Too many gameplay elements and too little time (jam game)
To be short, I think the author wanted to add too many ingredients to the gameplay, rushing it to the inevitable consequence of providing something kind of messy (they had 3 weeks to make a game). That's unfortunate, as I think that a smaller polished RTS would have been great.
The first world didn't actually load grass, so I had to create another one. Then I found myself with the main building and zero instructions. Being an RTS game, I think it's essential to provide either a tutorial (but again, time wasn't in the author's favour) or at least a description telling the player what to do - e.g. you need the open the inventory to build, or providing a few tips to better understand where to place buildings and/or which citizens are best at the beginning. Author might know what strategy is good, but players don't as no tools are really provided. In general, no immersion (no sounds) and pretty slow paced - which, alongside the lack of instructions, makes a bad combo as it's quite unlikely that players will retry it once they lose in what it's basically a trial and error approach.
I hope to see it polished eventually, and appreciate the progress done since the jam phase
I appreciate that the author has actually tried to polish the game: there are NPCs walking around, HUD elements on top of their heads, a dialogue system, music. It's not super polished but the intention of immersing the player in the game world is definitely there. I've also really appreciated the chat interaction required to go on!
I played it until I arrived at the pedestal and unfortunately the game is pretty slow paced. The idea of walking back at that speed, to then going there again was... not great. Also, but that might be me, the first riddle wasn't super clear and I initially thought that the objective HUD was simply broken (on the contrary, I had to place the books on the ground to read them. I think it would have been clearer to just read books by left/right-clicking whilst holding them in your hand)
First of all, there is no immersion at all: not a single sound gets played whilst playing and there are no instructions whatsoever. There is a lore in the game description, but no hint at all in the actual game: it just looks like a proof of concepts for portals giving you and resetting items. Two portals to be more specific, since the game happens in about a 30x30x30 area with not many things to do. I was also able to go outside the map thanks to a glitch. In general, I wouldn't define it a game, rather the first steps for a mod. Default graphics (nodes aside) don't help.
THE current mod for painting/accenting nodes, but could be the gold standard
This is a fantastic mod if you're looking to paint some pixelart on your base wall, or accent a vine with some pretty artificial flowers - you name it, it's usually possible. The crafts are pretty easy and picking colors and painting away is a super pleasant experience. That said, there's some major ways this mod could be improved that are simply a must to make this the gold standard.
~~Currently there is no way to pick a color off of an existing canvas. When you're painting, you might select a paint and start painting away, then switch to another color and continue. If you forget the exact settings you used for that first paint, you're out of luck - because there's no color picker, and now you have to repaint that whole area with a similar color. ~~
(fixed by grorp, now you can use shift+right-click to pick a color off of a canvas!!)
Saving of the painting canvases is only done when the area is unloaded. This might sound fine, but imagine your world crashes while you're just about to finish your awesome painting that you spent the whole evening on (but you didn't leave/unload the area, you just stayed and painted). It won't be there when you relog(!!) -- and this is a problem some of my clients have had.
There's no way to move a canvas or a 'stamper' to move pixels slightly. Imagine you created a large painting centered above a fireplace in your base, only to find that the painting is one pixel off. You have to redraw the whole thing :(
It would be neat if you could export your drawings to a .png file, but this is not too important. Still, it would make this mod much more popular - why would you enter some dumb editor when you could just paint your texture natively? :D
Despite these issues, this mod is still definitely worth your time and there's simply nothing better in the painting mod club. Recommended, especially if you like pixel art :)
Good game, but a few problems: In my first game there was no goblins or metal and in my second game there was only like 2 or 3 goblins spawning and they weren't even attacking my base, just wandering around.
Edit: rewrote comment because first version was kind of unfair. I just mistook the successful ending as failure because starting the thrusters looked as if the ship exploded.
Bad side first: game is way too short and too easy, except for the space parcours. That was cool. But the initial inside part feels like an interactive intro scene. Nothing to think about, no puzzle.
Otherwise, the atmosphere and scenery are wonderful. You get curious in the beginning, and get scared when outside, performing the parcours under pressure.
You just had too little time. Make this game a full-blown adventure with puzzles, characters and maybe interactive scenes à la Halflife and we will love you :)
Others have noted the excellence put into the story for this jam game. What I want to point out is the tech is quite cool too. I only wish there might have been a little more challenge in combat. It's not just the NPCs that follow paths and have dialogue, but also: this game features a custom mapgen.
The mapgen is pretty cool. It is made with a series of parameters about where to place the village, the pedestal and the paths. Beneath this is the base terrain generator, which places the grass, dirt, and flowers. But wait, there's more - this isn't just Luanti's built-in mapgen.
After you're done with the main game, you can go for a wander. Eventually out past 1000 nodes, you'll find an increasingly steep cliff face. See how high you can get. My personal record is an altitude of y=655. You'll need to use some ingenuity with what you have at your disposal and some parkour skills.
A short parkour which happens to have some dialogue
I don't recommend this for its story, but in case you would like to play a short parkour course that needs in-air control. It also features computers that run Manjaro.
The atmosphere is pretty decent, with the breathing sounds and walking sounds. The story idea is in the middle ground: not completely flawed, but very rushed. It's hard to make something interesting when it's this short. There's also no real point to taking the side paths, and in fact I was more inclined to go that way than be led down the garden path. I'm not saying it's a problem to have non-linearity, but it does feel unsatisfying to be able to go straight to the end.
The mechanics I mostly found frustrating. It's not too bad when you're inside the ship to get a modal dialogue pop up. A place in the UI to re-read them would have made sense, at least in a longer game or one with more of a puzzle. But what really annoyed me was getting a pop-up that stops me dead in my tracks when I'm half out of oxygen, to make me read a paragraph, and in a parkour section without an immediately obvious foward path and no valid backwards escape. In fact if you are too eager with the parkour, you might get stopped mid-air and fall as a result. I also really would have appreciated if the doors closed themselves on a short timer. You have to keep the oxygen in you see.. well.. if there were any.
