GMC Jam Voting The Frozen GMC Jam 43 | Voting Topic

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Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator



Get the Games:

ALL GAMES + RANDOMISER (293 MB)
This zip folder contains a jam game player made by me to help you play & rank the games.
(it's still the old version of the Jam Player, but I'll make sure the new one can import old one's files)

or you can just download individual games from the games topic here:
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/the-frozen-gmc-jam-43-games-topic.91397/


Voting Deadline
December 21st at 23:59 UTC
(plus the time needed for me to wake up and close the voting topic)


  • Voters will then have around 2 weeks to play and rank the games and voting will close on December 21st at 23:59 UTC.
  • Any member of the GMC can vote, even if they didn't enter the jam. You cannot vote for your own entry.
  • Votes shall be posted in a single post in the voting topic. You may create a post and continue to edit it as you review more games, do not create more than one post for your votes.
  • Voters are encouraged to rank as many games as possible, and their final votes must include at least their top 3 games.
  • The top 3 votes must also be accompanied by a short review of why you liked the game and voted for it (any beyond the top 3 do not need a review, but it is nice to have).
  • Voters can also vote for the best game in each of the following (optional) categories: Best use of theme, best concept, best story, best presentation (gfx/sound) and best devlog (as written in the games topic).

Voting Template
(optional but helpful)

HamishMcSweeney'S REVIEWS AND VOTES

1st Place - Game Name by HamishMcSweeney

I voted for this game because...



2nd Place - Game Name by HamishMcSweeney

I voted for this game because...



3rd Place - Game Name by HamishMcSweeney

I voted for this game because...



Best Ofs

Best use of theme: game name by HamishMcSweeney

Best concept: game name by HamishMcSweeney

Best presentation: game name by HamishMcSweeney

Best story: game name by HamishMcSweeney

Best devlog: game name by HamishMcSweeney



Full Ranking

1. game name by HamishMcSweeney

2. game name by HamishMcSweeney

3. game name by HamishMcSweeney

4. game name by HamishMcSweeney

5. game name by HamishMcSweeney

6.... etc.
That's all you need to know!
Get playing and voting and enjoy those jam games :)

Boring technical info about how the votes are counted: Entries receive points based on where each voter ranked them, following the formula <BASE SCORE> * <TOTAL VOTES> / (<TOTAL VOTES> - <VOTING AUTHORS>)
For example, with 20 votes:
- the entry whose author didn't vote would have average score of <BASE SCORE> / 20
- the entry with 1 voting author would have average score of <BASE SCORE> / (20-1) = <BASE SCORE> / 19
- the entry with 3 voting authors would have average score of <BASE SCORE> / (20-3) = <BASE SCORE> / 17

More info in the Jams Suggestion topic



Live Streams! This is a list of people who have told me that they are planning on streaming their playthroughs of the jam games! I encourage those that want or are wanting to stream the games to do so and also let the community know! Streaming games allows the devs of the games to have play tests of their games and gain useful info about how they can further improve their game dev skills!
  • @EvanSki Everyday around 12 EST until all games are finished [Link]
 
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dadio

Potato Overlord
GMC Elder
Reviews

Top 3:

1st - Forgodden by Gizmo199
2nd - Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
3rd - Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Concept: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Devlog: N/A

Ranking:

1.Forgodden by Gizmo199
2.Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

3.Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
4.SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
5.BrightestCrayons by Poizen

6.Earlington Manor by Bart
7.The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
8.Stack by The M
9.Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
10.Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor


Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

Decent circular shooter experience rather than a game. Atmospheric. Tho... quite empty. Wish there was more to it!


Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Simplistic top down shooter. Retro pixel solider art. Single screen layouts. Was alright. Very basic.


BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Interesting drawing game in a crayon style. Very cool! Wish there was more to it/more puzzliness! Unique effort! Nice work!


Crush2 by Toque

Weird top down game about being an old man trying to get out and avoid being kissed. Was oooo-k. Yup!


Earlington Manor by Bart

Loved the start. Wish it stayed that way lol! Switch to 3D. Layout/visuals in 3D were very simple yet... awkward to move around in and know where to go. Was alright I guess. Loved the start and the font.


ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Circular movement game in space... collecting elements... hmm... can't quite figure out what to really do. Seems like there's not much to it? Really awkward control/button setup. Sorry.


Forgodden by Gizmo199

Really cool top down Boss fight thing. Great retro graphics. Neat music and sound use. Very atmospheric. Nice job!

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Weird artsy bullethell type thing.... about hydrogen. Had a nice mood. Unusual! Short. Not sure what the goal is...


Klik Da Elements by dadio

Mere words can not describe this work of genius. 100 out of 10.


M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

3D thing. Looed decent. No sound at all - booo! Level seemed totally empty? Incomplete game? Not sure.


Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

Interesting Pokemon like card game thing. Decent presentation/art/music. Very... busy/cluttered design tho. Wish it was cleaner/more intuitive. Nice enough tho!


Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Gorgeous presentation as always. Neat high scores. Great theme use *unlike most entries here...* Cute art. Actual game-play tho... was alright, a bit boring and not enough decision/tactics going on. Potential. Solid effort tho!

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

Very Christmassy. Decent art and presentation. 5 simple get the things games in one. Seasonal music. Kinda light on theme use... was ok.


SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

Box pushing with 2 character switching. Neat little puzzles here. Sure, it's just Sokoban with a tiny twist, but whatever, I liked it!


Stack by The M

Interesting boardgame with cards. I feel like this could have been really great with a proper art pass! Nice work here!


Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Very cool side on shooter a la R-Type. Great graphics and presenetation. Decent music and sound use. Loved the little into panels! Great job!

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

Tower defence thing with robots and elements. Nice music and slick presentation. gameplay was just ooooook tho. Quite boring.


Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

Platformer. Nice art/presentation. Great music use. But... level designs are sooo empty and sprawling... seems almost like... the "gameplay" is missing? No enemies, no interesting layouts, no puzzles? Maybe I'm missing something. Pity. Looked decent!
 
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Alexx

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
An awesome game - loved everything about it.

Nice info to explain what to do.

I'm huge fan of tower defence style games, and this is up there with the best.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Nice game, cool graphics.

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Great audio and visual effects.

Giving all the games another play through, ensuring I read the readme's to understand the games better.
 
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Mightyjor

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199
I beat all the bosses but got an error on the final Pheonix boss! (Just checked the forum and sounds like you're aware of it so won't bother pasting the code) I really wanted to continue the game but I actually restarted the game 5 times and got it every time. Maybe I'm killing it wrong, but it felt like I was supposed to shoot spikes and then knock it down, similar to the blocks? Just wanted to be sure I wasn't doing something that caused it.

With that out of the way though, let me say that this was just a joy to play through. It looks visually stunning with that faux 3D engine working wonders. I had some pretty bad slowdown on the phoenix level, running at probably 20 fps, but other than that the game ran great. Figuring out how to kill all the bosses was an absolute joy, though the rock boss at the beginning was certainly the most challenging both to figure out and defeat. The sound and effects and particles were all perfect. I especially love the opening title screen with the Forgodden logo that just makes me feel like I'm playing Titan Souls 2 or Hyper Light Drifter or something. The water sliding mechanic was such a neat idea. Overall the game was clever and well-made and a joy to play.

UPDATE: I came back and was able to beat the whole game. It seems like if you wait to use the spikes AFTER the phoenix comes down then the game does ok. Still got some pretty bad slowdown in the final boss rush, but overall it was great. I also realized that I hadn't fully figured out how to kill the Stormcloud because I didn't know about the spike trick. At the end if you're just using the fire tornado, you really can't get any hits on him, probably because of how fast the tornado is moving. The final fight was basically me running in a circle around that guy for a full 5 minutes before I finally looked up your guide because I figured there had to be a different way. I guess the spike thing just wasn't quite as intuituve.

Overall though, what a fantastic game. I would have gladly paid money for this. This one and Starship Elemental both could have gotten my #1 I think, but since they're both equally incredible I had to go with personal preference in that I would buy this game if it were out today and play it until I beat it, just like I did with Titan Souls.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
That was just a ton of fun! The opening cutscene had me laughing out loud in the living room. Some absolutely incredible pixel art here! Not to give away any spoilers but I was really blown away by the last section of the game. The middle section may have gone on a bit too long though...I wasn't sure if it was endless so I almost quit. I also got a few cheap hits by bees coming in from the back corner really fast, but I think the way you can avoid things after taking a hit to recharge your help is fantastic and mitigates a lot of that frustration. The ship moved just a bit too slow for me too, sometimes it was tough to outrun the (slow) homing missles. Overall though, I think this was a nearly flawless entry. The racoon stuff was just a delight and the end credits were worth sticking around for. Oh, and I definitely don't want to neglext the wonderful soundtrack by The Hammer, great job Ken! Was that 3 separate tracks? Each are perfectly suited for this type of game. Great work! Excited to see any future projects from Pixelated Hammered Raccoon!

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
So cool! I really love this game. Art, music and SFX are wonderful. I managed to get a pretty decent score I think, though I had a great run that was ultimately destroyed by the stinking temptress. I think as you get to know the cards, you can really strategize where you need to go, though it also seems like the level order is random based on my two playthroughs. I found that the element of surpise is the best thing to wear at the moment. I think the biggest thing this game is missing though is the ability to toss things that you don't want. As it currently is (from what I can tell) you actually need to use the item on an enemy to get rid of it which means to get rid of bad items you need to take damage from an enemy, even if you know what they are strong against. On the grass world my whole inventory gets filled up with leaves and I have nothing to do with them. It's great if you manage to hang onto them for the next world, but especially that stinking temptress will heal 5 almost every turn, so unless you've got a good card of bio or fire you're basically screwed. I know there's ways to strategize around this if you know what the stronger enemies are and what they're weak to, but I found it pretty frustrating to lose a whole run this way. I think the other really bad card I couldn't figure out was float. It didn't seem to weaken the enemy at all and your inventory gets filled up with them by the Will o Wisps which are actually pretty taxing to kill.

I love all the different elements and the mystery behind each card. I honestly would play a game like this for hours on mobile or something like that. Overall I think it's a really great game and I had a ton of fun on my multiple playthroughs!

Best ofs:

Best use of : Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
Best Concept: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Presentation: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Story: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Devlog: Forgodden by Gizmo199

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  3. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  4. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  5. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  6. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  7. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  8. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  9. Stack by The M
  10. Earlington Manor by Bart
  11. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  12. Crush2 by Toque
  13. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  14. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  15. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  16. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

I beat the game! Cool concept, very relaxing and pretty. Great atmosphere, nice music and sound effects. Overall very nice job. Love the use of the theme.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Interesting game! I think the explosives are pretty cool, though the engineer guy I can't help but feel goes a little bit too fast. Artwork is all great. Song is a little bit strange. Enemies can be pretty easily cheesed, but nice job with the pathfinding! I didn't understand the connection to the theme but might have missed it somewhere. Story gave me a good chuckle! But I also feel slightly guilty since there are for real people like this in real life tragedies where people die. But oh well, its a game and its fun :)

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Brilliant concept. The crayon drawings are just so cool! Reminds me a lot of Scribblenauts the way you can just be creative to solve the problems. The campfire puzzle didn't seem to work for me though. I drew a fire, then I made the fire huge when that didn't work, then the character and cat all just started bugging out. Overall a great entry.

UPDATE: Came back and finished the campfire puzzle after watching Evanski do it on stream. I think it would have been good to indicate there was some kind of puzzle element to that one since based on prior ones it just felt like the level was bugging out since I had already drawn a fire and it wasn't working. But it's certainly a cool puzzle! I don't think it needs to changed, just more similar puzzles beforehand where you have to erase things might help. I didn't know the eraser wouldn't erase the cat either. And it feels a little unintuituve (though hilarious) to set the cat on fire).

Crush2 by Toque

Beat the game! Very cool, the design of the protagonist is iconic as always. Boomerang dentures are certainly the way to go I think when you need to escape the old folks home.

Earlington Manor by Bart

Cool game! Love the 3D as always. I managed to make it to the guest bedroom and tried clicking sleep but nothing happened...I kind of assumed that's where the game ends, but wasn't really sure. I thought I'd get credits or something when that happened. Also the room labeled Storage was actually the study, which tripped me up for a bit. Couldn't figure out what the fans did and I never figured out how to use the jetpack. Let me know if I missed something and I'd gladly go back and complete the game. I really love the opening cutscene and the simplistic graphics. Everything works really well here.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Well I had a "yes" on everything in the upper left corner. Got my converter. Not sure if there was anything to do after that. Music was nice, controls were a bit confusing and I'm not quite sure I knew what I was doing, but incremental games are always fun for me. I would have liked a little GUI thing in game telling me which colors were which. It took me awhile to realize that it only collected iron for example when the particles were orange. Cool idea!

Forgodden by Gizmo199

I beat all the bosses but got an error on the final Pheonix boss! (Just checked the forum and sounds like you're aware of it so won't bother pasting the code) I really wanted to continue the game but I actually restarted the game 5 times and got it every time. Maybe I'm killing it wrong, but it felt like I was supposed to shoot spikes and then knock it down, similar to the blocks? Just wanted to be sure I wasn't doing something that caused it. If you've got an updated version somewhere let me know so I can beat it!

With that out of the way though, let me say that this was just a joy to play through. It looks visually stunning with that faux 3D engine working wonders. I had some pretty bad slowdown on the phoenix level, running at probably 20 fps, but other than that the game ran great. Figuring out how to kill all the bosses was an absolute joy, though the rock boss at the beginning was certainly the most challenging both to figure out and defeat. The sound and effects and particles were all perfect. I especially love the opening title screen with the Forgodden logo that just makes me feel like I'm playing Titan Souls 2 or Hyper Light Drifter or something. The water sliding mechanic was such a neat idea. Overall the game was clever and well-made and a joy to play.

UPDATE: I came back and was able to beat the whole game. It seems like if you wait to use the spikes AFTER the phoenix comes down then the game does ok. Still got some pretty bad slowdown in the final boss rush, but overall it was great. I also realized that I hadn't fully figured out how to kill the Stormcloud because I didn't know about the spike trick. At the end if you're just using the fire tornado, you really can't get any hits on him, probably because of how fast the tornado is moving. The final fight was basically me running in a circle around that guy for a full 5 minutes before I finally looked up your guide because I figured there had to be a different way. I guess the spike thing just wasn't quite as intuituve.

Overall though, what a fantastic game. I would have gladly paid money for this. This one and Starship Elemental both could have gotten my #1 I think, but since they're both equally incredible I had to go with personal preference in that I would buy this game if it were out today and play it until I beat it, just like I did with Titan Souls.

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

I got an 86.74%! Neat game! It's certainly the most peaceful bullet hell I've ever played. Also a good deal of my hits came at the beginning when I was just hanging out in the bullets to figure out if there was any damage. I love the music. Great job!

Klik Da Elements by dadio

Wow, truly heart warming. Love it! Not much else to say about it. After all, love is the greatest element.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Game looks great! Not much to do as you said in your Readme, but I think you could have a wonderful classic Unreal type game here! There was a game I played on PS2 with my brother for hundreds of hours that looked just like this but I can't remember what it was. I look forward to seeing what you can make in this engine! It looks and feels great to play in.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

So cool! I really love this game. Art, music and SFX are wonderful. I managed to get a pretty decent score I think, though I had a great run that was ultimately destroyed by the stinking temptress. I think as you get to know the cards, you can really strategize where you need to go, though it also seems like the level order is random based on my two playthroughs. I found that the element of surpise is the best thing to wear at the moment. I think the biggest thing this game is missing though is the ability to toss things that you don't want. As it currently is (from what I can tell) you actually need to use the item on an enemy to get rid of it which means to get rid of bad items you need to take damage from an enemy, even if you know what they are strong against. On the grass world my whole inventory gets filled up with leaves and I have nothing to do with them. It's great if you manage to hang onto them for the next world, but especially that stinking temptress will heal 5 almost every turn, so unless you've got a good card of bio or fire you're basically screwed. I know there's ways to strategize around this if you know what the stronger enemies are and what they're weak to, but I found it pretty frustrating to lose a whole run this way. I think the other really bad card I couldn't figure out was float. It didn't seem to weaken the enemy at all and your inventory gets filled up with them by the Will o Wisps which are actually pretty taxing to kill.

I love all the different elements and the mystery behind each card. I honestly would play a game like this for hours on mobile or something like that. Overall I think it's a really great game and I had a ton of fun on my multiple playthroughs!

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

This game starts off by saying there are 5 "short" games. THESE GAMES ARE NOT SHORT. It takes forever to collect all the stinking elements, especially in level 1 and 5, though 1 was especially tedious because of the strange jumping controls and the really rough hitboxes. I think if I were to rate the games, I would choose: 1st - Memory game, 2nd Bag open and closing game, 3rd - Bags scrolling left and right game, 4th Santa dropping presents game, 5th - santa walking game. Audio and graphics were really nice. No bugs that I could see, but the game is brought down so much by the terrible hitboxes. I seriously was no where near some of them when I had to start the entire level completely over which was really frustrating. Excellent use of the theme with the Christmas stuff, though I don't know how much sense it makes for santa to drop elements into someone's house, although Arsonist Santa would make a nice game on its own I think.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

Cool puzzle game! Unfortunately the continue button made me think I could stop the game and continue it later, but it doesn't seem to work so I only got through probably 25ish levels. I had a lot of fun though! Music, art and story were all very nice. I know you already touched on this but the perspective can be really weird at times and it can be tough to well what is a death ledge and what is a step up. You might think you're blocked in by walls but it turns out you can hop up one of them. The levels are so short though that a little trial and error isn't terribly frustrating when it comes to that sort of thing. Undo button definitely makes the game much nicer to play. The different powers were also pretty cool and fun to use. Also, the fact that you can just jump on top of your partner to kill them gave me a chuckle :)

Update, I've now beaten every single level except for the final level. And I think I probably won't beat the final level anytime soon...sorry just with the perspective and everything I just couldn't really make sense of what was even happening. I think the second to last level was amazing and really had me stumped for a few minutes!

Stack by The M

Neat game! Took a couple playthroughs for me to figure out how to play. Man I can't help but feel like I'm being flexed on since you created a card game with a working AI as your *back-up* game, but it is a flex well deserved. Things look and feel great, though the theme doesn't seem to apply all that much.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

That was just a ton of fun! The opening cutscene had me laughing out loud in the living room. Some absolutely incredible pixel art here! Not to give away any spoilers but I was really blown away by the last section of the game. The middle section may have gone on a bit too long though...I wasn't sure if it was endless so I almost quit. I also got a few cheap hits by bees coming in from the back corner really fast, but I think the way you can avoid things after taking a hit to recharge your help is fantastic and mitigates a lot of that frustration. The ship moved just a bit too slow for me too, sometimes it was tough to outrun the (slow) homing missles. Overall though, I think this was a nearly flawless entry. The racoon stuff was just a delight and the end credits were worth sticking around for. Oh, and I definitely don't want to neglext the wonderful soundtrack by The Hammer, great job Ken! Was that 3 separate tracks? Each are perfectly suited for this type of game. Great work! Excited to see any future projects from Pixelated Hammered Raccoon!

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

Great game! I absolutely loved this one. It has a fun little bonus mechanic where you have to match up the elements to make stronger characters while not totally neglecting the battlefield. Great use of theme, great art style, music fit well, though I think the SFX were a bit lacking. I died on my first run because I didn't understand how to upgrade, but my second run I beat the game without taking a single hit (and had a full field of fully upgraded dudes. Perfect difficulty I think for a jam game.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

Awesome game! Platforming feels great, cool metroidvaniaesque connected world. Music is banging, and it sounds like there's a different track for every world, plus 5 arrangements for every world? Goodness that's a lot. I managed to get all the elements and hit the checkpoints and I THINK I got all the white orbs, but can't be quite sure. Took me a while to figure out I had to be the correct element to absorb the new one, which led to me going back and forth between fire and water worlds a bunch before I finally got it. Overall great game!
 
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Pixel-Team

Master of Pixel-Fu
Reviews

Top 3:

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Plunder Dungeons is dungeon RPG where you collect elemental items to either wear or use as a weapon against a variety of different monsters. Wow! This game is so addictive. I played it for several hours in a session. The graphics are cartoony and cute, and theres good dungeon music in the background. The sounds were pretty "bfxr," but its the gameplay that really shines. This game has an online leaderboard (And yes Dan, I'm kicking myself for not putting one in our game) which encouraged me to keep playing. Anyhow, very entertaining game. My only gripe is that Temptress. This chick kept healing herself, making her near impossible to kill. How many healing cards does she have, Dan? What, did you give her a whole box of them? She used it twice in one fight with me, and I knew I was doomed after the second. But I'm gonna let all that slide, since I now know your high score was actually beatable. Great job here, Dan! I'm starting to get tired of all these home runs you keep doing. We need to come up with a new rule that Dan has to start his games the day AFTER we start the jam, to give the other participants a chance. I mean, what the heck is it with this guy? It's getting ridiculous!!


Forgodden by Gizmo199
The strongest entry for visuals and sound I've played so far, Forgodden bears a strong resemblance to Titan Souls (which I own on Steam,) being a top down boss-only fighting game. Beautiful pixel art and animation (love the sprite stacking technology), good use of the theme, haunting ambient sounds, and tight controls. Unfortunately, the game crashed, just as I was about to win the game, which spoiled an otherwise perfect entry in the worst possible way. This definitely would have been my first place pick if not for the crash. Despite that, this is a beautiful game, and has the look of a retail quality. Excellent work.


___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_boss_fire:

Variable <unknown_object>.active(100347, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0 (line -1)
gml_Script_depth_draw_objects (line -1)
gml_Object_con_render_Draw_0


Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
This game has you aim a particle accelerator to shoot a certain number of electrons to orbit a nucleus. What a simple idea, and a neat concept this was. The game does so much with so little, and I think a game like this could have (and should have) been made on every personal computer going back to early 80s. I loved the music, the Megadrive inspired sound FX and stress free gameplay. This game fit the theme perfectly, and took me to my Zen place when I played it. Well done!


Best ofs:

Best use of : Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Concept: Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Devlog: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Full ranking:

  1. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  2. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  3. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  4. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  5. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  6. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  7. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  8. Earlington Manor by Bart
  9. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  10. Stack by The M
  11. Crush2 by Toque
  12. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  13. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  14. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  15. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  16. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

This game has you aim a particle accelerator to shoot a certain number of electrons to orbit a nucleus. What a simple idea, and a neat concept this was. The game does so much with so little, and I think a game like this could have (and should have) been made on every personal computer going back to early 80s. I loved the music, the Megadrive inspired sound FX and stress free gameplay. This game fit the theme perfectly, and took me to my Zen place when I played it. Well done!

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Breacher Bob was cool, and played like a classic arcade game. It had great pixel art, a catchy music tune, and what sounded to me like NES chip sound effects. This game was pretty challenging to get through. I'm not sure I'm buying Bearman_18's use of the theme here, (he identified each enemy as an element before the round starts) but this was a pretty fun game anyhow. Great job!


BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Brightest Crayons was a cute game that lets you draw your player, and his cat, and draw to get through a few physics puzzles. I thought the concept was great, and the puzzles were centered around surviving "the elements" I just felt like this game was way too short. At times the engine slowed down to almost 1 frame a second, presumably because it was having trouble with the physics simulation. Still, this was a very cute game, and I could see it being developed into a serious project with more level designs, and a polishing of the physics. Great job!


