This looks like a VERY VERY VERY early prototype and there is almost nothing you can do. No sounds, no music, no explanation. You spawn in a space station and there are a couple of blocks you can pick up and place somewhere else but that's mostly it. You can also "warp" your space station apparently but I don't know what it does. I am VERY confused and I don't know what else to say. The README file also openly admits you can't do much, so …
Obviously, I cannot give a recommendation for such an early game. I might still check it out later, just in case.
No recommendation, because there's way too little to do, and it crashes often. However, I like this submission a LOT more than Occupy Moon since at least an actual effort was made to do something new from scratch rather just mushing together Minetest Game and Technic. So, I appreciate the effort. :-) Maybe this game will be more interesting with more missions, content and in general just more stuff to do and more challenging gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very simple: You grab your jackhammer and dig as many moon rocks as you can, then you return them to the base. There's a catch: Your jackhammer needs to recharge, so you might need multiple travels. But this is really the only thing the game has to offer: Once you collected 50 rocks of a total of 4 types, you win. The game's only real challenge is to remember your base location, which is easy if you place moon rocks as some kind of waypoint markers. Not every rock will be right at your doorstep, so you might need a longer trip. But that's really the only challenge.
I don't think it is even possible to die / fail, or at least that's very hard to achieve.
Mapgen
Unfortunately, it appears it's just the default mapgen with different blocks. Since it's a moon game, I would at least expect something like moon craters, but I could not find anything unique about the mapgen. The strangest thing about the map is the HUGE amounts of moon ice.
No recommendation, this game is just a prototype, the gameplay doesn't really work yet.
Game Jam comment
This game was created for a game jam, but it has clearly missed the point of it, because there is a HUGE number of pre-existing mods, but the goal was to create game from scratch. Using some existing code is OK, but this one apparently includes half of Minetest Game and the Technic mod and even more; that's way too much for a game jam IMHO. For that reason alone I cannot give a good rating for this game jam submission. The README lists the pre-existing mods. The only mod that is not listed is weld_all. I looked at this and apparently it is responsible for the checmicals sampler and supply rocket and missions. This is a bit too little effort IMHO. The bulk of this game is this clearly carried by the other mods.
But I am going to pretend I'm not aware of that …
Gameplay
This is very clearly an alpha stage game. Not even the moon gravity is working! And everything about this game I have to get from the README. At first, the README told me I had to install an inventory mod myself. :( Then I tried to start with farming. This part worked, but growth is slow and boring. Unfortunately, I quickly got stuck as I have been unable to produce power for the technic machines. The game doesn't even tell me how the basic Technic stuff works, but I still remembered the basics. Sadly, the solar panels don't work, and that's apparently the only way to operate a working furnace, so I can't even cook glass, apparently, so I came to a screeching halt. And then I lost interest.
Graphics, sounds, controls, etc.
No comment, most content is just copied from other games/mods.
No recommendation. This game just offers way too little in terms of gameplay to be interesting, and it's a grind.
Gameplay
Frankly, it's a boring grind. There are only 3 things to do: Fly to astroids, mine and craft stuff to advance the story. Later you get to search for blackboxes, and then the game ends. Meh. I appreciate the innovation of flying in a spaceship, but movement still feels a little bit laggy sometimes. You can safely crash into asteroids without taking damage.
The universe is made out of asteroids, but they are very repetitive. The map generation appears to be procedurally generated, but it looks the same everywhere. The astroids don't look "natural" to me either, they look more like blobs than asteroids.
Graphics
The graphics are a werid mishmash of high-res and low-res textures, it's not a good overall. The menus all use the boring default graphical style. :-( The health indicator also uses the default texture.
UX/UI
It's all pretty confusing. For some reason, you must combine a stick and a broken drill to even get started (???). Later, I was flying in slow-mo for a long time until I realized I must release the handbrake. XD. The game doesn't have any HUD indicators. Also, the various ship's crafting features are kinda confusing as well, and I had to try out various combinations. The crafting system is pretty weird, so you collect every asteroid to craft "gravel mix" and this in turn gives you ... fuel?!
Music / sound
I really like the music, it gives the game a good "space explorer" vibe. Quite a contrast to the graphics. But there are no sounds.
Story
The story isn't really noteworthy. It a generic "lost in space" story that we all heard hundreds of times. Other game jam entries had more memorable stories.
Stability / performance.
The game is mostly stable, but I found a funny bug: You can drop items and they … fall down in space?! I had no performance issues.
No recommendation. The core gameplay just doesn't work out, as the only thing that you can reliably attack are windows, and even then your ammo is limited and there is no way to refill. And everything else about this game is not good either.
Gameplay
It's very simple. You run around a town and firebomb everything on sight. And that's basically it. There is a destruct-o-meter but pretty much the only thing that raises is are glass windows. A few other things can be destroyed as well, but they are too rare in the world to be relevant. My record was to get the destruct-o-meter to 100, then I ran out of ammo. The town itself looks very incomplete, there are a lot of empty areas. There are cops that try to kill you on sight, so you have to be on the run.There are 3 weapons: Fire bomb, pipe bomb and your fist. The fire bomb makes a lot of fire, but it doesn't seem to be very useful with destroying things. The pipe bomb is your main weapon, but it seems to be only useful to destroy windows and the occasional furniture. Most things appear to be immune to damage.
Once your run out of ammo, you only have your fist left and the game is basically over. There are no ammo pickups or anything like that, which is a huge bummer. When you die, you just respawn with your entire inventory and score. The game doesn't even restart properly when you die.
The game isn't fun at all, the core gameplay mechanic just doesn't work out, especially since you apparently can't actually attack a lot of things to increase the destruct-o-meter and you have to deal with a SINGLE ammo supply for the entire game, and the game doesn't even restart properly.
