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Thank you for playing and reaching the end! I definitely should have at least put a warning before ending the game, but hopefully our much-needed save system will fix that in the future! I'm really sorry you experienced audio issues, I'm not sure how that happened as I've never experienced it in my testing. Perhaps a problem with our browser build? I'm glad you were still able to push through the game despite the lack of audio feedback, as it really adds a lot to the experience.

In terms of gameplay, I agree with a lot of your points. We would have loved to include a fast travel system to cut down on traversal time, but wanted to prioritize other mechanics and features. In the future, we would implement other mechanics that really encourage more grapple charges (e.g. grapple charges not always resetting when grounded, specific grapple recharge points, sections that use more grapple charges than usual, etc.), but hopefully our base mechanics give a good sense of what's to come!

In terms of the key items feeling unnecessary, that was partly intentional. The idea was that certain pathways could be traversed in different ways. Maybe the Bubble Blower would help reach a section that's too high up, but if you have enough grapples then you can try to manually grapple up instead. This gives alternate ways for players to reach their destinations which we hoped would give players more freedom and allow for unique playthroughs. Same goes for the Umbrella: Purchasing it helps to reach farther distances, but we provided alternative routes so that the Umbrella isn't an absolute requirement. This does mean that if you already traversed routes where the Umbrella would have been helpful, it becomes less useful. We hope that for future development and level design, we'll be able to create more scenarios where those tools can shine.

Thanks again for your detailed feedback, it's greatly appreciated!

This is cool! I liked the variety of traps and the dialogue! I think it could help if the player could move around as well? It was a little confusing how I was collecting gold, maybe just from killing humans? Maybe you could force the player to move around and collect the gold themselves to spice up the gameplay. I also felt the audio was quite abrasive, I think for dialogue you could go for a more subtle "pop" SFX. There's lots of free ones on Pixabay. Otherwise, you have lots of cool mechanics working together well. Congrats on your submission!

This is a really cool concept! The tic-tac-toe mechanic is pretty cool, and I liked how it wasn't too easy to always match the correct preferences every time. You also had a good variety of mechanics that work well together. If I could give some feedback, I think the bonuses could be a little more clear. I wasn't exactly sure how much of a bonus I was getting after finishing a square, so it could be a good idea to have the actual multipliers incorporated into the UI as well. I would have also liked some sort of redraw/discard system (although it would probably take quite a bit of balancing) since sometimes I would play a bad card randomly to try and reroll for one that would fit. Of course, these things are definitely post-jam things, but just some thoughts!

But overall, I really enjoyed your take on the theme and the SFX's fit well. Congrats on your submission!

Haha, I thought the beds were clear as save points, but didn’t expect I would be sent to the main menu after dying, so I kept making a new save file instead of loading the last save! More succinctly, I didn’t know how to use the save points lol.  Not a huge problem but just took a bit to figure out

This was really fun! The bubble attack felt unique and fun to use, especially since I could spam it. To balance that, it might be worth it to increase enemy HP a smidge? Most of my enemy encounters ended pretty quickly, even in large amounts, so more enemy HP could maybe balance that. I also think dying immediately when hitting spikes is a bit harsh, especially since there's not too many save points scattered around. I also didn't realize I needed to press Load Save after dying, so for a bit I kept starting new playthroughs! A quick prompt on the menu could clear that up.

As a metroidvania, I really like the mechanics! The bubbles floating up is especially unique, and I love how all the abilities are toggleable. I also enjoyed the first boss, really surprised when I saw it for the first time! The boss itself was also designed quite well, and it's attacks looked really polished. Unfortunately, I got lost and didn't now how to proceed after getting floating bubbles. I wish I could have gotten further, but you have a lot of neat stuff here! Congrats!

I really loved this game! Finished in 17 min with 66%. I probably could have backtracked more, but oh well. At first I wasn't sure what to, but that didn't last long. Once I got it, this game felt so clever! But maybe it would be worth it to put a rough image that subtly shows how the main mechanic works? Maybe it's not necessary, but I think it would help with that first barrier. I also think the extend/retract speed could be increased. You have to extend quite far up in some cases, and it's a bit tedious having to wait for it, especially if I mess up a jump and need to re-extend it. I was also a bit unsure how those door things that gave me new abilities worked. Sometimes it rejected me but sometimes it worked? Maybe it's dependent on your current progression, but it would be nice to clear that up. And of course, a simple music loop would really boost the experience.

