Absolutely genius way to follow the jam's theme, not only in one, but in 3 different and creative ways. Gameplay, art, and music are all great, and the game feels very polished, besides the bugs other reviews already pointed out. Excellent Job!
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Bravery of the Coward's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Art | #59 | 4.053 | 4.053 |
| Theme | #67 | 4.123 | 4.123 |
| Music | #74 | 3.596 | 3.596 |
| Overall | #106 | 3.716 | 3.716 |
| Gameplay | #197 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Originality | #244 | 3.175 | 3.175 |
| Is the graphics 1 bit? | #270 | 4.351 | 4.351 |
Ranked from 57 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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3+
Write down what effects you used.
A custom-made 2 Color Shader & PostProcessing Effects (Bloom, Lens Distortion, Vignette)
Comments
I like the concept of choosing a harder path early on to make the rest of the game easier.
However, this game has some minor issues. First, some of the so-called power-ups actually make the game harder. The jump force power-ups make it more likely to bump into spikes with your head, while the run speed power-up makes it more likely to walk into spikes. Second, is the cloak actually a part of the protagonist's skin? If so, that do explain why they got hurt whenever their cloak touches spikes. If not, your character's hit box is too big for their sprite. Third, there should be a respawn timer so that you won't accidently kill yourself right after you respawned.
Submitted
Mr. Macbeth's Cave AdventureHey, thanks for playing!
- I'm planning to add a variable jump height (the longer you press the key, the higher you jump till what is the max jump height allowed). This should largely fix the jump issue. Will also look into the speed and other powerups!
- Apart from the floating scarf, the whole player sprite was part of player and takes damage. But I do get your point. I'll reduce the collider size. This was largely done so you could move to the edge of a platform on one leg without falling.
- We did make the respawning & health part in the last few hours so it doesn't have enough polish. But point noted!
Thanks for the detailed feedback! Have fun :D
What worked:
I like the pick a path difficulty idea. It lets the player make risk vs reward decisions to help them in the future, or to lower the difficulty if they feel it necessary. The art looks very nice, and the theme is done well. The concept of a complete restart is brutal, but can be done well if the deaths feel fair.
What didn't:
Some power-ups seem to hinder the player. The increased jump height meant that I kept slamming my head into spikes (the first dash level especially). The only way to get around this was to dash to cut my jumps short, which with the increased dash power sent me past the blocks. I then had to double jump to recover, sending me into the spikes anyway.
The text is pretty hard to read due to the background and the dots that appear as part of the texture at times. The UI also takes over a significant portion of the screen before disappearing in each level. It makes it hard to see, especially when you've already read it and are replaying levels.
Respawning needs a small delay. There were many times I would die and immediately run off a platform due to still holding the right button.
Movement should be tightened a bit, or level design should be matched closer to current movement. (most notably air mobility)
Bugs:
Everything (spikes and pit) on Level 6 (path of brave) seems to take out 3 hp at a time? I'm not sure if this is intended.
Level 9 (path of brave) seems to have an invisible spike/collider above the first spike tower? (maybe I just couldn't see it before dying)
Double-jump doesn't seem to work while running or dashing off a platform instead of jumping off (only works when following a normal jump, dash doesn't affect it either way (can jump after dash, but only after a normal jump)).
Great job! (2m, 9 sec, full brave)
Submitted
Quest For Balance (Jam Ver.)Thanks for the highly detailed review!!!
What worked:
- That was the plan. To give player the control which can be changed anytime during the gameplay.
What didn't:
- I'm planning to add a variable jump height (the longer you press the key, the higher you jump till what is the max jump height allowed). This should largely fix that issue.
- Hmm, that's a really good point. I added dithering since without it the text didn't feel part of the game. Also, due to colour inversion, there were some issues. I do get your point tho. Maybe I'll add a feature that those will only be visible the first time or when you replay the tutorial.
- We did make the respawning & health part in the last few hours so it doesn't have enough polish. But point noted!
- Same with the movement. The plan was to go with Celeste style movement, but need to rework it a lot.
Bugs:
- We're aware of this bug after some other reviews also mentioned it. We'll push a patch soon.
- Hmm, I'll have a look, there were some disabled traps left so maybe it's one of those.
