I enjoyed the art style!

The mechanic of the atoms being unstable fit the theme super well. The variety of levels was cool to see.

This is an awesome game! I could totally see this in classrooms helping students learn about basic chemistry. The graphics and assets are amazing, I can definitely see the polish you were describing. The gameplay is a bit sparse but the foundation is there. With some more time I really think you guys have a great little game on your hands!

I coulnd't launch it, and I'm sad cause it looked rad.. :(

So adorable graphic style! Really good job!)) Want to play this game

A really cute game. I loved the nice charming graphics, clean but it worked nicely with a but muted and inviting color palette. I like how the atoms and basics of chemistry are presented here. I agree with Karsinis that I could totally see this for classroom game for students, if further improved. The puzzle mechanics sometimes were not clear to me, the goal clear, but not sure how i could achive it with not right number of atoms... Anyway, it is working and congrats to your first ever jam entry. Very well done!

Thanks everyone for playing/commenting on our game! :D We appreciate the feedback and we're having a great time playing all of your games too!!!

Really cool concept for a game. It could have used a bit of explanation of the concepts, but after a while I got the idea. Visuals were good and controls were intuitive. Good job

I did not get what I had to do to win, anyway I have completed few levels :P Probably it is due to my close to 0 knowledge about chemistry ;) Game works fine, no bugs spotted.

Fantastic game, one of the best I've played so far! The idea is great, the art style is really good, and it was surprisingly easy to understand even with minimal guidance. Just wish there were more levels to play! Great job!

Great job)

interesting game, level development and clarity of the topic, good work!

Your game is pretty nice for first gamejam entry, and your artstyle is wonderful!

"Harsh critic" mode is on.

Concept is very nice: creating particles by combining particles. It seems very real and science-y. But here lies the problem: this rules do not leave any place for creative thinking and exploration. Last levels are passed very fast, because there are not much to do, answer is on the surface because rules are pretty simple. I would advice to add unalterable (unchangable) cores, for example, or some kind of other modifiers to make players life harder. Or several cores to put protons to, only one with right configuration. It is puzzle, after all.

When participating in jam without platform restrictions try to build web-version first. It will be most avaliable to players and it will get more ratings.

On your time management I can advice same things everybody would:
- Keep your scope in check. If you add new ideas, remove one of the old ones. You can add them back later.
- Prioritize tasks, for example, for teamwork Steven Covey's priority matrix is a good place to start (but be sure to decide what is impotant and urgent to you).
- Be ready to kill/cut some of your ideas. Time is always running out, don't hold onto features you will not be able to make.

One thing I can add myself: keep your project ready to submit at all times. It is counter-intuitive, but you better make game with 3 levels with sound, art and menu then "game" with 10 levels placeholder sprites or gamebreaking bug and without any sound-effects.

But do not take my criticism as bad opinion, please. Back to kind words now:)

Sound design and artwork are perfect.
Gameplay is entertaining, but be ready to add new mechanics if you add more levels.
You can totally develop this game into good time-killer game for mobile devices, thanks to your friendly style and easy-to-get mechanics.
I really hope to see some progress on this idea, so I am following you on itch.io now :)

Good luck and keep up the good work!

Loved the art style and idea. Sounds were good as well. Took me a moment to work out what was going on, but definitely seems like it could be a relaxing puzzle game that could be expanded on. Great work, team!

Thanks everyone so much for all the feedback! It's been really fun having people play something I've made for the first time ever :D

@mrbell270 Wow, I really appreciate you taking the time. You're definitely right about expanding into new constraints to ramp things up, during development we were cognizant of the fact that we wanted to take inspiration from those real decay properties, but also take liberties for the sake of making interesting puzzles, because like you said, that's what is most important at the end of the day.

I love what you said about having your game ready to submit at all times. Although I was kicking myself right after submitting about having prioritized polish over adding the additional (and more interesting/difficult) levels and mechanic into the game, it's all just a trade-off at the end of the day, and I know that I would have felt worse about it if I didn't get that polish in.

