Hey Guest! Ever feel like entering a Game Jam, but the time limit is always too much pressure? We get it... You lead a hectic life and dedicating 3 whole days to make a game just doesn't work for you! So, why not enter the GMC SLOW JAM? Take your time! Kick back and make your game over 4 months! Interested? Then just click here!
Well, guess I know why people are having trouble understanding the game even though I included a README file.... I included it in the repository of the project but not as a GM Included File, so it wasn't exported <.< ahh well, wasn't in it to get a decent score either way
Cerealebrate! I just finished a supposedly final Jam-complete version of Three Rules Standing!
Obviously, as a post-Jam version it shouldn't be judged when it comes to Jam voting - rate the original version instead.
However, as far as feedback is concerned, comments on this version are generally more valuable than on the original version.
Story/Writing
- expanded on some tutorials
- filled in the NPCs dialogue in the southern district (earlier some NPCs wouldn't interact)
- added Molly in southern district to emphasize the cruelty of rulesets
- added NPCs in other districts
- wrote the entire dialogue for second ruler (earlier it was basically a Jam-out-of-time placeholder)
- added serious talk with parents (available after you complete the eastern district)
- wrote almost the entire dialogue for the third ruler (earlier it was just the ending, and there were no enforcer NPCs)
Graphics/Art
- added floor graphics for eastern and northern district
- added wall graphics for western, eastern and northern district
- added an actual ending screen (old Jammers will love it... hopefully)
- tweaked the pit gradient
Technicalities
- added Escape to leave the game
- optimized drawing (mostly by taming the overabundance of newly created structs)
- hopefully fixed the weird scaling on startup on the first play
Southern District
After the initial dialogue with Mom and Dad, go two rooms north and one room west. Feel free to speak with any NPCs that you meet.
Go one room to the south. You'll find yourself in the first room with actually restrictive rules. Just go all the way south, it's not like you can do anything else.
In the next room, turn-dance your way through the maze of circles and go north through the central of northern exits.
Go all the way north, then pass through the corridor in the next room, then go all the way south to the maze of circles. Then you can easily go from leftmost northern exit to the western exit.
You'll find yourself in the first room with four rules and three bridges. Jump over the stream, feel free to talk to Carrie's brother, then get to the northern exit through the rightmost bridge.
You'll end up in a room with many water and diamond tiles. Find your way to the north.
There are probably multiple ways to solve this one; I'd just slalom around the middle lane without jumping, while shamelessly walking through the diamond tiles.
After a bit of dialogue, go towards this large machine thing - the control center. With that, you'll liberate the district from the rules.
From the control panel room, go two rooms to the east, then one room to the north to leave the district. Or you can explore some more - now the rules don't restrain you.
(note: the original version doesn't have much of special dialogue after liberating the district; the Jam-complete version does have it, though)
Western District
After leaving the southern district, you'll find yourself in a "hub" room that connects all four districts.
In original version it's blank, in the Jam-complete version it has a single building with Man in the Middle.
Go all the way west until reaching the room with Galahad Meyers and his control panel. After he challenges you, go to the south room.
Slide towards the south exit to the right.
Collect all coins, while disregarding the AVOID SLIPPERY SURFACES and NO WALKING ON SQUARE rules. After you open the door, go to the southern right exit.
Watch out for the NO REPEATED TURNING rule. Note that sliding counts as a part of the same move as stepping-on-ice move; if you slide immediately after a turn-move, then the next move cannot be a turn-move.
Collect all coins in order, while disregarding the NO JUMPING and NO FLOOR BREAKING RULE. Avoid the tiles with symbols.
After you collect the coins, go to the western section of the room and leave to the north through a left exit.
Go north while disregarding the NO WALKING ON SQUARE rule. If you avoid circle and ice tiles, you can get away with repeated turning.
Slide straight to the north.
After entering the control panel room through the second-left exit, jump immediately to the left and leave through the leftmost exit.
Then come back again, with all rules restored to the valid state.
Feel free to talk with Galahad before activating the panel, if you wish - you can easily get away with NO GOING WEST and KEEP TURNING rules.
Activate the control panel to liberate the western district from the rules and taxes. After that, go back to the "hub" room and leave to the east.
Eastern District
Feel free to talk with NPCs, if any. Go one room to the south.
Go further south through the leftmost exit, while moving the blocks around (feel free to drop them off the pit if they get in the way).
Disregard the NO BLOCKS MISPLACING rule while respecting the others.
Push a nearby block onto a button while turn-dancing. Then cross the chasm and leave through the second-left exit.
Push blocks that stand in your way, while avoiding triangle tiles. Push one of blocks around the chasm onto the button. Go through the eastern top exit.
a) Go to the right, pushing the nearby block along the way and stopping just before it ends up on an arrow panel.
b) Disregard the NO WALKING ON DIAMOND rule and move to the bottom-left section through the diamond tiles and 2-numbered tiles.
c) Push the nearby block upwards, making it slide on ice.
d) Move the block to the left, onto a down-facing arrow tile. It'll push away another block, opening the way to the west bottom exit. Go through that exit.
Go around the blocks through the triangle tiles.
a) From the row of blocks, push down the third-left one.
b) Then, push down the fifth-left block.
c) Push the fourth-left block to the left, then push it down. It'll be stopped by the previous block you pushed down, opening the door.
d) Go through the eastern exit (duh).
a) Push one block onto the down-facing arrow tile, then go around and push it onto the right-facing arrow tile. Repeat with the other block near the down-facing arrow tile.
Mind the NO REPEATED TURNING rule.
b) Push the top block right until it slides away.
c) Push the block down, until it's near the pit.
c) Push the block right, until it's one tile away from the wall.
d) Push the block down one tile, then right one tile.
d) Push the block all the way down, then all the way right onto the up-facing arrow-tile. The block will land onto a button.
e) Leave through the northern exit.
