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A jam submission

AsterismView game page

Master Gravity And Sling Blackholes!
Submitted by Bell Kalengar (@BKalengar), Daniel SoundsGood, Kyper, flavedogame, NovaDesign — 18 hours, 4 minutes before the deadline
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Asterism's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#513.7363.736
Visuals#763.6213.621
Overall#773.5063.506
Theme#843.3913.391
Audio#1023.2073.207
Fun#1103.2303.230
Approachability#1243.3223.322

Ranked from 87 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Viewing comments 40 to 21 of 75 · Next page · Previous page · First page · Last page
Submitted(+3)

Loved the visuals, the game is a great match to the themes. I felt like the song was almost good, it does have a space feel, but something was lacking.

I really liked the gravity aspect changing the trajectories, but felt like the black hole was abit underwhelming. But overall, very nice game!

Developer

Hi Endeavour! Thank you so much for your review and taking the time to play this.
Our music evolves over the first 10 waves, do you think this was too slow? If you have any specifics, it would be very welcome, we are eager to improve.
I actually agree on the blackhole! Funnily enough, we ended up nerfed the blackhole just before pushing the game out. We also mulled around with the idea of blackhole powerups so maybe stay tuned for some day! :D

Submitted(+1)

Ah that must be it, I couldn't get past wave 7 but I felt it was a bit slow. Maybe speeding it a little bit might push it to the sweet spot

Developer(+1)

Ah, understood. This is EXACTLY why I love feedback. If we continue it, we will scale up waaay faster. Gotta get our player pumped up faster :D

Developer

Thanks for your reply! Over the waves, the music grows and more instruments are added and new parts of the music as well!

Submitted(+2)

I like the juice, and I like to odd looking player model, the enemy verity was really nice!

The movement felt a bit weird, where if you let of of the button you would still go a bit, felt odd, but i got used to that so it was no biggie.

I love the idea of black holes changing the trajectory of the bullets, its a fun way of making an avoid ability!

Very nice submission, great job!

Developer(+1)

Hi Ne_mene. Thanks for taking the time to give us feedback, we always appreciate it. I'm glad you liked the blackhole. We're 100% plan to change the way the character feels, that's been the most consistent feedback, so thank you for being specific :)

Submitted(+2)

I like this game. The visuals are impressive and the black hole is a neat idea. Gameplay feels clunky for some reason and it's a lot harder if you don't zoom out. Also I didn't like that my black holes were being destroyed so easily, but maybe after I adjust to the enemies it wouldn't be a problem.

Developer

Hi! I'm glad you enjoyed it, thank you for taking time out of your day to give it a shot. I definitely want to help it feel less clunky, we a ton of feedback on this and will be fixing it if we continue to develop. Thank you specifically for the feedback about blackholes. This isn't something I've heard from anyone, so it is very valuable because it was something I was concerned about during development. 

Thank you again for taking the time. It is much appreciated! :)

Submitted(+2)

I like the self damage and gravity mechanics, it makes the game unique

I'm not a big fan of the music tho, it has the potential to be good, but the piano has a very midi sound, it doesn't sound the best. 

The bullet pattern can be frustrating to avoid because of the randomness created by the gravity mechanic but I guess it just takes time to get used to.

Developer(+1)

Hi Hellsnake :)
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed the game. I will pass this feedback on to our music guy, every piece of input is valuable.

Submitted

I did enjoy the game! I'm glad you listen to feedback! Hope it helps :)

Developer (1 edit)

Glad to hear! And yes! I listen to every single piece of feedback.
I realized I didn't respond to your frustration about bullet being hard to avoid sometimes. Do you think slowing them down a little would help? We gave the player a large health pool and pretty generous healing abilities because its near-impossible to avoid all bullets, but I want it to FEEL good, even if those stray bullets don't hit all that hard.

Submitted

Yes, in most Bullet Hell games the bullet speed is really low, and the player hitbox very tiny (and often visible)

It makes avoiding patterns easier, and more precise

Developer

Thanks for your reply! For the "piano" I used Vital to create a synth and the melody. Is it too midi? I will listen again and try to make it sound better 

Submitted(+1)

Interesting idea what my bullet is my enemy. And great showing of warships. Each one is unique and memorable. But control is little jelly, not comfortable.

Great work.

Developer

Thanks for giving it a shot, much appreciated! Your feedback is appreciated.