Thank you for the kind words about the art, Victoria has been really appreciating all the great feedback about it, which is great because I think she did a wonderful job :D

We're both very eager to keep building upon it, and your follow on itch is just extra motivation, so thank you! We'll definitely have updates soon. I followed you there as well, going to check out some of your older games here soon :thumbsup:

I don't have much to add to the great feedback you've already gotten. I just wanted to say that every jam should be a learning experience, no matter how times you've done them. A game jam is all about learning and managing to get *something* to completion. You've clearly done that, so you should be proud of the achievement.

@rein Thanks for the kind words. We started late afternoon on Saturday and thought that there was no way we were gonna be able to finish in time, but I'm so happy we went for it anyway. We've been wanting to do a game jam for so long now, and now that we have one under our belt the idea of doing another one doesn't seem as daunting anymore. BTW I also played your game and I loved it!!! One of our early ideas was a horse/farm animal escape idea, but your version of it was much more clever and funny. The level design was really great and the game was super addicting. Great job!

That was fun. I guess today is the kind of day where I wish I would remember my high school physics classes better... But by the end I had figured out how the mechanics work and I think they make for a surprisingly compelling set of puzzle mechanics for being real physics (assuming they are more or less real physics). It's definitely a cool interpretation of the theme and I would have loved to see the other mechanics you implemented. But I felt like the levels didn't make full use of even the concepts that were already introduced and there were some minor, more technical issues like numbers being off-screen (both of these likely also due to time constraints). But definitely keep on making games, this game seems really promising! And all of my complaints are on the minor side and could be fixed relatively easily.

Great job!

Thanks @junber for the feedback! I remember seeing that one tooltip going off screen right after we submitted haha. We already have multiple ideas on how to progress the puzzles from where it is now, even before adding the other mechanic like you mentioned. We're focusing on playing through other entries for now though, but looking forward to getting back into the game. Speaking of which, I'm playing through yours now!

Thanks @joaosilva22! We had at least 4 or so more levels designed on paper, but ran out of time. I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Well done on your game too! I'm not sure how, but you managed to pack in a really compelling and challenging game in just three levels. Super impressive! :D

Wow! Never thought I would see another game on radioactive decay, a coincidence eh? Same concept different execution, love the puzzle elements especially if you understand the physics behind it! Overall nice job, wouldn't mind if you guys checked out our game as well as we have similar themes ;)

Cool art style. Need a little time to understand what I am doing/should do but it was fun to play

@quoc Appreciate it! Yeah it seems like that is a common sentiment; I tried to go for the whole "let the intro levels explain the game to you rather than an explicit tutorial" thing, but with how few levels we completed in time, that learning period is a decent chunk of the game haha. I think progressing the puzzles further with more levels will help with that, but perhaps a simple explanation of the general goal in the beginning would be worthwhile.

@aquilart Glad you enjoyed it! I just played your game, thought it was great! I'll have more fleshed out thoughts in your comments :thumbsup:

I was originally gonna post about how I was confused and that the game needs a tutorial, etc but actually it doesn't - just a bit of patience while the unstable mechanic does its thing and spits out a negative particle. Once I got the mechanics it was really intuitive and the puzzles were fairly straight forward. I did find though that you could just complete the puzzles using trial & error sometimes. Liked the hand-drawn look a lot too, nice work!

@sleepystudios Thanks for checking it out! Yeah I aimed to make the decay timing have some inconsistency, adding to the "unstable"-ness, and also imagining ways that irregular timing could feed into puzzles. However, how I handled the decay probability in the background leads to far too much inconsistency; sometimes the particle is just about instant, and sometimes it takes way longer than I envisioned it would when I coded it up lol. Definitely something to address in an updated version. Thanks again!

Very innovate idea. Having the physics on the particles was a nice touch.

The art style is so cute!

The graphics were charming and minimalist, so points there. Also, like many have said, kudos for making a game based on real physics (it was, right?).

The gameplay, on the other hand, could have been more interactive. I didn't really know if I was supposed to do something or just wait the first few times. If the game's entire point is to create unstable compounds (or elements), then the gameplay should be clear. Don't make the player wait for so long. I think the wait time was random as well? If so, it really didn't help but make me feel confused if I was even doing the right thing or not. Finally, if the game was based on real physics, then help those of us who've forgotten their physics lessons from ages ago as I had no idea what I was supposed to do with Natrium, I think that was it.

First game jam entries are always tough. For next game jams, you should try on focusing more on the gameplay elements and the fun of it. Most people won't play your game for more than a minute or two, so length isn't as imporant.