Walk further north, while avoiding the ice tile.
a) Generally: ignore the KEEP TURNING and NO BLOCKS MISPLACING rules, while respecting the others.
b) Push the nearby block to the left, so that it ends up on a button.
c) While making your way around the crumbling tiles, push the block currently on the button one tile down (you'll cross a crumbling tile once while doing so).
d) Once you're standing on the button instead of the block, move to the right so that you don't damage the tile above you even further.
e) Push a block near control center onto the arrow tile, so that it lands on a button.
f) Walk onto the arrow tile yourself, so that you can reach the control panel without repeated turning.
Activate the control panel and disable all the rules. Then go back to the hub and this time move north.
Northern District - Left Area
Keep going north until you reach the room with the supreme ruler and the control panel. Move one room to the west through the bottom exit.
Jump around while disregarding the NO JUMPING and NO REPEATED TURNING rules. Reach the western bottom exit.
In the bottom-right section, disregard AVOID SLIPPERY SURFACES rule and push the bottom block onto a diamond tile.
Then, slide down from above that block - it'll stop your sliding. Make your way to the southern right exit.
Disregard the NO FLOOR BREAKING and NO JUMPING rules, while respecting NO TURNING BACK and KEEP TURNING rules.
It's a somewhat twisted path - sometimes having the player go through circles - but with some trial and error you should be able to find the way forward.
Start with jumping to the left from the first crumbling tile and make your way from there.
Leave through the western bottom exit.
Go and jump straight up from the eastern bottom exit to the eastern top exit.
a) Go straight right and then straight down to collect the 1-coin.
b) Go right, then up almost collecting the 3-coin, then all the way left, then up to collect the 2-coin.
c) Move all the way right, collecting the 3-coin along the way.
d) Turn down and then go through a narrow path, collecting 4-coin along the way. Then, leave through the northern left exit.
Go all the way left, then all the way up, then left to leave through the western bottom exit.
Disregard NO GOING SOUTH and NO REPEATED TURNING rules, and collect all the coins while respecting all the other rules.
Leave through the eastern top exit.
a) Disregard NO OVERSTEPPING rule from the get-go, and focus on collecting coins in order.
b) Go through the square of crumbling blocks to reach 1-coin. After stepping on 2-tile, move down, then right, then down.
c) Go around to reach the cluster of crumbling blocks, with a single 2-tile and four 1-tiles. Make sure the 1-tile to the left of 2-tile is intact.
From the 2-tile, go right, then down, then jump right, and then all the way up, collecting the 2-coin.
d) Make your way to the 3-coin and 4-coin, then to the eastern top exit. The path should be narrow enough to be easily figured out.
Jump around while disregarding the NO JUMPING and KEEP TURNING rules.
Reach the eastern top exit (you'll need to keep going back and forth towards the end to respect the NO REPEATED TURNING rule).
Slide all the way to the east, reaching the right area of the northern district.
Northern District - Right Area
a) Push the nearby block on the up-facing arrow-tile.
b) Push the same block down to the height of nearby 1-tile, then up one tile to the height of nearby 2-tile, then all the way right.
c) In order not to break NO TURNING BACK rule, move down, then right. Then go all the way around and push the same block down onto a right-facing arrow tile.
The block will push away another block blocking the southern exit. Go through that exit.
Push down the fourth-left block, then push down seventh-left block.
Then - with door unlocked - push down the rightmost block to make your way to the eastern exit.
Make your way to the northern exit, without pushing any blocks whatsoever.
(Mercerenies made some really crazy block circuit here and I had no idea how to complete it, so I just made the way myself in the last phase of jamming)
Make your way to the western exit through the triangle tiles and circle tiles. Don't step on other symbols.
Disregarding the NO JUMPING rule, make your way to the western top exit.
Enjoy the ending dialogue!
In the original version, the game ends abruptly after completing the control panel dialogue. In the Jam-complete version there's an ending screen afterwards.
Note: the Jam-complete version here means that I've mostly tied the loose ends specific to the Jam version, making the story and game more or less complete.
I'd like to expand upon that idea even further, but it's unlikely to be finished anytime soon, with much larger scope and more attention to detail.
Likewise, the story will be extended significantly, and while some key points will remain the way they are, others might get rearranged/reworked. I have yet to see how it'll turn out.
With all that in mind, I decided to at least get the original Jam game to some semblance of completion, so you can at least find out what was the original story supposed to be like, more or less.
Also, I recommend:
- checking out the README; there are quite a few useful controls mentioned
- playing the game in the fullscreen mode (if you have 1920x1080 resolution or larger); the game uses higher-quality sprites when in fullscreen mode, so that you don't get a blurry upscaled mess when you switch to fullscreen
Well surprisingly, I think that first attempt at a stream went well. It was cool to see a few of you in there while I played your games. Thanks for the tips, and I hope seeing me playing them was useful.
Here's the video for anyone who missed it and wants to check it out, providing some timestamps too. www.twitch.tv/videos/735730259
00:03:35 Robber Rules! by @KPJ
00:11:36 Igor by @Ninety
00:34:48 Night of the Winning Dead by @Pat Ferguson
01:00:35 Hooklab by @Lambda
01:16:40 Snakes on a Plain by @Richerama
01:26:55 Spielcomm 2020 by @Bart
01:41:19 Rules of the Rhinoceros by @Yal
01:56:55 Coco Cards Casino by @GameDevDan 💩 and @NAL
02:14:04 Inconvenience Store by @TehPilot
I'm going to do another one in about 9-10 hours too.
My reviews and votes are up!
Once again, as usual, to be taken with a huge grain of salt.
I hope everyone can find something of use in my review of their game.
If you do happen to have questions or remarks feel free to let me know!
Thanks for all your reviews of my game so far. I've taken the feedback in and am working on a post-jam version of my entry with a quite lively Spielcomm fair and a proper ending.
@Alice Thanks for the review. Spielcomm is my fictional incarnation of the annual Gamescom games fair.
There's not much of a fair in the jam version (basically just an empty building with a star power-up in it) but there will be in the post-jam version.
@Siolfor the Jackal Started watching your livestream right before it ended.
The video playthrough was very interesting. It gave some good insights on how one might approach playing the game.
