I really, really wanted to give this game a perfect score. It was my favorite, a really nice, self-contained and consistent little puzzle game with good mechanics.

Thanks for the kind words JPetrie (Yeah, changing your username doesn't fool me :D ). Definitely the best thing about this competition is the spades of feedback!
I'm pleased you liked the game!

Some of the puzzles are fairly easy to just brute force

Yes, in fact by my reckoning brute-force is sure-fire tactic at least up until the teleporter levels. The teleporting being the only potentially-irreversible action that's possible in the game. Apart from that it's always possible to undo any previously-taken actions and effectively rewind to correct any mistakes you may have made.

and for the rest once you have them there isn't much replayability. Adding some kind of "par" mechanic or some ways to have an idea of what switches might do what, what teleporters could go where, et cetera, could improve that.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that replay-value wasn't a high priority for me. Some kind of par mechanic might well do it though. Also, have you ever played Loved? That game manages to entice a 2nd replay so that you can make alternative decisions. The disembodied speaker in my game doesn't drive you to make any decisions, but (s)he could do...

Visually linking the switches to the shadowed areas was in my original mock. Alas, it wasn't critical so it never got done.

The light switch and teleporter sounds were a touch grating.

You're not the only one to think that, I think it was Thaumaturge that made the same comment.

Everything else was solid and I'd love to see this game expanded with more blob types and more polish.

My early concept included at least 1 or 2 more blob types for the competition (a 'fast' blob that moves in long straight paths and can't turn until he collides with something and a 'strong' blob that can push blocks around a-la Sokoban). There was also a handful of other blob types that were concocted but which I knew I would not attempt to implement for the competition (jumping/flying blobs, big/small blobs and maybe some others that I've forgotten).

Unfortunately I didn't have the time to implement any more blobs; and of course each additional blob type means designing and building 2-3 more levels to introduce and exercise the blob, which also takes time.

Fun fact #1: My teleporting blob wasn't in the original plan, my wife suggested the idea of a teleporting blob mid-way through the competition; I liked the idea so much that I prioritised it above the 'fast' and 'strong' blobs. Clearly it made the cut while they did not!

Fun fact #2: The teleporting blob was originally 'silver' in colour (ok, grey) to be all sciencey and even though I changed it to purple it is still represented with a 'g' (for 'g'rey) in the map files.

Reading about and watching playthroughs of many of the games after-the-fact did help to underline some aspects of strategy in many of them that I didn't uncover myself. Some of the difficult in discovering these more hidden aspects of the game is to be expected, after all you only had a week and that kind of first-experience polish is (and generally shouldn't be) high on the priority list for that time frame. It did make me wonder if including a video as part of the contest submission might be a good idea next time around. It would probably mean we'd need to drop the FTUE judging category, but it might make it easier overall for the judges to really see some of the full potential of each entry.

a 'fast' blob that moves in long straight paths and can't turn until he collides with something

Were these guys were supposed to get introduced in the supercollider level?

Congratulations to dmatter and everyone who placed, and also thanks to the judges. I had an awesome time (pun somewhat intended) and learned a lot.

The graphics are serviceable even if the camera is a bit non-intuitive (and gets blocked by tombstones);

You can actually control the camera. Left/ Right arrows to rotate the camera.

This is somewhat tangentially related to the thread, but last year's winner, Try. Die. Repeat., was recently played by Markiplier on his channel. It's really cool to see one of the Week of Awesome entries (or its post-competition polished form, I presume) being played on so large a channel! ^_^

Here's the video:

It's really cool to see one of the Week of Awesome entries (or its post-competition polished form, I presume)

Nope. That was the entry quality that won last year. Yup some minor changes according to the gamejolt page i.e. some additional sounds etc.

Hopefully their intention last year to make this into a full fledged game is progressing.

Which apparently is the case

https://www.facebook.com/trydierepeat

This is somewhat tangentially related to the thread, but last year's winner, Try. Die. Repeat., was recently played by Markiplier on his channel. It's really cool to see one of the Week of Awesome entries (or its post-competition polished form, I presume) being played on so large a channel! ^_^

Wow, that's absolutely amazing! great to see how well it's done in just a year.

I've also written up my judge's post mortem for this year: http://www.gamedev.net/blog/1587/entry-2262228-woa-iv-looking-towards-woa-v/

Reading about and watching playthroughs of many of the games after-the-fact did help to underline some aspects of strategy in many of them that I didn't uncover myself. Some of the difficult in discovering these more hidden aspects of the game is to be expected, after all you only had a week and that kind of first-experience polish is (and generally shouldn't be) high on the priority list for that time frame. It did make me wonder if including a video as part of the contest submission might be a good idea next time around. It would probably mean we'd need to drop the FTUE judging category, but it might make it easier overall for the judges to really see some of the full potential of each entry.

a 'fast' blob that moves in long straight paths and can't turn until he collides with something

Were these guys were supposed to get introduced in the supercollider level?

Doesn't mean you need to drop it, it does raise the barrier for the category though. You now need to make sure that the game also explains how your game works in a clear and consistent manner.

It did make me wonder if including a video as part of the contest submission might be a good idea next time around. It would probably mean we'd need to drop the FTUE judging category, but it might make it easier overall for the judges to really see some of the full potential of each entry.

One potential alternative might be to have the judges play through each game once or twice before watching the associated video; this might allow them to get an impression of the first-time-user experience, while retaining the advantage of having a video to guide them.

Nice spin on the themes, not what I expected to see with the themes that were there well done. I like being surprised by a game and this one definitly did that. The graphics in this game were really good to and I like that small and fast tutorial that gets you playing fast. The only minus I would add is that this game probably needs controller support.

Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked what I did with the themes, I like trying to come up with something different. I'm pretty happy with the graphics for the sun, i need some more practice with Blender though. You make an interesting point about the controller support. I never thought about this at all but I'll look into adding it as an exercise for myself and i can go in my "engine".

I really wanted to like this game when I saw an early screenshot of it during the competition. I quite liked the idea of hiding in the shadows of the asteroids. The graphics are pretty and cohesive, especially those of the shadows you hide in. I also appreciate the creative use of the "ruins" theme (referring to the ruined ships you dodge and the salvageable materials), it's creative. The controls (especially for rotation) feel a little too sensitive. The thing that hampers gameplay the most, I find, is how tricky it is achieve a sense of spatial orientation. I'm not always sure where my ship is relative to salvage I want to collect or asteroids I want to hide behind, so at times it almost feels like the game is purely on a timer and there is no strategy or technique to dodging the sun. Sometimes the asteroids behind me obscure my view, and I mostly found the camera switching (which I assume to implemented to help combat this) distracting and contributing to the problem instead of fixing it. I think there's a lot of promise here, it just needs more than a week to develop and polish it.

Thanks for the review! I'm really happy with how the sun effect came out, I think it has won me a few points. It seems the controls and camera issues were affecting pretty much everyone. I did have ideas to improve them but struggled with the available time and I ended up leaving all the camera modes in as I got conflicting feedback on which was the best with no clear winner.

Thanks both of you for the feedback, I really appreciate it, hopefully I can fix up some of the issues all of the judges found and wrap up the game as a project.