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.
Hard, a little devious, but an absolutely solid experience
The atmosphere, the worldbuilding and the mechanics are on point. Seriously impressive. The mechanics themselves are super fun, because they're predictable yet varied and challenging. The music is good, the atmosphere is great, you feel like you want to know more about the world just by being in it. The difficulty is probably a little high overall, but it's much better than most would do for a puzzle game and that is commendable. There were some visual bugs like the glass textures but other than that it was (so far, I got stuck) a super solid experience.
Mild spoilers:
The dark sphere level (9) is absolutely cruel and unusual punishment. Like, that's just... ouch. I got stuck on the tower unfortunately, and couldnt find a way to activate the eyes on the top floor, so I gave up after searching for quite some time.
Robot Escape has you enter the world as a robot with some hypothetical daily tasks you're meant to perform. For whatever plot-convenient reason, you become self aware and decide to escape. Unfortunately that doesn't take very long and isn't very satisfying when you do manage it.
There is the core of an interesting idea here, if it could be written much better. The item names were quite evocative to make us sympathise with the robot. Some story-writing would help. Some kind of monologue commentary from the robot, played out in text and/or audio when the player performs certain actions. As it is, we're left to imagine the motivations of the robot and suspend our disbelief a bit too much.
Robot Escape has a small puzzle element, but really needed a longer puzzle and the puzzle needed to be prevented from leakage/cheating (deliberate but even accidental). I actually managed to walk through the item-deleting grids while keeping my items.
The game also really needed some kind of cue for the game ending. Something as simple as walking far enough away from your prison and triggering an audio cue, a fade to black and a credits reel would have sufficed.
Speaking of audio, while I appreciate all the assets were made by the author, a lack of audio is always a big immersion breaker. In my opinion it's better to borrow even the basics like footstep and digging sounds from existing Luanti games (which is very much allowed). If you want to try DIYing it, I recommend SFXr.
Overall, I hope we can see more of what the author can do than this "proof of concept".
The mapgen is buggy since it uses flat, with caves it can spawn with an open cell thus no escape needed. Also you can just throw the items through and pick them up on the other side of the tool remover wall. There is also no end menu.
Enchanting puzzle, but way overboard on the creepypasta
This is a super difficult puzzle (at least it was for me), the beginning levels are easy to train you, and then it gets harder from there - fast. The final levels are combinations of mazes, parkour, and discovery, all while making sure you don't get out of range of a good eye. You have infinite time and lives to complete a puzzle, so you just need to figure out the path and combination of buttons that will get you to the portal. Look around everywhere for hints and be very cautious - if you're quick about it, you can make a move forward and then backward to 'see' if you can proceed any further, without resetting. In some cases it's just quicker and easier to run around like a madman though, especially near the beginning of a puzzle. I really like the concept of this game, the last level with the tower was my favorite.
However, I think this game went too overboard on the creepypasta element: it's a lot like the backrooms in several levels, and the writing on the walls in various levels appear to be written in blood. Most rooms are very dark and combined with the music and the eyes, it's completely terrifying. It's flagged as "Gore" which I definitely think is appropriate but this still caught me by surprise. If that's your thing, this game is for you, I guess, but I turned off my music and adjusted my contrast to try to alleviate the mood immediately. Awesome puzzle though, recommended if you're not affected by creepypasta.
The game is amazing, it is a bit intense on CPU at mapgen time but it is amazing game to play. The interface is the best of all of the jam games and the gameplay is simply beautiful. This is the type of thing that people should be making for these jams.
Very difficult puzzle with regular checkpoints, I haven't finished it yet but I'm loving it -- this is super hard (for me at least) and is really fun to play - oddly relaxing. The whole thing is super simplistic and the sound effects match that theme. It's incredibly satisfying to get that white confetti stream and lock in the new checkpoint. The documentation is spot on and explains the game really well. Also, I was really relieved that progress is saved even though I exit the game. I'm going to be working on this one a while, probably, but I'm enjoying every second of it so far. Highly recommended if you like mind puzzles!
I really enjoy the concept. Despite a few bugs (text glitches, damage clipping through single-node walls), I appreciate the work that went into this game jam project.
The limited crafting and toolkit make for a really nice and focused experience, and everything you get revolves around providing additional resources for your exosuit. No upgrades (aside from a rare boost to your drill), just you, your mission, and the danger in between.
I do have to wonder where the music comes from or if it's original, I enjoy it quite a bit.
A nice puzzle game with unique game mechanics, the game is a little bit long, which can be a good thing. some of the puzzles were a bit tough, (I had to cheat with /grantme for 1-2 of the levels) Overall a great game of great quality.
Delightfully creepy puzzle, a real classic from Wuzzy.
Wuzzy's style shows through every facet of this puzzling game, which makes it all the more fun.
Creepy, intense and realaxing all at the same time. The perfect puzzle to keep you up at night...
