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A jam submission

The KeyView game page

Once upon a time there was a Magi on a quest to pick a key.
Submitted by armanlone_main — 3 hours, 6 minutes before the deadline
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The Key's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#524.3214.321
Fun#563.9293.929
Overall#573.9113.911
Theme#624.1794.179
Audio#1373.6793.679
Game Design#1833.7503.750
Innovation#2163.6073.607

Ranked from 28 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

In what way does your game fit the theme?
The rewind ability, and the game's colors that paid tribute to the classic games.

Did you write most of the code yourself and made all the assets from scratch?
70% of the code are written from scratch and 30% are from other project. All of the pixel art were made by me for this jam. And the background music were made by Abstraction.

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Comments

Viewing comments 20 to 1 of 23 · Previous page · First page
Submitted

Short and Sweet. Wish it was longer, but this is great. 

Developer

Thank you Gus. I'm going to make this game even better in the future.

Submitted

I adore the graphics and audio in this game. Good Luck!

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you Haredo for your compliment, goodluck to you too.

Submitted (3 edits) (+1)

The graphics of the game look great, and seem to fit well in the style of the classic Gameboy.

The sharp diamonds that surround the stage really seem to compliment the blocks that the stages are composed of.

The bricks of the backgrounds look varied with missing bricks which goes a good job preventing the player from noticing repeating textures. Perhaps you could add some cracks in the bricks as another detail in the background as well?

The way that the character's cloak folds as the character moves around is a very nice detail in the walkcycle. Normally most cloaked character's cloaks would remain static as they move around,  but this is an exception.

It's great design that you teach the player the mechanics one step at a time instead of just shoving all the instructions into the players face at once. The instructions consist of only one word each time, so they're quick to read and it's expected that the player should figure out the details of the controls themselves.

The controls for the player feel nice to navigate around the levels with. The player has a slight bit of a slide which makes the horizontal movement controls feel smooth. I noticed that you have implemented coyote time into the jumping mechanics when I tried hopping off the corner of a platform; this is a great design choice for a platforming game. One thing that could be adjusted would be to loosen the raycast area of the ground check. It feels like it requires a bit too much precision in order to time my bunnyhopping correctly.

The skull being the goal of each level doesn't seem too fitting with the cheery music and cartoonish graphics. A simple door with a lock would have not only been more fitting in the game's style, but it would make sense as to why you are getting a key. A key and a door seem to match more than a key and a skull.

I seem to be getting slightly motion sick seeing the aggressive shaking every time I beat a stage. The aggressive quakes don't seem to spark the mood of "victory" to me, they seem to convey more of something large and dangerous occurring, such as an earthquake, large traps activating in ancient ruins, or an evil colossus awakening. Having some simple particles flying out should be enough to show the player has beaten the level.

All of the puzzles are way too easy to solve. Every puzzle just consists of moving forward, and then rewinding until the key reaches you. I was really hoping for some sort of puzzle that was different, but no level had any variety with reaching the key, other than to use this one strategy.


I was also hoping that the game would consist of more puzzles would have more variety on how to not only carefully navigate the key, but to also to navigate the player themselves. One game I can think of right off the top of my head that does this right is Donkey Kong (1994). This game is VERY similar to the one you have done for the jam and I think looking at this game's level design would help improve the layout of your stages. The majority of DK 94's levels involve Mario needing to get a huge key to a locked door by solving platformer levels that also incorporate puzzles into the design of the levels. Mario usually needs to navigate through large sections that consist of many platforms before he's able to reach the key. In some other levels however, the game changes it up by making the key is completely out of reach. A few different contraptions need to be activated in order to find a way to reach the key. Some examples of this include the key being on an inactive conveyor belt, and Mario needs to pull a lever to activate the belt to move the key towards him. Another example involves Mario needing to activate some bridges to make it to the key.

Overall, while the game does have great-looking graphics, smooth controls, and a fitting soundtrack, the level design could be much more varied, and challenging for the player. I'm really hoping this review can help you improve your game in the future.

