This is one of the best building extensions I have seen, the shapes fit together wonderfully and are a great look on any build! This mod is also ancient and does not support a lot of mods, so I would reccomend that you add new materials with mymillwork.register(itemstring) in materials.lua.
I got wrecked... but the gameplay is well paced and fun. The assistant is cool and helpful, I only wish it was equipped with a torch, too ahah. The soundtrack is nice and varied, there is voiceover for the robot and powerful abilities in your arsenal, to boot! You can turn defensive nodes into their reinforced counterpart, and even repair damaged ones. The enemies will keep you on your toes and you should use your time wisely to prepare for their arrival.
On first playthrough, I was able to acquire the meteors without issue before night fell and thus win, so I was a bit confused; then I waited a bit the second time and the aliens proved tough to beat, maybe too tough if playing alone (I never actually fought them off successfully, due to time constraints). I only found a warning for a missing texture, it's pretty stable.
Overall, I found this mini-game very original and polished, I can recommend it if played with your friends.
I am impressed by the functionality and mechanics the author was able to include here, but even when put together they don't offer a complete experience yet, for a game. The ships, including your own, are procedurally generated, and they all have functional, vital components for gravity, shields, comms, etc. There are even visitors that pop up, warning you in chat if they are just patrolling, looking to trade or are hostile. If you try to leave your ship and dig others, you are stopped. You are able to rearrange the ship as you please.
With that said, the gameplay isn't there yet, and sadly this lacks a clear direction. AFAIK interacttions with other ships are limited to simply hailing you when they arrive. There is a crafting element, but some materials aren't obtainable, I think. The oxygen mechanic isn't implemented yet. There are no sounds. You can drop your tools in the void, losing them forever.
There isn't much to get from this in its current state, but it already has a decent foundation to build upon. I hope to see this game expanded post-Jam.
This is a pretty short mini-game, but it's semi-complete and the story was funny. The ship GUI is standard, but features a lot of elements (not all functional), one of these being a self-updating log to understand your current mission. I liked that the textures for the asteroids were all a bit different, they weren't just a different color. The music was spacey.
As I said, some of the ship functionality is not implemented, and can actually hurt your progress if you're not careful. The story was interesting enough, even though the game ended pretty quickly. The ship tends to obstruct the view when looking downwards, while inside it.
I like space plots, so this one was right up my alley. Recommended ;)
and name Sabrina D 'till page 54(Unidentified Czech Female Reactor (Non-Blonde Form)) there are skins without faces.
Need to manually edit png's, delete white squares to make them transparent to return their heads.
I agree with what others have said: this game really does atmosphere well, both on the surface with the view of the planet and inside the caves. The pixel art in the opening and menus is very clean too. The thematic music is a very nice touch. It would be great to see fleshed out beyond its Game Jam state. Spiralling Down could be Minetest's answer to Deep Rock Galatic.
That being said, it's not finished enough to recommend spending a great deal of time in right now. The menu screen isn't really very intitutive, it's not clear what the various elements you're collecting are or do, or what the tools are (it would be helpful if the HUD showed a descriptive name for the selected tool). Though I said I like the music, it's way too loud by default and there really could be more emphasis on sound effects, especially for drilling and such. Music transitions are a bit abrupt when moving between areas. I also got some errors related to sounds when using the acid gun (didn't know how to use it either). There were some plants that were kind of floating a few blocks off the ground that looked like they should be hanging from the ceiling. It would be good if you could pick up the lights again. The bat monsters could use some work, they're a bit laggy for me and totally overwhelming. The weird green balls also look a bit rough and clutter everything up. The game could introduce you to the hostiles in a bit more of a staggered fashion - perhaps only a handful at first, then more of them and more dangerous foes the deeper you go.
I am taking the time to give feedback here because I think the bones we have here are promising and it could be a fun game with more development.
I had a blast with this game... when it worked. I played on 5.5.1 to have the compass work, and I have to say this concept is really fun and clever to me! Coupled with its many riddles and puzzles, this is a novel experience that I hope will see more polish going forward. The way the rooms change layout is smooth, and each one can be entered from different directions (nice touch).
The riddles were pretty hard to figure out on my own, I had to resort to asking for solutions and ultimately giving up, oof. I think the main menu music is too loud compared to the in-game sound.
I recommend this since I had fun, but the experience was soured by the crashes. Definitely check it out post-Jam!