A BIG recommendation from me, EXCEPT when you're colorblind, then not (hopefully this gets fixed). Overall, I was pretty impressed by that one, but please figure out the accessiblity thing. Apart from that, the game still can use a bit of polishing and especially content, but hey, it's a game jam! :D
Gameplay
This is where the game shines. You have to figure out everything on your own, but the game is never unfair to you. Every concept is introduced one after another. It seems a lot of time was put into level design, even with a lot of attention for detail, which I appreciate a lot. The core feature of the game, the pushing and pulling of klots, works perfectly. The movement of the klots is completely smooth, both visually and physically; even a player collision was considered to prevent awkward overlaps. That alone is quite an achievement, WOW!
There aren't a lot of levels, and the game sadly ended before it really began, but this is a fake complaint, as it is WAY outweighed by quality. Thinking of good levels for such a game isn't easy, I guess.
Absolutely no recommendation. Both the game itself as the gameplay design are too broken.
Gameplay
It's really bad and doesn't make any sense. A seemingly infinite amount of robots starts to chase you. You have two abilities: You poo, which places a poo block where you look (???). With the plunger you turn a poo block into a package (??????). The robot army becomes huge very quickly so unless you stack yourself up or don't immediately wall yourself in poo, you will die very easily. The goal is to place 200 poo blocks and then "package" those 200 poo blocks (??????). Oddly, it doesn't matter if you die, because your poo counter doesn't reset, so you will win eventually, even if you die like 100 times lol.
The robots are really fast and you have to be constantly on the run; if you stay for even one second, you will die. I found two winning strategies: Stacking yourself up (nerdpoling), or walling yourself, both of them bypass the robots completely and you can easily complete the goal without dying. That's another minus from me, that the game can be essentially be exploited that easily.
Story
Well, the story is essentially just an excuse plot. It's kindergarden-level humuor. I want to be clear this whole "poo" theme does NOT offend me, this doesn't give the game a penalty. My issue is the game just does a really poor job at it. I think it IS possible to do piss/poo humour right; South Park is a famous example.
Before you read ahead, be warned of SPOILERS! My summary is that I really like the game, but I don't recommend it YET because of critical bugs that ruin the experience. But I also recommend to players to just wait and check this game out later, when the bugs have been fixed. That way, you will have a more pleasant experience. Keep this game on your watchlist, folks! The game is also not accessible to colorblind people (yet).
If you want to read my REAL review (with MEGA spoilers), go in the comments.
I recommend it! The game is very short and could use some polishing as well, but overall I can still recommend it. I did have fun figuring out the puzzles and the game is stable. Just because it's short doesn't make it bad.
Gameplay
The concept is simple: You just move until you bump, or into one of these "grid nodes". I'm glad there is another node type added, and not just the solid one.
The puzzles are fun and and interesting. This is one of the game in which you have to think first, and then do something, or else you fly off into space and regret your decision. :D But this isn't annoying, you can always insta-reset.
It's a bit surprising that all levels are mushed together, in one big map. Normally, in games like these, levels are clearly separated. But I think this is fine. When you fail, you get teleported the the start of the level, not of the entire game. There is no level selection but that doesn't really matter as it's only 7 levels. That's really the only real downside of the game: It's over before it has really begun. :(
Graphics
Graphics-wise, I feel this is a bit TOO simple. There's just 3 nodes with no variation. There was also no decoration besides the skybox. This isn't really a problem tho, but graphics-wise, it had more porential. What annoyed me a bit were the grid nodes. It is not easy to distinguish between a grid node, and empty space between two grid nodes. The empty node looks like a grid node as well. These grid nodes definitely could've seen a graphical improvement because currently, it's kinda confusing. If you fly off into space (and fail), you just insta-teleport back to the level start, with no graphical effect at all. :( Overall, the minimalist graphics are pretty OK tho, although not great. Exception: Level 7. Here the flat color 100% makes sense and is pretty clever.
This one's tricky for me. I'm not a very patient gamer, and I don't enjoy platformers or 'skill based games', which is the direction that Glitch seems to be aiming for. But I will review this objectively, with the perspective of whether I would recommend this to a friend who I know enjoys this type of game.
In the time I spent playing this game I could see that a lot of work went into it. An impressive amount actually - it really feels like a proper fully fledged game, not something frantically assembled while racing against the clock. It has a cute aesthetic, it has music, a unified feel (even the UI fits the theme), it has unique gameplay mechanics and it's engaging enough (if you like this genre) that you kind of forget about the whole 'Minetest is an engine' thing and just think of something as a game in its own right. Arguably, I think that's the most important thing. Too many games rely on the 'strengths' of the engine, e.g. that you can play tons of other stuff too, instead of just standing on their own right. With some more development after the Jam ends, this could probably be one of those rare titles worth playing even if you don't know anything about Minetest as an engine.
That being said - some very minor critiques: I found it very hard to tell when an ability had recharged (like the sliding mechanics). The stopping distance also was quite hard to judge. Lastly, I feel like maybe the game could use a tiny bit more personality and liveliness of the kind you would find in nostalgic 3D platformers. Maybe little emotes over the characters heads, occasionally changing expressions to emphasise events, a tiny bit more humour, maybe some secrets to find, etc.
Nice textures, variaety of crops (not overwhelming like other mods). Easy to play with, adds pretty blocks what you can craft from your crops, fishing is fun - you have to be in the sea biom to get good catch though. I can keep going, there are is still more things I have to discover... overall its fun and gives satisfying rewards. Good job!
