itch.io

Great game. It's simple, but you did a really good job of creating a core idea, sticking with it and polishing it. The visuals, menu, the SFX, pretty much everything feels really, really smooth and good. 

I really enjoyed the story in this game. Point and click games are hard to do well, but you did a great job with creating the vibes of a sad, also scary psychological game. The puzzles are overall good and aren't too easy or too hard.

I took note of some things you may want to consider:

• I would make the arrows for room switching more obvious. They're hard to see on the white backgrounds. Perhaps just add a black outline.
• I would add an extra indicator the door has been unlocked. With the first puzzle, it wasn't clear to me that I got it correct. You can add text which tells you something opened, or if the code failed.
• I think the dialogue tree's could use some work. Whether you're using the arrow keys or clicking, there should be some way to tell which dialogue option I have selected.
• I failed the count at the end and the kid got me, and after that I was done. I like the idea of multiple endings, but you should add some kind of checkpoint system so players don't need to start over, unless they want to.
• I think some of the puzzles could use some clarity, but as I said overall they're good.

Overall excellent work on your first jam. It's good to see someone else do a story-focused game. You should make more games like this in the future!

Interesting idea! Special call out to the damage numbers enemies receive, it looks really good.

If you were to continue this, I'd focus on making the character movement feel better. Maybe update the walk animation, make it a little faster, add some kind of dashing, improve the attack animation, etc.

Good work on the enemies too! The scarecrow is my favorite.

Thanks!

This game is really good! The music fits the vibes so well. The movement generally feels nice. I love the little dust cloud after dashing and the camera shaking.

I find the controls somewhat weird. If it were me, I'd add a WASD option, space as an alternative for jump, and left shift for dash.

Really interesting game! This is the first horror game I've played in a jam I think.

Premise reminds me a lot of Lethal Company, which I love.

You did a really good job on the creepy atmosphere and of course the voice acting. The company vibes are great. It's exactly how I would expect a shady, futuristic, dystopian startup to act.

I kinda got lost, like a lot. I think that's more of me problem though.

Thank you! Yeah seems the text size was the biggest issue. Now I know ha. Thanks for playing!

Cool game, the bird is super cool and cute and the movement feels really, really smooth!

Great puzzle game! One of the most fun games I've played this jam, really really nice work! I think you're probably in the running for the newbie winner award!

Funny little game ha. It's pretty impressive you built this in 2 days.

Cool concept and a good base. I think you should build on this and make a more advanced version some day. Nice work on your first jam!

Yep that's a good base. Dogs are cool too so bonus points. Small tip other than the ones others have pointed out; seems you have some "mixels", which mean you're using different pixel resolutions for different objects. For instance, the player has bigger pixels than the dog which looks kinda weird. It's a small detail but makes all the difference!

Good job on your first jam!

Cool design. I love the cube and the hairy cookie. I think the movement could be slightly better - there's a little bit of stutter moving forward. Good job overall!

For sure, really appreciate the feedback. A lot of those things I would have to add, but ran out of time. This was my first time working on a game of this type, and I'm going to build more so I appreciate your tips.

Fun little game, although I am really, really bad at it.

Interesting little game, I like it. Reminds me of digging down in terraria.

The attack could use some work. Perhaps can add a more obvious animation and some VFX feedback

Good feedback, thanks!

Cute little game. I love the cat it's awesome! The music is also fitting and is just the perfect volume.

I think adding some SFX and VFX to the abilities could go a long away, and maybe tweaking some the movement - like adding a little more power to the jump. Overall, nice job.

Thanks for pointing those out! Glad you enjoyed it.

For the background music, I actually originally added some then removed it. I felt it was more reflective of the player living a "colorless" life. Although maybe there's a track that would fit that.

Simple but fun! Very visually pleasing, I haven't seen an art style like this in a jam yet. Sorta reminds me of games I'd play in a modern arcade. Could maybe another mechanic. Overall nice job!

Thanks for playing! Yes I will make sure to add cat petting <3

Fun little game! It's actually quite challenging, and addictive. I also love the SFX it feels super arcadey. Good work!

Thanks! I really wanted to add a toon shader, but perhaps I went overkill with it. Some games like Persona used a mixture of toon shading and other styles. What would you recommend?

Really good game and super polished too! I don't normally enjoy puzzle platformers but this was fun. Very visually pleasing as well.

Game is pretty fun! The shooting is extremely satisfying, which is good since you literally play as a gun.

If you decide to build on this, I'd recommend making the portal spawn where the last enemy dies. It's not a big deal as it is now, but it's an easy to add QOL change.

Here's mine! It's story-centric game. It's about 5 minutes of cutscenes and 5 minutes of storytelling gameplay.

https://itch.io/jam/shovel-jam-2025/rate/3738509

Thanks! Yeah I should have made the text just a degree or two bigger, but hey now I know. Thanks for playing!

Good feedback! Yeah my dream is to build a really story centric, emotional game with rich characters. It was kinda hard to do both in the gamejam, but I haven't done any story stuff yet so that's what I focused on.

Wow this is game jam game? It's really good all around! Cool mechanics and the SFX implementation is fantastic. Nice job

It's decent, and I like Capybaras. It might be good to add some more stuff in the background to signify movement, like trees, rocks, stands, etc.

Yeah, it's kinda supposed to be like that. It's more of just a story you play through and observe, which was the goal. I could have added options but I wanted the character to be a certain way.

Interesting concept, really good UI. I like that I got paid for picking a lunch spot.

Based game

The game is fun! Good use of SFX and camera shaking, I appreciate the humor in it too. It's quite hard and I didn't get far, but perhaps that's the point.

"Help me study." "I feel jittery". Well there's only so much I can do. I hope she fails.

Very simple but quite fun! Nice work

Hey there!

This was the first time using s&box for both my project partner and me, and generally, I enjoyed it. The number of components it comes with makes it really easy to whip something up quickly. There were a few times I wrote custom classes only to find a component that already did what I needed. For instance, the sound component was seamless, allowing you to create a list of WAV files, randomize them, and play them anywhere without worrying about file pathing.

I appreciate how easy it is to publish and load your game via s&box. No issues with that whatsoever.

Although we didn't use it, the action graph is really cool. I think it makes the tool much more accessible for anyone intimidated by programming.

The cloud assets were an excellent idea; I found they worked best for models. Need to fill out your scene? No problem, just search for what you need and plop it in there.

That being said, it seems like s&box needs work, particularly on the material side. Sometimes, we would use cloud materials on assets, and scene files wouldn't pick up the references. You'd play the game in the editor, and it appeared fine, but after publishing, those assets had missing textures. I found this issue to be very inconsistent.

Similarly, we also had issues with overlapping naming. For example, I created a shader called "water." Then, when my partner and I loaded up the game, we each had different water. I had my own, but his game was using the s&box water shader. Luckily, I was able to fix this simply by renaming it.

Other than that, I found the documentation and online resources somewhat lacking, but I know that's something that will come with time. In a weird way, part of me kinda likes that all the info isn't there yet; it reminds me of the old internet days.

Overall, really good job, guys! Looking forward to watching s&box progress. Thanks for hosting this jam too!

Typically, I'm not a fan of floatiness in games, but I felt it worked well with the wizard aesthetic and music here! Nice work

Thank you! Yeah I tried to make it kind of hard in the right ways. 

Hey I get it! There's only like a dozen things I would have liked to add to my game as well but obviously these things are time limited. Still, good job though!