I like how the progression is really linear; I was scared I would softlock myself but I kept moving forward. Once I got the first purple turtle, I finally understood what the point of the the numbers were, and that any turtle could go into the blue water, and that its more a merge game than a "figure out what each color turtle does game". I think it would be better if each mechanic was clearer from the get go, and the levels were slightly more difficult, but I think in the time you had, this was a really good execution, and discovering the mechanics was pretty fun on its own. I like how you made 3 different songs for this game, but I do think the main song is a little bit aggressive, and the most time should have been spent on developing that song. Good game overall!
~100 is about the average I saw for first time players. Good players could get ~250 each time. My record, using the white tree, which doubles the score if placed upon another white tree, was 1809. The white tree really isn't balanced because it only has synergies with itself. Thanks for the comment!
Really nailed the creepy atmosphere. My main critique is that it is pretty difficult to tell what each mutation actually does. The ui is not quite clear enough, and the fight scenes don't give me much information.
The art is decent, but it doesn't fit with the background and the UI, and it may be too detailed. Honestly, the background art is pretty ugly, and it might be better to just remove it. Did you do the same thing I did, where you digitalized paper drawings? Plus you animated each animacule, which is awesome!
There should be some dampener on the sounds once you are shooting several hundred antibodies per minute. All you end up hearing is the shooting noise.
The progression could use some more polish, but overall it was fun!
The progression feels a little too slow for a game jam game . I died on level four, and really didn't want to try to get all the way back, but I also felt like I missed a ton of content. I'm guessing this was intentional, but every mutation seemed to make your character worse overall, so each pick was lose-lose, and the dash ability felt like it took too much time between clicking and dashing to really be useful.
The art has so much polish, with all the little animations everywhere, and the sound design is incredible! I think it just needed a bit more playtesting to really hone the gameplay.
It was pretty hard to understand what was going on, and there didn't seem to be a lot of coherent mechanics. Like the ability to edit the shop layout didn't seem to have any affect on gameplay, so I'm not sure why it was there, unless you had plans for a whole room creator and editor, kind of like the sims games. That is an incredibly ambitious idea for a game jam. Most of the gameplay seemed to be just waiting for the next day to happen, which isn't super fun. I do like the sounds, and the art is decent. Not bad for a first jam.
ps. Did you get the puffles idea from Club Penguin? I used to love that game.
Post-jam analysis: This was the first jam I participated in while working a full time job. The decrease in time was apparent in the final quality of the game, and the greater stress. Saturday evening was coming around, and I still didn’t really have a game.
The coding was a big challenge for this game. I refactored a couple times, which added many hours to production. I want to look into testing for godot. With a project as complicated as this was, testing would at least force me to write better, more understandable code, and it might even remove a significant portion of the 8ish hours I spent bug fixing.
I was able to throw all the art together in less than two hours. I had done the same sort of thing in my last game, so some of the process was the same. This time I colored it with markers, which definitely felt like the way to go. I scanned it and synced it with my computer the same way, using syncthing and the Synctrain app on my iPhone. Last time I used what I knew, Inkscape, to cut out each sprite. That ended up getting super laggy, as each sprite duplicated the entire scanned page. I decided to learn gimp this time, and it was so much better. Gimp is pretty much designed for this exact thing, and it was a breeze to create more sprites than I did last game. Next time, I should look into the Bimp plugin for gimp, as it seems that can aid in the mass exporting of sprites. I had a “that looks so good!” moment after I created the area circle, and imported that into the game. The 3D sprites work together to make the trees feel like they are in a real scene, and it made the early decision to make a 3d game worth it.
This is the second 3d game I’ve made. I’m still not quite sure the best way to get mouse input. I used an area3d for the ray casting detection, but it feels pretty janky, and it’s not clear why sometimes the ray intersects the box and other times it doesn’t.
I know it doesn’t really fit the theme. I originally wanted to make a whole evolution simulator with tree population growth and life cycles, but I had to settle with a simpler game. I think I was able to boil down the core game play loop pretty nicely, but it lost a lot of the thematics.
