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Blitzkraft's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #26 | 3.824 | 3.824 |
| Audio | #31 | 3.784 | 3.784 |
| Overall | #56 | 3.725 | 3.725 |
| Graphics | #84 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
| Theme interpretation | #259 | 2.784 | 2.784 |
| Innovation | #283 | 2.569 | 2.569 |
Ranked from 51 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/Lanyard31/GameOff2023
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Comments
Great game! As a fellow developer of a ball robot swarm shooter game, I think you've done our super specific genre justice haha. I liked all the little bits you added to improve game feel, like subtle camera swaying based on movement, damage text and screen shake. When I got to the final boss (the most evil of all devices) it didn't attack me at all, I'm not sure if that is the intended behaviour or not.
Feedback:
- As a FPS game enjoyer, I would have liked to be able to adjust the mouse sensitivity and increase FOV.
- The music was amazing, but a little too loud relative to the other sound effects.
- There were a few times the enemies snuck up behind me, I think making them make noise when moving would definitely help players know that they're approaching.
My subjective suggestions:
- I think you can go way harder on giving feedback to the player when shooting enemies, such as making them flash, creating a small stagger animation that briefly interrupts their normal animations and making them start smoking when their health is low
- Adjusting enemy pathing so they don't just find the shortest path to the player and start moving towards it from anywhere on the level. It would also be nice if they had secondary modes of movement to add some more variety to dealing with them (maybe rolling)
You have made a solid game, and you definitely have a strong foundation to iterate on and keep developing. good job :)
Really really loved that music, with some nine inch nails + quake vibes! Really impressive to have pulled off such a full fledge FPS in just one month! The models were really cool, loved how they rushed the player! Also love the mechanic of upgrading the weapon you have until you run out of bullets! The final boss was a nice touch of humor. Really great entry!
Thanks Gad! Happy you appreciated the humor in particular, you never know how something like that is going to land. Yeah, I set out with the intention of making a FPS since I've never explored genre that before, and well, I certainly did make one. So I suppose I am pleased. Thanks for playing.
Hey, I had fun with your game! Going to leave my thoughts here:
The Excellent:
- The player feedback was done beautifully. Floating damage text, explosions, screen shake; all of these things go a long way in making the player feel like they are actually doing something, so hats off to you there!
- UI was very clean and easy to understand; this is a part of a game that is very often overlooked, especially in a jam setting. Glad that it had style & fit with the overall tone of the game.
- Weapon variety was also a great surprise; all the weapons were unique and had a very different feel to them.
- The music was a perfect fit; kudos on that.
The Good:
- The non-linearity of the levels were cool! I liked how you had to fall down off platforms in order to progress past walls that looked to block your path. My only point of feedback here is that I would have liked to see a bit a variety in the visual style of the levels (I think even a simple swap of color palette between levels could have been enough).
- The animations were simple but effective! I can tell you thought about how your enemies would move and what animations would fit them best given their "anatomy".
- The boss fight at the end was a funny surprise; I wish that there were some mechanics in the fight however. It kinda just took the punishment I was dishing out.
- The blurbs of the story given between levels was short, sweet, and effective in giving some context to the world.
The Improvable:
- I think adding a few additional movement options would have made the traversal around the level more interesting as well as adding an additional layer to combat. Maybe a slide that you could jump out of and maintain momentum from? Or a dash / blink that allowed the player to have a quick burst of speed?
- I would have liked to see more enemies / enemy types. It was nice that there was two, but they essentially did the same thing. I think there's a lot of cool space to explore here that would make the gameplay more interesting and could be an avenue for innovation for your game.
- There's a small list of minor improvements that I believe would be a relatively small lift that would impact the playability of your game in a major way: FoV slider, a directional indicator for when you get hit, adjustable mouse sensitivity, some sort of enemy health indicator, and a simple enemy radar.
All in all, I had fun playing your game! I think it's a great basis for a game that can be great. I hope you continue making fun experiences in the future, weather it be this game or not!
Some responses to this excellent and thorough comment.
