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COSMIC MUSH jam slice's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #51 | 2.875 | 2.875 |
| Polish | #54 | 2.938 | 2.938 |
| Overall | #91 | 2.531 | 2.531 |
| Art | #100 | 2.625 | 2.625 |
| Atmosphere | #103 | 2.625 | 2.625 |
| Sound | #107 | 2.062 | 2.062 |
| Theme | #110 | 2.062 | 2.062 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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From the description I gather that the game is largely vibe coded, so I am gonna focus my feedback on the larger design decision and how coherent everything came together.
I think the idea of an automatic space invaders game mixed with card mechanics, even if not entirely original is a good one. I also like the general art direction and chosen color palette, to me the UI came together quite coherently and looks good in general. Standout for me are the graphics of the enemy ships - they are somewhat reminiscent of games like warning forever, which I am a fan of.
I found the music generally annoying and thought that it didn't really match the gameplay or aesthetic. Something low bit or even just instrumental pieces would've matched better.
Generally bringing in an overarching narrative is a good thing and would work well - however I felt like the actual dialogue was largely pointless drivel and felt like I was actively wasting my time reading it. I assume it was also AI writing, as it was a lot of text with very little substance or meaning I could make out.
The biggest draw back and thing that needs improvement the most is the gameplay though. Especially the card-game aspect. There were little to no actual decisions I was making when playing the game, just taking any card that spawned and dropping it on my ship seemed like a valid strategy, resulting in me just watching a simulation with minimal input.
I don't want to take away from the effort, that was clearly put into this - but I would say, if you cut out larger parts of the usual game development work you need to put more effort into making the parts that are made by you stand out more.
hey, thank you for the detailed feedback!
glad the core idea, art direction, palette and ship graphics worked for you. i also like this direction of mixing an automatic space invaders-ish and card mechanics
about the music, i understand what you mean. for me it was mostly about supporting the mood and the strange lonely feeling i wanted the game to have. i tried to balance the melancholy of the story with the more active gameplay parts
about the narrative, i had a clear direction in mind: loneliness, distance, self decay, but i agree that the actual text side should be more focused and developed more specifically. right now it works more as an overall mood around the game
about the card gameplay, the intended idea is that threats should push you to adapt, hold cards, merge at the right time, discard bad options and plan around danger spikes. at the same time, i wanted the system to stay pretty fast and flow-based, not become an overly complex card game. so the target was low entry barrier, quick decisions, and a bit of depth through timing and card management
i think your point is useful here: if it feels like you can just take any card and drop it on the "ship", then the game should communicate its threat goals more clearly. the player needs to understand what danger is coming, why it matters, and why holding or merging a card could be better than spending everything immediately
thanks again, this is useful feedback!
Awesome! Looking at it this way, it's really more of an UX issue to teach the player the intended way to play. I didn't get the card merging at all.
I think another thing that I would've appreciated would be seeing the deck. Especially if I'm meant to strategize about using cards, it would be good to know what will generally be available.
An idea could also be to introduce a casting cost to cards. If you needed to kill a couple of enemies before being able to afford a card to play it would emphasize the strategic aspect.
yeah, exactly, i think a lot of it is a UI and UX question
my goal was to keep the game pretty minimal, without too many texts, tooltips or explanations, and make the mechanics understandable through play. from the feedback i got, i think this mostly worked, but the merge system is probably the part that needs clearer communication
the tutorial text at the top was added very late, almost as an emergency layer, so i see it more as extra support than as the ideal way to teach the game
about card merging, i tested a few different versions during development. in the final jam version it ended up more as an optional deeper layer than as the main way to play
right now it is more like a small gimmick and system exploration mechanic: if you dig into it, you can find some extra fun there through combinations and a bit of card tier progression, but the core gameplay is not fully built around merge strategy in this slice
about seeing the deck, good point. for this prototype i did not really see it as a deckbuilder, more like a fast random card flow where you get strange tools during combat and quickly decide what to do with them. but if the game moved more toward strategic planning, showing available cards would make much more sense
casting cost is also an interesting idea, but i think it would be a big design change. it could add strategy, but it could also slow down the flow and make the game feel less immediate. so i would need to look at it in a wider game context, instead of just adding it on top of the current version
thanks again, these are good thoughts
We played your game on stream, but i'm abstaining from rating it due to my personal biases against ai workflows. apologies
hi, thank you for taking the time to play it on stream! your live reaction and feedback are very valuable. it helps a lot to see how the game feels during an actual playthrough, really appreciate you giving it your time and sharing your thoughts while playing. thank you!
having taken the time to cool my head a bit and step away, get a more objective view the game as a whole (not fully objectively obv, this is still pretty biased hahaha) i think the concept is pretty professionally executed, i do think the ai parts of this are holding you back.
if this was made with "crappier" art and sound i would have found this charming, the merging upgrade system is a unique idea (in need of more explanation to the player), and the rythm shooter is an interesting design space (tho i find not really having direct control of the gun encouraged me into a boring play pattern of ignoring the actual game to just focus on the merging aspects). The art doesn't actually convey much of the information of your story to me, it's just noisy wideshots of planets on a screen too small to see see anything, and the songs feel very hollow (cosmic mush in particular's lyrics feel so on the nose i think i genuinely let out a chuckle on stream because of it, which took me out of the experience). Your aestetic choice of beige background/primary colour scheme i actually think is pretty inspired, tho you should experiment with colour pallet options to see what clicks with players most, something with higher contrast may get across the higher stakes and horror themes more (black or navy blue primary colour like DOS box? i know it's over done but they do it cause it looks sick), as it stands i think this is a good design choice that fights the rest of your other good design choices.