Another thing that takes away from the experience is that it was clearly intended to be played in one sitting, and doesn't distinguish reloading a world from first entering the world. I'm not saying don't let the game begin again if it was finished, but if I had to go reconfigure something (like accidentally enabling creative mode), I probably shouldn't be made to start again. This is a common problem in Jam games.
I don't want to seem overly harsh or nit-picky. But my experience was mostly spent having a hard time with the parkour.
At the start there's too much text. Many people will just skip it. I did try to read it, but didn't grasp it at all, because it was too abstract, I haven't seen the nodes it was talking about. And after I closed the dialogue I forgot everything and didn't know what to do.
After some minutes I noticed that I can place the color that's shown at the wall, and it caused progress. After that, when I saw a shape at the 2nd pattern, I understood what to do. But I just came there with the help of guessing and reading the node names with the debug menu.
I don't understand why such a big palette of colours is used from the start on, when 2 are enough. Finding the colors in inventory is also not fun.
Maybe only give the colors to inventory that you need for the current pattern. And/Or make it so that if you leftclick a color with any color node, you get the punched color.
(Sorry, haven't played this for too long.)
Btw., you could also make a 3D version of this game.
Just out of interest, why doesn't this take part in the game jam?
A fun twist on the "stealth" genre: Not only are there evil eyes which must not see you; most of the time the challenge is to stay within the field of view of at least one good eye: "The Unseen are lost!"
The game further gains a bit of a puzzle game note by having buttons you have to press to make new paths accessible. These can be hard to find at times, but it is never wrong to press them. Hence the winning strategy essentially is to scour the levels for buttons, pressing all of them (and memorizing their positions and a sensible order to press them in for future attempts in case you fail), though this is in practice much harder to do than it sounds. Some buttons are definitely deviously placed :)
The graphics, music, and overall atmosphere are all consistent and nicely done.
I really liked the spell system and its kinda sad that there is only two of them. The textures and the music were immersive. I found the mapgen and the small village really cool. In conclusion, it was really good and immersive, and I would love a longer adventure.
Another great game by Wuzzy ! This game is really cool, but some of the levels are hard, like the room where you have to turn on lights. I think that the timer when you're not seen by the eyes is a little too short, sometimes I go in an area where eyes cant see me and I don't have enough time to go back.
The idea alone is worth a price! Together with the music it has a mildly scary atmosphere, I like it. Nice level design, too. Found no bugs so far. But I'm far from having completed it. Haven't seen any gore so far, eyeballs or blood-red writing doesn't count :-P
I wonder from where Wuzzy takes the time for all this. Must be a fulltime Luantiveloper. Good stuff.
This game is so cool, I didn't know such things were possible in Luanti. Can be quite hard but you can change the difficulty. Love the textures, this game is 10/10.
Interesting short playthrough, but leaves a lot of questions!
This game reminded me a bit of The secret story of Spacetravel by NathanS, a 2022 Game Jam entry. It's a spaceship-themed game where you have to find the cause of some issues in the spaceship, but ultimately, finding the cause and fixing the spaceship ends up being pretty easy and there isn't a whole lot of exploration to do. The best part is a small parkour near the end (with a few tough jumps!) to get to the final room. However, there is not much of a plot yet: I still don't know anything about myself, the spaceship's purpose, or my crewmates, before the game ends. There's also no purpose to fixing the spaceship because the game immediately ends, so I can't find out more things about the spaceship after fixing the engine, and I'm still not sure how I got in this spaceship!
Overall, it's just too short, it only took me about 8 minutes to solve. Because I wasn't in the game too long, the breathing sound didn't annoy me, it actually added to the ambience, but I could imagine it would after a while. A longer playing time and a more developed plot would be better, and perhaps, in the theme of SSS, using carefully positioned hints in the map instead of pop-up dialogues to make the experience more realistic and mysterious to the user.
This game feels like you've pushed the boundaries of what's possible with Luanti. The custom camera movement is not what the engine was designed for, the different size scale of nodes is not what the engine was designed for, ... yet this game exists, showing us what Luanti is capable of and what it could be capable of.
At the same time, this game is incredibly polished. The visual and audio experience is beautiful and coherent. It's easy to understand the game and fun to play. I love it :)
One thing to note is that this game doesn't work well on Android. If your device is less powerful, the game will be laggy, and the mobile controls are just not what you need for this game.
Short dungeon-style puzzle with interesting characters -- much more to come?
Enjoyed this, one of the most polished games in the Jam this year! Only took me about an hour to solve overall, and the walking/exploring part was not boring at all for me - the curtains made it exciting and a bit nervewracking. When you boil it down, the plot isn't huge yet, but it's put together in a very strong way, so that you are invested in the characters and obviously want to know what is behind the dungeons. The 'puzzle' part of it isn't very complicated yet, I'd consider it more of a visual novel type game at the moment. It's evident that this game was influenced quite a bit by the short window for the Game Jam so I'm really looking forward to future progress and updates!
The character swapping in the finishing parts of the game was really very interesting and creative, making you the overseer of a collaboration. Ultimately, the ending scene was a bit underwhelming -- not the scene itself, which was extremely dramatic and impressive, but the fact that you are kind of at a loss for what to do next. You're teleported back into a hallway which you can't get out of, and what the boss just said to you looms over your head. You're stuck completely helpless with no way of finishing the story (yet). A better resolution would be great, hopefully defeating the evil and learning more about Vix's history somehow!
