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A jam submission

Shape UpView game page

A fast-paced bullet hell boss game!
Submitted by ZachCreates — 5 hours, 15 minutes before the deadline
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Shape Up's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun#1013.8403.840
Audio#1483.6403.640
Game Design#1963.7203.720
Overall#3723.4203.420
Graphics#5993.3203.320
Innovation#6753.0003.000
Theme#8333.0003.000

Ranked from 25 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?
My game fits the theme because, in it, you can collect balls that will follow your player and act as an extra life almost. If you have these balls, and your player dies from getting hit, you will take place as one of the tiny balls and continue to try and survive the boss.

Did you write all the code yourself and made all the assets from scratch?
I wrote all of the code myself, but I did use a sound effect creator, some music, and a font pack that was not made by me.

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Comments

Submitted

The game is very dynamic and interesting. The graphics don't look very good, but the music and sounds are just great. I played for about half an hour, but could not even pass the first boss (I played both on the keyboard and on the controller).
Anyway, good job

Developer

Thank you for playing and for the feedback!

the game makes a lot of fun, and sound is very nice, this game is super for stream chanllange

Developer

Thanks for playing. Your stream was awesome! (:

Submitted(+1)

Well, sorry but I'm not gonna try beating the hard versions. Like the game and the challenge but forcing me to watch boss intros for over half of the overall play time isn't cool. It should be a dead giveaway that the unskippable intro takes what close to ten seconds and then you can die in way less than one just the repeat the whole thing again. In difficult games especially trying again need to be quick as hell.


By the way, from those three first levels, the second was easily the most difficult one. I struggled with it quite a bit and after that the third one felt like a breeze.

You were kinda breaking all the cardinal rules of difficulty. First of all, it was very unfair in many ways. The sides of the play arena were like a minefield. Go there with your own risk. At any second something might spawn right next to you without a warning and instagib you. And the key here is the "warning" bit. The incoming attacks would need to be telegraphed somehow. No need to tell what is coming but just marking the positions a bit before they were going to shoot would be awesome. You could have used the boss for this easily or then created some own individual sprite for the purpose.

I think the game might have even worked better if the attack positions weren't randomized but designed. At least then you could always just force your way through by memorization and sheer will. And there wouldn't be this much of those "crap deal hands" that are just straight up unavoidable. At least the bigger fan of bullets at some angles was just not dodgeable.

The second part of not being fair really isn't even that but not seeming like it. It's something I still haven't gone trough a jam without telling someone, the size of colliders. The need to be smaller than the actual sprite to "seem" fair. The human eye is not as accurate as computer especially in the midst of hectic struggle for survival. And feeling like you didn't get hit when you still died is like the worst feeling ever. This also has additional boon of allowing for more close call survival situations where the player should have died but didn't due to your benevolent will. And those are always fun!

A slight acceleration might have been nice to have on the character. Right now it was very hard to make small precise movements. Or another way to solve it would be a Touhou like slowdown key. Also in Touhou series the slow key shows the actual collider of the character which is like a size of a pixel.

Then we come to visuals. Didn't think I'd ever say this but I think there was too much bloom. Other than that, the juice was pretty much on point. The camera shake was kinda spot on (I usually like to add some angle too, makes it look even spicier). Sure the particle effects were a bit stock and bland but at least something was there and they got the job done.

Love the self irony, so you even realize yourself that that intro wall of text was too much...


Anyways, good job! 👍

Developer(+1)

That was amazing feedback! If I continue this game, I will let you know! I will also use your feedback to make my game better. Thank you so much!

Submitted

Super fun and addicting. Nailed the game feel - music is great and graphics are simple but eye catching. Very challenging, the only thing I would change is having the option to skip boss fight intros so I don't have to watch them every time.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the feedback! That was an awesome stream!

Submitted

No problem! Appreciate you stopping by and sharing your game.

Submitted(+1)

This game left me crying on the floor, praying for better and simpler times.  Fantastic mechanics, but damn it is not an easy win by any means.  Big pat on the back to me for getting to level 2!!! :)

Great execution, looking forward to where you go with this.  Definitely got a ton of replayability.

