My experience in Rhythm Doctor really helped out here. Out of all the "count out the timing correctly" games in the jam I've played (at least like 10+) this is definitely my favorite, great presentation and gimmicks were entertaining.
VeryLukely
Creator of
Recent community posts
Cute art and solid little gameplay loop! Could see this developing in either an idle game direction and/or a tower defense direction. After about a minute it got a bit stale, then I suddenly lost because my weapon cooldown was too long to kill all the ghosts coming. I dunno what I'd change to make it more exciting throughout, maybe different variants of ghosts that start spawning every 30 seconds? Fast ghosts, slow ghosts with more health, ghosts that steal logs, ghosts that attack you directly to stun you, etc
thanks a ton! I wasn’t sure if posting on discord would even work. I’m in the median ratings now so hopefully it doesn’t increase before the jam ends (not that I have any illusions of ranking high, but it’s still nice to be fairly ranked) definitely wanna make a post jam version with a random pool of maps rather than a set order and moving platforms are a great idea
okay this will sound insane if it's wrong but is that lancer from Ribbit???
really charming and funny little experience, I like when boss fights actually force you to respect the bosses attacks and this is a cool way to do that. though I accidentally spammed through the opening cutscene so I didn't realize hitting the boss actually reduced the time so I just learned the attacks and locked in for a minute and a half. woops
despite how simple the elements of this are individually the game feel of everything together gives me dopamine more than most other games in the jam, good stuff. I did stop playing after level 1 though, since it seemed like essentially the same thing but just longer, sorry if I missed out on anything fun later on though.
also, small nitpick but usually in breakout hitting the ball on different parts of the paddle effects the angle the ball goes, in this the ball is effectively just a bouncing dvd screensaver logo. that's a lot less interactive, and frustrating early into a level when you need to break 1 block left but have no control over the angle.
Thanks so much for the detailed write up and for playing all the way through! It’s super helpful and it really means a lot. I wasn’t sure if anybody would because it does kinda get borderline unfair at a point. I was really busy during the jam period so I wasn’t able to do as much playtesting as I would have liked, I only got to fully play through the loops once.
I don’t think this concept really has legs beyond this, but I’ll probably try and fix some bugs, balance the RNG a bit and add some polish for a post jam update. If I find the motivation maybe I’ll also expand the loop system to 10, but with loop specific boon and curse modifiers on top of the number upgrades so the loops feel more unique (I.e. “Curse: You cannot jump” “Boon: Falling from the bottom to the top of the screen makes you phase through numbers until you touch ground again” stuff like that.
an aim trainer, neat! art style is really cute, so I wish that there were more bombs so there was more art, and maybe a "disarmed" sprite for each bomb that appears for a split second after clicking on them before they disappear. I really enjoyed the patterns that appeared later on, but I think I'd have preferred if they showed up faster. Since freeze bombs are tied to right click, I assumed it also affected only the bomb I clicked and I didn't understand it was a screen wide effect, so maybe a little blue tint or some kind animation of could get that across better.
huh, I don't think I've ever played a slowrun game before. It's an fun (and slightly frustrating) experience having to keep track of time while solving a puzzle. Really captures the frustrating experience of working an job, finishing early, but not being able to go home early due to stupid arbitrary requirements. Basic Sokoban is a little cliche but I think it works to fade in the background for a gimmick like this.
That was super fun, I was surprised at the amount and pace of mechanics and how well they all were implemented. Maybe it's just a skill issue on my part but turning into a block in midair seemed much more difficult and kind of frustrating than anything else in the game by far. Also would have been nice to have a proper boss fight at the end rather than just a cutscene.
Thanks for the detailed write up!
1. Basically yeah, never had plans to have a story element but now I kinda want to, and a potted cactus is my default character for game jam games cause I'm lazy
2. I was using a "spritefont" object for the first time, and could not figure out how to treat the sides of the I as ignorable (as in, each character is going to take up 10ish pixels of space and that's true for the I as well even though it's much skinnier) so I just added some dots to make that less jarring and to kind of give the font a bit of character. It is a hack solution and there's definitely a better one if I had time to find it but I kind of like it, lol.
3. I didn't know this was a faux pas! I love having all my platformer controls on one hand so close together. But yeah somebody else noted this, I'll rework the controls or add alternate keys if I update this game post jam
4. I agree, yeah. Most of this is just my lack of skill to execute this in my engine, but I'm sure I could if I sat down to figure it out.
5. Weird, are you holding shift rather than tapping it? The way it should work is that your dash is active while you hold shift for a maximum of 0.6 seconds, and for the duration you get a small propulsion but mainly your character speed is basically 10x what is normally, so you still have a degree of control over your character (which is why you have a slight increase or decrease in trajectory if you're rising or falling) I admit it's pretty odd but I grew to like it while playtesting and kind of forgot how obtuse it is. I have also had issues with people on other browsers having inconsistencies in gameplay so maybe this is that.
