GMC Jam Voting The Chimerical GMC Jam #8 Voting Topic

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Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
The voting begins!

With 53 entries total, the voting will last for around 13 days until
Sunday, 10th June, 23:59 UTC


The ZIP with all entries is linked here. The ZIP includes, aside from the games themselves, a Jam Player tool. It is strongly recommended to use Jam Player to play the games.

Mega: Whole ZIP

The results are out!












Full results
Complete ranking: Score breakdown spreadsheet
  1. {Insert Game Title Here} by @Coded Games
  2. Boss Beat by @Gravedust
  3. The Ashen Tower by @JacobV, Parmesano​
  4. Tower of Power by @The M
  5. The Hoard by @Cloaked Games, @Pere
  6. Yarr 'n Gee by @Murzy, @swonqi, moose_tunes​
  7. SWAMP by @mimusic
  8. Red Sabre by @Misty
  9. BRAXION by @Hyomoto
  10. Malicious Intent by @Shadow_Lancer, @Shameless
  11. Overtime by @Siolfor the Jackal
  12. Dungeon Boss Simulator by @Zodaris, Rikileitr​
  13. Mr Quack by @BrandonC
  14. Gammon Princess by Team Flob (@GameDevDan, @NAL)​
  15. Fight The Power by @Kodiqi
  16. Hooktik by @matharoo, @Micah_DS
  17. Action Arena by @Kahrabaa
  18. KVN by @penguin533
  19. Yellow Gear by @chinykian
  20. Bullet Overtime by @Cat, @var
  21. Like A Boss by @imhanner, Nadine B​
  22. Ruruna vs. Crab King by @ThePandaSenpai
  23. Xenos Will Be Judged by @Alix, @Bentley, @starwolf
  24. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce​
  25. Sector78 by @makas, @daniel
  26. LegBot by @Jdown79, Maice, Zach​
  27. Boss Meadow by @trg601, moon489​
  28. The Businessman by @Will, @CreativeJon90
  29. You Have To Drop The Bass by @Alice
  30. Project Hellkite by @Dr. Wolf
  31. Journey of Tardin by @Dengar
  32. Last Knight by @Ziberteck
  33. Tankshow by @Paskaler, Matei Osenk​
  34. Big Bad Boss Fight! by @IndianaBones
  35. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian​
  36. Space Boss by @Alexx
  37. A boss day by @mjadev
  38. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat​
  39. Boss Off! by @Bart
  40. Overtime by @H3ADL3SS, @Archnix
  41. Twilight Legasy by @Wraithious
  42. BossBoss by Studio Basem (Jack Foster, Julie Kwon, Walter Foster)​
  43. Stealth Game by @TheOakNuggins
  44. Boss Attack by @2Dspessman
  45. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars (Linkydee, MountainProductons, @Silver-bowsman)​
  46. Desert Punchman by @shadowspear1
  47. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  48. I Quit! by @Sinaz20, @FredFredrickson, VaultComplex​
  49. Galaxy Goons by @HayManMarc
  50. Boss Of All Bosses by @dphsw, @FeetUpGaming
  51. BO5S by @sylvain_l
  52. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by @orSQUADstra
  53. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by @Storyteller

Best-ofs:
Best use of Theme: The Hoard by @Cloaked Games, @Pere
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by @Coded Games
Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by @Murzy, @swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Story: The Ashen Tower by @JacobV, Parmesano
Best Devlog: I Quit! by @Sinaz20, @FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Best reviewer: @Ralucipe, for in-depth analysis of each rated game

Prizes
Jam Prizes

The top 3 entrants and best-of winners will be featured in the Hall of Fame.
Furthermore, @Coded Games will choose the theme for the next Jam.


Community Prizes

Please don't forget to check if you aren't eligible for one of community prizes contributed to this Jam's pool, and poke the prize givers if necessary!
(if you are the one giving away the prize, especially the one for specific entries, please contact those who should receive the prize)

The GMC Jam is officially finished!

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How to vote?
You must make a single post with your votes, which might include the games ranking and optional awards for best games in specific categories. When you name a ranked / awarded entry, please use both the game name and the authors, as just a title or author isn't sometimes enough to tell which entry you mean. Preferably, just use the directory name from the game ZIP, as it identifies the game correctly.

For a vote to qualify, you must rank at least top 3 entries (without ties), and they must be accompanied by at least a short comment explaining what you liked about them. Also, you cannot rank your own entry.

Aside from top 3, you can vote for:
  • Best use of Theme
  • Best Concept
  • Best Presentation
  • Best Story
  • Best Devlog
You can vote for best reviewer, too, but that might or might not be counted, since the best reviewer is chosen arbitrarily by the Jam host.

Also, you can rank as many other entries as you like, all the way to the very last entry. However, ties are not allowed, and entries from the first tie onwards aren't included when counting the votes.

Voting post template
Using this template is not mandatory, but it can be pretty useful. If you have your own idea about voting, feel free to get creative, but please make the voting data (ranking and best-ofs) clear, easy to process and in plaintext.

(this template is also used by Jam Player when exporting votes and comments)

Code:
[center][b][size=7]My amazing reviews![/size][/b][/center]
[size=6]Top 3:[/size]

[size=5]First place[/size]
Short comment about the first place...

[size=5] Second place[/size]
Short comment about the second place...

[size=5] Third place[/size]
Short comment about the third place...

[size=6]Best ofs:[/size]

[b]Best Use of CONVERGENCE:[/b] ...
[b]Best Concept:[/b] ...
[b]Best Presentation:[/b] ...
[b]Best Story:[/b] ...
[b]Best Devlog:[/b] ...

[size=6]Full ranking:[/size]

[spoiler][list=1]
[*]first place...
[*]second place...
[*]etc...
[/list][/spoiler]

[size=6]Comments:[/size]

You might post your comments here, or, if you tend to write long and detailed feedback, make a document elsewhere and link to it here.
Providing feedback to each ranked entry is not mandatory, but generally people appreciate that.

How results are decided?
(the information here is not necessary for voting; it's mostly for people who want to understand how votes are calculated to produce the final results)

When it comes to the games ranking, the voting system used is 1/(rank + 1). It means for each ranking an entry appears in, it will get a score of 1/(rank + 1), and no score for other rankings.

When it comes to best-of awards, the winners must have gathered the most votes in their respective category. If multiple entries have the most votes, the Jam host may choose one or more entries among them to win the award. This is to avoid situations when e.g. 5 entries tie for 2 votes for the best devlog, and they all win; at the same time, it's still the community that decides which entries get the most votes.

The best reviewer is chosen arbitrarily by the Jam host, but the community opinion may be taken into account (just not in a "systematic" way).

Let's get voting!
 
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OverLogic

Member
If anything seems wrong to you make sure to DM me for a re-review!


Early Reviews:
{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
It is a very interesting concept and a fun little game.
rate 5/10

A boss day by mjadev
reminds me of a game i used to play on kongregate years ago it is a fun concept but i expect more in a 72hour timeframe.
rate 2/10

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
Graphics were pretty bad from one side but from the other they fit the way that you put the and the name perfectly also that was a real boss fight, so far one of my favorite games.
rate 8/10

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
I enjoyed the music the transition effects and the fact that you got controller support but my only issue was that i won in the first 20 seconds :p i'll revisit this one.
rate 4/10

Action Arena by Kahrabaa
The entire gameplay seems very well thought and i was surprised to be honest but it was over so quick and it was very hard to dodge overall it seemed like a good boss fight with 3 phases.
rate 6/10

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
no comment
rate 0/10

Big Bad Boss Fight by IndianaBones
Fun concept but not following the theme and not a game that i expect to play in 72 hours timeframe.
rate 1/10

BO5S by sylvain_l
The graphics caught me off guard, the entire concept is also really good but not following the theme and an unfinished game with a lot of potential
rate 1/10

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
it followed the theme and i understand that this is coming from a new programmer but i need to judge as i judge others although i understand the effort that you put into this one.
rate 1/10

Boss Beat by Gravedust
I don't even know where to start this game seems like it wasn't made in the 72 hours timeframe that's how good i feel that it is!!!
rate 10/10

[/SPOILER
 
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E

Eceer

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:

{Insert Game Title Here}:
HOLY SHMAKLES! The Card feature of this is just GREAT, probaly the best game. Just needs a title

SWAMP:
Great, its a bit difficult and takes lots of time.

The Hoard:
My treasure you dumb army :3

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: SWAMP by mimusic
Best Story: Gammon Princess by Team Flob
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:


Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

HOLY SHMAKLES! The Card feature of this is just GREAT, probaly the best game. Just needs a title

A boss day by mjadev

How do i win?

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

Slimey

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

Fun

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

GROW GROW GROOOOOOOOW

BO5S by sylvain_l

Not finished

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

Nice

Boss Beat by Gravedust

I loved this beat, it does get a bit difficult though.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

WHAT

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

Intresting

Boss Off! by Bart

Cant find how to play


Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

WHAAAAT

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

Same on the to much time on gameplay

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

LOVED it, needs a story though :/
I really enjoyed playing this.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

What

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

Just jumps right in XD

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Love the art style, reminds me a lot of mario!

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

This is mine :p 10/10

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

Looking forward to playing this one aswell

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Good

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

Ooh

KVN by Penguin533

SPACE CAT

Last Knight by Ziberteck

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

LOOOOOOOOOOL

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

Good, Good, GOOD

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Soapy bath

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

Lol

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

Jeez this is to hard to control for me, its supposed to be agile

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

Why is she fighting a crab XD

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

Love it, i saw the dev making it

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

What, I cant even get past the first room

SWAMP by mimusic

GREEAAAAAAAAAT

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Tanky

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

Lol, this was fun

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

I was looking foward to playing this


TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

I didnt beat it, dont know how to harm the boss XD

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

Okay waht.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Intresting, hard to tell where you need to go at times

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

Very intresting, ive played games like this before and i love them.


Didnt do 13 of them, did most though
 
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Ralucipe

Member
Fantastic job, everyone. All of the top ~10 games deserve to win. There were just so many high-quality, polished entries.
If you haven't yet, remember to check out the spoiler below on how I rate games.

1. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
An incredible experience. Most jam games have only seemed to be able to deliver on a single boss, but this one delivered FOUR. And each of them were of shockingly high-quality. After each boss I expected the game to abruptly end - thankfully it didn't.
That being said, I'm glad the game ended when it did. By the end, the boss fights were becoming a chore and I would've needed some interesting new player ability to remain entertained.
Combat was simple and engaging - it felt very skill-based. The dash was perfectly implemented. The health recovery mechanism was also a good call, as it forced me to actually stay away from action for a bit. The first boss was my favorite one to fight, the second one was the hardest, and the third one was both easiest and my least favorite.
Jam game stories like these are few and far between. I loved this one and the way it was told. But I feel like there was a right answer to how it should've ended, and that you picked the wrong answer.
Just a tad more contrast between the colors in the healthbar would've gone a long ways; I found myself frequently dying because it was hard for me to tell how much health I had left without looking directly at the healthbar. Graphics and animations were fantastic as always. I LOVED the background music. Every asset in the game contributed towards a central mood and it was great.

2. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
This game is programmatically sound and mechanically rigid. The concept is both unique AND good. I found myself playing this for a ridiculous amount of time as I kept continuously customizing my deck.
Here's my main complaint: I eventually reached a point where the bosses moved so ridiculously fast that I could not even begin to hope to outrun them should they decide to chase me down. Their speed became so absurd that my damage spells weren't guaranteed to hit even at point-blank range. As the game progressed, bosses gained more health - this is fine because you had damage buffs for the player to counter that. But you had no speed buffs to counter the boss's increased speed - which you NEED to have.
Towards the end, the deckbuilding aspect grew a bit stale, mostly because there were no new cards to consider.
With no way to visually differentiate bosses, I could not tell what their weaknesses were until simply guessing and remembering the results of different damage spells.

The menus/GUI were pretty basic but completely functional and appropriate. Graphics were very simple, and there was more to be desired from the player/bosses. However, with many detailed and visually pleasing particle effects, it didn't detract too much from the experience. Sound effects were fantastic; the music was somewhat lacking, although the dark-ish mood it aimed for was spot-on.
Overall a really solid production. The biggest issues are all gameplay-related, and they aren't even that problematic. I think this could seriously be expanded upon.

3. SWAMP by mimusic
Now this was quite the production. The boss fight took me many tries but I did eventually win.
My biggest issue was the hitbox for the sword. It felt far too small, and there were several times where I ended up sitting there, swinging at the same piece of bamboo for forever (or whatever that stuff was).
Usually I like it when there's no clear strategy to use for a boss fight. But in this case, not only was there no clear strategy, but there also didn't seem to be ANY particularly viable strategy. It felt like in some ways it boiled down to a pissing match where I tried to wedge the boss's minions away from him, and where I tried (and inevitably failed) to leave a path open for me to counter the stream of red spikey bois. Those red spikey bois felt almost impossible to counter.
The interface was there but it was somewhat uninformative. It wasn't clear to me what all the numbers meant until I played for a bit.
Graphics were, of course, fantastic. The pseudo-3D effects are crazy for a jam game. Audio was great too but the background music for the boss fight was too repetitive for the amount of time it needed to play for.

Some of the issues I had were simply technical while others were on the conceptual level. Overall a very nice game!

Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
This took some thinking outside the box. The fusion between bullet hell and card mechanics are something that I don't think exists anywhere else, and it worked well.
Honorable mention to The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet: I loved the smart and unique approach to combat in this game.

Best Use of Theme: Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
Usually I give this to the game with the most creative usage, not the most literal usage. But I couldn't help myself. The theme lives and breathes in this game.
Honorable mention to Fight The Power: I did like the fresh take on 'Boss Fighting Game' in this one; instead of literally attacking your boss, you were fighting them in a more realistic fashion.

Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
I might not have loved the central concept of this one, but its charming and polished presentation is undeniable. From the seemingly full-blown inventory system to the consistent and quality visual animations, I think we can all agree that this game could almost be put on mobile app stores right now.
Honorable mention to The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano: Everything from the graphics to the sound to the GUI were impressive.

Best Story: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
I wasn't interested in the stories for any of the other games. While this one was somewhat vague, it was very well-told and sufficiently scattered throughout the game - something that few other Jam entries can boast of.
Honorable mention to Red Sabre by Misty: Pretty much the only other jam game where I even remotely cared about the story.

Full Rankings (these can only be changed in the event of a score appeal)
All rankings are based on final scores and on tiebreaker rules. Each game has its own review and score, which you can find here.
  1. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  2. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  3. SWAMP by mimusic
  4. KVN by Penguin533
  5. Red Sabre by Misty
  6. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  7. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  8. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  9. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  10. Tower of Power by The M
  11. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  12. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  13. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  14. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  15. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  16. Yarr n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  17. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  18. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  19. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  20. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  21. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  22. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  23. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  24. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  25. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  26. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  27. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  28. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  29. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  30. Twilight Legacy by Wraithious
  31. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  32. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  33. A boss day by mjadev
  34. Space Boss by Alexx
  35. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  36. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  37. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  38. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  39. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  40. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  41. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  42. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, brian mowat
  43. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  44. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  45. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  46. Boss Off! by Bart
  47. BO5S by sylvain_l
  48. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  49. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  50. AwesomeBossBattleGament by orSQUADstra
  51. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  52. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  53. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

First and foremost: my scores are used only for comparison purposes. They do not have any other hidden meaning as to the quality of each game. (For example, 26-30 = great, 20-25 = good, 15-19 = okay, etc. These ranges do not exist.)
Secondly: my reviews tend to be... harsh. I do usually provide constructive criticism, however I also say things rather bluntly and as-I-see-them. Please don't take this to heart, and remember that programming and submitting a game within a 72-hour time span is an accomplishment that you should be proud of.

There are three main categories I score each game on: Overall Gameplay, Theme Inclusion, and Overall Presentation. Each of them (except Theme Inclusion) break down further into subscores. I will explain each one.

Overall Gameplay (14 total points)
This category rates the mechanical content of each game. It has more weight than the other two categories because I believe it to be the most important part of any game.

Player Experience (8 possible points)
This is basically my assessment of how 'fun' the game is. Setting all other factors aside (menus, graphics, theme, etc.), I am looking for sheer entertainment value. Some questions I ask when scoring this:

  • How much time did I spend playing your game?
  • Did I feel like that time was well-spent?
  • Would I want to play this again later?
Quality of Mechanics (6 possible points)
Setting aside entertainment value, this subscore is about the level of effort put into the design and programming of the game. This is intended to give games proper credit for high-quality features even if I gave them a low score for Player Experience. Some questions I ask:

  • Were the game mechanics well-thought-out? Did they provide sufficient strategic depth?
  • Were these mechanics soundly programmed?
  • Were there any advanced programming features?

Theme Inclusion (7 possible points)
This is how I factor in the theme to my scores. Games that do not follow the theme will be severely handicapped in their final score, but they can still earn a decent ranking. Most games that follow the theme will earn a 6 in this category (7 is reserved for games that went above and beyond to find creative ways to follow it). Some questions that I ask:
  • Was it clear to me how the theme appeared in your game?
  • Did you feel the need to explicitly explain to me your theme usage?
Overall Presentation (9 total points)
This category is about the game's presentation. It is weighted less than Overall Gameplay because, while the best games need to have good graphics and sound, having poor assets won't totally kill your score.

Menus/Interfaces (3 possible points)
This subscore is where games with polished menus and GUIs can earn proper credit for such elements. Questions that I ask:

  • Did your game properly introduce me, or did it just throw me straight into the action?
  • Are there interfaces where appropriate?
Quality of Graphics (3 possible points)
This one is pretty self-explanatory. You don't need commercial-quality art to get a perfect score, but graphics do need to be very visually appealing, and to feel like they belong there.

Quality of Audio (3 possible points)
Also very self-explanatory. Usually I dedicate 1.5 points to the sound effects, and another 1.5 points to the background music. If you're missing either one, it's a 1.5 point deduction each.

Penalties
There are additional expectations that I have for games which do not fall into categories. Usually, any penalties will be one of the following:
  • No instructions or controls provided. This is a big one, and with it comes big point deductions. I hate having to mash buttons in order to figure out what to do.
  • No way to restart game without closing and re-opening. This isn't a huge deal, it's just obnoxious having to re-open the game every time I die.
  • Game froze or crashed. Self-explanatory.
Appeal Your Score
If you feel that I did not properly play/judge your game, then you are more than welcome to PM me to try and fix that. After all, the system is all about fairness.
However, if you received a poor score as a result of negligence by the developer to explain something important to me within the game itself, then your score might not be changed upon appeal.

Tiebreakers
Ties will be broken in the following order:
  1. Higher 'Theme Inclusion' score
  2. Higher 'Overall Gameplay' score
  3. Higher 'Player Experience' score
  4. Higher 'Quality of Graphics' score
  5. Arbitrary choice
 
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Hyomoto

Member
The top three:
#1 - Boss Beat by Gravedust
This ended up being the last game the player showed me, and my initial response to it was much lower. After all, it is a bit of a strange game. But after a few days with it I believe it deserves the top spot. Gravedust took the literal theme to heart and provided a boss fight, but rather than try and contort the theme or just settle for a good boss fight, he added to it. The odd music rhythm bullet-hell is entertaining, but the novel idea that sells it for me is the fight must last for the entire song. And in my opinion, it works wonderfully. In many games you can spam the boss to death, in most cases you are rewarded by winning, but here that's just not enough. You have to do that and survive the song. It creates a risk versus reward, slow burn tension no other game had for me. It's honestly fun to play, has great replay-ability and the limited playlist only suggests it could be a demo of the full game. In short it feels like a full product with a nice gimmick and I found it not just passable, but outright fun to play.

#2 - The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Before I say anything else, this is perhaps the purest embodiment of what I consider "trendy indie garbage". From the vague and ominous tone to the ultimately generic mechanics, modern pixel style and pretentious story about nothing, it represents perfectly the tropes of games I tend to skip right past. That said: holy crap is this a phenomenal entry. It has several varied bosses, a story replete with cutscenes, decently polished mechanics, nice sound and music and a consistent art style. It's a complete package both visually and mechanically and I am sincerely impressed by it, despite my personal reservations. It feels so effortless and casual in it's production, like it just sprung up out of thin air fully formed. I can't imagine what they could do with another three days. It's hard to play a game that looks and plays so well and not give it high marks.

#3 - Like A Boss by Nadine B
This may seem like an odd pick, as there are other games I did enjoy more but there's something about this game my other two picks share: viability. There's such a mechanical and tonal consistency, and overall completeness that I find myself charmed and impressed with it's odd concept, theme-usage and gameplay. It's a uniquely strange puzzle game with surprisingly thoughtful mechanics, and it's quirkiness pervades the minimalist yet concise graphics, the silly, but adequate sound effects, and the overall melancholy world it presents. I'm surprised by how much I ended up liking this, as it really does have decent replay value if you enjoy managing those pesky, sleepy employees! I understand it's not for everyone, but it's unique charm and overall completeness earned it my number three spot.

Honorable Mentions:
Best Presentation - Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Ultimately I thought this would end up my top pick, but in the gameplay department I absolutely hated every minute I played of this game. However, I will gladly concede that as far as looks go, this could be a completely finished and polished game available on the app store as we speak. The menu designs are all complete and come with their own visual flourishes such as bobbing icons, custom cursors and screen wipes, the animations are all suitably simplistic but consistent, and the sound effects and music are all present and doing exactly what they should. It brings a level of polish and professionalism I feel no other entry was able to match.

Best Use of Theme - KVN by Penguin533
KVN makes unambitious but perfectly adequate use of the theme. The attacks work, the stages of the boss are nicely done, the art, sound and music all work without a hitch. This is a fine entry overall that reminds me of a very simple "cuphead" style boss fight: and that's not a bad thing to be. I think many participants worried about presenting too simple or too obvious a use of the theme, but Penguin deserves credit for not only being brave enough to do the obvious thing, but to do it well.

Best Concept - Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
This was an especially ambitious and technically impressive entry that is ultimately brought down by that same ambition. If you are willing to dig into it you'll find a complex and interesting game in the vein of Descent or Sub-Terrania with powerful controls and surprisingly deep level structure. Unfortunately it's lack of polish, unexplained gameplay and missing content forces it out of my higher list. Still, it deserves special recognition that Dr Wolf had the courage to submit a complex game to a Jam most people will only give you one minute to prove yourself. It is by far the most ambitious project I played and is a perfectly adequate proof-of-concept I would love to see a more complete version of.

The Top Ten:
#4 - Tower of Power by The M
Well animated graphics, the sound and music are great, and just a well rounded entry. I had to take a few points off for the controls, lack of polish and a end of game crash, but otherwise it has decent enemy logic, the boss fights are simple but enjoyable, and there's even a nice little progression to the whole experience. While most entries focused on the boss fights, you provided several of them and the accompanying levels. A great entry overall.

#5 - The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
An interesting idea reasonably executed. The charming graphics, puns, and silly premise help it stand out. It's challenging enough and has an enjoyable tension as the armies march onward; my issue is it is a little more tedious than strategic. It's a bit stingy with your attacks and avoiding the princesses is a bit obnoxious, letting it all be a bit more chaotic would have been more enjoyable. Still, a very good entry.

#6 - {Insert Game Title here} by Coded Games
I really felt like the card mechanic is at odds with the shoot-em-up gameplay, pausing the action constantly breaks up the action, and ultimately added very little for me. Spamming the mana card and various attacks is pretty much the victory condition. However, the concept is put together well, there's a good diversity to the cards themselves, the presentation is clean, the SFX and music are nice and overall it's a solid entry.

#7 - Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
It's really too bad this game couldn't end up higher on my list because it's quite fun and of all the games trying to twist boss in one way or another, it appeals to the basest of impulses and goes with the most direct interpretation: a game about fighting your boss. The mechanics are decent, the presentation is solid and ultimately it was too short, but I enjoyed it's playful and cathartic use of theme, and suitably funny dialogue and artwork. A few extra bosses and a layer of polish and this probably would have been my top pick.

#8 - Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
Definitely stands out among the entries as an unusual choice. The execution, for me, is a little off as though the puzzle works well, I couldn't really see a point to much more strategy than just playing match three. A little more visual feedback would have been nice, and a clearer value to playing the board would have moved it up, but I liked it and found it entertaining. It's overall a solid submission.

#9 - Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
I want to like this one more: the overall presentation is perfectly adequate and I have trouble finding any technical faults. What it lacks for me is any 'wow' moments. There are no SFX and the visual feedback is weak, also there aren't any super weapons or other power ups to break up the gameplay so it ends up a well polished and all-around good entry, but lacks a solid hook to push it higher.

#10 - Red Sabre by Misty
I like the little flourishes such as how the music dies out when you explode, or how the enemies get gibbed when you shoot them. It has that old flash arcade quality to it, a novice-but-enthusiastic feel from top to bottom. Ultimately I didn't find it very fun due to inconsistent hit boxes, bullet sponges, poor controls and bare bones gameplay. Still, it's a total package playable from front to back that executes on it's concepts and provides some diversity between it's levels.

The Top Twenty:
#11 - KVN by Penguin533
A suitable boss fight, and suitable gameplay. Some pattern issues that result in some unfair deaths, but overall does exactly what it needs to do.

#12 - SWAMP by minmusic
The only 3d entry, but fails to really capitalize on it for anything but the novelty of it. Ultimately a simplistic, but well done, boss fight.

#13 - Yarr 'n Gee - by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
I downright dislike this game, but it's high quality presentation and appeal to a certain audience deserves recognition.

#14 - Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
A highly ambitious and ultimately flawed submission with a lot of potential that ends up sabotaged by unpolished and confusing gameplay. Maybe too big for a Jam, but wholly welcome.

#15 - Yellow Gear by chinykian
A great example of knowing your limits and executing them well. It's flawed and incomplete, but the boss fight is fun, the sound effects are punchy and overall it's a fine entry.

#16 - Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
A charming art style and a solid boss fight. It's held back by it's ultimately simple experience, unpolished grappling hook and cheap deaths but is nonetheless worthwhile.

#17 - Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
A clean presentation, novel game mechanic, and a relatively polished experience. It failed to really capitalize on the time mechanic, and ultimately the lack of visual and audio feedback curbs how much I could enjoy it.

#18 - Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
A strong submission, functionally complete. However, despite it's otherworldly atmosphere the gameplay is ultimately not very compelling. Simple enemy logic and a bare bone boss fight hold this one back.

#19 - Action Arena by Kahrabaa
On the one hand it's exactly as expected: a boss fight with a good technical competency and decent presentation. Other the other hand the AI is dull and many of the weapons are completely useless.

#20 - Fight The Power by Kodiqi
The lack of music, sound effects, and visual feedback really hold this one back, but as a simple 'clicker' game it's not that bad and provides an otherwise complete experience.

The Rest:
Generally speaking these entries become less complete, less interesting and less playable as you go down the list. While the first few were simply forced out by virtue of, generally, slightly better submissions, the lion's share lack features or even basic playability. I wrote full reviews for every game submitted, and I will provide yours at your request.
#21 - LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
#22 - A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
#23 - Space Boss by Alexx
#24- Journey of Tardin by Dengar
#25 - Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
#26 - The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
#27 - You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
#28 - Gammon Princess by Team Flob
#29 - Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
#30 - Boss Off! by Bart
#31 - Mr.Quack by BrandonC
#32 - Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
#33 - Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
#34 - I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
#35 - Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
#36 - The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
#37 - Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
#38 - Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
#39 - A boss day by mjadev
#40 - Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
#41 - Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

The Unranked:
This is a special category I did not intend to have, but consists of all the submissions that were either technically or, in some cases, literally not playable. This should not be confused with a 'worst of' section and is provided partly just as recognition for every entry. While lumped together, the only defining feature is I felt it was pointless to categorize, rate or otherwise spend a lot of time on them. They are in no particular order.
Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
BO5S by sylvain_l
Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
BossBoss by Studio Basem
TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
Last Knight by Ziberteck

General review context:
I tried to play every submission to completion and for my top picks I spent at least a half hour with them over a few days. Ultimately my deciding criteria comes down to a project's completeness, general enjoy-ability and polish. If you do not agree with, or understand a review I've given, or why your game was ranked as it was, please message me and I'll be glad to discuss it with you.
 
Last edited:

Alix

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

<The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet>
Most engaging game, therefore it wins.

<Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless>
Very smooth and responsive, pretty, good stuff

<The Ashen Tower by JaboV, Parmesano>
Tbh this doesn't look like a JAM engine... but its good

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: KVN by Penguin533
Best Concept: Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
Best Presentation: SWAMP by mimusic
Best Story: Mr Quack by BrandonC
Best Devlog: ...
 

var

Member
First Impressions
I spent 1-3 minutes on each game. My plan though is to go through and play each more thoroughly over the next week.

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

satisying feel, hard to see boss though

A boss day by mjadev

needed to concentrate on the keys too much to see anything else
would have liked to hear different sound effects for different hit timings

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

i got a seizure while hitting the boss

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

gameplay feels smooth
boss seems a bit boring

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

lmao

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

feels like they appear faster than you can kill them

BO5S by sylvain_l

"manage workforce" does nothing?
volume control is good

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

pretty boring so far tbh

Boss Beat by Gravedust

I like the music and graphics, gameplay seems a bit boring

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

not much depth?

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

how do I fight back

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

neat concept, not much depth I could see tho

Boss Off! by Bart

didn't figure out how it works

BossBoss by Studio Basem

First one where *you* are the boss
gameplay is a bit lacking tho

BRAXION by Hyomoto

Nice graphics, pretty polished

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

it sucks why would someone even bother submitting this

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

is it even possible to die?
found the controls very intuitive

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

i composed my own dubstep music by pressing space a bunch

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

Could barely move my mouse fast enough

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

I went offscreen and then couldn't get back

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

didn't see much depth to the gameplay

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

funny, nice polish
mario-inspired?

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

not much depth?

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

fun, good polish

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

too much reading for a first impression

KVN by Penguin533

I sucked but it seems well-designed

Last Knight by Ziberteck

Took a while to figure out how to shoot

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

I like that controls were presented graphically
screen moved way too fast

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

took too long to figure out how the mechanics worked

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

Nice polish
Second boss has a lot of heath

Mr Quack by BrandonC

funny plot, ammo was limiting

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

couldn't find the boss

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

felt clunky

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

good presentation
newtonian physics take a bit to get used to

Red Sabre by Misty

best fun/playtime ratio so far

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

I like it

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

not much depth that I saw before I died

Space Boss by Alexx

frustrating to have one mistake take you all the way back

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

Couldn't figure out how to do anything

SWAMP by mimusic

Is that 3D graphics!?

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

first run through I died before I could even figure out what was happening

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Recognized this as a JacobV game within a few seconds
Cutscene was maybe a bit long
Didn't get to gameplay; I wanna give it the attention it deserves later

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

"boss" fighting xd
intro text moved too fast

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

cool concept
more precise scrolling would have been nice (maybe GML limitation?)

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

pretty generic game so far, but decent execution

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

titan souls?
couldn't figure out how to dodge the fists

Tower of Power by The M

I like it so far
took a few seconds to see the controls but it was a cool concept (maybe needed to be highlighed)

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

good graphics except for the player

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

hard to tell what's solid and what's not
didn't *feel* like I was doing much to the boss

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

too chance-based for my liking (unless I'm misunderstanding the mechanics)

Yellow Gear by chinykian

dodging was hard

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

lol
15 extra minutes spent on the star's graphics would make a big improvement

Full Reviews
I started running out of motivation halfway through, so some of the current reviews and many of the upcoming reviews may not be as detailed I would have liked.

Top 3:

Boss Beat by Gravedust
Very good on nearly all accounts except difficulty—even after several tries I was unable to beat the "easy" boss. Having attacks synced up to the music was really nice, and that combined with the viusal effects made it very satisying to play. One of the few games that I will likely play again. One minor issue is that I couldn't really read the tutorial text since I was so busy trying to not die, so I didn't even know I could kill orange projectiles with the sword.

Update: finally completed VIA, and with half my health to spare. Onward to VIKS!

Time played: 29m (so far)

Tower of Power by The M
Seemed like a very good game, but char* had attacks that were essentially undodgeable unless you knew they were coming. This isn't necessariliy a bad thing if your intention is to have the player die and restart a lot while memorizing attacks, but it meant that I ran out of time and didn't get past that boss. I would have liked to be able to aim, beacuse without manual aiming the game up until char* was basically all about finding the "safe spot" in each level, and then standing in it while holding space.

Time played: 9m (so far)

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Pretty fun game, not sure if there is any end to it. My main issue is the camera and graphics: it was often hard (if not impossible) to tell where the boss is, the low-contrast background didn't really give me a good visual foundation, and trying to do too many fancy things with the camera at once (lagging behind the player, switching focus from the player to the boss, making it follow the mouse a bit, etc.) made it more confusing for my brain to try to figure out where everything is and where it's moving towards.

Time played: 22m

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Very many fit the theme equally well, so there was no "best" IMO
Best Concept: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Presentation: Boss Beat by Gravedust
Best Story: Journey of Tardin by Dengar

Full ranking:

  1. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  2. Tower of Power by The M
  3. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  4. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  5. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  6. SWAMP by mimusic
  7. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  8. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  9. KVN by Penguin533
  10. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  11. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  12. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  13. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  14. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  15. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  16. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  17. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  18. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  19. Red Sabre by Misty
  20. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  21. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  22. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  23. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  24. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  25. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  26. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  27. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  28. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  29. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  30. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  31. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  32. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  33. Space Boss by Alexx
  34. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  35. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  36. A boss day by mjadev
  37. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  38. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  39. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  40. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  41. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  42. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  43. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  44. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  45. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  46. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Several more were left unranked, either because I couldn't play them or they were obviously unfinished, and had little to no content to rate.

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

Pretty fun game, not sure if there is any end to it. My main issue is the camera and graphics: it was often hard (if not impossible) to tell where the boss is, the low-contrast background didn't really give me a good visual foundation, and trying to do too many fancy things with the camera at once (lagging behind the player, switching focus from the player to the boss, making it follow the mouse a bit, etc.) made it more confusing for my brain to try to figure out where everything is and where it's moving towards.

Time played: 22m

A boss day by mjadev

Personally I would have preferred the keys coming down from the top of the screen (rather than across from the left), because that's the direction therow of keys is IRL. Would have been nice to hear different effects depending on when I hit the key (yellow, green, or red). None of the graphics were necessarily that bad, but I think going for more of a consistent style would have been better.

Time played: 8m

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

The boss had a nice variety of attacks, but it still felt like it dragged on for too long. I never managed to defeat the boss (got so close once, though), so let me know if there's more to it that I missed. Graphics had a consistent style to them (for the most part) which is good, but I feel like they're the weakest part of the game.

Time played: 11m

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

Graphics and sound were decent, but a bit overwhelming. Gameplay was pretty average, though I felt like the player's weapon had an annoying low range.

Time played: 3m

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

5/7 gaem

Time played: 0:40

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

Felt satisfying to play. Using enemies' remains as shielding was a really cool idea. I feel like you could have gotten away with making is a bit more difficult, as I was able to complete my third run without using a single shot (only kills from collisions). Graphics were low-effort, but honestly there a lot of games in this jam that look worse, even with far more effort put into them.

Time played: 7m

BO5S by sylvain_l

Unfinished, so witholding judgement.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

Could use some more polish. The graphics gould have been improved IMO by making them pixelated—people then wouldn't expect high-quality stuff, and low-effort pixel art generally has adequate visual quality. The attacks are too easy to dodge, so perhaps making multiple appear at once would be an improvement.

Time played: 1:00

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Very good on nearly all accounts except difficulty—even after several tries I was unable to beat the "easy" boss. Having attacks synced up to the music was really nice, and that combined with the viusal effects made it very satisying to play. One of the few games that I will likely play again. One minor issue is that I couldn't really read the tutorial text since I was so busy trying to not die, so I didn't even know I could kill orange projectiles with the sword.

Update: finally completed VIA, and with half my health to spare. Onward to VIKS!

