itch.io

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, I'll be sure to give it another look when it's further along in development.

This is a very interesting game. Firstly, the style is top-notch, especially for a game-jam entry, I like the movable windows, it would be interesting to have more of them or a mechanical reason to move others besides the flip window. Speaking of that, I feel the flipping mechanic is honestly more tedium than anything, there's no penalty for wiggling away until you get what you want. Damage is sometimes unavoidable, I feel like this could be negated with either a shield option given at the start or some kind of "retreat" action that moves you in the opposite direction that you are facing. 

There's a lot of mechanical depth in such a one-dimensional battlefield, I am impressed by the need to plan each and every action carefully, and glad that friendly fire can be exploited. One bug I did notice was that enemy intent was sometimes contradictory, the square they highlighted for movement was opposite of where they actually moved. I see other people had problems with the perks, I only ever used backstab, and it worked fine. 

All in all, a really solid entry, there's certainly a few weakpoints, but definitely a game that stands out from the rest of the pack. Solid work, and I'll look forward to more from you in the future.

The vagueness of this game is an interesting principle. On one hand, the lack of solid validation adds a great deal of tension, the unsure nature of the runes is predictably troubling. I did feel that my success in the game did actually come down to brute force, as opposed to actually reading the runes correctly, given that the runes fell the same way on each day, indicating a "correct" answer. The main problem comes from the broad interpretations, this is again definitely the point of the game, but I just didn't enjoy the constant cross-referencing of the symbol meanings and the rules. This is being rather harsh on a game jam entry, I know you're not depending on my validation, but I really did like the atmosphere and principles of the game, with a very creative interpretation of the prompt. I'll definitely look forward to seeing more work in the future.

probably that one

I think the theming of this game is a lot of fun, but I have some problems. The scaling of this game was way too fast, the endgame challenges were trivial, the only hard ones were clicking a certain number or waiting for the corruption to fill. Speaking of corruption, I literally never had the bar fill up until I was required to do so. Clicking is almost always trivial, to the point that spending pastries on multipliers for it was a waste. The staff powers could be navigated better,  I didn't figure out I even had them until a while later. I ascended far too quickly, often having a production rate that made each goal trivial, which meant all the lore sort of flashed by at once. I beat the game without ever seeing the merchant or void events, and only one echo ever showing up, so this must be adjusted. This seems like harsh criticism, but I'd rather be honest about my experience. Beyond the theming, I don't know what this game is doing to be unique with all the other idle games on here, the gameplay is vastly similar to Cookie Clicker. Give me a reason to play this game over that one.

Fun enough game, the secret burgers aren't all that fun to collect given the lack of feedback, I do like there are thins to explore and discover. The original puzzles were neat, I enjoyed the logically interesting ones like "12 unique layers" more than the mathematical ones like the salad puzzle. Can you add an update that allows you to kill the dog?

I appreciate it, but I still feel the earliest enemies summon too many units to handle, and other things like defeating an enemy already entrenched in your base are very difficult in terms of negating damage. I could be the only person that thinks this way, but we'll see. Best of luck with future progress.

I really want to explore more of this game, but the balancing is wack, getting any more than 3 fights in is nigh impossible. I'll give it another try once something changes.

Tried some of the demo, seems fun, but during level 3 there was one less box than was required to beat it, making it impossible to progress.

Fun enough game, the puzzle to open the left half of the tv cabinet made me smile. I got stuck the longest on the final part to open the door, I thought the stove would have to do something more than just being a hint thematically. I also think what you have to do with the water bottle the first time is a bit obtuse, I stumbled into it eventually but I don't think it really makes sense. I really liked the theming of the rare flower and the passage of time, that added a lot despite the simplicity. Good work, I'm looking forward to more from you in the future.

This is a really neat game. The aesthetics are top notch, I love the goofy enemies that are cute enough to be fun to look at but not too cute to feel bad about killing. Heavily limiting what squares one can paint at any given time leads to excellent strategy, setting up squares several moves in advance while avoiding the erasure of traps already set. The slug-like blobs are a key addition to keep the pressure on, if they weren't there to erase paint the game would become rapidly too easy. Speaking of difficulty, while I did feel pressure as some enemies came within striking distance, I made it about 50 rounds without ever taking damage before I quit, although erring on the side of ease is probably best for a game jam entry. If you wanted to expand this at all, having some sort of roguelike pick-from-3 upgrade system seems fun to work with, or maybe some bosses to deal with. A superb entry, huge props to you. Shlorptastic.

I hope my feedback was helpful, and definitely excited to see where this game goes.

I completely agree on the side of erring to be too easy, I understand getting nuanced game balance correct for a short game jam isn't always feasible. Looking forward to future work!

Also, bug noticed: when a robber was killed by two traps at once (happened with double door-cans) I was penalized twice.

Played to completion, here are my thoughts:

I did enjoy the game, but after a certain point the robbers stood no chance. My biggest issue was killing too many, which was toned down once I phased out marbles and double-canned doors. Frogs and Super Ninjas were the most dangerous for this reason, skipping reasonable traps only to be hit with the full brunt of my defenses once unmasked, I didn't really know how to deal with this. Only once did a robber ever reach me, I never felt a need for the treehouse and later school upgrades, even if they were cool. I think some motivation for these robbers would be interesting; beyond the ostensible draw of valuables, why would so many people be willing to enter such a lethal house? It took me a while to figure out how the cameras worked, at first I thought the symbols just meant that they were recorded, not indicating a photo opportunity. The story was funny, I do like the intentional abandonment of a child to the mercy of a veritable army of thieves. 

