APOLLO by CardinalCoder64
Solid scrolling shooting with some good presentation.
+ Even though you used the mouse to control movement, it still mostly controlled ok.
+ Good variety of power ups(Though Medusa head felt OP)
+ Nice level length(and amount of levels)
+ Good enemy pattern variety.
+ I really liked the music(You didn't have any credits besides "by CardinalCoder64" so I'd like to assume you did).
- I just really don't like controlling my character with the mouse.
- The hitbox felt too wide for this sort of game, especially in the later levels.
- Some better visual variety in enemies would have been nice(Understandable using palette swaps for a jam though)
- That last level was just a mess of bullets. I did manage to complete it, but only by cheesing it(I sat in the top right corner of the screen where I almost never got hit. Then waited until the final screen and Medusa'd everyone to death).
Babel: ACLTBMDGIDOHH by Mr Magnus
Quite a simple but addicting little game.
+ Easy to play, hard to master.
+ Online high scores make it something more, something to conquer.
+ Great sound effects. They really have a satisfying click.
+ Great integration of theme into gameplay.
- The way it stops every couple of stacks to change view really messes with any good rhythm I have. Even if it waited a few more stacks before moving, that would still be preferable.
- I mean, it's not much to look at. Some slightly nicer sprites and backgrounds would do wonders.
Blade of Redemption by Ezra
Cute turn-based RPG with some good variety of monsters!
+ Great sprites(Though that is the creepiest manticore I have ever seen holy
)
+ Enjoyed the music, especially the battle music.
+ Nice clear objective
+ Simple but effective battle effects
+ Great presentation, that intro especially was neat.
- Ultimately, this ends up being Grind: The Game. I picked the speedy crit character, which meant that the focus option seemed quite pointless. I'm guaranteed more crits, so wasting a turn charging for a crit seems silly. So in the end it's just a spam attack game. As long as you're fighting things weaker than you. And that's really it, you just grind weaker monsters until you're strong enough to grind the bigger ones. I did manage to get the brownie points, but it was through rapid attack clicking. This could have been a really great entry if the battles had some more strategy in them instead of just being about who can hit hardest the quickest.
CROW by Terminator_Pony
It's nice to see some Celtic mythology represented in this jam.
My first playthrough I didn't fully grasp what I was supposed to do, but I ended up demolishing the reds so I guess I did ok. Second playthrough I understood it a bit better and kept stuff going, but it was starting to drag on a bit.
+ A S D menu choices were a fun and interesting way to lay it out.
+ Story and the implementation into gameplay was good.
+ Simple controls.
+ Really loved the music, at least, the instrumentation and mood.
- Simple gameplay, but a confusing premise/goal. It took me awhile to understand that I was trying to prolong the battle and just be a dick.
- As much as loved the music, it was too short and repetitive.
- Of all the fonts freely available online, and you stick with the default... I think almost any other font(especially one that doesn't blur at that resolution) would have made a marked improvement.
- The weird sprites for the soldiers really threw me, like, I have no idea what they are supposed to be and then they suddenly have hands!
CRUSH by Toque
Maybe this guy needs to team up with T'kemsa!
+ Great simple concept
+ Nice simple controls
+ I liked the variety in enemies. Even though it boils down to melee and ranged, you still visually have to prioritise based on which is more dangerous which is great.
+ Great sprites, the giant especially looked great here.
+ The sound effects really helped make the crushing all the more satisfying.
- Feels like you're doomed to fail pretty quickly. I saw one apple spawn and it only restored a fraction of health. No others spawned in my subsequent playthroughs either.
- I think you really could have used a secondary action of some sort(offensive or defensive) to balance out the fact that you have to move towards enemies to crush them, but they will always get a few hits in first at the very least. That and there's not much in the way of a healing mechanism, so you're pretty screwed pretty quickly.
Cthildha by Jordan Thomas, Amber Thomas
A well-made interactive narrative. Cthildha certainly has it easier than her sister, Cthylla...