Submitted(+3)

Really fun game! interesting that your own bullets can end up hurting if you don't pay attention to what you are doing, as people already pointed out i would go for a little more precise movement so players can get a little more strategic in their positioning, but otherwise you made a great job!

Developer

Yeah, that mechanic is really interesting and can cause a lot of mayhem!

Thanks, man!

Developer

Hi Velcro! Happy to see you here. Thanks for taking the time to check it out. This is helpful feedback and we 100% will tune movement if we continue the project :) Have fun out there.

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

Very different way of playing. It took me a while to get used to the black hole, but I soon realized that it's quite addictive to know how to use it correctly hahaha It's high risk and high reward. I hope you continue the development, because the game has potential. (If you follow the feedbacks, I think it will be quite good!

The music and the ambiance generated was pretty cool too!

A hug from Brazil! haha

Developer (1 edit)

Luis,

"Addicting" is such a great compliment, thank you. I've read and deeply considered every single piece of feedback. Following the feedback is the only way forward. With as much love as its received, I believe further development is very likely.

Thank you for taking the time to check out our game!

Developer

Thanks mate! Abraços do Espirito Santo!

Submitted(+1)

Really interesting concept for a game. Liked the enemy designs where you have to manipulate the bullet paths to bypass schields or deflect their attacks. Felt like the controls were more difficult than they should be, too hard to make precise movements, but can be easily improved. And yes, I saw in another comment that you want to get rid of the friendly fire, which would be a big improvement. Looks and sounds great though, well done!

Developer

Hi Mugs! Thanks for stopping by. Heard, thanks. This was a concern of mine during development, but we really wanted that alien-vs-tech feel. Behind the curtain, the player's hitbox is a generously small sphere in the middle of the player model to try to help against this, but I can that that we would have more work to do if we decide to continue developing it.
As for friendly fire. We understand this is frustrating and wish we had more time to playtest before turning in. The idea was to offer the player with 2 decisions. Ve allowed to spray at the costing of having to dodge or be slower and more precise. In practice, I don't think this translated well. If we continue, we will at the very least reduce the damage to something almost negligible for some testing, and if it still feels the way you described, we will remove it completely.

Submitted

I think the minimum distance the alien moves is too great, makes it impossible to micro-dodge out of the way of incoming bullets without ending up somewhere probably worse. Maybe that's just me being a bit crap at it, need more practice! I guess the trick is in planning larger well-timed movements, but sometimes you don't want to really move, just sidestep a bullet, and it's very hard to keep in control of that. Don't be disheartened though, it's a really nice entry.

Developer(+1)

I'm certainly not disheartened. The feedback has been phenomenal and very encouraging. This is my first gamejam and I will certainly be back :)
 Understood. It is super reasonable addition and I can see that it would only ADD value to our game. I've added to it our list of acknowledged and planned changes listed on our page:
https://bellkalengar.itch.io/asterism

Submitted(+1)

interesting game, fit the theme well. I liked the main character, would have been nice to have some parallax or something in the background to make the game more immersive, either way I enjoyed playing this!

Developer

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. If we return to further the game, this will be one of the first things we change :)

Submitted(+2)

Very Nice game, the visuals were really cool. Nice Job

Developer

Thanks man!

Developer

I'm very happy that you liked it! We worked with a very talented spaceship guy :)

Submitted(+2)

Very very very interesting game! The visuals are on point, and the theme si very well implemented! Good job, I really enjoyed this game!

Developer

we're glad you enjoyed it!

Developer(+1)

Awesome! Thank you! We made it only visible when you got close so it still "CONFINED" you, but also still felt like you were in the open vastness of space :D

Submitted(+2)

I got to wave 8, the black hole concept was pretty cool! 

I personally don't like the friendly fire at all, the enemy mothership with it's own black hole was pretty cool!

Developer

Hi Aptet. I'm glad you liked it. Thank you for the feedback. The self-damage is something we WILL change if we decide to further develop the game.

Submitted(+2)

Interesting concept! While it does have flaws explained by other commenters, Asterism still oozes potential.

Personally, I think the game could benefit a lot from giving the player a wider field of view, maybe even letting them see the whole field, this way throwing black holes around will let you see exactly how effective it is without endangering yourself. Player controls could also be improved - the inertia effect and a sense of "choppy" movement makes it difficult to navigate and dodge around the level.

Developer

Your feedback is really insightful! 

