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I would approach it like this: each package is a "level". Each level something interesting or unexpected should happen. It doesn't have to be a lot, it just has to be something to tell me that I should keep going. (Do you remember those old point-and-click adventure games? There would often be times where you had to do some action three times to progress, but the game would always show a bit of progress each time, like a new line of dialogue or some cracks appearing more and more in a wall, or something, to indicate that you're progressing and not just doing the same action possibly forever.)

So I would make a list and write down, for each package, what is the new thing this time? I think it would help if you added one new element: the package comes into the vessel and you open it up and something is inside. That way, what is inside the package could change. Package 1 is normal, it contains a gear or whatever. Package 2 is mostly normal - it contains a gear but with some slime on it, indicating huh, maybe there's some creature out there. During package 3 the lights go out and you have to find a power source in the dark. Huh that was weird. Each package something new should happen and there should never be a run of two "normal" packages, even if some of them are not super interesting, so I am always being reinforced that something unexpected could happen on any one of these. The longer the game goes, the more interesting the events need to be, to keep my interest.

Hope this helps!

Very nice - both the core mechanics and the exploration of the mechanics with wildly varying ideas. There's no filler here.

I'm not normally a fan of physics puzzles (too imprecise) but I was happy to play these out. I really appreciate that you were very open about being able to skip levels. I did skip some that were a bit too hard but I feel like I got the value out of them anyway, and because of that feature I was able to see it through to the end. Nice job!

Very cute mechanic. I love the use of height as both a benefit and an obstacle.

Brutally hard, which I don't mind, but I would have liked more frequent checkpoints - it's too frustrating to die on a section only to have to repeat the previous section again to have a chance to play the hard part again. (In a game like this, I would want a checkpoint in every "room", so deaths are cheap and the challenge is "can you do this once?" not "can you do this sequence of rooms perfectly.) though I realize others may have different opinions.

Also the platforming did not feel great or precise - it is too slidy for me and the gravity is too high. (The section where you have to quickly make blocks to cross a large pit of spikes should be quite simple to do, but I found it infuriating because the horizontal motion would slide off the end or not move far enough causing the block to go up on top, then I would have to jump and risk sliding off again.)

I think this could be an awesome puzzle platformer with some polish and playtesting!

Beautiful atmospheric game. I love how tactile the UI is, making you feel immersed in the world.

My main criticism would be that there's a lot of turning, because the UI is spread around all angles (which makes good use of the space but is hard to get feedback on what you're doing). As an example, the descender lever is facing away from the screen, so you have to E to pull the lever, mouse down, E to let go of the lever, look at the screen, then when ready, turn back to the lever, E again and mouse up. This could possibly be made easier if you could somehow HOLD a lever while turning your view, then be able to release it while not looking at it. (Someone here mentioned VR - I think this would actually work much better in VR because I could drag the lever down and hold it, while looking at the screen.)

Also I must admit that I gave up after 3 packages. I just did the same thing three times in a row, taking several minutes each, and nothing new happened. If there is something else in this game (enemies or some kind of secret) then the game needs to make mechanical progress. Having the first three quests be exactly the same kind of suggests that nothing new is going to happen. But doing that first one was really a treat, well done!

Absolutely! It was very solid, I just want to give constructive feedback when I see it could be helpful.

Very cute use of the theme (it's always good to see the countdown used as a mechanic and not simply a time limit). I like the playfulness of the puzzles: some countdowns are helpful, others not, and some can be reused throughout the puzzles.

One feedback I would give is that it's a bit presumptive (condescending even?) to show the hint for the level on screen at all times. I want to figure it out myself first. Props for coming up with a hint on each puzzle, but let me ask for it.

Also it would be good if the puzzles were "tighter". Many of them can be solved by swapping haphazardly and not having to come up with a solid solution. In particular, most puzzles have redundant counters that you don't need to use at all (which means you can take your pick of any counters) - it would feel neater if every counter was either needed, or was an obstacle to be avoided (i.e. it should be the case that removing any counter from a puzzle would make it impossible, or make it trivial).