Man future government suuucks! This adventure game has a varied soundtrack, a cool story and much to discover. I liked the artstyle of the initial briefing, and it was simply fun running through the many caves and caverns, blasting a few of the powerful aliens with acid while collecting resources. The mech model looks nice, I only wish it had animations. The beacon system is well integrated and easy to track.
I believe that the music in the ice layer could be more varied, as you're bound to spend more time in there to stockpile supplies for the danger ahead. I couldn't complete the game because the enemies simply frightened me too much: when I poked my head in a cave close to their spawn depth, a swarm of 10~ of them attacked me and caused me to flee. When I tried to fight them, they always overwhelmed me with numbers because of their fast spawn rate.
Overall though, this is a recommendation because it felt polished where it counted, albeit being really difficult at times.
This is the first Game Jam game I played this year, and I have to say, as 'simple' as the concept is, it was a very enjoyable experience. There was no need for lots of introductory text or explanations - the gameplay was very intuitive and the pacing was great. There was parts where I thought I was stuck but then kind of naturally figured it out. I especially found the hand prints that display on the blocks a nice touch. The atmosphere was very chill and spacey thanks to the music and sparce use of sound effects (only from moving blocks or teleporting). The textures were nice, as was the use of image backgrounds. While the gameplay was a lot simpler than Glitch, I actually didn't lose my patience with this and managed to clear the whole thing.
There wasn't much content to the game, but in its defence, everything that was there was very nicely polished. The rooms were interestingly arranged and the atmosphere really worked with the theme. Some of the textures could use a tiny bit of fine tuning perhaps (I found the textures at the crash site/opening kind of jarring and unharmonious, maybe they clash with each other or the background), but the space station areas looked great.
I'd like to see more of Klots and would definitely hop back in to play more levels.
OVERVIEW - The secret story of spacetravel
The gameplay in this game was a bit repetitive, and the lack of sounds didn't help.
This game was for me, was right between a thumbs up or thumbs down, but in the end, I'm giving it a thumbs up.
What really was this game's saving grace, was how well Nathan used all of this year's game jam themes.
The storyline was pretty good, the game was obviously a space game, and there was a hint on secrets in the game.
The ending was a bit forced, and pretty easy to get too.
I think really one of the biggest things this game needs, is some sounds.
But besides that, good job.
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan
2 - Meh
3 - Okay
4 - Good
5 - Love it!
I enjoyed poking at the klots to understand their otherworldy secrets, and succeded! The game features a soothing tune that will accompany your puzzle solving, enough levels to understand all its mechanics and neat looking nodes across all its levels; oh and the cool background!
I experienced some rubberbanding with movements, but it wasn't too distracting. Of course, more levels are going to be a nice addition.
I recommend this to anyone who likes mini-games that make you chill and ponder solutions.
It's a pity this game didn't get the polish it needed. The alien-style GUI looks interesting, even if unfinished, and the worms have detailed textures.
However, the only "interaction" possible seems to be raising the ground, and many textures are missing. The worms only have two animations; they also get stuck if the ground is raised at their position.
Let's wait and see what this becomes; I can't recommend this as it's lacking both in gameplay and stability.
The way unified_inventory does things makes it a joy to work with for developers, while more modern inventories like i3 are flashy, but do not support as much and are harder to work with. Registerable buttons and fairly easy configuration make this mod very flexible, and add-ons like Unified Inventory Plus make crafting a charm.
As for criticism, Unified Inventory desperately needs a better sorting system, although VanessaE's newest one is pretty good - but it needs a bit larger support. A more modern look might also help a lot. Also, UI does not come with a good skins mod out of the box, you need to install something like u_skins to get a nice selection of skins.
You mine 5 meterorites, that's it (game is probably still WIP)
Overall result
I'm sorry, but no recommendation, this is way too incomplete, too little gameplay. This looks like a prototype tho, so I'm still interested to see where this game will go in the future, if it is continued post-jam, because I'm kinda curious about the concept.