The next thing I would have added, if I had been given an extra hour, was a leaderboard. This could have given a finality to the game and made a good reason to keep trying. I found it wasn’t too difficult to make a leaderboard for my Icarus game, but the UI and menus usually take a bit longer. The best I got in the game was 1807, and the second best I got was 680. It isn’t very balanced when you can randomly get several white cards in a row. If I could really polish it, I would limit the number of possible cards that can be played each round. I could have turned it into a deck builder game.
I’m glad you liked the graphics! It is indeed drawn on paper and colored with alcohol markers. I scanned them with the preview app on my iPhone, sent them to my computer with syncthing, then extracted each sprite using gimp. This was an improvement on a previous game jam I participated in, and I was really happy with the workflow and result.
I’m also glad you were hooked. This seems like the type of game that’s only fun for certain types of people. - mathy with a lot of rules. Saturday evening I was really stressed that I wouldn’t have any game, because I had done so much bug fixing to get the base game working, and hadn’t done any art or game juice yet. The main thing I wish I had more time to add was a leaderboard, so that you could compare your score with others.
That would also require more balancing though, as I got 1800 points once by getting a black tree, then 4 whites in a row. I don’t want it to feel unfair. Im glad you enjoyed, and your comment makes me feel that the game might really work with some more time spent on it.
157 clicks. The art style is eye catching, and I love the minimalist hand drawn aesthetic. The gameplay is nearly identical to that fruit merge mobile game I've seen in a few places, so not a lot to say there, but it felt nicely polished. Simple but fun!
These people are so mean! Getting angry at my bad book recommendations because they can't tell me what they want properly, can't you give me a better hint? I don't have any cookbooks! In all seriousness, this game is really cozy, and I was surprised how many characters you drew! I was a little flustered at how often the customers went away disappointed, but it ended up being kinda funny.
I love all the little details, like the eyes blinking and the wind howling. I cannot figure out where I'm going or where I've been though. The footsteps seem all in the wrong place, and it is really confusing. The appearance of the game is incredible. The art really fits together, and the sound design is terrific.
It was really difficult to see what was going on ( with the flips and the not quite 3D animation ), but it is a cool take on the theme, and the art is pretty cute.
The fact that you made this in 3 days is incredible! We were stuck on step 5 for a long time, (adding butter to every dish), but otherwise the experience was practically perfect! The best game I've seen in this jam, and better than the top games I've played in other jams.
I feel like you tried making the game too big for the jam time. It ends up feeling a little empty, just walking around doing the same few tasks again and again. If you just worked on a few tasks, making them as good as possible, it might have been better. But the game really needs sounds and feedback to let you know how well you are doing. Its a good start, and there is potential, but it feels more like a prototype than a game.
The last two levels are really hard, but are so satisfying! The level design and progression is really good, and the gameplay reminds me a little of A Monster's Expedition. You make such a satisfying game with such a simple mechanic. Well done!
Really really nice! Everything is top notch. The only thing I could critique is that the sound effects upon hitting a direction pad would feel better if they were in the same scale as the background music. But that is such a minor point. The music, the pixel art, and the game design are so cohesive, and this feels incredibly polished for 3 days.
Nice little game, very cozy! The sound fx and visuals are good, but it can be hard to count squares. I think you also implemented flags but didn't include a visual for them, and they don't reset in the next level, so it was very confusing why I couldn't place a square. Most of your levels have a flaw: they are symmetrical, making them way easier to complete. I love the animations at the end of each level! Its like the object comes to life!
A happier version of Frankenstein. I love the feel the music adds, and the art style feels so cohesive. I love the little animals. I wanted to add cut-scenes to my game, but didn't have time. However, there really needs to be a way to fast forward the text, as it is soooo slow.
Also, the hot-cocoa collecting part feels a little easy once you realize that you can't get too hot.
Really fun! I've seen many "do the level again" puzzles in different game jams, and this is one of the better ones. The speed up time function is a really nice bonus, and is so necessary. The second to last level I think was easier than intended, I might have cheesed it. Also the timing on the last level is really difficult, and detracts from the coziness of the whole thing. 3/5
Looks like this game has the same bug as mine had. The sound on web gets softer and softer until you can't hear it anymore. You can fix it by duplicating the sound from a second saved sound file every now and again.