It's an interesting playthrough - unfortunately, the items hardly equip you for what you're supposed to do and the tips are a bit misleading (because the map is misdrawn, although this may be a creative touch by the author). Basically, you need to visit a particular location which will tell you where to go to find the boss, or just visit the location to begin with (there are no enforceable steps). Once you go through a few mazes, you arrive in the boss' underground chamber. The boss is super overpowered compared to you with your wimpy sword, but you can outrun him, so just gradually hit him as you run out of his grasp - once you know that, there's nothing to it. He does get a bit faster once he is low HP, but not fast enough to be a problem in my opinion. A potential exploit I found is that you can stay in your car once you get down to the boss, and he eventually destroys your car, but it seems like it damages his HP a lot - not sure. Unfortunately, I could hardly play the game because of the very heavy models, which tanked my fps like crazy. Granted, I'm on an older computer, but you should definitely have a decent GPU if you play this - there are some really neat models but they have way too many vertices for my GPU. Additionally, the textures are grainy and because the game uses numerous models, it gets super grainy along model edges, which is a bit hard on the eyes. A few textures are missing too, like the ones for the ancient tree.
IMO this should probably also be marked (content flags) as Gore, because the random body limbs strewn around the map are a bit shocking.
Very simple game, but pretty fun to play a few times! It's like yahtzee - 90% luck and a little bit of skill thrown in to make it interesting. The strategies of the game itself are fairly simple - if you get anything other than a 1, the roll's value is added to your score. If you hit a 1, then you lose everything you gained on that turn, and you can pass your turn to avoid the 1 coming up. The computer (edited based on comments) is super smart, the author implemented one of the strongest strategies, so you have a less than 50% chance of winning even with ideal play, but somehow I got lucky and beat out the computer. I stuck with a strategy of doing 2-5 rolls at max and passing, and won on my first try. But the second time I played, the computer got off to a great start and I wasn't able to come back. Losing the game is quite terrifying, as the pigs suddenly turn on you and scream your headset out. Overall, a fun dice game, but probably needs just a bit more strategy to keep players interested for longer. :)
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.
Hard, a little devious, but an absolutely solid experience
The atmosphere, the worldbuilding and the mechanics are on point. Seriously impressive. The mechanics themselves are super fun, because they're predictable yet varied and challenging. The music is good, the atmosphere is great, you feel like you want to know more about the world just by being in it. The difficulty is probably a little high overall, but it's much better than most would do for a puzzle game and that is commendable. There were some visual bugs like the glass textures but other than that it was (so far, I got stuck) a super solid experience.
Mild spoilers: The dark sphere level (9) is absolutely cruel and unusual punishment. Like, that's just... ouch. I got stuck on the tower unfortunately, and couldnt find a way to activate the eyes on the top floor, so I gave up after searching for quite some time.
No clear direction, incomplete story ideas
Robot Escape has you enter the world as a robot with some hypothetical daily tasks you're meant to perform. For whatever plot-convenient reason, you become self aware and decide to escape. Unfortunately that doesn't take very long and isn't very satisfying when you do manage it.
There is the core of an interesting idea here, if it could be written much better. The item names were quite evocative to make us sympathise with the robot. Some story-writing would help. Some kind of monologue commentary from the robot, played out in text and/or audio when the player performs certain actions. As it is, we're left to imagine the motivations of the robot and suspend our disbelief a bit too much.
Robot Escape has a small puzzle element, but really needed a longer puzzle and the puzzle needed to be prevented from leakage/cheating (deliberate but even accidental). I actually managed to walk through the item-deleting grids while keeping my items.
The game also really needed some kind of cue for the game ending. Something as simple as walking far enough away from your prison and triggering an audio cue, a fade to black and a credits reel would have sufficed.
Speaking of audio, while I appreciate all the assets were made by the author, a lack of audio is always a big immersion breaker. In my opinion it's better to borrow even the basics like footstep and digging sounds from existing Luanti games (which is very much allowed). If you want to try DIYing it, I recommend SFXr.
Overall, I hope we can see more of what the author can do than this "proof of concept".
Best and most creative game in Minetest history
Awesome GUI design, realisation and concept.
Great game
This game has great textures, buildings and a nice little story.
Fun puzzle game
I am enjoying figuring out this game - I'll keep it there, installed, staring at me until I complete it.
The only feedback I have is to set a key (possibly inventory) to open the tutorial/explanation menu again.
Buggy for a half-game
The mapgen is buggy since it uses flat, with caves it can spawn with an open cell thus no escape needed. Also you can just throw the items through and pick them up on the other side of the tool remover wall. There is also no end menu.
