Oh no.

Ah! That makes sense - it did feel as though there must have been something in there because I figured otherwise you would have gone with a different end screen. I did make it through without dying myself. The difficulty felt reasonable, though: there were a couple of occasions where I started to get swarmed and had to leg it!

The sound and graphics for this are so goooood. I love the stylised yellow blood splatter in particular. I managed to grapple one of the big guys while falling down a long drop, and the spray on the walls seemed weirdly fitting - is the blood actually a cluster of objects that “splat” when they hit a surface? It’s also really good to finish off with a solid boss battle: suddenly having grapple act as a way of exploiting an opening rather than just an insta-kill was very satisfying, especially because the fight was so intuitive.

I feel as though the main areas fo improvement here are the story and theme. The tagline in the cover image is “rise against control,” but then the ending tells me I’ve “controlled the gym and saved the couples” (after fighting to control levels/areas throughout) so that feels a bit muddled. Unless I missed something at the beginning, it could perhaps do with a little scene that establishes what’s going on before jumping into gameplay. (Also, though the tutorial text works very well, it says “Hold C to jump higher” when the jump key is Z.) But that’s all basically just polishing - the game itself is hugely impressive, especially for the time available during the jam.

Actually, having just had a go at your game myself, it looks as though it’s among the 10% or so most rated, so you really don’t need to worry about its score getting adjusted down or anything. 20-30 ratings might not seem like a lot, but if you look at the submissions in need of ratings they’re all in single digits.

Yeah, in terms of getting more players an itch version probably can’t make much difference at this stage. Though reading that rule again, it says it has to be on itch “for rating” and it’s entirely possible to rate yours on itch, so hopefully that qualifies.

I guess the other thing for next time is to upload the game far enough ahead of time that it doesn’t get screwed up by some last-minute problem. (I got in the habit of submitting mine well in advance because of Global Game Jam, where there have been issues with the site going down due to everybody submitting games right before the deadline.)

Definitely make sure you’ve got an attention-grabbing cover image (and screenshots, and a solid description, etc.). Don’t put a ton of effort into making the game and then skimp on everything that actually gets people to give it a go in the first place.

Yours actually looks pretty good in that respect, though. The main problem, I think, is that there’s no game on itch so it’s that much harder for people to play and rate. The jam rules actually say “Games must be submitted through itch.io for rating as well as gd.games” - maybe you could still upload one? It certainly seems worth asking the organisers.

No, it’s not for mobile. That’s why this message appears when you visit the page on mobile:

Strictly speaking you could play it on a phone, but you’d need a keyboard. The game depends on the keys listed in the description:

Thanks! I would have loved to team up with an artist for this, but didn’t have time to organise that on top of getting the game working so ended up relying quite a bit on asset store material. It would definitely be nice to expand the idea in future. If I did add power-ups, I’d probably make them another thing to defend (so you get a shield or some kind of super-shot, but they’re activated using a button that can be stolen just like the others).

This is a fun idea, but personally I found it frustrating beyond what I expect was intended. The hyperspace shooter thingy popped up at random so often that it was a real slog to get anywhere, and having been told “Don’t click anything suspicious” it took me a really long time to figure out that shooting the “Hahahaha” demon face would actually hamper the virus’ progress. On top of that, the terminal text extended beyond its own window and on top of other windows (meaning I could have a popup positioned above the terminal, but below the text within the terminal). But with a bit more polish I think this could work really nicely. It’s a very ambitious idea to pull off within the timeframe of a game jam.

This is a really nice take on a Peggle-type game. Having to try and get the ball into the right funnel at the bottom adds another layer of interest, and being able to “take control” of it from time to time also helps it feel more skill-based. I never quite grasped how “peg swap” worked or what all the special balls offered, but I also ran into a bug pretty early where the aiming arrow became disconnected from the ball… …and then after that ball dropped out of the level and the next one appeared, I had two arrows at once. Around this point it also started running at a bit of a crawl, which I’m almost certain was related rather than anything that would have happened under non-bugged circumstances. I feel as though I’d essentially got the measure of it before then, though. I might still come back to it later! It’s always good to see a jam game that fits the theme, but makes for a strong enough idea that it would work well in its own right. Very impressive work, especially for the time available.

