This is a great take on the retro aesthetic while still feeling distinctly modern.

Feedback:

The game starts a little slow. It might just be the 10 second thing though.

The control scheme is also a bit hard to manage. Might be easier with a controller remap, though. I think this would be amazing with a joystick.

@confusedsoph Thanks so much for your feedback!

I decided against controller inputs because I wanted to explore this "1-stick-shooter" idea which allows for a different type of bullet-hell-shmup while being playable with a JUST-mouse OR touch-screens. More conventional controls would surly be a lot of fun, maybe post jam!

Regarding slow start: It's possible to control the mob's growth by freely rolling the hourglass, but rolling the glass without charge is risky because you need to power up to keep up with the mob size. Tuning could probably be better but I felt like a slow start would be good for warming people up to the controls.

Thanks again!

I really like this game. The music and aesthetic are really cool and it's a really fun concept. I really like how the hourglass moves around and kills things in it's way

@rawb Thanks! :smiley: Glad you like it!

I love the gameplay, the theme is really good used ! DOPE !

What a stellar submission. Way too good to have words for this.

I really like the gameplay, but I found the fact that I would die at even the slightest touch to an enemy to be mildly annoying. It might be worth adding in a heart system so a player doesn't lose all of their progress to one enemy. Overall, though, the concept is very solid and managing various enemy wave while trying to keep the clock going to very fun. Nicely done!

@escarpoulpe Thanks! Hitting the theme was important but I also wanted to experiment too, glad you loved the gameplay!

@sagiii Thanks! :slight_smile:
@ideaspersecond Thanks for your feedback. I had "health system" written down but just didn't get to implementing it. Glad you still had some fun!

incredibly unique idea! honestly so much fun to play. the only thing i didn't quite like was that the best way to clear out the enemies was just to chase down the hourglass and smash it, so i didn't feel very pressured by the time constraints. this game has huge potential though, and i totally think you should continue working on it after the jam!

I love the unique input and art style of this game!
Throwing the hourglass at enemies seems to be the best tactic I found. I would love to see game with this input, but with more enemies and weapons.

This was fun, struggled with the controls but got into a groove eventually. Well done!

@wooshdude @juna8001 @beardywombat Thanks for your feedback! I very much appreciate it!

I did want to do more in regard to tuning and balance. I had some ideas I didn't get to build-in. I was going to implement a shop system that would be added to the pick-up's cycle. Perks, cooldowns, special abilities, etc. *The hourglass will only damage enemies if it's hit below X seconds*, *Hitting the hourglass below 1 second causes an explosion*, *double fire-rate if hourglass is above 8 seconds*, etc.

Maybe post jam.

OH MY GOOOOOOD

This game i soooo freaking amaziiiing. Loved every single second of it.

I think that the only thing that could've been changed was the Hourglass damage.
It seems that it One-Shots any enemy, making the game a little bit too easy.
However, the chaotic enemy spawning of the game barely makes it an issue.

This is my one of my favorite entries of this GameJam so far. I hope I can get to this level of quality within my games one day.

@phantom49 Thanks for your feedback! Totally agree about the hourglass thing, I had some ideas regarding the Hourglass' abilities and balance but couldn't get to them in time :wink: Thanks again! Glad you loved it! :smile:

Very fun idea for the theme and cool music.
The control sheme is a bit challenging at the beginning but make sense in this kind of way.
The 1 bit art style matches perfectly.

@neowhoru Thank you! Glad the controls weren't too bad, and still had fun :smile:

Controls and first are confusing, but after few runs you can get used to it. Fun entry with potential! You put on yourself restriction and handled it like a boss :smile: Great work!

I loved it, the retro atmosphere is really well transcribed. I think there is a lot of potential and I can't wait to play future updates of this game if there are any!

Man, kicking around the hourglass is a big saver. Except when it ends up in a pack of enemies after its journey. Then it makes it more complicated to be able to hit it again between the 10 seconds mark :smile:

I love the minimalist graphics and even the music fits quite well. Nicely done!

@kongo Thanks for your feedback! I had to make it interesting for myself :wink:
@asue Thanks! I'll probably add a bit more eventually.
@tanis Thanks! Glad you liked it! Fun Tip: You can use the dash ability to zip through a crowd of enemies, hopefully hitting the hourglass along the way. It's a risky play!

Very fun game!.

Very fun game.

The concept is very interesting and it feels very nice.
Would be nice to be able to move in different ways, felt it was too weird and clunky to move with the mouse.

@eugenik Thanks! @lenan Thanks! Sorry there's only mouse/touch controls for now. I'll probably add something post jam. Thanks again!

Such a nice game! Feels really polished and great to play! Controls are smooth the animations are superb! The whole idea is really simple but it works so well! My only critique is a minor one that mixing on music has too much bass and sounds a bit boomy on with my audio setup! Excluding that minor thing this just so good! :)

@alks Thanks so much for your feedback. The bass thing *might be a bug*, yeah you're actually not supposed to hear anything except the bass LOL... Just kidding I really like bass and didn't get to spend enough time on the mix :wink: Thanks again glad you like it!

Amazing game, I made it to wave 26 and it was really fun to play. I like how the timer would take out enemies as well, nice touch

Really fun game! Pushing an hour glass into a mob of enemies felt super satisfying, nice job!

Awesome entry!

Moving and shooting feels great here, they're combined in a way that makes them easy to use but still requires you to think and act fast!

Fun game! I found myself holding down the mouse button for most of the game, which was not very pleasant: maybe following the mouse pointer could be the default behaviour? I don't think I made use of the split fire very much anyway. Having a bit of warning for when enemies will arrive onto the screen would be nice.

I figured out the mechanics as I was playing but the "tutorial"/intro text didn't explain things very clearly: for example, that the hourglass must be touched every ten seconds (at first I thought this was the "charge"), or that the hourglass can also be used to kill off large numbers of enemies.

This is a good tke on the theme and an innovative idea with the hourglass. It was a little bit hard to get used to the controlls. But I understand what you've tried here.
The music is engaging. Thix pixel art is simple but nice.
Good job!

This game is aptly named, cause it's more fun to knock the hourglass toward enemies than shooting to kill the latter :smile_cat: .
And yeah, it's also easier to do that than aiming to shoot enemies.

Loved how you used the theme in a way that managed to fit but also didn't restrict you to having to do something every 10 seconds exactly. Fun entry!

This was quite fun!

As few others have mentioned here the mouse-controls felt a bit tedious at first.

I don't know how fundamentally the experience would change if you were to add different control-schemes. I think there's a lot of room for experimentation there, and different directions where you could take this.

Good work, as always!

I got wave 37.

It's actually a really interesting one, but the game's way to get you moving is to spam 1 million zombies. There was a comically large pumpkin for some reasons, but yeah.