Reviews

Review by elias all reviews by elias

It's well executed for just 72 hours. I suck at memory games but managed to clear the board eventually.

Getting it to run on Linux was not too complicated - I downloaded Godot into the same folder and ran it and I suppose Godot has a feature that if a game project is in the current directory it just runs the game :D

It would have been nice to have more fable cards of course and I'd have loved to see those dialogs.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 3

Review by amarillion all reviews by amarillion

This is a "match 2" game. Two players take turns flipping cards and trying to collect pairs.

When you click a card, the face side is revealed with an iridescent burn effect, which is pretty cool.

The face side of the cards all contain the same picture of a walking tortoise, with a number. I suppose this is in reference to the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Sadly, the tortoise is all we get. It would have been cool to see twelve different fables depicted on the cards! I'm sure this was the plan all along, and it would be my top improvement suggestion.

Players take turns, collect pairs, and the pairs are counted with a simple bar chart. Nothing special, but it works and it's clearly part of the game.

There are no speech balloons, but this is a two-player game so I suppose this could be resolved by invoking the bonus rule.

The game is pretty basic. Given that you had little time, it's nice to see that you managed to submit something playable and reasonably comprehensive.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 2

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
Only the same turtle sprite over a card with a small number in the corner. The game would be exactly the same if instead of a turtle, it was a robot, a soda drink, a pineapple, a planet or whatever. So, this isn't a great implementation of the rule.

1.2. Fable:
Differently than what the name tells, there is no fable here nor anything even by far similar to this. It is just a very simple match-up and nothing more than this.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The cards are revealed with an effect intended to be iridiscent. But it don't looks very iridescent at all.

1.4. Speech balloons:
Didn't noticed any.

1.5. 2-players:
It is indeed a two player game - red vs green - although it is possible that some people wouldn't even notice this. Also, you could very well play it alone.

1.6. Charts:
There is a chart presenting the score for each player. But this is surely not an essential part of the gameplay and it would essentially be the same if they were numbers instead.

2. Game concept and idea

Just a very simple and crude match-up game. Really needs some work to develop a distinct game concept.

3. Technical and code

The shader to create the iridiscence effect clearly was an achievement to create by its author. Its the most difficulty and complicated part of the code and it looks like that the author devoted most of his effort there.

Also, I never heard about godot before. Intersting that people uses that to develop games. But I didn't understand godot well enough and my first contact with it was through this entry. However, the code is very simple, which is expected for a very simple game. With the exception of the iridiscence part, it is also very straightforward.

4. Graphics

The graphics really need some work. At least, it should present 12 different animals instead of 12 pairs of the same turtle featuring a small number.

The chart and the circle showing who is the turn could also be improved.

The iridiscent effect isn't very iridiscent at all.

There aren't speech balloons in the game.

5. Audio

Not implemented.

6. Fun

Unfortunately, not so much fun and gets boring quickly. But it has some replay value nonetheless.

7. Suggestions for improvements

* The first most obvious improvements is to have 12 different animals instead of 12 times the same turtle with differing numbers.

* Some option to choose how many pairs there are would be nice. If I am going to play it against somewhere else, it is good to have, let's say, 40 pairs or something like that.

* This is a match-up game, so there isn't much space for innovation. But you can still do a match-up of forest animals in level 1, then a match-up of sea animals in level 2, then a match-up of birds in level 3, then a match-up of microscopic animals in level 4, and so on...

* It would be a nice addition if two matching cards don't necessarily have the same picture, but instead pictures the same animal in two different positions or angles or places, so that the two matching cards are actually very different to each other.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 1 Genre 1

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

Fable Match-Up is Memory, but with turtle-themed cards.

To be honest, I tried to get through this game quickly because it was a little bland. This game really needs a variety of different animal cards to work with. I could hardly read the little white numbers, and my strategy very quickly became "brute force every match because there's hardly any memorable visual information to work with." Nothing happens when you match all the cards. A simple "you win" would have been nice, but I just got stuck on the empty table until I closed the window to quit out of the game.

The one thing I can praise is the way the cards burn in and out of their unrevealed state. I'd love to inspect the source code and see how exactly it was done.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by amarillion all reviews by amarillion

In this wholly original Fable, a skunk and an elephant join forces to look for a magical flower. You manipulate both animals in an isometric world full of physics puzzles and scripted dialogs.

This game reminds me a bit of those old Microcomputer era 3D isometric games, such as "Solstice" or "Head over Heels" (the latter in particular because in that game you also control two player characters). I never actually finished either of those games, because they are frustratingly difficult, requiring precise jumps and block manipulation in a rather primitive physics simulation.

The same frustration unfortunately transfers over to this entry.

For example, in one screen you have to manipulate planks to create a bridge for the elephant to cross. If if you let the skunk accidentally touch the area's edge before the bridge is complete, the elephant storms towards you with the battle cry "Coming!" running straight into the pit that you hadn't finished covering with planks. The skunk and the elephant often get in each others way on the narrow boardwalks. Because the elephant always tries to follow you into the next room, even if that isn't actually possible, the skunk can't explore ahead on its own.

I think it's great that the game is based on a completely novel Fable. I know ChatGPT helped out, I still think it's original and creative. I'm going to give 5 points for the genre.

The pre-rendered graphics in classic Elias-style are effective, the Elephant looks great with its great floppy ears. The iridescent bubbles that you encounter are not very special, but they tick the box. The comic bubbles are used throughout, and I can only admire the capabilities of the scripting system, which is able to effectively convey the story. 4 Points for art.

The map screen gives you a very detailed, view of the world that you have explored. It also has charts that show in excruciating detail how poorly you are progressing. 4 Points for tech.

All in all a cool and ambitious game with a very advanced physics engine, that unfortunately proves to be a little frustrating in practice. 3 points overall.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 5

Review by sanderovich all reviews by sanderovich

Scores: Overall None Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by Jellepostma all reviews by Jellepostma

A cute game offering an AI take on a fable. The world it presents is full of small puzzles you need to solve together with your elephant companion. However, the game can be quite frustrating to play at some times, since precisely controlling both your character and the elephant can be a tough feat to accomplish, however interesting of an additional game mechanic it may be. The elephant rushes around the level trying to follow you, jumping to its demise even though you did not intent it so. At some point, you need to move planks in order for the elephant to make in through the room, which proves a difficult task since these planks are so easily moved by accident. It does not help either that the jump and pull action are bound to the same key and one cannot jump while standing still, and also not pull while moving. This makes it very difficult to move said planks in the right position.

Despite its flaws, the game's atmosphere is great. It has a nice visual style, great enchanting music and a nice world (and graphs!). The genre requirement has been fulfilled with the help of some AI magic, and I can give a wink to the "iridescent" style of the bubbles floating around (as pointed out by the elephant in the room). Overall, it was a frustratingly enjoyable experience and very impressively executed considering the time limit. Kudos!

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 2 Genre 4

Review by awergh all reviews by awergh

Genre (Fable)
=============
The fable here was: The rabbits and the elephants\the skunk and the elephant

My impression that this is a direct implementation of the fable by the skunk and the elephant working together to progress through the game.

As the game is entirely based on this premise, I would describe it as critical to the gameplay.

Technical (Overall and use of chart)
====================================
The game included a map as well as a fun chart of deaths. I found that the map was very useful to figure out how you had progressed through the game.

The deaths were not necessarily useful but it was a fun little detail to see how you were progressing through the game.

Artistical (Generally and Iridescence)
======================================

The game featured iridescent bubbles that look cool but don’t seem to do anything in regards to the actual game play.

The game has an isometric perspective which is something I very much like.

The speech balloons are used for dialog communicating with other characters in the game. I think this was a good implementation of this rule within the game.

Conclusion
==========
I found this game fairly impressive; this is partly because I particularly like games that use an isometric perspective.

I thought it was a good implementation of a fable (using chatgpt to help you make something for this still counts as a proper fable I think).

Given the size of the game I thought the map was a good way of making a useful chart that fit within the game.

In general though I didn't try to finish it and while I mostly enjoyed what I played; it could be a little bit frustrating. The biggest drawback was that the elephant had a tendency to get itself killed if you didn't babysit it through the room. The controls also felt a bit clunky at times, not quite sure how to fix this as I haven't succeeded at building an isometric game like this.

I liked the implementation of the fable and thought it provided a compelling story to progress through the game. I do think it could need a bit more work (doesn't everything) but thought it was a solid entry.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 5

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

Interesting idea, but needs some work. As the author acknowledge, its game engine is very buggy, and its buggyness interferes with gameplay.

The characters are animals, for sure. And there is a fable about reaching a flower, but to be sincere, I didn't understood it nor could complete the game.

For iridisence, well, I didn't really noticed it. I don't know if the game "dustiness" had the intent of being "iridiscent", but if it was, it didn't work very well. There are some supposedly iridiscence falling stuff, but they aren't any useful or meaningful to the game at all, and their dustiness (as everything is dusty) don't let me appreciate their iridiscence.

The speech balloons were well implemented and are useful for storytelling, so this was implemented very correctly into the game.

It claims to be a 2-player game with one player controlling the skunk and the other the elephant. But this isn't true. It is just a 1-player game where you occasionally have to control 2 characters. Claiming that this is a 2-player game would be the same as claiming that "The Lost Vikings" were a 3-player game or that "Lemmings" was a MMO game, simply no.

There is a chart in the map page, but it isn't very useful and is perfectly dispensable.

The code is significantly complex. And needs some work to nail down the bugs, including sequence-breaking bugs. Unfortunately, there are many bugs that may screw up the gaming experience. Also, I suspected that I softlocked the game at least once, but I have no idea how.

The game controls are awful, and difficult to learn to use correctly. Also, they are very easy to screw up. Falling off the screen instead of navigating between rooms is common. Misjumping into the void due to bad timing into hitting buttons is also easy. Pushing or pulling stuff when you wanted to jump or vice-versa may also screw up things. Those bugs, specially the ones about moving characters, are very frustrating and this isn't intended as part of the game experience.

The game can be fun and challenging. Many other games were either too boring or too short, but this is not the case here. There are many rooms to explore and many puzzles to solve.

My suggestions are:

* Make the controls easier.

* Remove the dustiness.

* Fix the bugs.

* Make the map larger, with randomly generatd parts or different levels.

And with those changes, it would be a very nice game.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 3

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

It has too many errors, to such an extent that in the end I got stuck with an elephant that fell into the void. If only he could fly.

The whole visual interface like menu, charts and bubble texts is too simple, only just practice. The only iridescent thing is the bubbles, which is barely noticeable.

The style of the game is interesting, the characters with animations, the handling of objects and collisions as well. This part makes the game pretty good.
The events and limitations on the place fail too much, I advise limiting the space where you travel and if you leave the space in the place then the change must be instantaneous.
It's very annoying when you have to adapt to the area and activate the yellow section event along the way.

Instead of 2 buttons (jump and pull) on the keyboard you did it with 1 button, I suppose it's to simulate the old 1-button joystick, although I'm not sure.

