GMC Jam Voting GMC Jam 39 Voting Topic - Closes Dec 18th

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GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder




Get the Games:

ALL 31 GAMES (508MB)
this zip folder contains a handy jam game player made by @Alice to help you play & rank the games!

Slow connection? Data limit? No time to play all 31 games?
You can download individual games from the games topic here: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/the-gmc-jam-39-games-topic-enter-here.81247/


Voting Deadline
December 18th, 09:00 UTC




  • As soon as the Jam ends on November 30th at 12:00 UTC, a zip folder of the games will be created and posted in the voting topic so that players can download all the entries at once if they wish.
  • Voters will then have around 2 weeks to play and rank the games and voting will close on December 18th at 09:00 UTC.
  • Any member of the GMC can vote, even if they didn't enter the jam. You cannot vote for your own entry.
  • Votes shall be posted in a single post in the voting topic. You may create a post and continue to edit it as you review more games, do not create more than one post for your votes.
  • Voters are encouraged to rank as many games as possible, and their final votes must include at least their top 3 games.
  • The top 3 votes must also be accompanied by a short review of why you liked the game and voted for it (any beyond the top 3 do not need a review, but it is nice to have).
  • Voters can also vote for the best game in each of the following (optional) categories: Best use of theme, best concept, best story, best presentation (gfx/sound) and best devlog (as written in the games topic).

Voting Template
(optional but helpful)

XYZ'S REVIEWS AND VOTES

1st Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

2nd Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

3rd Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

Best Ofs
Best use of theme: game name by author name
Best concept: game name by author name
Best presentation: game name by author name
Best devlog: author name

Full Ranking
1. game name by author name
2. game name by author name
3. game name by author name
4. game name by author name
5. game name by author name
6.... etc.
That's all you need to know!
Get playing and voting and enjoy those jam games :)

Boring technical info about how the votes are counted: Entries receive points based on where each voter ranked them, following the formula 1/(rank+1). So if a voter puts a game 1st, it gets 0.5 points. If a voter puts a game 6th, it gets ~0.143 points. These are all added up by the Jam Host to find the overall rank for each game.
 
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ghandpivot

Member
I managed to play 5 games. No votes from me, sorry!

comments
The Frootinis by Gamedevdan. Slick presentation and cute. Hands should slide on walls instead of stopping. Deadzone on controller could be bigger, didn't quite work for me. Hitboxes should be much smaller. Upgrade text could go transparent if you're overlapping it.
Old man Toque by Toque. You get stuck in left side. Shouldn't be "any key" to skip as you skip by mistake. A lot of trial and error. Once I skipped a text too fast by mistake and the game softlocked.
Journey to Earth by Pozen. Poor level design, you spend most of your time just waiting around for the ball to hit something or come back down. Theme is unclear. I do like breakout games though.
The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal. Identical to your shotgun game a few jams back. I spin jumped all the way to the end then spin jumped the boss until he died, never being close to taking any damage.
Crusty Chris by Woodsmoke. Not a lot to it.
 
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Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
I didn't add comments for each game this time, since I was too preoccupied with other things to sort these reviews out. Still, if you are really interested in my feedback, feel free to send me a private message or so.

Top 3:

Awaremon by Mightyjor
It was easily the most wholesome entry of the bunch. There is too much self-deprecation in the world, and seeing a premise based around countering that feels refreshing.

Whether on easiest on hardest difficulty, the gameplay was somewhat schematic; the battles on harder difficulty are mostly longer. As in - HUG a lot at the start, LISTEN when incoming damage is too high and your PRAISE score isn't enough to counter that, once you reach enough HPP (happiness per PRAISE) - more than the highest possible sadness the creature can deal - keep praising until the end.
(on easiest difficulty I didn't LISTEN much, but it's also because I didn't realise the number to the right is the sadness dealt next turn)

The combat system works, though gets stale quickly - especially on a harder difficulty. Specific actions also take quite a bit of time, making the battles longer than needed (again - most prominent on highest difficulty).
What I would prefer instead if the player had multiple positivity actions to choose from, and each creature would react differently to specific actions - it would add a fun component of learning each creature's attitude. E.g. HUG would work better on creatures that feel unwanted, but it would backfire on creatures that aren't much of huggers.

The audiovisuals are a good take on Pokemon-esque style. The storytelling - expressed in both little fetch quests and in-battle dialogue - was solid, too. Theme use stands out, since the game clearly involves pathetic/pitiful creatures, yet overall has a positive tone rather than depressing or gross.

Well made entry overall, and with much needed positivity, too.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
A game with a comically savage premise, where you need to obtain body parts from others and attach them to pass as a human.

Most of the game is spent on jRPG-ish combat, with parallel charging of attacks. While selection of different abilities adds some strategic depth to the game, in practice I found flailing wildly whichever attacks have charged worked for the best. I completed most of the game with Slap/Knee/Jump/Laugh combo; Jump ability is quite a broken defensive move, with how fast it charges yet how effective it is. Overall, the battle consisted mostly with me using abilities as soon as available and sometimes dealing with unresponsive action buttons or selecting the target (even if - excluding one specific battle - there was only one target possible all the time).

I like the variety of characters. The graphics are kinda MS-Paintish, but they are coherent and not all that sloppy at all. Maybe it would be nice to have corridors with different colours or something, so that everything doesn't look the same. At any rate, the masterpiece that is the ending image makes the effort to complete the game well worth it. Audio is nice, too; would be nice to specify in some kind of credits whether it was custom-made for the Jam or found elsewhere.

Overall, a nice jRPG-ish adventure (if maybe comically violent).

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
A nice if a tad too simple puzzle game. While the idea of destructible floors is pretty common, I liked the twist with golden melons always eaten last, which provided some tricky interactions.
The game crashed once for me, around the level 18 or so, but thanks to the saving system no significant progress was lost.

While the graphics could be improved - maybe made slightly more consistent by removing the black outlines around mountains and rivers? - this is overall one of the best Mercerenies' entry I remember in terms of presentation. Not necessarily in terms of raw assets, but rather thanks to making things slightly more alive, e.g. by having disposed logs and melon skins flow down the river, or having the time of day change along with the game progress. Audio works quite well with the game, too.

While theme is mostly conveyed through dialogue, the story is prominent throughout the game and it makes the player sympathise with the struggles of a flightless toucan.

Overall, a well-made puzzle game. While it's not up there as the Best Presentation contender, I do see a significant progress when it comes to putting the graphics together.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Concept: Horse by The M
Best Presentation: To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Best Story: Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

Full ranking:

  1. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  2. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  3. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  4. Horse by The M
  5. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  6. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  7. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  8. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  9. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  10. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  11. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  12. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  13. PathUique by Mr Magnus
  14. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  15. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  16. BLOCK by Sirham
  17. Old Man Toque by Toque
  18. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  19. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  20. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  21. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  22. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  23. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  24. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  25. Hansha by Evanski
  26. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  27. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  28. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  29. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  30. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  31. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0
 
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The M

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
That has got to be one of the most brilliant intros I've had the pleasure to read, it was glorious! The game feels very polished, with tons of effects thrown in and each environment is very distinct. It seemed like the game generated each level, though that felt a little meaningless given that there only are three, but it worked well and the levels felt good to play. The boss gave me serious Enter the Gungeon vibes and at one point I even tried to dodge roll out of reflex (which didn't go too well but not as bad as you'd expect).

I only have minor citicism for the game: I thought the first heart I saw was a blood puddle because of its rotation and while hitting enemies is as juicy as it gets, killing them is comparably lackluster. Finally, there were some visual artefacts with the tiles as the seams showed whenever the screen shook. With all that said, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
The game revels in the melancholy of poor hopper who is a loser. I'm sad to say I did have to use the undo twice so I'm a loser too. I was hop(p)ing I could avoid that but then mistakes were made. I think the puzzles were great and while they approached a level where I started to feel overwhelmed, that turned out to be the last few puzzles. There were a few puzzles which confused me, not because they were difficult but because they were much more straightforward than the rest, which made me think I had missed something. The way mechanics were introduced through story was great and the visual are neat overall (I really liked how time passed). My only disappointment was that there wasn't a conclusion to the story after the final level. I wanted to know what happend to Hopper!

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
The scope of the game impressed me and there was a lot to check out, explore and upgrade. The story was neat and I liked how each battle brought you visual upgrades as well as new attack possibilities. The combat was clever, though it took me a battle before I fully understood how it worked and that you were meant to spam your attacks. I quickly settled for three attacks and the jump as my arsenal and never felt a need to switch them out, which was a bit unfortunate given how many attack options there were, but it just never felt like I got anything better than what I had (with the exception of dropping the roundhouse kick for bite). I had some problems attacking properly as it sometimes felt like I had to double click on an attack to select it. I also felt like it might not have been necessary to select a target, given that 90% of the time there was only one, but maybe it made the fights more personal (I did feel bad beating the others up).

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme : Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Concept: Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Presentation: To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Best Story: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

Full ranking:

  1. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  2. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  3. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  4. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  5. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  6. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  7. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  8. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  9. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  10. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  11. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  12. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  13. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  14. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  15. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  16. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  17. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  18. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  19. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  20. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  21. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  22. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  23. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  24. Old Man Toque by Toque
  25. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  26. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  27. Hansha by Evanski
  28. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  29. BLOCK by Sirham
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
The game is pretty cool and it's satisfying to progressively gain control of the arena and slowly clear out the holes. The weapon feels nice to fire thanks to it being both powerful and spewing out dense clouds of whatever the goop projectiles are. I miss some sort of progression system, like the introduction of new enemies or upgrades to spice things up, but at least the game ended before it started to get repetitive.

Awaremon by Mightyjor
The artstyle is really cool and the concept is great! The intro is especially awesome with the pokémon style introduction. I think the gameplay is alright but finding the objects wasn't terribly exciting and it wasn't always easy to tell what an item was (although that didn't really matter since you just needed to collect everything anyways). The battle system was interesting but a little too shallow to be really engaging. I played at the default, easiest difficulty which made the game trivial so then I tried again at the hardest. Turns out that didn't really work as all characters were still helped, but at least I could fight the boss again and that was certainly more interesting this time around. With a much larger span of possible self-harm values it became a lot more important to defend and listen while waiting for an opportunity to hug and boost your power. Unfortunately that's very drawn-out process where you mostly just wait, which isn't very engaging. For a jam game it works well, though, and I think that maybe level 3 or so would have hit the sweet spot.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
I played through the game four times. The first I got caught because I didn't see that I could walk and I didn't know how the dog catcher would interact with me. The second time I caused the game to softlock in the alley by pulling the dog catcher's net while pushing the box. Third time I was caught in the alley and on the final attempt I beat the game. While the game isn't very long, it's extremely punishing when you lose, forcing you to do it all over. More importantly, you can't skip all the slow cut-scenes and screen transitions. They were awesome the first time but from the third time onwards I really just wanted to play.

I like how grounded and real the game feels. There's a lot to the environment and the game feels detailed and full of life. The story is neat and concludes nicely, though I feel like it was cut a little too short (which I suspect was due to time constraints).

BLOCK by Sirham
I figured out that you could raise and lower the tall block on the right which let me access the teleporting O but that didn't seem very useful. I found. through trial and error that there were invisible blocks on the right but they seemed to have been spread out with gaps in between and while it was possible to walk across some of them some times, it was just too hard to do given the punishment for falling down. I like the concept of using the various parts of the stage (it's really neat and I might steal it ;) ), but I feel the execution was too unfair for the player.

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
I can't help but feeling a wave of sadness after playing this game. Pathetic indeed.
It worked well for what it was and while it wasn't too complicated there was enough going on for it to be engaging. I hesitate to call it short but sweet though. Also, since I moved around a lot it meant the burping and farting was taken to whole other level. This guy needs help.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
The game is cool and I really like how smooth the snake's movement feels. I'm not 100% sold on the mechanics though, as I feel they make the game too simple and complex at the same time. Once I got accustomed to the controls I realized that carrying the big crane was the superior tactic as it made feeding the snake automatic and all I had to do was to run big laps around the arena and make sure I didn't fall down. This worked really well until the snake got too large at which point I didn't know what to do as I couldn't jump over it or it would hit itself. It's possible one could zig-zag a little more but otherwise it feels like I hit the limit of how much you could score (my highest was 108). That was without using conveyors because the rules said the snake couldn't hit those so it felt unnecessay to introduce extra obstacles (which is unfortunate because they looked really cool too!).

Oh, and I got this by thowing the big crane while I had a power-up (which caused me to start placing conveyors while throwing it):

FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object obj_controller:

Unable to find any instance for object index '100643'
at gml_Object_obj_controller_Step_0
---------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_obj_controller_Step_0 (line -1)

Detritus by NavierIsStoked
The controls confused me a lot at first. I could move the worm but not do anything else. Eventually I figured out you could pan the camera if you held the right mouse button. I'd personally have liked more traditional RTS controls (select with left mouse button, move with right, don't deselect after movement) but it worked. The worms are quite grotesque but still look cool. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out what to do other than foraging.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
I played through the game, and then once more by accident as I wasn't sure at first if it was a new mission or if the game had restarted. I like the mystery and the system with notes, inventory and fast travel was very useful. I would have liked a little more details in the descriptions to sell the environment a little more (was it an alien planet, an Earth-like one?) but on a whole, I think it was well written and enjoyable.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
I tried to make money through legal means but that turned out to be pretty much a dead end so instead I went on a criminal spree, stealing from people left and right and making a good deal of money until I blew it all on equipment and the bar decided to raise the price on beer. Then I had a few unfortunate run-ins with the cops and that was basically it. I enjoyed the game, though I had a little hard understanding what the values meant on the theft guage (I just assumed green was better and aimed for that). I also felt like stealing was (ironically) the safer option as you didn't have to worry about chance in the same way as when begging (at least it didn't seem that way), plus it gave loads more cash.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
The game feels really polished and cool. I think the sound design impressed me the most as it's both very expressive and consistent with the rest of the game, moreso than the usual jam game. The gag in the start was also an impressive bit of extra content. Unfortunately it came to the cost of the game not having many levels and I was disappointed when the game looped back to the start. The gameplay is fine but lacks variety and depth to go far without things to spruce it up. With that said, it did feel really good to outwit those roaches!

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
Five minutes fit pretty well and in that time the game wrapped up nicely while providing an entertaining story. If I have a complaint, it's that the gameplay was very basic as you just moved between empty rooms with one or two items on the floor. It would have been nice to see some more things to interact with and a few furnitures to make it feel more like a room and less like a box. With that said, I think the game worked well for what it was and made it was smooth to play. Oh, and the inventory system was neat.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
It wasn't very obvious what to do in this game. I figured out how the controls worked after a few tries but didn't know what my goal was. I tried going for every trash bin but that turned out to be pretty hard as the lift power of the bird was, to me, very unpredictable and hitting a wall would either do nothing or instantly kill me with not much in between. During my final attempt I got stuck inside one of the smaller bins and couldn't move. Trying to fly only pushed me further down until I was inside the building instead. The game looks great and I like the concept so if it'd had a bit clearer objective and signs of progression I'd have liked it a lot more.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
I spent a lot of time on the final screen just chilling with the music and sparkly farts. I liked the risk vs reward of collecting cookies as you gained more fuel but could more easily hit obstacles if you weren't careful. The way the obstacles moved made them unpredictable, but also organic and there was just something mellow about the whole game that I really enjoyed. I really loved the sparkle effect when you moved.

Hansha by Evanski
I've come to expect weird things to pop up every now and then when playing these entries and this was definetly weird. It was pretty good and caught me by surprise a few times and it left a lingering feeling of uncertainty. I think you struck a good level of uncanny as it felt grounded but still unpredictable.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
The game revels in the melancholy of poor hopper who is a loser. I'm sad to say I did have to use the undo twice so I'm a loser too. I was hop(p)ing I could avoid that but then mistakes were made. I think the puzzles were great and while they approached a level where I started to feel overwhelmed, that turned out to be the last few puzzles. There were a few puzzles which confused me, not because they were difficult but because they were much more straightforward than the rest, which made me think I had missed something. The way mechanics were introduced through story was great and the visual are neat overall (I really liked how time passed). My only disappointment was that there wasn't a conclusion to the story after the final level. I wanted to know what happend to Hopper!

Journey To Earth by Poizen
For a breakout game, this is very thematic and it looks great. The story was servicable and had some neat visuals. I found the gameplay to be a bit boring, which I think it often is in this kind of game. It's just too easy to end up in a situation where you either never hit anything or when the ball(s) are up on the top part of the screen doing their own thing, in which case you often still don't hit anything but you also don't get to do anything either. I think one interesting solution would be to let the player summon their next ball by pressing a button. This would create a risk vs reward situation where they could have multiple balls at once, at the cost of extra lives. Of course, this would probably be best if there also were an incentive to clear the level quickly, for example by scoring on time. Another idea would be to add more targets so that the odds of hitting anything was higher.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
I like the idea and the execution isn't bad, but the characters move so slow it takes more time completing the puzzle than figuring out how to complete it. The various unit types were interesting but aren't that different and don't change the game much (the yellow ones are an exception, especially in puzzles where you couldn't just skip using them and have the others pick up the fruits). I think the number of levels were good, any more and it'd have started to get repetitive. Oh, and the blue creature reminds me of a fat machoke from pokémon.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
The amount of content was impressive, though it made the tutorial a bit massive to digest before jumping into it. Fortunately, the game is rather self-explanatory, at least when you know the basics of what the game modes entail. Being mildly familiar, but in no way proficient with morse, I found it to be a good exercise, although I had some problems with writing the code as my dashes were interpreted as dots to a frustrating degree. It was much better to switch to reading instead and kudos for adding real words to each word length.

All in all, it's a neat, and quite extensive, morse code tool and I will remember some of those letter combinations. At least for a while :)

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
The intro was awesome and really sells the setting! One small thing I'd have liked to see with it was if the screen faded in from black after the title card instead of poping, but that's a small note. Exploring the base was interesting, though not particularly fruitful as it was mostly empty areas. Operating the crane confused me because you couldn't see what you were fishing for and it wasn't clear why you should move the crane in any direction other than up and down, since you still couldn't leave the hole in the floor. The boss caught me by surprise, poor blobfish :(

Old Man Toque by Toque
That was a bit of a journey. The gameplay wasn't the most interesting but it was good enough to be engaging. The story was what kept me going as I wanted to see what new wacky dialogue would pop up. There's a lot of it here which impressed me. I love how satirical it is. My only real complaint is how you mostly have to guess which way to dodge a car as you might end up in a future dead end with no way out. Thankfully the order they came in was deterministic so it was possible to overcome it with determination and a few attempts.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
The scope of the game impressed me and there was a lot to check out, explore and upgrade. The story was neat and I liked how each battle brought you visual upgrades as well as new attack possibilities. The combat was clever, though it took me a battle before I fully understood how it worked and that you were meant to spam your attacks. I quickly settled for three attacks and the jump as my arsenal and never felt a need to switch them out, which was a bit unfortunate given how many attack options there were, but it just never felt like I got anything better than what I had (with the exception of dropping the roundhouse kick for bite). I had some problems attacking properly as it sometimes felt like I had to double click on an attack to select it. I also felt like it might not have been necessary to select a target, given that 90% of the time there was only one, but maybe it made the fights more personal (I did feel bad beating the others up).

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
Controlling the swarm was smooth and easy and felt great. Unfortunately there wasn't much depth to the combat system and without any sort of time pressure there was no reason to press the attack until you've spent every resource you had, and then wait for reinforcements after the next kill. The only drawback with that strategy was that it was so boring to stand around and do nothing. I feel like the boss was the first (and I guess only) obstacle that offered any challenge and interactablility and that caught me off guard at first. Then, when I realized what I had to do, it was great! It reminds me a lot about pikmin which feels similar in how you control a large swarm of minions and tactically call back groups while you charge huge enemies.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus
The game is rough around the edges but there is a lot of game here and I've definitely seen (and played) worse. Playing with the mouse was an interesting deviation from your standard platforming control scheme and I don't particularly mind. I think the targeted double jump was pretty cool and it was nice how it felt like you could "cheat" by using it cleverly. If there's anything I don't like it's that the verticality of the map lead to a lot of moments where you'd fall down to old areas only to have to walk all the way up again. It made me want to die each time I fell, considering that the checkpoint system made deaths much less punishing than actually surviving the fall.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
The game is hard, so much so that I think getting to the other side is entirely luck based. The thing is, the cars' hitboxes are so large that you cannot dodge them which means you have to be out of their lane when they come. Combine this with a short window where you can see the car and the slow movement speed of the pug and there isn't much the player can do to not get hit. I made it to the other side once, thanks to the car pattern being deterministic, but never made it back again.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0
I was confused by this and couldn't figure out how to play. I clicked around, then mashed the keyboard to see if anything happened but nothing did...

Six Feet by SoapSud39
The game certainly have a heavy atmosphere but that also makes the game feel rather depressing to play. The slow pace and difficult controls (first time I ended up burying myself instead of a body) made the game frustrating to play. I still found it impressive, just not for me.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
It's a well though out game and one of the most complete ones in the jam. The quality is very high over all but while the frootinis' movement system is clever, I can't help but feeling annoyed at it. That is probably partly because they move pretty slow (when not caffeinated) and partly because I died a lot (I could swear I didn't get hit all those times). Thankfully, the punishment for deaths is basically nonexistent. This was especially good in the boss battle because reaching the lower screwes without the wizard running into you (or shooting you for that matter) was increadibly hard. With that said, the way you had to unscrew the screws by moving was brilliant! My only disappointment was that the floor didn't fall down once I had unscrewed them all so I could get my revenge.

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
The game is neatly presented and plays well. While it's great to have the controls (and so many optional control schemes) I would have liked to get a reminder in game after the story when I could actually try them. That would make it much easier to remember them. It was cool to have a ton of different moves and I particularly enjoyed the jump attacks which looked awesome and felt powerful.

The first time through, I got beaten badly by the enemies after a while, but I didn't think about the health regen and didn't stop to heal between fights. I think it'd be neat if you healed very quickly once there were no enemies on screen. On my second attempt I just ran past all enemies and got to the boss who I could stun-lock outside the screen and keep pummeling until it died.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
That has got to be one of the most brilliant intros I've had the pleasure to read, it was glorious! The game feels very polished, with tons of effects thrown in and each environment is very distinct. It seemed like the game generated each level, though that felt a little meaningless given that there only are three, but it worked well and the levels felt good to play. The boss gave me serious Enter the Gungeon vibes and at one point I even tried to dodge roll out of reflex (which didn't go too well but not as bad as you'd expect).

I only have minor citicism for the game: I thought the first heart I saw was a blood puddle because of its rotation and while hitting enemies is as juicy as it gets, killing them is comparably lackluster. Finally, there were some visual artefacts with the tiles as the seams showed whenever the screen shook. With all that said, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
There's a lot going on in this game but unfortunately the balance isn't quite there. First, I can't seem to damage the eye-creatures, which is troublesome because they most certainly can damage me with their super-powerful shots. Second, mining is just so incredibly slow that I gave up on it. It wasn't worth the time it took, even if that meant having no upgrades (which would have been the case either way since the traders all stood next to eye turrets). All in all, I liked what I saw but it needs balancing in the player's favor to make the system shine.
 
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Pixel-Team

Master of Pixel-Fu
Reviews

Top 3:

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
This is an exceptional effort for a game jam game, and there's an interesting game mechanic where you control the individual arms of the frootini to move around and hit switches. Interesting level design, and power-ups are included. I ended up playing this through to the end, and I dug the boss fight, even though I probably got 10,000 frutinis massacred before I finally won. I think this one deserves the top spot, mainly because it used the game theme, was original, had a start, and an end, and above all was fun to play. It's unfortunate that GameDevDan knew the theme all along when the rest of us had to play hangman, with GameDevDan strategically revealing letters that would suggest that we were going to be making Pandemic themed games, but hey. The strategy worked, leaving us all unprepared, unlike GameDevDan, who had at least the broad strokes down weeks in advance. Good old, honest, GameDevDan. GameDevDan. The man with the master plan. All joking aside, Excellent job Dan and Allison!! This was really cool!

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
A turn based puzzle game where you have to eat the melons without leaving yourself with no moves left. I love casual games that are low stress, and winnable, and this game was both of those things. The graphics were decent, and I enjoyed the dialog between the toucans who show you how to play. It was also good that there was the ability to rewind your moves step by step, especially in the later levels. I played this game through to the end. A solid entry.

Horse by The M
A horse is a horse. Of course, of course. Unless the horse is of course an insane physics game where you control each individual leg of the horse to make it run and jump. This is the sort of things that physics were made for!! I played this game through to the end, and enjoyed it thoroughly! The graphics were a little rough around the edges, but I appreciated the fact that this game had very forgiving mechanics, and I loved the twist ending. Nice job!



Best ofs:

Best use of : Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Concept: Horse by The M
Best Presentation: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Story: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Devlog: Six Feet by SoapSud39

Full ranking:

  1. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  2. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  3. Horse by The M
  4. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  5. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  6. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  8. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  9. Old Man Toque by Toque
  10. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  11. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  12. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  13. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  14. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  15. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  16. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  17. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  18. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  19. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  20. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  21. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  22. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  23. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  24. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  25. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  26. BLOCK by Sirham
  27. Hansha by Evanski
  28. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  29. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

This game is a fast paced action game where you shoot projectiles at some growing holes in space. So far, it looks like there's no end to it. Either that, or I'm just really bad at snuffing out all the holes in space. The music is cool.

Awaremon by Mightyjor

This game plays just like Pokemon games, where you move around on overworld and occasionally get into turn based fights with the monsters. Now, I'm going to get this out of the way first. I'm not a huge fan of Pokemon games. That being said, I can not ignore the tightness of this game. You got great pixel art in a restricted pallete, decent chiptune music, and a crash-free experience from start to finish. Last but definitely not least, this game fits the theme, because it is about pathetic creatures. Definitely within my top ten.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Bandit is a decent little game where you're a dog who chases after his master, who is a homeless person who gets arrested by the police. You have to evade the dog catcher, and interact with some stuff to get over the fence. The pixel art was good, and the interactions worked great. I only wish it was a longer experience. Still, this game fit the theme somewhat, although being homeless, or a homeless person's dog hardly makes one a pathetic creature. But I'd rather have a happy ending then fir the theme, and this game did just that. Nice job!


BLOCK by Sirham

BLOCK is a pretty good idea, and a nice execution. You can drag certain elements around with the mouse to get your block where it needs to go. My only complaint is that the entire experience can be played through in under 60 seconds. I was left wanting more levels at the end. Still, what this game does right, it did well. Great job.

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

If ever there was a pathetic creature, it's Crusty Chris. A game where to move right, you need to blow a fart. And to move left you need to burp. It's genius!! It's more than genius. But first let's address the elephant in the room. And by elephant in the room, I mean how in the heck did Chris get such a hot wife? She's got it going on from bottom to top! On the other hand though, this chick has got to have either the worst self esteem in the world, or she simply does not have a sense of smell, touch, or sight. Maybe beneath that booger nosed, out-of-shape exterior, Chris is quite the charmer when he hits the local tavern. Anyhow, that's his business. So in the game, you have to really try to be pathetic. And that means shedding your filth on the rug, and if the wife comes in to vacuum it up, you have to throw a can at her, and then fart your way into the areas where she vacuumed so you can crap it up again. Then if that's not pathetic enough, your dog, who loves you unconditionally, really wants you to feel good about yourself. So naturally, your job is to kick this poor animal, which eventually teaches him to either bite people or pee himself the moment he sees another human. I really dig the simple mechanics, and the delivery here. Fantastic job!!!

