Play janitor-experience
Goblin Janitor's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #5 | 4.385 | 4.385 |
| Immersion | #6 | 3.962 | 3.962 |
| Overall | #8 | 4.092 | 4.092 |
| Relevance to the Theme | #9 | 4.346 | 4.346 |
| Gameplay | #13 | 3.654 | 3.654 |
| Concept | #18 | 4.115 | 4.115 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Credits
DrDrub - Programming, Writing, Pixel Art
zdiasio99 - Music, Level Design
gluten male - Music, Level Design
Ash and Livie - Brainstorming
Kafka - Goblin noises
External Credits
We used Dialogic, a really cool plugin for Godot!
https://github.com/coppolaemilio/dialogic
How did you/your team interpret the theme?
We interpreted the theme immediately in a fantasy setting, and then decided the most mundane thing you could be (compared to the hero) would be a janitor. And then the rest fell into place.
How was your/your team's experience in this jam?
Stressful but fun! For sound, both gluten male and zdiasio99 were basically learning on the deadline, and they learned how to make music in a week! (Previous jams relied heavily on samples. This time we focused on more original song creation)
I (the programmer) lost two full days of the week because I went to the zoo. (no regrets)
Super fun! :)
Content Warnings
There is very cartoonish blood throughout the game, and a sad scene :(
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Okay, so first the art is amazing, it's so damn good, it's incredible.
I think the two great things about this game are the story and the art, both are good, and the story is funny.
Now for the downsides, you play as a janitor but the gameplay doesn't reflect it, you are just playing a classic platformer. It's not bad but for exemple the cleaning mechanic is totaly useless, or maybe i'm missing something. It would have been nice if this mechanic had a purpose.
Attacking is also hard, sometimes you want to attack, but your character start to clean, so I ended spamming the jump button while attacking, it's even more frustrating because cleaning has no real purpose. Maybe putting the cleaning and the attack on two different buttons would be better.
I was also not a big fan of the level design, probably because of the high number of enemies that were a bit frustrating to fight because the attack system was a bit strange.
Other than that the game is really cool and I would love a more polished version with better controls, more enemies types etc...
Amazing work !
Thank you for the kind words and constructive criticism!
Wow what a game. The pixel art was amazing and the aesthetic fit really well with the music. The polish in everything from the end credits to the dialogue really showed. Great game, definitely one of the best I've seen so far!
:)
goblin deez
D:
One of the most beautiful games on this game jam, I also like the story, the gameplay is simple but cool. Overall very good game!
Thank you so much!
The presentation and concept here were top-tier! Incredible stuff! The story was fantastic, managing to balance comedy and drama, and the gameplay was no slouch either. I'm amazed that you managed to pull off a very cohesive plotline in a week, let alone one with two endings!
Some minor issues, though:
Still, the game was fantastic, and I'd definitely love a fully-fleshed out version!
You mop if you stand still and press J, and you swing if you move and press J. I hoped that most people would be able to figure it out, but it's not as intuitive as I hoped it would be! I was going for a smash-bros style control system, but it didn't really work super well.
Yeah we didn't have a story scene for a... certain moment in the end game. You're right, it got cut for time. :( We also worried that we were making the story too long, so that's why we focused on making more levels, instead of finishing that middle story-beat. But yeah, def would have wanted that to be in there!
I feel like it'd make more sense if the moves were reversed, since you can move while mopping and you can't when you attack.
Sad to hear that that crucial moment were cut for time! I would've loved to see how that'd play out.
Wow, really amazing presentation! The animations for the character are wonderful, the portraits are great, the story is funny, your game page is well designed, the music is good, the UI is clean, and the environments look nice. I can't believe this was done in a week!
I see this has been entered into multiple jams, so I wanted to give some more in-depth feedback. I agree with other comments on the division of attack + clean up. There were several times where I needlessly took damage just because I had stopped moving and was now stuck in suck up mode. As to the cleanup mechanic itself, it's cute but it felt a bit dissonant with the theme of being a janitor because it doesn't actually have any bearing on the game. There's no reason to clean, you can just skip doing it entirely.
Since you purposely wanted a dialogue/story heavy game, I have two comments: 1) Overuse of shaky text. Effects like that are used for emphasis and overuse quickly causes it to lose its impact. 2) Trying to be as spoiler free as possible, I felt the ending I got walked back the theme of this particular jam.
Again, I want to reiterate that you guys really did a phenomenal job with this project, and I hope it gets updated in the future. Good luck with all your jams!
Yeah, the mop system certainly has its flaws. I wanted to try a smash-bros style system, but I think having a neutral move that can't attack makes it less intuitive. Had I had more time to code, I would've coded more different attacks for the different directions. It's also tough thematically, because the game is sort of about how violence is bad, and it's a combat platformer...