I have not seen any magic flower. :(

I could only see a short and simple story with the elephant, a goblin, and a... human? Does count like fable a human in human form and who speaks? Then the elephant seems to follow me on every part of the map until I get stuck. I can't say anything about his history.

The events along with the narrations work well, I have seen that the balloon keeps pointing to the characters and they reset if you die or exit.

The graphics and the map keep a style reminiscent of the old mac and win3.1. Like the mechanics of the game it reminds me of many others. The game is well done, and I advise continuing it to complete it and clean up all the bugs. It gives to make games like this with multiple stories, or completing the map to eliminate gaps, or completing the map with scroll, it gives to create various modalities and styles of games.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 4

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

The Magical Flower is as beautiful as it is frustrating. It is beautifully frustrating!

It frustrates by design in the endearingly clumsy character of the elephant, whose greater size and power easily displaces the skunk into the abyss at the slightest lapse of attention, and whose adorably naive faith in the skunk's leadership often sends him plummeting after.

It unfortunately also frustrates for a less charming reason: the game's controls handle like an elephant has taken the wheel.

The game's keyboard controls are mostly to blame. Although the options to remap the keys don't actually work, this makes little difference when the push/pull and jump commands are tied to the same key. When the skunk is moving, the action key causes it to jump. When it skunk is not moving, the action key causes it to push or pull. Simple enough, until you discover that the skunk can never take standing jumps in place to help gauge the the width of gaps. Conversely, precise arrangements of plank bridges are constantly being disordered by accidental jumping at the worst moments, consigning them (and the hapless skunk) to sky-blue oblivion.

Speaking of the bridges, I've run into a bug on two separate maps where the fallen planks despawn and will not return even if I force-restart the level or the entire application. Mercifully, I was able to counter this with a combination of other bugs, including:
-abusing skunk's uncanny ability to carry the elephant on its own back and access staircase boardwalks that the elephant is not meant to be able to reach
-the skunk's ability to pull boulders that are supposedly too heavy to be pushed
-apparent default exits that the game sets the characters' position to upon a forced level reset, which allow me to skip past the map's puzzles if I approached from the wrong side

Although I managed to win without cheating on a second run, my greatest obstacle turned out to be the skunk's inability to move while lifting the planks, making the function essentially useless. Being able to properly position the planks would have been an enormous quality-of-life improvement, given that both the skunk and elephant will kick planks into the pit if they are even slightly too high or low. If two planks fall on top of each other in an particularly unfortunate configuration (e.g. their ends overlap), the level can become unwinnable as easily as that.

With those control complaints out of the way, it's onto the handling of this competition's rules. But first, I want to praise the background tracks: their varied moods complement the game's atmosphere well. Where did you find such enchanting pieces?

Fable:
You've made excellent use of the animal fables rule not only by building an entire game around an original AI-written story, but one where the physical differences between the elephant and skunk are juxtaposed to hilarious effect. I found the elephant's constant complaining about being bumped into and stepped over funny, then wearisome, then funny once more. They skunk simply can't help but bump into the elephant, and the elephant can't help but bump into the skunk, to disastrous effect given the world's narrow configurations. There are probably several morals that can be taken from that interaction alone, but they'll have to speak for themselves.

Dialogue:
The dialogue bubbles fit the game's aesthetic well, and much is expressed with literally few words. The over-large, terse, all-lower case font was a great design choice that contrasted the elephant's innocent nature with its inadvertently destructive potential. I could never stay angry at the elephant no matter how many of my painstakingly constructed bridges he wrecks.

I initially wished that the skunk were similarly well characterized, being the "I" of the game. Perhaps the player is meant to project themselves onto his speechless character? In which case, it is well that the skunk has nothing to say, for the dialogue bubbles I would emit would be unpublishable here.

Iridescence:
The iridescent bubbles felt a bit flat and un-bubblelike, but I don't have anything against them since they were not central to the gameplay or story. Their flatness though, did sometimes bring to attention just how confused my sense of space and perspective could be in some of the isometric maps - the map on second column on the bottom grid row is a prime example. I guess it is difficult to design a perfect map that is neither truly two or three dimensional.

Graphs:
This game had three separate graphs! The world grid would have been a sufficient chart already, especially as the story refers to it as a chart directly. I'm not sure why the measurement of completion percentage had to be in bars when it could have just been a progress bar. I'm also not sure how I feel about the deaths-per-minute graph, even though it's good for a laugh if I make time to pay attention to it. I think a graph that displayed how many times I died in each particular map would have been far more interesting.

Speaking of the world grid, was there supposed to be a hint somewhere leading to the final story piece after encountering the gnomes on the main path? It felt like I discovered it accidentally only after much aimless wandering.

Co-op(tional):
A game about cooperation with yourself. Ah, the humility... I did have a partner assist me with the aforementioned elephant-carrying bug, but it really is a single-player game.

Well, in parting... the Magical Flower was by far the longest TINS 2023 entry I've played. I felt good when I finished it, but I can't say I felt good throughout. I struggled with the controls more than I struggled with the game's offered challenges. I think the maps I enjoyed most in retrospect were not the bridge-building and gap-jumping zones, but the straightforward paths and crossroads that gave me time to breathe and take in the journey of the elephant and skunk through the frustratingly beautiful maze.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by MarkOates all reviews by MarkOates

"Fole & Raul: Capylandia Eco Rescue" takes players on a delightful cat-filled (you can never go wrong there) adventure on a charming island. The task of saving capybaras offered a unique and heartwarming concept that me and my game review partner enjoyed. We liked the capybara graphics, and felt sad to see them tied up, and that became a main motivator for us to play the game.

Despite the concept, I found myself wishing for a more relaxed pace to truly soak in the game's world. The constant presence of a timer heightened the anxiety and prevented me from fully immersing myself in the surroundings. We felt rushed in a way that degraded our experience of the game.

From a technical perspective, I appreciated this game. The idea of re-used code was a smart approach that I think more hackathon participants should adopt (it's a more realistic strategy for 72-hours and makes for more interesting games, less stress and less disappointment). The inclusion of auto-generated dungeons was one of my favorite twists, and as someone interested in the technical side of game development, that piqued my attention. So, from a technical perspective, good strong marks for this game.

Visually, the game showcases a vibrant iridescent art style. While the concept is intriguing, the abundance of visual contrasts and fixed scrolling mechanics made it visually noisy and aesthetically difficult to parse. This resulted in the biggest hinderance in our ability overall to enjoy the game. The game could be improved by addressing the visual design from a global perspective, by creating a clearer, simpler visual hierarchy among different elements, such as the HUD, player characters, environment, items, etc. For future projects, you might start with a restrained, single color, 4-shade palette, and focus on the visual elements and their role in creating a cohesive presentation of the game's information. So, though the artistic *rules* were met well (artistic rated a 4), it hindered the game overall (overall rated a 3).

Overall, one of the stronger entries technically, so thank you for making this game 😀.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

This game concept was very interesting. However, it gets repetitive quickly.

The characters are all animals. But if they were humans, aliens or robots instead, the game would still work (and possible even better than with animals). So, maybe it was somewhat lacking in this department. However, it is still good as is nonetheless.

There isn't really any fable other than a generic "let's save the world" motif, or more specifically, "let's save capybaras while avoid or killing people who litters the beach, ride cars or are just walking around".

The time sometimes runs short too easily and may ruin the game. Specially after defeating a hard level, you will possibly have too few time to have any hope in the floolwing level.

Also, the chart isn't really a chart, it is a map. Making an excuse for that based on wordplay and exploiting ambiguities of the English language to call it as a chart don't really work. However, at least the map is an important concept of this game.

The oil iridiscence isn't very convincing and is just cosmetic. If it was not there the game would either be the same or slightly better.

The speech balloons are very underused.

There is a 2-player game part and it is really well done, being a truly 2-player game.

Got only one bug when playtesting it: When one of the player dies and the other still manages to finish the level, the dead player will be ressurrected in the following level and can still play, but its map will be invisible and unable to navigate rooms. Other than that bug, everything just works perfectly.

The code is pollutted with a lot of code inherited from previous games that were not properly cleaned. But it was competently developed nonetheless.

The game is very promising and bear a rich playing experience. My suggestions to make it great are those:

* Add more different enemy types.

* Fixed time per level. Remaining time of the previous level should be either meaningless or converted into money perhaps.

* Be more generous about time, so people would appreciate more the puzzling and enemy-killing aspect of the game and less trying to speedrun it.

* Most enemies are avoidable and worthless to kill due to time constraints and you might kill a few only for money. Make it mandatory to kill some enemies in some areas for things other than money (like keys, for example).

* Improve the puzzling aspect of the games. Different key types to different doors is a way to do it. Another way is to add switches, buttons, force fields, etc.

* Either make the oil-over-sea more convincing and gameplay-interfering or drop it entirely.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

ery good action game, but very slow. I suppose that an 8K screen has been used in a small window, otherwise I don't understand why a game that should be smooth works so slow.

Various characters doing random dumb things getting in your way until you get killed. A cat making illegal sales and capiabaras that need to be rescued. Simple but remarkable animations. I like how the bird has different actions. There are blocks with locks and keys, pure capitalism, teleports, and auto-generated maps. Quite a few things made in 3 days, although I think having a team and recycling codes is more beneficial.

There are no charts. Low on dialogue and very poor on iridescence (or is it iridescence with the 4 CGA colors?).

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 1 Genre 5

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

A day in the life of a feline eco-tourist! Delivering capybaras from the snares of inconsiderable fellows who throw improbable volumes of trash and run you over with racecars.

Capylandia Eco Rescue was the most original entry in this competition, and yet the easiest to just pick up, learn the ropes of, and play. I'm not used to adventure games where you get things done without having to collect things, read between their lines, and plug item-Xs into item-Ys. This game is simple fun that drops you right into the action without unnecessary preamble.

What I most appreciated about Capylandia was its random generation, which kept exploration fresh over several playthroughs. The game's most challenging aspect is an unforgiving time limit that keeps the player laser-focused on charting the lay of the land, with each level adding to the size and complexity of the levels. A generous helping of locked doors, hidden keys and teleport pads strains your short-term memory to its limits; there is no time to indulge in super-soaking the tourists for petty spending coin when every wasted second, every distraction leading to a wrong turn brings you that much closer to an instant failure by time-out.

It's a surprisingly high pressure experience for a game that takes place in a nature preserve.

Given that your rapidly dwindling lifespan is so critical in this game, it seems strange for the time limit to be communicated in a hard-to-read white text in the bottom left corner of the screen, when there is so much free space in the blue overhead HUD. The first few times I played the game, I did not even realize there was a time limit.

Then again, I was thoroughly trounced by trash-throwers and racecar-drivers the first few runs, not realizing there was an water gun button I could use to defend myself. Thanks to Amarillion for informing me of this.