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Danger Noodle, which is the scientific name for Snake, is a physics based update to the classic computer game, Snake. However, while the snake grows when it eats food, what it really wants to eat is you. So you have to keep moving. While all this business is going on, there's a mechanical arm that doesn't want to upset either you or the snake, so it's contribution is just to pacify the snake by feeding it, making it even more dangerous for you. I'm still trying to figure out how serious this game takes itself. The graphics are better than average, and the music starts out like its a little tune from India, and all of a sudden busts out to be a groovy dance number. I'm enjoying this game. Not sure if it fits the theme though.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

This game is dark, mysterious, and there's not a lot of instruction. You can zoom out with the mouse, and make your creatures swim off in search of food, and when they return, they can make more creatures. Sometimes these creatures grow. sometimes they get eaten by other creatures. When you run out of creatures you're absolutely screwed. I couldn't figure out how to use the light. I kind of like how this game feels like you're an underwater protozoa or something like that. I also dug how you could see these massive creatures appear out of nowhere. I need to play this some more. The graphics are good, and I see some potential here. Good job!

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

A nice little science fiction text based game, albeit a short one. Great descriptive writing lets the player imagine the details of an alien world. I played this through to the end, and enjoyed it. I'm not sure what the outcome would be if I answered the questions differently at the ending, but that's what good writing does. It makes the story about your own personal experience. Great job.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

Drunken Joe is a pretty decent bum simulator, where you can beg for change, steal money from people, get drunk, and buy accessories that help you beg for change, steal more money, and get drunk. The graphics are nicely done, as are the ambient sounds, and effects. Sometimes getting nabbed by the cops feels like a crapshoot though. I'm enjoying this game, and it definitely fits the theme. Nice work!


Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

This is my game. I'll try to work on it some more. It prolly needs to be harder.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

I loved Maniac Mansion when I was a kid. This game was nothing like that. But what it is good at is getting your hopes up about seeing a ghost. I did enjoy the dialog, which gave me a laugh a couple times. It really did take 5 minutes to get through this game. And while I guess there's no real penalty for that, I think that could have been one of the many other surprises this game could have had. My favorite part was how the main character walks like he's twerking. I found myself just walking back and forth, twerking to the music. But then I realized I only had 5 minutes to beat this thing, so I kept on going. I did like the music track. All in all, this was a good effort. I recommend this game to anyone who only is allowed to play videogames for 5 minutes. Nice work!

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

This game is kind of cool. It's a physics bird game where you have to eat garbage out of trash bins. I need to play it some more, because I got stuck in one of the bins, and every time I flapped, I moved down a pixel until I was completely stuck in the building. I'm still trying to figure out how to win the game, because sometimes I go to eat the trash, and it just says I'm trash and game over.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

If I can say anything about flufferpuff, it's that flufferpuff is HARD!! Your job is to eat cookies. Easy, right? WRONG. It turns out that Christmas lights KILL YOU. So in reality, the goal is not to become big by eating cookies. The goal is to eat cookies and fart out enough gas to stay small enough to make it to the next cookie. I can just imagine the developer coming up with the formula for just how much farts are needed to stay small enough to avoid the Christmas lights, but without farting your way out of existence. This is the sort of out of the box thinking we need! I'm really impressed with this game. It kept me entertained thoroughly.

Hansha by Evanski

When I first played this game, (and by "game" I mean that Evanski only made a couple points where you actually interact somehow with it, which technically meets the dictionary definition of a computer game, but just barely,) I literally thought it locked up. It turns out it locked up because Evanski made it lock up, complete with "Not Responding" message on the application. He also made it know my PC log in name, and open a web browser to his profile page on the Gamemaker Studio forums. That was kind of neat. I have a sneaking suspicion that Evanski may actually write viruses when he's not making games. He also made the controversial decision to completely ignore the theme, something that I've done in the past, with pretty much bad results every time. He also made his game where it can only be played once, which effectively removes it from the dictionary definition of a "game." Because Evanski has not actually made a game, I'm concluding this review now. *UPDATE*
For the people who play my game
I did follow the theme
ummm. heres a hint
Filicide
I'll let you decide if Evanski followed the theme when you're done Googling the word Filicide like I had to do.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

A turn based puzzle game where you have to eat the melons without leaving yourself with no moves left. I love casual games that are low stress, and winnable, and this game was both of those things. The graphics were decent, and I enjoyed the dialog between the toucans who show you how to play. It was also good that there was the ability to rewind your moves step by step, especially in the later levels. I played this game through to the end. A solid entry.

Horse by The M

A horse is a horse. Of course, of course. Unless the horse is of course an insane physics game where you control each individual leg of the horse to make it run and jump. This is the sort of things that physics were made for!! I played this game through to the end, and enjoyed it thoroughly! The graphics were a little rough around the edges, but I appreciated the fact that this game had very forgiving mechanics, and I loved the twist ending. Nice job!



Journey To Earth by Poizen

This is probably one of the most unique takes on the Breakout style action games I've played. You're an alien force attacking buildings on the far side of the 'blocks.' I dug the art on the intro, and the tiles. The music was really great too. I enjoyed this one, and will definitely play some more!


Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

This is a puzzle game where you have to feed the monster with turn based movement. Decent pixel art. The theme is utilized here as well. Great job! **UPDATE** An earlier review mentioned good music. I don't know why I forgot this game had no audio. It could be that I played Matthew Patel's game online at his original game post, and tried out his other game on itch.io that actually did have music and forgot about it. At any rate, I played this game some more, and got farther this time. This game stood out graphically for me. I hope you can improve it some more with some basic sound at some point.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

You've played Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. You crushed Math Blaster. Now it's Morse Code Trainer. You would think a game about training you to use Morse code would be about as entertaining as a fart in a spacesuit. But surprisingly, this game is VERY fun, informative, and really does get you familiar with Morse code if played long enough. The game has quite a few options, too. You can play by listening to the tones, or you can do the reverse, where you have to enter in the letters by holding in the tones in the correct duration. I really enjoyed this game, and the theme was even used as well. A very solid entry!!


Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

I'm starting to really dig these 3D games made with Gamemaker Studio. This game puts you in an underwater facility, where you have to fight a giant monk fish. There's some pretty good 3D models here. My complaints, which are just gripety ramblings are that the shooting seems to be coming from the far left instead of from the player, and the game was rather short, and the rooms other than the combat room did not serve much of a purpose other than scenery. That said, I can see a lot of potential here. The atmosphere really felt like an underwater base. I hope the devs take this one further. Nice work!


Old Man Toque by Toque

This is a game where you get to be Toque on a mission of revenge for removing his favorite show, M.A.S.H. from TV. I know exactly how he feels. Anyhow, this game has good pixel art, witty dialog, and the occasional game of skill thrown in, just for flavor. I don't know what most people expect for a game that takes 4 days to make, but this one exceeded all my expectations. Nice job!

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

This game is really cool. So you start out a pathetic creature, and you go around to each of the other creatures that have body parts you need to become human. With each part, you get better combat moves to use to defeat your next foe. I think this was a cute game with a lot of heart, good artwork and music, and a fun combat system. I think it fir the theme well, and had a great ending. Nice job!


Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

This game looks like the beginnings of a turn based combat game. And ONLY the beginnings of it. I think there's some good potential here, but the author says this game is more of a tech demo. I agree.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

Pathetique is an extremely hard platformer where you play grown up Slimer from Ghostbusters, who has apparently got some broken pipes and needs to get them fixed. Some of the areas, like where you have to bounce off the circles were so frustrating I wanted to smash my computer, and I had to take comfort in the fact that there are unlimited lives. I'm still trying to see the ending of this game so I can do a more informed review. I'll have to get back to this one.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

If someone told me that this game jam would have TWO totally unrelated games where creatures eat poop, I would have said, "Man, you're crazy." But that's exactly what the GMC Jam 39 has. In this game, you play a pug who has to cross the street to eat piles of doo doo. It took me a little bit to figure out that not only could I crouch between lanes, but I could crouch underneath the center of the cars too. Which is good, because I kept getting run over when two cars drove down the street like they were in Fast and the Furious. I eventually got to eat some poop (thank God), and almost made it back to the other side, where to my delight, a second meal was waiting for me! The graphics on the game were ok. The pug looked good, but there was some sloppy pixels on the cars. Still, this is a decent game, and it got a lot of play from me. I'll play this one some more and see just how many poops I can eat! Nice work!

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

As far as I can tell, this game generates pictures of turkeys, wizards, and cannons all over the screen.

And ONLY generates pictures of turkeys, wizards and cannons all over the screen.

And I thought Evanski's 'game' was bad.

Six Feet by SoapSud39

Who would have thought that burying dead bodies would be so much fun?!? SoapSud39. That's who. I'm getting into this game pretty deep. Turns out buring bodies is a lot of work. You can't just toss the bodies like a sack of potatoes. You also can't just dig tunnels or you'll get buried yourself! There's so much going on here. I'm still trying to figure out how to collect the carrots that grow in the ground. Anyhow, good effort here. I like the pixel art, and the depressing music is a nice touch as well. I have to see the end, so I'll be playing this some more in the days ahead! Great job!

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

This is an exceptional effort for a game jam game, and there's an interesting game mechanic where you control the individual arms of the frootini to move around and hit switches. Interesting level design, and power-ups are included. I ended up playing this through to the end, and I dug the boss fight, even though I probably got 10,000 frutinis massacred before I finally won. I think this one deserves the top spot, mainly because it used the game theme, was original, had a start, and an end, and above all was fun to play. It's unfortunate that GameDevDan knew the theme all along when the rest of us had to play hangman, with GameDevDan strategically revealing letters that would suggest that we were going to be making Pandemic themed games, but hey. The strategy worked, leaving us all unprepared, unlike GameDevDan, who had at least the broad strokes down weeks in advance. Good old, honest, GameDevDan. GameDevDan. The man with the master plan. All joking aside, Excellent job Dan and Allison!! This was really cool!

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Of all the beat-em-up game jam games I've played... The Stick is the first! And it's really well put together. The characters are nicely animated, presumably with Spine, of which I am a user and fan. As soon as I figured out how to do the jump spin attack, I was jump spin killing every living thing in the game. Sometimes the bad guys got some cheap shots in, but I persisted. Eventually I got to the boss fight. I ended up kicking that dude's arse too. The music was a blast of adrenaline, perhaps a bit too heavy at times, but it worked for the style. The artwork was nice too. I think I'm going to put this game in my top ten. I'm not sure if I'm going to say that this fit the theme entirely, since anyone who would even suggest the guy with The Stick is a "pathetic creature" is going to get about 24 inches of wood up his hiney, but other than that, this is a great jam game. Well done!


To Hell With It by MIchael PS

This game was done in a minimalist pixel art style, and had great graphics. The third level where you're in heaven was very tough, and I got killed and had to start the game all over again. I love a challenge though, so I'm going to be playing this some more. Excellent job.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

This game reminds me of minecraft, except mining takes an excruciatingly long time. I'm still trying to figure out how to interact with the vendor, because pressing spacebar like the prompt says does nothing. Also, I don't know why I'm allowed to shoot a gun, when the creatures are completely impervious to bullets, at least that first one who shot me was. I'm going to have to dig into this game some more and see if I can figure it out better.
 
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Mr Magnus

Viking King
My reviews are in, after a long evening of playing a lot of good games.
Well done everyone, you can all be proud of yourself. This was a stellar jam.
That being said and done, my votes go to:

Detritus by NavierIsStoked
I am fascinated by this game, and I can't really tell you why. What I can tell you I spent half an hour commanding my grubby snake army to ever larger, brighter numbers. Eventually we got overrun, which was probably for the best given I'd stripped the land clean of anything remotely edible and was probably starting to really get in to the personal space of the great ones. This is a weird game, but it's my kind of weird: mindless busy work where I just am for a few minutes doing a single, simple task that is ever so slightly challenging, but not too much.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
So, in unrelated news I hate biblically accurate enemies.

That was really good, and frankly can stand very easily as a game even without the context of it being a jam game. I didn't come in to this jam expecting a banger rogue-lite where I'd work up a real anxiety fighting the Lord, but here we are. Stellar work.

HÅRS by The M
It turns out the secret to winning this game in two minutes is to ignore the controls all together and just press/release all the buttons at once whenever you're about to hit the ground, bunny jumping your way to victory.

This is a good game. It's short, it's humorous, it's challenging until you figure out how to bunny jump to catapult you to your general destination, and you have an adorable Hårs. The music loop could do with a bit of lengthening because it does start to grind very quickly, but beyond that I have nothing but respect for this game and what it is doing.

Best ofs:

Best use of theme : Horse by The M
Best Concept: Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Best Story: To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Full ranking:

  1. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  2. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  3. Horse by The M
  4. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  5. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  6. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  7. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  8. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  9. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  10. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  11. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  12. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  13. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  14. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  15. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  16. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  17. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  18. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  19. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  20. Hansha by Evanski
  21. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  22. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  23. Old Man Toque by Toque
  24. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  25. BLOCK by Sirham
  26. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  27. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  28. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  29. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

Congratulations on the job!


Awaremon by Mightyjor

A very fun little Pokémon parody. Not very difficult, but difficult enough so that you can form some semblance of strategies. The blue color scheme works out wonderfully and the music, while a tad repetitive, made the Pokémon mood all the more vibrant.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

My first experience with this game was my human being taken away and then getting taken to the pound. I am sad, disappointed, and very upset at these unfair events.

I was going to complain about the fact that getting caught makes you reset the game, but then I discovered the game is three screens long. I feel that is a good enough compromise. I'm a pretty sappy person so a good tug at my heartstrings is an automatic few points. Based on concept alone this game is among my personal favorites. It may be short but it has a decent enough amount of polish, a good idea, and is a lovely proof of concept that I could very easily see being expanded to a longer game. While I'd wish there was more gameplay present to support the presentation I am quite happy with what I got.

BLOCK by Sirham

So.... If you die the the music will start again, but the old one that was already playing just keeps going. That was mildly amusing but it did ensure I turned the audio off.

A quite little game. Not very challenging, a bit rough around the edges, but an entertaining little puzzle.

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

So the good thing is you've made the theme quite apparent in your entry, so well done there. The presentation also supports that premise quite well. However the gameplay leaves a bit to be wanted.


Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Boy, does this take getting used to controlling. However it is polished, fun, got a bopping soundtrack, and I've seen what this game could be when played by actually competent players (i.e, the creator). I'm sure if I'd spend more time on it I'd get quite good a this.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

I am fascinated by this game, and I can't really tell you why. What I can tell you I spent half an hour commanding my grubby snake army to ever larger, brighter numbers. Eventually we got overrun, which was probably for the best given I'd stripped the land clean of anything remotely edible and was probably starting to really get in to the personal space of the great ones. This is a weird game, but it's my kind of weird: mindless busy work where I just am for a few minutes doing a single, simple task that is ever so slightly challenging, but not too much.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

An interesting entry. Pure text adventures are always hard to get right because they have no supports except for their writing. They don't have much in the way of visuals or audio and they are trying to hit a very specific niche. For what is here I found it very interesting. dropped a bit in to "fetch things to fix the robot" territory once I realize that was an option, but when it ended I was compelled enough to go in for a round two to see the text I had missed. Finding a strong sense of polish of an attractive way of presenting this story and I think you could expand it if you can supply the writing. Well done.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

An extremely well polished arcade experience which is always extremely wonderful to see. The controls are tight, the presentation is top notch, and the music is banging. The gameplay is a bit simple but even this is a really good example of the importance of polish - an extremely simple game with a short gameplay loop and only a handful of levels is easily one of the best games of the jam by the shear virtue of having so much style and attention to detail : there may not be a lot here, but every single pixel that is present is about as perfect as it could be.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

That music profile is a bit grating, which is a shame because the song itself could very well be good with a better instrument. I enjoyed the premise of the game and the general line of comedy, but do wish the gameplay itself was a bit more substantial.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

A clever idea that is executed in a very entertaining manner. It looks appealing and the sound design is very charming. I'd however wish there was a better sense of direction. I very found myself looking for an objective other than just flying between bins until I crashed in to something.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

A cute little game of dexterity that's perfectly themed for the approaching holidays. For six hours that's a lot of polish (more polish than pathétique got, that's for sure). Not a lot of downsides all things considered, naturally I'd wished it was longer so that I could rank it higher but for what you spent on it it's very well done.

Hansha by Evanski

I am dissapointed: When the rain started I got my hopes up this would be a relaxing, introspective journey. I really love what you were going for, but as you rightfully pointed out in your "epilogue" you simply didn't have the time to establish the foundation needed for a project of this sort. I do however hope you manage to grow it in to it's full potential, these sorts of games can be really good if they just get the attention they need.

You clearly have the ideas to make this work, now you just need to invest the time.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

Why everyone gotta do Hopper dirty like that?

A neat little puzzle game. The puzzles were varied and challenging and there were enough of them so that I felt I was getting a good steady progression before finally deciding I've spent enough time on this. The music loop, while very sad and dramatic, did start to drain a bit but all in all this is a very good game.

Horse by The M

It turns out the secret to winning this game in two minutes is to ignore the controls all together and just press/release all the buttons at once whenever you're about to hit the ground, bunny jumping your way to victory.

This is a good game. It's short, it's humorous, it's challenging until you figure out how to bunny jump to catapult you to your general destination, and you have an adorable Hårs. The music loop could do with a bit of lengthening because it does start to grind very quickly, but beyond that I have nothing but respect for this game and what it is doing.

Journey To Earth by Poizen

A solid concept, quite fun, and well presented. My biggest gripe with this the waiting. When the ball is "stuck" on the wrong side of the screen, be it near the houses or down by your paddle. Unlike brick breaker most of the places your ball can end up are indestructible terrain, so you're just sitting and waiting until a ball happens upon a house or the opening. The fact you have so little control of the ball makes the experience swing between the entertaining rush of seeing houses blow up, and sitting there praying the ball ends up somewhere other then that hole it got stuck in.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

A charming little puzzle game. My biggest gripe with it is that it's a bit slow, the characters feel sluggish when I say "move there" and it takes a few seconds where I'm simply staring at them jogging along. The graphics and puzzles however are really nice and I did have a lot of fun with it even if I would have preferred a bit less downtime.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

I like this. I've seen this sort of thing before, a gamified Morse code trainer, and I can appreciate this because I know that this can be worked in to a really fun game. You're on a good way there already, you have the fun animations and entertaining sound effects. However at the moment it is a bit gray and unless you're really in to learning Morse code starts feeling stale quite fast. It's good as a rudimentary tool, but as a game it needs a bit more design and polish put in to it.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

I have a huge respect for those who enter a 3D game in to the Jam, more so when it's a competent 3D game. So, for the good: You've nailed the atmosphere, the game look gorgeous, and the sound design is really well done. The bad however is a common issue I have with 3D jam games - the effort required to create a good looking 3D game in game maker in such a short time almost always leaves the actual gameplay feeling short. You can be proud of what you made, and that is the best rendition of a giant blobfish I've seen.

Old Man Toque by Toque

I've got to level with you: even if this was just a tutorial that's been with game maker since I was 12 reskinned that was by far the most hilarious reskin I've seen. You've got good art and good humor, and I appreciate that.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

Humbug: Shame on you for not paying for your stock images!

Joke aside, that was really fun. A small Pokémon esque button mashing fest. Sure, it starts out a bit slow but then again most games of this sort do. The music was appropriately chosen and while walking around the lab wasn't the most exciting thing around it was more than offset by the ability to repeatedly laugh at your opponent and then round-house them out of existence.

Well done.

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

Personally I quite liked this. Swarm behavior and pathfinding aren't easy to get right and now you hopefully have them under your tool belt for the future. Learning how to properly set your scope is a very valuable skill, and even professionals have a hard time accurately measuring out how long this or that feature will take. Keep at it!

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

I object to the notion that pugs are pathetic! Even if they do eat poop off the side of the road!

A cute little game. It's presented well and is quite enjoyable to play for a bit. The music is perfectly matched to the aesthetics of the game. However it does get a bit repetitive a bit too quickly for my taste.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

I see the turkey, and I can see the sense of revenge locked deep in that old man's eyes. However the strategy is a bit amiss.

Six Feet by SoapSud39

I got stuck underground. In my anger I threw dirt at the bishop. He didn't care for it and left me there.


A fun idea. It was a bit slow moving to my taste and the controls got a bit finicky when you had many potential interactions in a small area, but the graphics were good and the voice acting was entertaining to listen to. Additionally a way to get out of graves you fell in to beyond restarting the level would be very well appreciated. The theme was a bit loosely applied, but I quite enjoyed this entry none the less.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

I will not be a slave to your Caffeine!
coffee.PNG

A really good entry. Polished, simple, engaging, fun music, and all around a quality entry. very Well done.


The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Screw fighting, the protagonist should be an acrobat with these somersault skills!

A fun game, good amount of polish, controls are entertaining and a good beat-em-up is always appreciated. Stun locking (both for the enemies and the player) is a bit of an issue but that can be amended by the tried and true tactic of running away as fast as you can whenever you see more than three enemies at a time. Great job!

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

So, in unrelated news I hate biblically accurate enemies.

That was really good, and frankly can stand very easily as a game even without the context of it being a jam game. I didn't come in to this jam expecting a banger rogue-lite where I'd work up a real anxiety fighting the Lord, but here we are. Stellar work.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

This is a good idea, but I would have liked a few quality of life adjustments. The mining animation was fairly slow even after an upgrade or two, and the instant restart when you die is very detrimental to my will to want to keep playing. However that aside everything worked more or less how I'd expect it to work, and I quite enjoyed the few minutes I spent with it until I died for the second time. The music was bumping, so you get a bonus for that choice.
 
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GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
GameDevDan's Votes and Reviews

Top 3:

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
The opening few notes of the music remind me of Marin's song from Link's Awakening, anyone else get that vibe? Anyway to the actual game - I really liked this one. The feel of it, the mechanics, the story. The two sh*tty Toucans from up top can go and take a long walk off a short pier, but Hopper, man, he's the best. Good ole Hopper. Nice game.

Awaremon by Mightyjor
Real nice game I like it. The story/concept, the art, the music were all really on point. I beat the whole thing on easy without too much trouble - as you'd expect - I might play again on a harder setting later but I got the general feel for the game. Interesting mechanic being able to see how much damage the monsters would do to themselves before you make your own decisions about what to do next. 1 bug: the HP bar is always longer than the box it's supposed to be in by about 1.5x lol.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
OK, so the opening animation is funny and really well done. Considering the graphics are so simple that little intro was really effective :p The graphics & audio of the in-game area are also pretty well done. The game itself is not very forgiving - the movement of the ants (?) feels a little unfair. Like maybe they should follow the exact path the player carves out (and therefore the player is punished for backtracking/making mistakes) rather than homing onto the player's X and Y (in which case the player gets trapped quite easily through no fault of their own). A decent entry, well done.

Best ofs:

Best use of Pathetic Creature: Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Concept: Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Presentation: The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Story: Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
Best Devlog: Six Feet by SoapSud39

Full ranking:

  1. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  2. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  3. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  4. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  5. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  6. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  7. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  8. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  9. Horse by The M
  10. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  11. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  12. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  13. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  14. Old Man Toque by Toque
  15. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  16. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  17. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  18. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  19. BLOCK by Sirham
  20. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  21. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  22. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  23. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  24. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  25. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  26. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  27. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  28. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  29. Hansha by Evanski
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

Congratulations on the new job! The jam game itself maybe not indicative of your skill level then lol. Not much to it... just keep shooting the holes until game over at which point there is no indication of score or anything. Always nice to play more jam games though.

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Real nice game I like it. The story/concept, the art, the music were all really on point. I beat the whole thing on easy without too much trouble - as you'd expect - I might play again on a harder setting later but I got the general feel for the game. Interesting mechanic being able to see how much damage the monsters would do to themselves before you make your own decisions about what to do next. 1 bug: the HP bar is always longer than the box it's supposed to be in by about 1.5x lol.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

The graphics are good, the concept is cute. The gameplay is a bit clunky. Moving objects and defending yourself doesn't always seem responsive and so I keep getting caught by the dog catcher. At which point you start again from the title screen (bit of a mistake in jams where players will naturally have limited time/patience - maximum punishment should be the start of the last checkpoint. E.g. if you get caught in the alley, start in the alley, don't force players to watch the opening cutscene again). Didn't get to the end, wish I could have!

BLOCK by Sirham

For such a short game it's very clever. If you die the background music doubles, until you press mute lol. But overall a neat idea and quite humourous too!

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

Well it's certainly a game! Kudos on the drawing of the hideous guy, his well-endowed wife and his cute little dog. I won and heard the guitar riff and I think that was it.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Snake with a twist! I like it... the instructions are far too much to take in all at once especially with just a wall of white text on that black background. My tactic was basically just to run round and round in circles getting the snake to chase me into yellow bits (rather than faffing around picking up and throwing the claw machine). Presentation was good. Fits the theme. And if these online highscores are working then everyone else needs to up their game lol.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

TAKE 1: This one looked promising but it's either (A) Unfinished or (B) doesn't come with enough instructions. I instructed my little worm to forage for the green blobs as requested. There were 2 in the starting room, and when I got the first one a 2nd worm spawned. They both brought the green blobs back to the barnacle in the middle which appeared to shrink. However that's where the game finished for me. None of the keyboard keys do anything (e.g. allow me to pan the room?), moving the worms all over the screen in either "move" mode or "forage" mode does not reveal any more green blobs. And I cannot click the spawn light button. What you have here is well presented but I don't seem to be able to progress beyond the first minute of gameplay.

TAKE 2: Came back to this one and it turns out the mouse wheel zooms in and out! (Derp) - that absolutely should be in the instructions though. Anyway I managed to get farther into the game. Foraged further afield and managed to rack up four worms, one of which turned into the next stage (a centipede type thing). The vibe of this game is interesting - very eerie and chilled out. I like the graphics and the audio. But the game is a bit too slow to progress. It's incredibly difficult to find the green blobs in the vast darkness, the worms move very slowly, and the spawn light button still doesn't seem to do anything at the point I got to.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

I don't usually like text adventure games but I stuck this one out and it's really well written. I like my games with a little more audiovisual stimulation but this was interesting, fit the theme and had just the right amount of content (enough to feel like a finished game, not so much it encroaches on the time I need to play all 30 of the games lol). Nice effort.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

The graphics are obviously really slick, I feel like that's where all the time went. The missing legs and the fact that the game is very content-lite suggest there wasn't a lot of time left over on this one. Ultimately it looks pretty (missing legs aside) but it is lacking in actual gameplay features / fun.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

OK, so the opening animation is funny and really well done. Considering the graphics are so simple that little intro was really effective :p The graphics & audio of the in-game area are also pretty well done. The game itself is not very forgiving - the movement of the ants (?) feels a little unfair. Like maybe they should follow the exact path the player carves out (and therefore the player is punished for backtracking/making mistakes) rather than homing onto the player's X and Y (in which case the player gets trapped quite easily through no fault of their own). A decent entry, well done.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

Refreshing as this is the 25th game I've played and it's entirely different from all the others so far, this kind of top-down mystery exploration thing. There isn't much to it (in fact it lasted about 2 minutes, not 5) but I can see where the idea was headed and what's there is fairly well executed. Decent entry.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Ok this one has me stumped a bit because I'm not sure what the goal is. Each level seems to be bounded on all 4 sides, so there's no progression that way. I tried landing in all the bins to eat all the trash and nothing progressed, so I guess it's just like a short flight simulator? The concept is pretty funny, the graphics and audio are good and it fits the theme well.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Pretty funny, I actually commend the audio design on the farts. The controls were pretty smooth as well tbh. A fun little time waster.

