itch.io

This was a fantastic experience, I'm astonished at the quality of work you were able to do within the time limit. I love abstract exploration games like this, I feel like it's one of the best usages of the medium. And even after finding all the stamps, I'm still discovering new artifacts and secrets. The map and interactions are so thoughtfully put together, like dialogue being different if you do things in a different order, or making you name the sacrifice yourself. In particular, I enjoyed browsing the art gallery. My favorite item was "Work of Yart." I first played this game a few weeks ago and I've still been thinking of it, it's made an impression on me. I'd love to chat sometime about your development process on this. Excellent job.

A wonderful entry, I love the physical way the thesis of the game is conveyed to the player, the way it actually gets in your way and you have to juggle it all just to be able to read the dialogue. I also loved the moment of discovery when I accidentally combined two objects for the first time. I ran through the game a few times to be sure, and like others, I am unfortunately getting a crash once Gaia appears. I also noticed that the perfume disappears once you create it, I even tried creating it mid-air in case it was simply popping through the floor. I hope you upload a fix after the jam, or possibly a desktop build. I was looking forward to seeing where it was going!

I have to admit, I was immediately impressed by the page turning, lol. But even more impressive was the writing! I gave this game a couple playthroughs once I figured out what I was doing, and I noticed that some of the characters had different dialogue chains upon first interaction, perhaps depending on the day or location, shows a lot of work went into the dialogue. Sometimes the kids' diction seems a little advanced for their age, but the characters are likable and their personality types are easy to pick up on. The quick pace of the timer did rush things along a little, I would have preferred to have some more time to play around. I also wonder what the purpose of the schoolwork is since it seems you should really be ignoring it to talk with your friends. Overall, fantastic artwork and presentation with really cute storytelling that did remind me of my own time in school at points.

A really beautiful and thoughtful game. The environments are lovely and I love the way the puzzles are left for the player to explore without explaining too much. I especially like the way the hint for the see-saw puzzle is presented, it encouraged me to pay closer attention to the environment after that. This game's controls, however, are doing it a major disservice. I was lucky enough to discover that pressing escape shows the controls, but nowhere on that menu does it mention that you must press F first before you're able to click on objects and interact with them. "Toggle Camera Freeze" is not a good description of that button's function. Couple that with the way that I could sometimes climb up a ledge in the first room just by clicking without pressing F first, and I had the initial impression that the interaction function was just broken, and nearly gave up on the game. I'm glad that I read some of these comments before moving on, I would have really missed out! That method of interaction did feel clumsy, and there were many times when I had to adjust the camera to get it in just the right spot so I could click on an interactable to drop whatever I was holding. I would say the awkward controls are the only major blemish on this otherwise wonderful experience, and I envy whoever gets to light the last torch and see what happens.

Such a fantastic idea for a puzzle, I was captivated by it! Finding the correct placement for plants in the later levels so that they would keep each other alive was so satisfying, as well as befitting the theme. I would love to see more levels of this! Good quality art and good choice of music, all around good job. I finished the game in one sitting but I was happy to see that it even saves your progress between sessions.

I love the environmental art, it's beautiful in a storybook kind of way. The music is also very pretty and matches well with the environment. Others have said that the movement felt clunky. Maybe, but the only thing I really noticed was that it took me a few tries to fly over the first large gap before I realized that I was expected to "sprint" while on the broom. I was actually very impressed that the cat familiar would jump over obstacles behind me! I know that's not necessarily the easiest thing to get working, and it was a nice detail. I was disappointed that controlling the cat didn't come into play more, however. Unless I missed something, it seems like the only time you need to control the cat is at the very beginning, I was expecting more puzzles involving switching characters. Nevertheless, the art is excellent and I didn't encounter any bugs while playing, good job. I'm interested in what you might do with this project given more time after the jam.

I'm curious who it was I was playing with, as well!

Against all odds, here in the middle of the night on a week day, I managed to run into somebody else playing this game the same time as me! I may have rushed their experience a little, giving them all the flowers I had already been saving up, but what a cool experience to run into someone else. Very TGC-like. Good visuals, good music and sound design, and I love that the gameplay itself tackles the theme. You've done very well here.

Very lovely game. The art and nighttime ambience made for a relaxing, almost storybook experience. Reminds me of some point and click adventure flash games I would play as a child, which I mean as a compliment. I appreciate that the puzzles were all logical, i.e. the cats all want something relevant to their situations. Feels very polished and complete, I really do like this one.

Beautiful environment, great character art, extremely polished game. Great little vignettes of stories that really exemplify the theme as well. There are tons of little interactions and fantastic animations that make this game feel remarkably complete for a jam game. Excellent job!

The art is beautiful and I was pleasantly surprised by the hand-drawn animation when conjuring a plant. Parroting what others have said, the puzzles were a bit samey and could do with some diversity between the different plants. I was surprised when the game ended so soon, after making just one of each plant. With the ingredients and the bulletin board, I was expecting some sort of resource management, but in the end the ingredients were superfluous since one trip to each ingredient lets you gather more than enough to make it through to the end of the game. I think you have the foundation for a really fun game, I would be interested to see what you could do with it with more time.