I like the puzzle style of objects flipping between states on a turn-based timer, causing me to have to plan each step carefully. But I think it clashes with other elements: real-time projectiles don't really fit here because it's too much to deal with both the turn-based stepwise planning and watch out and avoid obstacles in real-time. And, the overall countdown timer doesn't fit either, since I'm just wasting steps while puzzling things out or while being hit by projectiles and sent back.

(If the game had a limited step count and an undo button, and the puzzle was to figure out the exact sequence of moves to fit within the step count, that would work, but this puzzle isn't so precise, so the step counter just acts as a "you spent too long figuring it out" punishment, which doesn't feel good while I'm working on a puzzle.)

Lovely dreamlike vibe and art style, though.

This has the bones of a nice fast-paced incremental game, but it felt very harsh, and I did not enjoy constantly having to manually drag cards to bring stockpiles to a place (I would prefer if I could set up automated supply chains, or if places would automatically suck up resources they need with a switch to disable this behaviour on a given building). I spent almost all my time dragging cards.

I satisfied the gods' craving for food (giving 10/10) while the timer was on 50. Then it counted down with no further demands until it got to about 9 seconds, at which point the gods demanded large amounts of three resources I didn't even have production for, and the timer continued ticking down from 9 seconds and I lost. I'm not sure if this is just an unlucky change-over but I feel like the timer needs to go up to a very large number whenever the gods make new demands, or it's just completely unfair.

Good vibe though. I like the increasing tension in the audio and the fireball coming.

Thanks! I'm glad to hear the ending gave you a good reaction!

Very cute concept and quite original gameplay. I think this game starts out a bit annoying but once you get how to play it, it's really compelling and you have to spend a lot of time pre-planning as much as executing. (At its core this is a game about modular arithmetic which is pretty cool.) I like that it's secretly a turn-based game (I believe, when you set a firework, the timing is quantized to the second so as long as you press it while the timer says a certain value, it will go off at precisely the right time.)

What annoyed me at first was a) the very long pages of text at the start - that should be cut short (though the story between the levels was charming).

And b) that it was not obvious at first that the fireworks were going to be looping, so I thought I had to press it exactly 4/5 seconds before. (I realize upon re-reading that it says this in the tutorial, but there was just way too much text up front that I missed it, and I actually quit to menu and restarted to read the tutorial again and it didn't show up a second time.) Combining this with the 1-second movement lock made it really frustrating to play the first few levels.

But I enjoyed the rest of the game once I was counting up multiples of each number and trying to figure out my "schedule" for each level - first in my head then on paper once it got too complicated. Very nicely done. I loved the cute growing animation, and the Sydney countdown at the end.

PS. Hello :)

Thanks for sharing some of the internal debates. I know it's not easy when you have on the one hand a really good idea, and on the other, the increase in complexity budget. I can imagine lying would have made things so much more complex to build and test, and in a short space of time may have resulted in some games that were unwinnable because you couldn't possibly get enough info to eliminate the lies. I think you made the right call and the game serves as a good demonstration of the concept.

I played for a bit then ran out of enemies to kill (I guess they spawn randomly and I got unlucky or something) so my timer ran out. It was fun while it lasted but probably needs more enemy variety (maybe this comes later).

Lol we both made a precise robot-based tile movement game called Power Down where batteries lose a charge each time they move!

I enjoyed this take on it: having multiple robots is a nice complication, but it got quite hard and I was really stuck on the levers + ice puzzle (6). I never really got the hang of how robots would slide along (I guess they use up all of their energy if possible?) I would maybe prefer if that was limited to ice tiles so the "normal" gameplay is more precise. And a shame there's no audio at all.

Glad I found this!

Very polished and creative spin on chess. I like that I can bring my existing chess skills (or lack thereof, lol) to the game, but also have to think differently, as I can't just defend and slowly advance, I have to make use of my moves. Also having the existing pieces and their low move count carry over from one match to another is a nice touch.

Beautiful presentation also.

I like that we both had a very similar idea (each block push counts down the number of moves, and you have to land on the target at exactly zero), but such different takes. Yours is a "roll" rather than a single-tile push, which changes the dynamic a lot (you aren't limited in the total distance you can push a block, just the number of "turns"). I found this escalating in difficulty a bit too much for my liking (the possibility space was huge by the third level or so), but a good mechanical implementation of the theme.