+ Great presentation!
+ The art was really nice.
+ The audio was well balanced, which is important given how central the audio is here.
+ The narration was lovely.
- I really disliked the controls, or more specifically, how you moved around. Felt unnatural and I spent most of the time mashing two buttons in the vague direction I wanted to get anywhere.
- I mean, this is a nice idea, but I'm not sure I'd call this a game so much.
Escape from Tartarus by Ericbomb
An interesting idea but needs some better design and implementation. I appreciate the effort in attempting to make something for visually impaired gamers, but there are some issues overall that bring it down a bit.
+ Pretty easy to play. Just press arrows.
+ Fully voiced is neat, and the little bits of story in-between are interesting.
- I don't know why you put so much reverb on the voice, especially since it's important dialogue. I know I suggested some reverb but this is way more than you had when I said it sounded good.
- That reverb on top of overlapping sound effects from battle makes it easy to mishear or miss information during a battle.
- The sound effects were often way louder than the voice over. For an audio-only game, it's extremely important to manage levels and overlap.
- One thing that really bothered me was the lack of feedback about my character. Cool my max HP and spear attack have increased? How healthy am I? How much damage am I doing? Eventually I just got into the habit of smashing spacebar and alternative left and right arrows until I died.
- On one hand I think the restriction on reusing abilities is a neat anti-spam method, but on the other hand it just changed my spam to two alternating keys when I got bored.
On the fence about this last bit of feedback, so I'm not categorising it as a + or -
But I'm unsure about the seemingly never ending gameplay. I think it fit well narratively but it's not something that's usually much fun.
FarOutPost 42 by HayManMarc
I'm not generally into resource or management type games, but by the end I was getting right into this. Would be potentially interested in a larger version of this game.
+ Simple gameplay that you can just get right into. Most of it take cares of itself, so you only have to concentrate on your fighters and base management.
+ Controls well for the most part.
+ Great presentation all round. Great choice in sprites, backgrounds, and audio.
+ The AI seemed simple and on task, no issues there.
- I was just getting into it when I found the macguffin and it ended!
- I think the controls could use modifying. Maybe right click to move and left clicking an empty space to deselect(Which I think is the standard?).
- My only issue with controlling my fighters was having to tell them constantly to readjust when an enemy is moving. If you could target the enemy and they auto-chase, that would have been excellent.
- Speaking of controlling the fighters, the little delay when they change destination was a wee bit annoying. Especially since no other ships seemed to behave like this.
Gilgamesh by Ninety
That certainly was a platformer. A very well made one.
+ Platforming was solid.
+ Good sprites.
+ Short and sweet.
- I personally found the controls awkward since I use my left hand for arrow keys.
- This really is just a platformer. It doesn't really do much that any other platformer doesn't do, even the link to the theme is arbitrary.
Gravity Bunny by Koopashy
I was totally not expecting an Easter Bunny game haha!
+ For the most part, the platforming works ok. Could use some refining but I didn't encounter any big issues which is great!
+ Good variety of levels with varying difficulty. But not too hard.
+ Short length with an ending is perfect for a jam like this.
- The art is a bit not good... and looks inconsistent. And the bunny sprites animated strangely. The animation speed was just reduced when not moving which was weird.
- The collision boxes could use some refinement. Make the player one a bit smaller so that when you hit the spike, it actually looks like you're touching it when you die.
- Moving platforms can be tough, but they feel much better when the player moves with them horizontally as well.
- I died once towards the end of the game and it restarted the whole thing which is a wee bit brutal. Restarting the level would probably feel more fair, or incorporate a lives system maybe?
Hades vs. Satan by kburkhart84
Mixing mythologies is fun. Interesting to see you attempt something outside your comfort zone(art wise at least).
+ Platforming was fine, no big issues there.
+ Level and game length were great for a jam.
+ Final boss and an ending is nice to have.
+ Good variety of enemies and hazards.