Defeating tourists with the water gun drops a pittance of money, which isn't really enough to benefit your run much in the later levels where time grows tight and tourist enemies take increasing hits to defeat. You can buy time limit extensions, hitpoints, soaker upgrades from rabbit merchants, but it's better to run past enemies and focus on not getting lost than to risk losing time and health to collecting coins. In either case, I found that all my items get purchased unconsciously when I accidentally run into the rabbit. A button to confirm purchases would be welcome.

My eventual strategy was to treat the water gun like the emergency pistol from Metroid, using it only to stun and push enemies out of the way. I'm always especially vigilant around teleport pads - it seems a bit off that tourists and their projectiles are able to hit you partway through the teleportation delay while you are stuck in place. I'm not sure if this is a legitimate flaw or my bad for expecting to be invincible for some reason, but I'll whine about it here.

So - Concerning the competition's artistic and technical rules.

Animals: I had criticized the animal in other entries for lacking character, complaining that they did not exhibit the physical qualities associated with each animal. But I feel this doesn't apply in the case of Eco Rescue because the characters are sufficiently and convincingly anthropomorphic that I see them as animal-people rather than animals-that-talk. This game has an excellent selection of enemy types, and I would love to soak them all.

Speech bubbles: Sometimes, the rabbit merchant's "you don't have enough money" bubble will obscure the text that advertises what is being sold. Other times, the bubble advertises the wrong item. There was one playthrough where I desperately tried to collect the last few remaining coins to afford a time extension, but the time merchant sold me the soaker upgrade instead and watched as the timeout erased me from existence. Maybe the merchant's offered item changes depending on some condition and I happened to be very unlucky?

Iridescence: Of all the entries, I feel this is the only game where the iridescent effect made the experience worse. I get that the amorphous rainbow rings were meant represent be oil slicks in the ocean, but they are painful and garish to look at. I managed to tune them out though, and enjoy the game despite them.

Charts: "Nautical charts?" Sure, I'd give that a pass, though I don't see much sea around these islands.

Finding the chart early is an enormous boon on the later levels. Not finding the chart is, on the other hand, cause for anxiety. I kind of wish there were sub-charts or some alternative way to get useful map data to even out probabilities, but winning or losing by a stroke of fortune has its charm, too.

Co-op: I didn't have anyone to play with this time around, but will update soon on this.

Parting thoughts:
This is a excellent game - fun, challenging, funny, original, and easy to understand. I regret having done Capylandia a disservice by playing and reviewing it last, when I had the least attention and energy to get into its nuances. It's possible that it would have been my favourite game of TINS 2023 in a parallel universe where I downloaded the games in a slightly different order.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by MarkOates all reviews by MarkOates

"Les Beaux Ballons" by the team BALLOONTASTIC is an underwater-themed game that delivers a fixed perspective experience. With opposing players facing each other, the objective is to inflate balloons and shoot down those on the opponent's side. The game's use of vocals in its music added a whimsical DIY touch. Though the music itself is enjoyable, we felt that introducing more variety in the soundtrack would enhance the overall experience.

Initially, "Les Beaux Ballons" presented some challenges in understanding the objective clearly. It took some time for us to grasp what we should be doing, or, what effect shooting our balloons had, and that affected our ability to get immersed into the gameplay. To enhance the gameplay experience, consider incorporating more visual and audio cues (when collecting items or hitting targets), to clarify the objective and help players better understand the mechanics. By providing these cues, players can more quickly immerse themselves in the excitement of the balloon battle.

It was good to see an entry to TINS that was developed using Unity, and this choice was reflected in the visually appealing atmosphere, graphics, and animations. The underwater setting creates a captivating backdrop that immerses players in the game's world. However, as we delved deeper into 'Les Beaux Ballons,' we discovered that the gameplay mechanics felt somewhat underdeveloped, resulting in a sense of repetitiveness. The core mechanic became a repetitive task, lacking enough variation to fully engage us. While the attention to visual detail is commendable, the game would greatly benefit from incorporating additional gameplay elements or introducing new challenges that break up the monotony and enhance interactivity within the 2-player gameplay. By expanding the mechanics and adding more depth, 'Les Beaux Ballons' could achieve a better balance between its impressive visuals and engaging gameplay experience.

Including 2-player gameplay was a great choice. As reviewers, we were happy to have a game that we could both play together, and as such it felt like a solid trade-off for not implementing one of the other rules.

Overall, despite the impressive visual presentation, "Les Beaux Ballons" would benefit from further gameplay refinement to match the high standards set by its visuals.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 2

Review by awergh all reviews by awergh

Genre (Fable)
=============
As far as I can tell there was not a fable in this game. There were some fish and balloon animals but no fable, at least not explained in game or the logs or readme.

Technical (Overall and use of chart)
====================================
I didn't find a chart in the game but the game itself appeared pretty solid technically.
That said it included a two player mode so I will assume that the chart rule was skipped.
As a two player game I think it seemed like a solid implementation and the game was specifically designed for this rather than being bolted on. Unfortunately there wasn't really a one player game mode so my experience was playing by myself as both players which may have made the experience worse.

Artistical (Generally and Iridescence)
======================================
As far as I know I didn't see any iridescence but I may have missed it.
The speech balloons were clear but I didn't understand if they did anything in the game. From my experience the speech balloons didn't really do anything gameplay wise.

However while it didn't really do much in the artistic implementation of the rules it is very nice to look at. By far the prettiest looking entry in the competition.

Conclusion
==========
This game was visually quite nice to look at. It reminded me of gorillas somewhat in that you had to attempt to destroy the other player on the other side of the screen except it wasn't turn based.

I did turn the sound off as I didn't like the music that was in the background.

I found that it took a while to play by myself because it really was a two player game instead of one player.
Maybe if there were less balloons or there was more to do this would have been less of a problem.

Generally while it didn't meet all the rules (at least in my opinion) it was well polished and visually nice looking game. I suspect as a multiplayer game it would be much more fun then trying to play by myself.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 2

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

This game features very beautiful graphics. Et il est en français.

It is really a 2-player game.

The music is relaxing when you hear it for the first time. However, it becomes really annoying from the second time and on.

The speech balloons are there for no reason at all. Oui et non, mais pourquoi? Je ne compreend pas!

I don't remember about charts or iridiscence, maybe I didn't even noticed them. Also, the animals (fish) are just incidental characters in the game. Further, a dog-shaped balloon isn't really an animal. There is no fable at all nor anything even remotely looking as one.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is not very good. It is a boring and uninteresting game.

But the game still have some potential nonetheless. There are some good game mechanics there that should be reused in some later game or an improved version of this one.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 5 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

I can't compile C# in Linux.

Scores: Overall None Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

"Ba... ba baAA bAAAAA
ba-baa baaaaaaa....."

A game deserving of the adjective beautiful. A slow-paced turret shooter where the objective is to destroy your opponent's balloons.

Though I use the word "opponent," partner may have been more apt in describing our approach to Les Beaux Ballons. It took some time for the two of us to puzzle out together just how the game worked, from its controls, its objectives and its mechanics to exactly what benefits of the "powerups" were meant to confer. By the time we figured out how to play the game, the competitive spirit was all underwater. Some instructions would have saved us a lot of time.

I think what this game lacks, above all else, are both audio and visual effects. There's not much impact from the inflation of the balloon, its trajectory through the water, and its collision with the clownfish, the powerups, or the opponent's apparatus. A trail of bubbles or some hydraulic noises would have made a world of difference in every interaction.

I will also complain that the trajectory of the balloons is too fast and straight to make intuitive sense in an underwater game, and that the opponent's balloons take too long to destroy. In the end, the other player and I chose to cooperate to clear the water so that my balloons could be targetted more easily, all so that we could see what happens when one side wins. Fewer "lives" in favour of a faster turnaround on battles would have been more engaging.

There is a lot that this game could have done with just the simple physics hinted by the accumulation of wasted balloons drifting on the seafloor. More of an arcing projectile motion, heavier missiles and some kind of threshold velocity to meaningfully collide balloons with obstacles seems like a necessary baseline for this game to feel aesthetically convincing.

So what did I find most beautiful about this game?

It's the fully engorged sushi balloon for sure. Never had nigiri looked so intimidating! That, and the choice of background music, which continues to play on repeat in my head as I write this review.

Parting thoughts:
It's a good-looking game that I would love to play again if further developed, but feels incomplete at this time.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by elias all reviews by elias

I loved this game, it's the most memorable from this TINS for me. All the strange art that I would absolutely believe was really created by cats (or else by some weird AI). And then actual puzzles to solve! I'm just sad there was only 3 rooms/puzzles. I could see this developed into a complete game that I would buy to play on a long flight or train ride.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 5 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by awergh all reviews by awergh

Genre (Fable)
=============
There were lots of cats but I don't believe there was an actual fable in this game.

Technical (Overall and use of chart)
====================================
There was a nice chart in the third level that was part of the riddle for the level. It was technically impressive doing a 3d game (no one else did it quite like this).

Artistical (Generally and Iridescence)
======================================
One of the art installations was iridescent and looked nice although this doesn't have much impact on the game.

Mittens talked in speech bubbles which really suited the game, I am not sure why the introduction didn't also use the speech bubbles.

The speech bubbles really fit the game and made good use of dialogue.

Nice use of 3d in this game to give you the art gallery experience and atmosphere.

Conclusion
==========
I thought the game looked and played quite well. It was a first person game (the only one) and had a nice atmosphere and a fun main character.
I wonder what happened to all the humans and when cats became sentient (perhaps there is another game in this world to explain it).

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by Bananalazer all reviews by Bananalazer

I found this to be a very charming game. I could imagine this to become an open world museum riddle solving game, I think there is value in that concept! Mittens the museum guide talks a lot, which added to the fun for me. My favorite line was about the color of the human furr.

The rules are followed very well,
All character are indeed animals

There are iridescent sculptures

Technically not ALL dialog is in the speech bubbles, but eh who cares. The speech bubbles look nice!

The chart was a piece of a puzzle in the last level, which unlike some others (including my own :D ) did not feel like a slapped-on chart just because chart.

For me this was the most fun game of jam. I just think it is so cute.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

WARNING: Beware the spoilers!

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
The game heavily focuses about cats. The 3rd level goes a step further and hints the existence of a cat civilization developing theories about the existence and behaviors of humans. This is a core concept in the game. If it was replaced by plants, soda cans robots or anything other, it would be a completely diferent game. Even if we replaced the cats by fishes, birds, dogs or pandas, it would be something very different instead.

1.2. Fable:
Up to the 2nd level it was a fable about cats telling stuff about arts. But in the 3rd level, the strong fable-ness shows up, hinting the existence of a cat civilization developing theories about the existence and behaviors of humans. However, as it is, the fable-ness is still far from complete and there is a lot that can be done in further levels that I hope will be eventually developed.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The sculpture shows iridiscent reflections, and its true iridiscence not just colorfullness or rainbowness. However, this isn't a core concept of the game, it is just a detail.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
Mittens speaks a lot, all the time, and this contributes to the charm of the game art. However, if there was just text without the speech balloons, it would be roughly the same. Still not a core concept but it is not far from being one.

