itch.io

Concept: it has a bit of a loose tie to the theme, but I like the idea.

Gameplay: I don't have a very deep knowledge of american history so I'm not sure I can appreciate this game to it's fullest, but I like always like games like this, had fun. I feel like the game should be a bit more transparent with the results of the decisions, not 100% transparent, but there could be some vague indicators of what the public opinion is and how's the federal buget and stuff.

Art: the aesthetic was really cool I like it a lot. Some text was overlapping which made things harder to read though.

Audio: very fitting background music, gave a lot to the vibe.

Overall it's a cool little game albeit not super relevant to the theme.

Concept: cool idea, very ambitious concept for the time given.

Gameplay: it's quite fun even alone, I really like the different minigames, all feel simple but well designed. I'm sure this would be super fun with friends if developed further. I also like how good the enemy AI is, it's very impressive that you got all this done in just 48 hours.

Art: it's simple but I like it, it's a cool aesthetic and matches the party game vibe.

Audio: it's nice and fitting music and sfx.

It's a solid entry overall, with a lot of potential for future develoment.

Concept: simple but works, fits the theme theme very well.

Gameplay: in concept it's good, though I think there are a few problems in execution. Firstly my minions always clump together and tend to chase some enemy in the distance leaving me vulnerable to enemies coming from the another direction, maybe minions should return to the player when they get too far or something like that. Another thing that bothered me was enemies spawning from graves too often. I may have just gotten unlucky but it felt like every other grave had an enemy in it. At one occasion 4 graves in a row had enemies in them, I felt punished for even trying to summon minions. I think whether a minion or an enemy spawns should be skill based instead of luck based with a summoning minigame or something like that. These are just some of my observations though, I still had fun with it.

Art: it's simple but well drawn, I like the eyeball theme. It felt inconsistent though due to the pixel sizes differing a lot throughout the scene. This made it all look a bit unpolished.

Audio: the background track and sound effects were nice, though some sfx blended in too well, at first I didn't even realized they weren't part of the music.

Overall it's a nice little game with just a little lack of polish.

Concept: very unique and quite fitting for the theme.

Gameplay: I'm not a big dating sim enthusiast but I did enjoy following the descriptions and trying to figure out a match. Also there's an impressive amount of content for the time limit. There are some bugs like wrong people appearing in some dialogues, though I guess much of if is fixed in the improved version already. I much enjoyed the cast of creative characters as well, and the writing was pretty good too.

Art: it's very well drawn and it's all nice and consistent too. It's also quite impressive how much custom art there is, it's incredible that you folks managed to do this all in the 48 hours.

Audio: all nice and fitting, no complaints.

It's a very well made game overall, with impressive amounts of content for a jam game. Nice work!

Concept: I was not expecting an idea that wasn't even originally for this theme work this well with it, but it's great.

Gameplay: it's super engaging, I really liked piecing together the stories of each ghost while trying to tell their intentions. I felt like some conclusion like a game over or bad ending if you let bad things happen was missing, though I can imagine it was planned but couldn't fit in the timeframe.

Art: amazing aesthetic, I love the fake OS style, it's always so immersive and spooky. Also very polished stuff, everything fits together perfectly.

Audio: as with art, super polished stuff, fits the vibes really well.

Very impressive stuff overall, you always nail the spooky vibes these jams. I also think this genuinely could be developed further to a full fledged indie horror game, the potential is absolutely there. Amazing stuff, nicely done!

Concept: cool idea though I feel like it's a bit light on the theme.

Gameplay: it's fun I had a good time with it. The puzzles were creative and there was a good variety. I feel like the game is a bit stuck between a puzzle game and a rythm game though. I felt rushed to make decisions and try to time my inputs. I think I would've liked it more if I was the one resetting the pattern not the game even if that would hurt the gamefeel a bit.

Art: the artwork is very pretty and the style is nice and consistent all throughout. The  visual effects are nice also, gave a lot to the gamefeel combined with the audio. Speaking of which...

