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A jam submission

The Groundhog MechanismView game page

A mission against an unstable time loop. Submission for GMTK 2025 Game Jam
Submitted by Bowerman — 2 hours, 16 minutes before the deadline
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The Groundhog Mechanism's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Narrative#13953.0703.500
Artwork#34283.1573.600
Enjoyment#36072.9823.400
Audio#37592.8073.200
Creativity#50772.9823.400

Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
The game is about a malware mechanism that continuously restarts the system. You must navigate through the system's maze to disable the mechanism before it gets unstable and starts looping faster.

(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Sound effects made with BFXR (https://www.bfxr.net/ )
Background music - "Space" by Alexandr Zhelanov (https://soundcloud.com/alexandr-zhelanov, https://opengameart.org/content/space-1 )

(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Bowerman

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

The ZX-Spectrum art stye looks really good! You did a solid job in terms of presentation and the game played really well. Great use of the theme too!

Submitted

I enjoyed myself

Submitted(+1)

The atmosphere was really good with this one. I played for quite a while until I guess I lost! Was a bit hard to understand exactly what was going on at first, I spent way too long messing around. I also kinda ended up just playing in the minimap with a bunch of speed but that's a me problem haha. The art was simple but effective, the whole game had a cohesive theme which worked quite well. Nice job on this!

Submitted(+1)

I liked the art
Submitted(+1)

As you said in a previouvs comment, i really think this is a "fear the unknown" kind of game lol, idk how to explain this but it was really chilling to explore the autogenerated maze, as the first minutes running around don't seem to lead you nowhere, so you are just there not knowing what to excpect!

Ok i've been yapping a bit too much, about the game tho, a tutorial step by step somehow is always better imo than a wall of text (even tho it was actually waaaay simpler and summarized thaan others i saw...) nice entry overall, i love this retro style, reminds me of faith the unholy trinity, great work!

Developer

Noted! Will add a tutorial in the future, after the game jam.
If you decide to give it another shot, don't forget to install a Ping! Even one can reveal quite a lot of the map.

Submitted(+1)

Yeah, i probably missed a lot of features :') , i hope after i have rated some other games i can go back and play some more, now that i got the hang of it!

Submitted(+1)

Very fun and stressful game. I love how you implemented the loop theme.

Submitted(+1)

The artsyle is really cool!!! And the game is very smooth

Submitted(+1)

Initially quite confusing but becomes interesting after a while as you begin to understand what each component does. Cool game.

Developer

Can't give the player too much information. Gotta let them confront the fear of the unknown ;)

Submitted

Yeah, I felt a lot of fear when a red guy chased me at the speed of light lol

Submitted(+1)

Criminally underrated game!! I love the aesthetic, it hits soo close to home with the metroid style map and spookiness of say, metroid fusion. Hidden gem!

Developer

Thank you!  Glad you liked the style as well!😁