Crush2 by Toque

Crush 2 features my favorite gamemaking Canadian Toque (I assume he's Canadian because we call them beanies here in the States,) in a nursing home, where he has to escape the orderlies and old ladies who want to give him a smooch. I was a big fan of Crush 1, and Crush 2 delivers the goods in a completely different way. Toque can throw his dentures like a boomerang to knock down old ladies and rude orderlies. While the game was presented well, it was very short, and did not have a strong adherence to the theme. And by not strong, I mean I couldn't find the theme anywhere. At all. I still enjoyed it though. Good Job Toque! Just how old are you anyway?

Earlington Manor by Bart

This is a 3D game where you have to get to the top of Earlington Manor by making your way through several physics rooms involving wind. This one shows a lot of promise, Bart! A couple issues I had though is that the mouse was way too sensitive, there was not a whole lot of visual feedback to items I interacted with (chests did not physically open, torches would not actually light, etc. But the worst part was I got a fatal crash when I got to the flood control room. I really enjoyed the experience up to that point, and I thought the music was charming. Looking forward to completing this with a patch. good job.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

This game has you building machines on a space station in order to survive. The controls weren't very intuitive, being that you entered menus with W, moved up in the menu with another W, exited the menu with A or D and selected an item with S while in the menu. Once I got the hang of that, it was onto building the collector, where depending on the color of the stars would collect iron, oxygen, or hydrogen. You had to switch it to collect each element, and when you had enough of a certain element, you could build more stuff. I got where a second person landed on the station, and I got to open a door to another area, and then all of a sudden I died, and it said I was unable to repair the station, even though I still had plenty of O2. Overall, I found the controls a bit rough to get used to. The graphics were okay, and the music was kind of repetitive, especially for such a lengthy adventure. Lastly, there was a horrible music bug that would happen if you looked at the tutorial and returned to the main menu, a second instance of the music would play. I think this game shows promise, and fit the theme. Good job!


Forgodden by Gizmo199

The strongest entry for visuals and sound I've played so far, Forgodden bears a strong resemblance to Titan Souls (which I own on Steam,) being a top down boss-only fighting game. Beautiful pixel art and animation (love the sprite stacking technology), good use of the theme, haunting ambient sounds, and tight controls. Unfortunately, the game crashed, just as I was about to win the game, which spoiled an otherwise perfect entry in the worst possible way. This definitely would have been my first place pick if not for the crash. Despite that, this is a beautiful game, and has the look of a retail quality. Excellent work.

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_boss_fire:

Variable <unknown_object>.active(100347, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0 (line -1)
gml_Script_depth_draw_objects (line -1)
gml_Object_con_render_Draw_0


Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

This game was not clear on its instruction,and it wasn't till the end that I understood what I was supposed to be doing, which was dodging the other dots. This game had me mesmerized from the moment it started to the moment it finished. I loved the music and visuals, and I wish it was a longer experience. And I have to ask Mr. Magnus if there is any way to score a perfect 100% on this game, considering all the solid lines that box you in? Anyway, while this may not be as strong an entry as some of the others, I found it very relaxing. Good job, Magnus!

Klik Da Elements by dadio

This was a short (and I mean short) game where you klik da elements. It looked more like a valentine to Dan than a game. Despite its clearly uplifting music and cheery message, I couldn't help but feel a bit down in the dumps after playing it. Partly because it was the most mediocre game I've ever seen in a game jam, but mainly because I don't have a friend like dadio.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

This is a great looking 3D 'game' where you get to be Tron shooting at light pretzels. Sorry, I tried to make it sound more exciting than it was. Actually, Micah_DS said this was more of an engine demo. That pretty much confirmed my suspicions. It's too bad there were no objectives, because I really liked the look of this entry and with everything you DID make, you certainly proved that you COULD have. Good job so far with your engine, and I hope to see this one go further.


Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

This game is a card battle game that requires 2 players to take turns with the same interface to battle each other with creature cards. The artwork is really good, and there's a nice tune playing in the background. There is NO README file, and it needs one. Another problem I'm seeing here is the fact that the game says that AI opponent play is coming soon, and this is a Game Jam, which means this message only serves to infuriate the player by telling them how good the game was SUPPOSED to be. My advice would be to always assume that the player is expecting a single player experience even if a multiplayer experience is also a feature, and always provide instructions, either on screen, or in a README file. Unfortunately, despite being one of the most visually striking looking games this time around, this entry came up short.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Plunder Dungeons is dungeon RPG where you collect elemental items to either wear or use as a weapon against a variety of different monsters. Wow! This game is so addictive. I played it for several hours in a session. The graphics are cartoony and cute, and theres good dungeon music in the background. The sounds were pretty "bfxr," but its the gameplay that really shines. This game has an online leaderboard (And yes Dan, I'm kicking myself for not putting one in our game) which encouraged me to keep playing. Anyhow, very entertaining game. My only gripe is that Temptress. This chick kept healing herself, making her near impossible to kill. How many healing cards does she have, Dan? What, did you give her a whole box of them? She used it twice in one fight with me, and I knew I was doomed after the second. But I'm gonna let all that slide, since I now know your high score was actually beatable. Great job here, Dan! I'm starting to get tired of all these home runs you keep doing. We need to come up with a new rule that Dan has to start his games the day AFTER we start the jam, to give the other participants a chance. I mean, what the heck is it with this guy? It's getting ridiculous!!

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

This game reminded me of the Flash games of the 1990s with big colorful sprites and easy to play, but difficult to master gameplay. I'll start with the good. The game did not crash, and featured 5 distinct minigames, complete with music and sound. Now for the not so great. The games all worked, but I can't say they were very challenging. Most had to do with simple gestures like touching items or jumping over objects. And while this is ok, some of the levels dragged on forever. The one level that actually WAS challenging was also equally frustrating. This was the matching level that counted correct matches against me, leaving a strict margin of error. If you had a certain number of errors, you could look at the board and KNOW you had no way of completing it. Still, I could tell a lot went into making these, and while I'm not a huge Christmas game fan (Unless there's a Krampus, or explosions involved,) I think you did a great job making a Christmas game.


SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

This is a puzzle game where you play 2 swappable characters as they take on a whopping 34 levels of elemental themed puzzle rooms. Good thumping music track. Okay sound effects. I think the game played very well overall, and got progressivly harder as you progressed. Sometimes the boxes did not read so well in large groups, and I wasn't crazy about falling into holes that were behind a box at the start of the level that I didn't know were there, and the fact that if Squaredude jumped on Circlegirl or Circlegirl jumped on Squaredude that they killed each other, but other than that, great job! I would love to see better graphics on Mercerenies' games that are worthy of the well thought out gameplay and puzzle mechanics.

Stack by The M

Stack was pretty good once I got the hang of how to play. The game features a game board which resembles a combination of Checkers and Chess. Your pieces have to spread and multiply to win. You take turns drawing cards that you can either burn for mana, or play at the cost of mana. There was good music, (no SFX). The graphics were good, but other than a designation of the opposing sides the theme of elements seemed to be a mere afterthought. Still, I did enjoy the game, and played several matches. Good entry here.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

This is my game. @EvanSki was on Code, @kburkhart84 was on Audio, and I did Pixels. We had a blast making this game. Hope you get a chance to play it through to the end and see the boss. There's also a game over joke if you let the Continue countdown run out.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

This is a tower defense game where you have to keep the bad guys from reaching the AI in the center of the screen. Graphics are good, and there's a snazzy little tune playing. There's no sound effects, which would have been nice to an otherwise decent presentation. The controls offer a way to upgrade the robots you are producing by pausing the elements on certain numbers, much like a combination lock, which is a unique way of utilizing the theme, as well as survive the increasingly harder to kill enemies. The game looks and plays decently, and utilized the theme well. Great job!

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

Voidling is a platformer where you get different elemental abilities. The abilities are used to traverse the levels. This game showed great promise. The character had some good animation. The tilesets changed when you changed elements, and the music was exceptional, being a looped track that persists, but changes instrumentation according to the element you're on. Very cool idea!! I loved the metal version! I did run into a problem when game created a situation where I simply could not proceed. I got the Water and Fire abilities, and then went to get the Earth ability (the one where you change to a little ball) and was unable to escape the area where the Earth ability was. At the checkpoint, the water ability was "Unavailable" with a gray X on it, so I couldn't double jump out of the area. Neither the Fire Ability (a horizontal dash) or the Earth ability (The little ball) could help me get myself back up the level. When continuing the game, I ended up in the same checkpoint. Trapped. Forever. I'm not sure why water ability wouldn't be allowed in the earth area. There was also a couple of fatal crashes. If you try to continue from the main menu and no saved game exists yet, it crashes. If you try to use R to restart to last checkpoint while in the checkpoint menu to change ability, it crashes. I would love to try this game again once the issues are addressed, but for now, sadly, it's a miss for me.
 
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Ralucipe

Member
Ralucipe's Reviews
All reviews available at gmcjam.joelrummel.net
1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
This was an incredibly solid entry and I enjoyed it a lot. The three different bosses were all very nicely done, and the final boss did a great job of tying everything together. The pace, difficulty, and length were all perfect for a game jam. The presentation has the Hyper Light Drifter formula down to a science and executes on it perfectly. There are a few things to polish with the gameplay that would've taken this game even further above and beyond - but it stands really well on its own without doing so. Full review

2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
The use of RNG in this game was very smart - the maps were randomized rather than the damage values of attacks in encounters. This kept the game fresh and kept me engaged for far longer than I otherwise would have been. Even with that design in mind, it still felt like I lived and died by RNG, which was the largest sole detractor from my experience. Despite that, I had a lot of fun - I was very impressed with the volume of content here, and with the overall completeness of the game. Even after several playthrus I was finding new cards, which was really neat. A little bit of rebalancing and this becomes a really great experience. Full review

3. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Most puzzle games like this seem to choose either quantity or quality - this one manages to pick both. There are a ton of levels, and most of them are genuinely challenging and engaging. Also I'm a HUGE fan of the backspace feature - it was excellently implemented, allowing me to seemingly indefinitely undo my previous movements rather than forcing me to fully restart a complex level. This was a standout entry that was unfortunately held back by some visual problems with the game's perspective. Full review

Full Ranking

Best use of "Elements": SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best concept: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

How do I rank and review games?
You probably don't care all that much about the nitty-gritty details of a random reviewer's scoring system, but I like to provide this write-up just to allow deeper insights behind my reviews to those who want them.
Review System Goals
I give all games a score from 0-30, with scores being broken down into three different categories: Player Experience, Theme Inclusion, and Overall Presentation. The weights for these categories and their sub-categories have been very carefully selected and refined over the course of multiple different game jams.

The goals of this scoring system are to:
  • Serve as a method of comparison between games for the purposes of eliminating biases in my rankings
  • Ensure that games are fairly recognized/criticized for individual elements, such as theme inclusion vs graphics
  • Provide developers with targeted feedback on what to improve
Things that are NOT goals of this scoring system:
  • Give absolutely-defined ratings to games, such as "good", "bad", "mediocre", etc.
  • Remove all subjectivity from the process of voting
I will now explain the point breakdown by category:

Overall Gameplay (13 total points)
This category rates the overall gameplay content of a game. It is deliberately weighted such that it makes up nearly half of the total score, as I believe that the underlying gameplay and mechanics are the most important component of a game.

Player Experience (10 possible points)
This is basically my assessment of how 'fun' the game is. Setting all other factors aside (menus, graphics, theme, etc.), I am looking for sheer entertainment value and player engagement. Some questions I ask when scoring this:

Did I enjoy the time I spent playing this game?
Was I engaged for a reasonable amount of time?
Would I want to play this again later?

Mechanical Polish (3 possible points)
This category looks to reward games that feel mechanically "complete". Some questions that I ask when scoring this:

Are there any "holes" in the gameplay? (ex. Can my character travel infinitely off-screen?)
Are the game mechanics/controls smooth and bug-free?

Theme Inclusion (6 possible points)
This is how I factor in the theme to my scores. Since this is weighted at 1/5th of the total score, games that do not connect to the theme will see a considerable drop in their score, but they can generally still rank well. Some questions that I ask:

Was it clear to me how the theme appeared in the game?
Did the game feel the need to explicitly explain to me its theme usage?
Did it go above and beyond to show a thorough and creative theme connection?

Overall Presentation (10 total points)
This category is about the game's audiovisual presentation. It is weighted less than Overall Gameplay because, while the best games need to have good graphics and sound, having poor assets shouldn't tank your ranking too heavily.

General Presentation (4 possible points)
This subscore is intended to fill in the blanks left by the other presentation subscores. Interfaces, menus, instructional screens, introductions, and cutscenes all contribute to this score. Some questions that I ask:

Is the game put together in a nice, cohesive package?
Was it easy to get started with the gameplay? (Did it cleverly show me instructions or did I have to read a wall of text?)
Does the game employ good UI design where needed? (Does it follow good UX patterns/practices?)

Quality of Graphics (4 possible points)
This one is pretty self-explanatory. You don't need professional-quality art to get a perfect score, but graphics do need to be visually appealing, and to feel like they belong there. (That is, the style of graphics should be consistent throughout the game, even if they don't look perfect.)

Quality of Audio (2 possible points)
Also self-explanatory. Usually I dedicate 1 point to the sound effects, and another point to the background music. If you're missing either one when it would've been appropriate to include them, it's a 1 point deduction each.

Stopping Point
All reviews include an approximate amount of time that I spent playing the game. This is to provide some extra context to my scores and commentary. Generally, I stop playing the game once I'm reasonably confident that I've experienced everything that it has to offer, or when I'm done having fun playing it.

If your game is able to keep me engaged for a long time, then that's excellent! But I have to keep moving through entries before voting ends. At the 25 minute mark, I begin actively trying to bring the game to its conclusion, or find a good stopping point. At the 30 minute mark, I close the program no matter what.

What does it take to get a perfect score?
One of the biggest problems with a rating scale like this one is that a perfect score in any category suggests "perfection". But everyone knows that there's no such thing as perfection, especially with video game development. I could define absolute limits at the top of each category, but if I happen to find a game that surpasses a limit, one of the aforementioned goals of the ranking system is no longer achieved (providing a fair means of comparison).

My approach to this problem has been to reserve top scores in each category for: "this cannot reasonably be improved". In other words, if I don't have any non-trivial criticism with regards to a specific category (keeping in mind the limited time frame of the jam), then a game should earn a perfect score in that category. While earning a perfect score is reasonably common in certain categories such as "Quality of Audio", it borders on an impossibility for categories like "Player Experience". To clarify: earning a perfect score (in most categories) is extremely difficult, and developers should keep that in mind when reviewing their scores.

Tiebreakers
When ranking games for my final votes, ties will be broken in the following order:

Higher 'Theme Inclusion' score
Higher 'Overall Gameplay' score
Higher 'Player Experience' score
Higher 'Quality of Graphics' score
Arbitrary choice

Please note that the ordering of reviews on the website when sorted by "total score" may not accurately represent these tiebreakers.
 
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Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Stream

Evanski's funsized Reviews

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199
I really like this game, the graphics and gameplay the presentation, you really make me scared for my own game lmao!
Its a lot of fun, the bosses are unique! definitely recommend controller tho. Unfortunately final boss and
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_boss_fire:

Variable <unknown_object>.active(100347, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0 (line -1)
gml_Script_depth_draw_objects (line -1)
gml_Object_con_render_Draw_0
OOO save
went back and beat it I think, die in the end? anyway great game!

Earlington Manor by Bart
Liked the game, sensitivity and fov would be nice to change, all in all lot of fun this one, especially to break

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Very cheeky and fun game! I hate the rng tho! I suck! wish i could always choose to punch instead of having to use the good cards I have

Best ofs:

Best use of : Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
Best Concept: Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: Forgodden by Gizmo199

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Earlington Manor by Bart
  3. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  4. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  5. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  6. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  7. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  8. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  9. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  10. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  11. Stack by The M
  12. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  13. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  14. Crush2 by Toque
  15. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  16. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

oi;lu jhx jiu efesg erdg erdg ewrg regmjierngujiengfiegjigyujer

This game is fun and peaceful. Very nice use of theme.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Fix your balancing.
fun game though

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Nice concept, like the drawing mechanic, the part with warming the cat was a little confusing the figure out as the only clue is light the campfire
the polygon stuff is glitchy at times ,but what can you do, over all fun an short game

Crush2 by Toque

Nice fun little game, had to spam shoot to progress tho

Earlington Manor by Bart

Liked the game, sensitivity and fov would be nice to change, all in all lot of fun this one, especially to break

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Kind of confused on what to do, I built the collector and the converter then just ran out of stuff to do, couldn't build anything else, nothing else unlocked, Idk how to progress?

Forgodden by Gizmo199

I really like this game, the graphics and gameplay the presentation, you really make me scared for my own game lmao!
Its a lot of fun, the bosses are unique! definitely recommend controller tho. Unfortunately final boss and

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_boss_fire:

Variable <unknown_object>.active(100347, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0 (line -1)
gml_Script_depth_draw_objects (line -1)
gml_Object_con_render_Draw_0

OOO save
went back and beat it I think, die in the end? anyway great game!

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

I would have a visual counter telling you how well you are doing, other wise pretty cool, and eye candy

Klik Da Elements by dadio

its a game
edit: watched pilots stream, very funny! Nice story

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Nice concept demo, Definitely keep at it, my 3d game Prometheus rising started as just messing around with 3D, it takes a lot of work, and what you have so far is fantastic! continue to work on it!!!

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

This game is fun if i got the concept, im just not good at card games like this, im sure with the ai and an proper understanding with a non-raccoon brain it will be very good,
I saw your video on it, and i think its pretty cool!

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Very cheeky and fun game! I hate the rng tho! I suck! wish i could always choose to punch instead of having to use the good cards I have

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

The art style of this game is very nice, i like how smooth the animations are, reminds me of a flash game I would play on the computer when i was a child, not a bad thing
The first level the hitboxes could be more forgiving at times i feel like i was killed with both whitespaces of a sprite get touched, for level 2 why does teh bag need to open and close? just makes it feel weird rather then adding an extra challenge, for level three don't dock me for making matches, it made it hard to find the tiles then match them and such if every match also took a try, the last levels instructions could last longer and be a little more forgiving on missing,

all in all tho fun an cute game!

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

This game is a hard puzzle game, What does not help is the perspective of the game, using multiple levels, at times its very confusing what level things are, added fall damage didnt help
at times it felt like the character went an extra step then I wanted, other then those gripes the gameplay is fun and its elements are very unquie and interesting to play with.

Stack by The M

Another card game I suck at, I dont understand what # means, at one moment I was winning then the opponent got all the points?
I like the concept wish it was more fleshed out tho

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

The elements thing is cool, but i dont like that it auto cycles, and the fact im under fire and have to wait for the cycle and time it just right to get the formulas,
however once i got the hang of it, it was pretty easy to win, I like tower defense games like this, and this was a fun short game to play

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

I like the concept of going to the different worlds and getting new abilities to go to the other places you need to go, unfortunately I do not think without your help I would have figured out some puzzles nor where to go,
over all tho the game is fun to play and hte concept is really great, shame the last area is unfinished would have liked some élite puzzle with all the elements or something, goodgame

Music 10/10 liked that the tracks shared a riff in them
 
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Gizmo199

Member
Gizmos reviews

Top 3:

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Wow! Just incredible! This was so polished and perfect! I felt like I was playing a classic cabinet arcade game. Everything was spot on! The only grievance I had was with the final boss. I was out of smart bombs and just had to slowly shoot bullets into his but when he started to open up for the laser. I would have liked maybe a tad bit more time, maybe a laser charging animations worth of time. Could also double as a good indicator of when the laser is about to shoot. Other than that though, just wow! So well done! Fantastic entry!


Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Wow! I love little turn-based games like this! My only wish was that I wouldn't run into so many enemies. I assume its randomized, but I got nearly all of my good cards wiped out as soon as I got them (like the silver bar which did like 12 damage or something) because It was the only one I had left. I think having the 'fist' card available at all times would be something I would have liked. That way towards the beginning I could stock up on good cards and get further in the game. But that's just my opinion! :p Overall it was a blast to play! Very easy to understand! :) Great work!! :D

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
I really enjoyed these puzzles! I got stumped on a few of them and some of them were a bit out of place in terms of difficulty curve but as always some amazing puzzles here! It's always a pleasure! My only suggestion might be to add in some on-screen queues for what I should do when using a new element skill. I think I skipped over reading something, but when I got to the water part I couldn't figure out how to beat it until I accidentally hit space and saw that they can shoot water droplets. Overall though a fantastic puzzle game! I hope to beat all of the levels, but I got stuck on one and had to take a break before I got too frustrated. haha. Great work!


Best ofs:

Best use of : Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Concept: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Presentation: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  3. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  4. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  5. Earlington Manor by Bart
  6. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  7. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  8. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  9. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  10. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  11. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  12. Crush2 by Toque
  13. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  14. Stack by The M
  15. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  16. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

That was a very peaceful game! I liked the concept! I think it could be expanded! Although I might suggest having orbital 'paths' so that players can utilize more 'strategy' than chance. Overall though very atmospheric and peaceful! Good work! :)

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Nice little shooter game! It would be nice to be able to kill them when they aren't facing you though. I tried sneaking behind doors and when they would walk through, blast them, but to no avail. They just looked confused and then started walking around to find me and shoot me. haha. Overall though great retro vibes! :D

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

That was a cute little game! I got an unexpected error on the campfire level though. I drew the campfire with the orange crayon but for some reason, nothing was happening, so I used the eraser to erase and start over and GM just stopped saying an unexpected error occurred (it didn't pop up a crash dialogue). Overall though very cute! I loved the sound effects! Very well done! :D

Crush2 by Toque

aha! I loved the graphics! great pixel art! Those grannies didn't stand a chance. Nor did the...scientists? lol. Strange but loveable! I dig it! Good job! It was quite entertaining!! :D

Earlington Manor by Bart

Nice 3D! Great physics! Is this using Box2D as well!? I Still don't know how you do it! lol. I've tried and cannot seem to get it to the level you have here! haha. Overall though, great work!! I got stuck in the east corridor room where there were only 2 pallets, one that would move up and down and another that was just on the floor. I couldn't seem to get out of it. :( I will try to come back and play through it some more when I have a bit more time. Overall good work! The camera sensitivity was a bit high and the friction a bit too low for the movement, which made it a bit difficult to move around.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Not exactly sure what my goal is here? I was able to collect enough iron to make the vending machine thing but then I couldn't figure anything else out. I just kept collecting iron. Also, it seems like I could only collect elements when under the little squiggly things? But overall not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be doing. I think having some prompts pop up as you play would help immensely! :) Also stating clear end goals would help a lot, as again, I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing or what my goal is. haha. Overall though, keep at it! I liked the way the space looked (does it have some sort of distortion on it?). And doing spherical movement with collisions is a feat in and of itself! Keep it up! I wouldn't mind coming back if I can figure out what I need to do! haha.

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Very neat concept! I got 85% so that's pretty good I feel like! lol. Nice work. Very surreal!

