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Starbaby's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sound Design | #12 | 3.792 | 3.792 |
| Writing | #14 | 3.292 | 3.292 |
| Overall | #18 | 3.510 | 3.510 |
| Creativity | #20 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Gameplay | #21 | 3.125 | 3.125 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Extra Information about your game
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Sci-fi survival...baby style!
After a sudden alien attack aboard the Starship Festivus, it's up to starbaby Violet to defeat the invaders and rescue her parents.
***
My original vision was to feature just babies and survival, but the DS+ tileset I use has a ton of purple in it so that organically became a third theme I worked in.
What themes did your game use?
Babies, Survival, Purple
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Comments
Super adorable, fun, and just the length I prefer for a jam game! The sounds really sold it. It does seem like you took extra care to customize the sound that everything made, but the googoo gagas really stood out. I liked the simple puzzles and gating mechanics, and the custom art at points was charming.
Combat was a bit strategy free. Just felt like there was no real way to dodge damage. Getting mysteriously hit when attacking just feels bad, and healing at the medbot was the only real meaningful decision there. Some way to evade enemies, perhaps a ranged skill, or no damage when attacking from behind would make it feel a little more satisfying.
Writing was alright - I'd suggest skipping the whole intro scene and perhaps having a few discoverable pieces of lore within the game. I think players could figure out the general alien invasion plot, and you could still insert the history and importance of the first contact somewhere within the gameplay itself. A little reward in each room of learning what the ship is and why the starbaby is so historic would be pretty cool.
Thanks Human!
I greatly appreciate you playing through and taking the time to leave such detailed feedback, and that you dug the 'googoo gagas' and arts :D
I really like your discoverable lore idea! Honestly the only reason the intro text even exists is because of the 'Writing' judgement criteria. My vision was to tell the story with sounds, symbols, and images, since the protagonist is a baby. But I didn't want to get 1-starred on writing so made a point to add a little.
So far the most common request from players is some kind of a dodge/damage avoidance mechanic, so that is high on my list of possible improvements. As it stands damage is reduced significantly by the armor, but cannot be avoided completely.
Couldn't find you on discord so I notified you here
I made a playthrough video of your game with my feedback:
Awesome!
Thanks so much for playing and making this recording!
That's right, Violet takes a lot of damage from combat before she gets armor (especially from the orange elite and laser). Armor reduces it quite a bit but she still takes some each fight. I figured she is a baby afterall, so is pretty squishy :)
Sorry the bear push puzzle locked you out - in the future I plan to set these up so that if the object is moved to a hopeless location, it'll do a pull back action so you can keep trying. I noticed Kat did this with the stool in her submission and it's a clever approach.
Thanks again!
Left full feedback on your game’s page. Had a lot of fun with this!
Thanks for playing! I appreciate all of the kind words and feedback.
Nice job with the custom art! I agree with all the others the sound design is very well done, especially with the baby sounds. The puzzles were nice and straight forward perfect for the scope of a game jam. As others have mentioned, action battle systems are always difficult to do on RPG Maker.
Otherwise good job!
Thanks for playing Nowis-337! Positive feedback means a lot coming from you, especially regarding the art, as I'm a big fan of your unique style.
Glad you dug the simple puzzles and sound design too!
I'm laughing to myself about the ABS now...it was the most time-consuming design and testing element, and alas the least favored by some players. The consensus is that RM is poorly suited for the mechanic, but it's so perfect for everything else I want to do I may forge foolishly ahead with trying to improve and build on the ABS in RM anyway :)
Thanks again!
Thanks for playing!
Yeah I opted for an Action Button trigger once you're armed, so that if you're low HP you don't accidentally engage an enemy because of Player or Event Touch and get smoked, since damage is automatic once you engage. You got it, once you engage several parallel Common Events kick off to handle the damage, enemy sprite flip, attack animations, etc...
Thanks again!
Edit: was there a particular mechanical issue you ran into with fights? Let me know so I can consider it for the post-jam update.
Thanks for clarifying. I ran through a couple times and killed a ton of aliens and I can't duplicate the delay; everything seems to kick off instantly when Violet engages enemies.
It's possible my expectations are too low or my perspective too subjective though :)
I wonder if maybe it's her sword swing? I have a 5 frame delay in place between steps, but maybe I should trim that down so it's more fluid.
No worries if you don't have a chance, but if you could update on where you're hitting the delay, or what part seems to lag (eg sword swing, sound, slash animation) that would be much appreciated, I'd like to make everything as responsive as possible if I update Starbaby in the future, or use my ABS in another game.
Really cute game. Love the baby killing stuff with the sword.
Thanks for playing DJ990J!
I'm glad you had fun slashing aliens with Violet :)
I really enjoyed the game. You hook the player from the start with custom art(which is super cute) then you play as a baby that can wield a sword and kill monsters. Sound design is super likable and the length is just perfect for a jam. KUDOS!
Thanks for playing VaroClaw! I'm glad you dug the art, the goofy concept made them fun to draw :)
I'm glad the length fit too; there are always so many games to try out in a Jam, I wanted to make sure players could get the whole experience relatively quickly.