1.5. Chart:
There is a chart in the 3rd level and it is the key for solving its riddle, being an important part of the history. However, it is just that, a gimmick of one of its levels and nothing more.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

Interesting, unique and well-developed game concept idea.

3. Technical and code

Typing can be hard or unintuitive to do sometimes.

The code is very complex and detailed C++, a piece of some hard work.

3. Graphics

The 3D is very well implemented. The images in the gallery are excellent and the art is fantastic. The iridiscence in the sculptures is great, although this is a mere detail.

However, the humans sculptures in level 3 need some work and are significantly cruder than what they could be.

4. Audio

Excellent music. Relaxing and fits the game with excellency.

5. Fun

The biggest problem of the game is that it is too short. Once you had looked everything and solved the riddles, it has few to no replay value. And all 3 riddles are quite easy to solve, so you may be able to finish the game in 10 to 15 minutes. However, when you still didn't finished it, it is very fun.

6. Suggestions for improvements

As the "v0.1.17" and the level selection menu implies, this is still far from complete. So, here are my suggestions:

* More levels. Much more!

* More stuff, more sculptures. Add a Moncat Lisa! Add some Vincent van Cat and Pablo Picatto works. Add the Eiffel Catower. Add Pyramids with a Cat-headed sphinx.

* This has a strong potential for being a very nice game about art for 6-10 years old children.

* Add sound to Mittens voice and, with the assistance of an adult, children 4-5 years old who can't still read or write would also
be able to play the game and they would be very fascinated by it.

* Also, it could be much better if Mittens showed different expressions when (a) looking at different arts or when (b) you failed the riddle or when (c) you got it right. Also, please, animate its sprite!

* Add a second cat later in the game when you add more levels could be interesting.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 5 Technical 4 Genre 5

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

It's sad that don't working good with those errors, Many are visual glitches, which I imagine ruins portability by not loading files correctly.

I don't see iridescence or charts. This rest points.
The bubble of text is very good, although the introduction is NES style.
He looks more like a fan of cats than talking animals from fables, one would hardly guess that he has to do with fables.

The idea of the game is good, and the music is immersive, more interesting puzzles are needed than short poems with simple answers, it would be better if each museum has a set of puzzles before moving on to the next one.
A very quiet game for lovers of arts and peace.... And CATS!!!

This's my gameplay, check the result.
https://vimeo.com/841408975

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 1 Genre 2

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

"I like this art!"

Art Gallery of Cats was the first game from a speedhacking competition that I have ever played, and I am glad that it was. I was thoroughly charmed by your galleries and its upbeat sense of humour. I smiled and laughed the entire time.

I only wish that the curator Mittens had a more to say about some of the pieces, and that there were a little more variety in some galleries. It is already an excellent selection that leaves me hungry for more.

The third gallery was especially good, and I could certainly imagine such a place in a parallel universe where cats run the world.

Genre:
How fortunate that the theme of this competition was very much in your favour! I had thought the art was entirely AI generated until I recognized the print from the second gallery on your website.

Technical (comic speech bubbles, chart):
Ah, the cat to human lifespan. Now that I think about it, the text of the third riddle was not strongly related to its answer, but it's whatever since it is not meant to be difficult anyway.

Artistic:
I chuckled at the iridescent sculpture. I've never done 3D programming, but I was told that mapping textures and lights to shapes is difficult to do right. I don't know if this was your intent, but I appreciated that the amorphous rainbow effect was so "easy to get right" that it was almost cheeky. And I found that cheekiness funny, if only in the context of the competition and it's time limits: "look what I put in here just to fulfill the artistic requirement! Now let's get back to looking at nice pictures!"

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but that's the modern art experience.

Now for the whining:
I guess it's not a big deal, but the game closes after the final stage so you can't return to the title menu to view your achievements.

Also, if you enter the riddle solving screen prematurely (which you absolutely will, because the solve key is on 's' and muscle memory dictates using WASD for movement), there's no way to escape the riddle screen except by typing in a wrong answer. The inconvenience is only minor, though.

Parting thoughts as a first-time not-Speedhack game player:
When I first heard of TINS, I had expected that technical skill would be its basis - i.e. how impressive a game can you churn out in 72 hours? - but you've singlehandedly demonstrated that fun, creative expression will be the contest's true essence. I was glad I played your game first, for it set my expectations aright for the other entries.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by Bananalazer all reviews by Bananalazer

It's a very quick and short game, but it has some good ideas. I maybe would have changed the main mechanic a bit. I like the fact that you have a limited amount of eating, but combined with the time limit it makes going for high scores really random. Maybe it would have been fun to not end the game immediately when 4 fish are eaten, but have a timer on each fish you eat. So when you eat a fish, a certain amount of time passes before you can eat the next one. (and if you eat one while still full you lose) This would make the game more interesting and would play into avoiding some low scoring fish while eating high scoring ones.

I think this is one of the better genre implementations because it's tied to a fable quite well.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 5

Review by Nabio all reviews by Nabio

Overall: 3/5

The game is a bird that needs to eat all fish in a limited time. Contrary to the story's bird, which didn't eat any fish. It reminded me of "feeding frenzy" with a simpler mechanic. Keeping that in mind, this game was also arcade style and current implementation of this game has potential to implement complexer mechanic, or rewards to build on the idea. However at this implementation, there is not much to do, which gets a score of 3 in sense that it can be improved and it managed to implement all the elements, considering the limitted time of the game jam.

Artistical: 2/5

Although it has the fable style and a rainbow colored snail, there doesn't seem that enough is paid attention on other element of the game. Like the bird and fish don't have transparent background. The snail can be (and mostly be skipped), so one rule of the game wont be visible unless you fail the game.

Technical:2/5

The game doesn't invent or try a new mechanic. The current mechanic is simple however can be expanded and worked on.
The chart at the end is also a good implementation of the rules of the game jam. Although not enough time is let for the player to eat fish, to get a meaningful chart result.

Genre: 3/5

The game is arcady and I can see, if developed it can become a good time killing game, that requires skill. If deployed on a mobile device it can be a nice way to kill a few minutes while waiting in a queue.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 2 Technical 2 Genre 3

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
The game is essentially a fishing game as its core concept. The player is the Heron, a vulture or bat or something like that.

1.2. Fable:
It is a game of animals, but this don't make it a fable. There is some idea about ending up being hungry for being too picky. The submissions comments tell what is the fable, but it isn't really all in the game as it should be.

1.3. Iridiscence:
There is a snail flashing colors when you finish a level with zero points. However, this is definitely not a core game concept and flashing colors is not the same as being iridiscent.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
Some speech balloons when you finish the game, but they are completely dispensable and don't tell anything really useful.

1.5. Chart:
There is a chart about which fishes you took while playing. However, with so few data to present there, it becomes almost irrelevant.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

The idea is in principle good, but it needs a lot of work to turn into something reasonable.

You only have a few seconds to fish, and with so few time to react, think, plan or anything, it is much more a luck game giving a random score for having the player fly around randomly than anything else.

3. Technical and code

The highscores are a lie. If you exit the game, they'll be resetted. Also, what does having a highscore really mean here?

If you are moving when the time runs out, you could accidentally skip the dialog and the bar chart screens.

The code is much more complicated than it needed to be.

3. Graphics

Sorry for being sincere, but the graphics are... well... The 14th in the ranking in my opinion.

I understand that pixelated games have some charm, but this charm doesn't bears fruit here, it severely degrades the game instead. It would be much better if the graphics were not so heavily pixelated even if the sprites were crudely hand-drawn.

Also, the fact that the sprites aren't transparent, either by accident or on purpose, only contributes for the uglyness of the game.

4. Audio

No audio.

5. Fun

The game is not fun. Could be with some small changes, like having more time to catch more and better pray.

6. Suggestions for improvements

* Improve the graphical resolution and abandon the pixelation or at least increase the resolution.

* Make the sprites have transparent areas.

* Redraw all the sprites. Even having hand-drawn sprites made by some kid would be better than this.

* More time to do more stuff. This way it would be much less than a luck 11-second game about the player just trying to catch anything at all and would be instead a game where the player should at least minimally elaborate some sort of meaningful winning play strategy and have time to enjoy it.

* In your submission text, you tell people to change some #define's to experiment playing with more time or more pray. Don't do that. Provide options inside the game instead of this. People aren't expected to have to change the source code or recompile it if they want a different playing experience, they are expected to change some values in some config menu instead.

* Properly save and load the high-scores in order to make them not a lie.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 1 Technical 1 Genre 2

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

Errors in your codes. I can't compile it.
You must fix it.

In the last i must fix all. I Add 'extern' for arrays in two files of headers, send a direct 'game.cfg' string and change the real path for the font, all for run the game.

Somewhat disappointing, it doesn't feel like you're playing an old video game console, more like a gaming experiment full of glitches.

fish suddenly appear randomly on either side of the screen, and if they appear on the edge, bye-bye fish. There are no animations, and the heron looks like a moving sticker. The rendering seems to fail because the numbers blink, and depending on how I grab it, you can delete them with other windows, fail for change the keys. There is no delay after the game and you never get to see the result on the bar graph.

at least it has collisions for the fish and the heron can't get off the screen. The scoring and bar graph system works well. Collisions between the heron and the fish seem to fail, or only work with the upper wing.
You have to improve the AI so that they don't get stuck, show the score even if you don't enter High Scores, save High Scores to disk, and be able to eat more than 8 fish so that the bar graph has any meaning, same for the design of maps.

There is no music or audio. There is no dialogue or iridescence.
There is no relationship with the fables, they are only animals, they don't even speak.

Finally, you had said something about a snail, I never saw them. The action button does not work or does not work.

the game has not been attractive in any way.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 1 Technical 4 Genre 2

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

The Heron and the Fish is short, it's to the point, and it makes me a little hungry. Am always a fan of games about eating. This game is art made with old hardware nostalgia at heart, which makes it a bit before my time. Still, I can see and feel the appeal of it.

I like that it is a game of patience - a rarity. You have to wait for the high-value fish to appear and keep yourself from gorging on small-fry. The problem is that I can't guess the value of different fish just by looking at them, and even thought that I was meant to avoid the pointed fish with dangerous-looking triangle shaped mouths. A list of fish and their point values would have been a great reference in game.

I also wish that I could have eaten 40 fish instead of 4, even if that would have defeated the point of the game. This would have given the graph at the end a bit more statistical significance.

In the end, there wasn't much challenge except for that which the player imposes on themselves. Personally, I'm the kind of heron who would get its fill of the small fish and call it a night. Still, a stylistically attractive piece worth playing.

"So full!"

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by awergh all reviews by awergh

Genre (Fable)
=============
Did not see anything about what fable it might be. However, all the characters in the game were clearly animals and the animals themselves are critical to the gameplay.