Time played: 29m (so far)

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Not sure what I could do other than destroy the left square. It seems unfinished, so I'll not rank it.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

Graphics are nice, and I like the contrast between the second boss and the rest of the game. The only big issues I see are how easy it is to dodge the bunny's hopping and the second boss's attack where it shoots ball out of its mouth.

Time played: 5m

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

An interesting concept, but it got boring pretty quickly. It also didn't really seem like a boss fighting game.

Time played: 1:45

Boss Off! by Bart

Unfinished, so I won't rank it. The current mechanics seemed like a nice start, though.

BossBoss by Studio Basem

The animations are well-done (though I would have liked to see an attack animation), and the graphics follow a consistent style. Gameplay is a bit lacking, and it's annoying that attacking moves me to withing range of enemies' attacks.

Time played: 2m

BRAXION by Hyomoto

Music was nice. Graphics looked decent, but because of the monotone coloring and the low contrast between the sprites made it difficult to see hazards (especially the sideways chargers against the background of spikes). Didn't complete the first boss even after several tries so I'm not sure if there's more after that.

Time played: 11m

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

best game ever

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

A good start to the game, but only a start.

Time played: 3m

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

Nicely challenging for a game where you can only play a support role. Balance-wise, I think the board should be shorter, so that there would be fewer chains of matches (I once counted 15+ matches resulting from a single move). You could then widen it to still allow it to have the same volume. A minor QoL improvement could have been made by giving the board's shapes a minor visual effect on hover (like the way buttons get highlighted when your cursor is over them), but only when you are able to make a move.

Time played: 6m

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

Satisfying in a cookie-clicker way. Reasonbly well-balanced, and surpsrisingly fun to play for the first several rounds. The only two ways I could see it being better is if you displayed the exact benefit of purchasing a certain upgrade (so I can try to figure out the mathematically superiaor option), and getting better graphics.

Time played: 20m

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

Graphics are pretty nice for a jam game, but it's too difficult to dodge the projectiles. Making the "lives" counter visually distinct from the character would have eliminated some of the initial confusion I had.

Time played: 3m

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

Unfinished, so witholding judgement.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

I wasn't really trying very hard, so I nearly lost the first time (while trying to win), and nearly won the second time (while trying to lose). I'm assuming this is what you were going for, so good job! One of the funniest games I've played in the jam.

Time played: 10m

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

There does seem to be a little skill involved in winning, but not much. I liked the "3D" effect of jumping and getting thrown by the boss. Would have liked to see a textured floor.

Time played: 1:30

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

Very frustrating, I never got the boss down below half health. The mechanics are cool, but falling off is too easy, and there are too many situations in which I will die no matter what I do. Good graphics and sound, though. The hat was a good solution to people camping the top.

Time played: 6m

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Keys got stuck, so game was unplayable for me. Graphics still seemed good tho

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

Im not a fan of text adventures but this was still pretty fun. However, there was one MAJOR issue: grammar & spelling. In a text-based game, putting in the extra effort to use "your"/"you're" correctly, eliminate run-on sentences, and eliminate misspellings is definitely worth it. Due to how simple the gameplay is, making good graphics is another low effort/high reward improvement.

Time played: 8m

KVN by Penguin533

Graphics were nice and smooth, attacks were appopriately difficult to dodge. Decent amount of depth.

Time played: 4m

Last Knight by Ziberteck

Jump height was very inconsistent—I was only able to jump 4 tiles high one out of every 3 or 4 tries. The boss had a nice variety of attacks, but the one where it charges you was very difficult to avoid, especially once it's destroyed a good portion of the map. You did a great job of setting the atmosphere with the graphics and music.

Time played: 4m

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

Copy/pasting what I wrote in a PM:

I think the boss is a solid concept, but is a bit too easy, as I could just jump whenever it was about to stomp me. I think a good way to improve it is make the legs solid, so you can't just jump through them. You'd have to play around with a few things (maybe make only the feet solid, or retract the "inactive" leg so only the "active" one is solid), but I feel like that would make it a good challenge.
Based on the visuals, I assume that the legs are armored, and you are only able to hit the middle of them for a second or so after they stomp. If that is the way it works, I'd suggest adding a 'pinging' sound effect when hitting armor, and a more 'crunch' or 'boom' sound effect when hitting the vulnerable part. In addition, you could create a bigger visual effect upon hitting vulnerable parts.
In regards to the camera, It was better after I got used to it. However, I feel like slowing down the player a small amount (which would also help in making the boss fight a challenge) and zooming the camera out a bit would still improve it.

Time played: 2:30

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

Took a while (of reading the README and playing the game) to figure out how the mechanics worked. Once I did, I found out that the best strategy is to Facepunch everyone in a certain "route" (e.g. top row right to left, middle row left to right, bottom right to left) at a moderate rate, so that once you finish the route you go back to the start. It's not perfect, but given the fast pace of the game it's less risky than trying to memorize the exact mechanics of each wepon, and internalizing it enough to use the right ones reflexively.

Time played: 6m

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

Graphics and sound effects were good. I liked how dying does set you back, but you don't need to restart from the beginning. Bosses could have been designed better; my main problem with some of them is that there were many times the boss was in a posistion where it was literally impossibly for me to safely fire on them, yet their attacks were easy to dodge from elsewhere. That makes those 5-10 seconds neither productive nor challenging, and thus "useless" from a game-design perspective.

Time played: 8m

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Fairly interesting, relatively dynamic fights. I liked that the entire game was just bossfights, but I feel like the last one was too easy. Graphics worked well.

Time played: 7m

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

Seems unfinished. Paper airplanes felt surprisingly realistic.

Time played: 2m

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

His punches happen too fast to play reactively, so I the only option I saw was to figure out strategies/combos/timings. However, the game was too fast-paced and there was too little feedback for me to figure out when I did the right thing at the wrong time, the wrong thing at the right time, or the wrong thing at the wrong time. As such, the game got boring/frustrating too quickly for me to make any progress.

Update: after seeing Siolfor's post, I was able to beat the boss.

Time played: 10m

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

As much as I want to like this, the design made it boring. Since the objective is to destroy the core, and getting by the small enemies is easy (in fact, NOT flying right by the small enemies is more difficult), the game essentially boiled down to:
- fly around the star base until I find an opening
- go into the opening and see if it leads to the core
- once you find one that leads to the core, navigate to the middle painfully slowly so as to make sure you don't bump into anything
- sit there and shoot the core until it dies

Also I got this error a couple times:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Eventmtd_terrain_fast_hit
for object par_segs:

second index out of bounds request 0,101 maximum size is 1
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
called from - gml_Object_par_segs_Collision_30 (line 20)
called from - gml_Object_par_shots_Step_0 (line 14)

Time played: 11m

Red Sabre by Misty

The graphics and music were good, the story was funny, and much of the gameplay was enjoyable. I can tell that a lot of time was put into this, and I played it for far longer than all the other games so far, but unfortunately many minor issues made it frustrating:

- The green text appeared about half as fast as my reading speed, and there was no way to skip the animation (e.g. in many other games, pressing [A] would skip to the end of the animation, and only pressing [A] a second time would skip it).
- The red "cursor" was difficult to see against the red background of the first level.
- The penthouse had way too much health.
- I could only find one way to damage the boss on the plane (I assume that was the president?) more than how much I damaged the plane and how much the president damaged me. However, that way would have made the fight into an extremely boring 5+ minute battle.
- The plane's healthbar was only visible from part of that level, so when shooting at low angles I often couldn't see whether or not I was hitting the plane.
- The guys with rocket launchers would fire immediately upon spawning, giving me little to no chance to kill them before firing or dodge the rocket.
- I gave up after using all 10 lives, because I didn't want to replay 20-30 minutes of the game just to get back to where I was before (and thus I never actually completed the game).

Time played: 40m

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

Different types of attacks created reasonably dynamic gameplay, but I feel like aiming and more variation in boss attacks would have greatly improved gameplay. Graphics were nice, but didn't really seem to have a cohesive theme (other than "pixelated").

Time played: 4m

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

Pretty solid game, nothing terribly special though. The boss was a bit too difficult, so I was never able to beat it.

Time played: 13m

Space Boss by Alexx

The variety of minigames was fun, but none of them seemed very polished. I think the game could have been better if you focused on just a few of them—quality over quantity. There were also serveral inconsistencies/bugs that were frustrating, and it didn't really seem like a boss fighting game except at the end.

Time played: 18m

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

Unfinished, so witholding judgement.

SWAMP by mimusic

The graphics were what made this game. Successfully pulling off what looks like 3D graphics is a difficult thing to do in a jam, and I feel like you did a good job of it. That said, the gameplay is a bit boring and the mini-slimes (other than the red ones) seem to serve little purpose.

Time played: 14m (I died after trying to melee and had to restart)

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Controls were nice; graphics were more than adequate. Sound effects would have added quite a bit, and I didn't really see any point to the money (I assume there were plans for an upgrade shop or something like that?) Didn't really feel like a boss fighting game.

Time played: 2:30

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Very good graphics as usual, my one gripe with them is that it's hard to tell where the first boss's hitbox is—there appears to be variable height, but I don't know whether that's visual or actual. Another issue is that I can't tell where the boss's melee attack's hitbox is. It's obviously not the 2D area covered by the sprite (since I was within that but didn't take damage), but is anywhere behind the center of the boss safe? If so, where is the center of the boss?

Gameplay-wise the boss is a bit imbalanced. After the first few minutes I was able to beat its first phase without taking any damage, at which point that half of the fight got kinda boring. The second phase was far more difficult; I would always die before getting more than halfway through. I need to practice the second phase more to internalize the patterns, but to get there I have to "sit through" a full minute of hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge, hit, dodge... you get my point. I could make the first phase shorter by attacking more, but then I'm risking losing the valuable health I'll need for phase two. I really want to like the game, but unfortunately at this point I'm only playing it because I want to beat it, not because I enjoy it.

I wasn't able to beat the first boss in a reasonable amount of time, so that is unfortunately all I can rate the game on.

Time played: 17m (so far)

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

Graphics are fairly polished, but gameplay lacks depth. Fighting felt very clunky, and I couldn't figure out how to avoid taking damage.

Time played: 5m

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

Fun concept, I liked the AoE indicator. I feel like the spell cooldown indicators could have been made more obvious, rather than just a few pixels out of the whole thing. The only thing keeping this from being ranked higher is the lack of depth to the gameplay, but adding more depth would have required significant rebalancing.

Time played: 6m (likely would have been more, but I had to get to bed)

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

Art was excellent, gameplay felt smooth. However, there was no much depth to the game that I could see, and it's not really a boss fighting game.

Time played: 2:30

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Having what felt like a 1/4 second window to dodge the fists, compounded with a lack of shadows (and thus no sense of where they are relative to me on the y axis) made it nearly impossible to dodge the fists consistently. Most of the graphics were great, but the healthbars stuck out like a sore thumb. One improvement you could make with a huge huge reward/effort ratio is removing the '_pressed' from 'mouse_check_button_pressed' that checks when to fire.

Time played: 5m

Tower of Power by The M

Seemed like a very good game, but char* had attacks that were essentially undodgeable unless you knew they were coming. This isn't necessariliy a bad thing if your intention is to have the player die and restart a lot while memorizing attacks, but it meant that I ran out of time and didn't get past that boss. I would have liked to be able to aim, beacuse without manual aiming the game up until char* was basically all about finding the "safe spot" in each level, and then standing in it while holding space.

Time played: 9m (so far)

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

The lack of clear boundaries was a bit annoying. Music was appropriate, graphics were mostly well-done, but lacked a bit of polish (e.g. the white border on the second boss that looks like it was left over from cropping a white background). Bosses often went offscreen.

Time played: 5m

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Very excellently done art. I can tell that every single sprite—even down to the hit particles—had effort put into it. My one issue witht the graphics in general is that it can be difficult to tell what's solid and what's not. In terms of gameplay, there's unfortunately little. The flying boss only moves left and right, with occasional dashes and stops. Gameplay boiled down to holding shoot, spamming jump, and moving to the other side of the arena every 5-10 seconds.

Time played: 3m

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

One of the best-polished games in the jam, but there is abolutely no depth to the gameplay to back it up. Getting screwed over by RNG is irritating: my first playthrough ended at the first rat, and my second ended at the boss when he kept on rolling high numbers (i.e. 11/12, 8/8, etc.) and I kept on rolling low (I think got multiple 1/8s and rarely more than 4 from a single die).

Time played: 7m

Yellow Gear by chinykian

I only ever saw two attacks, and both were kinda underwhelming. I wasn't sure how to avoid taking damage once the boss corenered me.

Time played: 5m

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

Made me laugh :p
Did a second run-through because as an end-user I have to try my best to break the game, but you made it impossible to drop too early :(
The main character and the platforms have a lovely graphical style to them; I would have liked to see that style at least partially on the rest of the graphics (i.e. the rockstar and the speaker).

Time played: 2m
Time listened: the entire song about three times
 
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Ziberteck

Member
1st place: Yarr n' Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes:

2nd place: Red Sabre by Misty:

3rd place : {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games



All games reviewed.
{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Good game. I was only planning to play it for a few minutes and ended up playing for a while.
Does seem a little to easy once you get enough mana upgrades.
Addicting.
9/10

a_boss_day_by_mjadev:
Neat game. It's a take on a rhythm game which. I'm not huge on these types of games, but that's just personal taste.
The art seemed like it was made by a child in kinder garden. Which isn't necessarily bad, considering it was probably supposed to look that way as a stylistic choice.
But I didn't care for it.
5/10

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce:
I liked it, at first. The game play was enjoyable for a bit. Unfortunately, the boss and it's adds are a bit too easy and defeating him turned more into a chore than a challenge.
The power ups are nice, but some of them are out right inferior to others. the starting gun is probably the best one to have, or the flame thrower.
The slime left by the adds is supposed to act as a deterrent but the boss itself doesn't take advantage of the limited mobility it leaves the player.
The art is nice.
6/10

Action Arena by Kahrabaa:
It was okay. I liked the diversity of power ups, though some of them seemed vastly inferior than others. like the grenade/mine and the blue fire, compared to the flame thrower or machine gun.
The art was functional. The potato monster was a unique choice.
6/10

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra:
Ehh...
1/10

Big Bad Boss Fight by IndianaBones
It's okay. The game play was okay, admittedly kind of bland. There was no audio and the art seemed like it was mostly all place holder sprites.
I liked the menu, that was oddly enough the highlight of the game. It's not bad, just kind of mediocre.
4/10

BO5S by sylvain_l:
Well I thought I’d like it. When I first launched the game and saw the interface I thought this was going to be a really nice game.
Unfortunately, it appeared to be somewhat of a joke game where all you can do is drink coffee. I'm guessing this was meant to be clever or meta, and maybe it is. but it's not really a boss battle, more of a parody boss simulator.
2/10

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman:
I tried to give it a chance. I mean... the controls were just... not good. I assume the creator used the set vspeed and/or hspeed options and didn't know how to set them back to 0.
the music was a 3 second loop, the art was minimal, and there was no way to determine the health of the boss.
2/10

Boss Beat by Gravedust:
Great game! I loved the art and the music. The boss was hard, and I didn't have time to play it long enough to beat him.
However, I liked how the battle progressed and came with different attacks and patterns that matched the feel of the music.
9/10

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller:
Uhh... Well I think they tried their best.
Took a while to figure out the controls, which unfortunately, had shift as the shooting button (which is annoying with sticky keys).
I Couldn't tell if the bullets were hurting the boss and the boss was only shooting out of one side of him.
besides the plane It was hard to discern what anything was supposed to be. Also, there is no menu it just drops you into the game.
1/10

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489:
Pretty decent. The art was nice enough, although the rotating arm has the gun upside down so that could have been fixed with an xscale of the draw_sprite_ext() function.
There could have been a tell for when the tentacles come up. later in the fight I was blind sighted by one after the brown ball attack.
Also, didn't care for the default game maker text box that pops up at the end of the fight. Could have done something a little more custom with little effort.
Over all, I liked it.
7/10

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming:
Game didn't work.
0/10

Boss Off! by Bart:
Just goes to a still picture.
0/10

BossBoss by Studio Basem:
Not bad. As soon as you launch the game you're placed in the main arena, not a fan of games that don't have menus; However, the player is in no danger until they press the "next wave button" so it's passible.
The game also closes if you lose, instead of restarting or placing you back at the beginning. The art is good. The game play is mediocre, not bad, just not really anything to write home about. it's decent.
5/10

BRAXION by Hyomoto:
Great game, too hard for me. I really enjoyed the graphics and the feel of the game. The easy mode was too hard for me to finish, but I’m sure ide be able to beat it eventually.
Music was nice and it kind of reminded me of a mixture of Gameboy games and old pc games I used to play.
9/10

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var:
Good game. The pausing time mechanic was cool, though I wish I could toggle using it on and off.
Graphics were nice but could have used some audio. Over all I liked it.
Edit: I found out afterwards that hitting space bar puts time back to normal; that's my bad.
8/10

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1:
unfinished?
The game was a bit under whelming. The graphics were barely functional, the game play was a bit stiff and the platforming was kind of lack luster. I got to the 3rd panel/room to find that there was no more to the game. No ending or boss.
I'm assuming the creator wanted to do more but ran out of time.
3/10

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr:
Liked it. As a game alone, I thought it was fun and charming. The graphics and sounds were all pleasant and the gameplay felt very fluid and satisfying.
Unfortunately, While this game was creative ide be hard pressed to call it a boss fighting game, let alone a dungeon boss simulator like the name suggest.
It reminds me of those puzzle games where they add something to the background to make it seem more interesting.
Because of the theme of the Jam, I'm giving this a lower score than I would otherwise.
5/10

Fight The Power by Kodiqi:
Uhm...
I honestly couldn't figure out how to play it. I somehow got $10 out of one person but I really don't know how. I looked for a read me file but there was none so I'm not sure how i was supposed to play it.
3/10

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton:
I uhh... the fish left the screen and never came back.
I thought this was going to be a good game, but when I played it the controls seemed broken.
The fish has momentum issues as it just keeps accelerating and never stopping.
The menu graphics seemed okay but that's about the best I can say about it.
2/10

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc:
Had potential. It's not a boss game by any stretch of the term. You fly around and shoot enemy objects which is admittedly satisfying and does look cool when you're moving at high speed. However, I'm sure that you aren't able to die. I took a lot of hits before i learned the controls and there was no read me file to explain them.
The bullets also come out of the middle of the sprite instead of the tip of the ships gun and it's noticeable when it comes out the side of your ship instead of the front.
It's alright, but clearly unfinished.
3/10

Gammon Princess by Team Flob:
meh..
Game play was kind of meh. A bit of political subtext which I’m not a fan of in a video game like this.
4/10

Gladiator by POTSOS:
Needs a lot of work. I'm assuming that this was unfinished. There are animations and graphics that should be depicting certain actions in the game that aren't there so you're kind of left to guess what's happening during the fight.
There was also the default game maker splash screen and menus did not scale properly when resizing the game.
With more time this might have been a much better game.
3/10

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS:
Great game. I like the menus and the art style in general. The game play is solid, though admitedly I did poorly against the boss; but I don't think that was the games fault.
The grapple mechanic is satisfying to use and is a fun gimmick.
9/10

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex:
Well I thought it was going to be a good game. The Menu and the presentation were really promising.
However, the game just wouldn't work when I got to the actual fight. A few actions would happen and then nothing.
The enemy boss wouldn't even move. The only thing i could do is hit escape to hit the main menu.
Not sure what happend here, but since it doesn't work for me I have to give it a score according to that.
1/10

Journey of Tardin by Dengar:
Well It's unique. This is a, essentially, a text based game. Personally while I like the concept of this kind of game, I find them unsatisfying to play.
If there was a boss, I didn't make it to it.
5/10

KVN by Penguin533:
Nice enough game. The art style reminds me of one of those older kid friendly games like putt putt.
The game is pretty hard and I didn't manage to beat it before I moved on; However, from what I played It didn't seem unfair and is beatable.
Menus were nice, however I could not exit the game without alt-tabing out and closing it from the task bar.
7/10

Last Knight by Ziberteck:
Best game ever; There may be bias.
10/10

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach:
Not bad. Over all I liked it, but there was a bit of wonkiness with jumping at times. There's also an exploit in the boss room where if you just stand on the edges of the room you can never be hit and just attack from a safe distance.
Art was good and simple, music was alright.
6/10

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B:
Well it's nice as a game. Unfortunately, it's not really a boss fight. I get that it was trying to be clever by you being a boss of an office but you're not really fighting anyone or anything.
The graphics and menus were okay, and the music was fine. Overall, because of the theme of the jam, I'll end up giving it a lower score than I would otherwise.
5/10

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless:
Nice game. Graphics and music were lovely; everything was colorful. Not sure why hitting the enemy creates projectiles that hurt you. I died on the 3rd boss.
Does everything you expect it to. Over all a nice game.
6/10

Mr Quack by BrandonC:
Nice presentation. The intro was a nice touch, the first time. But you have to sit through it every time you restart the game after dying.
The first boss is easy to cheese just by walking behind him. After that the sponge is brutally hard. Didn't manage to beat him.
Minor gripe about the default game maker splash screen.
8/10

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix:
Ehh... Graphics were okay, audio was there. The game drops you right into the game play, without menus, as soon as the executable launches.
Took a while to find the boss and once i did all i had to do was just spam the attack button and tank the hits.
It was over in a few seconds and I’m just presented with an end text.
Not great I'm afraid.
3/10

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal:
It's well done. Admittedly, I didn't care for this one. The concept and the execution were okay. I personally don't care for this type of game.
There was no tells for what the boss was going to use against you; making it basically random for how you should react.
Art was well done, and the presentation is one of the best I've seen.
Edit: The tells were a bit to subtle to notice during actual gameplay, but they are there.
7/10

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf:
Menus looked promising, that's the best thing I can say. The game crashed and gave a drawing error as soon as I hit entered the main part of the game.
0/10

Red Sabre by Misty:
Really good game. The art, the presentation, the menus and the game play were all very smooth, attractive and user friendly.
My only minor grip was the long opening cut scene that explains the controls and the inability to turn the helicopter around.
Honestly, it's one of the best I’ve seen so far, hard to believe that was done in three days.
10/10

Ruruna vs Crab King by ThePandaSenpai:
Fun Game. The art was nice looking. The game would have benefited from some audio.
The game play was fun, but not at all a challenge, you could easily just spam the slash attack and never get hurt.
6/10

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel:
It was alright. The art was kind of bland, the audio balance was off and the game play was very basic even for a shooter.
It functions okay, just not a great time.
3/10

Space Boss by Alexx:
Long and kind of annoying intro. not sure if this was a joke or not but I didn't care for it.
It's not a boss fighting game.
0/10

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins:
Not sure what's going on with this game. I didn't find a read me file with it so I have no idea what the controls are.
I tried doing everything that I thought I could do and wasn't able to interact with anything.
The graphics looked nice, it's a shame the game appears incomplete.
0/10

SWAMP by mimusic:
Wow. Pulling off a 3D game using game maker in three days is really impressive.
The game play was fun, but hard. The graphics were nice, simple but nice.
The music was alright. It was really hard given that it can regenerate health and you are not able to.
All in all, I'm impressed.
9/10

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk:
Not really a boss game. Game play was okay. Graphics seemed okay.
When I exited to the main menu I got an error in regard to a camera.
Unable to find any instance for object index '7' name 'Camera'
1/10

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano:
Polished and well made. Game play was fluid and challenging.
Graphics were very modern sprite art. Bosses were hard, but mostly fair.
Only real gripe was the long intro scene that you can't skip.
9/10

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90:
Pretty good. Graphics, music and presentation were nice. The game play is reminiscent of classic beat em up games.
Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problem as those, where it doesn't really feel like you have any control over if you'll take a hit from the enemy or not when you fight them.
Maybe there was something I missed, but it was alright.
6/10

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet:
I wanted to like it. The presentation and controls are well done.
The music was nice, although a lot of it sounds like remixes of existing songs; not necessarily a bad thing. But there may be an integrity issue there.
9/10

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian:
Not bad. Opening scene was nice. Menus were acceptable. The graphics were okay, only one I didn't care for were the green robots, they didn't seem to match the rest of the game; also, the wheel.
It was fun, but way too easy for there to be any challenge. You can shoot enemies far away and they'll never react to you from that distance. You have an abundance of bullets, so you might as well have infinite ammo.
Beat it in under 5 minutes, so not a lot of content. And the biggest flag is that, It's not a boss fighting game. It's running around shooting basic enemies and finding the unmarked exit.
Over all it was a nice game, and with some polish I think it would be a lot better.
But because it doesn't meet the jams theme I'm going to give it a lower score than I would otherwise.
5/10

TITLE 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat:
Well... It's unfortunate this game didn't get finished. With a little more effort, It could have been a functional game.
The opening menu is ugly and could have been fixed with a text only button to save time.
After you die you get sent to a screen where you have no options to restart or go to the main menu; Forcing you to alt-tab to close the game in the task bar and relaunching the exe.
The game play is alright, I didn't have a desire to keep playing because of the above issues when I died. So, learning when to dodge and what not escaped me.
The art looked good, but that's about the only positive there was.
3/10

Tower of Power by The M:
Fun game. Graphics, and audio were pleasant. Game play was mostly solid, the only aspect I didn't care for was the wall jumping. It felt way to clumsy to use reliably, especially during the 2nd boss.
Over all, I liked it, but was annoyed with the wall jumping mechanic.
7/10

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious:
Yeah...No.. Game had an awful graphical approach. The game play was pretty bad, limited movement where there was no visible barriers and he choose to make a or z the attack button when you move with wasd, which is just weird to place your hand that way when a button closer to the right hand side would have made much more sense.
The biggest issue is when you die, the game crashes. FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation ShaderName: whiteout. This is clearly an unfinished and non functional game.
0/10

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf:
Well, it's a game. I see that a lot of effort went into this game's art and the presentation was nice. I do have one gripe about the art however, some of the hall ways have background images that look like they are part of the foreground, which isn't the end of the world but I was surprised to be walking in front of something that looks like it would be part of the walls that you can't pass threw.
The boss was okay, nothing to write home about. The controls were a bit.. well they weren't what made sense to me, z button to jump instead of space bar. But that's just personal taste that I won't hold against the game.
6/10

Yarr n' Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes:
Best game of the Jam. The game play was great, it's RNG based and the risk/reward is presented with higher count dice. As a lover of puns the name of the game was spot on. The art was consistant and the colors were vibrant.
If this was a full game, I'de love to play it on my android, if it was ported. Great job on this one.
10/10

Yellow Gear by chinykian:
Well I was going to give this game high marks. Unfortunately, I discovered that you can be knocked out of bounds by one of the big blast attacks. Otherwise the art and game play are nice. The boss is challenging without being unfair.
I would have liked to of given this a higher score, but game breaking glitches are a major issue.
5/10

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice:
I get the joke. Unfortunately, the theme isn't joking, so I must give the game a 0. I really liked the color effects though.
0/10
 
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GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
GameDevDan's Reviews!

One thing I loved about this jam - how many TEAMS there were! Huge community effort this time around, well done guys. Without further ado, here are my things:

1st - Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy and Swonqi
Easily the best game of the jam. I'll be honest it feels like the theme was an afterthought, but the graphics are sexy, the premise is real nice and the music is good. The gameplay was fun. Probably the only game where I wished there was more of it to play. If I have a criticism it's that the dice need to look like they're rolling. The first couple of times I picked them I genuinely though "Why has the 4 I picked changed to a 3?" before I realised what was going on. Would make a good mobile game, I hope you continue to develop it.

2nd - Tower of Power by The M
Good game, love the power-ups as you progress through the levels. I like the responsive controls and the automatic weapon aiming. Some fairly complicated mechanics crammed into the engine in such a short space of time, and decent graphics to boot. One of my absolute favourite games of this jam.

3rd - SWAMP by mimusic
Very, very nice. I really like the art style, the music and the general atmosphere. I'm hoping this was a gateway to a much bigger game in the same style, cos I'd play it! Beating the boss is pretty repetitive, I think it suffers from making the game pretty first and worrying about the gameplay later, which holds it back a bit, but I'd love to see the project continued.


Best ofs:

Best Use of BOSS FIGHTING GAME: The Hoard by Cloaked Games and Pere Dolcet
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games (not best executed, but best idea IMO)
Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy and Swonqi
Best Story: Journey of Tardin by Dengar
Best Devlog: I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson and VaultComplex

Top 10:
I've played and reviewed all the games but I'm choosing to only rate the top 10. This is because I find it hard to differentiate between anything below 10th in this jam. Each game has it's own genre and is good (or bad) in its own way. Beyond this point I think it's just more helpful to read reviews than worry about scores anyway! :)

  1. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy and Swonqi
  2. Tower of Power by The M
  3. SWAMP by mimusic
  4. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  5. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  6. The Hoard by Cloaked Games and Pere Dolcet
  7. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer and Shameless
  8. Hooktik by matharoo and Micah_DS
  9. The Ashen Tower by JacobV and Parmesano
  10. Red Sabre by Misty

Full Reviews (all 52 games, A-Z):

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Nice idea, very different in concept to any other game in the jam (or anything else I've seen recently for that matter!) The execution could have been handled a little better, it felt kind of "stop-start" where you're trying to move around the screen but constantly being forced to pick cards. It would have been nice if the arrows that pop up to show the treasure after beating a boss also showed you wear the boss was during the fight. A great entry though, one of my top 10.

A boss day by mjadev
There's something endearing about it but it needs improvement in all areas. A nice core idea, better execution would have been good.

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui and Joyce
A decent enough entry. Lacking a bit in content as you just go around shooting the same stuff, would like to see more added to it.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa
Really throws you into the action. A very lively atmosphere, I love the smooth animations (even though the base gfx could be improved). Gameplay is a bit repetitive but otherwise quite fun and nice to look at!

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
I respecc wamen, I don't respect this game.

Big Bad Boss Fight by IndianaBones
Sort of just barely playable, nice effort but not one of my favorites.

BO5S by sylvain_I
None of the buttons other than "drink coffee" seem to do anything. Can't manage the workforce or go home, was this entry unfinished?

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
Reminds me of something I'd have made when I was starting out in gamedev. Well thought out idea, but lacking in controls & graphics.

Boss Beat by Gravedust
Decent graphics - not the best of the jam but very good. I like both the sprites and the flowing animations (e.g. the multiplier on the left of the in-game HUD). Nice bullet hell, the attack patterns are challenging but (mostly) fair. Good creativity in general. I watched NAL play it and noticed the speech in the top right corner - which was really funny but virtually impossible to notice when you're the one playing because you're concentrating on not getting killed! Good game.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
It was an OK entry, needs improvement in every area.

Boss Meadow by trg601 and moon489
Really nice presentation, quite good gameplay. Couldn't figure out what I had to do to hurt the Octopus boss.

Boss of All Bosses by dphsw and FeetUpGaming
Not really sure what the player character needs to achieve here. It was an OK entry but needs improvement in all directions.

Boss Off! by Bart
Different premise to most of the other games, and its uniqueness definitely sets it apart from the pack. I like that about it. The execution is a bit underwhelming though, needs better cues for when bosses can see you, what direction they're looking in etc.

BossBoss by Studio Basem
I like that you ARE the boss, something only a few games did in this jam. But it's hard to play, I lost a lot.

BRAXION by Hyomoto
Standard scrolling shooter. Very nice presentation, the graphics and music are good.

Bullet Overtime by Cat and var
Well made as a shooter but a wee bit stale, needs something to shake it up a bit.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
It's an OK game. It needs a little more character and more work on the engine.

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris and Rikileitr
A match 3 game - it's made very well, but there are so many match 3 games in existence it just feels a little bit overdone. The addition of the boss mechanic to the side is appreciated, and works nicely, but for the most part you can just ignore it and concentrate on matching the gems.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi
Being a staunch trade unionist I appreciate the premise of the game, and I like the little GMC Jam T-shirts some of the people are wearing. The RNG is pretty bad (not many people with green ticks go by) which ends up making the game too slow. Needs more hype and a better chance of getting green ticks.

Fish chef Brigade by Cjheighton
The fish gets infinitely faster and I have no clue what's going on.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
An OK space shooter, not much to it but I'm glad you got an entry in!

Gladiator by POTSOS
Very short. It was OK I guess, not really much there to review.

Hooktik by matharoo and Micah_DS
A very unique idea this jam, I very much enjoyed the concept and the fact that you were thinking outside the box. It was very hard to control, however.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson and VaultComplex
Presentation was really good and I had huge hopes for this one but it just doesn't seem to work properly at all for me once you get into the fight sequence. A real shame, I wanted to see more of the action!

Journey of Tardin by Dengar
I do like a bit of a text adventure and the story for this one was pretty good as things go. It was riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes though, which is pretty important for this type of game.

KVN by Penguin533
Pretty but kind of hard to play / control.

Last Knight by Ziberteck
Weird that you can't jump until you equip your weapon and it took an age to figure that out since there was no tutorial. The graphics are decent, especially the boss animations. An OK game.

LegBot by JDown79, Maice and Zach
Pretty hard to control and hard to get past all the CCTV camera things. An OK game.

Like A Boss by imhanner and Nadine B
I had a LOT more fun punching the workers to death (and therefore losing the game) than I did actually trying to keep them awake!

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer and Shameless
Very pretty. An enjoyable game. I feel like the theme is more tenuous with this one than some of the others as the bosses seem like pretty standard enemies, but I enjoyed it in any case.

Mr Quack by BrandonC
Really nice graphics and a cute story. The gameplay wasn't up to much, a bit hard to beat the spongey monster!

Overtime by H3ADL3SS and Archnix
The idea was ok, needs improvement though.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
Very funny but difficult to work out the timing of the boss' punches and so quite hard to play. Good comedy value though, I like it.

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
I like the presentation, the space backgrounds are pretty damn psychadelic (coulda gave me motion sickness if I played too long I'm sure!)

Red Sabre by Misty
Fairly decent, the controls were a bit hard to master and in the city level it's hard to see the enemies before they start shooting wildly at you. I really enjoyed pillow fight mode though, nice work on that.

Ruruna vs Crab King by The Panda Senpai
Decent enough graphics and OK gameplay but it feels a bit unfinished. Needs improvement in all directions.

Sector78 by Makas and Daniel
Decent effort, but a little too chaotic and brain-hurty for me. Boss attention level is a nice mechanic.

Space Boss by Alexx
The opening text is far too long to be unskippable. The game has a different premise to most of the others, didn't find it very engaging though.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
Couldn't figure out what to do. It looked really promising, has really nice graphics and I like the idea of the detective game. But I inspected everything I could find in the first room and couldn't seem to find a way to progress.

SWAMP by mimusic
Very, very nice. I really like the art style, the music and the general atmosphere. I'm hoping this was a gateway to a much bigger game in the same style, cos I'd play it! Beating the boss is pretty repetitive, I think it suffers from making the game pretty first and worrying about the gameplay later, which holds it back a bit, but I'd love to see the project continued.

Tankshow by paskaler00555 and Matei Osenk
Difficult to control, endless and kinda boring.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV and Parmesano
Looks really nice, and was promising, but really too hard. Using the little but things to restore your health takes too long and if you get hit by an attack while it's happening you lose the nut AND don't get your health back. It feels like a kind of double punishment for what should be a life-saver mechanic. I think this game'll do well among people who are more skilled gamers than me, but I found it too hard.

The Businessman by Will and CreativeJon90
Cool bopping atmosphere, not really much to it gameplay wise. Crashes when you die.

The Hoard by Cloaked Games and Pere Dolcet
I like that you play as the boss. Nice graphics, animations and music the presentation is all good. The gameplay has a few issues - the two towers block enemies from sight when they are already quite far away making it hard to defend yourself. A decent entry overall.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun and Bastian
The enemies don't seem to be that bothered about attacking you, most can be dispatched easily from a distance which makes the game a bit boring. I like the graphics and the music.

