itch.io

Hey folks!

A big thank-you to everyone who has joined the game jam so far.

The theme is ready, it's waiting ... the video should premiere at the same time the jam launches:

The music and clear visuals are great. Love the way the rubbish piles up in the background for example if you don’t collect it. The arcade style gameplay is addictive and I love how much different type of waste you have to collect which shows the complexity of how many different bins/processes are actually needed to sort through it properly

Future improvements

• I know many others have said this but the controls are incredibly difficult to memorize since there are so many different types of rubbish. I guess doing this mirrors the complexity of the sorting process itself which is an interesting point, but its also feels unfair gameplay wise when I select the wrong bin by accident. Perhaps some form of onscreen prompt would be helpful here which I don’t think would takeaway from your messaging as you still have to look it up quickly.
• I could almost imagine this being like a Guitar Hero game maybe called Waste Hero with different key presses for different trash (imagine a huge guitar/keyboard with the different waste on them). Obviously a very different game from this but the cool music and fast paced nature of this game kind of lends itself well to something like that I feel and it could be a cool alternative take on this

Really enjoyed playing this challenging game well done

Cool take on Katamari Damacy with collecting trash in the ocean. The movement feels really good and its cool to see how big your trash ball can get. A fun enjoyable experience that just needs some additional messaging to make it a more cohesive experience.

Future improvements:

• The movement is really good, it would have been great to make you move in an obstacle course, perhaps avoiding wildlife while collecting trash. This would add extra challenge and give a more guided experience for the player to explore
• Having to collect all 10,000 trash is maybe a bit much! Reducing this to 1,000 (but having more than this to collect maybe still 10,000 just show how much there is?), or making the pickup area larger would improve the satisfaction of hoover it up. Currently it feels too challenging to collect all 10,000!
• Additional messaging to show why the trash is there would be cool just to highlight why there is so much and where it comes from

A great fun little experience, with just a few tweaks could be some much more – well done.

There is a staggering amount of work that has went into this especially for a single person to achieve in the amount of time you had. The bleak story which is slightly uplifting is a great addition to this game and helps really sell the idea that we as humans are going to destroy the planet if we don’t act now. To see the aftermath of the human apocalypse but know that some nature may return was an interesting twist. Very thought provoking. The game plays really well and it’s a very cool lonely experience.

Future improvements:

• The biggest improvement I think would be to be able to see more from the start of each level. Its very restrictive in what you can see on screen to begin with which makes it difficult to navigate and know what to do. I nearly gave up on this game initially as I couldn’t find anymore trash to collect. Being able to see more would help. Perhaps a simple reordering of levels could help with this, set the first level in the office/home, then city, then park, then farm as office is much easier to navigate and get a sense of what to do?
• Would be great if you could explore the environments full after you finish a level. There is so much I would love to look at properly but don’t get the chance to
• Make the dialogue last longer on screen of have it so you can read at you own pace.

Fantastic idea and concept, great game well done.

Cool low polygon art style and the game conveys the important point of trying to keep wind turbines at sea active and maintained using such a simple game mechanic – very interesting and fun, I got to 438MW. The informational messaging was also very helpful. It’s a super polished game also.

Further improvements

• Would love for this have some sound – ocean noises, wind turbines spinning, danger of one too close to the end to induce panic 😊
• Would be cool to see the electricity generated going to the mainland to power homes and help reinforce that connection

Really enjoyable elegant game well done

The art style in this game is very cute and loved the way the otter moves, very endearing! The game is well made, and it was very nice to see how far I could get before dying in the never-ending underwater cave – I got to 504m with 51 trash collected!

Further improvements

• I love the way the otter feels to move so perhaps horizontal sections or free scrolling sections would be cool?
• The game highlights how much trash is in the water but doesn’t really give any context behind why its there. So something that could explain/show that would be great.

Enjoyed playing this well done

Absolutely loved the art style in this game! Really looks amazing and the journal of fish was cool. The gameplay was weirdly relaxing and therapeutic and I spent a good while playing once losing at the very end from the sea of trash, before then realizing I needed to deploy the drones! A very polished game about trying to clean up the waters of the planet from all the rubbish that we humans put into it.

Some improvements could be:

• It wasn’t obvious at first why my collected rubbish was disappearing from my net – I didn’t realized that if I touched a sea creature it made it vanish. A little more feedback would help
• It would have been nice to see how the rubbish gets into the water. I think this was the intention for putting in the city in the background, but for it to be dumped in through a variety of ways like sewage, beach goers, or general litter would make the messaging stronger in this game
• Perhaps some of the fish a bit too quick sometimes?

Really enjoyed playing this well done

This is a unique way to present a message about using wind turbines to power the world but making the central character a wind turbine! It also got across the message that money is needed to build others and make your “family” complete. I felt compelled to play to get all of the money just to see the story so it was an ingenious way to make these points and it was fun to play. Also loved the art style in this very cute character contrasted against the background of which the last level backgrounds was great.

Some improvements that could be made:

• The movement was perhaps a bit too slidey? I think the floaty feeling in the air was good but I think I expected a little more weight when landing. Quite a few times I went off the side of platform which meant I had to climb the whole level again!
• I think the placement of platforms needed a little more tuning in places as some were quite difficult and perhaps using more horizontal space rather than vertical so its not as punishing if a mistake is made

Great game well done

Loved this game! It is such a unique idea and take on biodiversity and re-introduction of animals to help tackle climate change. Great idea. The game itself was fun to play and interesting and I loved the art style and beaver and fox characters (thought the frog/toad character I found unnerving and unsettling haha). The unique twist on Tetris was very cool too, in that you must physically interact with the blocks themselves to build the dam.

Some improvements that could be made are:

• Refined controls. The controls were a bit difficult for me personally. I think it would be better to have one interaction key that was context sensitive, therefore Space key could be used to chop down trees and to enter/leave rotate mode for blocks – but these actions only happen if in proximity to the object to interact with. Alternatively, maybe just changing from using Shift to the Enter key might have been easier to remember and use physically.
• Making the tetrominoes “fall” faster I think would add some more jeopardy
• More foxes to get in your way would be make it more challenging also Cool concept and overall great game well done :)

Cool concept and overall great game well done :)

The angry fish are pretty terrifying and hope we don’t create them in the real life! It was fun to shoot them and the environment looks nice and impressive especially given the time to create this! I can definitely see a fun game in this and I had fun playing it. Some improvements I think could be made could be:

• The walking speed of the character is a bit slow, I had to hold Shift to speed up the character. I think it would be better to make the run speed the default walk speed and then it would feel a bit like Quake or Doom which would fit the game well.
• I could only play one wave? After the first wave no other waves come which is a shame, maybe this is just a problem for me?
• The intro speech was nice touch but it was perhaps a bit too distorted to really understand it – I had to listen to it about 4 times to understand but once I did it was a fun addition and helped sell the story
• The placement of buildings and environment could be repositioned to improve the connection to the lake. It would be awesome to watch the fish to come out of the lake itself rather than just round the beach area. You could also tie this in with lake looking really polluted to hit home on the affects of climate change and what caused this scenario to happen

Good game well done :)