And that's really the long and short of it, the game feels like it's fighting itself and as a result feels kinda hollow, there's something interesting here to refine, but if it were me i'd find a musician and artist to fill in those blanks, cause the stuff there now detracts from the whole (and is devisive so you're gonna get more biased dicks like me flaming it just for it's inclusion). With substance the music and art will really shine in the framework you're building here for it. As it stands i'm put in a hostile position playing it, i'm predisposed to be more critical of your work, and engage with it less. and for godsake pull the camera in, use your deadspace i can barely see what's happening :p
wow, thank you for such a detailed comment. i’ll try to answer properly too
first, small separate thing: i really liked how you read the mid-missions texts on stream. it felt very theatrical in a good way and was honestly fun to watch
about the project itself, for me it was mostly a jam slice, tech concept and experiment. in my regular work i mostly focus on game design in a more traditional production pipeline, so here i wanted to test a different workflow too, including AI-assisted production, inside a small scope, and honestly, this is why i like jams. they are a good format for experiments, weird ideas and more personal projects. you can try things, take risks, hear what people think, understand what feels interesting, see what works and what does not, and learn from the result
about the beige palette, yeah, that was a conscious choice. i wanted to show space not only through darkness, black and deep blue, but as something more faded, dry and melancholic, like an old washed-out signal with small toxic color accents breaking through it. maybe it needs more contrast in some places, but i still like this direction
about the rhythm-shooter and direct control thing, the semi-idle feeling was partly intentional. i wanted the player to manage the card and merge layer and mission pressure more than directly aim every shot. but i agree that the threat system should push the player to adapt more, and right now it is not fully developed yet, both mechanically and balance-wise
about the merge system, totally agree, it needs better explanation. i tried to keep the UI minimal and let the player learn by doing, but the system is probably too important to stay that vague
about the game feeling hollow to you, i get what you mean. my intention with the art and music was more about mood direction than direct explanation: lonely space, distance from home, self decay, whatever, but yeah, this is a tricky line. what feels atmospheric to one player can feel hollow or detached to another, so this is useful feedback
and about pulling the camera in, yeah, fair note haha. i’ll think about it 🙂
thanks again. this is very useful feedback, and i really appreciate the time you put into it
The game was pretty fun. I like the purple mushrooms in space on the cover art.
hey, thank you for playing! glad it was fun
and yeah, happy you noticed the purple mushrooms. i wanted the game to be mostly monochrome, beige and ink-like, but with a few toxic-looking color accents for contrast
i think purple, blue and a bit of green worked pretty well for that strange space mushroom feeling
I enjoyed playing this game. Beautiful art and cool concept. I liked the music. The missions were fun (3 was the hardest)
The tutorial at the top was very helpful. I didn’t find any stats/descriptions for specific types of weapons. But even without them I figured things out how it works pretty quickly.
hey, thank you a lot for playing! really happy you got into the game and enjoyed the art, music and concept
about mission 3 — yeah, it seems to be a bit of a difficulty spike for some players. i think it asks for a pretty fast reaction and a more specific card/shield timing strategy, but does not teach that strategy clearly enough through gameplay
about stats and descriptions — yeah, fair point. i wanted to keep the interface quite minimal and not fill the game with too many hints or numbers. but this is also a harder design task: if i remove detailed descriptions, the game still needs to explain itself naturally through play
so it’s really good to hear that you still figured things out pretty quickly. thanks again, this is useful feedback!
The gameplay loop is very promising to be honest. I like the incremental/roguelike elements and is really fun to play and easy to play, it makes me want to do several runs. The art style is very cool however it was hard to read sometimes.
But overall pretty neat, I believe it has lots of potential!
hey, thank you a lot for playing and for the kind words!
really happy you liked the gameplay loop. yeah, the incremental and roguelike-ish part was definitely one of the inspirations. i was thinking about roguelike runs, build-making games, and even some mobile-style upgrade loops a bit, but tried to put it into a small jam-sized format
about readability - totally fair. i like the art style too, but i understand that sometimes it sacrifices clarity. i wanted the gameplay to be readable mostly through play, without too many text hints / tooltips / descriptions, but that also means the visuals and UI need to communicate things very clearly
so yeah, this is definitely something i need to polish more. thanks again, really glad you see potential in it!
An absolutely sick game. The art direction and interface aesthetic is amazing.
The gameplay loop is a lot fun.