TITLE 43 by GRArthas, Drooms and Brian Mowat
Looks a bit like Hyper Light Drifter. Couldn't really figure out what to do, seemed almost entirely unfinished judging by the start and game over screens.

Tower of Power by The M
Good game, love the power-ups as you progress through the levels. I like the responsive controls and the automatic weapon aiming. Some fairly complicated mechanics crammed into the engine in such a short space of time, and decent graphics to boot. One of my absolute favourite games of this jam.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
Boss attacks are sort of wild, hard to control and when you die the whole thing just freezes, you can sort of wobble about but that's it.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley and Starwolf
Very pretty but not much substance to it.

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy and Swonqi
Easily the best game of the jam. I'll be honest it feels like the theme was an afterthought, but the graphics are sexy, the premise is real nice and the music is good. The gameplay was fun. Probably the only game where I wished there was more of it to play. If I have a criticism it's that the dice need to look like they're rolling. The first couple of times I picked them I genuinely though "Why has the 4 I picked changed to a 3?" before I realised what was going on. Would make a good mobile game, I hope you continue to develop it.

Yellow Gear by chinykian
Looked promising, the presentation is really nice and I understand what's supposed to be going on, but it's far too hard to dodge the boss' attacks.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
It's like something Dadio would make only a lot smarter. I really like the effort that went into the multicolored platform things, it's a pretty funny entry all round.
 
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I

imhanner

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
It's just great. Graphic, sounds, music, gameplay - I like them very much. Same as the menus, title and items.

Boss Beat by Gravedust
Looks great. I enjoyed it very much. Great over all.

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
I liked it. I played it quite a long time. The concept is great. The card effects are good designed. The music is not so boss like. The game is too easy imo. Everything should have been faster imo.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Boss Beat by Gravedust
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Story: Gammon Princess by Team Flob
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  2. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  3. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  4. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  5. Tower of Power by The M
  6. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  7. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  8. Red Sabre by Misty
  9. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  10. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  11. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  12. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  13. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  14. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  15. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  16. SWAMP by mimusic
  17. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  18. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  19. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  20. KVN by Penguin533
  21. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  22. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  23. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  24. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  25. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  26. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  27. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  28. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  29. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  30. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  31. Space Boss by Alexx
  32. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  33. A boss day by mjadev
  34. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  35. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  36. Boss Off! by Bart
  37. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  38. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  39. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  40. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  41. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  42. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  43. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  44. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  45. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  46. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  47. BO5S by sylvain_l
  48. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  49. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  50. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  51. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  52. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

I liked it. I played it quite a long time. The concept is great. The card effects are good designed. The music is not so boss like. The game is too easy imo. Everything should have been faster imo.

A boss day by mjadev

No music. The same pattern of makes it too easy imo.

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

Look and sound effects are good. Weapons and boss states are cool. It takes way to long to damage imo.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

What is that thing?

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

...

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

Nice concept. Too easy imo.

BO5S by sylvain_l

Nothing to play here. The white text is hard to read in front of the light blue background. Music is quit nice.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

Music is kinda boring. No sound effects. The gameplay and the looks are not that great. The game was way too easy imo.

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Looks great. I enjoyed it very much. Great over all.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Unfinished I guess. No music or sound at all. Shooting with SHIFT is a bad idea on windows.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

Why?

Boss Off! by Bart

No sounds at all. I dont get the objective of a level..

BossBoss by Studio Basem

Unfinished I guess.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

I like the music, graphics and gameplay. Easy is not that easy imo.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

Nice concept. No sounds at all. Bug or feature: free movemnt while infinite pausing and only using forward step by step.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

Unfinished...

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

I looked most of the time at the puzzle and missed the action...

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

No sounds at all. The look is great. The game has nice perks. It was way too easy imo.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

I dont get what these weapons are. No music or sound at all. The fish can move out of the view which is pretty annoying.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

I dont get it. No sounds, title, manual, story ...

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Funny endings :)

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

No sounds at all. There is an ugly flashing while hitting..

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

It took me too long to figure out that you can change directions. Overall great.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Unfinished.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

No graphics or sounds at all...

KVN by Penguin533

Looks great, has nice music and sounds. Should have a some sort of progress bar. There should have been at least second weapon imo.

Last Knight by Ziberteck

The looks and music are quite nice. The boss stuck at several places which makes it easy to do damage. The movement animation is too slow imo. The super charge takes quit too long imo.

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

Looks pretty nice. Musik is not really exciting. The player moves to fast imo. I dont quite get the story or what this strange looking weapon is.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

..our game. Can't vote.
Some afterwords:
Title and score screen look quite bad. The story and a tutorial should have been in the game. We missed to finsh some animations/effects. We missed balancing stats like weapon costs or unlock thresholds.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

Looks nice. Movment with mouse cursor is strange imo.

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Amazing artwork, nice music and concept. Was quite easy imo. Avoiding the weapon will cause getting jailed in the 1st room.

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

Game is too short imo.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

Was ok. There should have been more.

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

No sounds at all. Enjoyed playing.

Space Boss by Alexx

The text should have been skipable too. It is no easter egg if it is pointed out. I dont get the story relating to the jam theme. Some levels look so much nicer than others.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

Dont walk to the right...

SWAMP by mimusic

Looks nice, but you do way too less damage imo. No title.

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Looks nice but not sound or music at all.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Nice.

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

I liked it. I made it only to wave 5. Music is awesome. There is no good hit feedback imo.

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

Weapon selection should have been an arc/fan instead of a circle/wheel.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

Where is the boss???

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

The main game looks pretty. Seems kind of unfinished..

Tower of Power by The M

Music, graphics and gameplay are nice. Bugs or features: Pressing ENTER skips rooms. The room after the boss has invisible walls.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

Strange splashscreen. Player sprite doesnt fit the game style at all.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Looks very very nice. There should have been a progress bar of the boss fight.

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

It's just great. Graphic, sounds, music, gameplay - I like them very much. Same as the menus, title and items.

Yellow Gear by chinykian

Pretty hard.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

Nice concept but how does it meet the theme. No title screen.
 
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Seet

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Boss Beat by Gravedust
*Wipes tears from eyes* It's.... perfect.... The game feels amazing to play.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Wow! The entire experience was amazing... The story was engaging, everything was so fitting. Even though the protagonist was silent, he still had depth to him. Everything from the art to the boss states were done to perfection. Every ability that the player had felt necessary and fufilling. If I had to nitpick, I would say would be that the music for the boss's first phase doesn't play after you respawn. And perhaps when the player dashes, you could give him another animation like turn him to ash during the dash so that the player can better see that he's invincible during that dash. Other than that, this game is perfect!

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
I was confused by the mechanic of the game at first haha.
Took me awhile before I figured out that those were actually dices. Perhaps it would help to add dots on the visible faces of the dices. Other than that, It's an amazing game! Very well polished! I love it!

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Fight The Power by Kodiqi
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Story: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Best Devlog: Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Full ranking:

  1. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  2. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  3. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  4. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  5. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  6. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  7. KVN by Penguin533
  8. SWAMP by mimusic
  9. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  10. Red Sabre by Misty
  11. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  12. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  13. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  14. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  15. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  16. Tower of Power by The M
  17. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  18. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  19. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  20. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  21. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  22. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  23. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  24. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  25. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  26. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

    From this point onwards, these games are ranked in no particular order as most of them are either unfinished or I personally feel have not earned their way onto the list.
  27. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  28. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  29. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  30. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  31. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  32. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  33. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  34. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  35. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  36. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
  37. A boss day by mjadev
  38. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  39. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  40. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  41. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  42. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  43. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  44. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  45. BO5S by sylvain_l
  46. Boss Off! by Bart
  47. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  48. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  49. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  50. Space Boss by Alexx
  51. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  52. Journey of Tardin by Dengar

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

Very interesting concept! I really like the twist on the theme! I guess the only complaint that I have is the inability to see what's in your deck or at least the number of cards left in your deck.

A boss day by mjadev

I have no idea how this game is supposed to be played, I pressed all the buttons when it's within the yellow or green range but I always seem to lose health. What?

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

Best game 100/10

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

Game was fun and engaging! Although the resolution of the sprites weren't great, the game made up for it in game feel. The boss wasn't too difficult to defeat either.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Understandable, have a nice day.

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

Very interesting concept! And amazing use of theme! I love it! Wouldn't mind the programmer art at all!

BO5S by sylvain_l

Unfinished.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

Very interesting concept, made me laugh. Surely does make up for the lack of polish.

Boss Beat by Gravedust

*Wipes tears from eyes* It's.... perfect.... The game feels amazing to play.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Unfinished.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

I love the art and the octopus boss at the end. I also liked how you had to jump on the bunny's head to deal damage to the bunny boss too. However what I didn't quite like is the way damage is handled. The player doesn't seem to go into a state of invincibility after taking a hit. Instead, the player constantly takes damage while it's colliding with the enemy. Which makes it so that the 5 hearts that the player has aren't actually lives. Also the Octopus boss reminds me a lot about one of the first bosses in Cuphead, which was probably what you were going for with that finger gun. Also, interesting hairstyle choice.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

Although you gave an interesting twist to the theme, it didn't translate very well in the game. It felt quite boring. Having to slowly mine away the bumps with a tiny hammer that swings very slowly and the bumps don't seem to go away entirely, even worse, bumps seem to rapidly appear after awhile, making the health go to full.

Boss Off! by Bart

At first I thought that the game was missing because there was just an empty wallpaper with nothing else to interact with. I only realised that I was supposed to press enter to start the game after someone else showed it to me. Not even providing any instructions in the start-up screen or Readme would lead others to believe that you did not even create a game.

Anyway, even after I played the game, it felt very boring, there was almost no challenge. The graphics were dull and ugly to look at, and there wasn't even a boss fight at the end. Just a bunch of disappointment.

BossBoss by Studio Basem

Unfinished. Although it has great potential, and I can see where it's going. Can't wait to see it finished.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

Everything is so well polished, the colour palette coupled with the pixel art style made it feel so retro. Unfortunately, the game has such a high difficulty that I failed to even reach the boss before losing the game over and over.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

A very interesting and unique concept. However, the more I played the game, the more it felt like a game about patience, since the bullet time could be repeatedly abused, there is almost no obstacle other than your own patience. This is especially present on higher difficulties. Unfortunately, I found the game to be rather boring specifically because of this mechanic. Also, it might be difficult to incorporate sfx in this game, but it could still benefit from some form of sfx.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

Unfinished.

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

I really enjoy the idea of doing the match 3 to kill the boss. However, with that said, the game felt lacking in a few areas.
Here are a few suggestions
Team mates should have a flashy animation everytime their special is activated to compliment the match 3 portion of the game.
Matching four, five or L shapes in a row should have even juicier effects.
The boss should be moving around the map and constantly attack everyone which would entice you to move around, otherwise the player can just stand there and do nothing. Also, because of this, Red seems to be the only one getting hit by the boss's attacks all the time.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

One of the few games that twists the theme and yet perfectly executes it. Gameplay felt smooth and fantastic, I was kept engaged the entire time by the time pressure of getting people's interests. The game is really polished and it's unique. Congratulations, I have no criticisms.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

Overall controls feels way too slidey which makes it incredibly difficult to dodge the debris. The concept is great but excecuted poorly.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

Unfinished. But fun to fly around at super speed.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

I really love the art style and the first level of the game! I can tell you were trying to make it feel a lot like Super Mario Bros, the level design, holding down jump makes the player jump higher, only having a sprint and jump button, and of course, the nostalgic Bowser castle and the boss battle. The signs explaining the controls are great for quickly jumping into the game without having to read anything. I also liked how the boss battle was purposefully easy to beat, and after beating it, the player is told to lose instead, which then changes the gameplay completely, this time making the player hunt for spikes to kill himself, each time getting slightly more difficult. And lastly, "dey terk er jerbs". With all of that said, here are my criticisms for the game:

If the player performs a short jump and lands on the mushroom, it will only bounce the player with a short height. Not sure if it's intentional though.
The vertical moving platform doesn't reach low enough such that the player can easily jump onto the platform. The player instead has to properly time his jump exactly when the platform is almost about to reach its' minimum height and perform a high jump. This might cause the player to be in an awkward position after missing his jump.

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

Doesn't feel finished.

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

This game has a really cool mechanic! I enjoyed the interactions during the boss battle. This game made me feel good! I have no complaints.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Sad to see another game with great potential go to waste. Unfinished.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

It might be because I'm not a fan of text-based games myself, but I found the presentation, and the story rather poor. Most of the choices had little to no consequences at all and when you play the game again like the game tells you to, you realise that the only choice that changes the ending is the final choice. Nothing else really matters.
I also did not appreciate the numerous grammatical errors in the game.

KVN by Penguin533

Now this feels like an actual boss fight! Although... the boss bears a lot of resemblance with Cagney Carnation from Cuphead... I wonder why...

Last Knight by Ziberteck

The boss looks great! I love his animations and attack patterns, they're so cool! Unfortunately, the player's attacks feel underpowered and the fully charged bean takes too long to charge and doesn't do much damage. Perhaps you could make the player's attacks more powerful...

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

There was no feedback provided when hitting the boss, neither was there any healthbar which made me wonder if I was doing any damage to it at all. So I stopped eventually. Althought it did seem like there was a weak spot at the boss where you could destroy but there wasn't any way of telling whether I hit him at all.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

Funny twist to the theme. A fast paced "waking up your employees" game. I really enjoy playing twitch based games, makes me wake up. The music to calm you down while you're panicking about keeping your employees from going into the cafeteria. With that said however, the legendary bosslike weapons didn't feel too good to use. It didn't feel legendary at all, with each weapon, AoE feels harder to predict and you have to memorize their patterns which makes them entirely unattractive in using. Perhaps if you'd only stuck to 1 or 2 legendary bosslike weapons that soft wakeups a huge area, it would've made them actually feel legendary.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

Great game! I really like the gameplay, the bullet hell and all. Tho, I suggest adding in health packs along the way to allow for the player to make more mistakes. Also, maybe some sound effects would work too to make the player experience more juicy overall! I really like how polished it is too!

Mr Quack by BrandonC

The game has a unique look and a nice story which I can appreciate. However, where the gameplay suffers from is the fact that the player's only attack operated by stamina. This turns the entire game into a game of patience. Attacking and then waiting for your stamina to regenerate. This makes the game incredibly boring. This is especially present in the final boss battle where you have to face your rubber ducky (nice twist, i'll give you that) in which his health is a ridiculously large amount such that unloading all of your bullets in one go doesn't even make his healthbar go down.

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

Player seems to be stuck in the throwing state after spamming the right mouse button a few times which makes it so that the player cannot swing his weapon anymore after that. After re-opening the game, I found that the player's melee range was too short and the boss for some reason could regain health. Game didn't feel good at all.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

Great use of theme! I love it! The game is almost flawless with one little expection. For some reason, my player automatically dodges right after blocking. Might be a bug. (Edit: We found out why)

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

The visuals effects were probably the best part about the game. But I feel that that's the only good part about the game. Gameplay didn't feel smooth, and overall it didn't feel good at all.

Red Sabre by Misty

Overall it was a great game! Controlling the helicopter felt just like in GTA but in 2D! Awesome job! The game had great narritive and was engaging. I enjoyed it overall. If I had any criticisms, it would be that the health of the penthouse at the end needs to be reduced, felt too much like a chore to destroy it. Other than that, it was great.

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

Great UI and art! Unfortunately that seems to be only redeeming factor for this game. A lack of sound effects makes it feel boring. Gameplay itself felt mundane too.

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

The first part is already way too difficult, having to destroy every single ball before they get to you is too much of a chore. And it seems that the only way to reach the boss is to gain his attention by destroying enough of those balls, however the balls reach you even before the boss attention reaches 2% and you get hit by one ball and the boss attention resets back to 0%. Absolutely no fun.

Space Boss by Alexx

The game didn't follow the theme but that's fine, although the game felt pretty mundane overall. Controls didn't feel good, and gameplay felt too boring. Walls of exposition took too long.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

Unfinished. This game feels like it has lots of potential. Love the graphics and animations, I really felt like this could go somewhere.

SWAMP by mimusic

The gameplay felt smooth. And I'm not sure how you incorporated 3D using GMS 2 in a game jam, but that's truly amazing. I liked how you could only carry a limit of 6 arrows at once which makes it so that the player has something else to do during the boss fight which is to go hunt for bamboo stick. I also liked how the boss could consume his own slimes to regain hp, so that the player would have a reason to kill the smaller slimes instead of attacking the boss. However, with that said, I felt that the fight dragged on for too long. Maybe the player should've dealt more damage or perhaps the boss should have lesser health. It got boring after awhile.

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Game crashed...
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object TankAIBasic:

Unable to find any instance for object index '7' name 'Camera'
at gml_Object_TankAIBasic_Step_0

Game was way too difficult... The game would just spawn me right next to a giant tank and it would finish me off instantly every time. Even if I managed to escape for a short while, I always seem to find myself in the crossfire of multiple other tank cannons and it's incredibly difficult to dodge them because of the controls and the speed of the player. It also doesn't help that the enemies can kill you in 1 hit, which makes me ask why the game even needs a healthbar, if all the damage you're taking is from the boulders.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Wow! The entire experience was amazing... The story was engaging, everything was so fitting. Even though the protagonist was silent, he still had depth to him. Everything from the art to the boss states were done to perfection. Every ability that the player had felt necessary and fufilling. If I had to nitpick, I would say would be that the music for the boss's first phase doesn't play after you respawn. And perhaps when the player dashes, you could give him another animation like turn him to ash during the dash so that the player can better see that he's invincible during that dash. Other than that, this game is perfect!

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

Gameplay didn't feel that engaging, the player's attack animation doesn't play instantly...

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

A great spin on the theme, being the boss and fighting against the hoard. Game feels complete and well polished. However, controls did not feel as smooth, having to alternate between the 4 attacks were not intuitive and I often found myself randomly mashing them and spam clicking, hoping for the best. Attacks could feel more powerful too, for example an explosion caused by the fire attack. Overall it's a good game.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

The game looks good and well polished overall however it feels abit lackluster. I didn't feel any sort of challenge throughout. It might have to do with the placement of the enemies in the map and their agro range. Perhaps placing the enemies right behind a wall at a turn could force the player to go closer to the enemy to kill it and initiate combat. Of course, that could be coupled with removing the player's ability to destroy walls. Also, there's no boss

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Sorry to hear that you've ran out of time :( I love the amazing art style and how neat it looks! However I believe that that might have been the cause of your lack of time. Personally I would prefer gameplay over graphics but it's important to find a balance. Would've been an awesome game overall if you had more time to better telegraph the attacks and more visual feedback for dealing damage on the hands. Controls were intuitive enough that not having a Readme is fine (Edit: I searched for your game and found the Readme afterwards but for some reason it wasn't included in the GMC Jam Player). But that might mean that I might have missed out on other hidden controls too. The stone hands were way too difficult for me to defeat, I found myself spamming the shift key repeatedly as one of them got close to me as I didn't know when it was gonna drop. Perhaps if you implemented a shadow underneath both of the hands, it would greatly impact the gameplay positively as players would know when to dodge it.

And I'm not very sure about this next part, but I believe that the hands actually dealt damage to the player when the player's y axis was over the hand and the hand was rising upwards. Might be able to fix this one easily with states `if (rising) {//Don't deal damage to the player}`. Also, consider reducing the hitbox of the hand to the bottom part of it, so that it doesn't feel like it still does damage to the player even if he is apparently behind it (You might have done this already but I'm not very sure because I still felt that it wasn't there)

Overall, great game!

Tower of Power by The M

Great game! A few bugs that cause the player to skip a few levels here and there but it's bearable. The bosses felt great to fight against, expecially the last boss. Although it felt rather unfinished, when I came across those parts it felt pretty unpleasent. Especially in the last level where the textures are not loaded and it eventually led to a hole where I fell into and then it crashed. Although, now that I think about it, the last's invisible platforms might be done on purpose

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

Absolutely horrible game. Background looks like it was taken straight from the internet. Sprites too (except for the player which looks ugly). The controls are horrendous, and the way the game feels overall is incredibly bad.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

The art would be the best part about the game. However overall, it felt lackluster. The boss only had 2 attacks, no way of telling how much health he had left.

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

I was confused by the mechanic of the game at first haha.
Took me awhile before I figured out that those were actually dices. Perhaps it would help to add dots on the visible faces of the dices. Other than that, It's an amazing game! Very well polished! I love it!

Yellow Gear by chinykian

Sound effects and art style are amazing, I love the retro feel. Overall the game felt very polished but I feel more could be done. The boss only had 2 primary attacks but one of them feels incredibly difficult to dodge, the big circles specifically. There is a way to avoid them altogether just by jumping up once he's telegraphing his attack but if you ever fail to do that just once, you're as good as dead because the speed he shoots those circles at you are just way too fast for you to jump out of it, especially during the second phase. But overall, I did enjoy it and managed to beat it.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

yes i agre.

(DM me for a re-review)
 
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Dr. Wolf

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
A very intriguing mixture of deck-building game and twin-stick bullet hell! I had my deck stocked up with synthesizes and fusions, for close-range brawling-- I felt powerful, but by no means invincible, as the bosses became faster and faster. The mechanics were supported by a simple but clean and effective aesthetic, and the pacing, unlike many entries in this jam, was on point. One flaw that comes to mind is that it crashes if you minimize it (mind your surfaces!). Overall, though, well done!

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
Scores highly, on account of being an interesting, original, good-looking, and entertaining game. It does need rebalancing, though; right now, the best strategy is simply to match three, any three, as fast as you can, ignoring the boss battle entirely (in my experience, this approach always wins). A change in balance could make the boss battle more relevant, by encouraging the player to spend time searching the match-three board for the combination most relevant to the current battle situation, and by encouraging the player to pay more attention to the position of their own character. More content would also be nice.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
A SHMUP with some neat time-freezing/time-rewinding mechanics and a clean, minimal aesthetic, this game did a better job than most of the other entries in its genre in terms of calibrating bullet speeds and hitbox sizes in a way that made the game feel well-controlled while still providing a challenge (especially on higher difficulty settings.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Fight The Power by Kodiqi
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: Mr Quack by BrandonC
Best Story: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  2. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  3. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  4. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  5. Tower of Power by The M
  6. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  7. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  8. Red Sabre by Misty
  9. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  10. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  11. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  12. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  13. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  14. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  15. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  16. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  17. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  18. Space Boss by Alexx
  19. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  20. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  21. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  22. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  23. SWAMP by mimusic
  24. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  25. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  26. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  27. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  28. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  29. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  30. KVN by Penguin533
  31. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  32. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  33. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  34. Boss Off! by Bart
  35. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  36. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  37. A boss day by mjadev
  38. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  39. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  40. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  41. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  42. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  43. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  44. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  45. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  46. BO5S by sylvain_l
  47. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  48. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  49. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  50. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  51. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  52. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

A very intriguing mixture of deck-building game and twin-stick bullet hell! I had my deck stocked up with synthesizes and fusions, for close-range brawling-- I felt powerful, but by no means invincible, as the bosses became faster and faster. The mechanics were supported by a simple but clean and effective aesthetic, and the pacing, unlike many entries in this jam, was on point. One flaw that comes to mind is that it crashes if you minimize it (mind your surfaces!). Overall, though, well done!

A boss day by mjadev

Does what it's supposed to, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of rhythm games. The artwork doesn't do much for me, and the connection to the theme is tenuous at best.

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

Seemed like a promising setup-- I like how the dead minions create a changing battlefield with the effects of their remains. I also like the idea of getting closer to do more damage; that can lead to some interesting tactical considerations. What wrecked it all was the seeming impotence of my weapons; even point-blank shotgun blasts only took a tiny portion of the boss' health. As a result, combat quickly became repetitive and boring.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

Excessive boss HP was a frequent issue in this jam, and, unfortunately, one that this game does not escape. Once you take away the arena trappings and weird glowing jewel thing, this game appears to be presenting you with a giant, hostile rock, and a water gun, and asking you to erode the rock with the water gun until it breaks-- and the boss HP appears calibrated so as to be realistic to that scenario.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

...

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

I shot things for a few moments and ran over their corpses to get larger. Eventually, it got to the point where I could just spam fire to both sides and kill everything. Then it told me I was the boss. Overall, there's not very much of a game here, as far as I can tell, but at least it's functional.

BO5S by sylvain_l

The "manage workforce" button didn't seem to do anything. Not sure if this is an attmpt at comedy or if it's just deeply incomplete.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

No.

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Bosses have waaaaay too much health. Melee attacks don't really seem worth it, either, leaving the gameplay fairly simple and repetitious. Looks and sounds nice, though.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Seemed barely functional; my shots went right through the enemy, who soon ceased to return fire.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

I murdered a bunny by jumping on it. Then a giant bunny came along and murdered me by jumping on me. Seems fair.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

I turned this game off so that it would stop flashing at me.

Boss Off! by Bart

It's nice to see some tile-based movement from time to time, but this game is not a great example of the type, with significant readability issues, sudden death from enemies who were just off the screen, and a drab, rather unappealing aesthetic. Needs some work before it can come into its own.

BossBoss by Studio Basem

This game is about being the boss of a dungeon, but it doesn't make you feel very boss-like. The gameplay seems to amount to trying to fight enemies within the tiny margin of distance where you can attack but they can't, which is more of a cheese than a genuinely interesting mechanic. On the upside, the characters are all decent-looking, and the environment is OK, though a bit plain.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

A competent, nice-looking (if somewhat monochrome) little SHMUP. Quite difficult, even on "easy"; the ship feels very slow in comparison to the enemy projectiles.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

A SHMUP with some neat time-freezing/time-rewinding mechanics and a clean, minimal aesthetic, this game did a better job than most of the other entries in its genre in terms of calibrating bullet speeds and hitbox sizes in a way that made the game feel well-controlled while still providing a challenge (especially on higher difficulty settings.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

So, I beat up some dudes, suffered through some clunky and unnecessary platforming, beat up more dudes, did some more still clunky and still unnecessary platforming, beat up even morer dudes...and then walked off the right edge of the screen, and that was that. It's decent-looking, but the fighting seems to be mainly spam, the platforming is awkward, and the connection to the theme not yet realized in the game's current stage of development.

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

Scores highly, on account of being an interesting, original, good-looking, and entertaining game. It does need rebalancing, though; right now, the best strategy is simply to match three, any three, as fast as you can, ignoring the boss battle entirely (in my experience, this approach always wins). A change in balance could make the boss battle more relevant, by encouraging the player to spend time searching the match-three board for the combination most relevant to the current battle situation, and by encouraging the player to pay more attention to the position of their own character. More content would also be nice.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

Neat little game! I won with several days to spare, thanks to the wonders of exponential growth. All that clicking kind of started to hurt my pointer finger after a while, though.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

Not really sure what the idea behind the mechanics here was, but it hasn't worked. I seem to be in control of a fish, which promptly leaves the game area, and...yeah, that seems to be about it.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

Not really sure what was going on here. I blew up a bunch of little drones, then waited for something else to happen. Nothing did. No sound, score, theme connection, or much of a point to it, really. Still, it's nice to see someone else making a thrust-based game in this twin-stick-dominated era.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Pretty standard little platformer with the neat oldschool gimmick of having to fight a boss primarily with the features of his own lair. I got one of the endings, then found myself fused to the side of one of the moving platforms while going for the other. The art isn't super-fancy but fits the overall mood of the game.

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

I walked up to a minotaur and started spamming the mouse button, causing a pink square to flash repeatedly into existence. Eventually I got a message telling me that I won. Seems just a bit pointless, I'm afraid.

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

Where did game designers get this idea that grappling hooks were automatic fun? They're not. In fact, they're one of the few ways that an already annoying genre (platformers) can be made even more annoying. A boss that feels like it will take about a hundred years to kill doesn't help matters. Still, it seems to be basically a functional game, and isn't bad-looking.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

In-game controls and gameplay do not function. A shame; it would have been nice to have this game in the jam as a representative of the traditional fighting game genre.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

Ooh, a text-based game! Unfortunately, it's a rather messy one, with numerous spelling and grammatical errors, and the atrocious appearance that comes from using GM's default font instead of setting one yourself (or, better yet, substituting something better for GM's text system entirely). On top of that, a text-based game will live or die above all else by the quality of its writing, and there's quite a bit of room for improvement here on that count as well.

KVN by Penguin533

Everything is too big! Also, the intro is a bit slow, and the movement is kind of annoying. Basically competent, though. There's only so much I can say about yet another jumpy-shooty game.

Last Knight by Ziberteck

With clumsy platforming, crude art, and a glacially slow pace, this game is one I couldn't play for very long. Sorry!

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

Not sure what was going on here; this seemed to be a game about shooting at some giant legs infinitely without effect.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

A cute little whack-a-mole game where you play as a boss trying to wake up sleeping workers before they can be eaten by the monster under the floor (at least, I'm guessing that's why they disappear if you don't wake them) without beating them to death in the process. There's not a whole lot of depth here, but it's well-implemented, fits the theme, and is different enough from the pack to have a reason to exist.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

Overall, a competently-implemented, good-looking, and fun entry. The ship seemed to be really wide, though, leading to a lot of frustrating situations where I felt that I'd figured out the way through the boss' attack pattern, but was taking damage anyway. Also, the lack of constraint on the cursor (or a full-screen mode) led to situations where the game would be moved to the background in the heat of battle.

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Not a bad-looking game, by any means. Got to the third boss, which I couldn't seem to damage, even when I got sounds and special effects (red flashes) that would typically suggest a good hit. The slow replenish time on the main weapon reduced the pace far more than I would have liked.

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

I kind of feel like this is not a very accurate depiction of the outcome when someone armed with a towel and some paper airplanes fights against someone with a staple gun. Anyway, I spammed the towel at him a bunch and, after his HP reset a few times, he died and the game ended. Doesn't seem like there's much here.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

S' OK, I guess. I'm not a big fighting game player, so whatever "tells" the boss may have had were too subtle for me to detect. Also, I sometimes seemed to take damage while attacking without a blow being landed against me-- not sure what was going on there.

Red Sabre by Misty

Today I learned that I probably don't have a future as a JankyMcPhysicsCopter pilot ahead of me (note: part of me suspects that actual helicopters are really all JankyMcPhysicsCopters, too). Still, the basic challenge of it was...not uninteresting. I'd like to see some more free, wider-roaming combats, with maybe a bigger selection of weapons/abilities and powerups.

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

On the positive side, this seems to be one of the few games following this general formula where the sword actually has a point. The persistent levels are cool, too-- maybe not a substitute for more varied content, but at least there's enough reason to keep playing that the game feels like it has some meat on its bones. It's pretty decent-looking, too. I just wish there was more content, and perhaps some more original gameplay to go along with it.

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

Neat little SHMUP. I dig the fast ramp-up in power on your ship's weapons. I'm less fond of the enemy projectiles that are so fast as to kill you out of nowhere, or the large ship. I prefer when shooters present me with challenges that can be solved with tactical cleverness and observation, rather than mindless reflex tests. Some of the other SHMUPs in this jam are better-looking, as well.

Space Boss by Alexx

Text takes way too long. Collision boxes on enemies seem to be far larger than the enemies themselves, resulting in unfair deaths. Art on the main character doesn't match the rest of the game. Hearing "you are dead" over and over got annoying fast.

Still, at least it's not yet another "shoot while jumping up and down" clone.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

I think I see what you were going for, but it's not happening. There's a bit of dialog, and then the only thing I can do is run off the side and drop into the abyss. I applaud the choice to go for a less typical style of game, and it's a decent-looking thing, too, but it needs more time in the oven, for sure.

SWAMP by mimusic

It's good-looking, I'll grant, but I didn't enjoy this game. By the time I'd taken off even a small portion of the boss' health, I was bored and my mouse hand was starting to hurt, so I stopped.

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Neat little tank game, I guess. Mainly, I just wound up circling fairly randomly. Crashes on game over. Lack of fullscreen or mouse containment means that the game gets defocused by accident a lot.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

This game is pretty, in a very on-trend sort of way, but doesn't quite manage to connect with me. I suspect some of the isssue may be with the controls; my impression is that they're trying so hard to be precise or "tight" that they wind up feeling overly fiddly and difficult. The dodge-dash, for one, almost never seems to go where I want, when I want, leading to a lot of frustrating situations where I know what I want to do, but just can't make it happen. I'm also not very fond of the wordless prologue-- the game seems to ask that I sit there for quite a long time without having any dialogue for me to read or any action for me to watch. In the end, I didn't manage to get past the first boss before my fingers were too sore to continue.

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

I have to admit, I don't "get" games like this. As far as I can tell, the conditions for my hitting the enemy seem to be the same as for the enemy hitting me (that is, being aligned on the Z-axis), so I'm not sure what to do other than spam attacks and hope that luck will favor me.

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

Neat idea! It's pretty cute, too, and I like the personality provided by the little death quotes. Unfortunately, the slow cooldowns and low level of "juice" leave me feeling less like a badass boss dragon and more like an asthmatic gecko with barely enough firebreath to char-grill a hamburger (well, except for when it came to the princesses that you were supposed to save-- *those* the dragon seems to be exceptionally good at frying). I'm not sure I'd play more of this game, but it was interesting to see, at any rate.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

The presentation was pretty nice, but content seemed to be seriously lacking, with a small amount of trivially simple gameplay followed by being returned to the menu. Neat music, though, and what there was of the game itself went by smoothly enough.

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Well, it's got some neat backgrounds, at least. Unfortunately, it seems that so much time must have gone into making it look nice that little was left for content. On top of that, I don't find the combat mechanics interesting; dodging with the dash seems to be far too much a matter of reactions rather than tactical decision-making. Ultimately, the rank of this entry is more of a function of its eye candy than of the actual gameplay.

Tower of Power by The M

While it will take more than a jam game to leave me entirely convinced that platformers, and in particular shooty ones, need to exist, this game's design, with its combination of walljumps and lock-on aiming, does a pretty good job of mitigating the typical annoyances of the genre. The freer flow enabled by these features kept me playing through to the third boss without losing patience, which is a pretty good performance for a platformer. It's not bad-looking, either; the aesthetic is generally simple, but it's got some nice touches.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

It's nice to see someone experimenting with an unconventional art style, and it was interesting how elements that would conventionally be "background" were instead active in the world. That said, the main character, the attacks, the UI, and to a slightly lesser extent the enemies all failed to harmonize with the overall look of the world itself, while the gameplay lacked in both depth and flow.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

I liked the intro screen. Found a (decent-looking) boss. Killed it (I think?) by jumping up and down while shooting for a long time, and the game ended. Seemed a little pointless, TBH.

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

So, the entire strategy here seemed to be to use your better dice when the enemy had a better roll, and conserve them when the enemy had a below-average roll. I wish there were more to it. I also wish it didn't waste so much of your time with long transitions and animations.

Yellow Gear by chinykian

Yet another game about fighting a thing while jumping a lot. When said thing has buckets and buckets of health, that means altogether more repetition than I'm willing to sit through, especially when the broad strokes of what you should be doing are painfully obvious.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

I still think it might have been funnier with a fish.
 
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S

swonqi

Guest
I spent at least 2 minutes on each game (sorry i don't have too much time). On some games I might've missed something important in the game, so apologies if that happened with your game. Also sorry for the comments, most of them are reeeally bad lol :{

I ranked the games purely on how fun they felt to play. The art/music may have influenced the final ranking in some cases. If you think I misjudged your game, please DM me and I'll play it again.