Developer (2 edits)

 Wow, you surely took some time into playtesting my job. I'm amazed by the amount of criticism you gave me. You didn't just told me about the flaws of the game, you even provided me an example. I can't really say much compared to your post but I will surely take my time in playing your game. Just one thing, I think that I'll be making a One Screen = One Level type of game, just like the Heart Start or Total Party Kill or Duke Dashington of Jussi Simpanen a.k.a AdventureIslands because it is easier for me to finish it. Surely, I will ramped up the difficulty in the future. Nevertheless, thank you lwday for giving your very long constructive feedback. I'll make sure to make this game better in the future. And honestly, I'm lost for words right now.

Submitted (1 edit)

Well done with this game, it really shines. The pixel art is incredible, I love the retro color palette and the menu animations were great too. There was one thing I noticed which was the character sprite when jumping does not have a complete white outline around it like it normally does. It's missing a white line on top of its hat, which is nitpicky but maybe you missed it and I can help by saying this :]

Overall amazing game and I hope to see more levels. I didn't think they were too easy, but maybe they will eventually be the first few levels before they start to get more difficult.

Developer

Thank you Ryan, for complimenting my game. The levels will be redone in the future updates, nevertheless I'll play, rate, and give an honest feedback to your game later. Hope you have a good day.

Submitted

Loved the gameplay! The music was amazing! The graphics looked awesome. But I feel like it was super easy. You should have made some harder levels to make it a bit more challenging.

Developer(+1)

Thanks Kridox for stopping by, I will made the game harder in the future. Cheers man!

Submitted

Love the graphics and the music but it was way to easy ^^' 

Developer

Hi HN studios, glad to know you'd stopped by. Glad to hear your feedback on the art and music. I'll make the puzzles harder in the future. Thank you for your feedback.

Submitted

Nice game, graphics are cute and singular, player movements are smooth and nice. The concept is really cool, but my only gripe is that levels are too similar, for each room we just have to go on the platform where the key felt and rewind.

I really enjoyed your game, Good job!

Developer(+1)

Hello Lotyss thanks for playtesting my game. Based upon your feedback I will try and make the puzzles unique and interesting in the future. Definitely gonna try and make these inprovements as per to your suggestion. Thank you once again. I'll check your game later.

Submitted

Good game! I wish it was longer. And I wish it was more difficult. The majority of the levels are completed by moving a bit to the left or to the right and then rewinding. My only suggestion - make more levels like this one. It is a little different from the others but it is more interesting.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Hi rommat, thank you for playtesting my game and giving your feedback. I'll do my best to make the levels unique, challenging but not so much, and interesting. The playtime was really short and I'm sorry, I'll try my best to make the playtime longer. Thank you once again for sharing your time, I'll keep your feedback in mind.

Submitted

No need to be sorry) You made a well polished game and you may be proud of yourself

Developer(+1)

Thank you man, and I'll gonna say it to you too "You made a well polished game and you may be proud of yourself". Additionally, congratulations on finishing a game within 7 days. Good job!

Submitted(+1)

Thanks! That's cute ^_^

Submitted

Small but very fine game. Hope to see more levels in a future version. Their seems to be a small strange distortion when the player jumps (maybe its intentional), but good game overall.

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you Mitcla for your feedback. I'll try to lengthen the playtime as per to your suggestion. And maybe the *thing* about the player is a bug, I'll try to recreate it and solve it. Again, thanks for your feedback and sharing your time playtesting my game.

Submitted

This is a great submission in terms of concept, I love it! The puzzle design could have been a little more challenging, but this could be expanded into something really good. The pixel art is also great and I liked the music as well.

Developer

Thanks jaselito for your invaluable feedback on my levels.

Submitted

This is a really well made game. The puzzle mechanics and the graphics are excellent and the gameplay flows well. Here's my feedback:

Great!

  • The retro graphics are great!
  • The rewind mechanic works well and is a lot of fun
  • The levels are quite easy once you know how the rewinding works.
  • That music is super nice!