Gameplay
Sadly, there is not much you can do yet. Probably this is another prototype for the game jam. Your main mission is to collect 5 asteroids with the "power hammer" tool and then you win. :-( And you basically just have to wait until they randomly drop from the sky. The mapgen is also very, very simple and mostly, although the MASSIVE ravines look really cool. I was promised an alien fight but even after 3 playthroughs I never encountered them. (?????) I like that you have a companion, the C.O.M.P. Unit. This reminds me of some really old-school sci-fi stories. There are special abilities you can use with your two tools, but what use do they have if there is nothing to fight? :(
Graphics
I was pleasantly surprised. Interesting art style and use of contrast which sets the world apart from default Minetest Game textures. The game logo could still do some work tho.
Sounds
This one had a surprise: It has speech output for your companion "C.O.M.P.". And the music seems to be composed and created by the author as well. Very nice! Even if the music is a bit simple, I really like that someone made music for the game specifically for the game jam.
Stability / Performance
The game is stable. It greets me with an harmless error message about missing river water, but not real bugs. I had no performance problems on a >10y computer. 60 FPS effortlessly.
Absolutely no recommendation as a game. This is just too boring even as a tamagotchi. It is probably WIP/incomplete anyway. At this stage, it might serve as a screensaver at best.
"Gameplay"
This is a very early prototype, so there is very little of what you could call "gameplay". You mostly just watch forms slide around on an orange asteroid, that's it. You can raise the ground at certain places and add new space worms with a maximum of 3. That's it. You can't even undo the raising of land, that's how incomplete this is. It gets boring instantly, sorry. First, this is not a game, as there is no gameplay. It is more like a tamagotchi. That alone isn't a problem, but even as a tamagotchi is has nothing to offer since you just can't do anything. And if all you can do with the worms is just watch, you can hardly call it a game.
It's still interesting to see new concepts being tried out in Minetest. I believe something like Adopt a Space Worm! was never even tried before, so I give a few points for the idea. :P
Unfortunately feels to incomplete, the lack of sounds is disturbing
Overall rating
No recommendation, because the gameplay experience is still bland due to incompleteness. A lot more work is needed, but it's a start. To players I advice to just wait until the complete game gets released. Currently, this is mostly feels like an early demo version. I think the size of the map was ultimately this game's downfall, the author made the map WAY too big and then was unable to create a complete (or even semi-complete) experience within the time frame. I still appreciate the work that has been put into this MASSIVE map already, I think I should check out this game again if a post-jam version is planned. Although the game got no recommendation, I do NOT say it's worthless. I would love to see an actual polished adventure/mystery-style game in MT.
Gameplay
First of all, this game might be the first attempt to create a non-trivial adventure/mystery-style game in Minetest ever (together with Piranesi, I guess). The attempt alone is cool, it's high time that Minetesters explore new genres. :-)
Sadly, the result ultimately falls flat IMO. You explore the various rooms and collect items and clues, except the only item that actually matters are the keycards that unlock new rooms. Oddly, the key cards just magically increase your security clearance by using them in mid air (not at a terminal)??? There are working computers which their own GUI, which is nice, but you can't do much with them yet. A minimal game functionality is available: You can open doors and close them and the security clearance is checked properly.
IMHO Best sound ambience of the 2022 Minetest Game Jam
Overall rating
I give this one a recommendation for the sound design ALONE, even if the game is lacking a bit in content and the goal is a GRIND to achieve. I hope this one will get expanded (and bugfixed) post-jam, I am looking forward for an update.
Gameplay
The gameplay is basically ... survive, I guess? You run in a seemingly endless expanse of metal rooms, except it's not rooms, it's walls in a chaotic pattern. This game must have been directly inspired by SCP stories from the Internet, I guess it's not a coincidence that the letters "SSP" are similar to "SCP". :-)
You constantly run throughout the rooms, hoping to find something new and punch to destroy objects like drawers, storage boxes. Most of the "rooms" look alike, but they are not identical, it's chaos. Normally I would find such things boring fast, but the ambience REALLY carries the game. I found two rare special structures: The engines with coal stacks inside, and a filter system. Apart from that, it's boxes, computers, drawers and some random electronics.
The game tells you very little about what happens, you have to figure (most) things on your own, but this adds to the mystery. You get hungry fast, but there are plenty of food boxes, but you still need to restock constantly, so you need to explore further. I think the game still needs to add a few more special structures to be not monotonous, however, the endless repeating halls still have something spooky ...