Audio: good stuff, fits the concept perfectly. The music maybe felt a bit repetitive by the end.

Good game overall, well polished all round, impressive stuff for the 48 hours, well done!

Concept: very creative stuff, I really like the weird town with all these surreal characters. Combined with the game boy aesthetic it has a very uncanny yet charming vibe to it that I just adore! Feels like you've been expecting the fever dream theme more lol.

Gameplay: I really like how it's basically a big puzzle that's not too complicated but still really engaging. The writing is really really clever. The zombies feel a bit too punishing, they are quite fast and hard to pass by if they happen to cross your path, but their main issue is that if they catch you it's start all over which can be really discouraging, especially when nearing the end. Also it took a while until I figured out what I was supposed to do as I just happened to not enter the first house that I spawned at so I just wandered aimlessly talking to random people. Something like a map that at least shows the location of the houses, or some more distinguishing features around the place would be nice also as it was kinda hard to know where I was when the background is just a solid color and the houses are kinda identical. I did mostly manage to build a mental map by the end though which was really fun to keep track of.

Art: I really like this aesthetic feels surreal and dream-like. It's also simple but nice and polished.

Audio: it's also simple but gives a lot to the atmosphere to the game, I really like it.

Personally, this game is one of my favourites this jam. The puzzle and mental mapping aspects are really good, supported by the dialogue, and the weird surreal vibe of it is very on point. Awesome stuff, congrats!

Concept: pokemon but with necromancy, sounds cool.

Gameplay: well it's... unique.

Art: for what's in it looks nice.

Audio: it's simple but there's good variety, it's nice.

In it's current state it's not a lot, but I see the potential. Also I appreciate the funny, it's great.

Concept: cool, I really like turn based RPGs like this, the story's also very nice.

Gameplay: I like how of the starting minigame determines the budget you work with for the rest of the game. I feel like the turn based combat is not deep enough though, I made it through the entire game with only using the attack option, defend just didn't really feel useful at all, especially since you can't see you what your enemies do.

Art: it's pretty good, has a good style to it and it feels consistent all throughout.

Audio: the music nice, though it's lacking some sfx.

Nice little game overall.

Oh wait I did pitch something like this! I didn't even remember! I'll be honest I wanted to make a small colony management game for a long time now, it kinda pops in my mind every jam and this year it kinda fit well. Also if it's endless it gets the leaderboard, that's the rule. Thanks for playing and comment!

Wow, alright you're a lot more cultured than I am, I didn't know all that about necromancy. I'll go back and modify my score.

Concept: pick 3 slop my beloved

Gameplay: the premise is really good and I really like the how the resurrect works, the gradually building set of abilities is also great. However the fun is kinda killed for me by how easy it is. I may have gotten lucky by getting vitality as my first ability, but I feel like enemies come way too scattered and way too slowly and my minions just don't die at all. For this reason I never really felt the impact of any upgrade or ability (other than vitality and reduced health decay). It's a shame because I really see how much potential is in the game, and I'm pretty sure tweaking a few numbers could fix it very easily. It's understandable though, the fact that the game has so much content with all the art and audio made by you as well is already a very impressive feat, I have no clue how you manage that (something to do with broken cars?).

Art: the spritework is simple but for first time with pixel art it's really good. I really like how detailed some animations are, those 160 frames do not disappoint. The visual effects and camera tweaks combined with well timed sound effects are also very good, as usual. The background though is a bit too simple I think, all that green gets a bit dull after a while.

Audio: banger music as always, I expected no less. Sound effects are all nice, give a lot to the game feel.

So yeah, amazing stuff as usual, much greatness with just some bit of balance issues. Nicely done!

Concept: very creative and fits the theme very well.

Gameplay: pretty fun, I really like how it doesn't give me all the information so I have to use my best judgement. I think the game kinda lacks consequence (other then Hersif booing or yepeeing lol), I feel like at the end showing something like a score could be nice. Also the prats were tricky to attach, the spot where it clicked felt too small.

