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Great levels and mechanics here!

Spoiler talk (rot13):

Zl snibevgr yriry jnf gur bar whfg orsber gur svefg oyhr xrl pneq jurer lbh unir gb hfr gur pengrf gb oybpx gur gjb ynfref ba gur yrsg, ohg gura lbh nyfb arrq gb svther bhg ubj gb rkgenpg gurz gb gura oybpx gur ynfref ng gur gbc evtug. Pybfr frpbaq vf gur bar jurer lbh bcra gur qbbef ba obgu fvqrf bs gur pntr gb oernx vg ncneg vagb gjb yvggyr ybpxcvpx-yvxr gbbyf.

Gur gryrcbegngvba zrpunavp jnf nyfb cerggl shaal va gung lbh pbhyqa’g npghnyyl hfr gur gryrcbegre nsgre lbh frag na vgrz guebhtu jvgubhg svefg pyrnevat gur qrfgvangvba fdhner fbzrubj. Guvf yrq gb fbzr ernyyl vagrerfgvat frdhrapvat.

I liked the progression here. I rolled my eyes after finishing the game (in a good way):

(rot13) V qba’g guvax V’ir rire orra fcbvyrq ba n tnzr ol gur gvgyr bs gur tnzr vgfrys. Znqr zr puhpxyr.

The fact that changes often happen off-screen adds some initial resistance to learning the core mechanics. I wonder if there is some compromise to help the player notice that things are happening without explicit enumeration of the rules. In my case, I stumbled into the solution to level 4 and then had to walk back why it worked instead of planning forward. That said, the game as a whole is very challenging even after all mechanics are known. The individual levels do a very good job at concealing the number of “eureka” moments still left to find.

Really liked the level design and escalation on this one.

(rot13) Yrneavat gung lbh pbhyq genzcyr gur syntf jvgu gur obkrf jnf n irel sha erirny!

The interplay between position parity and lock state was a really neat idea. Remotely morphing the block shape is also something I’m not sure I’ve seen elsewhere. Feels like there is some further richness to explore outside the time constraints of the game jam!

Interesting experience toying around with the commands and figuring out what is going on. Nice solution once you’ve spotted the relevant patterns.

It would be nice to have some input/gui options to stay exclusively in keyboard mode or mouse mode.

ng gur uvturfg urvtug, … vgf vzcbffvoyr gb svyy nyy bs gur barf V arrq

Correct

Nf lbh’ir abgvprq, ol gvzr lbh pbire gur zvq-evtug tbny, lbh’yy bayl or guerr oybpxf ybat. Ng guvf cbvag, lbhe pubvprf nobhg jung gb qb jvgu gur svefg fvk oybpxf jvyy qrgrezvar jurgure be abg lbh’yy or noyr gb pbagvahr ba gb n shyy fbyhgvba. Vs lbh unir vaqrrq znqr gur pbeerpg pubvprf ol guvf cbvag, gura lbh jvyy unir znqr vg cnfg gur ynfg ovt qvssvphygl fcvxr. Rirelguvat sebz gurer vf znvayl whfg rkrphgvba.

Definitely a tough level. No shame in leaving it be.

You’ve discovered one of the key strategies to this one, namely: lbh pna evqr ba gbc bs lbhe qrgnpurq gnvy oybpxf gb ernpu nernf gung jbhyq bgurejvfr or bhg bs enatr.

Try going further with that idea!

A second hint if you need it: lbhe frpbaq gnvy qrgnpuzrag fubhyq or ng gur frpbaq ebj naq gur svsgu pbyhza.

Deceptively intricate puzzle given the few pieces involved. Fun solve!

Blasting open the cracks with the slimes was oddly satisfying. The slime/block interactions were also really interesting in breaking states that would otherwise be losing in vanilla sokoban.

Never heard of Kye before, so can’t compare directly, but the structure of having a collection of smaller puzzles held together by global interactions is definitely present here. Solving felt very strategic with some “aha!” tactical moments peppered throughout. The portal elevator was really fun, too.

PuzzleScript Space Chem is pretty hard! The setup here made for some pretty tight sokoban’ing. Really rewarding to get that big ole molecule in the socket at the end.

Quite the marathon of an expedition! The tool/material movement constraints were really interesting. This limitation definitely required some heavy planning toward the end.

Quite amazing how far beyond a run-of-the-mill Einstein puzzle this is.

Vg frrzrq gung gur qrrcre yriryf erdhver gur ragver chmmyr gb or n frdhrapr bs jbeqf, fb vg qvq srry n gnq ovg thrff-naq-purpx ng gvzrf. Gurer ner nyfb fbzr nzovthvgvrf orpnhfr Ratyvfu nf n ynathntr vf xvaq bs n zrff (rk: “rvgure N be O” pbhyq or rkpyhfvir be abg). Fgvyy ernyyl vaperqvoyr gung fb znal chmmyrf pbhyq or bireynccrq bagb bar nabgure!

Cool and funky mechanic!