I don't want to repeat myself because many people have written good suggestions. I like the most: pastel drawing graphics,reaction sound and the hand drawn font that fits great to the rest of the design. Congratulations on completing your first jam!

There are many great suggestions and comments already written, but I'll say that the idea is very nice, well done!

That was a fun little puzzle game! I do wish it was longer, but it's pretty understandable given when you started it. As with some other comments, my primary criticism would be that there aren't enough meaningful choices in each puzzle, which makes them easily guessable. Great job for your first jam, keep it up!

A bit of the way in I was thinking "it'd be cool if they put in beta decay too to add a little depth to the charge balancing and all that" and then you did it! Also liked how the decay would occur at a random time, which doesn't really lend itself well to a puzzle game I must admit, but it adds authenticity. Great work!

Nice game! I did look around on the itch.io page and on the Ludum Dare page for some instructions -- obviously having more instructions in the game itself is good, but it might be worth adding something on the game page too.

For some reason dragging around the particles was a little bit laggy for me, not sure if it's because I had a slower computer or what.

The UI is nice! I could imagine you could add a bunch of polish to this if you wanted, while sticking to the minimalist theme, little line based animations when something pops off or is added to an atom? And adding more visual flourish to the "Great job" message. Obviously, hard to fit in during the jam :)

I think that the only (main)thing that your game is missing is at least some explanation of the basics. I mean I was able to pass the levels, but it was just me trying stuff and hoping for win, which came eventually, but I wasn't sure why. Also the music stopped after a while. Overall great job and very solid entry!

I was writting a com but just by reading the one of Jin9310 I realize that I would have said exactly the same things XD

Ditto Jin9310's comment. The game worked perfectly and all the actions felt good because of the nice feedback and sounds you put in, I just had no idea *why* things were happening. Depending on your target audience, that might be just fine!

I like that you already say "Huge lesson in prioritizing polish over actually building out more of the game!" I think this is so true. There are certainly teams that can submit something really complex and make it work well, but I find that most often, the best games are ones like this. Not very many or very complex mechanics, just one simple thing that's polished up and works really well.

Huge congrats on your first jam, I hope you enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to what we get to see from you guys next time!

Interesting concept. Pretty hard to understand how to play and what actions lead to what at the beginning, so it is played by trial and error. Pleasant simple graphics. Nice entry.

This is a very impressive game for a first game jam! I have not much to add on to the existing comments here. In my opinion, the tone and mood of the game is the game's biggest strength, but its greatest weakness is the gameplay.

While I do appreciate that you, as the player, learn as you play, there is no real feedback as to what was happening. The puzzles could be solved by superficial trial and error without actually knowing what was going on. Thus, even though this is a puzzle game, I didn't feel my intellect was being tested. I was able to understand from the first three levels what the game mechanic was since I had studied radioactive decay on a surface level in high school, but I am not sure if an average player would. The connection between the number of electrons, protons and neutrons are not immediately clear. My suggestion is to make more explicit what the player's actions can accomplish. For instance, when I put in a proton into an atom that will have more protons than electrons, and it spits out another elementary particle, perhaps there should be a visual feedback on what the conversion is, and why it happened.

Aside from gameplay, I really appreciate the forces that act on the elementary particles as you moved them around, throw them against walls, and bring them closer to the atoms. It's details like these that make your game feel good and stand out.

I agree 100% with all the other comments about the good things about the game, so I won't repeat that here. Again, really impressive for your first game jam, I look forward to playing more of your games.

I don't have much to say compare to the others, over all well done, maybe a little tutorial or explanations at the beginning would be a good start. Overall cute little game !

The game has great clean visuals that help to keep the puzzles intuitive - I think the slow introduction of mechanics is done well but a couple of text boxes explicitly explaining some of the less obvious mechanics would help a lot if the player hasn't seen (or has forgotten in my case) the science motivating the game. That said, I still figured out the mechanics after only a little trial and error and didn't get at all frustrated so I don't think its a big problem. Overall I think the game is really well presented, and I had a lot of fun playing it!

Very cute game, I agree with all the feedback, my only thing to add would be that it would be nice to have some sort of indicator for objects that can be manipulated vs not, like some kinda highlight/outline or something.