Could be improved

  • There aren't enough levels at the moment, the current levels are great, but I feel like there need to be more challenging ones as well.
  • There isn't a real ending, the game just returns to the title screen after finishing the last level. I feel like a simple screen with "The wizard returned finally found the door back to its world. Thank you for playing!" would make the game feel more complete.
Developer

Hey thanks for stopping by and playing my game BlackDragonBE. Your feedback are helpful for me. I will redo this game from scratch in the future and add the things that you had said, like the ending scene and also the levels.

Submitted

Hey, I like your game, played it through. First, music is retro and cool, pixel style is cool too, idea is good, had struggles in the third level get it done to move forward and with z to move the key back, I was missing something like a quick info or how to, or at least a replay level function, when the key was lost in the first attempt, so I had to restart the game. Overall a cool game, I like it, please check out Tiny Kingdom too, thank you.

Deleted 4 years ago
Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing The Key, I'm delighted to hear your compliment ClassicGamer76. I'll remove the bug in later development, and I'll play yours later.

I love this game, but i got stuck on a level and kept pressing Z didn't bring me back to the start status, might be adding a reboot level pause scene going forward?  Another thing is that maybe I would add W key to enable player jump, maybe it is just a force of habbit to use WASD for me. Overally I think this game has the potential to launch in the future, I like it very much. Like bombsher said, it has a lot of potential, there are just so many things you can play with the mechanics, but I also recon that the level design may get more challenging when the project gets more in depth. Looking forward to see this project goes live man, I'm adding it to my game collection to see how it goes in the future. 

Developer

Thank your feedback yccore and also for your compliment. I'll add the W for the jump button as you proposed and I'll try to recreate the bug that you experienced and fix it (this will be added in future updates in my other itch.io account). More importantly, I don't have the time now for finishing this game because I have my studies, but I'll add this game in my to-do list after I finished the other game I'm currently working on.


P.S

This is just a hobby project and a coding practice , and not for commercial release, please don't look forward in the future too hard because it puts me in a lot of pressure.

Submitted

Amazing game! 5 stars in everything! I want more levels of this.

Developer

Thanks, I'll add those level on future updates.

Submitted (1 edit)

Really cool idea with lots of potential!  I really like the aesthetic of the game, visuals and sound-wise very appealing and nicely done.

The few first few levels introduced controls and core mechanics precise and easy to understand, that's always a plus.

Only thing I wished is that there were more elements than walls and spikes to work with for, but I completely understand that time is limited, especially during a gamejam.

For the short amount of time however, your game and what is has to offer is amazingly polished!  Great job!

Developer

I made the tutorials first before introducing the mechanics because it is easier for me to create a tutorial level than a puzzle level. Nevertheless, thank you for playing my short game. I hope you have a good day.

Submitted
Deleted 3 years ago
Developer

Thanks

Submitted

First, I would have liked some options that would allow you to turn down the music volume, but I understand that you don't have that much time for these fancy features in a game jam game.

I like how you start with actual levels that make up the tutorial. As a player, you don't want to feel handheld when you start the game.

But then the game is so short. The mechanic is cool, and I think you could have made some cool puzzles with it, but you never really get there. Some levels had some cool ideas, but you basically could solve every level by just walking to the position of the key and rewinding. 

That's kinda sad, as I think there's a lot of potential in your idea. I think what the game lacked the most where other game elements, maybe some doors and pressure plates? There are only so many things you can do with blocks and spikes.

If you want to learn more about puzzle design, I would recommend checking out the playlist by Game Maker's Toolkit. I found them very helpful when designing puzzles for our game.

Nonetheless, I think you did a good job as we only had a week and you were making everything except the music.

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks Mandelbrot Studios, your comment is so insightful. Originally, I did add the features of muting the sounds, transitioning to new levels and a fullscreen support, but thanks to freaking Unity's feature of 100 days to load (hyperbole), I'd cut all those features (because of the HoTween maybe). For the puzzle mechanics however, I think I now have an idea.

Submitted

Very fun! Hope this gets more views!

Submitted

nice  game..........cheak mine

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