I just added a walkthrough for our Jam entry as well! It's in a deceptively inconspicious spoiler tag that I added to my post announcing the Jam-complete version. Feel free to check it out.
Also, @Bart , looking forward to playing the post-Jam version of your entry, to see what kind of locations you came up with. ^^
While we're on the topic of post-Jam versions, maybe you could add some distant shadow/fog effect to your game, so that same-coloured walls don't blend with each other?
It should make it easier to find some bathroom entrances etc. as well.
(I know one of previous GM versions has some kind of function to add this shadow/fog effect in 3D, but it seems to be gone now? Still, would be nice to research this, because way too many Jam 3D games have all these flat colours blending with one another)
@Siolfor the Jackal Started watching your livestream right before it ended.
The video playthrough was very interesting. It gave some good insights on how one might approach playing the game.
Second video is done, Spent a really long time on one game, but still managed to get a few more in still.
Full video is here: www.twitch.tv/videos/736094711
I'm having more fun playing them with the creators in the stream than I do playing them by myself, not just because they are there to help me along if I get stuck either.
I'll try to do another one in about 8-10 hours, depends on how dead I feel when I wake up haha.
Well surprisingly, I think that first attempt at a stream went well. It was cool to see a few of you in there while I played your games. Thanks for the tips, and I hope seeing me playing them was useful.
Here's the video for anyone who missed it and wants to check it out, providing some timestamps too. www.twitch.tv/videos/735730259
00:03:35 Robber Rules! by @KPJ
00:11:36 Igor by @Ninety
00:34:48 Night of the Winning Dead by @Pat Ferguson
01:00:35 Hooklab by @Lambda
01:16:40 Snakes on a Plain by @Richerama
01:26:55 Spielcomm 2020 by @Bart
01:41:19 Rules of the Rhinoceros by @Yal
01:56:55 Coco Cards Casino by @GameDevDan 💩 and @NAL
02:14:04 Inconvenience Store by @TehPilot
I'm going to do another one in about 9-10 hours too.
Hi! I managed to watch some of this, I enjoyed it. Thanks for playing my game. The intention was that after punching you would lose enough speed to not get any further forward but looks like you broke it a bit. I should have played around with this a bit more to get it just right but ran out of time in the end.
No worries, dude. It was fun to play, more fun to break haha.
Makes sense it was designed that, I just accidentally found the right time to break it. It reminds me of a mobile game I enjoyed called Punch Quest.
Also, no stream today, I overslept and woke up with a massive headache, but I will do some more games tomorrow. A bit earlier than yesterday if i can manage.
The post-jam version of my game is finished!
(as far as I'll ever be able to call it like that; it never will be)
So... All welcome at the first lively Spielcomm fair!
You can select free mode if you don't want to worry about any masks or coins and there's now a teleporter that brings you directly to the entrance.
After reaching the fair area you can visit the GMC Jam stand (look for the orange umbrella), let a psychic predict your future (voiced by -ahem- me), skate the halfpipe or join the party in the boiler room.
Or simply have a look at everything else that's there.
More info is in the updated readme.
* Added more trash cans and also put them in more visible places
* Added color to many walls to get a better overview of the environment
* Added an "How To Play"
* The three simple rules are now immediately visible at the start of the game
* Created the actual fair area consisting of two halls
* Adjusted the collision masks
* Added a teleporter that allows fast travel
* Updated the readme
* Added proper credits and ending
* Increased the elevator speed
* Animated characters still have that issue of the triangles acting weird. Not fixed yet because it doesn't hinder actual gameplay too much.
Third video playthrough today, got through a lot of games too. I'm probably going to do another one in about 9 hours roughly, maybe later. I still have 15 games left to play, so I may even get them all into the next one depending on how short some of them are. Also, thanks for everyone who keeps popping in. And thanks for your little hints and reminders as I play. www.twitch.tv/videos/737545739
Third video playthrough today, got through a lot of games too. I'm probably going to do another one in about 9 hours roughly, maybe later. I still have 15 games left to play, so I may even get them all into the next one depending on how short some of them are. Also, thanks for everyone who keeps popping in. And thanks for your little hints and reminders as I play. www.twitch.tv/videos/737545739
I think next jam I will try and organise a bit better and give everyone a chance to watch their game at a time that works better for them. I think it's more fun for me that way too.
@Cloaked Games and @JosephEllis will kill me but im there only good programmer for this game so , here's the walkthrough for all the endings for The faults in our code
Well, guess I know why people are having trouble understanding the game even though I included a README file.... I included it in the repository of the project but not as a GM Included File, so it wasn't exported
Final stream done, and all games played! I had a blast doing this, lots of great and interesting games. Even better with some company. Thanks to everyone who popped in to watch, or who stayed for whole streams. I hope these video playthroughs were useful or at the very least, entertaining.
Full video: www.twitch.tv/videos/738004073
Final stream done, and all games played! I had a blast doing this, lots of great and interesting games. Even better with some company. Thanks to everyone who popped in to watch, or who stayed for whole streams. I hope these video playthroughs were useful or at the very least, entertaining.
Full video: www.twitch.tv/videos/738004073
Enjoyed watching you play. There was a couple games I couldn't figure out so nice to see your play through.
My apologies for just restating the game and making you watch the intro over and over.
in my defense.
1) the intro was the best part of the game
2) I really didn’t expect anyone would play the game more than once!
3) I’m old and not very smart.
my games are usually short and simple so people don’t suffer for long. The fourth time you played I was starting to feel bad. Especially since the play button is there the whole time........
@Bart Played through the post-Jam version, even completing it properly in timed mode. Made it to Spielcomm with 10 coins paid for metro and 10 coins collected in the other area, and got infection resistance.
I definitely find browsing through the Spielcomm satisfying, with the Jam highlights and other attractions to watch (I see the half-pipe ramp wasn't implemented by then, yet?).
The first time I got to Spielcomm, I missed the party in the boiler room, because I went to the end instead and the game ended immediately - would be nice to let the player end the game instead, so that they can go back and still browse through the Spielcomm attractions. At least the free mode and teleporter were there for me.