Irel pbby ‘raqvat bar bs gjb’ erirny. Trggvat nyy svir zvxnaf (?) bhg bs wnvy frrzrq cerggl vzcbffvoyr orsber pbafvqrevat gur fhogyr punatr va ubbx bevragngvba.

Remember to honk periodically throughout so that you can get the true ending where (rot13) gur tbbfr jnf pnabavpnyyl ubaxvat gur jubyr gvzr.

Very cool. The levels in the screenshots look impossible without delving into the mechanics of the game.

(rot13) Frrvat gur terra fanxr cbc hc va gur m-nkvf jnf n ernyyl avpr erirny. V gubhtug sbe fher gurer jbhyq or n oyhr fanxr ybpxrq vagb gur erznvavat 2Q cynar ng fbzr cbvag. Gurer znl or fbzr vagrerfgvat yriry qrfvtaf va gung, V guvax.

What a nice, clean puzzle.

I really like the use of rotation here.  Not only does it handle controls in the extra hex grid direction, but it plays into the core mechanics in a really nice way.

Very cool!  Loved 7, 9, and 10 in no particular order.

Very clever how the constraints of the board gel with the constraints of the English language to allow that little flourish at the end there.

This game had very good flow of progression! By the time the player hits a dead end, there is enough learned context to go back and patch things up for victory.

I really enjoyed the saga-like feel of navigating up and down and all around to move things forward.  The depth-based locks are a really fantastic puzzle element and the level design here definitely did it justice.

Thanks for playing! Yeah, I had to bust out paper and pencil to plan out the intended solution.  I should have the timey-wimey causality constraints implemented shortly.  I'm a bit further off from being able to provide helper visualizations for the timeline and nested item tree.  Honestly, might just be a better puzzle experience to let the player map that out on their own.

edit: timey-wimey causality stuff is up

I liked the reveal that there were a bunch of pig freaks eating bodies down in the basement.  It was a nice escalation in the horror aspect beyond just finding a killer.

Cool chalk outline mechanic!  Felt surprisingly fair; you really does require you to hit all the concave zones of the body but it doesn't punish you unless you go way out of bounds or try to cross over the body itself.

I really liked the dark, grimy presentation of the demon-infested apartments.  The hushed voices were also unnerving in a really great way.

Thanks for playing!  100% agree on the space to continue option.  I was really noticing that problem too, but only after the submission window ended.  I plan to release a post-jam version that tidies this up along with a few other things.

Looks like Bingus did not sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.  The gameplay loop felt brisk and snappy.  Great visual and audio feedback on everything that was going on.  I ended up falling into a strategy of just turtle-ing up with my shield until I happened to draw into a nuke.  I saw that the deck size is limited, but I never got particularly close to zero except to see what would happen (softlock).  Overall a fun little card combat game!

I thought the news cycle-based take on the stonks mechanic was pretty fun.  Being able to buy the dip hard and then hold until some hype blew the price back up felt really fun.  One can imagine adding shop mechanic to allow you to buy/sell in multiples or to get insider info on the news before it breaks.  Fun little jam sim on its own tough!

I really like this take on the theme of risk.  After a couple of plate clicks, you usually have a visual set of suspect napkin locations.  After a few more clicks, you can get all but one of those locations to change.  BUT, perhaps you missed an immobile location elsewhere?  You really do have to make some risky decisions about how sure you are and when to commit to a move.

You can copy + paste at https://rot13.com/ to unscramble.  I just didn't want to put it in plain text since I plan to ship a post-jam update which includes the mechanic.  Telegraphing exactly what it is would detract from the reveal.

Great puzzle concept!  You were able to do a lot with only a few basic building blocks on a 5x5 grid.  I liked how each new mechanic was paired up with a level to force you to understand some rule about that mechanic.  The only one that felt a little unintuitive was the spike behavior for specific on/off timings; some of the solutions felt like my mouse ought to get spiked, but survived anyway.  Maybe this is a consequence of some mismatch in animation state vs. internal puzzle state? Otherwise, the tricky puzzles were all rewarding to solve.  The one with the yellow biscuit on the teleporter in front of the red rat had me stumped for a bit, but I think that just makes it my favorite of the bunch.  Kind of love it when you're asking yourself if the devs accidentally made the puzzle impossible before reaching that key insight.

Really fun! Awesome job!

Really cool escalation of the central mechanic.  Some of the puzzles have pretty big shortcuts if you're clever about it.  Feels more like a feature than a flaw, in my opinion.  B̶̤͌i̷̗͝s̴͇̆c̸̤̆ṳ̴̐i̵͍̔t̷̠̅ ̵̕ͅo̴̘͘b̸̐ͅt̷̫͊a̵̱͆í̴̻n̷̳̔e̷̻͝d̵̝̈.̶̰͠

Just tried PATHRALLAX.  Wow!  They really go deep on the central mechanic.  Awesome puzzle game.  Definitely underrated.

Taking an interpretation of "unique" to include exceptionally strong in some facet, my list of unique or underrated games:

Visuals:

Haze (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3850677): Highlights the impact that detailed visual flare can have above and beyond just the hitbox areas.