I thought it was lots of fun, I had no problems with the build, unlike what other people are experiencing. I always love alternative worlds which don't take themselves seriously, where being the "guy who eats various meats and also everything else" is a respected position. I am tempted to eat and fight with everything that enters my inventory, despite the valuable nature and obvious danger associated with consuming a metal weapon. The frantic inventory management is a bit not to my taste, I would love a way to pause walking for a moment to deal with an influx of items, but I guess if that's not what you're going for in terms of gameplay it might just be a problem of preference. I did feel that this was unfair for the valuable enemies at the end of a run, I lost out on a lot of stuff I wanted after the boss fights because I had mere seconds before the guy left, and if I tried to switch to slowing down I speed up first, making the problem much worse. Managing large items was also a pain, as I couldn't bump out multiple smaller things, only one obstruction at a time. I feel the money balancing is way off, one run in the forest grinding pixies into dust and selling it to the baker gave me a ludicrous sum, when up to that point anything I would've wanted to buy was far out of my price range. I did enjoy heartily the experimenting with crafting, where you can see if an item would just be destroyed as opposed to becoming something useful. I think some kind of "stomach view" would be a cool add, I sometimes had a hard time telling what effects I was benefitting from, and since eating is such a huge mechanic having a screen showing the effects of what you're currently digesting would be both useful and amusing. On the subject of eating, I definitely want some kind of visual indicator for when something is going to be swallowed, as to manage more tightly how much time I have left until I can jam more rat meat in my craw. I do love the simplicity of controls, getting to only use the mouse really is easy to learn. The worldbuilding is again excellent, irreverently bashing whimsical beasts to death then looting their entire corpse for a taxidermist is great fun. Very excited to see how this develops.

A big fan of this game. The formatting is excellent, with the main website ostensibly following the ubiquitous arbitrary design of most websites, with the actual content being far from traditional. I was a fan more of the puzzles outside of all the color levels (which WERE fun, don't get me wrong), and I imagine I wasn't the only one tired of all the mental math and number/letter substitution required for the end bit. The story was fine enough, keeping it vague and mysterious with a handful of easter eggs is straight down the middle for ARGs. Picking up on the fact that "management" was what was trapped inside the perimeter was an interesting realization I did like how the website was self-contained, a restriction that stretched the boundaries of clue-hiding. I disliked when text from the antagonistic force would fade in and out during puzzles, it was fun to see more dialogue in a way that reflected the "otherness" of the antagonists, but it was deeply distracting when trying to focus. I only interacted with the hint system twice, once at the start after I already understood unity to see how it worked, and once for the "true name" bit in a moment of weakness; I feel the system could be a little less direct, but adding iteratively stronger hints for every aspect of the puzzles does seem like a big ask. I did want to side with the antagonists (who were most likely correct), but there's really no option to besides quitting play, and that's no fun. Definitely looking forward to more from you, and would be eager to be given the opportunity to playtest future work.

Coulda sworn I tried that, I did figure it was just a me problem when nobody else in these comments mentioned it. Neat game

Seems like it would be fun, can't start controlling any drones.

Also having UI problems, can't figure out how to roll either.

Fun little jaunt. It's one of those games where if you rely on intuition you can get pretty far, but run the risk of getting stuck on a level for an eternity. I can tell there's definitely things I missed, but can't tell how to get them. Maybe I'll figure it out some other time.

yeah that makes sense

Decent amount of stuff. I'm an on-and-off completionist, not having a way to figure out what endings I had was a deterrent to that, but I sense that wasn't the point of the game. I like that you can iteratively figure out just about everything involving the situation, and the van is a decent way to give each route a snappy finish. I also like the clues in the dialogue that point to other endings. Text adventures with actual visuals aren't too common, but I do like this a lot more than other text adventures.  I do like the best and true ending, escaping alive with hope for the future. Good work.

Clear inspiration from Inscryption, but you've been the first that I've experienced to take it in such a radical new direction. Solid work, certainly potential for further development, should you feel it appealing.

I feel bad for the narrator who is trying so hard to help me, but I just keep failing. Fun even though I won.

I am a big fan of games that expand their potential, breaking that little illusion of safety we have over our control over our own computers. Even though the jokes were at my expense, they were funny, and I'm excited to see more from this developer.

In my defense, I just played a game designed to frustrate the player. My apologies for the unreasonable comment, I definitely should have figured out the alt+f4 joke.

Can't hit f2 on laptop, game unwinnable. I do like variety puzzles, but I like playable ones more.

I'll await your update with the anticipation of a condemned man on the guillotine. Maybe a little less, but around that level. Expect more feedback from a random internet stranger.

Fabulous, original concept. You probably get a lot of complaints about deck bloat, I hope to see a solution that's more creative than simply paying to remove. Perhaps work in a system where deck bloat isn't an issue? It's your game, not mine.

what if learn to fly was the best game ever made

I've seen a half-dozen carton of eggs before. They did not behave in this manner. 

I lost count after two. I doubt there's any more than ten though.

The thing happened and I immediately quit playing.

Very clever, the anagram addition adds a lot to an otherwise simple concept.

Nifty that I get to be the first to look at this. Love to see more experimentation with the Windowkill technology.

Genuinely lots of charm, the gameplay is of course limited but even a small expansion would be welcome.

legitimately the best dating simulator on this website. add sequel but do NOT affect this relationship for the worse.

The game is definitely well made, I guess I'm just not a fan of the slow progression genre. I do feel like there isn't much to notably distinguish this from other incremental games, but this is a very amusing application of the theme, and there's plenty of evidence of the work that went into it.

This is sort of interesting, I like the quality of the voice acting and the differences between the voices. I do feel the gameplay is a bit shallow, the distribution of the email tasks is heavily skewed, with the second half being always completely yellows, and the spreadsheet isn't much more  than mashing. I liked the narrative a decent amount, but this game doesn't have much else behind it.