Technical (Overall and use of chart)
====================================
The game features a nice chart that shows your continual progress through the game and how difficult it is (or is going to be). Technically really fits into the constraints of the particular platform you have built the game for.

Artistical (Generally and Iridescence)
======================================
I didn't really see the iridescence in the game. There were some different colours but I'm not sure I could count that as iridescence.

Everything is communicated in speech bubbles which cells right for the game.

While it didn't really cover the iridescence, but I really liked the art of the game so I will overlook the iridescence a little bit here.

Conclusion
==========
I really enjoyed this game. It does get quite difficult but that seems intentional, and it isn't impossible (at least not initially).

I thought the use of dialog really fit into the game. It also had nice graphics for the target platform (yes I do like pixel art).

While it didn't really have a fable as far as I can tell it had lots of nicely drawn animals.

I had lots of fun playing this one even if it might be a little bit too hard (but maybe with practice I will just be better at it).

Given your success at fitting it into the target platform I'm sure it would fit various other vintage platforms if you wanted to port it. Anything with a nice colour palette should work.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by Nabio all reviews by Nabio

Overall: 5/5
This game was one of the best games. Considering its simple mechanic, still it was probably the most polished gamein the enteries. The game is fun and addictive enough to become a f2p game.

Artistic 4/5
It both has animals as "characters" and baloon for speech. On the downside it doesn't seem to have a story as in fable style, as in some other entries do have. The graphics are 8 bit, but could be improved a bit.

Technical 5/5
It has the chart, that although difficult to understand at the first glance, however is pretty informative of the progress on the game, so is useful.

Genre 4/5

I felt the game progresses too fast and becomes very difficult too fast. which can be good and bad, but for me added to difficulty. It could retain score, or have a way to get extra lives.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by Tharro all reviews by Tharro

Odd One Out is a very captive game, reminding me a bit on the party game genre (unfortunately without a multiplayer component). The game starts fairly easy but with every victory comes an extra bit of complexity. And before you even realize it the game becomes a serious (and fun) challenge!

Not the classic definition of a fable but the game only features animals as characters. Each animal has its own properties that are relevant (make sure you read the tutorial first).

The iridescence is a bit hidden but I think the progress screen (with the graph tries to mimic iridescence by scrolling through colors in the title/graph points). Guess that one wasn't easy to implement given the limitation of PICO-8.

The chart is simply great, one of the more complex charts I've seen implemented in the games I've played. Very nice.

The bonus rule wasn't implemented although the platform allows for a two player game it seems. A challenge mode would be really nice for this type of game.

Never heard of the PICO-8 platform before but it is amazing what you (Bananalazer) can do within their limitations. Great game!

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 5

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
If instead of animals, it was a game about robot or tanks or fruits it would be a strange game to say at least. The animals fits very well the game.

1.2. Fable:
There is no fable after all, just animals telling truths or lies.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The closest to that was having stuff with flashing colors and having dust around the freshly-lost heart. But flashing colors isn't exactly the same as iridiscence.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
This is a core concept of the game and it wouldn't work well without it.

1.5. Charts:
The chart is there, but the game would essentially be the same thing if it was not. Further, it is not clear for me how to interpret it.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented. There is a set of keys assigned to a second player, but it seems to be something from PICO-8 instead of the game itself. Further, I couldn't found how to play it with 2 players and I didn't found any 2-players stuff in the game's code.

2. Game concept and idea

The game concept is not entirely new, but is very well-developed and well-conceived, making it a unique and creative game.

3. Technical and code

Fitting so much in so few screen area is a big achievement.

The code isn't really in the submission. It is in the PICO-8 site together with the game itself. The upload is just a small PNG file with a poster-like draw about the game. However, PICO-8 uses PNG as links somehow.

Also, the code is hidden in a small link in the PICO-8 site. It is not distributed in the upload.

The code is simple and short, having less than 1000 lines. Most of it is pretty straight-forward. Sometimes it is misidented, but I don't think that this matters.

I couldn't find in the code, where is the sprite data nor the music data.

4. Graphics

The graphics are atari-like very-low-resolution and pixelated making it hard even to read some of the text due to having too few pixels for composing each of the letters. However, this seems to be a (self-imposed) limitation of the (unusually) choosen platform, the PICO-8 Fantasy Engine.

I understand that some people like this style, but I don't think that using this style fits this game well. It would be better with at least the double of its current resolution. However, as this is for PICO-8, it would be hard to make it much better within the chosen platform.

5. Audio

If the idea was to emulate the feel of some 35-year old game console, then the audio fits it very well.

6. Fun

The game is fun and enjoyable, and I can play it a lot of times without getting bored nor eventually exhausting it. It is winnable, but I myself, could never win it.

7. Suggestions for improvements

I would suggest myself to:

* Improve the resolution if the platform permits. You don't need to make it a 8K-screen photorealistic game, but at least it should not be difficult to read the text due to being so severe low resolution, specially for a game where reading and interpreting text quickly is a core concept.

* Add more properties about the animals. Like if it flies, walks or swims. If it is active during day, during night or both, etc. Or even a simple one: "I am looking right" and "I am looking left"

* Add more animals, like ant, cat, dog, spider, fly, fish, turtle and centipede.

* English, as well as other languages, can be frustrating to get right when concatenating string. The game produces "i am a elephant" instead of "i am an elephant". You are lucky that this isn't French, German or Spanish.

* Sometimes, having 4 or 5 animals instead of 3 makes it easier instead of harder. The reason is because when we have more data, we can classify better who is the odd. However with more than 5, it just gets harder as intended.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 2 Technical 4 Genre 2

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

It is quite attractive and can even be addictive. The music and the accelerated game mode together with the statistics give the feeling of playing with an Arcade or a old console, where you only care about getting the best possible score.

The lack of iridescence detracts from the score.

PD: I would like to know well the limitations of pico8 to give a better score.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 3 Technical 4 Genre 5

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

"What is reality even?"

Odd One Out is a simple idea done well, and my overall favourite out of TINS 2023. It had genuinely good gameplay that did not feel like a gimmick born of the contest's rule requirements. The energetic music, the stylish use of colours and its sense of humour all contributed to a presentation that was fast paced without ever feeling overwhelming. On that last note, I felt that whenever I proceeded to the game's next level, it was because I *wanted* more and not because I was being pushed off a precipice in the name of artificially keeping up the pressure.

Fantastic.

The option to choose how you wanted to increase the difficulty was consistently rewarding. I did not feel cheated, curveballed, or otherwise screwed by bad RNG as is common in the "pick your poison" mechanics of other games. It feels rare that rule changes behave exactly as advertised on their tins, with no calculation needed as to their nuances. I had previously wondered if there was an ending to the game, or if the player was guaranteed to be laid low eventually by the time limit decrease option. Bananalazer has informed me that there is indeed an ending past the 2 seconds stage, but I'll be needing more practice to even reach that level.

I feel that I've been praising the game for the traps it avoids than its innovations, so to focus on the latter:

This game definitely made the best use of the contest's "fable" rule. The physical differences between animal characters, their traits and abilities are what make fables work, and these differences are front and center in Odd One Out. Discerning true from false between these traits and the animals they belong to feels semi-heroic, riffing an age-old trope out of the fairy-tale playbook.

If there are rules that this game played less smoothly with, it would be the inclusion of a chart and the bonus co-op rule. Regarding the scatterplot that appears every couple stages, I wasn't sure how useful or interesting its information was at a glance. My data points were always all over the place and I did not feel too inclined to tear myself away from the action to interpret them. It didn't necessarily feel meaningless or distracting; merely present, and honestly I didn't give it too much thought.

As for the co-op, I simply couldn't get it to work. The instructions detailing co-op controls for the right side of the keyboard seemed to be inaccurate, and the default layout would have been a terrible mess of crossed appendages anyway. Still, my wife and I ended up cooperating on this game on the single-player mode, and we had a blast as a team. She loves this game, by the way (she absolutely dominates at it).

Parting thoughts:
I feel resolved to beat this game some day, and likely continue playing after. This a feeling I've gotten from only one other entry, and if I had to give a single reason why this game was my favourite, there it is.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by Tharro all reviews by Tharro

It is a short & intense game. Nice drawn graphics and it seems to cover all the extra rules as well. Especially like the integration of a fable.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 4

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
Good use of the birds as a core concept. The game would be significantly worse if instead they were robots, tanks, fruits, people, paper bins or whatever.

1.2. Fable:
There is a hint of fable about the force of the union for freedom - "With team power, we are finally free!" But it is only a hint that there is a fable there, it still is not really there yet.

1.3. Iridiscence:
There is a rainbow and the birds change color. However this is not exactly what iridiscence it, although this is something close. Further, if those effects simply were not there, the game would be essentially the same.

1.4. Speech balloons:
The usage of the speech balloons is clever and their absence would significantly degrade the game, so their usage was satisfactory as a core concept.

1.5. Charts:
There is a pie chart showing the proportions of how much birds were freed. However, it is completely unnecessary to the gameplay.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

The game idea's is about freeing up birds stuck in some sort of trap. This is a good idea.

3. Technical and code quality.

Shifting the birds hue is an interesting feat.

The code is done in Python with Pygame and is simple, small, straight-forward and of good quality.

4. Graphics

The graphics are ok for the game and they work well for it, but they are far from being something deserving a special prize for graphical achievement or something like that. The implementation of speech balloons was great. The implementation of iridiscence was on the way, although that just changing hues is not the same as being iridiscent.

5. Audio

Not implemented.

6. Fun

Unfortunately, once you finishes the game, it is done and there isn't anything new to discover. There is none or very very few replay value on it.

Also, it is very _UN_challenging: I could finish it in less than 10 seconds on my first try!

7. Suggestions for improvements

As it is, the solution to this game is very simple and obvious: Just click the birds as fast as possible to make them go up and re-click any of them that goes down. So, my suggestion for improving the entry is to not make the solution so simple and obvious anymore. So, I suggest that:

* The game should have a diferent number of levels with increasing difficulty. The level 1 could be the game as it is. But as the levels advances, other than just adding more birds, different birds could behave differently.

* In more advanced levels, you would need to free up the birds in some order, otherwise, they entangles themselves even more.

* Teher could be places where you would need to give a task to some birds, like grabbing a key or a stick somewhere in order to be possible to release some other bird.

* Implementing some form of river crossing puzzles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_crossing_puzzle), in which there are birds up and birds down similar to the case of people or stuff at left or right margin of the river. If things are done in the wrong way, then some bird die, or the situation becomes a great mess that needs to be undone or some other bad thing happen.

* Add some enemies, like cats or snakes that devour birds that aren't released or are released in the wrong way. Or perhaps the enemies are also trapped and shouldn't be released by someone who is just clicking everything on the screen.

* Add some hazards like electrical wires, lasers, tripwires, booby traps, fires, falling rocks, poisoned food or whatever. Do the things wrong and you screw it all up.

