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Ok, I tried to play this game like 4 different times and somehow only on the final time I realized I was controlling the game completely wrong, and then the game suddenly went from making no sense at all to making perfect sense.

The issue is that you can switch out of swap mode while mid swap with the crank undocked, and I kept unknowingly trying to finish the swap by doing that, the result is the tiles visually move but the underlying map is unchanged, BUT Simon's position on the map when moving to that tile does still reflect the new visual position of the tile, which made me think this was somehow part of the puzzle and that I perhaps had to get Simon to warp to the spots where the stars initially were.. but I could not solve a single puzzle by doing this lol.

After finally figuring out how the game is supposed to work I enjoyed it a LOT more. I do agree with others that docking and undocking the crank frequently is not a comfortable player action.. BUT to the game's credit there is something satisfying about the fact that the tile always ends up in the perfectly swapped position naturally when docking. But I think the fact that docking while swapping means the swap only happens in fixed intervals tricked my brain into assuming that I wanted to press A when i was finished, not dock, because the act of docking would potentially change my current rotation.

I think some reworking of the controls would be necessary here, but I think the core mechanic felt pretty novel and fun to solve. Also really like all the sound!

Impressively polished for a jam! I found the style of the game to be quite charming, gave me Pikuniku vibes. The mechanic I think would be well suited for a that sort of puzzle-platformer rpg genre. My only complaint was the way you select things to swap felt a bit weird when there were a lot of objects near each other, like the screen with the 3 teeter-totters, I had a hard time selecting the object I wanted. One idea I have in this instance would be pressing the swap button lets you select any of the objects on the screen, perhaps with the crank to cycle through and then pressing again locks you to that object. I'm not sure if that would feel good or not, but it's one possible way to decouple your proximity to the object with your ability to select it. 

Really nice submission!

Neat concept of making the only focus on swapping but with 2 hands,  definitely felt more challenging than I initially thought it would be. I agree with some of the sentiment about the cranking, it juts feels a little bit finicky and clunky at times. The scaling felt pretty good, and I enjoyed the transition screens. I think the power meter is a really cool addition and clever use of the underutilized accelerometer. Despite it taking very little time and effort to deal with, the anticipation of it running out adds so much tension the whole way. Some of the audio felt a bit too harsh and distracted from the game in my opinion.

Cool submission and impressively polished visuals for a jam!

Even though the gameplay is very simple, I had a surprisingly fun time just discovering what this game is and learning the mechanics. It's quite unlike anything I played before and I enjoyed that light discovery element and the idea of racing hot dogs. You don't really know what's good to swap until you play a few times and realize the power of each stat. I feel like the length of the game is perfect for the mechanic, and I enjoyed seeing the different customizations that came up. I like the introduction of the boosts in the races, it's just a little bit of added interaction while still retaining the sort of spectator anticipation of watching a horse race. Cool little game!

Glad you had a blast!! Good to know that can crash the game, the worst I'd gotten was a terrible noise lol. The collision resolution is very janky in that scenario but didn't seem to be game breaking in my experience so i avoided touching it more, but if I crashed i would have! Par scores are also probably the number one thing I would have added if I had a little more time to evaluate the levels, would absolutely add that if I made a full version. Thanks for the feedback!!

Thank you!! So glad you enjoyed!!

This is great feedback thank you! I shared many similar frustrations during development and would definitely look at adjusting some aspects of the mechanic if I come back to this. I thought about slowing down time a bit to encourage real time swapping but just never really got around to exploring it further. And then there's waiting for the ball to stop lol... could maybe even allow the player to skip to the end of a roll. The switching modes actually happens automatically whenever you shoot the ball but it's not explained anywhere and probably should be!

Cool idea, very polished and really satisfying sound effects. I really like the use of the crank with the different weapons. My only complaint is using the d-pad to slowly move a cursor to aim, it just didn't feel that great to me especially in tandem with the crank movements. I think the game might still be fun if the aiming was locked to each rail and you changed rails by tapping the d-pad, I just think something like that might feel a lot tighter than dragging a cursor around. Really solid overall though!

Love the art, sfx and the varying little tunes. The game is super stylized and polished! For some reason it took me a way too long to figure out how to beat level 10, but that might have been a me problem lol.

A minor gripe I have is that I didn't love the feel of the base platforming, IMO it feels a bit heavy and slow, and I think that works better in Raid on Rabbit because the platforming is so rigid that every jump must be pre-calculated; it takes on a whole different flow from a typical platformer, whereas the platforming in Dicey Dicey Devil to me falls awkwardly somewhere between rigid and fluid in comparison. I actually kinda wonder how the dice jumping might have felt if it appeared in RoR!

BUT the levels kept things interesting with quite a few introductions of new mechanics and clever blends with existing ones that kept me having fun most of the time with maybe a few annoying moments. Can't believe the number of interesting levels designed so quickly. Really impressive overall!

Thanks! I hadn't heard of Spellside but it does look pretty similar. I was sorta torn about turning the game into a movement puzzle or having the side facing up be used in a sort of combat mechanic, so the game was almost even more similar, but decided I would not finish in time if I went the combat route lol

Thank you!!

You're not alone in that wish. Thanks for the feedback!

I think the idea of rolling to place enemies and items on a fixed set of spaces is interesting and could lead to some strategic gameplay, but it feels a bit too random to strategize. Since the player can't influence their movement or combat in any way, combined with the bonuses that are hugely consequential to the player but also completely random, chance is such a major factor that there isn't much room left for strategy. I think adding some small ways the player could influence their combat and/or movement would go a long way in making the game more fun to replay. Props for the creativity and polished game though!

