GMC Jam Discussion The Thirsty 33rd GMC Jam - Discussion Topic

Relic

Member
I ranked yours 8th and I had a fair amount to say about it. Did you read my comments? It's mostly positive. Well, it 'should' read positively, that is.
One important detail I neglected to mention is that I played on the jam difficulty; I didn't even try the intended difficulty.
Plus I kept the moths visible at all times, so yeah, I went about as casual as anyone could. It was really nice to get the option to take it easy, especially since there's always a few jam games that are tough as nails, and a few of those games is more than enough challenge for me to want for a single jam, lol.
I did appreciate the feedback, thanks. I was certainly in need of some humbling this time round though- my first two serious jams went really well and my head was inflating.

The jam difficulty was there so anyone could basically brute force any level- especially knowing where the moths are.

Some feedback from reviewers I would disagree with- such as the game being too slow. I halved the move speed about half way through development as I wanted the game to be played carefully- draw each moth out from the hidden corners and be forced to freak out if you were jumped by a few because you can’t just sprint away. Being able to sprint through each room would result in being able to probably guide the moths to the exit with just the torch- a very different game.

Also tried a different approach to the flashlight control- the flashlight cares more about relative movement of the mouse than absolute position in the room. I thought this might be more “twin stick shooter” like but with a mouse. The controls were acceptable to some but abhorred by others.
 
O

orSQUADstra

Guest
@Bearman_18 You're not the first one to ask how I made the sun, so here we go:
Basically I just had a completely white sun sprite, which then I drew in the background layer, and then drew it just bigger on a foreground layer with an additive blend mode, colored orange. The alpha is determined by multiple collision checks to see how much the sun is covered. That's literally it :D
 
Glad you enjoyed the music @HayManMarc , all fair points made too. The hihat section in Air was a lot of fun to write. I spent a lot of time on the drums for all songs.
Water was initially supposed to have two more sections but they weren't working and I had spent too much of my limited time on it already, so that's why the intro is so long.
Fire had a similar thing, there were supposed to be a buffer section or two to give a break from the samey melodies.
 

MilesThatch

Member
The video play through with the commentary are the among the most useful. They are the closest thing to a play test session we can get and that's invaluable.
 

Sk8dududu

Member
All video reviews are available through a link on my review post here
Thanks for the extremely helpful video review; you seem like one of the most intuitive gamers to try Dusk (based on seeing you play 39 games prior or it lol), and I was able to see the flaws a lot easier.
"mouse controls the light" *clicks play* "mouse no longer controls the light.." lmao.
It was really interesting to watch because all of your assumptions made while playing were actually true. There was one really cool enemy that you seemed to miss that was I guess due to poor programming. There's a giant spider that climbs down towards you when your light is out on level 2. And when you land he runs away.
 

sp202

Member
@Relic Thanks for the video review of Lightbulb! Unfortunate to hear that the jam player didn't allow you to run two instances of the game at once as that is what you needed to do at the end. If you do decide to try it again via the game's folder rather than the player, I promise it'll make a lot more sense.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
All video reviews are available through a link on my review post here
Ah, thanks for the playthrough.
Yeah, in retrospect I should have made it clearer what exactly "powered" and "not powered" mean and how to tell the two apart (especially in case of the circuits). It should be easy to tell the difference when seeing a powered circuit and a non-powered circuit alongside one another, but such circuits aren't there until Earth level 4. Also, I planned to implement the smooth particle movement which presumably would make the particle motion clearer, but it's one of these little task that I couldn't find the time and memory for (stupid deadlines!).

@RelicUnfortunate to hear that the jam player didn't allow you to run two instances of the game at once as that is what you needed to do at the end.
Huh? That's weird, I run two instances of the game from the Jam Player just fine. One thing I noticed is that the game would immediately close sometimes, but otherwise I could open two windows when I needed.
 

var

Member
Thank you for the review, @Relic, it definitely reinforced what previous reviewers have mentioned about Powerout. Some of the awkwardness of the controls were due to future plans (e.g. we were going to use [space] for something else), but pressing a number key to cycle the power level is a useful idea we (or at least I) hadn't considered.
 

