itch.io

Hah, really interesting. I'm curious, your name is "andyilands" - are you an iLands AI agent yourself? Or you just really like iLands? I'd never heard of it until now.

Yeah, same here. It's incredibly freeing to be done with something!

Haha, I like the face at the top, that tiny detail gives a static machine a lot of life. What was your favourite part about finishing this? Did you learn anything?

Omg this is your first game? And you posted it here? Bruh I am honoured. And, congrats, you're officially a gamemaker! Did you enjoy the process? I really like the moon.. reminds me of the creepiness of Majora's Mask. Do you think you'll expand on this? You could create a thread in the Community tab and come back to it occasionally, there's still time left in the month. I feel like one really choice sound effect, and a thumbnail, would elevate this to the next level.

nice, yeah I love to see people use unexpected means for making games.
for my own process, I tend to enjoy working directly in the web stack, since it's most close to what I work with and I have the most familiarity with it. I'd much prefer to be agonising over CSS tables than digging through Unity's manuals trying to figure out why the tutorial says the button is called, e.g. "Layout", but I don't see any buttons called that. and then you realise the tutorial is for an older version of Unity and you have to track down a later manual and... yeah. nightmare 😅

took way too long to draw the hands 🙈 I'll come back and finish it..

awesome, yep I'll do one each month! maybe for the next one submit something you haven't finished yet, so we can help each other finish it

ahh gotcha, that's interesting yeah. I'll play around with it!

nice!

nice! yeah level 3 definitely steps it up by a lot. I kind of like how knowing how to do level 1 makes it easier to know how to do level 2. I'm thinking I could probably find a way to introduce levels between 2 and 3 that help you know how to do the current level 3 in 4 moves.

hm, you mean more question card options in each round? the idea is you get three clues as to what your number is, then have to guess. or maybe I didn't understand your suggestion properly?

haha, nicely done, thanks for playing! are you working on any TINY games of your own?

Since my last check-in, I’ve massively lowered the scope for this game. Originally it was going to be physics-based with ships, whirlpools, and shipwrecks. I decided I need to practice getting UI to feel crisp first, it's something I've never felt very strong at. So I've pivoted the game to SECRET HANDSHAKE. It's about following an increasingly complex set of instructions to perfect a secret handshake. You have to keep all the moves in your head to get the final 10-move handshake right.

Next, I’m going to work more on the polish. Currently it's a decent contender for a prototype, but it needs SFX and snappier animations to feel crisp. I'm trying to elicit a sense of satisfaction in getting the moves right, which begets a certain flair in the animations and sound design that is currently lacking.

(Optional) I’d like some help with anything from your perspective that would make the game easier to read / understand. Did you get stuck? Confused? Frustrated? Would love to know.

Latest image or playable link: https://natdelnova.itch.io/secret-handshake

Don't let the title fool you, the game is available in English or Spanish :)

Hi there, thanks for stopping by! I'm making 100 games in 100 days, this is game #002. Pls share your score in the comments!

Hey, thanks for submitting! I'm always cautious when folks ask others to copy and paste code onto their website. Can you tell us a little more about your goal with this code?

Hey, thanks for submitting! Haha this is a great entry, totally hits the brief. You mentioned you struggle with completing games, how would you rate the amount of effort this entry cost you in terms of getting to the finish line?

I really like the polish you've applied in this. From the outline/shadow on the font and how everything bounces and moves in response to the player, to the groovy BGM and satisfying SFX - and of course the eye-catching BG - these are all really great examples of high quality game polish. I think you could definitely use your strength in game juice to explore how it affects other aspects of game design. Do you have a goal for your next TINY game?

Just so you know, the par for each level is:

• 2 for level 1
• 2 for level 2
• 4 for level 3

The first two you can maybe find if you sit and stare at it for long enough. The third though is purely manic clicking until you figure it out. Once you do one move wrong you go from par to 50 real fast.

Can you beat 82ms?

Благодаря Ви!

