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A jam submission

Paz and the Shattered SoulView game page

For years Paz has felt parts of himself wither away, and now he finds himself falling into a dark cave..
Submitted by itlacey — 7 hours, 25 minutes before the deadline
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Paz and the Shattered Soul's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Use of Theme#133.1624.000
Art#143.4794.400
Overall#172.8143.560
Gameplay#172.6883.400
Sound#232.2142.800
Creativity#232.5303.200

Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

First, let me say good job. You seemed to have a small team and developed a larger project than the average entry. A game of this scope in a month jam is a big achievement.

Now to feedback. Even if the below sounds critical, it's not - it is aimed at giving some points of reflection. You had most of the fundamentals so I won't talk about them.

  • Use of Theme - 3
    • Recovering your abilities throughout the game fits the theme well at a surface level, but it's no different than any other metroidvania game. If that was the "Recovery", it could have been given attention (e.g. having you recover visually/memory as well, some other examples under Creativity)
  • Gameplay - 4
    • The movement felt slow and stiff
    • The combat was frustrating as the enemies moved too fast and you reacted too slow. For the speed of their movement/attacks I would expect the player to have a longer attack range (or ranged attack) and a dodge from the start. It was not fun to wait for the last moment to swipe as a rat charged me and then only being able to get out the way by jumping up - then doing it all over again after the rat had run its route. This is made worse by the enemies not having any stun.
    • Multiple times I was hit by the hitbox of an already dead enemy just after it died. Very frustrating
    • There are parts of the map were you can down a platform directly into spikes that you cannot see. In my opinion, this is suboptimal level design.
  • Creativity - 3
    • A standard metroidvania. Nothing I encountered particularly stood out. Limitations breed creativity so I think if you forced yourself to work within the restricted theme you might have been able to really stand out. Like, what if there was no combat and only repairing the environment or healing NPCs? What if you didn't get "abilities" but rather recovered body parts or senses? These could be terrible ideas, but they could lead you down a more unique path. Furthermore, always think: "if this game could stand up as a proper game without the Theme elements the designed choose, then the theme is not very relevant".  And in my opinion, your game would stand on its own fine if the Theme was not Recovery.
  • Art - 5
    • Detailed as I would expect from a larger team. Good work. 
    • Only issue - some bits that look like floors are not - this could be intentional but wasn't a fan of it.
  • Sound - 3
    • Good choice of non-intrusive BGM and in general like the range of SFX.

If you haven't already. I would appreciate your teams thought on my game - always looking for feedback to improve.

Submitted(+1)

Great game. I like the art and I think it's nice to recover more skills during the game. The attacks feel a little bit slow, and hitting a bat is impossible for me, but else gameplay is really good.

Submitted(+1)

Fun game with a really unique take on the theme. I had a lot of fun playing this one and enjoyed the core mechanic of the game a lot. Great job with this submission. I didn’t end up beating it, but will undoubtedly be back for more!

Submitted
  • Use of Theme - 5
    • Recovering your abilities throughout the game fits the theme pretty well imo.
  • Gameplay - 4
    • Classic platformer, although a bit frustrating because of the combat mechanic. You can't really kill anything without getting damaged. The collisions with spikes and other objects are a bit too pixle perfect which makes them a bit unforgiving. The level design is perhaps a little too complex??
  • Creativity - 3
    • The story is cool (i couldnt beat it i only reached the dash).
  • Art - 4
    • Really nice, it fit the game pretty well. although some tiles are easialy mistaken for walls.
  • Sound - 3
    • The bgm and general sfx were good. although the sound of the blob monsters was kind of too annoying and you could ear them pretty far away.