GMC Jam Discussion The Festive GMC Jam 35 - Discussion Topic

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The M

Member
@FrostyCat By now, it's definitely been a lesson, though perhaps moreso a realization that a lot more people than I'd expected use lower resolution monitors. :)I'm curious, do you have some kind of window scaling on? Because 1900 is more than enough width to keep everything fully visible (it was the resolution we made the game in) so if it still breaks, something's not right. You might want to try the fixed version linked above if you'd like to see the whole thing.
 

HayManMarc

Member
Just want to say sorry for my lack of votes and reviews this time. Too much going on and I couldn't motivate myself in this direction. Maybe next time.

However, thanks to all who did! Especially to those reviewers who put in the little extra effort to write critical reviews while also being caring and thoughtful towards the developers' efforts. This is the kind of thing that makes the GMC a great community.
 
M

Misu

Guest
@FrostyCat glad you love my game. And yes the wave system is badly made. I came up with this idea too quickly and did not thought it way thru correctly (you can even tell thru my recorded dev logs on twitch). The crash is due to an infinite loop by the respawning system (It was suppose to fix the issue of ghosts going outside the room boundary ) but I guess that didnt solve it either. I was planning to make a entirely fixed version with a much adjusted progression part (since most of the funny and joke stuff were suppose to be in the larger waves but I guess nobody can even get to wave 8 or 9). However I got my hands really full for this month so probably by the end of this year or January Ill toss in a fixed version with some of those missed out stuff in it. :)
 

Micah_DS

Member
Just barely went over the character limit, so I'm placing the feedback here for all entries aside from top 3 and I'll link to this from my votes post.

Feedback:
Bit Souls by Roa
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
The mechanics aren't anything new, but they make for fun and engaging gameplay. The story told through the old man voice acting was good enough to get me into it.
I guess the theme usage is in the fact that it's fantasy and you use souls to strengthen yourself? It's not a mind-blowing theme use, but it's perfectly valid. Good!

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
It definitely feels a bit rough around the edges on all fronts. It has charm though. The mechanics seem the most polished, and it feels pretty good and balanced, so I think you focused on what mattered and that's why it plays so well, despite the roughness.

ENJOYMENT
I played this far too long. I got to level 15 on my last playthrough and I'm pretty sure I explored everything, flipping all levers, lighting all bonfires, etc.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • In an attempt to put on some 8-bit gaming tunes to play to, I hit escape, naturally expecting it to enter a pause state in which my mouse would be free to open up some music. Alas, it quit.
    I learned to alt-tab after that. Well, I actually accidentally did it again later.
  • Directly following the above, I learned that progress isn't saved to disk, so if you press escape, all is lost.
  • Hiding the mouse cursor during gameplay definitely would've improved presentation.
  • No ending made it a bit less rewarding / fulfilling.
  • No credits. Even if you made everything, please say so in a readme or in-game.
/'` NEUTRAL `'\​
  • Debug overlay was left in. If this was intentional, I'd argue that a toggle would've been a nice and quick option to implement.
    If it was a mistake, no worries. I actually had to reupload HayManMarc and I's game, because I myself forgot I left the debug in and it was interfering with the HUD information. At least that's not the case here.
  • No music, but it was okay without it, due to the voice acting and SFX.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Despite having no end and you saying there wasn't much content, I felt it was a great amount of content for a jam game:
    3 enemy types, combat with blocking and parrying, stat leveling, 3 weapons, various scenery, etc. - that's awesome!
  • I wouldn't say the voice acting is pro level, but it's still very good. Nice word choices as well. The VA really added to the experience and set things up well.
  • Bonfires act as checkpoints! Good! On a similar note, I like being able to come back to where I died to recover my lost sou- er, experience. ;)

Boo! Dice by GameDevDan
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
The concept is a somewhat interesting dice game. I'd say it's just an okay use of the theme. Definitely not strong, but at least it's apparent.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Though the game is pretty simple with very little going on, you've presented it very well. The music is a tad repetitive, but it's good at being in the background so you don't notice. The graphics are clean and everything moves and bonces real nice.

ENJOYMENT
The gameplay is somewhat addictive, though it isn't all that fun. Must be some gambling kind of thing going on here... hmm.
In any case, I did enjoy it to a degree, for sure. Currently, I have 3 locked opponents left. TBH, I may or may not unlock the rest of them later. I'm really not sure.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • It deals a bit too much on luck for my tastes, though it's not so bad that it's too frustrating. It could've been so much worse.
  • It could've used a little something else to spice things up, but I'm not sure what. All I know is that it still felt a bit too basic for me to really get into it.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • It's amazing how good you make such simple things look. Absolutely fantastic job on that.
  • All the visual feedback is spot on, letting the player know what's going on and feeling the impact of their choices.

Chiaroscuro by Dickson Law
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A brainy game. No surprise, haha. Usually I like these, but I feel like this one was just a tad too complicated to pick up and play quickly enough for a jam setting. I don't see it as a great use of the theme either, to be honest. It's kind of just there.
Unfortunately, this is my least favorite concept from you in a while, but it's just my taste and opinion here, as you know, so take it as you will.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Overlooking the walls of text, the presentation is absolutely fantastic.

ENJOYMENT
If it was just slightly more simple and if the easiest AI was actually more prone to totally brainless choices so I could win (*quiet, empty laughter*), I would've really enjoyed this.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • WAY too hard. I played 5 games and could not beat the AI, even on initiate difficulty. The difficulty on your past games was much better.
  • Pressing ESC to quit during a game quits the program, as opposed to just quitting to the menu, or giving the option to quit the game or to the menu.. It's just a jam, so it's not a huge deal, but it would've been nice anyway.
/'` NEUTRAL `'\​
  • Having such exhaustive credits is great, but I wish I could progress through them at my own pace. I found myself wanting to skip a page and at other times it went by before I was done taking mental note of things.
    It's even better if you can also include all of that in a readme, since people can copy links to check them out easier.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Even if I think it's too much for a jam, I do think this is really a solid game for people who want to really use their brain. I respect and value that, for sure.
  • Everything is very well-polished, from transitions to indicators on whose turn it is.

Deadly Dungeon by KPJ
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
The concept was lacking a bit, but the theme use was alright.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
It's lacking here too, but the character control is pretty good.

ENJOYMENT
If level 3 was the final level, that would've made it a more positive experience. The boss with 2000 HP was simply too difficult and it was also getting a bit stale at that point. I ended up quitting on level 4.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • Enemies blended in too much with the background. Since they kill you upon hitting, they should stand out like the shots do.
  • Too much of the same thing. The game should've had 3 levels at most. If there is more varied gameplay later, it should've come sooner.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • The game runs and feels smooth.
  • Boss shooting patterns seemed to be programmed well, being consistent, fair, and learnable.

Demon Santa by Catastrophe
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
This idea is simultaneously terrible and great. I'm convinced the executable itself is supernatural.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Lacks in almost every way. At least the jumping is pretty nice and the gameplay is smooth.
BTW, I'm honestly not sure if the 'Action 52 - CheetahMen Theme' is fine to use or not. In any case, I'm not putting much weight on the music, though it is a great tune.

ENJOYMENT
I didn't have much fun, yet I was highly entertained. How is that possible? It must be supernatural.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • It's terrible.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • It's terrible.

Dodge Em' Dracula by Firedingo
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
It's basically a simplified Frogger game. It feels quite lacking, unfortunately.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Like the above, it's lacking a lot.

ENJOYMENT
I didn't really enjoy it, but at the very least, it didn't enrage me with some ludicrous difficulty. That's a win in my book.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • Menu text did not go away when starting a new game.
  • Game crashes upon reaching the goal.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Menu buttons highlight when mouse is over them, giving proper visual feedback.
  • It can be played super quickly. I love that in jam games.
  • Dracula looks dope.

Ghost Run by Cat, var
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A runner where you switch dimensions as a supernatural ghost. I'd rate the concept fair enough. When seeing that it was made it about 12 hours, it's understandable.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
It looks and feels really nice and the music is chill. Even with a 'fair/okay' concept, you really took it far with good presentation. Well done!