> About the map, it’s actually available in the UI at the bottom, showing your progress as you collect the fragments, but we understand it could have been clearer.
I saw that it was showing that I had collected fragments 1, 2, 3. What I meant was (unless I missed something) it should have been showing an actual map of the house, to make navigation easier, but the map is initially missing and 1/3 of the house is added each time I find a piece. I get that part of the tension should be being lost and not knowing where things are or how to find your way back, but maybe it's OK to alleviate some tension as I progress through the game, so I feel the house becoming more familiar (and it would make sense given that I am literally collecting pieces of a map of the house).

Nice art style. The horror of the light slowly fading, the noise increasing and the panic of quickly relighting works really well. The vibes are spot on.

I did find the key / box hunting tedious, especially with (as others have pointed out) the down stairs looking like they're going up, made it very hard to get my head around the space. Ironically, the guy is holding a map (or fragments of it) but I can't see said map. (It would be great if it slowly revealed an actual map image on screen so the more you progress, the less lost you feel.)

I think the total fail state is a problem. It's one thing to be terrified of the candle running out and panicking to relight it. But having to start the entire game over turns panic/tension into tedium. I played it to opening the chest, and then could not find the exit (why wasn't the exit in the same room he started in?), and I don't want to play it all over again.

Great work though, on the setup and vibes of the game.

Cute little mystery: it's cool that it's generated each time so you can replay it. Though it seemed to be a bit limited in that the characters just tell the truth (I think?) and you can always believe them (I think?). In my game, I was able to tie the murder weapon and the murderer to the crime scene because he told me he was there, and it was his knife. And since there was no way to cross-reference this information, I just had to believe him, and it turns out that was correct.

I guess a more complex version of the game would include lying and other witnesses needing to be consulted and cross-referenced to catch who is lying. But this is a good foundation for a game jam.

The artwork and characters in particular is splendid.

One UI improvement I would suggest is that the "(-)" items should lose their "(-)" once they have been used once, so I know it is "safe" to ask the question again without losing time.

Thanks, I try to make sure every level introduces either a new mechanic or a new technique. The way I track this is I have a comment for each level describing the unique thing about that level, and if I can't describe what it is then I get rid of it. Appreciate the comment!

Thanks! I put a lot of effort into the last level (I estimate it took about half the development time) so I'm glad it paid off for you!

Thankyou! I just posted a little dev log where I go into some of the thoughts around the pixel art.

It's the first time I've really tried to make my own art rather than grabbing free content from online, so I'm glad you liked the art.

Thanks, that's very kind.

Thanks so much. I guess I just scratched the surface of the recharge mechanic and it might have been nice to do a few more levels of it, but I also was trying to keep the game short (10 levels) so that people would be able to finish it before they got bored or frustrated.

Oh I definitely agree with leaning on the side of too easy. I get frustrated with "too hard" jam games, not being able to decide to keep playing to see it through, or give up early. I got a bit stuck on level 3 of yours, but once I figured out to just ignore healing and block, I was able to break through and the last two were not a problem. I definitely enjoy beating a game and seeing all of the content.

Btw I love the icons suggesting that we're fighting various Greek gods, I'm guessing those are the god of time, death, etc. It would be cool if it showed their names to give a bit more depth to their characters.

This is a really cool concept with great presentation (the art, the music, the greek vibe, the fact that you're fighting statues, I love it). I enjoy the time pressure to play the cards.

Two points:

1. The cards need to be way more readable. I'm in a big hurry so I need to be able to tell what a card does at a glance. Compare this to the presentation of Hearthstone: a big blue mana gem in the corner of every card lets me immediately know how much it's going to cost vs this game has "Cost: x" written in small text on the card. Similarly, have an icon for "restores time", "deals damage" (rather than each card having a unique icon, you could throw that out and just have for example all cards that restore time have a timer icon; all cards that deal damage have a fist, etc).

2. Balance: I beat the whole game and honestly, health was never a concern, at all. Like the lowest I've ever been is 60/80. Therefore I don't care when the enemy is doing damage, I don't care about healing or block, the only precious resource is time and the only cards I want to play are time recovery and damage. Either health should be a bigger concern, or it could just be removed and enemy just damages your clock (more focused game).

