An interesting concept. I don't know if it was intentional or just out of convenience but I really like the simplicity of the art style and the design. Everything is clear and can be understood instantly.

When it comes to the gameplay, its original and fits the theme very well but way too hard for me because of the lack of reactivity it has. By that I mean that we gotta anticipate too much things in advance in order to avoid the red squares, and generally I know that Im about to die like 5 seconds before it happens and there is nothing I can do about it. Its quite frustrating.

With an additional gameplay mechanic it could give more options to be more reactive and avoid the frustrating deaths. For example giving the area a little shake that would make the player move faster, or rotating the area of 45°. There are many possibilities :smiley:

Another thing is that I could not run the exe at first because I needed libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll and libstdc++-6.dll. They are easy to find on the internet but packing a zip with those inside would be ideal. And put the audio with it as well :thumbsup:

You still managed to make a complete game, with a proper splash screen, a nice hud and scoring system with a high score feature, this is already quite an achievement. Also the fact that you didn't use a game engine and did all of it from scratch is really impressive, well done !

thank you for your review @adamsmccall

concerning the art style , i'm not a good graphist so i chose to do a minimalist design instead of drawing ugly sprites. raylib has functions to draw shapes but i think that if it didn't i still would have made the same design by adding square sprites .

it is true that after the first minute it's very difficult to anticipate your next moves

the rotation system you're telling me is possible but i have to clean the code and redo my colision system . a little dash is also a good idea i didn't think about and it's easy to implement it . i thought of a capacity that allow you to change the player direction without bouncing as a last resort but had the idea 30 minutes before the end so i gave it up .
another idea in my mind was that you have points if you are close enough to a bullet so even if the box is small and the score is freezed , you can still manage to increase your score .
i could have made visible your best surviving time in the game over screen the score is not the only important parameter a player care about .

" i could've done this or that or add this ..." are frustrating thought . my brain is full of ideas afterwards .


thanks again for the feedback . Also the game and all his component including the dll files are in a zip , THAT is quite an achievement , i finally know how itch.io works .

It seems very simple (which is not a bad thing!). It feels like a start of what could be a much more fleshed out, more arcade-y style of game. There's a lot of simple things you could do that would go a long way, such as random power ups (maybe something that freezes the player cube, or shrinks the box temporarily), more than one health, etc. But what is here is fun.

Really good idea, with tons of room for expansion if you wanted! It would be nice to see more of a reward/punishment system tied to the box size, since there's not much of a reason to not shrink the box as long as the score isn't frozen. On my second playthrough I didn't mess with the box size at all, and I like how there's a planning element to managing a larger box once more enemies spawn in.

i agree that powerups could be useful alongside some more arcadey 'juice' like some screen shake and more effects to make the gameplay feel a lot more satisfying but i can see this being played on my phone while i wait for the bus

@novicedevgames I understand those frustrating thoughts of what could have been better, but to me thats what experience is. The next jam you'll do you will be surprised at how much better you will be !

@qayndecim @matt-blake @treblecolby @adamsmcall thanks for the feedback guys maybe i should continue this game a little if it has that potential . i'll improve my skills with it for the next jam

The game is really cool and fits the thme nicely!! I survived 91 seconds.

I like the fact that it starts as 'the big box must dodge the red dots' and then the more advance it gets, the more you literally 'cut corners' :)

Also the art style is good.

This concept is really unique and the game is addicting. Being able to select different shapes would be a cool option that would improve replayability. I feel like the red boxes should have some kind of beep or sound of their own as well.

@duckwings thank you ,i don't think a bouncing sound for the red boxes is a good idea , after 1:20 there are seven of theme already , their sound could quickly become unbearable for the player .
But playing a sound made for them when they appear is a good idea .

It's really respected not to use a gameengine. Neat graphics and solid game play. A bit challenging for me. XD

I liked the minimalist design, but I didn't really feel in control. I mean when I survived, I didn't really feel like it was the because of my skill as a player, but that I just got lucky.

Maybe if the red dots left trails behind them, it would be easier to predict their trajectory, but I'm not sure if that would help or hurt the game.

Great job making the game and thanks for sharing it!

Simple abstract art style that works well. It's sometimes really nice to see. Also, good gameplay.

Love the concept and the gameplay is good!

I liked this! Pretty quickly I got a notification over the ball saying "FREEZED" and I couldn't change the size of the box any more, not sure how that happened. But it's a cool concept pulled off well!

@slimefriend hello and thank you for your feedback , can you be more precise about what happened ?
maybe you tried to reduce the box more , the box has a minimum size .

tell me how did you play if possible

This is a fantastic arcade game. The simplicity of the game really makes it accessible while still being challenging. And it's unique enough with the mechanics to be a new challenge to anyone that picks it up. I do think the box should stay a constant size, because once I'm "Freezed" I can't seem to grow the box back and keep getting points. Great work :D

Im unsure about the changing size mechanic. I got it down to a small size, and I seemed to be basically soft locked? My score wasn't going up and I couldn't grow the square at all. But once I got a real playthrough in, and just kept the box at max size I really enjoyed it. Its such a simple idea, but it works really well, fits the theme well, and was a lot of fun. Great job!

@kleinzach @phobos001 @slimefriend . Thank you for your feed-back the box size problem that you had came from a keyboard norm problem between qwerty and azerty . it has been fixed . Also the game has been updated and the movements of the box and its resizing are faster , globally i think the game is more fun that way .

maybe you can try the new version and give me your opinion about it

As a minimalist, I can't express how much I love the artstyle of the game. It feels just right, with just the right amount of information it presents to you without overusing sprites and particle effects. Great job!

A good and simple idea can make a great game.
You nailed the theme and innovation imo.
Don’t worry about the art the style, you did a good job.
You can look into game feel/juice to compensate simple design.
This is what I learned past year.

Nice game, really like the theme fit here and concept. Some background music would be great to have. Also maybe some sort of narrowing/widening logic to the main cube just to make thing spicy

Really nice, I think I got some good scores. Good mechanic and well polished game!

Cool game, surprisingly fun for how simple it is.

Thanks for letting me play this! Excellent job!

Here's the VOD on YouTube to watch the gameplay, just skip to your chapter on the video!
https://youtu.be/-eCnQ8GAhN8

I was not expecting this game to be that much fun. My strategy had to evolve during it. At first, I realized if my bounding box never crossed paths with red squares, it was impossible for the black square to lose. That worked for about a minute, but then had to get more creative.

I really enjoyed the extra layer of control, this one gets a high score from me. Nice job!

I love the minimalistic yet very effective design! Nice job!