Yeah I absolutely overused the text effects. It was just too much fun to use. Will definitely be more intentional with its usage in future games.
As for the theme - the ending sort of does walk back the theme, but I felt like it still worked. We sort of interpreted the theme as: "you are not recognized as the hero", which is definitely a less direct interpretation of it.
Thank you for the review!
THIS HAS TO BE THE BEST GAME IN THIS JAM!!! I can't believe you have so little ratings and your game is sooo unpopular! The art is good, the game itself is good, the music is good, the shlurping sound effect is funny and I liked the dialogue/s (system/s) although they were kinda long and I liked how the starting dialogue told you something for the last choice (no spoilers ;)) although I noticed that just after choosing hehe... short: THIS IS A GREAT GAME! And you made it in *ONE* week! I sure hope you continue this project! If you would also make devlogs I am *SURE* that you will succesfully release the finished game... if you continue on it. Just... try to make it easier/more clear to choose if you want to hit with the broom or clean with the broom ;D. If this won't be top 1... it would probably be because it doesn't have many views ;). I can't believe you've made this game. If you ever continue this project or make another one AND make devlogs (either itch.io, other websites or youtube) reply to this comment and tell me the account name so I can follow/subscribe to you/your devlogs! A 100 out of 5 score.
Thank you so much for your kind words!
I've thought about making youtube devlogs, but I've been kinda busy recently. And when school starts back up, I probably won't be able to make very consistent "content", so.
This comment made my day!
Man i liked a lot!!! beautiful art and the color pallete a delight, liked teh gameplay too amazing job man!
Thank you so much!
Love the artstyle and fits the theme really well. I think you have wayyy too much dialogue. I started skipping through it after reading for over a minute and a half. Then more dialogue mid game I skipped through too. Gameplay was lacking and basic. Was there any point to even cleaning considering there isnt any benefits? Great potential but not for me.
Fair point!
We really wanted to focus on the story for this game, but I do feel we neglected the gameplay a bit too much. My personal goal for this game jam was to learn how to implement dialogue in a game (I’ve previously used shortcuts, like ren’py or animation players) and I feel happy that I’ve accomplished that!
I personally love dialogue heavy games - but I understand they’re not for everyone! And you’re right, development time was spent more on dialogue than on gameplay.
This is a nice game, w/ a huge amount of gameplay for only one week. All I'd say is that you might want to introduce more difficult gameplay earlier on. Also that blood slurp sound effect is terrifying lol. All around a great entry - well done!
Thank you! We definitely prioritized the story over gameplay for this one.
The blood slurp sounds were made by my girlfriend 😆 they were originally a lot louder, but the noises kept creeping out our beta-testers
Аfter the game - cleaner than in my room
Thank you!
Great concept and art. Only thing I can say is I wish you did a different key for sucking blood.
Great concept and art. Only thing I can say is I wish you did a different key for sucking blood.
Yeah that's a good comment. I initially wanted to experiment with a smash-bros style input system, but it's a lot tougher to pull off than I thought. But I do like the simplicity of using only two buttons.
Thanks for you kind words!
WOW i dont think i can like give much feedback this is just amazing holy !!!!
Aw shucks 😊
Wow, this game is incredible! From the smoothness of the gameplay to the amount of detail on the art (even adding a cool squashy-crouching animation even though it's unneeded), to the story, the game is consistently quality. The level design only needed a few mechanics because they were used well, and all served multiple purposes. I don't think I could find a criticism if I tried.
If you told me it was made in just a week, I wouldn't have believed you!
Thank you so much!!
Wow! For 1 week this game is amazing! Great art, audio, and dialogue. The concept is hilarious, I love it.
I would pay for a full version of this game with more features / mechanics.
Glad you liked it!
Nice pixely visuals. Fitting music and sound effects. Nice story telling and a well balanced difficulty curve. Extra points for the cool credit screen.
All around my favorite game so far this jam.
How did you make the text effects?
Thank you! The text was done using Dialogic, a plugin for godot. The text effects are a built in part of godot's Rich Text node, and they're called bbcode. It's super easy to implement, and adds a lot of flair.
Glad you liked our game!
awesome game! I love the concept. I feel like this game could have been better if there were another good combat mechanic because I feel like it gets too repetitive too soon. I like the end with the harder levels but my problem is that there are parts where you need to spam the combat key and just hope to be alive hahaha. I like the parts with the spring platforms.
Yup! I absolutely agree with your point.
We wanted a bunch of features originally, but we really overscoped and had to cut back on the features. When the jam time was approaching closer we thought a lot about investing more time into the story versus the gameplay, and we decided the story was the most unique part of our game, so we focused more on that. But yeah! Our combat is very bare-bones in this state.
Thank you for playing!