Klik Da Elements by dadio

This was just a true masterpiece! Just wow! It drops you right into the heat of things and doesn't let up! The level of detail in the character building in this one is just phenomenal! I don't wanna spoil it for anyone but when
He ate his own head after pronouncing that they couldn't be together
I struggled to jerk back the tears unlike I've done since my first pet 'left for the farm'. Klik Da Elements is truly a modern work of genius, and I encourage everyone to take a moment to just appreciate its very existence and the impact it will have on future generations. Not only for game development but the complete structural foundation of which storytelling is built, this work of art will define the way we interpret media for eons to come. Just when I thought I had seen it all, Klik Da Elements took my expectations and completely redefined them. My keyboard, now soaked in tears of nostalgia, regret, and self-awareness, can barely finish the words as they pirouette in my head. I thank you sincerely Dadio, for you have released the emotions I have barricaded in my soul for far too long, and you have Kliked my heart.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Very nice 3D! 3D is so fun to play with and you have a solid foundation here! Great work! It looks fantastic! I look forward to seeing more 3D work from you after this!! :D

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

This was neat! The graphics were amazing! Personally, I think there is too much going on though. I'm kind of dumb, so too many rules and I get lost easily. haha. I inevitably just ended up clicking and hovering cards over each other until something happened because I couldn't grasp what was going on. Too much math for me. lol. I think getting rid of the numbers except maybe 1 or 2 of them and using visual queues/effects to show what a player can do would be beneficial. That and/or a deeper in-depth tutorial. Basically babyproof it and I'll be good! lol. I just can't wrap my head around all of the numbers floating around on the screen. Like I would have 2 grass with 2 merge but they wouldn't combine, but yet I had 2 ice with 1 merge and they would? Again, that might just be me but I prefer 1 or 2 strategy components over keeping up with 4. Again though, that's just me so take it with a grain of salt. haha. I don't play a lot of card / tabletop games so that could be it as well! :p Overall though the presentation is solid! I like the graphics and it had some cheery peaceful music which I really enjoyed!! :D Great work!

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Wow! I love little turn-based games like this! My only wish was that I wouldn't run into so many enemies. I assume its randomized, but I got nearly all of my good cards wiped out as soon as I got them (like the silver bar which did like 12 damage or something) because It was the only one I had left. I think having the 'fist' card available at all times would be something I would have liked. That way towards the beginning I could stock up on good cards and get further in the game. But that's just my opinion! :p Overall it was a blast to play! Very easy to understand! :) Great work!! :D

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

What a nice little holiday mini-game collection! It brought me back to when I was young playing games like these online during the holidays at my family's! Props for that! You nailed the old 'flash game' aesthetic in a charmingly nostalgic way for me! :) Overall I think the games were a bit long though. Mix that with Perma-kill and you can create frustrated players quite easily. Overall though great work! Great graphics and jolly vibes all around! It put me in the Christmas mood for sure! :)

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

I really enjoyed these puzzles! I got stumped on a few of them and some of them were a bit out of place in terms of difficulty curve but as always some amazing puzzles here! It's always a pleasure! My only suggestion might be to add in some on-screen queues for what I should do when using a new element skill. I think I skipped over reading something, but when I got to the water part I couldn't figure out how to beat it until I accidentally hit space and saw that they can shoot water droplets. Overall though a fantastic puzzle game! I hope to beat all of the levels, but I got stuck on one and had to take a break before I got too frustrated. haha. Great work!

Stack by The M

Nice little card game! I had no idea what I was doing but I was able to win one! lol. Very neat though! Seemed like a good balance with the cards' mana value VS their effects! :) Great work!

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Wow! Just incredible! This was so polished and perfect! I felt like I was playing a classic cabinet arcade game. Everything was spot on! The only grievance I had was with the final boss. I was out of smart bombs and just had to slowly shoot bullets into his but when he started to open up for the laser. I would have liked maybe a tad bit more time, maybe a laser charging animations worth of time. Could also double as a good indicator of when the laser is about to shoot. Other than that though, just wow! So well done! Fantastic entry!

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

Wow! What a nice little tower defense game! I loved the tutorial and the graphics were great! I couldn't quite grasp the research concept, as it didn't really seem to be doing anything that I could tell. Maybe some visual effects or queues to let the player know that something has happened rather than displaying some text would be optimal. I don't play a ton of tower defense games so IDK what kinds of mechanics are normal as far as upgrading towers but It seemed like I was doing well as far as I could tell! haha. Overall great work!! :D

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

This was neat! The music was incredible! I loved the way that it would change based on the ability you had selected. Unfortunately, I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing here. I went through the top left portal (once you get to the room with all of the other portals) and played through it until I found an element coin thing, but once I got to it nothing happened. I noticed switching to water would fill up certain areas with water where I could float so I tried mixing and matching elements to figure out what I was supposed to do but inevitably I just kept jumping around and dying. lol. I would have liked some kind of prompt telling me what I should be doing. I just couldn't figure it out. I tried the other levels and was just kind of jumping around. I would love to come back to it! I like the roguelike-style platformer where you collect things you need to get to other areas! Overall not bad, just seems to be lacking quite a lot.
 
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Roldy

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199 - Plays well. Looks good. Felt themey. Boss Battles.


Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan - Simple solid run based fun.


Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon - Solid.



Best ofs:

Best use of : Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Concept: BrightestCrayons by Poizen
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Devlog: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  3. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  4. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  5. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  6. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  7. Stack by The M
  8. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  9. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  10. Crush2 by Toque
  11. Earlington Manor by Bart
  12. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  13. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  14. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  15. Klik Da Elements by dadio
  16. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  17. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  18. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Comments:

 
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kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
Starship Elemental was my 1st place choice but since I can't vote for myself................. ;)

Reviews

Top 3:

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
I think your use of elements and letting the player change elements was neat. The music was also great. However, it is possible to soft-lock yourself. I went water and got that ability. Then I went and got the fire ability. From there I went to the Earth section and fell down to the lower left where you would need the shrinking ability, but I couldn't double jump or wall jump to get out(didn't have the wall jump yet), and the checkpoint wouldn't let me use change to the water element for whatever reason. Maybe I missed something. Gave best presentation to this one because the music stole the show.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Neat little crawler...certainly RNG dependent, even if you do know for sure the elemental strengths and weaknesses(which I didn't). And I'm on the leaderboard too! Best use of the theme IMO here simply because you had such a variety of them and they had an effect on the gameplay consistently.

Forgodden by Gizmo199
I'm not usually a fan of twin-stick stuff because they tend to complicate things since you have to focus on two directional controls at once. I will say that this one is well done however. The boss fights are hard but certainly possible. I didn't really understand the ending much, did the character replace the ghost thingy or what happened? I docked points because there is nothing really known as far as a story or whats the reason behind any of it. Voted best concept due to variety within the 3 bosses and it being an actual playable twin stick.

Best ofs:

Best use of : Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Concept: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Presentation: Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
Best Story: Crush2 by Toque
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  3. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  4. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  5. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  6. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  7. Stack by The M
  8. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  9. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  10. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  11. Crush2 by Toque
  12. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  13. Earlington Manor by Bart
  14. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  15. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  16. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio
  18. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

Neat concept, just missing content to make it last. Atleast you had the 2nd game mode. More mechanics is what's missing. Music is fitting even if it wasn't created during the jam.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

I got to the third level...I spent half an hour trying to beat it. I know others were able to but it feels harder than it should be. It isn't a bad concept but it is pretty unforgiving.

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Ambitious idea for a jam game even if it was a week long. It did functionally work, though I'd recommend you have a sort of outline that draws around little bitty sections of color since they are easily missed and yet still block things.

Crush2 by Toque

Alrighty then, a stitch for his gitch :) The unfairness of the enemies walking through stuff(while you and your gums can't get through it) is certainly offset by the randomness and ease of freezing the same enemies. Gave this best story due to some comic relief.

Earlington Manor by Bart

Lack of 3d lighting really messed this one up honestly. It surprisingly never gave me the bug though. I DO still think it's interesting how you use Box2d for the 3d physics.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

I saw everybody elses comments and I'm with them. Your tutorials don't really mention much about goals, companions, or even the little yellow guy you have for an enemy. I only figured those things out after looking into the devlog and seeing it, but I'm not about to spend more time replaying as I already spent over half an hour messing with it. The concept itself might be something you could turn into a full game if you had more mechanics and variety.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

I'm not usually a fan of twin-stick stuff because they tend to complicate things since you have to focus on two directional controls at once. I will say that this one is well done however. The boss fights are hard but certainly possible. I didn't really understand the ending much, did the character replace the ghost thingy or what happened? I docked points because there is nothing really known as far as a story or whats the reason behind any of it. Voted best concept due to variety within the 3 bosses and it being an actual playable twin stick.

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

It was certainly pretty...but no goal, no death, no nothing. It changed color when you were getting hit but no consequences.

Klik Da Elements by dadio

Well, I guess it was a joke kind of thing, so be it. I gave it a bit of points since I'm assuming the music was original(no readme).

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Nice tech demo and glad it served the purpose of you learning stuff. I can't really rate it high of course but kudos to you for going 3d and learning with it.

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

Interesting concept...help screen required holding the mouse button down though which was annoying. And once a player won 2 rounds it was just stuck black screened so I couldn't really start a new game without exiting. The missing AI opponent kinda messed things up as well(but you already know that).

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Neat little crawler...certainly RNG dependent, even if you do know for sure the elemental strengths and weaknesses(which I didn't). And I'm on the leaderboard too! Best use of the theme IMO here simply because you had such a variety of them and they had an effect on the gameplay consistently.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

Seems like you had a Christmas theme in mind and had to tack on the ELEMENTS theme afterward :) It's a nice little mini-game collection, though I'd say it is more suited to mobile casual gamers than PC gamers. It gets pretty repetitive too, with level taking way too long but nothing changing.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

I don't like puzzly stuff so I'm sure this rating is biased accordingly. I did play through maybe 10 or 12 levels or so before I quit...I don't have the patience. It is VERY good that you provide the backtrack feature instead of forcing a restart. The other abilities were probably more interesting too but I only saw water and air.

Stack by The M

I think I got things figured out. This is an interesting concept. A post jam version could certainly include the other decks and maybe some customization options, or even custom decks from cards between the originals.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

I'm sure everybody is aware by now, feature creep caught us, and this was a learning experience for all 3 of us. Evan was learning ways to make a wave system, Pat had never used Spine directly with Gamemaker in this fashion before, using actual spine functionality(such as moving the collider around), and I just started making music a couple months ago since the game jam, and hadn't yet done anything in this genre or style. It's good to see that the result worked out pretty well and we all got useful learnings out of it too!

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

Interesting concept, but too hectic and fast to be able to get things going(for these old hands anyway).

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

I think your use of elements and letting the player change elements was neat. The music was also great. However, it is possible to soft-lock yourself. I went water and got that ability. Then I went and got the fire ability. From there I went to the Earth section and fell down to the lower left where you would need the shrinking ability, but I couldn't double jump or wall jump to get out(didn't have the wall jump yet), and the checkpoint wouldn't let me use change to the water element for whatever reason. Maybe I missed something. Gave best presentation to this one because the music stole the show.
 
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Toque

Member
Opinionated bias corrupted vent goes here.


1 ) Forgodden by Gizmo199.

This annoys me to no end. My Jam nemesis claims the first place........ But its so polished and cool and fun. The art. sounds.... Dam you.

2 ) Starship Ellement Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

It was time a space shooter made the top three. This was the game that deserves it. Just shooting fun with great effects and elements..... Great job.

3) Breacher Bob Bearman_18

A bit of an underdog. But it has bomberman feel. Hey its gets hard fast but its a fun ride to get there. Just an old arcade kind of feel that touched this 80's kid heart. Bias probably but is a sold fun game.

4) Squaredude and CircleGirl.
5) Voidling Alice, yozoraki, Siolfor the jackal
6) Atomic Jam The digital fish. loved it.
7) Stack by the M
8) Brightest Crayon Poizen
9) Plunger Dungeon
10) The End Josh Chen and Bandman28
11) Santa must save christmas Alexx
12) Hydrogen Dance Mr. Magnus
13) merge Awaremon Mightymor
14) Earlington manor Bart
15) Elemental station
16) M4N4Punk Micah_DS
17) kilk Da Elements Dadio
 
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GameDevDan

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

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Fire Boss:
Very clever use of graphics to get that semi-3D look on the bird boss with the 2D flapping wings. Hard to describe what I mean exactly, but I'm pretty sure how you've done it on the back end and it looks great. The gameplay design here is top notch too - the sort of thing I would expect to see in a Zelda boss fight.

Earth / Plant Boss:
Again nice use of graphics with the sprite-stacking going on here. Easy to overuse that in games but because your game is 90% visually 2D with just these fake-3D bits to add flavour it looks really impressive. The gameplay of this boss though I just can't fathom. None of my attacks seem to do anything to the fists or the "head". The intuitive thing seems to be to attack the big glowing hole with either fire or plant but it doesn't seem to work.

Water Boss:
Very clever level design here. I blew out the fire at the start only to realise that's exactly what I needed to defeat the bad guy lol. Good use of graphics tricks again on the tornado.

Overall: Good graphics, clever boss designs, and matches the theme well. Good job. (if there are more than the three bosses I missed them as I couldn't defeat Earth dude).


Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Presentation was absolutely spot on - slick as all heck. The game was fun to play, with good weapons, and just about the right length to keep it interesting. Obviously makes decent use of the theme too. Couple of crits I would give: in the moments leading up to the boss fight there is wave after wave of the same enemy - could have been mixed up a bit. The score, visible at the top, doesn't seem to end up being used for anything? I was hoping for online highscores but I realise that's a lot of effort in the jam timeframe especially if you don't have a web developer on your team! Anyway, this is an all round great game and I'm sure it will do well.


SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
As usual some very clever thought put into game mechanics and level design here. The puzzles are rock solid in each room and genuinely make you think and engage with the content. It's the only game I've played so far with a story, and a decent one at that, so fair play. I have a problem with the graphics... I don't mind "cheap and cheerful" - jams are about making fun games not having the best art or sound. But the graphics in this actively mess with the gameplay because it is very often hard to tell where boxes/holes/ledges actually are in the level space. One example of this very early on
is this room here with many boxes however there are worse examples as you progress through the game and have to "climb" ledges or push objects through gaps which are, at least visibly only 1 pixel wide. That problem aside, this is a really great game to play - well done.

Best ofs:

Best use of ELEMENTS: Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Concept: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  3. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  4. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  5. Stack by The M
  6. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  7. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  8. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  9. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  10. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  11. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  12. Crush2 by Toque
  13. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  14. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  15. Earlington Manor by Bart
  16. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

Very clever use of particles because the game looks fantastic without too much heavy lifting on the art side, I really like the effect you achieved. It's surprisingly fun and therapeutic considering the actual mechanic is not particularly challenging. In fact, it feels a bit random. Like I just have to click once every 5 seconds and eventually I will win. But it still ends up being enjoyable to play! kudos.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

It's quite difficult because the enemies are coming through narrow doors and shoot instantly on sight, so if you can't get a good angle on them you're stuffed and have to start again. As top down shooters go though it is well put together with a couple of different "elements" to make it unique in each level.

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Very cute! I really liked the mechanics and the way it saves your pictures and continues to use them in the story. It crashed on me a couple of times, usually when I created some sort of unsavoury collision between my crayon and the hero. I also couldn't figure out how to light the fire but I did enjoy decorating the house - thank you for creating a lovely game!

Crush2 by Toque

LOL I enjoyed the humour in this game. I enjoy the fact that the male-presenting care home doctors turn into lovestruck old ladies when hit with a set of false teeth. and I enjoy that the ladies giggling sound like the monkeys from Barrel Shield Bust Up in DKC3. Doesn't match the theme much though.

Earlington Manor by Bart

I always appreciate the effort it takes to make a 3D game in GameMaker, and some of the models / graphics in this game are quite impressive. I didn't manage to achieve much though. Nothing is very well telegraphed, so I can't figure out where I'm meant to be going. The mouselook in this game also seems different to how you usually do it - it's very "floaty" which makes me sort of motion sick? How you've tackled mouselook in previous entries was preferable so I hope you'll go back to that in future!

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Not really sure if there's much of anything to do in this one. I've built an element collector but it never seems to catch any of the atoms. I've read and re-read the instructions a couple of times and there doesn't seem to be anything else I can do. Maybe this one was unfinished? not sure.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Fire Boss:
Very clever use of graphics to get that semi-3D look on the bird boss with the 2D flapping wings. Hard to describe what I mean exactly, but I'm pretty sure how you've done it on the back end and it looks great. The gameplay design here is top notch too - the sort of thing I would expect to see in a Zelda boss fight.

Earth / Plant Boss:
Again nice use of graphics with the sprite-stacking going on here. Easy to overuse that in games but because your game is 90% visually 2D with just these fake-3D bits to add flavour it looks really impressive. The gameplay of this boss though I just can't fathom. None of my attacks seem to do anything to the fists or the "head". The intuitive thing seems to be to attack the big glowing hole with either fire or plant but it doesn't seem to work.

Water Boss:
Very clever level design here. I blew out the fire at the start only to realise that's exactly what I needed to defeat the bad guy lol. Good use of graphics tricks again on the tornado.

Overall: Good graphics, clever boss designs, and matches the theme well. Good job. (if there are more than the three bosses I missed them as I couldn't defeat Earth dude).

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Somewhere out there in the world is a post-it note containing the words "What if it was a bullet hell but also a serene, spiritual experience?" I really dig the relaxed vibe of this and the way the patterns build to that big finale. My score 83.68% - not bad I reckon! Nice entry.

Klik Da Elements by dadio

I mean I found this genuinely heartwarming and funny - to the point where it does personally mean more to me than a couple of the other entries which seem unfinished or not fully playable. But, that said, I am going to put it rock bottom for the banter.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Really nice aesthetic and good use of 3D. I hope any skills you learned here will be carried forward to a future jam where you have more time - would love to see an actual game in this style rather than just a tech demo!

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

The graphics look really nice, and some thought has clearly gone into the game mechanics - although they're not exactly the most intuitive instructions in the world! It's sort of confusing as to why fire points win, grass points allow you to merge etc. I know it fits in with the elements theme but they may have been better off just being called something else (Gold coin icon for points, DNA icon for merge? idk). It's hard to truly appreciate 2P games as I'm testing all these by myself but I think I gave it a fair shake and it is a decent entry.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Post Mortem: Any and all problems I can see with this myself, or that I've seen/heard in other peoples' reviews are really just a result of me not having enough time. Possibly I overscoped - but then I don't think the game works on its own terms if it didn't have all the elements and monsters that it does. I am very happy with this end result, I think it's a fun game. But improvements that immediately spring to mind are: Make everything actually do what it says (some things just copy other elements effects because I didn't have time to make them unique). Allow the player to "manage" cards instead of just saying their pockets are full. Balance the enemy's attacks, as anything with above 6HP holding "Light" cards is a nightmare to beat.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

A cute little series of mini games, I appreciate that someone actually made a Christmas one and I know the effort that goes into creating several different mechanics (effectively like creating 5 different but very short games in the jam timeframe). The elements aspect feels a little crowbarred in, like if they had just been presents of a different color or shape the game wouldn't have been any different. But still, it's a solid entry.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

As usual some very clever thought put into game mechanics and level design here. The puzzles are rock solid in each room and genuinely make you think and engage with the content. It's the only game I've played so far with a story, and a decent one at that, so fair play. I have a problem with the graphics... I don't mind "cheap and cheerful" - jams are about making fun games not having the best art or sound. But the graphics in this actively mess with the gameplay because it is very often hard to tell where boxes/holes/ledges actually are in the level space. One example of this very early on is this room here with many boxes however there are worse examples as you progress through the game and have to "climb" ledges or push objects through gaps which are, at least visibly only 1 pixel wide. That problem aside, this is a really great game to play - well done.

Stack by The M

A decent concept. There could be a little more explaining in game as you play along to make it easier to remember the mechanics and what you're supposed to be doing... but I was guilty of that myself this jam too! It can be hard to create time for that kind of polish. Anyway, I figured out what I was doing and made a good game of it. I keep losing but I do understand what I'm supposed to be doing, so maybe I'll win eventually ;)

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Presentation was absolutely spot on - slick as all heck. The game was fun to play, with good weapons, and /just about/ the right length to keep it interesting. Obviously makes decent use of the theme too. Couple of crits I would give: in the moments leading up to the boss fight there is wave after wave of the same enemy - could have been mixed up a bit. The score, visible at the top, doesn't seem to end up being used for anything? I was hoping for online highscores but I realise that's a lot of effort in the jam timeframe especially if you don't have a web developer on your team! Anyway, this is an all round great game and I'm sure it will do well.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

I like the idea, the presentation and the fact that you managed to have an in-game tutorial... something a lot of the rest of us missed and just slammed into our readmes last minute lol. In terms of how the game play pans out though, I pretty much just ended up spamming robots all over the screen and waiting to die. It felt like with more "tower" types there could have been more interactivity, and therefore more longevity for players.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

I really like the concept of this, and the platforming engine itself has a nice smooth feel to it. The graphics are fairly decent and the music / sound design is good. However, it is a little bit too "open" for me, and not signposted well enough. It may well be that it's geared towards exploration, but I would like a hint or two as to where I should be going in each level. I also hit a few bugs / blockers while playing:

- The transition jumping back up from one of the portal areas (winged portal, bottom of the brown area) left me invisible / stuck somewhere with no way out.
- I get an error when pressing continue on the menu: "ERROR in action number 1 of Step Event0 for object ctrl_MainMenu: array_create argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) expecting a Number (YYGI32) at gml_Script_array_clone"
- It was possible to get stuck in a big ditch in the forest area, presumably because I was expected to have an extra ability by then?

Still, a good effort.
 
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Sk8dududu

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Really enjoyable game, I honestly played this for over an hour with my daughter. And I think it says a lot about the game design that even a 4 year old could figure it out. The wearable armour/skins were really cool and add a lot to the game. I found myself finding new abilities or enemies every single run. Best roguelike jam game I've played and I refused to stop until I demolished the highscore.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
I got so excited when this game booted up. Looks like a really good arcade game, but it doesn't play like one. These sidescrolling arcade shooters are supposed to absolutely eat your quarters, not beat the game the first time anyone plays it. You get 3 hits per life from what I can tell, I never actually died, and then your ship also heals it self so you can get hit infinite times in 1 game, and it gives you a screen clearing bomb every 10 seconds.

End boss needs some phases or enemies added to it, maybe a visual que as to how much damage you have done, like broken armour or something.

Music was really great and I appreciate it a lot that it was made during the jam, a lot of people overlook that.

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Hyper Water Drifter Boss Rush. Hard af which is kinda cool, movement feels really good. Gamepad support is very welcome.

Best ofs:

Best use of theme: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Concept: Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Presentation: Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Story: Earlington Manor by Bart

Full ranking:

  1. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  2. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  3. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  4. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  5. Stack by The M
  6. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  7. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  8. Earlington Manor by Bart
  9. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  10. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  11. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  12. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  13. Crush2 by Toque
  14. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  15. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  16. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  17. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  18. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

Challenging little puzzle, but it seems almost random to get them not to collide, and gets boring after just a few minutes. Molecule mode was really cool.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Dope into, my keyboard doesn't have arrow keys. I CBA to rebind the keyboard for one game. HUGE props that the music and everything was done during the jam timeframe, the music was sooooooo good. Which is why despite not really being able to play the game this was still a really good submission to me.