Oh, and also, would be really nice if the GMC Jam section music faded out the general environment music, or else there are two tracks playing over one another.
I enjoyed the post-Jam version, overall. ^^
(though - at risk of sounding like a broken record - I'd still like that slight fog/shadow effect to give some more depth to the area)
Seems like you fully completed the game, except for the half-pipe, which is in there.
There's a p on it and something that looks like an o, and the half-pipe itself is shaped as a u (it is a bit too far-fetched, I guess ). But it's also in the updated readme.
Also, you can use those other 10 coins to take that other metro back. Both offer a single ride.
I actually considered fading the music but thought it could work like this (and even be a bit realistic, perhaps, in case you'd be standing between two areas?)
The fog effect I didn't add because of the distant landmarks, such as the tv tower. The world is drawn all at once so I didn't have many options there.
I'll try to add some diffuse lighting next time.
Guess I'll be playing some post-jam versions of games myself, too
I'm a little disappointed in the amount of boring, empty space though, which just pads out the game for no real reason. It'd be fun if the rooms were filled with more people who could comment on things and if the people there were had more to say (for example, the only ones to react on the the rules being gone were your family and even they mostly commented on them hearing you and not on, what I assume, how the society just radically changed).
For the record, these empty rooms were originally meant to have people commenting on specific districts and such, but obviously we had no time to put these in (the second ruler dialogue might be a hint). That's also the reason why only the family comments on what happened.
Also, in general people don't yet understand the implications for society, especially since they expect the rules to come back the next day. And - if Carrie would just stay in the southern district for the rest of the day - that's precisely what would happen. Plus, I figure most people are concerned with how things affect them personally rather than what it means for the society at large, and it wouldn't be the first thing they'd talk about after a major change.
Either way, the post-Jam version is much closer to the intended vision - it has people whose dialogue is affected by disabling rules in the district, and also more complete dialogue for the second and third ruler (the second ruler dialogue was basically a placeholder, and the third ruler only got the finishing part of the dialogue). You can even talk to parents about the genes when the time is right!
Oh, and it also has a more proper ending, that only veteran Jammers could fully appreciate.
So yeah, I encourage to check it out. ^^
Yeah, I had a bug where the surface wasn't getting cleared between levels, so it had foreground parts from the previous level blended in with the foreground of the current level. I've since fixed that, along with a fix for the timer. If you care to try out my post submission build, it is HERE. The cut scenes were made in just a couple hours. I was amazed at how easy working with Sequences was. I'm going to be using this a lot more in future games! Thanks for the feedback!
Seemed to be some (major) problem with views being broken here. Couldn't play it! Couldn't see anything outside the initial area cos the view didn't follow the player. Oh well.
@dadio Yes, that is unfortunately a known problem that slipped past us until right up at the deadline. You should be able to get the views to work normally by switching to fullscreen and back (hitting F twice). From there, the game should work normally.
Howdy folks.. So in the end I decided not to submit votes, I was only able to get through all the entries by doing a couple of games a day over the course of like 2 weeks, which isn't really a good environment for comparisons. But overall I was really impressed by the variety of what was turned out, a lot of entries were insanely high-quality for the amount of time given, and a lot were quite a lot of fun to play though, even when I only had essentially a few minutes per game to fiddle with them.
But anyway. Not going to rank, but I have included my thoughts on each game for their developer(s), hopefully you will find the feedback useful. If you have any specific questions about what I wrote or would like me to look at your game again in more detail please let me know. Happy to oblige, though it may take me some time to wrangle my schedule to where I can do that.
In any case, this was a lot of fun to participate in, thanks to everyone who took the time to play and comment on my entry, and as always, thanks to the organizers and the GMC in general.
=============::COMMENTS ON JAM ENTRIES::================
1000 Rules To Live by by Wooshdude
I like the inclusion of rogue-like-like power up but while giving each one a positive and negative aspect does change some things about the gameplay, in some cases, picking some of them up are essentially downgrades. (double health but 50% damage just makes fights last longer...) This game seems to have some decent ideas, but probably needs to be fleshed out a bit more. Also had a crash when attempting to exit the 2nd area. Noble effort, in any case.
A Game for 8 Colors by DEGLIS
Pretty cool. I have very little time and I have never been much of a puzzle person so I didn't stick with this for too long, but I did like the look and sound of it. The progressive soundtrack was nice as well.
Break! (don't brake) by Kalzme
Pretty fun and pretty simple, though I'm still not sure I get exactly how scoring is handled. Nice visuals though, and the music and vocal clips were a nice touch as well.
Cannibal Rules by ZombieLawyer
Cool idea, nice implementation of the interface. Some of the results seemed to not always match up with my decisions, it seems like, but maybe I just wasn't understanding the situations correctly. At any rate, neat concept, was fun to mess around with for a while.
Coco Bombs by Adam Games
Simple enough game, I really liked the artstyle but felt like it could have used some music and especially some feedback for when you hit an enemy, etc. It does look really nice though.
Coco Cards Casino by GameDevDan and NAL
Unfortunately, I don't have much of head or patience for card games; they make my eyes glaze over and I check out pretty quick. So I'm not a very good judge of this game. That's no fault of yours, though. I can tell a lot of love and effort went into this though, the art has a lot of character and the concept of the game seems good, just requiring more brainpower than I've got after a day of work, an hour of bugfixing, and with 23 more games laft to review. Anyway. I feel guilty because I feel like it deserves a better review on account of all the love and care that obviously went into it. But it's a bit like asking for a review of lemonade from a guy who just drank 2 gallons of orange juice and hates lemonade. Sorry.
Collect Build Kill by Lukan
Seems interesting, the parts of it that were working anyway, pressing the spacebar seemed to cause me to instantly die, so I wasn't able to craft anything. Not sure what was causing that, I may have accidentally rebound the key or something. Strange.
Color Wars by Rui Rosario
Interesting concept, I feel like it would have benefited from an explanation of the color hierarchy and which buttons shoot what color somewhere on screen, since it's difficult to remember. Also some sort of visual or audio feedback for when the player gets hit might have been nice. I thought the shield was an interesting addition.