Relic

Member
@Relic you can generate quicker plays in Jasmine Laslo - Switch U On by clicking Skip Track.
Oh dang, that was something that I probably should have discovered. I’ll have another go to give you more feedback other than “I won’t sit here for 40 min”.
 
@Relic I think initially with Break/Link we planned to do more with the elemental theme, so that's why there was a cave background for the Earth levels(and different backgrounds for each element). Also they have a music track each, which I made slower paced because I didn't want them to be too distracting since it was a puzzle game.
Your video was good btw, you gave a good mic and speak clearly which is great.
 

Relic

Member
@Relic I think initially with Break/Link we planned to do more with the elemental theme, so that's why there was a cave background for the Earth levels(and different backgrounds for each element). Also they have a music track each, which I made slower paced because I didn't want them to be too distracting since it was a puzzle game.
Your video was good btw, you gave a good mic and speak clearly which is great.
Thanks. I’m a teacher by trade- perhaps helped with the voice (not that I was thinking about it). Embarrassingly, I have an electrical engineering degree like @Alice, but couldn’t work out the power patterns. But as Alice said, there was nothing to work out until level 4 so I was probably looking too hard.
 

Relic

Member
Less than 24 hours to go and still only a dozen reviews up from over 40 original entries. Last chance to make your vote count!

It takes less time to review the games (if not going crazy) than to make a game and the reviewers who put in the effort to help everyone out with feedback would love some back in return.
 

Bearman_18

Fruit Stand Deadbeat
@Relic I don't know what's wrong with the size. I scaled it up a lot. Are you using a 4K screen? As for the monster, crawl under the table and then have the other guy turn the lights off. You can't be captured while under a table. Should've better indicated that. Sorry.
 
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TinyGamesLab

Guest
Less than 24 hours to go and still only a dozen reviews up from over 40 original entries. Last chance to make your vote count!

It takes less time to review the games (if not going crazy) than to make a game and the reviewers who put in the effort to help everyone out with feedback would love some back in return.
Your game broke my keyboard, lol!!! :bash::bash::bash:
I was in the middle of reviewing your game when I thought "weird, I have a bug, I can only move left on this level".... little did I know that I lost all keys between S and J (and I also lost enter).... after a whole afternoon of unscrewing my laptop apart I gave up and pronounced the keyboard dead (replacement arrives in 3-5 days). It obviously wasn't a bug so I guess your game is bug free (at least in time his regard)!!!!
Well, I was able to play and review half of the games before the keyboard died (it had a long 7 year run), the other half will have to wait for my new keyboard... lol
 

Relic

Member
@Relic I don't know what's wrong with the size. I scaled it up a lot. Are you using a 4K screen? As for the monster, crawl under the table and then have the other guy turn the lights off. You can't be captured while under a table. Should've better indicated that. Sorry.
Yes it is a 4K screen.
I recalled after completing the review that there was a crawl button. Having situations where I had to crawl without being a game over condition for failing would have helped- something like having to crawl out from under the bed at the start of the game would have been a good teaching point.

Your game broke my keyboard, lol!!! :bash::bash::bash:
I was in the middle of reviewing your game when I thought "weird, I have a bug, I can only move left on this level".... little did I know that I lost all keys between S and J (and I also lost enter).... after a whole afternoon of unscrewing my laptop apart I gave up and pronounced the keyboard dead (replacement arrives in 3-5 days). It obviously wasn't a bug so I guess your game is bug free (at least in time his regard)!!!!
Well, I was able to play and review half of the games before the keyboard died (it had a long 7 year run), the other half will have to wait for my new keyboard... lol
Yikes. My game is full of bugs.
 
Got a bit busier throughout the week than anticipated so I only juuust finished playing through all the games. Unfortunately I wasn't able to dedicate as much time as I usually do for these so there were a few games I didn't finish due to time but I still feel like any I didn't finish I still got a good feel for.
 
