One thing I noticed is, that your UI has the mouse propagation enabled, what you probably dont want. The first interaction I had, was me opening credits, clicking on the credit frame at the position of the exit menu button and suddenly my game froze (which was obviously the get_tree().quit()). So I obviously tested it with the ingame UI and it also lets mouse clicks through.
Visually very pleasing, I liked the art and style of it, great job!
Strong implementation of the theme story-wise and also mechanically... ( I did not trust the game pressing 300 keys).
One little hint considering the control schemes, this is probably niche, but I'd advise against using the Z-Key when no input-remapping is allowed and you only got few input actions you need. Reason: There are qwertz and qwerty keyboard layouts are pretty common, and for one group your input description is wrong. It's simple enough to find out, if you know, but you can easily dodge that hiccup.
Overall a great polished entry, with nice details like the sound effects in the shop for the not buyable items and a unique and consistent art style. As far as points of feedback:
It took me a bit to notice the < button for the shop.
Second point, I don't know if it was meant to be free to reroll, but with the fake-gold ring i rerolled alot to gain infinite money without playing a single round with mimics.
That's all I'd add... so overall I had a blast playing your submission.
sorry to hear that missing details in the tutorial text caused you trouble. The text was a last minute addition, but i think we missed a line that for every guest a food must be provided. I'll add that detail to the description asap.
As previous Comment mentioned before, there is a time investment to be made to get the basic rules, which could probably easily explained by a short text or tutorial level. Besides that I really like the UIs, they feel intuitive.
What I'm not sure about, after using the share or steal action, you show a overall countdown in the map. Is that meant as a cooldown for the next action ?
"Strongest" Category (in my opinion): Gameplay / Theme
"Biggest room for growth" Category (in my opinion): Enjoyment
Enjoyment: I had fun and was intrigued... so much I wanted to solve it and did it. Clues are fairly good to get and overall well designed loop.
Gameplay: Easy controls, even on web I faced no real issues, except maybe carrying around to many words. Speaking of carrying to many words, at my first try I paid too little attention to the hints and hence created a mess, would have loved a reset/restart button to go to the initial placement of words.
Innovation: Quite refreshing take on a puzzling game, can see myself the one or other mechanic to spice gameplay further, but I like it.
Theme: I like the meta-interpretation of the theme, not going the more obvious option and "simply" create a strange diner. Additionally I like how you also included the theme into the main game mechanic. Strongest category for the submission in my opinion.
Visuals: The models were nicely done considering the short amount of available time. Really like how the different interactables, fonts and letters are consistent yet different. Nice job on visuals.
Audio: I really like the jukebox being interactable and having a way to choose your jam. Thanks for the sliders of the audio and sfx.
Enjoyment: I had fun and can see what this could evolve into. Sadly missed somewhat of a gameover or continue to next day or some sorts of that.
Gameplay: Easy controls, easy to understand mechanics. Wish there was a bit more depth to the main mechanic.
Innovation: I got the feeling potential is still undiscovered here.
Theme: The bureau of impossible structures surely has the setting to be a strange place and the mechanic of the decision whether to allow or disallow implements the theme aswell... though I would have liked in both cases to increase the level of strangness, setting and mechanic implement the theme.
Visuals: There is very much going on here from the visual perspective. You've mixed quite a lot of different aesthestics, which could be more streamlined to have an overall consistant style. The sizes of the pixels used for the pixel art differ (rule book vs stamps), the fonts are mixed between basic pixelated and more styled (dialogue or B.I.S. Sign vs. clock numbers) and the wall & desk are either very fine detailed or rather made with a non-pixel focused tooling. Also the animation for people moving to the counter looked like they where takin window panes with them.
Audio: The tune was catchy, suitable for a long office day - but a bit loud, wished there was a volume slider at the start.
Enjoyment: Overall I had a great time. There were only 3 small details i noticed, which annoyed me a bit. First off, would loved an additional input/button to reset the second part of each level, as Q reset back to creating the movement pattern part. Second I'd like it better, if the recorded path would already be displayed right after the first repetition, maybe this is a bug/unintended that it takes an additional try to reveal it. Third, most certainly was a bug, after pressing the reset stage button (q), sometimes it would reset a second time without input - was maybe the wrong input signal connected to ?
Gameplay: Easy controls - although I always prefer a separate button to the arrows for jumping. Got stuck quite a bit in the playthrough between platforms, no big deal to the reset scene function. Dunno if it was intended to have the forces of the self-controlled platforms, it was funny to shoot the main character through the roof.
Innovation: That was refreshing - classic platformer with an exciting twist to it. Furthermore I can imagine you can iterate upon this new mechanic further. Top category for my review.
Theme: Even without the main character I would have bought the implementation of the theme as a stage play, as the stage can be mysterious magical and strange of course.... Mechanically speaking I thought the moving the platform in the rear view playthrough partly also presses towards the theme. well done.
