I'm not done playing yet, but I did have some thoughts to share. Currently, I've beat the first two levels' combat paths.
While I haven't played everything in the jam, this is tied for my favorite gameplay! I was pretty leery of the timer premise conceptually, but after playing it, I think it really works! In order to properly execute this concept, there needed to be a kind of quadrilateral balance between "time to find an encounter", "time to clear an encounter", "rewards given per encounter", and "cost of extending the timer". And I think that while the first of those does need tweaking for pacing purposes, you did manage to strike a really good balance between all four of them as is that creates a really good push-and-pull dynamic. Here's hoping that any post-jam patch that tones down the encounter rate manages to also sustain the balance between the other three elements.
That said, I have run into a number of times where the screen locked up. When it happened didn't really seem to be consistent as far as I could tell, (most annoyingly, during the post-combat victory cutscene at the end of level 2) but based on the sound effects, I believe it was still registering inputs/updating the game state - I just couldn't see it. Also, maybe a little bit more of a hint system for the peaceful resolutions would be nice? Other than those few issues, I've really enjoyed this entry.
Play game
Born in 60 seconds's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Pregnancy Content | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Gameplay | #5 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Creativity | #6 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Overall | #7 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Jam Theme | #9 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- I've always enjoyed the games submitted by Elis Immortelle, fun to see how each game evolves the world. That said this was a fun and challenging game. I had to retry several of the puzzles several times in order to get the true end. As far as scoring goes, pregnancy content is focused on the main character as well as multiple side characters with the focus of the story recruiting people into the pregnancy cult. Birth is present if you fail and then you try again. Gameplay is unique in the sense you only have 60 seconds... well technically 240 seconds to complete the puzzle. Each time you extend the time, your progress to having a larger pregnancy fitting in with the theme. Creativity fits in well with story continuing in the world of the previous jam games as well as the minor details shown such as one npc's quick glance at the clock to check the time or npc's running off with the cake. I'm impressed with how this game turned out, enjoyed the challenge of solving the puzzle too. Great job!
- Yet another creative game from the dev. The concept was great and the gameplay was creative and challenging. The callbacks to their previous games was also a wonderful thing to see.
- A few minor nitpicks with an otherwise wonderful game! I quite enjoyed this game, as Ellis once again managed to make a not very complicated but very satisfying gameplay loop with multiple distinct levels and even two paths per level, just to give us more variety! The gameplay itself is relatively simple, with its entirety focusing on the timer mechanic, which needs to be balanced between combat, exploration and puzzle solving. This was thankfully never super overwhelming, as one can recharge the timer multiple times if they know which battles to take and which to run from. It becomes a very fine-tuned balance over time! My only real gripe was the fact that the "better" endings for each level are not immediately accessible, as you are forced to the combat runs first (at least this was always the case for me, though maybe some NPCs didn't spawn correctly?). While this was most likely meant for people to have a chance to get to know the levels before they are thrown into doing a whole puzzle, it feels a little discouraging to be forced into a path before being able to have a choice. As I said, it's a minor nitpick and I otherwise quite enjoyed the game!
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.