+ Gamepad support is nice and works well.
- Enemies have too much health. No one wants to pump 1000 fireballs into something unless you shoot 1000 fireballs per second.
- I feel like this would have been much better with some variable jumping, though it still works fine without it.
- Collecting emblems to upgrade is neat, except that the upgrade is just an extra life. I feel like more could have been done with this.
- The final boss is a bit annoying and a bit easy at the same time. Not sure if this is intended behaviour, but since you can't variable jump to aim your attacks at the weakpoint better, I just mashed jump in the middle of the screen so I would hit the block to force me to stay roughly in the right aiming range I needed.
Half a Dozen Potatoes by Josh Chen, bandman28
"Figure it out" How polite.
+ Art was clean.
- That's it, really. A little bit more effort to explain how to play, even in a readme would have been nice. It took me a while to figure out how to actually shoot and due to the lack of any feedback, sometimes I wasn't even sure if I even was shooting. I still won my first game just by running around a bunch.
Hat Wearing Children by Bearman_18
Best described as an exercise in frustration.
+ There was an ending.
- Obvious first thing is the OP enemy aiming. I have no idea how you have 4 days of a jam and not realise "Oh jeez, these guys snap aim pretty quick". Every encounter I had to be perfect and lucky. Especially since the bullets rarely travel straight for you.
- The perspective and high walls made some parts really difficult to see what you were doing or where the path/doorway actually was.
- The starting weapon is no good, only seems to have an advantage of the shotgun(Which itself seems to be the worst weapon somehow)
- Not only are the enemies good at snap aiming you, they can see you before you see them, so you have to be like those awful CS players and just pre-fire everywhere.
- The last level was probably the most frustrating if only because the first two enemies have those turrets, meaning you have two guys who are not going to potentially drop a better weapon.
Also, lerping direction can work, you just need to do a few more extra steps to make sure it lerps the right direction(and maybe do it slower)
Invaders Of Egypt by Jarfunkados
Not a type of game I expected to see, but an interesting concept. Would be pretty cool with some better balancing.
+ The split attention styled gameplay is quite clever. These games however are tough to balance.
+ Consistent art style.
+ XP and upgrades are bread and butter for this type of gameplay.
+ Music was an interesting blend of styles that suited the game well.
- The upgrade stuff only really works if you get enough XP consistently to try different methods, but here you are locked into really low XP the first few rounds so you're either forced to not upgrade, or to upgrade the one thing in your budget.
- The font used was really unpleasant to look at, looked deformed and not in a cool way.
- Minor nitpick, but I went to hit the quit button sooo many times by mistake. I'd have recommended making that button less prominent.
Lore Quest by Braydee Johnson
Unplayable, unfortunately.
Map of Legend by PugWizard101
Well, I managed to beat it. An interesting idea but there are several issues that severly hold this back. Also, I'm not seeing much in relation to the theme unless you're counting the random bosses? Something to more clearly explain the link there would have been a nice addition.
+ The idea itself was interesting.
+ The little cutscenes between certain areas were a nice way to briefly break up the game.
+ The boss fights were an interesting addition to make things feel slightly more fresh after a handful of the levels.
- This is a big one because it's related to the main mechanic of your game. But clicking and moving the blocks was a glitchy experience. It feels like the offset for checking where the mouse is was broken or in a very small part of the box. It made some of the more precise areas later excrutiating to deal with.
- The difficulty between levels was just so random, with no sense of progression. Some seemed to have very specific solutions in mind, while other looked like that didn't matter.
- I feel like this game was way too long. There were too many levels. Lots of levels isn't necessarily a bad thing, but with the random difficulty and the lack of new features to spice up later levels, it just felt like I was doing the same few things over and over.
- That music was not all that pleasant to listen to, but thankfully it could be muted.
Mars God Of War And Sometimes Internships by Mercerenies
This is probably the weirdest way I've seen the god of war incorporated into anything.
+ Impressive computer in a computer!