I was a bit confused at first but it clicked for me after a couple rounds and I started having fun. I really like the real-time repositioning of units, I think it's a fun twist on the usual tower defense. I like the idea of strategizing whether to save dice to spend them efficiently later or spend them sooner for immediate defenses. In the current state it feels a little bit inconsequential how I spent them, at least once I realized that I could heal my units with the cleric. But I think if the game were expanded with more units available at different prices and more different kinds of threats, that might work itself out. Cool game!

I loved this one! The central mechanic made for some surprisingly tricky puzzles and the vibes were impeccable. I could easily see this expanded into a full game that I would pay for.

Just letting you know there's no link to download the game! You might have the attachment set to be hidden on the publishing page

The variation in this one is really impressive for the time window. It does feel like one of the most complete entries I've listened to, and I love how it meanders between styles, each track feels very distinct from the others but holds on to a consistent vibe. My favorite track was PLASTIC CAFE!

Fellow tracker user here, and I freakin loved this one. I can only write tunes this cool in my dreams. You really know what you're doing with those jazzy chords, way above my musical literacy. Gives me mad F1 Hero vibes!

The vibe really does feel like I'm celebrating my infinite free dessert.  I really bask in it during strawberry jam.

haha, yeah I definitely got a bit carried away with track 2 lol. Glad you enjoyed!

Fellow tracker submission! Style feels very cohesive and i like how the melodies sort of weave in and out, it feels surprisingly varied. I agree that the mixing is a little harsh but mixing with trackers be tough, my submission definitely also has this problem lol

I feel like you really nailed this style and the mix seems very polished. Super groovy

Thanks! I used Milkytracker.

Thanks!! I'm working on a post-jam version of the game which fixes these major issues and adds a bit of missing polish. Aiming to have it released before the week is out so stay tuned!

Glad you got it to work and you enjoyed it! I am definitely at the very least going to release a post-jam version with bug fixes and a little bit more polish. I think I've finally found a solution to the problem of the game not starting as well as the home screen breaking the game. Stay tuned!

I was really impressed with the how ironed out the style of the game is for a jam, really well done there! I think the gameplay has potential to be fun, but in its current state I had a couple big issues that held it back for me.

I think the driving really needs some work as it just doesn't feel good to me right now. I would second Hekhound's comment about analog rotation - I think the 8-way makes the vehicle feel like its not very responsive to the crank, yet in 8th increments it actually turns on a dime no matter how fast you're moving.. it just feels very unnatural. You might even be able to get away with still drawing it as 8 ways but having the movement based on analog rotation, I think that might still feel intuitive enough to seem natural, though I could be wrong on that.  You might also want to try limiting the actual turning speed so that your turning radius isn't always effectively zero. It also feels like the vehicle moves faster horizontally than vertically, though I think this might just be a consequence of the game's current isometric perspective and not really a huge problem on its own.

I also feel that the refueling mechanic doesn't really add anything to the game in its current state. It doesn't encourage the player to play any differently than they otherwise would - the craters already slow you down a lot and taking a long route is also going to slow you down a lot. It seems like an added slap in the face that slows the game down even more as a penalty for being too slow.

Sorry for ripping into your game! It's clear that you put a lot of care and effort into the game so I wanted to try to provide some constructive criticism as I think the game can be a lot more fun.

I second this, I was kinda bored at first but it's sort of mesmerizing once it reaches a certain speed and I start to feel a drive to see how long I can perpetuate it.

I really like this one, and I really suck at it. But it's fun and addictive, and it feels perfectly suited for the Playdate!

Omg I'm sorry to hear you were playing on hard mode!! If only I got that title screen in the game before the jam ended, ahh..

I'm glad you're having fun and enjoying the collage of trash that I turned into a level! It made me so happy to see a section referred to as "the Perfect Man area." That jump is the start of what I would consider to be the final challenge of the game as the difficulty ramps up significantly.

My tip for you is this: Try launching from a corner. Corners allow you to get a good mix of horizontal and vertical speed from the blast. Good luck!

Haha thanks! I was initially skeptical of my idea of picking out photos off my phone and cropping them into the map, but I'm happy with how it turned out all things considered!

I really liked this spin on a text adventure with the added dimension of the moon phases, and I like that the game leaned in on the sort of abstract nature of it. It felt foreign and confusing at first, but I soon learned to understand its language of interaction with a little bit of exploring and reflection. I love when games do this. Really cool!

Thank you for the feedback, glad you had fun! 

The screen freezing was the main reason I had to submit this game late, and I observed the same behavior you described with the home menu. I thought when I added a title screen I completely broke the game because it suddenly seemed to be happening consistently.. but I was going nuts trying to figure out what changed that could be causing it, commenting out changes and rebuilding one by one and getting results that didn't seem to make any sense - at one point I was convinced that uncommenting a single random log statement that wasn't even running fixed the issue, lol.. I'm now starting to think it was just an intermittent issue the whole time or at least for a while caused by some other variable I haven't determined.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed! Sorry you experienced that issue, it happened to me at least once too. This was my first time making a game with any physics from scratch and I definitely underestimated getting a really basic collision system to work - there's still a bit of jankiness to be worked out.

This might be my favorite entry! It feels great to play and it made me want to play more to get better. Really solid all around.

The style is jammin and I had more fun crankin than I anticipated. I do think the gameplay could benefit from a trick wipeout mechanic to add risk to going for tricks, but even as is it's still oddly very satisfying. Really well done! 

I really liked the style and couldn't believe each level even got its own theme, incredibly polished for a jam!

Great find, thanks! I've had intermittent problems with the game screen being frozen on startup and hadn't nailed down the cause but that may be the key

Should work now!

Looking into this now, thanks

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, very stylized and polished game!