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Interesting game, can definitely tell it was rushed as it seems kind of broken. I got to a point where I was soft locked as I had used every colour on the campfire without it succeeding, and then the game lagged super hard and started throwing stuff around. Interesting idea to make an art game.

Crush2 by Toque

Funny little game. I like the homing shots. Where's the theme at though?

Earlington Manor by Bart

Pretty cool design, I'm not super big on 3d puzzle games, so I didn't finish it, intro was kind of funny. I feel bad for not giving this game a real shot but I just couldn't get into it.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

2001: A Space Aneurysm. I get that this is an idle game, but it's just too much. I'd stood here for like 10 minutes without pretty much any progress. Most games have a more interactive menu system and this entire game combined.
It is a game though, so it's not the worst.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Hyper Water Drifter Boss Rush. Hard af which is kinda cool, movement feels really good. Gamepad support is very welcome.

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Neat bullet hell game. Can't die though and have no indication of your current progress or percent so if you were trying to go for a PB you wouldn't really know until the entire game ends. The fine movements needed would be easier to do with mouse controls

Klik Da Elements by dadio

I'm both scared and confused; but my 4yo daughter likes the "ROBLOX music" so there's that.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Looks fantastic, feels pretty good. You should try using a non linear scale for the mouse sensitivity. At zero the mouse doesn't move at all, then at 1% it's already too fast for me. Kind of like how audio scales don't usually have like 50% volume at 50% scale.

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

Bold of you to assume I have any friends to play this with. Art is beautiful. The help page instantly hurt my soul when I opened it, I didn't know where to look, it just all screams at you all at once.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Really enjoyable game, I honestly played this for over an hour with my daughter. And I think it says a lot about the game design that even a 4 year old could figure it out. The wearable armour/skins were really cool and add a lot to the game. I found myself finding new abilities or enemies every single run. Best roguelike jam game I've played and I refused to stop until I demolished the highscore.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

Holy text overload, Batman. Way too much information thrown at the player in the first second of opening the game. It fits the theme obviously and it was easy and enjoyable to play, my child enjoyed it a lot. Hitboxes are kind of rude. lol

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

My keyboard doesn't have arrow keys. Upside down face. Art is off-putting; creepy Barney vibes. I assume it's some sort of puzzle game, but I wasn't able to play without rebinding my keyboard.

Stack by The M

Pretty cool idea. Seems far too easy though and that the ai seemingly does random moves that don't help it much at all.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

I got so excited when this game booted up. Looks like a really good arcade game, but it doesn't play like one. These sidescrolling arcade shooters are supposed to absolutely eat your quarters, not beat the game the first time anyone plays it. You get 3 hits per life from what I can tell, I never actually died, and then your ship also heals it self so you can get hit infinite times in 1 game, and it gives you a screen clearing bomb every 10 seconds.

End boss needs some phases or enemies added to it, maybe a visual que as to how much damage you have done, like broken armour or something.

Music was really great and I appreciate it a lot that it was made during the jam, a lot of people overlook that.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

Honestly I may just be dumb but I don't understand the research tree. Seems like too much to deal with while focussing on my towers being destroyed rapidly. Game looked good though, felt ok for a jam game.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

I see that there is quite a bit of content, unfortunately that content feels lacking and just isn't fun for me. Quality over quantity. This was the one game I was willing to rebind my keyboard (since I don't have arrow keys) for, just because I really respect the creators and they usually have really good stuff. Maybe I'm missing something but it just wasn't for me and had too many abilities right at the start of the game with no clear rhyme or reason. Felt almost overwhelming.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
Reviews

Top 3:

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Awesome game! For a jam game, this is surprisingly addictive and replayable... and I'd honestly play this as a full game if it was expanded upon a bit (and there is DEFINITELY room to expand this!). The graphics are incredibly cute, and I love the detail of being able to wear one of the elements that you get and have it confer some kind of bonus or effect, and the fact that it changes the player costume too is just **chef's kiss**. I would have liked to have a "basic" attack available at all times, as it was very frustrating to have only high power elements when facing a low powered foe, but that's a minor complaint. Oh and the sound, music and general presentation was perfect too (although no real story to speak of). Still, all said and done, I really enjoyed this and think it's the game that I've spent most time playing this jam.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
Amazing... What a fantastic game (even in it's unfinished state!). Reminded me somewhat of Wandersong actually, in large part due to the fantastic music it has, but also in the general "feel" of the game... I didn't feel in any pressure to actually do anything which meant that the whole fun of the game came from simply exploring and finding stuff, which may sound boring, but really wasn't. Especially since switching elements also switched the visual look of the game and the soundtrack (which was a VERY nice and clever touch... Kudos to Siolfor the Jackal for the work they did on this!!!). I would definitely play a finished version of this, and can see a full, comercial release being a viable option if you all ever decided to actually go that way.

Forgodden by Gizmo199
This game was WAY TOO HARD FOR ME! LoL! Honestly, I found each of the boss fights to be nigh on impossible to beat and only actually managed to finish the Pheonix/fire one, got about half the cloud/lighting one's health down before dying every time, and could get NOWHERE against the blocks... My sad gamer skills aside, this is quite an astoundingly well made game for a game jam! Visually beautiful, with great sound and reactive music, tight controls, nice use of the theme, and generally a very polished gameplay experience. Well done!

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Concept: Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  2. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  3. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  4. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  5. Earlington Manor by Bart
  6. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  7. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  8. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  9. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  10. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  11. Stack by The M
  12. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  13. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  14. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  15. Crush2 by Toque
  16. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  17. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  18. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I loved this... I have a background in bio-chemistry and love science in general, so being able to make atoms and molecules was great fun for me. On top of that it was also very pretty to look at and had great atmospheric music and sound effects (and the theme was very obviously present and well used!). Fantastic stuff! Oh and making molecules is HARD... :p

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

This game was... okay. I think I'd have liked it a LOT more if it had gamepad support, as I found playing with the keyboard a real pain (I very rarely play games with the keyboard and trying to use WASD+Arrow keys + E + Space all at once was quite tough for me... :( ). The music was also somewhat annoying, although the SFX and GFX were decent, but really I can't say I enjoyed playing this that much, sorry!

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

This was a great little game and very very fun, although WAY TO SHORT! I wanted more! Honestly, this could be turned into such a great full, commercial game I think... I'm also impressed by how it was programmed, as this kind of thing isn't exactly easy to make. :) So, yeah, technically great, visually fun, sounds were fine,but I did kinda miss a bit of relaxing music in the background. All in all a fantastic effort!

Crush2 by Toque

Lol! I love this old guy. I wanna be like him when I'm 80... So, the game... erm... SHORT! But quite fun. Not a whiff of the theme in sight but the image of the granny grabbing the old guy's angle will forever remain with me and was really funny!

Earlington Manor by Bart

This was really pretty cool... The camera was a little sensitive, but in general the controls were good. The game itself is an excellent puzzle platformer and was a lot of fun to play. I did miss sound effects when things happens, but that's a very minor point. I also liked the subtle use of the theme to create the puzzle elements themselves... So, yeah, this was great and deserves to rank high in the scoring!

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Ummm.... what's going on here??? I managed to build the collector and the converter then... what? I honestly had no idea what any of this was meant to do nor what the "goal" was for me after building these things and after a few minutes of just wandering up and down the room I quite the game (sorry... :( ). So, can't really say much about this... I didn't have a great experience and wonder if I've just missed something?

Forgodden by Gizmo199

This game was WAY TOO HARD FOR ME! LoL! Honestly, I found each of the boss fights to be nigh on impossible to beat and only actually managed to finish the Phoenix/fire one, got about half the cloud/lighting one's health down before dying every time, and could get NOWHERE against the blocks... My sad gamer skills aside, this is quite an astoundingly well made game for a game jam! Visually beautiful, with great sound and reactive music, tight controls, nice use of the theme, and generally a very polished gameplay experience. Well done!

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Oh wow... this was a VERY trippy/psychadelic "game" and I loved it! Way more of an experience than a game, and something that was both unique and fun to play (I got 93.72%!). Honestly, I REALLY liked this, as it broke the mould somewhat for what a game is, and felt more like an art project than an actual video game. Very well done!

Klik Da Elements by dadio

LOL! I haven't laughed out loud at a game in a long time, but I did at this! Awesome last place entry from Dadio, keeping his unbroken string of "hit games" in tact.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Impressive tech demo with nice movement and simply but pleasing visuals. Not really a game, but definitely something that could be built upon to make a game though!

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

Not really sure what to make of this... I suspect that it's probably a good game when two people can play, but as it was only me playing, it made things a bit difficult! Also, the game itself seems rather complicated and I wasn't really sure what was going on or how to play (and that was AFTER reading the onscreen help!!!). So, yeah, potentially interesting, but the graphics/UI were visually confusing and I had no idea really what was going on...

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Awesome game! For a jam game, this is surprisingly addictive and replayable... and I'd honestly play this as a full game if it was expanded upon a bit (and there is DEFINITELY room to expand this!). The graphics are incredibly cute, and I love the detail of being able to wear one of the elements that you get and have it confer some kind of bonus or effect, and the fact that it changes the player costume too is just **chef's kiss**. I would have liked to have a "basic" attack available at all times, as it was very frustrating to have only high power elements when facing a low powered foe, but that's a minor complaint. Oh and the sound, music and general presentation was perfect too (although no real story to speak of). Still, all said and done, I really enjoyed this and think it's the game that I've spent most time playing this jam.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

I really want to say that I love this game but... I can't, sorry! I love the presentation, and there has been an obvious effort put into making it, but - at the end of the day - I found the game to be far more annoying than it was fun! I found all the mini games to be overly long, too unforgiving, a little boring, and generally just got annoyed as I played them. In particular the first game (jump and get presents as YELLOW snow falls... who's been peeing in the clouds???) was really boring. And the match elements game was frustrating as I'd constantly just run out of turns with only 4 or so pieces left to match. Grrr! Also, I love that this is a christmas game, but the theme feels shoe-horned in... I really appreciate the time and effort that went into making this though, and I'm sorry to say bad things about it... :(

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

Lovely game, with some great and interesting puzzles, but marred somewhat by the incomprehensible pseud0isometric graphics!!!! Honestly, I got so confused on some levels where it looke like there were (for example) 6 boxes but in reality there were only 3, or where it looked like two walls met but actually one was higher than the other, etc... and it made all the puzzles that bit harder to do and spoiled somewhat the whole fun of the game... I still think it's a fantastic entry, but it loses a couple of places because of how frustrating it was to play some times because of the confusing visuals.

Stack by The M

Interesting strategy game... I like the idea of having to choose cards to burn and cards to keep, and I can see the potential here for a really interesting game. However, I did find the rules on each card somewhat confusing, and never felt quite sure about what I was doing at any time while I played! Visually it's adequate, and the music is fun and not annoying, but it lacked sound effects... all in all a decent entry, but it definitely felt more like a prototype than a full game.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Very nice and complete min-shoot-em-up! Visually, the game was great and the graphics were quite impressive for a game made within the jam timeframe. Same can be said of the sound and music too! The actual gameplay was pretty standard for a shoot-em-up but still managed to be fun, and the different powerups were cool nicely different to each other. All in a great little game with a high amount of polish, but not very innovative.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

I BEAT IT! Yay me! Lol! I like tower defense games, and so was quite pleased to play this one, although I confess to being a little disappointed... The basic principle is pretty good, and the game was quite fun to play. However I'd have liked a bit more variety in the look of the upgraded bots, and a few more types of bot too would have been nice (area effects like slow down or damage over time attacks would have been good). I mean, I get it, it's a jam game, and as such it works well, but I would have liked a little more!

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

Amazing... What a fantastic game (even in it's unfinished state!). Reminded me somewhat of Wandersong actually, in large part due to the fantastic music it has, but also in the general "feel" of the game... I didn't feel in any pressure to actually do anything which meant that the whole fun of the game came from simply exploring and finding stuff, which may sound boring, but really wasn't. Especially since switching elements also switched the visual look of the game and the soundtrack (which was a VERY nice and clever touch... Kudos to Siolfor the Jackal for the work they did on this!!!). I would definitely play a finished version of this, and can see a full, comercial release being a viable option if you all ever decided to actually go that way.
 

sylvain_l

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
lost count of the level, I stopped at the first puzzle with fire emblem.
But I have fun with the little puzzle until it.
Great balance of difficulty and clever mechanics.

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
At least I've beaten the easy mode.
the concept is simple, just make electron orbit a nucleus. But manage to make a challenging game out of it.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
yeahhh I'm the best raccoon; I saved the world!

so where is my highscore board to keep track of my good deeds? :p
Honestly an easy shmup (for a patato player like me to beat it on 1st try); but none the less great effort on the wave level and the boss battle. The music was also great. and the little intro scene was nice.

Best ofs:

Best use of : Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Concept: BrightestCrayons by Poizen
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  2. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  3. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  4. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  5. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  6. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  7. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  8. Stack by The M
  9. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  10. Crush2 by Toque
  11. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  12. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  13. Klik Da Elements by dadio
  14. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  15. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  16. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  17. Earlington Manor by Bart
  18. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

At least I've beaten the easy mode.
the concept is simple, just make electron orbit a nucleus. But manage to make a challenging game out of it.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

where is the easy mode ?
man I barely made it to level 2. Game balance feels unfair, I have limited ammo, while AI have unlimited and fire at sight.
And I didn't even see the tank and death squad the readme speak of!

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Nice drawing game with a little story.
Thank for the page up shortcut that save the day (I didn't manage to save the frozen cat it seems with my bad fire drawing)

Crush2 by Toque

all those groupies man XD
I can poudly say I beat the game ! (let's not say how many attempts where necessary to go through the 3 levels ^_^)
sory not much to say, just like the humour.

Earlington Manor by Bart

Nice 3D game, if only I knew what to do... XD
to be honest I have no clue where is the bedroom that I guess I have to find if I follow the readme. there is also a chest that perhaps need a key.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

honestly tutorial is missing an explanation about what's the goal of the game/some clue how to achieve it.
the message when you die say you couldn't repair the station; but I manage to get the whole atmophere of all quarter blue without geting any "win" screen... Is there something else to do ?!?
I totally accidentally find how to open the "door" because you need to have enough iron to open it else there is nothing when you press w.
There are some bugs to my understanding (got the spaceport unlocked on the screen topleft text while constructing the converter; but space port was only build later when finally was able to built it when I was in the top right planet section... but the spaceport was built on the top left section !?! got the top left section blue oxygen atmosphere instead of the bottom left where I built the atmosphere converter, had to built 2 other to finally get the bottom left atmosphere blue...)


Forgodden by Gizmo199

by far the best graphics, effects, sounds and music from what I've seen (yet)
and at the same time the most anticlimactic and frustrating; because in term of gameplay, nada.
At least the game allow to access the 3 arena freely. But as far as I'm aware I didn't even manage to scratch any of the 3 bosses with any of the 2 attack at my disposal.
I don't know what trick is needed to beat them. IDK the reference game that use a similar system. There is certainly a tricky system, but you didn't even care to put a readme with a hint.
KISS. making a gameplay accessible is a requirement for me.


Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

lol end of first run, "29.44% You can do better."
I was just watching the mesmerizing pattern on the screen... Forgot I was playing nor I had a score thingy going on.
Feels like I missed the whole pupose of the game!
2nd run, try hard mode assuming I must avoid : "93,71% Excellent!". At least I think I got it XD

Klik Da Elements by dadio

a dadio game, what else.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

graphically nice 3D thingy. unfinished sadly.

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

A very nice graphics card game.
But I'm unsure I get the rules right. man I didn't get how to merge; or there is a bug and player can merge but opponent can not. Seems you can end turn whenever you want also ?!?
shame you didn't have time to get the AI version; because trying to play against myself when I don't know the rules feels wonky.


Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

woowooo made it to the last position of tha hall of fame :) (at least for the time being)
nice little dungeon crawler.
Honestly I wish there was more info about the effect of each card. Started with the classic air, fire, earth, water but then you get neon, carbon, silver, gold and so many more. I'm too lazy to try to remember which one has what effect on which monster. And how effective they are as armor :/

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

5 little games in 1. with 2 themes (santa & element) in 1.
the clumsy player I am appreciate the shortcut to access every level. Nice!


SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

lost count of the level, I stopped at the first puzzle with fire emblem.
But I have fun with the little puzzle until it.
Great balance of difficulty and clever mechanics.

Stack by The M

Didn't play many games (only 2), but my feeling is that's an unbalanced strategy game. The fact that I play first give me a clear advantage ?!

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

yeahhh I'm the best raccoon; I saved the world!

so where is my highscore board to keep track of my good deeds? :p
Honestly an easy shmup (for a patato player like me to beat it on 1st try); but none the less great effort on the wave level and the boss battle. The music was also great. and the little intro scene was nice.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

A tower defence with a strange stats boosting mechanism that feels to me very frustrating.
Ok, the formula thingy fit the theme, but honestly the play/pause button to unlock the formulas feels to me like a pain in the ass. Trying to unlock formulas while having to play the tower defense part at the same time didn't feel like a nice challenge but more like a drag to me.
reached wave 10 on my first run and that was the end for me :p

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

unfinished game, abilities don't seems to work while described in the readme. Or did I miss something...
 

TehPilot

Member
Twitch VOD Link

1st: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

As I noted in my stream, this is an excellent puzzle game. Lots of simplistic mechanics and systems that interlock and interact really well with each other, building up to one of the most engaging experiences I had this game jam. The progression and difficulty curve felt very natural and I only cut my initial playthrough short to give other games time while I was live.

I do unfortunately think the perspective used in the game hurts the readability of the puzzles, but once you get a grasp on what heights are climbable/jumpable the game's perfectly playable. I commend the overall puzzle design and how every mechanic is thoroughly thought out.

2nd: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

A relatively simple shoot-em-up at its core that is elevated by the fantastic team effort surrounding it. The most striking quality of this entry is seeing each contributor's influence across the style, mechanics, and storytelling/humor in the game. Visually striking and enjoyable to jump in and play through more than once (especially if you're going for both endings)!

There are a few adjustments I think the game would benefit from (invincibility-on-spawn indicator, slightly more telegraphed spawn/attack patterns, etc.) on top of adding some additional complexity and difficulty. It is ultimately a simple game under its presentation layer and there is a lot of potential to develop something further out of what already exists.

3rd: Forgodden by Gizmo199

Bar none my favorite presentation this game jam - it's a visual style I personally adore, combined with some of the most satisfying particles and special effects and great, heavy sounds to go with the big bosses you fight.

My only issue with this game is it's difficult to get your bearings initially - bosses have quick and flashy attack patterns and it can take a little bit of trial and error to understand what abilities can hit the boss and when the boss is vulnerable. You can also only take a single hit before a fight resets so it can be difficult to understand where you are faltering in fights at first. Once I had more of an understanding the game became much more enjoyable and clearing the final fight was immensely satisfying - but generally I think a little more direction (maybe some puzzles / smaller fights / less punishing overall gameplay) would have gone a long way.

Best Use of Theme: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Concept: Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Best Use of Theme - in an otherwise unremarkable theme I enjoyed the sort of "logical extreme" this entry took. A little unconventional, well intertwined with the gameplay, and distinct enough to stand out the most to me.

Best Concept - this entry stood out to me conceptually (my dig about protons determining the element aside, haha!) - it's mechanically different and the presentation of the game fit the mechanics excellently.

Best Presentation - my favorite graphical style this game jam, and the flashy effects and audio complimented the powerful nature of each boss's attacks well.

Best Story - the bit of narrative humor injected in this entry does a lot for it, in my opinion. It's a nice touch on top of a solidly executed game.

  1. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  2. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  3. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  4. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  5. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  6. Voidling by alice, Yozoraki, and Siolfor the Jackal
  7. The End by Josh Chen and bandman28
  8. Stack by The M
  9. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  10. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  11. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  12. Earlington Manor by Bart
  13. Crush2 by Toque
  14. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  15. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  16. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  17. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  18. Klik Da Elements by dadio
 
Last edited:

bandman28

Member
AHHHHHHHHH! I lost my Jam folder, and all my game data was lost!
Luckily, I had an extra of the folder, so here is 30 minutes-worth of crammed gaming turned into a rating: (I was only able to rate 9 games)

1st: Forgoddon by Gizmo199
Amazing! I can tell serious work was put into this project. The polish was perfect, and the animations were as smooth as they can get! Only problem is that it isn't clear how to beat each boss, and it took a while to figure it out, especially the earth boss. Otherwise, perfection!

2nd: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Artwork was very nice, and the game was engaging. I just found the boss level unnecessary, and drawn out. The end would have been much more entertaining if the boss did harder and harder attacks as it took damage. Set aside, very good game.

3rd: Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Very nicely done, the physics were smooth, and I had lots of fun. One problem was that there wasn't much gameplay. Maybe different amounts of protons and neutrons affect the gravitational pull of the electrons, or something like that. There wasn't much variety. Also, a countdown clock for when you have the right amount of electrons would look cool. Otherwise, very nice game!

4th: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Merceneries
5th: Earlington Manor by Bart
6th: Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
7th: BrightestCrayons by Poizen
8th: M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
9th: SantaMustSaveChristmas by Alexx
And that's it. You can go home now.
Atomic Jam
Very nicely done, the physics were smooth, and I had lots of fun. One problem was that there wasn't much gameplay. Maybe different protrons and neutrons affected the gravatational pull of the electrons, or something like that. There wasn't much variety. Also, a countdown clock for when you have the right amount of electrons would look cool. Otherwise, very nice game!

BrightestCrayons
Neat game, reminds me of a game I played when I was a kid, where you drew a stickman, then he fought a dragon, or something like that. Only problem is that you are able to draw a blank space where the stickman would be, and the computer wouldn't object. Maybe try running an algorithm to check if there's enough ink on the page to make a character.

Earlington Manor
The movement was slow, it took to long to accelerate. Also, there wasn't a setting to change the sensetivity, so it was harder to turn around when "wind-parkouring." Set aside, great game!

Forgoddon
Amazing! I can tell serious work was put into this project. The polish was perfect, and the animations were as smooth as they can get! Only problem is that it isn't clear how to beat each boss, and it took a while to figure it out, especially the earth boss. Otherwise, perfection!

Merge Awaremon
Cute game. It felt like it was mostly a one person game, since the only thing affecting the opponent is your ice. Also, in the harder levels, the more card panels there are, the easier it is to win the game, defeating the purpose of the difficulties.

M4N4PUNK
The artwork was very nice, and the movement was smooth. Only problem is that there was no gameplay. That art could have made a really great game.

SantaMustSaveChristmas
Was there supposed to be smoke billowing out of the reindeer's butthole? I'm not sure how you can do that unintendedly, but it doesn't look natural. Also, in first level, animations were very uneven.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl
Haha, the shape theme was cute. The artwork was very confusing. The 3D style of it took a while to get used to, as the walls of the boxes were bigger than the top itself.

Starship Elemental
Artwork was very nice, and the game was engaging. I just found the boss level unnecessary, and drawn out. The end would have been much more entertaining if the boss did harder and harder attacks as it took damage. Set aside, very good game.

And that's all for this jam, folks. Blame Windows if you didn't find your game in here.
 