I wondered if anybody else would interpret the theme as “literally picking up buttons,” but making it the Ctrl key specifically is fantastic. It’s a great range of levels for it, too, and little details like the camera movement are really nicely handled. I found this sometimes started running slowly on my machine at times (I think after alerting a large number of enemies in the same level?) and it was occasionally difficult to identify what was a wall and what was a drop (especially in the final level, which I never managed to complete), but I think the overall appearance of the game works well. It feels very polished for a jam entry on the whole.

Top-notch cover image, by the way. It looks fantastic, and strongly implies the game title even without having it actually written on there.

Thanks for playing! I think you’re right about the explanation - I’ve updated it to be a little more up-front about what you’re actually supposed to be doing here.

I really don’t know why people settle for AI thumbnails. They look like hot garbage. They rarely represent what the game is actually like. You could honestly just slap the game title on top of a screenshot and it would make a better first impression.

I’m not sure it’s very responsible to provide people with a detailed guide to being a villain. >:-(

Thank you! The pronouns for the acolyte shouldn’t vary within a single passage, but they will be randomised for each playthrough. Chances are I’ve got an actual “he” written in at some point: I’ll see if I can find it.

I found this quite easy to figure out, actually, on account of being a big-brain smarty-pants.

Thank you so much for recording it!

Thanks! That’s…quite a duck.

Probably one of the highlights of the jam for me. It may be small, but it feels very complete - the chain reaction gameplay paired with the horde of incoming enemies works very nicely. The Slime King dialogue is the cherry on top. If I’ve got one quibble it’s that shots quite often visually overlap with enemies without actually hitting them, but but while a little unsatisfying that’s ultimately inconsequential. I’d love to see a bigger version of this where the Demonlord is less overpowered and you have to place shots carefully (and maybe upgrade your powers?) as waves of progressively tougher enemies swarm in.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that my upcoming move was shown in the top left of the screen. There’s a lot going on! It’s nice that you apparently get more or less benefit from the numbers, though, rather than a binary good/bad outcome. It gets you thinking about the numbers involved but doesn’t feel punishing.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that my upcoming move was shown in the top left of the screen. There’s a lot going on! It’s nice that you apparently get more or less benefit from the numbers, though, rather than a binary good/bad outcome. It gets you thinking about the numbers involved but doesn’t feel punishing.

What’s the thing with the duck? I saw it flash up very briefly on screen but I was already clicking so it vanished before I really had a chance to take it in. Also my arms straight up ripped off my body. I don’t know if that was related.

Great to see a fun, simple game like this. I gave up because the flies seemed to be adding more time than I was taking, but I get the impression that may have been intentional.

Is it weird that I really like bursting the other guys? The graphics in this are delightfully unsettling. The tight time limit is great too. I’d like to try and master it, but I’m finding the level where the enemies bounce up and down a little frustrating: I feel as though the hitboxes don’t quite line up with the graphics, or at least where I’d expect them to be. But the basic idea of guzzling concrete to power up is fantastic: I’m glad I found the time to try it.

This is neat! The effects are fantastic. I found the character moved very quickly in comparison to the camera (where that was a factor), though. I would have liked to be able to Sonic the Hedgehog my way through long stretches of level but in practice mashed up against the edge of the screen almost immediately. I actually feel as though more of those big levels might suit the character movement better: the smaller, more puzzle-based ones felt a little constraining. Also I’m not positive I ever quite grasped what I was doing: shift didn’t seem to jump, but I found I could get through okay by using space (dash?) instead, but that behaved differently to pressing down, which the instructions say is dash. On that note, it would have helped to be able to play without going into fullscreen, just to be able to keep those instructions on screen. But that wouldn’t matter if I were taking a longer crack at it and had more time to get used to the controls: I’d totally play a bigger version of this.

Thanks for playing - and great job rating over 100 games!

I’m quite tempted to come back to this one later on: I’d love to have some kind of unlock shop in between runs, but it just wasn’t practical to fit in during the jam. And don’t worry - I’ll always aim to have some little FMV segment.

Ah, yeah - I couldn’t fit a full explanation on the buttons and didn’t have time to add mouseover text. The numbers are simply “levels” - that is, a higher number means it’s been upgraded further. For the guns, the upgrades increase spawn chance but it affects each gun independently: that is, upgrading pistols will get you more pistols on top of anything else that was due to spawn.

Thank you!

If there’s any chance you could find time for mine, I’d really appreciate it! https://itch.io/jam/gdevelop-big-game-jam-7/rate/3566759

This is neat! I really like the look of the thing: the ripply effect on the title screen is a lovely touch in particular. It’s a very small game, but it’s great to see something so complete for a jam.