After it started, I was hoping for some fun trash game (title would have checked out), something stupid but brilliant at the same time like Goat Simulator, but... it's not, don't waste your time, it's just low effort
Author seems to have paid more attention to the lore than to the actual gameplay
If you click around, you'll mostly find books giving you the idea of what was happening on the ship (which some players appreciate, it gives depth to the story). Yet, gameplay wise it looks very dispersive, there is no sound, and graphics are a bit too brutal/dull (e.g. red text on azure/grey/white background, almost unreadable for someone who doesn't suffer from any heavy eye condition). I appreciate the irony of the drawn map, but.. seriously, considering the complexity and the length of hallways, an actual map would have helped (and shorter hallways). It felt almost like a clicker mixed with a stroll simulator
Fun platform, although a bit too farmy after a while
I'll start by saying that this is both nice and curated. I'd make dialogues shorter here and there, but overall they're entertaining and you can see the effort the author put in the opening with the cutscene. Collecting electrons has reminded me a bit the first Spyro, where gems where scattered all around the maps, sometimes just to annoy the player, and... well, with the way MT detects keys such as AUX1, trust me it was indeed annoying when 1/3 of the time it didn't read the input in time, making me fall down (nice death transition!)
I like how the author has structured the game, with this hub concept reminding of games like Crash 2. It's easy to navigate and environment elements near teleports help the player surely improves this aspect. My main critique is, the way you have to backtrack basically every level in order to collect all the electrons. I've personally quit after having unlocked the jump ability, all those jumps in that room were overwhelming (after having fought with MT limitations with me falling down several times in the 16 electrons level to gather enough electrons for the 128 one). Which is a pity, I kind of wanted to see the end!
I love the ambience you built! The intro sequence was really good (maybe even a first among minetest games?), the helpers are super cute (even though it's a parkour game I wish there were more optional interactions!), and the maps play well.
Good choice of soundtrack too.
In general the game looks very polished for a game jam entry, congrats!
The controls surprised me at times (long slide, unexpected momentum when jumping off, abilities not working at the edge of blocks), but I quickly got used to them.
Maybe I’m supposed to play in third person? That would explain the slide distance.
I can't really judge something that throws errors when pressing half of the buttons and that has got an unfinished UI when the UI is the only way you have to interact with its characters...
I can tell this game has got potential, it creates a particular atmosphere, and yet it's too buggy and not optimised UX-wise. For instance, the narrated story could have a "next" or "ok" button rather than expecting the player to press "Esc". Then, the instructions for the tools were so slow (and laggy) to appear, and being dark green you should also have to put them on the right background to actually be able to read them.
Then, the first tool wasn't really working, and when it did it threw a warning error in chat. The inventory was really nice, the problem is I didn't get what I'm supposed to do with all the refined materials. When I reached the area with enemies, it lagged very badly. Also, I had to manually fix the game to launch it on Windows, after having seen the description on CDB.
Talking about things I've appreciated, definitely the music changing according to the area, the pixel art seen in in the inventory and in illustrations, a minimap to give you a goal, and the atmosphere
It's definitely a nice concept to experience, but personally I think that the author has left too many holes gameplay-wise. Then, when I found a paper with instructions about the rooms and I followed it, it led to a crash (it also crashes when clicking on chairs). Not sure about the item I've got since the beginning, nor about the player having so many slots. It's a pity, if curated it could turn into a great game!
There are mainly three annoying things:
1. the metallic sound on every step, which is always the same and it's very loud;
2. the torchlight updating the cone of light with a delay (which yes, it's a limitation of the engine, but still it's annoying as a player. Players aren't expected to know nor care about what the engine can and can't do);
3. it takes ages to break a node and potentially obtain items
And since these aspects follow you for the whole game... the experience itself isn't that great.
Also, a few bugs (spiders piling up on my head), a lot of English mistakes (and I'm not a native, so I've probably missed some) and not totally certain about what to do (yes, I've seen the inventory)
OVERVIEW - Torrlund
A pretty intresting game with intresting mechanics. I feel the gameplay kind of got repetitive, and the end was super easy to reach (it
took me only like 15mins). I never saw any monsters in the game, so I'm not sure what went wrong there. The robot was pretty nice.
Anyways, I think it would help out the game a lot, if there was more stuff to do.
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan
2 - Meh
3 - Okay
4 - Good
5 - Love it!
It's usefull for event quests, like halloween or christmas, so you can make special buildings and dungeons, because you can limit the prizes by configurable time or to be used once by the players (time set to -1).
I use it on my own server (Out Here) for some quests and treasures on map.
A debatable collection of tools for builders rather than a game
First of all, this game is heavy. Like, really heavy, even loading new blocks take time. Then, as an artist, it doesn't feel like a tool to make art, starting from the very inventory. It'd take a lot of text to try to describe what an artistic tool in Minetest for builders might look like, between interfaces and palettes, but in short it wouldn't look like this. It's just a lot of nodes put together alongside features that are not necessary and that make the game heavier than it could potentially be
First of all, when you first launch the game you'll see warning messages in chat. Then, for I don't know what reason, you're on the moon, outside, but the player is not wearing any suit and you must be fast to put it on or you'll die. I think the author wanted to instantly introduce the oxygen mechanic, but the level of surrealism in this case is too much. Also, I don't know why, you've got diamond tools with you.
After using the mark for the supply ship, a lot of items are shoved in your face without the slightest information about how to use them. Went for a stroll, nothing relevant
When you first open the game, you see the captain log, with all the other menus: pretty overwhelming. Then... I don't understand what to do? There are many complex menus (GPU, CPU, GPGPU or something like that), a broken drill (that I guess I should fix somehow) and.. I can go around in space, still not sure what to do. Also, the camera is pretty annoying when riding the spaceship. Can't say good things about graphics either, starting from the main menu which is low effort to say the least
I use my rating on the 6% system what I used last year, even if this time the rating system works differently. My points:
What gave the points
Points reached
Max Points
Why I gave theme
how good the idea is and theme
1
1
I like this idea. It was a story-game but the most story was on end which closely gave me the idea to give a half point lesser
Media
1.5
2
The sounds was there. The textures too. But my eyes wasn't happy with the textures of chaos at the end. The textures could be better but there was less time so i say nothing there
Playing
2.5
3
Wow, i wanted only play this game all the time. But some points weren't reachable and the game was a bit short. More levels and maybe 5-electrons items(give 5 electrons). More Ablities maybe too
Total
5
6
I hope you going to make Glitch 2. In the IP the game ended there were also the white noises. Maybe you have to escape them there.
