itch.io

Yeah np it’s a really cool game. Also all the reflections and materials and everything here is pretty sweet.

Yeah I feel like in metroidvania type games, sometimes you do return to a room, and it’s reset, like the enemies are back. And that can make sense. But I think once you clear a room it should probably stay clear until you leave. And this game doesn’t really have the doors that shut behind you to really make it clear you’re in a distinct room that can reset, so I think that confused me a bit but maybe it’s just me.

It’s pretty fun! Nice pace and variety of gameplay. It’s definitely a love letter to Metroid lol. I think at the very beginning there could be more tutorial of controls, like I didn’t realize at first how to use the floaty jump by pressing shift. I know it says in the written controls, but you could let the player know to try it the first time they need it.

It also seems like enemies will trigger to appear over and over if you return to a certain area instead of moving forward. I got kind of confused in the large room with the platform in it (before the fan blows you upward). As I walked back and forth the same 3 cats just kept appearing so I thought maybe they were waves I needed to clear before continuing.

Also would make sense to refine the shooting mechanic, like maybe limit your laser by making it overheat so you can’t just shoot forever.

Eh, I think I have a lot of people on my side. Do big companies care? No. Does the majority of the public even care? I don’t know. But you don’t make games, or art for everyone. You make it for the audience. So I will just find the audience that cares about humans, if there is one.

I think that the stock assets are a separate issue. Like I’m not saying that just because a game was made by human, that makes it automatically good. It doesn’t. There are ways you can fail all on your own, and one of those is overuse of stock assets, basically just slapping together stuff from the Unity store, or anywhere. I’ve found plenty of games on here where I’m like, wow this is slop. It’s all about how you put it together, though! There’s nothing wrong with using other people’s assets, as a rule. I mean most people do, to some extent. An uninspired game is just that, uninspired.

I view games as works of art, especially in the small indie space like itch.io. So I just evaluate it on its own terms. And that’s where I think we differ is I do get entertainment even from objectively pretty bad games. AI is capable of making things that are technically more ‘good’, but I have no interest in them because the human element has been erased. Even if the game is quite bad, I like to think about the person behind it, and how it came to be that way.

I do think you might have a point that, theoretically, an indie game that was made with a lot of AI assets that someone tinkered with to be what they want, could be better than a straight asset flip that looks like nothing new. But I can’t really think of a game that heavily uses AI that was actually good or inspired, either. Like if you can point me to one that is fun, and also artistically better than an asset flip, i’d perhaps reconsider.

You can literally make a 3D game with like N64 level graphics, and have it be really great. You can make a 2D game with rough, hand-drawn sprites, and have it be one of the most popular games. In the early 2000s flash games were huge. Some of these games are absolutely horrible art-wise, yet they have MILLIONS of plays. If you say you need AI because you can’t draw : no you don’t. Before AI, if you couldn’t draw but you wanted to make a game, you just did it anyway.

Or maybe if you’re not good enough to make the game you imagine right now, try improving your skills?

This is something that just occurred to me as to why AI in games just ruins the whole thing in my opinion. There’s a lot of discussion about AI assets looking bad, or badly optimized, code having mistakes, AI music sounding generic. But for me, that’s not the real reason I don’t want to use it at all. Even if there were no ‘mistakes’, one of the things I love about itch is getting to share and play works that are made by other people. When someone plays my game I want them to know that every texture came from someone, maybe even their specific house or city, maybe they painted the details. Someone made the music, they put some kind of thought into every note. All of it was put together in a certain way by another person.

And that’s interesting. Even if the texture looks janky, even if the music is weird, or whatever else. I’d rather make a shitty game than use AI. Because I’d rather PLAY a shitty game that has a person behind it that has a life and a point of view. Just going through it knowing every small decision was made by someone at some point in the process. Maybe their skills are amazing, maybe they’re a beginner and still learning. The human creator IS THE POINT. There will be a day when AI can draw and model better than us, can write a better track than us, can make better games than us, and faster. I don’t really care. I don’t wanna play that. I want to play everyone else’s weird, flawed, beautiful human trash. And I hope people would rather play mine, too.

Surprisingly long but 11/10 I loved it.

… Does anyone know what the morse code coming out of the headphones at the end says if anything?

Sorry about that, I don’t think it’s a bug with the game, but I’ll look into it.