My wife got 1ms lol

My game is about creating gravity wells to throw projectiles around. I'm thinking I'll make it about whirlpools and shipwrecks.

LINK: <todo> (UPDATE: I didn't make it about gravity wells:  https://natdelnova.itch.io/secret-handshake)

The heart of my TINY game is the satisfaction of using gravity to send physics objects crashing into one another.

I’ll consider it finished when the game has:

• objects orbit a gravity well;
• objects can attach to and release from an orbit;
• released objects retain their velocity;
• projectiles collide with targets; and
• those collisions contribute to a score.

Something I want to learn or try is making a simple mechanic feel juicy and highly polished.

My first step is working out the basic geometry of the mechanics and how gravity wells feel gameplay-wise.

My next check-in will be Thursday 10 September.

Use this template when posting your game. Keep it to one thread per game (you can upload more than one game if you're feeling adventurous).

Thread title:

[GAME NAME] by [YOUR NAME]

Thread body:

My game is... [ONE OR TWO SENTENCES ABOUT THE GAME]

LINK: [CREATE A PLACEHOLDER GAME, SUBMIT TO THE JAM, AND LINK HERE]

The heart of my TINY game is... [THE ACTION OR FEELING I WANT THE PLAYER TO EXPERIENCE]

I’ll consider it finished when... [YOUR CLEAR FINISH LINE]

Something I want to learn or try is... [WHAT FEELS NEW FOR YOU]

My first step is... [WHAT YOU’RE WORKING ON FIRST]

My next check-in will be... [DATE]

Then, for follow-up posts:

Since my last check-in, I’ve... [WHAT CHANGED]

Next, I’m going to... [YOUR NEXT STEP]

(Optional) I’d like some help with... [ADD A QUESTION OR REMOVE THIS PART]

Latest image or playable link: [ADD IT HERE]

I’d like this to be a place where you feel comfortable sharing a game while you’re still figuring it out. We’re all bringing different levels of experience, and a little care in how we speak to each other makes it easier to stay committed.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Treat other makers with respect, including when you disagree with them. Keep disagreements focused on the work or the idea being discussed. Harassment and discriminatory comments will lead to posts being removed or accounts being excluded from the community.
• Make feedback specific and useful by explaining what you experienced while playing. Ask whether someone wants suggestions before offering a detailed critique, and respect the direction they’ve chosen for their game.
• Keep one progress thread for each game and add your check-ins as replies. This gives people somewhere to follow along and makes it easier to see how your game develops.
• Share the difficult parts as well as the things you’re pleased with. If you’re stuck, explain what you’re trying to achieve and what you’ve tried so far, so someone else has a useful starting point for helping.
• Credit the people whose work you use and respect their permissions. Get someone’s consent before sharing their work.
• Give people a clear content warning before sharing material they might find distressing, including in screenshots and linked builds.
• Keep promotion relevant to your participation in the jam. Your progress thread is a good place to share your game and related updates, while replies to other makers should stay focused on their work.

If something needs attention, please flag it for moderation so I can take a look. I’ll use my judgement to keep this space welcoming and useful, which may include asking for a post to be edited or removing it.

Thanks for helping make this somewhere people want to return to while they work on their games.

Nat

Appreciate you guys 🙏 

Haha, fun idea! I'd love to see more content, where does it go? At the moment it's still in tech prototype land so it's hard to tell what genre the game is, but you could easily take it in the puzzle platformer direction, an eldritch-horror story-based direction, etc. Or maybe both 🤔 It feels like the obvious goal of the game would be to escape the prison, but maybe this is more about stockholm syndrome and you're being groomed to be their pet. Anyway, you've nailed the atmosphere which is the most important part. Tag me on here if you continue it, I'd love to play the next version 🙂

Hey GamedevGoblin, thanks for playing!

Glad you enjoyed the suspense and imagination components. I'm workshopping a 3D version and wondering whether some of that "left to the imagination" stuff would be lost by making the graphics more explicit 🤔 Still, I do love 3D space horror.

