GMC Jam Voting The Brilliant GMC Jam #7 Voting Topic

Reviews (in the order I played them)​

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra
-I love Alice's review on this one. I refer you to her review haha.

-The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
Great idea for a game. This has potential. It was pretty fun and I could see myself getting into a game like that. I like the game title too : ) Oh, and I like the zooming camera. Good job!

-Buttman by Phynam
Loved the music and the guy running to it made me laugh.

-Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
I like the HUD. I liked angling the tanks and switching between which tank I was controlling.

-Untitled by Bentey
What a terrible game this is (my game). The guy forgot to name it too.

-Retreadz by HaymanMarc
Was fun. I liked the ninjas and the exploding cannon balls. I couldn't get that ninja off my back! The art was good and the tank was fun to control.

-Yor Game by Micah_DS
Was a cool spin off of Sokoban (I think that's what it's called). I couldn't get past lvl 2 : (

-DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
The opening line had me laughing: "thanks to the work of an insane person, we're all alive" or something like that. Haha. I can tell a lot of work went into this. Reminds me of this tank game I played when I was little.

-Superpower by The M
This had a very detailed HUD, I can tell a lot of work went into it. This reminded me of risk + Sim City or something. I wish I were good at strategy games : (

-Newton's Axiom by meseta
Wow. I couldn't tell what was going on and I mean that in a good way. Little alien ships munching on brains or something. I liked the controls and the graphics too. It gave off a cool atmosphere.

-Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal.
Loved the art. The gameplay was unique and fun. Getting stuck in that pit was a real pain btw. Also, clever use of a gun (for movement) and a wheelchair (like a roller coaster).

-AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
Very interesting gameplay. I like that there's 3 keys, and I like how much you can do with just those keys. What would seem like simple gameplay can be complex. It was funny how you can get so tiny, it reminded me of Antman. I see a lot of potential in this, good job! I wasn't able to use the spacebar effectively, but that was probably my fault.

Ranking​

Spoiler: Ratings

First Place
Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games

Second Place
The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty

Third Place
Superpower by The M​

 

I'z be puttin' some votez and reviewz here.

HayMan'z Votez and Reviewz
of Newtonic Motion Laws and Brilliance



Proclaimer: I try to give honest feedback and try not to be a jerk about it. Please read my comments with a light-hearted tone of voice. I only have the best of intentions.

I figure most everyone is eager to read reviews for their games, so I'm going to add the reviews as I make them, but save posting the ratings until all the games have been played. I'm no expert gamer by any stretch of the imagination, or pretend to know anything of value. All I have is my opinion, and I offer it freely. You are under no obligation to take it, and if you prefer to leave it, that's perfectly awesome.

TO THE GAMES!

VOTES: (DONE!)
1. Impulse by @Siolfor the Jackal
2. Shred of Light by @JacobV and @Cloaked Games
3. Drunk Cosmonaut by @rio-85 and Daniel Zimmerman
4. Paint Bonanza by @Bingdom, @Iodinex64, and @Ninety
5. Mysterious Planet of Newton, The by @Misty
(and the rest...)

Spoiler

6. Billy's Nightmare by @lazertrax
7. Relative Fray by @Yokcos
8. Satellites by @sylvain_l
9. Arena of Flying Balls, The by @Nallebeorn
10. Weird Space by @Humayun
11. F = M * Apple by @Tom Edwards
12. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, and @OverLogic
13. Recoil on Asteroids by @Alice
14. Newton's Axiom by @meseta
15. Yor Game by @Micah_DS
16. Newton's Tanks by @Zodaris
17. DriftWar by @Dr. Wolf
--- (I rated my own game, Retreadz, here.)
18. Super Power by @The M
19. Recoil-Schmecoil by @ghandpivot
20. Buttman by @Phynam
21. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by @Guilherme Oliveira
22. 3D Videocard Throttling Mega Newton Game by @orSQUADstra
23. Gimbo the Ghost by @RargraveEntertainment
24. AstroNewt(on) by @Willisburg
25. Untitled by @Bentley

Votes are determined by category ratings, prioritized by Total Points, then Game Play, then Personal Bias/Likability.
My Spreadsheet for a more detailed look at the ratings.

REVIEWS (26/26) DONE!!

Spoiler

3D Videocard Throttling Mega Newton Game
by @orSQUADstra

Spoiler

The effort put into this is... something else. Made me grin, tho.

Arena of Flying Balls, The
by @Nallebeorn

Spoiler

Yeah, I can't stay inside the circle. I think the control scheme is counter-intuitive to me, making this game extremely difficult. Great music and sounds, and nice, simple graphics.

AstroNewt(on)
by @Willisburg

Spoiler

I like the look of the astro-newt(on), but I cannot figure out the game without instructions, and there are no instructions. After trying every key, I found that I can make things slow down with the space bar and make the guy bigger or smaller with z and x. Still can't figure out what I'm supposed to do. Sorry.

Billy's Nightmare
by @lazertrax

Spoiler

The art is great – love the cartoony look. The gameplay, from my perspective, gives you high marks for theme, but low marks for gameplay. Much like the other games in this jam, I've found that using recoil for movement is not fun for me. I couldn't get very far, because trying to move and shoot at enemies had me flinging the mouse all around the desk, making things frustratingly hard to control. Maybe it's just me, but that's my take on it. Also, since gameplay was with the mouse, I think the menu (etc) should have been mouse driven as well. Loved the cartoon artwork, tho (yes, I'm saying this twice)! And the game seemed nicely polished.

Buttman
by @Phynam

Spoiler

First off, the black letters on very dark blue background doesn't work. One must struggle to read it. The game itself was pretty linear, there was no room for error. If you missed an animal or a jump up on a platform, you were pretty much screwed. I think it would help if the player knew what score (pounds) he needed to be at for the next animal, or something. I think the jumping was a little too floaty and slow, also. On the plus side, the artwork and color choices didn't hurt to look at and the game seemed to play as it was designed to, with no errors. (I made it to the tall building with a bunch of rocks at the base.) Not a horrible game, but not particularly great, either.

DriftWar
by @Dr. Wolf

Spoiler

Incredibly difficult. Turning is way too fast and the lack of reverse thrust is just more annoying than challenging. The story line and instructions are exceptional, but the game falters from the lack of control in a high-tech future world – it doesn't really make sense. The placeholder art is off-putting, but understandable. Music is okay, but doesn't seem to fit the story line. Sound effects are somewhat grating (the buzzing sound of the engine). Movement was quite fluid and I experienced no errors while playing, which is great. A mini-map/radar would have been very helpful, since you just had to guess at which way to go sometimes. Sorry, this review is mostly negative, but I hope the honesty helps as constructive criticism. 3D games are more difficult to make, so kudos in that regard.

Drunk Cosmonaut
by @rio-85 and Daniel Zimmerman

Spoiler

I really like this game, but the SHIFT key is a poor choice since it keeps bringing up the Window's “sticky key” dialog, interrupting the game. A reverse thrust would have been nice, to keep from bashing into the station and bouncing into space. It took me a while to figure out which way 'thrust' would make me go. Perhaps a little 'thrust graphic' coming out his back would help that. The graphics are great and the spinning astronaut, when he got hit, made me chuckle more than a couple of times. I really like the idea of this game, and would have played much more than only a couple of tries, but the 'sticky key' dialog pretty much prevented that. I hope you change that key to something else so I can play it again. Music fit pretty well, but some of the sounds, though fine, seemed too generic.

F = M * Apple
by @Tom Edwards

Spoiler

Simple avoidance game. Maybe could've been more fun if you were trying to catch the apples instead of avoid them? Found a way to kinda cheat by hanging right on the edge of the screen. Nice pixel-art for Sir Isaac. Overall, well executed game, but rather boring to play.

Gimbo the Ghost
by @RargraveEntertainment

Spoiler

I couldn't play it since it wasn't recognizing my microphone or line-in, but nice try (kudos) on the unconventional player input. The graphics seemed okay, though pretty generic. The movement made it seem like it was scraping and skidding along the ground - - really strange. Music seemed fine, tho again, seemed rather generic. Sorry, can't say much else since this is all I was able to experience without the use of jumping.

Impulse
by @Siolfor the Jackal

Spoiler

First of all, excellent work with the music! Very much fit the game. Reminded me of the great 80's sci-fi flicks like Terminator and Escape from New York. When the game actually started, I was surprised and highly amused at the broken hero in a wheelchair. The gameplay was a lot like the others, where the recoil controlled your movement, but unlike the others, the level design brilliantly facilitated your movement to the correct directions. Great job. Plus, shooting at baddies worked WITH movement, instead of against it. This was the best use of this mechanic among all the games, in my opinion. I always felt like I had control, tho it would still get away from me sometimes. Great balance and all around designing. Graphics are a mixed bag of good and bad. Hero and enemies were pretty good, the crystals were so-so, and the walls and background were too plain. Sounds worked fine and the music was perfect (yes, I said that twice now). The overall presentation was slightly lackluster, but fit well with the 80's feel of the whole thing. Nice work! I'm looking forward to chapter 2!

Mysterious Planet of Newton, The
by @Misty

Spoiler

Much better than I expected after reading the readme (I chose not to read the walkthrough.) First off, I like the parody of Star Trek. Pretty neat because at first, you're just thinking it's Star Trek jokes, but after you progress a ways, it starts playing out like an actual Star Trek episode. I got as far as the Newton guy asking me if I could defeat my own friends, and a little bit farther. Trying to jump up the platforms after that with the gun proved too difficult and frustrating and I had to quit. Good job, overall! I'll have to read the walkthrough now to see if there's a trick to “blaster jumping” that I hadn't figured out, the next time I play. I need to see how the story ends!

Newton's Axiom
by @meseta

Spoiler

First thing I noticed, besides the really cool graphics, was no sound. Really needs sound. The next thing that I noticed was the lack of instructions. What the heck am I supposed to do? After messing around with it a couple of times, I started to figure it out - - mining asteroids and fending off baddies. Just when I was getting the hang of it, the game started getting slow. It kept getting slower and slower. Must be a memory leak or something? I dunno. Too bad. Pretty cool space game, otherwise. However, I thought the movement control was a little weird. I'd rather have pivot left, pivot right, and thrust forward (a reverse thrust would be a plus, also). I hope you continue with this - I'd like to play it more.

Newton's Cave
by Landon, PixelTitan, and @OverLogic

Spoiler

Sadly, the game stops responding to controls after leaving the first room, but I'll write about the tiny little bit I experienced. Strangely, the first time I tried running it, there was absolutely no sound. I was pleasantly surprised with sound on the second try, but still could not progress beyond the first room. Anyway... The artwork and effects look quite nice! The voice acting seemed above average. The diagonal shaped sprite at the top left of the screen has me stumped – no idea what it's supposed to be. I picked something up and again, no idea what it was. Too bad for the glitch - - I would've probably played much more.

Newton's Laws of Roguelike
by @Guilherme Oliveira

Spoiler

Afer several times, I found it kind of pointless, since you can't tell if you're going to get blown up or not. Also, there doesn't seem to be anything else going on besides battling logs. No points, no story, no tally of treasure. Nothing but logs and death. So, no real game, here. Graphics and sound effects were nice and worked well. Theme usage seemed rather weak.

Newton's Tanks
by @Zodaris

Spoiler

Not a bad game, but the wind keeps changing directions before a hit's been made so adjusting your shot becomes incredibly difficult. Also, as seen in Misu's video, there should be a restriction on movement – perhaps a mountain or gap between the tanks. Kudos on the math, but the game itself could use some pizazz - - sounds, music, graphics style and effects. Even so, it's another 'scorched earth' game, so you'd have to come up with a unique twist to make it stand out from the rest.

Paint Bonanza
by @Bingdom, @Iodinex64 , and @Ninety

Spoiler

Pretty neat looking game, but yeah, I can't play it. I cannot control the movement well enough to make hits or avoid being hit. Probably just me, since I'm a horrible gamer. Anyway, the graphics are great, the music and sounds are great, the presentation is fantastic. Just too difficult for me to play and enjoy, sorry.

Recoil-Schmecoil
by @ghandpivot

Spoiler

Played a little while and that was enough. Somehow I scored a high of 7 points, but mostly my scores were 2 and below. Maybe would've been better without gravity, but that's purely speculation. Honestly, I just didn't find it enjoyable - - no hard feelings. Then again, of course, what do you expect from 3 hours of work?

Recoil on Asteroids
by @Alice

Spoiler

I always wondered what carrots would do in space. Now I know... ...they fly backwards and shoot at white orbs. I suppose the game works as intended, but I wasn't thrilled with the mechanic of flying backwards. Felt more frustrating and “just wrong” than it did challenging. So, with all my efforts being used to try to successfully navigate, there's little time to view the gauges and use the info. Collecting the loot was really neat.

Relative Fray
by @Yokcos

Spoiler

The graphics were stylish and the particle and cloudy effects were great. The way the background changed colors was nice, too. The music seemed to fit pretty well, so high marks there, but only because the gameplay seemed so slow. It was like “racing snails” kind of slow. Points were rather low, too. Add a few zeros to the points and it makes the player feel like they accomplished something (that's something I could have done better in my game, too). Personally, I felt like the zoom level was too close. I would have preferred to be able to see more space around the ship, even if it made the ship sprites smaller. All that said, still, not a bad game at all! It definitely sets an outer-spacey mood.

Retreadz
by @HayManMarc

Spoiler

Well, that was silly. Needs more cowbell.

Satellites
by @sylvain_l

Spoiler

Nice music! Opening menu looks great. The instructions (tutorial) were confusing and hard to understand (also hard to read because of font choice), so I just went in hoping I'd catch on. I tried Tycoon Mode first. I did get the hang of it. Pretty neat orbiting game. Quite difficult, but very compelling. I played it over and over trying to do better. I liked the graphics and the music choice was perfect! Terminator Mode was like an 'easy' mode compared to Tycoon mode, but I still couldn't do much better. High scores were 8 in Tycoon, 7 in Terminator. I would've liked the ability to zoom out and see more area. Also, not sure if moving the planet around is a good design choice. I always kept it still. Anyway, nice job! I like it. And did I mention an excellent choice in music?