The author has shown a great knowledge of the (debatable) UI of Minetest, being able to create a game that it completely runs in 2D. Sure, you must be a masochist to script this on Minetest rather than, I don't know, Godot, but it surely is a showcase of what it can actually be done.
The vibe goes to the old arcades, displaying an artistic coherence. Gameplay is fine, but again l I think that the best aspect of this is to open PRANG! in front of people who think that MT is all about 3D and then see their confused -yet intrigued - face
pretty cool game, was interesting trying to figure it out. I think its a shame the author wasnt able to give it more polish before finish it off. my favorite bug was the fire burning out the floor in one of the rooms after a while, which led to the void
playing this game was interesting. while it was quite simple, it was quite informative with nice chat prompts and a helper that followed you around. perhaps more immersion could have come from interacting with the bot that follows you around, as it didnt really seem to do much. also, the content was rather short, finishing it off in 10 minutes, with nothing to really do after that.
If I could give something between "Yes" and "No", that's what I'd give. "Yes" because I can't say the author hasn't put all themselves to realise this puzzle game in so little time: very curated graphics, nice effects, silent narration, and a peculiar mechanic that surely makes it intriguing.
"No" because the puzzle solving itself felt somehow heavy, I wasn't motivated to go on (I've quit at the vertical room where you have to use 3 different blocks to attach the green one onto the ceiling). For instance, last year jam winner "Alter" was a puzzle game where I kind of wanted to know what the AI would have told me next. On this year's entry "Slidespace", I've got the sensation of getting closer to the end because I could literally see it. The story was quite simple (and still silent) but it was there. Here, it looks more like that the author wanted to showcase all the different ideas they had came about (new blocks popping up stage after stage), rather than creating some sort of flow for the player, or some sort of narration. It looks like one of those AAA games with a lot of budget and fancy graphics, but with a low-average quality gameplay-wise.
Voting "No" as I think gameplay should come before graphics
OVERVIEW - Klots
This game was tons of fun to play! Very comparable to how I enjoyed slide space!
Some of the mechanics in this game amaze me that they're even possible in Minetest!
Great job Warr!
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan
2 - Meh
3 - Okay
4 - Good
5 - Love it!
OVERVIEW - Slide Space
Once again, MisterE has probably made my favourite game jam submission.
This game is really satisfying, and is a mind-boggler. This game is very fun, and
makes you want to come back for more.
Once again, great job MisterE!
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan
2 - Meh
3 - Okay
4 - Good
5 - Love it!
No instructions, highly unfinished, not sure what to do
There are no instructions when joining the game, so you just go around and click on things. You encounter panels with a lot buttons, sliding doors, more panels and accesses to the space, where you just float going down, indefinitely. Also, no music at all and the character is the default Minetest 2D sprite.
I guess the intent of the author was to create some sort of a spaceship life simulator, but in this state it's just empty
Reading through CDB I've discovered that there are hordes of aliens to fight but honestly I'm stuck at the initial "collect 5 X nodes" quest. I've explored the world quite a bit, finding just 3 of those nodes, and it turned quite repetitive jump after jump. Also, I think that instructions at the beginning could have been shorter.
The pet following you is cute, the music is spot on. But I can't seem to experience any gameplay
OVERVIEW - Space Club (based on 30mins+ of gameplay time)
Space Club is an intresting game, but, I feel it's biggest downfall is it's lack of sounds, and not being very
player-friendly. I think if these things were improved on, it would be a better game.
I was pretty lost while playing this game, after like 20mins I did start to sort of get the hang of it I guess.
Also, you can just destroy and come out of your spacecraft, and if you do, you don't die. Which seems a bit weird.
Anyways, I'd consider trying this game out again post Game Jam, I'd be intrested if there are some future updates
to gameplay/goals.
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan
2 - Meh
3 - Okay
4 - Good
5 - Love it!
I wanted to have fun with this game but it wouldn't let me. Digging needs some serious fixing.
I'd recommend reducing all dig times to <= 2 seconds, and making diggable things rarer to balance that out.
If you want to go with your own solution you might find find this interesting. It's about walking, but I think most of the points brought up can be applied to digging in this game.
I'd also recommend limiting the distance the flashlight can shine so it doesn't 'detach' from the flashlight, which breaks the immersion/atmosphere you had going.
It's nice to see this genre get explored, there aren't any good MT games that do so yet. I look forward to future updates.
There are a lot of bugs, some of which I think ruined my ability to complete the game, but I can recommend this based off of the experience I had regardless.
This will be a good game once the bugs are sorted out and the mechanics are polished.
If you learn the basics of using git w/ github you could probably attract a few contributors.
I am VERY confused
This looks like a VERY VERY VERY early prototype and there is almost nothing you can do. No sounds, no music, no explanation. You spawn in a space station and there are a couple of blocks you can pick up and place somewhere else but that's mostly it. You can also "warp" your space station apparently but I don't know what it does. I am VERY confused and I don't know what else to say. The README file also openly admits you can't do much, so …
Obviously, I cannot give a recommendation for such an early game. I might still check it out later, just in case.
I don't know what else to say.
You just collect 200 moon rocks, that's it
Overall rating
No recommendation, because there's way too little to do, and it crashes often. However, I like this submission a LOT more than Occupy Moon since at least an actual effort was made to do something new from scratch rather just mushing together Minetest Game and Technic. So, I appreciate the effort. :-) Maybe this game will be more interesting with more missions, content and in general just more stuff to do and more challenging gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very simple: You grab your jackhammer and dig as many moon rocks as you can, then you return them to the base. There's a catch: Your jackhammer needs to recharge, so you might need multiple travels. But this is really the only thing the game has to offer: Once you collected 50 rocks of a total of 4 types, you win. The game's only real challenge is to remember your base location, which is easy if you place moon rocks as some kind of waypoint markers. Not every rock will be right at your doorstep, so you might need a longer trip. But that's really the only challenge. I don't think it is even possible to die / fail, or at least that's very hard to achieve.