ENJOYMENT
I may not have had bucket loads of fun, but I enjoyed it a little bit, and that's better than not enjoying it, yes? Yes.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • So simple that it's not that interesting. It needed another mechanic or something else big thrown into the mix.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • You got a nice little menu in there, complete with help and credits. Nice!
  • The smooth gameplay combines with the art and music to create a rather pleasant experience. Ironically, you're trying not to meet your doom smacking into something, so it may not be fitting music, but I love the chill vibe, so I call this a pro, my dudes.

Ghostris by Yal
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A spin on Tetris that I legitimately haven't seen before. That alone is impressive (ignoring the fact that it's potentially been done before and I simply haven't seen it).
Though I think the idea of haunted/possessed blocks is very cool and a great use of the theme, integrating it within the mechanics and not a more shallow way like in setting or story, I'd say the element of randomness may be a bit much for fair skill-based gameplay, which is required for the Tetris genre.
If you could further mitigate the randomness vs skill issue, this would easily be my pick for best concept.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
If the black boxes had borders, it would've made a huge improvement. In addition, the text stood out as being a bit plain. Both of those things are only things because the rest of the art is so good, the less polished and plain tings really stood out, so yeah, this is actually a positive thing, because the game has otherwise great graphics, nice atmosphere, it's well polished and it plays well.

ENJOYMENT
Again, if the randomness didn't overshadow skill so much, I would've enjoyed it more, but even as is, I found it pretty fun to play.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • I had to check out your game page to be sure that you made all the assets. "Yal 2019" isn't nearly as good as something like "All assets made by Yal during the jam".
  • No information was given on unique block behavior, though it could be figured out fairly easily for most blocks.
  • Like the last point, the "possessed" mechanic wasn't explained at all. Even though that one was arguably even easier to figure out the function of than the block behaviors, it still should've been explained some place.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • You achieved some nice spooky atmosphere with your art and music.
  • If the randomness vs skill was more balanced, and if there were borders around the black boxes and the font was made less plain, this is something worth selling, imo, uh, unless being so close to Tetris could get you in trouble...
  • It saves the high score! With a game all about scoring high, this is essential, even if it is just a jam. Great!

Gluttony, My Master by Cantaloupe
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A pretty disturbing concept. The mechanics didn't really make for fun gameplay to me. The story is quite good. It's a good use of the theme, being most used in the story.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
You pulled off the disturbing feeling very, very well, though I'm not really a fan of disturbing stuff. :p

ENJOYMENT
I found the story somewhat intriguing, but I didn't enjoy the gameplay. I played through twice and failed both times. The first time I played, halfway through I just skipped levels, so I thought that's why I lost, but on the second time, I did the best I could and still sailed.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • The mechanic of sometimes being forced to leave things behind + not knowing how much fat is needed to win == sad feels.
    This could've been solved almost entirely by telling the player how much fat is possible to get in each level. Then you know you're missing something in a puzzle, but it still won't outright tell you.
  • It was a bit hard to see the white square selection against the colors sometimes, so when a level started, I had to try to move it around and search for my starting position. This could've been solved with more contrast. I understand you were going for fleshy colors, but I'm sure you could've made it pop more without ruining the aesthetic.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • The art style is very unique and properly focused to convey the disturbing theme. Even though I said I didn't like disturbing, I still have major appreciation for conveying things through art. Well done!
  • The mechanics actually allowed for some interesting puzzling and I've never seen anything quite like it. That's pretty cool.

Hazel by FreddyShnitz
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
I guess it's about gathering ingredients to make a summoning potion? The whole thing is pretty supernatural, I guess.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
It feels pretty incomplete, so the presentation is lacking a lot.

ENJOYMENT
Can't say I enjoyed it, but at least I didn't hate it.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • Going to school soon crashes the game. I expect that's like a tutorial, so it's likely I missed important information on how to play.
  • It took far too long to travel.
  • It seems you can't even gather the items, unless I misunderstood what was going on.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • The details and particles on the witch and her shots are quite nice.
  • The game has potential to be something quite fun if given more time.

Homebound by Shadow_Lancer
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
Sadly, this could've been super good if you had more time to put toward it. The use of the theme is awesome, but since it's lacking so much, it really puts a damper on it. Man though, you could do so much with that possession mechanic and the physics.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Though it's lacking audio, it's very good on all other fronts.

ENJOYMENT
I would've had so much more fun with it if there was some more content and actual goals. Even so, it was fun for a bit to mess around.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • Lacking content, though understandably, since you only spent a few hours on it.
  • At first I didn't realize I could go through walls. Not a huge deal, and perhaps it was just my stupidity anyway.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Proper credits! Thank you! It's amazing how many games lacked credits.
  • It's all so smooth and looks and feels great to play.

Im a hunt ghosts! by Misu
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
I love the humorous concept and the mechanics! If only there was a little more variation to it. It's a good and funny use of the theme.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Pretty good all around here.

ENJOYMENT
It got old fairly fast, but I did enjoy it a lot. I made it to wave 5 or so? I'm not sure anymore, but I beat one wave where some bigger ghosts were introduced, and I quit in the middle of the next one.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • I wanted to read the speech bubbles when capturing the ghosties, but it was a bit too small, the text got a bit distorted (due to scaling, maybe?), and there was also the screen shake that also affected the speech bubbles, and that all added up to it being unreadable, which is a shame.
  • Not a huge con, but since each hit takes 25 of 100 HP, it would've looked nicer and been more informative to the player to display it in 4 hearts. Graphics on HUDs tend to be more readily recognizable/readable, they look nicer, and they avoid a feeling of information overload. Of course, it depends, and you probably know all this, but you just didn't have time or something, but whatever.
  • It's a bit too long for how little variation there is in gameplay. On that note, does it continue forever? Is there an end?
  • High score isn't saved to disk or displayed as something to beat in the game. Leaderboards are always cool too, if you can do that.
  • It can be pretty easy to click past the ending message with the high score without reading it. I did it by accident. To avoid this, you could put a short timer that denies inputs from dismissing the message.
    Always remember, you know your game, but a player new to the game won't know an important message is coming, so they may be trying some things and dismiss it as soon it appears.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Very simple controls and I found them to be pretty intuitive. The game played pretty well.
    I love how you even made walking speed change depending on how far away the mouse is from notluigi. You really did well on making the most of the controls. Exceptional!
  • I guess I really needed some good notluigi ghost capturing action. It really made me smile.

Necro-more-cy by Relic
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
The mechanics are simple enough to pick up fast, yet deep enough to be fun. The theme use as necromancy is well implemented. Solid concept!

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
The menu is great functionally, though certainly lacking in the visuals. The text HUD elements are in need of some dark boxes or something behind them. Aside from those few things, the look and feel of the game is quite nice and the level of polish is quite good for a jam game.

ENJOYMENT
Good! I even found myself replaying it a bit.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • The fancy font fits the theme of the game, but it can be pretty hard to read. Most of the time it's okay, but I'd prefer you went more legible next time.
  • I was attacked before I finished reading "Raise undead - Keys 1 to 5, Requires Graves" at game start. It would've been good to have the game pause for this message, ensuring the player could read it and continue when ready.
  • I'm not sure if it was just due to my trouble reading the font, but I didn't realize I could enter my name on the first playthrough. I think I subconsciously thought that text was part of the title, like "Necro-more-cy: A tale as old as tome".
  • I didn't notice the timer counting down in the lower left corner until about my 5th playthrough, so I kept wondering why I was losing. I thought maybe enemies were getting through my outer defenses.
    Even if I lacked observational skill, I'd argue that it would've helped clear things up to have additional text saying "OUT OF TIME!".
    My further defense is that I actually thought it was a bug until I noticed the timer, because you can continue to play and score after running out of time (though the score after time runs out isn't counted on the score table), which is very odd.
  • The top progression display was never explained, so I kind of subconsciously assumed it was a level progression bar, because the end silhouette looked like a boss.
    Because of this, I was very confused when pressing numbers near graves. They seemed to work sometimes and other times not.
    I eventually caught on though.
/'` NEUTRAL `'\​
  • Being able to continue playing after time runs out was a bit weird and confusing. I'm assuming it's a bug?
  • I'm left wondering if different looking units do different things or if there are multipliers or combos or something. I felt information was too lacking for playing strategically. Clearly I was missing something though, because - even when taking out the enemies as fast as I could travel to them - I couldn't get my score anywhere near the top scores.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • It's quite satisfying to gather a large army and wreck stuff.
  • I didn't get it at first, but the name is clever. A play on "Necromancy", being "necro more", and then - I'm not sure if the "cy" is intended to be this, but I read it as "see?", like old noir movie talk, like, "You've gotta necro more, see?". Love it.
  • Short and sweet.
  • Good replay value.