6. I originally had some clockless levels which had more coins than average that I think maybe I should have kept because it creates an interesting dilemma on how long to stay in the level even though it's a pure time deficit. There are still interesting choices like that to make in the game regarding time cost vs coin gain, but I think it could be expanded on more. I don't know how I feel about mandatory death warps in the harder levels, I kinda wanted to show the player that it's a valid option to take the 3 second hit rather than the long way back to the elevator, but I realize that running into spikes doesn't feel like it should be the right thing to do intuitively.
really well designed level, it's cool to have to ignore certain things and blocks as noise at first and then for the upgrades and return trip to recontextualize them. Fall damage could be communicated a bit better I think but I don't have any ideas for that other than maybe putting the game on a grid like Leap Year and that definitely has it's drawbacks
Really fond of this control scheme for bullet hell games. Weaving through bullets with so much momentum is really satisfying. Great variety of bullet patterns and attacks. Made it to the second 45 sec level before calling it quits because the overlapping attacks just got to be a bit much and the levels seemed too RNG dependent.
Smart choice to make this an endless type game instead of level based because I think if there were levels most people would rage quit level 1. Would be a good mobile game. Big flappy bird vibes (I consider that a good thing for the record)
I got NaN depth by flying left somehow so I'm taking that as a win
I had part of the minigame transition screen pillar stay on the left side of the screen which made the shield and whack-a-mole minigame difficult. My browser scale is 100% so not sure.
I really like the micro game format. I was impressed by the lack of repeats and how many there were. I guess my only complaint is that the visual clarity as it relates to minigames could be a bit better because some minigames I just didn't understand until I saw the minigame and some I didn't get at all, but that's difficult to do with just two colors. The shader is neat, are you willing to share what you used or did you make it yourself?
Got a demon on my first selection on the last round rip
Usually I feel like a game with this much luck would be offputting, but having a core component of the game being knowing when to cut your losses when the odds are against you makes it feel very skill based. I do feel like siblings and king should maybe be considered more neutral cards since they force you to keep on playing or they're negative, but maybe having that as a 3rd category would overcomplicate things.
I'm kinda confused what my goal even is, just to survive? I kinda feel like with all the objects I can yoink I should be able to sell them or something.
Unironically I really dig the art style. The game's vibe kinda reminds me of Mr. Sun's Hatbox. I did have a few bugs like crates colliding in a way that slowed my game down to frames so I had to restart, and the second time I played the house generated in a way that I couldn't get out the front door.
Nice visuals and platforming gimmick. I'd have liked to see the screens built to use the gimmick more like bouncing off the ground then the wall for additional height
Also, you can definitely cheat half the files by going on one of the higher paths and holding left or right to go to the end of another path but I'm sure you probably know that. It makes it easier to replay at least.
Cute simple arcade game. I got 23 points.
I think there are some modifications that could be made to make the spotlights more fair, there could be an exclamation point as a warning where it's about to come from a second before they do. Or the movement could be modified to allow for getting out of the way more quickly, maybe a dodge roll on a cooldown or something.
You'd know better than me, I think it could go either way. Sometimes it's nice to be thrown into a pit and have to learn your tools, I just don't quite have the patience to get all the way to the end when I have a lot of other game jam entries to play. Out of the games I've played so far this one was my favorite.
Grapple Dog is just a game I like, lol. No other similarities other than I thought it was funny to mention there was such a game that exists, and I wondered if you had heard of it before and that was part of the creation process of this game in any way.
Difficult game but I really like the concept. The obstacles are hard enough I don't know if bumping into a wall needs to cause you to lose all of your boxes. I didn't read the description so I laughed out loud when I realized the game wasn't just going back and forth in a factory but heading out into the parking lot and onto a busy street. I was also amused that the robot just trips and never gets up again.
Have you heard of the game "Grapple Dog" by chance?
Really solid movement mechanic, I thought the grapple bounce was always logical and consistent so it was fun to learn. Swing almost felt like an unnecessary to me and a step towards a much more timing based game (but maybe I didn't get far enough for it to grow on me)
This is a really neat way to force you to keep changing your build constantly instead of finding one really strong combo and continuing to upgrade it. Felt a bit too at the whim of randomness for my liking but I think it's effective for what it's trying to do since luck is supposed to be an aspect of the game.
I really like this movement mechanic. I could imagine the cursor being a tiny cookie or something so it looks like the hand is always trying to get it.
Was frustrated by a few dead ends (immediately to the right from the start for example) but I think I won in 5 tries (at least, I purchased the biscuit in the shop and saw the character at the bottom who emitted a pulse but I wasn't able to interact with them)
