Either way, these points don't detract from the fact that this is an awesome entry. Well done!

Edit: Also: I don't think Fate Loop (replay last card) works at all? It takes my time but it doesn't seem to do anything else.

Edit: I can't see my own block or the enemy's block displayed anywhere.

I'm a fan of Tetris but I found it really hard to get an intuition of what I was aiming for in this game. (I don't even really understand what "connect numbers in a row" means; obviously it's something to do with 1-2-3-4 lining up, but I can't explain why sometimes half the level disappears and other times it just keeps building up and up.) The best I can do is just play Tetris normally, and occasionally things disappear and it's not clear when that will happen. I have nowhere near the mental capacity to be looking at the numbers while playing Tetris.

Also, I found it very "slippery" - I would often be trying to place a piece in one column and it would go one space too far, for some reason (I think the repeat delay is too low perhaps).

That said, this has awesome JUICE. I love the look of it, the shaders, the effects, the audio. It really comes together visually.

I like the concept. The combat feels good though enemy animations are too slow (it doesn't feel like you're hitting them), but the platforming is awkward (I keep hitting platforms with my feet and falling all the way down, which isn't fun when time is ticking away).

I disliked the controls and couldn't find a way to control it (controller support would be good, I'm assuming there isn't because my controller didn't work at least on the web version). With my right hand occupied by J and K, my poor left hand has to use WASD to move, Space to jump, as well as Shift to dash - I found it just too awkward to dash most of the time.

I'm extremely impressed you were able to build a 2D Kerbal-like in a game jam. (Funny that I came across this - I have been building a 2D Kerbal-like called Celestial Golf for two years, so I'm very familiar with what it takes to put something like this together - check it out on Steam if you're interested.)

It's really cool that you've got the trajectory prediction as well as the mouse-over to show where the asteroid will be at that time. That really helps. I still found it very hard to hit the asteroid, mostly because of the abrupt transition between map and "real" view - I got the ship very close to the asteroid but just a bit too far away to see both of them in the "real" view (I could see them both together briefly but then they drifted apart), then zooming out slightly to map view made it useless to see where they were in relation to one another and I lost it. I would like it if that zoom was more seamless.

Also I'm not sure if the limited length of the trajectory was a technical limitation or a design choice, but it would be good to be able to visualize the full orbit of the rocket and not just about 1/3 of the way around (I found that I had to guess where it's going to go, then speed up time and wait until I'm fairly close before the trajectory would show for sure).

Anyway this is really impressive!

I'm guessing what they mean by "lack focus" is that they don't really have "solutions" as much as "tactics". I think this is almost more of a fighting game than a puzzle game (once you work out the initial mechanics). Which is fine - after all it is branded as a boxing game - but the PuzzleScript presentation kind of suggests it's a puzzle game.

In a normal puzzle game you have a specific set of steps to achieve a goal, whereas here you just kind of amble around until things line up in the right position and then you execute, and it may take several tries for things to line up (similar to how you might approach a combat in a Street Fighter).

Ah lol, I get it! Yeah that's my mistake. In my defense, I read that and first thing I did was attack the red guy (successfully) but then didn't get back to my body so my brain decided attacking as a ghost was the wrong thing and I forgot to ever try it again.

Really cool exploration of the mechanic. I love the slow onboarding (e.g. not introducing crates for awhile = good), and how it makes you consider every move you make. I got to level 7 and admittedly am getting pretty stuck/frustrated with crates getting in the way, but I think this is a great Sokoban entry!

I like the idea of the ghosts getting back to their body, but I don't understand how to win a single level of this (I tried a bunch). Every time I go near the guy, I get punched out again. Edit: Thanks for your reply, I figured it out.

Like I wrote in another reply, I think this is more of a fighting game than a puzzle game, which is fine, but may not match the presentation in PuzzleScript. I enjoyed the fights after I got into the swing of things, and I like that it slowly builds complexity by adding holes and walls and extra fighters. I especially like the kicking bodies mechanic. Good job on this!

The main criticism I have is that it can be very hard to maneuver guys into the right place. I often find myself in "zugzwang" where I want to just wait a turn for the other guy to move. Here's an example: I am trying to get this leftmost red guy to punch me while I am adjacent to the pit, but I can't because every time I move up, he moves down, and vice versa, so we are always vertically misaligned.