* Have the player need to do more to more to the birds other than freeing them. Like also having to feed them, take their fleas out, and caring for birds that can't fly due to injuries like broken wings.

* Make it very complicated for free up some birds. Instead of just being trapped, some birds could also be tied, chained, imprisioned, glued, tarred, sleeping, etc. And releasing them out of all that mess would need some really brainpower and the usage of a lot of stuff in a lot of different steps.

* What if some birds are egoistical or uncollaborative but you still need their participation to win and can't leave them behind?

* What about eggs and birds needing to take care of them?

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 2

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

The text is read with a magnifying glass.

it's easy to solve the problem of flight once they are suspended in the air. I assume the pie chart represents the percentage of completion.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 2 Genre 4

Review by underthesink all reviews by underthesink

Very fun for the 12 seconds it took to complete

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 1 Genre 4

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

Ah, spoiler alert here.

Short and sweet, Birdies comes down to an unexpected pun about the "mouse" saving the birds from the snare, just as an eagle or an lion was saved depending on the fable's original telling. It's a decent piece of art, but given the arrangement of the birds, I had expected some intricate puzzle rather than a simple test of how quickly the player could click on all the birds before they fell back to the ground. I could see the concept being the basis of a more fleshed out puzzle, perhaps involving knots, line tensions, or weight differences between the birds.

Was the net your take on on the "graph" rule, with birds as vertices? If so, I liked it.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
Unfortunately the implementation is superficial. The game would feel exactly the same if the player was controlling a robot, a jumping car or a jumping fruit instead of a lion.

1.2. Fable:
Just because there is an animal saying that you should try again when you die or finish the level without all stars, this doesn't make the game a fable.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The star iridiscence is very well implemented and convincing look. However, it is not a core concept, since if the stars were plain yellow instead, the game would feel the same.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
A speech balloon is presented when you die or finish the game without 100% of the stars asking if you want to try again. But again, if it was not there, the game would be essentially feel the same.

1.5. Chart:
There is a pie-chart showing the percentage of stars collected. But it is so discrete and dispensable that no-one would miss it if it was not there and the game would be essentially the same thing, it was not a core concept.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

The game idea for now is just a generic platform game. Platform games are good an quite easy to turn out into a crazy unique idea, however this game don't do that, at least not yet as it is.

3. Technical and code

If you click the `tins2023.exe` file, it will crash at the start up. To run the game, you must type `.\zig-out\bin\tins2023.exe` in the console from its root folder. This makes non-tech-savvy people unable to play the game. This could be easily solved just by moving all the files in th `zig-out\bin` folder to the root directory or just adding a BAT file in the root dir with `.\zig-out\bin\tins2023.exe` as its content.

The code is done in the ZIG programming language (https://ziglang.org/).

4. Graphics

The graphics are simple and crude and could be better. But they aren't a horrible mess at least and are somewhat ok-ish. Got iridiscence implemented in the stars and they look great and also got speech balloons implemented somewhere, but they are mere details instead of core concepts.

5. Audio

Not implemented.

6. Fun

There is some challenge in trying to find all the stars. Also, since there are some points of no-return, if you don't do it correctly, you'll have to do it all over again. Unfortunately, once you finishes the game with 100% of the stars, it is done and there isn't anything new to discover. And it isn't difficult to get 100% stars, there is no hidden trick there.

7. Suggestions for improvements

As it is, this could be the game's level 1. The game would be much more interesting if:

* There were more levels.

* There were objects like switches, keys, doors, elevators, teleporters, spikes, pools, traps or anything that makes progressing towards the level much more challenging.

* There were stars that are really very well hidden and very tricky to reach.

* There were enemies, like hunters, hyenas, alligators or other lions.

* There were Other animals that could help or hinder your advance, specially if they talk.

* There should be a reason for colleting the stars. Like trading them for something, giving them to someone or perhaps returning them to the sky.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

Stuck in the begin.

zig: error while loading shared libraries: libclang-cpp.so.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have the 15 version of clang, i don't know why can't take it (or he don't want).

Scores: Overall None Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

Jungle Tale is a platformer with a goal of collecting all twenty stars. The challenge of the game seems to be that some stars cannot be reached if you fail the jump to reach their platform in a single attempt, or you progress too far, too quickly. Either can make backtracking impossible. Therefore, jumps must be perfectly precise, and you must memorize the map's layout in order to get the highest score. It reminds me of the bonus stages in games like Castellan, where you try to collect as many gems as possible on the roads between proper game levels, under similar conditions.

Unfortunately, it seems that there are some stars on platforms simply too high and distant to be reached no matter desperately you mash the jump button, making a perfect score unachievable.

I must whine about the control of the lion, which feels floaty and inconsistent. It slides a bit overmuch for the precise movement this game demands, and I find getting through single-tile gaps in platforms overhead unnecessarily difficult. The lack of a walk-cycle animation on the lion greatly exacerbates this feeling that my lion is trying to walk on wet ice.

The collision detection at the corners of blocks also feels a bit off. I don't have slow motion video evidence or anything, but half the time I swear I made the jump with some pixels to spare, only to fall straight down as though crashing into a wall.

Lastly, I'm not sure how stars and lions are related, so the concept of the game wasn't too compelling.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by amarillion all reviews by amarillion

This is a sort-of multilingual Flappy Bird with cats and charts. And tortoises, because every fable needs a tortoise, of course. Wacky hijinx ensue.

The original Flappy Bird is ridiculous, of course, and this parody version is even more so. Full of gags, screams and other slapstick sound effects.

Animals say nonsensical things to you through speech balloons in one of six random languages. There is even a multilingual voice-over, this is a nice touch. I wonder where you got recordings in different languages. Are they from a voice generation service?

There are bar charts for things like "Vulpix vs Charmander fire hazard" or "Pikachu's voltage" (also translated in various languages). They form an obstacle just as well, and a perch for cats and tortoises, so they are an integral part of the game. The cats jump at you at an unpredictable arc. Iridescence comes back in two ways: through the background sound track, and the dying animation, but it's a little bit less strongly integrated into the game.

This game doesn't take itself too seriously. The random jumps of the cats should be frustrating, but they aren't because this game isn't about reaching some goal, it's a parody experience.

I think the multiplayer mode is genius. It's actually feasible to play with 6 people at the same time, each reaching out to press a single key on the same keyboard. We managed to play together with 5 people in the office, and it was great chaotic fun.

Playable and funny, especially if you can round up 5 friends to play on a single keyboard.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

Completely broken. I can not play. Assuming you used JS for portability but it all went down the drain and don't work in my browser.

Result of gameplay:
https://vimeo.com/834277106

You also showed a lack of interest or creativity in trying to copy in such a boring game whose popularity was forced by google advertising. I expected something more creative or more interesting.

Scores: Overall None Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by SiegeLord all reviews by SiegeLord

Flappy Bird Racing is a janky multiplayer flappy bird clone with a surreal atmosphere. There are multiple levels of increasing difficulty, both coming from the flappy bird mechanics but also assorted animals, especially cats, that seek out to kill you. The game is actually rather difficult even to start, since the randomly placed cats seem to make some levels unbeatable without restarting and regenerating the level. The shortcomings of the gameplay I think are mitigated by a pretty good split-screen multiplayer support. I tested it by myself, and I can see that it can be very fun (although performance kind of tanked...).

A highlight of the game are the graphics and sounds. The graphics are a mix of stock art and animals composed of simple geometric shapes. The music is midi covers of popular songs having to do with flight, and the sounds are... well, I liked the screams your bird makes when it dies. Honestly, I liked the janky feel this gave the game. An interesting innovation to the game was how it was multi-lingual, and the language was chosen randomly. That was very clever and innovative.

For the rules, the genre was fulfilled fine: there were 3 types of animals. The iridiscence wasn't super prevalent, mostly some rainbow effects here and there. Rainbow colors are not iridiscence. The dialog, as it were, was implemented okay with speech bubbles for the animals. The charts were occasionally a part of the gameplay arena, but they seemed tacked on and didn't obviously display anything specific to the game or really affected the gameplay by their presence. The bonus rule was implemented very well, with great multiplayer support.

Overall, I got a bit of enjoyment out of this one. I liked it.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 4

Review by underthesink all reviews by underthesink

The screams are not appreciated

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 4

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

The cats! The murderous cats perched on bar graphs! I see their expressionless faces in my nightmares.

I can't help but compare Flappy Bird Racing to the original Flappy Bird. They're both difficult games, but Racing is more forgiving with its checkpoints, more spontaneous in its randomness, and an overall satisfying game to play. FBR combines many unexpected elements to create something new and delightful, making the original seem rather dull and repetitive by comparison.

The one thing that the original does better however, is movement: its purposefully clumsy hops and skips nonetheless feel crisp and engaging over time. FBR's movement feels a bit floaty - which is to say I don't feel an intuitive sense of upward momentum or gravity when the bird rises or falls. Victorwss was kind enough to inform me that gravity acting on the bird scales with the current level, but I still prefer the original's ungraceful, but consistent motions.

With those comparisons out of the way, I will try to review my favourite features of FBR on their own merits from here on.

Genre (animals):
I love the various screams the birds emit when they crash. They remain somewhat startling to me even though I have heard them hundreds of times, and I've nearly started to think of them as a consolation prize for dying.

I'm not sure what the tortoises represent, but tortoises are always welcome.

Then there are, of course, the cats, which make an already challenging game even more so. I found that they were more fun in the game's intended multiplayer mode where having to deal with them seemed to even out the playing field through as much luck as skill, than in single-player where I could only blame myself or blame the game. My only real complaint about the cats is that they sometimes appear to attack you from behind when the left edge of the screen is about to scroll past them, making their angle of approach unpredictable.

Artistic (comic bubble dialogue):
The multilingual birds were a great touch, and I was overjoyed to be given a Canadian bird on the first playthrough. I thought for a moment that the game had some location-tracking feature. It is strange that I feel compelled to play better simply because the bird is from my country, but it works and I must give you a thumbs up for this.

I feel like I see the same dialogues quite often though, and it would have been a treat to see more variety here even if just as additional variations on "I'm back!"

Artistic (iridescence):
Linkin Park's Iridescence? Sure, why not. Nice thinking outside the box here; if I were the rules-judge I'd give this a pass. The music playback was a little fuzzy though.

Technical (graph):
Bar graphs as deadly obstacles and perches for cats was this game's crowning idea. Well done.

Co-op:
I only had one other person to play with, but I enjoy the flying over the cross-eyed corpses of my rivals. I wish there were bird-themed ways to interact with them, but what you've presented already feels sufficient.

On single player mode however, it would have been nice for the respawn timer to be reduced from ten seconds. It feels like a long wait that excerabates some of the game's "unfair" or unlucky moments.

Parting thoughts:
I admit that I ended up enjoying Flappy Bird Racing only after playing for some time. I held some bias against the original FB that did translate to my first impression of your game, but soon conceded that what you've added new ideas to create something incomparably engaging.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by elias all reviews by elias

Awsome entry. Really well made for 72 hours. There's a scrolling title screen with music, a game over text, and little details like the animation when the snake is out of paint.

