What the actual heck! The intro is so good. The compressed voice announce the game jam is a really nice touch. Gave it the GB soul. The soundtrack stole the show for me. The character animations and enemy designs look fantastic too!

Oh my god that intro sequence was:

First of all, this has one of the best presentations in the jam. Expect top marks for Graphics and Audio. All of the background music tracks are wonderful. The intro track that syncs with the scenes, the main theme and battle themes are very fitting with the game’s atmosphere. I particularly loved the story – the lore gives a lot of Dune vibes, and I would definitely watch a limited series or a sci-fi movie with that premise.

Now on to the gameplay and some constructive feedback. The RPG elements and the turn-based combat was very well-done and fun to play. Definitely reminds me of a lot of RPG games I played on the GBA back in the day, so that’s plus points to Gameboy Soul for sure.

I would have given Gameplay a perfect score because the game loop is genuinely fun if not for the ff minor gripes:

• I had difficulty understanding the toxicity mechanic at first, and I would sometimes abruptly die without knowing what happened. This makes me forget to manage my toxicity level most of the time. Some clear feedback like the Pokemon poison effect would have helped. Could just be skill issue from me though.
• the tooltip/instructions for how to use the cannon was too quick and unreadable for the first few times
• since I kept dying I also had to repeat my steps and rebattle some of the enemies. This made the game a bit too grindy, which would be perfectly fine for a normal game, but less so for game jam games where people are eager to finish games so they can move on to the next (I admit mine’s a bit too lengthy too so I learned that lesson in this jam)

Other than that, this is a very solid entry and definitely a contender for the jam’s winner. It’s amazing what you guys have come up with in 10 days.

Congrats and keep it up!

Extra impressive game through and through, I was pretty mesmerized by the intro sequence and story concept.  I think maybe the toxin mechanic maybe could have used a bit more handholding because I was definitely caught off guard when I got a game over because I was using the shotgun too much.

Overall standout so far this jam! Great work!

Spot the Mother 3 fan (level : very easy).

Like, the whole package is real good, but that MUSIC is just so intricate and well-instrumented I'm genuinely impressed. Kudos to y'all for such an impressive entry!

I genuinely have no idea how your team managed to pull this off in like, 10 days. Genuinely impressive stuff...

Good art, GOLDEN soundtrack(get it?), and fun QTE-based combat. Outstanding submission!

This is essentially an immaculate effort, with multiple aspects/gameplay features that are novel and ingenious not just when viewed in the context of the jam but when viewed in the context of the RPG genre as a whole!  Derived from a unique and fascinating premise, there has been great care taken to build an immersive world, story, and core gameplay loop that each in their own way are executed in extremely satisfying ways. 

Cliff makes for a great protagonist and Elle's design is one-of-a-kind. The story takes place in the future and yet perfectly encapsulates wild west vibes at the same time. The toxicity mechanic in combat compels unique decision-making that isn't seen in other RPGs. The soundtrack is also superb. And there's a save feature to boot!

There are some bugs (Frost relic does not work) and some concerns (the game's battles tend to be difficult while also requiring some open exploration of ambiguous areas, which is slightly frustrating), but these are nitpicks that are easy to look past; holistically this entry stands tall as being top notch!

Man, what a creative lore to the world building. I really liked the idea and the character designs. The pixel is super good too!

The gameplay is a little confusing but it's ok, I enjoyed to play it!

Congrats!!

Absolute gem. The artstyle is absolute cinema. OST is pure gold. This is one hell of an entry.

The only thing that I must mention is that there are a few bugs: For instance, whenever you died, there is in "out of bounds" error and I have to reset the game. But, great work.

I got so hooked right away. The music in this game is my favorite of the jam so far. And all the little character animations? And the enemy designs?? Wow.

The one thing that confused me was how ending your turn worked in combat. I went through the first few encounters without ending turn once! Died before I realized what was going on, haha

Congrats on an amazing entry!

The intro and it's music got me sucked into the game right away.  Cool battle mechanics and great story/lore/world to play in. I found it a bit hard to manage my toxic levels, but enjoyed it anyway.

Only found two relics so far :) but eager to play more!

The graphics are absolutely amazing, it looks really beautiful ! The music has a very authentic Game Boy feel, and the gameplay is simple and reminds me of Pokémon. Really fun, great job :)

Incredible game!!!!!! Music...AMAZING. Graphics...INCREDIBLE. Game design and scope...AWESOME. I was really looking forward to checking this game out.

I loved the intro cut scene!!! Super immersive and interesting story, very clear, and i love the characters!

I'm incredibly impressed by the game, but now I'm going into GAMER MODE and will be a bit harsh with how my experience was. Because my inner GAMER really wanted to collect more relics and experience the whole story, but my inner GAMER had some friction getting there.

Overall it was a little frustrating and I couldn't see myself getting to experience everything in the game at the pace I was progressing and having to retrace my steps whenever I mis-managed my toxicity levels. I wasn't a big fan of that mechanic tbh.

It's 100% MY fault, but somehow I never noticed when my toxic levels were near lethal. I needed to pay closer attention but I never quite made the connection why my attacks were causing it. Felt like enemies should be the one making me get toxicity rather than the other way around. So it's just a matter of chugging Detox potions all the time?

Whenever I died, it was very abrupt every time (I think usually i had 2 more squares on the toxic bar so it felt like it happened too soon?).  Suggestion: a classic low-HP/Poisoned alarm sound so I know I'm about to die lol.

The sprint mechanic was cool! When I first started I was tapping B and the player felt a bit unresponsive because of the feedback it caused. Maybe something should happen for short taps instead of the Press+HOLD sprint? Sound/visual cues could help too.

The Paper Mario style overworld encounters were cool too, but they instantly felt a little bit grindy, a little bit repetitive and I found myself wanting to just avoid all contact with basic enemies even if gaining dust was going to be helpful. Suggestion: make perfect timing with shotgun just do critical hits, like in Pokemon doing a Super Effective attack = basically guaranteed 1-shot kill. I don't really have fun killing the basic enemies in 3-4 hits each over and over. But wiping the floor with them from crits would have been super fun.

When I found the BIG ENEMY at 13:12... I really wanted that to be a BOSS BATTLE, but was a little disappointed it was just 3 basic enemies again.

Softlock bug: I softlocked myself in the first cave lol (around 8:17). 100% my fault, but still kind of funny and no reset available from the menu so I had to refresh the browser.

A few little details like names being cut off like "Fool's gol" or "shotgun" being lower case for some reason, just kind of stood out to me, but now I'm just being nitpicky.

All of that critique aside, this is an incredible game and EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE LEVEL OF WORK for 10 days!!!!!!!!! If the early game was a little more easy breezy to progress in the story, I'd definitely return for a full playthrough cus I'm very intrigued by the game world you've built!! Amazing work by everyone on the team!

Good gameplay and the music is great, the art is beautiful though a bit saturated on the white but it's still great!!

a FANTASTIC entry ! Everything is sooo polished !!! feels like a gbc game to me even if its a bit more than what the old beast is capable of !!

This game is straight pure GOLD. The art and music are incredible, the concept story is really cool and the implementation of a complete J-RPG system for this jam is a crazy performance! And the mole... THE MOLE