audio is definitely one of the best this jam. The music fits perfectly and is even partially in sync with some of the hazards, which also have their own sounds. Personally, I would have liked to see a sound to indicate the speed boost being active, maybe even a mechanical whirring perchance? (totally not me just wanting one of my favourite sounds in every game that has the opportunity).
For the narrative: I've heard an interesting theory of this possibly being a prequel to a prior semester project Post-Haste, which would be hilarious, but there isn't a whole lot to go off here. You're a bomb in a package that should not be damaged.
Now for the enjoyment, despite me never having beaten the game myself, I see potential. There is just one main complaint I have, which is the reason I gave up: the speed boost feels inconsistent. Sometimes it keeps up until you let go of the shift key, sometimes it lasts only for a moment which is very frustrating when all of the jumps in this game rely on it. Oh, and again, the controls on the UI would have been nice. Speaking off, why are all 3 volume sliders in the settings menu labeled music?
That concludes my review. Thank you for your participation and great work on your "totally not a rage game".
I'm not sure how, aside from not really being into this genre, but I haven't heard of a whole lot of tower defense games without towers that defend, so probs on the creativity.
The art would have been excellent, if there had been more of it. The UI and player, along with the enemies are just placeholder assets. A different cursor would also have been nice to see too, but I get that time was limited. That which is there, the carriage filled with gold, the map and player attacks, are great however. That bling of the gold? Beautiful. I understand why the enemies want it so much, hell, if I wasn't already defending it, I'd join them.
Audio, well. Like most of the art, it is unfortunately missing. But again, time constraints make this difficult. Especially since we don't even get any sound design classes.
Narrative: As I've stated prior, I get why the enemy wants that gold so much. Personally, I imagine them to be goblins, but it's hard to tell without any visuals. The player seems to be some kind of mage? Again, missing art really takes away from this again.
And finally, Enjoyment. While the 'defending the carriage' part in itself, and the variety in possible attacks the player has, is fun, the game suffers from some other issues, that I believe could be worked out if the game got a little more time in development. I see three (or four) main issues 1: the controls shown at the beginning aren't accurate. It says that you can use the mouse wheel to switch between attacks, but neglects to mention the far more convention q and e key to do the same. Along with that, it is never explained what these attacks do, nor which one is currently selected. And even worse, the game starts off without any attack being selected, leaving you to spam the left mouse button without any attack. What I would like to see is a an UI element showing the currently selected ability, with a sprite that gives you some context before you use it yourself, and a cooldown. Additionally, using the number keys 1-3, would be cool since they would give you a better feel for which ability you are currently using, since with the current method, I was just spamming left click and e in hopes that I'd get an attack that wasn't on cooldown. 2. wave 3 seems to be bugged. There are some enemies popping in and out of existence in the center of the map and I'm not sure whether you have to shoot them or if you just have to wait them out, either way, I doubt that is the intended experience. Before I get to the final point, here's an honorable mention I would have liked to see: a countdown before the next wave begins. Now. 4: There is no loss or win state. You can't die from the enemy attacks, and even if your gold goes down to zero, nothing happens. The same in wave 4. Once you defeat all the enemies, it just leaves you with the memory of your actions, were you really justified in killing all these poor Goblins(?). What was it all for? All these are questions to ponder as you wait for a win screen that will never come.
I wish I could have better things to say, there is so much potential here. I'm assuming there were severe issues behind the scenes, because I know for a fact that all of you can do better than that. Thank you for participating and I'm looking forward to the next time.
A racing game without gas or brakes, what a terrible idea (xD great minds seem to think alike).
Though I must admit your execution is better than ours. The fact that you lose speed when running into things and build it back up with clean driving, and how you use tire health to force a player to get to the next wheel quickly is a great idea.
The art makes gives the game a nostalgic touch, like playing an old flash game, and I rather enjoy the setting, they really built beautiful cars back then. Unfortunately, unless you're playing in full screen, the UI decides it doesn't want to be on the edges anymore, which does retract from the overall polish.
The audio is pretty barebones, and while I do love some good rock, it restarting every time you die and restart does get a little bothersome to me. And with this games difficulty, I would rather listen to my own playlist instead of the same song on repeat while grinding away at the highscore. A mute button or more tracks would have been nice. (this sounded nicer in my head, I hope you don't get the wrong idea here. I do still like the music, it's just a bit repetitive)
Narrative-wise, I've already mentioned how I enjoy what could easily have been a fuel gage be rebranded as tires, since they would get a lot more wear in that terrain and with the relative speeds compared to the fuel tank. The wreckages of cars that didn't make the journey spread about the course is also a nice touch, giving a possible explanation for the tires far off the gas station, but speaking of, I feel like there are a few too many off them. Who would want to work at a gas station in the middle of nowhere? Or are they abandoned? In my opinion there could have been more done with them.
Finally, the enjoyment. Dust Rush probably ranks as my favourite game of the jam. The difficulty makes each completion rewarding and the score keeps you pushing to get faster and faster. Especially the high score being show at all times makes this a good game for competitive players. It feels like an old arcade that you keep revisiting to defend your highscore or try to capture it away from someone else.
Nicely done.
(Edit because I forgot:) a little quality of life addition that I would have liked is to be able to restart using the space key instead of the mouse/trackpad. Having to move your hand away from the simple controls, or having to use your other hand gets tedious on the 500th try. Oh, and I don't really see the point of the quit button in a web only game? There is no main menu to go back to so it just quits the game, which feels odd in a browser.
Not much I can say that others haven't already.
The art is delightful in its colours, feel and fidelity, even if the controls glitching off the screen is a little distracting.
The idea, while I've seen it before, certainly fits the theme and is definitely uncommon enough to be a selling point.
Audio, well you did more than we did, the music is calm and I don't see it becoming obnoxious even after playing for a while.
I believe the narrative could have gotten a little more out of it, the only thing we get, is that apparently fishing with bombs is common enough for, at least some, fishing vessels to have dedicated bomb ports, reserving the net for bringing them in I suppose? Seems rather inefficient, but what the hell, it's a fun game.
Finally, I'll join the others in saying that the controls are somewhat clunky. I like having to hold space to drop and determine detonation distance, but also having to press space to reload does often cause me to accidentally drop a bomb early and missing out on an opportunity, which causes some frustration. I believe simply putting it on a small timer would be a more elegant solution, plus you could pair it with sound design and have these delightful mechanical noises that autoloaders often have. (To be fair that last part is very much personal preference).
All that to say, you've all done a great job in this short a time and Bombing Fish is amongst my favourites of this jam.
