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.