Shred of Light
by @JacobV, @Cloaked Games

Spoiler

Graphics are awesome. I didn't like the control scheme, tho. Would have rather had 'jump' on the 'W' button. I'm not liking directional jumping with the mouse, either. (Had the same trouble with Misty's game.) The music is good and sets the mood pretty nicely. Didn't realize how to use the checkpoints until I got to the first NPC, when I accidentally hit 'E' while on the shrine. Maybe displaying “ 'E' to use the shrine” would have been better – at least on the first one. I made it to the part where there was a saw blade in the middle of a small area that trapped you in and kept dying over and over. I just couldn't get the hang of the space bar and directional mouse jumping. My lack of skills notwithstanding, Shred of Light (or is it Scrap of Light?) is a masterfully created game and deserves the attention it may receive.

Super Power
by @The M

Spoiler

It was interesting at first, but after a while it seemed like it just didn't really work. After I made it a year, it advanced by years instead of weeks. At first, I thought the citizens were just perpetually partying, but then I saw the year increasing. I never seemed to make any money, so once I got down to 100, that was the end of purchasing any upgrades. Also, I was never sure if clicking on 'diplomacy' did anything or not. All in all, nice idea. Probably way too big for a jam, but hay... who am I to talk? Lol!! (I'd like to know how you programmed the regions of the nations (borders) to accept button click selections and highlighting the nation.) Not trying to be rude, but I'm just not seeing how this fits with the theme at all. "Geopolitics in Motion" is a bit of a stretch. lol Impressive menu-ing, though. Must've been a bear to keep it all straight and organized - it would've been for me, anyway. Overall, well done for what's done!

Untitled
by @Bentley

Spoiler

I played it once, sorry. I was able to collect 23. Not sure what else to say. Nice graphic effect with the friction.

Weird Space
by @Humayun

Spoiler

This started out so well with excellent music and a beautifully polished menu and interface. But then it commits the cardinal sin of advancing text on it's own, assuming the player is a speed-demon-reader. I'm sorry - - but this is probably my biggest pet peeve with games. Please let the player choose to advance the text. Otherwise, we have to start the game completely over, and over, and over just to read the dang thing. By the time we slow readers get to actually playing it, we're already frustrated without having even experienced any gameplay yet. Anyhow, when I finally got to playing it, I was a little confused when I couldn't find a purple indicator on the radar map showing my destination point. I did see a white one, so I went towards it and since there was a planet directly in front of me, I assumed that was the destination. But I crashed. After restarting, I saw the message about avoiding planets. Took me several tries to get the hang of flying around, and finally completed the first level. When I died on the second level, I clicked on “ship” and I guess I shouldn't have done that because I found myself spinning out of control and careening through space. I stopped myself and discovered I just completed level 3! What happened to level 2? I must have skipped it. By this time, even though I like the look and whole idea of this game, I've chalked this up as a pretty bad experience, and I feel that is pretty unfortunate. Still, high marks for theme usage, graphics, sounds, and the ambient background noise (music of a sort).

Yor Game
by @Micah_DS

Spoiler

Block pushing puzzle game. I'll be honest, probably my least favorite type of game, but I'll try to be fair with this review. The lack of music during gameplay is a pretty loud omission. Some kind of ambient background music would have worked well, I think, even if it was the same as the intro music. The game mechanics seem to work properly, and the graphics, tho simple, goofy (roy who?), and almost too bright, seemed to work just fine. I bashed around the third level a couple of times, but quickly decided it was too complex for my patience and current brainpower. Pretty fair entry for one day's work.

 

(taken from Drunken Cosmonaut's review)

I feel like a lot of games this jam took the theme to mean "make the game super difficult to control." Sure, maybe it fits in decently well with the theme of physics and motion - but the thing is, it isn't all that fun. I just feel like I'm whizzing around the level with almost 0 control over my character, losing over and over as I try to get them to go where I want. Maybe it's that the controls take some getting used to, and you need to play a lot to get the hang of it; but when the only goal is survival, and there's no endgame really besides points, there isn't a whole lot of reason for me to go forward. Bit of a rant, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there.

Anyways, on to the reviews:

Reviews​

Top 3:

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
Really fun but simple game. Satisfying controls and feedback, easy to understand, and visually polished.

Retreadz by HayManMarc
A game where you pilot a tank trying to steal watermelons from a clan of immortal ninjas. What's not to love?

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
Another review I wrote that got deleted by the Jam Player crashing. Actually a really fun entry! Really enjoyed playing it, even if the controls are a bit slow.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Best Concept: Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Presentation: Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Best Story: Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
2. Retreadz by HayManMarc
3. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
4. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
5. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
6. Newton's Axiom by meseta
7. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
8. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
9. Relative Fray by Yokcos
10. Satellites by sylvain_l
11. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
12. Super Power by The M
13. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
14. Weird Space by Humayun
15. Untitled by Bentley
16. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
17. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
18. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
19. Yor Game by Micah_DS
20. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
21. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
22. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
23. Buttman by Phynam
24. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Comments:

Spoiler

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

ok

AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg

Another review I wrote that got deleted by the Jam Player crashing. Weird controls, never got past Level 2.

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax

Really fun but simple game. Satisfying controls and feedback, easy to understand, and visually polished.

Buttman by Phynam

A masterpiece.

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf

What an odd entry. Clearly has a lot of work into it, but honestly I didn't find it to be very fun. You just kinda drift around your hard-to-control tank, getting flags and blowing up the occasional enemy.

Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman

I feel like a lot of games this jam took the theme to mean "make the game super difficult to control." Sure, maybe it fits in decently well with the theme of physics and motion - but the thing is, it isn't all that fun. I just feel like I'm whizzing around the level with almost 0 control over my character, losing over and over as I try to get them to go where I want. Maybe it's that the controls take some getting used to, and you need to play a lot to get the hang of it; but when the only goal is survival, and there's no endgame really besides points, there isn't a whole lot of reason for me to go forward. Bit of a rant, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there. The game has nice presentation, at least, and I like the music. Very ambient.

F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards

A game where you try at all costs to keep Newton from discovering gravity, all while an apple tree actively tries to murder you. Gameplay is ok, but without much depth. Eventually the tree just gives up and barrages you with an unavoidable apple rain.

Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment

Unranked because I couldn't actually play it. No mic.

Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal

My review of this game has been deleted 3 times so far by the jam player crashing every time I try to rank it. So. Good controls with unfitting level design. Hilarious visual with the wheelchair reveal. Solid game. Moving on before I lose my mind.

Newton's Axiom by meseta

Pretty impressive for the timeframe, but not a whole lot of meat to the gameplay. You really just fly around space collecting materials very, very slowly, building up your fleet. Not sure how the theme fits in, but still a good effort.

Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

Interesting presentation and decent graphics, with a pretty good level of polish - however, upon entering the second room, the game broke. I tried to make it work a number of times, but no matter what I did the player would always freeze on the second room. Too bad, because I was pretty interested in where this was going; even if no theme usage was prevalent.

Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira

Didn't really notice the theme while playing, only noticed after looking at the Readme. Nice sprites but environments are lacking.

Newton's Tanks by Zodaris

Pretty standard tank game. I think it could've been massively improved with some kind of indicator for the general direction and velocity of your bullet on takeoff, and maybe some movement/realtime combat. Now much to comment on here.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

Insane level of visual polish! Game looks great. Essentially is a 2D Splatoon, you shoot paint to cover the walls and the team with the most paint wins. Controls are a bit odd though, and the player stunning was rather annoying. Longer shoot times and more control over your flying movement would have been great. Nice presentation, eh gameplay.

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice

Another review I wrote that got deleted by the Jam Player crashing. Actually a really fun entry! Really enjoyed playing it, even if the controls are a bit slow.

Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot

Hey, another recoil-based platformer! Decently fun, though I was never able to defeat the AI; some kind of windup to their attack would have been really nice.

Relative Fray by Yokcos

Another odd entry. I usually despise this control scheme in space shooters, but the addition of the twinstick aspect made it a lot better. Doesn't seem to be much of a goal, besides getting points.

Retreadz by HayManMarc

A game where you pilot a tank trying to steal watermelons from a clan of immortal ninjas. What's not to love?

Satellites by sylvain_l

Another deleted review. Very fun space game, love the ambient music.

Super Power by The M

Impressively made for a jam game, but not my kind of game. I don't really play Civ-style strategy games, so I really didn't know where to start.

The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn

This game is almost identical to that Soccer Ball Sumo game from a few jams back. Controls are rather clunky, slow and unsatisfying, but that's likely because I'm not a fan of slow-turning mouse propulsion games in general.

The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty

Weird but fun space game. I played until the platforming segment, which I found to be a bit tedious, but otherwise I did enjoy it!

Untitled by Bentley

Sure, this game is unfinished and unpolished, but I think there is actually some fun to be had here. The movement scheme could be turned into something pretty fun and interesting.

Weird Space by Humayun

Yet another thruster-ey space game. This one's a bit more of a puzzle game; you're kinda encouraged to move slowly and take your time. Pretty well made, but just not my kind of thing.

Yor Game by Micah_DS

Existential horror at its finest. The game starts out chipper and happy; but then the second the real game starts, the music cuts out completely, sending you into a void of silence, the only sounds your character slamming themselves against the walls. Endlessly looping and restarting, pointlessly pushing blocks only for more to appear. It envokes thoughts of our own fruitless struggles in life, pushing against barriers that, even when broken, only reveal more roadblocks. This is why it's called "Yor Game" - because it is your game. The game of all of us. The game of life.

Seriously though, this is a rather mediocre in terms of gameplay. But I liked the visual effects and polish.

 

Reviews​

Top 3:

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Shred of light is a platformer that has a challenging mechanic that is used to kill enemies and move around. The difficulty builds through out the game. The game feels amazing to play with beautiful graphics and music. Sadly, I wasn't actually able to get passed what I assume is the final boss since it being way to hard for someone who is terrible at video games like me. This was a very impressive game.

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
Billy's Nightmare is an addictive spin on a downwell style game, including it's dual purpose design. The gun is used to shoot the enemies and also propel yourself. Billy can't touch the bottom of the screen but you will also be avoiding the top of the screen since the enemies will be zig zagging down from there. Some enemies also go straight down against the wall, making my tactic of staying against the wall not as easy and tries to convince me to play a more chaotic game by staying in the centre of the screen. Surviving the timer was the main goal of the game but there is also a combo system for players wanting an extra challenge. The enemies spawn on screen which is more of a picky problem which doesn't really effect the game in any way.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
The graphics are really appealing and the music is great too. I enjoyed the gameplay even though the issues with the cool down making movement difficult. The paint splatter effect is cool, it did bug out a few times but is still a really nice effect that really brings the game together.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
Best Concept: Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
Best Presentation: Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Best Story: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Devlog: Retreadz by HayManMarc

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
2. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
3. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
4. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
5. Weird Space by Humayun
6. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
7. Retreadz by HayManMarc
8. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
9. Super Power by The M
10. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
11. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
12. Satellites by sylvain_l
13. Yor Game by Micah_DS
14. Relative Fray by Yokcos
15. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
16. Newton's Axiom by meseta
17. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
18. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
19. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
20. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
21. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
22. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
23. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
24. Untitled by Bentley
25. Buttman by Phynam
26. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Comments:

Spoiler

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Another free game with DLC :/

AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg

It seemed to be ok at the start but it's just a bit to finicky and trying to move the boxes while your character keeps flying into spikes is to difficult to control at the same time. I do really like the graphics and there was an ability to slow time down but it was still quite difficult for me.

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax

Billy's Nightmare is an addictive spin on a downwell style game, including it's dual purpose design. The gun is used to shoot the enemies and also propel yourself. Billy can't touch the bottom of the screen but you will also be avoiding the top of the screen since the enemies will be zig zagging down from there. Some enemies also go straight down against the wall, making my tactic of staying against the wall not as easy and tries to convince me to play a more chaotic game by staying in the centre of the screen. Surviving the timer was the main goal of the game but there is also a combo system for players wanting an extra challenge. The enemies spawn on screen which is more of a picky problem which doesn't really effect the game in any way.

Buttman by Phynam

The idea seems to be a Katamari Damacy style game but it doesn't really work since if you miss an animal you won't be able to kill further animals with higher pounds and you'll just have to avoid them. Every time you hit the restart button it plays the music again without the last music stopping so theirs a lot of overlapping music.

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf

I find 3d in game maker interesting and DriftWar was cool but had a few problems. Movement was quite fun but aiming at an enemy and shooting was difficult to do as well as collecting flags since half the time I would fly past them. I still found it impressive as it being made in game maker.

Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman

I like the graphics and music. The movement felt floaty, makes sense since it's in space, which was fun. I didn't really understand how to protect or repair the station and the small asteroids don't seem to take damage to the station. I had the most fun just bouncing around and into asteroids.

F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards

Nothing new or ground breaking but it fits the theme and I enjoyed it.

Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment

Gimbo The Ghost has you talking into your microphone to push the ghost upward while collecting coins. The game had some swinging hammers to avoid which seems to be almost impossible as when not visibly touching them the game restarts. Not the biggest fan of these types of gimmick games but I can see an appeal for mobile.

Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal

The art is great, the gameplay and look gave me happy wheel vibes. I found the robots to be irritating but I guess there needed to be something to tie it together with the gun. Did like the feel of the movement and felt like it had juice.

Newton's Axiom by meseta

Newton's Axiom has appealing graphics and an interesting idea. This game confused me quite a bit though as I didn't really understand what was happening. It's not my type of game so I won't comment much more on it but I do see it appealing to a different audience.

Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

This looks like it has potential but after entering the first door I can no longer move. From what I seen everything looks and sounds great. Sad I couldn't get passed from there.

Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira

Newton's Laws of Roguelike had a promising start that had fun fighting mechanics but was missing progression and a goal. The logs knocks you away which fits the theme but doesn't drive the game in any way.

Newton's Tanks by Zodaris

Bowman 2 with tanks. AI is cool but I feel like this game is something you have to play with a friend which I do not obtain.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

The graphics are really appealing and the music is great too. I enjoyed the gameplay even though the issues with the cool down making movement difficult. The paint splatter effect is cool, it did bug out a few times but is still a really nice effect that really brings the game together.

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice

You are a carrot that shoots what look like pea pods which appealed to me. I enjoyed the movement and collecting coins was satisfying as they orbit around you.

Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot

Recoil-schmecoil is a fight to the death against a bot using your gun's recoil to get around the level. This game was made in an impressive amount of time and has a simple concept of seeing how many times you can kill the bot before he kills you. There isn't much wrong with it since the concept isn't taken very far but still is fun and could make a move or die style party game.