We got stuck on earth defense, the difficulty ramp made it feel like we couldn't progress, but the gameplay was definitely engaging enough that'd we'd want to try another full run.
hey, thank you so much for playing and for such a nice comment!
it really means a lot that you got into the game and wanted to try another full run
about getting stuck on earth defense — yeah, the current difficulty there is a bit harsher than intended. a bug slipped into the submitted build during the deadline rush: ration / upgrade modifiers were supposed to stack between missions, but right now only one active modifier is kept for one mission. so the final mission ended up much harder than planned
funny thing is, i don’t fully hate the resulting balance overall. in some places it actually made the game more tense and engaging, almost like a “bug became a feature” situation. but yeah, the final push is sadly too brutal in this version
you basically reached the last part of the game already. if you want to see the ending, i did put some extra attention into it and tried to make it feel a bit unique compared to the main gameplay
you can press F10, select target mission, choose ration preset Full Upgrade, enter 6 in the mission field and press Launch
thanks again, really glad you liked the art direction, interface and gameplay!
Looks really neat and consistent! The artwork is chosen nicely and I realy liked how the planet moves in response to my cursor input. I like the sound design and especially the tactile card handling. Bunching all card interactions into the same drag-n-drop modality was a good choice.
The atmosphere felt like that of a typical oppressive sci fi movie about isolation and mental deterioration (some might call it "decay") and I find that the music really added to it, as if someone was listening to a Spotify playlist titled "don't hang yourself" while working overtime in space.
I would have liked more interactivity and control over what the gun is doing, since I lost a lot of shots to poor target selection. Additionally, in mission 3 or so, the ships started to move really fast all of a sudden - so fast that I could not have stopped them, even with a full hand of ideal cards (which I didn't have either way). Felt unreasonable, compared to the numeric increases serving as difficulty spike before.
Overall I think this is a cool game which needs some tweaking and should be continued in a post jam update!
Note: I had a hard time reading the hints for each ration, the font just blends with the artwork.
hey, thank you a lot for such a detailed comment!
yeah, i really wanted to make the static art feel more alive, so i’m glad the planet / cursor movement worked for you. small parallax-like stuff is simple, but it can add a lot of life to otherwise still images
also really happy you noticed the card handling. i wanted all card actions to stay inside one drag-n-drop language instead of turning into buttons everywhere, so it’s great to hear that it worked
about sound — thank you! i still feel like the sound design is not fully where i wanted it to be. i would like to add more ambience between missions and make UI interactions sound better, but the music was very important for me. a lot of the game started from the mood of the soundtrack, and only after that i started to understand what kind of place and story i wanted to build around it
about mission 3 / the fast ships — yeah, fair point. the idea was to create this wave-like cosmic ocean pressure, where some threats are not meant to be solved only by shooting, but also by saving shields/cards and playing them at the right moment. but i agree it can feel too sudden and unreasonable right now, so there is definitely balance work to do there
and yes, ration hint readability is a real issue too. unfortunately it seems to happen more on screens below 2K resolution, and i mostly tested the game on a high resolution screen, so some UI scaling/readability problems slipped through. that screen definitely needs another pass
if you want to try later missions or see more of the game without getting blocked by balance, you can use the debug launcher: press F10, choose mission as the target, enter the mission number you want in the mission field, select the Full Upgrade ration/modifier preset, then press Launch. it should let you start any mission with stronger upgrades
thanks again, this feedback is really useful!
Thanks for the hint, I will give it another try later! If the increased wave pressure is by design, maybe I can push through it by the right combination, the shield just didn't seem to work very efficiently, but maybe I just botched it in my first playthrough... Will see later!
I enjoyed the graphics, those shaders to make the game look like old are really good ones. The gameplay is chill, it fits with the game type. I enjoyed the experience :)
Thing to improve?:
- i didn't feed the music connected to the game.
- The GUi looks good but it doesn't provide clear information about what everything do. Things like hover info would really help.
hey, thank you a lot for playing and for the detailed feedback!
yeah, music is a bit tricky here. i tried to balance the gameplay with the more lonely / melancholic story mood, so it is not always super intense on purpose. but i understand what you mean, maybe in some parts it feels not connected enough to what is happening on screen
and yeah, GUI / UX definitely needs more polish. hover info is a really good idea. near the end i was already fighting the deadline, so i added that always-visible tutorial/onboarding text at the top almost in panic haha
thanks again, this is really useful
It was an interesting type of game. It took a second to figure out how to play it properly but after that it was smooth. Good job!
hey, thank you for playing!
yeah, the onboarding is probably a bit rough, so i’m glad it became smooth after a little time. i wanted to make the gameplay feel complete and polished, but some tutorial / native hints stuff definitely needs more work
i also already played your game, will try to leave more detailed feedback before voting ends!
i like the lore, give me vibes of ink computer thingy, i would like more if the music was intense
hi, thank you! really happy you liked the lore and the ink computer thingy vibe
i actually put a lot of effort and feelings into the lore and mood, and i think i’ll polish the narrative more in the after-voting update
about the music, yeah, i made it not super intense everywhere on purpose. i wanted to show this lonely space feeling, like the protagonist is far from home and slowly decaying. but i tried to make the most tense moments hit harder, both in sound and in gameplay balance
thanks for the feedback!