Art: very well drawn artwork and it all looks well put together and coherent. The limb physics looked nice, but I think they were a bit too sensitive, felt like the smallest movement sent them spinning.

Audio: I think this game wins this category for me (sorry Jo). The background track is so insanely charming, I love it so much. Hersif rambling at the end is also comedic gold. The sound effects are nice and fitting as well.

Really well put together game, it's very creative and feels super polished. Congrats!

Concept: cool, I like the minigame aproach.

Gameplay: the minigames are fun. I did find them a bit too short though. Maybe a few more minigames could spice it up, though I know how hard it is to get even a single one functional with this time limit so it's fine.

Art: it's nice. Gives big mobile game vibes with the large sprites and the skeleton hand pointing.

Audio: pretty good, fits all round.

Overall pretty good game with good polish.

Concept: feels a bit tangential to the whole necromancy shtick, gives more vampirism/consumption vibes then reviving the dead vibes. I do like the dark story though, cool stuff.

Gameplay: it's simple and focused. It's easy to pick up, but has enough depth to be engaging. It's also very polished, with a nice tutorial (really rare breed during these jams) and good balancing.

 Art: the overall presentation is very good. I really like how the text looks with all the different text effects. The lighting is amazing, creates a fitting dark mood together with the audio. The camera effects are also add a lot of nice gamefeel, very nice and polished. The sprites are very well drawn, though the differing pixel sizes on the scene do hurt the visual coherence a bit.

Audio: the music is pretty good, fits the mood well, and the sound effects are really good, they give every action good feedback.

Very good entry overall, simple but very polished. Congrats! 

Concept: it's a bit strange setting for the theme given, feels like the fish idea came first and the necromancy stuff was just an afterthought.

Gameplay: it's simple and nothing new in design, but it works pretty well, found no bugs, ran smooth. The upgrade system was a nice addition also. The bossfight is pretty cool, I like the varied moveset of the boss. It felt like it should've given a bit more telegraph of its attacks though, I many times felt like I had didn't have any time to react.

Art: it's fish sprites and background is nice and the skeleton is amazing with really good animations. They don't really fit together well though, the skeleton feels like it's from another game. Also are the fish and the background from an asset pack? I don't see it declared anywhere but it's a very different artstyle from the boss so I assume it's premade. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.

Audio: music is good and fitting, sound effects are nice as well.

Overall it's a decent game though feels very random at times. 

Concept: nice little story, fits the theme very well. I really liked the subtle story things like title screen flashing for a moment, hinting that what we're doing in the game is not right, or the ending screen telling us to let go of this game, drawing a parallel with the story, cool stuff.

Gameplay: it's simple and mostly a device to convey the story, nothing extraordinary but it does it's job well. being able to fall of the edge of the screen is a kinda weird though, breaks immersion a bit.

Art: the spritework is very pretty, especially the backgrounds and level art. Some sprites like the characters feel a bit out of the place though due to the inconsistent pixel sizes.

Audio: the music is pretty fitting, matches the atmosphere of and the story well. I feel like the game is a bit lacking in sound effects though, some actions like dying feel like should give some audio feedback.

Overall, very nice submission with some rough edges. For your first game it's very impressive!

Concept: it's simple but it works well with the theme.

Gameplay: simple but fun, it doesn't drag on and is well  balanced. Very polished gameplay loop, I like it a lot. AI code does knock a bit off my rating though.

Art: simple but nicely polished and fits the game really well.

Audio: the sfx are good and very fitting for the gameplay and the artsyle. I kinda missed a short intense background track to give a bit more gamefeel though.

It's a pretty good submission overall, simple but very well polished. Nicely done all round! 

Concept: I really like it, it's unique and fits the theme pretty well.

Gameplay: it's quite fun, kept me going for quite a few rounds. The enemies and skeletons feelt a bit buggy, I often couldn't tell what was exactly going on on the battle field and it wasn't very clear what damaged what and when.