Hansha by Evanski

Is this performance art? It was certainly an interesting take on the theme. Well done.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

The opening few notes of the music remind me of Marin's song from Link's Awakening, anyone else get that vibe? Anyway to the actual game - I really liked this one. The feel of it, the mechanics, the story. The two sh*tty Toucans from up top can go and take a long walk off a short pier, but Hopper, man, he's the best. Good ole Hopper. Nice game.

Horse by The M

Lol, obviously quite a funny game - but FUN too. Despite the slightly dodgy graphics the "save princess" firework explosion is probably the most polished thing I've seen in this entire jam haha. The controls are pretty good. Actually BETTER than QWOP because at least the horse seems geared to travel roughly in the direction it's facing rather than all over the place. I enjoyed it, but afraid to say I gave up on level 3. IDK if that was near the end (it seemed it from the tone of the game) but I played multiple times and couldn't do it. NOTE: if you overshoot the big pond in that level on your way back from the castle it is basically impossible to progress because the horse continues facing the wrong way.

Journey To Earth by Poizen

Pretty cool idea, largely it's just Breakout but I like the pixel art, the story concept and some of the level layouts. It is a bit difficult to begin with. Even on level 1 the structure of it, and the fact that the ground is indestructible (unlike Breakout) means a lot of the time you're just frantically fielding rebounds from the terrain. A solid entry though.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

Nice little game, I like the premise a lot. Could have done with some audio, although I know that's not always possible in the time scale of a jam! The graphics are cute and I like the concept (nobody gets hurt lol). I did feel like the levels could be done pretty easily whatever way you wanted. In the levels with multiple guys I usually just took control of a 1 spacer and made them do all the work. Nice entry.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

Something like this would be a great way to teach kids morse code (with a bit more polish) so in that sense it achieves what it set out to do. I don't find it especially fun as a game, but I don't think I can provide any constructive feedback on that - it is what it is. Someone who loves Morse Code will LOVE this game!

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

I'm always quite impressed by the effort you go to when making your 3D entries to jams, and you're definitely improving (Especially with Sindr's help, he's a 3D GameMaker wizard! Congrats on coming back to the jam after these many years Snidr!). This was quite a funny entry too with the way the story turns out (no spoilers). From a purely gameplay perspective it's not the most fun I've ever had (sorta like a walking sim with a story for the most part) but a nice solid entry.

Old Man Toque by Toque

If I had 1,000,000 hours to think of a game for this jam, I never would have come up with "Old man, naked from the waste down, seeks vengeance against a TV station in his motorised armchair". There's good humour in this, the presentation is actually pretty good. And as games go it's a perfectly functional street racer clone-type thing. Not the worst thing I've played in a GMC Jam (by a very long way actually).

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

I like the art in this one, the humour, the character design and the music. It all comes together very well. However I have explored every room in the lab and I don't seem to be able to progress. I picked up a couple of power-ups for my feet, spoke to all the other characters, and went into the surgery. The surgery makes a "ta da" noise but I don't actually gain any body parts or abilities. Maybe this one was unfinished? Nice effort anyway.

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

Pretty standard feeling RTS - I like the concept. Not fully fleshed out obviously (as you said in your afterword). It could do with some audio and the orange boss thing at the end is basically impossible to beat (would've been nice to round out the jam winning against that thing but I couldn't do it even with ~35 purple dudes and avoiding the red "hurt zone" thing as much as possible). You stuck to the theme well, good job.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

I would have preferred it if the controls were keyboard based rather than mouse based (or both allowing you to choose from either!) although the slightly more taxing control scheme did add to the idea that this blobby creature was pathetic & slow-moving. I like the animation of the main guy and the general gamefeel, although it's obviously not as polished as a few of the other entries.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

Pretty funny concept - at the mechanic level is just one-touch frogger but I do like the general theming of the game. I question whether the cars are just randomly spawned, which is what it feels like (bad) as opposed to some kind of pattern to make sure the game isn't too unfair (good). Lot of little frustrating moments in there where I felt I had no choice but to get squished.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

All I have on screen are a load of animated turkeys, plus still images of wizards and cannons. I am guessing this one isn't finished as none of the keys on my keyboard do anything and nothing responds to mouse clicks.

Six Feet by SoapSud39

The presentation here is very slick - nice work on that. Good graphics and I like that you did voice acting for the cutscenes. The problem I have with this is it everything happens too slowly. Gotta remember in the GMC Jam we need to play and rate 30+ games, if your character moves at a snail's pace it's gonna eat into that reviewin' time!

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

(Post Mortem Cos This is My Game)

What did I do well?
I'm pretty happy with the main idea/mechanic, the story & the level designs. Plus the amount of content I think is spot on, because it doesn't take too long to complete but it's not short/light on content.

What could I have done better?
If I'm honest I had plenty of time left over. After I was happy with the content I *could* and perhaps *should* have gone back and made the graphics a lot better. (This would have included drawing primitives for the arms instead of FOR-looping a bunch of circle sprites). I suppose as it is the doodles have a certain charm, but not up to the standard of my usual entries.
I also probably could have tightened the screws on the gamefeel of wandering around with the two separate hands. A couple of levels feel a bit "slow", although I did try to alleviate that in longer levels with the pick-ups that are available.

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

The presentation is obviously very good - the best so far. Good music, great graphics. The story is funny. The gameplay is good, the controls are quite slick & you've obviously thought about and put effort into the gamefeel. Attack cancels, jump attacks etc. are all very good. Some of it's a bit like hard work than gaming. The boss at the end is just button spam after button spam until he blows up and it takes a looong while. Good entry though.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Nice concept, nice graphics and generally nice/well coded gameplay too. I think the story confuses itself a bit: You've been cast down into hell with all the other unwanted creatures & your goal is to save them... but to win the game you pretty much have to attack everything that moves :p The boss fight was real good. The whole game seemed to slow down by about 1.5x in that room, not sure if that was intentional or some kinda lag issue. Good entry anyway.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

Presentation is fairly good, the concept is decent. Falls into a trap like a few other jam games: a slow mechanic like reaaally slow mining may not seem a big deal when you're devving/testing - but you've got to imagine us lot trying to play all 30 games in our spare time :p What's here is well made, especially the monster graphics.
 
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Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Evans short sweet and simple votes
As always Im not the best at giving a very detailed and drawn out analysis of something, so these reviews are short sweet and to the point, mostly what I think you did right and what I think you did wrong. :p
Should be streaming them Right now! Come hang out! https//wwwtwitchtv/evanskistudios
Thank you all for your games they are all amazing!
These streams have been really fun, Special thanks to @Nocturne for coming and hanging out!
https//wwwtwitchtv/videos/820955708
(archive)
00:04:48 Five Minute Mystery @Terminator_Pony
00:12:16 Pathetique @Mr Magnus
00:22:48 Nova Mare @Bart & @TheSnidr
00:37:00 Pugthetic @Fernando Gonzalez
00:42:15 Flufferpuff @Micah_DS
00:48:01 Horse @The M
01:00:20 Pathetic Prosthetics @Yozoraki
01:21:48 Where Creatures Roam @Josh Chen & @bandman28
01:28:47 Pathetic Swarm @Zodaris
01:41:59 Drunken Joe @Gatefiz
01:52:25 Detritus @NavierIsStoked
https//wwwtwitchtv/videos/822201520
(archive)
00:05:00 The Frootinis @GameDevDan & @NAL
00:40:30 Bandit TeamPicklefishGG @deadfish
00:44:00 Awearmon @Mightyjor
00:54:20 Flight of the Bin Chicken Adam Aiden Marcus noah @Lt. Farfetch'd
01:00:00 Morse Code Trainer @FrostyCat
01:25:00 Dung Beetle @Pat Ferguson
01:34:00 Block @Sirham
01:41:20 Crusty Chris @woodsmoke
01:48:30 Danger Noodle @ghandpivot
https//wwwtwitchtv/videos/823270975
(archive)
00:03:00 To Hell With it @MIchael PS
00:19:00 Old Man Toque @Toque
00:28:40 Journey to the earth @Poizen
00:43:25 Six Feet @SoapSud39
01:51:00 A Hole in Space @Neo_Kesha
01:57:00 Revenge Turkey Stratefy @gmx0
02:02:40 Distress Signal Found @samspade
02:15:50 Monster Hunger @MatthewPattel
02:35:00 The Stick @Siolfor the Jackal
02:53:00 Hopper the Toucan @Mercerenies

Reviews

Top 3:

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
besides having the screen zoomed in a bit, this is perfect, it taught as it went, the levels were very cleverly done, 11/10

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
Add a block and a highscore and you've got 11/10, i have nothing bad to say about this, more please!

Six Feet by SoapSud39
What do I say, this game was amazing, The movement needs to be polished, keep the grid movement but Clyde doesn't need to stop every step, you have A&D to move already so get rid of the lick to move, The dirt is kind of glitchy with it falling and reforming, other then that its great
I love that the priest gets his karma, guy his the biggest ass**** that i've ever delt with

Best ofs:

Best use of theme: To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Best Concept: Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Best Story: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

Full ranking:

  1. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  2. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  3. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  4. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  5. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  6. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  7. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  8. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  9. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  10. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  11. Old Man Toque by Toque
  12. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  13. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  14. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  15. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  16. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  17. Horse by The M
  18. BLOCK by Sirham
  19. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  20. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  21. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  22. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  23. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  24. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  25. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  26. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  27. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  28. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  29. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

Music 10/10 stolen persona music , gameplay is 5/10, needs fleshing out, and its own music
I dont like the fact that the game uses copyrighted assets but in your defense you did put it in the description of the game
I feel like you should make or have permission to use the assets for a jam entry. But I think that many including me have had a slight over reaction to it, so I've reorganized my votes

Awaremon by Mightyjor

The start music was very loud, battle music was fine but sfx was very loud, very short and sweet game

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

this game was very fun short and sweet, I would have liked to seen it more fleshed out and the mouse controls finer tuned.

BLOCK by Sirham

This was fun, needs more fleshing out

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

its something, i really dont what to say, theres some glitches with it but small and funny

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

The instructions needed to be made clearer but once I understood the gameplay It was very fun

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

Game was very nice, I like it alot, very slow pacing, the starting screen was kind of confusing but very relaxing and hypnotizing game

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

Text adventure is good, needs way more fleshing out, confusing on the buttons, needs more depth at this point is very boring.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

I like this game very much, the art was very good, the sounds are very good, the cops seems to hard to deal with, interactions they can be used while doing other things if thats not intended thats not good, over all very nice and fun game

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

I love this, movement is very snappy, needs death and win animations, 10/10

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

music was kind of loud and annoying, but I liked the option to turn it off. I feel like the game could have been fleshed out more, overall a silly short game,

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

I dont really have a lot to say about this, short sweet funny and simple, got stuck in the wall and fell through the world.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

music was too loud but enjoyable, it was simple and enjoyable

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

besides having the screen zoomed in a bit, this is perfect, it taught as it went, the levels were very cleverly done, 11/10

Horse by The M

Very annoying to control but Im sure that was the point and very fun, I wish picking up the princess was easier as it was the hardest thing to do of all.
Keyboard ghosting makes it near impossible to do

Journey To Earth by Poizen

Its atari breakout so its fun, but the terrain cant not be destroyed leading to long stages with little pay off.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

some sound and some polish and it would be great!

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

this is very fun, kinda hard to figure out the controls at first, got the hang of it and enjoyed it, wished the theme was more fleshed out though

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

Amazing game, kind of confusing on what to do, the crane sound effects are glitched and annoying, would like to have seen the theme more fleshed out, concept was great but wanted more!

Old Man Toque by Toque

I love the humor in this, the left side of the road makes me stuck, Collab for next jam when?

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

I liked this game, the fight should have been fleshed out a tad more, like poke being super effective against the eye girl, overall fun, i liked it

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

I love RTS games, this was very fun, my only gripe is no music, sfx, better art, the fleshing out of a game is missing, the final boss is very annoying as the orange one breaks what you expect from the enemys and takes you off guard which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on execution, over all I rally liked this.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

The controls need tightening, very unforgiving jumps, overall very fun.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

Very jarring, but very silly and fun, poor pupper

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

good effort, game when?

Six Feet by SoapSud39

What do I say, this game was amazing, The movement needs to be a tad faster, the dirt is kind of glitchie, other then that its great

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

i like this game, the collisions need a lot of work they felt very unfair at times, the power ups need some tuning as they where more of a hassle then helpful at times all in all i like this alot

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Add a block and a highscore and you've got 11/10, i have nothing bad to say about this, more please!

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

The art was good, the game was fun, I think my only complaints are that its short and there's no dash, 10/10

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

very annoying to play, the mining seems like a whiplash of a pacing road block, mining is very slow, the enemies hit very hard, over all I didn't have a lot of fun playing and felt very annoyed
 
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SoapSud39

Member
I haven't done many jams, but how did 2/3 the amount of last time's games manage to take up 50 more megabytes??

Anyway, I'll reserve this post for voting.

edit: I only got to play through some of the games before I got caught up with finals (one more tomorrow), so no votes from me
 
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Gatefiz

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki


To Hell With It by MIchael PS


The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James



Best ofs:

Best use of : Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Concept: Detritus by NavierIsStoked
Best Presentation: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Story: Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  2. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  3. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  4. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  5. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  6. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  7. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  8. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  9. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  10. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  11. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  12. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  13. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  14. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  15. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  16. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  17. Horse by The M
  18. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  19. BLOCK by Sirham
  20. Old Man Toque by Toque
  21. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  22. Hansha by Evanski
  23. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  24. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  25. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  26. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  27. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  28. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  29. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  30. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  31. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

 
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Bart

WiseBart
Bart's Reviews

Top 3:

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Definitely one of the best presented entries in this jam.
Everything is there and it's all beautifully presented.
A very cute visual style and music.

I really like the idea of controlling both hands of the character.
It took a while to master the controls.
At one point I realized it was probably easiest to try to keep the left hand left and the right hand right.

A worthy candidate for best concept!

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Very nice entry!
A very high level of polish.
I like the consistency in the art style, in the audio and SFX

Very enjoyable to play, great background music.
I particularly like the sound effect that plays when you collect the berries.
It's very satisfying and blends perfectly with the rest of the audio.

A small remark: I'm not sure why the speech of the intro scene plays on the left.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Wow. This is a nice game.
The creatures really qualify as "pathetic" because of how they look.
Overall this felt like a very solid, polished entry.

Best ofs:

Best use of : Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Concept: Horse by The M
Best Presentation: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Story: Old Man Toque by Toque
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  2. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  3. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  4. Horse by The M
  5. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  6. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  8. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  9. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  10. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  11. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  12. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  13. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  14. Old Man Toque by Toque
  15. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  16. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  17. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  18. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  19. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  20. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  21. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  22. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  23. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  24. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  25. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  26. BLOCK by Sirham
  27. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  28. Hansha by Evanski
  29. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

This game has a pretty odd intro
I didn't think there'd be a game but suddenly there is one
And, while it's very basic, I found it pretty entertaining for a moment

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Funny game. It actually gave me quite a bit of nostalgia (Pokémon Blue, like the color scheme you used)
It's pretty impressive that you made all this yourself within the jam period.

Not sure if the happiness bar in battle is supposed to go past the happy face.
Collisions in the game world also seem a bit off here and there.
Nonetheless, a great entry!

And a candidate for best concept.
Not because of the Pokémon gameplay but because of the idea to fill up the happiness meter instead of bringing it down to zero.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

This is the second game where you're a pathetic creature out in the streets begging.
Bandit the dog definitely qualifies as a pathetic creature.
The environment looks beautiful. Good sound effects to support the atmosphere in the streets.
But the controls are off at times and it makes the game quite hard to play.
I quit playing after I got stuck in the second room. Tried pressing RMB but it didn't seem to work.

BLOCK by Sirham

An interesting quote at the beginning, though I'm not really sure how it relates to the game
I cleared the game. Quite an odd puzzle
It's a bit buggy, though. The player can get stuck in the block when moving it up and down.
That part doesn't seem to work flawlessly.

Still, overall, a fun little entry :)

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

Hmm. This actually feels pretty unpleasant to play 😄
I think it's mainly the sounds that the character makes.
I managed to reach maximum patheticness and clear the game.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Interesting game.
Looks like you need to keep track of many things at the same time.
At one point I thought I'd just keep running in circles around the device but apparently the game also ends when the snake crashes into it.
Not sure where the relation with the theme was. Are you, the player, the pathetic creature?

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

This is a kind of RTS game. Always nice to see.

The setting of this game is perfect. It has a great atmosphere.
It's all beautifully presented.
The sound effect that plays when you order units feels very satisfying.

What I found unintuitive about the controls is how a mouse left-click first selects a unit, then commands it.
Suppose you're not happy with the selection of units you made then you first have to give the current selection a command.

Not sure if there's a way to toggle fullscreen.
I would've loved to play this game in fullscreen to increase the immersion even more.

I accidentally discovered the key on the keyboard that reveals the entire map

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

An interesting entry, a text adventure
At first it couldn't really get my attention but after a moment the exploration started to become interesting
I liked the story but at one point I got stuck and it seemed like I was constantly visiting the same places over and over.

Interesting that there's a way to quick-travel to a location using the menu
I think a good, atmospheric background music and a couple of additional sound effects could really help set the tone.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

Beautiful presentation! Nice bright, vivid colours.
A lovely bluesy guitar tune in the background.

I played this game for a short moment but it doesn't seem like there's a lot more to it than continuously beg => buy drink => drink and repeat that cycle.
Not sure if I missed anything.

A candidate for best presentation

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

Very nice entry!
A very high level of polish.
I like the consistency in the art style, in the audio and SFX

Very enjoyable to play, great background music.
I particularly like the sound effect that plays when you collect the berries.
It's very satisfying and blends perfectly with the rest of the audio.

A small remark: I'm not sure why the speech of the intro scene plays on the left.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

A nice short game. I like the idea of exploration/mystery
The characters and portraits look pretty nice

The background music sounds too sharp, it really hurts my ears
The change in perspective when going from one room to another didn't always feel right
Not sure why the ground floor looks so curved

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

A funny game. That bird definitely qualifies as a pathetic creature.
I tried going in all trash cans and got to the right side of the level.
Not sure if there's more that I missed.

What I like about this entry is how the theme is in the controls.
The way the bird moves makes it pathetic.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

A nice little entry with okay graphics.
The farting sound was rather unsatisfying, though I found it very interesting to read how you used an advanced FL Studio synth to create it :D
I think you can definitely say that the creature is pathetic. Eat cookies to keep its digestion going so he can fart again.
That'll do for theme use :D
It felt a bit too short and simple to me but that seems logical since you only had 7 hours for this

Hansha by Evanski

Hmm... This is my second time playing this entry and it looks like "The Program can't start because JOY.dll is missing from your computer." etc., etc.
In short, I think this entry starts out really nice. I like the idea of a test.
But I'm quite disappointed I didn't get my test result since the game seems unfinished.
What's in there is nice to see and play, though

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

A fun puzzle game
Everything is there, sound effects, visuals and a couple of graphical effects
The puzzles are entertaining though it felt like there was little progression between the levels
Very satisfying sound effects
I like how this game tells the theme through the story

Horse by The M

I think this is by far the most hilarious entry of this jam. Not sure if that was your intention.
If there'd be a category "Best Humor" then this game would win without any doubt.

It's always nice to see another creative use of the physics engine.
Not sure if the controls were meant to be like this and if it's actually possible to move the horse in "common" ways,
such as gallop.
Also interesting to see how the rocks are actually circles.
I'm guessing the princess is "glued" to the horse using a weld joint to make this all work?

Was the letter A in the name inspired by the Swedish language? Or by any Nordic language?

Most definitely a candidate for best concept!

I got this shader error the first time I tried to play this on my laptop, not after that:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation
ShaderName: shader_day_night

D3DXCompile failed - result

at gml_Object_obj_night_Draw_73
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_obj_night_Draw_73 (line -1)

Journey To Earth by Poizen

Ah, a variation on breakout, it seems.
A nice introduction scene that sets the story right.
I didn't play for too long because, at times, it took quite some time for the ball to return to the paddle.
Overall a well polished game, though

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

Nice concept
Interesting take on the theme, too. The monster king is too lazy to get the food himself so you need to bring it to him.
Nice, colourful sprites
Too bad there's no audio

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

Ah, it's morse code this time!
This seems to be a smaller entry than the ones you usually create.
I expect quite a bit of time went into the sprites, since you did them yourself. Looks like they turned out nice!
There is no background music. I think a noisy ambience in the background could contribute to the setting (that wouldn't interfere with the sine beeps being played).
I enjoyed this game for a while though it's basically always the same idea, i.e. "interpret morse code", whether it's visual or auditive.
I do like how the game can be customized, which brings a bit of variation to this basic idea.
And it's a good way to learn morse code for those who want to.

Old Man Toque by Toque

The way you present your character (I guess it's meant to be you) in your jam games has a charm to it. I can really appreciate that.
Good humor in this entry.

It looks like you almost always get stuck on the left side of the road. That seems to be a bug.

This game reminded me of that example that came with the very old versions of GameMaker.
Not sure if that was the actual inspiration for this entry?

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

A very nice atmosphere
Nice that you composed the music yourself. That's impressive of its own
I collected a couple of body parts but at one point I got stuck.
I think I talked to all other creatures and visited all rooms but I guess there's something I missed to advance further

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

Interesting RTS demo, as you call it yourself
The controls felt really smooth. Left-click to select/drag-select, right-click to move selection.
It felt quite satisfying to destroy an enemy
I think a purple circle qualifies well as a pathetic creature, so okay use of theme

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

A nice game to be made in only 6 hours

I really like the controls, very smooth
The game plays well with the cursor

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

A neat little game
Very cute little dog, that alone sure helps to increase the patheticness
The art feels somewhat incoherent, different resolutions for the sprites and some pixels here and there that shouldn't be there (some of the cars have them on the bottom left and the background as well)


Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Not sure if there's anything in this. It looks like this should've become a turkey RTS.
Which sounds like it could be nice.
The sprites look pretty good.

Six Feet by SoapSud39

A lovely game, quite a distinct atmosphere.
I personally like slower paced games like these.
Nice voice acting, fun to play
Everything is well executed. Dig a hole, place the bag with the body, then take the sand and fill the hole again. Then place the marker.
I really appreciate the level of detail that went into all that.

Something that caught my attention in this entry: it looks like you can stand on the "ground floor" but still dig two deep. That's not realistic but it does make the game easier to play.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

Definitely one of the best presented entries in this jam.
Everything is there and it's all beautifully presented.
A very cute visual style and music.

I really like the idea of controlling both hands of the character.
It took a while to master the controls.
At one point I realized it was probably easiest to try to keep the left hand left and the right hand right.

A worthy candidate for best concept!

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Impressive entry!
It plays really smoothly, background music and sound effects are nicely done.
And such beautiful characters.
It all feels highly polished.

I must say, though, that I only used the aerial attack to defeat all enemies, including the boss. And not the stick.
That still felt very satisfying because of how smooth the game plays.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Wow. This is a nice game.
The creatures really qualify as "pathetic" because of how they look.
Overall this felt like a very solid, polished entry.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

This is a nice entry.

I played it for a while but quit playing when I reached the turrets that shoot you.
While you can shoot, there seems to be no way to destroy them using your gun.

Don't forget to call audio_stop_sound ;)
 
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L

Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
IMPORTANT:
I'm running everyone's games with Wine on my Arch Linux machine. If my review for your game talks about bugs you think shouldn't exist then please let me know! :)

Best use of Theme: Six Feet - @SoapSud39
Best Concept: Pathetic Prosthetics - @Yozoraki
Best Presentation: To Hell With It - @MIchael PS
Best Story: The Frootinis - @GameDevDan + Allison James

1 | Hopper The Toucan - Mercerenies
2 | Pathetic Prosthetics - Yozoraki
3 | The Stick - Siolfor The Jackal

4 | To Hell With it - MIchael PS
5 | Six Feet - SoapSud39
6 | The Frootinis - GameDevDan + Allison James
7 | Dung Beetle - Pat Ferguson
8 | Horse - The M
9 | Distress Signal Found - SamSpade
10 | Awaremon - Mightyjor
11 | Danger Noodle - Ghandpivot
12 | Detritus - NavierIsStoked
13 | Journey To Earth - Poizen
14 | Morse Code Trainer - FrostyCat
15 | Old Man Toque - Toque
16 | Pugthetic - Fernando Gonzalez
17 | Bandit - TeamPicklefishGG
18 | Five Minute Mystery - Terminator_Pony
19 | Monster Hunger - MatthewPattel
20 | Flufferpuff - Micah_DS
21 | Drunken Joe - Gatefiz
22 | Hansha - EvanSki
23 | Pathetique - Mr Magnus
24 | Nova Mare - Bart + TheSnidr
25 | Pathetic Swarm - Zodaris
26 | Where Creatures Roam - Josh Chen, Bandman28
27 | BLOCK - Sirham
28 | A Hole In Space - Neo_Kesha
29 | Crusty Chris - woodsmoke
30 | Revenge Turkey Strategy - gmx0

A Hole in Space - @Neo_Kesha
Not sure what part, of if any part, of this is supposed to be about a pathetic creature. But I certainly had quite a laugh. Gotta admit, the gameplay is surprisingly fun for a game so simple. Sometimes you’re just in the mood to spam bullets.

Awaremon - @Mightyjor
This is a neat entry that seems really nicely polished. You nailed the nostalgia of the first gen Pokemon games for sure. I found the sound effect when an opponent is randomising their happiness damage to be quite jarring, but otherwise though the audio was swell. The inclusion of difficulty was both super impressive and cool, and I liked the story elements. I didn’t enjoy playing it as much as I had hoped to, but I think that with a little more depth I almost certainly would have.

Bandit - TeamPicklefishGG
A really nice little game. I definitely enjoyed the experience, though am not too sure about what the game implies with regards to the theme. Pixel art and atmosphere are really wonderful. Biggest criticism would be the controls. It felt a little bit buggy to me at times, particularly when scaring off the dog catcher.

BLOCK - @Sirham
A short entry, but kinda sweet too. I liked the messaging and the mechanical ideas are quite cool. Would have been awesome to see a more polished version of this with some fancy level design and interesting challenges.

Crusty Chris - @woodsmoke
Oh jeez. I’ve got to say, I didn’t really find the humour in this. Throwing cans at your wife and kicking your dog might be pathetic, but there are worse and more accurate words to describe it.

Danger Noodle - @ghandpivot
Super addictive, and very fun, but often equal parts frustrating. I think that the mechanics could use a bit of tweaking so that individual games can last a bit longer, and so that the difficulty ramps up a bit better. Some things I found a bit annoying were the snake crashing into the base of the arm and falling off the edges. Combined with the controls being a little clunky I found it difficult to figure out. But the game is overall super cool and I had a lot of fun playing it.

Detritus - @NavierIsStoked
This is a really good-looking game, with solid mechanics. My worms definitely seem pathetic (though a little less so as time goes on). However I struggled to find stuff for them to do. They never seemed very capable of waging war effectively no matter how many I had, so I’m not too sure what the endgame here is (if there is one).

Distress Signal Found - @samspade
This game was really nice. I love text-based games, and this is no exception. Some ambient music would definitely not have gone astray here, and I would love to have seen a little more depth, but it was certainly still a nice experience nonetheless.