Top 3:
Boss Beat by Gravedust
Easily the game I had the most fun with. Felt really good to play, I liked the player's attacks and dash. Sweet effects and the music fit the game really good. The game was kinda hard though, but the melee attack (kinda OP) saved the day. :b

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Loved the athmosphere in this game. The gameplay was good, I just wish gamepad controls were available. The boss design was good, except the difficulty ramped up really high suddenly on the 2nd phase.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa
Simple. Fun. Cool boss design and good variety of guns/weapons or whatever they were. Loved the chaotic vibe. Great job.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: SWAMP by mimusic
Best Story: idk
Best Devlog: idk


Full ranking:
  1. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  2. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  3. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  4. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  5. SWAMP by mimusic
  6. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  7. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  8. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  9. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  10. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  11. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  12. Red Sabre by Misty
  13. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  14. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  15. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  16. A boss day by mjadev
  17. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  18. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  19. Tower of Power by The M
  20. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  21. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  22. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  23. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  24. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  25. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  26. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  27. KVN by Penguin533
  28. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  29. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  30. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  31. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  32. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  33. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  34. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  35. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  36. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  37. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  38. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  39. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  40. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  41. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  42. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  43. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  44. Boss Off! by Bart
  45. Space Boss by Alexx
  46. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  47. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  48. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  49. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  50. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  51. BO5S by sylvain_l
  52. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  53. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
Comments:
{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
interesting and fun mechanics, great job. a bit too bullet hell-y for my taste though!

A boss day by mjadev
not my type of game but i had fun for a while. cool characters!

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
pretty good! the first phase was way too long and easy. i almost quit the game just before the 2nd phase because it got boring

Action Arena by Kahrabaa
simple. fun. cool boss design. good variety of guns/weapons whatever. loved the chaotic vibe. great job.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
i assume this is a joke?

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
i am da boss.

BO5S by sylvain_l
an unfinished sim i guess, or did i miss something? :[

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
a really simple game..?

Boss Beat by Gravedust
this was so much fun! great gameplay and music. the game was pretty hard for me though :b

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storytelle
i hate spam clicking.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
cute bunny! the movement felt floaty.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
i like cleaning. this made me hate cleaning.

Boss Off! by Bart
a simple sneak game?

BossBoss by Studio Basem
attack range very small which made it impossible not to take damage when trying to hit the enemies.

BRAXION by Hyomoto
good art/sound/music. felt good to play, didn't get very far though, because i suck at these type of games.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
simple. aesthetic. loved the floaty particles. this needs music and sound!

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
the enemies did nothing. i assume it's an unfinished game

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
this was really interesting concept, i liked it a lot.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi
a simple clicker, gets boring fast

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
i found it hard to move.. and it was hard to tell what was happening because of the graphics

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
cool particles! not much to do in the game i guess.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob
loved the artstyle. had no idea what to do in the boss fight : /

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
hard to play D:

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
i liked the grapple mechanic. it was a bit hard to use though. specifically dodging the projectiles was very hard. great music

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
seemed promising. unfortunately not much to do in the game.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar
pretty cool text adventure

KVN by Penguin533
cool art. boss design quite basic. the room felt really small

Last Knight by Ziberteck
the jump felt really weird. controls were a bit overcomplicated, activating the cannon felt really unnecessary. the shots were a bit hard to land since everything is so small... and player projectiles were hard to see. i liked the boss design, although it kinda got stuck above the castle sometimes.

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
pretty cool shooter. it was a bit hard to look at because of the fast movement speed. :s

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
i liked it! this kind of games get boring after a while though

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
i wish i could aim : @

Mr Quack by BrandonC
the ammo recovers way too slow so it got boring really fast. cool artstyle though, got some Isaac vibes from it

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
really easy and short game. or did i miss something? :O

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
felt pretty good to punch people. >: )

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
cool visaually. i didn't really know what to do though. also ran into an error

Red Sabre by Misty
it was aight! there wasn't enough action in my taste, or maybe i didn't get that far. +the gun was too slow to turn : (

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
surprisingly good. i wish i could've attacked into multiple directions. the slow movement vertically was a bit annoying.

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
this got crazy. gj. loved the yellow laser sound effect lmao

Space Boss by Alexx
music was the best part :/

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
i didn't know what to do. so i fell down the platform to the right :{ cool pixel art though!

SWAMP by mimusic
love the artsyle and the sound design. the bow was great, but the melee attack didn't feel good. the fight got a bit boring after a while. i just wish i had infinite arrows instead of chopping wood. : p

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
i couldn't do much because i died in 5 seconds every time.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
great athmosphere. the gameplay was good, i just wish gamepad controls were available. the boss design was good, except the difficulty ramped up too high at once, when the 2nd phase started..

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
not the best gameplay-wise, it was pretty hard to fight

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
this was fun. the controls were confusing at times, maybe i'd just rather used WASD to cast the spells. loved the pixel art too ( :

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
an ok top-down shooter. pixel art alright. the sounds destroyed my ears.

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
cool graphics. that's about it :/ almost broke my keyboard coz i got mad at the end screen.

Tower of Power by The M
the jump felt a bit off. i quite liked the auto aim, but it made the game very easy. the power ups were also hella cool

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
really simple gameplay. confusing graphics

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
great graphics. gameplay and the boss design were pretty basic. pls add health bar for the boss next time lol

Yellow Gear by chinykian
simple but good boss fight. i wish there was some platforms. i got cornered a lot.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
lmao. this made me happy. 10/10

edit. Reviewed Last Knight by Ziberteck again and moved it to rank 21 from 40.
 
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B

BrandonC

Guest
Reviews
Top 3:
The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
...
Yarr n' Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
...
not quite sure who yet
...
Best ofs:
Best use of Theme: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Best Concept: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Presentation: SWAMP by mimusic
Best Story: Gammon Princess by Team Flob
Best Devlog: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Full ranking:

Comments:
Action Arena by Kahrabaa
Was a cool little game loved the different weapons although i found some to be pretty hard to use, but that just added to the fun of dodging certain guns to keep the ones you like!
BO5S by sylvain_l
Not quite sure what happens because i just spam clicked the buttons and they gave me the same results.
Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
Really liked the Bunny Boss. Only thing i would have liked to have seen is some representation of the fact that i was getting hurt by the water drops as i thought i was dodging them when in reality i wasnt.
Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
This game was cool something different although i would have liked a bigger weapon so it wasnt as tedious to remove all the bumps.
BossBoss by Studio Basem
Was some really coola rt and animations only problem was the melee radius i felt was a little small.
Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
I loved the idea behind this game was really well done! would love to see somethng come of this idea!
Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
kept crashing so i couldnt play this one
Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
Great Menu love the character really cool style! was really different and out of the box thinking which was cool. only thing would be nice to know why i was shooting this eqyptian looking creature.
I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
Not sure why but this game kept freezing and was kinda unplayable which sucks beacuse i thought it looked fun!
Journey of Tardin by Dengar
This game was alot of fun to play although sometimes the clickable otions didnt change so it kinda felt like i was being forced a direcion instead of choosing one, but besides that i like it !
Mr Quack by BrandonC
Cant vote ite my game XD
Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
this game was cool although i kept getting a terrain fast hit error so i coulsnt play to much of the game
The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
This game was epic! great art and music really liked it!
The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
Really liked the art ingame and the movement system with the camera was really well done very comfortable.
Tower of Power by The M
Really liked the simplistic art style really worked well togeyher.
Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
This game was cool would have liked to have seen more, i know with the time we had it was great but i hope you continue to work on it !
 
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M

Misty

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Great game. If you dont like this game you are a racist of black woman pirates. This is an excellent game in every way. This game manages to make black people famous without being cringey and sjw about it. First of all the inventory and dice rolls are excellent. Everything about this game is great. The only problem with this game is there is only 1 world to beat. I would pay cash for a fullversion of this game, if it featured local multiplayer. 10/10

SWAMP by mimusic
Great game. Reminded me of metroid prime. Love the atmosphere love the 3d. Nothing wrong with this game except the hit detection is a bit shoddy, and it lags if you dont kil enough enemies in time. 9/10.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob
This game is friggin hilarious. The double ending provides a neat psychological twist/puzzle to the game. 8/10

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: ...swamp
Best Concept: ...yarr n gee
Best Presentation: ...swamp
Best Story: ...gammon princess
Best Devlog: ...me, but since cant rate my own, dunno

Full ranking:

  1. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  2. SWAMP by mimusic
  3. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  4. Tower of Power by The M
  5. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  6. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  7. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  8. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  9. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  10. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  11. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  12. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  13. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  14. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  15. KVN by Penguin533
  16. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  17. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  18. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  19. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  20. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  21. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  22. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  23. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  24. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  25. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  26. A boss day by mjadev
  27. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  28. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  29. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  30. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  31. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  32. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  33. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  34. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  35. Space Boss by Alexx
  36. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  37. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  38. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  39. Boss Off! by Bart
  40. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  41. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  42. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  43. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  44. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  45. BO5S by sylvain_l
  46. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  47. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  48. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  49. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  50. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  51. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

In (Insert Game Title Here) you play an an anonymous cube, fighting endless hordes of unidentifiable boss enemies. The boss enemies will fire endless waves of particles at you, in which you must dodge the whites, and collect the greens. (I'm sensing someone doesn't like the Republican Party very much.)

When you encounter a green, it bestows you with a choice of magical abilities, presenting themselves as cards. Each magical ability represents a different element, which the boss may be immune to. Since each boss enemy looks identical, there is no way for certain to know which element will have an effect, you just have to guess your way at first and try to remember afterwards. Though the bosses are devoid of personality or identity, they do end with a loud "bang" and visually satisfying demise.

The gameplay itself, is very one sided. Only the player can pickup and use cards, the boss seems to simply launch waves of mindless particulates at you. This leads to a feeeling of very shallow gameplay, amounting to glorification of particle dodging, in the form of cards. The cards do not offer a real depth of strategy, mostly you pick a card, find what works, and use it again until the boss is defeated, minorly restoring your health along the way.

That being said, Presentation was good, if you dont want to spend time on programmer art you made a good decision, the game feels good to play and its just everything you would expect for a game to feel. However, there isn't much depth to the game. The game lacks a notable human element, such as personality, intrigue, competition, story, flare, and driving force. Thus I give only 4/10.

A boss day by mjadev

Eh. The graphics look like they were crayon scribbles, but in terms of gameplay, I was expecting more of a battle game not a Dance Dance Guitar Hero timing game. As far as Guitar Hero or DDR, the keyboard assignments were awkward and unintuitive. Second, the signals seemed to accelerate, instead of proceeding in a linear fashion, making it too hard. 4/10

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

In Sticky Mess, you challenge a giant goo monster and his goons, who offer you a relentless assault of which there is little hope of resisting.

The gameplay is fairly simple, attack the goons before they attack you, while focusing on the boss. However, the weapon powerups seem to be worse than the default gun, so half of the strategy is avoiding weapon powerups. By worse I mean the DOT (Damage Over Time). The shotgun is semi-auto and exceptionally bad. The flamethrower seems to be the only gun better than the default machine gun.

The game seems nigh impossible to beat, and the health bar has several display issues, such as over extending the bounds of the gui, and the amount of lives the player has to not seem to be displayed. As soon as the boss transforms into his second form, I seem to instantly get a gameover after touching one of his goons. The game seems unbeatable to me. 3.5/10

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

Great game and proves you can use default font to make great games. Only problem is it only has 1 level. 6/10

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Troll game. 1/10

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

Game has good graphics style but not much depth. I give it 3.5/10 because once you beat the game you never wish to play again, no replayability to the game.

BO5S by sylvain_l

Troll game but good presentation. 2/10

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

Not bad for a troll game. 3.5/10

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Cool graphics and music, but no sound effects or story. 6/10

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Graphics were bad and gameplay was bad. Shooting uses Sticky Keys, big no no. Next. 1.5/10

Also for a user named "Storyteller" i expected a story.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

In this game you play as a feminine emo-pixie mangirl. You are attacked by savage bunnies but are given no holy hand grenades. The alpha-male bunny boss attacks you at the end. Game is good but kind of short. I could not beat the final bunny either. 5/10

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

Not sure what this is but it is boring. 1.5/10

Boss Off! by Bart

Eh. The graphics were visually jarring and made me sick to my stomach. I did not enjoy this game mainly because of the graphics. Also, it seemed unclear what I was suppsoed to do. 2.5/10

BossBoss by Studio Basem

Good graphics, good music, but bad gameplay. 2.5/10

BRAXION by Hyomoto

Nice retro feel but even on easy it is too hard. 4/10

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

Presentation is nice and modern. But game has no sound or substance. Presentation too basic and enemies lacking personality. Minimalist design not fully harnessed, the enemy deaths are lackluster and overall not inspired to play. 3/10

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

Meh. Unfinished game cant beat it. Hero can't take damage which is dum. 2/10

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

Wasn't a big fan of this game. The graphics did the job but it seemed to be trying too hard to create a new concept. Personally just stick to one or the other, either make a match 3 game or make a boss game. Combining the two ideas resulted in gameplay that was random and incoherent. I could only hope that I would get lucky in the gems too, for a match 3 game it was "lackluster". 4/10

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

Meh. A "clickbait" game because all you do is click on green checkmarks all game that's what it amounts to. 1.5/10

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

Ummm...? 2/10?

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

The graphics are boring and the gameplay is too hard you get swarmed. This game was a bad idea and it has bad gameplay for a top-down game. 2.5/10

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

This game is friggin hilarious. The double ending provides a neat psychological twist/puzzle to the game. 8/10

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

Game seems glitchy like I lose my health for no reason, and when I attack it damages me instead of the enemy. 1.5/10

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

Alright for a minigame I guess. Usually I am a fan of mathroo's games but this one seemed overly simple to me. Kind of lost interest half-way through, the boss battle got to be rather repetitive and tedious. The music was also a bit on the annoying side and too hype for the pace of the game. 4/10

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

In I quit! it begins with a funny fake FBI warning, and treats you to a good and classic retro looking intro splash screen. That is about as good as it gets, in "I Quit!", which you will find yourself doing in no time, because....

After pressing every key on the keyboard, the game won't do anything. So I quit the game to read the readme, and restarted the game. When I hit spacebar, it seemed to temporarily do an animation then I was stuck unable move or do anything. The enemy AI seemed to have "I Quit!" the game as well. Can't play the game. After three tries, "I Quit!" I give it 1/10 though, because it had a cool menu.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

Cool story game although the story is unfair and not always realistic. 5.5/10

KVN by Penguin533

Cool retro style but the main problem with this game is its just too darned difficult to beat. 5/10

Last Knight by Ziberteck

In Last Knight, you begin in a castle.

The physics were basic but the jumping was inconsistent. The boss battle I could not figure out how to attack the boss. I pressed every key on the keyboard. I tried jumping on him but it did no damage to him. I tried clicking on the mouse but nothing happened. There is no readme and no in-game instructions. Maybe it would have gotten a higher score if there were instructions, but I'm only giving it a 2/10.

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

Pretty good but the boss seems impossible so I give it 5.5 instead of 6/10.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

Meh. This game was too modern for me. Call me old fashioned but I like games with running people through with swords, epic quests, or futuristic games of alien worlds. If I want a relaxing game I'll play cards, charades, chess, chinese checkers, or buy a massage. I dont want a game where I click on a bunch of worker drones in a boring computer lab. 4/10 because although boring there was some depth to this game.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

Pretty decent game although feels like a generic flash game. 5/10

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Great game actually. Simple cutesy atmosphere that does not take itself too seriously. 5.5/10

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

Now the graphics of this I view as good, even though it is pixelated, the sound and graphics are good. But the combat is where this game fails. I hit the guy with the baseball bat and there is no visual report of any kind. The combat feels strange and empty. 3/10

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

In "Overtime" you are treated to a standard menu with options, which is a little more than you get from the average game jam game. However the menu is without color or flare, and monochromatic in nature. The game thrusts you into combat with what appears to be your boss, who resorts to physical violence in order to force you to work as a wage slave. This game seems to be a metaphorical treatise of wage slavery and corporate facism. However, games cannot stand on "sock-it-to-the-Man" politics alone, they need good quality content and gameplay. As a story it appears superficial and lacking in depth, a cheap pun rather than elaborate struggle to achieve emotional depth of clarity.

Graphics had a good talent to them, but seemed a little corporate. It would have been nice to have a little more scenery than just a black void. As far as the game goes, the story was stupid but good, in a corny sense, but I would have prefered though if there was a funny comic strip leading up to the story. Far as gameplay goes, it was too hard for a first level. I seem unable to see the boss's punches in time to react. Also, when you get punched you get stunned and unable to move. It is very hard and the boss has more health than you it seems like. I tried twice but didn't even come close. 2/10. It was okay but not that fun. First Person Fighting games are general an avoided genre by the public because they are very hard to make a good game of, so you would have had to work "overtime" to beat all the other failed commercialized FPF games. But yes, more blood.

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

With all the hype behind this game I expected more. I read all 3 pages of the readme and I was very hyped for this game. The menu reminded me of classic sci-fi gold but when I actually started to play the game I was dissapointed. It was too complex to pickup and play and also the mathematics seemed to be off and the projectiles seemed to be having incorrect rotations. The gameplay seemed to consist of simply moving towards arrows, spamming projectiles and hoping for the best. I gave up the game as it just did not live up to the hype. 3/10

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

Pretty good, but only 1 boss. 5/10

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

You are presented a fairly typical top-down bullethell shooter. The graphics are pretty decent and coherent for being made in just 3 days. The music is nice and brings me back memories of my earthly life and my deep and inner sorrows and longings. However, the game has some problems.

Firstly, the movement seems to have rigid friction and non-acceleration, instead of smooth friction and acceleration model. With galaga, the rigid friction model is alright because it is a much slower interval. But with this game it is too fast paced to use rigid friction and I often cannot dodge enemy projectiles. The enemy projectiles are also hard to differentiate between my bullets and the enemies. The keyboard input seems to also lag sometimes. Finally, the bullet hit effects are lackluster and do not make a noise when colliding with enemies. Though, I do like how you do not lose your powerups after you die, because that would make the game unplayable. 5/10. I give it a 5 because, even though it has problems, I would eventually like to go back to it and play it again. Anything less than a 5, in my rating system, means I do not wish to ever try it out again.

Space Boss by Alexx

In Space Boss you are immediately transported into an interspacial journey, along the lines of 80's soundscapes.

The game starts off, with a DOS era black and white room. Mindless enemies patrol back and forth on set paths, like a classic game. There aren't really any sound or particle effects, and it seems rather basic. Although the movement is gridlocked, it is still hard to navigate as the speed is too fast. Enemy hitboxes also seem slightly larger than usual.

The 2nd level is a downgrade from the first level. It is similar to pacman, except instead of a maze you get a basic grid. You have to collect items. The AI runs faster than you and instantly computes the perfect path, so you will lose on average. This level is no longer gridlocked so you can get stuck on walls. When you collect an item, a corny and super masculine sounding voice notifies you, after the item instantly dissapears with no particle effects.

The third level is a downgrade from the 2nd, it is simply dodging asteroids. At this moment, surrounded by black and white clip art reminescent of sci-fi television of the 50's, I started to feel I was in the Twilight Zone, and wanted badly to escape.

The 4th level is when I called it quits. You are supposed to land your ship, however gravity never seems to bring the ship quite down.

3/10, because at least it had variety of content, although quite lackluster. If you play this game too long, you will start to feel like you are in the Tiwlight Zone. If you are suicidal, make sure there are no weapons or poison nearby while playing, the encounter with the void may make leave you with an empty and profoundly existential feeling. 2.5/10

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

This could have been a great game. Great idea, graphics, and sound. But the game is incomplete. If you move to the right you fall off the map. And I think there is no possible way to beat the first segment of the game. Had the game been complete I would give it a much higher rating, but for now it gets only 3/10.

SWAMP by mimusic

Great game. Reminded me of metroid prime. Love the atmosphere love the 3d. Nothing wrong with this game except the hit detection is a bit shoddy, and it lags if you dont kil enough enemies in time. 9/10.

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Too hard, too many tanks, you die in one second. 4/10

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Nice prologue but too hard difficulty. 4.5/10

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

Cool menu/intro but the combat was empty. 3/10

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

Great game but even on easy it seems a bit too hard. 6/10

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

Cool menu but then when I started to play the game, noticed the enemies were really easy, like, really easy. No challenge and after you beat the first level it goes back to the menu. 3.5/10

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Kind of like a trippy cyberpunk future atmosphere but the combat is strange. My lasers dont seem to do anything and there is no readme. 4.5/10

Tower of Power by The M

Great game but final boss is impossible. Everything about this game is great except for the difficulty curve. There is an autoaim in the game which makes some of the combat very easy. But the boss battle seems far too hard. I give it 6/10 because of the erratic difficulty curve.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

This seems really terrible and bad graphics on purpose. It seems like a game where you are a caveman who throws out swatiskas from your pelvic region. I dont want to be a grammar nazi but the title having a typo in it is a bad sign. As a game Im not sure. When you kill the boss it just dissapears and the game just does nothing except some text. I give it 2/10 maybe.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Good game with good art. But 1 boss and youre done. Art portfolio game. 4.5/10

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

Great game. If you dont like this game you are a racist of black woman pirates. This is an excellent game in every way. This game manages to make black people famous without being cringey and sjw about it. First of all the inventory and dice rolls are excellent. Everything about this game is great. The only problem with this game is there is only 1 world to beat. I would pay cash for a fullversion of this game, if it featured local multiplayer. 10/10

Yellow Gear by chinykian

Cool presentation but like many of the other games, too darned hard. I think what happens is that game devs get used to their game, after playing it 100 times, so they up the difficulty until it becomes too hard for newcomers. 5/10

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

Troll game so not rating. But the punchline is funny at the end. N/A
 
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M

mewwww17

Guest
My Review...
but awaiting confirmation from my partner

Top 3
1 - The Hoard by Cloaked Games
I ranked this game #1 overall because I found the concept to be great when matched with the gameplay. The art is well done and the gameplay, while controls could be improved somewhat, is engaging and fun. I think one way to improve the controls would be to use the scroll wheel to rotate the attack types and the mouse itself could control movement up and down the screen. I have no other criticism, it's just a great idea.

2 - Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, and moose_tunes
Of all of the games from this jam, I thought this one was the most fun to play. While the gameplay is based almost entirely on luck (the strategy element is subtle but fun) and the map is overcrowded, this game has amazing potential as a fully fleshed out game. In terms of concept and theme it's nothing particularly clever (aside from a successfully punny name), but I found the game quite riveting and I hope that work continues on the project. I also found the art to be the most consistent and best looking in the game, accounting for my personal preferences in pixel art.

3 - {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
I thought this game also had a lot of potential as a finished product as conceptually it is the strongest of the bunch. The deckbuilding concept needs a lot of work mechanically though and I didn't find the gameplay to be as engaging as some of the others and while its visual simplicity was well done, it didn't really match the spirit of the gameplay in a way that I found satisfactory. To clarify, I found that the simple geometric graphics didn't show much of anything relating to spellcasting or deckbuilding. None of this criticism is to say that I didn't appreciate the game greatly. It is a fantastic idea and managed to hold my attention a great deal longer than the vast majority of the games available.


Best of

Best Use of Theme: Fight the Power by Kodiqi
I really enjoyed this game's outlook on the theme. While the wordplay on the word "boss" was evident in many of the games from the jam, the attempt at another kind of "fighting" was admirable. Although the graphics were lacking and the gameplay unbalanced towards the end, I actually really enjoyed playing this project and I think that it fits the scope of a 72 hour jam better than most of the other projects, coming off much more as a finished project than a work in progress or demo of a larger concept.

Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
See above

Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, and moose_tunes
See above

Honorable Mentions
SWAMP by Kodiqi
While graphically unique when compared to the other games and clearly well-made, there were balancing issues that clearly needed to be worked out and the enemy AI was so simple that the whole game was just an exercise in training enemies. Overall I thought it stood out, but needed a lot more polish.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV and Parmesano

I liked the gameplay here, and the graphics looked to be on their way to something. However, conceptually and thematically it could use some work, and it felt like it was trying to be a bit too much like Hyperlight Drifter (at least it didn't just straight-up rip assets without credit).
 
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H

H3ADL3SS

Guest
Top 3:

Boss Beat by Gravedust
This is the game I had most fun while playing. Good music and didn't get repetitive when you had melee, shooting, dashing and different bullets to keep track of.

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
I spent the most time on this one. Really polished and fun concept.

Tower of Power by The M
This game followed the theme well, and I even played it several times.
It only lacked some polish and tighter movement.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Tower of Power by The M
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: SWAMP by mimusic

Comments:

Great work everyone. There were many fun games, and it is hard to decide on which are the best ones.
 
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2Dspessman

Member
My reviews using the jam player, my personal opinion, based most importantly if there was a proper attempt and not just a title screen

Reviews
Top 3:
Tower of power
...
the Hoard
...
SWAMP
...
Best ofs:
Best use of Theme: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Concept: SWAMP by mimusic
Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Story: You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
Best Devlog: ...
Full ranking:
Comments:
{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
this is a very coool game mechanic, would love to see more of this, a bit of ballancing needed got hit by 4 green in a row, boss weak to fire chose all 4 fire killed boss before moving too much. BUT I LOVED IT
A boss day by mjadev
funny game, good gameplay mechanic, a little repetitive but not enough to cause issues
A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
a good boss shooting game, takes quite a bit of time though, I died near the last quater and didnt want to try again after that.
Action Arena by Kahrabaa
a fun game that matches the theme, great job
AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
meme game, lol...
Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
fun little arcade shooter game, little repetitive and pretty difficult to stay alive long, but I had fun
BO5S by sylvain_l
coffee drinking simulator text edition.
Boss Beat by Gravedust
shootem up game, has a story I think didnt read it though too busy dodging bullets. was long. had fun
Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
This isnt really a game, as there are no win or loose conditions, a tech demo maybe.
Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
couldnt attack the boss... looks very nice, but currently more of a boss doging game, still had some fun avaoiding all the beutiful animated bunny attacks :)
Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
not sure what I was supposed to do, ended up destroying mounds of dirt? is this a metaphore?
Boss Off! by Bart
fun stealth game, became a bit repetitve, didnt get to see the boss, but had some fun avoiding the lights... but I oculdnt see ahead and that made it tough.
BossBoss by Studio Basem
be boss kill waves of heros, this is fun, died fast though. had fun
BRAXION by Hyomoto
good shmup, difficult couldnt reach the boss, had fun trying though, got through multiple sections but kept being hit by bullets before the boss (I assume there is a boss)
Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
a well done shmup, good minimilistic desgin. I had fun
Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
work in progress, has potential, had fun being immortal, struggles with platforming... roll in the air to move further? had fun :)
Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
a fun match three game, but I almost paid no attention to the actual boss battle as Iwas too busy trying to find matches, s oI kept dying since I dint doge bullets. But its an awesome concept and I enjoyed playing
Fight The Power by Kodiqi
good concept, a bit slow, but fun at least
Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
space shooting game, couldnt find a boss, couldnt die... but it was enjoyable for a bit
Gammon Princess by Team Flob
mario type game... I struggled against this boss, couldnt seem to damage it. A bit politically charged, I dont care im not american. lovely animation
Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
kill the boss, get close but not too close, takes a bit of trial and error to win. I had fun
Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
fun little game, good use of theme and mechanics, I liked it
I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
took multiple tries to get teh character working, other than the the boss fight itself this games seems great. couldnt fight much kept getting character locked in a pose
Journey of Tardin by Dengar
oregon trail boss battle.
KVN by Penguin533
a great platformer boss battle, dynamic enemy with multiple diffrent things to shoot. had fun
Last Knight by Ziberteck
took awhile to figure out controls, megaman type game, blaster didnt work after a bit. had fun for a bit, platforming was difficult for some reason?
LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
a good platformer with a decent boss fight at the end, this was fun
Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
play on words of the theme, I like it, interesting management game
Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
a very well made shmup with multiple bosses, I liked the theme and had fun
Mr Quack by BrandonC
binding of isaac style, mini bosses, followed by big boss, sad story. had fun
Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
fun little game beat up a boss in a setting that is fimilar to hotline miami. I destroyed the boss :)
Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
punch your boss, couldnt beat him though. but had fun trying
Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
Its a fun space battle game, except I cant fight the boss, everytime I shoot him I get a fatal error crash. but from fighting the other things I can see this game has potential.
Red Sabre by Misty
fun game, you play as the boss, at first I thought it was going to be too easy... then rpgs and machine gunner. I liked this game.
Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
fun little arcade game, "giant enemy crab, hit weak point for massive damage, historicaly accurate japanese game" had fun :)
Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
shmup, is fun, attract attention fight boss, easier said than done. had fun
Space Boss by Alexx
unskipable credit sequences killed my interest, but the normal game play has many diffrent genres, it was an interesting concept.
Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
amazing art
Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
was a bit fun, couldnt kill the boss, ended up going FTL, crahsed then got gang rushed, went FTL again... 10/10 will break laws of physics again. but in all seriousness it was fun
The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
darksouls, loved it died many times, gave up, will beat this game later when I feel like I need to get good :)
The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
played as a litteral company boss, beat up your disgruntaled employees... just like real life :)
The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
wow, amazing I loved the game, great concept and story, I loved teh scrolling mechanic and the enemies coming to wards you with diffrent levels.
The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
fun little nuclear throne like game, couldnt find the boss though
TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
has alot of potential but Iwas getting like 5fps, couldnt figure out how to dodge, shot the hands almost won, but without the ability to doge cant win. LOVED the art style
Tower of Power by The M
amazing game, feels like a full game rather than a game jam game
Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
was OK, I did enjoy it when I killed the boss.
Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
fun little game, got lost at the start, and was unsure if I was actually hurting the monster, but he died, one of the best looking games ive seen for this jam
Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
a beutiful RNG game that is as good to look at as it is to play
Yellow Gear by chinykian
fun game, very difficult, difficulty matches the art style (retro tough) gave up after 10th death but had fun until 6th death :)
You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
story game, drop the bass litteraly. interesting
 
I'm going away tomorrow and won't have time to go through and tidy up my comments, so I played through the rest of the games today. Unless your game was broken(or way too difficult for me), I played through until the end and often had half a dozen attempts at the least.


Comments

Top 3:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Really cool concept, combining deck building with a bullet was smart and a lot of fun.
Some art would have been awesome, but even without any there was a lot of style here with all those particle effects. Very nice.
The music wasn't very complimentary.
I ended up beating 9 bosses before getting stomped. I still am not quite sure what the fusion card did exactly, but I used it a lot.
My main complaint is chasing the boss around is very annoying, it can be hard to keep up with. Some more movement-based cards like teleport would have been nice. Maybe some speed buffs.
I would love to see a polished version of this, maybe with some deck customisation and stuff.

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
That was a great game. I'd love to see a fully fleshed out version.
The art was great, and the music was a nice mash-up.
This is sort of a reverse boss fight if I'm being honest, I guess that still counts. The idea itself was really unique and quite fun.
All the randomised dragon names were great, that was a nice little extra feature I really appreciated.

I was only able to guess a couple of the themes in you mix. Ganondorf's, Bowser's, and Sepiroth's...
Also, your pause menu doesn't quite work... Some enemies could still move.

Tower of Power by The M
At first I was a bit disappointed, the sprites and tiles were so bland, they looked like something I'd see on OpenGameArt.org or something.
Then I saw the gun auto-aimed and immediately thought that this was not going to be fun at all.
My mind was quickly changed after those first few rooms. I ended up really enjoying the aiming system, it worked great. The combo upgrade system was a great idea too.
And you had several bosses, most of which were fun to fight.(Worm boss was a bit too easy, and the block boss was a bit boring)
The final boss was good, until they started using a move that seemed un-dodgeable(projectiles in a column from left and right). I died but then was on the next level anyway? Played through more and there was another boss or two then I had to fight that boss again, but this time I had triple-jump. That still wasn't enough to avoid that one move though, and after a few attempts I gave up(Though I did get them down to a sliver of health... so close).
I also discovered by accident that the Enter key skips a room, so I saw the "Thanks for Playing" etc, and then was put into a room where I couldn't see where I could go and there were little green dudes running about. I fell off-screen.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Tower of Power by The M
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: BRAXION by Hyomoto
Best Story: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  2. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  3. Tower of Power by The M
  4. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  5. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  6. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  7. KVN by Penguin533
  8. Red Sabre by Misty
  9. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  10. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  11. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  12. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  13. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  14. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  15. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  16. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  17. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  18. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  19. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  20. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  21. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  22. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  23. SWAMP by mimusic
  24. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  25. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  26. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  27. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  28. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  29. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  30. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  31. A boss day by mjadev
  32. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  33. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  34. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  35. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  36. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  37. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  38. Boss Off! by Bart
  39. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  40. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  41. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  42. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  43. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  44. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  45. Space Boss by Alexx
  46. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  47. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  48. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  49. BO5S by sylvain_l
  50. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  51. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  52. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

Really cool concept, combining deck building with a bullet was smart and a lot of fun.
Some art would have been awesome, but even without any there was a lot of style here with all those particle effects. Very nice.
The music wasn't very complimentary.
I ended up beating 9 bosses before getting stomped. I still am not quite sure what the fusion card did exactly, but I used it a lot.
My main complaint is chasing the boss around is very annoying, it can be hard to keep up with. Some more movement-based cards like teleport would have been nice. Maybe some speed buffs.
I would love to see a polished version of this, maybe with some deck customisation and stuff.

A boss day by mjadev

Interesting idea, I liked the menu and the paper sprite you had with the schedule. Looked nice.
I found the game confusing at first, I wasn't sure which character I was, an was unsure what the timing was for the inputs.
One issue I had, and this is probably just me, but I found it difficult to hit the right key due to the keyboard layout being horizontal, but the inputs represented vertically. My brain was just not having that at all. If it were a vertical stream down then I may have had less trouble.
It was hard to tell where the sweet spot was, but I'm guessing right in the middle, some extra feedback to confirm that would have been nice. The way they sped up right near the meter was a bit jarring.
It was neat that each key played a different sound, but the actual sounds you used were inconsistent and a bit annoying. Would have been nicer if they played the same or similar sound but on a different note.
This would probably be more fun as a rhythm game with a back beat to help you along too.
The patterns were too repetitive and annoying.
The character designs were uhh... interesting.

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

The art was good but the player sprite left a lot to be desired. And the music was good too, the menu music was very chill.
The game felt well made, the massive boss spawning smaller enemies, and the slime slowing you down were interesting choices that worked well.
The power ups were a bit hit-and-miss, it would have been nice if they ran out or you could go back to the default firing.
The boss had way too much health, it took forever of constant shooting to get him to half health, then I got stomped and wasn't willing to sit there for another 10 minutes slowly chipping away at the health. Would have been much more enjoyable if the boss had less health.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

The effects of the weapons were really nice, however, I didn't like how the weapon switching worked. Very annoying.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

No controls so I had to guess. Could only figure out how to move and that was it...
Didn't look like this was in any way finished, so I have nothing really to say about it.

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

Not quite sure if this was a joke entry or not.
The idea of the mechanic was very cool, but the limited screen space and lack of challenge made it very boring.

BO5S by sylvain_l

All I could do was drink coffee and go home, which just gave me the same response.
There was some white text on a light coloured background on the main menu, bit hard to read.
Your readme says this is unfinished, that seems true, a shame.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

I tried to give this a chance, but it looked like it was made poorly on purpose.
At least you listed your controls.

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Very stylish. The menus were very nice.
The art was great, the sprites look nice and I liked the little effects you used.
The fights themselves were not bad for a weird bullet hell, difficulty was a bit brutal.
Some sound effects for the attacks would have been nice, or some other sort of feedback.
Also had no idea I had a second attack. You should have really included a readme or controls somewhere.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Just jumps right in with no explanation or controls.
Didn't look like the boss or even the player took any damage.
The player can move faster than his bullets...

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

Game looked cute, but wasn't fun.
Ran into the first bunny, insta-dead.
Boss hit me once, insta-dead...
I have these five hearts, what is the point in them? I eventually noticed that the collision event is happening continously, sapping all the health almost instantly.
No controls, no readme, could only figure out how to jump. No idea what I was supposed to do against the boss. I couldn't jump high enough to hit it's head, and jumping into it's side seemed to just hurt me.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

Just read your afterword, and while I guess that's techically true, I still don't think it really fit the theme.
There seemed to be no reason to attack the masses beyond the fact that it was the only thing you could do, and there was no real challenge or anything either.
The player sprite was ok, the ground background was weird and strobe-like seemingly randomly sputtering and just looking awful in the process.