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Reviews

Top 3:

👑
Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
This game really appeals to me in every way. The graphics and sound effects are top notch and remind me of the SNES era. I'm playing a lot of the old Metroid games at the moment and I also tried Kid Icarus for the first time recently. Well, Starship Elemental is an exact mixture of both style-wise and I really like that. The gameplay feels really smooth and I totally love the ability to shoot the power-ups in order to collect the elemental smart bomb you like or need. This entry really hit my nerves and to me was the most fun to play. I'd love to see a big or fully developed version of this one on Nintendo Switch some day. I'd be sure to buy it. This was not a question, but a command!
EDIT: The art and music in this game was made within the jam time of 7 days! From my perspective that gives bonus points because the entire game looks, feels and sounds professional and simply amazing!


🥈
Forgodden by Gizmo199
Another gem! It was really fun to fight the first boss enemy - a giant phoenix. I loved that you have to figure out what to do by yourself. I'm a MASSIVE Zelda nerd and it instantly reminded me of the typical game mechanics used in these games. Kill all the flames with the absolutely amazing water ability quickly before the phoenix lights them back up again in order to be able to damage him then... Brilliant and epic boss fight! The aforementioned water ability has such a pretty mirror effect which adds up to the entirely stunning modern pixelart graphics nicely! I'll definitely play this one again with some more patience soon! It was really fun and interesting!


🥉
Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
This one was really fun and I liked the different outfits that grant you different powers. The random encounters while unveiling the individual fields gave me pokémon vibes. Crushing your enemies with dragon scales is just the dopest feeling ever. This game is really fun and everything about it feels rounded up and complete. The sound, the graphics, the mechanics... I'd love to play this one on Android whenever I'm waiting at the doctor's or for the bus or whatever... Amazing entry!


Bonus Points:

Lucas' award for best music goes to: Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
Though not fully implemented in the game, Siolfor's original soundtrack is included in the package and I listened through the whole thing.
It is an original composition and features numerous musical pieces that resemble any combinations of the elements. For example the element Metal goes with a classical Hardrock / Heavy Metal style, while Fire has a very notorious Arabic / Oriental flair. The combination of any two elements is a mash-up of both their individual themes. The songs have reocurring tunes and melodies that immediately make clear what two elements were being combined in the piece. The mixing, mastering and sound design are absolutely on point and I demand a full version of the game because I really liked the concept. Siolfor did an absolutely incredible job with this OST and you can tell they thought the compositions through really carefully. The skill is highly notable - the songs really do sound like the elements and this all was composed, produced and finished in this one week. Thank you for this amazing soundtrack - it really impressed me and therefore receives my award for the best OST.

Bonus points for cuteness: Brightest Crayons by Poizen
Can we take a minute to appreciate the innocence of this adorable little game?
Thank you.


Bonus points for an interesting concept: Elemental Station by ZombieLawyer
Although I couldn't fully figure out what to do and how it works, this game was really inspiring and interesting.
I really liked the concept of having a circular station and to build up stuff and to be able to move the character rather than just having a normal build-things-up-with-your-mouse-only game.

Bonus points for a very transparent and easy to follow tutorial: The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
I know, I know, some other games did a really good job too, and I don't want to discredit them in any way, but this game really appealed to me. The way things were being explained looked really professional.
By the way this is the game I'd label rank #4 in the list. Awesome job!

Bonus points for graphical effort: Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
I personally found this game a bit complicated to understand at first, but the graphical effort that was put into making it look nice is really impressive. The assets were not made during the jam but they fit the theme really well and I liked what I saw and heard. Good job, this game has potential!

Full ranking:

1. Starship Elemental
2. Forgodden
3. Plunder Dungeons
4. The End
5. Voidling
6. Crush 2
7. Elemental Station
8. Breacher Bob
9. Stack
10. Merge Awaremon
11. Square Dude and Circle Girl
12. Brightest Crayons
13. Atomic Jam
14. M4N4PUNK
15. Earlington Manor
16. Hydrogen Dance
17. Klik Da Elements



My team was Alexx & LucasSchachtMusic - Santa Must Save Christmas



I saw all the effort you all put into making your games and all of you did a fantastic job! I appreciate every single entry and I want to say THANK YOU for this wonderful game jam! It was my very frst one ever.
 
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Voting Post time

Top 3:

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Another great puzzle game from Mercerenies.

+ Good use of theme that added a nice twist on the puzzles.
+ Great variety in challenge.
+ Love the presentation at the start and the end with the photograph styled scenes.
+ Simple mechanics and controls.

- The perspective was quite confusing sometimes. I wouldn't be able to tell where the higher or lower platforms were without testing it in a lot of cases. Led to a lot of accidental suicides, and a few puzzles that stumped me because I didn't realise the crate was actually up a block higher and not behind another block.
- A nitpick but the delay when you switch characters or use an ability slows down gameplay a little.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Stacked team for sure. Love a good old scrolling shooter, even if the theme feels a bit tacked on. Your in-game controls menu confused me at first because it said Y to Shoot and B for Bomb, which I assumed was the default Xbox/PC layout. Kudos for the *true* controller layout.

+ Damn, Pat. Those sprites.
+ Mostly controlled ok(Cheers for controller support).
+ Nice variety in the smart bombs.
+ Shooting the smart bombs to choose which to pickup was quite neat.
+ Rad music, the menu and ending themes were quite good!(That ending theme was *very* Star Fox haha, no mistaking that. Can't say I was digging the main theme so much, but good work having a complete soundtrack!)

- I feel like the main part was a wee bit too long, I was starting to think it was endless, as there didn't seem to be much in the way of progression, just the same couple of enemies waves over and over.
- The boss fight could use a lot of work. Only being vulnerable for such a short time meant there was a lot of down time. And as soon as you take out the gun, the boss is almost instantly dead. I think changing the vulnerability period and adding some other behaviours could have made this an amazing boss fight.

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
"💩💩💩💩ing amazing" I know 😎
Very chill out kind of experience. I was expecting it to be more complicated than it was. So I'm a little torn because on one hand it was sort of nice, but on the other hand there wasn't much else to do. Once you find that circle sweetspot, you can go on almost infinitely with little issue.
The molecule mode was quite the challenge but a lot more fun.

+ Very nice low key visuals. It wasn't much but what was there really suited the game well.
+ The orbiting seemed to work great, and it felt good to get a good pattern going.
+ Great use of the theme.

- Until you get to the molecule mode, it just feels a bit tedious very quickly.

Best ofs:

Best use of : Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Concept: BrightestCrayons by Poizen
Best Presentation: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Story: Crush2 by Toque
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  2. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  3. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  4. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  5. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  6. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  7. Crush2 by Toque
  8. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  9. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  10. Stack by The M
  11. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  12. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  13. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  14. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  15. Earlington Manor by Bart
  16. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

"💩💩💩💩ing amazing" I know 😎
Very chill out kind of experience. I was expecting it to be more complicated than it was. So I'm a little torn because on one hand it was sort of nice, but on the other hand there wasn't much else to do. Once you find that circle sweetspot, you can go on almost infinitely with little issue.
The molecule mode was quite the challenge but a lot more fun.

+ Very nice low key visuals. It wasn't much but what was there really suited the game well.
+ The orbiting seemed to work great, and it felt good to get a good pattern going.
+ Great use of the theme.

- Until you get to the molecule mode, it just feels a bit tedious very quickly.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

You really have a thing for games with annoying AI with guns, huh? I ended up not really bothering with the timed charges since it was easier without them.

+ Nice music and sprites.
+ Short!

- Not a fan of the controls at all, I think Binding of Isaac uses a similar control scheme and it's the main reason I didn't like that game either.
- AI is just, so reactive. Very fast to shoot.
- The combat boiled down to "Wait in the corner of the room and shoot them as they come in".


BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Very cute drawing game. The crayon aesthetic was especially adorable. Reminds me of games like Drawn To Life and Scribblenauts.

+ Drawing is always good fun when implemented properly.
+ Not a typical interpretation of elements which is always nice during jams.
+ Strong visual identity, the crayon look really stands out here.

- As cute as the game was, there wasn't much variety in the different levels. Most just required some form of structure to cover something.(I did draw sunglasses on the sun on the first level which counted, and that was actually rad, but no idea if an intended solution or just fun coincidence)
- No sound!

Crush2 by Toque

I'll be honest, I'm more of a fan of the original.

+ Controls well.
+ Boomerang dentures worked great, and looked good too.
+ Your kid's music was very cool.

- Sometimes the teeth wouldn't come out and that got me a few failures.
- Was the theme inclusion... was it just the ending? 😆

Earlington Manor by Bart

Still neat to see 3D entries, and despite this one actually having stuff to do for once, it still feels very undercooked.

+ 3D is neat.
+ Music is very cool.

- The flat colour look(no shadows or shading) makes it really difficult to see the areas as 3D areas, and kind of hurts my eyes.
- Exiting rooms takes you back to the start of the game, not where you passed through...
- The look sensitivity is insane, I'm lucky my mouse has buttons for DPI adjustment, but man...
- Hit that crash hard twice.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

An interesting concept, and another less obvious use of the theme.

+ Cool circle ship.
+ Simple enough gameplay to understand.

- Only being able to build one converter and then having to monitor it so you can change it when the area element changes, that's rough.
- It wasn't immediately obvious what to do beyond building the first two things. And the converter didn't seem all that useful.
- I opened all the doors and created the atmospheric generators or whatever so the ship was full of oxygen. There was this little dude hanging out and I think he killed me? Game bugged out telling me I didn't repair the ship. I did this twice and saw no way to fight the alien if that is what I was supposed to do. Beyond that, it seemed like there was nothing else to do.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Crashed during the final boss. I'm not doing all that again so I just watched someone stream the ending.
I'll be honest, this just looks and feels like a lot of other games, though I thought the implementation of the theme was quite nice.

+ Very cinematic.
+ Tight controls.
+ Good length for a jam.

- The Earth boss fight was a bit opaque, like it wasn't clear what do at first. Once I figured out I could stun them with the Earth ability, I was still stumped on what I was supposed to do. An accidental input made me fire a fireball and it finally all clicked.
- I think some better interplay with the elements was in order here. All the bosses are beaten with fire, even the fire boss I beat with fire. You had the perfect setup for an element triangle.

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_boss_fire:

Variable <unknown_object>.active(100347, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0 (line -1)
gml_Script_depth_draw_objects (line -1)
gml_Object_con_render_Draw_0


Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Oh man, I'm too old for bullet hells these days. They hurt my brain to look at. That said, I still managed a 93.15%
I feel like the concept is simple and didn't need much explanation, I picked it up pretty quickly.

+ Controller support is neat, and it controlled well enough.
+ Unique concept that touched on the theme in a more abstract way than other entries.
+ Not having a death condition and instead having a score at the end showing how well you did made this a much less frustrating experience than it could have been.

- It was a bit unpleasant to look at for so long, mostly just that due to the sprites and blending, everything just looked a blurry yellow. I feel like a lot more could have been done to smooth those rough edges of the visual design.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Damn it, Micah! This has a great look to it and thanks for including sensitivity options.

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

A two player only game for a jam is not the best idea, mate. I'm sorry but I'm not playing a card game against myself 😅

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Can't say I'm really into any sort of card game, or anything that relies so much on what seems to be random chance.

+ Simple gameplay that's easy to pick up.
+ Most interactions make quick enough sense.

- The random element of moving around is a bit of a bummer when you're not having good luck. Either only finding all the enemies first or finding all the healing things before you've found an enemy.
- I found I rarely had enough of the right element for them to be useful in a fight. I'd get loads of the element that everything is strong against.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

I think you put the tail of the hat in the wrong position on the menu heh. Congrats on submitting a complete and finished game for a jam, seemingly with no bugs. Regardless of the game quality, that's often a feat in and of itself.
Also, we have a different definition of short...

+ 5 Complete mini games with an ending screen is nice.
+ Games were simple to understand and play.
+ Music was simple Christmas stuff but blended well with the visuals.

- The theme seemed very jammed in to an existing idea, there's no real reason I can think of why Santa would be gathering elemental presents and distributing them.
- This is more of a personal nitpick but I see no reason for the mouse to be used as an input device here when keyboard keys would have sufficed for all of the minigames.
- The collisions on the first minigame felt a wee bit unfair. You're often hit when the actual sprites aren't even touching.
- I feel like maybe you weren't destroying instances that you weren't using anymore. I found a couple of times towards the end of a minigame, I would start experiencing some mild lag and interupts.
- These games were way too long!
- The second minigame was strange, I don't understand why the bag was opening and closing.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

Another great puzzle game from Mercerenies.

+ Good use of theme that added a nice twist on the puzzles.
+ Great variety in challenge.
+ Love the presentation at the start and the end with the photograph styled scenes.
+ Simple mechanics and controls.

- The perspective was quite confusing sometimes. I wouldn't be able to tell where the higher or lower platforms were without testing it in a lot of cases. Led to a lot of accidental suicides, and a few puzzles that stumped me because I didn't realise the crate was actually up a block higher and not behind another block.
- A nitpick but the delay when you switch characters or use an ability slows down gameplay a little.

Stack by The M

I guess elements really goes well with card games given we got a couple I think.

+ Nice simple art. I liked the animated sprite for Play and Burn.
+ Simple gameplay once you get your head around it.

- I don't really have the patience for strategy card/board games like this, so it was a real struggle personally.
- I still didn't quite get what I should be doing even by my 4th and 5th games(I understood the objectives, it's just I couldn't form any strategies to win).

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Stacked team for sure. Love a good old scrolling shooter, even if the theme feels a bit tacked on. Your in-game controls menu confused me at first because it said Y to Shoot and B for Bomb, which I assumed was the default Xbox/PC layout. Kudos for the *true* controller layout.

+ Damn, Pat. Those sprites.
+ Mostly controlled ok(Cheers for controller support).
+ Nice variety in the smart bombs.
+ Shooting the smart bombs to choose which to pickup was quite neat.
+ Rad music, the menu and ending themes were quite good!(That ending theme was *very* Star Fox haha, no mistaking that. Can't say I was digging the main theme so much, but good work having a complete soundtrack!)

- I feel like the main part was a wee bit too long, I was starting to think it was endless, as there didn't seem to be much in the way of progression, just the same couple of enemies waves over and over.
- The boss fight could use a lot of work. Only being vulnerable for such a short time meant there was a lot of down time. And as soon as you take out the gun, the boss is almost instantly dead. I think changing the vulnerability period and adding some other behaviours could have made this an amazing boss fight.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

Is it really that difficult to put .txt at the end of your readme? Not a big fan personally of tower defence games.

+ Seemingly finished product with a nice intro tutorial screen.
+ Interesting element mechanic.
+ Simple to play once you understand it.

- I really did not understand this until like my 3rd or 4th attempt. It wasn't quite clear, even with the intro instructions on what to do. And once you do, it becomes apparent very quickly that you don't need a good strategy, just place more guys anywhere.
- Two units with the stats tied to your elements system doesn't give you a lot of variety in gameplay. You basically just beef them up and stack some units in one spot.
 

Micah_DS

Member
Reviews

NOTE:
I hope that I've written things clearly enough and that I don't hurt anyone's feelings.
My intent is always to give honest feedback, hoping it'll help game developers see new things that can improve their skills.
... and to insert lame jokes whenever I see an opportunity, but that's beside the point.

Top 3:

Plunder Dungeons by @GameDevDan
You managed to hit one of my pet peeves, being no quit button. Whyyy??
I know you can alt-tab/enter/f4, but that's all so barbarian. And what if you trap a poor innocent player in your game? I mean, how would you feel if someone said, "I couldn't close the game. There was nothing I could do, so I had to unplug my PC. Now it doesn't start up anymore. I used that PC to make a living, supporting my two brothers and six sisters. My only option now is to sell one of my kidneys to buy a new PC, and the doctors in this country are not good, so I risk infection from the procedure, or possibly death, if the doctor slips on a banana during the surgery. Not a joke. It's a problem in this country, and that very thing happened to my third cousin twice removed. RIP, Generidtritich Mendratyactravon Synaddadik... fooey, now I'm sadness."

Well, even though there isn't a proper way to quit, I enjoyed this game very much, as you may have figured out already, since I gave you first place.

The balancing favors luck a bit too much, but it's passable for a jam game. Even if bad RNG doesn't even give you a chance and ruins a round, it really doesn't ruin the fun factor, because you'll die fast if you don't get anything good, and that just makes you want to give it another go. The only other negative thing I could say is that there were times that the element weakness didn't really make sense, but it seemed good for the most part.
The usual humor and nice art and polish are all present, as usual. You really outdid yourself with the kinds of elements you included as well. I really like how you made everything you wear actually show on the character too. Many of the outfits gave me a smile.

With just a little more time spent on balancing to make knowledge and skill play a larger role, I feel like this would be a really fun mobile game, and not just because of the lack of a quit button. :p
SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by @Mercerenies
LOL, when I tried to push a box with wind and stop it with circlegirl, thinking I was being brilliant, but it killed her..... whoops! I won't be doing that again....
(proceeds to do it again)

BUG: I got a sort of softlock-ish situation when I blew one of the characters into a box and on the other side of the box was a pit. They just got stuck in a constant state of flying through the air right next to the box, never landing. Strange. Had to use ESC to reset the level. At least that worked, because BACKSPACE obviously didn't, since the turn was never ending. It happened again in a different way, on the same level (not sure which level it was though). I pushed a character across spikes and a box was at the end. The character died, but the turn never ended, so again, I had to reset the whole level. It got slightly annoying after the second time, but not bad, and I solved the level shortly after that anyway.

The biggest issue is the difficulty in telling the depth between elevations. This depth perception issue could have been resolved by giving some different lighting to each elevation. Something like the higher up you go, the lighter it gets.

The quantum blocks are a REALLY cool and unique idea that I have personally never seen before. Super cool. All the mechanics are awesome, with the only exception being that I don't really get the thinking behind fire force mechanic that pushed a character and breaks blocks. Seems like it should be the wind mechanic that blows a character into the wall to break it. Aside from that though, I really love all the things you can do!

The last level was only difficult to me because of a depth perception issue, different from the one I already mentioned:
For the longest time, I didn't notice I could get around the box to push it in between the gap in that middle-right-ish area to allow me to cross over to the checkmarks. I was stumped for so long because the box is exactly tall enough to connect to the upper edge of the platform it is on, making the area to the right of the box look like it's a separate platform. That part of the platform seemed connected to the steps, while not being a part of the platform the box is on. I consider this a design flaw. The play field should be properly readable.

The endless movement bugs and the depth issues are all I can say bad about this. The humor is great, the puzzles are wonderful, progression is pretty near perfect, and it has a satisfying ending to boot. Oh, and the use of elements is solid, of course. I had a great time playing this one!
Voidling by @Alice, @Yozoraki, @Siolfor the Jackal
Yooo, I get to play the girl from the ring?? Or the grudge??? I dunno, but she's definitely one of those creepy dead girls. Nice!
UGH though, I tried to drown myself and it wouldn't let me, even after pinning myself under the water for a prolonged period of time. 0/10 No fun at all. :p

BUG 1 (extremely minor):
It's just a visual/animation issue. The jumping animation code definitely doesn't work correctly. Her arms go up and down at weird times if you do a second jump before the first animation is done, and maybe in other cases too. I dunno, it's just all over the place. It's only a jam game though, so no big deal, I guess.

BUG 2:
I got stuck in the ground in the fire element area. When fire dashing to the right, off screen, triggering a transition to a new screen in the middle of my dash, I found myself inside of the ground on the new screen, unable to move.

BUG 3:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I quit the game after getting stuck in a pit with water (I forgot about the ability to use R to restart.. oops) and then when I tried continuing my game, I got this error every time:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Step Event0
for object ctrl_MainMenu:

array_create argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) expecting a Number (YYGI32)
at gml_Script_array_clone
############################################################################################
gml_Script_array_clone (line -1)
gml_Script_gamestate_continue
gml_Script_menu_continue_on_focus
gml_Object_ctrl_MainMenu_Step_0
I tried restarting the game, just in case, but it seems the save file got corrupted, so I just started a new game.

On my fresh start, I encountered no more bugs, thankfully (aside from the super minor animation bug). I was able to collect all 5 elements and I think I got every single one of the white dot things as well, except for one in the metal element area, which I believe is impossible to keep? You have to become metal to survive the spikes, but then you can't get out of the pit, because your jump doesn't get you high enough to get on the lowest ledge, and when you die, you lose the dot, so it seems you can't actually keep it.

I also went to the white room and I'm pretty sure that's the end of the current content?
It's sad that the game is incomplete, after coming so far, only to have no ending, but it was still a lot of fun to play around with the abilities, and was a very good use of the theme. The way the music works and sounds is also super awesome. That's some composition and arrangement work to be proud of.

Best ofs:

Best use of ELEMENTS : SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by @Mercerenies
Best Concept : Plunder Dungeons by @GameDevDan
Best Presentation : Forgodden by @Gizmo199
Best Story : SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by @Mercerenies
Best Devlog : Voidling by @Alice, @Yozoraki, @Siolfor the Jackal

Full ranking:
  1. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  2. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  3. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  4. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  5. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  6. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  7. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  8. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  9. Stack by The M
  10. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  11. Earlington Manor by Bart
  12. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  13. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  14. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  15. Crush2 by Toque
  16. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:
Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
The information dump in the beginning isn't too bad, but it's a bit much to remember. It'd be better to have a sort of tutorial that introduces the mechanics, one by one. That said, once I got into playing the game, it was far more simple than the instructions led me to believe, so I got the hang of it quickly.

Interestingly, on the first level I played, I was so focused on the center that I didn't noticed the text at the top. And even though I did notice when the text at the bottom appeared, I didn't realize what the 'testing stability' really meant. So I kept firing particles, trying to get as many on it as I could. After a while of failing to pass the level, I began to think how it can't start off THIS hard, and that's when I finally noticed the goal listed at the top and that I was reaching the goal and surpassing it, so I finally learned that I should stop firing and wait.
This misunderstanding came about because nothing tried to draw my attention to the main goal at the top to ensure I would see it. I noticed the bottom text because it was a changing aspect in a largely unchanging layout. Perhaps it would've been better to have the goal appear first as a message in the center of the screen. Something to ensure it gets the player's attention.

Regarding difficulty, I wouldn't say the game is hard. It's more like it's frustrating. I say this because I was unable to find the particles predictable enough to come up with a formula for success. It felt like it was down to luck in the end, and this is why it's frustrating. It feels unfair. I had a number of times when a particle was orbiting for a long time, only to break orbit and jump to another orbit. Seeing things like this made me feel like I was getting cheated.

I tried the easiest and the hardest modes. In the easiest mode, I made it to level 5 of 6 before quitting. On the hardest mode, I made it to level 3 of 6.
I think you should've ensured particles maintained a consistent orbit, once locked in. Then it'd be a proper challenge.

Though I found it a bit unfair and frustrating, it is a pretty cool concept, and an interesting use of the theme.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
The readme: "Your ability to blow through walls is vital to your success."
Me after beating the game: "... wait, you can blow through walls?"
Guess it wasn't all that vital. :p

Yessir, I read the 'strategy guide' after beating it, so I didn't even realize you could blast through walls. But you'd think I would've known because breaching charges were also mentioned in the controls, but I have a confession... it didn't really register in my brain for some reason, maybe because it's not a mechanic I'm used to, and I had yet to even see the game to get an idea of how breaching charges might be used, so maybe that's why I spaced on spacebar. All I know is that the only controls that stuck with me when playing were movement, item pick up, and shooting directions.

