I love the game. Good commentary on the challenges of game development. the art is incredible. my only complaint is the ice golems were a little unpredictable . There should've been a visual or audio indicator before firing the bullets.
Play game
Everything starts small's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #41 | 4.295 | 4.295 |
| Overall | #44 | 4.133 | 4.133 |
| Presentation | #54 | 4.381 | 4.381 |
| Fun | #138 | 3.724 | 3.724 |
Ranked from 105 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Preferred Name
Khaled
Newbie?
Yes - I'm new to game jams!
How does your game fit the theme?
The game represents the journey of a beginner game developer. The player starts as a small snowball that grows in size when rolling forward—symbolizing learning and growth. When idle, the snowball shrinks, reflecting how progress slows without action. A snowman character acts as a mentor, teaching the snowball mechanics and tools (representing coding and development skills). By the end of the game, the snowball transforms into a snowman—signifying the transition from beginner to experienced developer.
Comments
The visuals are incredible for a game jam and there is so much polish. I would say that I think the game is a little difficult and on the punishing side but I may just be bad lol. I also think that the ice golem people are a bit awkward to fight as sometimes I will get really big then they get scare and when I go and start rolling over to them they either shoot an ice attack and just kill me or like I think for some reason I get smaller (even though I am moving) then they kill me when I them. Overall I felt that the level and enemy design was somewhat awkward/cramped. I still enjoyed the game and the story/message of it was nice, this is just like general feedback to improve upon what is already a good game!
like the idea, the lack of checkpoints after a certain point does make dying at some points feel tedious. cool enemy but near the end of level 3 it can feel quite awkward to deal with. looking at another review it seems that you can kill enemies, I don't know If I just missed it but I was unaware. the art style is good ( btw you spelt actually as actaully in level 2(iirc) dialogue )
Amazing game, I love it, just that the enemys where so anoying and I couldn't pass level 2
Absolutely my favorite entry this jam, a bit too hard for me because im a bit tired now but tbh i can see this become an actual game, and the dialogue is awesome as well
the only thing i didnt love is the enemies, didnt think they fit the environment as well and personally i dont think the enemies firing projectiles fits this type of mechanic, thats my own personal pet peeve tho so take it with a big grain of salt
i would love to hear your opinion on my game as well if you have the time
A bit too hard for me? Yes. But I can still really really appreciate the very creative interpretation of the theme and the amazingly cute art (and evenly cute encouraging snowmen!). Very well done, especially for your first game jam! :)
Thank you for joining my stream! Here's a written review for you:
To start off, very creative game, being able to change the size of the snowball is very cool.
Some things I think you can work on is fix the menu screen so that it's not in the top corner. I also find the sound effect for the dialogue is a bit much, maybe try changing the pitch or lower the volume. We also talked about it on stream, that it'd be nice to have some checkpoints, and for enemies that I killed to stay dead. Also adding some subtle background music would be nice too, to give it some additional winter vibes.
I really wish I could play more, but the lack of checkpoints kind of bothered me. Overall, very good game. Keep it up!!
Here's the clip of me playing your game: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2521169517
Thanks for your feedback also i loved the stream it was very fun, the issue in the main menu happens when you click the fullscreen button before the game loads that because the object that handles the scale of the window is not running until the game runs hope thats clear, also the dialogue volume can be changed in the settings just press settings and go to the audio settings there should be sliders to adjust how loud they are, i messed up by not adding checkpoints i should have but i did not feel like it thought that would make the game easy but i was wrong, also the ice golem ai need probably a rework maybe making it easier, anyways thats for playing and for the stream.
Love how you interpreted the theme and the game has a great message! Really clever mechanic of having a snowball build up by rolling and shrinking. I had a lot of fun with the platforming and the concept has a lot of potential. The art and UI was really polished too super impressive. I definitely had a lot of trouble with rolling to a big size to crush the golems while dodging their projectiles, but I figured out you could also move past them by dodging them so cool touch to have multiple solutions
Great submission!
I really liked the arts and idea. my only concern is it's a bit unclear what size I should get to kill ice golems
Awesome game, this is a really tight platformer with charming visuals and a unique mechanic. i enjoyed this one a lot despite how hard it was. i enjoyed the snowman dialogue encouraging me and the retro sounds were on point.
here's my thoughts / critiques
- i wouldn't put the spikes next to the first breakable block section, allow me to learn that mechanic without danger first
- the first combat scenario maybe give a lot more space so you can properly use the mechanic of rolling to get big.
- a button to expend all snow at once would be nice so u don't have to wait as much (maybe this could used as a gameplay mechanic somehow) cause even though those moments of waiting are brief they still break up the pace in an otherwise very fast paced platformer.
- the roll up enemies mechanic is confusing because i got an enemy to scared state but still died when colliding with him, after that i just avoided them entirely.
- in general the respawn points are extremely punishing, and it feels weird that the snowman isn't considered a checkpoint
- there's a point where you learn that the spring can be rolled past if your small, but auto bounces you if you are big, i like this mechanic but it would be nice to introduce it without spikes first ( this would also be less frustrating if the snowman was a checkpoint)
- the blizzard audio loop gets pretty grating after a while
- the icicles dropping before you are right under them which seems unfair
- the enemy behavior seems random, it might work better if they shoot at a set interval and movement behaves consistently instead of waiting and not knowing when they are going to move.
hope any of this feedback is meaningful, Great work on this its very impressive and i think it could be a really good platformer if the difficulty is more fair and paced better
really like the tweening used to make the snow ball swell up in size and the ice golem was silly :3
Unusual game design! Mechanics are combined with visual. I would like to have a zoom out button.
I love the game its concept, its problem solving is quite smart, also i love how u can play the game like a complete killer machine or u can even play passively without killing some ice golems. I played two run one trying to passively and one with aggression. It was hard but i managed somehow. Loved your game liked the difficulty not too difficult but also not too easy. One thing i may add give the snowball some abilities like pickup abilities. Ex: 1. Ice Skater.. This will make our Snowball fellow gain speed even in his bigger ball so he will not feel small.. , 2. Ice Gust: Basically a Jumb boost o some sort. could be used by any type small or big. U can use other concepts to make game more diverse its actually very refined just add more of your OWN oginality and it will be Great.. Keep working looking for a whole new release. Thanks for the great experience!! (Lastly add parallaxing to the background too.. but I think u already have thought of it just didn't had the time to implement it before the gamejam Loved it peace out!)
I really dont have much to add here, this game is super nice and Honestly i do think if you fleshed it out it would find a space on something like steam or itch
I really enjoyed the backgrounds they look awesome
My own piece of feedback would be a way to change the spike colour, sometimes itsa bit difficult to see the spikes versus the ground
Nice game! It took me a while to get to the end. I liked the concept of a snowball that grows when you move to change its abilities. It was a simple concept that adds a nice layer of depth to the gameplay.








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