Art: the spritework is really amazing, looks very pretty. The animations being very low framerate did hurt the readability of the action a bit, though I can imagine animations in this artstyle taking a very long time to make so it's understandable.

Audio: everything's nice and fitting. I especially like the ultimate sound effect, funny reference, made me smile everytime I got to use it.

Overall, very solid entry, works well and is very pretty. Nice work!

Concept: creative stuff, I really like how you have to use your time as a currency and strategise around it by carefully planning paths and action orders. It's also unique and fits the theme well.

Gameplay: it's interesting, has a lot of strategic depth to it. I feel like it's a bit too much all at once. Maybe introducing mechanics one by one in some manner would be better.

Art: it's pretty, though in many parts very visibly AI which I can't rate very high.

Audio: the background tracks are a bit repetitive, the ambiance is pretty nice though, even if generated.

Cool idea overall, it's a bit of a shame it's mostly AI, but the game design is pretty good, I see the effort there.

Concept: creative, fitting approach to the theme.

Gameplay: I really like the drawing system it works very smoothly and is fun to interact with. I like the variety of units, their flavour texts are creative, made me smile. I think some extra text that describes their differences would be nice though. Also some info about the enemy units. And whatever the little potion icon and its number represented.
Another problem is that currently some units feel kinda useless, as just spamming zombies or vampires beats the game easily. Maybe if some enemies were vulnerable to only specific units, or maybe if only some units damaged the castle could vary it up a bit and encourage the player to use different unit compositions.
Other than that it was good, had fun trying out the units and trying to replicate the different drawings.

Art: very pretty spritework especially for the units. All looked nice and coherent. The beckground was maybe a bit too messy but that's just a nitpick.

Audio: the music was good, fitting for the vibe. I felt that some parts could use more sfx like the units fighting. The existing sfx are great though, gives good gamefeel when interacting with stuff.

Solid entry overall, it's well polished with only some smaller gameplay issues.

Concept: super clever stuff, I love it! I really like how it combines some turned based strategy aspects with the random fun of the sack combining system. One of the most unique ideas this year for sure!

Gameplay: it's very fun, had a really good time. No bugs either, everything works really well.
The combining system is great, and I really like how smooth it is. I think it's a bit too random though, I felt like I didn't really have any control over the content of the sack, no matter how hard I tried to strategise it. Swords and wands kept piling at the bottom with no way to utilize them. I think some more controlled way of interacting with the sack like the ability to delete some items or shaking it in a specific direction alleviate this.
It's also a bit too easy, I've not lost a single skeleton during the whole game. Never even got to see what the unique kinds of skeletons do because of this, the difficulty should've kept ramping up infinitely I think, maybe even exponentially after some point. Though I know that balancing is a hard to afford luxury with these jams so it's fine. 
The instructions should maybe be pushed in the player's face a bit more, I was kinda confused at the beginning before I saw the instructions on the top. 
These are not a big deal though, just nitpicks from me, what you have is already very impressive.

Art: the spritework is really good and well polished. Also the opening cinematic is pure gold, please make more of these in the furture Jello.

Audio: pretty good, everything fits well with the gameplay.

Very impressive submission overall, nicely polished with unique and fun gameplay. Congrats!

Concept: funny coincidence, our first idea was also about necromancy of a beloved pet just with point and click gameplay. Nice to see that someone actually made it!

Gameplay: it's some good old fashioned platforming, nothing groundbreaking but it works. The levels are a bit too samey but there is just enough to be engaging yet not get boring. On many levels it was hard to tell what can be stood on and what not, the platforms blended in with the background too mush at places. More contrast between the background and foreground objects could I think solve this pretty well. The rat bossfight was great it had a simple premise, but turned out really fun with the clever level design combined with the available moveset.