I also found it quite funny that the residents of this land are apparently so bored that they go for wild, dangerous adventures whenever rumors pop up on the surface. :)
If you're having trouble playing the game after the first scene (falling in darkness), do /grantme teleport and /teleport 84 237 136 (thank you to the author for giving me that clue). I had problems with that but didn't have any other problems playing the game after that. I'm sure this will be fixed after the game jam's concluding so I will maybe delete this part of my review later. :)
Interesting addition to concretes, extends vanilla with additional colors.
I cheated a bit to discover the recipes for making the concretes, one seemed a bit more obvious by look than the other, but I should have realized sooner. As far as I tested, it seemed to work about the same as the other concretes and I would believe all forms were available.
I wonder about some effects which differ from the vanilla forms, particularly the purple cement. Without giving out any spoilers here, lets just say that the wandering result left something different than what a similar vanilla recipe caused which I would have expected. There may be some logic or reasoning behind this but it is not what I had expected since it is unique to the mod. I do agree with how this same form of concrete requires something else to create it, that makes sense to me (and I like it). I also tested for washout result which for one was expected and again the other not so much.
I did not test how panels work (I assume they exist) so I do not know if there is a difference such as exists among the other brick panels.
First off-- WOW!!! Never seen anything like this in Minetest before, this is simply amazing. The weapons are pretty awesome and destructive, the sound effects are top-notch, and gameplay is typical for a FPS game - intense. As more and more of the buggers tunnel towards you, things seem to get more and more intense, as you try to navigate away from danger while also firing wildly. This is more than replayable and I would not be surprised at all if a popular multiplayer server pops up with this later. (it will need to be powerful though - see below!)
However, this game seems to have one big flaw (maybe the only flaw) -- CPU usage :-) My computer with 8GB of RAM and 4 cores just couldn't handle it and I crashed my computer three times trying to play this. Actions were delayed by like 10 seconds when I was playing, so I couldn't even tell that the guns were working and I took a good bit of time investigating the code to see if I was doing anything wrong. Luckily, my friend let me use his much more powerful computer and it was a completely different experience - the gameplay was incredible, and I didn't have any problems understanding the game or starting my attacks.
If you've got a CPU that can run this, this is easily the best game of the Jam this year. Thank you so much for yet another amazing game, Sumianvoice!
This game is fantastic. The moment-to-moment play is engaging, and swings from tense moments as you see walls being dug out and wait for the enemy to pour through on top of you, to frantic firing and maneuvering as you try to avoid having your mech pulled apart by giant mandibles.
It could use some balancing, new enemies and objectives, but bugs in the code are, unlike the bugs in the tunnels, thankfully rare. All in all, this is a fantastic piece of work!
A fantastic short playthrough, with a great storyline. My only wish is that it was a bit longer, it took me around 10 minutes to solve, and there weren't too many objectives to go through - maybe only 7-8. I have the feeling this could be speedrunned in 2-3 minutes, so it could definitely use some new content, but I still think it is fantastic, especially considering the time limits of the Game Jam this year.
The work that regulus has put into the atmosphere, textures, NPCs, and the music, is beautiful. It really immerses you in the environment and makes you truly want to solve the game. The objectives in the right-hand corner help you follow what you're supposed to do next. Nothing stumped me for too long and usually I knew exactly what to do, but it was still exciting because of the storyline and dialogue that kept me guessing. The animation after you win the game is spectacular -- by far it is one of the best animations I've ever seen in the game jam. This is probably going to end up as one of my favorite games because of how polished it is, but I still have a few other games to try. Thank you for a great game, regulus! :)
This is a space exploration game I guess, but it's hard to figure out what to do to start. You start the game in a small rocket, but you have to figure out that you can use the up/down keys to lower your rocket and explore, which I didn't understand and died a few times :-) Sadly, the rocket also threw me out of it and killed me several times, so there might be a problem with the attaching there.
Once you get out of the rocket and onto land, there's not a lot to do other than explore and perhaps make some makeshift tools and mine. But no real purpose other than that. That said, the rocket abilities are pretty cool and the game definitely shows promise. The biomes are cool too! A tier system where a player needs to work to have the materials needed to go to another planet might be cool, with the final planet offering some sort of interesting finish.
The initial cutscene was good, and some of the atmosphere I liked, as well as the door animation, but it was unclear what exactly to do other than running around in what looks like identical rooms. Maybe I missed a lever, or softlocked it somehow?
It's kind of obvious what might have happened to the spaceship, but getting it back in proper condition is confusing. All the rooms and hallways look basically the same, so that does not aid in figuring out where you are at, or need to go. Ultimately, I lost interest. The breathing sound gets irritating pretty quickly, too.
This is very much a prototype, with bugs and not much direction as to what to do or how to do it. The procedural generation is very basic, and I can't even travel to the other planets, perhaps due to a bug.
While not replayable, this short little interactive fiction game was fun to play, with a few effects, particularly concerning the NPCs, that could be instructive to others making their own IF stories in Luanti.
Koboldkreig is a pretty solid game. I find it pretty fun to build up defenses and create a base using the resources around you. The only flaw I've noticed with this game so far is that the game doesn't tell you that you, the player, can collect resources for your base. That will definitely get people stuck longer than they would like.
Eye am going to be making a lot of eye-related puns and jokes for this review. One might say this puzzle is brilliant, illuminating, eye-opening, even. The mechanics are solid, and the atmosphere is done well, both with the audio and the textures - it is almost liminal. I did not, however, finish all the levels yet. Ironically, this is not a game for those with low vision or other visual impairments.
OK, maybe not LSD, but it's a lot more colorful than I remember Bloxorz being. There's a different puzzle dynamic, which I'm not sure I like, at least, while I'm forced to look at the level from one angle and only one angle. Those with terrible spaciotemporal skills, beware! Still, I managed to get to the 5th checkpoint in one sitting.
