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Umber Pines's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay - How fun is it to play? | #1 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Audio - Does the game have nice sfx and music? | #2 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Graphics - Is the game aesthetically pleasing? | #2 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Overall | #2 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I played it for a good hour now and was going to leave a quick review here but then I read below that it's a turn based game. I didn't catch that, which means I will play it again before I comment :)
I went gung ho from the get go, and I progressed quite a bit, but I had to restart a 4-5 times. Perhaps turn based makes it a little bit easier.
PS: "Gung ho from the get go" would be an apt shooter title.
Yeah, that's definitely something I needed to make clearer, even if only in the itch page description. Technically it should make no difference to the game balance but in practice being able to line up your shots precisely and avoid unnecessary moves that just give the enemies free attacks is likely to make a big difference in the player's favour.
Even knowing about those things it requires pretty careful play and healing management to make it to the end, so I've accepted that most if not all players won't see the whole thing (let alone the secrets). I've thought about recording a video playthrough, but as always time is a limitation (that, and figuring out how to record good video in VR is really hard).
Thanks for playing, and best of luck if you have another go at it!
I gave it another try today and playing it as a turn based game made a huge difference. I progressed much further even on first try. It's only when I got swarmed by the flying droney things that things got really challenging. I'm not sure how to successfully escape that since it's not possible to run away from an enemy unless you manage to reach a door. Would be nice if you could have an evasive action option. Maybe like a double jump.
The small targeting displays on the guns are a really cool idea. I find myself looking more on that than on what I'm shooting at ahead of me. The guns seem to be attached to your hands at an angle which results in a high aim if I hold my arm straight. I need to lower my arm and look downward to put targets in the crosshair. On the topic of guns it would be nice if the guns locked into position without having to hold button as I often dropped the guns by mistake. These are all tiny issues and easily remedied.
Really unique enemies once again, and the level design and environment is beautiful. Nice detail outside with the high altitude over the edge. That's always a nice effect in VR :)
Locomotion is spot on. In fact, moving in the direction of your hand works much better than the usual movement in facing direction. This allowed me to do some snappy strafes while shooting (when I was playing it as a realtime game). Although, excessive strafing and backward movements could induce some motion sickness.
It's really fun game and I will def play it more. I love turn based games and the pace suits me very well. I do hope you don't just set this aside now but continue to add things to it. I'd really like to see a save system. Perhaps a couple more items to use in combat for added tactical options. Grenades? Shield?
Well done :)
Thanks again for playing!
It's unfortunate that I was only able to test on Oculus headsets (normally I would have access to a Vive as well, but Covid restrictions made that impossible this time); the ideal hold angle vs pointing angle offset is different for every type of controller, but of course I was only able to tweak it for Touch.
It's interesting to hear your experiences of the pick-up mechanics; again, it's something I think I need to try myself on different controllers to really understand? The current implementation is that tapping the grip button is a toggle (pick up or put down on each tap) while holding it is, well, a hold (pick up on press, put down on release) in order to accommodate different types of controllers without an options screen. But of course what a "tap" feels like will change enormously between Touch, Vive wands and Index controllers because their grip buttons all have completely different designs, so I'm sure there's a lot more work needed to make it feel natural everywhere!
Glad to hear you came back to it, and it sounds like you made it a decent chunk of the way through this time, so great job! :)
I thought this was fun! Good monsters and setting. The gun kept failing on me (I think it was out of power?), so I ended up dying a lot.
Thanks! And yeah, sorry, the game doesn't really explain its mechanics at all.
The game is actually fully turn-based; you get a certain number of attacks, then the enemies move or attack. It's streamlined so you don't usually have to wait for the enemies to finish their animations before you can take your next turn, but if you take your turns very fast it will sometimes have to put a hold on your actions until the game state catches up. Of course, if you don't already know all this it can easily look like a real-time game where your gun sometimes stops working. Turns out that tutorials are important, who knew!
Thanks again for playing!
Really nice graphics and atmosphere. The monsters were very unique and interesting! It makes for a different experience in VR. Overall, it was a great game well done!
Awesome gameplay, 3d art and sounds. Love the atmosphere of the game. But game process saving system is crucial for this game genre ..
You're not wrong! I actually got a full save state/continue on death system written this time, but it just wasn't reliable enough to enable before the jam ended. Perhaps if there had been another couple of days to fix the bugs, but alas. (Next jam I should probably just have mid-level restart points and not worry about saving state, but that's a poor fit for the kind of explorey/backtracky games I like to make.)
Thanks for playing, and for the kind feedback!