itch.io

Very cute, simple, and clever way to develop the theme into a gameplay loop. The lair upgrades were a nice bit of flavor to the game that I always appreciate seeing. The art for the dragon and it's animations are really nice and clean. After my first time trying, I did think that maybe I could spam all 3 keys and it was a decent strategy. Maybe some kind of punishment if you press a key a number of times without hitting/stopping an enemy? Might be an interesting way to encourage more precise use of the attacks. Overall though, I think this is an excellent entry. Well done!

Wow, really excellent and polished game. It feels very complete in a way that a lot of game jam games don't. Everything felt very cohesive, well made, and no bugs as far as I could tell. The art was also simple but very nice and fitting. I love all the different assets you made for the different objects and inverted versions of each one. I think the only issue/caveat it has (if you can even call it that) is that it is a little long. 8 minutes per night (I think?) for 5 nights is a 40 minute time commitment for a game jam game. That is pretty long when you have people cycling in and out, looking for a short and sweet experience to rate and then find the next game. I think if the night started at 2 minutes, then increased by 1 for each night after that, while condensing the current amount of chaos in from the 8 minute night into those new constraints, then you would have honestly a near perfect game jam game. Because everything about it already knocks it out of the park. Just condense that experience and boom. Overall though, I still think it's excellent. Like really really excellent. You should be very proud of what you made :) I hope more people check it out.

Very charming  little game with a lovely art style and sweet music. I played it for awhile and was a little confused because it seemed like I was in an never ending cycle of the same 2 levels. And then at one point, I think I jumped over the edge of the map and just fell forever. But in general I think it was a very cute game! I know you said this was your first time as a solo dev and you didn't quite get it to where you wanted, but I think you did a great job! I liked the platforming and I think what you have is a very charming start :) Well done!

Thanks for checking it out! Yes I wanted to make sure the levels had a few ways to solved and not too hard. That has been the number one complaint about my games in the past. I haven't run into anytimes where you die while on the platforms. Do you remember if it was at the top or bottom of a platform?

Love the idea of traversing the levels in your dream as well in order to unlock certain areas and change things. We actually had a similar idea with that. I really appreciate that, although the players physical position gets reset on death, any progress or changes in the level do not. That was really nice. I got pretty far but unfortunately, at some point my character glitched into the floor and I wasn't able to move or sleep so I had to stop. I think the levels were pretty interesting and used the mechanic in a nice variety of ways to where it didn't get boring. The wall jumping seemed a little inconsistent which was probably my biggest frustration I ran into. I couldn't tell if I was meant to do a tic-tac back and forth, or just spam up one side. Sometimes one worked, sometimes the other. Also, sometimes I would just be able to jump much further in my dream than normal, I wasn't too sure why. I was able to do it on purpose sometimes and solved a few levels with it, so maybe it's intentional. I really enjoyed the level where I had to push myself past the walls, and then the one where I pushed myself through the spikes and Z's. I think there is a ton of potential in this idea and I hope you keep going with it. Overall though, I think is a pretty good game with a nice core gameplay loop. A bit of polishing and this could be really great. Well done!

Very cool game! I liked how each level switched it up by letting you access a different dimension/direction of movement. I am historically pretty bad a bullet-hell games but I did manage to beat this and without any upgrades (mostly because I didn't know they were there until after reading the comments). I think level 1 was probably the hardest level because of the lack of forward and back control. Ironically, level 3 is the same but at a different angle but didn't feel as punishing. Maybe I had gotten more used to it by then. Level 2 I think was the most unique and definitely surprised me when all of the sudden I was moving through 3D space. I do wish the theme was incorporated a bit more into the gameplay. Maybe it's just cause I missed the upgrades which I do see have it some. I REALLY like the idea of sleep being a rare resource in the future and an economy is established around it. That is a super cool and unique idea and I'd love to see more of that. The art was very cool and retro which fit the limitations of the jam but also the tone/style of the game. And the whole experience was very polished, I didn't run into any bugs to hiccups. Well done! Thanks for making and sharing it :)

Very unique gameplay. It's like maze mixed with a top down platformer with click controls. I've never really played anything like it. My finger did get a little sore from rapidly clicking, but maybe if that was mapped to a different button. Actually, as I write this, it occurs to me that this could be a rhythm game of sorts with movement mapped to multiple buttons. Not directionally, but like a patter you follow. Or maybe like that old flash game QWOP. Might be interesting. I think this one's got potential if you decide to keep working on it. Thanks for making and sharing it :)