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TinyGamesLab

Guest
For the games I was able to review before my keyboard broke down, here are my comments and my partial vote list:
Partial ranking:

  1. Rebot by HayManMarc
  2. Powerout by Cat, var
  3. Reflector Sector by woodsmoke
  4. game_end() by ghandpivot
  5. On And Off Back And Forth by Mercerenies
  6. Once Upon in Albimore by MilesThatch
  7. Occupational Hazard by Cheshy, SamSam
  8. Break/Link by Alice, Siolfor the Jackal
  9. Jasmine Laslo - Switch U On by Allison James
  10. Something Scary by Bearman_18
  11. How We Find Home by Lt. Farfetch'd, DanielDochertyMusic
  12. Hungry Thing by Shadow_Lancer
  13. Server Reset by Mikeey Bikeey, Aaron Baron, Nacky Slocker
  14. Cat Factory by Toque
  15. Greenshield the Brave by Mercerenies
  16. Fun Park by Bart

Comments:

Break/Link by Alice, Siolfor the Jackal

I liked the puzzle and logic behind it! It kept teaching me as I went along, which is what I expect of a good puzzle game!
Improvements: Altough I liked the art style, I was a bit lost at the begginig trying to see what I was doing...

Cat Factory by Toque

Cats! I love cats! lol... I liked the art and the sounds! It gets hard after a while!
Improvements: The player could have some influence over the machine, making it more interesting theme-wise

Fun Park by Bart

The good: Nice 3d graphics, which are simple yet well made. I like the music and to play the horn! Fun to try to get people right into the ferris wheel
Improvements: Not much else to do. Once you've visited all rides it gets boring. An improvement would be to really focus on 1 ride and make it truly complete instead of trying to build a whole park for the jam.

game_end() by ghandpivot

Great concept! You made me work out on level 5! This reminds me of an early web based game where you couldn't close the screen!
Improvements: I could cheat by closing it from the task bar... lol

Greenshield the Brave by Mercerenies

The idea was good. I like the drawings at the beggining and the background music.
Improvements: Gameplay was just to slow to encourage a lot of play. I got maybe 30% of the game done before I quit.

How We Find Home by Lt. Farfetch'd, DanielDochertyMusic

The idea of dying/comming back as a different species was great! Graphics were very good! I loved the paralaxxing backgrounds and the different levels.
Improvements: It takes too long to start playing, I whish I could skip the intro.

Hungry Thing by Shadow_Lancer

The controls were simple yet worked well! I liked the particles effect, aas it gave it a bit of charm to the game. I was surprised that the player could rotate and that was a fun challange once it happened.
Improvements: Game did not increase difficulty so it got boring fast. Maybe use the player rotation and tight spots to make it more challanging

Jasmine Laslo - Switch U On by Allison James

A clicker game that makes you build a piramid of animals. I tought I would see some clickers with this theme.
Game was well presented. I really liked the colors, how the whole menu worked and I do like clicker games (for a while, at least).
Improvments: Music gets very anoying after a while. Maybe somme variation would be good. Also, for a Jam game, it takes a bit too long to get things going on its own (ok for a full game tough)

Motti by Relic

Great ue o ight on a ierent

Occupational Hazard by Cheshy, SamSam

Very good platformer idea! It was very refreshing being able to turn things on and off (including the platforms itself). Nice implementation of the theme!
Improvements: Maybe a bit of reffining the controls would be nice. I felt like movement/collisions were not spot on.

On And Off Back And Forth by Mercerenies

Nice take on Pong! It was very funny trying to figure it out what all the keys did! This would definately be a great multiplayer minigame!!!!
Improvements: The AI is not affected by its vision, which kind of hinders some of the implemented strategies.

Once Upon in Albimore by MilesThatch

The good: Loved the art and the general game feeling! I almost jumped when I saw the first ghost! Also liked how you change rooms in the dark!
Improvements: It took a while to figure out each key.... some instructions would not hurt.

Powerout by Cat, var

Good game mechanic! I liked how the theme was interpreted! Also, the 1 bit art is just lovely!
Improvements: I disliked the combination of keys. It would be a lot more intuitive to just turn on and off the powers by pressing the same key instead of using the shift.

Rebot by HayManMarc

Great pace! I had a lot of fun playing it! It starts simple but gets difficult pretty fast and I had to plan ahead a lot.
Improvements: Initial screen got me scared with all the text! Maybe a in-game tutorial with a few easy levels would be a lot better.