All the rules are also implemented, snake&fox fable, the foxes and the snake can talk in speech bubbles, lots of iridescence and the color chart you can view in the center is essential to the game.

I couldn't figure out a way to stop the foxes (at some point a few of them turned brown instead of grey but I'm not sure why). So while I was laboring a lot to spray paint everywhere eventually they always made it all gray...

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 5 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

The game idea is very interesting and the usage of colors is very smart.

However the colors aren't really iridiscent. They are just a mosaic of fixed colors. But this might be close enough.

There are some speech balloons, y los animales hablan español. But they don't show anything really important.

The characters are all animals: a snake and a lot of gray evil foxes that turn normal orange-brown when cured.

However, there isn't a fable there yet, although there is some message about colors being lively, good and happy in contrast of colorless gray being dead, evil and sad.

There is no 2-player stuff.

The chart is interesting and helpful, but it isn't very accessible.

However, the game is very unfair and unbalanced. The objective is to defend the castle, but this task is hopeless and doomed to fail quickly.

The game is infinite as it is. However, it can't be even played for long time. There are simply too many enemies swarming the castle and you are only one, too weak and too slow to defend it, and the castle is too big for that. And this is sad. With only small changes, this could be fixed.

The code is somewhat confusing and have some structural problems, but it is workable and far from being a huge mess. However, making it compile and run was difficulty, and was one of the hardest to get a working binary file, mainly due to missing DLLs.

My suggestion for improvements would be:

* Make the cured foxes regenerate the castle color or fight the evil foxes or help the snake somehow. As they are, cured foxes don't do anything useful.

* Make the castle smaller or add things like teleporters or maybe less entrance points in order to make it more defensible. Castles were built with the intent of being formidable strongholds very difficulty to be invaded and easy to defend, but this isn't the case here.

* This game would become much more interesting if it features levels. You could either make the game finite or keep it infinite. At least, the first levels should be easily beatable. Later levels, difficulty, but surely beatable and only if it is still infinite, some very distant levels unbeatable.

* Or perhaps, if there is only a single infinite level as it is, add some highscores presenting how long players endured.

* Make more usage of the chart. It could show also not only the total color of the castle, but also the coloring/grayness per castle part (floors and right/center/left).

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 3

Review by SiegeLord all reviews by SiegeLord

In Rainbow Castle you're a snake that pukes color onto colorless foxes and the colorless stone of a castle. The foxes normally try to decolor the castle but when sufficiently colored by way of your actions, they... cease and dessist and you get points. Otherwise, if they decolor the castle enough you lose. There's no victory condition, every run results in a loss and a possible new high score. I found it rather annoying how I kept running out of... color... it was very unsatisfying to actually to fulfill the goal of the game.

The graphics of the game were not too bad, I especially liked the pie chart for the amount of color left in the castle. The removal and addition of color of the castle was also a neat effect.

The animal genre was sort of minimal, there's a snake and the foxes. There were a lot of rainbow colors... the color display in particular was a very nice touch, but rainbows are not iridiscence. The foxes, inexplicably, will talk to you via speech bubbles, as requested. I liked the pie chart, a very nice 3d effect.

In total, the game looked nice but it wasn't very fun to play.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by underthesink all reviews by underthesink

Marvellous for something made in 72 hours. not easy to do
It meets all requirements as far as I can see, art style is functional all characters have animations and the controls work

well done entry

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 4 Genre 4

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

Rainbow Castle is a game that took this competition's iridescence rule to heart and treated it not as a mere obstacle to get around, but its centerpiece. In the iridescence category, it is far and away the best in show. The painting and re-painting the walls and floor felt satisfying, in what must be the same way that some people find power-washing to be satisfying. The music is also good; more than anything else, it motivated me to keep my castle in good condition, so that I would deserve to hear more of it.

It's all a doomed endeavor, unfortunately. There is simply too much area to cover, and too many foxes within that area for a single slow-moving snake to deal with. Sooner rather than later, your castle's defenses will be overwhelmed, leaving your snake entirely impotent. I wish there were a proper "game over" or failure condition rather than simply being left hanging with no way to regenerate your colour meter. Or that the foxes whose colour you've restored could aid your castle's defenses somehow.

What this game needs is some indicator of progress apart from the score, and some measurable objectives apart from just defense until death. That is to say, I'd enjoy playing a game that is winnable, or at least one where losing is not so inevitable.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by elias all reviews by elias

Crystal Commune is a complete city building game, very impressive for 72 hours. All the rules are implemented:

- There's animal characters (especially a yellow elephant!!!) and I think it's a fable about the downfall of capitalism or something?

- Iridescence is present on the iridescent crystals as well as on the lights of the space ship.

- There is little speech bubbles up all the time since all the animals are always hungry and sleepy.

- And there's two charts, albeit not very useful ones since money just goes from 20,000 to zero and population just oscillates between 2 and 8. In all the 20 or so games I played.

One challenging thing in the beginning is the icons - they all look too similar. It would have been helpful to display the letter you have to press (like M for mine) instead of the 5 icons. There's also a mouse cursor icon and a destruction icon but I could not figure out the purpose of either. You can't click any structures or animals so why would you ever be in the cursor mode? And when you destroy something no money is returned so why would you ever do it?

It would be useful to have more information about what's going on. Why is the mine not doing anything? Is it close enough to the crystals? Why is the animal rather eating and sleeping (I mean, can't blame them) instead of working? Does each animal need their own house? How many animals can a cafe serve at once? How many employees does a mine have?

The biggest issue I had is that something with money seems to be wrong in my version. When I watched closely for a while it looks like an animal that enters the mine works 3 times to make $300. Then it goes to a cafe and rapidly spends $300 (it buys 6 items for $50 each - in my mind that money should go to me but I actually lose it - for example miners in Ohio used to be paid in mine store tokens instead of money and therefore forced to buy in the overpriced mine store so the mine made extra money off all the miners it employed...). Anyway, on top of losing the exact amount the worker made, there's $150 upkeep for the mine and $100 for the cafe. So each worker that works is losing me $250 and there is no way to ever get positive income.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 5 Technical 4 Genre 4

Review by amarillion all reviews by amarillion

The space port reminds me of Dune II, but the crystals are a bit like Tiberium from C&C. There are no battles, but the way you collect resources is very much like an RTS. It's always awesome to see an RTS(-ish) game during a Game Jam, as they are technically very challenging to pull off in just 72 hours.

There are a few reasons that RTSes are challenging. Firstly, it's hard to explain the complex game state, and all the options that the player has. For example, it took me a while to figure out that you need to build one house per pop, but that multiple pops can share a cafe or a mine. And you only ever need to build one port. I'm still not sure what the optimal number of mines and cafes is, but after a number of tries I finally achieved nice growth with 3 mines, 3 cafes and 15 houses, and profits taking off into the stratosphere (60k and counting).

Another difficulty is game balance. The economy can swing wildly. If you overspend and end up in negative territory, it can feel like it's easier to restart than to try to recover. I think if this could somehow be balanced out a bit better, the game would feel smoother.

I think the artwork is very good. The animal sprites are very cute. The Iridescent effect is well done, and it is clearly linked to the game design (making you collect iridescent crystals).

The charts are helpful, to see if your economy is going up or down. I found myself wishing to see a larger time range on the X axis, which is a sign that the chart is not superfluous, it's really filling a need for the gamer

Overall an excellent achievement, and I was happy to spend some time diving in, trying to deduce the game mechanics and looking for an optimal strategy.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 5 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

An interesting game idea with a lot of potential.

The game characters are animals. It would work more or less the same if they were humans, aliens or robots, but there is some intrinsic artistic value in making them animals. However, there is no fable here.

The iridiscency is very beautiful and I think that it was the only game that implemented true iridiscence instead of just being overly-colorful. The downside is that if the crystal had solid colors instead, it would be the same.

The graphics are very well made. But I suggest that you reduce pixelation since the game don't really need it. This is specially bad at the charts since having a poorer resolution is bad for them.

I think that its speech balloons are somewhat lacking. The workers say some things about their needs, but it is still very hard to understand how to please them.

There is no 2-player stuff, or at least, I couldn't make it work.

The major problems are:

* Your asteroid is too small and sometimes you run out of space or don't find any suitable space.

* It isn't clear how to build your colony: Sometimes you have cafes around and your workers are still hungry. You have unoccupied houses an your workers are sleeping in the streets. And I'm clueless in understanding what is wrong.

* Sometimes you think you built it correctly: There are mines, cafes, houses, a spaceport, some roads and all the buildings are near each other, but no, all your money just goes down the drain, nobody goes to the mines, people leave and you get bankrupt.

So my suggestions are:

* Double the resolution. This will only make the graphics better.

* Make the asteroids larger, or perhaps, a way to navigate between multiple asteroids.

* Make it easier to diagnose what is wrong and how to fix it. Maybe a way to inspect how tired, hungry or happy a worker is other than just having it tells you when it is aleady too late and they are already very tired, very hungry or entered the spaceport in order to leave.

* The cafes sell stuff that are too expensive.

* A house should fit more than one person.

* The player should have some control over how cafes serve people to avoid you get bankrupted just because somebody entered a cafe and spent a lot of your money there.

* There should be a way into priorize work instead of just letting workers decided randomly what to do: Which mine should be mined first? What should be built right now and what should be built later?

* More variety for economical activity, like vehicle factories or farming food.

* What about war against another players? With all of the building military, invading, raiding, conquering, destroying, defending, killing, spying, sabotaging, fortifying buildings, repairing, etc.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 3

Review by underthesink all reviews by underthesink

impressive city builder
I don't really understand what to do but from what I've seen it looks very impressive

I saw no pie chart only a line graph but I did see it met all the other rules.

Game could do with some tooltips over the buttons

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by Gassa all reviews by Gassa

Cute pixelized animals live in a 2D world. Irridescent crystals are scattered over the world. The animals want to eat, sleep, and mine crystals.

The player has indirect control resembling SimCity and, to lesser extent, real-time strategies. There is a $20,000 balance at start, and nothing built. The player decides what and where to build: houses, mines, cafes, spaceports, and roads for faster travel. The animals act on these plans, and use the created stuff. Animals travel to and from the world via spaceport.

After reading the hints in the README file, but not before, I was able to maintain a positive balance.

All the rules are met, except the bonus rule in which there is no need.

I like the overall style: fitting background music, simple but coherent graphics. The Dune2-Carryall-like spaceship made me smile, as well as the elephant-or-mouse animal and the "can't put it here" sound.

Very nice for a weekend project!

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 5 Technical 5 Genre 5

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

A surprisingly intricate game of discovery that accomplishes much with few words.

At first, I thought that Crystal Commune was in dire need of an instruction manual, even if only in README form. I had no idea what to do, but to assume that trial and error was the intended experience and run with it. I feel like the initial confusion was worth it; by the time I've built a couple of each building and determined their purposes, the game had its hooks in deep.