Boss Off! by Bart

Interesting idea, weird implementation.
Very simple gameplay, not sure what you were planning to do with the boss fights but this really needed something else to make it interesting.
The art was a bit bland and inconsistent. Had no idea where I was a couple of times because the player sprite was so dull.
The conversation with the first boss was amusing. Seems a lot of games bit off more than they could chew this time haha.

BossBoss by Studio Basem

The art was great, but the combat was not very good.
I seemed to lose health when I attacked someone, I figured this is probably them attacking me about the same time. I don't think that's ideal, hitting someone should maybe stun them or something. There was no real strategy as far as I could tell, kiting enemies didn't look like it would help, you just had to run in and smash that attack button and hope for the best.
A better attack would be nice, as well as some secondary or extra attacks. And a proper attack animation, I had no idea attack was working at first because I was aiming up and couldn't see whatever that red thing was supposed to be.
The sprites seemed well drawn, I liked the player sprite, the blob, it was cool, the music was nice too.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

A very solid entry, I spent a lot longer on this than the average game.
It controlled really nicely, I played mostly on gamepad which felt great.
The enemy AI was good, a nice balance and variation, though you may have relied on one enemy type a little too much.
The boss was a bit brutal, I was only able to beat it by getting to it without losing a life, then losing two lives using my special to take out the middle parts of the ship. It was easy after that.
The difficulty in general was a bit brutal, not a terrible thing, a challenge is good, but this was supposed to be on Easy mode haha.
The dual shot power up felt the best, the later power up, the stronger shot, didn't feel as satisfying to shoot and I avoided in my last few runs. Special attacks were awesome.
The ending was great, put a nice little extra touch on the theme.
Overall, the presentation was great too, you had a really consistent art style(and palette), and the menus and logos and credits all looked very polished

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

Firstly, no readme, so I had no idea what the controls were. For some reason the mouse worked on the menu which just made it really confusing when it did nothing in game.
I finally figured out WASD was for movement, but then I had trouble finding shoot. Space, Q, and E all controlled the time mechanic, so I had to keep trying random keys until I finally found the shoot button...

The presentation was great, the overlays and particle effects from when enemies die, they were nice.
Controls were a bit stiff as was the movement. You moved faster diagonally too which doesn't make sense.
Not really sure what the point of the time mechanics were. Glorified pause button basically. Only seemed useful on Easy mode.
As great as the presentation was, the art left a lot to be desired. Monochrome shapes was a bit boring.
This really could have used some sound too, even just some sound effects, it just feels so empty and lifeless.
The enemy AI was done really well, and the bosses behaved pretty average for this style of game.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

Unfinished I assume. Second level I just walked off screen and nothing happened.
Don't understand why mouse was attack, but that's ok.
The punching felt ok, and I like the effects you used. But you didn't seem to have any health so there was no challenge.
Rolling looked and felt weird. So did jumping.

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

Ehh, Match 3...
It was made well, but I am in no way a fan of these.
The dual gameplay felt like more of a distraction, the board was too big. I'm not sure why I was able to move around since I could do nothing, so I just moved to a corner and sat there.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

Art was very basic but clean, so that was nice.
I'd say it was a stretch to say this followed the theme much if at all.
This game type itself is a bit dull, and with no music or sound effects to accompany it, I found it hard to want to keep playing.
I had two playthroughs(both successful), and it seems pretty easy. The upgrades seem to scale weirdly, some only had a few ranks and a couple seemed endless.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

The menu was a mess, I almost didn't see the two buttons at the bottom because they blended in to the rest.
I got into the game and the accleration on the player was so bad, I flew offscreen. Then trying to get him back just made him fly off in the other direction.
It was hard to make out what was what with that art. I didn't really enjoy attempting to feed the thing either.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

No controls listed at all anywhere. Enemies instantly attacking me.
I played for about 5 minutes, could only find sporadic enemies and no boss whatsoever.
At high speeds the aiming seemed off, it was weird.
No sound either.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

The art and sound were great, I really liked the sprites. Everything looked great despite being very obviously a riff on Mario.
I don't understand the first part, it was small tutorial where some of that wasn't even applicable after that, like the ladder...
The fight itself was ok, not very interesting though.
The presentation was so good though, I think that's why I am so disappointed with the rest not being as interesting.

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

The sprites were ok, but the game was not fun at all.
I'm not sure what to say, it was a bit of a mess.
Switching to fullscreen also put the menus in a weird spot.

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

The presentation was great.
I liked the idea, but found the actual fight to be a bit annoying. Sometimes my hook would not travel where I was aiming when I clicked and that often led to me getting cornered and dying very quickly.
When the hook worked, it worked quite well so that was nice, the shooting was ok. Having the origin of the shot above your head took a bit to get used to.
Not sure why I was fighting this guy, maybe he was super chill and we're just invading his personal space. There was no way to know for sure :p
The music and sounds were nice, but Micah, your music is always so loud XD

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Given how polished the menu is, it is a real shame this is unfinished.
The combat looked really promising, felt good too.
Sprites and backgrounds were nice too.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

If you're going to make a text-based game, it wouldn't hurt to use a nicer font than the default one.
This didn't really seem to fit the theme at all.
For a game about choices, it was very linear. This is disappointing. You need more variation and paths in these types of games otherwise they are a bit boring. It became obvious quickly that there was almost always only one option you should pick which is no fun. Now your game is "Try and guess which button I want you to press".
You can't call mushrooms delicious then punish me for eating them...
I died several times just getting a handle on your decision tree, then on my final attempt I beat it and got what I assume is the good ending with both saved, so yay?
Really could have used some music or sound effects to set the mood a bit better.

KVN by Penguin533

Ok, that was a pretty good boss fight.
It was very difficult but I eventually beat it.
I really liked how the boss was broken up into four moving sections with their own patterns. And I thought it was very clever how destroying one or hurting the boss enough changed up the patterns.
One thing that caught me off guard was the one hand wasn't always hitting the same spots, so I couldn't fully take advantage of that which was a good thing.
The art was ok, the player didn't really look great but I thought the boss did. The background was good too, It was all very clean and consistent.

Last Knight by Ziberteck

There were some collision issues with the walls I think, some weird friction.
Jumping didn't feel good, maybe it was just too fast/high in my opinion.
I don't understand why I needed a button to activate my arm cannon, there seemed to be no advantage to not having it activated.
The boss had a shield the whole time, I tried shooting, I tried not shooting, but I could do no damage to him at all.
The wings were nicely animated. I think the sprites looked alright, they were a bit small to fully see.

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

Art was ok, and it controlled well.
Game wasn't overly interesting or unique in any way. The boss battle was underwhelming but the actual sprites for those robot legs were nice, very well done.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

That was a bit of a weird one.
It was too frantic and not a lot of fun.
Not sure what I was doing wrong, game kept ending randomly. I wasn't insulting anyone enough to make them leave and had a pretty good handle on waking them up for the most part.
Not really a boss fighting game either really, you are a boss, and that's it.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

A very nice jam entry.
Your overall design and aesthetic were really nice. I liked all the art, the backgrounds and the sprites. Your use of colour was very good.
I was a bit worried when I saw the movement was controlled with the mouse, but it ended up working very well.
The bosses all felt nice and unique, though the difficulty was more random than progressive. And the core died very quickly without putting up a fight, not sure if that was intentional.
Very nice game, I especially was glad it didn't make me start all over when I died.

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Nice simple concept which led to a polished and finished game.
The art was very well done, even though I am very much not a fan of that style, I appreciate how nice it looked.
It controlled very nicely, and felt responsive, but the cooldown on shooting meant there was a lot of running around being annoyed, so that was my main issue.
The cutscenes were good as well, overall, the presentation was really nice.
The music and sounds were nice, but I don't see any credits for them so I'm assuming you didn't make any of them.

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

Sprites and music were great.
Gameplay was a bit disappointing. The big level was a bit wasted since the boss just sits in that one corner.
The bosses attacked were great though, the paperclips were very funny. Oh and the coffee icon for health was nice too, very fitting.
Paper planes were cool too, the way they moved and were animated was very well done. It's just a shame they felt a bit useless.
Also, second time I tried, I just stood out of range of the boss and threw paper planes at him, he didn't move.

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

Oof, a pdf.
Presentation is great, all that cool space stuff, awesome. Almost everything looked really nice.
Menu is great, but it really bothers me that I need to use the mouse to navigate it despite the mouse not being used in gameplay whatsoever. Also, Having to press escape and quit manually when I die instead of just giving me the option to restart or quit.
đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’© gets real weird when you just zoom off into space. That's the first thing I did, like instinct. I don't understand the weird physics you have when moving that fast, I seemed to rotate around a point instead of rotating my ship, and bullets came out in weird places.
I had a couple of attempts to play properly. I have no idea how I was supposed to get more than one weapon. I eventually got to what I assume was the core and started shooting at it. No feedback from it so it was hard to tell if I was doing anything. Then I guess it sent me to the next stage? In the base, the ship controlled decently, had a few annoying moments where some finer aiming would have been nice, nothing more frustrating than trying to line up and enemy where even the light tap overshoots the angle.

Red Sabre by Misty

Not sure why a .doc was need, but ok... readme was a waste of time anyway?
Great presentation, the menu and mission screens were very well done. However, I'd have liked an option to speed up the text instead of just skipping it.
Lots of good but disparate music, there wasn't any consistency there and I recognised at least one track so I can at least assume you didn't make any of it. Since you had no credits whatsoever...
That also makes it difficult to know what you did make, some of the art was inconsistent too, so I don't know how much if any of that you made, some of it was nice.
The story didn't make a great deal of sense, the narrative jumped around like some kid on ADHD, but that was ok, not important.
The controls were excellent, you could really feel the weight of the helicopter, it was easy to fly and felt great. Aiming with the gun was a bit awkward but it made sense.
Each level seemed to have a small unique aspect to it so that was nice, though, the penthouse level... why did you give it so much health... That took way too long and I almost quit right there, that was so boring. I eventually made it past that level and onto the Air Force One level, I ran out of lives though and I was not willing to do the Penthouse level again, let alone the whole game...

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

The art was good, and the depth effect was a nice touch.
The attacks seemed to work ok, the actual fight was a bit uninteresting, the crab could have used some more attacks.
Some sound and music would have gone a long way here too.
The menu was nice too.

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

At first I didn't care for this, but after a few more tries I started to really enjoy how frantic it was.
Once you get some upgrades it's a real mess, but still enjoyable.
The art was ok, and the music was good but it felt out of place.
The upgrades were good, and I really liked the idea of getting the bosses attention.

Space Boss by Alexx

This was just very frustrating to play, I couldn't even bring myself to finish the first stage.
The collisions weren't forgiving enough. I could move onto a tile as an enemy is walking past and they may only be one pixel in that same tile and it kills me. There was one part that just seemed impossible to move past with this system. The voice over was very annoying, not sure why you felt you needed it.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

The art was great, but you couldn't advance the game.

SWAMP by mimusic

That was very pretty.
The fight was so tedious though. The idea of having to cut those bamboo shoots to get ammo was good, at first, but after like 10 minutes of running around popping off a shot or two it became very tiresome.
The boss itself was very uninteresting, it didn't do anything but lurch toward you. I saw it spawned smaller ones, but they didn't seem to do anything either, they even stayed close to the boss...
I had three attempts but ended up quitting when I died because I accidentally clicked out of the window and the boss killed me while I tabbed back in. Mouse clicky games really need fullscreen as an option :p

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

The art was nice, but it really needed some sounds.
The game itself was way too hectic. I spawned once on 3 large tanks and got annihilated before I could even move.
I expected to be shooting where I was aiming, took a minute to get used to the aiming reticle lagging around, but I feel like this was a good choice, it made a lot of sense.
Not sure if the theme applies, since it was just a bunch of tanks.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Your presentation is great, that's no shock. Your backgrounds looked nice and the sprites were well animated.
Fit the theme nicely(obviously :p ) since it was just boss fights.
The first boss seemed well designed, but the rest weren't as fun. The water boss got a bit spammy with that circular attack.
It got a bit repetitive with those cutscenes, I wasn't really all that into your story. That said, it was told well.
The music and sound effects were really good, really fitting with the general artwork.

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

Menu and intro presentation was great, I also liked the sprites.
The combat wasn't very fun, and the controls didn't make much sense to me. I don't know why you mapped the attacks to the mouse in this case.
The kick didn't seem to do any damage, and it didn't seem to always stun enemies either, the animation looked broken too.
I didn't understand the market stuff, prices for the upgrades seemed to be the same regardless?

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

That was a great game. I'd love to see a fully fleshed out version.
The art was great, and the music was a nice mash-up.
This is sort of a reverse boss fight if I'm being honest, I guess that still counts. The idea itself was really unique and quite fun.
All the randomised dragon names were great, that was a nice little extra feature I really appreciated.

I was only able to guess a couple of the themes in you mix. Ganondorf's, Bowser's, and Sepiroth's...
Also, your pause menu doesn't quite work... Some enemies could still move.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

Umm, where was the boss fight?
The art was not bad, gameplay was a bit shallow though.
Destructable terrain was nice.
The sound effects were inconsistent and a bit annoying, some were a bit loud.
The music was bad, and I see no readme or credits anywhere so I guess it's not yours anyway.

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Sad to say this one was a bit of a disappointment.
The art looked great, but the gameplay felt flat and very unfinished.
I had no trouble fighting the hands, they were very easy. Some shadows when they are hovering would have been a good inclusion btw.
That was it, a very underwhelming fight with two hands that don't do much.
The music was very fitting too, very nice. Shame you had no sound effects.

Tower of Power by The M

At first I was a bit disappointed, the sprites and tiles were so bland, they looked like something I'd see on OpenGameArt.org or something.
Then I saw the gun auto-aimed and immediately thought that this was not going to be fun at all.
My mind was quickly changed after those first few rooms. I ended up really enjoying the aiming system, it worked great. The combo upgrade system was a great idea too.
And you had several bosses, most of which were fun to fight.(Worm boss was a bit too easy, and the block boss was a bit boring)
The final boss was good, until they started using a move that seemed un-dodgeable(projectiles in a column from left and right). I died but then was on the next level anyway? Played through more and there was another boss or two then I had to fight that boss again, but this time I had triple-jump. That still wasn't enough to avoid that one move though, and after a few attempts I gave up(Though I did get them down to a sliver of health... so close).
I also discovered by accident that the Enter key skips a room, so I saw the "Thanks for Playing" etc, and then was put into a room where I couldn't see where I could go and there were little green dudes running about. I fell off-screen.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

Your menu was not good. Your logo doesn't contrast at all with the background so it blends in making it almost hard to read. The pink text isn't much better. A nicer font wouldn't hurt either.
Your environment collisions don't seem consistent with the backgrounds you have chosen, you can walk all over parts of walls and scenery. If you're going to continue to make these kinds of games, you should really consider either figuring out a newer more accurate system for those collisions, or abandon this style altogether. I don't mean to sound harsh, but all of your jam games are like this and I see no improvement at all.
The player sprite was very ugly, some weird beefy naked dude...
The boss sprites however, they were visually very interesting, I see in your readme that some of them were from wallpapers though. The heart beating looked great.
The combat was not good, throwing chakrams where you are facing is fine, but I noticed if you hit an enemy, any other chakrams you have in motion are all destroyed at the same time. This makes no sense.
The boss didn't really seem to have much in the way of AI, one boss literally just stood there letting me shoot them.
Was neat that you included controller support but I had several issues. Firstly, it seemed having a controller plugged in disables the movements keys on the keyboard. Secondly, why on earth did you map movement to the right stick instead of the left stick? Seriously, I would really like to know. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Eventually I killed a boss and was then unable to move so I had to quit.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Judge Dredd much? :p
Firstly, the art was great, the character art, the boss art, all looked really good. The rough comic looking panels were neat too.
One big issue I had was the background and foreground didn't contrast enough, so it was a little difficult to tell where the platforms were. They looked great, but you just needed them to be more distinct from each other.
The movement and shooting felt good, I would have preferred some extra aiming options, like even just aiming upwards.
The other two weapons didn't feel good to use, one of them I was unsure of what it was doing exactly.
The boss wasn't overly thrilling, but had a solid pattern which was good.
Some hit feedback would have been, some indication you are doing damage to the boss.
The music was energetic and really fitting.
You guys had no credits in the readme, but I feel sure you guys made most if not all of it yourselves.

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

That was neat. The presentation was on another level.
The RNG really kicked my arse the first two attempts. First enemy killed me...
I didn't really enjoy it until I unlocked more dice, the added variety and the added effects from one die made it so much more interesting.
The artwork was really great, the sprites and backgrounds were really well done. Though, moving the sprites around on the spot in battles didn't look good to me. I would have preferred they stay in place.
The music was lovely too.
A polished version of this with actual animations would be fantastic, a great mobile game since the gameplay is so simple. I hope you guys continue working on it.

Yellow Gear by chinykian

That was a good boss fight, very difficult but felt fair.
The art was basic but looked nice, the sound complimented it very well.
No credits so I don't know if you made the music or not, it was good though, I'd rank you higher if you had credits...
It took me a few goes but I beat it, very satisfying. Though, a couple of times the boss just spammed the one move for almost the whole fight, that was not so much fun.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

Damn it, Alice. This was really pretty looking and then there was no game :p
I really liked that effect you used on the platforms, so nice.
 
Hello Jammers.

It was hard to pick a top 10, let alone a top 3. The top 30 or so entries were all pretty high quality jam games, and the rest also had good qualities even if they weren’t ranked as high as the other games.

After doing an initial play through of all the games and sorting them in rough order, my criteria for the final rankings were largely determined by how fun/interesting I found the games.

Polish and completeness was also a factor, as well as uniqueness/originality.

——

Reviews


Top 3:

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Saddened by the loss of Mr Quack, I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of the kidnap of a loved companion and the quest to find and rescue them.

Music/sound/graphics all fit together to draw me in to the game world, and I determinedly fought my way to the defeat of the end boss.

Controls were reponsive and smooth, always felt the game was hard enough but fair for each of the boss fights. Difficulty was not too high, which I think is just the right amount for a game jam, because I want a bit of a challenge, but like to make it to the end without spending all day on it.

Intro sequence was well done, just wish it was entirely skippable after the first time through so I could get back to the action quicker.

Level of polish / cohesiveness of the game was of a high quality throughout and a pleasure to play, with each boss offering just enough variety of gameplay to make it interesting to figure out the best way to attack.

I think the only odd thing was the boss health bars for 2nd and 3rd boss seemed to not get depleted until after I had hit them several times.

Tower of Power by The M

Graphics and sound were ok. Player controls were slightly awkward, had ghosting issues on my keyboard, arrow keys plus space bar would lock up, couldnt jump + move and fire at same time.

What stood out was the boss fights, some traditional classics there, snake and crushing block. I really liked the one called "Union" I think it was, very cool. And the boss on top of the tower was very well done, lots of varieties in attacks, and hard to beat without being painfully difficult. Very impressive.

Overall fun to play, the autoaim mechanic compensated somewhat for the not quite 100% controllability of the player character. It wasn't bad, just felt like the quality of the game deserved a slightly more polished controls over the main character. This only minor point as the rest of the game was good enough that this sort of thing stood out for me.

The levels without bosses made it a bit of a slog in some places where they had to be repeated after losing a life. On the other hand, this just served to raise the stakes in the boss fight, adding to the tension of not wanting to be killed again and have to repeat parts of the levels.


Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

Great presentation, music, graphics and game system all put together very nicely.

Got killed by the first rat I faced. Thanks RNG!

Second try got to through 2 battles with rats before getting killed. Dice must have been loaded.

Finally on 3rd playthrough got a trusty 40 damage sword and a lucky monkey, was able to defeat the pirate king and claim the island for myself.

I liked the enemy layout changing with each play through, added some variety to the game. Only downside is that it also changed the difficulty depending on where enemies and chests spawned.

The dice mechanic worked well. A slight improvement in my opinion would be variable damage based on the difference in the amount rolled on the dice multiplied by the weapon damage, but then again that would have made balancing the game take longer which is usually not possible when facing the jam deadline.


Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Tower of Power by The M

Best Concept: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

Best Story: Journey of Tardin by Dengar

Best Devlog: ...


Full ranking:

  1. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  2. Tower of Power by The M
  3. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  4. SWAMP by mimusic
  5. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  6. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  7. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  8. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  9. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  10. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  11. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  12. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  13. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  14. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  15. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  16. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  17. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  18. Red Sabre by Misty
  19. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  20. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  21. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  22. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  23. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  24. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  25. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  26. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  27. KVN by Penguin533
  28. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  29. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  30. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  31. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  32. Space Boss by Alexx
  33. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  34. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  35. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  36. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  37. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  38. A boss day by mjadev
  39. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  40. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  41. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  42. Boss Off! by Bart
  43. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  44. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  45. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  46. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  47. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  48. BO5S by sylvain_l
  49. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  50. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  51. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  52. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra



Comments:



{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games



Refreshing take on the boss fighting genre - a bullet hell / cardgame mash up.



Polished entry. I liked being able to select my attack in the midst of dodging bullets, the randomness of the cards adding a layer of strategy of picking the right card for the situation.



End the end it just boiled down to me working through the attack types to find the bosses weaknesses then spamming those attacks or if none available, going with healing or bullet time.



Bullet patterns were challenging but not too difficult, I think the game was not playing at full frame rate on my machine so I found it quite easy to dodge bullets and just pick up the green ones, got through to the 4th boss with nary a scratch on me.











A boss day by mjadev



I liked the rythmn aspect of the game, however it seemed very difficult to beat the first hero ( re: I didn't beat him). The best I got was reducing the hero to 11 health before I ran out of my own health.



Sometimes it seemed even when I hit the correct keys, my power meter would drop a little. I made 4 attempts before I decided I would move on from this one. Good concept, but the execution of the difficulty curve should have been a little easier I feel.



A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce



Cool game, like the multiple threats that had to be dealt with, the slime covered ground was a bit too sticky in my opinion, but it added balance to the boss challenge. Liked the cute graphics and sound, smooth gameplay. The contrasting elevator music on the title screen vs in game music was a good touch. Thought the boss had a wee bit too much health for my taste!



Action Arena by Kahrabaa



Fun! I liked this one. Felt very cheerful and happy while fighting the boss. Wasn't quite sure how the weapon pickups were working, sometimes my weapons seemed to change when I ran over the pickups, sometimes not. Felt like it was quite random as to what weapon I was using at any given time, and never quite sure what some of them were doing.



Still, a lot of fun, action packed, not too hard, not too easy, about just right.



AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra



Short and...sweet? Or blatant attempt to win one of the lower ranking end prizes. Perhaps we will never know :)



Tried and failed to pay my respects, game just would not let me. Had to kill everything in the end. Will not be buying the DLC :)



Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones



Fantastic Game! Could not have made a better one myself! :)



BO5S by sylvain_l



Hmmm....well I DO love coffee....and this game certainly let me do that in spades....LIKE...A...BOSS!!!! :)



Achievement unlocked!



Beautifully polished menus.



Unfortunately this game failed the GDPR test, as even after I requested deletion of personal data, my 10 coffee drunken achievement was still present in the game. REPORTED! :)



Boss Attack by 2Dspessman



Simple one room game, attack the evil computer boss using fireballs while he throws DEL key at your and eventually ALT+F4 (which apparently closes the game if it touches you - thought the game had crashed for a second). A good concept, but execution will probably mean this gets ranked in the lower half of the group. Hit detection was unforgiving, player control was a bit unwieldy. Music a bit repetitive. Otherwise would be ok, just needs more polish and boss attack patterns.



Boss Beat by Gravedust



Very polished with a lot of personality/character included into the tutorial. Smooth controls and gameplay generally, although I found the left/right mouse clicking a little difficult for my taste. However that could just be my finger coordination and/or my stiff mouse buttons on my $5 mouse.



Good graphics, menu, and concept, and some cool beats. I like the bullet patterns synced with the music.



Bullet Hell games are not my favourite so I didn't play this one too long, just enough to get a taste of it, plus the annoyance of my mouse made it harder to play than it should have been.



Having the opponents have their own style was a pleasant touch, felt like playing dodgeball with a friend rather than a computer opponent.



A solid all round entry, plenty of work would have went in to this one, it looks like a fully-fledged game rather than a jam entry, barring the fact it seems to have just two levels at the moment.



Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller



Seems incomplete, was not sure how or if I could shoot the boss, was only able to move the ship around. Boss was shaking in fear!



Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489



Holy Deep Fried Tuna Batman! What in the heck did I just play.



This was a pleasantly surprising and on occasion shockingly surrealistic journey into the depths a playful yet ever so slightly twisted mind.



I mean...bunnies! Don't make me kill the bunnies?!!?? ...Ok I killed the bunnies...I've angered the bunny boss...and I'm dead...ok lets NOT kill the bunniess... nOPe. Bunny Boss still is MADZ!!!..



Okie Bunny Boss...Fight is ON! Wait..I have nothing to fight with MASH ALL KEYS EMERGENCY...still NOPE.



OK...well I don't want to give any spoilers...I finally did manage to beat the bunny boss, and what joys awaited me after that, I simply am too stunned to say, but I will say this...if you &^%&$, then %$% the $%#$, it will $#$#@$@....*bleep* ... so just say play this game if you want your mind BLOWN!



Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming



Love keeping things nice and tidy, cleaning up and keeping the roads clear and orderly. Aint no rock boss gonna mess up my road. Game is solid, appreciate the thought and research put into the concept itself.



I found it difficult to completely erase each chunk of rock that poked through the road. Would have liked it to be a bit easier to clear each patch of rock...always seemed to be some pixels remaining, so my eventual doom at the hands of the boss rock god was inevitable, just as in real life.



Core game is fine, it has potential, and with a bit of extra juice (animations/screenshake/sound effects/powerups/variety in the rock types/maybe even cars to be avoided etc...) could possibly be able to be turned into a entertaining casual game.







Boss Off! by Bart



Kind of a stealth game, functional graphics, no sound that I noticed. Presentation of menus was pretty good, I liked the level selection being the actual floors of the building. I actually chose the boss level at first try and got the end dialogue sequence before I had played the game.



Working through each floor puzzle was fun, would have liked it if the camera centered the player on the screen more, it made progress slower than necessary when making my way up the screen, having to wait a few seconds per couple of new rows revealed.



Transitions between floors was sudden and disorienting, room for improvement there, as well as making the main character stick out a bit more would have been nice, it was hard to find my location when jumping to a new level at first.



I'm 50/50 on the theme, the ending dialogue was a funny way to end it, but it lacked the fighting part.



Overall this game was a mixed bag, I liked the puzzle aspect of it, but the in-game graphics and camera focus was lacking a bit. BUT, I understand its a jam game so its a decent effort.







BossBoss by Studio Basem



Good base for a game. Graphics were easy on the eye, some pleasant background music to slay adventurers to. Melee attack had a very short range, hard to avoid being hit. Managed to get to the 4th wave before the game crashed/hung. It might have been the point at which my health was reduced to zero, not sure because my health bar still showed I had a little left, but I was in close contact with an adventurer so may have just taken a hit. Just needed a bit more work with the added features planned and would make a good game with more strategy available.



BRAXION by Hyomoto



Very polished vertical arcade shmup. Love the effective use of minimal colour scheme, lots of lovely pixels visible. I felt the controls were good, just not quite precise enough when it came time to dodge some of the bullets and attack patterns. Once I got used to it, managed to get to the boss. Very challenging and after about a half hours play, had to give up...for now...



Sound effects were solid and meaty, attack patterns were challenging but easily learned with a few play throughs, so ultimately fair, only my fault for getting killed when I know whats' coming.



It felt like a full level of a shmup had been compressed down to its core elements - environmental hazards to fly past, various attack waves to learn and avoid, mini bosses and powerups. Plus of course a screen filling end of level / game boss with multiple weapons and shields.







Bullet Overtime by Cat, var



Minimalistic black and white graphics, controls were smooth and had a satisfying feel to it. Boss was decent but wasn't sure if I killed it or I died at the last moment, I was just snapped back to the title screen suddenly. Didn't seem to have any sound which would have been a big boost for this type of game. Interesting addition of rewind mechanic but I ended up not using it apart from experimenting with it a bit during the level.



Desert Punchman by shadowspear1



A good start, but as mentioned in the readme, incomplete. Graphics and punch sound effects give hints at the making of an interesting game, would have liked to have seen more of what the final product would have looked like.



Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr



Cool game, although I spent more time scouring the match 3 play field than observing the battle at hand.



Match 3 was well done, satisfying sounds and the boss fight going on next door added extra tension and excitment - finally I am playing a match 3 game with a purpose!



I found the match 3 pieces slightly small when manipulating them with the mouse, slightly bigger pieces would have made it less fiddly to select pieces I think, although its also due to my mouse sensitivity settings which I could have lowered if I really wanted to.



Health bars on the fighters were tiny and hard to see, and not sure how much my moving the green square around helped - was it just for dodging the boss attacks, or did it make a difference if I move closer to my team mates?



Minor quibbles aside, thoroughly enjoyed playing this one. Found it quite exciting!



Fight The Power by Kodiqi



Really cool game. Short and sweet. Nice difficulty curve. Starts off challenging and seemingly impossible, but slowly as you gain more upgrades and get new recruits at a faster pace, the goal becomes within reach. Good graphics, good player feedback to indicate what is going on. No sound that I could tell of, but graphical well presented and polished.



Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton



Murky graphics, slippery controls (e.g. where'd my fish go? --> not limited by the screen --> guess my fish went off into the deep brown sea). The momentum of the player made it hard to dodge the bosses attacks. The overall quirkiness I kind of liked, but it wasn't something I played for very long. I'm not really one to talk as I only had a limited amount of gameplay in my jam entry as well, but it seemed the gameplay / gamefeel lacked a bit of polish. Cool name and concept though!



Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc



Ship control felt good, smooth and with a great feeling of speed at maximum velocity zooming over the pretty nebula background.



May have benefitted from a bit of parallax. The AI bad guys that are there chase your around fairly well, but with only one enemy type visible and not much else there is not much more to review.



Great start, love this type of game, thought the ship controlled really well as I mentioned above, would have liked to have seen more content.



Gammon Princess by Team Flob



I liked the two different endings, each had its own challenges to overcome to achieve each ending. Boss fight itself was creative and interesting. Cute graphics and a little bit of humour to go along with it.



Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars



I liked the concept of fighting in the arena versus the Minotaur like boss. Player character was interesting enough. Sadly there didnt seem to be any animations on the boss for movement or attacks, plus he would get stuck and be easily killed.



Good concept, would have benefitted from having the gameplay and animation being more developed.



Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS



Fun game, good graphics, a few little puzzles in the boss fight to figure out along the way. Managed to crash the game when I grabbed the hat very quickly on a restart after death, the boss froze in place, then game crashed a few seconds later.



A bit frustrating, kept dying when trying to reverse the conveyor belt and double hitting it or missing it and falling off the edge of the screen. Still fun, and with a bit more practise I think I could beat it.



All around solid entry, polished, good music and sfx as well.



I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex



Loading the game looked interesting, but on entering the gameplay itself, it seemed to lock up? Once or twice the game responded breifly to my key presses, but thereafter seemed frozen.



Pressing Escape caused a pop up to appear that said hold down Escape to quit - but it acted as if I was holding down escape already even though i wasnt, and after a few seconds would jump back to the main screen.



Journey of Tardin by Dengar



Choose your own adventure style, text based game with multiple endings. Well done for going with a different style of game. I was killed by a goblin on my first play through, screamed at it on my second play through and managed to save my mum.



Game was easy to play, interesting to see the outcomes of different choices, didn't let mistakes kill you straight away which was nice. Not completely hitting the theme I feel, but the fight at the end with the goblin leader would count as a boss fight pretty much.



KVN by Penguin533



Couldn't quite get into this one. Very nicely presented, controls were smooth but felt slightly sluggish in my opinion, I perhaps was not up to the challenge, but found it difficult to dodge the attacks, seemed like not enough room to move, and not able to move fast enough.



Last Knight by Ziberteck



Good presentation and music. Bullet SFX a little tinny. Lots of variety in the boss attacks of the winged demon dude. Liked the destructible environment for the tactics it adds to the gameplay. Although I found the boss would put up a blue shield that protected them and never seemed to disappear.



LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach



Nice take on the boss, love the idea of facing a giant machine. Little bit of platforming to get warmed up and used to the controls is good. Art style was well done, love the pixels.



Boss fight was not as good as it could have been, I didnt actually kill the boss so perhaps I did something wrong, or the boss has massive amount of health, plus there was no feedback that I could see if I was doing damage. That would have made a big difference, if I knew I was doing damage I may have persisted, even a simple flash of white on the sprite would have done the trick.



Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B



Entertaining whack-a-employee game with effective sound effects and graphics that suited the gameplay. Man, sure brought back the memories of my good old days in corporate.



Quite addictive, but felt the difficulty curve spiked a little too quickly, once most of my desks were full, I quickly lost too many employees to the cafeteria before I could use or even unlock my more advanced employee waking paraphenalia. (Of which the variety was plentiful and varied)



I was more worried about my employees ducking off on me, which didnt leave me much time to focus on choosing which weapon of wakefullness would be the most useful at any given time. Apart from that, fun entry into this game jam!



Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless



What sort of twisted and depraved individual and/or group of people decides to use mouse control (slightly laggy one at that) for this kind of mini-bullet hell shooter where nothing less than pixel precise control over the player is required!



Of course, once I had gotten over the manical (perhaps purposely chosen) control scheme, what is presented is quite a neat game.



Smooth pulsating music and some rhythmic boss battles that weren't as painful to play as I had feared awaited me.



Good variation in boss styles of attack, some nice background graphics that didnt intefere with the bullet dodging and a consistent theme of being in what looked like a virtual reality slightly reminiscent of Tron made for some satisfying gameplay. And thankyou for adding the ability to continue from the last boss reached, it made the game less punishing and the difficulty was just about right for a game jam game.



Defeated the game with only 9 deaths. If I was a cat I would have been disappointed having just used up my nine-lives, however as a human I enjoyed this game.



Perhaps one or two larger bosses thrown into the mix may have added a little extra impact to the game, otherwise good job.



Mr Quack by BrandonC



Saddened by the loss of Mr Quack, I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of the kidnap of a loved companion and the quest to find and rescue them.



Music/sound/graphics all fit together to draw me in to the game world, and I determinedly fought my way to the defeat of the end boss.



Controls were reponsive and smooth, always felt the game was hard enough but fair for each of the boss fights. Difficulty was not too high, which I think is just the right amount for a game jam, because I want a bit of a challenge, but like to make it to the end without spending all day on it.



Intro sequence was well done, just wish it was entirely skippable after the first time through so I could get back to the action quicker.



Level of polish / cohesiveness of the game was of a high quality throughout and a pleasure to play, with each boss offering just enough variety of gameplay to make it interesting to figure out the best way to attack.



I think the only odd thing was the boss health bars for 2nd and 3rd boss seemed to not get depleted until after I had hit them several times.



Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix



Graphically quite nice, pixel art style was pleasing to the eye. I liked the long range weapon was a paper plane. It seemed that every time I killed the boss he got stronger? And he gets a better weapon? Not sure if the game just continues on like that forever getting tougher boss. I died on the third round of boss Overtime. Good start, would benefit with a bit more content. Also the boss just seemed to stay in on area.



Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal



The suit and tie "boss" stereotype has been a strong one throughout this jam, and this game is no exception. Face to face with the boss sets up a great punch-up with your tie-adorned boss to see who wins the fight for overtime. Full game menu with a bunch of options was nice to see. Sounds effects were good, controls were responsive, graphics served the purpose of the game well.



I found it impossible to beat at first, needed to look up the spoilers in the jam discussion thread. I think the reason was I discounted the importance of the dodge and started out blocking straight away. In hindsight, using the block was what obscured me being able to notice the bosses "tell" for when he was about to punch, and even when I blocked successfully, damage I laid on the boss after the block seemed small.