Such a cute and clever puzzle game! I really enjoyed this one and I ended up finishing it. I love how brain-bending some of these levels are. I think this is one of the most successful games at incorporating the theme into the gameplay itself. Everything revolves around sleeping being used as a tool to solve a variety of puzzles, very clever, love it! Unfortunately, I think it did break the 2 color rule because of the background color. I also found the collisions to be a bit glitchy at times, particularly with the flowers. Sometimes they would push me to the side when the grow. But it wasn't too bad and it didn't stop me from beating it. Overall, I think this is an excellent game and I hope it gets more views, it deserves it! Well done, thanks for making and sharing it :)

Such a sweet and charming game! IK really enjoyed the narrative and I am counting that as art when rating the game. I think you an excellent job with incorporating the theme into the narrative, made me sad but in a good way, you know? You did a really good job of putting the player in the shoes of this character and communicating that tired grief, sadness, and guilt that they held. I think my only point of frustration in the game was the fact that the player was locked to 4 directional movement, but the enemies were not. This made it so it was a little weird having to line my character up on the axis of the enemy. Maybe that is how these kind of games usually go, I'm not sure. I've never played one. Other than that, I thought this was a really amazing game and thoughtful take on theme. Well done! thanks for making and sharing such a captivating story :)

Very nice sequence puzzle that stays on theme with every aspect of it. I had a feeling when I saw the screen than I would need to intentionally raise my awareness at some point with it and I am glad that it happened :) Was really cool to think about the order in which I should use everything. And the little bits of thinking before each sleep was really fun and added a lot of character to the game. I think it would have really cool if, as your awareness goes down, the foreground color shifted from the bright yellow keeping you awake, to like a deep, desaturated purple for sleeping. Overall, I think this is an excellent entry for this jam. Very on theme, good puzzle design, short and sweet. Well done! You should be proud :)

Really great game! I don't know if you have heard of or played any games by the developer Kultisiti, but it reminds me their games, which is a great thing. It's simple, yet concise and satisfying. I played through the whole game and enjoyed it. Everything about it was well placed, well thought out, and matched. I think the only area of frustration for me was that it could be hard to judge my exact position when jumping on the rails because of how thin they are, and precision jumping is always tricky in top down platformers. Other than that though, I didn't really have any issues with it. I think you made an excellent game, well done! You should be proud :)

Very nice, well made, simple yet addicting game you made here. I played a few times and got a score of 41 as my final and I feel pretty good about that. I saw in another comment you made that you might plan to do some post jam dev work on this and that would be awesome! I'd love to see what other ideas you have to expand it. The gameplay loop is already there and its easy to grasp, hard to master, but addicting. I think this game can really shine from like 3 upgrades popping up after each fail/end for you to choose from. Then it kind of becomes an incremental game where you slowly power up your little guy to catch as many Z's as possible. Maybe an upgrade where big Z's will spawn that give more time, then maybe a different kind of Z that has a chain reaction to another one nearby. Just some idea's I had while playing. Excellent job on this, thanks for making and sharing it :) 

I actually think the levels that are there are good. I meant more levels that used the bounce thing 

Very cool rage game/platformer with really pretty colors. I got stuck for awhile on the one where the door switches back and forth and I was about to give up when I saw the other button. Then I was able to progress and finish the boss at the end.

I thought the theme was incorporated pretty nicely. The gameplay, although I am not that into rage games, was pretty engaging and wasn't so hard that I got too frustrated. It was just enough to where the levels were hard but I still wanted to beat them. The art was really nice, I think y'all chose excellent colors for this game. This is maybe my favorite color combo so far. It was also cool that each level was more like 2 levels, but I was kind of wanting the day time levels to have some kind of effect on the dream levels. As it is now, they are so easy to solve that it feels so short in comparison, but maybe thats the point? I think you did a great job with level design as well. Each one felt like a different challenge, trick, or obstacle to learn and overcome. Well done! Thanks for making and sharing it :)

Thanks! I'm sorry the hitboxes were frustrating, they can be a little finnicky at times, especially the roomba. I originally had the collision shapes the same size as the sprites, but I found that to be too hard because the sprites are 16x16, and the player is 16x16 so you had to be really precise with the jumps. And I couldn't have the sprites be too big because then you have these enormous roombas driving around. And then I tried the real objects being 16x16, but then the platforms sprite larger, but then I ran into the level looking different than I wanted after placing the items down. Lots of trial an error when making that.