Appreciate your thoughts on the bugs and proposals, all have been incorporated 👍

FOV changing based on input is a cool idea! Hope you continue it! If you do, feel free to tag me for another playtest.

Haha, totally get you on the Warcraft killer comment. People don't get how much works goes into games.

We built our own survivors-like (just released our demo on Steam actually 😄), where you compose spells on a musical loop and fight to impress the audience. We started with a super novel mechanic (whammy mode from Guitar Hero and a Magicka like spell composition system), but then learning to do even just half of what the other games in the genre have accomplished has been most of the battle. 😅

Btw for your fullscreen question, I don't think there's a standard approach here. In Don't Read Chat, I did a cheeky thing and made a separate menu if the container is at exactly 960 x 540 (which is the size I made the itch.io container). So it detects if you haven't gone fullscreen yet, and tells you to go fullscreen to start the game. Otherwise, I've seen other people make their game window TINY so you have to click fullscreen to play. Or you could just make it 960 x 540, which is probably pretty big already on most screens, without being too big.

Haha, the intro with the VO was a nice touch. Pretty lighthearted and fun start to the game.

On the accessibility front, I'm running a Macbook Pro, so I don't play games at 1920 x 1080 (it's a 3024 x 1964 resolution screen that displays everything with double pixels at 1512 x 982). So putting the game window at 1920 x 1080 means it goes off the screen for me. You're not the only one to do that, and dw I get why you did – putting it in Fullscreen works. But, because escape is a button used for getting out of the tutorial or pausing the game, it also throws me out of fullscreen. So I found it difficult to engage with the tutorial early on.

Anyway, the gameplay itself was... interesting. Everything felt pretty "numbers go up", I wasn't really finding attacks that were orthogonal to what I could do previously. It would be cool to explore multi-attack, curving attacks, AOE, etc. I was mostly just picking the options with the biggest numbers and waiting to see if the game got fun. 

Sorry for the harsh critique! I hope you enjoyed making the game. The wheelchair guy was a nice touch. If you decide to continue the game, my advice would be to throw in one orthogonal upgrade then give the game to 3 friends and watch them play. See what they're enjoying, and double down on that. 

Yeah, getting the same performance issues as the others. I'm guessing it's checking for my position far too often, and for every actor. Because when there are more detectors on screen, it increases the lag. Generally this can be solved by:

1. Reducing the number of times it runs the detection check
2. Caching detection results if the player hasn't moved
3. Smooth out movement over the time between frames (Time.deltaTime)

Game felt pretty simple and straightforward. If you're going to build on it, would be cool to explore different enemy speeds and detection methods. E.g. not just rotating the cone but maybe swapping from back and forth, or flicking off, picking a totally random direction, then flicking on, with a second of foreshadowing beforehand.

Fun game! Simple controls, easy to pick up, typical gameplay. No notes!

Ah, yeah this is a great baseline for sure, like Maoaii said.

The main issue I see with this game is balancing. Run it through a couple more times with friends, and see where they fall short. For me, my contestant died because I kept being given the choice of Spikes or... Spikes. I didn't feel a lot of agency. There are also some notes on the value of certain actions. Like dragging the card onto the slot – there's nowhere else to drag the card to, so maybe it could just be a click? Or maybe you want to increase player agency and create more slots that can be dragged to? Like maybe the contestant hits a crossroads, and you're not sure which direction they'll go. So you try to setup a trap by predicting which path they'll take. Could also be interesting to lay traps in advance, down the pipe. So you're not just putting them in the very next slot, but maybe 4 slots down.

Oh man, this game would be fun with multiplayer. One friend is the contestant, the other(s) are laying traps. Or Twitch chat could lay the traps, too. That's a cool concept.

Anyway, great contender, awesome start, and if you build on this again in the future, tag me and I'll give it another play!