Once I started to make use of the dodge, the game was a lot easier of course and can see why balancing this game would have been tricky.



I think a few more grunts and groans of reaction from the boss or player may have added to the immersion factor, but this is a minor feedback on an otherwise good game. If there was more time, things like having two or three different tells, and maybe combo's that let you get in a few unblockable hits would be nice. (and fireballs, defintely add some fireball moves in there! :) )



Definitely room for a full-on game here - would be easy to extend for example if you beat your boss you then have to contend with *his* boss etc...all the way up to the CEO. And that's just one possibility.



Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf



Impressive looking starfield, good looking graphics, good sound. Comprehensive menus, well put together for a Jam game. Unfortunately as I run Windows as a virtual machine on my Mac, the frame rate for this game was about 10 fps for me, so couldn't play it for long. I like this genre of game, would have liked to be able to play more.



Red Sabre by Misty



Fluid controls, good sound effects and music, and you get to be an attack helicopter!



Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai



Great style and presentation, nice variety of attacks. Perhaps a little bit on the easy side, although I only played 3-4 times, perhaps it gets harder as you level up? The recording of stats provides a bit of replayability, trying to beat the crab in less time / take less damage etc...



Straight forward with lots of polish, would perhaps benefit from adding a few more boss behaviours (jumping attack maybe) but these are minor things. Well done.



Sector78 by Makas, Daniel



Actually pretty fun, had a few attempts at it. Nice feeling of powering up the weapons on the ship. Mechanics for attracting the boss were entertaining, including the 10 second survival timer until the boss finally showed up. Not sure if just me, but felt the enemy bullets moved a little fast compared to the amount of control I had over the spaceship using the keyboard controls. Just need slightly finer controls or perhaps controller support to get a smoother movement, movement felt a bit jerky to control.



Good graphics and sound, nice twist that you needed to "attract" the boss to you rather than the boss just appearing after a set time.



Space Boss by Alexx



Thankyou for the level skip Easter Egg. I managed to beat the boss. Interesting black and white graphical design. Difficulty levels were a little uneven, some levels were no problem, others brutally hard. Some of the hardness was due to level design, like flying the ship through the maze (around level 6 ? I think) ... I just found it too tight spaces to corner properly.



The boss fight was much easier than some of the levels along the way.



Impressive variety of content and generally good level of polish. Needs a bit more balance in the level design and difficulty, otherwise not bad.



Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins



Great looking game and well animated. Love the pixel art style. However I couldn't figure out what to do. I walked to the right first time and promptly fell off the level into nothingness. After restarting tried everything I could think of but the game still said I needed to collect some evidence, so couldnt get past first screen.



SWAMP by mimusic



Very refreshing play style, great way to use the environment to replenish your supply of arrows while being chased relentlessly by the monster. animations were great, nice balance to the gameplay. the boss seemed to recharge way to much on normal difficulty to the point of being impossible, maybe i am missing some weakspot on how to kill it. Managed to beat it on easy mode. beautiful game overall, however the gameplay felt a little bit repetitive towards the end. would have been better i feel if the game was a bit more forgiving on the hit detection for cutting down the bamboo. otherwise great game.



Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk



Tanks! Awesome! Although the large tanks seemed over powered, they would kill me with one shot, this is a fun little tank game. Controls are smooth, good graphics, just got a bit frustrating as would often be killed off too quickly to really get into this game.



The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano



Atmospheric sound and graphics, smooth controls and gameplay, boss that was challenging. Spent around 10 minutes but kept dying. Managed to get boss down to 25% health. Felt hard but fair. Would like to have played a bit longer to defeat the boss but have many games to review. Might come back to this if I have time.



The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90



Cool game, nice graphics and sounds. Found myself getting swamped a bit by the hordes, difficult to tell when I was hitting them or they were hitting me. Felt a little unfair a couple of times when I died quickly. Managed to get to round 5 boss fight which was pretty cool. Liked that I could upgrade my player, powering up is good!



The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet



Cool Concept, colourful graphics, love the large dragon. Nice idea to save the princesses while taking out the armies. Four different weapons gave some nice strategy to the game, although in practise I ended up spamming the attacks as wildly as I could. Interesting control scheme, worked well but was initially a bit awkward to learn.



The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian



Nicely polished game, couldn't find any boss to speak of unfortunately. music and graphics were good. sfx on the bullets were a little weak. Variety of interesting enemies, perhaps a little too easy. Good controls. Like the destructible terrain. Cowboy cyborg theme is cool.



TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat



Impressive graphics and music. Seemed unable to damage the hands. Loved the feeling of having a massive boss to fight.



Tower of Power by The M



Graphics and sound were ok. Player controls were slightly awkward, had ghosting issues on my keyboard, arrow keys plus space bar would lock up, couldnt jump + move and fire at same time.



What stood out was the boss fights, some traditional classics there, snake and crushing block. I really liked the one called "Union" I think it was, very cool. And the boss on top of the tower was very well done, lots of varieties in attacks, and hard to beat without being painfully difficult. Very impressive.



Overall fun to play, the autoaim mechanic compensated somewhat for the not quite 100% controllability of the player character. It wasn't bad, just felt like the quality of the game deserved a slightly more polished controls over the main character. This only minor point as the rest of the game was good enough that this sort of thing stood out for me.



The levels without bosses made it a bit of a slog in some places where they had to be repeated after losing a life. On the other hand, this just served to raise the stakes in the boss fight, adding to the tension of not wanting to be killed again and have to repeat parts of the levels.



Twilight Legasy by Wraithious



Very creative, lots of different types of bosses to defeat. Controls were a bit fiddly. Was the weapon a reference to Krull by any chance? Wasn't sure how I could use my magic points if at all. Interesting world to explore. Could have done with a bit more polish on the main character movement, otherwise ok, and definitely suits the theme.



Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf



Graphics, music, presentation all good. Big colourful main character with animations looking great. 3 different weapons, not sure what the third one was, maybe a shield?



Little bit of traversing through tunnels at the start that could have been shorter I think. Big bad-looking tough boss at the end, with a few different attacks to deal with, fairly well implemented but a little easy compared to the first impression of what it looked like.



Good for a jam game. I think a slightly tougher boss at the end and/or slightly bigger area to battle him in, perhaps with platforms to make it a multi-level fight might make it even better.



Good job.



Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes



Great presentation, music, graphics and game system all put together very nicely.



Got killed by the first rat I faced. Thanks RNG!



Second try got to through 2 battles with rats before getting killed. Dice must have been loaded.



Finally on 3rd playthrough got a trusty 40 damage sword and a lucky monkey, was able to defeat the pirate king and claim the island for myself.



I liked the enemy layout changing with each play through, added some variety to the game. Only downside is that it also changed the difficulty depending on where enemies and chests spawned.



The dice mechanic worked well. A slight improvement in my opinion would be variable damage based on the difference in the amount rolled on the dice multiplied by the weapon damage, but then again that would have made balancing the game take longer which is usually not possible when facing the jam deadline.







Yellow Gear by chinykian



Well done Jam game. Truly straight to the point Boss Fight. I found it too difficult to jump the large balls and kept dying too often to beat the boss. Good sounds and graphics, controls felt responsive.



You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice



Short, sweet, to the point. Clear objective and functional yet colourful graphics. Possibly a meta-commentary on the nature of life itself, sometimes you just have to focus on what you need to do and do nothing else until you achieve it. Great beats and an epic conclusion with a nice play on words that I didn't get until the 2nd playthrough...."rock star" boss gets defeated in the end and our little hero nebula assumes the mantle.
 
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Alexx

Member
Here are my top 3:
1: Swamp
Loved the 3D effect and camera control. Satisfying chopping down the canes for use as weapons.
2: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Awesome graphical effects. Wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
3: Tower Of Power
Great fun to play, easy controls

Hope to have time to write a short review of each game by the deadline.
 
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The M

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Boss Beat by Gravedust

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: KVN by Penguin533
Best Concept: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Story: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  2. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  3. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  4. SWAMP by mimusic
  5. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  6. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  7. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  8. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  9. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  10. KVN by Penguin533
  11. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  12. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  13. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  14. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  15. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  16. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  17. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  18. Red Sabre by Misty
  19. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  20. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  21. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  22. A boss day by mjadev
  23. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  24. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  25. Boss Off! by Bart
  26. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  27. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  28. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  29. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  30. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  31. Space Boss by Alexx
  32. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  33. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  34. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  35. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  36. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  37. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  38. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  39. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  40. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  41. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  42. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  43. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  44. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  45. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  46. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  47. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  48. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  49. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  50. BO5S by sylvain_l
  51. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  52. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

First off, I really liked what you were trying to achieve here and I think you did a great job on the execution. Figuring out which elements to use was fun, as was growing your card collection. However, the fun stopped when the cards started to repeat. Without seeing your deck it made new cards less interesting and the bosses started to get repetitive without progress. Perhaps most frustrating was the camera. I liked how dynamic it felt and how it snapped when the boss was nearby but because the bosses moved at such high speeds it was often incredibly hard to tell where they were which quickly got annoying. All in all, this was a very polished title.

A boss day by mjadev

I liked the twist of being the boss and timing its attack patterns, it was a nice concept that would have been cool to take even further. I had a hard time with the timing though as the actions were both very precise and punishing if you were just slightly off. Did the letters speed up as the heroes took damage or did it just feel that way? Either way, nicely done!

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

The game was fun and it was nice to see the various weapons (that laser was awesome). I had an issue where the boss left the stage and never returned, making it impossible to beat, which kept me from finishing the game every time I'd worn it down. The transformation it did was both surprising and a welcome change of pace that spiced things up a bit.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

This boss was tough and I had a lot of fun fighting it. It was nice to see so many different weapons but some felt superior as many of them had to short range to actually hit the boss' weak spot. It seems to me that the game would have benefitted from having several bosses as that would allow each weapon a chance to shine.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

I don't really have any comments for this one.

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

It's short but works well and seeing yourself grow massive was pretty fun. It was really hard to dodge enemy attacks but since you're a boss that's not really your style anyways which I guess is fine but takes some of the strategy away. Also, using the mouse as input only really works if you can see the cursor. Good thing the buttons got highlighted because otherwise quitting would have been hard.

BO5S by sylvain_l

I think the visuals are very pleasing and the premise seems fun but with no gameplay there isn't much else to say about it.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

The game is small and basic but it is also complete (with a main menu screen, no less) and fully playable, which is a large plus. I think the game plays fine and it's a nice concept of having the boss shoot key commands at you. The next step would probably be to let the player stop moving if they released the movement keys and make combat a bit more interesting. Letting the player shoot rapid fire would also make it feel cooler, plus you wouldn't be able to sneak up to the boss and kill it almost instantly because the bullets wouldn't fire faster if you're close to the boss.

Boss Beat by Gravedust

I really enjoyed this. It's impressive that although this is a bullet hell game you still somehow have time to read the dialogue, which is otherwise often a problem for many of the jam games. The battles were intense and varied and just felt good. I believe it's in large part thanks to how smooth everything felt, from dashing around to the bullets slightly homing in on the target (which is a brilliant way to compensate for the reticle being hard to see in intense situations by the way). The way the characters lean when turning, and the witty remarks in the menu screen is just icing on the cake.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

It looks like you ran out of time because there's not much you can do here. The game shows potential but at this point it's hard to see what the end goal is.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

It's a neat game with probably the scariest boss I've ever seen (and I'm not talking about the kraken). While the bosses were certainly creative, I feel like the whole experience was a bit disjoint and random. Perhaps the best example of this is the gun that you suddenly get before the second boss. It'd been nice if there was some more logic to it, if it had appeared in the chest then it feel like a reward rather than a necessity.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

The game was okay but not very interesting. There wasn't much going on and after a while I thought the rocks had just stopped spawning before they eventually started again. In order to be more engaging, I think the game would benefit from having more action and progression than it currently has. It was a nice take on the theme that could surely be taken even further.

Boss Off! by Bart

It's a pretty good stealth game but being forced to restart the entire game is really harsh punishment for getting caught and made me much less eager to explore. It also made the camera issue more prominent: only being able to move the view by standing near its edge makes it impossible to look ahead and way too easy to accidentally walk into a detection zone.

BossBoss by Studio Basem

The issue I have with this game is that I don't feel like a boss. Because my range is so tiny and the enemies deal so much damage, I have to wait for them to come close, then attack, then run, which is not something a mighty, powerful dungeon boss should be doing. The game looks great and I can certainly see how more features, such as new boss attacks and enemy variants, could make it pretty awesome but right now it's not there quite yet.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

The audio-visuals of this game are fantastic but the game is hard as nails. Because the enemies' attacks are so fast you barely have any time to react (especially those lasers) and I felt that surviving was more about memorizing the levels than avoiding attacks. It got a little easier when I tried to pick up a powerup rather than shooting it.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

I liked the simplistic visuals of the game but the slow enemy speed and lack of interesting movement made it feel very slow and static. The last level was better, with enemies flying across the screen. I found the pause/rewind to be an interesting mechanic but didn't really understand what the point of it was. On easy I can see the value of pausing and repositioning as well as rewinding to undo mistakes but neither of these features were available on higher difficulties which made the features seem pointless. One idea would be to turn pausing into slow motion on higher difficulties instead (perhaps with less slow down for each difficulty level).

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

The game feels good to play, with great camera movement and satisfying punch sounds. The lack of animations makes it feel very stiff (which is somewhat helped by the flashing effects and smooth movement) and although the two levels are perfectly playable they feel pretty basic.

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

I liked the visuals and the game felt dynamic. The match 3 game was simple but satisfying with massive combos (though I'm not sure if comboing or matching larger groups actually meant anything). The problem as I see it is that it's very hard to keep up with both screens, it's basically like playing two different games at once. As a result, I focused almost entirely on the matching game which made the boss battle feel less like a boss fight and more like a distraction on the side.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

I liked how upgrades added visual stuff to the game. The levels seem a bit unbalanced as I could earn anything from 20 to 600 cash in a round (decided by just how many willing characters would appear). It was also hard to click on some of the small bubbles when the characters were moving fast. Finally, it was nice how you introduced new features but those never showed up on the levels where they were introduced which made them harder to keep in mind.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

That was an interesting (and slightly weird) experience. The game had some good ideas but the controls made them hard to execute. Dodging was almost impossible thanks the insane acceleration and limitless top speed, coupled with the projectiles being almost invisible against the background. If the player was slowed down a bit and the projectiles a bit brighter I think the game would be much more satisfying to play. Finally, I would also suggest slowing down the food cycle because as it is now the boss changes its weakness before most of the projectiles have enough time to hit.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

This looks like an unfinished test stage with little gameplay to it. Spawning enemies right next to the player at the start of the game is something I usually complain about but as it seems you can't die it's not that big an issue. Flying through space felt good but without goal or content there's just not much to it. My favorite part of this game was the explosion effects which looked really, really nice.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

This game was part frustration, part love. I really liked the expressive animations and the cheekiness of the game and while the boss felt pretty basic and wasn't very intense it was certainly way more varied than your typical Bowser battle. The frustrating part was how when you died you could get hit again when respawning before you could even move and also some of the audio being a bit too loud (when taking multiple coins at once for example) but those are all minor points.

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

I think the game has potential but it's over way too quickly to reach it. The mechanics are interesting but there really is no need to use any of the moving and jumping because the best way to win is to simply stand and mash the attack button until the boss is out of health.

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

That was an interesting boss fight. I liked it, especially how you had to manage both your position and the treadmill direction while avoiding getting hit. The hook was cleaver and pulling off the boss' hat was satisfying. I think the hook should be faster because it was hard to recover from a tight spot: if you got knocked down you likely wouldn't have time to grab the ceiling before you dropped into the pit.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

It's a cool concept but a shame that there is no way to win or lose. I liked the combos but would have liked a visual display of what button did what, such as this:
Heavy
/ \
Light < + > Block

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

It was cool to see how many decisions you could make and the battles got engaging as they were pretty involved. At one point I died as I entered an area with no clue of what had happened, when I replayed the game there was apparently a sniper attacking that you couldn't dodge which felt unfair. Being able to buy stuff even without the coin was useful.

KVN by Penguin533

Jeez, that was a crazy boss! It was incredibly frustrating but at the same time I couldn't get myself to quit, so well done I suppose. Figuring out which parts to attack first was definitely a key part of beating him. Even then there were a few attacks that were impossible to avoid because they were comboed in such a way that they covered the entire playing area. Getting cheaply killed when the boss suddenly changed how the attacks worked was also annoying so perhaps it'd be better to make the new attacks start differently to really highlight their changes (for example making the swiping hand go counter clockwise instead to give you more time to react if you stand on a platform). Either way it made victory all the more sweet.

Last Knight by Ziberteck

The game is pretty neat and kind of reminds me of my own. I feel like having to activate the arm cannon was an unnecessary step because you'd do it once and had no reason to turn it off. I also think speeding up the charge time would make it more interesting because it charged for a long time. The boss was fun and quite challenging. The dash attack was especially brutal so I'm glad you had some invincibility frames.

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

The game was cool and satisfying to play. It was a little hard to see objects when running because the small resolution combined with fast movement made things look blurry at high speeds. I'm not sure if a smoother camera would help with that or if it had been better with larger background tiles. Either way, the game plays fine and was a fun, if short, experience.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

I had fun playing the game but it could easily be "beaten" as the employees stayed awake for a fixed time which meant the order they fell asleep was always the same when the office was full. Eventually the game turned into a rhythm when you knew exactly who to punch and when which took the challenge away. The different tools were interesting but I didn't really use any of them because they weren't needed and often came with penalties (such as angering neighboring employees).

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

That was fun! I think this game had some really neat visual effects, from the background to the health bars and the final shutdown. It all gave a very polished impression. I think the bosses could be a bit more interesting: some had very simple patterns and the difficulty didn't really scale up all that much. Usually in these games the player has a very small hit box in order to be able to dodge massive enemy attacks but with this not being the case here I can see that scaling up the number of projectiles might make the game very hard to beat.

Mr Quack by BrandonC

Well, that was cute and a little disturbing. I can tell you put quite a lot of effort into the animations, transitions and those story screens. The gameplay was fun but pretty tough. It was a little annoying that you couldn't skip the intro the second time through and the health bars need some work because they don't seem to represent the characters' actual hp (they probably aren't normalized but go from 0 to 100 when the characters have lower or higher max hp than that which causes the enemies to seemingly not take damage and the player dies before the health bar is empty).

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

Well, that was fast. After I found the boss I whacked on him until he died and then the game was over. You had some interesting mechanics that were fun to play around with but I feel I didn't get to use them to their full potential because there wasn't enough back and forth between you and the boss. If the boss had moved around a bit more it'd be harder to overpower them and the player would have to think a bit more about their approach.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

This game reminds me of punch out and while the premise is great, there is one key difference that makes this game much less enjoyable: the lack of buildup for the boss' attacks. Because the boss' punches are more or less instantaneous you have no way to react to them. This makes dodging impossible and blocking a game of guessing if he's going to attack which doesn't feel fair. If the boss had just a few tells of what he was going to do I think the game would have been much more fun, because all other aspects of the game feel really polished.

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

The game was overwhelming, both in its interface but also the number of buttons there were to remember. It didn't help that you were thrown almost immediately into action. I liked the intro and shooting felt satisfying, if hard. I also got this error a lot which prevented me from playing for long:

############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Eventmtd_terrain_fast_hit
for object par_segs:

second index out of bounds request 0,103 maximum size is 1
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
called from - gml_Object_par_segs_Collision_30 (line 20)
called from - gml_Object_par_shots_Step_0 (line 14)


Red Sabre by Misty

There was a lot more content to this game than I had anticipated. The game was fairly enjoyable with a lot of variety to its missions. I had some issues with the helicopter in that it was really hard to aim (which made killing the president pretty much impossible). The audio was varying, being awesome at times while turning into extremely loud noise when too many enemies were around, forcing me to mute the game for short periods.

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

The game was fun. I liked how fluent your attack felt, especially as you held down the attack buttons. It would have been cool with some combo attacks between weapon types (for example chaining melee into ranged attacks). The boss was fairly straightforward and it'd be nice if it had some more varied attacks or states.

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

I think the game plays fine but is a little messy. Personally, I'd have liked it if the player hitbox and shield were much smaller so that you could navigate between all the bullets and stuff flying across the screen. The gameplay was fun and the enemies and pace were varied enough that it felt like I made progress. I didn't really like the sound effects though, and some of them were very loud which made them unpleasant.

Space Boss by Alexx

The game is pretty ambitious but lacks polish which makes playing frustrating. While I'm impressed that you got so many levels made, I do wonder if it hadn't been better to focus on a single experience and make that really good instead of a dozen games in one where none really stand out.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

The game looks awesome and has great atmosphere which makes the lack of content all the more unfortunate. What was there seemed to work great, except running to the right sent you off the stage and into the abyss. It's a nice entry and it would have been awesome to see it completed.

SWAMP by mimusic

I'm impressed. I really like the pixelated 3D style you have and everything feels really smooth. The boss was a little annoying because of how fast it was, combined with a huge health pool and healing. Because of its speed and size, it was almost always blocking its spawns from being targetable which made it all the more annoying when it healed itself up. The red spawns and spikes were a welcome addition to make the battle more varied but I'd have liked to see even more variation to the fight. Chopping down bamboo to fire arrows felt great.

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

The game looked great and felt good to play but it was also very confusing with an unclear goal. While duels against other small tanks were great, the big tanks felt unfair because they could one-shot you and I swear they were chasing me down.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Well, you sure know how to set the mood. The game plays great and some of those battles got crazy intense. Most of all I loved the music and how epic it made everything feel, while it played that it. It was interesting to have the music muted after you died but with barely any sound throughout half of the battle it made repeated tries much less fun and more tedious. Other than that, I loved everything about it!

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

The game was nice. Attacking felt good although I didn't experience much difference between punching and kicking. Avoiding enemy attacks was more or less impossible which made combat less tactical and more about spamming attacks until you had to heal. It also made enemies less interesting because while they were varied, the end result of their attacks was the same.

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

The game was both fun and challenging and a great take on the theme. It took me some time to realize the enemies appeared far away and that you had to scroll to find them but after a while everything clicked. I liked the variety the game showed, with all different kinds of enemies that made tactics more interesting. Choosing what to attack with in order to avoid killing the princesses while still not wasting your shots was a tough challenge. Great game!

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

This started off great and felt good to play. I'm not sure what it had to do with the theme as the game ended after the first level, with no boss in sight. Both graphics and music fit well but some of the sound effects were harsh on the ears. Also, love the health bar.

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

The game looks really nice and plays well. There were a few issues that made fighting a bit more annoying than it should have been: the player getting stuck on the geometry and the lack of automatic firing (that is, hold the button to shoot rather than clicking really fast which is tiring). Colliding with something that looked like you could pass it only to be crushed by the hands was a letdown. Also, I think that adding shadows to the hands would make it much clearer when you should dash. What you have is nice so it's a shame you couldn't finish it in time.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

There was an impressive array of bosses, each more evil looking than the last and it felt good to get a bizillion gold and exp even if they didn't really mean anything. The bosses didn't seem to get harder, in fact I would argue that the first boss was the toughest one because you're not prepared for it when you start the game and it's one of the most aggressive ones. The best strategy seemed to be to just stand a few steps away and pound on the boss until it died, which is fine but could surely be expanded upon (I think the second boss had an interesting effect that was a bit different).

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

The game was short but sweet. The graphics were great but it was a little hard to tell background from foreground which made navigating the level tricky. The music and sound effects really pumped you up for the battle and the boss, while a bit simple, was well made.

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

I really want to like this game because it's really, really impressive. It has some of the best transitions I've seen and every part of it seems really polished, from art to music to the fluency of the battle system. However, as much as I love those parts they get shoved aside by the gameplay which, unfortunately, kind of sucks. My problem with it is that it is seemingly entirely a game of chance with no way for the player to change the outcome of battles. I've lost more than once against the very first rat you face because it keeps rolling high while I don't and even if there are some dice that could potentially roll higher, they are too few and too unreliable to form any kind of strategy. The game does get better once you've upgraded your gear a bit (the monkey is especially good because it makes all the four-sided dice at least a bit more useful) but I still wish there was more decision making to be made.

Yellow Gear by chinykian

I think you nailed the visuals of this game and the sound effects, while a bit loud at times, gave satisfying crunch to everything. The boss was pretty good and though it really only had three moves it felt varied enough that it didn't get repetitive. While i generally liked how the boss got harder as it took damage it led to some frustration as it would change its attacks halfway through them which could lead to some impossible situations because of the different speeds of the projectiles.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

It's a short game with nice atmosphere and little gameplay. I appreciated the visual effects, such as the wavy mnotion of the nebulae and the smooth camera movements. Pretty neat ending too.
 

Bentley

Member
There were sooo many good games. Wish I could have placed everyone high because you all deserved it.

1. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal: Everything went together. Was a lot of fun.
2. Braxion by Hyomoto: A great look and feel. Was hard.
3. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games: Unique. Had a lot of fun playing this.

4. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano: awesome, as usual.
5. The Tower by The M: Original gameplay. The auto-aim and char were fun. I played this a lot.
6. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet: Fantastic art. Loved the marching armies.
7. Yarr n' Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes: Fun! Would have played more.
8. Action Arena by Kahrabaa: Exciting.
9. Mr. Quack by BrandonC: The shampoo bottle and soap were my favorites.
10. Hooktik by matharoo and Micah_DS: I liked the conveyor belt. Cute character.

Best Use of Theme: Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
Best Presentation: The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
Best Story: Mr. Quack by BrandonC
 
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penguin533

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:


Red Sabre by Misty
Damn, what a game. The helicopters' physics are incredible, it controls amazingly. The sound is top notch, blowing things up is super satisfying and its got some cool chip-tune tracks backing it up. There's also a cool story throughout the game about being a gang boss and then having to escape the country after being set up. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that lives were a thing and got a game over quite some time into the game. Overall a great game and one of my favourites in the jam. It's great story makes me give it the nomination for "best story".

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
An amazing game. The mixture of rng and tactical thinking in the combat is great. It's great that the player can choose whether to aim straight for the boss or to take on other enemies to get to the treasure chests on the island which contain helpful items they can equip. The music and graphics are top notch and I found myself finishing off every remaining enemy even after I took down the boss just because the game is so charming. Wonderful game overall and one of my favourites of this jam.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi
I found this game very enjoyable and played it through to the end. It was fun watching your little protesting man gain a following throughout the game and watching him spout his little chants and sayings, like "The guy who owns this place is a jerk!". I really like how the upgrade system has been implemented and how there's a variety of different things you can upgrade, such as your combo timer or your chance of recruiting new followers. I also like the simplistic and charming designs of the characters. The only thing holding this game back is the lack of any sound. Solid game though, one of my favourites in the jam.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Journey of Tardin by Dengar
Best Concept: Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
Best Presentation: Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
Best Story: Red Sabre by Misty
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

Note: A few games are unranked due to me being unable to play them, mainly due to getting errors after the title or splash screen
  1. Red Sabre by Misty
  2. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  3. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  4. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  5. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  6. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  7. SWAMP by mimusic
  8. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  9. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  10. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  11. Tower of Power by The M
  12. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  13. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  14. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  15. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  16. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  17. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  18. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  19. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  20. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  21. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  22. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  23. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  24. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  25. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  26. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  27. Boss Off! by Bart
  28. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  29. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  30. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  31. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  32. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  33. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  34. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  35. Space Boss by Alexx
  36. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  37. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  38. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  39. A boss day by mjadev
  40. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  41. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  42. BO5S by sylvain_l
  43. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  44. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  45. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  46. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  47. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  48. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  49. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

This game has a very unique concept with its combination of bullet hell and deck building. There are a variety of cards to choose from, such as healing or teleporting, and you unlock more as you progress, such as bullet time. Each boss has its own attack pattern which you must learn to dodge while picking up the green squares that allow you to attack. I like how the menacing boss music only plays when you're near the boss, it adds tension when you get close enough to go fight it.

A boss day by mjadev

I find the story amusing with the boss having to deal with heroes just so he can have a party. The gameplay itself is interesting, almost like a rhythm game, having to press the right keys at the right time in order to deal damage to the hero, and pressing enough key correctly lets you do a special move for extra damage. I found the game quite hard though, only barely managing to win some fights as the heroes would take longer to kill as they used health potions, and some of the patterns of keys you have to press can be quite difficult. It was all around enjoyable, though.

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

A neat little game. I love the art, especially how the slime boss wiggles. The sound effects are good too, with squishy sounds for the slimes and satisfying sounds for the variety of weapons you can obtain and use against the boss, such as shotguns, lazer beams and flamethrowers. Each weapon also has an alternate fire, which adds even more variety the the already decently sized arsenal. The boss has several different moves, like blowing bubbles or summoning smaller slimes, and when the boss loses enough health, he transformes into a more dangerous slime whose moves are a lot harder to dodge. Overall a fun game that ramps up in difficulty near the end.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

Pretty good game. Controls were tight, although I felt the character moved a bit slow. Double jumping was good and being able to fall faster was useful. I like how there was the optional of using every weapon. The graphics were good and the background was detailed with the crowd and dancing trees. One problem is that sometimes I would get hit by the lazers despite not even touching them.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

This game doesn't seem to have much effort put into it. The enemies, which are just squares that say "enemy" on them, home in on you but they can't even harm you. Pressing "E" when near them kills them, and then the boss appears which you take down in the same way. Then there's a message box and the game closes itself. No sound or any sort of actual graphics in this game as well as a lack of any sort of challange make it not very entertaining.

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

The game has a very simple premise, eat enemies to become bigger and become big enough to become "da boss". Getting hit by enemy bullets makes you smaller, so in the early stages of the game, you'll have to be more cautious of your positioning. Overall I found the game enjoyable, I liked becoming an unstoppable force that took up half of the screen.

BO5S by sylvain_l

I like the concept of becoming the manager of a business and having to run the company, and the main menu and music left a really good first impression on me. Unfortunately, the game is heavily unfinished, as the dev has said in the readme, and all I was able to do was drink coffee. Even clicking "go home" made me drink more coffee. Great presentation though.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

There's a good concept here, I like the idea of the computer actively working to undo your progress. However, while there's a solid idea, it's over much too quickly and the presentation could use some more work

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Man, what a great game, I really liked this one. I love the music and as it progresses, the boss will try lots of different attacks. The game has a decent difficulty too, as I got killed quite a few times, but I kept on playing because the gameplay and music were so enjoyable. One problem I had was that some of the hud and text on the left side of the screen was cutoff for me, but that may be because of my laptops rsolution.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

This game seems really unfinished, as aside from being able to destroy one part of the boss, I wasn't able to do anything else. The boss didn't seem to take damage anywhere else, and its bullets don't seem to effect the players' ship, leaving me with no way to win or lose. One thing I do like though is the concept of being able to destory different parts of the boss seperately.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

Pretty good game. I like the design of the character and bosses, and the second boss really caught me off guard at first, I wasn't expecting it. Gamplay is good, the character moves at a good speed and jumping and shooting works as it should, although I feel the bullets are affected by gravity a bit too much. One problem I had was that sometimes when I got hit I would lose 2 or 3 health instead of 1.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

Unfortunately I wasn't able to run this game as I would get a D3DXCompile failiure after the splash screen.

Boss Off! by Bart

I like how this game is presented, the graphics are nice and the story is funny. It's a tile based stealth game in which you must get to the end of each room without being detected. Sometimes I found it difficult to see where my character was as he would sometimes blend into the background a bit. I found the self aware ending funny too, but it's a shame that the dev wasn't able to implement everything they wanted to within the timeframe.

BossBoss by Studio Basem

This game is a good concept, you play as the boss and have to stop pesky heroes coming into your dungeon to kill you. In its current state there isn't much to do in the game aside from make the heroes spawn, kill them, and repeat with slightly stronger heroes. The controls are fine, but I found that you had to have quite specific spacing when attacking to avoid being hit yourself. It's cool that the devs are planning to continue work on this game and add more features though, and good luck to them with that.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

I love the mustangy colour scheme of the whole game. The difficulty is like that of the old shooters like Gradius, where if you die you lose all your powerups. I like how there's a level before the boss, giving the player a chance to get used to the controls and how enemies will attack you. The boss itself I found quite challanging and it took me multiple attempts to take it down as it would catch me off guard with its laser attack or smaller enemies that would appear. Overall an enjoyable and challanging game.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

A cool game with a cool mechanic, that being to stop and rewind time. I like there are multiple difficulties too, to challange players, as well as different levels. Unfortunately, there isn't much more I can say about apart from how the mechanic is well implemented and makes the gameplay stand out. I also like the simple, almost wireframe-like graphics. The lack of sound slightly holds this game back for me.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

The dev has stated that the game is very unfinished, but I can appreciate the effort they have put in so far, and there is a good concept here that i'm sure they can build up on with the concepts they have in mind but weren't able to implement in time. The player is able to punch and roll, and they can roll mid-air for a kind of long jump to cover extra distance. Enemies will jump over obstacles to get to the player, however, they aren't able to damage the player. In the end, the game has potantial, but the dev just wasn't able to add what they wanted in time.

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

This game is really unique. Like, I was really surprised at how unique it was and how the developers managed to not only combine two different genres, but to pull it off and excecute it so well. Which coloured gems you match determine what actions your teammates perform. You yourself can't attack, so it's up to you to powerup your teammates, as well as keep them alive by healing them. You also have to be aware of your own characters positioning, as they can get hit by the bosses attacks too, and if you die, while you can still match gems, some actions, like healing, will no longer work, putting your team at a great disadvantage. Overall, very well designed and very unique. Its ability to perfectly merge two genres together make me nominate the game for "best concept"

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

I found this game very enjoyable and played it through to the end. It was fun watching your little protesting man gain a following throughout the game and watching him spout his little chants and sayings, like "The guy who owns this place is a jerk!". I really like how the upgrade system has been implemented and how there's a variety of different things you can upgrade, such as your combo timer or your chance of recruiting new followers. I also like the simplistic and charming designs of the characters. The only thing holding this game back is the lack of any sound. Solid game though, one of my favourites in the jam.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

I like the player and boss' animations, as well as their designs. There's a good idea here with feeding the boss lots of food, but sometime's the food you throw at him moves so slowly that by the time it reaches the boss, the food he wants has changed. I also wasn't able to beat the boss due to there being way too many projectiles to try and dodge on the third phase. Also, while not gamebreaking, there's no sound.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

The game caught me off guard at first, as I was thrown straight into the level with no title or introduction and was under attack by some enemies. After figuring out the controls I was able to beat them, and then I flew around for a bit, shooting down the occasional enemy that showed up. I'm not sure if a boss was ever meant to appear or if there was anything else to do in the game, but I wasn't able to find anything. The graphics are nice and the physics for the player and enemies are smooth. Unfortunately, the lack of things to do in the game holds it back for me, but there's a good start here.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

A very funny and entertaining game. I love how to get the good ending you have to actually die. The style of the game is great, and I love how the character flips around like a piece of paper when you turn around. Sound and music are good with a cool boss theme that changes as the fight progresses.

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

I like the idea of being placed in a gladiator pit against a huge monster. The gameplay could be better though, as I found myself being forced to take damage to even hit the boss. The lack of any kind of sound also made this less enjoyable.

