interesting game with the theme limitation. that box made it pretty hard to play.

This is great! Brilliant take on the theme—it’s an aggressively minimalist design and it works really well. It is a little hard to spot the dropped coins while also trying to pay attention to where / when the birds are going to attack, but maybe that’s intended as part of the challenge?

The audio and art work really nicely together. Unfortunately, (and I do not know if this is a bug or intended) the speed at which the box and birds moved were too quick for any reasonable reaction time, resulting in every run ending in a matter of seconds either to birds sniping me or me being crushed against a wall shortly after spawning. But I like the idea and would love to play it properly (I tried to watch the youtube video but the embed isn't working). Good job regardless!

This game is very challenging, and I love it! Really cool art! You did an amazing job!

Cool game, really hard! I was disoriented for several of my first attempts because I kept dying so fast. It would be nice if the coins always dropped within reach, because they never spawned where I could get to them.

Pretty tough! I got squished between the map and the bounding box a few times, it wasn't always enemies that got me, but often the environment. Monochrome looks pretty good and the red highlights look great, they're big enough I can see the enemies even if they're mostly white.

Really great graphics, really really tricky game. I often found myself wishing that there was some way I could have agency over how my box moved, as often it felt very random whether or not I was able to get coins.

Nice game, the concept is really great and perfectly fit the theme
visuals are very effective as well
I saw that you used VCV rack, that's cool. I think the music could use more layers and a longer loop, because it quickly feels repetitive, even if the theme you made is already catchy and fit the game
Also, some simple particle effects could improve the visual feedbacks of the game (when catching a coin / killing a bird, jumping / landing ...)

@mastoast Thanks for the feedback! I think you're right about the particle effects, definitely want to steal some game feel tips from Vlambeer games for that one.

The sound effects are actually all made in VCV Rack too! :3

I love how the different mechanics interact with each other, the box shrinking making it harder to both dodge the enemies and get to the collectibles is a really cool way to reward the player for doing well! My only complaint with the gameplay is that if you get unlucky with where they drop it can be very hard to get the collectibles, but this only happened to me a couple of times in a lot of runs so it wasn't a big deal. I also really like the graphics, they're so full of character :smile:

Very innovative concept and perfect for the theme

Fun game. It's very hard, but then I went "challenge accepted" haha

I'd prefer moving with arrow keys since I'm right handed. I held the keyboard in a weird position to play WASD with right hand and got 106.

I appreciate it being hard, but the box sometimes just kills you, period :sweat_smile:

Very fun and very hard, very fitting to the theme as well =)

The pixel art although simple is so charming, I'm still trying to survive more than 30 seconds (but maybe I'm just bad at gaming) and the theme is so well used, very good game

Hey, I think I'm the one to push you over into 20 ratings (:D)! This was really enjoyable while being equally *really really* difficult, haha. I mean, that's an exaggeration of course, but I found myself waiting for a "lucky run" rather than truly getting good at the game. I love the 1-bit aesthetic as a generality, and I think you did it justice here -- the music can get a bit repetitive, but other than that, great job! There may be a bit more balancing involved, or even another mechanic, just so you can consistently get a good run on the game rather than waiting for the box to move towards a coin on it's own.

Good job, I enjoyed my time with this one! :beers:

This game is brutal as hell :laughing: These simple games are always some of the best though, I played it way longer than I meant to. I was thinking maybe it would reduce your reliance on RNG a little bit if you could push the play area left and right to a limited degree. Nice entry though, well executed.

Got 145, very difficult, idk if this would take away from it but maybe having a line showing where the enemy is going to dash to would make it a bit nicer. I really like the little main character lol

A very interesting implementation of the theme of this jam!

I like the implementation, maybe the music it's extremely strident but the game it's simple and funny

Well done! Take a candy! :candy:

Great concept! I think maybe you should add a way to influence the box movement to make it less rng, but appart from that it's so cool!

Interesting idea and I did give this game a lot of tries to try and get a better score, so you definitely have something there. :smile: I felt like the game was too difficult, in the majority of my runs, the little pickups the enemies drop would never be attainable before the box has shrunk to a size where it's impossible to not get squished by platforms or skewered by those enemies. I did figure out you could jump on enemies to get rid of them, but even that is really difficult because they're so fast. Maybe simply starting with a bigger box would make the game easier to play.
Still, it's a nice game that works and kept me trying again for a few minutes, the graphics work well in my opinion, and the audio exists, which is always a little impressive for a compo game haha. Overall I'd say this is a very good compo entry, well done!

Comparing the speed of the birds when I played the game to a gif in a post you made on the feed... It's like- 5 times as fast on my end. Dodging the birds is incredibly difficult, and the only way I was able to actually land on one was pure chance. That being said, It's still fun! I love the art style, and I've been wanting to make a game with incredibly few colors for a while now- I just haven't got around to it.

Are the birds moving at a fixed distance per frame? If so, their speed would be tied to framerate, which might be the reason for the speed difference.

very good idea and interesting execution... I would appreciate it if at least the coins and the main character were a different color... then you lose track of what you see on the screen... again, I have to praise that the birds were marked in red... about them I had an overview. great entry

LOL.. pretty funny.. crazy hard :D
It's a dopamine banger. I got 146.. I don't know how I managed to survive for so long haha! Good game but must have some mercy to the player :D

Nothing to complain about, really, except for the difficulty :D