Developer(+1)

Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave so much feedback. I really appreciate it and will learn from this. 

For the field of view: I thiiink we have this functionality? :) in the controls screen it says that you can use your scroll wheel to zoom in/out :D


I agree that movement could be improved and this is the first thing I would work on if we decide to continue the game. 

Thank you again for taking the time to review our game. 

Submitted(+1)

I really like what you have going here!

I enjoy the spacey mood set by the minimal graphics and sound. It really fits well with the dangerous scifi feel to the gravity mechanic. And it the jam's theme is nailed with the limited area and the danger you can build up in there.

I think a smooth camera would have done a lot to improve the experience. The camera moving glued to the player like that makes it feel a bit jerky and disorienting.

I hope you keeping working on this past the jam/ With a little more time and polish I think there's something really good here!

Developer

Absolutely! We are considering further polishing and your feedback will come in handy

Developer

Aww! Awesome, thank you so much for taking the time to respond and give in-depth feedback, its super appreciated. I can certainly see how the camera can be awkward. I think some smoothing would really come in handy here.

Submitted(+1)

Feels a bit odd and might be a bit out of my alley. There is something good here but it needs more polish.

The good:

The visuals are both good and lacking. It's very difficult to tell how and where the player is moving when the background remains stationery at all times. Some particles or space debris to help ground the player movement is better.

Otherwise, models and sounds are generally in tune. There is a space-esque art direction to this that I see the team is going for.


To improve:

The gravity mechanic, while interesting, seems to be very flat in how they affect gameplay. A single blackhole mitigates all enemy bullets, can heal you, and is a great counterattacking tool, and affects the entire map.

It's too strong. And the only counter to it is a spaceship that immediately destroys it.

The design is very black and white and lends itself to somewhat flat gameplay.

If the blackhole affects a smaller radius, and or takes time to charge up and become effective, it may add more nuance to the gameplay rather than being too centered (and overshadowed) by it


Developer(+1)

Wow, this was great feedback, and I truly appreciate it. It is very constructive. Our sense of movement is certainly our weekest point. I think the space debris is a great idea. 

As for the blackhole, i think you make a great point and I will learn from this. 

I appreciate you take the time to leave so much feedback. Thank you very much :) 

Submitted(+1)

Interesting physics based mechanics.

I'll get the issues out of the way first, the game feels a bit confusing at first glance with the shots that can self inflict damage when they orbit inside the arena, and some of the enemy patterns feel a bit eratic (mostly the rocket looking ones) zooming around at random.

Other than that the game is great, with the orbit mechanics, the hp recovery if you score a kill with the black hole, i particularily liked the fact that if you time it well the black hole can serve as protection by absorbing all bullets of a complicated pattern right as they're shot out XD

Once i got past the confusing begining to learn the mechanics, i had  fun playing.

Good job to the team :)

Developer(+1)

Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to rate this. I will learn from every bit of feedback. I've heard, loud and clear, that the self-damage is frustrating. If I continue development of this game, I will likely removed or vastly reduce the amount. Especially for the blackhole. I wish I had more non-development playtesters, but that's a game jam :) 


Thank you for your feedback, it was very appreciated :) 

Submitted

No problem, well probably reduce more than otright remove cause it is a nice gimmick to avoid just spam fireing all the time, and i totally get that playtesting can be troublesome, jams in a nutshell :p

Submitted(+2)

Very cool game. The fact that your own bullets hit you is quite interesting. I also found the player's design quite unique. An enemy appeared with an almost transparent shot, I think this can get in the way a little, I didn't know if it was to dodge or catch. Overall I thought the game was pretty cool.

Developer

I'm very glad that you liked it Moebios. Self-damage is supposed to promote the decision of "spray and be good at dodging" or "be slow and methodical".
I agree that the transparency part is a problem. It is WAY more visible in the engine but once we compiled for WebGL it got worse and I ran out of time :P
The transparent enemy does very small amount of damage though, but feeds a ton of bullets to the other enemies :D

Submitted(+2)

Nice mechanics and visual. The blackhole curveball mechanic is super fun to play around with.

Developer

Thanks! We're very proud of it! I'm glad you liked it!

Submitted(+2)

Cool visuals!!!

Developer(+1)

Thank you, we worked hard on it :)

Submitted(+2)

Love how shooting to much comes back to bite you in the but

Viewing comments 40 to 21 of 75 · Next page · Previous page · First page · Last page