Conquer and DRILL by Cpsy1714
Well the voice narration was a really nice touch. This certainly seems like a pretty impressive effort, but as the last game to review after a long day and with no readme in sight, I kinda bounced off the interface and didn't have enough brainpower left to figure out what everything means. So I declared war on the entire world and died, just like in real life. Looked like a pretty serious effort though.
Fire Realm by Red Phantom
Interesting idea for a game, having some enemies that kill you when you hit them added some variety. (probably more dangerous than the normal enemies to be honest, at least to me.) I would have advocated the death sequence being a little bit shorter and less flashy, it's a bit hard on the eyes after a while. Didn't make it to the end, alas, since my time is getting short, but it was fun to fiddle around with.
Fishy Clicker by sylvain_I
I'm.. not sure what's going on here? But you definitely click on stuff and a number goes up... I guess there is some amount of strategy where you can optimize your order and get slightly more points? I am puzzled, overall. Maybe I'm missing something. Oddly relaxing though... : /
Grow A Plant by Poizen
Seems like a pretty unique idea, as usual I'm not too big on puzzle games so I didn't stick with it for too long but it seemed like a versatile concept with some room for variety. Nicely done.
Guess Who Hostage Rescue by Mightyjor
This was a cool idea, and well implemented, the only thing I could abve wished for would be to have a keybind to switch between clues, I think that would have made it a tiny but more streamlined. but, nice concept, good atmosphere, I really liked this one.
HookLab by Lambda
Really neat game. Has some nice spritework going for it as well. Puzzle games aren't usually my thing, but this one started off simply enought and had few enough rules that it held my interest for a bit. Good job explaining the mechanics to the player through just the first opening levels. Pretty good level design in general, even coming from a person who doesn't really like puzzles. Nice job.
Igor by Ninety
Absolutely fantastic. Though to be perfectly honest I rage quit on the block switch level because in every FPS I play (which is most of what I play) Shift is my jump button ( I hit it with my pinkie) and so I was horribly crosswired through out the duration of the game and died on spikes in stupid ways 90,000 times because I was constantly grabbing when I meant to jump, and I had to think about it for a second before I did ~anything~ That's not your fault of course, and overall I think it's a great game; nice presentation and polish on a solid concept. I wouldn't say anything groundbreaking in terms of mechanics, (though again, I'm aware I probably didn't see everything there is to it.) But a very solid execution, and that counts for a lot. Enjoyed it a lot.
Inconvenience Store by TehPilot
Cool idea for a game, well executed. Took me a bit to figure out the the symbology but generally I think I got everything sorted out. I think the artstyle is maybe a little harder on the eyes than it might need to be and might even be hurting comprehension some, but overall I thought this was a great effort.
Lava Jamp by sk8dududu
Seems like a fairly standard infinite runner, I did like the art style and effects thought. Some situations seemed unsurviveable, but perhaps i just hadn't got gud enough.
Mage's Quest by Calepiaro
Simple and fun, nothing too groundbreaking gameplaywise, but it was put together well. My only complaint wold have been the essentially blind jumps you seem to have to make in places to progress. But once you realize it's what you have to do it's not so bad. I liked the visual style and especially the ending. Geat job overall.
MEGADOME by The M
Pretty rad! Always like seeing 3D stuff in GM. Game seemed fun, though it was hard to keep aware of where everyone was, so some kind of radar or at least an indicator of where you were getting shot from would have been useful, along with some crosshairs. I did really like the announcer voice though, that was a nice detail.
Morning Commute by Yothebob
Too much like real life, rage quit after about 10 attempts. Actually a very cute concept, though I do feel like the difficulty starts off too high. Fun idea though.
Night Of The Winning Dead by Pat Ferguson
This was fantastic, amazing job! I am just old enough to have played the original Lemmings a bit, which was a good thing because I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I was able to figure out what was going on. But this was an awesome recreation and as far as I can tell, pretty faithful to the original. Wonderful pixel work throughout, and especially in the title screen. Fantastic job.
Out of the Square by ericossiqueira and Benjamim
Well, it was definitely unusual. I had to go back and read the submission thread to figure things out, a but of an in-game control tutorial might have been nice. (also, as a general note, usually you want to have a way for the player to quit out of your game if it's fullscreen. I did like the bits of narrative there was, and the ending.
PUSH by Toque
Remarkably fun game for how simple it was. Played it a few times, gave me a giggle or two. Nice touch using everyone's icons.
Robber Rules! by KPJ
Seems neat, though I feel like the difficulty ramps up and the timing is a bit to close to really be enjoyable. I tend not to do too great at memorizing buttons that I don't find intuitive so there was a lot of frustration with hitting the wrong button (between shift and control, obviously) because I didn't have them in muscle memory yet and with the timing it seemed like if you don't hit the button immediately you're already most of the way to a failure. Anyway. A fine concept, just a bit overtuned, I feel like.
Robo Royale by bandman28 and Josh Chen
Cool idea, and props for explaing the controls and mechanics effectively. Sadly, there is not much to test you skill against as the enemy AI is not very effective. I feel like if it had been more of a challenge this game could have shone more.
Rules of the Rhinoceros by Yal
Well that was really definitely something. Somehow I love the artstyle and aesthetic, despite it looking and feeling like the aftermath of a pretty serious tequila bender. Gameplay seems fine, though it's hard to say that I got a good feel for how the game 'is' since the gameplay is always being shaken up quite a bit. Most of the modifiers seem cool, except for random game speed, which is the worst thing ever. In all, had a lot of fun , will probably replay at some point in the future.
Rush, Kill, Repeat by filiprb
Well, I love the aesthetic, but yikes this game is a bit too hard and frustrating for me off the bat. Given random spawns and such it seems like some situations are impossible to get out of. Most of the time it seemed like I was just unable to kill enough guys to keep the timer up. In any case, really liked the sound and visuals, but maybe more purposefully constructed levels might have increased the enjoyability by a lot.