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it

Thanks for the kind words! I had wanted to do more but I have a bad habit of making really long games in jams so I forced myself to make something short and sweet. I had a lot more features planned and the code even exists in the game for some of them. I had a fan that would turn into a wind tunnel in the dream. There was an idea for a lamp where you could change the foreground color and that might have some effect. At some point there was a plan for the lamp to be like an island of the dream thinning and objects placed there would stay as their real self. But a lot of that was overscope.

Thanks! I spent awhile trying to make sure the controls felt fair and responsive and ended up making them a little slower and more floaty that original so that you had a bit more control of the character.

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Thanks for trying it out! Yes, I thought about doing somethings where the dream world changes the real world. One idea was to have keys being on the other side of walls, and since in the dream there are no walls, you could go get them. Or maybe there were connections or buttons you could only see in the dream. Ultimately I decided against this because I wanted real world to be fully puzzle and the dream to be fully platformer.

Thanks so much for trying it out and the kind words! Yes the hotboxes are a little weird, and the roombas might be confusing at first but they always either go down or right depending on if they are a horizontal or vertical one. It may have been better to have them go in both directions on their axis upon placing and have the placement point be the center.

WOW! High praise, thank you! Yes interaction with objects and their hitboxes/collision can be a little wonky. I tried several different ideas to get those be flawless but they still ended up a little weird. I think that is it's biggest downfall. I'm glad you enjoyed it still :)

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it

Thanks for the kind words and trying it out! If you ever want to go back and try to finish it, the laundry/nightmare just needs to be jumped on to kill it. Kill them all (represented in the bottom right) and collect all the sheep to pass those levels. Theres only 5 levels so if you got to the laundry, you were on level 4.

Very interesting little rpg game you got here with a very fun and clever concept and mechanic. I'll admit I was pretty confused at first as how I was ever supposed to get further than 4 jumps, but understanding I could unlock shortcuts made everything click into place. I managed to beat the sandman without even using what I assume is the final shortcut.

I felt like the theme was well incorporated here as traversal, healing, and damage boosting mechanic. I am always a fan of when a developer managed to bake the theme into the gameplay itself. I think the gameplay, particularly the combat, could have had some better balancing. For the most part I just spammed attack and it worked. I focused when fighting the pillow and guarded with fighting the guy that was winding up, but other than that I just attacked. Maybe some combo multipliers or more unique and varying attacks from the enemies. The art was cute and crunchy, reminds me of an old gameboy game and the audio fits to it, though maybe a little loud. Overall, I think this is an excellent entry and I think on of the only true rpg ones I have seen, so hats off to you for taking that on. You made a pretty fun game that fit the theme well and had an engaging challenge. Well done! You should be proud :)

I think this is the first rhythm game I have every played in any game jam, and it certainly did not disappoint.  When I first started, I was really confused as to what rhythm I was supposed to match and thought it was the little rat friend in the bottom right. Then I realized my tab got muted somehow... Then it was amazing! I was able to quickly collect all my sleeping friends and travel around with them. 

I think the game was very on theme and had it baked into every part of it. It was also a very unique take on the theme, and I am always excited to see that. The gameplay was nice and engaging, but I am a bit of a rhythm boy (used to play drums in band) so maybe I'm biased. I liked the challenge of tracking along with the song while also navigating the world. The art was very good and added to the kind grim. weird and whimsical tone of the whole game. Overall, I was very impressed with this one. Well done! Thanks for making and sharing it :)

A very interesting, thoughtful, and atmospheric game. I tried it several times over the course of about 30 minutes and I think I won, but I'm not entirely sure how. It's not clear to me what the win condition is to get rescued, but I got to something that says I was saved but she didn't feel the robot helping her and it seemed like it was 1 out of 2 endings. It was around the 13th shift that I was rescued I think, but other times I went past that and didn't get saved. Some of the items also felt a little confusing. It seems like the rope would be a no brainer as it says it lowers sleep every round after that, but I am not sure if it actually did. I think in the run that I won, I just used the hand, book, phone, and caffeine at the end.