Night Of The Living Taters by dadio
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A good joke game concept, and theme use is fair.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
The movement is very basic, so the feel on that isn't great, but it's not terrible either. The intro help screen may be just text, but it's a nice font, so it looks pretty good. The rest of the art is very nice. Overall, pretty good presentation.

ENJOYMENT
I smiled through most of it and laughed out loud a couple times, so I'd say it's a successful joke game. Nice!
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • You can't press a key to skip the intro help screen; it's just on a timer.
  • No credits.
    Was everything made during the jam or is there some stuff (like music?) that wasn't?
    Even for a joke game, I'd like to have these details so I can know for sure how much effort was put in.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Undead potato.
  • Short and sweet with good comedic timing.

Ouija by Sk8dududu, Riley
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A very interesting idea, taking a real game (that's supposed to be at least partially supernatural, I think?) and making it... something else. Unfortunately, I was so confused that I'm not even sure what else to say here.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Really, the only thing lacking was information on what it is and how to play. All the aspects, art, audio, feel, polish - are good.

ENJOYMENT
Sadly, I didn't enjoy this, mostly because I couldn't figure out how to survive and what kills me. But I enjoyed the music a lot.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • No info on how to play.
  • No credits.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • When you start a new game, I love the animations and everything with the witch thing and how the play area zooms in. Very cool.

Scary Ghost by stenol
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
You're a mage taking on a horde of spooky enemies in a basic shmup. Nothing too impressive or creative, but it's still a solid concept.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Pretty good here!

ENJOYMENT
I played long enough to reach the boss and beat him. It was fairly fun.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • A little too long. I'd prefer it almost half that long till you reach the boss.
  • No high score saved to disk (so you can play again later and try to beat your score) or online leaderboards. Leaderboards really add a lot to shump games, and I think it's fun to see everyone's scores and how you compare.
  • This is very minor, as I only got hit twice and the damage done was minimal, but the boss's shooting pattern would've been better if he shot in short rapid bursts with pauses in between, or perhaps the player speed needed to be faster. As is stands, it's a bit too hard to manipulate the shots to sneak in between them to get some more shots in at the boss. Another solution would be less player-directed shots and the addition of straight firing down bursts. In the end, all I know is that the firing pattern didn't 'let up' properly to allow the player enough chance to be able to dodge well enough.
  • No credits with the game itself. I saw the credits on your game page post, but I had to go looking for it. It's far better to include it with your game in some way.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • I'm so glad you can hold the fire button down for continuous fire!
  • Kudos for some more interesting enemy patterns, as opposed to just making them charge downward only.
  • The game is smooth in both look and feel.

Spectre 2023 by Bearman_18
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
And otherwise super awesome game and concept, severely flawed by poor platforming mechanics combined with lots of platforming. For the most part, the mechanics are very good. I would've liked to see better use of the theme, but it's an entertaining use, at least. I mean, possessed potatoes - that's fantastic. It's like what Japanese developers would do if they weren't Japanese but still Japanese.... yeah.... yeah, that came out right, I think. (not a racist comment - I love and value the weird and creative Japanese stuff is all).

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Overall, it's a very solid presentation. Lots of flashy action and good effects and good graphical polish.

ENJOYMENT
IF it weren't for the platforming being so bad, I would've had soooo much more fun. I still enjoyed it, but man did that put a damper on things. I'm legit sad, because this could've been super fun.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • Some of the most frustrating platforming I've ever experienced, if not the most frustrating.
    You move abruptly fast, there is no coyote time (allowing the player to jump a few frames after falling from a ledge), there are lots of tiny platforms and places where you can fall very far and have to work your way up again, and finally, there is very little air time and distance with no real hang time, so it's a quick up and down movement.
    That all adds up to rather hellish platforming, and not the good kind you find in games like Super Meat Boy or Celeste.
  • Unfortunately, I had a hard freeze on the game where I had to end the program from task manager. Closing on the window button didn't work and no error message popped up. Wow.
    I think it happened right as I was getting hit by a missile and I was firing, perhaps hitting an enemy at the same time. I'm not sure what else to say or if the freeze was even related to any of that.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Exceptional tutorial. Very hands on. It introduces you to each thing one by one, not all at once, and it felt concise, not needlessly drawn out.
  • High energy action achieved. I can enjoy a good puzzle game, but I'm an action junkie at heart. I enjoyed the madness. I think the weirdness, futuristic touch, and humor really helped. It made for a fun little rush.
  • Platforming aside, literally everything is great. Fantastic!

submerge. by Josh Chen
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A turtle avoids polluted waters (I guess?) while making bank. A bit random, but I like random. It's not bad, though I don't see a use of the supernatural theme here, which is unfortunate.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Simple art, but a nice simple, and with nice colors. The information screens are also nice enough. That's nice nice nice.

ENJOYMENT
It was slightly frustrating at times, but I enjoyed upgrading and I even beat the game with a smile.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • A bit of music and/or sounds would've gone a long way to improving the game.
  • Hit boxes were too big or perhaps offset in some cases. I often died when I should've been clear.
  • I expected the money obtained in a level would be stored and you try again to make more to add to that; I didn't realize you lose it all with each start until I was trying to get my last upgrade.
    The mechanic itself is fine. It just needed to be said some place, since it's unusual for games to do this, and I wasted some time and effort when I didn't realize.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • The "submerge" title graphic looks great.
  • Something about your choice of blue, green, and orange on gray is quite pleasant to me, especially in the upgrade screen.

Super Adrenaline Boy by lazertrax
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
I haven't really played any runner style game, aside from jams, but this one certainly has a fair amount of options for the player. That said, I'm not sure the mechanics worked out as well as they should have.
The theme usage is pretty good though. Screaming, running, adrenaline, etc. - all the abilities and mechanics make sense if someone is scared out of their mind. So that's pretty cool.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Overall, presentation is pretty good. Some sprites are as if they were sort of placeholder almost, and SFX are just alright, but everything else is quite nice. The game felt pretty good as well.

ENJOYMENT
On my first play of the game, I struggled a lot, retrying many times until I gave up. On my second attempt, I beat the game by holding Z to charge adrenaline while rapidly pressing X to scream shoot. In a way, I beat the entire game with my eyes closed. Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed the game much, but I didn't hate it or go into rage either.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • Having no check points with that many levels is a tall order to expect players to swallow. Losing all progress in a game is rarely a good design choice, though I understand you probably do know better. It seems you got the idea pretty late. I've been there. In any case, I hope you'll make time and favor more easy and forgiving games in future jams.
  • I didn't understand how panicking worked until I played the game one last time (after already beating it), despite "screaming" turning red. I usually hit something soon after, but it all happened so fast that I thought you simply die really fast once you go into panic mode. I feel like my lack of observation is mostly to blame, but it's also because things just move so fast I couldn't really find out easily.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • The level progress bar is very nice. It's great to know how much longer I must go and how far I've come.
  • The adrenaline bar mechanic has potential to be quite good. With a little more time, I think this concept could've gone pretty far.
  • A little kid in a dino hoodie makes bird screeches when he screams. That's quality entertainment.

Supernatural Science by MikeeyBikeey, Aaron Baron, Caroline Zina
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
I'm a bit confused on what this concept and story is, at least, how it's supernatural, exactly. So I can't really say the theme use is good, but the mechanics do provide some good action.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
The presentation is actually quite nice. The game felt good and polished well enough.