- So the way double jump is designed is, that it'll only work after you jump off a platform are haven't touched the ground. I think adding a slight leeway time could fix this, but will try to replicate what you mentioned.
Thanks for the thorough playtest and for reporting them! It means a lot!
Also, congrats on the near 2-minute score on full brave mode! That's amazing and possibly the highest so far!
I like the visuals and the effects, but found the gameplay confusing.
For instance, what was the purpose of switching the colour scheme at the lights? It seemed to do nothing other than change the visuals. Also, I wonder if this is something perhaps determined at the ending (which I never reached), but I could not find the difference between the coward and brave options.
If you are making a platformer, you really should have variable jump height. That is to say, you jump higher the longer you hold the button. This would prevent what I felt to be lots of cheap deaths, in which I could not see the ground or hit a ceiling spike, due to not being able to control the height of my jump.
I still enjoyed it despite my criticisms, so thank you for creating.
Submitted
Never AloneThanks for playin'!
The purpose of the switching is well explained on the game page. In case you missed it -
1. Path Choices influence the difficulty (easier in coward mode) and rewards (you may not get rewards in the coward mode unlike the brave mode to compensate for the ease of levels).
2. Visual Contrast by colour scheme inversion represents the paths to reflect that choice!
Variable jump height is a really good suggestion which I'll take note of! The game does give you increased jump heights as rewards in some "brave" stages.
We're aware of the spikes issues and will fix that. Thanks again for pointing this out!
Really great visual and cool ambiance! Didn't understand why I would need to choose between brave or coward and what it did change thought and bigger platform or snappier jump would make it a lot more enjoyable because I felt like I was not in control of my character dying at spike that I couldn't avoid. Overall I really do feel like this is a great game, just need some polish and will be amazing!
Submitted
Blind GunThanks for playing! So the difference between the two paths is that:
1. The Brave path is harder levels but you get equally good rewards!
2. The Coward path is much easier but you'll hardly get any rewards.
It's up to you to challenge the harder path which gives you higher jumps, and movement speed or go for the coward path which though easier in the beginning, will start to get hard in the last levels due to the lack of rewards.
The game's ending also changes depending on how many times you've chosen each path (you can change paths once per level at lights).
There is some issue with spikes as some users reported and we'll fix those by tomorrow.
Good game! I liked the visuals on it. The game has some minor issues, like some spikes that make my character die even with full health, and some levels where I can't see ahead because there's no light, so I have to take a leap of faith to try to find a platform.
Submitted
Shadows of GrowthThanks for the review! So regarding the bugs, we're aware of the spike bug and it should be fixed by tomorrow. As for the Lights, we planned the game in such a way that you need to be fast while clearing levels before your light runs out... A couple of places in the last levels do require you to do a leap of faith but they should drop you on the next light/platform if executed properly.
Nice Game! Here are some thing, that can be improvise
- The overall level design can be more fluid
- Some of the mechanic is not clear like the (brick which dissapear after step)
- Also the game is brutal, as you died you need to restart.
But Kinda digging it !
Submitted
Shadow StellapawThanks for the feedback!
1. True, we didn't have enough time to polish the levels.
2. We planned to show a partially broken brick there, I guess we missed that change.
3. I wanted the game to be that way, a brutal retro game where once you die, you really die :D
But there are only 10 levels so it shouldn't be toooo hard, hopefully :D
Really great game. Platformers are always great to play, very well done!
Submitted
Labyrinth of Eclipsewow, this was so much fun - the visuals are outstanding, i love the flowing scarf and the attention to detail. the interactive music as you change worlds was also a nice touch, and the interpretation of the theme was spot on. such good work!!
Submitted
VL4D: Escape From Beam CityCool!I like the pixel matrix rendering method! May I ask how it was done?
Submitted
2023.8.13 NewFolder 新建文件夹Thanks! That was possible due to a combination of post-processing and a custom shader made by https://totolikid.itch.io for this jam!
A interesting game with cool graphics:) It's especially cool that the game is possible to play in the browser
Submitted
In The DarkThat was very fun!! Clean graphics, good gameplay...I liked it a lot!!
Submitted
Across the RIFT 🌓👽
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