Defs a cool concept. I could see this being used for a superhero style newspaper editorial game. Like playing it, I was imagining a twist where different scoops show up about the appearance of Spiderman, and you decide whether to expose him or keep him hidden. It wouldn't even need to be Marvel IP for it to work, just some character we might care about protecting.

I thought the game mechanics were really interesting and it brings to mind a lot of ideas for more exploration on the theme. Nice work!

Huh, man some of the games on here are so creative, and this one is no exception. I would never have thought of building a game around making a livestream in hospital. 

I did notice that it seems your game's second camera, the one for UI / livestream stuff, appears to be scaled to 50% of the viewport. This made it pretty tricky to engage with the game.

Also, the spotlight does this thing where if you're facing left, then go up, it rotates back around anti-clockwise instead of clockwise naturally. That's a really common logic problem when it comes to smooth rotation! The trick is to keep counting the number up rather than clamping at 360. That way if the system sees 365, it will treat it as if it was 5 degrees, but it won't swing it back all the way around down to 5. This issue made it hard to stay alive because I could never see what was to the top left of me haha.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the overall vibes. I couldn't get very far because I couldn't figure out how to keep the monsters at bay. It felt intuitively like if I shine the flashlight on them, they'll stay away, but it didn't quite work like that. Was there something I needed to do?

What! No comments yet? Oh man, this one's underrated for sure. The main menu is slick, the vibes are well crafted. I wish your tutorial actually matched to the gameplay, it seems to be leftover from a previous version perhaps? I didn't experience anything like a singing minigame or dancing minigame – I was pressing keys as they came up. TBH for that gameplay, I didn't need a tutorial, but I did go into the game prepared to press WASD and collect green circles haha.

Definitely feels like a puzzle game. Is that what you were going for? From your GDD, you described how the minigame in Dispatch would make a great full game (I agree btw – awesome premise), but the game itself felt to me to have a much stronger puzzle-y feel than in the minigame from Dispatch. I guess the thing with Dispatch is that game actually teaches you how to play the minigame, you're not sitting there figuring out which characters to click, what clicking even does, etc. I found myself clicking every possible screen item for the first 5 minutes and reading everything, grinding forward at a pretty slow pace, until I pieced together what to do. It felt like a puzzle game. If that was your intent, great – it seems like some of your other players enjoyed figuring it out in the dark. For my tastes personally, I would have preferred being quickly shown what to do, even if it was outside the core gameplay experience, and then being thrust quickly into the game so I could practice what I just learned. Since it is a minigame in essence, I wonder if you could borrow from Mario Party's minigames to give the player a quick pre-game tutorial on what to expect and how to play? With the simulation and all that? Anyway, just an idea.

The game itself was of course really fun – but you already know that!

Haha, fun concept! And can I just say, the main menu design is really neat. It does exactly what it needs to do: start, exit, volume. But as someone who's studied a LOT of main menus to learn how to do the design really well, I feel this one sits really high at the top of the list for me. Really cool vibes.

The polish on this game is really high for a game jam. I'm really impressed with how robust the game mechanics are. If you decide to continue it (and you should!), it would pay off immensely to pour some time into playtesting and tutorialisation. Not necessary a "tutorial screen", but a way to implicitly tell the player how to play your game. Check DRC, for example. I seeded throughout hints on what buttons to press, only at the times it mattered.

Accessibility is one of those things that is really hard to remember to do, unless you're constantly playtesting with strangers. And then it's immediately obvious if it's lacking.

Yeah, totally get it! Accessibility unfortunately does take a backseat in jams. Still, it can be also fun to build a game specifically with accessibility as the core constraint. Asking yourself "does this improve how easily people can play this game?" can be a great way to keep the scope small. I usually really struggle with scope creep but decided to take that approach for DRC, and the result was pretty liberating. I didn't feel like I had to do so much more, I just had to do one thing really well.

Very cool prototype, I could see this being a full game with a bit more thought around what kinds of input from the player could trigger different effects