Relative Fray by Yokcos

I liked the graphics and music of the game. The movement makes it difficult to dodge enemy bullets but there was never too many bullets on screen so it wasn't impossible. I feel like these type of games need accurate movement.

Retreadz by HayManMarc

I think the tank movement is really cool but there wasn't much for the tank to do apart from collecting melons and throwing bombs at ninjas. If there were more things for the tank to interact with it would have improved the game.

Satellites by sylvain_l

The concept is really cool and has some interesting gameplay. After trying to keep the satellites from crashing after having more than two doesn't seem very possible, at least keeping them from crashing for long.

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games

Shred of light is a platformer that has a challenging mechanic that is used to kill enemies and move around. The difficulty builds through out the game. The game feels amazing to play with beautiful graphics and music. Sadly, I wasn't actually able to get passed what I assume is the final boss since it being way to hard for someone who is terrible at video games like me. This was a very impressive game.

Super Power by The M

I found it cool but I am not very good at these strategy games because my game playing style is just to mash buttons, I did have a go where I read what was going on and such. Reminded me of Plague Inc. I believe the goal is to take over the blue country. I wasn't successful but still enjoyed it.

The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn

The Arena of flying Balls is a difficult game where you will be trying to stay in a circle of safety while balls will be flying at you. Touching balls gives you extra points once they exit the circle. The movement fits the theme well and is something I haven't seen before.

The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty

I enjoyed the platforming with the gun. Some of the combat felt repetitive with bosses having high health bars and 1 attack. I actually only played one boss since after that I got stuck on some platforming. I found the art charming and did enjoy what I played up too.

Untitled by Bentley

There isn't much in the game but I did like the snail ramps.

Weird Space by Humayun

I really enjoyed Weird Space! It was fun flying through space and going into orbit was oddly satisfying. Dodging asteroids was a little to difficult and I couldn't get passed mission 2.

Yor Game by Micah_DS

The game play is quite fun but I'm not very good at puzzle games got stuck on the 3rd level. The graphics are appealing and the music and sound effects are good.

 

Hey look a voting thingy...

Top 3:

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Okay, really dig the style of this a lot. I feel like the graphics, music and sound were a good mix.

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
Drifting battle tanks is where it's at. Reminds me a lot of another game I played years ago, but you couldn't drift in it.

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
First of all, I loved Tyrian when I was growing up (bananas OP). I also really liked the menu effects. The first few times I ended up building up a huge amount of speed and had a bit of trouble trying to slow down (whoops). Reading the readme file after that helped heh. Best score was 465,471.

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
2. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
3. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
4. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
5. Retreadz by HayManMarc
6. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
7. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
8. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
9. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
10. Super Power by The M
11. Yor Game by Micah_DS
12. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
13. Untitled by Bentley
14. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
15. Newton's Axiom by meseta
16. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
17. Relative Fray by Yokcos
18. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
19. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
20. Satellites by sylvain_l
21. Weird Space by Humayun
22. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
23. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
24. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
25. Buttman by Phynam
26. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

 

Cloaked Games Reviews:​

First Place: Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Second Place: Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Third Place: Drift War by Dr. Wolf

Best Use of Theme: The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
Best Concept: Newton's Axiom by meseta
Best Presentation: Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Story: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Best Devlog: Buttman by Phynam
Best Original Music: Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal

Written Reviews/Scoring Breakdown

Spoiler: Full Rankings

1) Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
2) Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
3) Drift War by Dr. Wolf
4) Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
5) Weird Space by Humayun
6) Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
7) Super Power by The M
8) Newton's Axiom by meseta
9) Relative Fray by Yokcos
10) The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
11) Gimbo the Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
12) Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
13) Buttman by Phynam
14) Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
15) Yor Game by Micah DS
16) F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
17) The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
18) Stallites by sylvain_I
19) Retreadz by HayManMarc
20) Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
21) AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
22) Newton's Laws of Rougelike by Guilherme Oliveira
23) Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85 and Daniel Zimmerman
24) Untitled by Bently
25) 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Spoiler: How I Score Games

Games can receive points for eight categories, and are ranked based on their score out of 60 total points. Most games earn between 20 and 40 points.

Main Categories:
-Gameplay / 10: The central gameplay. This includes mechanics, controls, game feel, and ease of learning, as well as basically anything else that isn't the graphics and audio.
-Graphics / 10: The graphics and implementation of the graphics. Does the game look good? Is the style consistent? Is it easy to see what is going on?
-Audio/Music / 10: The sound effects and music. Especially how well it fits in the game, and if it isn't annoying or repetitive. Sounds play a critical role in game feel, if they're missing you hardly have a game at all.
-Fun Points / 10: This is probably the most important. It is in general, how fun the game is. It most reflects how I personally felt about the game, and so does include things like nostalgia bonus and genre bias. That is why I don't score on how fun something is to me alone. However, this is the tiebreaker for games with the same total points, and a good judge (if you're curious) of how much I enjoyed a game overall.

Secondary Categories:
-Story / 5: How engaging and creative the story elements are. With no story at all, there are no points assigned. Any effort to have a story at all will earn at least one point. Counts towards best story.
-Concept / 5: How interesting it is conceptually. You can earn concept points for a totally unfinished, or un-fun game, if I can see where you wanted to go with it and I like it. You especially earn points for original or very creative mechanics. Counts towards best concept.
-Theme / 5: How well it used the theme "Convergence." I'm open to multiple interpretations of the theme, and I will try to explain why I scored the way I did in terms of theme. I'm especially looking for games where the theme is a truly central part of the game, where the game couldn't be played without the theme. Counts towards best use of theme.
-Programming / 5: These points are earned by having a bug free game. You can also earn programming points for anything that demonstrates impressive programming skills. Note that a particularly low score in this category often leads to a low score in fun-points and game-play, because lots of bugs really make a game less fun to play.

Spoiler: Video Reviews

There are timestamps so you can skip directly to your specific section of the video. Also, consider subscribing.


0:00 @Misty - 27:19 @RargraveEntertainment - 34:46 @lazertrax - 41:39 @orSQUADstra - 42:33 @The M


0:00 @meseta - 19:06 @Yokcos - 24:40 @Micah_DS - 1:09:29 @Siolfor the Jackal - 48:43 @Humayun


0:00 @HayManMarc - 6:08 @Guilherme Oliveira - 12:45 @Bingdom, @Iodinex64, @Ninety - 23:12 @Nallebeorn - 28:34 @Phynam


0:00 @rio85 Daniel Zimmerman - 3:48 @ghandpivot 10:02 - @Landon, @PixelTitan, @OverLogic - 14:58 @sylvain_I - 20:52 @Tom Edwards - 25:17 @Alice 35:17 - @Dr. Wolf - 45:50 @Zodaris 52:48 - @Willisburg

 

Ralucipe's Reviews
​

Last jam, I gave each game a comprehensive review with multiple individual scores. I intended to do the same thing this time, but I got put in a time crunch this weekend, and I couldn't finish the reviews the way I wanted to. Also I didn't love the way they turned out in general.

However, I did assign scores to all of them, and I used those scores to cast the below votes. I have comments for most of the entries, but I simply don't have time to format all of them into this post. So, if you want details on your ranking/score/comments, send me a message and I'll give you my feedback.

Top 3:

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Wow, simply fantastic game. Other reviewers seem to be having problems with the control scheme but I really didn't have any such troubles- the game flowed well for me. I loved fighting the shadow axe guy. The dynamic combat where both you and the enemy are flying around each other was just so engaging. Really the only gameplay issue I found worth commenting on is about balance - some enemies felt way too easy to kill compared to others. And the final boss seemed nearly unbeatable (but I did win on about my 10th try!). Oh, one other issue: you never actually told players how to use shrines. I kinda just found out by accident.
Theme inclusion was somewhat weak (along with many other games in the jam). You seemed to be using the whole 'two identical yet opposite forces' line of reasoning, but it seemed pretty 'forced' to me... ha! Get it? ...I'm sorry.
The graphics for a jam game absolutely floored me - detailed background with subtle parallax effects, full-blown animation sets for tons of enemies, it was just awesome. Music and sound effects were epic too.
Overall I can't believe this was done in 72 hours. If you kept developing this game, I would absolutely pay money for it.

2. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
At every turn I expected to see the all-too-frequent Jam screen: "ran outta time, didn't finish, sorry." But this game was quite a marathon, and it was fairly engaging from beginning to end - something that virtually no Jam entries manage to successfully pull off. That being said, some of the enemies placed throughout the levels just felt like nothing more than filler. There was little challenge in killing most of them.
Theme inclusion in terms of core gameplay was pretty much standard compared to other games in the jam. But this seemed to have more effort put into integration in terms of the storyline, so props for that.
Graphics weren't memorable, and there were tons of stock GM particle effects used. Audio did everything it needed to do.
Ultimately I poured a ton of time into this game. Solid entry!

3. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
This was genuinely fun to play multiple times. I enjoyed the unique challenge of having to coat as much of the area in paint as possible. I still had a few minor issues though. I felt like there wasn't enough done to differentiate teammates from enemies, and I frequently shot at allies unknowingly. Second, while I didn't have problems with movement like other reviewers seemed to, I felt like you could've at least allowed some horizontal movement with the keyboard - it wouldn't have been too degrading from the core idea, and it would've made things a bit less frustrating in general. Third, there was some information that I felt like should've been provided through the HUD, such as the cooldown state of my weapon.
I didn't even know there were more than two maps until about my fifth or sixth game - a menu to select a map would've been a great addition. Also, I didn't find out that the objective was to actually paint walls instead of just kill each other until my second game (neither the game nor the README told me the objective).
Graphics were impressive, aside from that team issue I noted above. Audio was great too.

Best Ofs:

Best use of theme: Satellites by sylvain_l
Best Concept: Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Story: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Devlog: ...

Full Rankings:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games (25)
2. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty (22)
3. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety (21.5)
4. Satellites by sylvain_l (21.5)
   
5. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax (20.5)
   
6. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf (20.5)
   
7. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice (19)
   
8. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn (18.5)
   
9. Weird Space by Humayun (18.5)
   
10. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman (18)
    
11. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal (17)
    
12. Newton's Axiom by meseta (15)
    
13. Yor Game by Micah_DS (14.5)
    
14. Relative Fray by Yokcos (14)
    
15. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot (12.5)
    
16. Retreadz by HayManMarc (12)
    
17. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris (11)
    
18. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards (11)
    
19. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic (10)
    
20. Buttman by Phynam (9)
    
21. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment (9)
    
22. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira (8)
    
23. Super Power by The M (8)
    
24. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg (6.5)
    
25. Untitled by Bentley (5.5)
    
26. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra (2)

 

Reviews​

Top 3:

Newton's Axiom by meseta
I actually had a fair bit of fun with this game. True, it has some flaws: the movement felt a bit awkward at first; switching ships is sufficiently awkward and dangerous that I never wound up doing it; if you fly around rapidly, the other ships in your fleet tend to smash into things or just plain get lost; big CPU fleets create a pretty large difficulty spike; fast-moving yellow asteroids sometimes obliterate you out of nowhere. But I enjoyed thinking about fleet composition strategies (I like to build fighters at first, using mined income, and then mass a bunch of frigates once I start earning parts), and the flocking behaviour of large fleets was visually very satisfying.

Super Power by The M
I like the idea of a less literal take on the theme-- Newton's Laws as principles of international relations. I'm not sure how many of the options available were actually functional, there's a UI bug that lets you send tanks directly to the enemy nation, and some balancing would not go amiss, but even the fact that it was fun enough to keep me playing long enough to notice those things is quite impressive in a jam game. Well done!

Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic, but it uses it to make a funky sort of Elasto Mania-esque physics-heavy wheelchair shooter (!) thing. The physics are quite well-done, in that you can get up a lot of speed, and yet also exploit the terrain in ways that make shooting more controllable. Art is above average for a jam game. I wish there were a high score list that kept track of your level times, so that there was some incentive to keep a good flow going rather than proceeding slowly and ignoring the possibilities for using the terrain to build up speed.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Weird Space by Humayun
Best Concept: Super Power by The M
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Story: Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Devlog: Super Power by The M

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Newton's Axiom by meseta
2. Super Power by The M
3. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
4. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
5. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
6. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
7. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
8. Weird Space by Humayun
9. Relative Fray by Yokcos
10. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
11. Yor Game by Micah_DS
12. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
13. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
14. Retreadz by HayManMarc
15. Buttman by Phynam
16. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
17. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
18. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
19. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
20. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
21. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
22. Satellites by sylvain_l
23. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
24. Untitled by Bentley
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Comments:

Spoiler

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

...

AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg

Okay, so, you have a spaceman floating around, who can become bigger or smaller, or slow down time briefly. There are also some boxes floating around, which you can fling; by hitting the spaceman with these, and changing his size to influence when he does or does not crash into the other boxes, you can influence his course, to steer him towards his objective. Personally, I felt like I'd rather just...not, but it's nice to see an entry that really decided to go all the way with the whole physics thing.

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax

This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic. In this case, the mechanic was used rather cleverly, as a way of answering a long-standing design question for simple shooters: why not just shoot constantly? If the question is not addressed, a game can wind up with a tension between what makes the most tactical sense (holding down the fire button) and what feels right (using the button as a trigger). Here, though, there's a clear answer: spamming shots upwards towards the enemies will send you straight down to your doom. Overall, this was quite a competent jam entry, though I fear that the central gimmick might become tiresome to deal with in the context of a full-fledged game.

Buttman by Phynam

This is a game about eating animals that are smaller than you to get bigger, while jumping over animals that are still too large. It doesn't seem very smooth, or terribly relevant to the theme, but it actually plays OK, in large part because it boils down to memorizing a very small set of simple decisions as to when to jump.

Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman

Either this game is really hard, or I'm terrible at it. I think a lot of the challenge comes from the fact that you can't accelerate and repair at the same time-- that, and that it's quite difficult to tell exactly which way the cosmonaut is facing (although the latter might well be explained by his intoxication). Decent atmosphere, but I found myself wanting to give up pretty quickly.

F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards

This seems to be a game about preventing the formulation of the law of universal gravitation by dodging apples as Newton. It's simple, but playable and coherent. I don't think there's enough here to engage a player for more than a couple of minutes, but it's a competent game, overall, by jam standards.

Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment

I applaud the ambition of trying to do something outside the norm, technically speaking, within the confines of a game jam. Unfortunately, I wasn't really feeling the end result. I don't have a mic, and even if I did, I don't like the basic idea; it seems awfully indiscrete to have to make noise at your computer just to jump. I was able to play a little bit by re-routing the wire for my headphones to the microphone port on my PC, so that I could jump by turning up the volume dial on the amplifier, but didn't feel compelled to go past the first few platforms. I'm not sure what it had to do with the theme, either.

Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal

This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic, but it uses it to make a funky sort of Elasto Mania-esque physics-heavy wheelchair shooter (!) thing. The physics are quite well-done, in that you can get up a lot of speed, and yet also exploit the terrain in ways that make shooting more controllable. Art is above average for a jam game. I wish there were a high score list that kept track of your level times, so that there was some incentive to keep a good flow going rather than proceeding slowly and ignoring the possibilities for using the terrain to build up speed.

Newton's Axiom by meseta

I actually had a fair bit of fun with this game. True, it has some flaws: the movement felt a bit awkward at first; switching ships is sufficiently awkward and dangerous that I never wound up doing it; if you fly around rapidly, the other ships in your fleet tend to smash into things or just plain get lost; big CPU fleets create a pretty large difficulty spike; fast-moving yellow asteroids sometimes obliterate you out of nowhere. But I enjoyed thinking about fleet composition strategies (I like to build fighters at first, using mined income, and then mass a bunch of frigates once I start earning parts), and the flocking behaviour of large fleets was visually very satisfying.

Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

Quite atmospheric from the get-go, with voice acting, no less (and only moderately cringeworthy, at that-- no small feat for an indie game, let alone a jam game!). Unfortunately, the game locked up as soon as I got to the second room, and that was that.

Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira

This is a game where you walk around and fight trees that are very loosely themed after Newton's laws. The art chosen for the game was pretty good, but the game itself didn't really click with me. It's neat to see procedural level generation in a jam game, especially since it's quite difficult to produce enough content for a "real" game during a jam period, but I'd have liked to see more variety in the gameplay itself, and either a plotline or a score list, so that there'd be some incentive to take advantage of that replayability and run the game more than once.

Newton's Tanks by Zodaris

Ah, artillery games! Once a mainstay of indie gaming, these are now quite thin on the ground-- which is a little odd, if you think about it, because it's definitely a more accessible genre than some of the other out-of-fashion indie game types. I can't say I'm super thrilled with this implementation-- flat terrain, infinite movement, and no death means it's basically just a game where you move up to the other tank and shoot it-- but it's neat to see a spark of life in the genre, however faint.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic. I wish there were more documentation; even after playing, I'm still not sure what was the point, if any, of the way the shots colored the terrain. The bots that you played against were nicely functional, while the implementation of the physics was about average-- the movement felt relatively clunky at times, but functional overall. I wish there were more variety to the gameplay, whether in the form of different enemies, different weapons/pickups, actual levels (rather than arenas), or

something else, because I thought the gameplay got stale rather quickly.

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice

This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic. In this case, it's basically an Asteroids clone where the gun has recoil, only minus the ship's actual engines (oh, and the ship is a carrot). Cleanly implemented and playable, but I'm not convinced that the recoil gimmick represents a positive alteration to the formula because, between the recoil itself, the widely-spaced overall geomety in place to accommodate it, and the rapid turning speed of your carrot, you can generally just shoot at the asteroids without thinking about it and you'll be fine, so long as you're careful not to build up too much momentum in one direction.

Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot

This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic. It's very simple, and some of the finer details of the shooting are a bit iffy; on the upside, the movement itself is nicely smooth, and the aesthetic, though minimal, is clean. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's a good window mode for this game; in windowed mode, it's way too easy to click outside the screen by accident due to the absence of mouse capture, while in fullscreen mode, the scores appear in an awkward position.

Relative Fray by Yokcos

I'm going to digress from talking about specific games a little bit to make a more general point: scrolling and Newtonian shooters might look similar, but they aren't the same genre with a different control scheme; rather, they're two different genres entirely, ones that diverged almost at the beginning of video game history, and which have separate and incompatible sets of core mechanics. Unfortunately, one consequence is that hybrids between the two tend not to work as well as might be imagined. I can't help but feel like that's the case here, and the result would have been better either as a full-fledged twin-stick scrolling shooter, or as a full-fledged Asteroids derivative (with asteroids that happened to shoot at you quite a lot).

Retreadz by HayManMarc

"A physics game where you're a tank and you throw bombs at ninjas in order to collect watermelon" sounds like the kind of thing that'd come out of a random game idea generator, but it's actually not terrible. Gameplay seems to deteriorate into just spamming like crazy while trying to push towards the watermelon-- as this works better than actually aiming-- and the persistence of the ninjas quickly goes from cute to "what's wrong with my tank? It can't kill anything!", but at least there are plenty of explosions. I wasn't engaged enough to play for more than a couple of minutes, but it was okay for that much time, at least.

Satellites by sylvain_l

This game gave a fairly positive first impression. The font in the tutorial is pretty, though I think it could use some work in terms of being easier to readm and there was a nice choice of intro music. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself started to feel very much the same after a couple of minutes; I was able to get a few satellites up and flying around at a time, and wondered (idly) if I should be trying to get them into stable orbits rather than just maneuvering, reactively, but the overall pacing of the game kept it from catching my attention long enough for me to make a serious attempt at such. It might have been more interesting to have things moving much more slowly, so that it would a lot easier to get those first 5-6 satellites orbiting happily, but then to introduce enemies or other complications to threaten the fragile system that the player had built up.

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games

This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic. Clearly very much a high-effort entry, with atmospheric pixel art and sounds, a plotline of sorts, and quite a bit of content. Eventually, my playthrough was ended by the (known) bug with talking to NPCs; an enemy followed me further than I'd expected and knocked me away from the guy I was talking to. I can't say that this is the sort of thing that I'd choose to play outside the context of a jam, but the ambiance of the game led me to stick with it for longer than I'd otherwise tolerate a game with these mechanics. One thing that should probably be addressed is, in the absence of a cursor constraint, it's very easy to click outside of the game window by accident, leading to damage or even a fall.

Super Power by The M

I like the idea of a less literal take on the theme-- Newton's Laws as principles of international relations. I'm not sure how many of the options available were actually functional, there's a UI bug that lets you send tanks directly to the enemy nation, and some balancing would not go amiss, but even the fact that it was fun enough to keep me playing long enough to notice those things is quite impressive in a jam game. Well done!

The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn

Not terrible once I got the hang of it (the thrust from A and D is much more useful than the thrust from the mouse button), but I don't think it's the sort of thing I'd play again.

The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty

This is one of several games that used the theme by implementing a recoil mechanic. Unfortunately, the result felt decidedly less smooth than some of the other attempts, and did little to ease the tedium inherent in trying to force my way through yet another puzzle platformer. On the upside, the presence of an overarching narrative and some variety to the gameplay (if only there were more!) kept me playing this game for longer than average, and I got the impression that there was a respectable amount of content overall, though I wasn't engaged enough to play through to completion.

Untitled by Bentley

I appreciate the attempt to use physics as a core gameplay element, rather than going the route of using it as a "twist" on (insert genre popular with indie devs here). That said, the incomplete state of the game dominates the experience, to the extent where it's hard to say how a more complete version would feel.

Weird Space by Humayun

This game took me a few tries to figure out, as the tutorial doesn't describe things very well when it comes to the radar and the objective. Once I figured that out, it got easier (especially as I've flown more than enough poorly-planned Kerbal Space Program missions to have a bit of experience with RCS), but I'm not sure it ever really crossed the threshold into being fun. That said, I have to give this entry props for treating the theme in a way that felt natural rather than gimmicky or contrived, something that not many of the games achieved.

Yor Game by Micah_DS

A fairly standard puzzle game; not really my kind of thing.

 

Reviews​

Top 3:

Newton's Axiom by meseta
Loved it. Difficult/brutal though.

Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Great entry. Great fun. Loved the transition from menu to first stage. Loved the use of physics as well. Annoying death penalty. Repetitive gameplay.

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
That boss was unbeatable, but I beat him. Very good game overall, espcially gfx and mood.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Concept: Newton's Axiom by meseta
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Story: Weird Space by Humayun
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Newton's Axiom by meseta
2. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
3. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
4. Weird Space by Humayun
5. Buttman by Phynam
6. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
7. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
8. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
9. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
10. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
11. Retreadz by HayManMarc
12. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
13. Satellites by sylvain_l
14. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
15. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
16. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
17. Untitled by Bentley
18. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
19. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
20. Super Power by The M
21. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
22. Yor Game by Micah_DS
23. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
24. Relative Fray by Yokcos
25. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
26. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

 

Reviews​

Top 3:

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
Great game! Loved the GUI/Title Screen. Instructions were clear and the interface was nice. Music was good and fit the game really well. Gameplay reminded me of Spectrum games and I enjoyed playing it a lot. Felt more intuitive than any game so far.

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
This was made in a few days? Jesus. Good game, nice mechanic but a lot of other Jam games did the "physics" thing better (like DriftWar) which is why I gave this game 2nd place and not 1st. Just my opinion, of course.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Fun and cute game

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme:
Best Concept:
Best Presentation:
Best Story:
Best Devlog:

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
2. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
3. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

Comments:

Spoiler

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax

Fun game, addictive and easy to understand

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf

Great game! Loved the GUI/Title Screen. Instructions were clear and the interface was nice. Music was good and fit the game really well. Gameplay reminded me of Spectrum games and I enjoyed playing it a lot. Felt more intuitive than any game so far.

Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment

White text on a bright background - hard to read for me. Speaking into the microphone to jump whilst other people are in the house made me feel self concious so stopped playing after a minute.

Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

Player doesnt move after exiting from starter room

Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira

Nice demo + graphics but doesn't really fir the theme

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

Fun and cute game

Satellites by sylvain_l

I liked the Title Screen + Music. Didn't like the font because it made some of the text hard to read.
Gameplay - I didn't think I would play for more than a minute because even after reading the tutorial I still didn't know what I was doing ;(. I stuck with it and the more I played, the more I enjoyed it.

Super Power by The M

War game but what does it have to do with physics?

Yor Game by Micah_DS

Good puzzle game but I'm not a big fan of puzzle games

 

~ I bring you.. Video Reviews! ~
I'm all out of cookies. D:​

Top 3:
Shred of Light by @JacobV , @Cloaked Games
The Mysterious Planet of Newton by @Misty
Newton's Axiom by @meseta

Best ofs:
Best use of NEWTON'S LAWS OF MOTION: Newton's Laws of Roguelike by @Guilherme Oliveira
Best Concept: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by @Misty
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by @JacobV, @Cloaked Games
Best Story: Shred of Light by @JacobV, @Cloaked Games
Best Devlog: Super Power by @The M

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
2. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
3. Newton's Axiom by meseta
4. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
5. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
6. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
7. Retreadz by HayManMarc
8. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
9. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
10. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
11. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
12. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
13. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
14. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
15. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
16. Satellites by sylvain_l
17. Relative Fray by Yokcos
18. Weird Space by Humayun
19. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
20. Super Power by The M
21. Buttman by Phynam
22. Untitled by Bentley
23. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
24. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Video Reviews:

Spoiler: PLEASE READ BEFORE WATCHING MY REVIEW OF YOUR GAME

I said something similar the first time I did video reviews, but I'll say again - reviewing doesn't come easy to me. I'm sorry. I hope you guys can overlook my shortcomings and I hope it's still useful feedback, despite my various issues (e.g. fumbling over words, lacking in my ability to show or say things as well as I'd like, some cringy moments, etc.).

Even though I find it hard to do video reviews well, I still feel it's the best way for me to give you guys the most valuable/useful and concise form of feedback that I can.

-
I have included time stamps for each game review. The YouTube video description has the same time stamps, but of course there they work as clickable links to jump to that point, so if you want more convenience, there's that.

I had a lot of fun this jam, and I hope you all did too. Here's to an even better jam next time!

Spoiler: VIDEO

• 0:00:00-0:00:54 - Introduction
• 0:00:54-0:02:40 - 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra
• 0:02:40-0:06:06 - F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
• 0:06:06-0:09:13 - Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
• 0:09:13-0:12:02 - Untitled by Bentley
  ------- (NOTE: There's a message that pops up during gameplay which was not captured, so that part may be confusing)
• 0:12:02-0:16:18 - Buttman (a.k.a. Super ButtChin Man saves The World) by Phynam
  ------- (NOTE: Sorry, game audio was up a little too loud, making it compete too much with my voice)
• 0:16:18-0:19:09 - Super Power by The M
• 0:19:09-0:23:09 - Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
• 0:23:09-0:27:11 - Weird Space by Humayun
• 0:27:11-0:31:09 - Relative Fray by Yokcos
• 0:31:09-0:33:33 - Satellites by sylvain_l
• 0:33:33-0:33:44 - APOLOGY FOR MY SHORTCOMINGS IN REVIEWING
• 0:33:44-0:37:48 - AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
• 0:37:48-0:40:02 - The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
• 0:40:02-0:44:15 - Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
• 0:44:15-0:47:37 - Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
• 0:47:37-0:50:35 - Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
• 0:50:35-0:55:27 - Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
  ------- (NOTE: Also a late comment on me liking AI is from 55:49-56:03)
• 0:55:27-0:59:20 - Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
• 0:59:20-1:04:15 - DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
• 1:04:15-1:07:08 - Retreadz by HayManMarc
• 1:07:08-1:11:52 - Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
• 1:11:52-1:15:36 - Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
• 1:15:36-1:20:18 - Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
• 1:20:18-1:23:27 - Newton's Axiom by meseta
• 1:23:27-1:29:50 - The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
• 1:29:50-1:49:07 - Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
• 1:49:07-1:00:00 - FINAL WORDS TO ALL JAMMERS

 

Reviews​

Top 3:

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Newton's Axiom by meseta

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
Best Concept: Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Story: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Devlog: TBD

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
2. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
3. Newton's Axiom by meseta
4. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
5. Relative Fray by Yokcos
6. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
7. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
8. Weird Space by Humayun
9. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
10. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
11. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
12. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
13. Satellites by sylvain_l
14. Buttman by Phynam
15. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
16. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
17. Retreadz by HayManMarc
18. Yor Game by Micah_DS
19. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
20. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
21. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
22. Untitled by Bentley
23. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
24. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Comments:

Spoiler

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Not sure what's so 3D about this one but I'm pretty sure those definitions were ripped from Wikipedia. I can't afford the maybe option.

AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg

I found the concept of the game to be interesting but also very confusing. With all the blocks flying around knocking each other every way it was really hard to have any control over the character. I kind of liked the graphics (those starry windows were great) but think the backgrounds would look better without the massive grid.

While the drawings that showed how to play were a neat touch I didn't understand there was a grow/shrink mechanic until after the first level that featured it. Similarly I only accidentally found out about the time slow mechanic after having mashed space after dying one time too much on a level. Eventually it got too frustrating and I rage-quit. Perhaps the levels should ramp up the difficulty a bit smoother? It would also be more interesting if there were more levels as the first four (the ones I saw) were basically two levels that had just been slightly remixed for the third and fourth levels. It made them feel less interseting even tough they used new mechanics.


Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax

A neat little game. The menu is great: it's polished and sets up the game nicely. I enjoyed the gameplay just fine but it got straining to play after a while. The combo bar made every kill much more impactful but it was hard to keep up, not only did it run out extremely fast but at times enemies would just not spawn, forcing me to drop a 20+ combo chain. I'd have liked to see some more enemy variety, especially since the game goes on for a while, and I could also see the recoil mechanic being used more than it was. I mostly tried to push myself into the wall to reduce its impact and keep me stable in the air which made it less interesting than having to fly around would have been. Perhaps some tough enemies (or just floating spikes) that you'd have to navigate around would help?

Buttman by Phynam

I can not read the game's title. How about adding some outline to it?

The game was much more fleshed out than I had anticipated given the title. It's kind of fun but some indications of how large onbjects you could absorb (other than memorizing the list) would have been appreciated. It would also have been nice with some checkpoints since the level is long and some collision boxes are rather unfair (such as how landing on some but not all buildings is fine while the rest kills you).

By the way, what's with the weird animations you get by pressing X or A/D?

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf

The game feels very ambitious with its own manual complete with pictures and all but unfortunately that also muddles the information. I don't want to read through a four page document to know how to play; I want the control scheme, the goal and possibly some motivation/backstory and then I want to get going. Some of this information is displayed in the game but if you press 'begin' the first thing you do you'll have no idea what to do or even how to do it.

I was impressed by how customizable the game was (and the options menu kindly showed me how to play as well). The gameplay was pretty fun. Blasting enemies was satisfying and jumping between layers was awesome when you pulled it off. Unfortunately those things were pretty hard to do: the slippery controls and inprecise aiming made hitting your targets tricky and it was easy to slip off a floor to plummet far below. I think enabling the player would make the game much more engaging, perhaps you could try lock-on targeting, speed boosts or just tighter controls.

Oh, and I'm not sure if it's possible to win the levels. When there're no flags left the level doesn't end and you'll have to quit back to the menu to go to the next level.

Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman

This game looked really nice and the music was pretty calming. I like the concept of flying around to repair the space station but since repairing it only visually restored the parts (an awesome effect by the way) but not the health and since there was no way to stop the boulders, the game was simply impossible and your actions completely in vain.

The zero-g movement worked somewhat well but it felt really weird to fly in the direction of your belly when you have the jetpack mounted vertically on your back. It often made me confued as to where I was going and how to slow down, especially if I had been knocked around by something and started spinning. By the way, does hitting the space station increase your speed? It felt like you'd bounce really hard against it and it made repairing it hard.

Had this game gotten a little more spit and polish I think it could have turned out really well!

F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards

The game was short and simple but still pretty neat. At first I thought you were supposed to catch the apples and instantly lost. I liked that there was different kinds of apples, though it was a little hard to tell what they did other than just having different speed. Taking three hearts worth of damage by a single dark apple caught me off guard and made me think that maybe I had been less careful than I had though. Perhaps some kind of guide would have been good? (Or just put it in the readme.)

The graphics of the game were nice and all looked good individually. It was a little weird seeing objects having different pixel density, for example the tree (while grat looking on its own) had at least twice the pixel size of the other sprites. Also, since you don't use the mouse in-game, maybe it'd be better to have the player look in the direction they walk rather than at in?

Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment

Well, this sure was an interesting concept. I wish you could adjust how loud you'd have to talk because unless I shouted I'd barely leave the ground. I played for a while until my room mate wondered what the heck I was doing. Better him than the neighbors I suppose.



Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal

Here's another awesome intro with some real intensity, love it! The game is neat, I really like how serious and ridiculous it is at the same time. I would have liked some more from the levels though, they are pretty bland. The physics work well and it's fun to speed off ramps but you don't get much sense of speed or location with only the black walls and static backgound. I feel like it's a missed opportunity because the graphics that's there is great! Similarly, while I think the music works fantastically in the menu it's not as good in game and I would much have preferred something more action packed than ominous, not least because this way the impression of the intro and menu is weakened somewhat.

I also some issues with missing crystals and would really have liked some kind of map/compass, especially on the level where I missed one single gem.

Newton's Axiom by meseta

The game works very well and the graphics are great. I missed a tutorial, when you start the game you have no idea what to do, what is what and how to play. That's pretty harsh since the game is fairly complex.

The ship AI worked really well and it was fun to see larger groups of ships fight each other. It's too bad that usually resulted in losses on my side because it was hard to build up a new army when the old one was broken. I think speeding up progression would have made it more fun. Right now it's hard to get any of the higher tier ships before the game is over or you get bored and that's unfortunate because there is a lot of potential here.

Also, the game would have so much more atmosphere with a good soundtrack and some neat "space" sound effects.

Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

Now that's a great intro! It felt polished and raised my expectations even before starting the game. What I saw next was very confusing because quality was all over the place. The torches seem to be made by a completely different person for a completely different game as they have no shading at all and have a different pixel scale. The character and the roll in the corner (whatever it is) both look awesome while the floor could have been great if it had tiled better. The game seem to end after the first area, at least I can't move after leaving it, which is unfortunate because I'd have liked to see more.

Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira

The game works fine as a concept and beating up the logs is pretty fun for a while but the lack of a goal quickly makes it lose its appeal. The game's physics work very well and combat had some satisfying "weight" to it. The only thing that didn't work was the enemy drops which litteraly dropped, through the floor. You have no idea how painful it is to see a treasure chest with potential loot disappear out of reach!

Newton's Tanks by Zodaris

It's simplistic but looks nice, I especially dig the GUI. Something I found a bit weird was that you press the left button to increase the angle but the right to increase the power. It threw me off at first.

I think a perfect AI might not be what you want in this kind of game, even if this one started off as random. Personally I'd make it aim perfectly then throw in a little random deviation and perhaps slowly increase the accuracy unless the player moved (at which point it is reduced again the further you move). That way you don't get this all-or-nothing scenario where unless you defeat the enemy in four turns (where it won't hit you) you'll instantly lose.

It turns out, the best tactic is to move up real close to the AI and shoot them in the face at zero range. Because of their random behavior with their first shot chances are you'll win more than you lose.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

Okay, that was a lot more fun than I had though. At first I thought it was just an arena battle game where you had to kill your opponents but then I noticed the minimap and how it tracked how much paint you had covered the area with and suddenly it became a lot cooler!

I thought the mechanics worked well but I did find the gun cooldown to be rather annoying. The game definitely needs some kind of visual indication of how much paint you have left, the audio just isn't enough to tell how much has recharged and with the loud music and gunfire from the other characters it gets drowned out.

The AI worked surprisingly well and I had to play actively for my team not to lose so that's awesome. When I beat the game and tried again I noticed that the paint no longer worked properly but was drawn sticking out of the terrain which looked weird, after a few games the paint (and terrain!) never went away between matches but the game was still playable if you could cope with the visual clutter. It'd be awesome if you could make the paint drip from the ceiling blocks as a visual effect. Finally I'd have liked some kind of level select. I'm pretty sure there were at least two levels but it selected them seemingly at random.



Recoil on Asteroids by Alice

The game is super smooth and apart from that you can still shoot when dead I can't find any bugs or flaws. Having large amounts of loot being sucked into your ship was very satisfying but shooting down asteroids were less so. I think it's because most of the action happens off screen: the area is large enough that most bullets, asteroids and loot isn't seen other than on the minimap (which was a great help, by the way). That also makes it hard to know how much progress you've made.

Wild was interesting but when I tried it out I'm pretty sure all my stats hit the rock's bottom. Pure chance I'm sure, but it'd be nice if they were distributed like skill points or something so that if you had terrible shields and fire rate you'd at least have a huge bullet store (or whatever stats could be varied).

Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot

While the game was short and simple, there was something satisfying about soaring around and blasting down the AI. At least until it started improving and got near unbeatable (please telll me it improved and I didn't just start sucking ). I had a bit of a hard time understanding what exactly counted as a hit because it didn't seem like the shotgun shells caused any damage. Was there some invisible projectile you fired or was there a limit to how close you had to be for it to count? The view was also a bit annoying. I liked how smooth it moved but it also had a tendency to lag behind, not showing what was ahead of me and forcing me to slow down (or risk getting a bullet in the face).

Oh, and the GUI kind of breaks if you toggle fullscreen which is a bit unfortunate because with how much you drag the mouse around you really don't want to risk clicking outside the screen.

Relative Fray by Yokcos

The game was pretty fun but the gameplay felt like something I've played many times before. With that said, it's certainly a well-made game that played smoothly and felt polished. The different kinds of enemies did a good job of mixing things up and the way bullets worked felt really weird.

What really stood out was the background which was stunning. I seriously paid more attention to it than the enemies trying to figure out how it was made. At the same time I got a little motion sick, though I'm not sure if that's the game's fault or my own for focusing on the wrong things.

Retreadz by HayManMarc

That's some intense music right there, it really pumps up the action. The gameplay was fun and the tank physics were surprisingly good. I think the grenades you launched could have some more oomph to them, both with a chunky explosion sound but also with more visual damage (those ninjas barely reacted) and destruction to the obstacles. The ninjas were great and while they were annoying to deal with when they surrounded me there was something satisfying about seeing them stand on the tank and smack at it with their weapons.

Satellites by sylvain_l

The menu manages to build up tension really well, probably thanks to the great music. I think it could be upgraded visually to look even better as the buttons still feels a bit static. The game was really hard, especially in tycoon mode and it took me a few tries before I got comfortable with the gravity and control of the satellites. Then it was fun to try to get as many in orbit as possible.

Terminator mode removed most of what made tychoon mode interesting. While I liked the idea it became as simple as not moving the apple, launching a rocket straight up and then quickly launching another that would fly right into the first. Perhaps it could be made more exciting if the rotation of the rocket base was rotated randomly?

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games

The game instantly feels polished thanks to the stylish graphics (even when the game's title is all that's shown) and abience. With that said, I was confused at first as to whether or not I was supposed to do something to proceed or just wait. I'd suggest adding some kind of background motion that cold show people that the game is progressing and that they should wait for what's to come next.

The sheer variety of the graphics is really impressive for a jam game. I love the small details like the squashy animations of the player and candles. By the way, how do you "pray" at the shrines. All other controls have been explained well but this one seems like a miss.

Dang, that's a tough boss! It kind of feels unfair because you have very little time to react if it appears close to you. You can feel how the game is inspired by hollow knight because it's got the same sweet mix of atmosphere, platforming, combat and nasty bosses. Congratulations, well done!

The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn

This reminds me of ghandpivot's socker ball survival game from some jam ago and while I think this one manages to be just different enough to stand out it's also a LOT harder. I was confused by the controls and it took a few tries to understand just what button did what. On top of that I often pressed the wrong button when I tried to get back to the inner circle. I think my issue was with how when you're launched one way your relation to the mouse, and thus orientation, changes. Because of that it's a lot harder to stop moving than starting to move.

Add to this how massive the forces were and it gets really challenging. Pressing the mouse button barely did anything but pressing A or D would send you flying at a hard-to-control pace where it took a lot of effort to come to a halt. Those too dwindled before the force of the flying balls though and if you got hit by a big one the game was practically over. I think the game could still be fun but it should start a lot easier, with slower, lighter balls and perhaps a more zoomed out camera, then get closer and tougher the further you get.

The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty

Wow, that was a massive game! I think the gameplay, while annoying at times, was good overall. There was a good sense of progression as you grew more and more powerful, I just wish the checkpoints were a bit more common and it'd been nice if they healed you too. I often passed one with only a sliver of health left and was usually one-shot and sent back in the new area.

On a side note, I'd have liked it if there was more of a border to the game (or just an option to enable full-screen) because the game often required you to click near the borders in rapid succession which ended with hiding the game behind some other application several times causing a lot of frustration.

Untitled by Bentley

Well, I think this game could be pretty fun if it had a bit more polish. It kind of reminds me of the 2d Sonic games (if Sonic were a snow ball). I'm not sure what triggers the score display (a timer?) but I enjoyed speeding through the hills and boosting into the air.

Weird Space by Humayun

The menu certainly conveys the atmosphere of the game, it's great! The game is interesting but also very difficult. Because you only control acceleration it's hard to make any quick adjustments to your speed or direction. That becomes a problem when asteroids can appear without warning and surviving was more up to luck than actual skills. In the third mission this becomes even more appearant when I died the very moment the intro ended.

It's too bad. the game could have been great otherwise: it looks great, especially the background with the nebulaes and small rocks; the music is awesome and the missions are varied enough to be interesting and unique even though the game is still mostly the same.

Yor Game by Micah_DS

The game was fine, if very traditional. I think the graphics looked nice but the levels were very empty. Think about what could be done with the areas outside the playing field on the first level and you'll be able to make the area you can actually play on stand out, making it easier for the player to survey it.