I like the premise of the game, trading memories around to help others who are struggling. The tank controls are a little awkward, and especially for the platforming sections. I like this style of puzzle, I saw something similar once in another game jam, in a game called Boolean Tangram. I did notice that it's possible to "lose" pieces, if you perfectly overlap two of the same shape they just become invisible with no indication of where they are on the board. I had a moment while I was rearranging pieces where I did just that without noticing, and was confused how I suddenly lost two small squares, lol. The art and character design is very cute, and I think the effect of having color only around characters or other sources of memories is a nice touch. I especially like the illustrations in the intro and ending cutscenes.

Very cool idea. This is the kind of player interactivity I wish I had incorporated into my game, I think it's the most effective way to convey a message of generosity, to encourage the player themselves to be generous in a way that will actually have an effect on other players somehow. This is my second day coming back to the game, and I spent it just watering the plants of others which had decayed.

The visuals are similarly simple yet effective. The shapes, flat colors, and off-white background give me a feeling like I'm looking at an art exhibition in a museum, like I'm playing a Bauhaus painting.

The game doesn't seem to be working correctly on my machine. Dialogue seems to progress if I click anywhere at all, even before I start talking to a character. So, sometimes the character is in the middle of its conversation by the time I finally open the dialogue box. The Smoker and The Guardian both give dialogue that seems like I'm supposed to have left, done something, and come back, but they will just say the dialogue right away on my first interaction with them. They also sound like they're giving me something, but there's no inventory system that I could find to see what they gave me. As others have said, the game softlocks after speaking to Ske, Le, and Ton. And what a shame! The art in this game is really beautiful, and so is the story that's being laid out here. I can see the vision for what the game was supposed to be, I hope you have a chance to fix it up and bring it there.

Ah, another grappling hook enjoyer, I see. While the controls and and physics of the hook were a little unintuitive, it didn't take long for me to get used to them. And once I did, I found it really easy to maneuver around the space. I found all the items in the first couple minutes except for the last leaf for the cat. I really searched for about 15 minutes. When I finally got it, I'm not even sure where it was. I just noticed that my objective had changed.

Still, I quite enjoyed the game. The environment was complex enough to allow an interesting space to fling myself through, while still remaining simple enough so as to not be cluttered. And the character illustrations are cute. Good job!

Embodiment of "Don't judge a book by it's cover." The (undoubtedly intentional) rough visuals belie the heartfelt messages contained within. I really enjoyed the dialogue in this game! One minor bug (feature?) to report: I could bully the default RPG Maker guy for $2 more than once, so I bought both a sandwich and a beer. I believe that I interacted with everyone, but it's unclear if I reached the "end" of the game. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much!

I want to compliment the art, though I'm not sure how much of that was done at the hand of an artist or done by AI. I'm curious what the connection to the theme of generosity is supposed to be?

I absolutely love the visual design in this, I think the color choice is fantastic and I like the surreal, rough, painterly look. The character designs are also super cute. The idea of carrying light with you was interesting, it reminded me of a game called Closure, but it seems like it played a minimal role other than just allowing you to see. I do like seeing the little animations the characters do when you share light with them, but it didn't feel like I was doing much for them. Nonetheless, I liked this game, the visuals were a strong point.

Thank you for playing the game! As of right now, there is no drawback to sharing energy with the spirits, though we considered a mechanic like that early on and are still considering one for the inevitable post-jam version. At least for me personally, one of my goals for this project was to avoid portraying generosity as a losing position, avoid the notion that to be generous you must necessarily lose something. While that's certainly true sometimes, I wanted to emphasize that there are plenty of opportunities to commit acts of generosity which carry no drawbacks at all! In our story, the player character is generous through their efforts, rather than by sharing some wealth of resources. Introducing a drawback for finding spirits could be interesting mechanically if done right, but narratively it teeters on presenting that message that generosity requires sacrifice. Rather than there being a drawback, there's actually a reward of sorts for finding the spirits, but I won't spoil that here.

I'm sorry that you had trouble with the first level, it certainly wasn't my intention to have it serve as a "gotcha"! While I did have an intended solution in mind while designing the level, the order in which you use the blocks actually doesn't matter. In fact, it's possible to complete the level with just one block if you're tricky enough! Did you know that you can pull blocks up ledges?

I don't mind yapping, I'm a yapper myself. Thank you for your feedback and thanks again for checking it out.

Very charming art, it gives the impression of playing with toys. The physics are a bit floaty, it was very easy to overshoot a jump or fall short on it. I think the game would benefit from allowing the player more control while in the air, so they can better correct their trajectory.

Really interesting technique for storing a database! That seems quite accessible for small developers. Fun little experience, it gives me the same feeling as finding messages in Dark Souls.