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

A simple game with a really fun gimmik. I loved just swinging back and forth along the ceiling. The fight itself gets progrssively more challanging, as the boss will start shooting at you or put on a hat to cover up his weak spot, to even destroying the entire floor, forcing you to stay on the ceiling. The game also has checkpoints at the start of each phase, which is really handy. The sound and graphics are also great.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

This game has amazing potential, however, it is heavily unfinished, as the devs themslves are aware of and have stated in the readme. I was unable to make much progress as I was only able to use each move once, and then the game would softlock once I had used every move available. The art is amazing though, and I absolutely adore the designs of the boss and employee. The music, sound effects and bitcrushed voices are also stellar.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

I enjoyed this game and like how it takes on the form of a text/choose your own adventure game. There were plenty of choices to make and the devloper manages to achieve what he set out to do by making "every fight feel like a boss fight". I found one bug where I was able to give a beggar a coin despite having no coins. There were a few grammar errors and spelling mistakes, but it didn't ruin the game at all for me. It's great execution of making even the simplest enemies feel like boss fights in it's text-based setting makes me give it the nomination for best use of the theme "boss fighting game"

Last Knight by Ziberteck

I enjoyed the music to this game, and the boss itself was quite interesting with its variety of different attacks. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to beat the boss as I was unable to figure out how to get rid of its shield once he activated it. One part of the controls confused me at first because to actually be able to shoot the boss, you have to press the middle mouse button to take out your gun, which the game doesn't mention anywhere. Aside from that though I had no problems with the controls, the character moves fine and the gun shoots where you aim it.

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

This game is quite simple, but enjoyable. You are able to take out enemies fairly quickly as you jump around run and gunning through until you reach the boss, LegBot. I wasn't actually sure if any of my shots were harming LegBot as I couldn't hear any sort of sound effectsor see any visual effects indicating I was doing any damge to LegBot, but eventaully I took him down. One thing I didn't like too much was how fast the character moved, as I found it kind of hard to make some of the more precise jumps because of the characters movement speed.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

A funny game. You have employees enter the office and start working, and when they fall asleep you use one of your weapons to wake them up. You start off with just a boxing glove and a squeaky hammer and unlock more as you progress. Each weapon works slightly differently, as each one wakes up a different amount of workers, like the whip affecting an entire column. The sound effects are funny and the game overall is very amusing and fun to play.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

I like the virus busting premise of the game and how you absorb each enemies energy to make yourself stronger. Each new enemy has a unique attack pattern which the player must learn to adapt to and dosge while landing their own hits on the boss. The music and visuals are good and give the game that sci-fi charm.

Mr Quack by BrandonC

I love the little cutscenes in the game as well as the artstyle. I got Binding of Isaac vibes from the gameplay as well as the main character. Each boss was unique and had its own way of trying to take the player down. I found that the music fitted the style of the game too, with the child-like character fighting monsters to try and save his rubber ducky. One issue I had was that the second and third boss' health bars didn't start decreasing until they had already taken several hits, which at first made me think I wans't doing any damage.

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

I found this game funny and entertaining. I like how the game is presented, with the tense music as you approach your boss, only for him to start firing staples at you. I also found it funny when you're both fighting with office equipment, and then the boss just pulls out a pistol. I wish there were some sort of sound effect when I got hit, as I would find myself taking lots of damage and not finding out until I was pretty much dead. Good game overall though, the boss has different phases and the player has both a ranged and melee attack, giving the player options on how they want to fight the boss.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

The gameplay gives the player quite a few options on how they want to take down their boss, such as baiting the boss to punch as you swerve to the side, leaving him open, or blocking a punch and sneaking in a quick counter. The sound effects are juicy and they make punching the boss feel rewarding.

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

Unfortunately I wasn't able to run this game as I would get a D3DXCompile failiure after the introduction text

Red Sabre by Misty

Damn, what a game. The helicopters' physics are incredible, it controls amazingly. The sound is top notch, blowing things up is super satisfying and its got some cool chip-tune tracks backing it up. There's also a cool story throughout the game about being a gang boss and then having to escape the country after being set up. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that lives were a thing and got a game over quite some time into the game. Overall a great game and one of my favourites in the jam. It's great story makes me give it the nomination for "best story".

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

This game has some really neat concepts. I really like how every time you beat it, Ruruna and the Crab King's levels go up on the title screen, and then when you play it again, the Crab King has more health and deals more damage. The character sprites getting smaller/larger depending on how close they are to the background is a really neat idea and can be really useful for helping with depth perception. One issue I had was that Ruruna can only attack to the right, which means that if the Crab King runs behind her, she has to run all the way around him to be able to hit him. Aside from that nitpick and the lack of sound, it's a solid game with a good assortment of attacks to use, good visuals and cool gameplay.

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

I like the mechanic of having to get the boss' attention by destroying things, getting plenty of powerups along the way to help you take down the boss. I found the game to be fairly difficult too, with enemy bullets moving quite fast.

Space Boss by Alexx

I love the introduction to the game and how the cutscenes are presented. The game tries to have many different styles of gameplay, from a maze, to a shooter to something akin to Angry Birds. Some of these gameplay types the game pulls off well, while others are a bit finicky, like the second level against the alien, as I found navigating the grid to be very awkward. The story is good though, following Alexx on their journey.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

A lot of potential with this point and click style game. It has great visuals and sound. However, I wasn't able to do much aside from talk to an NPC and inspect a dead body. There also didn't seem to be any use of the game jam's theme.

SWAMP by mimusic

I love the artstyle of the game with its use of simplistic 3D models. The boss was fairly challanging too, with its ability to heal and to spawn red monsters that, if you don't kill them, will create obstacles around the arena. The music is fitting for the fight, and the controls work as they should. I like the concept of having to run around chopping bamboo to get more arrows.

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Man, this game is really chaotic, lots of tanks, missles and explosions. The tank can go a lot faster than I expected, and once I got the controls down, I found it quite enjoyable to drive around destroying enemy tanks. I'm not too sure what the money is meant to be for unless it's supposed to be a sort of score system, as I wasn't able to find anything to spend the money on. Also, after I died and went back to the menu, I got an error and the game closed. Overall, good game, fast paced action.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

What an awesome game. Great graphics, animations, controls, everything. Each boss has multiple phases, bringing out new moves as the fight progresses. There's even some story elements too, like why the player is even going to the tower. The game isn't too easy either, as I found myself getting beaten up quite a few times. One problem I had was that after I died the first time, the music wouldn't come back, so I had to restart the game to get the music again, which I'm fine with because the music for the game is awesome and is worth reseting the game to hear.

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

This game has an amusing plot, with a boss refusing to sign your business deal unless you beat him up. The shop system is useful as it allows you to heal up or increase your damage if you don't need healing. The combat works well enough and is accompanied with some crispy sound effects, although I wasn't able to land a single kick on any enemies, resulting in me only using the punch.

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

The Hoard has you play as a peaceful dragon who only wants to have a tea party with some princesses, but lots of knights, wizards and other warriors are trying to ruin your day. I like this concept, playing as a "boss" who isn't really evil. Gameplay is cool, having cooldowns on 4 seperate attacks that you can use against the enemies while trying not to kill the princess. I was able to pick up on some of the references in the game's music, but not all of them.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

This game was pretty decent. Each enemy has a unique design and method of attacking, whether it be the wheels that quickly speed towards you or the green enemies that shoot you from afar. Being able to pan the camera around is useful too. I like how you have to open chests to get bullets/healthpacks, but on my first playthrough, I was unable to beat the game as I had run out of bulletsand couldn't shoot any chests to open them. Also, there didn't seem to be a boss, you just walk to a certain point and the game throws you back to the title.

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Unfortunately I wasn't able to play this game due to it running extremely slowly on my system.

Tower of Power by The M

Great bosses, great gameplay, great controls, all great. Things like the wall jump and auto-aim work like a treat and the final boss really kept me on my toes with its variety of attacks. One thing I didn't like was the noise of the level 3 gun, as well as it drowned out all the other sounds and music with how loud it is.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

I couldn't really play this game, as whenever I was hit by the enemy or I hit the enemy, I would get an error and the game would close. From what I could see in it, the health bars look pretty, but small. Sound and music are nice too, just wish I could've actually played the game.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

I absolutely love the art for this game, and the little drawings between the level are a nice touch too. The music is great and fitting for the badass spaceman that you play as while you beat up the alien enemy. I like how you can choose from a variety of weapons too so the player can pick the one they like the best. One thing I wasn't too fond of was the controls, as the player felt a bit slippy when trying to stop moving. It's great character and boss designs, as well as cool art style, title screen, music and cutscenes make me nominate this game for "best presentation"

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

An amazing game. The mixture of rng and tactical thinking in the combat is great. It's great that the player can choose whether to aim straight for the boss or to take on other enemies to get to the treasure chests on the island which contain helpful items they can equip. The music and graphics are top notch and I found myself finishing off every remaining enemy even after I took down the boss just because the game is so charming. Wonderful game overall and one of my favourites of this jam.

Yellow Gear by chinykian

I enjoyed this game. It has some unique elements to it, such as shooting at the robots head to deal extra damage, which also makes it harder to dodge attacks as you have to jump to hit the head, making it a risk and reward sort of deal. The boss itself starts off simple, but uses different moves as the battle progresses, keeping the player on their toes. The music also kept things tense.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

A short but funny game, you literally have to drop the bass. The music will even stop right before the drop. Not much else to say though, it's short, charming and funny.
 
M

mjadev

Guest
Reviews!
Top 3:

#1 Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
The game perfectly fits the theme, the idea is original and well done.

#2 SWAMP by mimusic
Original gameplay (cut bamboo to get arrows). Very nice and well done.

#3 Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
I like the idea of playing a match-3 to fight the boss. Nice graphics, well done.

Full ranking:
Are classified only games that respect the theme (from my point of view), which are playable (no major control problems and level of difficulty allowing me to play), which are a minimum fun to play, which offer a minimum of content and that do not crash ...


1 - Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
2 - SWAMP by mimusic
3 - Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
4 - The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
5 - Action Arena by Kahrabaa
6 - Boss Beat by Gravedust
7 - The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
8 - {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
9 - Fight The Power by Kodiqi
10- Gammon Princess by Team Flob
11- The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
12- Boss Off! by Bart
13- Ruruna vs Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
14- Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
15- Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
16- Tower of Power by The M
17- Yellow Gear by chinykian
18- A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
19- Big Bad Boss Fight by IndianaBones
20- Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
21- Last Knight by Ziberteck
22- Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
 

makas

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
...

Yellow Gear by chinykian
...

BRAXION by Hyomoto
...

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Best Concept: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Presentation: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Best Story: The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

    1. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
    2. Yellow Gear by chinykian
    3. BRAXION by Hyomoto
    4. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
    5. SWAMP by mimusic
    6. Red Sabre by Misty
    7. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
    8. Tower of power by The M
    9. KVN by Penguin533
    10. Mr Quack by BrandonC
    11. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
    12. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
    13. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
    14. Boss Beat by Gravedust
    15. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
    16. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
    17. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
    18. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
    19. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
    20. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
    21. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
    22. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
    23. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
    24. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
    25. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
    26. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
    27. Space Boss by Alexx
    28. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
    29. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
    30. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
    31. Last Knight by Ziberteck
    32. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
    33. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
    34. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
    35. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
    36. BossBoss by Studio Basem
    37. A boss day by mjadev
    38. Boss Off! by Bart
    39. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
    40. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
    41. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
    42. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
    43. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
    44. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
    45. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
    46. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
    47. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
    48. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
    49. BO5S by sylvain_l
    50. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
    51. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
    52. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Comments:

{Insert Game Title here} by coded Games
Amazing entry, I love all the effects going on, the idea of playing card in a middle of boss fight is a nice adition

A boss day by mjadev

I nice Idea but a little confusing, a better explanation and presentation could make this a way better entry

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

It was fun but the boss has to much health, in general is a nice entry

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

I really liked this one, the controls were good, the boss was fairly hard but fun enought to fight againist, the only complain I have is that some of the weapons didnt seems to be that effective againist this boss anyway good entry

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

not much to say about this, good job I guess?

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

I am tha boss :p, a little more deep to the gameplay and that would be a nice game

BO5S by sylvain_l

too much caffeine, and I feel like a powerless boss that I cant do anything but drink coffe and go home :(

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

nice entry :), I could see a nice game mechanic if you implement that a boss will close your game in certain situations thats an amazing idea :D

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Nice entry :) the music was amazing and the interactions were good

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

not much to say, there were no collisions detected or anything for that matter

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

I was not able to fight the big bunny how do I fight him? and damn those small bunnies are strong

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

Sorry If I didnt understand the concept of the game, there was supposed to be a boss?

Boss Off! by Bart

I wasnt able to follow what I should have to do each floor, not sure about it, a little explanation would be nice :p

BossBoss by Studio Basem

I loved the graphics, but the melee attacks were... underwhelming

BRAXION by Hyomoto

I really love space shooters and this one was amazing, I love the music, the colors, the gameplay, the way the boss is presented is fantastic, really good job

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

I really loved the presentantion and the small vector effects, I think the powers are a little bit overpowered but it looks nice :)

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

the attack remined the old kungfu game from the NES, I was waiting for a little more, the controls are a little weird choice specially the roll one

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

I love match three games so I was playing this for a lot time, I think the movement was unnecesary? not sure maybe I didnt understand what to do in that part of the game

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

I earned enough money to not need to work anymore yay!

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

my characters goes too fast to control it I cant even shoot or see the player

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

Im dizzy, where is the boss?

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Lol it was really hard to lose, nice funny game

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

it was a weird experience, the sprites are nice, but not having any kind of input on the attacks like a attack animation or a sound effect is weird, also it doesnt seem to be a way of attaking without getting hit too

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

Nice game a little hard and repetitive, but it require some skill to beat the boss, nice job

I quit by Sinaz20, Fredfredrickson,Valutcomplex

I wasnt able to play this game, but It looked amazing from menu to game screen, the controls didnt worked for me

Journey of tardin by dengar

it was fun to try to guess the right answers, I was not able to find a boss though

KVN by Penguin533

I really liked the animations, and the bossfight design was good a little too hard, I would like to have an indication of how much health is left or something like that :p

Last Knight by Ziberteck

The controls were hard to undestand I dont know why I have to use the middle mouse button to activate the gun it was a weird choice, everything is so small and is hard to land the bullets, the boss was decent, and the music was a little over the top

Legbot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
Nice game here, I liked the graphics and the level design, sometimes it feels a little unfair

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

I really liked the concept, is also infuriation that my workers fall sleep haha I wanted to hit them :D

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

I love space shooter games, I this one was a nice entry, I needed a little more sound fx feedback or something to have a better feeling in the game, but in general is have a nice presentation and polish

Mr Quack by BrandonC

It reminds me team meat games, I really liked the art and animations, decent controls It just needed more weapons I guess and some balance ot the bosses but a nice entry in general

[bProject hellkite
by Dr Wolf

looked great but I didnt understand much about it, the physics were weird and I didnt have feedback when I was shooting the big ship (I was supposed to hit it?)

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

I love the paper planes :)

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

I really Liked this game, I know if there were a little more time to polish this could have turned an amazing game, the boss felt a little OP

Red Sabre by Misty

that was some crazy đź’©đź’©đź’©đź’© action going on, and there are a lot of copyright infrigements, but I loved the choper mechanics and the small details like the particle effects, the helicopter worked pretty nice I would like to play something more polished of this :), I would love to be able to change the direction of the chopper though, that would make the controls perfect

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

the character didnt turn to the left to attack from that side that was a downside, this game with more polish and better boss mechanics could be fun to play I liked

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

best game ever made

Space Boss by Alexx

I wanted to play this game a lot more, but it was very frustrating that the hitboxes were totally out of the range of the actual visible sprite, so when I though I was fine to pass I always got killed, this stopped me to keep trying after losing 15 lives in the first level

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

I dont know if I was missing something but I didnt find much to do in the game, I took some leads and then nothing happens not with the ship, anyway the game have an amazing presentation and music

SWAMP by mimusic

A very nice entry, I would love to see a tutorial of how to do this game, specially the camera and 3d effect on it, polished and simple but pretty well made

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
some errors, and a very dificult start made it hard to play and enjoy

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

I just plain simply love it, darksouls vibe without all the frustration of it :) nice graphics and animations nice job

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

the hitboxes were weird, I really like the feeling of the old double dragon games, and I loved the paper planes :)

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

I was little confused at first but is a nice idea

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

where is the boss?? is there a boss? I was ready for a big boss fight and I didnt saw it, well the game have a nice presentation I liked de animations, the movement and the aim were smooth and nice

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Amazing graphichs with a very few lines of code, some graphics bugs, I didnt undertand sometimes If I was behind something or infront, this could have been amazing

Tower of Power by The M

I always love the M games, the gameplay and the little details always are amazing, this game is not the exception, I would have appreciate a little guide of how to control everything, but I enjoyed discovering it

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

It was like an abstract painting until he got stuff in a weird level that it seems to be a nice boss, weird

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Nice graphics, a little too short and the boss was nice looking but I wasnt something really fun to play

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

nice idea, this could actually became a good game :) congrats

Yellow Gear by chinykian

I love all about this game, the music the effects the graphics, everything simple but very nice made, the boss was fun to fight with nicely done

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

haha this was not a game but an spiritual experience Thank you Alice
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Alice's Way Too Busy Reviews

Please note that recently I have semi-limited access to my main PC, and thus even though there's still a few days till voting ends, I wouldn't have access to Jam games for most of these. So, more than a few reviews were kinda rushed. If you would like a more detailed feedback, please send me a message or so.

Top 3:

Boss Beat by @Gravedust
I found this entry to be the clear-cut best from the ones I played. It has smooth visuals, catchy music, loads of personality and a great deal of fun bullet-hell style challenge. Positively stunning.

The Hoard by @Cloaked Games, @Pere
Kudos for the generally polished presentation (especially graphics). The story premise is also pretty lovely, and it works well with the gameplay that requires a certain degree of precision.

Mr Quack by @BrandonC
This entry was nice, when it comes to presentation, boss variety and story. I kinda enjoyed the quirky enemies design and their attacks.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Hoard by @Cloaked Games, @Pere
Best Concept: {Insert Game Title Here} by @Coded Games
Best Presentation: Boss Beat by @Gravedust
Best Story: The Hoard by @Cloaked Games, @Pere
Best Devlog: I Quit! by @Sinaz20, @FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Full ranking:

  1. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  2. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  3. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  4. KVN by Penguin533
  5. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  6. Tower of Power by The M
  7. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  8. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  9. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  10. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  11. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  12. SWAMP by mimusic
  13. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  14. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  15. Red Sabre by Misty
  16. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  17. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  18. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  19. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  20. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  21. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  22. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  23. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  24. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  25. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  26. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  27. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  28. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  29. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  30. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  31. Space Boss by Alexx
  32. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  33. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  34. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  35. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  36. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  37. Boss Off! by Bart
  38. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  39. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  40. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  41. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  42. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  43. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  44. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  45. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  46. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  47. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  48. BO5S by sylvain_l
  49. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  50. A boss day by mjadev
  51. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
  52. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

I appreciate the concept, but I feel it could have worked better with more boss variety and some other directions. I recall you mentioning dropping the elements system altogether; I think it's a good call, because I have no way to tell in advance what sort of element works best against a given boss, and so the system basically becomes a bit of trial and error. I do think other upgrades are more interesting, like the fusion one or the mana increasing one. Either way, you seem to have more ideas how to handle it (e.g. boss periodically dropping teleports), and I think these might work pretty well? Still, would have liked to see more patterns.

The presentation was solid, though not outstanding. The graphics were clean (maybe a little to clean, especially when it comes to the boss design?) and the audio was fitting.

Overall, I feel like this idea has quite a bit of potential. Keep going there. ^^

A boss day by mjadev

Soo, this is kind of like a rhythm game, which is a genre I generally like. But it's filled with several bad design decision that made the game unenjoyable for me, no matter how hard I wanted for it to be otherwise.

First, despite playing like a rhythm game, this actually has no music playing, and it doesn't give cues when exactly to press the buttons, aside from the visual side.

Second, the associated sounds. They have basically no intuitive relation to their placement. The G is some low-pitch note, the K is some higher-pitched note (and K displays on a *lower* lane than G), and F/L are some fancy sound effects whose pitch isn't really relevant at that point. And the result is... well, it's like it tries to be some kind of melody, but feels more like AI attempt at generating melody, except I'm pretty sure AIs nowadays are better at creating something coherent. It's also repetitive, which maybe could make the game easier, but this cacophonic monotony just gets on nerves... u_u'

Third, the control scheme. I don't know how about others, but I found the F/G and K/L control scheme needlessly spread out, kinda forcing me to use two hands instead of one, which complicated the coordination (not only I need to know which finger to press; I also have to know which hand the finger should belong to).

Fourth, the horizontal lane arrangement, instead of vertical. On its own, it's not really that bad (Super-Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2/3 had it, and I found these games very enjoyable), but coupled with other issues it becomes particularly bothersome.

Fifth, very unforgiving scheme - if you fail against a single opponent, you have to start the entire game all over again, and you have to play the "songs" you've beaten already all over again.

Finally, who the hell puts RNG damage in a rhythm game? And by "RNG" I mean the very worst kind of RNG use, which essentially determines how much room for mistakes is given and leaves the player with literally no way to respond. You can't react in some specific way to the random ever or make a decision based on estimated odds or anything like that - the only thing that RNG adds is a luck factor. I wouldn't be surprised if particularly merciless RNG would render a perfect run failed.

So, to sum it up, I'm expected to time my keypresses with only vaguely rhythmic visual cues, getting distracted by a general idea of melody, rotating the lanes in head to match up with keyboard keys positions, which then I need to press with one of two hands because using all four keys in a single area (or using arrow keys, to account for different keyboard schemes) would make things too easy. Oh, and I'm supposed to defeat all four opponents in a row with a luck based damage. Sorry, while the premise of defeating the heroes until having a party with other monsters sounds pretty adorable and fun to complete, I just don't have enough patience to put up with all that.

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

This boss has way too much health. And at the same time, flawthrower is so OP, easily mowing down the enemies and destroying bullets. Also, the patterns weren't greatly varied compared to some other entries; basically, move, spawn and shoot.

I feel like this battle has lasted quite a bit longer than it needed to. The fact that background music is quick to loop doesn't help, either. ^^'

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

A game where I fight potato-clad shard of sun, which later turns out to be an eyeball. Okay.

Managed to bit me on pretty much the last bit of health from the 0th life. I didn't get special medals for diversity or health, but I can live with that. In practice, I found the yellow and purple gans to be actually useful; dunno what the others would be useful for compared to these two; I couldn't even reach the enemy orb with the green goo thing; so, weapon balance could use some work, I guess (or maybe there's something I'm missing? Still, I don't see weapon properties explained anywhere, and the heat of the battle hardly gives any room to experiment).

The presentation is alright, and the mechanics worked well enough, though upon second playthrough things seemed to get way slower. I kinda liked the touch with the audience cheering on in the background; nice to have the background a little lively, rather than just some plain sky or something like that.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

It's a game. It can be completed. It didn't waste too much of my time.

I think for this kind of masterpiece, the 1st place simply won't do. So I'm placing it elsewhere.

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

*puts on sunglasses* Me da boss.

There wasn't much here, but it still was kinda enjoyable for the short while it lasted? With midnight around the corner and this being the second last day I'll be able to play the Jam games, I appreciate the 5th last entry to play is so short.

BO5S by sylvain_l

Not really much of a content here. Going to home seems to give the same comment as drinking coffee, and I can do either indefinitely? ^^'

I kinda feel like too large chunk of effort was spent on menus...

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

The evil has been defeated!
Well, it's... not a particularly polished game, but I appreciate the effort. ^^'
Hopefully the next Jam will go better.

Boss Beat by Gravedust

Ooooh, yeah, I defeated both bosses; somehow the first one took more attempts than the second, maybe because the first track was longer?

Either way, I found this entry to be the clear-cut best from the ones I played so far (it was when Mr Quack occupied the top spot), and I already am way more than halfway through. It has smooth visuals, catchy music, loads of personality and a great deal of fun bullet-hell style challenge. Positively stunning.

If this ends up not taking the top spot on my list, I'm going to be very happy, because it'd mean I've found something even better.

--- EDIT ---

Well, it seems it was the top entry, after all.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Not much to do here, I suppose? I managed to shoot off one of boss' wings, but that's about it. Still, I'm aware the author had a lot of problems with the GM:S 2 acting buggy and crashy on their machine, so I didn't exactly get my hopes up for this one. Well, maybe better luck with some other project? ^^'

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

Can I just say how I like the music for a punk pink fluffy bunny being so menacing?

Also, it would help to show the controls somewhere, so as to avoid the initial confusion, and more so to reassure the player that there are no secret moves they don't know about. What I'm speaking about in particular is how in the fight with rabbit I wasn't sure if I have some kind of attack or not, and only after surviving a tad too long two sequences of jumping I found that the rabbit is meant to be jumped on when the time is right.

One thing I didn't expect was the octopus/kraken at the later stage; it was a pretty neat surprise. Another neat surprise was that when the kraken took down my last health bit (I kinda lost four others when fighting the rabbit boss) I restarted at the beginning of the kraken battle instead of having to replay the game from the very start. That was very thoughtful of you. ^^

Overall, it was a pretty nice entry. Not the best out there nor the most original, but I still appreciate the work put into it.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

So, first a few bumps appeared, I tried my best to smoothen them out, then for a really long while nothing happened, then bumps suddenly started appearing in great amounts and I got quickly overwhelmed. Now this is very bumpy balancing...

Also, I really don't like the mechanics chosen. It kinda looks like some kind of terrain destroying, except it seems you must be extremely precise if you want to completely eliminate the bump (and you probably won't). It's such an annoyance... u_u'

Boss Off! by Bart

Completed the game, not that there was really much content to speak of; no audio at all, either...

BossBoss by Studio Basem

The concept is very basic and the game as it is now boils down to a peek-a-boo game - running away from enemies a little until they get in just enough range to be taken down with melee attack. Also, at some point the game froze for me and I had to shut it down with task manager.

But I totally dig the soundtrack.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

This was difficult, but I finally managed to beat it.

A few things to point out:
- the arcs of spaceships in the stage phase are boring; most of these formations could be removed without much loss
- the stage is kind of a chore once learnt; at some point, it basically became a 1-minute gap between one boss fight attempt and another
- the boss was taking me down so quickly, especially during the first attempts, that I didn't really have time to observe and learn its patterns at all >.<

So yeah, this game could really use some rebalancing. When it comes to the presentation, it's pretty great, though it seems a good chunk of that comes from external sources...?

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

This was pretty enjoyable entry, though boss fights felt more like an addition to the stage parts, than being the central part of the game (I felt like stages took more time than taking down the bosses). I didn't really try out the overtime gimmick much, especially once I found out the menu can be controlled with mouse and I can choose Very Hard difficulty, anyway (cleared all 4 levels, though the last one took me a bunch of attempts). While we're at that, I think the "Impossible" difficulty was very appropriate, and lived up to its name quite well.

What I liked in particular was that enemies were greatly varied, especially considering the Jam scope. There were many formations, patterns and roles, and they worked together in an engaging way. I also enjoyed the simple, but effective graphics, *especially* the last stage's "color-split" effect (when there was this blue and orange afterimage). Kudos for that.

My biggest complaint would be the lack of audio. Also, a thing about menu - it seems not every option can be accessed with keyboard controls, and even those that can act counter-intuitively (e.g. level selection is arranged in a manner suggesting horizontal movement, but you change selected level by up and down). In a game with keyboard-only controls, I'd rather have all options in menu available through keyboard, too. Speaking of controls themselves, personally I'd prefer movement on arrow keys area and actions (shoot/bullet clear/focus) on Z/X/Shift area (habit from Touhou). Of course, Z wouldn't work so well on e.g. AZERTY keyboards, so I guess there's also that to consider...

Oh, also, the level endings were very lackluster; there wasn't even any kind of "you win" message at the end. This could have been better.

Either way, pretty good entry overall, I think one of the Jam's highlights.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

So, am I the boss here? Judging by how invulnerable the character seems, I wouldn't be surprised. Well, there was one opponent that seemed *a little* bit tougher, but was it a boss? I don't know. *shrugs*
On a side note, I don't exactly like how the primary use of roll mechanic seems to be further jumping. It just kinda seems against any intuition... ^^'

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

Alright, so on my first playthrough I kinda got that idea that the part to the left kinda plays itself, so I paid only a bit of attention to it, focusing mostly on the match-3 aspect. Then I read the rules in more detail, played it again, this time slower. I found that there's an evolving soundtrack thing going on, with one track almost seamlessly blending into the other - props for that. I'd like to get the soundtrack in a standalone version, too. Also, it seems you don't need to be very quick when playing the game, and the fact that you don't need to match-3 in a line makes things pretty relaxed, if not too easy (come to think of it, I wonder if there's some kind of reshuffling mechanic for when there are no possible moves).

Either way, somewhat enjoyable and well-presented entry, though not a big challenge.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

Huh, that was a short entry, but pretty nice while it lasted. It had some basic interaction factor (clicking on supporters) with some extra twists (the undecided people), upgrade mechanics with a bit of strategic choices and pretty nice visuals (in particular the stand evolving with more utilities purchased and supporters gathered). Too bad there was no audio at all.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

I don't think I beat the boss? At some point it started shooting some kind of weird bullets, and it was too much, no matter what I tried. Also, it seems the primary mechanic of switching the food isn't used very well, because the boss changes requests way too often for my attack to even reach it.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

So, um, I got attacked by a bunch of orbs that shot at me but didn't seem to do anything to me. Then I shot them down, well, most of them and then started flying around and shooting blindly, because it really seemed I have nothing better to do.

...this entry is unfinished, isn't it?
*checks the devlog*
Yeah, it is. Carrying on...

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Veeerrrry subtle, Dan. ;)

Got both endings. The game was fairly enjoyable. The graphics were a little simple, but fit the game mood pretty well; plus, I liked the bouncy and swappy visual effects. The audio was pretty cool, too.

It may not be particularly outstanding, but it's a solid little entry.

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

Made a few attempts, but they were pretty futile; it just seems pretty impossible to attack the bull without getting hit in return. I tried jumping around with a flea and it seemed to help a bit, but it still wasn't enough. No audio, either...

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

It was fairly enjoyable entry, though I felt the controls made it more difficult than necessary. Or maybe I was just more used to blazing fast grappling hook from good ol' classic "Fury of the Furries"; the rope mechanic from there was super-slick. Then again, I suppose this engine alone would take way more the 3 days available. ^^'

(I'd have liked to have at least some kind of grappling hook maneuvering option, rather than getting stuck to the ceiling once it's reached)

No issues with presentation. Both audio and graphics worked well here.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

I appreciate the attempt at making the game keyboard friendly, but I kept getting stuck on a single kind of movement, kind of like button releasing wasn't being registered or something? And then it blocked other buttons?

Either way, the game was basically unplayable for me, so I quit!
(I wonder how many people have made the same joke in their reviews; if no one else, I'll be very disappointed)

At least music was pretty fancy. Also, the intro screen, but shouldn't you focus on essentials first...? ^^'

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

So, first things first - the default font of GM to me looks like a clear signal - "it's a placeholder font, don't use it in the game proper". It seems the author didn't take the hint here.

Second - it seems the author isn't well-versed in English. The writing seemed pretty sloppy, and some phrases seemed a bit wrong (the highlight includes a snake sneaking into a tree).

At the same time, there were a few cool things, like how choices affect possible endings. My personal favourite is how you can pay the gypsy a coin to do fortune-telling, and then she's like "you will have to choose who will live and who will die" and at that point of game you had already spent the coin that could later be traded for charm that allows saving both. Personally, I find this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy to be a stroke of genius, whether it was specifically what author intended or not.

KVN by Penguin533

Alright, this one was pretty challenging. Kinda feels like fighting one of Cuphead's bosses; not as great, but still pretty entertaining. The attack patterns were pretty varied, and there's a good degree of strategy here (that is, choosing player's poison in terms of which bit should be attacked first). I eventually succeeded by taking down both claws first; once the boss was down to dropping stalactites, it went pretty smoothly. I got quite worried upon seeing the cat is about to reach another phase, but thankfully I took it down; I don't even know if the cat was meant to use some attack or not...?

Pretty neat and challenging entry, overall. ^^

Last Knight by Ziberteck

Decent entry, I even managed to complete it on a second try, but it has some significant flaws.

First thing is the momentum-based jumping height; it works in some games, but not in this one. The platforming element wasn't really prominent enough to make the mechanic worthwhile, aside from adding a little bit of annoyance when trying to jump at a platform during the boss fight.

Second thing - it takes an Internet eternity* to supercharge the weapon, especially compared to the ordinary charge. Because of that, it's easy to mistakenly think the first charge stage is actually the supercharge mentioned in instructions, and supercharge is apparently necessary whenever the boss puts up a shield.

Aside from that, it's a somewhat ordinary platformer/shooter boss battle. Not bad, it has some variety of attacks, but not particularly intense either.

*according to my former professor of Introduction to Databases classes, if user has to wait 7 seconds or more for the page to load, they might as well wait for eternity

LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

This was both somewhat cool (especially in terms of visual variety and overall use of resources), but also kind of... anticlimatic. And by anticlimatic I mean that I didn't lose a single bit of health here, and I defeated the LegBot by staying out of its legs designated range and shooting at the joints whenever they were exposed. Also, it would be nice to give some kind of visual feedback when the relevant boss bit was hit.

I kinda feel like I liked the level leading up to the battle more than the battle itself. ^^'

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

I played for a bit, got my score to like over 1000 before quitting out of boredom. I didn't even get to use any of extra weapons, in part because I was super-busy clicking the sleepers, and in part because the original weapon worked well enough, anyway (also, I didn't quite memorize the traits of each utility, so I didn't want to risk hard-waking wrong people).

The presentation is alright, I guess?

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

'tis a very pretty game, but I think this game would have benefitted from Reimu-sized hitbox, allowing denser and more challenging patterns.

Also, it's around evening and past the first weekend and I've still got more than a half of entries to play through, and it's so hooot outside, so sorry if I'm a bit of an incoherent and laconic mess right now... =_=

Mr Quack by BrandonC

This entry was nice, when it comes to presentation, boss variety and story. I kinda enjoyed the quirky enemies design and their attacks. Overall, one of the most polished entries thus far.

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

Yaaay, I beat the boss...
A few things: first, the music was pretty quiet. Second, the presentation was kinda find, but also the colors were kinda... I dunno, a bit too saturated? Also, in practice I found the paper planes to be the most sensible weapon against the boss' attacks. Finally, the boss seem to have the habit of getting stuck a lot. That's pretty much how I beat the second and third form.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

Ah, good ol' classic negative healthbar (I saw it after defeating the boss).

I feel like it would make a cool fighting game if it had a little better balancing. On the one hand, give player some clearer cues about the boss next move and a bit more time to react. On the other hand, make the dodge effective only when it moves away from the fist. Or at least, I've got the impression that dodge works no matter how it relates to the fist, because the working strategy ended up being a bit of dodging left and right, landing a bunch of strikes after the boss misses and occasionally blocking when the boss ends up hitting me.

No problems with presentation, maybe except for the backgrounds being a bit empty (when it comes to the menu and the gameplay itself).

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

Starship parts stripped down to barest essentials? You've got to be kidding me, this game's controls and gameplay elements are so abundant they feel pretty overwhelming.

What doesn't feel abundant is the ammo. Well, you start with 500 rounds, but the fact that you have limited ammo in the first place means you can't just fly around and shoot freely. Which... may not be that bad of intent, after all, spamming all these bullets means player can do just roughly point where the enemy is and the bullets will eventually connect, but once you're out of ammo, it's pretty much game over (unless I missed something). I'd have rather player shooting limited in some other way, e.g. by having long cooldown, or maybe have the limited ammo, but slowly replenished over time?

Played a few games, got called flying whatever fish that would be a few times (Shark is my favourite), but couldn't really make any progress that would drive me to play further. Too bad, because when it comes to the presentation, the game is hell of a kite... a sight, I mean. I'd rather have it focused on the most essential gameplay features rather than require player to use multitude of controls and glance at numerous indicators (esp. ammo). Maybe having more of the gameplay area visible would also help? As it is now, I just feel kinda too overwhelmed by both its complexity and the number of opponents I have to deal with using my limited resources...

