Patterns were fun at the beginning, I enjoyed the puzzle-like nature of the levels, though they started getting pretty hard. Then I started using dash and I realized its absolutely broken and you can just mash space and pretty much not get hit at all due to iframes (I think the black bullets are an exception to this). Besides from that, I think the dash doesn't serve any integral purpose for the gameplay other than being a safety measure/difficulty reducer, so if you were to balance the levels I'd say you'd rather just remove the dash altogether. You can see how that other game in the jam, Tower of Bullets, uses dash as pretty much the central thing in the whole game, but here it's just there because the game is hard and it's helpful to overcome the difficulty (or in its current state, completely trivialize it if you spam it).
Some music and SFX would've been good too, even royalty-free music is fine, as long as it matches the game. SFX for turrets shooting (not overdone or else it will be a cacophony) and for the player's dash would work well too.
Also I think the door on the last level doesn't do anything, but you probably already knew that.
Play game
Prison Hell Escape's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| THEME | #50 | 3.844 | 3.844 |
| FUN | #97 | 3.438 | 3.438 |
| EASY TO GET INTO | #110 | 3.781 | 3.781 |
| OVERALL | #123 | 3.313 | 3.313 |
| CREATIVE | #125 | 3.344 | 3.344 |
| VISUALS | #160 | 3.219 | 3.219 |
| AUDIO | #286 | 1.625 | 1.625 |
Ranked from 32 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Do you have any bullet or projectile in your game?
You added some projectile or bullet in your game
How does your game implement the theme? (If your game doesn't use the theme ignore this field)
You're a prisoner trying to escape from prison after a catastrophic explosion in the prison's energy core. The time you need to survive in each room is 10 seconds, which is the time needed for the energy to run out of the turrets that shoot at you.
What was the size of your team?
2
Please credit the resources that you used during the jam (if you used any)
Referenced Enter the Gungeon's sprites.
Credit all team-members that worked on this project (you can link itch.io/twitter/youtube/twitch)
https://spaceward-studios.itch.io
Comments
Responsive controls and a precise dash make the game a real blast to play. The difficulty is just right
This one is really cool! I really enjoyed the patterns and seeing what each room had to offer. I think some brighter bullets would've helped them be a bit more visible. They were kinda hard to see if they lined up with the black lines on the floor. Nice job this was really fun! :)
This was really fun -something about having to wait until the bullets are done to escape makes the game play feel more intense -awesome work! :D
As many other commenter have pointed out, adding music and sound effects can go a long way in improving the feel of the game. You might want to pay attention to your viewport size on itch: right now it isn't pixel perfect, and there's frequent flickering on the floor due to aliasing. This is especially grating in the later levels, as they're quite challenging.
Quite challenging, but very interesting and nice. I really like that you still managed to add a short in-game story to explain the game. You could though balance a bit more, especially with some enemy patterns (like from level 4 onwards) that seem a bit hard to comprehend. Good job anyway!
Pretty punishing but has an almost instant respawn so trying again is seamless. Fun game!
That is quite a challenging game you have there :) I like the difficulty progression with adding new turrets every now and then. Sound effects would be a nice bonus and bullets a hard to see sometimes.
I liked playing the game, it was challenging but for the first 5 levels it felt that the difficulty curve was just right. Afterwards it was challenging and I still in level 8 . I think that if you added audio it would make the game more lively, and maybe a little animation when the player is hit to indicate that would be good. generally I had fun playing it :)
I think this would be a fun game, but there are a few things that bother me. Firstly, you can’t use the arrow keys to move. It should be a no-brainer to bind arrow keys and WASD to the same actions when you have simple movement like this. Secondly, there is no music or sound at all in the actual gameplay. As a result you feel disconnected from the game and the immersion completely breaks. That said some of the rooms are pretty well designed and fun to figure out.
Edit: there’s a dash?!
The game is good, but without music and soundeffects it became a bit boring with time. The art style is good, controls are smooth and the dash mechanic is very usefull, but very op without a cooldown.
Controls are nice, as well as bullet hell theme :) what sells it short is the lack of sound or any game juice -kale
Spritework is real cute, controlls work well. Teh Collission appears very leanient and you can dodge between bullets. A bit to hard for me (but I suck at Bullet Hells!) - biggest gripe: No soundeffects, no BGM also no player Feedback when he dies. Those two things make the game feel a bit hollow and unfinished.
Bonus points for story elements in the beginning of the game. I really liked the visuals. Addition of audio will definitely benefit the game, but even without it I found it really fun to play. Really great concept concerning the theme of the game jam. Dash could get some nerf in form of cooldown or smaller invincible time, but even without and with a bit of practice, the game can be beaten. Great job!
A game where you just dodge and don't fight back , interesting concept. The patterns are clear and with a bit of training it can be done. Challenging but also entertaining. Perhaps less levels but instead new mechanic(solve some puzzle, collect a key..) would have been better though. Dashing is a bit too strong. I could spam spacebar in most levels and just get through by luck. Overall good game :)
Nice work! I thought the little prisoner guy was cute, and the bullet pattern variety was nice, although I did feel overall the bullets were a little bit too small and hard to dodge.
As some others have noted already, I was able to fairly reliably brute-force every level at the expense of my spacebar key.
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