Drunken Joe - @Gatefiz
Pretty cool little game, though a bit of a negative caricature of homeless folks, which was a bit of a turn off. I liked the art and sound, and the gameplay was straightforward but fairly fun.

Dung Beetle - @Pat Ferguson
A very nicely polished game, with a hilarious cutscene. I’m very fond of dig dug, so this one was instantly appealing to me. I wasn’t a huge fan of the levels repeating, so I did give up after a certain point. But it was a fun play nonetheless. Music, effects and graphics are totally nailed. Make it a little longer, introduce a couple other enemies and make some more levels and this would be a very worthy arcade game.

Five Minute Mystery - @Terminator_Pony
0/10 - false advertising. Game only took me 4.5 minutes to finish. Jokes aside, this was certainly a laugh. A tenuous link to the theme, but I can dig it for sure. Took me a few seconds to realise what had actually happened once I found the family, but once the penny dropped it had me chuckling. Nice work!

Flufferpuff - @Micah_DS
A very cute game. Put together well, and with a simple but interesting little mechanic. It was a short experience (fair enough, given you only had 7 hours!), which is probably it’s biggest downside, but I had fun.

Hansha - @EvanSki
Jokes on you, half of your 💩💩💩💩ery doesn’t work on me since I’m not playing your game on Windows. Only inferior OS users would be afraid of a BSOD. Nevermind the fact that I need to use the command line to connect to a network *cough*.
Anyway, that was really something. You have successfully made me check out your socials, if nothing else.

Hopper The Toucan - @Mercerenies
This is an awesome entry. A really nice twist on the Pokemon-style Ice Gym Puzzle, and with equal parts funny and touching story elements to boot. It seems like this entry meets both definitions of ‘pathetic’ in almost equal measure, which I liked. The audio and graphics are fairly simple but fitting, and the level design is phenomenal.

Horse - @The M
I only got part way through unfortunately, before I encountered a shader error. Thanks to all the streaming this time around I was able to get a fairly full picture of the game though, and found it to be pretty great. I think the mechanics are hilarious, if a little tricky to use. But difficulty of control is something I find often contributes quite a lot to the comedy of a game, as is the case here.

Journey To Earth - @Poizen
This was pretty cool. A nifty spin on Breakout, with a cool little intro. Also I think yours is the only entry to have featured the human race as the ‘pathetic creatures’! The bouncing sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense - it seems like it can randomly change trajectory at times, which is pretty disconcerting.

Monster Hunger - @MatthewPattel
A really cute little puzzle game. I enjoyed the mechanics and the art, though did miss sound and an ending with this one. I found the game to be fairly clever and I enjoyed the level design, though would have loved to see the difficulty ramp up a bit.

Morse Code Trainer - @FrostyCat
This is a super cute entry. I can’t say I’m now any kind of morse code master, but I certainly had fun learning! The only issue I encountered were a couple of instances where I typed out what I’d heard (I mostly used listen mode) and hit enter, but nothing happened. Replaying the code solved that issue for me.

Nova Mare - @Bart + @TheSnidr
Quite possibly just a me-thing, but playing the game hurt my eyes a bit, so it was difficult to get through. The game struck me as a bit unclear - I didn’t know how to defeat the pathetic creature, or how the crane should be operated (I think I spent ages lowering it unnecessarily). The assets were really cool, and I like the N64/PS1 vibes a lot. Not quite my cup of tea, but an impressive effort for sure.

Old Man Toque - @Toque
Well that was absolutely hilarious. Definitely a tenuous link to the theme, but the game was so self-referential I’m not even sure if it can lose points for that. Graphics and music were reasonable, but the game certainly scores most of its points in the story and experience.

Pathetic Prosthetics - @Yozoraki
This was a real blast. The battles were a lot of fun, and reminded me of a cross between that old MMO AdventureQuest Worlds and Pokemon. Love the integration of story elements and mechanics here, and the game felt overall really polished to me. There were enough attack options that I actually felt like I could experiment with different strategies. The only real downside is that there weren’t enough battles. Awesome entry.

Pathetic Swarm - @Zodaris
A cool little tech demo, as you called it. I like the mechanics that you have implemented, and the idea behind the game is cool too - would potentially make for a fairly good little game.

Pathetique - @Mr Magnus
I couldn’t manage to get to the end of this one, mostly just because I kept falling down and then the checkpoint would reset. :( I think if checkpoints remained unlocked once you’d been there once then I would have enjoyed this quite a bit more. Having said that, the mechanics and gameplay are impressive for a 6-hour game (!) and although I don’t quite know what it is, the player character sure does seem like a pathetic creature!

Pugthetic - @Fernando Gonzalez
Oh my god, brutal. Pretty fun little game, I loved the animation when you get hit. Not a whole lot of depth to the game, and the art styles feel a bit disjointed, but overall pretty neat.

Revenge Turkey Strategy - @gmx0
Looks like this one is unfinished. Love the hurriedly running turkey animations though.

Six Feet - @SoapSud39
Oh my, I managed to get myself stuck. Oops. This is a really impressive jam game. This definitely isn’t pathetic in the ‘arouses scornful pity’ but it totally hits the ‘arouses sympathetic sadness’ definition. Possibly the most on-theme game of the jam IMO. I really enjoyed the mechanics, the voice-overs and the artwork. The music was simple but fitting, though some sound effects would have boosted the score. I know others have recommended making the days shorter or faster and I’d probably be inclined to agree, but I didn’t find it frustrating or anything. Super good job.

The Frootinis - @GameDevDan + Allison James
Marvelously well constructed and with a wonderfully told story. The storybook cutscenes and the level design were both really impressive. I found the movement fairly unintuitive, but I think that’s to be expected. Over time I figured out ways to minimise my surface area so that it was less of an issue. My major criticism is the hitboxes. I found parts of the game really frustrating because I kept getting taken out by spike balls that didn’t quite make contact with me. This made it difficult for me to navigate levels at times, particularly paired with my lack of ability. 😅Overall I found the game totally delightful, with very impressive scope for 4 days!

The Stick - @Siolfor the Jackal
What an absolute work of art. Admittedly the combat becomes quite simple once you work out that the spinning jump attack basically locks your enemies up, but I still had a ton of fun beating them down. Hilarious little story was also pretty great. Probably my biggest criticism is the controls screen which makes gameplay seem much more confusing than it actually is!

To Hell With It - @MIchael PS
This is an incredibly good use of the theme. Really love the story behind the game. I enjoyed the progression through Hell/Eden/Heaven and the references along the way (like the apple). I did experience a couple of problems - particularly when I died against /The Lord/, and then reset. It seemed to reset my health and transport me to an empty room, where I couldn’t do anything but exit the game. I also couldn’t quite figure out how /The Lord/ was hitting me, as I seemed reasonably far away from the feet when I lost health. I also couldn’t seem to attack him, although he was losing health. I’m a big fan overall, awesome job.

Where Creatures Roam - @Josh Chen + @bandman28
This game definitely seems ambitious in scope to me, but I think it suffers from a bit of a lack of polish. I found the objective unclear at the beginning, until I jumped down the hole and it all started making sense. However, I would have liked some feedback when shooting monsters or when being hit, and I found that the music ended up looping on top of itself 2 or 3 times for me, which was a bit disconcerting.
 
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Mightyjor

Member
This is my favorite part of the jam! Going to try and make a video for every game I play. 2 and a half weeks should be more than enough time to do that.


CLICK FOR VIDEO PLAYTHROUGH OF ALL GAMES IN THE JAM
PART 1:
Horse by The M - 00:00:20
Pathétique by Mr Magnus - 00:10:50
Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson - 00:19:49
The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal - 00:30:04
Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0 - 00:35:08
Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris - 00:35:35
A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha - 00:38:35
Drunken Joe by Gatefiz - 00:45:00
Six Feet by SoapSud39 - 00:50:15
Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony - 01:15:43
Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade - 01:20:39
Flufferpuff by Micah_DS - 01:26:52
Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG - 01:31:14
Crusty Chris by woodsmoke - 01:34:40
Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat - 01:37:22
Journey To Earth by Poizen - 01:44:53
Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28 - 01:51:43
BLOCK by Sirham - 01:55:37
Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot - 01:59:30

PART 2:
Detritus by NavierIsStoked - 00:00:00
Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah - 00:10:10
Old Man Toque by Toque - 00:14:56
Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez - 00:19:28
Hansha by Evanski - 00:22:04
Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies - 00:28:04
Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki - 00:45:53
Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr - 01:04:36
Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel - 01:11:54
To Hell With It by MIchael PS - 01:19:09 (muted due to a copyright claim from the in game music)
The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James - 01:35:09

Reviews

Top 3:

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Great game! Brutal difficulty. I have to admit on most game jams if something is tough I just give up because I figure it's from a lack of time and playtesting, but the difficulty on this one felt much more thought out. I really struggled on that final boss, but I got a Dark Souls level of accomplishment when I cracked them feet! Thank you for not sending me back to the beginning of the game when I died. That would have killed my flow for sure. Pixel art is on point. Music is great, sound effects are squishy and probably the most disturbing part about a game where you're a demon from hell. Overall, really enjoyed this! Forgot to mention I love the enemy designs and patterns. In regards to the theme, I think it totally works in the whole Dark Souls way of making you feel like you are absolutely pathetic when fighting a behemoth of a boss. So top score all around for me!

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
Great puzzle game! The tutorial being part of the story was really well done. It was a bit too long for me to finish the whole thing on one sitting. I think I got to level 24. I'm going to come back and finish later. But overall, extremely well done. I can't think of anything I would change.
*edit* I did come back later and beat it, and it was wonderful.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
This is a fantastic game. I loved the story book elements and the cute story being told. Mechanics were fun, though I think the hit detection boxes might have been a bit big on the hands. It feels great to sneak your hand into somewhere to get a button or key and quickly sneak back out. It turns out the Footinis weren't that pathetic all along with that final boss though! Clever, epic, and works great within the limits you've set in the game. Great job!

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme : Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Concept: Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Best Story: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Devlog: Six Feet by SoapSud39

Full ranking:

  1. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  2. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  3. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  4. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  5. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  6. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. Horse by The M
  8. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  9. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  10. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  11. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  12. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  13. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  14. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  15. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  16. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  17. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  18. BLOCK by Sirham
  19. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  20. Old Man Toque by Toque
  21. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  22. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  23. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  24. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  25. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  26. Hansha by Evanski
  27. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  28. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  29. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

Dang that is terrifying when those starts are coming for you. The shooting was great and if you're not paying attention those stars will start coming for you in a crazy way. Overall great job with the game. I think it's missing a score count with the way the game is played. Music is great too.
*edit* I came back and beat the game once I found out it wasn't an endless game. Very scary image at the end. Thank you.

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Though I can't rank my own game, I think I did a pretty good job on this one. You can check out my devlog here to see how I made it:

I'm noticing now a couple of bugs. First, the hug button does one less than it says it's going to do which makes things really hard on higher difficulties. Second, I added the difficulty feature at the very end and forgot to scale the health bar to it. Oh well :)

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Dang I got stuck in the alley and couldn't figure out what to do. Not sure if it was a bug or not. I loved the art and playing as a dog is always fantastic.

BLOCK by Sirham

Fun game! Clever little puzzler. It took me a sec to figure out that only one of the blocks could be moved with the mouse even though they looked mostly identical. The song is a little annoying so I appreciate the inclusion of a mute button, even though I didn't actually end up using it. The twist at the end was fun too. Good job!

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

Masterpiece. I thought you were joking on the games page when you said what the game was going to include, but I'm so happy to see that is entirely what the entire game is.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Interesting and unique mechanics for a snake game! It is extremely tough in its current state though. I think slowing down the snake a little bit would be great, especially at the beginning when you're just getting started with the controls.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

I'm not sure I entirely understood what I was supposed to be doing here. I leveled up some characters seeminly out of no where, and then when I thought they were leveling up again they all died. Is there any kind of end goal? I like the art and the movement up the little worms was cool and creepy. Good use of the theme too!

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

Neat little story with an interesting ending. I'll have to go check out your page to see if there was an ending I missed. Very cool idea though!

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

A little bit offensive, but what good is a game jam without some offensive content? The art is really cool and well done. I love the way you made everything look in this. The beer refill animation is great too. Sound is great, love the music. I didn't really understand what made the cops come though. Is it just that every character has the potential to be a cop?

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

Definitely a hard game. The opening cutscene was amazing. I remember you doing something similar in your last game and it was great there too. The gameplay was very challenging, though the 3 life system makes it pretty tedious to get back to where you were if you're going for completion. Overall it is a super solid entry. I love the eating away at the walls mechanic and its fun to shoot poop at things, just as a general life rule.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

This was a fun game and I appreciate the length not being too long. I'm curious how to get those secret dialogue options. Love that the main character is basically Petite Hughie from the Boys comic. Mystery was funny. Nice job!

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

The flight is fun and getting hit with books as the Bin Chicken is hilarious. It seems like there is a delay on your flight activating which can be a little frustrating especially when you're trying to take off from the ground. Art was fun and song was great. Would have loved an end goal though. It didn't seem like there was really an end to the level from what I could tell.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Those are some sick fart mechanics. Cool graphics, fun particle effects, great song in the bg and sound effects.

Hansha by Evanski

I liked this a lot! Cool creepy vibes. Scary blood splatter. I could see the butterfly spelling Evan for sure. I tried starting it up again because no one tells me what to do. I even tried adding a JOY.dll to the folder and it looks like you've outsmarted me there too. Good job with the game! Would love to see where it goes. Not sure how it goes with the theme but still cool.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

Great puzzle game! The tutorial being part of the story was really well done. It was a bit too long for me to finish the whole thing on one sitting. I think I got to level 24. I'm going to come back and finish later. But overall, extremely well done. I can't think of anything I would change.

Horse by The M

This was a hilarious game to play. What a beautiful Hars. I loved the quirky guardsmen and the little twist on the third level. Game was just long enough to keep my interest the entire jam. Such a majestic beast.

Journey To Earth by Poizen

The intro cutscene has some amazing artwork. Fantastic job. I also really like the artwork for the rest of the levels. Game was nice and short and easy to play through to completion. I also appreciate a continue button that puts you back at the same level. Not a super strong tie in to the theme I don't think, but very well executed.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

The puzzle mechanics are really cool. I didn't really understand from the description but I actually liked the way it played a lot. I think the character movement could be a little fast, maybe even like a grid. That would speed up the puzzles a lot and not feel quite as tedious. I think this would make an excellent mobile entry. I think there's also potential for a lot of complicated puzzles but the ones here didn't seem terribly difficult. Otherwise, really great job!

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

This is fantastic. I've been wanting to learn Morse Code for a long time and tried apps and it's never stuck, but I could definitely learn with this. I'm gonig to send it to my dad also so he can learn, I think he's wanted to for a long time. Please put this on the app store or something. It would be a great on my phone.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

3D is cool as always. Your last entry in 3D was super cool too. I'm always so amazed what people can pull off in GMS2. The underwater city was awesome and I loved the Bioshock vibes at the beginning. Getting the creature was awesome too, though I didn't really understand what I did to kill it, seemed like I just walked into it. Was that the patheticness of it? Anyway, very cool game!

Old Man Toque by Toque

This was something all right! Love the cutscenes. A collision bug on the left wall, but I'm sure you've found that already. I didn't cheat at the end, I thought it would be endless. I'm a little curious to see what happens if I do cheat, but I don't think I"m going to go through the game again. Good game!

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

That was awesome! I love all the different moves. I found a bug which I'm actually pretty grateful for with the Snot move because it let me cheese Cthurtis, otherwise I don't think I would have ever beat him. Love the character designs and the game concept. Excellent use of theme, great final screen as well.

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

Very cool concept...is the game beatable right now? It seems like there's no way to kill the very first enemy. Maybe I missed something though.
*Edit* I read through other players reviews and it seems like they were able to get past the first enemy so I gave it another go and I had a lot more success. I almost beat the boss at the end, but he had just a sliver too much health for me to get through. I do think there's a lot of cool stuff here though and would be interested in seeing where this concept could go!

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

Well, that certainly was a game! I think the dash following the mouse was a pretty clever ability, though it took me a minute to figure out. Creature was very pathetic, so great job there. Overall, great job for the 6 hours you spent on it :)

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

I just couldn't get past the first few cars on this one. It's similar to frogger but you can't go backwards and you can't fit between cars so I don't think there's really any way to get past. Art is very cute and sound was nice. Wish the game were beatable though! Also, I feel sad that this pug keeps getting hit with a car.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Was there a way to play this? Maybe it shouldn't have been included in this list. Love the name and the turkey though!

Six Feet by SoapSud39

Beautiful art and great story with some awesome voice work. I think the mood and theme is great and I love the interaction between Claude and the priest. Music was cool too. The biggest problem with the game I think though is the speed of it. Everything is just too darn slow. Most of the challenge is about going back and forth over and over again without any work and it ends up being mind numbing. The inclusion of a fast mode where all speeds are doubled would go a long way I think. Great game with a lot of potential though. I really enjoyed the cutscenes, though I basically had to skip all the levels past level 3 or 4 to be able to see them. Last cutscene was great also, though I couldn't really understand what the Claude guy said at the end. Overall, very good game.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

This is a fantastic game. I loved the story book elements and the cute story being told. Mechanics were fun, though I think the hit detection boxes might have been a bit big on the hands. It feels great to sneak your hand into somewhere to get a button or key and quickly sneak back out. It turns out the Footinis weren't that pathetic all along with that final boss though! Clever, epic, and works great within the limits you've set in the game. Great job!

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Very fun brawler! The violent path was great for me. Story is really cool and the animations for the characters and environments are great. There's a little bit too much info in the ReadMe, I wasn't really able to remember it all. Would love some built in tutorial, even if it's just some text as I'm going along because when I'm reading the ReadMe, I don't even know what kind of game it is yet. Combos were great. The boss was really cool looking, though he was pretty easy to cheese as were the enemies. Overall great game!

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Great game! Brutal difficulty. I have to admit on most game jams if something is tough I just give up because I figure it's from a lack of time and playtesting, but the difficulty on this one felt much more thought out. I really struggled on that final boss, but I got a Dark Souls level of accomplishment when I cracked them feet! Thank you for not sending me back to the beginning of the game when I died. That would have killed my flow for sure. Pixel art is on point. Music is great, sound effects are squishy and probably the most disturbing part about a game where you're a demon from hell. Overall, really enjoyed this! Forgot to mention I love the enemy designs and patterns. In regards to the theme, I think it totally works in the whole Dark Souls way of making you feel like you are absolutely pathetic when fighting a behemoth of a boss. So top score all around for me!

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

Ok so there is a music bug that is really tough to get past. I like the art and I was really excited for the shooting, but it seems like you can't kill much except for a few of the creatures. I didn't really understand the building mechanics of the game. It seemed like it just replaced a grassy tile with a cement one. Was there something else I was supposed to try and build? I couldn't get very far into the second area because the eyeball creature kept killing me. It seemed like I wasn't able to kill him.
 
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N

NavierIsStoked

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:

Horse by The M
HORSE! This is a game with really interesting mechanics and gets a lot of mileage out of each level by having the princess at the end. Cracking up the whole way through. Doesn't stick with the theme too closely, but it doesn't really matter. Entirely ridiculous and better for it.

Awaremon by Mightyjor
Great dialogue, incredible battle music. The battle music has no right being as good as it is. After finishing in full, I reopened the game just to listen to the battle music. Hilarious, fun to play, good theming, and great presentation as well.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Really interesting idea for a game! Love the progression of gaining new body parts, as well as the time-based battle system. Character design is lovely as well as the art style and animation. I was genuinely invested in the progress of my character and his journey to becoming a human. I cheered a little out loud once I reached the end-screen.


Best ofs:

Best use of : Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Concept: Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
Best Presentation: To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Best Story: Six Feet by SoapSud39


Full ranking:

  1. Horse by The M
  2. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  3. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  4. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  5. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  6. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  7. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  8. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  9. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  10. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  11. Hansha by Evanski
  12. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  13. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  14. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  15. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  16. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  17. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  18. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  19. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  20. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  21. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  22. BLOCK by Sirham
  23. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  24. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  25. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  26. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  27. Old Man Toque by Toque
  28. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  29. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

"Best of" Comments:

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Tying the size of your character to the fuel you have left creates some interesting challenges, and I loved the uniqueness of the spikes scrolling and looping across the screen! Engaging.

Six Feet by SoapSud39

Really nice art, good voiceovers despite the mic popping. Gameplay felt a little slow and had meh controls, but the aesthetic, story, and gameplay made up for it.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Stunning VFX. Great animation. The final boss was spectacular. I especially liked the screen shake and the bullet variation, as well as the expressiveness in each creature's movement.
 
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MIchael PS

Member
1st Place - The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
I found the mechanics really interesting, I can really imagine it being a dope mobile game!

2nd Place - Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
Really interesting puzzle here! I also liked the way the mechanics were implemented so that they don't overwhelm the player. Great work!

3rd Place - Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
I love the arcade feel this game has! I also liked the how the player should move through dirt (if it is not something else) in order to "refill" his "weapon". Gamedesignwise, I would suggest you made the player's movement a little slower when moving through dirt, so that you'd give them more choices…


Best Ofs
Best use of theme: Crusty Chris by woodsmoke (This game had me laughing for a few minutes)
Best concept: Horse by The M (This one too!!)
Best presentation: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best devlog: Six Feet by SoapSud39 (Making a game in that short amount of time is difficult, let alone creating such an in-depth devlog. Good Job!)


Full Ranking

  1. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  2. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  3. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  4. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS (Merry Christmas!!!)
  5. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal (Beating those guys up was really fun)
  6. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  7. Awaremon by Mightyjor (Nice concept here! Really like the story element, and the twist on the way you are “fighting”-more like encourage- the monsters)
  8. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz (Nice! I only have a question… Gameplaywise, why should I beg for money when I could just steal it?)
  9. Detritus by NavierIsStoked (really liked the art and the overall feel in this one!)
  10. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki (Nice artwork!)
  11. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony (Plot twist: they were all ghosts… hahaha)
  12. Horse by The M (Muhahahahaha!)
  13. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade (I am not really into text games, but I really enjoyed this one)
  14. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat (Nice idea! It could really be useful if someone is learning Morse Code)
  15. Six Feet by SoapSud39 (I’d like it to be a little more fast paced… A nice experiment overall!)
  16. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel (Interesting concept)
  17. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28 (Nice game; It kind of resembles terraria. I think the digging and chopping could be a little faster however.)
  18. Old Man Toque by Toque (I like how the story and the gameplay elements were interlinked)
  19. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot (I think the mechanics should be introduced a little slower as I really felt overwhelmed…)
  20. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez (nice pan you got here!)
  21. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG (Nice artwork! However, the controls were a little buggy…)
  22. Hansha by Evanski (I hope you continue working on your game! Hahaha!)
  23. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah (I couldn’t understand how I was supposed to win, but there was something really fun, in the concept of jumping inside bins.)
  24. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris (I can’t see how your swarm is pathetic, but I can really see this game turning into an interesting “tower-defense-the-other-way-around” game)
  25. A Hole In Space by Neo Kesha (I can’t see how it fits the theme… however the message in the end gave me a good laugh… so good job with that!)
  26. PathΓtique by Mr Magnus (I'd like the controls to be a little more responsive)
  27. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr (I really liked the aesthetics; however I didn’t manage to figure out the correlation with the theme)
  28. BLOCK by Sirham (I couldn’t understand what I needed to do in order to solve the puzzle, I only managed to find the teleporter…)
  29. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx (It wouldn’t play -or I am just silly and couldn’t figure out the controls)
  30. Journey To Earth by Poizen (It didn’t open at all)
 
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Xer0botXer0

Senpai
Xer0bots REVIEWS AND VOTES

1st Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

2nd Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

3rd Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

Best Ofs
Best use of theme: game name by author name
Best concept: game name by author name
Best presentation: game name by author name
Best devlog: author name

Full Ranking
(Not ordered yet ..)
Pathetic Prosthetics - Enjoyed it :D
The Stick - Like where it's going.
Revenge Turkey Strategy - no idea how to play.
Block - oooh nearly rage quit.. then the wall came down! couldn't play further due to a crash.
Old Man Torque - Getting hit by a car was comedic relief!
Crusty Chris - .. Kinda funny
FlufferPuff - Haven't had so much fun farting. There's a method to it!
Detritus - Interesting gameplay.. difficult to understand the first minute there after it's like oooh.. explore my little worms explore!
Five minute mystery - hectic
Pugthetic - poor pug :C
Pathetique - think imma just let that pipe leak
Journey to earth - haven't played one of these in ages, i felt like the ball was mocking me after spending 3 minutes bouncing around up top.. never coming down xD
Drunken Joe - very profitable career choice!
Where Creatures Roam - very realistic mining & chopping, can confirm takes 10 yers to mine block
The Frootinis - Very fun for working on your hand eye hand eye hand eye coordination
To Hell with it - The other turds are very inspirational!
Awaremon - Damn I'm pro.. awh snap there's 4 more difficulties. Definitely like this one due to its sense of completedness.

tbc..

Err.. the GMC jam player isn't working for me ? It opens but doesn't load the games, I've extracted the files to desktop.
Ok I moved the files to it's own folder and deleted "jamdata.json", works now. Looks like there cant be other files in the directory.
 
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Reviews

Top 3:

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Loving all the detail that went into this game. Got a laugh the moment it started. Great art, audio and gameplay. Intro voice only came through my left speaker, but that's my only complaint.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
The endscreen is awesome! Audio cutoff/silence after winning a battle was a little jarring. Pretty cool game overall. Punch slap knee kick, punch slap knee kick.

Hansha by Evanski
Hope you continue this game. Clever use of window caption, etc. My one critique is the blue screen showed up before it went full screen.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Concept: Detritus by NavierIsStoked
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

Full ranking:

  1. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  2. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  3. Hansha by Evanski
  4. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  5. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  6. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  7. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  8. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  9. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  10. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  11. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  12. Old Man Toque by Toque
  13. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  14. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  15. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  16. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  17. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  18. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  19. BLOCK by Sirham
  20. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  21. Horse by The M
  22. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  23. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  24. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  25. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  26. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  27. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  28. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  29. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

For a second I questioned if it ever ends. It does. Lacks feedback on progress/goal.

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Really like the style and concept. Battle music was quieter and the "damage done next" sound was a little loud. HP bar tended to overextend (even under the goal).

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Great aesthetic, but the dog catcher is better at his job than I am.

BLOCK by Sirham

Pretty cool! Not much guidance, but just enough to make do.

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

I won, but I don't feel like I won. Oh, and my dog didn't like the sound effects. He's a snob.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Challenging but pretty fun.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

Really like the look of it. Had trouble moving large groups, they'd randomly spread out or stop. I find that selecting all of them and spawning light is a bad idea (not even sure what it's used for).

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

A little confusing, but eventually made it to the end.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

Looks great and pretty fun! Couldn't find a way to quit mid-game.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

Loving all the detail that went into this game. Got a laugh the moment it started. Great art, audio and gameplay. Intro voice only came through my left speaker, but that's my only complaint.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Expected something to happen after going to all of the bins. The game over screen often flashed and disappeared since your already tapping space.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Another game my dog doesn't like the sound effects of, haha. Pretty cool, I like way the controls are included at the start.

Hansha by Evanski

Hope you continue this game. Clever use of window caption, etc. My one critique is the blue screen showed up before it went full screen.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

Love the menu. Good puzzle designs.

Horse by The M

Pretty funny, but I had a hard time actually doing anything with it.

