After randomly finding this game i gotta say its pretty awesome!
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Abiogenesis's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme (How well the game fits the theme) | #2 | 4.132 | 4.132 |
| Balance (Game pacing) | #3 | 3.632 | 3.632 |
| Orginality (Is the game unique?) | #3 | 4.474 | 4.474 |
| Fun (Overall enjoyment) | #8 | 3.763 | 3.763 |
Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Crazy amount of polish and effort for a two week jam, great job. I definitely got spore vibes on the final screen as I fired bees into space.
Submitted
Tome writer incrementalReal charming and creative! game was paced well, things got switched around at good intervals. fit the theme. good job~
The no text entries are really interesting, as it forces the developer to do clean design choices so the game still "reads"(hehe) well to player.
This inspired me to try the no text challenge myself, maybe some other gamejam.
oh and also, first time the narrator said something it gave me a shook as I was focused and didn't expect it at all.
Submitted
Power InheritedBest game of the jam that I've played so far! It hits really nicely because I'm playing it after getting weary of the complexities of Evolve. I think it does a great job sticking to the themes, but I was pretty lost after the second stage in terms of understanding what upgrades were doing. I only played until stage 1 of the prestige, unsure how much the game changes after that.
As was mentioned in some of the other comments, QOL is a bit lacking, and I think that largely falls into two recurring problems: having to click too much, or having difficulty conveying information (obviously limited by the no-text theme). For the clicking, stage 1 should let you select a building and then default to that until it's changed, rather than having to click on the building and then the spot each time. I found stage 3 to have similar amounts of clicking, but the rotating planet and many tiles made it hard to click where I wanted, and having to click so many times on whichever species you're trying to win with was pretty annoying.
I think the information problem is difficult to solve while keeping consistent with the theme, but maybe there's some way to make the icons more clear? The first stage does a nice job of this, with the bolder coloring showing presumably more capable buildings.
Thank you! I agree with your feedback about the QOL. I especially wish I had done a bit more to make phase 1 less clicky. I don't know what to do about the information problem; I spent a looooot of time trying to figure out how to convey information with no text and it was very difficult! I think I need to stop looking at it for a while and then come back with fresh eyes.
Review contains a bit of a spoiler so be warned
I think the best creativity happens under constraints, and this game really leaned into both the theme, and the fact that there was no text was super interesting. I found myself getting really into trying to get a specific species to come out on top(spoiler), so I got a little meteor happy. I think I might try a challenge to get one of each species which would be pretty hard, but a fun challenge all the same.
The music was very cute and the art follows that esthetic as well.
Question for the dev though, are the landmasses procedurally generated? Are there rules for specific species as to where they can thrive?
It took me a bit to 'get' what was going on, but I like this idea a lot. It was a really fun surprise moment when the game looped with my new species. abiogenesis really fits both themes very well! With a bit of quality-of-life tweaks, I think this could be an amazing game, and I'm quite impressed at how the game communicated things without text.
Submitted
Juice Jamboree- The opening phase requires a ton of clicking with no meaningful decisions. QoL would be an upgrade or something that lets me auto place or auto upgrade? Or maybe the phase needs another mechanic.
- Breaking down each phase a bit further with gates to unlock features might help players learn what the different things are actually doing.. for example, in phase 3, I never actually learned what the "white dots" UI on the left did. I just kept clicking things based on what seemed interesting ignoring things that I wasn't able to modify / upgrade.
- Another (minor) example: clicking on the meteor doesn't appear to do anything, but if the cursor changed or if the meteor followed the cursor, that might help teach what's going on.
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