Unique experience, but unstable and feels incomplete
Overall rating
First of all, even if this game is incomplete, this game demonstrates greatly how games can be a form of artistic expression. This game is clearly a very special and unique submission for tha game jam. I like that a lot! But I still have to give a "No recommendation" due to massive performance problems. This is a shame, as the game is otherwise something really special, I really hope the problems will be fixed and the game will continued to be worked on post-jam, it 100% has HUGE potential. I am looking forward for a post-jam version of this game. It's stuff like this why I like the game jam, even if not every submission passes the park.
Gameplay
This is unique, yet familiar. It takes on the "mining" genre with a twist. The custom mapgen definitely is a huge plus for this game. Your goal is to go deeper and deeper.
The mapgen is good, you will be able to go down relatively easy, don't have to backtrack often and frequently find large cavities. What's unique are the ores, which might come in high and low quantities. Alien plants grow on the floor and ceiling.
You collect resources while venturing down and have to evade ... aliens?
This game should actually be called "Speedrunning Down" because that's the winning strategy. :D My winning strategy is to first stockpile enough saturnium and steel on the high and safe layers, and then YOLO downwards as fast as I can, not even trying to fight the enemies. When I get hit, I briefly heal my self, then continue to speedrun downwards. I also try to avoid large caves due to the enormous amount of enemies.
Maybe it would be better if the game had some other method to prevent the player to venture down too fast.
What was confusing is the game tells you to go to a spot on your radar but I did that and found ... nothing. Strange. Probably this wasn't coded yet?
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...
good job!
It is boring but the mechanics are insane!
An incredible, severely underrated mod
This is one of the best building extensions I have seen, the shapes fit together wonderfully and are a great look on any build! This mod is also ancient and does not support a lot of mods, so I would reccomend that you add new materials with
mymillwork.register(itemstring)inmaterials.lua.Trash
I dont know how to play it! its not clear imo!
Pretty cool game but needs some additional features!
soundtrack 7/10 gameplay 7.5/10 story 10/10
Very useful for my purposes!
Although the automatic line-break would be the perfect addition for this mod.
Engaging base defense game
I got wrecked... but the gameplay is well paced and fun. The assistant is cool and helpful, I only wish it was equipped with a torch, too ahah. The soundtrack is nice and varied, there is voiceover for the robot and powerful abilities in your arsenal, to boot! You can turn defensive nodes into their reinforced counterpart, and even repair damaged ones. The enemies will keep you on your toes and you should use your time wisely to prepare for their arrival.
On first playthrough, I was able to acquire the meteors without issue before night fell and thus win, so I was a bit confused; then I waited a bit the second time and the aliens proved tough to beat, maybe too tough if playing alone (I never actually fought them off successfully, due to time constraints). I only found a warning for a missing texture, it's pretty stable.
Overall, I found this mini-game very original and polished, I can recommend it if played with your friends.
Unfinished, unfortunately
I am impressed by the functionality and mechanics the author was able to include here, but even when put together they don't offer a complete experience yet, for a game. The ships, including your own, are procedurally generated, and they all have functional, vital components for gravity, shields, comms, etc. There are even visitors that pop up, warning you in chat if they are just patrolling, looking to trade or are hostile. If you try to leave your ship and dig others, you are stopped. You are able to rearrange the ship as you please.
With that said, the gameplay isn't there yet, and sadly this lacks a clear direction. AFAIK interacttions with other ships are limited to simply hailing you when they arrive. There is a crafting element, but some materials aren't obtainable, I think. The oxygen mechanic isn't implemented yet. There are no sounds. You can drop your tools in the void, losing them forever.
There isn't much to get from this in its current state, but it already has a decent foundation to build upon. I hope to see this game expanded post-Jam.
Relaxing little adventure
This is a pretty short mini-game, but it's semi-complete and the story was funny. The ship GUI is standard, but features a lot of elements (not all functional), one of these being a self-updating log to understand your current mission. I liked that the textures for the asteroids were all a bit different, they weren't just a different color. The music was spacey.
As I said, some of the ship functionality is not implemented, and can actually hurt your progress if you're not careful. The story was interesting enough, even though the game ended pretty quickly. The ship tends to obstruct the view when looking downwards, while inside it.
I like space plots, so this one was right up my alley. Recommended ;)
Starting from page 48
and name Sabrina D 'till page 54(Unidentified Czech Female Reactor (Non-Blonde Form)) there are skins without faces. Need to manually edit png's, delete white squares to make them transparent to return their heads.