Journey To Earth by Poizen

Great visually! Ball sometimes got "stuck" bouncing around up top, but then again I can't hit it when it comes down anyway so I guess it works out.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

"How to play" is a little hard to read, and the info could have been displayed the first times you use the characters. Controls felt slow/clunky (Waiting for the animation and then moving the mouse from arrow to arrow). Would've benefited from an additional keyboard option. Otherwise good! Enjoyed the art and concept.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

No real critique, seems well thought out and some cool features.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

Impressive visually. A little confusing what to do, but eventually figured it out.

Old Man Toque by Toque

Amusing! Had one dialogue not show up, but restarting fixed it.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

The endscreen is awesome! Audio cutoff/silence after winning a battle was a little jarring. Pretty cool game overall. Punch slap knee kick, punch slap knee kick.

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

AI pathing and controls were good. Victory screen would be nice.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

Controls where a little clunky, but not terrible. Died a few times without knowing why.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

I had a hard time surviving out in traffic, but I guess that's true to life.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Curious what this could've been, but couldn't do anything as-is.

Six Feet by SoapSud39

Had a some trouble figuring out where the bodies/markers were, and moving/actions felt a little clunky. Some cool details though, such as the game over conditions. Great aesthetic.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

I like how it saves the level progress. Helps if your prone to dying like me. Collisions felt off at times in a "why did I die way", but maybe I'm just bad.

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

I get that the controls are for different setups, but I had a hard time reading it/processing what layout I needed to use... and then "Enter" wasn't listed for the menu. Just a little confusing. Enjoyed the music and visuals.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Made it to the clouds, but gameplay is unforgiving. Some screen tearing when fullscreen, but windowed mode worked fine.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

Interesting concept. Mining felt a little slow, and enemies do a lot of damage.
 
Old Post:
I played through all of them and had a lot of fun seeing what everyone came up with. That said, the two that I enjoyed the most this time around and enjoyed the most were:

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies and The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal.

@Mercerenies: Great job. I liked the game a lot. Nice and relaxing, and the game feel was good. I loved the bird hopping menu for some reason. Is there some simple code for that? Please share with me. 😆

@Siolfor the Jackal: Great job, too. Really weighty combat, and some cool music. Boss had more artificial idiocy than artificial intelligence, but he was still fun to beat on. :D

These are my top two games! If possible, give them both equal points from me! If not, flip a coin, and pick one for the top spot, and one for the second. I liked them both a lot, and I cannot choose. 😂
If that's against the rules, I'll flip a coin myself, I guess.

I played all the other games too, like I said, so I'll update this post with my thoughts on all of them when I'm extremely bored and have a lot of time, lol
So....soon, probably. =')

Edit: Okay, flipped a coin for first/second place.
1st Place: The Stick, by Siolfor the Jackal: Good, heavy game feel.
2nd Place: Hopper the Toucan by Merceerenies: More than a sum of its parts. Graphics weren't amazing, but I stilled like the aesthetic a lot. Nice and relaxing. =)
3rd Place: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson: It's "just" Dig Dug, but the art, music, and gameplay were all very polished. Nice Commodore vibes. =)

MOD EDIT: For those wondering, I have PM'd the user about this post to remind them of the voting rules. Dan xoxo
User EDIT: Thanks Dan <3 :D
 
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TehPilot

Member
reviews and votes
with special guest WaveParadigm

Full Reviews

Top Three:

1st - Awaremon by Mightyjor
[Pilot] This one hit all the right spots for me - great presentation and a very good realization of the underlying idea. The core gameplay felt inspired and also did a good job flipping traditional RPG mechanics around to make for an interesting experience. I think it can be hard to nail both the presentation and creative design aspect of a game in a jam but this game pulled it off. While I didn't personally get very far in my own playthrough due to the balancing issues (I started on level 3 and found it a bit of a slog to get going on that difficulty), I think the original Difficulty 1 is enjoyable for what the game is. Having the opportunity to watch the higher difficulties play out also did wonders for my opinion of the game - it's a design that can be scaled well, which I think is indicative of a very good game given the timeline of a game jam. Great work.

[Wave] Awaremon blew me away from start to finish. It commits to a Game Boy aesthetic and nails it in everything from its music and spritework to its UI feel and general game flow. More than anything, it just made me smile a bunch of times. :D The idea of an RPG where the enemies are trying to drain their own health while you try and top it off is really interesting, and while there were some numbers issues in the build we played, playing the game on Difficulty 1 was a genuinely fun short jam game experience. Playing through the game I could feel the implication of a bigger game underneath, which is, in my mind, indicative of a fantastic jam game. Wonderful execution on a great concept!

2nd - Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
[Pilot] My personal favorite out of all of the jam games. A good presentation (audio and visual), clear and concise gameplay mechanics that felt very intuitive to pick up, and polished overall. I picked up on some of the little details in the presentation - like the ascending tone when collecting the berries - and I thought the dung rolling + flinging mechanic was a good, inspired take on the Dig Dug-esque mechanics. The attention to detail is my favorite thing about this entry. I wish there was a little bit more to it, but I can't fault what was delivered to any meaningful extent. Good stuff through and through.

3rd - The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
[Pilot] While I think this game had a great presentation aspect to it, what really stood out the most to me was how it controlled. The separate arm movement made for a much different experience right off the bat than most of the games in this jam - and out of all of the games with alternative or different control modes this one was the best of them. Right as I was beginning to find that mode of control dull, I made it to the final boss and its mechanics for unscrewing the bolts - and that extension of mechanics is what sold the game for me. I think the timing of the introduction of the screw mechanic was ideal, but I do wish there were more mechanics of that nature which made use of arm movement other than reaching and alternating to navigate the level - just because I would've loved to see more things of that nature. My other wish is that the arms/hands had smaller hitboxes... but those qualms aside, this was a great experience.

  1. Awaremon
  2. Dung Beetle
  3. The Frootinis
  4. To Hell With It
  5. The Stick
  6. Hopper the Toucan
  7. Pathetic Prosthetics
  8. Horse
  9. Monster Hunger
  10. Detritus
  11. Pathetic Swarm
  12. Danger Noodle
  13. Morse Code Trainer
  14. Bandit
  15. Flufferpuff
  16. Flight of the Bin Chicken
  17. Pathetique
  18. Distress Signal Found
  19. Journey to Earth
  20. Six Feet
  21. Where Creatures Roam
  22. Nova Mare
  23. A Hole In Space
  24. Old Man Toque
  25. Hansha
  26. Pugthetic
  27. Drunken Joe
  28. Five Minute Mystery
  29. BLOCK
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy
  31. Crusty Chris

Best Use of Theme: Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Concept: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Best Devlog: N/A

Live sessions may not be fully indicative of final opinion. Moderate language warning as well!
Twitch Video

Hansha
To Hell With It
Pugthetic
Distress Signal Found
Monster Hunger
A Hole In Space
Five Minute Mystery
Awaremon
Bandit
Pathetic Prosthetics
Danger Noodle

Twitch Video

The Frootinis
Flufferpuff
Detritus
Six Feet
Drunken Joe
Old Man Toque
Pathétique
Pathetic Swarm
Revenge Turkey Strategy
Crusty Chris
Hopper the Toucan
Flight of the Bin Chicken
Journey to Earth
Morse Code Trainer
BLOCK
Where Creatures Roam

Twitch Video

The Stick
Nova Mare
Horse
Dung Beetle
 
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Voting time

Top 3:

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
I always enjoy getting a puzzle game from you, it's definitely your fortè. My favourite thing about this game was how in the zone I was able to get, and just blitz through these puzzles as fast as I did. The puzzles were well designed in that the solution was rarely immediately obvious, but the path was cleverly laid out if you knew HOW to look at it. Difficulty curve was also great. The only downside to this game is the art, very MSpaint-esque. BUT, on the plus side, it has a very consistent and clean look, and everything is clearly readable.
You have to really appreciate the small touches in a game like this too. The first thing I noticed when I replayed it, was that the time of day slowly changes between levels, and that didn't need to be in there at all but I'm glad it is. The music you chose fit the theme of the game well, the whole aesthetic comes together well in the end. The dialogue was funny too!
As for the theme, I appreciate the subtler route you took, in that the bird is not overly pathetic but is treated as such by it's peers, because they suck.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Again with the Amiga themed game. Which you nailed. Really great entry, so much fun. The music, ahh, so good. I love the way you adapt old games in interesting ways like this, putting a great little twist on it.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
Firstly, whoa! Actual gameplay! :p
Jokes aside, this was really neat. Great simple mechanics, great art and design, and rad as 💩💩💩💩 music as usual. Great sound design all round actually(despite being a bit loud), I think I discussed in my stream how well the music and the player noises fit by not occupying any of the same sonic space, something that is overlooked in many games I think. I don't know what to say, this just felt really good to play.

Best ofs:

Best use of : Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Concept: Journey To Earth by Poizen
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Best Story: Six Feet by SoapSud39

Full ranking:

  1. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  2. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  3. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  4. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  5. Old Man Toque by Toque
  6. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  7. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  8. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  9. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  10. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  11. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  12. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  13. Horse by The M
  14. Hansha by Evanski
  15. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  16. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  17. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  18. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  19. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  20. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  21. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  22. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  23. BLOCK by Sirham
  24. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  25. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  26. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  27. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  28. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  29. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0
  31. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

This is a good example of why I think readme files(or in-game credits) are important. I feel like only a small portion of people will actually go to the games topic and see the info posted there. I myself don't often check games there unless I'm forced to find info on how to play their game. That said, I think it's pretty clearly stipulated that you're still not supposed to use licensed works, or works you don't have rights to.
With that out of the way...
Kind of simple top down shooter. closing the holes was a neat idea, but it does kind of suck that once they get to a certain size, there's no way to really get back on your feet. But I suppose that's still part of the core gameplay and makes sense. The shooting and moving itself worked well enough, just needed some sound effects and maybe some particle effects to give it more impact.
The art was a mish mash of inconsistency. I would have preferred all MSpaint style like your player character over what you have here, the background just does not work with such simple sprites.

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Went hard on that GB aesthetic. Second Pokèmon-inspired game in the jam haha, weird. I really liked the adapted battles, trying to make the monsters feel better. Very similar to an idea I had back in high school which I never got around to figuring out.
Anyway, pretty well made entry. The battles seemed a bit easy on most difficulties, so some better balance is all this really needs, with some progression of course.
Great idle animations, and the battle screen was slick.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Vagrancy is illegal here I guess? That's sad :(
I loved that I got to play as a dog looking for his mate, escaping the dog catcher(Obviously the pathetic creature), though in my first playthrough, I bugged him out hard! Great intro sequence and story, as simple as it was. Perhaps a bit short.

BLOCK by Sirham

Strange game. Jump on release was a weird choice, I don't have much else to say about this, it was a unique experience for sure!

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

This one hurt to play. This guy was not a pathetic creature, but a completely abominable sack of meat haha. It felt wrong to hurt your dog and your wife.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Snake with extra steps.
This was such a weird entry, none of it made any sense. If the snake is trying to eat me, why the hell am I trying to feed it? And what am I feeding it? Little yellow dots that make it bigger... That seems like the opposite thing you would want. I just couldn't get past all that. The arm and the tracks were neat additions, but the game just felt overly complex for no reason.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

Nailed the kind of spooky grotesque vibe. I'm not a great RTS player, so I have trouble managing a group like this, but I recognise the solid execution here. The mechanics with the elder beings and your units changing in strange ways as a reaction is sooo weird, but a great concept. Visually, this was great too.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

I wasn't expecting a sort of visual novel in this jam, it's an interesting choice. I went back and tried exploring some more, but I feel like I still missed a lot! It was an interesting kind of story.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

This game had a solid idea but just lack some fundamentals. The collisions were a bit inconsistent, and I didn't like that it was more effecient and easier to play by stealing, I didn't notice any consequence to playing it that way.
I thought the scaling effect of the sprites was really neat.
Also those cop sprites look familiar but I can't place it, and no credits so I don't want to make any assumptions either way here.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

Again with the Amiga themed game. Which you nailed. Really great entry, so much fun. The music, ahh, so good. I love the way you adapt old games in interesting ways like this, putting a great little twist on it.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

The real mystery was the lack of mystery. I don't like to say this about jam games, but this was a pretty unpleasant experience overall. The first thing that hits you is the grating music, then the weirdly deformed floor background and mismatched art. The player and dialogue sprites weren't as bad, but still had plenty of issues(Thicker lines would help with scaling issues and readability for a start). The story made no real sense, just felt kind of random then you throw in some off-handed "You really are a pathetic creature" stinger at the end, which feels mostly forced and jammed in last minute.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Bloody bin chickens. Neat idea, just needs a bit of tweaking and bug fixing(Try using a collision mask). The flight was a weird mechanic that worked pretty well, just a shame that it was so easy to get stuck in bins and buildings. The art was ok, just a wee bit inconsistent.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Firstly, whoa! Actual gameplay! :p
Jokes aside, this was really neat. Great simple mechanics, great art and design, and rad as 💩💩💩💩 music as usual. Great sound design all round actually(despite being a bit loud), I think I discussed in my stream how well the music and the player noises fit by not occupying any of the same sonic space, something that is overlooked in many games I think.

Hansha by Evanski

Neat idea, executed well. But I do not like games opening up my browser. That said, the fast one you pulled editing your profile during my playthrough was neat, even if I missed it myself.
Just very well made for what it was, dude.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

I always enjoy getting a puzzle game from you, it's definitely your fortè. My favourite thing about this game was how in the zone I was able to get, and just blitz through these puzzles as fast as I did. The puzzles were well designed in that the solution was rarely immediately obvious, but the path was cleverly laid out if you knew HOW to look at it. Difficulty curve was also great. The only downside to this game is the art, very MSpaint-esque. BUT, on the plus side, it has a very consistent and clean look, and everything is clearly readable.
You have to really appreciate the small touches in a game like this too. The first thing I noticed when I replayed it, was that the time of day slowly changes between levels, and that didn't need to be in there at all but I'm glad it is. The music you chose fit the theme of the game well, the whole aesthetic comes together well in the end. The dialogue was funny too!
As for the theme, I appreciate the subtler route you took, in that the bird is not overly pathetic but is treated as such by it's peers, because they suck.

Horse by The M

Unfortunately, keyboard ghosting made this impossible for me to play during my stream.
I did play the fixed version recently, so I was able to beat it eventually. It's a funny idea, but I felt like jumping was OP, it ended being(for me) faster to jump everywhere, as much as I enjoyed getting up a small gallop.

Journey To Earth by Poizen

This game was rad, I had a blast playing it. Great aesthetic and the music selection fit perfectly. I could quite seriously play this for hours, between the level variation and powerups, there's already a lot here to keep me interested. My only suggestion(and I bet you heard this a lot) is destructible terrain! I think we discussed it in my stream, but what some of us believed would be excellent would be some sort of ball powerup that lets you destroy terrain, maybe like a ball powerup that explodes on contact with terrain, just so that you aren't completely annihilating levels all the time.
The only reason this isn't a wee bit higher on my ranks is because I feel like there wasn't much of a strong theme connection here. It's perhaps hinted at in the intro(Lovely intro by the way), but that still at best feels tacked on. Anyway, This is another jam game I'd like to see a full version of some day!

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

Neat idea, but it feels like there wasn't enough thought put into the puzzles themselves, since most of the later ones just required you to trap one of your more annoying guys and let the others do the work. No idea why you chose virtual buttons instead of keyboard controls, needlessly fiddly in my opinion.
The art was cute, but the game could have really used some sound.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

This was pretty neat, it was fun having the stream involved trying to figure out some of the letters together. I was quite impressed with the amount of options and the addition of the mini-games. This feels like more of a tool than a game, and that's fine, because it does what it says and does it well.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

3D, always impressive. Would have been more impressive if it was more finished. Just a shame about the projectiles not working, because the intro, and the claw were great(Though it seemed like there was no real point to moving the claw around apart from fun, since going straight down seemed to do the trick). The blob fish boss was totally unexpected and funny. Anyway, loved the 3D and the atmosphere you were creating.

Old Man Toque by Toque

Old Man Toque! Chump! At it again. He's a highly relatable character.
My only real issue was that you get stuck on the left side during gameplay. I don't know why I'm ranking this so high, it just speaks to me.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

This was a very strange entry. Part adventure game, part tbrpg. I think it was very clever tying new moves to new body parts, and the real time element with attack cooldowns worked surprisingly well here. Would could have spiced up the fights a bit more would have been something like elemental weakness(but related to the attacks in your game obviously, like a scream being more effective on the dude with more ears, etc), but that seems like a bit much for a jam! The art had a nice style to it, could have really used some animations though. I had to dig around to find your itch page where the credits were(would be handy to have them in game or a readme file), glad to see you made the music and it's cool that your mum arranged it! Tell her I said it's great.

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

I did enjoy my little grape army sim. I hope you didn't mind, but in place of no music during my stream, I used my jam track and I think it fit well enough!
It was a short demo but shows some promise, a bit Pikmin-inspired which I can dig. I thought the boss was rad, the way you gave it a special attack I had to avoid to shake up the gameplay a bit. A great addition.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

This one killed my stream and crashed my PC!
Like all the games, I did go back and try it again, I didn't manage to beat it though. I still had some weird flickering issue on my screen during gameplay though, so that's weird!
Anyway, I feel like the biggest mistake here are the controls. Mouse for movement is BAD, just flat out. I could accept the double jump aiming with the mouse, but the rest of the movement I strongly believe should be on some buttons. The jumping itself could use a little work too, maybe increase the gravity a wee bit to make it less floaty. The art was pretty basic, but I thought it was pretty cool the way the body parts change distance based on movement. Very cool!
I think it was RichHopefulComposer that pointed out the fitting song choice too!
Oh I almost forgot, I was apprehensive about touching the bounce pads since they were red circles, and generally I think most of us have been conditioned to treat red objects as a "stop" or "bad".

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

This game was too stressful, dude. I love the dumb 💩💩💩💩ing dog, it's so dumb, but it can't help it. I personally would have used a collision mask of some sort, just something simple and smaller than the sprite so that it feels more fair(Like how there seemed to be a stray pixel off the side that killed you when you were clearly safe). Apart from that, it was silly and cute game.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Borked from the looks of things, couldn't get it to do anything.

Six Feet by SoapSud39

This was a great entry for sure, but whoa, waaaay too long, dude. For a jam at least, I would have cut the levels down in half for starters! The movement speed was a real drag(pun intended heh), but also, the grid-based movement seems to make it more jarring because it feels like you are stopping constantly.
The overall aesthetic and presentation was great, with some nice extra voice acting thrown in. Dark story with a great ending too, well done.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

This was pretty fun, great presentation as always, the storybook intro was a nice touch. This felt great on a controller, just a shame about those damned collision boxes! Once you realise you can't trust your collisions, it makes you more nervous and more prone to mistakes I feel, I know I personally panicked several times due to it, and ended up putting myself in more danger than I was actually in! The real MVP of this game was the unexpected boss fight. It tied together the mechanics nicely, in a way that almost made it suddenly feel like a different game, because now someone is shooting at you, and you can no longer relax a sec to figure out the path. My only issue with the boss was that it felt like I had to rely on a lot of luck to get those bottom screws.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

This had a great polish to it overall, good intro and lots of little things that added a lot together. I'm personally not overly a fan of this desaturated pixel style. The combat was basic, but well implemented, I could see a full game utilising powerups or upgrades to keep it interesting and fresh throughout. The enemy variety and design was great. The biblically appropriate angel designs were excellent, but why was so much care given to the animations of enemies, but not to the player? XD
Boss fight was rad, strange but rad. I'm so glad you put a check point in there.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

Simple idea, just needed some fine tuning to be great. The movement and platforming was fine, but the mining was a pain. Takes way too long to mine. I had trouble with the monsters that shoot at you since there's no indication of how to beat them, I was just lucky I had someone in my stream suggest shotting the bullets back(wtf?!) which makes little sense and is a right bastard to do consistently. Your bullets were too small and didn't contrast well enough for me, so they were easy to lose in the backgrounds. Sound effects would have also gone a long way here too. Not sure where the theme applied here also . Anyway, the actual idea has some merit, I did enjoy enclosing enemies in blocks to progress, and shooting the weird feet.



First stream is done, here is the link: www.twitch.tv/videos/824342111

STREAM 1
Hansha by @EvanSki
Pugthetic by @Fernando Gonzalez
Pathetic Prosthetics @Yozoraki
The Frootinis by @GameDevDan and @NAL
Horse by @The M
Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
Drunken Joe by @Gatefiz
Old Man Toque by @Toque
To Hell With It by @MIchael PS
Nova Mare by @Bart and @TheSnidr
Danger Noodle by @ghandpivot
Five Minute Mystery by @Terminator_Pony
Flufferpuff by @Micah_DS
Dung Beetle by @Pat Ferguson
Morse Code Trainer by @FrostyCat
BLOCK by @Sirham
Revenge Turkey Strategy by @gmx0
Crusty Chris by @woodsmoke
A Hole In Space by @Neo_Kesha
Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG


Second/Final stream is also done:
www.twitch.tv/videos/825461016
www.twitch.tv/videos/825700903

STREAM 2
Six Feet by @SoapSud39
Hopper The Toucan by @Mercerenies
Awaremon by @Mightyjor
Pathetic Swarm by @Zodaris
Where Creatures Roam by @Josh Chen and @bandman28
Distress Signal Found by @samspade
Monster Hunger by @MatthewPattel
Journey To Earth by @Poizen
Pathétique by @Mr Magnus
Detritus by @NavierIsStoked
 
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samspade

Member
Reviews

I did play all the games, and tried to leave comments for most of them. Ratings of course are subjective and depend a lot on what I personally like although in general I did rate games higher if they were a full game (even if very small) regardless of whether or not I liked them. I admittedly have a bias towards puzzle games, rts games, and games that experiment with new things.

Top 3:

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Overall great. Liked it a lot. My dislikes were small and are things like the hit boxes on the hands were a bit to big in my opinion and I got stuck on corners a number of times when it didn't look like I should have and killed by spikes as well. Rotating spikes seemed especially bad, but this might have just been my perception. Movement after a bit was a little to easy if you could do it orthnogoally, some things where you were forced to move diagonally would be nice - there was a little of this on the final boss which was great. I did really appreciate the unlimited lives as this would have been murder otherwise.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked
Really liked it. I like RTS type games and games where you sort of have to learn the rule set. That said, I think it needed a more clear goal even for a game jam game. I might try it again to see if you can wipe everyone but yourself out. But it was fun to play around with and learn.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Fun. The last level had a lot of lag for me for some reason. I lost my first fight with the feet because, coincidentally, my cats decided it would be a good time to bite my feet. The only reason this isn't second is because it was so straight forward.

Best ofs:

Best use of theme: Crusty Chris by woodsmoke (runner up: Hansha or Horse or Frootinis)
Best Concept: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James (runner up: Detritus or Morse Code Trainer)
Best Presentation: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James (runner up: Awaremon or Dung Beetle or Morse Code Trainer)
Best Story: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James (runner up: Hopper the Toucan for having the Toucan with the most personal growth)
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  2. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  3. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  4. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  5. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  6. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  8. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  9. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  10. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  11. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  12. Hansha by Evanski
  13. BLOCK by Sirham
  14. Horse by The M
  15. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  16. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  17. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  18. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  19. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  20. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  21. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  22. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  23. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  24. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  25. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  26. Old Man Toque by Toque
  27. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  28. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  29. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Art and style is great. Combat for me wasn't interesting enough although I was playing on easy and have never been a super big fan of pokemon games.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Art is nice, but I found the controls frustrating. Shift only worked if I pushed it first (not if I was already moving) and it took me a while, and several restarts to realize you can't bark and run. Also a lot of gating until tutorials had been giving which actually teaches you that those buttons don't do anything (even though they do).

BLOCK by Sirham

I think I beat it? Amusing and fun.

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

I guess it made made me feel disgusted with myself.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Interesting. I got a highscore of 40. Although I never really figured out how to use the conveyor belts effectively.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

Really liked it. I like RTS type games and games where you sort of have to learn the rule set. That said, I think it needed a more clear goal even for a game jam game. I might try it agian to see if you can wipe everyone but yourself out. But it was fun to play around with and learn.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

Best game ever.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

I liked the art.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

I probably should rate this higher than I am as it is a complete game, with good presentation and no real flaws. But it didn't grab me.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

I enjoyed it.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Interesting. I enjoyed it and it eventually said I won. I was a little unclear on how I won though as I don't think I got all of the trash cans.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Not really my thing or I would have rated it higher.

Hansha by Evanski

Very interesting, could see some potetional for a fuller game.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

I like puzzle games and I liked this one. Maybe goes on a little too long for what it does. I also really liked the observer's progression. Maybe one of the nicest story progressions in the jam.

Horse by The M

Fun? The princess fell off for me and there didn't seem to be a way to get her back on. So I sort of got stuck. This one would probably be higher if liked this type of game, but they've never really been my thing.

Journey To Earth by Poizen

Another complete game that just didn't grab me. I don't really like break out to be fair.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

Fun little puzzle game. Probably needed some sounds effects. At least for the button presses. I liked the art.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

Not really a game but it is a more fun way to learn morse code than normal and the presentation is great. I really liked the various transitions from screen to screen. Would be higher if it were game, as this is a game jam, but maybe that's an unfair way to rate it.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

I feel bad rating this so low because 3D in GM is impressive.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

An interesting and fun game. Gameplay loop was interesting. I liked the bar progression not being a straight line.

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

Fun. I like RTS stuff. Victory is mine.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

7:54 seconds and 24 coins. The right level of difficulty. Mostly I think the music choice made it for me. If it had been silent or abrasive, I probably would have stopped.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Not a game?

Six Feet by SoapSud39

Interesting. A little to slow moving for me. I made it through a couple levels, and think if I had the patience I could have made it through more. I never did figure out how to get carrots though.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

overall great. liked it a lot. my dislikes were small and are things like the hit boxes on the hands were a bit to big in my opinion and I got stuck on corners a number of times when it didn't look like I should have and killed by spikes as well. Rotating spikes seemed especially bad, but this might have just been my perception. Movement after a bit was a little to easy if you could do it orthnogoally, some things where you were forced to move diagonally would be nice - there was a little of this on the final boss which was great. I did really appreciate the unlimited lives as this would have been murder otherwise.

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Really should play again. Nice art and combat system.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Fun. The last level had a lot of lag for me for some reason. I lost my first fight with the feet because, coincidentally, my cats decided it would be a good time to bite my feet. The only reason this isn't second is because it was so straight forward.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

a little too confusing and difficult. things took way to much time to be fun. I probably should rate this higher, because it has a lot of things going for it, but my inability to do things in what to me feel like anything close to a reasonable time prevented me from getting to far in it.
 

Toque

Member
Votes go here.
Sorry my name is so hard to pronounce for jam streamers. Its a Canadian winter hat. Its half french.


Sounds like.....
Puke, Luke, Duke, Tuke. Tuke....... Hope that helps.

Lots of great games. Well done!