Snakes on a Plain by Richerama
Pretty cool game, I had a nice chuckle or two over it. I liked the artstyle and humor and the gameplay itself was pretty solid. The one thing I would have suggested adding would have been a 'press space' prompt when dialog was up during the game proper, since I did spend an embarrassing amount of time staring at a single word bubble before I realized input was required. All in all, great effort.
Spielcomm 2020 by Bart
Ah, mouse smoothing, my old nemesis... Seriously though, I always love seeing 3D content in GM:S so this was fun to play around with. I really dug the music, too.
Subside by HyprBlu
Pretty awesome! Great example of a simple concept executed really well.. Didn't have enough time to get to the end but the levels seemed well conceived and had a nice progression of difficulty. Controls felt pretty good, though there is a tendency to shoot into the ground when the aimpoint is only a little bit down, I might have added an affordance what checks for that and instead puts the shots paralell to the ground. But overall I really enjoyed it, nice job.
The Faults in our Code by Evanski, CloakedGames and Joseph Ellis
Pretty intensely rad, excellent job to all involved. Unfortunately I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to try and hunt down all the endings, but it was an amusing time nonetheless. Great writing and spritework.
The ritual by finh2003
Cute game. It was fun steamrolling the dungeon with a bunch of skelebros. The procedural-ish generation was cool , and I was pleasantly surprised at the number and variety of curses. RIP my monitor and eyes at the end, though. Overall a great effort.
They Bleed Red Too by SoapSud39
Interesting, liked the style and thre narration was a really nice touch. Great job with all the different characters and animations as well. The copycat mechanic seemed cool as well, though I'm not certain the use for it. Sadly a bit too fidgety for me to stick with till the end.
Three Nights Of Knights by chris24
Cute game. Simple but does it's job pretty well. I did notice there appears to be a bug where the knight's HP is linked to the current room, but overall things work pretty well, I appreciate the inclusion of a block mechanic and the enemies telegreph their attacks well. Solid effort.
Three Rules Make a Riddle by Ghandpivot
Neat idea, great presentation. I kinda bounced off it because sometimes the clues seemed pretty nebulous. I dunno. Puzzles aren't my thing, I didn't make it too far. But looked and sounded great.
Three Rules Standing by Alice and Mercerenies
Awesome concept, has a lot of potential. Sadly I'm not a big puzzle fan so I didn't get as much out of it as some would, and since I have a lot of other games to do I did quit before the end. But I can recognize that a lot of thought and creativity went into this. I appreciate the time spend to integrate a plot and storyline and portraits as well. I could easily see it as a full product. Great job.
Trichotomy by FrostyCat
Neat game, very high production value, you can tell a lot of work went into it. Unfortunately puzzle games definitely aren't my thing and my time was pretty short, so I played most of a game but didn't come up with any interesting observations regarding strategy or anything like that. Still, seems like a well-made game that might be a good timekiller for someone less puzzle-averse than I. Nice job.
Vaccine Maze by Lucas Poeiras
Cute themed game, everything seems to work like it should. I appreciated the menu having instructions in it. Otherwise, not too much to comment on other than it wasn't super clear to me what the soap does...
Weapon Master by DreadedDruid
Pretty cool! Was suprised at the number of features for a Jam game. I especially thought the extra heart container and the camera refocusing when switches were here were a nice addition. Cool tileset as well. Crashed at the end but otherwise a very competent little zeltroiodvania.
Whack (only) the Mole by awlred
Pretty cute. Fun idea and implementation, though having three categories to deal with off the bat was a bit much to wrap my brain around without instinctively knowing what button to hit for what.
All in all though, good idea, seems like it's halfway to being a typing game.
Wizard's Pub Crawl by Siolfor The Jackal
Pretty great, had a fun time and a few chuckles. Pretty good idea for a game, too, I haven't seen many of these old commando-style scrolling shooters for a looooooong, while. Memories! Lots of fun, great job.
You Only Have 3 Minutes by Evanski
Wow. Incredible.. just completely astounding.. This is definitely the most unique project of this type I have seen today. I love the sound, the stark visuals. The Urgency. The inexorable march towards.. what? Who can say? The anticipation build as at the timer drops. Two minutes left now... The time clicks away, the clock remaining motionless. Consider the black rectangle. It's rigid intractability. Yawning like the mouth of an open grave. Beyond: nothingness. Meaninglessness. An empty void filled with a single thought, a single question: Why? ....Why??? WHY??? 30 seconds to go... My heart pumps in time with the timer. What answers await.. What answers can there be??? Almost done.. Almost....
(I'd heard about this one. I liked your 3 timer, enjoy my 3 minutes of stream of consciousness writing while I 'played' it )
Thanks for the review/comments @FrostyCat - I think it's great you went to the effort to provide quite specific feedback on what people can improve next time (and in some cases a tutorial for improving their skills in general). Yours are probably the most valuable comments in the whole topic.
However just want to pick up one point in case anyone reading them gets unnecessarily discouraged from entering future jams:
Practice with a more sizeable project than this before joining another jam...
...Practice with a working product before you try to join a jam again...
A jam is absolutely the place to make mistakes - sometimes lots of them. If your game doesn't turn out great it's still good practice. These sentences could be read as kind of "gate-keeping" newbies from joining the jam, but if they hadn't entered this time they wouldn't have gotten such valuable advice! Absolutely practice with other projects between jams - but don't feel put off joining the next one if you didn't get chance to hone your skills in between.
I've got a lot of feedback on my game, so perhaps a mini-retrospective is in order? As some sort of example on how to learn from feedback, I suppose.
I'm overall pretty happy with the random generation system (levels are made from a handful of screen-sized objects that create a screen-sized Sequence, which in turn creates all the objects that make up the actual level). It's pretty limited in some ways (like all rooms being forced to have connectors to all neighboring rooms), but with more time I could have separate random tables for every possible connectivity (4-way, vertical-only, and so on). The game being a platformer where the direction you're going can change probably didn't help matters (platforms must be placed so you can reach any edge of a room from any other edge, even with inverted gravity)
All the levels use the exact same room layout (mostly because I ran out of time to make more than one room). I figured the randomness would cover that up, but it's probably not good for longevity once you figure it out.
