itch.io

oh, man… had to stop myself chasing the leaderboard after i spent 20m on it! well done, my friend… tightly wound. i would download this to goof off on my phone for sure!

extra grateful for the shift key blitzing through the everything so i could chase the board some more. ^_~

an excellent concept well-executed. i also feel like i should offer thanks for the uplifting message as well - i needed to hear it today, so it was most welcome. very well done, friend.

just completely lovely. so very well done across the board.

oh, man… i can see myself sinking WAY too much time in chasing the leaderboard. well done, Xed

Crises experienced and crises prevented. Well done!

Classic! Well done. ^_^

Good stuff. ^_^

I was able to get a halfway respectable score naturally, but the “down-left-down-left-down-left-down-right” cadence was too much for my poor old fingers.

3/5/9/12 ticks, depending on which message it is. Definitely “quick” bordering on (as intended) “did I actually see something there?”

I wonder if it’s worth implementing a multiplier on replay… “this player never appears to’ve ‘participated,’ so let’s multiply all of the ‘glitch’ ticks by two.” That would make it pretty obvious that something’s happening (and make it easier to read the first time you see it).

There’s not a lot to unpack in this experience, but what’s there is fairly densely packed, hidden, and oblique (even by my standards).

If you literally stare at the screen, you’ll experience more of it than if you’re “busy” (which was the point, naturally). Sidequest: see if you can identify the literature/media from which much of “the scroll” derives. ^_~

I appreciate the expansion thoughts, though I wonder if I’d have to decrease the information density for it to be less of a slog for a longer session. Maybe a candidate for the 20Ms jam… heh heh.

But! But… what if…

What if we just left them alone? Then submitted our score to the leaderboard in revolt. What then, I ask you!? ^_~

None… they are all slop… every last one.

Synchronicity, my friend. ^_~ Appreciate the kind words.

I remembered “Monkey Curling” from way back in the early days of Newgrounds, and had been playing Baldur’s Gate 3… Vicious Mockery by way of the dice all around. Thought it would be fun.

Oh how I adore the face (despite the Crushing Disappointment, which is my new Smashing Pumpkins cover band name)!

Any chance of more music in this vein? I could definitely use a link to the MP3 for maximum daily soundtrack goodness. ^_~

As always, I adore your work, Akz! Thanks for a glorious 2025 Jam.

Funny you should mention “growing bigger” - alas, secret plans are secret, my friend. ^_~

All Canadians in Canada are Canadian, Akz! I’m pretty sure I’m Canadian, too… and I’m an American! (At least I sometimes WISH I were Canadian anyway.)

If you wait for the power bar, a “high-middle” or max power push is best for initial velocity. Try to keep your “stone” centered in the lane on launch, but you can finesse it a bit (not really realistic, but - hey - it’s a video game) with some sweeping off to one side or the other.

And - if you blow by the target because your sweeping was TOO AMAZING… KEEP SWEEPING! You might rebound into the target zone after all!

GET DOWN FROM THERE, GREG! ^_~

Operate the Frogmachine. Save Capitalism.

alternatively:

It's not safe here; go back.

^_~

Thanks, Amir! I read a while on the thresholds for subliminal messaging to calibrate the timing. Because it’s you, I wanna give away the whole store, but I’ll maybe save that for the DR discord. Nah, who’m I kidding… ^_~

I’m fond of things - stories, games… - that leave the consumer wondering. Wondering who was right or wrong, good or evil. In a game, “did I do the right thing?” Should I have saved that character? Should I have saved that character? Tried to hit those kinds of notes here.

Thanks for the nod to Snow Crash: there’s some Stephenson in the scroll, some Orwell… definitely curious how much folk noticed. Wasn’t about to ask you to bake in eye tracking or other sousveillance though!

Oh no! Curious to know about the crash, if you’d share. I didn’t bake in any analytics, so I don’t really know things are breaking until someone tells me.

Glad that, despite the challenging start, you still enjoyed it. Thank you!

And - going BR17T so hard is exactly the mission, so well done you! Going so hard you crashed the simulation should be an achievement!