1) Dung Beetle funest
2)To Hell With it Funner
3)The Footinis Fun

Best Theme: Block
Best Story: Pathetic Prosthetics
Best Concept: Horse
Best Presentation: Nova Mare
Best Devlog: Six feet




1.Dung Beetle Pat Ferguson


2.To Hell with it Michael PS


3.The Footinis GameDeve Dan Allison James


4.The stick Siolfor the Jackal


5.Flufferpuff Micah_DS


6.Monster Hunger MatthewPattel


7.Morse Code Trainer FrostyCat


8.Hopper the Toucon Mercerenies


9.Horse The M


10.Block Sirham


11.Pugthetic Fernando Gonzalez


12.A Hole in Space Neo_Kesha


13.Awaremon MightyJor


14.Drunken Joe Gatefiz


15.Journey to Earth Poizen


16.Six Feet SoapSud39


17.Danger Noodle Ghandpivot


18.Flight of the Bin Chicken Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah


19.Distress Signal Found SamSpade


20.Nova Mare Bart, The Snidr


21.Bandit TeamPicklefishGG


22.Crusty Chris woodsmoke


23.Detritus NavierlsStoked


24.Pathetic Prosthetics Zodaris


25.Where creatures roam Josh Chen Bandman28


26.Five minute Mystery Terminator_pony


27.Hansha Evanski


28.Pathetic Swarm Zodaris


29.Pathetique Mr. Magnus


30.Revenge Turkey Strategy gmx0



A hole in Space. Neo_Kesha
Shooter game where you shoot at growing holes in space. I like the music. Fun playing around with it. Not sure about the theme here. Had fun with it shooting the stars. Music was intense. Not a bad thing. Hey pretty good.



Awaremon Mightyjor
Pokemon style game. Nice pallete and art. Game plays well. Fits the theme. Im not a pokemon





Bandit Team PicklefishGG
Dog / dog catcher….. I like the art. Dog is great. Not exactly sure what the dog is suppose to be doing at first. Move the boxes but Im stuck in that level…… Art is the strong point.




Block Sirham
Short but very clever. Always run the risk of players getting stuck but thinking the game is broken. Luckily I stuck with it glad I did. I love clever games. I like the theme.



Crusty Chris woodsmoke.
Well You have to love / hate this guy. He is pathetic to the core. I liked the music.




Danger Noodle ghandpivot
Kind of snake game. I didnt really get the robot arm.( the point of it. I like the snake mechanic. Could be slower at the start, Nice game.



Detritus NavierlsStoked
So worms are going out and foraging. A bit slow to progress that ruins the interesting flow. Go get these blobs. Sorry I just couldnt get into it. Art was good. Or just what’s the point of the whole thing.




Distress Signal Found samspade
Text adventure style game. Nice. Going old school. Simple but good UI. I liked the story. Enjoyed it. Nice to see something different. I thought about making a Zork style game at some point.




Druken Joe Gatefitz
I think it fits the theme. I dont mind the no legs thing. Save a lot of animation work……. Art is great. Watch out for the cops. Have to stay drunk. haha . I should do a jam drunk. Nice little details. The radio and the people talking in the window. Seems like you should just steal. Really have to faults with the game. Hey nice entry.



Dung beetle Pat Ferguson
Well great opening scene. Hey its Dig Dug but enough of your original stuff to make it stand on its own. Of course its great. Sure it could get harder. Some variety but its has enough there to make this game stand out. Favrouite so far.



Five Minute Mystery Terminator_pony
Nice to play something different. Art was okay. A bit of a story. I finished it. Looking for more puzzles and things. Hey not bad.


Flufferpuff Micah_Ds
Good theme. Funny mechanic but it works. Some level design there. Good job. Its hard to take farting games serious but it was fun. I like the strategy of getting smaller and eating cookies. Hey it was fun.


Flight of the Bin Chicken Adam, Aidan Marcus Noah
Loved the music. Rhythm kind of fits. So I was confused why a chicken was flying but he explained that its an Australian chicken so no worries. Art is great. Mechanic is tricky but I think that adds to pathetic bird. Couldnt quite progress like I wanted. I like the crazy of it.





Hansha Evanski
Very slick text. Nice rain effect. The drops on ground are wonderful. Interesting demo.





Hopper the Toucan Mercerenies
Puzzle hopper. I like the music. I think the camera could be zoomed in. Art was good. Some different logs etc. Hey I liked it. Q-bert relived. Lots of levels. Theme. I guess I can see that.



Horse TheM
So an odd mechanic horse game. But it actually works. Art is simple but good. Its fun to fool around with the horse. Save the princess. Its crazy. But actually fun. I like the burning horse and running to the water.




I found a stick Siolfor the Jackal
Love the name. Ok great game. Streets of rage feel. I think you made the music. wow. Yeah could use more variety in enemies. Maybe stick upgrades etc. But hey its great and everybody who plays it knows it. Not sure about the theme…… But sure. Talent.


Journey to Earth Poizen
The earth sprite was great. Break out style game. But its done well. I found the controls a bit touchy. Harder than it looks. Not sure about he theme but I enjoyed the game. Glad game didnt restart after killed. Art and sounds were great.



Monster Hunger MatthewPattel
A neat little puzzler. Bring a monster some food. Love the art. Pretty cool game. I had fun with it. Good job.



Morse the Code Trainer FrostyCat
Well a big different than the puzzle games Ive seen from you. I liked it. Its polished and effective. Its tough but thats the point. Theme??? (aside) ( It would be interesting to see how you would do an action or different style game…… something out of your comfort zone. ) It was original and interesting. Hey the art was good too.





Nova Mare Bart TheSnidr
Ok 3-d adventure thing. Of course the 3-d with GM is always in awe type of thing for me. So you have the blob fish. Kind of pathetic. The crane was cool. Great sounds. If you strip the 3-d stuff out Im throwing balls at a blobfish. Great stuff . A fun five minutes. Game was a little lacking. But a cool experience.




Pathetic Prosthetic Yozoraki
I like the story. I think great theme there. Art was good. I like the instructions on the wall. Took awhile to get the hang of it. The fight mechanic was good. It needed a bit more guidance but after some time I figured it out. There was some parts I really liked about it. Its not my type of game but its pretty cool. I like the striving to be human angle of it………I love the guy playing in the ocean with the others. Yeah good job.



Pathetic swarm Zodaris
MOnster geneticist. Instructions are a bit hard for me to grasp at first. But I make some progress but not far. Seems more like a test of concept. Keep going with it.






Pathetique Mr Magnus
Character defiantly looks pathetic. Simple based platformer. Levels needed a little tweaking. Hey I liked the jumping help. Needs some polish and work. It was fun to play around with. I like the wind graphic…….. haha. Hey good effort. Good music!





Pugthetic Fernando Gonzalez
Frogger dog style. Its a big tricky. But once you realize you can’t go between the cars but always stay in the middle you are good to go. It was okay. I liked the art and music.




Revenge Turkey strategy gmxO
Okay you have art. Start of something. Couldn’t really do much with it. Hey fun trying stuff out.



Six Feet Soap Sud39
So nice art and a game there. It seems a bit serious wich is aways harder to pull off than silly. Ive never been a grave digger so thats original. In game instructions would be helpful to get started quickly. Nice mechanic. Had a hard time to have fun with it. I guess its kind of dark but hey thats okay. Really long game. Good game.




The Frootinis GameDevDan Allison James
Super cool mechanic. Kind of a puzzler. Amazing music. Nice story. The art book is so cool. Lots of levels. Whats not to love here……..




The Hell with it Michael PS
Nice menu. I like the story. Plays well. Screen shake maybe a bit heavy for my taste. Slasher…… Hey fun game. Love the feet monster. Tough but super fun. One of the best.



Where Creatures Roam Josh Chen and Bandman28
Hey nice sprites. Mechanic is ok. Seems a bit slow. Needs a bit of polish. Had fun with it but finished wanting more.


A hole in Space. Neo_Kesha
Shooter game where you shoot at growing holes in space. I like the music. Fun playing around with it. Not sure about the theme here. Had fun with it shooting the stars. Music was intense. Not a bad thing. Hey pretty good.


Awaremon Mightyjor
Pokemon style game. Nice pallete and art. Game plays well. Fits the theme. Im not a pokemon fan but its a good game for what it is just not my thing.



Bandit Team PicklefishGG
Dog / dog catcher….. I like the art. Dog is great. Not exactly sure what the dog is suppose to be doing at first. Move the boxes but Im stuck in that level…… Art is the strong point.



Block Sirham
Short but very clever. Always run the risk of players getting stuck but thinking the game is broken. Luckily I stuck with it glad I did. I love clever games. I like the theme.




Crusty Chris woodsmoke.
Well You have to love / hate this guy. He is pathetic to the core. I liked the music.




Danger Noodle ghandpivot
Kind of snake game. I didnt really get the robot arm.( the point of it. I like the snake mechanic. Could be slower at the start, Nice game.




Detritus NavierlsStoked
So worms are going out and foraging. A bit slow to progress that ruins the interesting flow. Go get these blobs. Sorry I just couldnt get into it. Art was good. Or just what’s the point of the whole thing.




Distress Signal Found samspade
Text adventure style game. Nice. Going old school. Simple but good UI. I liked the story. Enjoyed it. Nice to see something different. I thought about making a Zork style game at some point.





Druken Joe Gatefitz
I think it fits the theme. I dont mind the no legs thing. Save a lot of animation work……. Art is great. Watch out for the cops. Have to stay drunk. haha . I should do a jam drunk. Nice little details. The radio and the people talking in the window. Seems like you should just steal. Really have to faults with the game. Hey nice entry.




Dung beetle Pat Ferguson
Well great opening scene. Hey its Dig Dug but enough of your original stuff to make it stand on its own. Of course its great. Sure it could get harder. Some variety but its has enough there to make this game stand out. Favrouite so far.



Five Minute Mystery Terminator_pony
Nice to play something different. Art was okay. A bit of a story. I finished it. Looking for more puzzles and things. Hey not bad.



Flufferpuff Micah_Ds
Good theme. Funny mechanic but it works. Some level design there. Good job. Its hard to take farting games serious but it was fun. I like the strategy of getting smaller and eating cookies. Hey it was fun.



Flight of the Bin Chicken Adam, Aidan Marcus Noah
Loved the music. Rhythm kind of fits. So I was confused why a chicken was flying but he explained that its an Australian chicken so no worries. Art is great. Mechanic is tricky but I think that adds to pathetic bird. Couldnt quite progress like I wanted. I like the crazy of it.




Hansha Evanski
Very slick text. Nice rain effect. The drops on ground are wonderful. Interesting demo.




Hopper the Toucan Mercerenies
Puzzle hopper. I like the music. I think the camera could be zoomed in. Art was good. Some different logs etc. Hey I liked it. Q-bert relived. Lots of levels. Theme. I guess I can see that.



Horse TheM
So an odd mechanic horse game. But it actually works. Art is simple but good. Its fun to fool around with the horse. Save the princess. Its crazy. But actually fun. I like the burning horse and running to the water.



I found a stick Siolfor the Jackal
Love the name. Ok great game. Streets of rage feel. I think you made the music. wow. Yeah could use more variety in enemies. Maybe stick upgrades etc. But hey its great and everybody who plays it knows it. Not sure about the theme…… But sure. Talent.


Journey to Earth Poizen
The earth sprite was great. Break out style game. But its done well. I found the controls a bit touchy. Harder than it looks. Not sure about he theme but I enjoyed the game. Glad game didnt restart after killed. Art and sounds were great.



Monster Hunger MatthewPattel
A neat little puzzler. Bring a monster some food. Love the art. Pretty cool game. I had fun with it. Good job.


Morse the Code Trainer FrostyCat
Well a big different than the puzzle games Ive seen from you. I liked it. Its polished and effective. Its tough but thats the point. Theme??? (aside) ( It would be interesting to see how you would do an action or different style game…… something out of your comfort zone. ) It was original and interesting. Hey the art was good too.




Nova Mare Bart TheSnidr
Ok 3-d adventure thing. Of course the 3-d with GM is always in awe type of thing for me. So you have the blob fish. Kind of pathetic. The crane was cool. Great sounds. If you strip the 3-d stuff out Im throwing balls at a blobfish. Great stuff . A fun five minutes. Game was a little lacking. But a cool experience.



Pathetic Prosthetic Yozoraki
I like the story. I think great theme there. Art was good. I like the instructions on the wall. Took awhile to get the hang of it. The fight mechanic was good. It needed a bit more guidance but after some time I figured it out. There was some parts I really liked about it. Its not my type of game but its pretty cool. I like the striving to be human angle of it………I love the guy playing in the ocean with the others. Yeah good job.



Pathetic swarm Zodaris
MOnster geneticist. Instructions are a bit hard for me to grasp at first. But I make some progress but not far. Seems more like a test of concept. Keep going with it.




Pathetique Mr Magnus
Character defiantly looks pathetic. Simple based platformer. Levels needed a little tweaking. Hey I liked the jumping help. Needs some polish and work. It was fun to play around with. I like the wind graphic…….. haha. Hey good effort. Good music!




Pugthetic Fernando Gonzalez
Frogger dog style. Its a big tricky. But once you realize you can’t go between the cars but always stay in the middle you are good to go. It was okay. I liked the art and music.




Revenge Turkey strategy gmxO
Okay you have art. Start of something. Couldn’t really do much with it. Hey fun trying stuff out.



Six Feet Soap Sud39
So nice art and a game there. It seems a bit serious wich is aways harder to pull off than silly. Ive never been a grave digger so thats original. In game instructions would be helpful to get started quickly. Nice mechanic. Had a hard time to have fun with it. I guess its kind of dark but hey thats okay. Really long game. Good game.




The Frootinis GameDevDan Allison James
Super cool mechanic. Kind of a puzzler. Amazing music. Nice story. The art book is so cool. Lots of levels. Whats not to love here……..



The Hell with it Michael PS
Nice menu. I like the story. Plays well. Screen shake maybe a bit heavy for my taste. Slasher…… Hey fun game. Love the feet monster. Tough but super fun. One of the best.





Where Creatures Roam Josh Chen and Bandman28
Hey nice sprites. Mechanic is ok. Seems a bit slow. Needs a bit of polish. Had fun with it but finished wanting more.
 
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Reviews
This is my first time participating on the GMC Jam and in the community in general. I liked it a lot, and can't wait for the next one! There were very great games. Each one of them has something good on it.

Top 3:

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
I really liked this game, It has cool things that maka you think. Very good job on this game.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
I liked this game a lot. The effects, the music and the gameplay was really cool. It was one of my favorites.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
I liked this game and its gameplay was really cool. It feels very arcade like. Very nice game

Best ofs:

Best use of : Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
Best Concept: Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Best Story: Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
Best Devlog: Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Full ranking:
  1. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  2. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  3. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  4. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  5. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  6. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  7. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  8. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  9. Old Man Toque by Toque
  10. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  11. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  12. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  13. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  14. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  15. Horse by The M
  16. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  17. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  18. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  19. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  20. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  21. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  22. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  23. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  24. BLOCK by Sirham
  25. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  26. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  27. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  28. Hansha by Evanski
  29. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:
Honestly I don't know what to say for now. Maby later I will update this so every game has a comment. For now the only game that has a comment is BLOCK and it's because its the error that appeared to me
BLOCK by @Sirham

I tried to play for a while but this game crashed. This was the error

Code:
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Evento_Portal_2
for object o_Block:

Unable to find any instance for object index '11' name 'o_P_I'
at gml_Object_o_Block_Collision_12
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_o_Block_Collision_12 (line -1)
 
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HyprBlu

Member
Okay before we begin with my top 3, I have to give a general criticism. If your game required me to read a Read Me file to understand how to play the game, I voted pretty harshly against your game. I consider it pretty poor game design, especially in a Game Jam where the players are having to play through multiple games in a row and opening the game up and then having no idea how to play your game or the controls, and then closing it, realizing there is a read me file which contain instructions on how to play the game, to then open the game up again to give it another shot, it was frustrating.

HyprBlu's REVIEWS AND VOTES

1st Place - The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
This is exactly what a Game Jam game should be. I cannot say enough positive things about this game. I had a really similar experience when I first played Octodad, where the controls felt really weird and unusual, but after a little, it's like something clicks in your brain and you enter this weird trance where the movement just feels incredibly natural and you're moving around with ease in no time. I loved the art style and the audio was amazing. This was by far the most polished game out of all the entries and to me, stood out as a clear winner.

2nd Place - Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
I am a sucker for retro games, and wow, this was awesome. The level of polish on this was incredible, to think this was done in the timespan is insane. While it wasn't the most unique idea, I feel like the end product was such a high quality game that it didn't matter. Well done!

3rd Place - Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
This one was weird for me. Gameplay wise, there wasn't a lot there. But this was the first time a Game Jam game really hit me in the feels. When I started barking, my heart sunk a little. It was such a different experience to any of the other entries that it is just really sticking out to me. I loved everything about it other than the length, wish it was a little longer.

Best Ofs
Best use of theme: Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
Best concept: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
 
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Mercerenies

Member
Mercerenies' Cleverly Pulchritudinous and Arachnophobically Euphonious Reviews

1. The Stick - Siolfor the Jackal
2. Dung Beetle - Pat Ferguson
3. The Frootinis - GameDevDan / Allison James

Full rankings:
1. The Stick - Siolfor the Jackal
2. Dung Beetle - Pat Ferguson
3. The Frootinis - GameDevDan / Allison James
4. Drunken Joe - Gatefiz
5. Awaremon - Mightyjor
6. Flufferpuff - Micah_DS
7. Distress Signal Found - Sam Spade
8. A Hole in Space - Neo Kesha
9. BLOCK - Sirham
10. Pathetic Prosthetic - Yozoroki
11. Bandit - Team PicklefishGG
12. Monster Hunter - Matthew Pattel
13. Where Creatures Roam - Josh Chen / Bandman28
14. Pathétique - Mr Magnus
15. Morse Code Trainer - FrostyCat
16. Detritus - NavierIsStoked
17. Old Man Toque - Toque
18. Six Feet - Soapsud
19. Journey to Earth - Poizen
20. Pathetic Swarm - Zodaris
21. Five Minute Mystery - Terminator_Pony
22. To Hell with It - Michael PS
23. Nova Mare - Bart / TheSnidr
24. Horse - The M
25. Pugthetic - Fernando Gonzales
26. Flight of the Bin Chicken - Adam / Aidan / Marcus / Noah
27. Danger Noodle - Ghandpivot
28. Hansha - EvanSki
29. Crusty Chris - woodsmoke
30. Revenge Turkey Strategy - gmx0

Best Use of Theme - Drunken Joe (Gatefiz)
Best Concept - Pathetic Prosthetic (Yozoroki)
Best Presentation - Awaremon (Mightyjor)

Reviews

I'll be reviewing every game and rating them across five categories: Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Theme, and Personal Opinion. Your total score is not a definitive indicator of my vote for you; I determine my votes holistically. And don't be discouraged by a negative review: remember that I'm cleverly pulchritudinous and arachnophobically euphonious, so I'm giving constructive feedback to everybody. We're all friends, and it's totally awesome that you managed to produce a game in the first place.

As a final note, my Windows computer finally kicked the bucket last week. So I'll be playing these games under Wine on Linux, which in the past has seemed to do well enough for most entries. If any entries fail to run under this configuration, I'll play them in a second pass using a Windows 10 VM that I have.

Reviews will be listed in alphabetical order by the name of the game.

A Hole in Space - Neo Kesha (26/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (3/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (8/10)

Well executed, and an awesome idea. I like the superlinear growth of the holes, so that if you leave any one of them for too long it becomes significantly harder to get rid of it later. Honestly, this game could've used an endless mode and an online highscore table. Still, it was fun to get to the end, and I got a shawerma for my troubles. Congrats on the job, by the way!

Awaremon - Mightyjor (30/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (10/10)

Honestly, a flawless entry. This is just so wholesome and feels so good to play. I want to hug all of the critters, and that's the plot of the game, which is amazing! I really don't have that much to say; this entry went for a particular feel, and it achieved it tenfold.

Bandit - Team PicklefishGG (21/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (1/5)
Opinion (7/10)

A short but sweet game. The controls were a bit clumsy at times (it seemed like I had to hit shift before hitting WASD to run; if I did it in the other order I just kind of stood in place with the running animation), but overall it was an entertaining little game with excellent polish and visual appeal.

BLOCK - Sirham (20/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (3/5)
Audio (1/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (7/10)

A short but creative platform puzzle game. I definitely appreciate a game that doesn't need to explain its mechanics, and the focus here is certainly on figuring out what the different elements of the room do. The platform physics themselves could've used a little work (it was awkward that I couldn't move and click the block at the same time, and that I couldn't jump and move at the same time), but it didn't affect the game in any major way. Admittedly, the music did get old pretty fast. But overall, it was a very short but entertaining puzzle.

Crusty Chris - woodsmoke (11/30)
Gameplay (1/5)
Graphics (1/5)
Audio (1/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (3/10)

That was... something. To be honest, I really didn't like the way this one made me feel. It was just... gross. Not gross for any particular goal or story reason; just... gross in a bad way.

Danger Noodle - Ghandpivot (9/30)
Gameplay (1/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (3/10)

There's way too much going on here. I get a massive wall of text explaining twenty different mechanics, and then the game starts, there's ten things happening on screen, and I immediately get eaten by a snake. There's no time to figure out what's happening or what I need to do. I just... die each time. I also got spammed with highscore table errors the whole time, which didn't help.

Detritus - NavierIsStoked (22/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (5/10)

I don't think I ever really fully figured this one out. It looks like there's a lot to digest here. I ran around for a bit foraging for food. Sometimes my guys got upgraded into fancier worms (I guess by collecting enough food?), but then they eventually got murdered by this wandering critter in the dark. I also never could get "Spawn Light" to work; the button was always disabled. The controls are really well done, and I do feel like it's just a matter of me missing some core gameplay element here.

Distress Signal Found - Sam Spade (24/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (3/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (8/10)

I'm a sucker for a good exploration-oriented text-based game, and this one does both of those things well. It's short, but it's definitely filled with neat lore and a slightly labyrinthine area to explore. A well-executed entry.

Drunken Joe - Gatefiz (30/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (10/10)

That man is definitely a pathetic creature. Poor guy. Regardless, he makes for a great player character. This is an interesting game of optimization, between saving enough money to stay in the game and buying all of the extra items. The cops are a nice touch, although given that an undercover cop gets mad at you for pickpocketing or for begging, there really wasn't much incentive to beg, and I basically found myself stealing most of the time and then just letting the donation jar provide a little extra. Which may have been an intentional social commentary on homelessness, to be fair, and if so, well done.

Dung Beetle - Pat Ferguson (30/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (10/10)

Yeah, this entry is pretty much flawless. Went for a Dig Dug sort of feel, with the 8-bit music, the digging, and the grid-based movements, and it hit the mark. Super fun to play, very retro design, and kept you coming back for more.

Five Minute Mystery - Terminator_Pony (21/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (1/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (6/10)

A cute little mystery. It's shorter than a lot of Jam games, but frankly it's about the right length for what it was going for. Turns out it wasn't ghosts at all; just a pathetic homeowner. I do have to say that the music was a bit much; I ended up muting it pretty quickly, as it was a bit obnoxious and completely disagreed with the mood of the rest of the game.

Flight of the Bin Chicken - Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah (10/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (3/5)
Audio (2/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (3/10)

This could've been a really cool entry. Some physics-based sloppy flying controls that make it a challenge to maneuvers through the air. Neat. But the game has to tell me what to do to be playable. I flew around, tried to get into the garbage bins (and occasionally got into one) but then randomly died when someone threw something at me later. Never once did I figure out how to actually "clear" a level. You have to explain the goal in either the game itself or a readme.

Flufferpuff - Micah_DS (28/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (9/10)

A well-executed "sloppy controls" sort of game, where the challenge is maneuvering around the field. The mechanics themselves are super simple, but the control scheme makes for an entertaining game, and the visuals and audio are spot on and capture the sort of "relaxing cosmic" feel of the game very well.

Hansha - EvanSki (4/30)
Gameplay (0/5)
Graphics (1/5)
Audio (1/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (2/10)

It's a game. Mostly.

Horse - The M (26/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (7/10)

Oh, I'm so frustrated. I really, really want to play this game. But as soon as I clear the first area, I get a shader error. I tried it on both of my computers and in my Virtualbox, to no avail. This looks super cool though.

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation
ShaderName: shader_day_night
memory:67:22: error: syntax error, unexpected NEW_IDENTIFIER
at gml_Object_obj_night_Draw_73
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_obj_night_Draw_73 (line -1)

Journey to Earth - Poizen (24/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (6/10)

I've always got time for a classic Breakout-style game. Very well-executed, and excellent graphics. The controls were a bit unwieldy (I had to turn down my mouse's sensitivity to have any chance of controlling the paddle well), and I just generally got the feel that things were happening too fast too early on, but overall it was a very good game.

Monster Hunter - Matthew Pattel (18/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (5/10)

A simple top-down puzzle-centric game. I feel like the visual indicators for who could carry what and who moved how fast could've been better; just having me memorize three different colors that have nothing to do with their actual capabilities was not very self-evident. And the control scheme was just gruelingly slow. The characters should've physically moved like five times faster than they did.

Morse Code Trainer - FrostyCat (20/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (5/10)

I could see this being really cool if I already knew Morse code. But alas, I don't, and I don't have time to memorize it for one Jam review, so ultimately this game was a frustrating exercise in table lookup for me. Still, the visuals were very good, and although there wasn't any sound aside from the Morse sounds, that's justifiable given the nature of the game.

Nova Mare - Bart, TheSnidr (24/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (6/10)

I recognized TheSnidr's particular brand of 3D visuals immediately. A very beautiful game, as always. The gameplay itself was relatively short and a bit unwieldy at times (the ball thingies that I launched would sometimes spawn outside the ship and often would either stand in place or fly off in a different direction than intended), but the blobfish fight was fun and the game itself was enjoyable.

Old Man Toque - Toque (26/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (7/10)

A simple enough dodging game wrapped in a layer of amusing meta story. The background dialogue really sold what would have otherwise been a fairly simple game and kept me playing until the end. One minor note is that, due to the way the hitboxes worked, if I went all the way to the left side of the road, then I got stuck and couldn't move after that.

Pathetic Prosthetic - Yozoroki (23/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (2/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (7/10)

That was a fun entry. It took me a bit to figure out a few things, like that you have to right-click an enemy and then hit the exclamation point to enter combat. But once I got the UI down, the combat was fun, and the collectibles scattered throughout the place made the game a pleasure to play. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to beat it though. I got all of the body parts (and all of the attacks), then went to the exit door, then the game softlocked on a screen with the lasers blocking the door. I couldn't go back, and clicking just made a "ding" sound.

Pathetic Swarm - Zodaris (13/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (4/10)

I get what you were going for here: a real-time strategy game about monsters fighting monsters. The problem is there's no real-time element to it. There's no strategy and no different units or anything, so the optimal play is just to get every single unit you have into one big pile and bury each enemy individually in the pile. No reason to split up or use any more advanced tactics.

Pathétique - Mr Magnus (20/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (6/10)

For being built in an hour, this is mildly entertaining. The controls and physics are pretty awful, but I imagine that's at least partly by design. I did not finish; I got to the bouncy pads and pretty much went "f*** it".

Pugthetic - Fernando Gonzales (11/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (4/10)

It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when games, especially during a Jam, simply don't explain necessary mechanics. I had to check other people's reviews to figure out that I can crouch under the cars. That should've either been mentioned in a readme or in the instructions, or the cars should've been drawn in such a way that there was an obvious gap in the middle. Regardless, once I found that out, the game was pretty simple, and it did what it did well.

Revenge Turkey Strategy - gmx0 (2/30)
Gameplay (0/5)
Graphics (1/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (1/10)

I'm pretty sure I tried every key on my keyboard and every button on my mouse (and there are a lot of buttons on my mouse, mind you), and nothing happened. I'm sorry, but you need to explain something, or I can't play your game. If you don't have time to make an in-game tutorial, then you need to include a readme. This was literally unplayable on account of lack of instructions.