Some people didn't even make it through the first level because it's unclear what the goal is, or because their first batch of random modifiers is too mean. I probably should've had the first level be just 3 rooms in a corridor (start, 1 random level room, goal) instead of a full 4x3 maze so it's physically impossible to get lost and miss the goal, teaching the player what the goal looks like because they can't miss it and ensuring they can at least beat ONE level.
There were a lot of complaints about some modifier combinations basically make the game impossible. I didn't have a lot of time to test the game, and I probably should've implemented more weird modifiers and fewer difficult modifiers (going in line with the druggy theme). Another idea would be to give modifiers a score factor based on how they change difficulty, and then force a reroll if the score is too bad in early levels (where the game is supposed to be easy) or too good in later levels (when the difficulty is supposed to pick up).
There were some complaints about the shop guns being useless (since everything drops guns) and there being no reliable way to refill health. Pretty valid complaints since the health upgrades just are in the random rotation of shop items, it probably would've been a good idea to have one item be guaranteed to be a health upgrade so players can heal themselves tactically (the price goes up exponentially every time you upgrade your health so you might want to wait with doing it until you're at low health)
I think a lot of feedback about the difficulty could be because you can get hit by attacks from outside the screen a lot - while the surrounding frame is important for the style, it eats up almost half the screen estate. I tried hiding that by placing ALL the HUD elements on top of the frame, but that's basically just placebo to hide how much of the screen it takes up. There probably was a more elegant solution...
The transition between levels take too long, especially once you've seen a few dozen of them. There's a key to skip it, but I didn't advertise it to the player anywhere.
The game is difficult to actually quit (press Escape on the title screen). This is mostly because of the jam time constraints, I didn't want to mess around adding persistent objects at the last second and I also didn't want the potential for people to ruin their runs by accidentally pressing the button mid-playing. (Perhaps some middle ground where a global keypress pops up a show_question could've worked - dirty, but quick and simple). Though these popups don't work all that well with games that run in fullscreen mode (which, in turn, is basically a prerequisite for a mouse-controlled game). Perhaps making the game mouse-controlled to begin with was the main issue...
I'm pretty happy with the psychedelic background: it's basically a white sprite (depicting some random text glued to a giant arrow) drawn rotated in a loop (5-7 iterations, I don't remember which off the top of my head) with the color lerped from hue 0 to 255 over the circle; it's rotated at a certain speed each step so they spin around, and the whole thing is drawn onto the room at a layer below all other layers... the entire thing is drawn to the blank canvas outside of all backgrounds, which leaves afterimages (a bug involving funky afterimages when the view got outside the room is what gave me the idea, actually) and then a very transparent white noise texture is drawn tiled over the entire layer at a random position, which causes the old iterations of the loop to slowly fade away. (The NOISE slowly fading away makes it feel much less noisy, which is a nice bonus!)
The view-shake effect is just Game Maker's built-in view_angle system, so nothing special's going on there. The same system is used for the level-end transition.
The levels falling apart is caused by a control object adding random values to the hspeed, vspeed and image_angle of all objects in the room, and then increasing the random amount more and more over time as the transition progresses.
The chromatic abherration shader is a carry-over from the previous jam.
I focused entirely on visual effects for most of the jam, starting on the core gameplay loop on the final day. In retrospect, that distribution might not have been the best idea, since the gameplay is really unpolished.
Overall, it was a great learning experience, though I would've been glad if a larger portion of the learning wouldn't have come from my mistakes. Welp, there's always next time, I guess
I've got a lot of feedback on my game, so perhaps a mini-retrospective is in order? As some sort of example on how to learn from feedback, I suppose.
I'm overall pretty happy with the random generation system (levels are made from a handful of screen-sized objects that create a screen-sized Sequence, which in turn creates all the objects that make up the actual level). It's pretty limited in some ways (like all rooms being forced to have connectors to all neighboring rooms), but with more time I could have separate random tables for every possible connectivity (4-way, vertical-only, and so on). The game being a platformer where the direction you're going can change probably didn't help matters (platforms must be placed so you can reach any edge of a room from any other edge, even with inverted gravity)
All the levels use the exact same room layout (mostly because I ran out of time to make more than one room). I figured the randomness would cover that up, but it's probably not good for longevity once you figure it out.
Some people didn't even make it through the first level because it's unclear what the goal is, or because their first batch of random modifiers is too mean. I probably should've had the first level be just 3 rooms in a corridor (start, 1 random level room, goal) instead of a full 4x3 maze so it's physically impossible to get lost and miss the goal, teaching the player what the goal looks like because they can't miss it and ensuring they can at least beat ONE level.
There were a lot of complaints about some modifier combinations basically make the game impossible. I didn't have a lot of time to test the game, and I probably should've implemented more weird modifiers and fewer difficult modifiers (going in line with the druggy theme). Another idea would be to give modifiers a score factor based on how they change difficulty, and then force a reroll if the score is too bad in early levels (where the game is supposed to be easy) or too good in later levels (when the difficulty is supposed to pick up).
There were some complaints about the shop guns being useless (since everything drops guns) and there being no reliable way to refill health. Pretty valid complaints since the health upgrades just are in the random rotation of shop items, it probably would've been a good idea to have one item be guaranteed to be a health upgrade so players can heal themselves tactically (the price goes up exponentially every time you upgrade your health so you might want to wait with doing it until you're at low health)
I think a lot of feedback about the difficulty could be because you can get hit by attacks from outside the screen a lot - while the surrounding frame is important for the style, it eats up almost half the screen estate. I tried hiding that by placing ALL the HUD elements on top of the frame, but that's basically just placebo to hide how much of the screen it takes up. There probably was a more elegant solution...
The transition between levels take too long, especially once you've seen a few dozen of them. There's a key to skip it, but I didn't advertise it to the player anywhere.