Since I didn't use the breaching mechanic, the strategy that allowed me to win was this:
I waited around the corners to blast the enemies after they came through a door, and when I needed an enemy to stay alive so I could destroy the spawners before they spawned more guys, I just took advantage of how stupid the enemy is for a bit after they shoot, so I'd bait them, then run past them.

Anyway, I was happily surprised that this game was far more fair then your last one, and that was without the wall blasting. I played it again, making use of breaching tactics, and it was even easier still, as you could imagine. I think you hit a good balance this time with the level of challenge. It was enough of a challenge to be fun, but not crazy difficult.

Oh, and the story is so stupid. I love it.

BrightestCrayons by Poizen
Whoops, mental note, don't draw a line through the cat. Cat dies, program dies.

This was really cool though. The only level I didn't get at first was the one where you warn up the cat, but I figured it out on my second play.
I don't really know what else to say about this, but I had fun drawing things that were totally not what the game asked, seeing if I could pass a level with weird drawings. That's where the real fun is at! For example, I had some really interesting action happen when I made my cat a little fly (i.e. just a dot.. yep).. it literally became a fly, as in, it constantly flew around everywhere, just like a fly would. It was awesome!

You could say that the FLY is 'not a BUG, it's a feature!' Waaahahahaha! YES! This is it! This is the moment my dad jokes finally peaked! Oh, frabjous day!

Crush2 by Toque
Well, the gameplay isn't much, but the GUMplay sure is! ^ O ^

I definitely enjoyed it for what it is. The humor made for a good time.

Earlington Manor by Bart
Oh boy, I'm sorry to say but something about the camera movement (maybe the accelerated motion?) and perhaps the FOV made me feel nauseous while playing. Perhaps the lack of shading also played a role in it, since the game lacks a more natural depth to it? But I never had an issue with your previous games, which also lacked the shading, so maybe not? I'm honestly not sure of all the factors that played a part in it, I'm just trying to give you the best feedback I can so you might be able to figure out what the problem might be. Anyway, it's very strange because I never have this issue with games. It was manageable though, as long as I looked around slowly enough. I was determined to play, so I pushed through.

That game breaking bug you spoke of doesn't appear to be linked only to the flood control room. I had it happen when trying to go into "rom_level_storage" and "rom_level_wind" - the game crashed both times.

The first time I got a crash, I had yet to beat the game, so I played again and was able to get to the bedroom and get the jetpack, so I started looking around rooms to see if there were any secrets I could reach with it. After searching a couple rooms, I got the other crash, and that's when I decided I've probably seen everything anyway and decided not to give it another go.

In one of the rooms, I skipped over the intended puzzle and just boosted from a fan straight to the chest. On my second play, I did it the proper way. The first time, I didn't even realize I skipped the intended route. Whoops!

The jetpack is a fun reward for reaching the bed. I enjoyed zipping up through a room and going into places I was not intended to be in, haha.
I really love the music too! It reminded me or some music from Croc: The Legend of Gobbos, which is a game I have many fond memories of as a kid.

I'm afraid the nausea and the crashes knocked this game down a lot for me, which I feel a bit torn over, because you clearly put a solid effort into this and it's a really interesting concept. I would've rated it much higher if I did not experience these issues. As far as the nausea goes, I even ran the game again, days later, just to be sure it wasn't something I ate, and I again experienced the sick feeling with just a little movement. :(

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
All that work and my reward is to wait until I die? Is there no way to complete the station? The game isn't complete? TT^TT

I built everything I could and got oxygen in all sections. That yellow thing is definitely impossible to kill, so I know I didn't miss anything there. I had at least 10 alien friends firing on it for a very long time before I opened up the last hatch, letting the yellow thing roam free. After that, I had over 300 iron, 150 oxygen, and ofc hydrogen couldn't go very high because it was auto-used by the aliens, so I had tons of every element and tried building something else, but there was nothing else to build. All that was left was to get killed by the yellow thing. That's not the most satisfying ending.

BTW, I have just described my second attempt. My first attempt was terrible. I almost didn't give the game another shot because it took me so long and I died in a way that felt super unfair. I was not happy, lol. But I'm glad I tried it again.

Here's the story of my first attempt:
I just barely missed the fact that the particle colors did in fact signify different elements, and a certain color meant that you could collect it at the time. Sadly, when I tested this theory out, the particles were green, and I didn't think that it'd signify a non-element. So while it was green, I changed the element to each choice in an attempt to collect something, but nothing happened, so I assumed the particles didn't actually mean anything and I thought they were just for looks. Because of this, it took a very, VERY long time to collect anything and I simply left the collector on iron, then I converted into the other elements to get them. This made getting oxygen into a section take FOREVER. So I let the game run while I did other things.

After a long time playing, I was finally on the last section, but I unlocked the final door before filling the last section with oxygen. Little did I know that I just killed myself with that move, because the yellow thing was released and it hurt me, and I did not know it would. Secondly, I found that I could not dodge the yellow thing. The only way to escape it was to run around the entire ring, but every time I ran through the section without oxygen, I'd lose oxygen, and I wasn't recovering any of it, because I was also trying to build the last generator, and that was taking all the oxygen I accumulated, but I had to build it because I was going to die if I didn't.

So this situation led to a very unfair feeling death, because I ran out of hearts and oxygen before the generator was complete, and I felt like there was no way to avoid it. Of course, on my second play, I figured more things out, so now I know it would have been avoidable, but I do think it's fair to blame the game for the most part on this one, because it does not make it clear what that yellow thing is, or if you can avoid it or get rid of it, and the game also fails to explain the importance of the particle color changes.

All in all, it's a fairly interesting concept, but I didn't really have much fun playing it. I think my favorite thing about this is how the player character's head moves when running.

Forgodden by Gizmo199
A very visually-polished game with some interesting and intense boss fights. Sadly, some flaws make for a rather frustrating kind of difficulty, instead of a tough but fun and fair feeling kind.

On my first play, I beat all three bosses then tried and tried again at the boss rush part. I got to the third boss a few times but was unable to even touch the cloud any of the times, though I could see what I needed to do, I just couldn't do it. I stopped playing because it was getting too frustrating and I was getting worse at the game, due to my frustrated state. I decided to come back to it anew on another day. So I did. This time I was able to hit the cloud a few times, but I was still unable to dodge the whirlwinds consistently enough, or my dodge didn't dodge in the direction I wanted and I got killed by fire. After all of these attempts, I'm calling it - it's just too hard. Your game is the only one I could not beat.

But the real problem is that the game is extra difficult because of some odd control and mechanic choices.
i.e., one key area that did not offer proper control is the dodge. The dodge will move toward the mouse if you're not pressing a direction, but when pressing a direction, you'll dodge in that direction. I believe a better choice would've been to make it consistent. Either always dodge toward the mouse or always dodge in the current/last direction you faced. Or perhaps there is something else you could do. All I know is, it doesn't feel right.
Secondly, the mouse movement choice is very odd and 'jumpy', and I believe it makes it harder to control/aim, as opposed to keeping the mouse in position relative to the monitor, not the game world position. It's especially weird if you don't move the mouse for a while, but the camera moves, then you start moving the mouse again and it jumps in a big way. That's pretty wonky. I expect you did this as an attempt to assist with aiming, but there's got to be a better way, because this just didn't work.
Lastly, the boss rush part is just asking too much. If it wasn't a boss rush style and it started you over at the boss that killed you, it'd be so much better. Who knows, maybe that's all I needed to stick with the game and beat it. This one is not so much a difficulty issue, it's more about keeping the player playing only what challenges them, not forcing them to play through something they've already mastered, just to once again get another shot at the part they find challenging. I can nail the first two bosses quite easily now, so playing through them just to fight the third boss just became a tedious drag.

I may come across a bit harsh here, but don't think I hated it. There is a reason I rated your game so high and took the time to talk about these things. It's flawed, but I did enjoy the boss fights for the most part, and the concept is good. It's also really well polished as far as the look goes. There's lots of nice game juice going on here.

_
SIDE NOTE: I'm pretty sure you're aware of this error, but I'll include it, just in case (got when fighting the flying fire boss on one occasion, and no idea what triggered it):
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_boss_fire:

Variable <unknown_object>.active(100347, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_boss_fire_Draw_0 (line -1)
gml_Script_depth_draw_objects (line -1)
gml_Object_con_render_Draw_0

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
Well, I got a 96.08% on my first attempt, which was with keyboard. 94.17% with my second attempt with my gamepad.

Gotta say, I didn't expect a game like this at all. It's interesting.
I do wish the dash mechanic worked a bit better. Specifically, I expected the dash to go in the last direction moved, but it doesn't. On my first play, before I realized this, I had a few moments where I dashed in a totally unexpected direction and it just felt wrong.
Also, the keyboard movement is perhaps just a tad too fast, but maybe that's unavoidable, since you don't have the same movement options as a joystick gives. Funny how I still did better with a keyboard, but it's probably because I haven't used my controller all that frequently in recent months.

The game offered a pretty good challenge. I used to play bullet hells and intense shmups a lot. I've gotten a bit rusty, but it seems I still find a good amount of enjoyment from the genre. It does feel a bit barebones, but it's enough to keep it interesting for a play or two.

Klik Da Elements by dadio
Better love story than Tw---------------------------eedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

I loved it! For your efforts, I award you my most glorious last place.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
Ok.. but why does the heating element look like a giant pretzel?

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
It took me a bit to fully understand, even with the information screen. It might be because the information was given in a pretty overwhelming way, since it was all just 'there', all at once, kind of like if you had all the pages of a book laid out in front of you with no clear starting point or end, and you had to jump around the pages to figure it out, instead of easily following along, reading it in order, page by page. That might not be the best analogy, but it's pretty much how I felt when looking over the information. Thankfully though, since losing a game isn't a big deal, I was able to just mess around for a few rounds to get the hang of it, so gaining an understanding of the game wasn't too bad.

At first, I didn't think the game design was very good. But at the time of thinking this, I was still a bit confused on how things worked, and I have done enough jams to know that if I feel confused in a game like this, it's very likely I'm just missing some key elements, which also means that maybe the design isn't as weak as I thought, and what do you know, when I figured out the rest, the game was much, much better.
Somehow, I had missed the element numbers on the cards. I was focused on the colors of the cards themselves, thinking those were my element numbers. But I figured it out eventually.

I really feel like the game just needs some cleaning up in presentation. It's a bit too noisy. For example, the numbers are colored, which is fine, but the red and especially the green are too dark in contrast to the bright icey blue and the yellow merge numbers. If they were about the same brightness, it'd make for a less busy/haphazard uniformity. Also, there's the backgrounds - every textbox has a busy background and it's quite distracting. I love the graphics, but it's too much of a good thing, because it causes a lack of focus and it's not creating the best environment for a card game. I think this wild layout also played a role in why I felt so overwhelmed until I got used to the game.

I must admit that I didn't really get into the game until I played the post-jam version with AI. It really isn't fun unless you have some intelligence to play against, which is not surprising, since that's pretty much the deal with every game where the goal is to overcome some kind of opposition. I think that even if a game is intended to be played by 2 or more people, it should always be an option to play solo against AI. Since that didn't make it in, I consider the jam version to be incomplete.

In summary, it's a bit rough around the edges with the busy presentation, and it's unfortunate that the AI didn't make it in the jam version, but it is a good card game concept.
It'd probably be a lot of fun to play with another person, but I sadly did not get the chance. Sharing the mouse is a bit odd to me, but I'm not sure if there is a better solution for local play.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
Most levels lasted far too long, and the gameplay grew stale because of it. It was also pretty frustrating to fail near the end of a level then to have to start all over again. Thankfully, you added the level skips. I would not have made it through if it weren't for those.

For the matching game, I also think you should have only made failed match attempts count. I was literally nailing them one after another, and on the last one, I ran out of attempts, even though I hadn't missed one in quite a while. I felt so cheated. It would've felt more fair if I missed one and lost.

Also, in many of the games, the hitboxes are too large. It's much better to make hitboxes smaller, rather than larger. If you can hit something without visually touching it, the hitbox is definitely too big, because you'll find that in probably every game out there, hitboxes are always smaller than the sprites, allowing sprites to overlap a surprising amount before even registering a collision. The reason for that is because it just feels right, and more fair to a player. So I hope you'll make smaller hitboxes in the future.

In summary, I do like the simplicity and the varied games, being easy to pick up and play. I just think it would've been a lot more fun if you shortened the levels a lot, and made some things a bit more forgiving and fair feeling. It's not too bad though!

Stack by The M
Hmm, it's pretty hard to see the mana cost numbers. It doesn't help that the game resolution is a bit small and all the text is also pretty small and not on the easiest to read of backgrounds. If the game allowed switching to fullscreen, it would've gone a long way to improving this.

At first, I was going to say I was sad to see that elements don't really matter as far as element against element goes, voicing my disapproval that choosing an element only determines the moveset and terminology used, but after thinking about it, this is actually a pretty smart way to make use of the elements, avoiding the typical 'fire is weak against water', which would be problematic in this case because then one deck would have the obvious upper hand. Your use of the elements allows any deck to play fairly against another deck.

Though I read the readme, I had to play a few times for all the rules to actually click. It could've used a more proper tutorial, but it wasn't too bad, and it was pretty fun once I figured it all out.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
I love the intro story. I accidentally skipped it the first time though, because I pressed spacebar in an attempt to skip to the next dialogue, not knowing that it'd just skip the whole thing.
Ok though, that can be skipped, but why can't I skip your logo intro as well? I expect you're proud of it, sure, but it should be skippable too, you freakin egomaniacs. jk :p

The usage of elements is fair. The gameplay is balanced so that you have to use the elements to destroy more ships, because you just can't get them all otherwise. Actually though, I'm not convinced you can get all of them, even with the elements. Still, the elements are necessary for the highest score possible, and that's pretty much the goal of the game, apart from just surviving.

I think your game's greatest offense is that the elements are not only unnecessary for the boss fight, but some of them literally do NOTHING to the boss, and it doesn't seem like the ones that do work even do that much more damage than regular shots do (I didn't notice much difference between plays, anyway). I feel the boss should have been designed around the use of elements. To take it a step further, I think it would've been better yet to design an elemental system where the elements mattered more, even on normal enemies. For e.g., I think it would've been great if certain enemies could only be defeated with certain elements. Of course, the system would need to be a bit different, but I'm just saying, the theme use would have been much stronger then. As it is, the theme use is there, but it doesn't feel very strong.

Still, the game was fun, and the graphics and music are fantastic. I felt like I was playing an arcade game from the 90's, and that's awesome.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
The first time I played, I lost on the 14th round. The second time I played, I won. The third time I played, I dominated.

On my first play, I placed my dudes all over the place for most of the game, but I eventually just started placing them all around where the enemies spawn. It seemed more effective, but I still lost because I didn't really understand the formula system at first.
On my second play, right off the bat, I placed my guys at the enemy spawn entrance, just enough to hold the enemy off, then I focused my efforts on research, assuming the final research tier would be the best, which turned out to be correct. I switched to new formulas, favoring attack > defense > range, in that order.
On my third attempt, I just doubled down on my second attempt. By the end of it, I had over 100 coins and a massive bunch of end tier darters and bombers, destroying each enemy as soon as they stepped into the play area. It was wondrous!

My biggest critique is that formulas don't tell you the stats they give. Even after you switch to them once.
I also don't think the formula choosing system is all that great, forcing a player to wait and focus a long time on selecting the right formula, when the game also demands their focus on the play field. It feels like a conflict in game design. Still, the difficulty wasn't bad enough to make it too much of a problem.

I do like the idea of using elements to enhance your fighters, like steroids or something... wait... maybe not quite like that, but a more proper analogy escapes me at this moment.
Anyway, the formula enhancement mechanic was a good use of the theme. It makes sense and it's crucial to winning the game.
 

The M

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan


Best ofs:

Best use of : Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Concept: BrightestCrayons by Poizen
Best Presentation: Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Best Story: Crush2 by Toque
Best Devlog: Forgodden by Gizmo199

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  3. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  4. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  5. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  6. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  7. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  8. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  9. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  10. Earlington Manor by Bart
  11. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  12. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  13. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  14. Crush2 by Toque
  15. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  16. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

This game appears calming on the surface, but in reality it is super-tough. I played on medium difficulty and felt like achieving anything was mostly up to luck after the first one or two rounds. When I managed to set up a layer with a few electrons that appeared stable, I'll admit it felt really good seeing them circle the nucleus and narrowly avoid smashing into each other. The visuals are great at showing a sense of motion and energy. I would have liked to have a preview for how the electron would be fired from the accelerator as it felt like there was a very narrow gap between sucked into the nucleus and leaving orbit.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

I liked the concept of having to survive against different teams of breaching enemies. However, the slow movement speed and unforgiving hit boxes meant surviving encounters was hard. I never managed to get past the second level because of how many times you had to fight enemies before you could take down the spawners. I think that if the player had more options to defend themselves or gain tactical advantages, it would be a fun duel of wits against the attackers.

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

I loved the idea and the way you reused the stick man and the cat was cute. Solving the different scenarios was fun, although I couldn't solve the frozen cat puzzle (despite drawing a very pretty fire, and erasing the ice block). I liked how the pressure was off and I spent some extra time just filling in the drawings after I'd beaten them. It felt like some of the colors didn't create any geometry: using blue crayons to defend against the meteorites didn't work, for example, but red did.

Crush2 by Toque

I love the absurdity of this game and the way you had to watch out for so many relentless followers/caretakers. I found that the easiest strategy was to look for a good corner and bait the oldies one at a time to avoid being flanked and outmaneuvered, although the best part was managing to line up a reverse boomerang neck kiss from a returning denture shot.

Earlington Manor by Bart

The mouse controls were super-sensitive for me which made the game tricky because it would require minimal mouse movements to prevent me from spinning rapidly. As a result, I couldn't help but get a bit nauseous as I traversed the mansion. I kind of liked the physics and the environment was cool, but I found it hard to tell areas apart and I would have liked more visual feedback from interacting with objects, such as torches, windmills or chests.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

Even with the tutorial I found it hard to know what to do. I managed to build a few objects, and eventually figured out that I needed to change which resource to collect as the particles changed color to get anything from the collector, but after that I was lost. I managed to build an atmosphere unit in the toxic area, but it progressed super-slowly and it didn't feel like I could do anything to speed it up. I would have liked to be able to build more extractors so that you could gain a larger income and have more, clear goals to work towards. Turning the space station into an advanced resource machine felt like a fun take on the theme.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

The Titan Souls vibes are strong with this one, and the quality and level of polish is through the roof. I love how each boss is themed about a different element in both its appearance and its weakness. Executing on said weakness wasn't always easy though, as I constantly pressed the wrong button when trying to use Earth of Fire. Maybe the trigger just felt more earthy to me?

The fire bird confused me a little because I thought I'd died but just respawned. It wasn't until the final boss that I realized that fires didn't actually kill me, which felt a bit odd to be honest (but I guess I'll take it. Despite my best efforts I couldn't get past the rain cloud stage of the boss so if it had a final phase after that I didn't see it. I still really like the game though.

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

The game was downright mesmerizing with its beautiful patterns and music-synced movements. The sensitivity made dodging bullets tricky, especially when you had to combine dashes with minute movement to dodge both bullets and waves, and I admit I panicked towards the end. I don't have much to say about it, other than that I enjoyed it and might have to make my own music-based game at some point!

Klik Da Elements by dadio

Beautiful

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

I like how responsive the game feels and the visuals are great. The mouse sensitivity is bonkers: it's a little too high on the default level and at max it's just ridiculous :D

It's a shame there's nothing to do in it, but I'm glad to hear you learnt something from making it!

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

It was a very interesting game and it made me think a lot about how to best lay out my moves, even though I only played against myself. It took me some time to understand how the mechanics worked, and I don't think the help screen was quite helpful enough. Partially, I think it's because it's very cluttered. I later realized it was a screenshot of a game state, but when looking at it from the menu I was very confused about the cards that were everywhere around the instructions. I also had a hard time understanding the merge cost and benefits and how your leaf supply was calculated. After a match I feel like I understand it though.

I loved the way your awaremons grew as they were merged as it made them feel more powerful. Looking at the game balance, I'm pretty certain there's a first-player advantage (because you get to have one more card in play on each turn, giving you more options to ice the opponent our out-leaf their ice capabilities). In the end though, I found that what had the biggest effect on the outcome was your starting hand. If you started with a few leaves and your opponent did not then you could do a bunch of merging while they could likely only play four cards (and not have enough ice to stop you).

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Hm, I like every part of this game, but at the same time I feel like they lack the depth to be truly interesting. The crazy collection of elements and enemies is great because it makes all the loot exciting to find, but at the same time, but the level of strategy you can empty still seems limited. It's relatively straightforward to figure out the enemy's weakness, or throw some rare element at them for a one-hit KO, but since it often takes two elements and you only get elements the enemies are resistant against it means you have to get lucky to stock up, or leave the floor early, which also requires luck. I wish there was a way to predict in which direction the exit was and how many enemies/treasures remains on the floor. That way you'd have a better shot at planning your advance. With that said, I think it was clever to make the enemies on the next floor weak to the previous floor's loot. That meant you always had an edge going into the next floor (except for when the enemy suddenly had 20 hp and I was out of items :p ). Of all the games so far, this feels like the one I'm most likely to return to.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

Mixing various genres felt more to the theme than the labels on the gifts, although I'd say it was less about taking elements from the genres and more swapping them around. Either way, it was fun to save Christmas. Each game was presented nicely, and the mechanics worked well enough. In general I think the drawback of adding multiple games into one is that the quality of each game gets lower, and I believe this game suffered some of that too. Specifically, I felt that each level was too long (with the exception of the memory level), especially because there was no progression as the game didn't change or get noticeably harder over the course of the level. I think cutting the number of gifts in each stage would have made it much more enjoyable.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

The game uses elements in interesting ways through some clever puzzle designs. There were a lot of different mechanics involved but the game does a good job introducing them one at a time, mostly. I struggled with the fire effect's ability to burn blocks beneath you as I didn't connect the blocks disappearing with me having a certain ability (plus, the particle effects were different I think?) so it resulted in me doing a lot of trial and error before accidentally discovering the secret. I also struggled a bit with depth perception and didn't find it obvious what layer things were on or why I could move past some walls and not other. I think some kind of highlighting, perhaps color coding or different textures, could help here.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

There's some crazy polish to most parts of this game that few if any other games in this jam could compete with, from the graphics (the story intro alone blew me away, and you even had a separate game over sequence too o_O), to the awesome audio and sound design. The gameplay was fun and worked well, and I liked experimenting with the different (and generously portioned) smart bombs. Unfortunately, it grew repetitive well before the boss came in. Once the enemy patterns started repeating with no sense of progression it felt like there was little point in continuing. I still played on and beat the game, but I can't help feeling a sliver of disappointment as the game had all the ingredients to be epic but settled for great.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

I found the concept of having to complete a dexterity game to perform research to be very interesting as it meant you had to take your eyes off the board and try to multi-task. I was confused for a while then, until I realized that lining up the elements was not needed for research, but to construct each new bot version. As a result, I had already upgraded them to max before changing tower type once, so after I'd swapped to the last type I didn't have to bother with that any more (because the last one's got to be the best one, right?). The drawback was that I didn't know what any other upgrade level did, because swapping type took too much time and effort.