Six Feet - Soapsud (16/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (4/10)

Well presented, but I actually couldn't figure it out totally. I eventually figured out how to dig and pick up the body (those are some of the most fickle hitboxes I've ever seen; if I click only slightly off in any direction, I walk instead of digging), but right clicking to put it in the ground seemed to have no effect. How do I actually... ya know, bury a body? ... Asking for a friend.

The Frootinis - GameDevDan / Allison James (30/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (10/10)

A solid entry, all around. It's actually extraordinary how often I got my left and right hand controls confused given that, ya know, my left hand controls the left hand and my right the right, which should be pretty easy to handle. Still, I played through to the very end, including the extremely entertaining boss fight. I liked how forgiving the game was with keeping progress if you die, although it did allow me to cheese one of the later levels (the key was hidden behind a door; but I could reach my hand through the door, pick up the key, then die and keep the key).

The Stick - Siolfor the Jackal (30/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (10/10)

A flawless entry. The story, the visuals, everything just comes together to perfection. I love a good fighting game where it's clear that there are several different equally viable strategies, and this game just felt so good to play. I personally found the spinning jump attack terribly effective and tended to favor it, but I could see how someone's playstyle could prefer any of the other attacks; there was no single attack that felt objectively best. Absolutely amazing!

To Hell with It - Michael PS (22/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (5/10)

A top-down combat game turned bullet hell by the end. The graphics were very well done; I can definitely respect the highly pixelated style when executed well. The gameplay was, frankly, a bit brutal. I had 5 HP to get to the entire end of the game, as far as I could tell there were no healing opportunities, and dying resets the whole game. Maybe I'm just not accustomed to this game's style of combat, but defeating even a single floor without taking 3 or 4 damage was next to impossible for me.

Where Creatures Roam - Josh Chen / Bandman28 (19/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (6/10)

This felt neat but underdeveloped. You were going for, I feel, a sort of sandbox crafting game, which is super cool, but there wasn't much content. I could up my mining speed, but that was about it. It also definitely could've gone for having an inventory screen or something, so I can see what I have instead of just walking up to the trader and spamming spacebar with no indication that anything is happening.
 
Last edited:

dadio

Potato Overlord
GMC Elder
DaDiOz VoEtZ

Heads up in advance in case the mob is prepping to throw me off a cliff - had very little time to play and I *didn't* read any of the "read-me" files attached. I kind of feel like games shouldn't need those anyway - should be obvious or done "in-game". Each game was only given a very small window of time. Good job everyone for entering something! I couldn't manage to scrape any time to enter (again!) so however harsh my comment, know I have a harsher one for myself for not entering at all! :potato:


Ones in RED crashed out or were unplayable. (Detritus, Journey To Earth, Revenge Turkey Strategy)
Ones in PURPLE were either broken or I had no clue how to do anything. (Pathetic Swarm, Where Creatures Roam)


1st - Flufferpuff by Micah_DS (mechanics/fun)

2nd - Horse by The M (mechanics/fun)
3rd - The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James (presentation/music)
4th - Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies (level design/banter)
5th - Awaremon by Mightyjor (presentation/mood)

6th - To Hell With It by MIchael PS
7th - Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
8th - The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
9th - Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
10th - Hansha by Evanski

11th - Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
12th - Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
13th - A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
14th - Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
15th - Crusty Chris by woodsmoke


Best Theme Use: Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
Best Concept: Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
Best Presentation: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Story: Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

Pixel art topdown shooter/sprayer closing the evil smiley hole stars. Was kinda fun! I liked the little intro too lol!


Awaremon by Mightyjor

Pokemon type thing. Nice presentation. Pretty interesting!


Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Nice pixel art. Could have done with music! Kinda depressing game about being a homeless dog.


BLOCK by Sirham

Low res pixel block Puzzle jumping thing. Was ok.


Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

Funny looking art. Guy in a chair watching TV. Not much game here! Barely interactive really lol!


Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Snake chasing thing. Neat looking movement, not much game! Was ok!


Detritus by NavierIsStoked

Black and white scribble art. Music. Crashed out after the intro screen. Sorry!


Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

Interesting to see a CYOA / text engine like this in a Jam. But the story/choices were not very exciting/engaging.


Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

Seemed cool, drunk guy on a street, nice visuals and sound! Neat artstyle. No real idea what I was meant to do tho. Sorry!


Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

Very cool pixel art. Great C64/Speccy era music and sound. Gameplay was.... just alright. Gave me a hit of nostalgia - playing DigDug in an old seaside fish and chips place back when I was a lad. Nice work!


Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

Paint art. Grating music. House explore/item/puzzle thing. Was ok... I guess.


Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Seagull flying around. Ok art. Had music. Another game with a weird control system... not fond of this one tho... funny how if a thing has legs/arms it feels funny to apply an odd control system, but to a flying thing it just feels "bad".


Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Ooohh! I really REALLY liked this! Ok art, great music and sound and very neat concept/movement mechanic!!! Fun, and funny. Very nice work! (Just wish the level design was much better!)


Hansha by Evanski

Interesting one. "Personality text". Text /choice driven. Rain, butterfly. Was ok!


Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

I liked this concept/core mechanic. Bird hopping from tile to tile collecting. Wish the music wasn't so depressing and that the art/presentation was better! Nice job tho! Liked the little text jabs.


Horse by The M

Horse with weird control for legs. Neat concept. Paint art. Had music. Quite liked it! (I'm a sucker for these kind of "real physics" hard to control wobbly type things...)


Journey To Earth by Poizen

Wouldn't run at all? Sorry!


Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

Low res pixel Sokoban without blocks type thing. No sound at all! Slow! Boring!


Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

Not really a game at all (but very unusual to see a Morse Code trainer!)


Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

Really nice use of sound/music here. Very atmospheric. 3D. But just a walking sim, very slow pace, very little content. Maybe I'm missing something...


Old Man Toque by Toque

Was alright. Amusing text. Old man getting somewhere to complain. Dodge game-play was very simple and repetitive tho.


Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

Decent art and music. Dull collecting game-play tho. Was ok.


Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

Hmmm... a machine... round things... No idea what to do sorry!


PathUique by Mr Magnus

A green blob. Strange controls. Ummm... yep. Was ok-ish.


Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

Nice art and music and sounds and nice simple concept! Dog crossing the road. I likeed it! (Couldn't get across tho lol!)


Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

A screen full of turkeys, men and... doesn't seem to do anything at all?


Six Feet by SoapSud39

Pixel gravedigging thing. Had music. Quite slow... was ok.


The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

Pro presentation. Slick music. Interesting weird movement mechanic. Neat puzzle level designs. Not much not to like here... buuut tbh, I'm not suuuch a fan of the core movement/mechanic!


The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Decent art, presentation, music. Small guy fights his giant brethren with a stick. Felt/looked very similar to a previous Jam entry (same side scrolling / art style.) Was ok!


To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Nice pixel art. Nice music. Blob in a random dungeon maze trying to get out. Was pretty good!


Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

Nice pixel style. Has music. Urg... yet another one where I don't know how/what to do... can't make "mining" work, can't get over that first block piece. *shrugs*
 
Last edited:

Yozoraki

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Love these kinds of games, challenging but fair.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Reminds me of one of those freeware games that would be passed around friends in high school. Hit boxes were a bit cruel, but level design was really good (especially the last one)

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Like pacman but with more strategy, love it.

Best ofs:

Best use of theme : Horse by The M
Best Concept: Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
Best Presentation: Six Feet by SoapSud39
Best Story: Awaremon by Mightyjor

Full ranking:

  1. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  2. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  3. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  4. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  5. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  6. Horse by The M
  7. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  8. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  9. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  10. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  11. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  12. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  13. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  14. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  15. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  16. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  17. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  18. BLOCK by Sirham
  19. Old Man Toque by Toque
  20. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  21. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  22. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  23. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  24. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  25. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  26. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  27. Hansha by Evanski
  28. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  29. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

A decent arcade top down shooter, but I think it needs something more original

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Cool game, love the monster designs and general aesthetic

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

It looks great and plays fine but the dog catcher is really unfair and the hard reset kills any motivation to keep playing.

BLOCK by Sirham

Nice concept, basically a single screen point and click. Telling me what my goal is would've made me feel more accomplished at the end

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

While simple, i did feel compelled to be the most pathetic

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

Face value it's a weird version of snake but really it's more of a conveyor belt simulation game. I give up really easily at arcade games so I couldn't get to that point but super interesting concept.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

While not being much of a game, as a concept I really like it. Like a wormy age of empires.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

I think a fairly standard version of a text adventure but well polished. I haven't played a text adventure since frog fractions though so I dunno haha

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

I always get hooked on these types of upgrade games. I got better every time but it does feel a little unfair and based a lot on luck.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

Like pacman but with more strategy, love it.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

Less of a game and more an engine for a game, I think it was missing the part of these games that makes them fun. Create a good stand-alone mystery story and then try implementing it into the system you have because I thought the writing was pretty good and can see a good game in this

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Overall I'm unsure what the goal of the game is, but it kept my interest for some time on it's own. Presentation was good. I would suggest working on making sure the movement is fun and then have collectibles in the air instead of the ground (where you can die from impact)

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

Pretty straight forward but well made and controls nicely

Hansha by Evanski

The tension was enough to make me dread playing it, but you wouldn't ever win me over because I really don't like horror games in general

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

Good level design! I'm used to playing a smaller version of these puzzles in every JRPG so understanding what to do came easy haha

Horse by The M

Insanely frustrating but super charming. The new interesting situations kept me going through the frustration.

Journey To Earth by Poizen

Timeless classic breakout, fun as always. But while being a nice version, it is just breakout

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

Arrow placement was a bit confusing at times, button controls might've worked better.
It was pretty easy in general, for a puzzle game I think level design is really important and this wasn't quite there. Maybe add a recommended turns or limit for some extra challenge

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

If I ever have to learn morse code for some reason, I will be back playing this. Nicely done

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

Always impressive seeing 3D games, could do wish some overall polish but I thought it was cool and atmospheric

Old Man Toque by Toque

Game was average but it gave me a laugh, chump

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

I really liked this one but it needs some more features and variations. My biggest problem is spawn location, maybe adding multiple spawners could add strategy? At this point it's a strategy game with only a single strategy.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

Solid platformer, obviously controls and movement need a bit of work

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

Seems impossible to me, if there is any interesting past the first few cars, I couldn't get to it. Presentation was cool

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Didn't work for me

Six Feet by SoapSud39

Got some dragon quest builders vibes. Nice presentation, controls were a bit finicky but I got used to them

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

Reminds me of one of those freeware games that would be passed around friends in high school. Hit boxes were a bit cruel, but level design was really good (especially the last one)

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Not a huge fan of these types of games but I appreciate the polish and execution here. For me personally, to keep my interest it would need big set pieces and surprises like Contra III

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Love these kinds of games, challenging but fair.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

Love the concept but the execution wasn't great. For starters, I suggest make the resources carry over after dying and then just some general overall polish and it'd be super fun
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
Reviews

Top 3:

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
This was a fantastic game! The presentation was excellent, and the GFX are fine - functional and decent, but not outstanding. SFX were great and the fact that the music was all made for the game is amazing, especially as it is really fitting and at no point annoys. The game itself is good fun and once you get used to the controls you can fairly race around the levels (I played with gamepad... I think keyboard would be a LOT harder!). The levels were interesting and had a lot of variety and challenge, although I DID nearly rage quit a couple of times due to the incredibly unfair and obnoxiously large hitboxes! Seriously, being killed when you can clearly see that there was NO contact feels pretty bad... But it's a minor complaint in an otherwise great game, and one that feels like it's almost a full title and not just a mini-game for a jam.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
Now this I liked! The presentation was good, and I liked the way the other toucans told the story while at the same time providing instructions for the game. The GFX were good, although I do feel there was a LOT of wasted screen space and the whole thing could have been zoomed in a bit more. Nice use of the theme, and I found the puzzles to be well designed and have a very natural progression... each one a little more challenging than the last, bit with no real spikes in difficulty, making it really good fun to play. Excellent game for the jam with just the right amount of content. Good job!!!

Awaremon by Mightyjor
Okay, this was great! One of the best in the jam, without doubt. It was a complete game, with just enough content to make the short playing time worthwhile. GFX excellent, SFX very good, presentation was excellent and the theme was used really well. Good job!!!

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Best Concept: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Best Story: Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

Full ranking:

  1. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  2. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  3. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  4. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  5. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  6. Horse by The M
  7. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  8. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  9. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  10. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  11. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  12. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  13. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  14. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  15. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  16. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  17. Old Man Toque by Toque
  18. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  19. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  20. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  21. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  22. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  23. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  24. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  25. Hansha by Evanski
  26. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  27. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  28. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  29. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  30. BLOCK by Sirham
  31. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

Music 10/10, would music again! Gameplay wasn't so hot though... Played a couple of rounds, died a couple of times, stopped playing as there's really not a lot here. GFX were a bit poor, but functional for the game, SFX non-existent (music was good though!), and other than the joke at the beginning, the theme wasn't really considered. Still, good job on making something and participating!!!!

Awaremon by Mightyjor

Okay, this was great! One of the best in the jam, without doubt. It was a complete game, with just enough content to make the short playing time worthwhile. GFX excellent, SFX very good, presentation was excelente and the theme was used really well. Good job!!!

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Lovely graphics on this one and I liked the game concept a lot... however I found the controls to be REALLY fiddly and annoying. This meant that playing it was a real chore and unfortunately not that enjoyable. A shame, as I suspect that this could have been a really high ranking game otherwise.

BLOCK by Sirham

Hmmm... I suspect that this could have been a decent game but I just couldn't figure out what the hell I was supposed to do. I could get the block character to the O at the top and then what???? I just couldn't do anything else except move between the two portals... :(

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

Well this is a work of art. The social commentary is strong, and I had real emotional tie to the main character and felt every second of their struggle , both on a physical and an emotional level. I won. I laughed. I cried.

Mainly cried...

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

I have no idea what the hell I' supposed to do here! I read the HELP page about 7 times, but once I'm in the game never managed to survive for more than about 10 seconds before dying. Having the player fall out the game when they reach the edge was probably what killed me most, and I would say was definitely a very poor design choice. I'd also have made the play area a bot larger given the amount of stuff on screen... That said, GFX looked okay, SFX seemed okay, presentation was decent. Can't say anything about gameplay as I didn't really do anything except run for 5 seconds and die.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

I want to like this but I can't... Visually it was interesting and the initial gameplay had me curious as to what comes next. However I could only ever find a couple of pieces of food to forage and then I'd spend 10 minutes just clicking around in the darkness to find more before going to far and dying. I have no idea if I was supposed to do something else or not, but it made a boring and frustrating gameplay experience... If I've missed something let me know and I'll go back and play again. :)

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

This was a pretty decent, short adventure game. Interesting and just long enough to complete without being bored by it.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

Fun little game with a great presentation and a really good use of sound. No real "end" to the game, but as a simple try-to-beat-your-highscore game, it works well and was fun to play. Nicely done!

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

The presentation on this one is amazing... The opening title had me laughing even before the game began, and I love the GFX for the whole thing. Sound was excellent too, as was the gameplay. BUT (and there's always a but!) this is basically Dig-Dug and as such I have to score it a lot lower than I would an original concept jam game. Yes the presentation is through the roof (and I commend you on that), but it doesn't really use the theme and it seems to be essentially a clone of a classic arcade game.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

An okay game... adequate GFX, annoying music (thank heavens there was a toggle for it!), and quite fun for the 5 minutes it lasted. Couldn't really see the theme being used in the game other than for comedy at the end.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Not sure what the goal of this game is or even if there is one! I mean, after I ate all the trash in the bins, nothing seemed to happen and I just died? That said, the gameplay was actually quite fun and after mastering the controls I enjoyed taking my trash-bird for a fly! GFX were good, SFX were good, music was fitting... the bird was pretty pathetic so the theme was there too. All in all, a solid GMC Jam game!

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

The impossible to play farting game! Yay! So, the noises were fun but I'm afraid the gameplay wasn't... The fact that the platforms/spikes constantly move makes it almost impossible to create any meaningful strategy and the expanding size when you pick up a cookie often works against you as you expand into the spikes... So, yeah, funny to start with, but not really a fun gameplay experience, sorry.

Hansha by Evanski

Not sure what to make of this one... I liked the start of it, but when it got to the butterflies bit I felt that the game just kinda... wandered off track! The BSOD part, the use of my name, the thunder... All nice tricks and set the mood well, but the game just fizzled out after that. I do think I'd like to see more of it though if it was developed enough.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

Now this I liked! The presentation was good, and I liked the way the other toucans told the story while at the same time providing instructions for the game. The GFX were good, although I do feel there was a LOT of wasted screen space and the whole thing could have been zoomed in a bit more. Nice use of the theme, and I found the puzzles to be well designed and have a very natural progression... each one a little more challenging than the last, bit with no real spikes in difficulty, making it really good fun to play. Excellent game for the jam with just the right amount of content. Good job!!!

Horse by The M

LOL! This was really quite fun... I liked the use of the theme and the gameplay was challenging but really fun once you got into it. GFX were okay, sound was good, and general presentation was good too. Game was also just long enough to be fun without being frustrating or boring. Good stuff!

Journey To Earth by Poizen

Not a bad game at all. Ncely presented and with decent GFX and SFX. The gameplay however... So, it's breakout, but MUCH more frustrating. I'm afraid I rage quit on stage 4!!! I spent about 10 minutes doing practically nothing and just watching the ball bounce around the level and never actually hitting that one piece of steel bridge that I had left! And this happened a lot on previous levels too... So, an okay game, conceptually sound, but frustrating and a tad boring to play.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

Great puzzle game! Really nice GFX, and the design and execution of the game was great. Simple concept, and the puzzles were quite easy, but this is definitely a great start to what could make a fantastic mobile game. I missed having sound effects and getting a little finish screen when you did the last puzzle would have rounded this out to make a perfect jam game. As it is, I still really liked it, so well done!

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

This game wasn't for me I'm afraid... I just don't like this kind of game and have no interest in morse code! That said, the presentation was good - a bit sparse visually but I have to commend the amount of options for playing included - and the sound was funcional, and the little graphics it has are nice. I know lots of people who like this kind of game so I'm sure others will enjoy it, but it's just not my cup of tea.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

Ambitious to do a 3D game for the jam, but with theSnidr's name attached to the project I guess it couldn't be anything else! Nice atmosphere in the game, great presentation, but I was a little bit lost when it came to gameplay. After snagging a blobfish with the crane, I got into a fight with it, but couldn't see any obvious mechanism for shooting or damaging it. After about 5 minutes of just running around and creating little blue spheres (what the hell were they for???) the blobfish was still at full health and I quit the game... I feel there is something I'm missing here, so feel free to ping me any instructions or things I've missed!

Old Man Toque by Toque

"Never used a var, never used an array, never used a shader... not going to use some theme either". Classic! Okay, so, yeah, this was a fun little game with decent enough GFX and SFX, and it had enough content to make me want to finish it. So, good job on making a fun game, even though there wasn't much to it.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

Okay, this was a sweet game... Nice concept, fit the theme well and the presentation was excellent. JUST enough gameplay to make the playthrough fun and interesting without getting boring. A great Jam game, well rounded in all departments. And I really liked the image at the end... so cute!

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

I can see the idea behind an possibly interesting game here, but at the moment this feels like nothing more than an unfinished prototype rather than a jam game. With some actual gameplay elements added and some thought on how it could be balanced to make it interesting I can see potential in it for a full game though.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus

Rage quit this with 46 smiles... :) I think the main issue here is the absolutely bonkers controls scheme! I just could not get used to it, but I suspect that anyone who masters it can probably complete the game pretty quickly. All in all, it's not really a bad game, and my own lack of skill is no reflection on the actual gameplay, whch is a basic platformer really. Okay GFX, okay SFX, and okay presentation.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

Top game pick for me 'cause it's got a PUG! Seriously though, a pretty good little game... SFX and GFX were adequate, as was the general presentation. Gameplay was fun in the short-term but no long-term appeal. Good effort!

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Turkeys, guns and some weird guy sprite... GAME OF THE YEAR. Erm... no... not really... Sprites and a grey background with no story, presentation or even gameplay do not make a game. They don't even make an interactive screensaver... :(

Six Feet by SoapSud39

HERESY! Lol! Ths was a fairly fun game although a little slow to play though. I liked the GFX, but hated the music (sorry), and I appreciate the voice acting in the game. The actual gameplay itself was quite interesting and I liked the different ways you could mess up and get called a heretic. My main issue with the game was simply it's pacing... so very slow!!! Stll, a good effort and a fairly well rounded, complete game.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

This was a fantastic game! The presentation was excellent, and the GFX are fine - functional and decent, but not outstanding. SFX were great and the fact that the music was all made for the game is amazing, especially as it is really fitting and at no point annoys. The game itself is good fun and once you get used to the controls you can fairly race around the levels (I played with gamepad... I think keyboard would be a LOT harder!). The levels were interesting and had a lot of variety and challenge, although I DID nearly rage quit a couple of times due to the incredibly unfair and obnoxiously large hitboxes! Seriously, being killed when you can clearly see that there was NO contact feels pretty bad... But it's a minor complaint in an otherwise great game, and one that feels like it's almost a full title and not just a mini-game for a jam.

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Pretty good game! And definitely technically impressive for a jam game, since beat-em up games are notoriously hard to make. GFX were good, SFX were good, gameplay was good, although slightly monotonous towards the end, but the game was JUST short enough for that not to become an issue. Altogether a very solid and well made jam game! Well done!!!

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

This was a really cool Nuclear Throne type game. Nice GFX, adequate sound and well presented. I love the idea behind the game and can see this as a decent prototype for a full game. Very well done. :)

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

Another game that I want to like but just can't quite... The game looks really nice, and the gameplay is potentially interesting but it's let down by the INCREDIBLY slow mining (even after improving it a couple of times) and the really frustrating eye things that shoot at you. I couldn't seem to kill them, and my tactic of mining blocks to put above me to protect myself just took forever to do, resulting in a very un-fun experience. Oh, and the music was really annoying too, sorry.
 
N

Neo_Kesha

Guest
And! Here i go! Finally got a time to play through all of the games.

Best use of Theme : Pathetic Prosthetic
Best Concept: Monster Hunger
Best Presentation: Dung Beetle
Best Story: Pathetic Prosthetics

1. Dung Beetle - Game is amazing. Feels like something i could play in 90s as a real game and not jam game. I need steam release!
2. Old Man Toque - newver used var. Never used array. Never used shader. 7 teeth out of 10
3. Pathetic Prosthetics - VERY fun to play and very weird. Love it!
4. Flufferpuff - i want to be flufferpuff
5. Frootinis - really fun game with interesting yet simple to control mechanic.
6. Pugthetic - I. Adore this game. This is genious.
7. Monster Hunger - Interesting mechanic of controlling many characters at once.
8. Six Feet - i felt into the grave and stuck in the earth. Also DAMN I AM HERETIC! I threw dirt at priest, i tried to take pile of dirt and took cross, crows ate my bodies, i hrew bodie too hard...
9. The Hell with it - The god is dead. I killed him
10. Hopper the Toucan - very nice logical puzzle
11. Horse - This game is amazing! Neat touch on controls, tho, sometimes, jump is OP and is the best way to move. Also i killed a Princess a lot... Welp!
12. Drunken Joe - Damn this game was fun!
13. Awaremon - Really nice and charming game! Not without some bugs, but i still liked it much!
14. The Stick - Everyone is gangsta until you take out stick.
15. Nova Mare - 3D in Game Maker that isn't Doom-like? That's nice technology.
16. Danger Noodle - Cool mechanic, really hard to get into tho
17. Five Minute Mystery - The game is weird and dizzy, tho, it had it's touch.
18. Journey to Earth - very nice little game!
19. Flight of the Bin Chicken - interesting Physics mechanic here
20. Pathetique - this game is really weird to play and control
21. Crusty Chris - total following with a theme
22. Block - yes, this block is pathetic
23. Detrius - game looks interesting, but for it's complexity there is not enough of explanations of what to do
24. Hansha - "I had no time" Look at my game. So relateable! I liked the atmosphere tho and all meta stuff. Wish you good luck with continuing this!
25. Bandit - Sprint doesn't work.
26. Distress Signal found - really not a fan of text based games, so, really, i can't evaluate that game.
27. Where Creatures roam - Mining is unfunly slow and creatures shooting you offscreen is no fun
28. Morse Code Trainer - Well, it is what it is. Morse code trainer. Dash recognition is weird tho.
29. Pathetic Swarm - looks more like Pathfinding example tbh.
30. Revenge Turkey Strategy - F
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Micah_DS

Member
☚ Micah's Votes & Feedback ☛

Top 3:

Horse by @The M
Ok, I have an idea for the sequel:

♫ In my village we have Daryl, Daryl, the Pony ♪
♪ And he's been waiting for a gifted young rider, hu, hu, haw, yeah! ♫
♫ You could not pick a pony that is better than Daryl the Pony of Love ~ ♫
Just think if you had a gifted young rider thrown into the mix. It could truly be a worthy sequel!
I'm joking, but I'm also not.

Anyway, I absolutely loved the game! I did find myself repeating the last part with the water and fire about 20-30 times, and that was a bit frustrating, but even then, it was still mostly pure comedic and mechanic fun.
The Jam Player even gave me your game last. Amazing! Saving the best for last actually happened by chance. You really nailed the pathetic creature (and so did those guys with the fire arrows, dang!). This game made me smile and laugh out loud. I had a blast. Thank you.
The Frootinis by @GameDevDan, @NAL (Allison James)
A very cute game. The art, music, story - it's all just so very cute, and in an endearing sort of way, not in an annoying or sickening way, so that's a job well done.

The gameplay is unique and enjoyable. The boss design seems a bit flawed, however, since getting the bottom screws out first makes the fight far more easy than if you do them later, due to the wizard running along the bottom and with things intensifying with each screw pulled. It'd be fine if there was a way to restart the boss fight from the beginning, but as it stands, if a player realizes too late that they should've gone for the lower screws first, they are screwed (accidental pun). Despite this, I loved the idea of unscrewing things by rotating the hands. It just made perfect sense with the main hand movement mechanic and it was a perfect changeup for a boss.

In short, this game was way too good. I feel a renewed joy over game jams after playing this, because it reminded me of the power of a simple, creative/unique, fun mechanic. It's not easy to pull off, but when someone does it, it creates something magical and memorable.

(Note that, regarding the issue I had on the boss fight: Post-review, I did discover the game can pick up where you left off if you try to play it again, but I had no reason to expect this would be a feasible way to restart the boss fight while I was playing.)
Hopper The Toucan by @Mercerenies
I found this game to be very easy yet quite enjoyable. The only bad thing I can say is that the arrows were too small and just a tad hard to tell which direction they pointed. Perhaps I need my eyes checked though, haha. Aside from that, I thought the pacing was pretty good and the theme was used very well. I love how the sky changes and the sun sets as the game progresses.

The game was just a nice play, no rush, interesting, fun story, etc. Very nice!