Visuals: While not my personal favorite, you've done a great job at having a consistent art style that also helped give the polish feeling - well done in the visuals department
Audio: I like the background tune, its very supporting the gameplay in mind and I love the sfx queues from time to time, subtle but strong - very good job in the audio department.
Enjoyment: Oh boy! First off I really had a blast playing through it, after I got to the actual gameplay. The difficulty was well balanced and the progression well designed. However a small detail nearly made me stop before starting, at the very start with the starting dialogue, I had the impression that I was stuck at "Where am I". I had time to hit every key on the keyboard and nothing happened. I reloaded the page, then tried waiting a little longer and the next text bit came, so I hoped that the initial dialogue was not toooooooooo long. You got to thank the comment section because, if not so many praises were present, I probably aborted my attempt. During playthrough I noticed later dialogues can be progressed/speed up by using shift - so after the credits (conviently placed again at the start) I tried once more speeding the starting dialogue with shift, but no success. I left that point out of the rating for enjoyment, since this is a very small detail, but I had the urge to express the potential downfall from those details. especially since the game is really fun and would have sucked if I couldn't give it a good rating.
Gameplay: Easy controls and straight forward mechanics, fast retry cycles, good difficulty. Gameplay is really smooth! I'm more a space to jump guy, always feel a bit wonky to press up to jump, but this is personal preference.
Innovation: I really like how the time shift affects the other parts of the map and given more time, you probably could do even more fun stuff with those mechanics.
Theme: The settings implements the theme well, being at a strange planet with strange time manipulating waves.
Visuals: I really like the art - pretty consistent overall and got everything, particles, parallax, etc. . If I were you and wanted to know, what I could improve, I'd probably say this is the category I would spend it on, unless of course you wanted to add more levels. While the art is good, I see a lot of potential going further.
Audio: The music was good and I really like the SFX. I had the perfect volume level - but still the consideration for a simple staring menu/screen with a start button and a volume slider sometimes adds a lot to the enjoyment.
Propably the most interesting game in the jam I played so far.
Love to hear that you enjoyed our submission! Especially I'm happy the tune and humor resonates with you, as we really tryed this time to focus on a funny narrative.
Thank you for playing and rating our submission Cularo Games - as long as we got the IP rights in our posession, we'll make sure its only good news :D.
Thanks for playin' - actually the godot plushy was the last asset that made it in, I wasn't really sure what to put in for the last enemy, so for a second I thought to leave in the standard godot icon svg, but then I said I'll just draw it myself :).
Enjoyment: I felt a bit lost. First I was caught by curiosity to explore, but when I could only find the one interactable, it felt a bit frustating. I guess this is probably because time did not allow more interactions. And second thing what left me a bit puzzled, is there an end? an correct end? as I got stuck at the sky area, I'm not quite sure.
Gameplay: Even though theres not a lot of gameplay, which not neccessarily must be a bad thing, I missed some form of communication of what may goal was - was the sky world the correct destination? I don't know. Oh and I couldn't figure the sky world out.
Innovation: I think this is my first top-down "platformer" - although I don't know if I would call it platformer. So the idea sounds pretty unique and interesting to me.
Theme: The sky world is a strange place indeed, so the setting does implement the theme.
Visuals: Overall I quite like the pixel art and certain parts already show to be promising, e.g. I love the trees. I don't know if you knowling set unmatching proportions (e.g. little knight vs gigantic flower) to tend towards the theme or if it was accidentally.
Audio: Sadly no audio :(.
Overall nice entry for a first game - the things which work are promising! Keep up the good work.
Yea we totally get it - initial plans were to add even more stages with more difficult pathing and sub-mechanics - but we had to downscale since our time budget was very limited.
Love to hear even though the game itself wasn't your cup of tea, that you enjoyed the music assets!
Enjoyment: Fun short platformer, nothing crazy difficult. Could be longer, but it seems like you took more focus on polishing what was already working, which I like, as it feels relatively polished.
Gameplay: Easy and sharp controls, perfect for the scope of the Game. Interesting idea to reverse the stage difficulty, that the mechanics get easier that more difficult.
Innovation: Probably the weak-spot of the submission, in my opinion, although as mentioned in gameplay, I like the reversed difficulty and on could say that you play in reverse the making of the game, as we land in the godot editor with some platforms and then in blank white without any mechanics except the door & key. Otherwise tested and true platformer mechanics.
Theme: The settings applies the theme, as the actual player characters engages with its creator game engine. Nothing too crazy, but it works.
Visuals: As mentioned before, while its not content rich, every piece feels like it is near the release material or close enough to release detail. Great job.
Audio: Smooth vibes, very suitable for the platformer as it has only the jumping part and less hazardous components.
Enjoyment: I had a blast, while some of the minigames felt more enticing than others, overall this was a fun experience the whole playthrough.
Gameplay: Simple Controls, easy to learn. Love that input methods were reused for the games.