Reflector Sector by woodsmoke

Great idea! Very simple controls but made me cheer for my ball (does that sound right?). I liked how the music and SFXs fit with the game and the great physics of the bouncing around.
Improvements: At a lot of times I wish I could just nudge my ball (yeah, that sound wrong...) Maybe give a special power to the player that they can use every once in a while.

Server Reset by Mikeey Bikeey, Aaron Baron, Nacky Slocker

I liked the gameplay and how I got swarmed by the enemies.
Level 1 was a bit easy, but I could not get to level 2, since I got an error after level 1

Something Scary by Bearman_18

Great concept of a changing level in which you have to use both players to get trough while avoiding enemies! It started as a regular entry but really got my attention.
Improvements: The puzzles were good but felt more of the same quickly. Also, the BG music could be improved to give a better eriee clime.
 
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Baukereg

Guest
Glad I did my voting duty this time. I got a lot of helpful feedback on my game in return, so thanks to everybody! Even those who admitted they didn't like puzzle games still took the effort and gave me valuable feedback. I'm currently working on rebuilding the game in Godot with all improvement I have in mind. I'm also having a good time working on an OST using VCV Rack.
 

GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
The Results are in!

Congratulations to @TehPilot for winning the GMC Jam 33!

Well done to the runners up, and the winners of the various award categories, and a big thank you to everyone involved in creating, playing & reviewing during this jam!

For official prizes, please contact me via PM. For community prizes, please contact the user who offered the prize.
 

Relic

Member
Motti by Relic

Great ue o ight on a ierent
Lol.

Congratulations to the top ranked games. Thank you to the reviewers. Everyone, pat yourselves on the back for making a thing!

#6 surprised me.- I knew Motti resonated with some, but it was not a consistently well received entry by far.

I'm going back to Pagefault now. I was stumped by the very first puzzle so I now have to see what blew everyone away! Well done TehPilot and theFugue
 
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TehPilot

Member
Wow - thanks everyone for the votes! I am thrilled to now have four first-place placings to my name. I send my thanks to the reviewers and my congratulations to everyone who submitted to this jam.

For anyone who wants to revisit Pagefault and plays the build in the thread or JAM zip, I'd advise you read this partial guide I posted a while back. The game undoubtedly has problems with clarity and level structure, so the least I could do for the jam was provide external clarity.

I have a post-Jam build that fixes these issues and introduces a few other small changes, and I'll have that up shortly in its own thread. I asked Fugue for a few extra sound effects for that build, so I'm waiting on receiving + implementing before I post it. You can check out my rough changelist below:

- Changed the layouts of level 4, 5, and 6:
--- Level 4 no longer softlocks
--- Level 5 and 6's overlapping level geometry that obfuscated information was adjusted
- Added "WASD to Move" tooltips in level 1 and 5 to clarify controls
- Added a new tooltip which appears when an icon is added to the desktop
- Adjusted and/or optimized some draw calls
--- Windows no longer have black lines along the bottom
--- Edges of adjoining walls now draw properly
--- Slight performance improvements may be noticeable on lower-end machines
- Added indicators on the minimap to show the locations of binary wall values, flag rooms with number panels, and draw lines between panels and their corresponding walls
- Added new sound effects

Thanks again. My intent now is to choose a theme for Jam #34 that is less divisive than my prior selections.
 

Bearman_18

Fruit Stand Deadbeat
Yes it is a 4K screen.
I recalled after completing the review that there was a crawl button. Having situations where I had to crawl without being a game over condition for failing would have helped- something like having to crawl out from under the bed at the start of the game would have been a good teaching point.
That's a good point. I'm going to remember that.
 

ghandpivot

Member
Thanks for playing everyone and cheers for Best use of theme!
Sorry I didn't have time to review this time around, but congrats to anyone who entered :p
 

Micah_DS

Member
Regarding my community prize: I will be doing that, since I committed to it, but I don't know when I will get around to it. So I apologize about that.

Not to put a damper on things, but the reason is because my grandma passed away last Sunday morning. I'll be taking a break from game development and the forums for a bit, dealing with things and spending time with family.
 
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Baukereg

Guest
No worries. Take care of yourself and your loved ones, that's way more important.
 

GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
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