Atmospheric but a bit rough around the edges in its current form
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: 6 | Innovation: 8 | Graphics (Content): 7 | Music & Sound (Content): 7 | Theme: 10 | Stability: 8 |
Total: 46
I agree with what others have said: this game really does atmosphere well, both on the surface with the view of the planet and inside the caves. The pixel art in the opening and menus is very clean too. The thematic music is a very nice touch. It would be great to see fleshed out beyond its Game Jam state. Spiralling Down could be Minetest's answer to Deep Rock Galatic.
That being said, it's not finished enough to recommend spending a great deal of time in right now. The menu screen isn't really very intitutive, it's not clear what the various elements you're collecting are or do, or what the tools are (it would be helpful if the HUD showed a descriptive name for the selected tool). Though I said I like the music, it's way too loud by default and there really could be more emphasis on sound effects, especially for drilling and such. Music transitions are a bit abrupt when moving between areas. I also got some errors related to sounds when using the acid gun (didn't know how to use it either). There were some plants that were kind of floating a few blocks off the ground that looked like they should be hanging from the ceiling. It would be good if you could pick up the lights again. The bat monsters could use some work, they're a bit laggy for me and totally overwhelming. The weird green balls also look a bit rough and clutter everything up. The game could introduce you to the hostiles in a bit more of a staggered fashion - perhaps only a handful at first, then more of them and more dangerous foes the deeper you go.
I am taking the time to give feedback here because I think the bones we have here are promising and it could be a fun game with more development.
Very engaging, but a crash is around any corner
I had a blast with this game... when it worked. I played on 5.5.1 to have the compass work, and I have to say this concept is really fun and clever to me! Coupled with its many riddles and puzzles, this is a novel experience that I hope will see more polish going forward. The way the rooms change layout is smooth, and each one can be entered from different directions (nice touch).
The riddles were pretty hard to figure out on my own, I had to resort to asking for solutions and ultimately giving up, oof. I think the main menu music is too loud compared to the in-game sound.
I recommend this since I had fun, but the experience was soured by the crashes. Definitely check it out post-Jam!
v (More in the comments) v
Fight or flight, the game
Man future government suuucks! This adventure game has a varied soundtrack, a cool story and much to discover. I liked the artstyle of the initial briefing, and it was simply fun running through the many caves and caverns, blasting a few of the powerful aliens with acid while collecting resources. The mech model looks nice, I only wish it had animations. The beacon system is well integrated and easy to track.
I believe that the music in the ice layer could be more varied, as you're bound to spend more time in there to stockpile supplies for the danger ahead. I couldn't complete the game because the enemies simply frightened me too much: when I poked my head in a cave close to their spawn depth, a swarm of 10~ of them attacked me and caused me to flee. When I tried to fight them, they always overwhelmed me with numbers because of their fast spawn rate.
Overall though, this is a recommendation because it felt polished where it counted, albeit being really difficult at times.
v (More in the comments) v
Satsifying, short spacey puzzler with a meditative feel
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: 8 | Innovation: 8 | Graphics (Content): 7 | Music & Sound (Content): 10 | Theme: 9 | Stability: 10 |
Total: 52
This is the first Game Jam game I played this year, and I have to say, as 'simple' as the concept is, it was a very enjoyable experience. There was no need for lots of introductory text or explanations - the gameplay was very intuitive and the pacing was great. There was parts where I thought I was stuck but then kind of naturally figured it out. I especially found the hand prints that display on the blocks a nice touch. The atmosphere was very chill and spacey thanks to the music and sparce use of sound effects (only from moving blocks or teleporting). The textures were nice, as was the use of image backgrounds. While the gameplay was a lot simpler than Glitch, I actually didn't lose my patience with this and managed to clear the whole thing.
There wasn't much content to the game, but in its defence, everything that was there was very nicely polished. The rooms were interestingly arranged and the atmosphere really worked with the theme. Some of the textures could use a tiny bit of fine tuning perhaps (I found the textures at the crash site/opening kind of jarring and unharmonious, maybe they clash with each other or the background), but the space station areas looked great.
I'd like to see more of Klots and would definitely hop back in to play more levels.