[Edit: I can't get this picture to show up, anyone know why? I can see it in the edit mode but not on the page.]

I think this would be improved if I could just tap X to wait a turn. This isn't common in Sokobans (Baba is You does have a Wait command though) but like I said, this isn't really a Sokoban, it's a fighting game.

[Copying my comment from the game page.]

I love the concept and the cartoon art style is charming. (I do find that the music doesn't really fit the mood.) Looks like we both made a game about counting down block push moves :) Thanks for finding my game earlier.

I got about half way through (counter = 5) and I feel like the difficulty is a bit hard, at least for me. I guess continuing our discussion from my game ("I'm usually not the biggest fan of explicitly tutorializing basic puzzle mechanics"), I would disagree and I think that's what this game needs is a bit more basic introductory levels.

As an example, you have a mechanic (or "trick") of being able to push a >2-bomb into a 1-bomb, causing the 1-bomb to explode and the cat to survive. This technique is used in many puzzles, but it is first introduced on level "10" (the fourth level) in a fairly complex puzzle that's hard to execute even if you know the trick, which you don't yet. So having a bare minimum level to introduce new mechanics would help with the difficulty spikes.

Very charming game all in all!

I love the concept and the cartoon art style is charming. (I do find that the music doesn't really fit the mood.) Looks like we both made a game about counting down block push moves :) Thanks for finding my game earlier.

I got about half way through (counter = 5) and I feel like the difficulty is a bit hard, at least for me. I guess continuing our discussion from my game ("I'm usually not the biggest fan of explicitly tutorializing basic puzzle mechanics"), I would disagree and I think that's what this game needs is a bit more basic introductory levels.

As an example, you have a mechanic (or "trick") of being able to push a >2-bomb into a 1-bomb, causing the 1-bomb to explode and the cat to survive. This technique is used in many puzzles, but it is first introduced on level "10" (the fourth level) in a fairly complex puzzle that's hard to execute even if you know the trick, which you don't yet. So having a bare minimum level to introduce new mechanics would help with the difficulty spikes.

Very charming game all in all!

I am stuck on this also. :(

Thank you for your comments!

By recharging do you mean the mechanic introduced in the last two levels? I agree that could have been explored a bit more, but I didn't want the game to be too long (in the game jam context) because then people might get tired and not finish it.

And by "explicitly tutorializing basic puzzle mechanics" what do you mean? The fact that there are some levels that are very simple introductions to mechanics, or the fact that the characters talk about the puzzle mechanics, or something else? If you mean the former, I am a big fan of little "intro" levels to new mechanics so you can learn them without a text explanation.

Now excuse me, I'm off to play another block-pushing puzzle where the objects count down every time you push them :)

Ah OK, I did get skipped past something. Was there supposed to be a fourth day, and then the ending was the fifth?
To be honest I think it worked out pretty well, as I was getting tired of carrying cannisters around, and I think if it was longer it would spoil the experience. What's there is good vibes. It just needs to perhaps be a 4-day countdown so it doesn't weirdly skip a day.

Anyway thanks, I enjoyed this one!

Thank you!

Block pushing puzzlers unite!

I thought this was a really clever twist on the block pushing. I was kind of confused at first (the instruction "Count: Number of the pattern" was quite unclear) but when I got it I was able to clear quite a few levels and they each offered something. (I ended up getting pretty stuck, and unfortunately restarting the game resets progress - I would recommend for jams either having save state, or what I did, just have all the levels unlocked so people can return later.)

Dripping with vibes, I really like the art, the tone and the early explorations - going out into the fog just watching the radar and panicking to get back in time. On the second mission I made it back with about 3 seconds to spare (I'm not sure if I would have had to restart the whole game if I failed). I enjoyed the third mission which you could cheese by throwing both cannisters off the mountain.

I did find the gameplay got quite tedious by the second mission - having to walk such a long way back and forth carrying cannisters, and I was about ready to give up by the third (knowing there would be two more), but it ended after the third so I don't think the game overstayed it's welcome too much (I just would have cut down the second level a bit).

I was a bit confused by what happened at the end but I won't discuss it here in case it spoils somebody.