Otherwise, I really love all the puzzles and how I could get creative with extension mechanic. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but it felt like I did some sort of skip by perfectly aligning the screws in the grassy area to jump up, and that felt really good.  I also liked how the transition from the gray facility area to the nature-y area had a few tiles of overgrown greenery to signal the change in room, really nice!The artstyle is really nice and cohesive, and all the sound effects work perfectly for me. Really great job, and really clever take on the theme! Congrats!

I really love the movement, it feels good to move around and dash everywhere! The attacks are also fluid and feel good to use. Like the other comment, I was confused on the combat system. From what I can tell, you need to hit the orbs back at your enemies which requires you to first hit them and damage yourself? That kind of makes sense, but being able to execute it seemed quite difficult. Maybe reducing the enemy difficulty at the start or having even easier enemies to start off with? But I really like the idea of how your HP is tied to your damage output, it might just need some balancing and tuning. One quick thing, it would probably feel better if you could interact with an item regardless of the direction you're facing!

The aesthetic is really great and the characters are charming! Great job, I really wish I could have gotten past the combat barrier and keep playing!

Thanks! Yes we will add a save system in the future, just wanted to prioritize gameplay and polish seeing as it’s the jam version. The indicators on items is a good idea, we’ll probably add something similar like a glow on collectibles. We appreciate your feedback!

Thank you! Yes, we do intend to continue this project further and include a save system! We felt it wasn’t necessary for the jam seeing as it’s just the start to our project, so we were mainly focused on getting our ideas out and executed well as our highest priority. Thanks again for playing!

This is really great! I love so many aspects of this game, definitely underrated. The grapple is fun to use, all the weapons are satisfying and unique, there's a good variety of enemy types, and there's just so much content! I wasn't really sure what my goal was, but I got to 56% completion and had to pause. If I could give some feedback and things I noticed:

There was one enemy I killed (XP dropped) but didn't disappear, I think it was pretty early in my playthrough in Shallow.

I feel the speed of the player could be slightly faster at the start. While the movement speed upgrade was great, I think base speed could be a little faster just so that it's not too tedious and slow.

I'm not too sure I agree with losing XP on hit. I would say it's a little more annoying than fun as it's quite punishing, especially if you're weapon is at max level--just one hit and then it's downgraded to lvl 3 which doesn't feel good. Maybe only lose XP on death? Or ensure once a weapon reaches a certain level, it can't be downgraded?

Moving around in Shallows was quite difficult, especially when there's nothing but ceiling to grapple onto. That one long room with spikes on the floor could probably benefit from some platforms in the middle? Just to make maneuvering more fun while still maintaining that challenge you likely intended for. Maybe there's an upgrade later that I missed or haven't gotten that helps? Not sure.

Overall, I really love this game! The metroidvania aspects are done really well, the combat feels rewarding, and the graphics and audio just added to the experience. Really well done, and congrats! I will definitely come back to continue where I left off.

This concept is actually pretty cool, you can get creative with how you use the mechanic. I did unfortunately get stuck early into the game, I got one ice cream and then didn't know how to proceed. But for your first game, this is really impressive! I'll give a few quick points of feedback:

Some more contrast between the checkpoint sprite and the background would be nice. It's still visible, but it blends in a bit too much. You could use a lighter color like white for example. Clarity is super important in these types of games!

The tutorial at the beginning was really great for teaching you how to use the mechanic. I think more of that would be good. You could consider starting the game reallyyy slow, to the point where it's almost stupidly trivial. This ensures players aren't getting stuck (like me lol) too early into the game so that they can still have a good experience. Even if it seems too easy, it might actually be the perfect difficulty to start.

You could try to set up checkpoints throughout the game. It's a bit frustrating when you're forced to restart at the very beginning, especially if you've already made good progress. Having to restart those previous sections probably isn't best for this type of game, so having checkpoints would be really useful.