Lack of gameplay, but good storyline
OVERVIEW - The secret story of spacetravel The gameplay in this game was a bit repetitive, and the lack of sounds didn't help. This game was for me, was right between a thumbs up or thumbs down, but in the end, I'm giving it a thumbs up. What really was this game's saving grace, was how well Nathan used all of this year's game jam themes. The storyline was pretty good, the game was obviously a space game, and there was a hint on secrets in the game. The ending was a bit forced, and pretty easy to get too. I think really one of the biggest things this game needs, is some sounds. But besides that, good job.
RATING SYSTEM:
1 - Not a fan 2 - Meh 3 - Okay 4 - Good 5 - Love it!
GAMEPLAY - 3
GRAPHICS - 3
PLAYER-FRIENDLY - 3
PERFORMANCE - 5
SOUNDS & MUSIC - 1
THEME - 5
TOTAL - 20/30(Good)
Poetic brainteaser
I enjoyed poking at the klots to understand their otherworldy secrets, and succeded! The game features a soothing tune that will accompany your puzzle solving, enough levels to understand all its mechanics and neat looking nodes across all its levels; oh and the cool background!
I experienced some rubberbanding with movements, but it wasn't too distracting. Of course, more levels are going to be a nice addition.
I recommend this to anyone who likes mini-games that make you chill and ponder solutions.
Unfinished, unfortunately
It's a pity this game didn't get the polish it needed. The alien-style GUI looks interesting, even if unfinished, and the worms have detailed textures.
However, the only "interaction" possible seems to be raising the ground, and many textures are missing. The worms only have two animations; they also get stuck if the ground is raised at their position.
Let's wait and see what this becomes; I can't recommend this as it's lacking both in gameplay and stability.
DISGUSTANG
This game and its sounds are disgusting.
Good job, I guess.
Also, it lags my pc with infinitely-spawning robocops.
Great mod!
Is there a possibility that the fire, ice, etc. created by the swords will disappear after a short time? So that the environment is not destroyed.
More flexibility than i3
The way unified_inventory does things makes it a joy to work with for developers, while more modern inventories like i3 are flashy, but do not support as much and are harder to work with. Registerable buttons and fairly easy configuration make this mod very flexible, and add-ons like Unified Inventory Plus make crafting a charm.
As for criticism, Unified Inventory desperately needs a better sorting system, although VanessaE's newest one is pretty good - but it needs a bit larger support. A more modern look might also help a lot. Also, UI does not come with a good skins mod out of the box, you need to install something like u_skins to get a nice selection of skins.
You mine 5 meterorites, that's it (game is probably still WIP)
Overall result
I'm sorry, but no recommendation, this is way too incomplete, too little gameplay. This looks like a prototype tho, so I'm still interested to see where this game will go in the future, if it is continued post-jam, because I'm kinda curious about the concept.
Gameplay
Sadly, there is not much you can do yet. Probably this is another prototype for the game jam. Your main mission is to collect 5 asteroids with the "power hammer" tool and then you win. :-( And you basically just have to wait until they randomly drop from the sky. The mapgen is also very, very simple and mostly, although the MASSIVE ravines look really cool. I was promised an alien fight but even after 3 playthroughs I never encountered them. (?????) I like that you have a companion, the C.O.M.P. Unit. This reminds me of some really old-school sci-fi stories. There are special abilities you can use with your two tools, but what use do they have if there is nothing to fight? :(
Graphics
I was pleasantly surprised. Interesting art style and use of contrast which sets the world apart from default Minetest Game textures. The game logo could still do some work tho.
Sounds
This one had a surprise: It has speech output for your companion "C.O.M.P.". And the music seems to be composed and created by the author as well. Very nice! Even if the music is a bit simple, I really like that someone made music for the game specifically for the game jam.
Stability / Performance
The game is stable. It greets me with an harmless error message about missing river water, but not real bugs. I had no performance problems on a >10y computer. 60 FPS effortlessly.
It's a glorified screensaver
Overall rating
Absolutely no recommendation as a game. This is just too boring even as a tamagotchi. It is probably WIP/incomplete anyway. At this stage, it might serve as a screensaver at best.
"Gameplay"
This is a very early prototype, so there is very little of what you could call "gameplay". You mostly just watch forms slide around on an orange asteroid, that's it. You can raise the ground at certain places and add new space worms with a maximum of 3. That's it. You can't even undo the raising of land, that's how incomplete this is. It gets boring instantly, sorry. First, this is not a game, as there is no gameplay. It is more like a tamagotchi. That alone isn't a problem, but even as a tamagotchi is has nothing to offer since you just can't do anything. And if all you can do with the worms is just watch, you can hardly call it a game.