Regardless of any confusion I had on winning, I actually found this game to be pretty charming. The art style was unique, narrative was engaging, the core mechanic was easy to understand (except for the odd text not loading sometimes), and cutscenes were well done. I think with a little more work on polishing all the different parts, this could be a really unique and captivating experience. If you have seen or read Project Hail Marry, the little robot guy kind of reminds me of Rocky. If you haven't seen that, that robot is very cute and charming. Overall, I think this is a very cute and weird game in all the right ways. You should be proud of it and I am glad I found it :)

Very cute and interesting little game you've made. I was unsure about it, then I got to the level where you have to bounce pillows off walls, which was not clear right away. I was stuck on level 4 of the tutorial I think when I went to the comments to see if anyone else had the same experience. Then I realized I could bounce them and the game got much more interesting. 3D games are always a pretty ambitious start in a game jam and I would suspect that a lot of time went into that. I actually found the mechanics pretty engaging and wish they were developed more to create more interesting levels after learning you can bounce the pillows. The art style is cool, but also very weird and liminal. Maybe some kind of weird background track could have added to the atmosphere of the game. In general, I think this is a pretty good entry, and one of the few 3D ones I've played, so hats off to you for taking that on. Well done, thanks for making and sharing it :)

Wow, really eerie but fascinating game y'all made. I'm not usually one for visual novel games, but this one was very captivating. I don't like to specifically say the score I give games unless I give 5 stars in a category, I the art direction in this one earned that fifth star in art for sure. Even just the visuals alone. The bright, blinding, white with black accent day time left you uncomfortable and wanting out of it. The dark, sleeping, easy on the eyes black with white accents is perfect for the home as the main 2 colors. And then the dream colors, and it being the only real movement and animation in the game, was perfect. Made them feel very surreal and fleeting. Excellent job there. The gameplay was not my particular cup of tea, but as I said before, I am not a visual novel guy so I am not your target audience there. The audio was great. Nice and lo-fi and chunky, perfect for the tone of the game. And it picked up the pace for those anxious moments in the dreams. Overall, really superb job here. Y'all should be very proud :)

Such a cool idea for this theme. I've seen a lot of games with similar ideas, reshaped into different games. This one is totally unique so far. I upgraded the pendulum a lot first, but found that whatever benefits the diamond provided weren't outweighing the cost of not gaining as much from each swing.

I think the theme was incorporated very well, and as I said before, I haven't seen it used in this way before. I do think the gameplay could be expanded a bit, and if you plan to keep developing it, it could be really incredible. Something to divide the attention, change the rhythm, block the swing, or put the nodes in different spots would be really cool. This has a lot of potential for expansion and I hope you go with it. The art style is also perfect for this type of game and the tone that it has. The 2 colors you picked work great together. The music was fitting and kind of eerie. Overall, excellent game, this is in my top 10 for sure. Well done!

Very cool platformer you've built here. I really enjoyed learning all the different ways to use the swapping worlds mechanic to overcome all the different type of obstacles that could be made with that. I even ended up discovering some secret meeting between some dudes and a horse thing. Idk what they were up to. Through the mechanic, style, and storytelling, I think you incorporated the theme very well. The art was also quite cute but simple. It was easy on the eyes while also being easy to follow. The audio was cute and soothing. Very fitting to the tone of the game. Overall, I think you did an excellent job, well done :)

We love the roomba. Thanks so much for the kind words! I'm so glad that you enjoyed it. Yes, I tried to make the platforming part of it pretty generous and forgiving, as top down platforming can be pretty awkward to play. This did lead to a few frustrations in my own playthrough atleast, where the moving platforms might push you if you are too close to them because of their generous hitbox. Hopefully that did not happen to you and no roombas killed you

The visuals in this game are really incredible.  Amazing use of several different methods of dithering to achieve such a diverse amount of textures, colors, and depth while still staying within the bounds of just 2 colors. And the music, chef's kiss. Each track gave a totally different vibe to the game and felt very immersive. I do wish there was a little more with the gameplay. It felt like it ended right as it started. Another few levels using the stealth-like mechanic with the eyes, mixed with some kind of sequence puzzle with the levers, and you've got a really excellent game. Like knowing when to walk into the eye beams to time something, or the order to walk into them. Something like that if y'all decide to keep working on it. As I said before, the art and audio were amazing, no notes there. I think y'all did about as much as you can with the 2 color rule and explored its limitations to the fullest. Overall, excellent game. Y'all should be proud :)

Such a charming little game that felt very meta. You managed to fit a lot of character into such a compact and nice experience. The fact that it was about making the game itself was very cool and I think reflective of how a lot of us probably feel in game jams. It's funny that a game about not being able to figure out what game to make turned into one of the more memorable ones of this jam, and I think it's very on theme in an unexpected way. I do think it could have had a little bit more to the gameplay, but perhaps that was intentional to make it even more of a meta experience, as that might have detracted from its feeling. I loved the art, especially in the intro scene in the bedroom. Really cool style there. Overall, you managed to make a pretty cute game about not being sure what game to make. Well done! Thanks for making and sharing it :)

Wow, this was such a unique and creative entry. I wish there was a category for story, so I leaned those points into the theme category because I thought the story was so well thought out and presented. I got both endings and enjoyed that they had totally different vibes. I was confused at first as to what to do for the dotted-line-based attacks. My initial assumption was to trace that line as the enemy did, and found myself getting hit a lot. Eventually, I just slashed their attack as they did it and that seemed to work. I also really enjoyed the art direction of the game and the colors your chose to use. I found myself pretty invested in this game through the art, audio, story, and decently engaging gameplay. Overall, excellent job. Thanks for making and sharing it :)

Very cool game. In my first play through, I initially didn't even know I was supposed to be getting a multiplier or what the purpose of the butterflies were. I assumed they extended my time in the level or something. After I understood, I gave up on level 4 after several tries, but I just felt frustrated that I wasn't able to find the windows fast enough. It wasn't until coming here and reading the comments did I realize how important headphones/earbuds are for this game. They are required to pass the later levels. After that, I came back and cleared each level in my first try and got a score of about 10,000. I think a lot of players are probably running into the audio thing and don't how much that helps. I really loved the art of the game, some of the best I have seen in this jam so far. And the audio was stellar as well, even before I realized how crucial it was to the game. I do think the levels could be a bit shorter. I think people will be frustrated at the time commitment and loss of said time upon losing a level and having to restart. I think these kind of games really shine when the player's toolkit expands with the difficulty of the game. As in, new things to use; abilities, movements, etc. Things to help against the rising difficulty, because then the difficulty can also come from having to spread themselves over a wider variety of tools and think about how to use them, but also use them over a more difficult set of challenges. I know that can be hard to pull off in a jam, but maybe for future development of this game. Overall, I think this was an excellent entry and y'all should be very proud of this one. Well done :)

Very cool and polished game! Feels very professional. I will say that it feels hard and I think that comes from a few things. 1: The players are really small by default so you have to be extremely precise, and I think on a large arena like this and being able to move in all directions makes that hard. 2: The acceleration of the player can be a little hard to control and I find myself overshooting a lot. THAT BEING SAID, as I played more, I got more and more used to it and got better, so it could just be a skill issue/learning curve. Just my initial thoughts as a new player. I think you've got like 95% of a really good game here, just some tweaking to those stats and it could be really great.

A very cute and interesting little experience you made here. Feels very interpretive and metaphorical. I thought the art was very cuter and I liked the chunky-ness paired with the different foreground colors you chose. Very nice. I hope the dog has nicer dreams. Thanks for making and sharing it :)

Really cool game with absolutely mind bending puzzles. Managed to get all the levels done but wow that last one was making my brain hurt. But I love puzzles so I had to see it through. It had my whole discord call trying to solve it. The gameplay was pretty simple but had the opportunity to create very complex levels. Unfortunately it did break the 2 color rule. Even if the background was a completely solid color, it would still be black, white, and tan. If the background was pure white and just the black outlines of the level, it would pass. Overall, a very polished and well made game. Well done! Thanks for making and sharing it :)

I wouldn't say I was getting through it all, that makes it sound like it was a chore. I thought it was really fun! I love puzzle games and this one was a great sequence puzzle that really stretched my brain. I really enjoyed it :)