Developer

Thank you! That stream was great!

Submitted

The overall game design is good. But too hard for me.The music was great but a little loud. The nice bloomy graphical style is executed nicely.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing and for the feedback!

Submitted (1 edit)


The game is way too hard for a normal player to play, i spent around 1.5 houre & i still can't pass the intro


pls rate my game :D

Developer

Thank you for playing! I’m sorry you had so much trouble.

Submitted

Np :D one thing i would say, if its possible in the intro at least, make the boss shoot you slower, just to give the player a chance to play :D

Developer(+1)

Yeah, that would make the game better for a lot more people.

Submitted

The game is well polished and very exciting. But, I think the first level needs to be easier.

Developer

Ok, that’s fair. Well, thank you for playing!

Submitted

It is a nice looking game. 

The game is fun but it is a little bit too hard for me.

I gave up after infinite fails in the second stage (Triangle missiles).

The extra life balls have their own collisions so I lose them immediately in almost every game.

This should be a fun game to players who like bullet-hell. 

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Nice game! I agree that the bloom is too much that it becomes blurry. Nice music choice! I think I'd prefer a bit more warning before the projectiles spawn.

Good Job!

Developer

Thank you for the feedback!

Submitted

Great job! Keep it up!

Developer

Thank you! (:

Submitted
  • The music is incredibly loud, I’m very glad my headphones weren’t at max volume when I started

  • Others have mentioned this but I think there’s too much bloom as well. It makes it quite hard to read some text

  • I’m not a fan of the wall of text tutorial: https://gyazo.com/f1219339bbdbf64c488555cfd71e8f1e

  • The player trail and other visual effects like particles is very nice and feels polished

  • I recognise the music by the way :) I think it’s from this: https://opengameart.org/content/5-chiptunes-action (I used it in one of my previous games)

Developer

Thank you for playing! Yeah, that is the music I used. (:

Submitted

I've only got to the second hard boss but that was fun!

If I had to say something, though:

  • An epilepsy warning would be good to have in this game, as the menu shows a lot of flashy and color changing.
  • I think the bloom / emission / blurriness is too strong in a few aspects of the game, such as the corners, boss text and possibly the player. Tuning it down a bit might make it look a bit better.
  • It would be fun if you didn't grab the ball you could still exchange a life with it, but you would teleport to its position (which I thought it was going to happen but I think I miss read it). It would lead to some interesting strategies I think.
  • The colliders seem a bit off for the small circles, as they seem larger than what they are, as I've lost a few without touching the "enemy". (It might be that their collision is not set to continuous, not entirely sure). Are the triangles box colliders?

Regardless, it was a fun game. I've left my rating, congrats!

Developer

Thank you for playing and for all of the feedback. No, the triangles have a sphere collider.

Submitted

That might be why my small circles were destroyed when they didn't hit the triangles then, not sure if there is a better recommended collider for it, maybe a polygon collider would be better. Might be a bit less performant (possibly not noticeable here) but would make the game feel better.

Developer

Yeah, I am not sure.

Submitted

cool game! I really like that even thought the art is simple, you added some glow and other effects to make the graphics look really nice! It's a pretty hard game though, I think mostly because the collider is a little big on the player, maybe having the collider a little smaller than the actual player would help! I would have also liked to have a timer to show how much time is left in the level (couldn't get past the intro, so it may exist in other levels and I just didn't see). Good job!

I'd appreciate it if you could play/rate my game as well! :)

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing!! I appreciate the feedback! I may be able to get to your game later!

Submitted

I couldnt play it but i based it from your images really cool

Developer

Oh ok. Thank you!

Bro thanks. I am downloading your game!

Developer

Thank you! I hope you like it!

Good graphics! You got a notification that I downloaded your game.

Developer

Could you rate it if you don't mind?

Deleted post
Developer

Thank you!

Submitted

Very fun and cool I love it and the art style is amazing!

Developer(+1)

Thank you! (:

Very cool! Love the art style

Developer

Thank you!