Mapgen
Unfortunately, it appears it's just the default mapgen with different blocks. Since it's a moon game, I would at least expect something like moon craters, but I could not find anything unique about the mapgen. The strangest thing about the map is the HUGE amounts of moon ice.
(review continues in the comments)
This game has no innovations
Overall rating
No recommendation, this game is just a prototype, the gameplay doesn't really work yet.
Game Jam comment
This game was created for a game jam, but it has clearly missed the point of it, because there is a HUGE number of pre-existing mods, but the goal was to create game from scratch. Using some existing code is OK, but this one apparently includes half of Minetest Game and the Technic mod and even more; that's way too much for a game jam IMHO. For that reason alone I cannot give a good rating for this game jam submission. The README lists the pre-existing mods. The only mod that is not listed is
weld_all. I looked at this and apparently it is responsible for the checmicals sampler and supply rocket and missions. This is a bit too little effort IMHO. The bulk of this game is this clearly carried by the other mods.But I am going to pretend I'm not aware of that …
Gameplay
This is very clearly an alpha stage game. Not even the moon gravity is working! And everything about this game I have to get from the README. At first, the README told me I had to install an inventory mod myself. :( Then I tried to start with farming. This part worked, but growth is slow and boring. Unfortunately, I quickly got stuck as I have been unable to produce power for the technic machines. The game doesn't even tell me how the basic Technic stuff works, but I still remembered the basics. Sadly, the solar panels don't work, and that's apparently the only way to operate a working furnace, so I can't even cook glass, apparently, so I came to a screeching halt. And then I lost interest.
Graphics, sounds, controls, etc.
No comment, most content is just copied from other games/mods.
It's a grind
Overall rating
No recommendation. This game just offers way too little in terms of gameplay to be interesting, and it's a grind.
Gameplay
Frankly, it's a boring grind. There are only 3 things to do: Fly to astroids, mine and craft stuff to advance the story. Later you get to search for blackboxes, and then the game ends. Meh. I appreciate the innovation of flying in a spaceship, but movement still feels a little bit laggy sometimes. You can safely crash into asteroids without taking damage.
The universe is made out of asteroids, but they are very repetitive. The map generation appears to be procedurally generated, but it looks the same everywhere. The astroids don't look "natural" to me either, they look more like blobs than asteroids.
Graphics
The graphics are a werid mishmash of high-res and low-res textures, it's not a good overall. The menus all use the boring default graphical style. :-( The health indicator also uses the default texture.
UX/UI
It's all pretty confusing. For some reason, you must combine a stick and a broken drill to even get started (???). Later, I was flying in slow-mo for a long time until I realized I must release the handbrake. XD. The game doesn't have any HUD indicators. Also, the various ship's crafting features are kinda confusing as well, and I had to try out various combinations. The crafting system is pretty weird, so you collect every asteroid to craft "gravel mix" and this in turn gives you ... fuel?!
Music / sound
I really like the music, it gives the game a good "space explorer" vibe. Quite a contrast to the graphics. But there are no sounds.
Story
The story isn't really noteworthy. It a generic "lost in space" story that we all heard hundreds of times. Other game jam entries had more memorable stories.
Stability / performance.
The game is mostly stable, but I found a funny bug: You can drop items and they … fall down in space?! I had no performance issues.
You can't actually destroy that much
Overall rating
No recommendation. The core gameplay just doesn't work out, as the only thing that you can reliably attack are windows, and even then your ammo is limited and there is no way to refill. And everything else about this game is not good either.
Gameplay
It's very simple. You run around a town and firebomb everything on sight. And that's basically it. There is a destruct-o-meter but pretty much the only thing that raises is are glass windows. A few other things can be destroyed as well, but they are too rare in the world to be relevant. My record was to get the destruct-o-meter to 100, then I ran out of ammo. The town itself looks very incomplete, there are a lot of empty areas. There are cops that try to kill you on sight, so you have to be on the run.There are 3 weapons: Fire bomb, pipe bomb and your fist. The fire bomb makes a lot of fire, but it doesn't seem to be very useful with destroying things. The pipe bomb is your main weapon, but it seems to be only useful to destroy windows and the occasional furniture. Most things appear to be immune to damage.
Once your run out of ammo, you only have your fist left and the game is basically over. There are no ammo pickups or anything like that, which is a huge bummer. When you die, you just respawn with your entire inventory and score. The game doesn't even restart properly when you die.
The game isn't fun at all, the core gameplay mechanic just doesn't work out, especially since you apparently can't actually attack a lot of things to increase the destruct-o-meter and you have to deal with a SINGLE ammo supply for the entire game, and the game doesn't even restart properly.
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I had a great time
Overall rating
A BIG recommendation from me, EXCEPT when you're colorblind, then not (hopefully this gets fixed). Overall, I was pretty impressed by that one, but please figure out the accessiblity thing. Apart from that, the game still can use a bit of polishing and especially content, but hey, it's a game jam! :D
Gameplay
This is where the game shines. You have to figure out everything on your own, but the game is never unfair to you. Every concept is introduced one after another. It seems a lot of time was put into level design, even with a lot of attention for detail, which I appreciate a lot. The core feature of the game, the pushing and pulling of klots, works perfectly. The movement of the klots is completely smooth, both visually and physically; even a player collision was considered to prevent awkward overlaps. That alone is quite an achievement, WOW! There aren't a lot of levels, and the game sadly ended before it really began, but this is a fake complaint, as it is WAY outweighed by quality. Thinking of good levels for such a game isn't easy, I guess.
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Low quality gameplay with performance problems
Summary
Absolutely no recommendation. Both the game itself as the gameplay design are too broken.