Enchanting puzzle, but way overboard on the creepypasta
This is a super difficult puzzle (at least it was for me), the beginning levels are easy to train you, and then it gets harder from there - fast. The final levels are combinations of mazes, parkour, and discovery, all while making sure you don't get out of range of a good eye. You have infinite time and lives to complete a puzzle, so you just need to figure out the path and combination of buttons that will get you to the portal. Look around everywhere for hints and be very cautious - if you're quick about it, you can make a move forward and then backward to 'see' if you can proceed any further, without resetting. In some cases it's just quicker and easier to run around like a madman though, especially near the beginning of a puzzle. I really like the concept of this game, the last level with the tower was my favorite.
However, I think this game went too overboard on the creepypasta element: it's a lot like the backrooms in several levels, and the writing on the walls in various levels appear to be written in blood. Most rooms are very dark and combined with the music and the eyes, it's completely terrifying. It's flagged as "Gore" which I definitely think is appropriate but this still caught me by surprise. If that's your thing, this game is for you, I guess, but I turned off my music and adjusted my contrast to try to alleviate the mood immediately. Awesome puzzle though, recommended if you're not affected by creepypasta.
Very Widelands feeling
This game is very nice. It seems to be based off of Widelands but maybe thats just me.
I didn't know things like this were possible
The game is amazing, it is a bit intense on CPU at mapgen time but it is amazing game to play. The interface is the best of all of the jam games and the gameplay is simply beautiful. This is the type of thing that people should be making for these jams.
Very difficult but relaxing mind puzzle!!
Very difficult puzzle with regular checkpoints, I haven't finished it yet but I'm loving it -- this is super hard (for me at least) and is really fun to play - oddly relaxing. The whole thing is super simplistic and the sound effects match that theme. It's incredibly satisfying to get that white confetti stream and lock in the new checkpoint. The documentation is spot on and explains the game really well. Also, I was really relieved that progress is saved even though I exit the game. I'm going to be working on this one a while, probably, but I'm enjoying every second of it so far. Highly recommended if you like mind puzzles!
A neat spin on what Luanti can do
I really enjoy the concept. Despite a few bugs (text glitches, damage clipping through single-node walls), I appreciate the work that went into this game jam project.
The limited crafting and toolkit make for a really nice and focused experience, and everything you get revolves around providing additional resources for your exosuit. No upgrades (aside from a rare boost to your drill), just you, your mission, and the danger in between.
I do have to wonder where the music comes from or if it's original, I enjoy it quite a bit.
My Review
A nice puzzle game with unique game mechanics, the game is a little bit long, which can be a good thing. some of the puzzles were a bit tough, (I had to cheat with /grantme for 1-2 of the levels) Overall a great game of great quality.
Delightfully creepy puzzle, a real classic from Wuzzy.
Wuzzy's style shows through every facet of this puzzling game, which makes it all the more fun. Creepy, intense and realaxing all at the same time. The perfect puzzle to keep you up at night...
Short puzzle with an underwhelming boss
It's an interesting playthrough - unfortunately, the items hardly equip you for what you're supposed to do and the tips are a bit misleading (because the map is misdrawn, although this may be a creative touch by the author). Basically, you need to visit a particular location which will tell you where to go to find the boss, or just visit the location to begin with (there are no enforceable steps). Once you go through a few mazes, you arrive in the boss' underground chamber. The boss is super overpowered compared to you with your wimpy sword, but you can outrun him, so just gradually hit him as you run out of his grasp - once you know that, there's nothing to it. He does get a bit faster once he is low HP, but not fast enough to be a problem in my opinion. A potential exploit I found is that you can stay in your car once you get down to the boss, and he eventually destroys your car, but it seems like it damages his HP a lot - not sure. Unfortunately, I could hardly play the game because of the very heavy models, which tanked my fps like crazy. Granted, I'm on an older computer, but you should definitely have a decent GPU if you play this - there are some really neat models but they have way too many vertices for my GPU. Additionally, the textures are grainy and because the game uses numerous models, it gets super grainy along model edges, which is a bit hard on the eyes. A few textures are missing too, like the ones for the ancient tree.
IMO this should probably also be marked (content flags) as Gore, because the random body limbs strewn around the map are a bit shocking.
Poor UI and graphicly painful
The inventory formspec does not work after looking at a star system. The textures are kinda painful to look at... The concept is intriguing though.
Funny, short dice game
Very simple game, but pretty fun to play a few times! It's like yahtzee - 90% luck and a little bit of skill thrown in to make it interesting. The strategies of the game itself are fairly simple - if you get anything other than a 1, the roll's value is added to your score. If you hit a 1, then you lose everything you gained on that turn, and you can pass your turn to avoid the 1 coming up. The computer (edited based on comments) is super smart, the author implemented one of the strongest strategies, so you have a less than 50% chance of winning even with ideal play, but somehow I got lucky and beat out the computer. I stuck with a strategy of doing 2-5 rolls at max and passing, and won on my first try. But the second time I played, the computer got off to a great start and I wasn't able to come back. Losing the game is quite terrifying, as the pigs suddenly turn on you and scream your headset out. Overall, a fun dice game, but probably needs just a bit more strategy to keep players interested for longer. :)