Red Sabre by Misty

Went through a single playthrough, got to the president on a jet stage, lost 3 times there and ran out of lives. The game has quite a lot of content, and of not too shabby quality, either (don't know how much of it was done in advance and what was taken from elsewhere; I'm preeeetty sure not literally everything, from coding through art to music, was done by Misty). However, I don't exactly feel like going through all these levels again, especially if I'm going to be taken down anyway.

The presidential jet level in particular feels to difficult - especially with a game with limited lives and restarting the whole thing when the lives end. The thing is, the helicopter has quite tricky control with its floaty movement and, to make things worse, it has a bit of a shot spread. It means that a precise job of taking down the enemies while not damaging the jet too much becomes overly difficult; especially with the little amount of jet hit points and the ridiculous in comparison health of the president (seriously, what makes that president guy more durable than an airplane?).

Still, it has quite a bit of content and was fairly enjoyable, despite somewhat wonky movement.

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

Short, decent, but not particularly engaging or challenging (I could literally move the player around with one hand and drink tea with other). The art is appropriate, if somewhat generic (I could totally see the main character appear in an RPG Maker game). The audio is completely missing. u_u'

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

"Contragulations! You are the b*tch!"
*woof*

It seems like one of these games where a bit of good streak and a little luck early on leads to much easier time afterwards. On my successful playthrough, I got pretty devastating rank quickly, breezed through the legions of enemies before the boss with 2 shields and 2 lasers, which I then made a good use of. After the second laser the boss was done.
Mind, my previous attempts weren't as successful. Also, one thing I really disliked was when one of these upgrade... pods? Asteroids? One of these upgrade thingies drifted off the game area. It actually happened more than once.

Other than that, a decent game, though definitely not a standout... u_u'

At least it's better than the Space Boss. As opposed to that game, it actually would live up to this title, as it uses Space as a primary shooting key.

Well, seems I'm done with the Jam games now. ^^'

Space Boss by Alexx

Ehh, it has quite a lot of minigames, but they're pretty rough. The collisions felt off, the controls sometimes got weirdly stuck halfway through the field, in the dodging minigame I couldn't move my ship all the way up, while it was still possible to move it down etc. Also, the intros were pretty annoying. The fact that this zoom out away is off is one thing (if you tried to reproduce Star Wars intro effect, it didn't work), maybe you'll eventually figure out how to make these sorts of effects properly (I'd assume it has something to do with projection, but I don't have much experience in that area). However, it just goes on for so long, and it's unskippable.

Oh, also, can I just point out how violent the protagonist's family seems to be? Like, seriously, why is dying in that level a thing?

(note: despite its name, this game doesn't seem to use Space key anywhere, contrary to what one might expect from all these minigames)

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

Ah, it seems like one of these entries whose scope turned out too large for the time the author had. Well, it has happened to many of us, myself included.

I really like the art style and overall presentation. The mechanics are pretty solid, though I'd have liked to have my last action stay selected, rather than forcing me to once again select the action and choose the target. Some extra feedback to indicate that an object is clickable (like some highlight or colour change of sorts) wouldn't hurt, either, but it's more of a "nice to have" than "absolutely mandatory" thing.

Sadly, this game has very little content, and nothing of that seems to involve the boss fighting in any way. So, while this looks kinda promising, it's still pretty lacking. Maybe some other time...

SWAMP by mimusic

So, I beat the boss, and as a reward I got drowned in a swamp.

This game looks way better than it plays. While the core mechanics seem pretty neat (not often I see games featuring literal bamboo shots), I've found the soundtrack to quickly go stale, but that battle. It. Just. Drags. On. The boss is doing the worst possible thing - it abuses the common player tactic of stalling! It's players who should have healing powers to go on for unreasonably amount of time, and the bosses are those that should have a bunch of non-replenishable health, not the other way round!

Seriously though, the stalling is pretty much the Bog Bro repertoire. It starts off with whooping 100 health, which means ~50 bamboo shots. Except it also spawns Litter Bros, each with measly 1 health; Bog Bro occasionally absorbs the Litter bros for 2 health each, and if your attacks aren't intense enough, it might as well regenerate to full health anytime. But it's not only that. It also occasionally spawns Rubish Bros, and when one of these reaches the swamp, it creates two walls of spikes in two directions, basically cutting off a slice of a game area for a good while. And there doesn't seem to be limit to how frequently these can be spawned, so sometimes the map ends up spiked with 6 or 8 lanes or so, often preventing access to much valuable bamboo.

And that's basically it. The Bog Bro will follow you, occasionally spawning or absorbing others, while you run a marathon of cutting bamboo and shooting. Also, on multiple occasions I've found the perspective to be misleading, or at least I felt I didn't always hit/shot where I actually wanted to. More than once I was briefly getting stuck on one bamboo shot because I wasn't quite placed in a way that I could conveniently cut it, and it was mostly frustrating.

Mind, I do acknowledge the general polish of this game. It's just I feel it doesn't quite make up for somewhat boring and frustrating gameplay; it just keeps dragging on...

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

Way too much screenshake and general screen wobbliness. u_u'

Took me a few tries before I got enough hang of it not to be obliterated from the very start. While the theme is boss fighting game, I kinda feel like the large tank enemies are a tad too common to feel truly bossy. And they seem to spawn indefinitely, too? It seems I don't even get a game completion as a potential goal...

Played for a bit, took down a few tanks along the way, but ultimately wasn't really intrested. Lack of audio didn't help, either.

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm...

The presentation is top-notch, as always, and there is also that multiple-stage music thing going on; though to be fair, it's already been used (to great effect) in Shred of Light, so it doesn't feel as much as a novelty as it did back then. Still, it's a good game design tool.

However, I found the gameplay itself to be pretty lackluster. While at first I kinda tried to avoid the opponent attacks, eventually I found that with spamming the attack with coffee breaks (these grain-shaped things were coffee beans, right?) was the most effective strategy. And if an action game works best with boring yet effective strategy then... well, it doesn't really work as an action game, does it? ^^' Also, each subsequent boss felt easier than the last; don't know if it's because of patterns that could be avoided more easily from close range or because of me getting better (might be a bit of both).

What's worse is that this strategy results in the opponents being taken down so quickly, the music barely has time to play a few bars before advancing to the next stage. So it becomes a case of a wasted soundtrack here. To make things even worse, there's this bug where the initial phase music won't play on restaring the level, so that part isn't really heard at all.

Just for the record, having played a good share of bullet hell games I might have general preference towards games that can be completed without a single hit, given sufficient skill. With the amount of close-ranged combat here, I don't think this kind of approach really works here. I suppose to make a no-hit gameplay viable, a given game could use either of these:
- ranged attacks, applicable continuously (like in bullet hell games)
- repeatable, long-waiting long-lasting vulnerable phases for bosses (like in Boss Meadow, when the rabbit could be stomped on)
- short-waiting short-lasting vulnerable phases; e.g. after the boss makes a hit, it stops for a few seconds; enough to connect an attack, but not to spam it
Couple it with a liiittle more scarcity in available resources and boss patterns that give enough room to be dogded, with sufficient reflexes, but also to leave an opening for a counterattack; the player can't dodge all the time. I guess there might be some handy patterns here and there around, but the resources balance kinda results in sticking to the boss and spamming attack, anyway. ^^'

So yeah, it's once again a game with great presentation and a large amount of content, but when it comes to gameplay itself my response is lukewarm at best.

(please don't take it as a sign to make another platformer the next time)

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

Fun to play around for a bit, but the overall controls feel to crude to be truly enjoyable; it has been basically button-mashing for me, and since it seems I had to stop to use my attacks, the whole experience was pretty "jagged". The boss feel way too hard, with this ranged attack basically disallowing me to approach him to any reasonable extent; or maybe there's some trick/button mashing I don't know about?

Oh, the graphics were neat, and the music was pretty nice, I suppose?

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

Neat game, but I wasn't quite fond of how the core gameplay works, or maybe of the controls? As in, you have 4 area of effect spells at your disposal, and you need to switch between them using 1-2-3-4 buttons, and each has its own cooldown, though it's brief enough that once you shoot your three other spells, it'll likely have replenished. So it means the player kinda has to keep presssing 1-2-3-4 to use abilities in the most efficient manner, and it's pretty inconvenient.

Personally, I'd prefer to have some kind of primary rapid-fire attack, maybe something that can be done with holding down mouse; and the special attacks would instead have much longer cooldown, so that pressing a corresponding button every once in a while isn't that much of a hassle. Or maybe it would just help if the controls made the switching easier? E.g. right mouse button to switch to the next ability clockwise on the wheel. Also, it would be much clearer to see which ability is currently chosen if instead of barely visible bolder frame it would be indicated by... pointing right. As in, the ability wheel would turn so that the current selection is on top (maybe it doesn't work that well with pixelart... though it could probably work with right wheel design and with rotating only the ability "icons" along the path, instead of rotating the sprites)

On the other hand, kudos for the generally polished presentation (especially graphics; the music was a bit too unstructured for me; might have something to do with fitting 13 themes in one song?). The story premise is also pretty lovely, and it works well with the gameplay that requires a certain degree of precision (although the difficulty kinda depends on what kind of formation you end up with, which adds a bit of undesirable random factor).

...yeah, pretty great work, overall.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

The overall presentation was good (maybe except for loud SFX compared to the music), the gameplay mechanics worked well enough, there is even a destructible terrain, and I somewhat enjoyed the trek through the stage...

...but there is no boss! >.<
Did they go to another castle or what?

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

Took me a bunch of tries and accidentally pressing Caps Lock, but I finally beat it. One fairly odd thing was the inconsistent damage I seemed to get from the hands. Also, I'd rather have hold-to-shoot-with-cooldown mechanic rather than having to mash mouse repeatedly.

Aside from that, the presentation was pretty great, aside from the menus. I imagine the face at the end of the level was meant to be the rest of the boss, but there wasn't enough time to program it? Oh well.
Also, I can agree that Drooms is amazing.

Tower of Power by The M

Alright, saw a few bosses over here, in part thanks to the accidentally discovered section skipping feature (I just wanted to go to fullscreen mode ^^'). Personally, I'd rather just have all the stage zones done with and get to the bosses; the stages felt to me nothing more like a life-wasters and a platforming annoyance. Speaking of platforming annoyance, maybe it's just me, but I kinda felt like the wall-jump wasn't really responsive and, generally, it was pretty hard to get the character moving the way I wanted them to.

The fact that player combos result in charging up weapon abilities is neat. The fact that at top stage the weapon goes haywire with random spread, resulting in worse accuracy against idle targets (such as char* during some of phases) is not so neat. Maybe it would be more effective against the moving enemies, but I dunno, it felt kinda mean... u_u'

The presentation is gud, and I've still 2 more entries to play. Let's get this over with...

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

Ah, Wraithious games, they truly are their own genre, with this specific mix of own-drawn graphics and stock resources.

Reached the fourth boss, got killed, didn't really feel like playing again. Also, I don't quite see what was the point of mana...?

Onto the last entry...

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

The thing that stands out the most to me was the music. It oozes with badassery, and seems to have been custom-made, too! Kudos for that.

The art is pretty good, though there's little contrast between obstacles and the actual background, making level a little tough to navigate. Also, I found the level section a little bit boring.

The boss battle is kinda monotonous at the beginning, with the alien basically doing claw attack back and forth above the protagonist's head. Moreover, I got no feedback from hitting, and wasn't sure if I was doing any damage to the alien in the first place. The latter half with the alien throwing fireballs at me was a little bit more interesting (mostly because they posed some minimal risk), but I breezed through this phase as well and found the alien destroyed. Yay?

So yeah, overall I feel like the game is notable mostly for its audiovisuals, but I've got to admit, they're pretty good audiovisuals. The story bits were pretty nice, too; I kinda got the feeling it was another day for the main character, sprinkled with an extra alien. ^^

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

Alright, this game has pretty great presentation and degree of polish, but it's way too much luck-based. As in, luck-based to the point of "can beat the boss" vs "will have to start over and no strategy will save me".
At the very initial stage, it was basically the game of picking the biggest dice. Once I got a monkey, things got a little more interesting because I actually got a bonus for using otherwise the weakest d4 dice. However, having this kind of strategy would be nice to have available from the very beginning. Aside from that, it would be nice to have the luck factor largely downplayed compared to the current state; or at least don't force to play through the entire thing on a single failure (probability tip: even pretty great chance of single success will wear down to mediocre-to-measly chances after enough repetition).

Yellow Gear by chinykian

Phew, after a good deal of attempts I finally managed to beat the boss. In general, the game worked pretty well, though it had relatively few patterns; then again, there are different stages. One thing I have to point out, though, at the last stage the large orbs pattern, generally unfavourable to me at any stage, is particularly brutal at the last stage, *especially* right after the wave pattern.

One thing I have to point out is that this entry is good at providing feedback. It's clear to me when I hit the boss, and I can react to the next attack based not only on the attack appearance, but also by the sound accompanying the next move. These kind of cues are crucial for boss fights, and I appreciate their use here.

Audiovisuals are pretty great; maybe the background could be more varied, but even without that, it's pretty good looking.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

a tru materpice
 
Last edited:
S

Sinaz20

Guest
Yes yes yes... I'm a little salty over criticism of our gamepad only controls last jam we did ;)

Reviews

Top 3:

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
What? No gamepad controls?

Well, I enjoyed that. I loved the look and the animation. Well done.

Despite the really slick and polished look, there were some issues I had.

Strategically, you can just mash attacks and heal.

Also, the tutorials were welcome, but they could have come a little earlier. I spent the first few moments mashing keys to find input. Then the tutorials started showing up :p

I played it all the way through to the end. So that says something.

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
What? No gamepad controls?

This game was relaxing. At first I didn't like the jarring pause to the game, and that once the game started up again you'd suddenly have to remember what direction all the bullets were moving in.

I would have liked that mana upgrades stuck with me. Maybe losing mana power on hits. Also would have loved more complex enemies with more puzzling opportunities on the elements.

Nice game.

SWAMP by mimusic
Gamepad controlls, yay!

The good- I loved the style and the simplicity of the mechanics. Very easy to grok. Easy to play. Loved cutting down bamboo to reload. Just wish that was better communicated to start.

The bad- (well, not 'bad', just not entirely good) I didn't appreciate when the spikes would trap me in a very narrow wedge. I felt like I was suppose to attack the small blobs, but because of the relentless zombie AI, I could never get close enough to effectively fight them without the big blob just bulldozing up to me. I don't understand what the red blobs were doing.

This game had a lot going for it. Well done.

Full ranking:

  1. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  2. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  3. SWAMP by mimusic
  4. Tower of Power by The M
  5. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  6. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  8. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  9. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  10. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  11. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  12. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  13. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  14. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  15. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  16. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  17. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  18. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  19. Space Boss by Alexx
  20. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  21. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  22. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  23. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  24. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  25. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  26. A boss day by mjadev
  27. KVN by Penguin533
  28. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  29. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  30. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  31. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  32. Red Sabre by Misty
  33. The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet
  34. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  35. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  36. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  37. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  38. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  39. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  40. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  41. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  42. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  43. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  44. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller
  45. BO5S by sylvain_l
  46. Boss Off! by Bart
  47. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  48. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  49. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
  50. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  51. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  52. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  53. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Comments:

{Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games

What? No gamepad controls?

This game was relaxing. At first I didn't like the jarring pause to the game, and that once the game started up again you'd suddenly have to remember what direction all the bullets were moving in.

I would have liked that mana upgrades stuck with me. Maybe losing mana power on hits. Also would have loved more complex enemies with more puzzling opportunities on the elements.

Nice game.

A boss day by mjadev

What? No gamepad controls?

Ugh... why F, G, K, and L?

I was interested in the concept, but this control scheme torpedoed the game.

I don't understand... am I the thing on the right or the left? I thought I was doing the pattern, and damaging the enemy, but when I powered up, the thing I thought was the enemy spewed fire or something. Yeah, I just played it again and couldn't figure out what actions were doing damage or to whom.

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

What? No gamepad controls?

I get it, but that boss is such an excessive bullet sponge.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

What? No gamepad controls?

This game seems to have been well constructed, but I am just not a fan of mouse aiming in 2D games-- especially if the camera is going to move a lot. I've mentioned it in another game, it has this pat your head, rub your belly feel to it that I don't have the taste for.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

What? No gamepad controls?

Groan.

Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones

Gamepad controls!! A+

I feel like I played this game in the Convergence jam...

I uh... well, it was a complete game, so thee's that. ;)

BO5S by sylvain_l

What? No gamepad controls?

I'm sorry, this game didn't move me. I think it was an art piece, and I appreciate that. It obviously touched the theme.

It was pretty.

Boss Attack by 2Dspessman

Yeah, no. Sorry.

Boss Beat by Gravedust

What? No gamepad controls?

The good-- I like the artwork. I LOVE the MegaMan death effect. I like the weapon vs. projectile mechanics.

The bad-- I don't like having twitch dodge with a free cursor aim mechanic. It is a rough patting head, rubbing belly combination that often causes me to turn myself around at the worst moments. This is because once the fight becomes close combat, it's hard (in a not fun way) to keep the facing of the character under control... because the sensitivity is inversely proportional to distance.

Great effort, otherwise.

Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

What? No gamepad controls?

Ok. It uh... I guess it works. I found the fire button.

Not much more to say about this one.

Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489

What? No gamepad controls?

I couldn't figure out what to do. I jumped on some little rabbits, but there didn't seem to be anyway to attack the big bunny.

Oh wells.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

What? No gamepad controls?

Ok, hammering potholes I guess? There wasn't much going on to move me.

The shader or whatever flickered like crazy. Hard to look at.

Boss Off! by Bart

What? No gamepad controls?

I... am not sure... what was going on. Took me a while to even notice that there was a player character in the levels.

The boss' door was a nice touch.

BossBoss by Studio Basem

What? No gamepad controls?

This game looked nice, and played nice. It seems obviously unfinished. So, I would definitely like to see the finished product. Needs a front end.

Love the art style.

BRAXION by Hyomoto

GAMEPAD CONTROLS! YAY!

Ok, I love the concept of this game and parts of its execution. My critiques are going to make it sound like I don't like it, but these are comments for improvement on this game that is otherwise rocking it.

I played several times before I dared to see if those inert enemies were actually power ups. And they were. But they're also super fragile, so I often blew them up before I even knew they were there.

The game is crowded.

Don't hide enemies in the background. Those guys that would zip in from the sides were rough. Once I understood where they were coming from, I was squinting to find them.

I didn't get far enough to discover if there was some special boss aspect to this game.

But I love the presentation. I love the sound. This was right up my alley. It was just a bit too challenging for me to dig deep into it considering the time constraints I have on playing the jam games.

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

What? No gamepad controls?

I like me some bullet hells.

This one, though... I don't understand. The time element seemed completely unneeded. And when I did use it, it just broke the game. i mean, not broken, but from that point on I had to hold the forward button, which became tedious.

Right in the middle of the boss fight the screen went black and the game went back to the main menu. Did I die? Did I win? Was the game mad I wasn't pressing the rewind and forward buttons? Was it just time to go back to the main menu?

I don't know.

I like the simple graphics and the controls.

Not sure what it had to do with the theme.

Desert Punchman by shadowspear1

What? No gamepad controls?

Not sure what this had to do with the theme.

It was kinda Kung Fu... kinda Rastan... not enough there. Seems very unfinished.

But nice effort.

Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

What? No gamepad controls?

Ok, I get the theme. I'm not sure about the marriage of the elements here.

I played the match 3 game, which worked well enough, and as I would expect a match 3 game to work. I just didn't really feel there was a connection going on between the two screens... despite what the readme told me.

I don't understand why I even had control of the green square.

I like the look of it, though. And it's a complete game, so you got that going for you.

Good effort.



Fight The Power by Kodiqi

What? No gamepad controls?

This game surprised me. I enjoyed the premise and the game play.

Not much to really criticize. It just needs some balancing.

Well done.

Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton

What? No gamepad controls?

Well, I couldn't even begin to play this game. I just zipped off the side of the screen... then zipped back across... then back the other way.

:( Sad gamer.

Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc

What? No gamepad controls?

I just kind of flew off into wherever. When that got old, I killed some enemies. No indication of whether there was going to be a boss portion... in reference to the theme.

Felt unfinished, but still nicely made.

Needs a front end.

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Yay! Gamepad controls!

This game was fun... and topical! I got both endings... though the boss almost beat himself on my behalf.

I thought this was a solid effort for a game jam, though the realization of the theme could have been better.

Well done.

Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars

What? No gamepad controls?

Without animations, it's hard to tell if I'm doing anything or why anything is happening. I think I get that the minotaur is bull rushing me and knocking me into the air.

I don't know what the blue bar is supposed to track.

Good effort, though.

Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS

What? No gamepad controls?

I liked the concept. I felt there wasn't really eough room to make good use of the grappling hook. Nice style, nice production. Loved the front end.

I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex

Gamepad controls! YAY!

This game is unfinished. What a turd. I hate it.

Journey of Tardin by Dengar

What? No gamepad controls?

I love text adventures!

Lot's of typos. Understandable. But I notice them all.

What the heck? My dad won't go save my mom? He puts the burdon on me? What a coward! Whatever, I got this.

I died because my dad sent me, a kid incapable of kicking a snake, out to fight goblins. I never saw goblins, I just danced around an annoying snake that bit me to death.

Sneak into a forest? I'll just enter it... nobody owns the forest. God damn goblin. I tried blocking all the arrows, which I did... with my body. I died.

Ok, this is nice. I like the verb system. I noticed a lot of interesting red herrings meant to tempt me, but because there was no save, I didn't risk any of them because I didnt want to keep restarting.

I don't know what this had to do with bosses, though.

Well done, regardless.

KVN by Penguin533

What? No gamepad controls?

I had to alt-F4 to quit. Boo!

This game made me chuckle. But, overall, everything was just too big and crowded. Nice artwork. Nice sound and music. Big boss kitty. I get it. ;)

Last Knight by Ziberteck

What? No gamepad controls?

With no tutorial or README, I could figure out how to run left and right, duck, and jump... but not high enough to pass the first obstacle.

Art was nice. There was a cursor... I have no idea what for. And there was what appeared to be some sort of UI element at the bottom.

Oh oh. I dug through the project and found the read me. I played through the first level, which was simple, and encountered a boss. I just didn't seem to be doing much damage to it. Watching the healthbar so slowly creep down dwindled my interest to continue.

Playing a platformer with WASD plus shift and space gives me hand cramps.

I felt there was some nice thought going into the initial boss, but as I mentioned, I just didn't feel like I was doing anything to it, nor did I feel pressured to use the platforms in the room.

Overall, nicely done for a jam.



LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach

What? No gamepad controls?

I, uh... can't get out of the starting area.

Couldn't quit either?

Looks promising. Hope you finish it.

Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B

What? No gamepad controls?

Good use of the theme.

I don't really understand what is happening. I seem to be losing workers to the cafeteria, but I don't understand what I am failing to do to keep them at their desk. There doesn't seem to be any warning or telegraph of the fail state.

Also, the color scheme needs some work. I was straining to see these mute slate blue characters against the neutral gray background.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless

What? No gamepad controls?

This game is cool. I really enjoyed it. Though the enemies that spew bullets radially are rather imbalanced as the bullet spacing is impassable (not impossible, but impassable) for the most part when you need to be more or less below the enemy to hit them.

Because of this, the other bullet types seem extremely easy.

Nice work.

Mr Quack by BrandonC

What? No gamepad controls?

This game had potential, but right off the bat, the limited slingshot regeneration was tedious. It didn't seem my enemies had any trouble producing limitless projectiles. Oh well. Solid effort, just wish the player wasn't so limited.

Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix

What? No gamepad controls?

This had some potential. Felt unfinished, maybe a little buggy.

I couldn't get close enough to the boss to try the melee attack.

Not sure what was happening, the boss damage seemed to keep resetting. Was this a new boss being spawned directly on the old one?

Still, good effort.

Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal

GAMEPAD CONTROLS!!!

Ok, this game. Very nicely done. The controls are a bit touchy, but once I got the hang of the mechanics I was pleased with the overall package.

It's essentially Punch-Out.

Nicely done.

Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf

What? No gamepad controls?

This game seemed to have potential, but the view was so limiting, and the controls so sluggish that I just felt like I was a sitting duck.

This is nitpicky... but the way the stars moved in paralax made the starfield feel like motes of dust.

I liked the "opening crawl."

Red Sabre by Misty

What? No gamepad controls?

I don't know how this fit the theme. I mean, I saw the word 'boss' but uh...

One minor criticism here: don't put enemies off screen who can see and shoot at the player. Or... you know... do what you want, it's your game, but it's not a great design choice since the player can't see beyond the edge of the screen.

Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai

What? No gamepad controls?

This game was fun. I get it. I wish the player character would have turned around.

Sector78 by Makas, Daniel

What? No gamepad controls?

I like scrolling shmups. This one was a bit too crowded. I also felt like there was too much infor on the sides of the screen that I was glancing over to try and figure out.

I would recommend that you reduce the number of projectiles and give the enemies tells to help us react.

Not bad.

Space Boss by Alexx

What? No gamepad controls?

This isn't necessarily a bad game. But the collision detection is hyper-sensitive. I felt incredibly frustrated at some collisions that seemed a bit bs.

I liked the big matrix in the middle of the first level. That had a cool challenge to it. It helped me over look the collision issues.

Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins

What? No gamepad controls?

Well, I love me some verb-driven lucasarts style point and clicks... but I don't know what this has to do with the theme. Also, appears to be very unfinished. I couldn't take anything, couldn't satisfy the conditions for leaving... then I walked right out of the world :p

Love the art and animation.

SWAMP by mimusic

Gamepad controlls, yay!

The good- I loved the style and the simplicity of the mechanics. Very easy to grok. Easy to play. Loved cutting down bamboo to reload. Just wish that was better communicated to start.

The bad- (well, not 'bad', just not entirely good) I didn't appreciate when the spikes would trap me in a very narrow wedge. I felt like I was suppose to attack the small blobs, but because of the relentless zombie AI, I could never get close enough to effectively fight them without the big blob just bulldozing up to me. I don't understand what the red blobs were doing.

This game had a lot going for it. Well done.

Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk

What? No gamepad controls?

Alright. This had potential. I liked the concept for the most part.

I don't know what it had to do with boss fighting.

To start, a big tank was spawning right next to me, and I had a hard time getting started because he seemed to be aiming right at me as the game started. It took me a few tries to get moving.

Given the controls, it was hard to keep track of what part of the tank was forward.

I found that if I just kept shooting I could blitz in reverse kinda like the tank in GTA.

Not sure what the money was about. Maybe if I'd stuck with it there'd be a store?

The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano

What? No gamepad controls?

Well, I enjoyed that. I loved the look and the animation. Well done.

Despite the really slick and polished look, there were some issues I had.

Strategically, you can just mash attacks and heal.

Also, the tutorials were welcome, but they could have come a little earlier. I spent the first few moments mashing keys to find input. Then the tutorials started showing up :p

I played it all the way through to the end. So that says something.

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

What? No gamepad controls?

I love the River City Ransom look to it, but I find it difficult to detect attacks or really apply any strategy.

This is one of those carpal tunnel syndrome enducing games ;)

Good effort.

The Hoard by Cloaked Games, Pere Dolcet

What? No gamepad controls?

I would like to see the controls reworked and the player able to be more powerful. I felt like the lamest dragon to walk the earth.

Also had a lot of finger gymnastics for a keyboard driven game.

Solid effort, though.

The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian

What? No gamepad controls?

First time through I burned through my bullets. I then tried again and had a pretty easy go of it.

I'm not sure what the point of the destructible terrain was. I also easily waltzed through the game.

I'm not sure what it has to do with the theme, but I enjoyed it.

Nice job.

TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat

What? No gamepad controls?

This looked great, but the gameplay just wasn't there. No feedback. Not sure what my goal was.

Tower of Power by The M

What? No gamepad controls?

Ok, this was a really cool game. The bosses were on point. Well thought out. Very nice mechanics. I didn't appreciate that the gun power up would cool down, especially with the game having a lot of dead time between rooms.

The tutorializing was nicely done.

I wish the game had a front end.

Twilight Legasy by Wraithious

Gamepad controls!!!

But... why would you use r-stick instead of the l-stick? S'ok, though. Dpad works.

I'm not going to say this game is pretty. But, the game's graphics really fight the legibility of it. It took me a while to even begin to understand the wakable area. Then I was constantly getting snagged by invisible colliders as I tried to dodge giant projectiles.

But I beat the spider-bug thing.

Then the flappy-lady arrived and I was just taking random damage from... invisble projectiles? The world itself? Not sure.

Still, nice effort. I don't know what this had to do with the theme.

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Gamepad controls?? Yay!

This is a pretty complete game. It just needs a functioning front end. Had to Alt-F4 out of it.

Not sure what the green weapon did, but I enjoyed using the other weapons.

Nice work on the boss and the artwork (cribbed from Judge Dredd a bit? ;) )

Overall a pretty solid entry.

Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes

What? No gamepad controls?

This game looks great and has a great concept except for the fact that dice can't be buffed. What this needed was the ability to combine dice into single rolls so you could convert your probabilities into a bell-curve distribution.

I'd love to see another iteration of this game with some rebalancing and new mechanics so that the player can actually strategize and not be solely at the mercy of the dice's probabilities.

Great effort.

Not sure how this connected with the theme.

Yellow Gear by chinykian

Gamepad controls?? Couldn't seem to find the fire button on gamepad, but thanks for at least partially implementing them.

I fell out of the level.

I have problems with games where you are playing against enemies you can't see (the boss was perfectly happy to attack me from beyond the screen edge.) My problem with this is that it puts me at un unfair disadvantage. Why can the enemy see me, when I can't see it?

It's a nice WIP, though. Good effort.

You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice

What? No gamepad controls?

Cute. Loved it. Not sure how it fit the theme. But i like this kind of super micro game.
 
P

Pere

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:

Red Sabre by Misty
Dude you made that in one day? I love the narrative, its exciting and made me curious to keep playing. The gameplay is fun and original.The art looks kinda cheap, but every level feels different and there are little details like the leaves that make it interesting. What I did not like is that when u die a certain amount of times you cant reset, so I didnt get to see the ending... but I got to the last boss on the plane. I love how the story and the gameplay go hand in hand. Each level is affected visually and gameplay-wise by the narrative, and they all make a very inmersive experience. That's why I think it deserves first place.

Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
Everything fits together very well. The artstyle, music, sounds, everything fits the style of the game and even though it looks simplistic, it's all very clean and polished. The gameplay is challenging and interesting.

Fight The Power by Kodiqi
Great game! The art might not be awesome but it maintains a style through all the different art pieces: the font, art, bg, gui... the idea is very original and the mechanics actually do work very well. It has good gameplay. A bit unbalanced though. If you focus on maxing the "get more interest" in the first days and then focus on "make more money", you can get a good exponential effect. I beat the game with 36,000 dollars lol. Good take on the theme too.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
Best Concept: Fight The Power by Kodiqi
Best Presentation: Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
Best Story: Red Sabre by Misty
Best Devlog: Red Sabre by Misty

Full ranking:

  1. Red Sabre by Misty
  2. Malicious Intent by Shadow_Lancer, Shameless
  3. Fight The Power by Kodiqi
  4. Bullet Overtime by Cat, var
  5. Gammon Princess by Team Flob
  6. SWAMP by mimusic
  7. {Insert Game Title Here} by Coded Games
  8. Hooktik by matharoo, Micah_DS
  9. KVN by Penguin533
  10. Yarr 'n Gee by Murzy, Swonqi, moose_tunes
  11. Stealth Game by TheOakNuggins
  12. The Ashen Tower by JacobV, Parmesano
  13. BRAXION by Hyomoto
  14. Mr Quack by BrandonC
  15. Action Arena by Kahrabaa
  16. Boss Beat by Gravedust
  17. Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr
  18. Project Hellkite by Dr Wolf
  19. Last Knight by Ziberteck
  20. Boss Meadow by trg601, moon489
  21. A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce
  22. Ruruna vs. Crab King by ThePandaSenpai
  23. Tower of Power by The M
  24. Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming
  25. Tankshow by paskaler00555, Matei Osenk
  26. A boss day by mjadev
  27. LegBot by JDown79, Maice, Zach
  28. Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf
  29. You Have To Drop The Bass by Alice
  30. I Quit! by Sinaz20, FredFredrickson, VaultComplex
  31. Sector78 by Makas, Daniel
  32. Yellow Gear by chinykian
  33. BO5S by sylvain_l
  34. Overtime by Siolfor the Jackal
  35. Gladiator by Pirates of the Sea of Stars
  36. Big Bad Boss Fight! by IndianaBones
  37. TITLE: 43 by GRArthas, Drooms, Brian mowat
  38. AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra
  39. The Nameless Cyborg by Sahaun, Bastian
  40. Desert Punchman by shadowspear1
  41. Like A Boss by imhanner, Nadine B
  42. The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90
  43. Fish Chef Brigade by Cjheighton
  44. Space Boss by Alexx
  45. Twilight Legasy by Wraithious
  46. Galaxy Goons by HayManMarc
  47. Journey of Tardin by Dengar
  48. BossBoss by Studio Basem
  49. Overtime by H3ADL3SS, Archnix
  50. Boss Off! by Bart
  51. Boss Attack by 2Dspessman
  52. Boss Fighting Game 2018 by Storyteller

Comments:

A Sticky Mess by Seet, Jing Hui, Joyce

Great game. too slow though. The health bar decreased too slowly and I almost quit before the transformation. ALso the healthbar was outside my screen so first I thought it didnt move at all. I dont know if there was a healthbar of the player that was outside my scren too or not, but I couldnt see my health :( I wouldve put some hearts to regain health too. and the powerups usually dropped surrounded by sticky stuff, so it was too hard to grab them.

Action Arena by Kahrabaa

Great programming. Interesting idea. Last attack was very hard to dodge, but not in a challenging way but in an "unfair" way. The jump wasnt precise enough to dodge all the lasers and you always got hit. Also it jumped very low so it was hard to dodge the boss too.

AwesomeBossBattleGamen't by orSQUADstra

Bahahahah love that sarcasm.

Boss Of All Bosses by dphsw, FeetUpGaming

Why did u do that to my eyes??? :( nice take on the theme though hahah

Bullet Overtime by Cat, var

Awesome game dude, great level design. How did you program that?


Dungeon Boss Simulator by Zodaris, Rikileitr

Duuude I was about to kill it but then I pressed space and it reset XD Please next time dont make a reset button on the space<3

Fight The Power by Kodiqi

Great game!

Gammon Princess by Team Flob

Hahah that was funny. Nice sprite animation. That art style's original and looks very cool.

Mr Quack by BrandonC

a

Red Sabre by Misty

Dude you made that in one day? I love the narrative, its exciting and made me curious to keep playing. The gameplay is fun and original. What I did not like is that when u die a certain amount of times you cant reset, so I didnt get to see the ending...

Space Boss by Alexx

Dude try to make shorter intros or no intros at all especially when there's 50 games to play. The info was in the Readme, no need to make a 1 minute intro repeating it ;)

The Businessman by Will, CreativeJon90

Great music dude! boss was hard cause it never stopped so it was hard (or impossible?) to hit him without getting hit. Other than that great game and cool story

Xenos Will Be Judged by Alix, Bentley, starwolf

Great art dude! And great music

Yellow Gear by chinykian

Great game!
 

JacobV

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Boss Beat by Gravedust
Kind of an obvious winner. There's not much I can say here that hasn't been stated already; the game is great, fun, and exciting.

Tower of Power by The M
Really great game with some cool bosses. I especially liked the one you fight on top of the tower, though I never beat it due to a GM issue that makes it so the keyboard doesn't pick up more than one key input. Good entry!

BRAXION by Hyomoto
Technically speaking, I should adore this game. I loved the old Raiden games, and since this game is very similar I enjoyed it plenty. However, the same problems I had with those games - the randomess and the absurd speed at which bullets fly at you (without any windups, most importantly) - made this game's difficulty rather frustrating at a few points. It's insanely polished and very visually appealing, though, which is why I gave it this spot.
 
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