This game is way too polished for a game jam entry, good job!
Maybe it's just me, but I often was unsure if the level is solvable in the state it currently is. It's hard to understand if you made progress or if you're softlocked. Maybe it would be possible to add an indicator when the level becomes unsolvable? It might be hard to program/implement though.
Also: This was a one person team basically!? WHAT!? How did you make the game THIS polished? Did you even sleep at all during the 4 days?
That is a really smart puzzle game! I think allowing the player to rotate things would make everything even more complicated and interesting. Another idea would be to allow the player to select their own blocks which they want to manipulate. But those are just suggestions, and maybe you prefer the game that way.
Though I didn't understand the last level and completed it by sticking the character into the box until the character came out at the top of the cube. Pretty sure that was a bug.
This is a really cool game! Admittedly I got stuck on the third or fourth level (The one with the fan) because I couldn't figure out how to get the fan off the ground onto the button, but that's probably just my stupidity.
I have no idea how you made this, but it is awesome!
Edit: I also love how the game loaded the fake sequence, broke and rebuild the fourth wall and also loaded my moth- WAIT WHAT
A really well made and polished game! I love the idea and it's a fun interpretation of the theme.
One small gripe though: I had 100 tomato soups in the "cooking station" and to transport all them to the alien, I had to do this 100 times: "Take" -> Switch to the alien -> "Serve" -> Switch back to the cooking station. I saw there was kind of like an upgrade to transport all of the food to the alien, but I just couldn't activate it, even though I had enough metal.
That's such a cool and creative idea! I personally was sometimes confused, because I had placed a card yet there was nothing. Only to realize that the height was way too big for my current position (As far as I understand, the number that is shown when hovering with a card is the height where the structure will spawn, right?) Maybe this could be communicated a bit better to the player. I don't know if it would fit the game but the game could for example disallow placement of structures that the player can't reach because of the height anyways. Or maybe get rid of that structure height mechanic at all?
Anyways, this is a really cool idea that was really well executed.
But the character feels way too slippery and floaty! The mouse slips around as if on ice when on the ground, and in the air it feels like a rock that I can't control. The first few levels were already hard because you need to land on small cubes and I would just slip right past them. You should definitely give the player more control.
Also, what's going on at the top? I think it's a cool idea to have the scientist look into the box, but why is he appearing and disappearing so fast? I guess it's a bug?
All in all, I think it's a cool idea, but these two problems (especially the first one) made the game way less fun then it could've been.
This is a really smart puzzle game, but you NEED to fix the tutorial! I had to scroll through the comments to understand how the game works.
You see, in my opinion, the tutorial fails to teach an important thing: That the number in the top right shows how many scales you have left! I was left so confused why I could only scale once. You could fix this by adding text or even simpler: Don't allow selecting blocks when you have no scales left. With how the game currently is, I used up my first scale and everything worked. Then I selected another 4 blocks, the UI and everything showed up, but I couldn't drag the corner! If the game wouldn't even allow to click on a block I would immediately understand that the game doesn't want me to scale any more blocks.
But besides that, after understanding how the game works, it's a wonderful, smart puzzle game!
The idea that the healthbar is the size of the player is really cool! I'm unsure if it's a bug or a design decision, but you can't actually die in the game. You just end up being really small.
I also really liked the design of the enemies, some of them looked really nasty. The idea with the alien and the cheese is really funny and creative. All around, good job! I don't really know how it could be improved further.
Hey, look at that! I made basically the same game! Well, not quite. I think your approach is really unique. It reminds me of Tetris with the "Next block" screen, but instead it modifies the playing field, kind of like a power up. To be honest, it was quite hard to wrap my head around this concept and even though I also made a puzzle game, I didn't get past "caped-man" (Love that you gave the levels names!), the second non-tutorial level in the game.
Definitely a cool concept, and a REALLY well polished game!
Really cool game! I always like to leave constructive criticism, but honestly, I have no idea what to say, the game is just superb. I love the cute art style! Maybe one little small nitpick would be to allow to rotate the cows with the mouse wheel, although Q and E is perfectly fine too.
Great game! Loved the art style and also the little story about trying to get to a toilet. :D
You probably already noticed this, but when the plant is in the first stage of growing and you jump on it you get catapulted up, which results in a lot of levels being skippable. But that's really the only problem I noticed, and it's definitely excusable for a game jam game.
But the game is really difficult and I often died from like a few pixels of sun. Maybe you like it that way, but I'd make the game a bit easier. But still, a really cool idea!
P. S.: Also, it's not THAT important, but you have the itch.io page show that the game is for Linux, Windows and MacOS although it only supports Windows. You can turn this off by going to to the itch.io page, clicking the "PUBLISHED" button, scrolling down to where your files are and removing the checkmark on the Linux and MacOS icons. Then just scroll down all the way and press save. Also, do not accidentally delete your project there!
Really great game! Love the concept, love the art, it's just great. My only gripe: I once died from a spike although I'm pretty sure I wasn't touching it? The game freezes every time you die while it reloads the level, and on that last frame you could definitely see that I wasn't touching the spike. But that only happened once and din't really bother me all that much.
Alright, I feel very stupid saying this, but: I didn't understand how to move the camera. So, I didn't really manage to play the game... at all. While the story pop-up in the beginning is a cool detail, a tutorial would go a long way making the game much more playable.
Cool idea! Maybe it's just me, but I kept forgetting my spells. xD Maybe the songbook could stay open on the side the entire time? Or maybe the animation when opening the book could be a little bit faster, so you can peek at the songs faster. Also, it feels a bit unnatural closing the book with a different button than I opened it with. I feel like if S would open AND close the book, it would feel more natural and wouldn't throw me off. The background music started being a bit repetitive at the end, but maybe that's just me. Speaking of repetitive: Maybe the spells could have their own abilities? I just always used the most damaging spell available, so the game felt a bit repetitive because the spells were kinda the same. But then, this IS a game jam game after all, and maybe I just didn't come across the cool spells during my playthrough.
I didn't really get past the "Quality Control" level, even though I threw away all the broken bags? I think I don't understand something about that game.
But all in all, the theme is pretty creative and I think the game turned out well.
This was fun! The puzzles feel just difficult enough that they're interesting, but all of them still have that "Ohhhh I get it" moment that is really amazing. I also love that I can go back one move, which makes "messing up and needing to do this complicated thing AGAIN OH MY GOD I DON'T WANNA PLAY" basically a non-existent feeling and focuses the player's attention only on solving the puzzle.
I made a similar game about a scaling block puzzle. I think your approach making it a turn-based game is really interesting, although I haven't quite yet wrapped my head around it. I also think the aesthetic is interesting. It reminds me of these old phone games, where the displays were advanced enough to show more detail and color, but the smartphones weren't quite invented yet.
I loved this game! It's creative and funny. One little gripe though: On the fishing ships minigame, it sometimes was a bit hard to recognize if a ship was bad or not. Maybe a red outline or something like that could help. Or maybe keep it this way for the added difficulty.
So, as far as I understand from the other comments, you didn't get around to adding clues to the game? That's really unfortunate, as it kinda breaks the entire gameplay... After the castle scene you can't really see any other content, just because it's kinda impossible to just brute force the 5 key puzzle.
Still, this seems to be a great game as soon as some things get finished. Also, I love the lore implications of the game. Why is Cucho here? And why is he tethered to a heavy weight, keeping him in this room? And who are we?
Oh my god, this is way to interesting of a game concept! :D Really hope you finish it after the jam.
Wow, this is incredibly well made and a lot of fun!
I think the only thing that bothers me a little bit are the levers. Maybe it's just me, but I thought at first they were relational: So if I put it in the lowest position, the object will be scaled down to a certain point. But they only influence the speed at which something is scaled. I think the game works just as well like that, but I was a little bit confused at the beginning. One other thing: Mapping buttons to the actions of the levers and button would be a great feature I believe (Think W / S for the left lever, arrow up / down for the right one and enter for the button).
Also: Look mom, I'm famous, I'm fourth on the leaderboard!
A really cool concept! I fell quite often in lava thinking that it was a normal block, maybe a bit more communication to make it clear that you die if you touch this would be nice. All in all, a great idea! :)
Edit: Also super impressive that you learned Godot THAT fast!
It's not really my genre, but the game really feels polished. I love the pixel art style combined with a 3D environment. Maybe I'm just stupid, but there is no way to switch between weapons, is there? I accidentally bought a worse gun than the one I currently had, and couldn't really switch back.
This is a really great game! Love the concept, love the art, and weirdly enough, I got real chills at the ending!
Maybe there could be more deliberate switching of the fish from the player? What I mean is that currently, when I get eaten it's intended. But what if it's more of a puzzle game, where I need to deliberately decide by whom I want to get eaten to then unlock the fish's ability. Speaking of the abilities: I'd love to see more of them! I think it's safe to say that it would be really interesting to see the abilities of more fish and where you take this concept in the future, if you decide to continue working the game. Great job!
Maybe it's just me, but the background is really noisy and distracted me from the game.
I loved the different sprites, it's definitely a cool idea to have fish in space! However, I think the idea with inflating the fish and deflating it wasn't that well executed. It seemed to me that staying a small fish was infinitely better than being the bigger fish, just because I didn't really feel the need to destroy the asteroids.
Talking about the "bigger fish mode": I think it would've been cool if you could see which objects can be destroyed and which couldn't. I know, it was explained in the tutorial, and maybe I'm just dumb, but I had already forgotten all the objects that I could destroy. Maybe destroyable objects could have a indicator, maybe an outline, or a specially broken appearance.
All in all, great idea, but a few imperfections here and there.
It's actually really funny, I "designed" (threw together) the levels at like 4am. Later when people played my game I was surprised to see how many different solutions there are.
I definitely liked the art a lot, it's a really cool way of introducing the story! I also like how the dragon gets bigger and bigger, but also gets more health, that's some neat game design. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but the change in direction in the last level made it that little bit harder, because displays aren't as big vertically as they are sideways, meaning there was less space for the arrows to travel and subsequently there was less time to react.
My only gripe with this game is that it can get a bit repetitive if it would've been longer, and the visibility of the arrows was really bad! Black on dark green, black on dark blue, I really felt stressed that I couldn't see the arrows.
But besides that, good submission! Also like the little story that accompanies the game.
Although the tutorial felt a little bit... lacking? It did not explain to me what critical mass is and how to reach it in time, but on the other hand it had cool videos that barely loaded on my machine. Kind of feels like the priority was a bit messed up there.
Another thing I did not understand is why I shouldn't just "bank" the things I collect as soon as I got them. I mean, they can't be knocked off and I still get to grow bigger in size?
All in all, it's still a really neat game. Having a pool of objects around you that get's bigger unlocks some special kind of satisfying feeling in me. And the controller support is really the cherry at the top. My takeaway from the game though is that I really should check out Katamarí.
P. S.: Thanks for checking out my game yesterday on stream. :)