If you mean the very first puzzle with the shape buttons, it’s

Just in case

Pretty fun!

Not sure if this is still being worked on? My thoughts on it so far, though:

The game looks beautiful, really polished visually, and with sound, effects etc. I really like how it seems like influenced by some recent puzzle greats like Portal 2, the Witness, and Superliminal, and others I'm sure. Like I definitely see the inspiration, and the use of perspective to solve puzzles is a great idea. As a story and vibe kind of game I think it seems quite good.

My critique of it however as a PUZZLE game, is that while I can understand that the beginning of the game is a tutorial of sorts, and a way to feed story to the player, a lot of the levels seem pretty redundant. There are many instances where the next puzzle does not really challenge the player, it doesn't make them change their way of thinking or offer a new revelation, it's just kind of the same as before but slightly different. For example, the 4 plates. The first time you learn, oh I need to step on each plate, fine. Then they're timed. Then they're the order matters. Then they need a cube resting on them. Then they need snowballs to press them at a distance (which here finally perspective is needed in a more interesting way). 

Not only does this not really teach the player the object of the mechanic, because it can be different, but it doesn't really give them many choices or ways to interact with the game that are interesting until the last few little levels. I would just ramp up the pace and the difficulty a lot faster.

Having the very first visual be an epilepsy warning that itself flashes rapidly is just insulting. Just... don't do that?

I wanted to try this because it's so visually striking. So for that I definitely give it some credit. I also don't mind the kind of distant, artsy tone of it. But the actual experience has some issues, like after the first recording you find in the lighthouse, none of the others seem to work, there's just a big flashing X over everything else you can interact with. So maybe you need to activate them in the right order, but I don't know why. I liked the gramophone.

Also I really think in 2026 you can't make something like this and just pretend that people with epilepsy or photo-sensitivity don't exist. I don't have epilepsy but the flashing lights and text all the time with no warning really hurts my eyes, and there's no reason for it. So for anyone considering playing this, this can be your warning.

Very nice!

very fun game!

egg :)) <3

Though short, the interactive objects here are very solid and satisfying to interact with. I love how the door mechanism looks.
I'll have to try a few more times to survive rather than just escape.

Yaaaay i did it! Fun brain teaser

I randomly just decided to try this. Pretty good walking sim so far actually. It has that liminal space vibe. Are you working on turning this into a bigger thing?

Awesoooome. Great PS1 style homage. Simple concept but creepy. I really like how big the neighborhood feels, the graphics look great. 
I feel like there were a few objects that broke the PS1 illusion and felt kind of "Unity" like the cars and their windows, with their immodest amount of polygons and reflections on them.

I've been meaning to try diet coke. so this was perfect thanks

I already wrote some thoughts in a review just now but I also wanted to say that the little wordle computer debug game was really fun by itself! The revelation of actually figuring it out the first time was awesome.

I decided to try this out because I'm working on my own little mini golf game with Godot, and I have to say I'm really impressed! The graphics are honestly so beautiful and calming, it's actually kind of Monument Valley vibes. Each course is visually very striking and the whole game is stylish. Though I would say it becomes less relaxing and a little more frustrating once moving platforms and lasers are introduced since the timing starts becoming important. I still got a decent amount of birdies and eagles on those levels, though!

I'm genuinely a bit curious how the pathfinding guide is done, it's really cool. It does let you set up shots that would be pretty unrealistic to expect someone to calculate without the guide, so it's a neat mechanic. I feel like I've kind of struggled with getting physics accurate and consistent. Do you have like an invisible rigid body that actually simulates the shot while aiming, or is it just math? I guess it all boils down to math.

Hi, this is a pretty fun game! Not bad, but the biggest issue for me is the Q key both attacks and opens the quest menu, covering the screen. Is that a glitch?

I finally won! Yes. My latest attempt took me 50 minutes to reason through lol which seems like  a lot but after a previous attempt where I almost had it but mad a stupid click, I had to really go slow and make sure I wasn't going to mess up.

Never once saw an egg though, curious about that! 

Glad I tried this game it's such a simple concept but genuinely so much better than normal minesweeper, which I never really figured out how to play.

That was super fun! Took me like 3 or 4 attempts to beat but I was so happy when I finally go the final boss down.