I still haven't managed to finish "fun hard", but it's very very fun! The textures are Sumianvoice-level perfect (see their textures in Age of Mending and the Backrooms) and fit the game perfectly. The different weapons are fun to try out and have good, easy-to-understand mechanics. Only bugs I found that still need to be shot: Some glitches with the camera cause it to swing around in wild ways occasionally; I started out in complete blackness because my range was set to 20 (maybe the game could automatically change it to 100?); and changing weapons mid-game is glitchy. But these problems pretty much mean nothing next to how amazing this turned out. Keep up the great work, Sumianvoice!
Scores rate how good different aspects of the game are.
Effects is mostly how the game looks/feels. If a game doesn’t have good-looking textures, particle effects, or architecture that is actually plot-relevant, it can get a low Effects score.
Gameplay involves how good, fun, interesting or effective the gameplay is. If a game doesn’t have well-designed puzzles that are something a gamer actually feels they can figure out with obvious end results, it can get a low Gameplay score.
Plot, of course, is how good the plot is, how well it fits with the game itself, and whether it is actually interesting for players. If a game doesn’t have an obvious plot or goals, it can get a low Plot score.
Theme is how the game feels and is laid out. If a game doesn’t feel right, doesn't have a theme that fits its plot or gameplay, or is too bland, it can get a low Theme score.
Coolness is a rating I added because there isn't a theme this year.
All of these are rated out of ten (#/10), and the final result will combine all these scores out of fifty (#/50).
This is a resource farming game where the objective is to strengthen your base area so that it will survive eventual attacks. It's pretty easy if you are proactively playing & farming, but eventually your fortress will become self-sufficient when you get lots of NPCs and farming buildings, and your only job is to sit back and watch (and put down more buildings occasionally :D). Like all games of this type, once you've gotten everything and built your area to your satisfaction, you usually lose interest.
When I started the game, I wasn't really sure what to do. I clicked around and gained some resources but had no idea what to do with them. Eventually, I figured out that you have to place your base down to start storing the materials, but there should probably be some simple documentation to lead players in the right direction to start out. Surviving the waves of mobs isn't really hard if you're constantly gathering materials and increasing the security of your base. However, there are a few fairly major flaws in the game: firstly, some operations do not check if you have the required resources, so you can end up having negative materials. Additionally, you can remove your own base and lose the game - and what's more, it's a pretty large button on the formspec of your base, so it's pretty easy to accidentally click it and ruin your game. The NPCs occasionally get stuck on things but it wasn't too bad. The NathanS repairman NPC was pretty funny. I hired one of those guys just for the texture. Overall, a pretty interesting game, haven't seen a game like this in minetest before, and the gameplay doesn't have many bugs. Recommended for a short playthrough!
Koboldkrieg looks like it's put together well enough, with ~4,500 Lines of Code, but unfortunately, it isn't really playable for me. For one thing, the goblins never come out for some reason, and the pathfinding for the NPCs fails too often, so that I have to remove obstacles to free them. I am also unsure of how to move or direct the NPCs. Being unable to progress, perhaps due to bugs or unclear instructions, it's unplayable. These genre of games are, however, not really my style to begin with.
Too easy escape puzzle, with no clear directive or ending
You just need to escape the prison you're in, which ends up being super easy, just dig your way out like a madman once you figure out how to get the digger item. I escaped in about 2 minutes and most of that time was spent inspecting the premises. I also managed to walk through the item deletion barriers while keeping my items, and as said in the other reviews, if a cave generates in the right place when you make your world, you've got a get out of jail free card :)
Once you're out, it's a flat mapgen so you can hop on the grass forever and explore caves, but there's no formal ending and if you didn't read the game's description, I suspect you'll be left wondering what more there is to do or even what you were supposed to do in the first place. This game could really profit from being a more difficult escape, with more puzzle-like elements - it's just way too easy right now! A formal introduction and ending would also help a lot, because I was confused when I did not find any documentation in-game, and after escaping, there was no indicator that I had won. Hoping for future development/progress on this game!
The divide between "used to this kind of game" and "newbie" is so incredibly vast. I needed probably another 40 gradations of difficulty before I got to the third checkpoint.
The issue is not just "game hard", it's "game unapproachable". The only people who will enjoy it are those who have already gotten over the massive difficulty cliff elsewhere, everyone else will be left stranded. That is the game's responsibility in my opinion; to initiate the player into the skills and understanding needed to enjoy the game. You could argue that the intended audience is only hardcore puzzle lovers, sure, but I would argue that if you have to go somewhere else to train to be able to play and enjoy a game, there's something wrong. The game should be for enjoyment, not an examination of prior learned skills.
Just adding more gradations of difficulty would be enough to fix the issue, but ideally there would be some kind of choice of difficulty so that if you want a really hard challenge you can skip past the more gradual difficulty curve set for the uninitiated.
The mechanic is very smooth though, every move feels satisfying. You can tell work and thought went into this.
Unfortunately I got softlocked at one point, but other than that, the mechanics of pipes and the general atmosphere was great. The cutscenes are very cool, but a suggestion would be to perhaps use a formspec to lock the player's look direction (I guess there's the downside of showing the cursor...) and speed them up a fair bit, particularly the first one. There's lot of walking, but the atmosphere mostly makes that ok. Probably it would be best however to add either more teleportation or use seamless teleports to give the illusion of a shrunk down space, to reduce walking distance a little and spend more time on puzzles and building the world and sense of wonder.
Too many gameplay elements and too little time (jam game)
To be short, I think the author wanted to add too many ingredients to the gameplay, rushing it to the inevitable consequence of providing something kind of messy (they had 3 weeks to make a game). That's unfortunate, as I think that a smaller polished RTS would have been great.