Art: Chloe seems to have been working overtime this year with all the unique background arts, they look amazing. Not sure if I've gave this feedback before, but I think the inconsistent line sizing makes some sprites look out of place. This is especially prevalent on the first level. This kind of hurts the coherency of the game's look despite the great spritework. The vfx around the levels and on of the cat are really good, like them a lot. The bloom is sometimes a bit too much though, there were places where it was hard to make out where the cat was.

Audio: pretty good, fitting all round. I liked how each level had its own soundscape, the game didn't feel silent at any point despite the lack of background music.

Very nice submission overall, your games are getting better and better each year! Thanks for hosting the jam!

Concept: interesting spin on the theme.

Gameplay: metroidvanias are ambitious for jam games but you kinda nailed the execution. The level design is super well done, I loved the different platforming segments, they felt fair and introduced the new abilities with really good pacing. The controls for walljumping felt a little tricky and needed some time to get used to.

Art: the spritework's really well done, it all looked nice and consistent. The lack of level background was a bit jarring, I suggest at least setting the color of it to something that matches the level to make it stick out less. Also I think Arial isn't a very good font choice here, fits in poorly with the rest of the art, creates an unpolished look.

Audio: the background track is nice, the lack of sound effects is a bit of a negative though.

I really like this one overall, the presentation isn't perfect, but the game executes the metroidvania-concept amazingly, congrats!

Concept: super creative stuff, prefect fit for the theme!

Gameplay: love to see cutscenes implemented in jam games, big plus for that. The actual gameplay part is simple but very effective, I especially like how the different mechanics are gradually implemented and taught to the player, I rarely see it being this well paced (I personally mess this up all the time). The click boxes feel a bit inconsistent and unintuitive, I many times struggled to find where I was supposed to click to heal an arm or a broken bone and just wildly spam clicked around the general area. I think the game should give some visual feedback when the mouse is in the right position like a highlight or something.

Art: simple but very nicely polished, the effects are nice and the animations are well done, though they do drag on a bit too much at times. The main menu looks a bit unpolished.

Audio: nice and fitting all round.

Very unique submission, very theme relevant and well polished, congrats!

Yeah I saw the credits on the game page I just think it's more honest to declare it on the submission page too since most people check it there.

Yeah, the game should give some feedback when you don't have enough resources or you have reached capacity, sorry about that. We planned to implement something but didn't manage to do it in time.

Concept: very unique idea, fits the theme well.

Gameplay: took a bit to adjust to, but once I did it was fun. The mechanics of the ghosts wasn't very well explained I feel, I wasn't sure what the potion effects did like what does it mean if the ghost gets black or bigger. The achivements, hard mode and bonus level are good editions, but I suggest focusing on polish first especially on such short timeframes.

Art: leaves some to be desired to be honest. The sprites are well drawn but rendered and arranged poorly. I highly suggest disabling anti-aliasing for pixel art (either in engine or when exporting the image, not sure which is the case here), and also using consistent pixel sizing. For the UI, text sizes are off at places and the layout is messy, overall it kinda gives an unpolished feel.

Audio: the music is alright, if a bit repetitive. The lack of sound effects bring it down a little.

Sorry if this comes off as a bit negative, I do recognize the effort. I think with a fresh coat of paint the came could be very good.

Aura farmers lmao I like that designation

You can only summon 3 of them at first, you have to upgrade the magic circle to be able to summon more. Not very well explained to be fair, I suck at tutorials lol.

Concept: nice spooky spin on the incremental genre, not an exact fit for the theme but it works.

Gameplay: I always love myself a good incremental and this one's pretty well made too. There are some visual bug with the bones overlapping the UI but it's nothing substantial.

Art: UI looks nice, I like the font. The environment sprites are pretty good as well but the inconsistent pixel sizes give it an unpolished look. The animations are really good, I like how dynamic the game feels with the bones bouncing and graves popping. 
Not related to game quality but quick suggestion: you should make the cover art a teeny bit more visually appealing, first impressions matter, people will approach the game with a different mindset. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, for example adding the grave sprite and a few trees to the current one would already improve it a lot.