I'd have loved to see more levels. The first two worked great as an introduction (the second one being even a bit tricky) but the third was a massive difficulty spike. I "almost" beat it but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

 

My amazing reviews!​

Top 3:

First place : Shred of Light by @JacobV , @Cloaked Games
(20)
woaw. Really well polished. With some nice details like the candle animation. cool ambiant music. mechanic of the recoil is good. Quite a number of varied ennemies and levels !
Didn't finish the game (get stuck to the level starting with the lock chamber with the black guard and 2 light swordman, than the floating light guy and the killing - at least for me - section with all the light circular saws and you have to fly all along from one recharging globe to another.

p.s.
would be nice to allow full screen mode. It's really annoying (sometime even deadly) when you go near the border of the screen and have to LMB. I easily clicked more then once ouside the window and then game lost focus. The time I panic-replace the cursor just in the window could be to late

Second place : Paint Bonanza by @Bingdom, @Iodinex64 , @Ninety
(11)
excellent 2d painting battle game. A bit challenging to handle all of it: painting the room, shooting the ennemy team members and using the recoil to jump fly around, but very fun to try, and that challenge is what make it shine.
pixel graphics are good and game is very responsive and recoil feels mostly right on the spot.
The slow down of bullet of the gun when low charge and the stun effect are frustrating, but well what it must be to make you think to avoid them. (I first thought would have been nice to have more GUI feedback for those effect and know exactly when they start/end, but partial unknow of the end of the stun effect tend to become less with a bit of practice the timing start to become a bit known and it charge up the excitment to get back in the game; which would be perhaps less with a visual)
GG for the AI, it feels really good challengers !
NB.
there is a glitch from time to time with the painting surface being not on spot with the walls (not sure if it as to do with my setup - I have 2 screens or is it the alt+tab use )
and from time to time crashes:

Third place : Weird Space by @Humayun
Graphics are nice. The game mechanics feels good. sounds right. really feel I'm driving a shuttle in space.

But there is one thing that really kill it. The deadly fast asteroids. those which move fast enough that you can't do much to avoid them and just kill you (weel it's kinda realistic, but not fairplay ). Also the lost control, mission is impossible (at least for me). Once I stop whirling like a spinning top and start slowing down I always cross asteroid and explode. (funny fact that you can pass through asteroids when fast enough, but when you have less speed you explode^^)

There is good variety touch in the missions (and a usefull possibility to pass them if necessary ) even if most at the end rely on the driving of the space rocket.

honestly without the deadly fast wandering asteroids it could have been an winning jam entry.


Best ofs:

Best Use of theme: Recoil on Asteroids by @Alice
Best Concept:Paint Bonanza by @Bingdom, @Iodine, @Ninety
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by @Jacob V, @Cloaked Games
Best Story: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by @Misty
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
2. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
3. Weird Space by Humayun
4. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
5. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
6. Newton's Axiom by meseta
7. Impulse by Siolfor the Jackal
8. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
9. Yor Game by Micah_DS
10. Super Power by The M
11. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
12. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
13. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
14. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
15. F is M times Apple by Tom Edwards
16. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
17. Retreadz by HayManMarc
18. Relative Fray by Yokcos
19. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
20. Buttman by Phynam
21. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
22. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
23. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
24. Untitled by Bentley
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Comments:
cross reading my comments, feels I'm a bit bitter, sorry in advance

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
   (20)
   woaw. Really well polished. With some nice details like the candle animation. cool ambiant music. mechanic of the recoil is good. Quite a number of varied ennemies and levels !
   Didn't finish the game (get stuck to the level starting with the lock chamber with the black guard and 2 light swordman, than the floating light guy and the killing - at least for me - section with all the light circular saws and you have to fly all along from one recharging globe to another.
   
   p.s.
   would be nice to allow full screen mode. It's really annoying (sometime even deadly) when you go near the border of the screen and have to LMB. I easily clicked more then once ouside the window and then game lost focus. The time I panic-replace the cursor just in the window could be to late
   
2. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
   (11)
   excellent 2d painting battle game. A bit challenging to handle all of it: painting the room, shooting the ennemy team members and using the recoil to jump fly around, but very fun to try, and that challenge is what make it shine.
   pixel graphics are good and game is very responsive and recoil feels mostly right on the spot.
   The slow down of bullet of the gun when low charge and the stun effect are frustrating, but well what it must be to make you think to avoid them. (I first thought would have been nice to have more GUI feedback for those effect and know exactly when they start/end, but partial unknow of the end of the stun effect tend to become less with a bit of practice the timing start to become a bit known and it charge up the excitment to get back in the game; which would be perhaps less with a visual)
   GG for the AI, it feels really good challengers !
   NB.
   there is a glitch from time to time with the painting surface being not on spot with the walls (not sure if it as to do with my setup - I have 2 screens or is it the alt+tab use )
   and from time to time crashes:
   ___________________________________________
   
3. Weird Space by Humayun
   (12)
   Graphics are nice. The game mechanics feels good. sounds right. really feel I'm driving a shuttle in space.
   
   But there is one thing that really kill it. The deadly fast asteroids. those which move fast enough that you can't do much to avoid them and just kill you (weel it's kinda realistic, but not fairplay ). Also the lost control, mission is impossible (at least for me). Once I stop whirling like a spinning top and start slowing down I always cross asteroid and explode. (funny fact that you can pass through asteroids when fast enough, but when you have less speed you explode^^)
   
   There is good variety touch in the missions (and a usefull possibility to pass them if necessary ) even if most at the end rely on the driving of the space rocket.
   
   honestly without the deadly fast wandering asteroids it could have been an winning jam entry.
   
   
4. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
   (19)
   Funny little repair game.
   the handling of the movement are a bit hard to master and when you are hit by an asteroid it just goes wild. ( drunk you said )
   A little more polish on the balance of the game could have go a long way (or just my skill of repairman that are lacking). is it possible to repair the station all before being destroyed ? as repair doesn't repair the health, if you count the time spent getting wild because of an asteroid hit I never manage to get the full station repaired.
   Also a few minor bug (from time to time an asteroid or the atroneer can be stuck to the station)
5. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
   
   (24)
   arkanoid with a little twist
   Again a game using the recoil machanism. But here we have something more. The projectiles stay in motion until they hit something
   some neat feature like a mini-map to try to watch whats coming. And record of my score.
   graphic are simple, but they do the job fare enough.
   
6. Newton's Axiom by meseta
   (18)
   Great sandbox fight and mine in space.
   Nice graphics and the AI that manage the ships do a great job. Is it possible to buy the higher tier ship ?!?, to many losses that require to refill the small fighters constantly make it really grinding (in fact most of time, get a huge drawback if I don't die when meeting to big ennemy ship at one time or in row that often make it mostly impossible to recover before next big ship.
   
7. Impulse by Siolfor the Jackal
   (1)
   I like the funny touch use of the theme, the hero being in a wheelchair and using his firearm to propulse himself around and incidentally kill ennemies
   yeh I make it safe to the bunker
   first impression of the intro screen, being just text scrolling... feels a bit cheap (but at least, you manage to put it in)
   mechnanics is simple but works fine. Even if sometimes it's frustrating to handle: going back when firing at ennemies, or when flying you just fall if you try to shoot at the flying ennemies XD. It's finally kinda part of the challenge.
   
   a small bug with the pause menu seems it doesn't work in 2nd and 3rd level.
   
8. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
   Yeh Star Trek
   OK content. Not shiny and full polished, but good enough to keep me entertained and to appeal me enough to go through 2/3 of the rooms despite a few deaths (ok, well a lot of them^^ against speckles ).
   The gun jumping mechanism can be very tricky to master.
   
   
9. Yor Game by Micah_DS
   (17)
   puzzle mechanics is interesting. It would have been great to have more levels with better difficulty ladder.
   
   I didn't find the solution to last puzzle (very frustrating to end with only one last green box with no way to move it on its spot XD )
10. Super Power by The M
    (16)
    Interesting interpretation of the theme.
    Seems I'm not skilled to govern. I got renversed by my people each time.
    Fun to nuke the blue nation, but didn't help to win. And mind control seems to really upset my people even more XD
    except doing nothing, doesn't seems to have a way to win, well doing nothing doesn't really give a win but you avoid the game over ^^ (didn't really test all the possible strategy so)
11. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
    (2)
    second game to use recoil as a mechanic. It's fine, the unbalance add to the challenge. I mean if I don't fire it seems like the guy just fall like a stone so you'd better to stay active. To be honest once you get the trick of alterning the firing up and down, and most importantly abusing firing horizontally keeping you on a side at the same height. It's quite easy to reach the end.
    
    NB: I got a very strange bug, I need to alt+tab and re alt+tab, to leave fullscreen and switch focus on an other window and come back to get the game to run at 144fps (alt-ret to switch window mode and back to fullscreen doesn't do the trick)
    
    -- my first impression below --
    Sincerly for me the concept is killed by a framerate bug. In fullscreen mode on my PC [win10, nvidia 1080, pentium i7-6850k] the framerate is max 20-25 and easly drop to 3-5 making the game really hard to play and enjoy (and the change of pace adds up to the difficulty). trying to restart the game doesn't help. In window mode, well, game is fluid and much faster, my problem is that my mouse easly go out of the screen (happened a lot when you are near the bottom, when you certainly don't want to loose the focus and miss the shot that prevent you from falling down out the screen )
    
    
    83 killed - 86 ennemies - 14 best combo
12. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
    (9)
    Very enjoyable prototype. The mechanic is simple but works well.
    
    highest: 5 (I'm not really good at chasing the AI -_-')
13. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
    (7)
    Nice little random level generator. But for me it missing the part that make rogue-like game entertaining: collecting the loots and upgrading my character.
    I didn't manage to kill all the logs so, I don't know if there is more to see :-/
    
    p.s.
    there is a glitch when the character is behind a single wall, I see his shadow and shoes
14. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
    (22)
    So very old school 3D not only graphically, those top of the notch menu animation and even gameplay way
    and full game, with full setting (remap keys <3) select level and all.
    Hard to get its way around to be honest (I didn't manage to finish any level. sometime hard to manage to reach the highest floors and find all the flags )
    
    
15. F is M times Apple by Tom Edwards
    (8)
    Little game, just avoid the apples (except the gold ones). Would have been nice to have the rule, than having to guess them through tries and errors.
    Rapidly I just get a wall of falling apples and I couldn't do anything that get the game over screen.
    
    4350
16. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
    (10)
    Nice little balistic game.
    to be honest as the AI gain perfect shot it feels a bit unbalanced.
    Also mechanics is a bit flawfull. Move near the ennemy and fire straight to it. Kinda kill the balistic part of it ;oP
    would have been better with a rift or a small hill to separate the opponents and force the balistic game.
17. Retreadz by HayManMarc
    (23)
    lol, lol, funny weird ninja. I had a good laugh at least.
    The game mechanic is funny. Doesn't make full sens. I mean catching water melon while unkillable ninja attack you and destroy some basic physics sort of building to catch some watermelon that allow you to get teleported to next level .
18. Relative Fray by Yokcos
    (21)
    Ok space shump.
    Mechanically it works, but it misses the little extra and polish to get the thrills of the fight.
    For me it feels a bit weird, the fact I move faster then the projectiles and also not having the background not really moving faster when accelerating in one direction or another. Just moving relatively to the ennemy ships and projectiles.
    
19. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
    (15)
    *rage quit at level 2*
    Impossible to have the boxes to really slow down (I mean put their speed at 0 not just pressing the space bar for a temporary slow down effect so I could protect the astronner from spikes). Don't even speak about to manage to control the move of the astroneer with those boxes. And if you add to that spikes that insta-kill the astroneer with a funny S corridor with a good bunch of those spikes. Well good luck!
    I clearly didn't have the skills to play the game; or I'm missing something ? (else the difficulty is insane and rely more of incredible luck)
    
    the concept of having to manage some floating boxes around to press button and guide an astroneer souds interesting and have lot of potential.
    
20. Buttman by Phynam
    
    (14)
    the learn the long/infinite level by heart type are often on an edge with me. Or I'm all in or all out. That one was a I'm out. (4 tries and I was done.)
    To repeat again and again the same sequence, for me, means at least that sequence needs to feel good, to look good, the controls be responsive, etc...
    And when you start you don't know which one you can hit and those you need to avoid, that make a lot of failure every time you encounter a new animal to know what to do. To unfairly punishing for my taste. (just 1 line to explain that in the readme would have help a lot ! because the readme give their weight not if you can hit them or not, or they must be lighter then me?!.)
21. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
    graphics are basic.
    The control mechanism is... from an other world. quite a challenge to master, as when the ball is moving or the mouse relative to each other so do the direction of the force.
    And when a fast big ball it your ball it's hurt a lot (yeh bad pun). half the time the hit through you quite far away and half chance the relative position mouse-ball is inversed so are the a&D forces and holf chance I'm going to reflex press the wrong one.
    best strategy: Just pray to not be hit to hard^_^
    At the end it felt to me that my score was more the result of chance than my skills :-/
22. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
    (3)
    ^^ unluckily for you, my headset decided to stay unresponsive when I started your game. I had to go through a hard reset and a firmware update to get it back. It's kinda killed the mood... so I gave up pretty fast in game.
    
    jump
    
    JUMP
    
    JJ UU UU MMMMM PPPPP
    JJ UU UU M M M PP PP
    JJ UU UU M M M PPPPP
    JJ UU UU M M M PP
    JJJJ UUUUU M M M PP
    
    Perhaps I got it wrong. But for me sensitivity need some adjustment (some settings for that would have been nice). I don't know, tried with and without noise reduction, and changing volume of my microphone, but I couldn't have a nice predictible jumping. Wich is kinda a big problem in a jumping platform game.
    Sorry didn't go far, after a bunch of failed jump, I got bored pretty fast and gave up. At least it cool to see someone trying something with a different input device.
23. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
    (6)
    bugged ? unfinished ?
    I couldn't do anything that go south and then get stuck in the second room.
24. Untitled by Bentley
    (4)
    Despite the warning I tried to play it.
    
    multiple crashes and also you can get stuck in corners.
    ___________________________________________
    
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra
    (13)
    maybe... I could buy the maybe DLC? or not (doesn't feel to worth it).

 

Reviews​

Top 3:

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Polished, atmospheric, and just all around excellent. With such a high level of polish overall, there are some minor blemishes that stand out – some things could use more feedback, like hitting some enemies, and refilling energy with the orb thingies, and I actually missed checkpoints a few times. I think they could as well have been auto-activated when running past them, to be honest.
I didn't beat the final boss – that attack when he shoots a ****ton of projectiles at you horizontally was just too much for me. I think it would have worked if it was telegraphed better, then I've would actually have had enough time to react (and let the energy bar replenish), as it is now it happens a bit too abruptly.
The dual-purpose attack/boost works really well (and is a decent use of the theme, too). I especially like how attacking those first, small sword-wielding enemies means you *both* damage them and get a boost to avoid their counter-attack.

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
Very fun game, although it could use some more variation. Pretty challenging, and a great base mechanic. Would be fun to see this developed into a slightly larger web or mobile game. The artwork is great!

