Reviews

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 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 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 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