ENJOYMENT
I enjoyed it, though it's slightly too hard (but not bad) with overwhelming packs of enemies. I gave up on level 3 on my first playthrough. On my second and last playthrough, I was more determined and I beat it then.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • The only real con I have is that the theme use didn't feel strong, and the game felt like it lacked clear identity, as if it's just a bunch of things thrown together. I wish I could describe it better.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • I like the progression with each level giving a new ability.
  • Thank you for displaying current / total levels! It's very nice, especially in a jam setting.
  • The tutorial is handled pretty well, allowing the player to actually play it as opposed to simply reading it.
  • The top-down 3D-like view is nifty. I'm still not sure if you used 3D or if it was some sprite stacking kind of thing.
  • The way points are a very nice and welcome feature.

Telepath's Escape by Alice, mp
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
Hah! Similar story to HayManMarc and I's game, that made me smile. Of course, the similarities end there.
The mechanics make for interesting gameplay and the theme use being telepathy as your weapon is very cool and it's deeply ingrained into the mechanics, so I'd say it's a great use of the theme.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
The information is a bit of an overload, but not bad. Aside from that, it looks quite nice and feels pretty good.

ENJOYMENT
Once I got past the confusion (mostly), I enjoyed it for a bit. I made it to level 2 and saw five guys. I started to deal with them, but soon felt like it was more tedious than fun.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • I found the mechanics to be confusing and/or unintuitive. I had to play a few times to realize why it was so weird. The main thing I struggled with was figuring out how to make enemies attack each other. Unlike overloading, you don't click the icon on the right HUD, but I expected you do click it. Instead, you must click a guy twice. It was made even more difficult to figure out since clicking twice on a guy will do something else if you don't have enough PSI. I just found it very confusing. Even after understanding it, it feels a bit off; it's almost like the same mechanic is controlled in two ways.
    Perhaps the mechanics are a tad too complicated as well.
  • Not so much a con as it is a note, but when I tried to save my levels in the default place (where the executable is - the bundle directory), they saved to the temp folder instead, because I didn't realize GameMaker cannot save to the bundle directory. I was confused for a bit, thinking they didn't actually save at all.
    Since you're using GMS2, it's possible this isn't a thing if you disable the file system sandbox within the Windows options, but perhaps it's still a thing for some reason, as the manual does seem to imply it's totally impossible to save to the bundle directory (which apparently includes all sub folders, since that also didn't work). I'm definitely gonna have to test this out later.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Included credits.
  • If not for being a tad too complex, text-heavy, and somewhat unintuitive, I'd say this is one really slick game.
  • I honestly enjoyed the level editor more than the actual game. Very cool!
    I did get an error related to it though. After creating a level, I quit to menu, then upon pressing 'E' to go back in, this came up:
    ___________________________________________
    ############################################################################################
    ERROR in
    action number 1
    of Create Event
    for object ctrl_Editor:

    Data structure with index does not exist.
    at gml_Script___Editor_loadLevelInfo
    ############################################################################################
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    stack frame is
    gml_Script___Editor_loadLevelInfo (line -1)
    gml_Object_ctrl_Editor_Create_0
    I was able to reproduce this by following the above steps, though it didn't always occur, so I must be missing a step, perhaps related to saving and loading levels before quitting.

The Cabin by Bart
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
Quite a unique concept here.Sadly, as it stands, I can't say the mechanics make for fun gameplay. It certainly hits the theme on the head though.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Though clearly unfinished, it has great atmosphere. Controls seemed easy enough. The visuals are a bit rough, but as I said, you still managed to create atmosphere, so that's a win in my book.

ENJOYMENT
I found it more interesting than I did fun. Hey, that's something.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • It needed a main goal or some means of winning in order to be more fun for me, since I tend to be a more goal-oriented player (as opposed to more pure free sandbox-oriented).
/'` PROS `'\​
  • It's really cool seeing the ghosts go all squiggly and poof. It's both a very informative and satisfying effect usage there.
  • Again, atmosphere. It's good. With a game like this, it's essential. I think the music played a huge role in creating the atmosphere, along with the lighting and fog and the fact that it's clearly night. You really set the stage well.

The Mouse Curser by Cloaked Games, aSingleCapella
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
Props for trying to think outside the 'jar' (I wonder if I'm the only one to make this joke?). The mechanics aren't deep, but they're engaging.
The mouse being a supernatural entity is a really interesting idea., but I think it fell a bit flat, due to the mouse not having any personality to break it away from the player thinking of it as a normal mouse cursor, like, "This is just an extension of my own thoughts and intentions". But if the mouse were animated as if alive, or if it spoke, that would have gone a long way in selling the concept.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
Not much here, but it's presented fairly well. I think the weirdness and graphics are what really sell this for me. I found it fascinating. The juicy shaking of the bottle is great too.

ENJOYMENT
It was unusual and creative enough that I really enjoyed it. Thank you for the experience.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • The bottle shattering is very abrupt; it could've used some glass particles.
  • Some audio could've spruced up the experience a bit.
/'` NEUTRAL `'\​
  • It's short. In its current state, this is a positive, but I also wish it were taken further, with the mouse being given personality and other goals. It could be really cool.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Many of the sticky notes were entertaining.
  • .. ... .- .-- -.-- --- ..- .-. -- . ... ... .- --. .
    Hi~! I love it when people add details like that in their games!

VLAD III by Fernando Gonzalez
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
It's hard to say much since the concept doesn't seem to be fully realized.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
For the most part, the presentation is good because the art has character. The stick figures feel a tad out of place, but not bad. The player movements feel a bit basic without and sort of acceleration or friction ramps, but certainly not bad.

ENJOYMENT
I actually found this to be pretty entertaining. I think the great rock track helped with that, but there's something fun about chasing victims down too. .... okay, that sounds really bad.
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • It's just a bit too incomplete, lacking enough gameplay depth.
/'` PROS `'\​
  • The character's smoke cloud effects are nice.
  • The night's length is great, because a score of 42 (the meaning of life) is where I found a good run would put me.
  • Your music choice is exceptional. I love rock with violin leads. Ugh, it's so magnificent.

é‡åŠ›ć‚¹ćƒÆćƒƒćƒ‘ćƒ¼/Gravity Switcher by TheMiningBoyAlpha
CORE ASPECTS

CONCEPT ( mechanics, story, etc. + jam theme integration )
A game about supernatural drink giving you fists of fury? Or something? Theme usage is fair.

PRESENTATION ( art, audio, feel, polish )
It has an old console vibe. Though the collisions harm the feel and polish aspect, I like the presentation overall.

ENJOYMENT
The first time I played it, I found it really difficult, but that's because the movement bugged out and I zipped along and got stuck. I played it again before writing my review and it played nicely this time, so I found it far easier, and fun too. I even beat it. Glad I played it again!
ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

/'` CONS `'\​
  • A small thing, but the text on the menu buttons could use more contrast. They were a little hard to read.
  • The control scheme felt a bit too complex or all over the place. I think you could've left the mouse out of it and it would've made it better. I'm sure it could've been improved somehow.
  • You can get stuck in walls. Collisions are generally pretty bad, and - as I mentioned above - the game can bug out on the movement.
/'` MISSINGNO `'\​
  • Was that Flareon in that secret HP room??
/'` PROS `'\​
  • Once I got the game to calm down and not bug out, it was actually quite fun!
  • Short and sweet. I like that. And it's even gone a nifty ending scene, not just text. Cool!
 

Relic

Member
@Micah_DS It is pronounced necro-more-see, but only in the same way as 'cy' is usually pronounced. The only intention behind the name was to fit 'more' in there because the main goal is to do more necromancy (but that's usually the ghoul, i mean goal, of a necromancist?).

Thanks for the quality feedback - I like the positive, negative, neutral system.
 
M

Misu

Guest
I plan to post the results in a few hours after I'm back from work and organize the votes.
Ok cool. Btw, I added a small feedback on my voting post for the first 3 games. Its nothing much.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator

Well done, everyone. There might not have been many entries this time round, but most of these were at least of a decent quality and even *ahem* less successful games weren't that awful. Hopefully that trend of increasing quality (maybe not decreasing participation...) will stay for a while.

I think the theme might have helped a lot - there are so many settings and gameplay mechanics deriving from that, and even though most interpretations ended up having some Halloween vibes, the genres were still quite diverse. Would like to see more Jams like that.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
*checks results*
Woo, I didn't expect to get 3rd overall given how many votes were bottom-top-10 or below! But I'm not complaining ^__^ I think Ghostris is the jam entry I'm the happiest with, in the entire history of the GMC Jam. I tried something new, ended up enjoying it, and could spend enough time polishing it that I'm happy with its quality as well... usually it's one or the other. Definitely was more fun to try a completely new genre than to do something I'm more familiar with, too.

I felt like one of the biggest hurdles was figuring out some way to implement the theme - it's more of a "setting" theme than a "mechanics" theme (like "start with nothing" from the latest Ludum Dare) and being so broad, it was hard to find some well-defined, unary innately supernatural thing that could be turned into a game mechanic - with a more narrow theme like "birds of prey" you have a lot of more obvious picks (hunting, laying eggs, flying), but a theme that's so broad it encompasses most historical events before the early 1900s, it's just too much to choose from. I could've just slapped ghosts or magic onto anything, but it felt like not doing something that would not have been possible without the theme framing it would've been a cop-out.

I think the part i'm the least happy about is the skull/ghost blocks... they were among my first ideas (as a way to give the game more personal flair) but while the randomness of the smaller blocks just cancels each other out over time, the big blocks are so "whale-y" that bad RNG can just destroy you instantly... or be made entirely from bone and let you patch up every hole on the board at once. I like the way they make you feel dread (because it fits with the ghost theme) but even with the tweaks to make them easier to deal with, they're just too much RNG at once.



My original idea actually was having an ectoplasm material that let some bricks go through solid matter, but I realized it would make what constituted a line make less sense (and also would make the already convoluted collision checking code go out of control) so I scrapped it early on. But thinking back on that scrapped idea, I think I know what its natural conclusion would be - Ikaruga mixed with Tetris, having you manipulate two independent boards at once (and being able to swap between the two realities as you please), but lines counts both boards at once. I think I have to try that idea out sometime ~
 
M

Misty

Guest
While its true that I [am not a fan of] Yal, there have been some Yal games I have actually geniunely enjoyed playing. I just do not understand what is so great about this Ghostris game. I will play it again, I don't understand why people are so crazy about it, it is like the Flappy Bird craze, I do not understand what is good about Flappy Bird.

Also, I would like to apologize to GhandPivot, I really enjoyed his house game, but missed it in my ratings. Perhaps if the Jam Player was more organized I wouldn't have to manually sort entries and rating would be more automated, to reduce errors like these.


MOD EDIT: Let's keep things civil, shall we? ;)
 
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C

Catastrophe

Guest
Well, flappy bird was basically just a pewdiepie exposure boom from what I gather, probably would not really be known otherwise.

Most of ghostris' appeal to me was the replayabllity, as you learn more about the ghosts you get some really interesting tactics to try out. And apparenly I suck at it too, I can't seem to get past ~24k score xD
 
M

Misty

Guest
Well, flappy bird was basically just a pewdiepie exposure boom from what I gather, probably would not really be known otherwise.

Most of ghostris' appeal to me was the replayabllity, as you learn more about the ghosts you get some really interesting tactics to try out. And apparenly I suck at it too, I can't seem to get past ~24k score xD
Yeah but, Pewdie Pie specifically said that Flappy Bird was a bad, awful game. The people playing Flappy genuinely enjoyed it for some bizzarre reason. There was even mainstream media announcements warning people that Flappy Bird is addictive. In fact the creator of Flappy Bird did not expect his game to be popular and removed it from stores because people were getting too addicted.

Sometimes I feel like like I'm another species. I don't understand why so many people praise games like Flappy Bird. I think TETRIS is a good game, but I don't understand why it is the most popular game of all time. So I like TETRIS, but I'm not a fanatic about it. I understand even less why Ghostris has so many great top 3 reviews. Ghostris is litterrally the worst iteration of Tetris I have ever played. You get blocks that move around randomly on their own, so everything you do is undone randomly. The blocks are gigantic, titanic size blocks that make it very hard for screen clears. I dont understand how a game like Boo Dice, which I played for an hour to its completion, somehow gets rated 10th place and Ghostris 3rd. I feel like I'm another species. I also don't understand how Misu gave Ghostris the "Best Presentation" award when clearly other Tetris games, even NES Tetris has way more appealing looks. I just don't get it. Sometimes I feel like I'm from another planet.
 

Sk8dududu

Member
Lmao. I'm sorry I left it until last minute and I was in an altercation and got arrested. That was pretty stressful and I totally forgot about all this.
I'm still going to post my feedback here so people can have something extra to read about their games, just the vote won't count.
 

Sk8dududu

Member
Also on the flappy bird topic. I still play flappy bird on my phone when I'm out and bored . It's amazing.
The simplicity and how well it works as a mobile game / the time it was released was a perfect storm.
And I think a lot of that applies to Tetris as well. It's simple and competitive, and came out just at the right time. I play Tetris everyday and never get sick of it.
But that puts me in a weird position with ghostris because Tetris clones are a dime a dozen and I've actually seen pretty much this same game before. And although i enjoyed it a lot i wouldn't have felt right putting it in the top 3.
 
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ghandpivot

Member
In fact the creator of Flappy Bird did not expect his game to be popular and removed it from stores because people were getting too addicted.
That was the story told back in 2014 but later it was clear that he couldn't live his normal life with the media from all over the world being over him constantly, and his face and full name being displayed together with "makes 50.000$ a day" didn't make leaving the house any easier.

Ghostris is litterrally the worst iteration of Tetris I have ever played. You get blocks that move around randomly on their own
I think this is the reason you never liked it. You never tried to adapt to the blocks or learn their behaviour. All the blocks move differently and thus need to be placed in different kind of spots where they can be held down. In the same sense, when you can't put a stack of blocks in a good place you'll have to work quickly to close them off before they spread too much.

I think you played the game like normal tetris. When that didn't quite work you decided that you hated it.
 
M

Misty

Guest
That was the story told back in 2014 but later it was clear that he couldn't live his normal life with the media from all over the world being over him constantly, and his face and full name being displayed together with "makes 50.000$ a day" didn't make leaving the house any easier.


I think this is the reason you never liked it. You never tried to adapt to the blocks or learn their behaviour. All the blocks move differently and thus need to be placed in different kind of spots where they can be held down. In the same sense, when you can't put a stack of blocks in a good place you'll have to work quickly to close them off before they spread too much.

I think you played the game like normal tetris. When that didn't quite work you decided that you hated it.
Ugh. I will play the game a third time... then give a final review...
Keep in mind there was no readme or tutorial explaining any kind of game strategy or instructions about this...
 
M

Misty

Guest
Okay I played it again. I am still not crazy about it. Not including enemy types and behavoir as part of a gamebooklet or tutorial, is bad game design for simple arcade games like these. In simple arcade games, usually the behavior of game items is explained. For instance, game booklets will list weapon types and powerups, or a small splash screen giving hints about ingame behaviors.
I managed to figure out the pumpkins seem to multiply, but the way they multiply seemed random to me. Its hard for me to focus to figure out how to play the game, when I'm busy also trying to rotate falling blocks. In most games, the game pauses to allow you to study items, moves, or texts in the game, so again, this is bad game design.

Also, I found out the green blocks seem to disappear, but haphazardly and random it seems to me. The white blocks seem to move, but again it just seems random. If its not random, its because I just dont have any way to learn the game, due to bad game design mechanics. Gameplay wise, its just not fun. Even if I knew what I was doing, it still would not be fun. The music just seems demented and like annoying atonal noise. Clearing blocks is not rewarding at all, it just does a lame puff of smoke. Idk how this game got best presentation award (from Misu), it looks very YYG sandbox esque. Everything looks flat and 2 dimensional, with no depth. It seems like the Menu screen shake, along with the subtle text glow, somehow brainwashed people to think its the best game ever. But there are a lot better Tetris options out there that are more satisfying and rewarding. The real Supernatural thing about this game, is Yal must have put a spell on people to think this game is the best game. I would give this game no more than a 2/10, after further review.