The first world didn't actually load grass, so I had to create another one. Then I found myself with the main building and zero instructions. Being an RTS game, I think it's essential to provide either a tutorial (but again, time wasn't in the author's favour) or at least a description telling the player what to do - e.g. you need the open the inventory to build, or providing a few tips to better understand where to place buildings and/or which citizens are best at the beginning. Author might know what strategy is good, but players don't as no tools are really provided. In general, no immersion (no sounds) and pretty slow paced - which, alongside the lack of instructions, makes a bad combo as it's quite unlikely that players will retry it once they lose in what it's basically a trial and error approach.
I hope to see it polished eventually, and appreciate the progress done since the jam phase
Not there yet, but the author really tried
I appreciate that the author has actually tried to polish the game: there are NPCs walking around, HUD elements on top of their heads, a dialogue system, music. It's not super polished but the intention of immersing the player in the game world is definitely there. I've also really appreciated the chat interaction required to go on!
I played it until I arrived at the pedestal and unfortunately the game is pretty slow paced. The idea of walking back at that speed, to then going there again was... not great. Also, but that might be me, the first riddle wasn't super clear and I initially thought that the objective HUD was simply broken (on the contrary, I had to place the books on the ground to read them. I think it would have been clearer to just read books by left/right-clicking whilst holding them in your hand)
basic portals proof of concept, not a game
First of all, there is no immersion at all: not a single sound gets played whilst playing and there are no instructions whatsoever. There is a lore in the game description, but no hint at all in the actual game: it just looks like a proof of concepts for portals giving you and resetting items. Two portals to be more specific, since the game happens in about a 30x30x30 area with not many things to do. I was also able to go outside the map thanks to a glitch. In general, I wouldn't define it a game, rather the first steps for a mod. Default graphics (nodes aside) don't help.
nice game
there isn't much progression, but automation potential is interesting
THE current mod for painting/accenting nodes, but could be the gold standard
This is a fantastic mod if you're looking to paint some pixelart on your base wall, or accent a vine with some pretty artificial flowers - you name it, it's usually possible. The crafts are pretty easy and picking colors and painting away is a super pleasant experience. That said, there's some major ways this mod could be improved that are simply a must to make this the gold standard.
(fixed by grorp, now you can use shift+right-click to pick a color off of a canvas!!)
Saving of the painting canvases is only done when the area is unloaded. This might sound fine, but imagine your world crashes while you're just about to finish your awesome painting that you spent the whole evening on (but you didn't leave/unload the area, you just stayed and painted). It won't be there when you relog(!!) -- and this is a problem some of my clients have had.
There's no way to move a canvas or a 'stamper' to move pixels slightly. Imagine you created a large painting centered above a fireplace in your base, only to find that the painting is one pixel off. You have to redraw the whole thing :(
It would be neat if you could export your drawings to a .png file, but this is not too important. Still, it would make this mod much more popular - why would you enter some dumb editor when you could just paint your texture natively? :D
Despite these issues, this mod is still definitely worth your time and there's simply nothing better in the painting mod club. Recommended, especially if you like pixel art :)
Good game
Good game, but a few problems: In my first game there was no goblins or metal and in my second game there was only like 2 or 3 goblins spawning and they weren't even attacking my base, just wandering around.
Interesting Idea, but no hints
Edit: rewrote comment because first version was kind of unfair. I just mistook the successful ending as failure because starting the thrusters looked as if the ship exploded.
Bad side first: game is way too short and too easy, except for the space parcours. That was cool. But the initial inside part feels like an interactive intro scene. Nothing to think about, no puzzle.
Otherwise, the atmosphere and scenery are wonderful. You get curious in the beginning, and get scared when outside, performing the parcours under pressure.
You just had too little time. Make this game a full-blown adventure with puzzles, characters and maybe interactive scenes à la Halflife and we will love you :)
This is secretly a hardcore parkour game
Others have noted the excellence put into the story for this jam game. What I want to point out is the tech is quite cool too. I only wish there might have been a little more challenge in combat. It's not just the NPCs that follow paths and have dialogue, but also: this game features a custom mapgen.
The mapgen is pretty cool. It is made with a series of parameters about where to place the village, the pedestal and the paths. Beneath this is the base terrain generator, which places the grass, dirt, and flowers. But wait, there's more - this isn't just Luanti's built-in mapgen.
After you're done with the main game, you can go for a wander. Eventually out past 1000 nodes, you'll find an increasingly steep cliff face. See how high you can get. My personal record is an altitude of y=655. You'll need to use some ingenuity with what you have at your disposal and some parkour skills.
A short parkour which happens to have some dialogue
I don't recommend this for its story, but in case you would like to play a short parkour course that needs in-air control. It also features computers that run Manjaro.
The atmosphere is pretty decent, with the breathing sounds and walking sounds. The story idea is in the middle ground: not completely flawed, but very rushed. It's hard to make something interesting when it's this short. There's also no real point to taking the side paths, and in fact I was more inclined to go that way than be led down the garden path. I'm not saying it's a problem to have non-linearity, but it does feel unsatisfying to be able to go straight to the end.
The mechanics I mostly found frustrating. It's not too bad when you're inside the ship to get a modal dialogue pop up. A place in the UI to re-read them would have made sense, at least in a longer game or one with more of a puzzle. But what really annoyed me was getting a pop-up that stops me dead in my tracks when I'm half out of oxygen, to make me read a paragraph, and in a parkour section without an immediately obvious foward path and no valid backwards escape. In fact if you are too eager with the parkour, you might get stopped mid-air and fall as a result. I also really would have appreciated if the doors closed themselves on a short timer. You have to keep the oxygen in you see.. well.. if there were any.