I really liked the concept, but I think it's better to allow quick swapping or previewing of tower types, once you've unlocked them and instead make the unlocking process trickier.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

Well, that's an overwhelming amount of music. It's seriously impressive how many tracks there are and how dynamically they adapt to each element. As for the level design, I feel like it has similarities to the Castle Meta game I made a few jams back, with many of the same design challenges. Specifically, the lack of interaction between skills and areas is a problem as each area gets designated to one specific skill and the rest are mostly useless. I think the metal area was the best because it had a checkpoint right before the element which allowed you to approach the tricky jump section with either fire or water, while the water and earth areas were the worst offenders (water having no checkpoints meant that using the wrong element required you to backtrack to the entrance, and if you didn't have wood in the earth region you could soft-lock). The challenges were fine, and I liked how the environment adapted to your element. In the end I got stuck when transitioning in the hub area after having collected the last element, but that was well enough because at that point I didn't know where to go. Oh, and I believe some of the white ball collectibles were impossible to get and return alive from (the ones near the earth and metal powers).
 

Josh Chen

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Wow. Unbelievable. The level of polish on this entry is just so good. I loved all the screenshakes, particles, and sounds effects for every action. The theme was perfectly implemented and I don't really have any criticisms! Every boss was really challenging for a jam game, and sadly I didn't complete the final one, but they were all super unique and fun to fight against. Amazing work!

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Really, really fun! An old game with some fresh mechanics, the smart-bombs are a good use of the theme, and it's very addicting! The animations and effects are really well made, everything felt fair, except it was almost impossible to avoid taking damage when the enemies came from behind. Amazing presentation overall though.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
Extremely challenging and addicting at the same time... It's supposed to be a rage game though so that's fine. The presentation is great, the levels and enemies are unique and interesting to attack. Overall, a really exciting entry!

Best ofs:

Best use of : Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Concept: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  3. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  4. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  5. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  6. Earlington Manor by Bart
  7. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  8. Stack by The M
  9. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  10. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  11. Crush2 by Toque
  12. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  13. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  14. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  15. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  16. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

Couldn't figure out the strategy, I mostly just click at random times and hoped the electrons wouldn't collide. It seemed quite difficult just for the 'easy' level, and the timing seemed too difficult to try and predict, but maybe it's just me. The physics effect is quite interesting though and well made, it's satisfying to watch.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Extremely challenging and addicting at the same time... It's supposed to be a rage game though so that's fine. The presentation is great, the levels and enemies are unique and interesting to attack. Overall, a really exciting entry!

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

That's a really impressive engine, and it works great. I absolutely love how you can draw your own characters and they get to be incorporated in the levels with a bit of physics and everything. And the art style of crayons is just really unique. The gameplay and theme usage are a little weak but there is definately room for some cool levels with the game engine. But overall it's amazing that you put it together in a week!

Crush2 by Toque

Short and sweet, like always. Basically no theme use unfortunately, and I had to keep moving to avoid the grandmas and the sticky keys notification! Overall, not anything new as far as gameplay goes but entertaining nonetheless and a good difficulty. Nice to not have to think about lots of new things and just know exactly what you're supposed to be doing.

Earlington Manor by Bart

I think I beat the game.... maybe.... got to the bedroom at least! Really unique puzzles, the art and theme were a bit lacking, but understandable for a 3D game in such a short period of time. The music and story were great, and the puzzles were interesting! The East room was a bit tricky for me and took a lot of tries. And it's too bad the pictures and bookshelves didn't do anything! But great job!

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

The circular map is cool, works well as a space station. The gameplay wasn't super intuitive and the tutorial wasn't clear, plus everything felt a bit slow waiting for the elements to increase. I think the use of theme was good. And I appreciate the simplicity of the controls, though it might have been more intuitive to use 'space' or 'enter' for making selections.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Wow. Unbelievable. The level of polish on this entry is just so good. I loved all the screenshakes, particles, and sounds effects for every action. The theme was perfectly implemented and I don't really have any criticisms! Every boss was really challenging for a jam game, and sadly I didn't complete the final one, but they were all super unique and fun to fight against. Amazing work!

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Neat? Music was really cool and it almost seemed to line up with the.... the... hydrogen atoms? Not really sure if there's any gameplay besides dodging the white areas, but the patterns looked really cool!

Klik Da Elements by dadio

Yikes.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Neat! Can't rank it high for the lack of gameplay, but that clearly wasn't what you were trying for so the ranking probably won't matter much to you anyways. As long as you learned something new, that's what jams are for! I think the 3D effect/simulation is still quite impressive, all the controls felt smooth and easy to control, so nicely done with that!

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

Pretty simple card game, easy to understand, the sounds and presentation are great. There appear to be lots of cards and content which is great! Wish the CPU opponent could have been finished for the jam entry.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Really satisfying and simple to play, everything seemed intuitive and easy to learn while playing. At first it seemed like it was mostly random and didn't have much strategy, but after playing a little while it felt like choosing when to use and save the weapons made quite a difference. Overall, really fun!

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

I like the Christmas theme! The presentation is really, really good in this game, the graphics, animations, and audio are all perfect! As far as gameplay goes, all of the levels are simple but a little slow paced. The collisions are unforgiving in the first level, and it's annoying to have to start all over again each time. The 'elements' theme was a bit of a stretch... the poor kids getting dirt getting for Christmas...

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

Lots of cool interesting and confusing puzzles mixed in with some really neat mechanics. There were certainly some elements for the theme, some of the sprites were a little confusing though, such as seeing when crates were stacked on top of each other. Overall a well put-together entry with a lot of thought put into the levels.

Stack by The M

Fun game, I always enjoy board and card games like these. The music was great and the opponent seemed fair. Impressive that this was all put together for a jam game, I noticed a lot of little details and polish that make the game more engaging.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Really, really fun! An old game with some fresh mechanics, the smart-bombs are a good use of the theme, and it's very addicting! The animations and effects are really well made, everything felt fair, except it was almost impossible to avoid taking damage when the enemies came from behind. Amazing presentation overall though.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

Really fun puzzle/platformer entry with a good use of the theme. I really liked how you had to unlock them in a specific order because some were impossible to finish without the other abilities. The elements are lots of fun to use and there's a good variety. The different music tracks for each element is also awesome! I did find the abilities confusing at first, I kept referring to thre readme after unlocking each one. And the tree power wall jumping seemed really tricky to use, but maybe that's just me.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Alice's Reviews

Some of comments here might be brief; sorry about that, but I just want to survive this Christmas preparation period, and there are still more commitments to come.

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Neat game and generally played well for me, though it took me a while to figure out some bosses.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Really nice and varied puzzle mechanics and varying platform heights gave the game extra depth. Had it not been for confusing perspective, this game would take the top spot.

Stack by The M
Nice strategic card game, which also has an AI opponent.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Concept: Stack by The M
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  3. Stack by The M
  4. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  5. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  6. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  7. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  8. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  9. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  10. Crush2 by Toque
  11. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  12. Earlington Manor by Bart
  13. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  14. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  15. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  16. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

I haven't completed it, I hope you'll excuse me. ^^'
The atoms mode felt like it dragged on too much. Building a 6-electrons atoms is fine, making an 18-electron atom sounds like a massive chore.
Molecules mode is more interesting, and I sort of wish there was more focus there. Though I still stopped at the water particle, because making the oxygen work was too much.
I guess one problem is that the game deals with individual electrons, and lots of interesting and well-known particles involve so many of electrons that the collision becomes hard to avoid. Maybe there could be some tweak to the physics so that once the electron begins nicely orbiting around the nucleus, it stays on the orbit permanently until another electron hits it? It'd complicate the under-the-hood physics, but I think it would make for a better game feel (in a similar way not-so-physically-accurate coyote time and input buffering improve platformer feel greatly compared to strict input and on-ground checking).

Except for our own entry It has both the most original and the most dedicated use of theme. As in, the gameplay is clearly theme inspired and it doesn't use classical four elements or some made-up combination of elements.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

I completed the game while having completely forgotten that there's a breaching mechanic. The third level was a pain. The fourth level, in contrast, probably took me the least time - probably because I had figured out how to deal with enemies just entering the room.
So yeah, it's possible to complete the game as-is without using the explosive, though the game would probably be a lot easier had I used that in the first place. Oh well. ^^'

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Poizen, I don't think it works...



I wish I could have fun with drawing here - I originally had some in the first two levels - but then the game crashed way too much and I didn't feel like putting some fun-effort into drawing anymore. I also tried to draw Voidling and elements, but the game crashed when I tried to draw Earth element. :<

Crush2 by Toque

Fun and short little game, though not havnig much to do with the theme. Funny how the game is called "Crush2" but it's completely different meaning of crush than original "Crush" (...probably).

Earlington Manor by Bart

The mouse sensitivity is so high! I felt a little sick after the game ended abruptly; not sure if the sickness was because of the visuals, or because of me eating more chocolate than usual.
The fact that game elements were unshadowed and it was hard to see borders didn't help, either. I think a lighting system would help heaps in a game like this.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

The game is too slow, and the music is too short for how long the game is. >.<
Maybe it would work better if I could build multiple element collectors? E.g. the first one for starting 25 iron, then the next one for 75 iron, then the final one for 150 iron. Or maybe make it so that only one collector can be built per each of four areas, so that unlocking areas gives you more room to make quicker progress? And then you need to tune collectors to elements separately.
That, and you could get rid of the useless green element, or maybe replace it with a rainbow element that lets you collect any element you want. The current useless one makes already long process even more of a chore, the new multielement one would add some nice strategy aspect.
I couldn't complete the game; I collided with the alien too much, especially since the air cleaner didn't work on the fourth area. Not sure if the alien is defeatable in the first place, though it seems like these guys arriving via the hydrogen-powered spaceships are supposed to defeat the alien.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

I got you-know-which crash.
Neat game and generally played well for me, though it took me a while to figure out some bosses - especially the stone one (I knew I could disable the fist with spike, but didn't realise I can spam fire afterwards).
In the last boss fight, the cloud phase was especially annoying, because I couldn't reliably get a hit in and if I made a mistake, then a tornado would give me one-hit KO making me go through previous phases all over again. Only later reading the forum post I found out that you can deflect the lightning with the stone ability; since it wasn't required to defeat the original cloud boss, I didn't know it's even possible.

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

My best score was 97.32% (Amazing). I had to learn quite a bit, but the fact that the game kept me entertained for a few playthroughs is a good sign.
I just wish that there was an option to slow down, like focus mode in Touhou games. It makes micrododging much easier. That, and maybe make the score hits-based rather than total-frames-hit / total-frames-overall based? The way it is now, you can get much greater penalty from being in a hit zone for a bunch of frames than from briefly failing to dodge, even if both account for a single mistake in the end. So e.g. count one hit, then make the player invincible for 1 second, then after that count another hit if they're still in damage zone.
Also, sometimes I felt there were too many bullet patterns overlapping one another. I especially didn't like the one where drums would make two quarters of the screen a hit zone, because it required me to dash from one storm of bullets into another (to avoid the drum hit), and that other storm was often dense enough I couldn't reliably avoid this with my dash.
If not for the title, I wouldn't have guessed the game is related to the theme at all. ^^'

Klik Da Elements by dadio

I...
dadio, why? ^^'
It was suppose to be a proper game this time!
Well, at least it features BROMANCE theme.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Alas, it's only a tech demo. It doesn't even have audio.
The graphics are cool, and the engine seems to function well enough (sensitivity options are welcome too, especially after Bart's game). Interesting how keeping the symbol overheated kept my FIRE rate increase. Unfortunately, there's not much of an actual game here. ^^'

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

I won 102 to 0 (for the record, when there was this "Player won" screen I just spammed the "Round over" button to increase my score).
In general, I found that the best strategy is to either maximise grass from the start to get more merge opportunities, or increase the ice to limit merging opportunities for the opponent. As long as you don't cover the board with grass and ice mons (which you shouldn't, if you use merge a lot), there should be plenty of room to place and merge fire mons in the endgame. I managed to use up all my cards in both rounds as the starting player.
Neat concept overall, though maybe it could use some more variety - and maybe more elements with effects of their own? At any rate, managing the score and merge variables, and ability to reduce the opponent's score and merge are a nice mechanic to built upon.
The music made me think it's Christmas already; I wouldn't mind that, because it would mean I'm past the preparations phase. Alas, that's not the case yet...

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Not much of a fan of endless dungeon crawlers, but it entertained me for a while (I reached floor 3 I think).
Agreed with others about always allowing the punch attack.
Would be nice to have the key elements information (what is the given card's primary element, what are the effects of Float, which elements are strong against which opponents) without having to look them up on the separate website.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

Graphics are a wee inconsistent.
The game was pretty unforgiving, since it required doing a long stream of correct actions in a row ().
Level 1 felt slow *and* was easiest to get wrong at least once (and once is enough for it to start over), so it felt most frustrating, I feel.
Level 2 was alright.
I think I enjoyed level 3 the most. Might also has something to do with the fact that instead of things coming at me with some speed, I just went through the memorised elements at the pace I liked. Also, I noticed that it allows 12 failed attempts (24 total) which corresponds to the number of tries needed to reveal all cards one by one, so even the unluckiest player can beat the minigame with the perfect memorisation - good choice there. Though I feel like instead of number of total attempts allowed it would be better to show a number of failed matches allowed.
Level 4 felt so slow, with the low speed of gifts falling down and the number of them.
I think the speed of level 5 was fine; in fact, it felt a little stressful because I had to make sure I drop the correct gift there.

The theme didn't really use *properties* of specific elements (e.g. fire burns, water floods etc.), but it does seem to inspire various sorting and matching mechanics. Level 1 and 2 don't really make use of the elements (you just collect the gifts as they go), but other levels make up of the initial lack of elements differentiation.

Giving it best story, because the story progression is strongly tied to the levels mechanics (first you collect the gifts, then you sort them, then you deliver them). It's simple, but it has multi-step progression and has some variety to it.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

Really nice and varied puzzle mechanics and varying platform heights gave the game extra depth. However, the heights weren't communicated too well, and the perspective made it difficult to figure out at which height the floor is, and if it's a floor at all. Maybe if higher floors got darker/bluer and lower floors got brighter/redder it would be easier to gauge the relative height?
(or just team up with Bart/Xor/TheSnidr and make a full-fledged 3D game, why not)
Had it not been for confusing perspective, this game would take the top spot.

Stack by The M

Nice strategic card game, which also has an AI opponent unlike the other card game.
The rules were complex enough to allow some strategising; maybe a little too complex to grasp on the first playthrough, what with all that stacking and sliding and collecting score by moving even further.
The different decks were nice, even if there were only two of them.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Really nice presentation-wise, but the pre-boss section was so long and unvaried I was wondering if it's not an endless runner.
The boss fight was fine, but I didn't like how I could only deal damage just before the beem attack. Until I destroyed the sting cannon, that is, after which boss went down really fast.
I could relate a lot to the raccoon words near the ending.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

I reached the end of The End, yay.
The mechanic of choosing the right H/Ac/K/Er combination is interesting, though I don't like how it starts from 2 for some reason. Also, for better UX you could have pausing and resuming elements with the same button.
The way different recipes give different stats is an interesting twist, but I'd like a greater variety of towers, too.
The game feels a little flat without any animation or soundtrack.
It's confusing how when placing towers they are red even when you can actually place them (I'd usually expect green for placeable, red for unplaceable).


Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

Why of all things to be bugged in 2.3.7, it had to be json_stringify which lies at the core of the saving/loading system? Just for the record, that's likely what caused the "Continue" crash - upading to the fixed stable of 2.3.7 fixed the problem. It's extra weird, because when I tested the game locally, the continue system worked fine; maybe it was because I started from the debug all-abilities-unlocked struct then?
The bugs with restart crashes and unfinished transitions are all on me, though.

Wish I would have added proper element-dependent environment elements (there was water that disappeared in Earth element and increased in one debug spot given Metal element, but otherwise switching elements only affected abilities). And also proper in-game tutorial. And also the last area and some kind of conclusion. Alas, there were too many mechanics to implement and assets to draw and I still didn't draw all of them. >.<
 

Poizen

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
At the start I thought it was a pretty basic "move boxes and press buttons" puzzle game. But it gets more interesting after a number of levels. Some levels really stumped me for a bit - and I don't mind it because each level has a very manageable number of elements. The game doesn't create difficulty by overwhelming you. Overall a fun game, a lot of content, good theme usage.

Depth perception isn't a huge issue most of the time, but sometimes it's hard to tell what elevation a block is at. Especially in the last level.

I guess I found an alternate solution to this level. (Beforehand I honestly thought the water ability was there only as a misdirection, because I had taken a break and forgotten you can use it to get up on blocks.) I'm proud to have accidentally done it the wrong way.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Fun game. I love that there are so many different elements. Nice graphics and sound design.

Not the easiest game. You need to balance your resources and be smart with the elements you use. I couldn't survive more than a few floors. I think I would prefer if other squares functioned the same as the staircase square, i.e. you don't automatically move to the square when you reveal it. That way you could save resources for later. (On the other hand, the heavy RNG does make for faster and more exciting runs.)

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
The core idea is very simple but there's a good amount of challenge and entertainment in the process of getting all the electrons into orbit. Well it was hard at first but then I found the best play is to just find a sweet spot and keep launching electrons at the same angle (that gives them the widest orbit). The biggest trouble is that when you get into a rhythm you accidentally make too many electrons and then you have to restart the level.

The molecule levels were considerably trickier. I beat the first three.

I love the chill atmosphere.

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Concept: Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: Crush2 by Toque

Full ranking:

  1. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  3. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  4. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  5. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  6. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  7. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  8. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  9. Stack by The M
  10. Crush2 by Toque
  11. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  12. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  13. Earlington Manor by Bart
  14. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  15. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  16. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

The core idea is very simple but there's a good amount of challenge and entertainment in the process of getting all the electrons into orbit. Well it was hard at first but then I found the best play is to just find a sweet spot and keep launching electrons at the same angle (that gives them the widest orbit). The biggest trouble is that when you get into a rhythm you accidentally make too many electrons and then you have to restart the level.

The molecule levels were considerably trickier. I beat the first three.

I love the chill atmosphere.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Another fun Bearman-brand shooter. Unique concept. I liked it.

The levels are very easy to beat though when you figure out the strat of camping next to a door. The only level that gave me a lot of trouble was level 3. I guess because there's just that many guys.

Theme usage was a bit weak.

Crush2 by Toque

I couldn't help smiling playing this game. I would have happily played even more levels than the three.

For a moment I forgot the theme is not Christmas so when I saw the end screen I was like "oh hey!"

Earlington Manor by Bart

Mouse sensitivity is too damn high! It's a lil bit disorienting combined with the fact that all the walls look the same.

I was a little puzzled at the end, but I guess the idea is that you reach the bed and then you can just fly around like it's Minecraft spectator mode. I did never find a spot to use the study key.

Overall I had some fun but the game feels really unfinished.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

The game looks and feels very original, but it's got some shortcomings. The objectives are unclear and it's slow. It's not super obvious that you have to do specific things in order: build collector, build converter, open door, build stabilizer... And what slows down the game a lot is having to wait for elements to appear, be ready to switch the collector, and then wait for the elements to tick up. I also find it weird that you can only build one collector. But you can build multiple atmosphere stabilizers even if you only need one?

I think there's a neat concept and potential here, but it needs more work.

Also, I never figured out what the little alien dude's deal is. You build a port and then space cops come and try to shoot him?

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Great presentation. The game looks great.

Dodging the thunder cloud feels very clumsy. If only the water ability was also mapped to the mouse or you could just hold it down and skate around, maybe both. I finally beat it but it was exhausting. You need to constantly run away from the cloud and that means constantly spamming the water ability for a long time. I'm so tired after that boss.

The rock boss was actually the easiest when you figure out the secret. It was my favorite because it didn't involve spamming water bending.

I didn't beat the final guy. I beat the rock and the bird again but the cloud was too much. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but my hand hurts and I'm calling it quits. 😬

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

It looks pretty. I'm 95% sure the idea is to avoid the white areas.

Klik Da Elements by dadio

It's delightfully upbeat and got a chuckle out of me.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

That is some great looking 3D! The rain and the shooting look very polished. It's a bummer it's just one test room.

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

That's a great-looking monster asset pack!

I don't know if the presentation is just confusing or unintuitive but I kept having to read through the rules to figure out what's going on. This kind of game could really use a tutorial that introduces features one at a time and explains what's happening and why. (I know, jam time is limited.)

It's a good attempt at creating an original card game, but the idea could probably use more work. You can get a bad hand and have no change of winning. I wish it was more dynamic, and like more visually a monster battle. It's very much just a numbers game. You combine numbers and see who has the biggest number and that's it.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

Fun game. I love that there are so many different elements. Nice graphics and sound design.

Not the easiest game. You need to balance your resources and be smart with the elements you use. I couldn't survive more than a few floors. I think I would prefer if other squares functioned the same as the staircase square, i.e. you don't automatically move to the square when you reveal it. That way you could save resources for later. (On the other hand, the heavy RNG does make for faster and more exciting runs.)

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

It's a collection of festive minigames, most of them very slow-paced. Patience required.

The theme is just slapped on. I mean the game would function the same if the elements were types of toys instead.

The music is nice.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

At the start I thought it was a pretty basic "move boxes and press buttons" puzzle game. But it gets more interesting after a number of levels. Some levels really stumped me for a bit - and I don't mind it because each level has a very manageable number of elements. The game doesn't create difficulty by overwhelming you. Overall a fun game, a lot of content, good theme usage.

Depth perception isn't a huge issue most of the time, but sometimes it's hard to tell what elevation a block is at. Especially in the last level.

I guess I found an alternate solution to this level. (Beforehand I honestly thought the water ability was there only as a misdirection, because I had taken a break and forgotten you can use it to get up on blocks.) I'm proud to have accidentally done it the wrong way.

Stack by The M

Interesting concept. I liked attempting strategies and getting ahead momentarily, even if the AI always beat me in the end.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Beautiful pixel art and music. It's not very long, but that's fine. The elemental super weapons are fun and the game hands them out liberally.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

That element minigame to upgrade your units is interesting. It keeps the player constantly doing something. I thought it was going to get more hectic when you have to operate the slot machine and fight the enemy at the same time., but it works fine.

Good crisp graphics, funky music.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

It's got the vibe of an old-school adventure platformer like Seiklus which I dig. The game looks good. There's a lot to do.

Some stuff was a little confusing at first. I got lost and ran around in circles a little bit. Didn't figure out how to get the orb in the metal area. Or where to go after you get all the elements. Maybe you need all the orbs and then something happens in the white room. Idk.

The way the music changes in some areas is very cool.
 

Bart

WiseBart
Bart's Reviews

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Without a doubt my winner of Best Presentation!
Beautiful graphics and pretty sprite art. I also love all the ambience that goes on in the background (both visuals and sound).
It's those kind of details that make all the difference between getting immersed in a game and not.

I initially started playing the game with mouse and keyboard but on my AZERTY keyboard it's hard to move using WASD, especially when there's a bit of action going on like in this game. I then realized that gamepads are supported and tried playing the game with one. That played a lot better though it felt odd that none of the "face" buttons (A, B, X, Y) were used.

