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Strand Together's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #9 | 4.204 | 4.204 |
| Enjoyment | #22 | 4.204 | 4.204 |
| Overall | #40 | 3.925 | 3.925 |
| Innovation | #93 | 3.878 | 3.878 |
| Visuals | #189 | 4.082 | 4.082 |
| Audio | #212 | 3.612 | 3.612 |
| Theme | #300 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
Ranked from 49 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
If a single light goes out, the entire strand dies with it. Nothing can go wrong if you want to win. Even improper movement can leave you tangled.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Some sound FX from freesound and my own library. The music from freesound. The font is from itch. And then obviously I took advantage of the Unity game engine instead of making my own engine.
How many people worked on the game?1
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Comments
Wow, your game turned out great! The dramatic lighting, shadows, and atmosphere are excellent. Additionally, the gameplay resembles 'Vampire Survivor' but introduces new and enjoyable mechanics.
Very fun! Excellent work.
I saw your stream! Thanks for playing. You skipped the intro of the game by the way lol. "Go to menu" skips content, maybe I should have made that more clear. I'm glad you liked it.
Wow, so nicely done! The art and game design are fantastic. Such a unique concept!
This was super fun. I really like the art style, the lightbulbs are so cute and the game looks nicely polished. I think the mechanic of stringing lights together as you get new bulbs is really cool, it's a nice twist on the survivors genre. I think you did good job with the difficulty, it ramps up nicely and gets crazy as the time ticks down. Really great job on this!
Funny game i loved it!
The most enjoyable game I’ve played so far in this game jam!
Some other thoughts:
Overall, well-polished and a really amazing game!
(If you're interested, please play our game and leave a comment!)
What an amazing game! The voice acting is such a nice addition and something I haven't seen in this jam so far. The gameplay is really nice and I'm such a sucker for roguelike games. I'm a fan!
This game is such a good game!
this is such a great game! i love the cute lights! this is such a insane amount of work for one dev. great job, however, i do think there should be a sound effect for attacking an enemy, because it feels a bit unresponsive, other than that, a great, charming game
Thanks! I was thinking about adding a sound for hitting an enemy, but I thought since there are already attack noises and most bulbs only attack when they are already going to hit, that a hit noise would be played too often and constantly. I never tested it out though, so maybe it would be better.
This is an excellent game! The art style is cute (I also liked the rotoscoping I think I saw at the beginning haha), and the gameplay is really fun! The only extremely minor thing I would comment on might be that the balancing could possibly be reworked a bit - some of the bulbs seem pretty strong compared to the others. Even still, though, it's a really great project and very replayable too. Great work!
This is a cool game! The lighting is lovely and I really like the different abilities of all the bulbs, it's really fun collecting them in a big strand. Nice work!
Congratulations, I am glad I found this game. For further development, may i suggest that xp far outside the arena would somehow can be collected, and I somehow got tangled without getting tangled once... Thank you
Really? Very interesting. Nobody has said that happened to them yet except you. To be tangled you must attempt to move and fail because you are up against a wall, then if it's been 4 seconds and you've tried to move in every direction and still nothing has occurred that entire time, it activates the kill screen. What was the circumstances of your tangled?
I was near a wall and I pressed in the opposite direction I was going for a short time, then killscreen appeared
Thanks!
This one is addicting!! I really enjoyed playing it and the little intro with grandpa bulb really sets the tone for the whole game. I loved how you designed it so you have to think about the order of the bulbs in your chain, because if you have a long chain without a lot of damage in certain areas, they can be overwhelmed by the shadows! Really elegant use of a design constraint to create fun and replayable gameplay!
FYI, I’m coming soon to play / rate your game! Just didn’t have time today.
5/5 on everything! The intro sequence is one of those little details that isn't needed, but adds so much to the game's atmosphere and love of the little lightbulb characters. The gameplay loop is solid and addicting. I couldn't get enough! 50 seconds left and the entire strand broke! I was so close!!! I love how crazy powerful you can get too with all the cooldown and damage upgrades. It is fun once you become overpowered. Yet one wrong move and you can tangle your strand, causing a game over. Such amazing balance. This is by far my favorite game that I've played this Jam. Thank you for making it and sharing it with the world.
This game is a perfect entry, Good music, good graphic, funny story and nothing can go wrong indeed, just like in real life with the Christmas lights. Well done, I have a lot of fun playing it and will continue playing.
i had a lot of fun in it, really cool game, i got surprised by the strand mechanic in a good way
For a single dev., this is craaaaazy quality. Gameplay is peak, think I logged more minutes in this game than any other jam game from this batch of submissions.
Think only feedback I have would be on art. Something about the lighting, the enemies, the string, and the environment felt like different art styles. Like they are all cartoony, but almost like "distant cousins." The shadowy guys for some reason just didn't feel like they matched the vibe of your bulbs. Could've been their color maybe or something or the fact that they faded into the ground when no other asset did, it just felt "not the same", I can't describe it.
Speaking of bulbs, it felt a lil' weird having a hard color line on the bulb itself to indicate it was on. This is just only because no other asset had that same behavior. I don't know a lot about Unity, but I'm assuming you did that to work around lighting limitations with web builds to indicate a colored light. Maybe having it softly vignette from white to your desired color might look better. If Unity has like a the ability to make that in engine (like in Godot), you could even animate it and adjust the blur points.
The environment also doesn't have like the hard outlines like you have on your bulbs. Assuming you did that for distinction so players could see the environment, but for me personally it felt "off" (no pun intended).
Treat these art comments as nitpicks honestly. I had a lot of fun playing your game and would def come back to it. I do love me my bullet heavens!
- S.
Thanks for the compliments and the critiques. This is the first time I have ever worked in this art style, I don't know what looks best or what my own guidelines would be (lol) so your feedback helps. Unity did not limit me in any way.
I had the lights colored near the edge because I've learned that's kind of what colored lights look like (see the neon light reference I sent above), and I chose not to add a gradient or blur between the center white and the colored edge because I thought it would better match the hand drawn simple style. (I later added gradient when making the shadows because I thought it was cool, lol)
I don't understand your point about no other object having the color line, because how could any other object have that same color line behavior when no other object is glowing? (excluding XP). Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
The lack of outlines on the background was intentional because I was trying to have outlined objects be important, and I thought it would be distracting to have it on the background.
I didn't try out many different looks for the things in the game, so there could easily be better looking options. If I didn't get feedback like this I may never improve, so thanks again.
No yeah, you're correct. I could've explained the light thing better. I'd disregard that white to color thing I said earlier. I'm terrible with lighting myself and usually avoid messing with it for the 2D games I work on. Mostly just tossing ideas tbh.
Now reflecting on it, I guess my main thing is for me personally, it doesn't look like the bulb is lighting the room. It's almost like they need to be brighter maybe? Like I narratively accept that the lighting effect is being caused by the bulbs lighting the room, not that the bulb is. Honestly now reflecting on it, it could just be the black outline on the bulbs interrupts the look, or maybe even the fact that each individual bulb doesn't appear to have a another stronger tinier light, that is causing this.
When I look a this picture, it just looks like the brightest of the color is what is fading out. It's almost like the actually shape of the bulb is all white and light effect itself is what the color is, not that the actual bulb is white with colored borders.
Wow! The animation quality is incredible! Great work for a single developer!
Wow really cool idea! Tangle mechanics is nice and tottaly makes sense! Great crossover of snake and vampire survivors. Best game i saw for now!
For me movement sometimes a bit junky, but good enough for now