Without giving too much away: this was made in response to chat in the jam discord:

“you should make a game where you stare at a screen for 20 seconds” “there are nearly 200 of those already, with more incoming 🙂” “Now theres an idea. Corporate drone simulator. Add office ambience and occasional cough sound effects. Fluorescent buzzing noise”

I did precisely that, but with my own dark twist (from someone who has drunk from the firehose of the dystopian pretty much from birth). ^_~

The Overseer sighs. He says, “I have a feeling you were maybe a bit distracted by your lovely keyboard, deskrider. Perhaps if you more closely watched the figures on your screen (as stated in your Diligent Operator Instructions)…”

“I am required by Subsection 14 of Chapter 9 to state that your inattention was noted, and your pay docked accordingly.”

The Overseer points dismissively toward your cubicle, having said this to many others.

DON’T LOOK AWAY

^_~

So good, Amir! Took me maybe 10 rounds to really git gud, but once I had the rhythm, it felt even more awesome. ^_^

More games really do need vim bindings.

Curious if anyone’s experienced any of the “microstory” baked in just yet. ^_~

Thanks for the compliments! I’m glad you enjoyed it. ^_^

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much! This one was a LOT of fun to create.

Get back into that seat, gunner! You only die when I give that order! ^_~

FIXED! Thanks for the feedback. I’m hoping I get some more time to spend on pixel art in the post-jam (these were admittedly a bit slapdash).

(Should’ve replied a while ago, but just getting around to some of these. Mea culpa.)

Thanks for playing, gunner! That S rank looks good on you!

So glad you enjoyed it, and I very much appreciate the kind words. I had a ball making it, and every time I asked myself “is it too bombastic?” I said “NO! MOAR!” ^_~

Incidentally, I might turn this into something bigger down the line if I have time. It was just too much fun in the making, and I had too many ideas to fit into the 20s jam constraints.

See if you can find the two “secrets” I baked in anyway, if you’re inclined.

Cannon “always on after trigger” should be fixed now. Contemplating adding a harsher heat mode, but I had tried to tune it based on my young kids not getting that you can time it right to have the “cooling tower effect.” Wanted it to be more accessible than it was originally. Next update I think I’ll add another layer of difficulty!

Thanks for playing!

YES! FLAWLESS VICTORY!

I knew I could count on Canada! Don’t listen to any of those other stupid Americans (just this one): Canadians are among the very best of us!

(Especially because of the syrup blood… y’all will be our salvation when we start eating each other in the coming apocalypse.) ^_~

Comedy aside though, thanks for posting the epic win. Well curled, my Northern friend!

Thanks so much! That’s 02.00h inescapable sleep interrupting intrusive thoughts for you!

I’m GLAD you were bad at your job, my friend. That was the point after all. I would say something really rude about those frogs (and the awful capitalists forcing them upon us), but this is a family show.

I do hope you were able to discourage Greg and tell him to get down from there though. What a menace, that Greg!

Thanks for the kind words. ^_^

Thanks, Marc! Yes, actually: trained in illustration and design before I decided tech was the better opportunity (but I still keep up my skills). Wanted to draw comics for a living; still do, but pretty sure I’m never gonna actually figure out what I wanna be when I grow up.

I agree that the yellow and red enemies are a bit too muted, but they felt a bit garish when they were much brighter.

I really appreciate the compliment, my friend! Glad that I haven’t lost my touch. ^_~

Excellent! Thanks for playing my silly game!

Thank you! Happy to hear you were engaged by the oddball mix. That’s fever dreams for you. ^_~

Thanks so much! I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

Thanks, mate! I appreciate the compliment.

Sweep! ^_^

If you click/tap (and hold, if you need to maintain velocity) ahead of the die, velocity decreases more slowly. A bit of lateral motion is possible as well.

The trick is in managing your velocity. For me, I like the full power approach with a couple little sweeps to keep it on track. I tried to keep the power/vector selection at least somewhat forgiving, but maybe it’s still a bit too fast.

Try getting to the last lane pylon with a bit of speed left (3.0 or so). If you have more than 3.0 toward the house, you’ll probably overshoot (from which you can sort of recover, if you’re clever and/or careful). If you have about 1.5 or so, you can still nudge it with some constant sweeping.

Out of curiosity, would having the timer and velocity not in the top left corner but floating in either lane make it easier to keep an eye on all the salient data?

Challenging, but mostly because of subverted conventions (probably intentional, like those word matching games where the word spells RED but is painted in blue).

While the “falling to your doom” direction spells instant death, giving things a shake and/or playing an error tone and just letting me fight the timer might lend itself to more replay for me, personally. As it was, I found myself getting frustrated with the controls more than a desire to master them.

Well done, all the same! Nice work!