Best ofs:
Best use of Theme "Pitiful Creature" : Horse by @The M
Best Concept : The Frootinis by @GameDevDan, @NAL (Allison James)
Best Presentation : Dung Beetle by @Pat Ferguson
Best Story : Distress Signal Found by @samspade
Best Devlog : Nova Mare by @Bart, @TheSnidr (TheSnidr doesn't appear to take part in writing the devlog, but a big shout out for the 3D models and effects)

Full ranking:
  1. Horse by The M
  2. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  3. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  4. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  5. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  6. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  8. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  9. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  10. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  11. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  12. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  13. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  14. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  15. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  16. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  17. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  18. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  19. Old Man Toque by Toque
  20. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  21. Hansha by Evanski
  22. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  23. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  24. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  25. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  26. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  27. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  28. BLOCK by Sirham
  29. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0
(Note: A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha was left unranked. Reason is given under feedback)

Feedback:
A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
Thanks for the shawarma. Not sure what else to say, but the game felt smooth, which is good.

Unfortunately, I'm not ranking this because you used copyrighted music that you don't have the rights to use. I love that Persona 5 song, but that's beside the point.
In the future, look for public domain resources on places like opengameart or freesound. There are tons of free public domain assets.

Awaremon by Mightyjor
Nice! One of my initial ideas when brainstorming for my game was also inspired by Pokemon, but my concept was nothing like this. I ended up doing something else, due to time constraints, but I bring this up because it fascinates me exactly how different ideas can be between people, even when inspired by the same thing.

Anyway, I love the concept of healing pathetic creatures rather than beating things up, and I think it's a very good use of the theme. I played it on the easiest mode, then I changed it to the hardest and fought Awaremon again. I can't say I found the gameplay to be as fun as I think it could be, especially since there's a bit too much waiting between turns and it's a pretty straightforward grind, but it was still enjoyable overall, and that's a job well done for a jam game. Nice art and animations too.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
On the first playthrough, I didn't get very far. I gave up at the second area where you have to push the box. I was trying to avoid getting caught; I didn't realize I could eliminate the dog catcher. I just thought I could grab his net to incapacitate him for a short moment, then run to push the box a bit and repeat. Needless to say, it was very frustrating, especially since the quick interactions between dog catcher and the box led to a freezing bug. When it froze, it was a hard freeze. Clicking the close button didn't work. I had to open task manager to shut the program down.

Anyway, after watching someone else's video playthrough, I realized it was possible to get rid of the dog catcher there, but even after seeing it done and then doing it myself, I'm still unsure exactly how I did it. I see some text appears when you're grabbing the dog catcher, but it doesn't always appear and it's hard to read. Anyway, I finally got over the fence and realized that's the game. I was so close on the first play and I didn't even know it.

I'm ranking this pretty low just because of the freezing bug and the unclear and finicky mechanics. The concept is good though, and the graphics, animation, and audio are also good.

BLOCK by Sirham
I got through the portal, but is that it? I had no idea what to do, but I think the concept could've gone somewhere if it was given more content. Sorry if I somehow missed something and there's actually more to the game than just that first area.

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
I basically won by beating my stacked wife senseless with a barrage of cans... hmm, I feel like I don't know how to feel like I don't know how to feel like, ya know?
Gotta say though, you certainly nailed the pathetic creature theme. Also, the movement forward being farts and back being burping? - positively brilliant.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
A snake clone? No, not at all. What is it? I played it and I still cannot say, but I know it's not a snake clone.
It was weird, but kinda fun. I was very confused at first, but I soon figured out I needed to move my guy around to manipulate the snake to eat and that's how I score points.
It actually took me many, many replays to understand all the parts to the game, and even after understanding how to play, I found it far too difficult. I had trouble grabbing and placing arms and things where I wanted, all while trying to avoid the snake and ensure it wouldn't hit itself, etc. - it's just a whole lot of action to handle all at once. It's definitely only for a hardcore audience. That's not a bad thing, just not great for a jam, in my opinion. Still, it is very unique. I like that.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked
Cool, but it seems there is no goal or any way to 'win'. Maybe that's the point, to just fight aimlessly for living, growing, and dying, perhaps even growing too large and losing control - how pathetic. If that's the game, it definitely fits the theme, but it doesn't make for very engaging gameplay.

It's an interesting idea, but it just needed something meaningful to work toward so the player can feel like they accomplished something. Unless something like that exists. If there is a way to win, it's not very clear.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
Interesting idea. Really takes me back to some old text-based games I played. I'm not sure if I played it properly, but I brought the mechanoid back to life and filed a report. It would've been nice to have better confirmation if I missed something or if I truly 'won'. I liked it though. The wording was interesting enough to let me visualize a pretty cool island.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
The concept is great, but the mechanics didn't seem to be all that intuitive or streamlined. It was just a bit too confusing feeling. One thing that wasn't clear is the mechanics of the police. One time a person was a cop, but sometimes police rush in from the side of the screen. Also, is the timing for the slot machine sort of mechanic totally random, or do you get the thing you see right when you click? It seemed random if people gave me money or not.

So I think the concept was very good and I liked the art as well. The mechanics just needed some improvements to make it clear to the player how things work. Considering it's a jam, overall, the game is pretty good.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Very cool game. It's a little long/slow paced for a jam though (in my opinion) and the high score isn't saved when you close and re-open the game, which is a huge minus in my book when it comes to games where the goal is to reach the highest score possible.

Aside from the game being a bit slow to escalate and not saving the score, I liked the gameplay, graphics, animation, music, and sfx, and since all of these things are so good and work together so well, I think you did amazing on the presentation. I loved the intro joke with the hair as well. Very well done.

I scored 166,900 without ever using the firing mechanic and then finally died, and I did it without firing because I somehow overlooked the info about the firing mechanic. I started a new game and reached near 200k (not sure on the exact number because I didn't pay attention and tried to open the game again to see, which is when I realized the game doesn't save the high score to a file). Thought I'd do better than that, but I guess not.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
Gameplay is a little rough, with sticky walls and such, but the humor made it fun, and the 'bad' graphic style plays into the humor. It really was all about the humor here, so I'm not sure what else to say.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
The HUD is a bit confusing at first. I had to experiment a bit (e.g. get hit and such) to understand it. Also, I would often clear the death message by accident right as I died, since I was usually flapping furiously and the wing flapping button clears it. My first two deaths were very confusing because I skipped the death message by accident both times. For important messages, you always want to implement some kind of measure to ensure the player will see it and not skip it unintentionally.

I also got stuck in the far right wall by flying up into the top right corner. Always be sure that your collision mask stays the same across all your sprites (I'm pretty sure that was the issue). I was unable to get out of the wall, so I just quit the game, but it appears you can't win the game and there is no real point anyway, as I had already gone through all the trash bins. If there is a way to win, the goal isn't made clear.

Bad points aside, it's quite funny and fun. The main flying mechanic is funny, interesting, and enjoyable to play with, so you really nailed the most important part of the game (gameplay/main mechanic). Nice toony graphics and good audio as well. It was a bit pointless, but it was still enjoyable.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
What I think of my own game:
Tacky presentation in the beginning with all the info strewn about, the music is too harsh, and the ending isn't as satisfying as I'd like, but I think the idea of playing a balance between risks in size and having enough gas to get around really makes for a nice simple-yet-deep mechanic, so the gameplay is surprisingly fun (to me, that is). I didn't get to explore or hone the mechanic much in my 7 hour timeframe, however.

Lastly, my code for this game is like a bowl of spaghetti, and the bowl flipped and flung the spaghetti everywhere. I don't think I've ever made such messy code. It's horrific.

Hansha by Evanski
Well, I had FL Studio open (but minimized) while playing, and when your game did the fake BSOD, it maximized FL and screwed up my layout inside it, smh... I blame Image-Line (makers of FL) for that though, not you or your game.

I'm drawing a blank on what to say for this one. The theme use appears to be about fear making people pathetic, but it's a humor game.. so.. how am I supposed to feel?... but anyway, it's interesting, at least.

Journey To Earth by Poizen
I haven't played a Breakout game in years, so this was fun and nostalgic. The theme use isn't the strongest, but the gameplay was fun and challenging. The general aesthetic gave a vibe I like too.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
It's like a puzzle game, but the mechanics and/or level design don't really allow for actual puzzling. It would've been better to make a "win in under so-and-so number of moves" or something, which could've even been played into the story, saying something like, "Don't make me wait too long for my food! I'm hungry!". A mechanic like that would make the player think about how to win optimally, not just moving around until they finally win.

But perhaps you would've done something more but you just ran out of time? I see there is no real ending and there's a complete lack of audio as well, so it seems like you were unable to complete it, which is fine, it happens.
Another thing is that the instructions were a bit unclear to me about "move" and "carry" numbers, but I realized what it meant after making a little progress in the game.

Though flawed and incomplete, it's a good concept and it could've been made into something unique and properly challenging with a bit more time and work. Nice job. Cute graphics too.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
I can't say it's a very good use of the theme, since G-chan is just kind of 'there', but it is a great training tool. I'm definitely keeping it because I plan to use it to learn morse code later. It's got great practical options and it's very straightforward to use.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
The underwater atmosphere was actually pretty decent. The only real problem I had with the game is that there was no mention of the run or shooting ability that I could see, and it was hard to tell where I was firing from and to, since the shots didn't seem to line up with the player, but it was easy enough that I beat the boss, even though I didn't really know what was going on, haha. Despite feeling a bit rough and incomplete, the game was entertaining. Nice animation on the creature as well.

Old Man Toque by Toque
Funny game, eyhaa, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
If you touch the left side of the road, you get stuck, eyhaa, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
I'm not wearing any pants right now either, eyhaa, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Awwww~ the ending made it all worth it. I really liked this concept. The gameplay was a tad rough because the clicking didn't feel very intuitive, but it wasn't too bad. Difficulty seemed pretty good, offering some challenge, but not enough to frustrate. I died once and I was happy to see nothing was lost on my retry. Nice job!

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
Pretty cool. Even pathetic things can do rather big things if enough of them work together.
I really liked how the boss worked, making it so you can't just rush it and be done, but you have to stay engaged, directing your swarm. The telegraphing for the boss attack worked well too. I feel the game played quite nicely and the length was also good for the small amount of content.

Regarding your question in the afterword:
I'm not sure I'm grasping your special idea because I've already seen RTS games do things very close to what you seem to be talking about, but it could just be that I'm not understanding your idea. In any case, if you think it's new and you're excited about the idea, I encourage you to go for it.

Pathétique by Mr Magnus
I collected half of the happy coins, going from 60 to 30, and at that point, the game was just too frustrating and hard to complete for me.

Precision platformers need extremely tight and consistent controls to be fun and fair (e.g. Celeste), but the controls in this are loose and inconsistent. That's the game's biggest flaw. The controls aren't necessarily flawed though, because - if the game didn't try to be a precision platformer, it could've been really fun to jump and move around in this wacky fashion.

You made plenty of checkpoints, but unfortunately that just wasn't enough to save it. I really liked the jumping and movement, it just didn't work well with the crazy platforming requirements.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
Cute and disgusting... nice! I can't say I found it all that enjoyable gameplay-wise, but I really like the graphics and audio you used. A little sad you didn't make any of it, but I see you didn't have much time to make something. That's how it goes sometimes.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0
No gameplay, right? Too bad. Seeing cannons and turkeys together like this, I just know it could be something beautiful.

Six Feet by SoapSud39
I got to the first level with a farmer and quit. It was good, but the game was too long and the gameplay got stale and tedious. Thankfully, you implemented a level skip, so at least I got to see the whole story play out. Things just needed to be introduced a little faster, and perhaps the player needed to move faster as well. Aside from the pacing, the game is very good. I was called a heretic many, many times. Good fun!

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Admittedly, I pretty much just spammed the jumping spin attack to win, but it was still fun. Jumping around and spinning like that made me feel like I was controlling a pathetic version of Yoda. Very nice. Great success!

The only thing I feel didn't work well was the health regen over time, because I found myself wanting to just stand around to let it regen before continuing, so it seems like a disengaging mechanic to me. It would've made more sense to have a mechanic that encourages the player to stay engaged and to continue forward, like health pickups that drop from defeating enemies, or health placed at certain points in the level, like what TMNT does with pizzas (IIRC). Just my opinion though.

You've gotten quite good at making polished beat 'em ups in a short amount of time! Maybe I just forgot, but this feels more polished than all your past beat 'em ups. Awesome!

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
A bit too much screen shake for my taste, but aside from that it's very cool and fun. The final boss had a good balance of difficulty. I had to play him 3 times to win. Good polish all around. Good use of the theme as well. A very solid game. Well done!

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
I made it to the pink boss, then died, then it took me reaaaallllyy far back and I didn't want to do it all over again, so I quit. It needs more checkpoints. If it had more checkpoints, it'd be pretty enjoyable. Still not bad, and some interesting choices with the resources and building mechanics.
 

Poizen

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
The picture book parts are very cute. Reminds me of Yoshi's Island or something.

A clever puzzle game. Very intuitive and fun. Some parts take a lot of concentration and coordination.

I played a good bit with a controller but some parts are actually way easier with the keyboard. At least when you need to move in straight lines.

Horse by The M
Delightfully frustrating to control. Works nice with the theme.

It took me a million years but I finally beat the game. I still don't know how exactly you're supposed to move the hårs, but I did something.

Unique game idea. Good humor.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Yes, I beat it on my third try! Turns out kiting all the enemies at once wasn't the best strat.

A fun little rogue-like with an epic boss fight. The attack feels very satisfying.

It was a little weirdly anticlimactic how you still have to dispose of all the little guys after beating the boss.

Best ofs:

Best use of theme: Detritus by NavierIsStoked
Best Concept: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Presentation: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Story: Six Feet by SoapSud39

Full ranking:

  1. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  2. Horse by The M
  3. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  4. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  5. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  6. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  7. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  8. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  9. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  10. Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat
  11. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  12. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  13. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  14. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  15. Hansha by Evanski
  16. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  17. Old Man Toque by Toque
  18. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  19. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  20. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  21. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  22. BLOCK by Sirham
  23. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  24. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  25. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  26. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  27. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  28. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  29. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

Comments:

A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha

There's a smidgeon of a fun game in here. I played a couple of rounds. Could use more stuff.

Awaremon by Mightyjor

The battle system gives me bit of an Undertale vibe. Cute idea.

Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG

Is the dog the pathetic creature because it's powerless? I liked the story. Just a short thing with happy ending. Gameplay-wise there wasn't much. You just run forward and push one box.

BLOCK by Sirham

Pretty cute.

Crusty Chris by woodsmoke

Well that was a game. Pretty short and simple. Press button to pathetic.

Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot

There's a lot going on here. 4D snake. A very unique game if nothing else. Kinda amazing a snake game can be so complex.

Detritus by NavierIsStoked

I don't understand anything about the instruction screen but let's go.

Great unnerving vibes. I like the designs of all the creatures. I don't know if I understood the end goal of the game. I collected green stuff for a long time. My bugs multiplied, evolved, died. I'm going to assume there's no win condition.

These creatures are really pathetic. They can't do anything on their own and they forget their task if someone bumps into them. Good use of the theme.

Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade

It's a text adventure. I wish there was more to the story. It just kinda ends.

Drunken Joe by Gatefiz

Graphics are pretty nice. Great colors. I guess there's no bigger goal, just survival.

Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson

A very polished game. Nice difficulty curve.

Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony

I thought it was a bit underwhelming but the ending was kinda funny.

Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah

Oof, very difficult.

Flufferpuff by Micah_DS

A Christmas flappy bird with fart noises, nice. It was a fun game.

Hansha by Evanski

Ooh, I don't like how it uses your Windows account name (but it's a staple of these kind of meta games so what can you do). Please do continue to work on this! I was getting intrigued.

Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies

It gets really challenging. Some of the boards are pretty overwhelming at first, but eventually I saw the matrix and beat the game.

Horse by The M

Delightfully frustrating to control. Works nice with the theme.

It took me a million years but I finally beat the game. I still don't know how exactly you're supposed to move the hårs, but I did something.

Unique game idea. Good humor.

Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel

I kinda like that the number of moves isn't limited, or even visibly counted.

The game looks cute and it's a fun little concept. Though there's no challenge really. You can't make wrong moves and mess up the level or anything.

Morse Code Trainer by FrostyCat

Surprisingly enjoyable. Good polish.

Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr

Well it looked pretty neat. Then I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you're supposed to fight the boss. Turns out you just walk up to it and press space. Oh haha.

Old Man Toque by Toque

Looks like one of the example games that came with Game Maker 7 or something. Takes me back.

I liked the story too.

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki

Kinda like Pokemon except you collect body parts. Maybe felt a little slow. Takes a while to back and forth between places. And there's a lot of waiting in fights, while at the same time you're frantically trying to get your attacks in ASAP and don't have time to pay attention what your opponent is doing.

Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris

One grape is pathetic, but together they are mighty. Or so I thought before the boss wiped the floor with them. Halfway through my second run the game crashed suddenly so I took it as a sign that I can't win. Pretty good use of the theme.


Pathétique by Mr Magnus

The controls are interesting and very original - and I kinda hate them. The game reminds me of Getting Over It with the climbing and the frustration. I got pretty far I guess but I fell down so many times I ragequit.

Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez

This is a hard game. I didn't manage to do a single complete round trip. I imagine it goes on forever. The concept is pretty funny.

Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0

There's no game, is there

Six Feet by SoapSud39

It took me way too long to figure out how you get the body out of the cart. I just tried to clicking the square with the cart in it. Didn't realize the clickable objects are more specific.

So it looks like all you have to do is remove the bodies from the cart to stop the crows from getting to them? Kinda feels like I'm cheating.

Is the solution to the farmer level really this? That's so silly I love it.

A chill puzzle game. Good atmosphere. I dig it.

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James

The picture book parts are very cute. Reminds me of Yoshi's Island or something.

A clever puzzle game. Very intuitive and fun. Some parts take a lot of concentration and coordination.

I played a good bit with a controller but some parts are actually way easier with the keyboard. At least when you need to move in straight lines.

The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal

Gamepad support is nice. (I'll have to remember to do that in a game some time.)

It's a pretty solid beat em up engine. I like that there are multiple moves. Though just spamming the spin move gets you through the game with hardly any damage to yourself.

A very short game. I was expecting another level maybe.

To Hell With It by MIchael PS

Yes, I beat it on my third try! Turns out kiting all the enemies at once wasn't the best strat.

A fun little rogue-like with an epic boss fight. The attack feels very satisfying.

It was a little weirdly anticlimactic how you still have to dispose of all the little guys after beating the boss.

Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28

This game is ruthless. You take a couple of laser blasts to the face and you have to start from the beginning.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
FrostyCat's Reviews for GMC Jam 39


Top 3:

The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
+ Cute and well-illustrated opening cutscene
+ Shows great attention to detail
+ Challenging controls that are also easy to pick up
+ Care in level design, plus very creative boss

Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
+ Good use of opening cutscene
+ Well-drawn enemy characters and interior scenery
+ Interesting battle mechanic based on body parts
+ Good theme integration

Awaremon by Mightyjor
+ Professional pixel graphics
+ Great 8-bit sound and music
+ Comprehensive in-game help


Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Best Concept: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Best Presentation: Awaremon by Mightyjor
Best Story: Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki


Full ranking:

  1. The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
  2. Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
  3. Awaremon by Mightyjor
  4. Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
  5. Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
  6. Six Feet by SoapSud39
  7. Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
  8. To Hell With It by MIchael PS
  9. The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
  10. Horse by The M
  11. Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
  12. Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
  13. Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
  14. Detritus by NavierIsStoked
  15. Old Man Toque by Toque
  16. Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
  17. Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
  18. Journey To Earth by Poizen
  19. Pathétique by Mr Magnus
  20. Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
  21. Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
  22. Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
  23. BLOCK by Sirham
  24. Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
  25. Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
  26. Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
  27. Hansha by Evanski
  28. A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
  29. Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
  30. Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0


Comments:
  • +: Points that I like about the entry
  • -: Points that I dislike about the entry
  • *: Points that I suggest that the author of the entry learn or practice more of
  • ×: Points that I suggest that the author of the entry stop doing
1/30: The Frootinis by GameDevDan, Allison James
Theme: Great | Concept: Great | Presentation: Great | Overall: Great


+ Cute and well-illustrated opening cutscene
+ Shows great attention to detail
+ Challenging controls that are also easy to pick up
+ Care in level design, plus very creative boss
- No way to skip to a specific level in a future session

2/30: Pathetic Prosthetics by Yozoraki
Theme: Great | Concept: Good | Presentation: Great | Overall: Great


+ Good use of opening cutscene
+ Well-drawn enemy characters and interior scenery
+ Interesting battle mechanic based on body parts
+ Good theme integration
- Some issues with balance, can get through the whole game with just one strategy (block, 2 high attacks, 1 small attack)

3/30: Awaremon by Mightyjor
Theme: Good | Concept: Good | Presentation: Great | Overall: Good


+ Professional pixel graphics
+ Great 8-bit sound and music
+ Comprehensive in-game help
- A bit short and too easy once you figure out the system
- BUG: Health bar extends beyond the boundaries of its border

4/30: Dung Beetle by Pat Ferguson
Theme: Great | Concept: Good | Presentation: Great | Overall: Great


+ Cute opening cutscene
+ Professional grade pixel graphics
+ Matching aesthetics, good music and sound
+ Very easy to pick up and play
- Levels start getting recycled after only about 3 levels

5/30: Hopper The Toucan by Mercerenies
Theme: Good | Concept: Great | Presentation: Good | Overall: Good


+ Story serves both as thematic integration and instructions on how to play
+ Clearly deliberate level design and learning curve
+ Easy to pick up and play
- Graphics a bit basic
- Multi-logs have insufficient contrast, and arrows look somewhat unclear in oblique view

6/30: Six Feet by SoapSud39
Theme: Good | Concept: Good | Presentation: Great | Overall: Good


+ Excellent music and voiceover
+ Good use of palette and lighting, immersive atmosphere
- Some issues with pixel-hunting
- Digging logic sometimes inconsistent

7/30: Monster Hunger by MatthewPattel
Theme: Great | Concept: Great | Presentation: Good | Overall: Great


+ Creative variant of "Koala Br8" from Game Maker's Apprentice
+ Differing movement speed and carrying capacity adds depth to puzzles
+ Good use of assigned theme
- Text looks off and uneven
- BUG: Level unlocks lost on restart

* If you don't already know, learn how to handle file to maintain progress across sessions

8/30: To Hell With It by MIchael PS
Theme: Good | Concept: Good | Presentation: Great | Overall: Good


+ Excellent pixel graphics
+ Great general atmosphere
+ Smooth combat controls
- Too much progress loss if dying on level 2 or 3
- Visible lag on last level

9/30: The Stick by Siolfor the Jackal
Theme: Good | Concept: OK | Presentation: Good | Overall: Good


+ Clear use of theme and story
+ Much more responsive controls this time around
+ Great vector graphics and matching aesthetics as usual
- Game can be beaten just by spamming jump-attack, significantly less scope for timing and strategy than similar previous entries

10/30: Horse by The M
Theme: Good | Concept: Great | Presentation: Good | Overall: Good


+ Easily the most original gameplay among current entries
+ Goofy presentation
- A bit short
- Some tips on how to walk smoothly or jump may be useful

11/30: Drunken Joe by Gatefiz
Theme: Great | Concept: Good | Presentation: Good | Overall: Good


+ Very clear use of theme
+ Good menu and built-in help
- Needs better balancing, no real point in begging once you figure out the stealing mechanic
- No way to quit in-game

12/30: Pugthetic by Fernando Gonzalez
Theme: Good | Concept: Good | Presentation: Great | Overall: Good


+ Good use of assigned theme
+ Simple, no-frills controls
+ Cute pixel graphics
- Not much variance in gameplay
- Not immediately obvious that only the tires of the cars are dangerous

* Random seed appears to be stock --- consider using randomize()

13/30: Nova Mare by Bart, TheSnidr
Theme: OK | Concept: Good | Presentation: Good | Overall: Good


+ Good example of 3D rapid development in GM
+ Immersive opening cutscene
- Bubbles drawn out of order, random balls inside play area
- Not sure what to do after grabbing blobfish

14/30: Detritus by NavierIsStoked
Theme: Good | Concept: OK | Presentation: Good | Overall: OK


+ Interesting use of theme in plural
+ Working basic play
+ Ambiance is basic but immersive
- Controls are awkward and unlike typical RTSs, hard to control
- Not really sure what to do, had to look at other people's stream to figure out what it's about

* Learn to use line smoothing for hand-drawn curves: Link

15/30: Old Man Toque by Toque
Theme: Good | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Visible use of theme through dialogue
+ Simple gameplay
- Limited replayability
- BUG: Can't move off the left edge if you touch it

16/30: Flight of the Bin Chicken by Adam, Aidan, Marcus, Noah
Theme: Good | Concept: OK | Presentation: Good | Overall: Good


+ Visible use of theme
+ General aesthetics look reasonably cohesive, especially the HUD
+ Challenging controls
- Sometimes gets stuck in bins
- Stage feels static, not very replayable

17/30: Bandit by TeamPicklefishGG
Theme: Good | Concept: OK | Presentation: Good | Overall: OK


+ Very visible use of theme
+ Excellent pixel graphics, smooth animations
- Way too short (all time spent on graphics?)
- Space to jump not explained?

* If you find that you're running out of time easily, try practicing with projects that require less manual spriting to work

18/30: Journey To Earth by Poizen
Theme: OK | Concept: OK | Presentation: Good | Overall: OK


+ Cool opening cutscene
+ Interesting take on Breakout
- Paddle doesn't control very well
- Lives counter blends into the background too well

19/30: Pathétique by Mr Magnus
Theme: OK | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Unique platforming mechanic
+ Decently sized level
- Landing movement is jerky, sometimes gets killed by regular blocks
- Music doesn't fit, aesthetics too basic

20/30: Flufferpuff by Micah_DS
Theme: OK | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Easy to play
+ Some strategy involved between fitting between obstacles and collecting cookies
- Too short
- Some use of theme, but not very central to the entry

21/30: Five Minute Mystery by Terminator_Pony
Theme: OK | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Working engine
- Graphics just didn't work, especially the walking animation
- Too short, ending didn't make sense
- No real use of theme

× Avoid "graphical novel" type games for jams unless you are in a team, they tend not to work well for solo devs in a restricted timeframe

22/30: Where Creatures Roam by Josh Chen, Bandman28
Theme: Poor | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Workable engine
- Don't see the "pathetic creature" in this
- Unresponsive mining button
- Bullets too small and barely visible

23/30: BLOCK by Sirham
Theme: OK | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Consistent presentation
+ Interesting one-room concept
- Too short
- Not replayable

24/30: Distress Signal Found by Sam Spade
Theme: OK | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Some use of theme in the story
+ Working text adventure engine
- Didn't really appeal to me in a text-only format, some basic illustrations would have helped

25/30: Crusty Chris by woodsmoke
Theme: Good | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Very visible use of theme
- No real strategy or replayability, just button mashing

26/30: Danger Noodle by Ghandpivot
Theme: OK | Concept: OK | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Interesting variation on snake
+ Workable aesthetics
- Not really sure what to do beyond just leading the snake
- Robot arms don't really do much, yet they add a lot of text to the instructions

27/30: Hansha by Evanski
Theme: OK | Concept: Poor | Presentation: OK | Overall: OK


+ Some attempt at integrating the theme
- Incomplete entry

28/30: A Hole In Space by Neo_Kesha
Theme: Poor | Concept: OK | Presentation: Poor | Overall: Poor


+ Playable basic game
- Very limited scope and use of theme

29/30: Pathetic Swarm by Zodaris
Theme: OK | Concept: Poor | Presentation: Poor | Overall: OK


+ Working engine
+ Some use of theme
- Way too short, little more than an engine

30/30: Revenge Turkey Strategy by gmx0
Theme: Poor | Concept: Poor | Presentation: Poor | Overall: Poor


- No instructions on how to play
- No apparent effort
 
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