I hope this feedback helps! I really like your idea, so keep working at it! Congrats on submitting for your first game jam!

Your game looks really cool! I think the aspect ratio is off for me though. If you happen to fix it, I'd love to come back and try it!

I really like this idea! The graphics look really nice too, especially the crystals! I think it was a little too hard for me, even on Normal mode, the amount of crystals that swarm you was a bit overwhelming. It might be more balanced with a shorter delay between placing platforms? That way I could block off the crystals and then keep making platforms for myself too. It might also be good to start the player off a bit slower with less crystal enemies and wait to introduce the shooting one to help ease the player into the game more.

But I really like the concept! I hope you continue this project in the future, I see a lot of potential. Congrats!

There's a lot of cool mechanics, and I love how you can choose which ones you want to use! I really liked using the blast ranged one that gives you a knockback boost. If I could give some quick feedback on things: The music didn't end up looping for me which was a bit sad since I quite liked it. For SFX variation, you could do a little bit of pitch randomization (0.9 - 1.1) to keep the SFXs feeling fresh! I was also confused on what those statue things were, maybe I had to interact with them? A quick prompt or keybind would be really great for times when the player is introduced to new mechanics or abilities, although it might be a bit difficult with customizable controls. Lastly, some knockback against enemies you attack could improve game feel, making combat even better. I also ran into a couple bugs, one near the beginning where I fell off the map using double jump, and another where a vertical transition going up didn't work.

I'm writing this much since I really like the mechanics here! You have a lot of the cores systems down, and there's great potential for varied enemy types and playstyles. The graphics and animations also look really great! The screen transition is also super clean. Congrats to you all!

I really like the combat mechanics! The dash slash is very cool and satisfying, and the mount and kick is really unique! I also love how it heals the player if you hit the enemy against the wall or against other enemies (even if it doesn't make sense lol). This encourages you to actually use the technique in combat rather than spamming dash-slashes in large groups of enemies. Although, I think it was a little finicky, but that can be improved with polish. The movement and camera perspective was also unique and not too bad to control. I would have liked some more variety in the exploration since a lot of it feels like long hallways. I also think some enemy attacks could be telegraphed more. For example, the triple shot things were hard to predict when they would shoot, so I couldn't really figure out my window to attack. But I liked the "metroidvania" mechanics with the eye allowing you to see more platforms and the dash slash acting double duty, allowing you to also break down walls.

There's lots of great stuff here and the presentation is solid! Congrats to you both!

I really like the flower enemy that shoots multiple projectiles! It forces me to play a bit more carefully and it's not too easy or too hard. The game itself was pretty fun too. For a metroidvania, I think there could definitely be some branching paths. For example, after getting the dash, the path forward was still linear, so you could probably tease another pathway that requires the dash to progress beforehand. The boss at the end was really cool, I liked the animations! I think it could use some more clarity on the attacks though, and less enemies that spawn since they tend to be more distracting rather than adding to the fight (I ended up just ignoring them and focused on the boss). I also think some more platforms to maneuver during the boss fight would improve the fight a lot since it would give more options for dodging.

Otherwise, you have a nice variety of enemies and gameplay was engaging! Congrats to you all!

Thanks for playing! I can see how switching between tools can get tedious, I tried reducing the amount of friction for that as much as possible, but clearly still some tweaks we could make. For the tools, we wanted some to be simple and some to be unique, so some tools are solely for pebble collection, while others aid exploration! But in the future we could definitely add some other functionalities to the simpler tools.

The effects are really great, I love the camera shake and slow-motion! Gameplay is quite fun as well! Some things to consider: I feel it's more intuitive to attack with Left Click and dash with Right Click since I tend to use attack more while playing, but maybe it's just a preference. I also encountered a bug where at the beginning of floor 2, I dashed behind me and glitched outside the level lol, not a big issue but kinda funny it happened. And maybe this isn't too necessary, but an actual health-bar or something similar could help players know how much HP they have left. The red blood effect works well, but it's difficult to know how close I am to dying without first doing some trial and error to figure out how weak I actually am. I also didn't realize I could parry enemy attacks, but once I figured that out, I could easily spam attack and carefully defeat all the enemies which kind of trivialized the game? Maybe you could introduce new abilities or other enemy types to add more depth to the gameplay in a post-jam version, but there's a lot of amazing components here that all feel cohesive.