It's still interesting to see new concepts being tried out in Minetest. I believe something like Adopt a Space Worm! was never even tried before, so I give a few points for the idea. :P
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Unfortunately feels to incomplete, the lack of sounds is disturbing
Overall rating
No recommendation, because the gameplay experience is still bland due to incompleteness. A lot more work is needed, but it's a start. To players I advice to just wait until the complete game gets released. Currently, this is mostly feels like an early demo version. I think the size of the map was ultimately this game's downfall, the author made the map WAY too big and then was unable to create a complete (or even semi-complete) experience within the time frame. I still appreciate the work that has been put into this MASSIVE map already, I think I should check out this game again if a post-jam version is planned. Although the game got no recommendation, I do NOT say it's worthless. I would love to see an actual polished adventure/mystery-style game in MT.
Gameplay
First of all, this game might be the first attempt to create a non-trivial adventure/mystery-style game in Minetest ever (together with Piranesi, I guess). The attempt alone is cool, it's high time that Minetesters explore new genres. :-)
Sadly, the result ultimately falls flat IMO. You explore the various rooms and collect items and clues, except the only item that actually matters are the keycards that unlock new rooms. Oddly, the key cards just magically increase your security clearance by using them in mid air (not at a terminal)??? There are working computers which their own GUI, which is nice, but you can't do much with them yet. A minimal game functionality is available: You can open doors and close them and the security clearance is checked properly.
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IMHO Best sound ambience of the 2022 Minetest Game Jam
Overall rating
I give this one a recommendation for the sound design ALONE, even if the game is lacking a bit in content and the goal is a GRIND to achieve. I hope this one will get expanded (and bugfixed) post-jam, I am looking forward for an update.
Gameplay
The gameplay is basically ... survive, I guess? You run in a seemingly endless expanse of metal rooms, except it's not rooms, it's walls in a chaotic pattern. This game must have been directly inspired by SCP stories from the Internet, I guess it's not a coincidence that the letters "SSP" are similar to "SCP". :-) You constantly run throughout the rooms, hoping to find something new and punch to destroy objects like drawers, storage boxes. Most of the "rooms" look alike, but they are not identical, it's chaos. Normally I would find such things boring fast, but the ambience REALLY carries the game. I found two rare special structures: The engines with coal stacks inside, and a filter system. Apart from that, it's boxes, computers, drawers and some random electronics.
The game tells you very little about what happens, you have to figure (most) things on your own, but this adds to the mystery. You get hungry fast, but there are plenty of food boxes, but you still need to restock constantly, so you need to explore further. I think the game still needs to add a few more special structures to be not monotonous, however, the endless repeating halls still have something spooky ...
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Unique experience, but unstable and feels incomplete
Overall rating
First of all, even if this game is incomplete, this game demonstrates greatly how games can be a form of artistic expression. This game is clearly a very special and unique submission for tha game jam. I like that a lot! But I still have to give a "No recommendation" due to massive performance problems. This is a shame, as the game is otherwise something really special, I really hope the problems will be fixed and the game will continued to be worked on post-jam, it 100% has HUGE potential. I am looking forward for a post-jam version of this game. It's stuff like this why I like the game jam, even if not every submission passes the park.
Gameplay
This is unique, yet familiar. It takes on the "mining" genre with a twist. The custom mapgen definitely is a huge plus for this game. Your goal is to go deeper and deeper. The mapgen is good, you will be able to go down relatively easy, don't have to backtrack often and frequently find large cavities. What's unique are the ores, which might come in high and low quantities. Alien plants grow on the floor and ceiling.
You collect resources while venturing down and have to evade ... aliens?
This game should actually be called "Speedrunning Down" because that's the winning strategy. :D My winning strategy is to first stockpile enough saturnium and steel on the high and safe layers, and then YOLO downwards as fast as I can, not even trying to fight the enemies. When I get hit, I briefly heal my self, then continue to speedrun downwards. I also try to avoid large caves due to the enormous amount of enemies. Maybe it would be better if the game had some other method to prevent the player to venture down too fast.
What was confusing is the game tells you to go to a spot on your radar but I did that and found ... nothing. Strange. Probably this wasn't coded yet?
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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.
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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...