ā€œAfter further review the ruling on the field is confirmedā€; or ā€œAfter further review the ruling on the field stands.ā€ That's it. Nothing else may be said. Only if the replay official reverses the ruling on the field may there be a description of what has taken place.
https://cfo.arbitersports.com/Groups/104777/Library/files/RefereeAnnouncementIR.pdf


I give only an extra point because the Startup menu looks interesting. The gameplay is still super boring to me. But now back to Flappy Bird. Imagine becoming a Billionaire from making one of the worst games I ever played (Flappy Bird). This is a crazy planet and world.
 

Toque

Member
Okay I played it again. I am still not crazy about it. Not including enemy types and behavoir as part of a gamebooklet or tutorial, is bad game design for simple arcade games like these. In simple arcade games, usually the behavior of game items is explained. For instance, game booklets will list weapon types and powerups, or a small splash screen giving hints about ingame behaviors.
I managed to figure out the pumpkins seem to multiply, but the way they multiply seemed random to me. Its hard for me to focus to figure out how to play the game, when I'm busy also trying to rotate falling blocks. In most games, the game pauses to allow you to study items, moves, or texts in the game, so again, this is bad game design.

Also, I found out the green blocks seem to disappear, but haphazardly and random it seems to me. The white blocks seem to move, but again it just seems random. If its not random, its because I just dont have any way to learn the game, due to bad game design mechanics. Gameplay wise, its just not fun. Even if I knew what I was doing, it still would not be fun. The music just seems demented and like annoying atonal noise. Clearing blocks is not rewarding at all, it just does a lame puff of smoke. Idk how this game got best presentation award (from Misu), it looks very YYG sandbox esque. Everything looks flat and 2 dimensional, with no depth. It seems like the Menu screen shake, along with the subtle text glow, somehow brainwashed people to think its the best game ever. But there are a lot better Tetris options out there that are more satisfying and rewarding. The real Supernatural thing about this game, is Yal must have put a spell on people to think this game is the best game. I would give this game no more than a 2/10, after further review.

ā€œAfter further review the ruling on the field is confirmedā€; or ā€œAfter further review the ruling on the field stands.ā€ That's it. Nothing else may be said. Only if the replay official reverses the ruling on the field may there be a description of what has taken place.
https://cfo.arbitersports.com/Groups/104777/Library/files/RefereeAnnouncementIR.pdf


I give only an extra point because the Startup menu looks interesting. The gameplay is still super boring to me. But now back to Flappy Bird. Imagine becoming a Billionaire from making one of the worst games I ever played (Flappy Bird). This is a crazy planet and world.

Itā€™s okay to not like the game. You can rank it how you like. I bet Yā€™all appreciated the time, effort, feedback.
itā€™s great how much thought goes into your rankings.

your not from a different planet. We all like different games and interpret things differently. We all have bias. Thatā€™s a good thing. We should repeat those that have different opinions.

sometimes Iā€™m surprised that games I donā€™t like get ranked high. But I also think my games gets higher rankings than they deserve.

There are games people hate but I play for an hour. I found it fun or interesting.

but with lots of voting things seem to level out and cream rises to the top.

Luckily itā€™s all for fun.
 
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M

Misty

Guest
Itā€™s okay to not like the game. You can rank it how you like. I bet Yā€™all appreciated the time, effort, feedback.
itā€™s great how much thought goes into your rankings.

your not from a different planet. We all like different games and interpret things differently. We all have bias. Thatā€™s a good thing.

sometimes Iā€™m surprised that games I donā€™t like get ranked high. But I also think my games gets higher rankings than they deserve.

There are games people hate but I play for an hour. I found it fun or interesting.

but with lots of voting things seem to level out and cream rises to the top.

Luckily itā€™s all for fun.
Thats the thing. The game I really loved, Boo Dice, by GameDevDan, only got a measly 10th place. I just want the ratings to be fair. It is fine if one or two people rate a bad game good. But when most people rate a bad game good, that is when the world feels upside-down. Boo Dice had a very good presentation but did not get to the Top 3, instead, Ghostris with a bad presentation gets Best Presentation award. It does not feel fair. I thought the game that had best presentation was either Boo Dice or The House.

Also I would like to apologize for The M, I did not include them in my apology. I did not know at first both The M and Ghandpivot won the contest (The House). I rated their game a 7/10 (high rating) but did not include them in my top 6. This was an accident and the inevitable result of not having a fully automated rating system (as I suggested in the past.) I forewarned that mistakes would be made such as these, due to human error. The reason I did not also notice "The M" was subconscious, M is commonly used a surname (Mr. Mrs, Ms. ) etc and so I did not notice the name at first. Congratulations on the victory to you two. Although I was not able to fully play your game (due to the game having a unique window system that exceeded my monitor properties) from what little I did play, it seemed like a fantastic game.
 

Relic

Member
Itā€™s art, not science. I had similar thoughts as you @Misty regarding Yalā€™s twist on Tetris. I disagreed with you that Danā€™s game was worth playing more than a couple of rounds. Itā€™s important to describe the features that make you want to start/stop playing these short games. Itā€™s harder, but even more useful, if you can describe the nature of that feature that brings on these feelings. E.g.: ā€œjumping so that the playerā€™s head hits the platform above the player felt badā€ vs just ā€œthe platforming is badā€.

I appreciate your (and everyoneā€™s) views and time spent writing them out. However, I do cringe inside every time you use derogatory phrases that donā€™t help in any meaningful way, such as ā€œall these games are trashā€. By all means, be critical and point out negative elements (prefer ā€œplaces to improveā€).
 
M

Misty

Guest
Itā€™s art, not science. I had similar thoughts as you @Misty regarding Yalā€™s twist on Tetris. I disagreed with you that Danā€™s game was worth playing more than a couple of rounds. Itā€™s important to describe the features that make you want to start/stop playing these short games. Itā€™s harder, but even more useful, if you can describe the nature of that feature that brings on these feelings. E.g.: ā€œjumping so that the playerā€™s head hits the platform above the player felt badā€ vs just ā€œthe platforming is badā€.

I appreciate your (and everyoneā€™s) views and time spent writing them out. However, I do cringe inside every time you use derogatory phrases that donā€™t help in any meaningful way, such as ā€œall these games are trashā€. By all means, be critical and point out negative elements (prefer ā€œplaces to improveā€).
No risk no reward. If you can't lose you can't win. If there is no danger of having negative reviews (such as saying a game is trash) then winning feels a bit too weak and mediocre. it would be like watching a cartoon where Daring Doo goes on an adventure, except in the adventure there is no risk and no danger. The winning of the adventure would not feel very rewarding. For those of you not seeking adventure, I would recommend you spend time seeking a massage, and other relaxing activities, instead of participating in a contest with competition.

Originally I thought of having lazy reviews, and simply writing a review calling any game less than 4/10 utter trash. But despite being trash, many of these games had actually some effort put into them. So there was something I could actually go with, there was content I could put into each review. If you can see I did put constructive criticism and helpful tips into each and every review. The reviews are in the lower spoiler. However in the game list the reviews are not shown. You will have to click the lower spoiler in order to see my individual reviews for each title.
 

Toque

Member
if 15 people rated a ā€œbad game greatā€ and I think itā€™s ā€œtrashā€ I would question my own view.

Itā€™s a little disrespectful to describe rankings you donā€™t like as ā€œmistakesā€. You have never made a ā€œmistakeā€ in a ranking?? I thought we all just accept ā€œmistakesā€ as normal and unavoidable.


I thought the feedback was more important than the rankings.

If you witnessed my flippant voting logic process you would burn my house down.
But people who think differently than we do are not making "mistakes". No game is "trash".

But we all biased, emotional, manipulative and vary in our tastes. Hopefully there are enough voters to level things out but I would respectfully accept people will vote differently than I do.
 
