Mowed Down

[Reposting from the GMTK Game Jam thread]

Full disclosure, I'm a friend and fan of the devs, and having jammed games before, I'm more interested in calling attention to the unique, positive qualities of this game than giving a review (I will not apply a score for the GMTK Game Jam)! Here are some aspects of Mowed Down which represent some of Leyline Studio's strong points as developers:

• The element of choice in small closed systems: although the game's objective is to land on the mower in a single jump, you are allowed to jump out into the neighborhood which results in a unique "Ouch" prompt. On one hand, it's good practice for bug prevention, and on the other, they have the awareness to reward players thinking out of the box (or otherwise, breaking out of the box).
• Building a brand: Only One Burn, Leyline Studio's last major release, was a lunar lander that only allowed one activation of the thrusters. Conference reception for the game was better than expected, and Mowed Down seems to have given the "only one shot" mechanic a new context and control method. Even in their larger releases, singular polished interactions have been the highlights of their games and prototypes, and I'm glad to see the studio leaning into that trajectory. I feel like they've found a way to leverage their niche skills.
• Comedy in fast failure: Again,  visible in Only One Burn,  this game capitalizes on making light of failure, and making that failure convenient. Realizing that the mower zooms toward you on a missed jump is a touch of dynamic slapstick that helps make each missed jump addicting enough to try again.
• Design know-how: Even a 10-second game can illustrate a creator's knowledge of design, and I think that's evident in this game. The mower's movements are unpredictable as far as I can see, but they are routine in a way that you can improve your accuracy from two observations:
  1) the mower rotates toward a random (?) destination, drives in a straight line toward the point, then picks a new target on arrival, and
  2) the mower will not drive straight through certain obstacles, such as the pool.
  With patience and this knowledge, you can leap toward the mower when it approaches a corner, where it needs the most time to rotate to a new point before traveling, and where its options for valid new destinations are most limited. It then becomes apparent that the high speed of the jump meter was not an arbitrary decision, and enables you to finely pick your jump power in the split second you find your tactical moment of opportunity, even more responsively than a power meter decided by player input. The reward of constructing this logic makes earning that perfect landing feel earned, not just a result of chance, and to top it off, the game freezes before the balancing mechanic is put into play, which gives the authentic experience of "I didn't think I'd get this far" via a telegraphed, twitchy-yet-manageable micro-game.

If you enjoyed anything from this bite-sized game, I'd recommend looking into the rest of Leyline Studio's catalog. If there's one thing game jams can demonstrate, it's the instinctual strengths of the developer, latent or realized. If you liked something about this game, I'm certain that quality exists in their published works as well.