I think the character art is beautiful and I quite like the cutscene videos. The levels themselves were visually barren but there was still something charming about them. I say this as a compliment, it reminded me of flash games I would play as a child. I was compelled to finish them game but I got to a point where I think I was looking for one last kindling hidden somewhere on the map, and unfortunately it bested my patience. I think the game would have benefitted from having more dots than necessary to allow for a little wiggle room. I also would have preferred that the camera be zoomed out a little more like in your screenshots, as it was I got lost often, even in the very center just trying to count how many flames I had collected!

I encourage that! I think discovering opportunities for speedrun strats is an easy and fun way to add replayability to a short game (I think of BABBDI's achievement for completing the game in under 60 seconds), and I kept that in mind while building the levels. I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for checking it out!

Such a brilliant idea, this is exactly the kind of idea I wish we could have incorporated in our game. I love when the gameplay itself reflects the theme. Excellently done!

Very short and sweet, and very cute! I like the design of the characters, and the art overall, though I would have liked to see a little more variation in the levels. The run at the end was a very good idea in order to ramp up suspense for a climax, but I did feel that the hitboxes on the thorns were a tad unforgiving. I feel that the calling mechanic was underutilized, there weren't any moments where calling your friend to your location was the solution to a puzzle, or even better than leading them by hand. I hope you get to reincorporate some of the cut plans into the game after the jam. Good work!

It seems to be working for my teammates, now. Thank you very much!

I'm so glad you enjoyed the game! Indeed, many of the things you touched on are things we were aware of but compromised on to get everything done within the jam submission period (3 weeks). I appreciate the feedback and I'll certainly be keeping it in mind if we come back to this project to give it a final polish. Thank you for the review, and thanks for checking out the game!

My teammates noticed this, too. I've participated in jams in the past where collaborators could also vote. I wonder if there's something the hosts could do to fix this?

I'm aware that game uploads will be locked in after the submission deadline, but will we be free to make changes to the game page after that point? e.g. Uploading screenshots, making changes to the description, changing the color scheme of the page, things of that nature.

What a shame! If you feel like giving it another try, Shari's house is in the southeast corner of the map. She's inside her house, so you just interact with the house directly. The Mayor usually gives the most helpful hints of where to find everyone.

This was a pretty big project for us (there's more than there appears at first), so we stretched ourselves pretty thin and I think we dropped the ball on clarity in some places. That's why I'm thankful for your feedback!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! It sounds like you saw the calm before the storm, but did you see the "storm" at the end?

Yes, we're looking into the problems with the web build, I think that qualifies as a game breaking bug. Isn't that just how it goes? lol

We didn't get to watch any playtests of our game before submission, so we're really fishing for feedback. In particular, we want to know, how far did you make it through the game? Did you play it through to the end?

Wow! Getting reviews already! We didn't have time to watch any playtests of our game, so we're really fishing for feedback. In particular, we want to know, how far did you make it through the game? Did you get to the end?

Well, I'm glad you liked it enough to leave a comment!

Amazing polish, fantastic setting, I loved the humor (what I could read of the Japanese was funny), superb gameplay. The layers of the mechanics were not lost on me, the way you could make a platform permanent to spawn other platforms off of, or create a certain number of platforms in mid-air to extend your jumps. It was just fantastic. It's a shame that this game didn't rank even higher.

Just out of curiosity, how did you find this game? I was intrigued since it didn't show you as having submitted anything to this jam. When I checked your account, you haven't replied to any other games since a year ago, and didn't reply to anyone else in this jam.

The artwork is consistent, cute, and I think fits nicely with the genre of game you're going for. I did think it was an odd choice to have the map be a top-down perspective when the character is jumping towards the top of the screen and falling towards the bottom. It gives the impression that gravity is pulling everything south instead of down, or this village was built sideways on a cliff face. I agree with jnttzck that it was difficult to discern what was a platform I would be able to stand on, and what was just decoration, which is definitely not what you want in a game where missing a jump could mean losing tons of progress. I also agree that making a rage game for a game jam means most people won't see most of what you've made.

Fun premise, I'm always a fan of that Asteroids style of movement where ships can drift in any direction. I appreciate that there's a tutorial, and I liked that you could build onto your ship as the game was running, it didn't happen in a separate mode. It added an element of making repairs to your ship in real time as parts broke. I think the bullets could have stood to travel a bit faster, ships could nearly outrun my bullets, and it was very difficult to lead my shots enough to hit anything with the way everything on screen was maneuvering.

AI generated thumbnail and banner :(

The aesthetic is impeccable. Movement as the morph ball was very enjoyable. The rounds felt very quick, snappy. At first I was intimidated by the daunting amount of health the wall has, but the exponential growth on the player's side makes it not so much of an issue. There were many rounds where I was able to take all of one large enemy's guns all at once, so my timer would accumulate 40+ seconds in an instant, and the rest of the round would be 40 seconds of me standing at the wall holding left click. That seemed to slow the pace down in an otherwise high speed game. Purging didn't feel like it was doing much for me, the only noticeable effect was that I would respawn with 1-10 guns that often got shot down by enemies right away. I also found myself wishing the purge button was nearer the other keys so I didn't have to move one of my hands to find the 'P' key and then move it back.