Innovation: I'd guess theres a lot of variations of those types of minigames, but clustering them in a meaningful way was done here pretty well. Additionally tieing the overlapping theme into them achieved without immersion breaking. Well done.
Theme: Possibly the only "weaker" category or rather where my personal view/opinion deviates a bit of this overall really great submission...it felt like it was more a focus of strange phenomenon/things and less about the where. But maybe I need to revisit the though later again.
Visuals: I love the art, all of it, 5/5.
Audio: The tracks and sfxs selected were enchaning the flow-state, allowed focusing on the task while not remaining in radio silent.
This is so far one of my favorites in the jam - Great Job!
Yea after playing some other entries I realized having a highlight function or some sort of tooltip could be useful for input communication.
Considering the art, since this was our third jam we'd participate in, we wanted to try something new, as before we sticked to pixel-art. The first idea was trying out 3D, but that probably would have caused even less polish. Hence we or I shifted towards Vector-graphics, but I too prefer the look and nostalgia of pixel-art.
Yea the orb is part of the easter eggs, but I think its currently bugged in the version of the game :(.
Yes - that is the impression Macroslop AI Games wants to achieve :).
We have multiple plans for polish, features and additional levels... however as we both a parents we only had the evening sprints to get stuff done. Nevertheless thank you OneMoreChange for the input and great to hear you enjoyed the submission!
Enjoyment: Quick playthrough and easy to follow the narrative, the main quest was on the verge of getting repetitive, but I think 3 or 4 times doing the chores without returns are still fine.
Gameplay: Easy controls, goal is clearly communicated, clearly visible indications of interaction with map interactable objects. Good! Had a bug, where as I completed the game, I still run around and complete the main quest, dunno if this was planned as is.
Innovation: I like the addition of a task parallel to the story aspect of the game, would have liked if there was further impact by the main quest mechanic.
Theme: The setting and sounds implement the strange place theme very well.
Visuals: Mostly clean and consistent art choice. No critiques here.
Audio: As mentioned in the theme section, the choice of music is well placed, supporting the setting and gameplay rather than distract or avert the attention.
Enjoyment: I had fun - I played twice. First time I've got eaten by the twisted forest and the second time I succeeded. Nice touch for replayability, that there is no fixed order of changes or number of changes.
Gameplay: Easy controls and the goal is communicated quite well, what I am/was missing a bit, was the communications of the rules a bit. I got it, that you got an amount of guesses that you can be wrong before you lose the game. What I did not get is, if I did not get all clues for the current round does the clock run out or does it take away "wrong guesses" aswell? Also while not really dramatic since its really short wait, but the bridge between game start and first round also felt a bit uncommunicated. But those points are really only small critiques, nothing game or immersion breaking.
Innovation: Personally for me this is one of the more unique approaches in the jam (so far I've had the chance to play entries) and overall, at least considering my backlog of gaming catalog. And I can see how you can implement more unique twist to it.
Theme: I like the implementation of the theme, which is not only depicted in the settings of the strange forest but also in the main mechanic that you have to keep an eye on the strangely placed objects and how they change. Good job.
Visuals: Very detailed and consistent art usage, only thing to improve what comes to mind, would be replacing the standard unity sliders, maybe a suitable font for the story bits, but I know that was also neglected cause of the missing time for further polish.
Audio: Nice calm and gameplay supportive track. I read in the comments that the menu was implemented in a last minute effort, so you probably know this, but having a track to adjust the volume settings is useful (even if you reuse the track in the game itself).
Nevertheless great innovative submission and great job creating all assets from scratch, we also committed to that practice and you can tell the difference!
Enjoyment: I had fun playing it, although i pretty much sucked and did not make it on the leaderboard. Feels very polished and the addition of a leaderboard is a really good job.
Gameplay: Easy controls and straightforward goal. The power ups were mostly self-explanatory, but only mostly, I'd wish there was a tooltip or label explaining (or just naming) the upgrades to be sure about some of the upgrades.
Innovation: Im feeling a nice mix of vampire surivor meets plants vs. zombies ish vibe. Love the addition/change that it wasn't monsters chasing you but instead trying to get beyond you.
Theme: Im hesitant whether to really say the throat is a strange place... this does not resonate so much with me, but the germ-fighter placed inside the throat with a pill-machine gun definitely is strangely placed there.
Visuals: Overall the visuals are good, the UI for the player health could be a bit larger.
Audio: Very good job in the audio department, solid track, good underlying sfx, nothing I really missed here.
Overall great entry.
But as of writing this review I noticed a potential bug, when loading the game again I get the following message:
"An error occurred running the Unity content on this page. See your browser JavaScript console for more info. The error was: uncaught exception: undefined"
I'd imagine it has something to do with the PlayerPrefs or some stored data after playthrough?
I agree that certain parts/mechanics of the gameplay are poorly communicated, those better indications were sacrifced in order to have a working main game loop. Glad to hear you still enjoyed the experience.