+ I have to say, I loved how happy Mars looks. It's so very clearly his first day.
+ Very funny.
+ The voice overs were a great touch.
- Too much data entry.
- Some more sound effects to break the silence would have been nice.
I think some other "mini-games" besides data-entry could have been an interesting way to break up the segments, but it looks like you already did so much here.
Minitaur by Sirham
Ahh, this started off sort of interesting but kind of deflated after there. Alas, that's game jams for you. I know I've been in the same situation where I delivered something barebones just to submit. Having something to submit is still impressive regardless.
+ First section was an interesting gameplay idea.
+ Sprites were simple but nice.
+ The gravestones were a really nice touch.
- After the first interesting part, the rest is just walking and jumping to reveal some text and then you get big and it ends. I guess I just expected something else with the way it started.
Murder on the Styx Express by Alice
This was a wonderful idea in theory, and the selection of characters was quite a nice selection from across different mythologies.
+ The concept of a murder mystery on a train in the underworld involving multiple mythological beings from different regions is inspired for sure.
+ Fun dialogue, you really have a knack for nice dialogue.
+ I really liked the simplified layout with the train carriages at the top, and scene interactables on the left.
- The placeholder wasn't that bad, but clearly placeholder in some cases. That said, it's still very consistent and readable!
- Being incomplete is a real let down.
- The solution to cure Jörmungandr(and the method of doing so) was really obtuse, and it stumped me for at least 20 minutes before I found your hint post. What I think really broke that for me was at the start of the game it's made pretty clear that you can't interact with Medusa at all, so it didn't even cross my mind that she'd be integral to the cure.. I don't think I fully understood the difference between the two methods of interacting with Medusa before then, the profile part threw me a little. Thinking along the lines of "Oh well if she didn't have time to complete the interactions for Medusa here, then Medusa is off the table for the rest of the game". That was really frustrating when I read the tip
Otter: Prologue -mythologies- by Cantavanda
The credits were by far the nicest part. Great font choice and layout there, and that music was very nice(I think the credits said it was Chopin? either way, it was quite nice).
I've heard far worse vocal covers of the Final Fantasy prologue and of that Rick Astley song, so good job there.
As for the rest of the game... Your type of humour... it's insufferable.
Prometheus Rising by Evanski
Damn, this was a solid experience. I don't even like Doom but I had fun with this. I first beat it on Normal, then on Nightmare and had no trouble either time though.
I know you had the framework already built, but this feels like one of the better 3D jam entries we've gotten in awhile. It feels good to play and is a complete game for once.
+ Controls really well. I especially enjoyed zooming around with Shift in fights.
+ Maps were nice and short. Felt rewarding finding the secrets. Yes, even *that* one.
+ Artwork was well chosed, it all fit very well.
+ Some great audio choices too.
+ The secret door texture is just the right amount of subtle. I missed one or two on my first playthrough.
- Even on the hardest difficulty, this was way too easy.
- The weapons(fire?) needed some beefier sound effects. It didn't sound like they were even making noise most of the time. That really cuts down on the badarse-ness of using them.
- Some better weapon variety would be nice. Blue seemed the most useless, as it shot so slow and was so inaccurate.
- The menu text maybe blends a bit too much with the dark background.
I would loved to have rated this higher, maybe with some less pre-made and free assets.
Ravana by The M
Interesting idea, and well made.
+ The fights were engaging, albeit spammy.
+ Lockpicking was neat. I usually hate lockpicking mini-games.
+ Art was simple, but well presented.
+ Great sounds and music choice.
+ I really liked the less obvious choice of myth here.
- Ugh the mouse controlling was so annoying. Especially entering a room and because your position is not relative to where you enter, you could just automatically be on a trap or enemy. I also have my mouse sensitvity up quite high, so this was a nightmare to control until I turned it down a few notches.
- My first fight was very confusing. I tried attacking and nothing happened, then I started standing in the green zones which prompted me to pick an item. I thought it was telling me to use right click to attack and that did nothing so I was even more confused. Luckily it didn't take me too long to figure it out. But after that it seemed sort of pointless? Like, once you've picked your weapon, you never seem to be in the situation where you'd need to change it or even use an item. A good reason to switch weapons mid-combat would have been really cool.
- After my silly confusion, fights ended up being a bit spammy. With the only limit being my click speed, enemies went down super fast.
- Inventory was so small. One slot is basically reserved for weapons, and you need to more for the gems so you can open the door. I guess not a big deal, I was just hoarding items because I didn't need to use them.
- Boss bugged out I think. I tried multiple times and multiple things but it looks like it's proper bugged. An unfortunate oversight...
Rolldyce Kingdoms by GameDevDan
A well presented board game. Not sure I have played much like it before which is neat.
+ Nice clean art style.
+ Simple gameplay. doesn't take much to understand.
- Personally, I'm not a fan of this mix of RNG and strategy. Dice games seem so reliant on luck which can take the fun out of the strategy part. It also feels like the second half of the game, the dice stop matter much.
- The easiest guy to beat ended up being the last one. The gimmick with the fog made it so the CPU would more often use his tokens to unlock that more than I needed to.
Secrets of Tapiola by Poizen
A well put together point and click adventure. Almost had me stumped once or twice(pun intended).
+ Great consistent visuals.
+ The couple of mini-game puzzles were nice and unique to each other(Oh and the brief directions at the top were very handy. Good idea).
+ The actual solutions weren't too crazy enough to figure out what to do after a good think about it.
+ Controlled well.
- Sometimes it wasn't clear what you could and couldn't interact with. The two parts that held me up at first were putting the berries on the stump, and chopping down the other tree(It's the only tree I didn't try chopping down at first...). I guess that was really my only problem here.
Sleepy Gods by Mr Magnus
I watched Evanski play most of this before I got around to it, but that didn't help me remember any solutions.
+ A reasonably unique puzzle game, not too difficult to understand.
+ Voice over stuff was fun.
+ Despite how rushed this game feels, I still had a good time getting stumped and figuring out the solutions.
- The map resetting when you are wrong is a bit annoying, because sometimes I couldn't see why it wasn't working, especially later levels with multiple gods. Waiting on the fail state would give a good opportunity to see your work, and figure out where you went wrong. As it currently is, I get a glimpse of the issue and then chip away randomly until it works.
- Items weren't explained well(if at all), like the flashlight.
- Your voice audio is very quiet. I'm probably going to write a little note about audio normalisation in a different section, because this happens regularly with jam games
Spielcomm: Origins by Bart
I think it's neat you're still doing 3D for the jams, but it doesn't seem like you're progressing at all in the gameplay parts...
+ 3D is cool, and I enjoy the expanding Spielcomm narrative
- Nothing really works. You can't do anything with the sword, and the bombs just sit there(or slide away if you're moving).
- I personally feel like the movement is too slow as well(even with Shift), so just walking to the arena only to find that there's nothing to do is a bit disheartening.
- I'm not sure if something was supposed to happen after you pick up the sword, but nothing did. Also, my second or third attempt, the sword just straight up disappeared when I picked it up.
The Insufferable Pan by Pixel-Team
Another great Psygnos- I mean Pixel-team game.
+ Great sprites and backgrounds.
+ Great music and sfx too.
+ Gamepad support is rad.
+ The rat charming mechanic is great. The actually controlling of the rat reminds me of an old NES game I can't quite remember the name of.
+ I think I almost missed the *true* ending. It occured to me last minute to attempt to serenade Persephone heh.
+ The platforming was quite frustrating at times. I think due to the odd walk cycle, you weren't always sure where you were in relation to the edge of a block. So this really needed some good coyote time. (That one level, yeah, you know the one. I blitzed half of it no problem, but Pan fell through the moving block and no coyote time meant he had no jump to save him since the one jump wasn't enough to get back up)
+ As neat as the flute mechanic was, after the first couple of times it was annoying to have to hit the button so much to charm a rat.
+ Minor nitpick, but unless you had plans you changed last minute, there's no reason to have separate buttons for flute and rat disconnection. So why not use the same button for each?
The Third Day by Ghandpivot
Jesus with guns. A bit uninspired, but definitely on theme as probably the biggest mythology out there.
+ The music sync was kind of neat.
+ Variety of weapons for each stage of the fight was interesting.
+ Decent length game for a jam.
+ Some of the effects were actual a bit nice.
+ No health but instead a score penalty is a neat way to avoid balancing the boss.
- Seriously, a crash from falling off at the start? How does that even happen?
- The art is just not great to look at, the animations themselves aren't too bad though.
- Whilst I appreciated the variety in weapons, none of them felt good to use, especially the sniper.
- The screenshake was way too intense, especially for a game where you're trying to aim. It made the only fun weapon(machine gun) borderline unwieldy.
- That last boss section was just spam basically.
The Will o' Wisp by Bearly Co-oping
A reasonably well-rounded entry. Well done! A fun little possession puzzle game.
+ Possession and guidance worked pretty well and kept things nice and simple.
+ Great puzzle designs. Many were very easy to solve, but a couple had that brief moment of thought needed before the "Aha!" moment.
+ Very nice sprites and backgrounds.
+ Good sound design(Good choice of sound resources) really added to the atmosphere, worked well with your art and theme.
- The built in pop up messages are not overly recommended for much besides debugging, but being a jam makes it understandable. That said, I was playing(happily) in fullscreen, and it was quite frustrating to have the game alt-tab itself to show the pop up message that I died. I know I died, I was there.
- The very unceremonious end was a bit deflating. You had a good length of levels, but to be just kicked to the menu was a shame. Even just a screen with a "Hey, you did it! You got the kid through the maze and sacrificed him or whatever!" would have done wonders.
Toilet Story by Micah_DS
Given the name, I don't think I want to know how we got here haha.
I'd totally play a game in this style fully fleshed out, dude.
+ I really liked this 3D + 2D sprites thing.
+ Controlled well but I would have preferred to swap slide and shoot(definitely would have preferred WASD controls though). Also, I think this would work great with a gamepad.
+ Great sprites.
+ Rad music(Though I love how hard you commited to the toilet theme with that rhythm guitar tone
Hit me up and I'll give you some real guitar, at least for those chuggs
)
- The lack of sound effects hurts a little.
- You don't really give you much room to fight! Move too much and you fall off. My recommendation would be more wider, safer areas to fight in, and save the narrow passages for more platformer-specific sections.
- More variety of enemies would have been neat.
- You have a slide, why not some more platforming parts that take advantage?
Typhon's Return by Royaku and Herostone67
Simple and somewhat unique.
+ Nice sprites. The boss head looked quite good.
+ Simple gameplay.
- Hitboxes seemed a bit unclear. Sometimes it looked like a projectile was going to miss me overhead but I still got hit.
- A bit too simple and easy in the end. The boss fight was me sitting in one spot reflecting back projectiles.
- No sounds or feedback of any kind really make these feel a bit flat.
Unicorn Rampage by Richerama
Cute unicorn shooter. Got 3014!
+ Controlled well enough. At first I found the rotation and shooting a bit odd but in the end I dug it.
+ Really cute sprites and nice background art.
+ The idea of upgrade rewards for killing enemies was neat, but would have been nicer if there were more or different levels of it(At least for the firing).
- Something like this could have really benefitted from some more enemies or patterns. Good enough for a jam I suppose, but I was left wanting more.
- Helicopters go behind the buildings. I go in front of the buildings. They still hit me? That's a bit weird, no?
- During the dragon fight, I was up at the top of the screen and it started firing, I was waiting for a break so I could move back down safely, but it did not stop firing at all.