I enjoyed this game. It has simple, straightforward challenges, perfect sounds, and even some fantastic hand-drawn pictures! And I'm honored that one of my games inspired the opening puzzle! 🤩
I do have to admit I'm kinda mixed on the battle system; while it's true in standard turn-based RPGs you're forced to take hits whenever you dish them out, it just feels wrong in an action battle system. If I could attack enemies from behind without taking hits or have some other way of avoiding damage with some measure of skill I would be happier with the system. I'm also confused why you would remove the "Options" menu item from the title screen. Allowing players to tweak their experience before jumping into the game makes the experience friendlier.
Again, stellar entry, well done!
Thanks for playing KV_Kingdom! Appreciate the kind words and feedback, you make great games so I'm extra happy you like it.
And thanks for the Elora's Quest inspiration too :)
Regarding the battle system, a sneak attack option is a great idea! I learned a ton about eventing and animations to make this simple system, so now I have a basic foundation to work off of an improve in the future.
Regarding the Options menu, I put some time into normalizing all of the BGMs and SEs individually within the game itself, so cut that from the Title (though I left it in the game menu once you're playing just in case). I don't like it when BGM blasts my ears in the Title so I take care to balance and reduce levels ahead of time for the player. Were there sounds that seemed too quiet or loud?
The sounds were overall balanced and fine, it just would be nice to have access to some additional tweaks at the beginning (such as the master volume, auto dash, keyboard layout, etc.)
Got it! That makes a lot of sense, I'll leave that in next time :)
Thank you.
This was a fun and cute game! I'm happy to get to play as a badass sword wielding baby in an action rpg type game. xD :D All the while making cute baby noises! I also love how you made adorable custom arts for many scenes such as getting new gears and etc. Overall great job to the dev! <3
Thank you for playing Starmage! I'm elated you liked the arts and baby noises. As soon as I had my initial vision of a goofy badass baby wielding a sword I was excited to turn it into a game, I'm glad Driftwood made 'babies' a theme lol :)
the story is good... and the art is adorable... especially the credit art is great
and the voice sound of the babies...haha love the most.
i just think the boss is a little bit weak.
overall fun game to played.
Thanks for taking the time to play Zabelnov! It was a fun and funny experience digging around for baby noise samples and editing them, like I was telling Gorgonage my neighbors must be wondering wth is going on in here the last few weeks lol.
Really glad you liked the art too, a little custom artwork always adds a lot to other games I try, so I wanted to make sure to include some.
Regarding the boss, I'll admit I did err on the side of easy there. I set it up so that if you're at full HP going into the fight, your final strike will vanquish it and leave you with just a few HP. I've made the mistake in the past of making a jam game way too difficult, so eased up a little with Starbaby.
I just finished your entry too and will post in the comments soon, nice job!
A short but intresting game.
It was quiet fun that i solved the puzzles by chance:
I though you had to climb on the bear to press the button yourself
Got the pink sword because it was at ground level but i did try the others thinking i could climb.
Didn't know that the bomb was meant for the blockage but got that covered anyway.
I didn't know the medic robot in a MEDICAL ROOM was the healing room in case anything happend at first but luckly because of the boss i thought about it, finishing the game in 1 try.
A nice concept had to become strong in order to save everyone, you could get the context by thinking,hey i defeated this brown robots to become stronger in fact.
One thing i didn't like a bit was the fact that hits were scripted since the enemy hits you soon afterwards but it's not a big deal so for this game i'm ok with it.
Overall a pretty good experience.
Thanks for playing Toby Yasha! I'm glad Starbaby was an interesting experience for you.
I appreciate your feedback. Funny that you mention thinking the bear would become a ladder, that was my initial vision. I ran into numerous issues making that work though, so opted for a straight push puzzle. I'd just played KV_Kingdom's Elora's Quest so the mechanic was fresh in my mind.
lol yes, the medic bot in the MEDICAL ROOM can heal you :D
This was my first foray into action battles, so it is admittedly a simple system. Once you interact with baddies everything kicks off automatically, and although you can reduce damage significantly by donning the armor, it can't be avoided. What I learned engineering this one will provide a strong foundation for a more complex system in the future.
Good luck in the Jam!
Great story and funny riddles. The sound and the transition of it is great too. I'm not really happy with the battlesystem. I had some issues like dying with half health and I don't see hits from enemies. But a great submission!
Thanks for playing and for your feedback!
I'm glad you enjoyed the sound design, I spent a lot of time on freesound.org digging for baby sound samples, I wonder what my neighbors think is going on in here hah!
Regarding the sudden death at half life, the orange elite aliens (and the laser, if you trigger that) do hit you for half your HP before you get armored up. You can take 5 hits from the lesser brain aliens, but the elites hit hard pre-armor. You are a baby after all, and even a space diaper doesn't soak up much damage :)
Totally agree with you on not seeing hits, I'd like to add attack animations for the lesser baddies in a post-jam update.
Thanks again!