Awwwww that was so cute! I love the birds so much

That was so fun! I'm so glad i saved my friends c:

Omg! I'm so sorry you played the whole game without moving the camera! But thank you for playing! You're right, maybe holding right click could rotate, or for me pressing middle mouse button is intuitive, but not everyone has a middle mouse button. Next update should have a final hole I'm working on that is really fun, and i'll add a final scorecard and little animation probably

Nice game. my first thought was to get the smoke alarm as far away as possible since when I make latkes the smoke alarm always goes off lol.

Oh okay, I just happened to try the bed the second time, so I was like oh it works now!

That was cute! Nice work making a full experience. I will say there might be a glitch with the triggers that let you interact with things, as after messing with the first rug, it didn't seem to let me interact with anything else, but I reloaded it and then it did. Unless the order you do things matters...?

I think the art and animations are pretty nice especially for something done in short amount of time.

I got to 20 but nothing seemed to happen! :(

All the same very fun and addictive game

Dude, I have very similar feeling after making a few games, because I also am primarily and artist/musician, so I found out it's a really cool way to combine all the things I can do and make a unique work of art. Even though what I can make are just silly little things, mostly, I'm proud of all the things I had to learn to do just to make my silly little thing.

actually jk it looks like you basically do have that already in addition to the lightsource, i totally missed that. Up to you what to do with it!

Oh I see, You can pixelate a lightsource with a shader, but you could also try the sprite again. I feel like doing a separate sprite on top, that could just be either a stepped gradient, or simple circle of light, set to 'add' in the editor can serve as a simple light. Plus then you might be able to animate the sprite and do fireflies around the lantern, or make it pulse in and out to be like flickering, that would be really cute. I'm sure you had some version of that, but maybe you don't need to combine it with an in-engine lightsource at all, especially since it's not casting shadows right now. 

This is legitimately really good! It's definitely the type of game I would just have open in my browser and dink around for the vibes. The art is really nice! 

I really love the banjo song, unfortunately it seems like after you click on it, you can no longer interact with other things, though.

I also think turning on the light is really fun, I would make the glow around it stepped, or pixelly in some way. You could use a sprite with transparency. It's just almost the only thing that isn't pixel art, but it totally could be to harmonize with the other art. that's just my 2 cents though.

Also impressed with the inventory, it took me aaaaaaages to get an inventory working with Godot.I'll keep checking back for updates

This is great, I love how fun it is to figure out new files. And go back and read the old ones once you have more context, and people's names filled in. There's more depth to each conversation than initially meets the eye. 

I haven't finished I'll have to come back to it.

Thanks for commenting! If you downloaded it for windows it might run better than browser. But I will say the game's not going to get better for you if escape is not your thing! :)

Hi! Since you commented on my game, I figured I'd come and try yours out as well (even though you didn't really like my game lol but it's all good). 

I would say it's a unique idea, but the environments, at least for the first few levels are not too interesting. The water looks fantastic, I'll say that. The swimming is really cool. I also thought it was neat how the water level rises when you drop sticks.

But the scattered plants and landscape are not too interesting. I know you're still looking to upgrade assets and stuff, but for me it's about interactivity, not quality of assets. You have pretty big levels, and most of the things in them the player can ignore. Especially once I got to level 3 where the main challenge is finding resources among the evenly scattered plants. So you could have really limited art and assets, but if the design is good, the game is fun. Like you can literally have N64 level graphics and make a great game. There just needs to be more intention behind the level designs, the terrain, obstacles, where objects are placed, etc.

I think there's kind of a lot going on with the genre of game, too. It's a collect-a-thon, but also kind of a survival game, some dam building, and an education game. A game can have multiple aspects, but you might want to figure out which one of those is the MOST fun as a gameplay loop and just try to do that one thing really well. Making a game solo is a lot of work, so trying to improve ALL of those mechanics as one person can be pretty impossible.

If it's a collecting game. Leading the player through the environment with a trail of resources, maybe even some platforming would be fun. And faster and smoother movement would help. If it's more about survival, I feel like adding some kind of obstacle would help, like you have to succeed in damming up the mouth of a river before it rains, or before the sun goes down. Otherwise it seems like you can wander aimlessly looking for sticks for a very long time with no real obstacle besides happiness slowly sinking. Apologies if something like these suggestions actually happens in a later level I wasn't able to get to.

https://garmpeeld.itch.io/alyryla-cave