Yor Game by Micah_DS
Fun (but short) puzzle game. I love that little jiggle the wall blocks do when you hit them, looks so good! Bit weird to have music in the menu, but none in-game.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Best Concept: Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Story: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
2. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
3. Yor Game by Micah_DS
4. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
5. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
6. Weird Space by Humayun
7. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
8. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
9. Retreadz by HayManMarc
10. Satellites by sylvain_l
11. Newton's Axiom by meseta
12. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
13. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
14. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
15. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
16. Super Power by The M
17. Relative Fray by Yokcos
18. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
19. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
20. Buttman by Phynam
21. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
22. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
23. Untitled by Bentley
24. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Comments:

Spoiler

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Well, what can I say.

AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg

Kind of cool concept, but explained poorly (took me a while to even figure out I could sling around boxes), and the second level is way too hard.

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax

Very fun game, although it could use some variation. Pretty challenging, and a great base mechanic. Would be fun to see this developed into a slightly larger web or mobile game. The artwork is great!

Buttman by Phynam

Okay runner game. It's hard to tell what animals I can run into, and which I have to avoid. I don't really like how the player character is centered on the screen. It would be better to have more space to the right, where all the interesting stuff happens.

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf

Good game. I like the old-school 3D aesthetic, and the vertical movement aspect which I didn't really expect. Turning is way too fast, though, there's no precision at all which makes aiming nearly impossible. I was also a bit confused as to how to get specials, and what the purpose of those sparks were. I was also disappointed that nothing at all happened after collecting all flags.

Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman

Fun idea, but a bit too frustrating. The bounce is rather excessive, and there doesn't seem to be any way to stop the large asteroids, so they're basically just a randomized (?) timer.

F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards

Very basic game. It's okay, but not terribly fun. I like the squashy effect when you land. Not sure what the point of having Newton face the mouse was when the mouse isn't actually used for anything else, would have made more sense to just have him face the direction of movement.

Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment

Really cool idea but jump height is very hard to control. I almost seem to get "hit" and die by those spinning hammers even when I'm very clearly not visibly colliding with them, so I couldn't get past that bit. Can't really see any theme usage here, either, but maybe I just didn't get far enough into the game.

Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal

Decent game with good use of the theme. I feel like you often have way too little time to react when an enemy is rolling towards you. It would have been nice if the camera was a bit ahead of the player character – currently, it looks like it's actually the opposite way, so that you see *less* in the direction of travel than you do behind.
I couldn't use the in-game (Esc.) menu for some reason (I could only resume), nor could I Alt-Enter out of fullscreen. So quitting was a bit harder than it should be.

Newton's Axiom by meseta

Incredibly confusing when I'm just thrown into the game without any kind of instructions, tutorial or even a readme file. I had no idea what the point of the game was, what were enemies and what were allies, or even who I played as. Once i started to figure some of these things out, though, I did start to enjoy the game. I found it hard to tell whether I had hit or missed an enemy. The game looks great, though, with the trails and particle effects.

Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

Seems like I just can't move, or do anything at all, after arriving in the second room? I guess you just ran out of time, like many others. Game seemed promising, though. Surprisingly good voice acting.

Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira

Okay little roguelike. Art is great. I actually never managed to make it past the first floor (except by pressing space ). I never saw an exit, so am I supposed to kill every single log? That's not really all that fun, there isn't *that* much variation in enemies and encounters. It also seems like it's impossible to kill exploding logs without dying when north of them? Thats's.... kind of dumb. I do like the overall idea of those sleeping logs, where you can tell if they're Law 1 or Law 2 logs once you've got a grip of the game mechanics.
Drops from enemies seem to just fall down, without giving me a chance to pick them up. Even if I'm standing right in their path.

Newton's Tanks by Zodaris

Okay game, but not terribly exciting. Sandbox mode was more fun than vs A.I, to be honest (though I never tried playing the main game with two players). I don't really like how you can just move all the way to the other tank to make aiming trivial. Obviously this isn't really a smart strategy if you want to avoid getting destroyed yourself, but it's actually somewhat viable against the AI, who will miss every now and then even under those circumstances. I also don't really like how the wind changes between every turn, that makes it very hard to adapt your aim over time. It would make sense in a harder difficulty mode, if there was one, though.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

Fun game. The masking of the paint-splats brok eafter I had won two rounds (and return to the first map). Never really understood the differences between the two shooting modes (and there doesn't seem to be any indication of which one is currently active, either). Art is pretty good, too.

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice

An okay take on Asteroids. Pretty good audiovisually, except for the white-circle asteroids. Even with the minimap, it's confusing that the carrot's bullets wrap around the edges of the game area, since you only see a small part of the play area at once – it took a while until I even relized they were just my own bullets, and not fired by asteroids somehow.

Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot

Another recoil-based game. It's okay, even if it didn't engage me for a particularly long time. Art is actually pretty good, even if it's very, very simple. For a 3 hour game, it's rather impressive.

Relative Fray by Yokcos

Okay game, but pretty unoriginal. I like the graphics.

Retreadz by HayManMarc

Pretty fun game. Nice physics and explosions. Could use some more sound effects, although the music is good at least.

Satellites by sylvain_l

The font is really hard to read. It works great for the title, but it's a terrible fit for the tutorial.
I like the concept, launching satellites into a stable orbit. However, I didn't really find the game all that much fun. I never understood terminator mode – how can it be about destroying as much satellites as possible, when I lose the game when a satellite is destroyed?

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games

Polished, atmospheric, and just all around excellent. With such a high level of polish overall, there are some minor blemishes that stand out – some things could use more feedback, like hitting some enemies, and refilling energy with the orb thingies, and I actually missed checkpoints a few times. I think they could as well have been auto-activated when running past them, to be honest.
I didn't beat the final boss – that attack when he shoots a ****ton of projectiles at you horizontally was just too much for me. I think it would have worked if it was telegraphed better, then I've would actually have had enough time to react (and let the energy bar replenish), as it is now it happens a bit too abruptly.
The dual-purpose attack/boost works really well (and is a decent use of the theme, too). I especially like how attacking those first, small sword-wielding enemies means you *both* damage them and get a boost to avoid their counter-attack.

Super Power by The M

Really confusing. I don't even know what the goal of the game is, and that makes the menu options very overwhelming. It was also not at all obvious at first that I played as Red Nation. I'll be honest, this isn't really my kind of game in the first place, but when they additionally contain no tutorial, documentation, or anything that actually helps me understand how to even play it... That doesn't exactly help. It's understandable, given the time constraints, but it means I can't really enjoy it.

The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty

Good game! Pacing is good, there's a nice balance between platforming, normal combat and boss battles. Physics are a bit funky at times, but it works. I was a bit confused initially, as I assumed I propelled myself by using recoil, rather than by the explosions created when hitting solid stuff. I figured out it out pretty quickly, but it could have been clearer.
There are some times when you're thrown into (deadly) action way too abruptly – such as when seeing your first and second friends (I never made it as far as the third one). It's especially bad when there's also text to read – imo, dialogue (well, technically monologue in this case) like that should pretty much only be displayed during "safe" sections, when you can actually read it without getting killed. I also feel like the distance between checkpoints is a little too long, especially in those cases I mentioned when I found my death pretty unfair.

Visuals are not much to hang in the christmas tree, as we say in Sweden. But it works, and the game is definitely still very much enjoyable, despite its overall unpolishedness.

Untitled by Bentley

Unpolished and unfinished, but still rather cool and enjoyable. I like the freeform terrain. Was kind of unclear whether I had beaten or lost the game each time I reached the right edge of the room.

Weird Space by Humayun

Good game, but way too hard in my opinion. The ambient audio makes the whole game very immersive, and I really like the radar for some reason.

Yor Game by Micah_DS

Fun puzzle. I love that little jiggle the wall blocks do when you hit them, looks so good! Bit weird to have music in the menu, but none in-game.

 

Votes​

Top 3:

The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Cool use of rocketjumping that got better with each upgrade. The level design was nice too. The boss fight with Notspock was frustrating but good, he had too much health in my opinion though.
The art was... well it wasn't good, there were a few sections where the tiles just looked deformed and ugly and sometimes the cursor was a bit hard to see. But the cinematic feel of a lot of it made me not mind so much, I really dug how well you do that.
Sounds were a bit annoying but mine probably aren't much better.
I totally forgot by the end that it started off in the shuttle... that part was ok but I think having the rocks collide with each other would have made it more interesting.
Overall I think this was a pretty solid use of the theme, you seemed to incorporate the laws in to all elements of the game which was great.

Yor Game by Micah_DS
I ran off screen and it exited(crashed?). Intentional?
Anyway, this was pretty simple but addictive... I spent far longer on the last level than I care to admit... I was one block away once, so frustrating!
I liked the sprites and effects, some more sound and music would have been nice.

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
Nice solid entry. I loved the minimap, but eventually it just became a blur of orange for me haha.
It controlled really nicely and it was a good spin on Asteroids. I truly loved zipping around in a sea of treasure.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Best Concept: Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Story: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
2. Yor Game by Micah_DS
3. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
4. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
5. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
6. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
7. Newton's Axiom by meseta
8. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
9. Weird Space by Humayun
10. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
11. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
12. Retreadz by HayManMarc
13. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
14. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
15. Satellites by sylvain_l
16. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
17. Super Power by The M
18. Relative Fray by Yokcos
19. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
20. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
21. Buttman by Phynam
22. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
23. Untitled by Bentley
24. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Comments:

Spoiler

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra

Joke game I suppose?

AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg

Liked the idea of the mechanic but it made no sense to me. Sometimes the guy would change direction when I move a box despite the box being nowhere near him and that made it annoying. The hitboxes were maybe too big too, as sometimes it would look like he hadn't hit a thing before colliding with it.
The sprites were nice, but I completely missed the controls at first because the only mention of them is that tiny sprite on the first level that is barely legible.

Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax

Presentation was great, everything looked really nice. The sprites were good too.
Gameplay was a bit interesting but it seemed like enemies spawned in the game area instead of outside most of the time so sometimes I would get hit by those and that didn't seem all that fair.
Fun and a bit addictive.

Buttman by Phynam

Can't even read the title screen because of your colour choices.
The art was so bad... The game didn't really make any sense either, why was I crashing into animals? and why was the giraffe so disproportionally large? There was no indication in-game on what I could run into so I hit a building and got game over.

DriftWar by Dr. Wolf

Cool setting and story, and impressive that you made a 3D entry.
Whilst the drifting around was sort of cool and made me a little nostalgic for Hover!, it got annoying quickly when I tried to actually navigate the level.
The jumping didn't feel good, I think I would have preferred you not include it and make the levels flat instead.
I think for a jam game, making a big pdf for how to play was not a great decision. A short line or two explaining the goal in the readme or in the game itself would have been better.
The turning may have been too sensitive or that may have just been me, but I had a lot of trouble trying to line up enemies to shoot.
All that said, I did enjoy some of the little things like the floor lights that really gave the 3D effect something nice.

Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman

Cool idea. I liked the art, the repair effect on the individual parts of the ship was really well done.
It was very difficult to control though, but I suppose maybe that was the point. I gave up after about 4-5 attempts.
It took me a minute to understand how to control myself, I wasn't exactly sure where the thrust was being applied, maybe some sort of visual indication would have been a good addition.

F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards

Sprites were animated well(why was it facing the cursor though?)
Had to guess the controls and the goal, not very much fun though.

Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment

Don't have a microphone.

Newton's Axiom by meseta

It was interesting flying through space pillaging planets(asteroids?) of their resources.
But the lack of sounds or direction made it feel really empty and boring.
The units movement and AI looked great, I really dug that.

Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

Started off strong with some good presentation and art and sound, but then I pushed a rock and went to a room where I couldn't move.

Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira

The parts that worked were good. Movement was a little buggy(stuck in walls sometimes) and the attack seemed to work ok. I think the enemy flashing timer was too long/slow but no big deal. There were also some issues with depth, I noticed when running along a bottom wall, the player shadow would clip though.
Not really feeling the theme in this, but that's understandable.
Oh yeah, the stuff that enemies dropped would just fly off the screen and I don't even know what chests were supposed to do.

Newton's Tanks by Zodaris

Good idea, I have played a tonne of these sort of games over the years and I don't remember many offering the option to move which I think is a nice addition.
Though, having the game take place on a flat plain made it less interesting for me. Also the lack of any sound at all was a bit disappointing.
I still think this was a very solid entry.

Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety

So firstly, the art and music were great, I really enjoyed that a lot. The title screen was nice, and the in-game sprites and backgrounds and effects were great. There was a lot of polish here.
But the game itself was a bit boring... The cooldown really ruined it for me, took all the fun out of the mechanic. Then the rest was just a boring 2D Splatoon I think. It wasn't clear what I was supposed to do, kill enemies or paint the walls?
The AI was well done, it was nice having a team v team setting with bots that works.

Recoil on Asteroids by Alice

Nice solid entry. I loved the minimap, but eventually it just became a blur of orange for me haha.
It controlled really nicely and it was a good spin on Asteroids. I truly loved zipping around in a sea of treasure.

Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot

Fun I guess. Might have made a good MP game if there was more to it.

Relative Fray by Yokcos

I liked the menu and chill music, no credits so I don't know if you made the music(or even the art).
I can't really see any kind of implementation of the theme here at all, and the game was aimless and boring.
The space effects were great, the coloured clouds and stuff, really nice.

Retreadz by HayManMarc

I loved the sprites and the how the tank controlled, that felt really good.
The bombs didn't seem to do much but knock the ninjas away and there was nothing I could do once they got behind me which got a little annoying a couple of times.
Pea shooter did nothing... so why was it even there?
Not really sure if this fit the theme.
Oh, also, no credits for the music? I recognised it straight away as an Anamanaguchi track...
None of this made sense to me hahaha, a tank shoots bombs and peas, fighting ninjas and collecting watermelons... XD


Satellites by sylvain_l

The presentation was great, the menu and in-game art were really well done.
I didn't get the significance of the apple in the context of this, and moving the planet around seemed like a weird mechanic.
The actual game was fun for like a minute, not really that exciting.
That said, it controlled really well and the orbiting satellites and gravity was very impressive.

Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games

The sprites and backgrounds were great, really well done. The effects were really nice too.
The platforming was good, but I feel like the combat was a bit dull. My main issue was lack of feedback, I wasn't really sure if I was doing any damage.
The main boss was difficult but well designed. I couldn't tell how effective I was or if I was even hitting him though, but his increased aggressiveness kind of hinted I was doing something at the very least. I didn't end up beating him(that horizontal assault attack thing was brutal).
The music had the right vibe but I wasn't really feeling it. Sound effects felt a bit off too.
A very well made game though.

