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A jam submission

SymbiosisView game page

Microscopic Top-Down Shooter. Recently Updated!
Submitted by Brick Wall Games, reybleton, Snacks1483, SpadgersHat, xC00ki3Punch3rx — 24 minutes, 49 seconds before the deadline
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Symbiosis's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Game Design#883.8943.894
Fun#1023.8303.830
Audio#1513.6383.638
Overall#1693.6633.663
Innovation#2263.5743.574
Graphics#2783.7663.766
Theme#6703.2773.277

Ranked from 47 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?
Pick a HOST and a PARASITE to play as, which in Symbiosis will make up the vast majority of your abilities. Kill enemies to gain MASS, lose MASS when you take damage. Gain EXP by killing enemies, and level up by selecting upgrades to your abilities.

Did you write all the code yourself and made all the assets from scratch?
Lead Programmer - Brick Wall Games

Design & Narrative - SpadgersHat

Art & Programming - Snacks1483

Art - xc00ki3punch3rx

Music & SFX - Reybleton

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Comments

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+3)

the mechanic of picking your parasite in the beginning is really well done, that was great

Submitted(+2)

What an awesome game! Well done team! I loved the sound design, music and art so much! Was really cool unlocking new symbiotes and completing different levels. The only issue I had was with the directional controls. It was a little slow sometimes to move around the area. Otherwise, great job!

Developer

Thank you so much!

Submitted(+2)

Very cool shooter with a unique theme. The controls are unorthodox, but they clicked very quickly and are very well suited to the gameplay. There's like a lot of unlockable characters, abilities and power ups. Overall a very well rounded and polished game.

Feedback

- Some of the earlier projectile enemies have very fast projectile speed, making it hard to react before taking damage. This isn't an issue with the circular projectiles, only the line ones.

- Ability to zoom out would be cool (unless that's a character special already).

- Some indication of goal or progress would be ideal. It's hard to know how much of a level you've done and how much is left to go.

Submitted(+1)

Loving the pixel art in this one, good game!


https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-5/rate/927683

Submitted(+2)

Awesome game!!! I love the art. It's amazing you were able to get such a polished game out so quickly. Keyboard controls were a little bit wonky. Forward/backward were tied to mouse direction but left/right were tied to camera direction. Made strafing very awkward. Also somehow was able to break out of the petri dish using the barbaric symbiote attack.

Developer

Sorry that bug happened man! It's because i made a mistake, sometimes enemy attacks and abilities can occure in between a physics frame, and because the edge collider i'm using is a single line it's possible to escape the petri dish accidentally. I've already got a fix sorted for this issue for the post jam update.

Submitted(+1)

Very cool game! Made me think of Spores! Find my video review below:

1:57:30 Symbiosis


Submitted(+2)

What a fun take on the theme! And I L-O-V-E the art style. Keep up the great work!

Developer(+2)

Thank you very much!

Submitted(+2)

Intresting take on the game, I like the way you combine the host and the parasite, interesting idea, though the controls could be improved a lot

Submitted(+2)

Good game. Retro design and graphic feel.... reminds of old Newgrounds days during the flash era.

Sound is good, gameplay is solid, art could use some polish, but overall a good submission.

Submitted(+2)

Really liked the Game, one of the more fun ones of the jam.

But i think the ability cool down should reset once you get to the next stage and sometime food clips out of bounds.

Other than that i think its a solid submission!

Submitted(+2)

Making bacteria and science fun!

Fun:

This was a fun rougelike experience. The general gameplay loop of combining abilities worked well here and resulted in interesting experiences with each play. 

Innovation/Theme:

The game type of bacteria and added a twist of symbiosis fighting together was very unique! And you really did see different combinations make you stronger. However, the game could easily be beaten by the first combination. I purposely had to lose just to see what happened.

Graphics:

The art was very consistent all the way through, but during the main gameplay, the overall environment felt a little bland. But when the world is suppose to be a petri dish, it makes sense lol

Audio:

The music was solid and served it's purpose!

Game Design:

The creative direction behind the game was very strong. A very united team brought together a cohesive experience. The only real complaint I had was the controls were a little confusing at first. Always holding up to go forward felt weird when the player is spinning all over the place lol. I kept wanting to do a typical top down player control where w was always upwards, s was down ect.. Overall a project you should be proud of!


I streamed it here:

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Strong talk for someone that didn't fight the boss ;)
But yeah it's quite easy up until the boss fight. I think a large part of the problems with our game is just not giving the player enough information; we wanted little prompts to pop up and explain everything but i didn't get the time to implement them sadly, hopefully the updated game page helps. Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+2)

lol i did go back and play it before leaving a comment. 😎 it gives me a chance to make sure i get a full grasp of the game without being distracted by chat or anything. I still think the combination concept is great and the different effects felt fairly well balanced.

Submitted(+2)

Very fun theme, gives me big spores and lufthausers vibes. Needs some polish on the visual side but the gameplay & music does the trick

Developer

I mentioned Lufthausers during conept. I really wanted to make a game that felt JUICY!

Submitted(+2)

this was fun, likes all the different types of enemies and the running around the petri dishes. the controls were a bit strange, up and down were based on facing direction but left and right were fixed on the x axis? id maybe change that so they both match the same fixed or direction-based axis. but good stuff, and well done to the music and sfx too!

Developer

Glad you liked it! We'll look into the movements - that certainly wasn't the intention with the sideways movements but we'll try to replicate the bug.

Developer

I've updated the controls on the page so they're more informative. I get that they're super weird, but it kinda the point. I wanted each host to feel different from the last.

Submitted(+1)

really enjoyed this game, the boss at the end suprised me! with a bit more polish this game could do pretty well for a mobile game or something. Great job!

Submitted(+1)

COOL

Submitted(+3)

Groovy little game!  Took me a second to figure out what was going on at the character select screen but I love the movement and the audio and graphics are fantastic!  Nice work, so funny that we both did virus-based games. Guess we got something on our minds xD

Developer

Thanks for this! Yeah, we had some padlock sprites but they didn't really fit and we didn't have time for another solution. We hope it doesn't put too many people off!

Submitted(+3)

This was really fun to play! I love all the cool combinations, but my favorite is the medusoform with the shotgun like attack. A suggestion I have is to give more player feedback. For example, I noticed a lack of particle systems. You could put one where a bullets collides with an enemy or when an enemy dies or even when you collect resources. Also I think it would be better if the screenshake when shooting was a little less jarring. But other than that, I thought the idea was really cool, and the music really had me bopping.

Developer

Thanks for this brilliant feedback! Loads for us to work on once the jam is done, though. I really like medusoform with the machine gun, that's my fave...

Submitted(+3)

Really entertaining, the controls are a little bit jarring, maybe align the controls to where the character is pointing towards, but other than that, really good game

Submitted(+3)

Just amazing!! Thank you for this game!

Developer (1 edit)

You are welcome! Hope you enjoyed the jam as much as we did - really enjoyed Goat in a Coat actually, although as I say I got stuck behind some wood lol.

Submitted(+1)

Yeah we had some problems with that xD

Thank you!

Submitted(+2)

That game surprised me a lot, I like the game play a lot and the graphics, the level music is a bit repetitive but overall a great idea and a good game!

Please vote for our game too :slight_smile: Thank you.

https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-5/rate/925955

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page