Crystal Commune is fun to watch. It is a colourful game that plays itself, and in ways that are more satisfying than not. But as much as I would love to just sit back and watch my citizens do their thing, something about your mysterious unlabelled UI manages to convince me that executive meddling will benefit the commune... even though my bank account sits perpetually at zero dollars.

Although I'm quite partial to your minimalistic design, I'm less convinced of its effectiveness as I try to really learn the game. My chief complaint is that the return on investment on each structure is impossible to discern from the start. There seems to be a large periodic upkeep on buildings that end up easily exceeding incomes, and I'm not sure exactly what benefits I am paying for in-world or mechanically. How can the mine cost $150 in maintenance when it only generates $100? What does the cafe even do, and why do I want my citizens to eat when food costs half a shift's wages at the mine?

The game is certainly challenging, and I'd hate to be the sort who says "I did not like this game because it was hard and I was bad at it," but I feel like I haven't gotten much better after two hours, and I do blame the sparseness of actionable data.

Thoughts on genre (animals):
There's a duck, an elephant, and two cats, but they all seem to behave the same way or their differences are not too apparent. They feel a bit like automata with different skins stretched over the machinery rather than the individual citizens of a growing city. I understand that the city-building genre is not known for diversity, but still. They're different species, so even just noticeably different movement speeds or some occasional animal sounds would have been sufficient.

Thoughts on comic-book bubble dialogue:
I understood more from the debug shell that hunger and tiredness was a thing than from any communication by the speech/thought bubbles. They appear only sporadically, and it is difficult to grasp their consequence when they do. Does the pizza symbol mean "I'm hungry" or "I'm eating?" What happens anyway, to citizens are hungry or tired? I suppose they leave the commune, but it is nearly impossible to track their needs or their satisfaction of those needs just by watching their bubbles.

A wider variety of bubbles would have been great, but they can't out-do the classic hearts and happy-faces at the end of little coloured bars.

Thoughts on iridescence:
The crystal outcropping is a great iridescent object, but I spend most of my time watching the citizens and buildings. I feel as though my eyes are taking for granted what really ought to be the most coveted and eye-catching features of the cave because they aren't the things that spew dollar signs out of them.

The crystals on the airship however, were a fantastic touch that gave some clue as to the ends of the commune's industry in a wider world. Your sprite-work is quite good.

Thoughts on technical requirement (charts):
This is surely the genre of game most sorely in need of charts! Exhaustively detailed ones! There are graphs that track my funds and population over time, but they are low resolution and only list the minimum and maximum values. I eventually came to an understanding that the graphs were not meant to be taken too seriously and that I ought to play by feeling rather than calculation, but this philosophy has my commune sorely hurting for funds. I do want more information, so that I can "win" :(

And now for the smaller complaints:
The order in which citizens prioritize construction projects feels a bit haphazard. It seems to be neither the nearest foundation or the oldest placed ones. I haven't entirely discerned how the citizen's algorithm works, but I get this feeling that they can get torn between a number of competing priorities (including sleeping, eating) and become distracted from doing my bidding at the most desperate moments - which seems to be always. Maybe that is all by design, I don't know.

While the art is great, the window in which I can view that art is limiting. The ratio of window size to that of the tiles and actors felt quite oppressive when I was starting out, with only a 10x10 grid to work with. I wish I could zoom out or see more of the area at once.

Trying to navigate that area also adds to the oppressive sensation. The scrolling camera feels tight, as the boundary rectangles that move the camera are quite narrow and easy to overshoot, which halts scrolling immediately.

Parting thoughts:
Despite all this petty grousing, the concept alone made Crystal Commune one of my favourite TINS 2023 entries. The art and music were pleasant. The sound effects were the best in the competition. And this was actually the game I replayed most the most times at the end - for I still hold on to the eventual hope of managing a sizable colony.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by ReefCitizen all reviews by ReefCitizen

This is just a visual novel, with no interactivity. It looks like the author's intention was to make some sort of Frogger clone.

Overall: This is not a game yet, so it gets the lowest score.

Artistic: Some interesting pre-rendered 3D graphics, but the speech balloons are just dialog boxes and the iridescence is just a small detail in one scene.

Technical: As there is no interactivity, it is technically just a sequence images and animations.

Genre: It fits the genre well, but it has not been fully developed.

Scores: Overall 1 Artistical 2 Technical 1 Genre 3

Review by elias all reviews by elias

Scores: Overall None Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by sanderovich all reviews by sanderovich

Scores: Overall None Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by awergh all reviews by awergh

Genre (Fable)
=============
The fable was the Scorpion and the Frog.
This was a nice retelling of the fable and as far as an implementation of the fable I'm not going to fault. A playable game would be nice but oh well.

Technical (Overall and use of chart)
====================================
I wasn't aware of any chart within the game.

Artistical (Generally and Iridescence)
======================================
There is an iridescent hat and artistically it looks nice as it tells the story.
There is good use of speech balloons within the game to tell the story.

Conclusion
==========
Interesting entry in that it is a non-interactive game telling a fable. It is successful at telling the fable, it would have been nice if there was some sort of game in there, maybe included a game of frogger in there somewhere.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 4 Technical 2 Genre 5

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

Yes, it is a really and definitively a fable. Other games just had a poorly made-up fable or a poorly executed fable or were no fable at all, but this one is a real fable. However, it is a bad fable. Either be a "racist" for refusing the scorpion or take the scorpion and then it kills you. This might imply that being a "racist" is good.

Also, this it not even a game. There is no gameplay whatsoever.

The iridiscent hat isn't really iridiscent at all. It is just a hat with flashing colors instead of iridiscent colors. And it is there for no reason at all.

There are animal characters and speech balloons (well, sort of) at least.

There is no 2-player stuff. There isn't even 1-player stuff.

Also, no audio.

Some graphics are good, but some were joined together poorly.

The code is complicated, to say at least. The code shows clearly that it intended to be a game, but unfortunately, it was not.

It was also difficuly to run due to some missing DLLs that I needed to grab elsewhere.

Scores: Overall 1 Artistical 3 Technical 1 Genre 2

Review by KillerWasp all reviews by KillerWasp

Despite fulfilling the genre expectation of fables, it can barely show a fixed story without the possibility of playing.
It has bugs in the bitmaps, it can't even show transparency and the bitmaps don't fit correctly because of (possibly) bad variable conversion, I had to fix bugs like missing math.h header, and compensate for missing lines by recreating your own, say that it was easy to compile a single source file.

In general, it's not attractive, it seems more like a desperate attempt to complete all the rules and give something done for the competition. It has resulted in a visual disaster.

The complete line of compiling, if anyone want one fast:
g++ FrogandScorpion.cpp -o FrogandScorpion -lallegro -Wno-narrowing -lallegro_primitives -lallegro_image

Don't forget include math.h in the first line. I guess VC add the header automatically, but not are included for other systems or compilers.

Scores: Overall 1 Artistical 2 Technical 1 Genre 4

Review by Gassa all reviews by Gassa

This is apparently a non-interactive prototype of a would-be game.

A frog leaves its parents and goes its own way. The frog gets a job, which is to carry other animals across a river. There is a demo of what the game might have perhaps looked like, if the author had time to finish it: animals come and offer money for carrying them across the river.

Apart from that, there is a long intro, and a case of taking a job which did not end well. The latter actually recites the titular fable.

The presented story scenes look 3D-rendered, but as there's no interaction, how much of these would hold up in the actual game remains an open question :) .

Character art looks minimalistic for a 3D world, but the animals are nice, in their own peculiar way. I like the last job scenes: despite simple graphics, their overall design suddenly made me believe the world of the fable.

All the TINS 2023 specific rules are touched--well, except the game being interactive :) .

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 4

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

Frog and the Scorpion is a entirely uninteractive slideshow-movie rather than a game, presenting minor twists on the classic fable "Scorpion and Frog." The plot is almost identical, but the dialogue and imagery presented is a bit more contemporary, a bit more human, and a bit of a crude, yet wholehearted chuckle. I don't recall finding the original fable fun or interesting when I encountered it long ago, so I thank you for putting it in a new light.

The retelling starts slow, but but the pacing and expression in each slide really picks up toward the end. It's decently well expressed through the colours you've chosen. I especially liked the scorpion's sinister aura and eyes in the scenes leading up to the sting. That scorpion looks like he had a good time (if you know what I mean, eh?) and I admit that I did as well.

Some music or sound effects would have added to the experience, though.

Concerning the competition's rules, that iridescent hat couldn't have been more shoehorned in if it were an iridescent pair of boots or something. I guess it is funny because it's so unabashedly out of place. I must have missed the chart, and the dialogue wasn't in speech bubbles. Ah well. I'm not the rules police.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical None Technical None Genre None

Review by elias all reviews by elias

I liked this game a lot. Managed to complete the entire song. It's well made for 72 hours, even if some of the rules are missing. I assume the song has something to do with a fable or another rule but I could not find a readme or logs so not sure.

I was intimidated at first since I don't know much about music and matching visually seemed impossible at first - but then I remembered that the weird squiggly symbols are usually at the beginning and so placed the four beginning tiles correctly (at that point also realized they turn blue when in the right position). Then I noticed that some squares have a vertical line to the right and - those fit at the ends!

By then I had noticed that clicking a piece would play its notes and they all sounded different, the ones that sounded similar (high/low/whatever the music term is for that) went to the same row!

Btw. some of the provided DLLs were missing dependencies but I could copy the missing DLLs over from another entry and then it would run.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 2 Technical 4 Genre 2

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

This gains the audio bonus for sure. It was an interesting idea.

However, it was too far incomplete to ever be qualified as a game, although it is playable at least. Also, it have nothing to do with TINS 2023 rules: No animals, no fable, no iridiscence, no speech balloons, no charts and no 2-player stuff.

The code shows that it is something very incomplete, just a proof of concept of a gameplay mechanic and not a game yet, much less one within the TINS 2023 rules.

Unfortunately, there isn't much more to say.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 2 Genre 1

Review by Yubi all reviews by Yubi

Hmmm, a music game.

It is generally interesting to me because it is a music game, but I can't think of many outstanding qualities to praise.

I know a bit of violin and was barely able to complete the puzzle without having to brute-force the solution. The temptation is very strong, however, especially the tiles are highlighted in blue when placed in the correct positions. I would often discover the correct position for a tile accidentally while merely trying to rearrange tiles in placeholder positions, cheating me somewhat of the joy of a legitimate solution.

It would have been a nice reward to have the entire passage play with all four quartet members once the score is fully assembled. Perhaps that was the intent? Unfortunately, my game locks up and does not progress after I had all the tiles in their places. That means I can't progress to the second level if there is one, and my playthrough of Quartet must end.

I'm curious about the title of the piece featured in level 1. I would be pleased to listen to a proper recording of it.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical None Technical None Genre None