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Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
I appreciate your (and everyoneā€™s) views and time spent writing them out. However, I do cringe inside every time you use derogatory phrases that donā€™t help in any meaningful way, such as ā€œall these games are trashā€. By all means, be critical and point out negative elements (prefer ā€œplaces to improveā€).
I feel I should intervene here to reinforce this point. I am sick fed up of you (@Misty ) talking in absolute terms as if your opinion is the only one that counts and usually being mean, condescending, and generally toxic in your every interaction on this forum. You have this uncanny ability to drag every thread into the mud and turn even the most delightful and entertaining of topics into a mean-spirited opinion-fest and I for one have had enough. Continue down this path and your account is going to be restricted, and I would urge you and all the other members of this forum to consider carefully how they interact with the other members. You can give negative feedback in a friendly and helpful way. You can dislike something without making it seem like anyone who likes it is an absolute fool. You can disagree without being disrespectful. And if you can't do any of these things then you have no place on this forum.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Protip: if someone annoys you and you just want them to go away, you can make it happen in 4 simple steps. You don't need to derail an entire discussion to get them out of your face, you can just use the ignore list!
upload_2019-12-20_16-6-11.png
(Member name provided for illustrative purposes only)
 
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JeffJ

Member
I'm glad someone else said something, because it's really a shame to see such a tone used towards people's hard labor. Jamming is hard, exhausting and stressful work, and you put a lot of creativity and love into it. Now, while critique is an inherent part of a competition, there's a huge difference between thoughtful critique and just straight up bashing. For one thing, it's mean and hurtful. But even removing all the lovey human stuff from the equation, it also takes away any seriousness of the critic if he or she is unable to fully and thoroughly articulate why something is "trash". Why should anyone take your opinion serious if you can't even put proper words behind it?

This is critique:
While the concept is interesting, the execution is lacking in terms of a coherent and intuitive design pattern, that can easily lead to confusion on how the mechanics are supposed to work, and while it's something you can figure out as you go, it ends up taking more effort than should be necessary. Perhaps a better tutorial or clearer instructions could remedy this.

This is bashing:
This game is utter trash. I don't understand why anyone would rate it more than 4. What a piece of šŸ’©šŸ’©šŸ’©šŸ’©.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Why should anyone take your opinion serious if you can't even put proper words behind it?
They shouldn't. I abide by a rule that you only need to put as much effort into caring about criticism as much as whoever wrote it put into writing it - if they're too stupid to understand how to get their ideas across, they're probably too stupid to understand what's good and bad game design as well. They're probably just out for attention, so acknowledging them at all gives them what they want - so just ignore them and let them make a fool of themselves. Communication only works given the implicit assumption that you will try to make yourself understood; if that assumption isn't met by another party, it's only fair to cease the exchange. Trying to reason with a troll (or in-good-faith but intelligence-impaired individual (IIII for short)) never ends well - they'll just drag you down to their level and then beat you with their superior experience.

(cough cough)

Speaking of monitor sizes, btw,
what monitor size(s) are you guys using? I've not seen anything below 1920x1080 on anything that's not intended to be a "Excel & Outlook" cheapo office machine, so I was a bit baffled by how many had issues playing The House. I usually make my games 640x360 these days (scales integerly to 1920x1080, still fits in 640x480, so it should fit on any screen that is big enough for Win10) but it'd be nice with some actual data, even if it's not correct within proper statistical precision bounds because of sample bias / size.
 
Well my desktop has been out of commision for well over a year, so I have been stuck with my cheap laptop I bought a few years ago. Max res size of 1366x768.
A couple of months before my desktop stopped working, my monitor died leaving me with only an small old lcd tv I had in storage(like 17 inch) which also had a max res of 1366x768 for some reason.
Been too broke to consider replacing either my desktop or laptop unfortunately.
 
M

Misu

Guest
This is the main reason why I actually stopped caring and didnt like this jam in the first place.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Another, related thing... I'm having a vertical taskbar to utilize screen space better (and along the right-hand size of the screen so I can alienate both Windows users and Ubuntu users at the same time!), but it causes games that run in 1920x1080 without being fullscreen to be partially covered by the taskbar, and not use the entire vertical space of the screen. It's my fault for using a non-standard setup, but it's worth keeping in mind that things like this can happen when designing your game's resolution and UX (i.e. even if you account for screen sizes below Full HD, the aspect ratio doesn't need to be 16:9 either).
upload_2019-12-20_16-54-43.png

(Also, in case anyone wants to try this out, you can change your taskbar to align to any edge of the screen in the taskbar settings.)

Bonus cookie if you recognize every program pinned to my taskbar, btw.
 
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Micah_DS

Member
I finished reading everyone's comments (and watched playthroughs) on HayManMarc and I's game (Lab 23), so I want to say thanks for the feedback! :) And thanks for 5th place, wow! I don't think the game deserves it, purely based on how poorly the main mechanic works (which is on me, not HayManMarc), but I'm happy to see the that you guys had more fun with it than I expected.
It's true, I didn't use Box2D. I should have, but at first I was trying to avoid more complex physics, and by the time the project went that way, I was locked in to what we had. That's why it's so buggy and it's also why a tiny trash can can smash a table with the same impact as anything. It bothered me too, but it's a jam and I just had to keep moving forward with the game, otherwise I would've spent too much time trying to fix it and the game wouldn't have been 'complete' in the end.

The other thing is the mouse-based throwing mechanic: Oof, yes, I also have trouble with releasing the held item too late, meaning it hit something or I stopped moving the mouse then released, which ends up not throwing it at all. I was aware of the problem, I was just unable to find a timely solution. By the time I got the mechanic to where it's currently at, I had already spent far too much time on it, so that's why it's in such a state. I posted a bit about this before though (see the spoiler in linked post).

-

GENERAL FEEDBACK TO EVERYONE to perhaps take into account for next jam:

-- Credits, Please -- :)

Many entries did not contain credits with the game, whether in the game itself or within a readme file.
It takes just a minute or two, and it's super helpful when reviewing games.

Even if you make everything yourself during the jam, it'd be helpful to say so. I'd argue that even "A game by (name)" doesn't tell me all assets were made during a jam or by the person. I'd at least like to see something like, "Everything was made by (name) during the jam". I just hate feeling like I might not give someone's work the appreciation it deserves. So many times I wondered if someone made the music or art, because it was unclear.
I also noticed some jammers had credits on their game post, but not with their game. That information can be pretty easy to miss compared to something included with the game files.

-- Lack of Audio Compression --

Our game sizes are too big. Lack of audio compression appears to be the main culprit, and we can fix that!
Next time, I'm convinced we could cut the overall jam zip size in half! ( and it won't hurt audio quality, either! )

Take this, for example:
Lab 23 with compressed music was 3.06 mb zipped, but without compressed music, it was 12.7 mb. So it cut it down on the entire game's size by 4x! Now think about if we all remembered to use one of the three compressed options for our music, even taking into account that a good number of games don't get music implemented or have big art assets, we'd still cut down the jam zip size to about half or so. That's amazing!

(on a related side note: If your game is still huge, you probably just need to lower your color count on some images or something, though I admit, I haven't done enough research on image data with GameMaker to know for sure)

The issue is that the default is "Uncompressed - Not Streamed", which is great for SFX, but almost never good for music (the manual explains more).
I messed up on this as well, leaving it uncompressed for this jam. I'm making a point not to from now on though, especially since I now know exactly how massive of a difference it makes.

Here are two big space-saving tips for audio from an earlier more in-depth post of mine:
  • Converting a stereo sound to mono will cut its size in half.
    • Unless it'll ruin the intent of the sound, always go mono.
  • Avoid uncompressed audio for music.
    • Uncompress on load is fine though. More explanation is in my linked post above.
 