Really great job on your submission!

Thanks a lot! Yeah we definitely wanted to add more landmarks and distinguishable features around the map and in towns but ran out of time. We definitely plan to do save and load for a full release in the future as well. I’m glad you enjoyed!

There's some cool mechanics! I liked the knockback gun a lot, although the force could probably be reduced? Movement felt very floaty which made it a bit difficult, but I still managed to beat all the levels. You could consider adding more level mechanics, similar to the rotating platforms in the dropper level! A larger variety of mechanics would give a lot of potential for different uses of the guns which would really enhance the gameplay. The story was definitely engaging and I liked the effects and the twist of one of the levels becoming upside-down? Very cool stuff, great job!

A pretty fun experience! The core gameplay loop is simple but effective. The visuals and audio are also strong, although a SFX for when you land a hit on the enemies would be a nice touch too. I also enjoyed the skill tree as it is quite satisfying to see my lightning become stronger. I would like to see some more variety in gameplay too, because while the upgrades make the game more fun, I think having more to do on screen would benefit the game a lot! You could add other powers that could synergize with the lightning, or other abilities you can swap between to give the player more decisions during gameplay.

Otherwise, this is a well-polished game, great work!

I like the concept, it's fun moving the rats around everywhere! In terms of gameplay, I think it would be more challenging if you couldn't spawn a bunch of rats from the holes, maybe slowly give the player more rats to work with? I also wasn't too sure how having more rats helped me, so maybe some clarity on that would be helpful too. Otherwise, I like the level design! It's simple but expandable which is great for a jam game, and I liked how you could push around objects with the rats which felt powerful, great job!

A cool stealth game! I liked how you had an indicator for whether the ducks would follow you or not, it was a good touch. I found a bug where if I died in the vents and restarted, the game would think I was still in the vents so I could move anywhere and the floor was green. I think I also got restarted to a previous level rather than the one I was on. In terms of gameplay ideas, I think the vent maze is cool, but it felt a bit distracting in terms of the core gameplay loop. I think if you incorporated more mechanics related to the ducks, it would be really fun and unique. For example, what if you had to make sure the ducks following you didn't get caught by the people that patrol as well? That could add a layer of depth to the gameplay.

But overall still a fun experience, nice job!

I'm not sure how to play, maybe an integrated tutorial would help? I'm not sure what commands I can use or what they do, and the scrolling terminal makes it difficult to read the logs. If you could provide some insight on how to play, I'll give it another go!

I agree, given more time we would definitely have a stronger map system, but didn't have time to flesh it out for the jam. We plan to include a more cohesive map in future updates

You've got a lot of cool synergies that really make this game interesting! The style and visual effects are also effective and crunchy. I think these types of games can be difficult to get started in, especially with many different mechanics and ways to play, so it could be worth it to have a smaller tutorial sections that introduces an even smaller portion of the game so that the player can digest the information more easily. Otherwise, you have a lot of great stuff here

Really fun experience! I the narrative was pretty easy to follow and I liked being able to deduct the story and try to figure out what happened. The story design is well done. Looking at past comments, a 2D puzzle platformer would be a fun medium for this narrative and would definitely add more interactive moments in the game. Great job!

I really like the level design and models, they feel charming and it's fun to roam around the scene and find cheese! I think there could be some other incentives, like more NPCs, more challenging obstacles, or other items to find other than cheese to spice up the gameplay, but this is a good start to a fun 3D platformer!