Gameplay
It's really bad and doesn't make any sense. A seemingly infinite amount of robots starts to chase you. You have two abilities: You poo, which places a poo block where you look (???). With the plunger you turn a poo block into a package (??????). The robot army becomes huge very quickly so unless you stack yourself up or don't immediately wall yourself in poo, you will die very easily. The goal is to place 200 poo blocks and then "package" those 200 poo blocks (??????). Oddly, it doesn't matter if you die, because your poo counter doesn't reset, so you will win eventually, even if you die like 100 times lol. The robots are really fast and you have to be constantly on the run; if you stay for even one second, you will die. I found two winning strategies: Stacking yourself up (nerdpoling), or walling yourself, both of them bypass the robots completely and you can easily complete the goal without dying. That's another minus from me, that the game can be essentially be exploited that easily.
Story
Well, the story is essentially just an excuse plot. It's kindergarden-level humuor. I want to be clear this whole "poo" theme does NOT offend me, this doesn't give the game a penalty. My issue is the game just does a really poor job at it. I think it IS possible to do piss/poo humour right; South Park is a famous example.
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Great idea ruined by game-breaking bugs
Summary
Before you read ahead, be warned of SPOILERS! My summary is that I really like the game, but I don't recommend it YET because of critical bugs that ruin the experience. But I also recommend to players to just wait and check this game out later, when the bugs have been fixed. That way, you will have a more pleasant experience. Keep this game on your watchlist, folks! The game is also not accessible to colorblind people (yet).
If you want to read my REAL review (with MEGA spoilers), go in the comments.
Simple, short and enjoyable puzzles
Summary
I recommend it! The game is very short and could use some polishing as well, but overall I can still recommend it. I did have fun figuring out the puzzles and the game is stable. Just because it's short doesn't make it bad.
Gameplay
The concept is simple: You just move until you bump, or into one of these "grid nodes". I'm glad there is another node type added, and not just the solid one.
The puzzles are fun and and interesting. This is one of the game in which you have to think first, and then do something, or else you fly off into space and regret your decision. :D But this isn't annoying, you can always insta-reset.
It's a bit surprising that all levels are mushed together, in one big map. Normally, in games like these, levels are clearly separated. But I think this is fine. When you fail, you get teleported the the start of the level, not of the entire game. There is no level selection but that doesn't really matter as it's only 7 levels. That's really the only real downside of the game: It's over before it has really begun. :(
Graphics
Graphics-wise, I feel this is a bit TOO simple. There's just 3 nodes with no variation. There was also no decoration besides the skybox. This isn't really a problem tho, but graphics-wise, it had more porential. What annoyed me a bit were the grid nodes. It is not easy to distinguish between a grid node, and empty space between two grid nodes. The empty node looks like a grid node as well. These grid nodes definitely could've seen a graphical improvement because currently, it's kinda confusing. If you fly off into space (and fail), you just insta-teleport back to the level start, with no graphical effect at all. :( Overall, the minimalist graphics are pretty OK tho, although not great. Exception: Level 7. Here the flat color 100% makes sense and is pretty clever.
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Cute, impressively polished platformer
Rating Scale:
1-10 for each of the 6 categories, 1 being a thumbs down, 10 being a thumbs up. Max total being 60.
Gameplay: 7 | Innovation: 9 | Graphics (Content): 9 | Music & Sound (Content): 9 | Theme: 9 | Stability: 10 |
Total: 53
This one's tricky for me. I'm not a very patient gamer, and I don't enjoy platformers or 'skill based games', which is the direction that Glitch seems to be aiming for. But I will review this objectively, with the perspective of whether I would recommend this to a friend who I know enjoys this type of game.
In the time I spent playing this game I could see that a lot of work went into it. An impressive amount actually - it really feels like a proper fully fledged game, not something frantically assembled while racing against the clock. It has a cute aesthetic, it has music, a unified feel (even the UI fits the theme), it has unique gameplay mechanics and it's engaging enough (if you like this genre) that you kind of forget about the whole 'Minetest is an engine' thing and just think of something as a game in its own right. Arguably, I think that's the most important thing. Too many games rely on the 'strengths' of the engine, e.g. that you can play tons of other stuff too, instead of just standing on their own right. With some more development after the Jam ends, this could probably be one of those rare titles worth playing even if you don't know anything about Minetest as an engine.
That being said - some very minor critiques: I found it very hard to tell when an ability had recharged (like the sliding mechanics). The stopping distance also was quite hard to judge. Lastly, I feel like maybe the game could use a tiny bit more personality and liveliness of the kind you would find in nostalgic 3D platformers. Maybe little emotes over the characters heads, occasionally changing expressions to emphasise events, a tiny bit more humour, maybe some secrets to find, etc.
Best Farming for Minetest
Nice textures, variaety of crops (not overwhelming like other mods). Easy to play with, adds pretty blocks what you can craft from your crops, fishing is fun - you have to be in the sea biom to get good catch though. I can keep going, there are is still more things I have to discover... overall its fun and gives satisfying rewards. Good job!
Trash game, in a negative sense
After it started, I was hoping for some fun trash game (title would have checked out), something stupid but brilliant at the same time like Goat Simulator, but... it's not, don't waste your time, it's just low effort
Author seems to have paid more attention to the lore than to the actual gameplay
If you click around, you'll mostly find books giving you the idea of what was happening on the ship (which some players appreciate, it gives depth to the story). Yet, gameplay wise it looks very dispersive, there is no sound, and graphics are a bit too brutal/dull (e.g. red text on azure/grey/white background, almost unreadable for someone who doesn't suffer from any heavy eye condition). I appreciate the irony of the drawn map, but.. seriously, considering the complexity and the length of hallways, an actual map would have helped (and shorter hallways). It felt almost like a clicker mixed with a stroll simulator
Fun platform, although a bit too farmy after a while
I'll start by saying that this is both nice and curated. I'd make dialogues shorter here and there, but overall they're entertaining and you can see the effort the author put in the opening with the cutscene. Collecting electrons has reminded me a bit the first Spyro, where gems where scattered all around the maps, sometimes just to annoy the player, and... well, with the way MT detects keys such as AUX1, trust me it was indeed annoying when 1/3 of the time it didn't read the input in time, making me fall down (nice death transition!)