Another thing that takes away from the experience is that it was clearly intended to be played in one sitting, and doesn't distinguish reloading a world from first entering the world. I'm not saying don't let the game begin again if it was finished, but if I had to go reconfigure something (like accidentally enabling creative mode), I probably shouldn't be made to start again. This is a common problem in Jam games.
I don't want to seem overly harsh or nit-picky. But my experience was mostly spent having a hard time with the parkour.
Good concept, needs a bit of QoL improvements
Eye See You! 👁
A fun twist on the "stealth" genre: Not only are there evil eyes which must not see you; most of the time the challenge is to stay within the field of view of at least one good eye: "The Unseen are lost!"
The game further gains a bit of a puzzle game note by having buttons you have to press to make new paths accessible. These can be hard to find at times, but it is never wrong to press them. Hence the winning strategy essentially is to scour the levels for buttons, pressing all of them (and memorizing their positions and a sensible order to press them in for future attempts in case you fail), though this is in practice much harder to do than it sounds. Some buttons are definitely deviously placed :)
The graphics, music, and overall atmosphere are all consistent and nicely done.
Overall, a good two to three hours of fun.
I was wishful of a quality game.
It crashed due to some error, and even if it did work there's not much do even do.
Wonderful game, but too short
I really liked the spell system and its kinda sad that there is only two of them. The textures and the music were immersive. I found the mapgen and the small village really cool. In conclusion, it was really good and immersive, and I would love a longer adventure.
Great game
Another great game by Wuzzy ! This game is really cool, but some of the levels are hard, like the room where you have to turn on lights. I think that the timer when you're not seen by the eyes is a little too short, sometimes I go in an area where eyes cant see me and I don't have enough time to go back.
Great Idea
The idea alone is worth a price! Together with the music it has a mildly scary atmosphere, I like it. Nice level design, too. Found no bugs so far. But I'm far from having completed it. Haven't seen any gore so far, eyeballs or blood-red writing doesn't count :-P I wonder from where Wuzzy takes the time for all this. Must be a fulltime Luantiveloper. Good stuff.
Amazing
This game is so cool, I didn't know such things were possible in Luanti. Can be quite hard but you can change the difficulty. Love the textures, this game is 10/10.
Interesting short playthrough, but leaves a lot of questions!
This game reminded me a bit of The secret story of Spacetravel by NathanS, a 2022 Game Jam entry. It's a spaceship-themed game where you have to find the cause of some issues in the spaceship, but ultimately, finding the cause and fixing the spaceship ends up being pretty easy and there isn't a whole lot of exploration to do. The best part is a small parkour near the end (with a few tough jumps!) to get to the final room. However, there is not much of a plot yet: I still don't know anything about myself, the spaceship's purpose, or my crewmates, before the game ends. There's also no purpose to fixing the spaceship because the game immediately ends, so I can't find out more things about the spaceship after fixing the engine, and I'm still not sure how I got in this spaceship!
Overall, it's just too short, it only took me about 8 minutes to solve. Because I wasn't in the game too long, the breathing sound didn't annoy me, it actually added to the ambience, but I could imagine it would after a while. A longer playing time and a more developed plot would be better, and perhaps, in the theme of SSS, using carefully positioned hints in the map instead of pop-up dialogues to make the experience more realistic and mysterious to the user.
The game is rigged
I keep rolling a 1 😭
Impressive
This game feels like you've pushed the boundaries of what's possible with Luanti. The custom camera movement is not what the engine was designed for, the different size scale of nodes is not what the engine was designed for, ... yet this game exists, showing us what Luanti is capable of and what it could be capable of.
At the same time, this game is incredibly polished. The visual and audio experience is beautiful and coherent. It's easy to understand the game and fun to play. I love it :)
One thing to note is that this game doesn't work well on Android. If your device is less powerful, the game will be laggy, and the mobile controls are just not what you need for this game.
Short dungeon-style puzzle with interesting characters -- much more to come?
Enjoyed this, one of the most polished games in the Jam this year! Only took me about an hour to solve overall, and the walking/exploring part was not boring at all for me - the curtains made it exciting and a bit nervewracking. When you boil it down, the plot isn't huge yet, but it's put together in a very strong way, so that you are invested in the characters and obviously want to know what is behind the dungeons. The 'puzzle' part of it isn't very complicated yet, I'd consider it more of a visual novel type game at the moment. It's evident that this game was influenced quite a bit by the short window for the Game Jam so I'm really looking forward to future progress and updates!
The character swapping in the finishing parts of the game was really very interesting and creative, making you the overseer of a collaboration. Ultimately, the ending scene was a bit underwhelming -- not the scene itself, which was extremely dramatic and impressive, but the fact that you are kind of at a loss for what to do next. You're teleported back into a hallway which you can't get out of, and what the boss just said to you looms over your head. You're stuck completely helpless with no way of finishing the story (yet). A better resolution would be great, hopefully defeating the evil and learning more about Vix's history somehow!
I also found it quite funny that the residents of this land are apparently so bored that they go for wild, dangerous adventures whenever rumors pop up on the surface. :)
If you're having trouble playing the game after the first scene (falling in darkness), do
/grantme teleportand/teleport 84 237 136(thank you to the author for giving me that clue). I had problems with that but didn't have any other problems playing the game after that. I'm sure this will be fixed after the game jam's concluding so I will maybe delete this part of my review later. :)Interesting addition to concretes, extends vanilla with additional colors.
I cheated a bit to discover the recipes for making the concretes, one seemed a bit more obvious by look than the other, but I should have realized sooner. As far as I tested, it seemed to work about the same as the other concretes and I would believe all forms were available.
I wonder about some effects which differ from the vanilla forms, particularly the purple cement. Without giving out any spoilers here, lets just say that the wandering result left something different than what a similar vanilla recipe caused which I would have expected. There may be some logic or reasoning behind this but it is not what I had expected since it is unique to the mod. I do agree with how this same form of concrete requires something else to create it, that makes sense to me (and I like it). I also tested for washout result which for one was expected and again the other not so much.
I did not test how panels work (I assume they exist) so I do not know if there is a difference such as exists among the other brick panels.
Thank you for adding to the NodeCore environment.
Incredible FPS-style game, but very CPU demanding
First off-- WOW!!! Never seen anything like this in Minetest before, this is simply amazing. The weapons are pretty awesome and destructive, the sound effects are top-notch, and gameplay is typical for a FPS game - intense. As more and more of the buggers tunnel towards you, things seem to get more and more intense, as you try to navigate away from danger while also firing wildly. This is more than replayable and I would not be surprised at all if a popular multiplayer server pops up with this later. (it will need to be powerful though - see below!)
However, this game seems to have one big flaw (maybe the only flaw) -- CPU usage :-) My computer with 8GB of RAM and 4 cores just couldn't handle it and I crashed my computer three times trying to play this. Actions were delayed by like 10 seconds when I was playing, so I couldn't even tell that the guns were working and I took a good bit of time investigating the code to see if I was doing anything wrong. Luckily, my friend let me use his much more powerful computer and it was a completely different experience - the gameplay was incredible, and I didn't have any problems understanding the game or starting my attacks.
If you've got a CPU that can run this, this is easily the best game of the Jam this year. Thank you so much for yet another amazing game, Sumianvoice!
Extraordinary!
This game is fantastic. The moment-to-moment play is engaging, and swings from tense moments as you see walls being dug out and wait for the enemy to pour through on top of you, to frantic firing and maneuvering as you try to avoid having your mech pulled apart by giant mandibles.
It could use some balancing, new enemies and objectives, but bugs in the code are, unlike the bugs in the tunnels, thankfully rare. All in all, this is a fantastic piece of work!
Immersive game with a great storyline!
A fantastic short playthrough, with a great storyline. My only wish is that it was a bit longer, it took me around 10 minutes to solve, and there weren't too many objectives to go through - maybe only 7-8. I have the feeling this could be speedrunned in 2-3 minutes, so it could definitely use some new content, but I still think it is fantastic, especially considering the time limits of the Game Jam this year.
The work that regulus has put into the atmosphere, textures, NPCs, and the music, is beautiful. It really immerses you in the environment and makes you truly want to solve the game. The objectives in the right-hand corner help you follow what you're supposed to do next. Nothing stumped me for too long and usually I knew exactly what to do, but it was still exciting because of the storyline and dialogue that kept me guessing. The animation after you win the game is spectacular -- by far it is one of the best animations I've ever seen in the game jam. This is probably going to end up as one of my favorite games because of how polished it is, but I still have a few other games to try. Thank you for a great game, regulus! :)
WIP game with promise, but currently unplayable
This is a space exploration game I guess, but it's hard to figure out what to do to start. You start the game in a small rocket, but you have to figure out that you can use the up/down keys to lower your rocket and explore, which I didn't understand and died a few times :-) Sadly, the rocket also threw me out of it and killed me several times, so there might be a problem with the attaching there.
Once you get out of the rocket and onto land, there's not a lot to do other than explore and perhaps make some makeshift tools and mine. But no real purpose other than that. That said, the rocket abilities are pretty cool and the game definitely shows promise. The biomes are cool too! A tier system where a player needs to work to have the materials needed to go to another planet might be cool, with the final planet offering some sort of interesting finish.
It's OK
The initial cutscene was good, and some of the atmosphere I liked, as well as the door animation, but it was unclear what exactly to do other than running around in what looks like identical rooms. Maybe I missed a lever, or softlocked it somehow?
Not Interesting Enough to Solve
It's kind of obvious what might have happened to the spaceship, but getting it back in proper condition is confusing. All the rooms and hallways look basically the same, so that does not aid in figuring out where you are at, or need to go. Ultimately, I lost interest. The breathing sound gets irritating pretty quickly, too.
Prototype Space Exploration Game
This is very much a prototype, with bugs and not much direction as to what to do or how to do it. The procedural generation is very basic, and I can't even travel to the other planets, perhaps due to a bug.
Short & Sweet
While not replayable, this short little interactive fiction game was fun to play, with a few effects, particularly concerning the NPCs, that could be instructive to others making their own IF stories in Luanti.
Hard, not my style but good
This game is really hard, Its not exactly my style but it is a good puzzle game.
Fun to play but a little unintuitive
Koboldkreig is a pretty solid game. I find it pretty fun to build up defenses and create a base using the resources around you. The only flaw I've noticed with this game so far is that the game doesn't tell you that you, the player, can collect resources for your base. That will definitely get people stuck longer than they would like.
'Brilliant' Puzzle
Eye am going to be making a lot of eye-related puns and jokes for this review. One might say this puzzle is brilliant, illuminating, eye-opening, even. The mechanics are solid, and the atmosphere is done well, both with the audio and the textures - it is almost liminal. I did not, however, finish all the levels yet. Ironically, this is not a game for those with low vision or other visual impairments.
Bloxorz on LSD
OK, maybe not LSD, but it's a lot more colorful than I remember Bloxorz being. There's a different puzzle dynamic, which I'm not sure I like, at least, while I'm forced to look at the level from one angle and only one angle. Those with terrible spaciotemporal skills, beware! Still, I managed to get to the 5th checkpoint in one sitting.
Absolutely incredible!!
I still haven't managed to finish "fun hard", but it's very very fun! The textures are Sumianvoice-level perfect (see their textures in Age of Mending and the Backrooms) and fit the game perfectly. The different weapons are fun to try out and have good, easy-to-understand mechanics. Only bugs I found that still need to be shot: Some glitches with the camera cause it to swing around in wild ways occasionally; I started out in complete blackness because my range was set to 20 (maybe the game could automatically change it to 100?); and changing weapons mid-game is glitchy. But these problems pretty much mean nothing next to how amazing this turned out. Keep up the great work, Sumianvoice!
Scores rate how good different aspects of the game are.
Effects is mostly how the game looks/feels. If a game doesn’t have good-looking textures, particle effects, or architecture that is actually plot-relevant, it can get a low Effects score.
Gameplay involves how good, fun, interesting or effective the gameplay is. If a game doesn’t have well-designed puzzles that are something a gamer actually feels they can figure out with obvious end results, it can get a low Gameplay score.
Plot, of course, is how good the plot is, how well it fits with the game itself, and whether it is actually interesting for players. If a game doesn’t have an obvious plot or goals, it can get a low Plot score.
Theme is how the game feels and is laid out. If a game doesn’t feel right, doesn't have a theme that fits its plot or gameplay, or is too bland, it can get a low Theme score.
Coolness is a rating I added because there isn't a theme this year.
All of these are rated out of ten (#/10), and the final result will combine all these scores out of fifty (#/50).
Effects: 10/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Plot: 10/10
Theme: 10/10
Coolness: 10/10
Overall: 48/50 🔗
Clicker-like resource farming defense game
This is a resource farming game where the objective is to strengthen your base area so that it will survive eventual attacks. It's pretty easy if you are proactively playing & farming, but eventually your fortress will become self-sufficient when you get lots of NPCs and farming buildings, and your only job is to sit back and watch (and put down more buildings occasionally :D). Like all games of this type, once you've gotten everything and built your area to your satisfaction, you usually lose interest.
When I started the game, I wasn't really sure what to do. I clicked around and gained some resources but had no idea what to do with them. Eventually, I figured out that you have to place your base down to start storing the materials, but there should probably be some simple documentation to lead players in the right direction to start out. Surviving the waves of mobs isn't really hard if you're constantly gathering materials and increasing the security of your base. However, there are a few fairly major flaws in the game: firstly, some operations do not check if you have the required resources, so you can end up having negative materials. Additionally, you can remove your own base and lose the game - and what's more, it's a pretty large button on the formspec of your base, so it's pretty easy to accidentally click it and ruin your game. The NPCs occasionally get stuck on things but it wasn't too bad. The NathanS repairman NPC was pretty funny. I hired one of those guys just for the texture. Overall, a pretty interesting game, haven't seen a game like this in minetest before, and the gameplay doesn't have many bugs. Recommended for a short playthrough!
Too Simple of a Puzzle
I'm afraid there is zero replayability to this puzzle game, and it was quickly done. There wasn't even celebratory music once you were out!
Not My Style
Koboldkrieg looks like it's put together well enough, with ~4,500 Lines of Code, but unfortunately, it isn't really playable for me. For one thing, the goblins never come out for some reason, and the pathfinding for the NPCs fails too often, so that I have to remove obstacles to free them. I am also unsure of how to move or direct the NPCs. Being unable to progress, perhaps due to bugs or unclear instructions, it's unplayable. These genre of games are, however, not really my style to begin with.
Too easy escape puzzle, with no clear directive or ending
You just need to escape the prison you're in, which ends up being super easy, just dig your way out like a madman once you figure out how to get the digger item. I escaped in about 2 minutes and most of that time was spent inspecting the premises. I also managed to walk through the item deletion barriers while keeping my items, and as said in the other reviews, if a cave generates in the right place when you make your world, you've got a get out of jail free card :)
Once you're out, it's a flat mapgen so you can hop on the grass forever and explore caves, but there's no formal ending and if you didn't read the game's description, I suspect you'll be left wondering what more there is to do or even what you were supposed to do in the first place. This game could really profit from being a more difficult escape, with more puzzle-like elements - it's just way too easy right now! A formal introduction and ending would also help a lot, because I was confused when I did not find any documentation in-game, and after escaping, there was no indicator that I had won. Hoping for future development/progress on this game!
Purely for puzzle enthusiasts
The divide between "used to this kind of game" and "newbie" is so incredibly vast. I needed probably another 40 gradations of difficulty before I got to the third checkpoint.
The issue is not just "game hard", it's "game unapproachable". The only people who will enjoy it are those who have already gotten over the massive difficulty cliff elsewhere, everyone else will be left stranded. That is the game's responsibility in my opinion; to initiate the player into the skills and understanding needed to enjoy the game. You could argue that the intended audience is only hardcore puzzle lovers, sure, but I would argue that if you have to go somewhere else to train to be able to play and enjoy a game, there's something wrong. The game should be for enjoyment, not an examination of prior learned skills.
Just adding more gradations of difficulty would be enough to fix the issue, but ideally there would be some kind of choice of difficulty so that if you want a really hard challenge you can skip past the more gradual difficulty curve set for the uninitiated.
The mechanic is very smooth though, every move feels satisfying. You can tell work and thought went into this.
Great atmosphere and polish
Unfortunately I got softlocked at one point, but other than that, the mechanics of pipes and the general atmosphere was great. The cutscenes are very cool, but a suggestion would be to perhaps use a formspec to lock the player's look direction (I guess there's the downside of showing the cursor...) and speed them up a fair bit, particularly the first one. There's lot of walking, but the atmosphere mostly makes that ok. Probably it would be best however to add either more teleportation or use seamless teleports to give the illusion of a shrunk down space, to reduce walking distance a little and spend more time on puzzles and building the world and sense of wonder.