Really polished effects and style! I got a bit confused while playing as I wasn't sure how to properly increase or balance the temperature. Maybe it's just due to misunderstanding of the game mechanics, but I think the info-dump style of tutorial doesn't click well for me. I'll probably give it another go if you could clear up some things? I also didn't figure out for a while that I had to place objects "around" the planet rather than "on" the planet

Cool mechanics! I liked the slingshot frog, although I had trouble getting used to it. I wish I could've read the dialogue, but when I pressed Space it would skip a lot of lines. But I like the variety of mechanics you have and how you work them in together in clever ways

Well executed game! It's polished and the procedural maze generation keeps it fresh. I was a little confused about the exploits feature, but I think it resets the timer and some point to where the objective is? But the visuals were appealing and it was enjoyable. One piece of feedback: It would be nice if you could buffer your inputs, meaning if I pressed Up three times quickly, the player moves three tiles up, even if one "move" isn't complete yet. This could help the game feel more responsive. Otherwise, cool game!

Thanks for playing! Yeah the crabs in boxes were to show people the mechanics without explicitly telling them, so was hoping people could experiment and eventually figure it out. As for the flying crab, the goal is it get back to your lover which is at the beginning of the game! I would’ve liked to put an indicator or a text prompt to remind the player, but didn’t get the chance. I’m glad you liked it though!

Really well done! The visuals are great and the gameplay is quite fun! I like how you can blow up ads through walls since it allows a little bit of planning (e.g. where can I place a bomb to optimize my progression). The multiple X's to close ads was also pretty unique and was a nice added twist on that final level. I did find one bug where I placed a bomb, an ad hit me, then my own bomb blew me up, causing me to take a double stun. This then froze my character, so I had to wait for time to run out before restarting. Otherwise, the story was a great bit of polish and the experience was overall really fun!

Very nice cutscene lol. The story is goofy and fits well with the theme! I think some indicator of whether I was making progress up the mountain would be nice, that way I can tell if I'm doing things right.  The wheels to rotate the limbs also felt difficult to understand, but that's not entirely a bad thing. I like how you had to first turn off a lever before using the other, adding to the difficulty of climbing up. Nice job!

I really like the setup/story behind the game, it's really charming! I also like being able to stop each limb how I want to, giving me a decent amount of control. For the scoring system, it looks like you score more points by making the limbs go everywhere and out of place. A good way to spice up the gameplay could be to give the player a specific pose to match and have them try to make that pose as well as they can. This could give the player a more concrete goal for the core game loop.

But this was a really engaging experience, especially making really crazy poses!

The level design here is really nice, with a great variety as well! I liked how you designed the UI/UX, allowing the player to first view the entire room from above, then choosing which human to infect. I especially like the mask mechanic, where you must first remove the mask before infecting them. This means only hitting some humans once so that you can infect them later, forcing you to think ahead which I love.

I think it would've been nice if infected humans could walk through doors once another human opens it (but doesn't close it yet), because, well, the door's open! Also, having to wait around before infecting someone is a bit tedious. Maybe this could be adjusted by allowing the player to "fast-forward" the game? Or designing the levels in a way where the player doesn't have to wait too long.

Otherwise, this is a really great submission with a slew of levels! Great job!

I really like how fast the sushi comes out at the end! The take on the theme is very creative and the game itself is charming, with a lot of polish/details like the receipt showing how much money you spent and the plates broken. In terms of gameplay, the left arm (the one you control with left click) doesn't seem as useful as the right arm due to the direction of the sushi conveyor belt. It would be cool if the conveyor belt randomly switched directions or if there was another mechanic to make use of the other arm. Otherwise, really cool submission!

Yeah I realized a few checkpoints can softlock you, so I definitely wanted to add a pause menu and adjust the checkpoint locations, but ended up running out of time

Like others have said, models and animations are amazing! It's also satisfying to land one of the big slashes powerup with the VFX and SFX. I would of have liked to see some more gameplay or player controls since the player character is so cool! For example, giving movement controls to the player or giving other types of tasks for the player to do while waiting for their powerup charges. But the amount of polish is incredible for just 48 hours. Great job!

Really cool mechanics! I like how you must first stun the enemies before hosting them, adding a layer of depth to the gameplay. I also like the added polish like how collecting the key card changed the music a bit. One thing is the player feels a bit slow which makes traversing through completed rooms a little tiring. While not a big issue, it could help with game feel here. Great game for just 48 hours! There’s a lot of possibilities for future enemies and mechanics here!