I like how the author has structured the game, with this hub concept reminding of games like Crash 2. It's easy to navigate and environment elements near teleports help the player surely improves this aspect. My main critique is, the way you have to backtrack basically every level in order to collect all the electrons. I've personally quit after having unlocked the jump ability, all those jumps in that room were overwhelming (after having fought with MT limitations with me falling down several times in the 16 electrons level to gather enough electrons for the 128 one). Which is a pity, I kind of wanted to see the end!
Fun game with a great atmosphere
I love the ambience you built! The intro sequence was really good (maybe even a first among minetest games?), the helpers are super cute (even though it's a parkour game I wish there were more optional interactions!), and the maps play well. Good choice of soundtrack too. In general the game looks very polished for a game jam entry, congrats!
The controls surprised me at times (long slide, unexpected momentum when jumping off, abilities not working at the edge of blocks), but I quickly got used to them. Maybe I’m supposed to play in third person? That would explain the slide distance.
As the author says: "Extremely unfinished"
I can't really judge something that throws errors when pressing half of the buttons and that has got an unfinished UI when the UI is the only way you have to interact with its characters...
Potential for a nice game, not there yet
I can tell this game has got potential, it creates a particular atmosphere, and yet it's too buggy and not optimised UX-wise. For instance, the narrated story could have a "next" or "ok" button rather than expecting the player to press "Esc". Then, the instructions for the tools were so slow (and laggy) to appear, and being dark green you should also have to put them on the right background to actually be able to read them.
Then, the first tool wasn't really working, and when it did it threw a warning error in chat. The inventory was really nice, the problem is I didn't get what I'm supposed to do with all the refined materials. When I reached the area with enemies, it lagged very badly. Also, I had to manually fix the game to launch it on Windows, after having seen the description on CDB.
Talking about things I've appreciated, definitely the music changing according to the area, the pixel art seen in in the inventory and in illustrations, a minimap to give you a goal, and the atmosphere
Mindblowing but too random and unpolished
It's definitely a nice concept to experience, but personally I think that the author has left too many holes gameplay-wise. Then, when I found a paper with instructions about the rooms and I followed it, it led to a crash (it also crashes when clicking on chairs). Not sure about the item I've got since the beginning, nor about the player having so many slots. It's a pity, if curated it could turn into a great game!
Annoying broad maze
There are mainly three annoying things:
1. the metallic sound on every step, which is always the same and it's very loud;
2. the torchlight updating the cone of light with a delay (which yes, it's a limitation of the engine, but still it's annoying as a player. Players aren't expected to know nor care about what the engine can and can't do);
3. it takes ages to break a node and potentially obtain items
And since these aspects follow you for the whole game... the experience itself isn't that great.
Also, a few bugs (spiders piling up on my head), a lot of English mistakes (and I'm not a native, so I've probably missed some) and not totally certain about what to do (yes, I've seen the inventory)
Very polished!
OVERVIEW - Glitch This game was pretty fun, and surprisingly polished! I'm not too far in the game yet, but o far it's been pretty cool.
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan 2 - Meh 3 - Okay 4 - Good 5 - Love it!
GAMEPLAY - 4
GRAPHICS - 5
PLAYER-FRIENDLY - 5
PERFORMANCE - 5 (So far it has not lagged)
SOUNDS & MUSIC - 5
THEME - 4
TOTAL - 28/30 (Love it!)
May be it is time
May be it is time to add cute Axolotl?
Has potential
OVERVIEW - Torrlund A pretty intresting game with intresting mechanics. I feel the gameplay kind of got repetitive, and the end was super easy to reach (it took me only like 15mins). I never saw any monsters in the game, so I'm not sure what went wrong there. The robot was pretty nice. Anyways, I think it would help out the game a lot, if there was more stuff to do.
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan 2 - Meh 3 - Okay 4 - Good 5 - Love it!
GAMEPLAY - 2
GRAPHICS - 3
PLAYER-FRIENDLY - 4
PERFORMANCE - 5
SOUNDS & MUSIC - 2
THEME - 3
TOTAL - 19/30 (Okay)
The path for interesting quests
It's usefull for event quests, like halloween or christmas, so you can make special buildings and dungeons, because you can limit the prizes by configurable time or to be used once by the players (time set to -1). I use it on my own server (Out Here) for some quests and treasures on map.
A debatable collection of tools for builders rather than a game
First of all, this game is heavy. Like, really heavy, even loading new blocks take time. Then, as an artist, it doesn't feel like a tool to make art, starting from the very inventory. It'd take a lot of text to try to describe what an artistic tool in Minetest for builders might look like, between interfaces and palettes, but in short it wouldn't look like this. It's just a lot of nodes put together alongside features that are not necessary and that make the game heavier than it could potentially be
Must have for that bit of realism
This is very useful, especially in multiplayer, where people want to see where the other players are looking
Highly unfinished, no instructions whatsoever
First of all, when you first launch the game you'll see warning messages in chat. Then, for I don't know what reason, you're on the moon, outside, but the player is not wearing any suit and you must be fast to put it on or you'll die. I think the author wanted to instantly introduce the oxygen mechanic, but the level of surrealism in this case is too much. Also, I don't know why, you've got diamond tools with you.
After using the mark for the supply ship, a lot of items are shoved in your face without the slightest information about how to use them. Went for a stroll, nothing relevant
Not sure what to do, unpolished, and lot of text
When you first open the game, you see the captain log, with all the other menus: pretty overwhelming. Then... I don't understand what to do? There are many complex menus (GPU, CPU, GPGPU or something like that), a broken drill (that I guess I should fix somehow) and.. I can go around in space, still not sure what to do. Also, the camera is pretty annoying when riding the spaceship. Can't say good things about graphics either, starting from the main menu which is low effort to say the least
My Review
I use my rating on the 6% system what I used last year, even if this time the rating system works differently. My points:
I hope you going to make Glitch 2. In the IP the game ended there were also the white noises. Maybe you have to escape them there.