Audio: I think this is the weak point of the game. The music itself is good, but not a very good choice for the game, feels out of vibe. It also doesn't loop (classic mistake, I did it myself several times before lol). The sound effects are good, though a bit jarring by the end without the music. By the way, you should declare the music being premade.

Overall it's a solid entry, I like it.

Concept: good, perfect fit for the theme at hand!

Gameplay: it's fun, I like how hectic shooting and managing your army gets. The army commanding seemed a little pointless though, I didn't feel like I needed to do it after some point. The necromancy mechanic was kinda bugged, it sometimes worked, sometimes not. Controller support is a bit funky as well, but the fact that it exists in it self is a big plus.

Art: its well drawn but the inconsistent pixel sizes make it all look a bit unpolished.

Audio: nice and fitting all round.

Yeah, balance is really off, initially it was too hard so I made some changes to make it easier but didn't manage to properly playtest it by the end. I hope you still enjoyed for what it's worth!

Concept: nothing new and a bit loose on the theme but it works.

Gameplay: survivors-likes are never not fun if done well. I feel like it would need a bit more content like enemies and abilities for it to reach its potential, but for a solo project it's very good and polished. Works well, didn't encounter any bugs.

Art: it's simple but very consistent, for a solo project it's very good.

 Audio: nothing ground breaking but its very fitting and polished.

Nice and polished submission overall, for a solo project it's really impressive. Nicely done!

Concept: funny idea, I like it.

Gameplay: it's simple but working. The colliders are a bit inconsistent, it's hard to tell what you can go through and what not.

Art: the sprites themselves are very pretty but the weird sprite sorting makes everything look a bit unpolished.

Audio: nice and groovy background music, with decent sound effects in place.

Overall, it's a nice little game with a few rough edges.

Concept: very original stuff, I didn't expect to see a game like this. A bit loose match for the theme, but it works.

Gameplay: simple yet effective and unusually well balanced. It's not too easy, it took a couple of tries to get good enough at it to be able to beat it, but not as hard as to cause frustration. Placing the 
ghosts is a little janky which doesn't combo well with the time limit. It's fine once you get used to it though.

Art: well polished, I especially like the creative ghost sprites.

Audio: nice and fitting.

Overall well crafted and polished entry, simple but fun. Well done all round!

Got some nice Plague Inc. vibes here, I like it a lot! It's a pretty fun game, I really like the mutation tree.

I think some mechanics could use a bit more explanation, it took a bit of trial and error for me to figure out what absorption rate and pressure burden mean. Also I feel like some paths are a bit unbalanced, it's very easy to just get infinite DNA points and buy everything. Or I've just gotten lucky with my mutation order.

Overall it's a really solid entry with good all-round polish.

Super fun game with impressive amount of content packed into it! It's very well polished with great art and some fitting background music. The core gameplay loop is well executed. I really like the great enemy variety and especially how well developed the skill tree is. Awesome submission, congrats and thanks for hosting!

Man, I just love this one so much. It has a very silly vibe to it which I just adore. The sound effects are really charming, very fitting with the arstyle. The tutorials are simple but very effective, they get their job done perfectly. The gameplay is nothing much, but it introduces new stuff frequently enough that you don't really get bored until the end of the game. 

Overall it's a very well made game. It doesn't aim for much, but what it has is almost flawless. Amazing submission, congrats!

It's a good start for a TD game, it's sad you couldn't finish it. The gameplay is nice, had fun figuring out the best combination of tree for each spot. It's not very well balanced though, some trees are a lot more cost effective than others. Also the presentation leaves to be desired. The art that's in is pretty nice but it's missing some background art, and some audio would also be nice as well.

I used to love flash games like this, this brings back good memories. The game's a bit buggy though. The shovel tool doesn't seem to work, neither does the fertilizer, I tested it with  planting two plants at the same time, one with fertilizer, one without, and I didn't really notice any difference. The art is pretty lovely though and the music is nice too.