itch.io

Still going.

Been making real progress in a few areas lately, done a few more jams, and I'm also (hopefully) less than a week from getting a game published on Google Play.  My take on a classic arcade game, to figure out the processes to get a game published somewhere it will make money.  Google Play has the lowest cost of entry.

The last few weeks have been more about business and policy than about actually making a game, but still progress.

Learned a few important lessons along the way, and I now also have a blog and a twitter account as well.

Found you on twitter and followed you there as well after seeing the video.

Just saw your pass the game for blackthorn prod, congratulations, didn't know where else to comment, so left one here.

Thanks for the info, and thanks again for hosting the jam.

With the end of voting a few days ago, and the community results, will there be a post here or somewhere else to explain the prizes and overall end of the jam?

I only ask because things have been quiet since the community vote ended.

Thank you again for hosting the jam, and thank you to everyone that participated.

Congratulations on your result.

The idea of mixing the theme with a "who dunnit" made for an interesting game, even if I apparently took the easy answer ...

Thank you for playing.

I tried to make it look the part, and made all my own assets.

no worries.

Thanks for playing.

The game isn't made for mobile, but I am considering how I might develop the controls to make it playable for mobile.  I'm not sure where you saw that it was for mobile.

Glad you enjoyed playing.

I have now played every game in a jam for the first time ever.

After playing all of them, I have a few honourable mentions.  These games are games I thought either did something interesting, or in part felt like they stood out.  This is just my own opinion, but please give them some support if you haven't already.  The list is, in no particular order:

• https://itch.freezing.top/jam/unpolished-jam-2-75-prize-pool/rate/3862087 - This one is more of a narrative experience than a game, but the theme is pretty close to home being about indecision about joining a jam.  Whether the style choice was by necessity or intentional, the visuals really fit the idea.
• https://itch.freezing.top/jam/unpolished-jam-2-75-prize-pool/rate/3865200 - This one has a cute pixel art bird, plays pretty well, but is infuriating if you make a mistake.
• https://itch.freezing.top/jam/unpolished-jam-2-75-prize-pool/rate/3867089 - I really enjoyed the look and feel of this one, it is definitely unpolished, but could be a pretty good game if the developer continues with it.
• https://itch.freezing.top/jam/unpolished-jam-2-75-prize-pool/rate/3865883 - While the overall game is pretty simple, the art and overall style of this game is very well implemented.
• https://itch.freezing.top/jam/unpolished-jam-2-75-prize-pool/rate/3867149 - This one presented as a very tense horror experience.  The whole set up is well done and leaves you enclosed in a small space to confront the darkness.
• https://itch.freezing.top/jam/unpolished-jam-2-75-prize-pool/rate/3858178 - This one has a great mechanic where you can create your own platforms by sacrificing yourself for the next incarnation.  The mechanic is well implemented and makes for interesting gameplay.

Also, a selfish plug, please have a look at my game as well.

https://itch.freezing.top/jam/unpolished-jam-2-75-prize-pool/rate/3862867

Fun game, needs a bit of work to tidy it up, but I like the visual style, and I feel sorry for Linda.

Thanks for the game.

Good Luck

I ball floating, fine, 2 balls, OK, 3 balls, you've already lost, but you don't know it yet.

This is really difficult.  On the surface that game seems relatively simple, but it looks like one of those games that can take an age to master.

Thanks for the game.

First off, congratulations for making a 3D game solo in a jam, I know how much more difficult it can be compared to 2D and this jam is my first 3D jam game as well (also solo).

As others have suggested, you need to look at the movement speed and the asset sizes.  I also think you could refine the layout of the kitchen to make it feel a bit more intuitive.  I have worked in a kitchen before and speed and consistency are everything.  The layout of a kitchen, if done right, aims to reduce the amount of time spent going from point A to point B.  For example, I would place your soup pot and your salad prep closer to the serving point.  For any multi-stage processes, I would organise an outward/in approach where your first stage is furthest from the serving point, working towards the serving point.

Thanks for the game.

(EDIT) For recommendations, please see the first response below.

For the first time in a jam it looks like I will be able to play and rate every game submitted.

I know this has been a fairly small jam, but it has been another fun experience.

There has been a nice selection of people participating, from first time jammers to people that have done a few before.

There's also a lot of interesting ideas in the games here, from twists on the theme, to the mechanics used in the games.

To the first timers, congratulations on submitting your games, it's a big step, and even if you didn't manage to make the game as good as you wanted, you managed to submit something.

To everyone, thank you for the games.

For me the game crashed out during "combat".

I also found that I couldn't turn, not sure if there were other controls for changing view?

I liked the retro style maze environment.

Needs work, but a nice start.

Each repair is like a riddle to solve, get it right and the clock is happy, get it wrong and it has a nervous breakdown.

The concept makes for a nice small puzzle game.

I found that I had to F11 into fullscreen for the browser to be able to play, and the "Try Again" feature didn't seem to work (to try again I had to reload).

Thanks for the game.

This is an odd one.  An interesting concept, but I found that even if my mouse was "looking" at the white text, it didn't always register that I had "looked" at it.

Not really a fan of the art style, but it's a game, and playing with only mouse movement is an interesting approach.  Although I think the mechanic could use a bit more work.

Thanks for the game.

Glad you enjoyed it.

As I said, let me know.  Happy to give it a look, not sure how much help I would be overall, but I like a good strategy game every now and then.  I know the aim was a survival experience based on encounters, but to me that sounds like a strategy focused game where you build your resources, crew or army, and see if your team can get through scripted engagements and survive.

Thanks for playing.

Thanks for playing.

The UI issue will be fixed after the jam.  I forgot to add the panels to the start game function.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I personally see nothing wrong with a table top game being entered if the rules allow.

Even though I couldn't exactly test the game, you still put time and effort into your game.  You still had to consider a game loop, a rule set that doesn't conflict with itself, and the tools you need to be able to play.

What you put together seems as though it would be playable, and could make for an interesting game, a mix of role play and strategy.

If you ever decide to make it into a computer game, let me know, because I would happily give it a look.

Thanks for Playing.

The low number of reviews is always a problem.

People's time is normally limited, so most people won't play every game.  You will also get people who submit, but then don't play or review the games.

Ratings are also never evenly distributed across the submissions, which is why, I think, itch runs a normalisation calculation on the eventual results.

So far I have reviewed 30 games, and only received 10 ratings, but when you consider the most rated game only has 15 ratings as of a few hours ago, 10 ratings sounds pretty good.

Also, just because a game has a lot of ratings, does not necessarily mean it is the favourite, just the most rated.

With so few entries in this jam, it would be nice if everyone was able to try to play everyone else's games, but the reality is that the ratings distribution will never be equal.

One of the things that has always eluded me is how a game is rated as popular on the submissions page, because it never seems to reflect how the games are played by members of the jam, but if you sort by popularity to choose which games to rate in the jam, "popular" games seem to do better than "unpopular" ones, likely because people think popular equals good.

I will have a look at it after the jam.

I might have forgotten to add the function to a completed run, but thought I had??  When you finish the level, or die, the game simply reloads.  I tried to set a delay to allow for time to save the time, but it might not be enough on a web build.

Thanks for playing the game, glad you enjoyed it.

This was pretty fun.

I found the gameplay pretty solid.  The controls could probably be a bit sharper, but it plays well as it is.

The visual style is consistent and the music reminded me of Zelda for some reason.

The only improvements I would make is more game, UI and fix the tileset used for the environment (you can see the repeat lines between tiles).

Thanks for the game.

I like the set up, but after talking to the DJ, there seems to be nothing to really do, I seem to be stuck in the room with no way out.

The character models could do with a bit more work, but the overall visual style is pretty good.

It might be somewhat text based, using a CLI, but it really draws you in.

Thanks for the game.

When I played, I found the movement controls a bit sluggish.  I think it might feel better if they were a bit more responsive.

I also feel like the game would be a bit more fun if the longer you stay in the game, the faster the objects and run speed get so that the challenge increases as you get used to the game.

Otherwise a nice little game.  Nothing over the top, but nice.

Thanks for the game.

I like the artwork, and the way it all fits together is well done.

This style of game isn't one I normally like because the repetition gets bit boring after a bit, but everything plays smoothly.

The whole feels clean and tidy.

Like the pixel art, simple but clean and tidy.

I also like the variation in the platforms.  I don't like not having the skill to complete it.  The number of times I ended up back at the bottom of the tree are unreal.

Thanks for the game.

I found controlling the ball a bit annoying, it seemed to work with a mouse click but the need to drag the mouse in the opposite direction to the direction you want to move is a bit counter intuitive.

It definitely needs instructions.  I would also suggest a level design where the ball is confined to the screen space because I failed a few times with the ball going off screen, which with the control setup making it quite difficult to control the ball, feels a bit harsh.

The concept is good, and the movement mechanic is OK once you figure it out, but I think it could use some improvement to make the game a little easier to work through and more levels to complete.

Thanks for playing.

The warning noise isn't supposed to scare you, but help add tension to those last few seconds.

Thanks for playing.

On all of the play tests I did, I only completed about 7 or 8 times.

It is possible to to complete, but I wanted there to be some challenge in it.

The timings are tight to the point where, when I completed a run, there was about 11 sec left.

There are 30 rings, and it takes about 3 min to complete.

Sorry about the UI, I forgot to add it to the function on starting a run.  I will likely patch it after the jam.

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it.

The infinite time is a puzzler, the timers don't start until you go through the start line, might have something to do with it ???  I might need to increase the detection area of the start line to catch you not fully flying through it.

The feedback I've had so far suggests I need to soften the controls somewhat, catch and close the ui on game start (I added the controls and settings after setting up the main menu and forgot to add them to the start function), and increase the visibility of the rings ...

I definitely felt the same about the star fox vibe, used to play the SNES version as a kid.

Thanks for playing.

The only problem with the visuals was their simplicity.

If you wanted to improve this on your own, there's a couple of things you could look into depending on how you want to approach it.

If you want to do it yourself, I would recommend looking into pixel art.  Small pixel sprites can be very forgiving to artistic skill, and when you figure it out, you can make the assets pretty quickly as well.

If you don't want to make the art yourself, you can look at using asset packs.  There's loads of free ones out there, and as you do more you will figure out how to mix and match assets from different packs to get the look you want.

If you decide to go down the road of using assets, just be mindful of any license requirements.  Personally I try to make all my own assets wherever possible.  It means I own them and can do anything I want with them, but it is a lot more work and limits the scope of what I can normally make for a jam game.

If you want to see what I mean, have a look at the other games I've published here.

Other than the baby penguin starting off hungry and making noise, and the random spawning of food sometimes meaning you can't feed the baby before the human gets it, this is a fun game.

Thanks for the game.