An arcade you wouldn't expect on Minetest
The author has shown a great knowledge of the (debatable) UI of Minetest, being able to create a game that it completely runs in 2D. Sure, you must be a masochist to script this on Minetest rather than, I don't know, Godot, but it surely is a showcase of what it can actually be done.
The vibe goes to the old arcades, displaying an artistic coherence. Gameplay is fine, but again l I think that the best aspect of this is to open PRANG! in front of people who think that MT is all about 3D and then see their confused -yet intrigued - face
interesting and mind bending game
pretty cool game, was interesting trying to figure it out. I think its a shame the author wasnt able to give it more polish before finish it off. my favorite bug was the fire burning out the floor in one of the rooms after a while, which led to the void
simple, but short
playing this game was interesting. while it was quite simple, it was quite informative with nice chat prompts and a helper that followed you around. perhaps more immersion could have come from interacting with the bot that follows you around, as it didnt really seem to do much. also, the content was rather short, finishing it off in 10 minutes, with nothing to really do after that.
Highly curated, yet heavy gameplay
If I could give something between "Yes" and "No", that's what I'd give. "Yes" because I can't say the author hasn't put all themselves to realise this puzzle game in so little time: very curated graphics, nice effects, silent narration, and a peculiar mechanic that surely makes it intriguing.
"No" because the puzzle solving itself felt somehow heavy, I wasn't motivated to go on (I've quit at the vertical room where you have to use 3 different blocks to attach the green one onto the ceiling). For instance, last year jam winner "Alter" was a puzzle game where I kind of wanted to know what the AI would have told me next. On this year's entry "Slidespace", I've got the sensation of getting closer to the end because I could literally see it. The story was quite simple (and still silent) but it was there. Here, it looks more like that the author wanted to showcase all the different ideas they had came about (new blocks popping up stage after stage), rather than creating some sort of flow for the player, or some sort of narration. It looks like one of those AAA games with a lot of budget and fancy graphics, but with a low-average quality gameplay-wise.
Voting "No" as I think gameplay should come before graphics
EDIT: Now I can vote "Neutral" :P
Very fun and smooth game!
OVERVIEW - Klots This game was tons of fun to play! Very comparable to how I enjoyed slide space! Some of the mechanics in this game amaze me that they're even possible in Minetest! Great job Warr!
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan 2 - Meh 3 - Okay 4 - Good 5 - Love it!
GAMEPLAY - 5
GRAPHICS - 4
PLAYER-FRIENDLY - 4
PERFORMANCE - 4
SOUNDS & MUSIC - 5
THEME - 3
TOTAL - 25/30 (Love it!)
Very fun!
OVERVIEW - Slide Space Once again, MisterE has probably made my favourite game jam submission. This game is really satisfying, and is a mind-boggler. This game is very fun, and makes you want to come back for more. Once again, great job MisterE!
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan 2 - Meh 3 - Okay 4 - Good 5 - Love it!
GAMEPLAY - 5
GRAPHICS - 5
PLAYER-FRIENDLY - 4
PERFORMANCE - 5
SOUNDS & MUSIC - 5
THEME - 3
TOTAL - 27/30 (Love it!)
No instructions, highly unfinished, not sure what to do
There are no instructions when joining the game, so you just go around and click on things. You encounter panels with a lot buttons, sliding doors, more panels and accesses to the space, where you just float going down, indefinitely. Also, no music at all and the character is the default Minetest 2D sprite.
I guess the intent of the author was to create some sort of a spaceship life simulator, but in this state it's just empty
Nice music, confused about the gameplay
Reading through CDB I've discovered that there are hordes of aliens to fight but honestly I'm stuck at the initial "collect 5 X nodes" quest. I've explored the world quite a bit, finding just 3 of those nodes, and it turned quite repetitive jump after jump. Also, I think that instructions at the beginning could have been shorter.
The pet following you is cute, the music is spot on. But I can't seem to experience any gameplay
Probably the best bows mod as of today
It tries to simulate physics, arrows stick to the surface they hit, proper sounds. Nice :D
Has potential
OVERVIEW - Space Club (based on 30mins+ of gameplay time) Space Club is an intresting game, but, I feel it's biggest downfall is it's lack of sounds, and not being very player-friendly. I think if these things were improved on, it would be a better game. I was pretty lost while playing this game, after like 20mins I did start to sort of get the hang of it I guess. Also, you can just destroy and come out of your spacecraft, and if you do, you don't die. Which seems a bit weird. Anyways, I'd consider trying this game out again post Game Jam, I'd be intrested if there are some future updates to gameplay/goals.
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan 2 - Meh 3 - Okay 4 - Good 5 - Love it!
GAMEPLAY - 2
GRAPHICS - 2
PLAYER-FRIENDLY - 1
PERFORMANCE - 4
SOUNDS & MUSIC - 1
TOTAL - 10 (Meh)
My Review [JAM VERSION]
I wanted to have fun with this game but it wouldn't let me. Digging needs some serious fixing.
I'd recommend reducing all dig times to <= 2 seconds, and making diggable things rarer to balance that out. If you want to go with your own solution you might find find this interesting. It's about walking, but I think most of the points brought up can be applied to digging in this game.
I'd also recommend limiting the distance the flashlight can shine so it doesn't 'detach' from the flashlight, which breaks the immersion/atmosphere you had going.
It's nice to see this genre get explored, there aren't any good MT games that do so yet. I look forward to future updates.
Review:
My Review [JAM VERSION]
There are a lot of bugs, some of which I think ruined my ability to complete the game, but I can recommend this based off of the experience I had regardless.
This will be a good game once the bugs are sorted out and the mechanics are polished. If you learn the basics of using git w/ github you could probably attract a few contributors.
Review: