Play anomaly
Synapsis's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #110 | 4.227 | 4.227 |
| Overall | #134 | 3.788 | 3.788 |
| Gameplay | #163 | 3.455 | 3.455 |
| Originality | #218 | 3.682 | 3.682 |
Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
What do you like about your game?
I am very proud of having completed my first Unreal game after my switch from Unity ^^ I also really like the concept I came up with using the Aberration theme, and I integrated a speedrun timer for people wanting to try and break the game! I hope y'all like what I'd consider a good prototype for something maybe bigger down the line! I also hid some easter eggs across some of the levels. Try to find them! They're great XvX
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Comments
A very solid puzzle platforming game! The style and implementation is very clean! XD
Couldn't for the life of me, figure out how to get the N on level 5, but really enjoyed the experience!
I'm really amazed that you got so much done in 2 weeks!
(What kinds of things did you do to optimize your game development? If you don't mind I'd like to know!)
Heya! Thanks for playing! ^^ That block can be pretty tricky to get, not gonna lie XvX Uses a mechanic I need to make more clear, better integrated and more reliable. Uses a "bug" I morphed into a feature.
My main thing I used to manage the scope of the project was planning on day 1, and tracking ideas being implemented while scrapping others that would be too hard to achieve with the tight deadline. For the last week, I planned which feature I would work on each day, critical points were top priority. If I finished a thing quicker, I could move on to the next thing or do something for fun (like the player character, which I want to release by itself as a free VRChat avatar base lol). If longer than expected, I would just be like "As long as it works it's fine with me." The fact I had to learn more about Unreal Engine live made time much tighter.
If you're curious about my development process, I still have all of my streams up on Twitch. I streamed the entire process, not a single time I did work off stream (or at least nothing critical for the game). Look up my name from here on Twitch for that ^^
Also sorry if it took this long to reply, my life got very busy recently XvX (some good things, and some less good things)
Thanks for the reply!
No worry about the reply being late. Life activities takes priority! XD
A bug morphed into a feature! That's pretty cool!
Planning is super important, and scrapping ideas that would be too hard to do in the timeframe is a good strategy. The "As long as it works it's fine with me" method is a good one too!
Thank you for the explanation of your process for development, I'll check out your Twitch streams as well!
This was a good time.
I enjoyed the gravity switching, It made trying to hunt down a "1" button on level 4 more enjoyable (took me longer than I'd like to admit to figure that out). The portals were cool, really creative, so were the spelling cubes. I took on the speedrun timer a bit. I'd enjoy seeing more done with the quantum objects. I almost wish the player was slightly faster. Also I got a kick out of the easter egg on level 5, spooked me at first, then again when I got closer and noticed it blink. Also I'd love it if the speedrun timer reset if you reset the first level, rather than having to exit to menu and restart a new run.
The visuals remind me a bit of antichamber in a way. I enjoyed seeing the text on surfaces, I initially thought "I am shy" was in relation to the text, took a second to realize it was the walkway. JPEG mode was a good laugh, I was not expecting that, thought it would turn the moving textures still and remove reflections.
In all, very good.
I loved the visual art style mixing the portal puzzle elements with the mirror's edge visual vibe style, of brightness and white politenes. I enjoyed the entry since the beginning, as a big fan of Portal and Mirror Edge. (The first one) it fits like a glove in the atmosphere. you've created. Well-designed puzzles, although a bit tricky to wrap your head around at the beginning, I liked the difficulty curve, which is extremely important in a puzzle game. Overall well done! Lumen makes this game look stunning! It does in all games. Worked fine for me. with default settings.
I could not get the last box at the last puzzle. I'm probably attempting it wrong i guess, but the bird in the internet and the big arrow didn't help me much!! :) Good game!
Cool game. Reminds me of portal :D
The visuals are great.
As for criticism :) There is an issue with ambient. The sound sets to 0 every time, you go to new location or restart.
The colors of environment sometimes is just too intense. On a parkour section, when you stay near the edge, the character just slides down. I suggest to choose box collider or cylinder, if UE has one.
The game looked really great - liked the style, reflections and overall lighting.
I felt the jumping section with the gravity direction switching quite awkward to play, I think I would've preferred it if there were more respawn points instead of going back to the beginning of that section.
Overall a good entry and impressive visuals - great job!
Heya! Thanks for playing! ^^ Def would have made some kind of checkpoint system if I had more time on my hands. That level can definitely be confusing even with my attempts to give hints without giving away the solution XvX
Really happy that you liked my entry! Yours was great as well! ^^
This game feels like Portal and Mirror's Edge, which is really cool! The game was a really interesting puzzle experience, and I'm happy that a lot of puzzle ideas were explored, it really looks like you are committed to continuing the game, which is cool! One of the ideas I really liked was the box puzzles, because of how it flowed. Instead of some 'pick up box put it down' puzzle, there was more puzzle in-between the box 'puzzle', which is always appreciated.
I do have a couple issues though. The first one is that the movement can be a bit funky, as when you jump, you really have to commit to it. Another one is that the game can be quite punishing when you mess up. I died close to the end of the last level, which stunk, as it took a while to get back to the point I was at. As well as that, The launching portal in the last level is janky, killing you if you go too high up. Lastly on the last level, the janky jump boost portal can cause you to not be able to continue on in the level without restarting. Last up is an issue with the player and interactions, where you can easily see clipping on the boxes and also the arms of the character.
Now, back to the positives! I enjoyed the unique effects with the portals. It was really cool, definitely liked that! The easter eggs were also fun, I noticed the one in the last level :)
Overall, this game is a fun puzzle experience, with cool, unique mechanics, and cool visuals, but has some difficulties with movement and certain functions. Nice work, I hope that this feedback helps with your future ideas :)
Heya! Thanks for playing! ^^ The movement funkiness is definitely something that is holding the game back a little. Unreal 5 being Unreal, the default character controller refuses to allow me to dynamically change the gravity vector. So had to blueprint my own movement, which unfortunately I had to rely on purely physics.... which is really jank, ngl. X_X Once I learn a bit of Unreal C++ (it's on my bucketlist) I'll def be rewriting the movement code ^^
The restart a level on death is also a feedback I got a lot, which I wanted some kind of checkpoint system (especially for that last level's punishing length) but ran out of time to implement it. Def on the list of things to add for a future full release.
The anomaly launch jank really is just a little funny I figured could be fun to keep in. Def something I feel I'd like to refine to make launches more consistent, or make a dedicated anomaly for that.
By box clipping issues I assume through the player? This issue is another thing that was troublesome to fix due to the physics based movement limitation, and rendering quirks with Unreal. Once I rewrite the movement, I'll take a look at improving those visuals. Arm clipping really is only due to how I made the character controller, tried my best to limit that kind of clipping, and was out of time to properly implement a better first person controller.
Nontheless, I'm really happy you had fun with my entry! ^^ I'm still very proud of it even if it didn't make it top 10 or community choice, and hopefully I can push the idea further!
Really impressed! I finished it and had a good time doing it!
Here are my criticisms:
It was occasionally difficult to understand where I needed to go to progress. On the first gravity level specifically, it seemed hard to gauge which jumps I was being asked to make, and that left me scratching my head about whether the game was really requiring such tight platforming or if I was missing something.
On the other end, I was really impressed with all the ideas you were able to execute on in only two weeks. I love unreal, but it can be kinda rigid when you want something unusual. Well done.
Heya! Thanks for playing! ^^ Glad you had a fun time! I tried to nerf lvl4's jump requirements on some gaps before submitting (believe me, it was worse before XvX) but def going to revisit the level difficulty later if I continue work on it post-jam! Indeed as a first time using it, Unreal left me scratching my head myself when it comes to the gravity feature (wanted to make it myself and not use plugins) but proud to have managed it!
It's a neat graphic style reminiscent of Mirror's Edge. The way the play was played also had an homage to other games, so I enjoyed playing it.
The game was pretty much fun but was really intensive, I wonder how it was this intensive although there were only some default cubes, my RX 580 GPU was dying when i played it on high settings with 70% resolution.
Heya! Thanks for Playing! ^^ The main intensive operation on High is with Unreal Engine 5's Lumen for the lighting and reflections. Medium and Low disable Lumen which decreases drastically the requirements. I did some tests and to run stable 60fps on High at 50% res scale you'd need at least a 2070 I think, which the RX 580 is under. Medium should be easy enough for your card to run tho.
I also use Unreal engine 5 for my games but i don't use lumen or nanite, good for you, you have a strong card. If you get time kindly check my game as well which is also made with UE5, thank you!
Yee ^^ I actually have a 3090 for my streaming system and a 4090 for my main workstation, but let some playtesters with a variety of GPUs test it to ensure it would run well for most people. And yes I can check out your game once I have a chance ^^ Happy to see others going for UE5
Looks nice with that Unreal lighting and plays well, all around a pleasant time.
Heya! Thanks for playing! ^^ Glad you like the visuals and had a fun time with my game!
I come from the comment of the stream of March 22, Unfortunately I can't test your game, my cpu is a celeron n3060 and integrated graphics In fact, my own game ran at 15fps
Heya, yeh integrated graphics users will have issues running this entry unfortunately. Most iGPUs should be able to run the game on low or even medium if render scale is at 50%, however looking up yours online it doesn't sound like it can run it... unless you tried playing with render scale at 100% on med or high.
Wow, you are good at spatial puzzles. I really liked the Portal-vibe! The experience gives a chill vibe that is welcome for people who is not into thrilling, such as FPS/terror games. I enjoyed as I enjoy turn-based games, because it lets me observe and think, take my own time. I would make the character a bit faster, tho. But, for the rest, I think that is a very round experience.
Besides of the play loop, you designed a menu and a save game feature. In spite these jam games are short experiences, that tells a lot about your dedication, and gives the impression that the game really cares for the player to feel comfortable; it is like saying "hey, you can come back anytime". The timer for speed runners serves for this as well, as it is inviting to take another approach to the game (once you know the puzzles, maybe you can try to get efficient at solving them).
This easter egg got me:
Heya! Thanks for playing! ^^ I'm really happy you had a great experience with my entry, and reading your detailed and positive review brought a smile to my face ^^ I did stream the entire process of making it, which can be found in my Twitch VODs if you're curious.
If I continue working on my entry post-jam (very tempting) I'll be rewriting movement from scratch to make it feel much better.
I did hide some more easter eggs in the game like the one you found and other secrets paths ;)
Very cool idea, and it looks amazing. Although the jumping needs a little more tweaking, sometimes I found myself missing an edge by the tiniest bit.
Heya! Thanks for playing ^^ Movement was my nemesis for this one only because the default Unreal 5 player controller does not allow changing the gravity direction XvX So had to do my best under jam crunch to code my own in Blueprints with that in mind, but jumping over ledges is def a problem. If I expand on the game, I'm rewriting movement from scratch and taking my time with it. Glad you enjoy how it looks and the concept!
I understand physics in UE5 is kinda hard; I had to deal with UE5 in my first year of university and in C++. By any chance, is it possible for you to play and perhaps rate and give some feedback on my game? I am using it for a university assignment and I need feedback from people outside the actual university.
I'm headed to a convention this weekend and will be very busy in activities XvX but once I come back I can make a note to try out and rate your game ^^
I appreciate it, thank you!
I actually found a free plugin for exactly that! "Directional and Planet Gravity"
I did want to challenge myself and try to code everything in house, which I did achieve in the end. But good to know something like that exists -v-
this was pretty neat! haven't finished yet, but i like the style of the game and the puzzles are neat! though, being able to completely ruin all your progress in a puzzle and have to re-do it all is a bit eh,, it's also a bit straining on the eyes and disorientating at times,,, besides that, its a cool neat puzzle game! nice job!
Heya! Thanks for playing ^^ I was thinking of adding a checkpoint system, but ran out of time for that. In the future, if I continue to expand this game post-jam it's def a priority XvX with new & tweaked features and fresh puzzles of course xP
woul def check it out when/if u do ^^w^^
This was pretty interesting with a lot of different ideas. I must say the fourth level was a bit too difficult and disorienting and it took me quite a few tries to get it right . It did feel rewarding in the end so I still think it's a great mechanic, but it would probably work better if the environments were more diverse. The fifth level I wasn't able to finish, I could not get the N cube without remaining stuck.
Heya! Thanks for playing! ^^ Yeah I tried to make the environments as interesting as possible on each level with the resources, time and assets I had. If I expand on the game later I'll def make more variety. For that cube yeh I don't know why the player comes to a dead stop when hitting a wall in the air as it is supposed to be sliding with how I set it up. Movement will be fully revamped tho if an expansion happens ^^
requires a very high level of gpu(cpu?) driver- may be problematic to playtesters with low-end PCs
I've had a couple of players play-test the game before submitting, and they could all run it at High (with the default 50% render scale) or Medium. What GPU do you have and what monitor resolution? It would help me try to see where's the issue. Granted I made the game with a 3090 and my play testers didn't tell me about that driver popup if it's what I'm thinking of. From my testing on a 3070 laptop PC with that popup, it runs just fine.
AMD Ryzen 5 4500U with Radeon Graphics 2.38 GHz(are these the specs you wanted?)
built in resolution, 1920x1080
and it feels like i'm walking through molasses on High. on low it feels playable, but slow. it feels like a good game with solid concepts, but it's not something everyone can play due to its requirements.
Ok yeah that would do it XvX Integrated graphics are not optimal for UE5 graphics unless turning down or off things like Lumen that dedicated cards can run much easier, and or running in a smaller window. Low or borderline Medium with reduced render scale are your best options in your case indeed (good things I got these settings implemented in time huh)