M

Misty

Guest
I feel I should intervene here to reinforce this point. I am sick fed up of you (@Misty ) talking in absolute terms as if your opinion is the only one that counts and usually being mean, condescending, and generally toxic in your every interaction on this forum. You have this uncanny ability to drag every thread into the mud and turn even the most delightful and entertaining of topics into a mean-spirited opinion-fest and I for one have had enough. Continue down this path and your account is going to be restricted, and I would urge you and all the other members of this forum to consider carefully how they interact with the other members. You can give negative feedback in a friendly and helpful way. You can dislike something without making it seem like anyone who likes it is an absolute fool. You can disagree without being disrespectful. And if you can't do any of these things then you have no place on this forum.
Again, I don't care. You are a hypocrit mod who says its against the rules to make accusations about members but constantly make accusations about me. And while I do hate Yal, because she chose to ignore me when I was trying to extend my hand in friendship to her, there has been some Yal games that were actually good. And everything is this inverted morality system where you get called toxic when you are victimized and they drew first blood. In that other thread Yal was being toxic yet my post is deleted when mentioning it. And in other threads people have been toxic to me, they drew first blood, yet I am the one getting called toxic, like some Rambo movie with inverted morality. In most cases, they drew first blood 99% of the time. But you aren't allowed to tell it like it is.

This forum is being infested with ultra-modernity virtue signaling competition where no negative opinions are allowed, and you aren't even allowed to say games are garbage without mods going into a soylent rage at you. Where's the fun anymore when everything has turned into some ultra-sensitive, ultra-modern, ultra-woke safe space. I been with the GMC ever since GM5. Watched it turn into this. And you are right, this is #NotMyGMC anymore. Apparently its against the rules to make honest Jim Steriling type reviews of games.

And FYI, I did put a lot of work into my reviews...if people would care to read the LOWER SPOILER where I put DETAILED ANYALYSIS AND CONSTRUCTIVE CRTICISM of most of the games...!
@JeffJ

Toque said:
No game is "trash".
This kind of mindset is kind of a problem.
 
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Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
The issue is that the default is "Uncompressed - Not Streamed", which is great for SFX, but almost never good for music (the manual explains more).
I messed up on this as well, leaving it uncompressed for this jam. I'm making a point not to from now on though, especially since I now know exactly how massive of a difference it makes.
This. So much this. My game went from 30MB to 10MB after I realized accidentally having left the music on the default setting... "uncompressed, not streamed" (which, in case you don't know, turns the audio into uncompressed WAV when making a build). OGG files easily get like one tenth of the size a WAV version of the same song would get. (I'm pretty aware of this since my audio workflow has me render to WAV and then convert to OGG files in another program)
upload_2019-12-21_19-3-21.png



Could be useful to point out both this audio thing and "please add a readme + credits file" on the first post (with emphasis as necessary, and also pointing out where to place the file and the exact name it should have to be found by the Jam Player), I completely forgot it was an option when I made my submission and I wouldn't be surprised if others also did so. (And at least one game this time had its readme file be ignored by players because it had a nonstandard name that made it not be detected)
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
@FrostyCat Glad you enjoyed my entry! Thanks for the feedback.
The main reason I started learning to draw and animate higher res stuff is just for the reason you mention in your comments, so I'm glad the diversity is appreciated.
It didn't occur to me until after the jam how unresponsive the game could feel due to some animations so I did add some interrupts to the dash and melee, which makes it feel must better.
That and a few other changes I made and released in a post-jam version in the WIP forum if you have any interest in playing a third time.
It's nice to see a drive towards more diverse styles in GM, especially in terms of art. Getting my 2D art basics back in order was my goal at the beginning of the year, but it fell to the wayside unlike what you accomplished. Would you be interested in starting a DeviantArt group where we can back each other up in general next year?

As for your post-jam version, I'll play that in a moment and post back about it. The most productive way to denounce bad sportsmanship on this forum is to support the work of good sports.

@FrostyCat glad you love my game. And yes the wave system is badly made. I came up with this idea too quickly and did not thought it way thru correctly (you can even tell thru my recorded dev logs on twitch). The crash is due to an infinite loop by the respawning system (It was suppose to fix the issue of ghosts going outside the room boundary ) but I guess that didnt solve it either. I was planning to make a entirely fixed version with a much adjusted progression part (since most of the funny and joke stuff were suppose to be in the larger waves but I guess nobody can even get to wave 8 or 9). However I got my hands really full for this month so probably by the end of this year or January Ill toss in a fixed version with some of those missed out stuff in it. :)
The crash came during the middle of a wave, so it's probably not the respawning system unless you're planning that far ahead. When it happened, my mouse cursor was held down and the character seemed to be clipping past the corner of a gravestone's hitbox. When you have time for the game, maybe you could check the while loops involved in pathfinding, if any?

@FrostyCat By now, it's definitely been a lesson, though perhaps moreso a realization that a lot more people than I'd expected use lower resolution monitors. :)I'm curious, do you have some kind of window scaling on? Because 1900 is more than enough width to keep everything fully visible (it was the resolution we made the game in) so if it still breaks, something's not right. You might want to try the fixed version linked above if you'd like to see the whole thing.
Yes, it's 125% on my laptop, and putting it back on 100% worked right. But under the 125% setting, both your original and patched versions do the exact same thing.

Since you developed off a 1920x1080 screen anyways, you can try it yourself. The result is similar to what happened to misu in this video at the 21:50 mark, except I could see the left half of the room with the safe's password in it.

Sure, the problem I experienced was because of my screen settings. But given how it's inevitable on other common smaller screens and how it's preventable had you used a more conventional view system, I stand by my assessment. It's a technical stunt, and it turned out to be detrimental to your entry.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
It's nice to see a drive towards more diverse styles in GM, especially in terms of art. Getting my 2D art basics back in order was my goal at the beginning of the year, but it fell to the wayside unlike what you accomplished. Would you be interested in starting a DeviantArt group where we can back each other up in general next year?
I guess I wouldn't mind joining such an art improvement group, either. I have preference to hi-res graphics myself, so I eventually decided to learn vector graphics to some functional extent (hi-res pixelart is also appealing to me, but also quite challenging). Likewise, I prefer hi-res audio, though I've yet to get past the hurdle of finding/preparing proper high-quality instruments. The hermetic professional audio software also makes the barrier of entry higher than necessary, I feel...
I suppose I've never been a person to get this retro appeal. It's not that I dislike the low-res pixel graphics or audio, but if I could choose their hi-res equivalents I would totally go for these (for similar reason, I generally skip the OST remixes from hi-res to low-res).

I've been experimenting with various art styles over recent years, though Telepath's Escape sprites is the first time I tried out the lineless flats style. I think it's pretty convenient once you figure out how to avoid the big-blob-of-single-colour problem (with shading and/or extra colours). It was especially helpful for making different poses - with a base position ready you can easily arrange specific parts into different poses/gestures etc. (especially useful when I repurposed ingame sprites for main menu chase sequence). I still got ways to go, especially when it comes to proper shading or handling 3D space distortions. Still, at least this art style removes the challenge of outlining (compared to lineart I earlier attempted), so I can focus on improving the shading and 3D perspective part.

Oh, on a side note @FrostyCat, I'm glad you enjoyed Telepath's Escape so much to give it 1st place. Glad you appreciated the mechanics and the tutorial (there's still room for improvement, but this room didn't fit in the Jam timeframe).
If you are interested, you might check out the project repository I linked to a while ago (though it's a single-commit repository made after the Jam, so there's not much of history here). I tried to keep things mostly orderly (until the late Jam, that is, when I e.g. included tutorial handling in the main ingame object).

I feel the codebase would have been so much cleaner and faster to work with if we got the new GML features already...
 
@FrostyCat I could be interested in joining a group like that. Sounds quite helpful. I find it's always easier to improve when you have other people around you. My guitar playing improved dramatically after I joined my first band for instance.

@Alice You should look at Dragonbones or something for animation with these kinds of art styles. It sounds like you already have the sprites set up for it and are already posing them in a similar way. Little bit of a learning curve but it makes animation a bit easier.
Also, I'm no expert, but if you need audio help I know a little more than average I guess.
 

dadio

Potato Overlord
GMC Elder
Thanks again to Alice for helping keep this Jam going. All her hard work is truly appreciated!
Grats to all Winners!
I will get all those prizes out to the Winners in the New Year! (Apologies but I have a ridiculous amount of real life heavy stuff happening at the moment to deal with.)
Iā€™ll be back here to sort out everything around 8th January!
Happy Holidays all!

PS: Steam game Winner! - PM me the GM game you want! Cheers!
 
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