It wasn't clear how you could hit the "stone" boss. When one of the two companion blocks does the ground pound it doesn't always seem to be possible to attack it.
The wind boss is pretty hard, especially because of the tornado. The fire boss is probably the easiest.

Overall a fantastic jam game!

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
This is a very fun, entertaining game! I have to admit that I've come back to this game multiple times, trying to get a better highscore.
The background music and sound effects are lovely.
Pretty amazed by the amount of art that you managed to put into this game.
At one point (in the fourth room?) the difficulty seems to go up fast. All of a sudden you'll encounter enemies that have 20HP.
Depending on the items you have at that point it can be difficult to impossible to advance further. That may have been part of the design though, since the end goal is to get a highscore after all :)

This game will likely go pretty high in my ranking because of all the fun it was. I enjoyed it!

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
A new jam team formed for this entry: the Pixellated Hammered Raccoon. Great team name!

It's a very nice side-scrolling shooter game. The graphics are beautiful. Gameplay feels smooth.
It took me a couple of tries to realize that you absolutely need the smart bombs to be able to survive.
Each type of them has its own use and relates well to the jam theme Elements.

I couldn't get out of the pause menu. While it said press Anykey or the Start key not a single key seemed to work to return to the game.
Except for Escape, which did seem to work.

I eventually managed to get to the boss, complete the game and watch the ending.
The boss looks great! (He reminded me of Ridley of the Metroid series for some reason)
The other thing that really impressed me was the portrait of the raccoon.
I enjoyed the background music too, especially the credits theme.

Apparently this game is now also on GXC. I'm going to give it another try there later!

Best ofs:

Best use of Theme: Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Concept: BrightestCrayons by Poizen
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Devlog: Didn't manage to read them this time...

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  3. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  4. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  5. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  6. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  7. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  8. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  9. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  10. Stack by The M
  11. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  12. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  13. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  14. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  15. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  16. Crush2 by Toque
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

This game has a great concept, I like the use of chemical elements and the idea of building an atom's structure.
The increasing difficulty/level is straightforward in that it simply means a higher atom number. The simplicity of it all is great.
It's not that simple however to get the higher atom numbers constructed and it isn't clear to me whether there are tricks or techniques that you can use to sort of "guarantee" that the electrons will keep an orbit in which they don't/won't collide.
Just a suggestion, maybe it can be interesting to introduce the concept of the electron orbitals (s, p, etc.)? I think that could make the construction of the higher atom numbers more predictable (e.g. construct orbital after orbital, where electrons on different orbitals obviously don't collide)

This game is without a doubt my Best use of Theme!

The text "Quit" on the credits screen and after completing the game at a certain difficulty made it seem like that would end the game. That was a bit confusing.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

Nice game :) Also, a very nice collection of software that you used to create this game!

I personally found this entry a bit more playable than some of your previous ones.
It was clear from the readme what I was supposed to do. The instructions there helped a lot to advance in the game. Especially the charge, that really is necessary to advance.
I did give up playing when I reached the tank, though.
Nice game nonetheless!

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Very nice little game! Adorable setting.
I like the concept and its nice presentation. What I find especially satisfying is the crayon sound effect when you're drawing something.
I managed to get some strange things though. Apparently it is possible to create a player character without limbs.

Crush2 by Toque

Another jam game featuring Old Man Toque. I've come to look forward to these games :)

Pretty sprite art, the characters look adorable.
I managed to complete the game quite quickly. It took little more than to hide somewhere behind a corner and then wait for the people to come and then "charm" them.
A very short game, though enjoyable to play!

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

I like the idea behind this game. The setting is very atmospheric and a bit dark. That's nice.
It wasn't always clear what I was doing. Up and down are used to navigate through the menus but certain options didn't always seem to work.
I managed to build an iron converter, open the door on the right side and build another thing there but then I suddenly died it seems.
I didn't continue playing after that.

I also encountered a tiny bug when playing the game: The background music starts playing a second time when returning to the title screen from the tutorial but only when using the keyboard keys, not the mouse.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Without a doubt my winner of Best Presentation!
Beautiful graphics and pretty sprite art. I also love all the ambience that goes on in the background (both visuals and sound).
It's those kind of details that make all the difference between getting immersed in a game and not.

I initially started playing the game with mouse and keyboard but on my AZERTY keyboard it's hard to move using WASD, especially when there's a bit of action going on like in this game. I then realized that gamepads are supported and tried playing the game with one.
That played a lot better though it felt odd that none of the "face" buttons (A, B, X, Y) were used.

It wasn't clear how you could hit the "stone" boss. When one of the two companion blocks does the ground pound it doesn't always seem to be possible to attack it.
The wind boss is pretty hard, especially because of the tornado. The fire boss is probably the easiest.

Overall a fantastic jam game!

Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

Another unique concept for a jam game. This one is very relaxing and fun to play.
I really like these simple game concepts that you've come up with in the latest jams and this is another nice one.
Everything comes together nicely here, I especially liked the background music.
Not sure where to find the link to the theme. The title contains "hydrogen" (as in the chemical "element") but that seems to be the only reference to it?

Klik Da Elements by dadio

The latest incarnation of the joke game by Dadio, and this time it's made in a week's time. It is abundantly clear that the extra time was well spent since there are now a couple of things you can click on and the game even has a proper ending :p
This really made me laugh :D Great joke game, though I won't be able to place it high in the rankings.

M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

Nice 3D engine! The movement is incredibly smooth. I also absolutely love the visual style of this game (I remember you showed a screenshot of something like this before for a previous jam).
Really interested in seeing what will come of this in the next jams. Hoping to see more of this!

(Also, on the technical side, very nice to read that the rain is batched. Always batch wherever you can for optimization, to get the most out of GM's 3D :p)

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

This is an enjoyable little card game!
There's a bit of depth to the gameplay, I think I'm yet to discover all ways to play.

It looks like most of the art and music in this game were premade, though in the end everything comes together nicely.

I'll be playing the version with added AI later.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

This is a very fun, entertaining game! I have to admit that I've come back to this game multiple times, trying to get a better highscore.
The background music and sound effects are lovely.
Pretty amazed by the amount of art that you managed to put into this game.
At one point (in the fourth room?) the difficulty seems to go up fast. All of a sudden you'll encounter enemies that have 20HP.
Depending on the items you have at that point it can be difficult to impossible to advance further. That may have been part of the design though, since the end goal is to get a highscore after all :)

This game will likely go pretty high in my ranking because of all the fun it was. I enjoyed it!

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

This seems to be a collection of minigames all related to Christmas and Santa. I found it quite fun to play.
It's a fairly "slow" game so you can take your time to complete the levels/challenges. The levels did feel a bit long combined with the fact that there's little variation in the gameplay.
The background theme is nice (has a Christmas feel to it) and the sound effects are well chosen.
The readme says the graphics are licensed. It seems like they've been mixed together or something since some of them have black outlines and some of them don't (background and environment don't seem to have any outlines). That makes the visuals a tiny bit inconsistent in my opinion.

I didn't manage to complete the memory game since you don't get a lot of tries while there are a lot of different elements that need to be paired.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

A new puzzle game from Mercerenies. I must say I've come to like these :)
It's not clear to me how you always manage to come up with this many (good) puzzles in the timeframe of a jam.

The characters in this game are adorable. Interesting that they've been named after geometric shapes, like the Icosaking.
Movement is very smooth and combined with the particles and the animated characters brings a bit of life to the environment.
I played through quite a few levels but got stuck at one point.
Sometimes the perspective is a bit odd which makes it unclear on which level something is.
Also, a good choice of background music and sound effects.

Stack by The M

Interesting board game! It took a moment to understand I have to either Play or Burn the cards that I have. From there on it started to get interesting.

A couple of random things:
* The background music immediately sounded familiar from one of your previous jam games (Hårs, had to look that up for a moment)
* One pawn of the opponent moved out of the board and got destroyed. That came across as a bit odd, though I guess that's how it was intended?
* The green element can be selected as an opponent but it doesn't seem to do that much (it's a much easier opponent)
* The explanation on the cards is a bit on the small side (for me at least). An option to toggle between fullscreen/windowed would've been nice for that.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

A new jam team formed for this entry: the Pixellated Hammered Raccoon. Great team name!

It's a very nice side-scrolling shooter game. The graphics are beautiful. Gameplay feels smooth.
It took me a couple of tries to realize that you absolutely need the smart bombs to be able to survive.
Each type of them has its own use and relates well to the jam theme Elements.

I couldn't get out of the pause menu. While it said press Anykey or the Start key not a single key seemed to work to return to the game.
Except for Escape, which did seem to work.

I eventually managed to get to the boss, complete the game and watch the ending.
The boss looks great! (He reminded me of Ridley of the Metroid series for some reason)
The other thing that really impressed me was the portrait of the raccoon.
I enjoyed the background music too, especially the credits theme.

Apparently this game is now also on GXC. I'm going to give it another try there later!

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

A tower defense game, always nice! This brings back memories of the Bloons games.
I liked playing this. Some nice graphics and good background music (funky/jazzy/loungy, not sure how to call it).
The game felt easy, too easy even for the first 9 waves and then became near to impossible in wave 10.
I think the progression could be more gradual here.
Overall I played the game for a short while and I liked it!

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

This game's music is beautiful! There are so many variations, so many genres.
I enjoyed exploring the pretty big game world but couldn't make any more progress at a given point. I think I must've missed something.
The movement is very smooth, the exploration alone was fun just because of that.

A tiny bug that I noticed: the draw color doesn't seem to be reset properly on the title screen.
 

Yozoraki

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Great game all round, excellent boss fights

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
Loads of content and interesting variations that make it fun to play and explore multiple runs

Stack by The M
A good challenge that requires strategy to win

Best ofs:

Best use of Elements : SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
Best Concept: Stack by The M
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: BrightestCrayons by Poizen

Full ranking:

  1. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  3. Stack by The M
  4. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  5. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  6. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  7. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  8. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  9. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  10. Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus
  11. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  12. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  13. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  14. Earlington Manor by Bart
  15. Crush2 by Toque
  16. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

What I loved- this game is really cool, super left field idea but I love it. Simple concept, with great implementation. The molecule levels were especially fun

Possible Improvements- I don't come away from a game like this thinking it needs to be improved, I think it did exactly what it set out to.

Future Prospects- It's less of game and more of toy, in the best kind of way. Fun to mess around with, it doesn't need to be anything more.


Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

What I loved- The various enemy types, gun types and their sprites are all really nice.

Possible Improvements- It feels very difficult in an unfair way, whenever I strategise something always stops me. For example, the enemies shoot immediately when face to face so I stand to the side and wait them out, but when I wait them out in the second level they all immediately respawn. It's a little slow overall too, these hotline miama type games need to be fast and allow dodging.

Future Prospects- I think adding a feature where you can manipulate the rooms and the layout itself could be really interesting and help mitigate the problems I had with difficulty


BrightestCrayons by Poizen

What I loved- Big fan of drawing games, and this one is great. Simple instructions but a lot of freedoom and opportunities for creativity

Possible Improvements- The game struggled at times and crashed on me a few.

Future Propspects- Personally, I would love to see more of this game just really needs a performance improvement.


Crush2 by Toque

What I loved- A thoughtful improvement on the left/right/shoot formula. It's a solid little game

Possible Improvements- Mouse controls for menus with button gameplay gets me everytime. Didn't match the theme at all?

Future Prospects- I look forward to the third installment


Earlington Manor by Bart

What I loved- Visually I really like it, especially the open room with the clock and further level when you look above. It's got great atmosphere.

Possible Improvements- Mouse moves way too fast, and I'm usually pretty good with 3d but this one got my stomach churning a bit. Platforming needs some significant polish

Future Prospects- Definitely focus on smooth movement first and foremost


ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

What I loved- Love the concept and how it plays out on a curved station. Visually

Possible Improvements- It's a very slow game, and a lot of the gameplay is waiting. It took me a long time to figure out what I was really meant to be doing. In these types of games I want to be building lots of stuff and have lots of options.

Future Prospects- I like the concept, just work on making sure the basic gameplay loop is fun.


Forgodden by Gizmo199

What I loved- Big fan of this style of game. I personally really liked taking a bit to figure out how to actually hit the bosses. Looks and sounds amazing. Boss patterns had perfect complexity to be fun and challenging

Possible Improvements- Character feels a little slow, which is fixed with the dash but would feel better if you could hold down the dash instead of having to press it so much.

Future Prospects- I would play a full version for sure, and gameplay is solid so it'd just need more content.


Hydrogen dance by Mr Magnus

What I loved- An interesting bullet hell, a bit like a rhythm game. The percentage instead of lives is a really smart move. Good use of patterns, and I like the freedom of going wherever you like in a screen full of bullets instead of a more linear version.

Possible Improvements- nothing comes to mind

Future Prospects- Having multiple levels with different patterns and a certain percentage that needs to be reached, each with their own visual style and patterns would be cool. Would be a bit like tetris effect


Klik Da Elements by dadio

I hate it, yet I'm smiling the whole way through


M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

What I loved- Visuals are great, feels fun just moving around

Possible Improvements- The game part

Future Prospects- I can definitely see a great game being made with this engine


Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

What I loved- The monster designs look great, as well as the overall UI. Merging cards is a really fun mechanic. Having each element have a different tactic is cool too

Possible Improvements- The luck of your original draw is quite important as of now, sometimes I would only pull a single red card and if I'm understanding correctly that's pretty much a guaranteed loss. Not seeing the other player's hand would be help, and some way of discarding a certain amount of cards at the start of each turn might be good.

Future Prospects- I like it in concept, I'm a big fan of games that allow you to merge things to become more powerful. Some mechanic of merging different elements could be cool too


Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

What I loved- So much variety and content, and each item was unique and exciting to unlock. Costumes were all cool, and being able to swap without losing them was a good decision especially for a game jam where I want to see them all without being punished.

Possible improvements- The strategy and feeling of improvement is great for the first few runs, but then it suffers from relying too much on luck in later runs. Learning which enemies have weaknesses does help, but even using the correct element I still take a hit. My last run I got the surprise item and wore it as armor and it was OP, so if I were to play it again my strategy would be 'hope that I get that surprise armor again'.

Future prospects- I love the duality of wearing your attacks as armor, I can see this expanded to multiple pieces of armor where you can really strategise your mix of resistances and specials. And also being able to throw your armor out as attacks if you need.


Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

What I loved- Visual effects and sound design are great. Gives a real kid friendly vibe and all the levels work well and match the christmas theme.

Possible Improvements- The games go on too long without any real challenge. It seems great for young kids, but as an adult it didn't do much for me.

Future Prospects- Release on ipad with target audience set for kids and make bank


SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

What I loved- Some great levels overall, the implementation of elements is especially great with each having multiple uses and level elements like crates having multiple reactions. Rewind function is great, and necessary for games like this. Levels all felt very distinct and had purpose.

Possible Improvements- For the type of small burst puzzles you a going for, there is a lack of tightness to the levels. For example, even small lengths of needless walking or doing things multiple times, can feel tedious when coming to the solution to the puzzle is so quick. Similarly, any levels that only require one player, they could be separeted within the dungeon. The 3d aesthetic makes the levels look much more daunting than they actually are, but I do love the implementation of height into the puzzles.

Future Prospects- If you were to continue it, you'd need to find a solution for the 3D aesthetic to make it really easy to understand as soon as the level starts, a difficult but great solution would be to make it rotatable. Could make a neat smartphone title as the controls are simple enough!


Stack by The M

What I loved- Really fun and gives the player a lot of choice. I got stuck playing for a long time. AI puts up a good challenge.

Possible Improvements- Some of the visuals and descriptions could be a little clearer, but what was there worked well enough.

Future Prospects- This would be really cool as a physical board game, and seems doable to me. Print a deck of cards, a board and some game pieces


Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

What I loved- Looks, plays, sounds and feels amazing. Elemental powers are super crunchy and all the visuals add to the gameplay a lot. Enemy patterns and gameplay difficulty are good, boss fight was a great addition

Possible Improvements- The game feels great to play, but the gameplay is quite straightforward. The elemental powers are really fun to use, but ultimately just wipe the screen of enemies.

Future Prospects- Currently you have a standard scrolling shooter with a great base level in all aspects, so add on a story and something that will really make it stand out gameplay wise, then host it on a game site and watch the money roll in. Great job guys


The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

What I loved- Very interesting concept! A tower defense but with a focus on multitasking. The mix of formulas and spinning the numbers to alter your bots is really unique. Also for such strange shapes, the bots all fit well together, and I'm going to assume that was on purpose. Visually very consistent and the tutorial was really well done

Possible Improvements- Something that can bring more of your attention away from the left display would be good, all my attention was focused on the menus and not the actual attacks being played out.

Future Prospects- As a base concept it's something I've never seen before, so I'd say keep playing around with it and I'm sure something good will come out of it. Adding more classic elements of tower defense would also improve it (more bots, special items etc)
 

Mr Magnus

Viking King
Short and sweet reviews. I didn't get that much time to play these entries this time around, so the reviews and ranking are a bit undercooked. Don't, therefore, read too much in to anything here. If you feel I overlooked or misrepresented something do please yell at my general direction, albeit I fear I likely will not get the time to correct it since the deadline *did* pass a couple of hours ago.

Reviews

Top 3:

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
Yeah, no, this works.

If I'd have any complaints it's that CTRL is an odd default choice for triggering super-bombs, and that a slightly better indicator for how far along you are would be nice. Beyond that I really enjoyed that. A polished arcade game that would fit right at home along other shoot-em-ups. A lot of fun. Kudos.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
I love this.

It's a bit on the challenging side (which likely is the point) with it being very easy to accidentally always be one bad matchup away from losing the entirety of your cards. Strategizing got a bit hard as you often had a fair bit of issues controlling the cards in your hand. The ability to run from monsters at some penalty to chose to conserve your current hand and try to book it to the next level would have been appriciated, but I really found this to be a fun game I played for a good while.

Forgodden by Gizmo199
Presentation polished to a mirror shine: wonderful. The one-hit death is a bit rough given that managing bosses can be a bit obtuse, but if you told me this was the intro to a indie game already released on steam I would absolutely believe it.

Best ofs:

Best use of : Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
Best Concept: BrightestCrayons by Poizen
Best Presentation: Forgodden by Gizmo199
Best Story: Klik Da Elements by dadio
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon
  2. Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan
  3. Forgodden by Gizmo199
  4. BrightestCrayons by Poizen
  5. Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal
  6. Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish
  7. SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies
  8. Stack by The M
  9. Earlington Manor by Bart
  10. Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx
  11. The End by Josh Chen & bandman28
  12. Crush2 by Toque
  13. Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor
  14. Breacher Bob by Bearman_18
  15. M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS
  16. ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer
  17. Klik Da Elements by dadio

Comments:

Atomic Jam by The Digital Fish

A very mesmarizing game. I'm a sucker for these sort of zen experiences. Despite the fairly inaccurate controls making it often at times very luck based I still quite enjoyed myself on this one.

Breacher Bob by Bearman_18

A bit too rough to control for my taste. Getting myself in to a good angle to shoot the guards usually also put me at a very hard-to-dodge spot often leaving me to get shot almost seeming by accident. With good polish this could be a really fun game and I did eventually start enjoying myself, but it came at a bit of an effort.

BrightestCrayons by Poizen

I love this concept. It had some rough edges, sure, where the engine couldn't quite figure out what to do with itself. However it was an adorable little experience that utilized a very seldomly seen mechanic in jam games really well.

Crush2 by Toque

I'm sure I've played worse on Newgrounds back in the day. Despite the *very* rough presentation and *very* simple gameplay this wasn't half bad. A silly little entertainment of a game. Not something I'd rank near the top of the list, but by no means something I'd consider bad.

Earlington Manor by Bart

The controls were a bit like sliding on butter, with how much my character wanted to look far past where I wanted him to look. The concept is simple but quite clever, and as always I do find it amazing when GMS is used for 3D. The music was nice but started getting a bit repetative after a while.

ElementalStation by ZombieLawyer

A bit clearer of an objective or sense of what I'm really supposed to be doing would have been nice. I can sense that there are some good ideas hiding in here, but I couldn't quite connect with them and eventually more or less just ended up walking in circles and farming.

Forgodden by Gizmo199

Presentation polished to a mirror shine: wonderful. The one-hit death is a bit rough given that managing bosses can be a bit obtuse, but if you told me this was the intro to a indie game already released on steam I would absolutely believe it.

Klik Da Elements by dadio

Whelp, we have the answer. Given a week instead of the usual 96 hours Dadio will actually create a game with a love story and everything. 10/10, best game.













M4N4PUNK by Micah_DS

As you stated there isn't much here, but major props for gunning for a 3D project. Those are always tough.

Merge Awaremon by Mightyjor

A clever little game. A bit on the drier side content wise but I appriciate what it was going for.

Plunder Dungeons by GameDevDan

I love this.

It's a bit on the challenging side (which likely is the point) with it being very easy to accidentally always be one bad matchup away from losing the entirety of your cards. Strategizing got a bit hard as you often had a fair bit of issues controlling the cards in your hand. The ability to run from monsters at some penalty to chose to conserve your current hand and try to book it to the next level would have been appriciated, but I really found this to be a fun game I played for a good while.

Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

An enjoyable collection of minigames scored with a well put together soundtrack. The games were a bit slow and failing them thus caused a fair bit of frustration as you retraced old ground.

SquaredudeAndCirclegirl by Mercerenies

It can't really be a jam without some grade-a puzzles from Merc. Well done.

I had a hard time clicking with this game for whatever reason, but it is a quality puzzle game and I can appriciate it for that. There isn't really that much I can or want to ask of it that it doesn't deliver on or I can't excuse. Passable graphics, a decent music loop that manages to stay fairly fresh even when repeated a thousand times as you solve puzzles, and well thought out puzzles that do get you thinking a bit as you incrementally get towards the solution. Controlling the two characters sometimes was a bit tricky, they tended to overshoot their destination a bit in my hands, but I'm not sure if that's on the game or if that's just me being a bit clumsy.

Stack by The M

An interesting little board game. Took me a few tries to get a hang of the rules but eventually I started having a bit of fun.

Starship Elemental by Pixellated Hammered Raccoon

Yeah, no, this works.

If I'd have any complaints it's that CTRL is an odd default choice for triggering super-bombs, and that a slightly better indicator for how far along you are would be nice. Beyond that I really enjoyed that. A polished arcade game that would fit right at home along other shoot-em-ups. A lot of fun. Kudos.

The End by Josh Chen & bandman28

A clever twist on the tower defense genre. I really quite enjoyed this once it fully clicked how the upgrade system worked. You also get extra points for the snazzy jazz track. However the main issue comes from a lack of variety. Once you've figured out how to upgrade towers the game suddenly starts being trivial. place a good deal of cheap towers as cannon fodder, and then as many strong towers you can afford to deal damage. A bit more tower and enemy variety to shake things up would have been appriciated. However I did really like this game despite beating it quite quickly.

Voidling by Alice, Yozoraki, Siolfor the Jackal

I think this must be the most spotify-ready soundtrack I've ever heard in a jam game. Extremely good work. The game itself may have benefitted from a bit clearer direction to get players fully on board the concept. The execution was perfectly fine, albeit got fair few rough edges that would have benefitted from being sanded away. Excellent job.
 
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