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AI Overload: Appliance War's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #75 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Overall | #237 | 3.312 | 3.312 |
| Theme | #261 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Story | #293 | 2.312 | 2.312 |
| Sound | #312 | 2.812 | 2.812 |
| Aesthetics | #314 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Mechanics | #334 | 2.938 | 2.938 |
| Music | #366 | 2.562 | 2.562 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game in total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
no
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Comments
survived 6 minutes, got a bit stressed to the end as there were lots of enemies and few heal powerups x_x
nice survivors like, good submission
nice game. Simple and fun. Perhaps in a future you can use a tilemap. Good job overall.
Very nice Vampire Survivors-style game. The pacing felt really good, and the static defenses were a really creative touch that helped it stand out from the usual formula. Great job!
Thank you very much! Iām still thinking about what I can build on top of the static defense idea — something that feels just right and works well with the other mechanics. I really appreciate you noticing that part!
could beat the game at lvl 49. what an awesome game!
the game is well balanced, as if a math guy would work on the game.
it is beautiful, the music and sfx are good, and the game is immersive.
the music could have been longer as for a bgm it becomes monotone for such a size of a game.
an overall well made game, a great example in the genre. well done!
Thank you so much! Hearing that the game feels well-balanced is probably the biggest compliment I could ask for.
I still have a lot to learn when it comes to making music. For this game, my main goal was to make sure the loop didnāt become annoying too quickly, but creating a BGM track that stays enjoyable for a long session is definitely a new challenge for me. Your feedback is really helpful. Thanks again!
Nice work! Love the connect mechanic. And who doesn't love a survivors like?
Thank you for playing and leaving a comment! Survivors-likes really did create a whole new genre, and I love them too!
Nice work! Love the connect mechanic. And who doesn't love a survivors like?
What a lovely game! I made it up to lvl 25. the moment I thought the game becomes too easy and I overpower the enemies by a lot the game proved me wrong. Such a great feeling. I really enjoyed it. And the appliances have their own level as well. Really balanced, really enjoyable to play. I had a blast. congrats. You did excellent job with it!!!
I spent a lot of time playtesting to tweak the balance, and the appliance levels were actually a last-minute addition to the design. It's amazing to hear that you noticed those details and had so much fun! Thank you for describing your playthrough so perfectly—I can completely picture the exact moment you're talking about.
Yea lol. Since you played test this many times we are describing the exact same moment :P the "I am ok I can handle this" to "Oh wait what happened now where these fellows came from? why so fast?" moment. But seriously I will give it another go because it was really fun to play.
Fun game. I made a connection, but wasn't sure what it was doing. Still fun though. Good work.
Thanks for the kind words! Once the appliances are plugged in, they automatically attack nearby enemies. I definitely should have put more effort into making that clearer—some of my friends actually had the exact same confusion! I'm glad you still found the rest of the game fun though.
Loved this, just played it for quite a while (forget what level, but it was decent). Well done.
I'm so glad to hear that the game was worth your time! As a developer, that's the most rewarding thing to hear. Thank you!
Love the aesthetics, good job!
The success of the art style was honestly a bit of a lucky strike, but I really appreciate your kind words. Thanks for the support!
Really fun and chaotic idea š The whole AI appliance war concept feels creative and fits the jam theme in a very unique way. I also liked the colorful presentation and energetic atmosphere — the game has a lot of personality.
Definitely one of the more memorable concepts in the jam. Great work!
Thank you for such a generous compliment that hits right at the heart of my inspiration! I'm incredibly happy to know that you enjoyed these designs.
Made it to level 60, that was fun!
Wow, honestly, neither I nor my friends have ever made it to level 60, I guess I should give it a try myself! Thanks so much for playing my game, and I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it. š
Very strong, for a game jam game. A solid example of the Bullet Heaven genre. (Although the upgrades are relatively limited.) I liked how you combined the theme with the gameplay by plugging in turrets. I disliked how the enemy speed increases when the player upgrades. (It makes all your upgrades meaningless! š)
Thank you for the compliments! I also really love the concept of the turrets, and there are actually a lot of expanded mechanics that I didn't have time to implement. Regarding what you disliked, I think itās a bit of a dilemma. If enemies don't get stronger, the game loses its challenge; but if their scaling matches the player's upgrades too closely, it definitely weakens the sense of progression.
I hope I can figure out a design that balances both. Thanks for pointing it out—itās definitely a problem worth diving into!
HoloCure did it by rubber-banding the enemy's health to player damage, and enemy speed to player speed. But, crucially, both were capped so they wouldn't outscale the player, just gradually trend back towards the original difficulty curve over time after a wave change. (New enemy graphic.) And even with that soft auto-balancing, even with meta-progression upgrades normalized for Timed Mode, it was expected that broken builds would be possible when a lucky run goes off the rails.
But how could this be done within the constraints of a Jam? š¤I suppose the most important thing is to end the game via Time Limit, like Vampire Survivors and HoloCure did, not by increasing the difficulty until the player gets overwhelmed. Then again, maybe that's a fix that would only be useful after there's more content in the game, long after the Jam is over.
Either way, good job doing so much within a short time period. š
Thatās incredibly professional advice — thank you so much! Iām a big fan of HoloCure and Vampire Survivors myself, but Iāve mostly enjoyed them from a playerās perspective. This game jam experience really helped me understand the design aspects you pointed out, and Iām sure itāll be extremely helpful for my future projects.
Youāre absolutely right about the progression and endgame. Even though I did include speed caps in my initial implementation, the fact that the upgrades still felt neutralized means the sense of investment and power-up payoff wasnāt strong enough. Also, not having enough synergy for ābroken buildsā was definitely a missed opportunity — discovering those crazy combos is honestly my favorite part of these games too!
Using a hard time limit for the endgame is also a great suggestion. My original idea was to let players clear the main stage and then test their limits in Endless Mode, which is a common loop, but my current upgrade system clearly isnāt deep enough to support that kind of long-term scaling yet. Thatās probably what led to the āinevitably overwhelmedā feeling. This is definitely something Iād love to improve in the future. Thanks again for such a thoughtful deep dive!