Super Power by The M

Game looked nice, the UI was great. Wasn't all the much fun to play and obviously missing features.

The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn

Interesting game. I couldn't really get the hang of it though, controls were weird.
It looked nice and I liked the sound effects and how they were affected by your velocity.

The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty

Cool use of rocketjumping that got better with each upgrade. The level design was nice too. The boss fight with Notspock was frustrating but good, he had too much health in my opinion though.
The art was... well it wasn't good, there were a few sections where the tiles just looked deformed and ugly and sometimes the cursor was a bit hard to see. But the cinematic feel of a lot of it made me not mind so much, I really dug how well you do that.
Sounds were a bit annoying but mine probably aren't much better.
I totally forgot by the end that it started off in the shuttle... that part was ok but I think having the rocks collide with each other would have made it more interesting.
Overall I think this was a pretty solid use of the theme, you seemed to incorporate the laws in to all elements of the game which was great.

Untitled by Bentley

Not sure what to make of this since it is so unfinished. Looked like it could have been fun.

Weird Space by Humayun

I liked how the ship controlled even though I sucked at it. It was very well done.
The only reason I gave up so quickly is because I didn't want to re-read all the text at the start again...

Yor Game by Micah_DS

I ran off screen and it exited(crashed?). Intentional?
Anyway, this was pretty simple but addictive... I spent far longer on the last level than I care to admit... I was one block away once, so frustrating!
I liked the sprites and effects, some more sound and music would have been nice.

 

Reviews​

Top 3:
Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Well, what can I say...decent graphics, good sound effects and music, responsive controls, good level design with a fairly smooth learning curve, story was appropriate for how much I saw of it.
I think I got quite far on my first attempt, past the first boss room, then the jumping around the saw blades with the recharging orbs, up to the next dude that you have to speak to. Unfortunately, I triggered the talking to the guy, but there was still an enemy alive, and he knocked me into the next room. Somehow I must have been still in the chat mode, because my character was just standing there and not responding to any controls, but I couldnt proceed. The dude I was talking to was in the previous room, so I couldnt press E to finish the dialog.
I tried a second play through but got stuck on the saw blade section and had to stop because running out of time.
Good game, well done.
The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
I liked the music, presentation and graphics. Gameplay matched the theme well.
Clearly a lot of effort has gone into this game and it is polished given the limited time frame of the jam.
I got stuck on the curved ramp for about 5 minutes which was a steep "ramp" in difficulty curve for this part of the game.
I got to step 11, and after killing the monks, I simply could not make the jump up to the top level. After spending about 10 minutes on this part of the game, I unfortunately could not spend any more time on it, as I would have liked to see this through to the end.
For the parts that I did get to play, I think its a very well done and complete game. The shooting mechanics and sound effects were satisfying, in fact I really enjoyed blowing up asteroids in the lander, which could have been a game in itself.
Well done.
Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Great presentation, graphics, sounds effects all really well done.
At first I wasn't sure what the goal was, I thought it was kill count but then worked out it was paint coverage I think.
Played a few times but couldnt quite win the level.
Fun game, nice idea using the paint, the mechanic is an entertaining way to make a mess and get rewarded for it.
Theme usage was good, like the weapon being used for movement as well. Perhaps a little tricky given the speed of the game to control player accurately, got a little annoyed sometimes when i was trying to move somewhere and was taken out by the other team, but otherwise fun game and well polished.
Best ofs:
Best use of Theme: The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
Best Concept: Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
Best Presentation: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Story: Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Best Devlog: ...
Full ranking:

Spoiler

1. Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
2. The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
3. Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
4. DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
5. Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
6. Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
7. Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
8. Retreadz by HayManMarc
9. Newton's Axiom by meseta
10. Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
11. Weird Space by Humayun
12. Yor Game by Micah_DS
13. Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
14. The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
15. Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
16. Super Power by The M
17. Newton's Laws of Roguelike by Guilherme Oliveira
18. F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
19. Relative Fray by Yokcos
20. Buttman by Phynam
21. Untitled by Bentley
22. Satellites by sylvain_l
23. Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
24. AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
25. 3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra
26. Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic

Comments:

Spoiler

3D videocard throttling mega Newton game by orSQUADstra
Short and sweet, contains the exact definitions for Newtons Laws so gets a point for following the theme literally.
I think the only thing missing is a 5-10 minute game over cut-scene explaining what happens after the game is completed.
AstroNewt(on) by Willisburg
Not a bad concept, but gosh darn that second level. I don't see how I could get the robot past those spikes and to the door without killing him. Pressing the buttons was ok once I figured out I could drag the blocks to change their direction, and slow down time effect was cool.
Billy's Nightmare by Lazertrax
Very cute graphics for what is billed as a nightmare.
Good presentation, music and sound effects.
A little to easy to end up dropping off the bottom of the screen. If I had a dollar for everytime I started the game and promptly propelled myself down and out of the screen within half a second, I'd have enough to buy a couple of pairs of new socks. Managed to find a way to hug the wall and shoot sideways at enemies while adjusting height up and down carefully to dodge them, otherwise difficulty seemed a little high unless I'm missing some aspect of the gameplay.
Nice for what was there, but was a little difficult to play for very long.
DriftWar by Dr. Wolf
The program can't start because vcruntime140d.dll is missing from your computer when loading game.
Game proceeded to run however.
I collected all the flags on level one, but it seemed like the game didnt take me to level 2.
Controls were smooth, 3d graphics were well done, although I felt the camera perspective seemed stretched somehow and the perception of movement speed appeared to go up and down depending on which direction I was facing relative to my velocity.
I enjoyed the challenge of jumping to higher and higher levels to find more flags.
Menus offered a wide range of customisations which was a pleasant touch for a jam game.
Theme was defintely in play here, with the tank sliding all over the place and requiring delicate touches of the controls to navigate.
Overall a good base of a game. I feel it might have benefitted from a few more placement of static objects within the levels to help make orientating oneself within the 3d space of the world easier.
Also thought the Manual was well put together with detailed information and well-written extra back story which fleshed out the game world.
Drunk Cosmonaut by rio85, Daniel Zimmerman
Cool pixel graphics, main character was responsive and a little crazy to control, definitely capturing the drunken cosmonaut feeling.
Couldnt figure out how to repair the station, so unfortunately wasn't able to get very far.
F = M * Apple by Tom Edwards
Nice interpretation of Newton's law, and having the main character as Newton himself was a great touch. Golden apples to restore lives, black apples instant death, and the score in what I guess is Newtons.
Game got rapidly out of control, with hundreds of apples spawning making it impossible to dodge after about a minute.
Smooth controls, colourful graphics, just needed some extra gameplay balancing and it would make a decent casual game. Could have used a few sound effects as well.
Gimbo The Ghost by RargraveEntertainment
Gimbo the Ghost - A potentially fun entry, where our hero responds to voice input from the microphone in order to make jumps.
Unfortunately, Gimbo was being naughty, I was only able to clear the first jump, Gimbo refused to jump high enough to make the second platform and thusly fell to his doom several times, despite my trying shouting, whistling, pleading, begging, and reciting poems. None of which could inspire poor Gimbo to leap across the bottomless chasm.
Music was nice, art style clean and functional, and Gimbo was cute but ultimately rebellious Ghost which prevented me from playing any further.
Impulse: Out of Time by Siolfor the Jackal
Great intro and menu, atmospheric sound track, special effects were ok too.
Quite possibly the first "injured time-travel cop in a gun propelled wheel-chair" game I've ever played.
Controls were great, loved the main character, enemies seemed a bit tough. The levels unfortunately let down the main gameplay for me. I understand its a jam game, but the plain black walls and difficult to navigate mazelike level was a shame compared to the colourful main character. I found 29 out of 30 crystals on the 2nd level before being killed and that was enough for me.
Newton's Axiom by meseta
I liked the fleet of ships, mining asteroids for resources was cool. Not sure if there was an end goal to the game, not much indication if there was.
Sadly lacking in sound, would have made a big difference.
Looked interesting, needed more gameplay and/or a direction/goal.
Good start of what could be a great space/mining/combat game.
Newton's Cave by Landon, PixelTitan, OverLogic
Fantastic atmospheric intro and sound effects, top notch voice acting, a bit of a physics puzzle at the start pushing the rock onto the button and then on the second room could no longer move the player.
Touching the door even when it was closed took me to the second room and still couldnt proceed unfortunately, after what looked like a promising start.
Newton's Tanks by Zodaris
Well implemented classic tank game. Well done for doing the ballistic calculations yourself. Presentation was functional and tidy, perhaps could use a bit of shine but perfectly fine for a jam.
Practise mode is a nice addition, I would have liked to have seen the trajectory of the bullet drawn based on my current settings to get a good feel for where i am shooting.
Matches the theme well, and the wind of course makes for a good extra challenge.
I think it would benefit from some obstacles between the tanks. As it was, I could just aim a flat angle at full power and hit every time, and even move right up close to the enemy and make the kill basically face to face.
Also when I was up close, the wind would blow the enemies shot back at them sometimes, another thing could have been to let the bullets injure the perosn/ai that launched them for some funny moments.
Paint Bonanza by Bingdom, Iodine, Ninety
Great presentation, graphics, sounds effects all really well done.
At first I wasn't sure what the goal was, I thought it was kill count but then worked out it was paint coverage I think.
Played a few times but couldnt quite win the level.
Fun game, nice idea using the paint, the mechanic is an entertaining way to make a mess and get rewarded for it.
Theme usage was good, like the weapon being used for movement as well. Perhaps a little tricky given the speed of the game to control player accurately, got a little annoyed sometimes when i was trying to move somewhere and was taken out by the other team, but otherwise fun game and well polished.
Recoil on Asteroids by Alice
Good game. Had an odd desire to eat carrots afterwards.
Recoil-schmecoil by ghandpivot
Fun game. I initially played it only using the mouse and gun recoil to move around ( I forgot to read the readme ). Then I noticed the AI being able to move around without using the gun recoil and it dawned on me I could also use keys to move around.
I think the game is slightly improved when the only thing used for movement is the gun recoil, it adds to the challenge.
Sounds effects were adequate, would like to have them be a bit more meaty / louder / a bit more juice to them. The player death sound was kind of funny.
It got really tense when trying to beat my high score, I would start out gung-ho but as I approached the high score, I would tend to get a lot more cautious so as not to be killed. Good cat and mouse gameplay, trying to get into a good position.
A strong base for a game, matches theme well, fun to play, lots of potential to add more features / levels / powerups if it was made in to a full game.
Relative Fray by Yokcos
Very impressive background space/nebula type graphics.
Straight forward gameplay, not bad for a jam game, but wasn't enough for me to play for more than a couple of minutes.
Retreadz by HayManMarc
What on earth did I just play?!?!!
Tank vs crazy Ninjas in Hunt for the Magic watermelon.
It was just crazy enough to be fun and funny, those little ninja dudes kept climbing on my tank, little monkeys they were! But I showed them. None shall stop my quest for watermelons!
Was expecting a scorched earth type game, got a lot more than I bargained for.
Short and sweet, lots of potential, a shame there was only 2 levels.
Satellites by sylvain_l
I like the concept, however found it quite difficult to manage once there were 2 or more satellites, would only last a few seconds before they crashed into each other.
Shred of Light by Jacob V, Cloaked Games
Well, what can I say...decent graphics, good sound effects and music, responsive controls, good level design with a fairly smooth learning curve, story was appropriate for how much I saw of it.
I think I got quite far on my first attempt, past the first boss room, then the jumping around the saw blades with the recharging orbs, up to the next dude that you have to speak to. Unfortunately, I triggered the talking to the guy, but there was still an enemy alive, and he knocked me into the next room. Somehow I must have been still in the chat mode, because my character was just standing there and not responding to any controls, but I couldnt proceed. The dude I was talking to was in the previous room, so I couldnt press E to finish the dialog.
I tried a second play through but got stuck on the saw blade section and had to stop because running out of time.
Good game, well done.
The Arena of Flying Balls by Nallebeorn
Good sound effects, solid physics, quite challenging to play.
Felt like a little bit too easy to get knocked out of the arena, player maybe could have had a little more mass to even the playing field.
I found myself always moving to the edges so that the camera would zoom out more, when in the center it was difficult to see what was coming. Perhaps this was to balance the fact that when you are on the edges I was more likely to be knocked out of the circle.
Otherwise good jam game, and matches the theme.
The Mysterious Planet of Newton by Misty
I liked the music, presentation and graphics. Gameplay matched the theme well.
Clearly a lot of effort has gone into this game and it is polished given the limited time frame of the jam.
I got stuck on the curved ramp for about 5 minutes which was a steep "ramp" in difficulty curve for this part of the game.
I got to step 11, and after killing the monks, I simply could not make the jump up to the top level. After spending about 10 minutes on this part of the game, I unfortunately could not spend any more time on it, as I would have liked to see this through to the end.
For the parts that I did get to play, I think its a very well done and complete game. The shooting mechanics and sound effects were satisfying, in fact I really enjoyed blowing up asteroids in the lander, which could have been a game in itself.
Well done.
Untitled by Bentley
I liked the look of this one, and the Tiny Wings on drugs gameplay was quite appealing.
It was amusing how I would accelerate / move faster up slopes than down, at least that's what it felt like.
Got stuck in a lot of strange places, under the snail?, and one time glued to vertical wall after jumping into it.
The potential is there for sure, just needs more time to polish it up, sound effects etc...
Touches on the theme with friction and jumping but doesnt totally embrace it.
Weird Space by Humayun
Phew, that opening music perfectly complimented the games title...I instantly felt weird and in space.
Spaceship obeyed the laws of physics nicely, so good use of theme here. Graphics are well done, with lots of background touches like debris floating through space.
I wasn't sure at some times which debris was harmless, it seems the small and tiny rocks are not dangerous, just the large ones.
I would have liked to see slightly further around me, more zoomed out, I found I had not enough time to course correct if an asteroid appeared on screen and was heading straight toward me.
The variety of missions was great, presenting different physics based challenges and making good use of the mechanics.
One thing that I thought was difficult was the controls of the keys. Constant tapping was required to engage the ships thrusters, would have preferred being able to just hold down the direction keys to apply force.
Otherwise well done, a lot of effort put into the presentation and constructing the missions.