Tower of The Biscuit (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3851771): Great visual feedback on scoring both during the build phase and at the end of each round.

Risky Fishing (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3850495):  Each round ends with giant fish piñata-like explosion to tally up the final score.  This gets really impressive when you've just gotten through a really good run. Making loot/reward feel good makes the game feel good.

Bark Bark Biscuits (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3851061): Really great scene transitions here.  This makes progression feel intentional and not rushed (vs just hard-switching directly to the next scene).

*WILDLY UNDERRATED* Gorblo vs. the Haunted Critters (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3846656): Really just has everything? You wouldn't even suspect this to be a game jam game if you encountered it in the wild.

Audio:

Die On The Tether (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3848007): Incredibly immersive audio for looting derelict spaceships.  Audio is not just music and triggered SFX, ongoing environmental sound can carry immersion a long way.

Great takes on risk:

Risk-o-matix (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3848239): Pits the slow grind of loot hunting against the risk of challenging stronger enemies for quicker loot progression. The player gets to set their own pace on difficulty without getting forced into something that is too challenging or too boring.  You don't need to explicitly set a difficulty in settings to make that happen.

*underrated* DEPNULL (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3851617): Balance the odds of winning on a slot machine vs. the risk of breaking it.  But also, you have to eventually break it in order to continue.  Building systems that turn the perceived bad thing into a critical tool can lead to some very interesting dynamics.

Grapple Snacks (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3850262): You grapple onto biscuits with the ultimate goal of eating them, but then you no longer have that grapple point to work with. Some forethought on sequencing is definitely required in the later levels.  Takeaway is that surprisingly puzzley aspects can emerge from ostensibly non-puzzle genres.

Unique gameplay:

*underrated* Bomb or Kill (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3808626): Tasteful use of AI to create a scenario that will test a completely different skillset than your used to in a videogame.

*underrated* Spinergy (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3849658): You don't need a story in order to have fun building a number factory.

*underrated* Carbon (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3849620): A really great exploration of a central puzzle mechanic.

Makin' Biscuits (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3842227): Cute Factorio.

Cloud Top Bakery (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3849626): Really creative tutorial setup. You get the rules of the game in text plus a live micro version of the game to play around with to see how everything works.  I also love the title screen pixel art which does perspective outside the usual top, side, isometric trio.

*underrated* The Greatest Biscuit Heist (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3852044): Hard skill-based movement, but a great example of implicit difficulty scaling. As you get closer to the prize, it is inherently more difficult to control your character due to the longer tether.

Lucky Loop (https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14/rate/3851875): Establishes lots of different "archetypes" for roguelike upgrades and deck (wheel) construction

I glad you liked it!  Not the most timely tip, but "z" will undo one step at a time rather than "r" which wipes the slate clean.  In any case, the question stands.  Why allow the player to accidentally bonk when there is a dedicated wait key?  The reason is that there is a game mechanic that is in the code, but not used in any levels.  I had wanted to include a suite of levels with this other mechanic, but getting the UI done ended up taking me right up to the final hour of the jam. Disabling movement for a bonk felt like too much risk to do at the last minute, and so it awkwardly stayed on into the final jam build.

The mechanic if you are curious (rot13): Lbh pna pbageby zhygvcyr qbtf. N ybg bs qrfvta fcnpr bcraf hc vs lbh nyybj bar qbt gb zbir juvyr nabgure fgnlf chg ol ohzcvat ntnvafg gur jnyyf.

Design-wise, levels are coming from one of the following:

1: Show some relevant rule or behavior that is important to the puzzles in isolation.

2: Build some complications around a central theme.

3: Stumble into something interesting completely by accident while building and playtesting another design.

So for #1 I'm a big believer in "show don't tell" wherever possible.  I wanted to have some number of tutorial levels simple enough to show one thing at a time (ex: get all biscuits to win, lose a biscuit to a guard and lose, get seen only with a biscuit, etc.).  This is pretty critical to build up the players toolkit so that solutions to later puzzles feel deliberate and not arbitrary.

For #2, you kind of have to mess around with your own system to get a sense for how things work and what constraints can be enforced.  Discoveries here might be stuff like: "I can punish the player for losing a guard at this specific spot by putting down multiple biscuits in different directions" or "once a guard is one tile behind me, I can never lose it" or "if I put a biscuit on the shortest path from the player to a guard, I can force them to collect the biscuits in a certain order".  You can then build up a little arsenal of building blocks to start going for bigger ideas.

Finally, #3 is just going to happen from time to time in a way that I'm not clever enough to intuit from the start.  The snake level kind of came together this way.  I figured out how to build up the snake in the usual way, but then I wanted the user to have to lose it all again in order to make it to the final biscuit.  Running around in test showed that you can loop back and squash down the length of the snake one square at a time by looping back repeatedly.

I really like the Meatboy-esque instant respawn.  It definitely keeps the meat grinder gameplay moving at full speed.  Some of the instant kills at spawn might otherwise be unfair, but it doesn't really matter since you're just supposed to go all the time anyway.

Sad this jam doesn't have a dedicated narrative category.  That ending reminds me of the Dark City movie.