The game is difficult to actually quit (press Escape on the title screen). This is mostly because of the jam time constraints, I didn't want to mess around adding persistent objects at the last second and I also didn't want the potential for people to ruin their runs by accidentally pressing the button mid-playing. (Perhaps some middle ground where a global keypress pops up a show_question could've worked - dirty, but quick and simple). Though these popups don't work all that well with games that run in fullscreen mode (which, in turn, is basically a prerequisite for a mouse-controlled game). Perhaps making the game mouse-controlled to begin with was the main issue...
I'm pretty happy with the psychedelic background: it's basically a white sprite (depicting some random text glued to a giant arrow) drawn rotated in a loop (5-7 iterations, I don't remember which off the top of my head) with the color lerped from hue 0 to 255 over the circle; it's rotated at a certain speed each step so they spin around, and the whole thing is drawn onto the room at a layer below all other layers... the entire thing is drawn to the blank canvas outside of all backgrounds, which leaves afterimages (a bug involving funky afterimages when the view got outside the room is what gave me the idea, actually) and then a very transparent white noise texture is drawn tiled over the entire layer at a random position, which causes the old iterations of the loop to slowly fade away. (The NOISE slowly fading away makes it feel much less noisy, which is a nice bonus!)
The view-shake effect is just Game Maker's built-in view_angle system, so nothing special's going on there. The same system is used for the level-end transition.
The levels falling apart is caused by a control object adding random values to the hspeed, vspeed and image_angle of all objects in the room, and then increasing the random amount more and more over time as the transition progresses.
The chromatic abherration shader is a carry-over from the previous jam.
I focused entirely on visual effects for most of the jam, starting on the core gameplay loop on the final day. In retrospect, that distribution might not have been the best idea, since the gameplay is really unpolished.
Overall, it was a great learning experience, though I would've been glad if a larger portion of the learning wouldn't have come from my mistakes. Welp, there's always next time, I guess
You're an exceptional gamemaker, Yal. All those details you mentioned are valid, but in a game jam, you just take the best ideas you have and throw them all in a blender and get it done. What results is something that is wild, flashy, and colorful, and beautiful. Just for s and giggles the other day, I played Killer Shark 77. It was Rules of the Rhinoceros that reminded me of it. Anyhow, I played this game until I got like a 1000x multiplier, and there were so many boats trying to kill me, the game was a white blurry mess running at 1 frame per second, and each jump attack was killing scores of them instantly. You just made the game keep generating exponentially more enemies the longer you survived without a second thought of what all those swimmers and boaters would do to the gpu. I couldn't help but laugh and think, 'this guy is nuts!.' ***EDIT*** Hi Yal. I neglected to look at your itch.io profile and see that you are a girl! Forgive me, for presuming you were a guy. I feel like such a sexist old fart for forgetting that there are such great female talents out there. Please allow me to present you with a free Punch Pat in the Face Card, redeemable for life. Your games are VERY well put together, and over the top, and I for one am anxiously looking forward to the next one.
Wow, I've never won one of these before I feel honoured. Congrats to everyone, but especially @EvanSki, of course.
I have a post-jam version of Igor in the works, that will remove the puzzle exploits (no more walking straight past them), fix glitches, etc. I might also add a couple of extra levels I didn't have time to make, that would have explored the 3-rule limit in more detail.
Wow, I've never won one of these before I feel honoured. Congrats to everyone, but especially @EvanSki, of course.
I have a post-jam version of Igor in the works, that will remove the puzzle exploits (no more walking straight past them), fix glitches, etc. I might also add a couple of extra levels I didn't have time to make, that would have explored the 3-rule limit in more detail.
Ohh nice, 35th place is better than I expected for something created in the final hours of the jam and the README fiasco. Plus, didn't read anyone complaining of crashes!
That said, congrats everyone! And the people eligible for my community prize are @Richerama and @kalzme, so feel free to PM me to redeem your programming prize until the next GMC Jam starts hyping.
32nd place. Fair enough.
I claimed my (once again beautiful!) medal and shall wear it with pride in my forum signature
It looks like @Alice and @Mercerenies managed to end in 7th place. That earns you my community prize!
Feel free to PM me and let me know what tune you'd like to have.
Big congratulations to everyone! I did not expect to place that well so that was a huge surprise! Maybe I'll make a quick post-jam update with the feedback you gave me. I'm also kinda curious how a 70 player battle would end up looking like
HUGE thank you to @Alice for counting all the votes and creating these wonderful participation medals for every entrant. Much appreciated
Also quick opportunity to plug the GMC Jam database I've been working on. The results of this jam are now backed up here, and you can see a developer's individual history too. There's also a countdown to the next jam, which at the time of writing is 69 days away. nice.
Thanks again for participating everyone! This jam felt real special
This was quite a Jam indeed; hope the participation will stay at least as strong as in the last two Jams. Congratulations to all the participants, especially for Ninety.
I sure would like to see a version with more levels using the 3 rules limit. Underuse of this mechanic was my main issue with the use of theme in Igor; had it been prevalent through most of the game, I'd happily give Igor best use of theme, myself.
Myself, I'm quite pleased with the top 10 rank, but especially with having two best-ofs on a single game, which isn't all that common.
Sure, having a 1st place and two best-ofs is even more impressive (glances at Ninety), but I'm still glad people enjoyed our take on the theme and the story to go with it; the competition in these categories was quite strong, too!
By the way, I would love to hear some thoughts on the Jam-complete version posted earlier. It has more complete graphics, dialogue, and an ending screen so that the game doesn't end abruptly.
Also, a friendly reminder that there are medals for all participants! You can preview these in the results thread (in Image Results spoiler) and download package with all the medals from HERE (it has 120px tall and 240px tall versions).
I can see some of you already added the medals to your signatures. ^^
forum.yoyogames.com
). But it's also in the updated readme.
Forgive me, for presuming you were a guy. I feel like such a sexist old fart for forgetting that there are such great female talents out there. Please allow me to present you with a free Punch Pat in the Face Card, redeemable for life. Your games are VERY well put together, and over the top, and I for one am anxiously looking forward to the next one.