-I worked on player feedback for what felt like half the jam, so I'm glad it paid off. I wanted this to be my "juiciest" game ever and... it is. Definitely
-Thanks for the complement on the UI. I don't think it's one of my strong points as a designer, I have a notion that having UI is probably a sign you're not communicating the information in the right place, but it is admittedly sometimes unavoidable.
-I actually had designs for 10 levels sketched out, but after I had this many, I sort of thought "You know, this is about the right length for a jam game." I wanted them to continue increasing in complexity and challenge, of course.
-I'm glad you liked the story elements! Hollow Knight and Elden Ring, that whole vibe of evocative less-is-more storytelling really had an effect on me and pushes me to try and craft a story and world in the tightest constraints possible.
-I pretty much agree on all three of your 'improvables', so I think we see eye-to-eye.
Thanks SevenExtra. I also really dug Tetratonic! Best of luck of in all your video game futures.
The gameplay is really cool ! I would just have liked to understand a bit better the weapons system, but other than that it's a nice foundation for a something that keeps you playing for hours !
Thanks, Mooncake. I always wonder when I'll strike upon the idea that can actually be fleshed out into a project that's fun for longer than 15-30 minutes. Maybe this could be it.
As it stands, the weapons change automatically when they run out of ammo, represented by the blue bar middle-bottom of the screen. You can increase their damage, range, and firing speed by holding Q if you have enough scrap gear, those little sprockets the robots drop. I put the scrap in kilograms to fit with the theme hehe, but it displays as
what you have kg / out of / what you need kg
I hope that clears it up! Thanks for playing.
Yes it does !! But I think some kind of way to change weapons or at least know stuff like how many weapons there are, what happens when you don't have any weapons left and which weapons is the next one would enhance the experience a lot ! (you did strike on the fun gameplay loop tho)
Some kind of next gun line-up is a good idea, if I could find a way to do without cluttering up the UI. Always have to strike a balance to find the right amount of information to put in front of the player's face. Thanks Mooncakes.
I think you have a very solid foundation for something very engaging here.
The graphics, the world you created, the character movement, it's all gives a nice feeling and is very well executed. And that music man, OMG, it's so freaking awesome when the beats drop.
I think where the game false a little short is on the variety of enemies and the lack of control over the weapons. I really wish I could change between my weapons, decide which one to use for crowed control and when to switch cause I'm running out of ammo. I also found myself wanting to be able to move more, like having a dash or a slide that would allow me to speed up or maybe get behind the enemies.
Like I said I think it's a very good base for something that could be so much more! So kudos on getting that to that level of polish on what you were able to jam in the month! I'd love to see a further release!
Thank you Foolbox, your game was also one of favorites in the jam. Hit me up sometime if you're looking for a collaborator, I somehow think we might be a good fit.
I knew I was taking a risk with the weapon cycling, but I wanted to do something different than mapping to 1, 2, 3 + standard reloading where most players pick a favorite weapon and just stick with it. I hoped this system would encourage players to freely spread their upgrades around. I tried to balance the cycle so that you'd alternate between rapid fire and single fire for the reason you mentioned, wanting to crowd control versus pick off specific enemies.
One way I wanted to expand the weapon cycling system but did not get to in the allotted time would be at a certain weapon level, you'd unlock a special ability for each weapon, such as an Area-Of-Effect EMP blast for example. Using each gun's ability would instantly use up a lot or all of the gun's ammo, allowing you to cycle faster while also increasing your sense of progression. It'd also have the effect of turning the individual Ammo bars into a sort of Ability Cooldown timer. Does that sound interesting enough to you to make this unusual system worth it?
Thanks again! It could definetely be interesting to work with you, but I've recently switched to Godot, I'm not sure you're ready to actually come to the dark side ;)
I think you have the right mindset with you're weapon cycling system. The big problem right now that I see is that you can easily just shoot at a wall and make it so that you get the weapon you want. Maybe mixing the purchasing system with the shooting system could be an interesting way to prevent that? If you shoot, you loose money? And then you have 1 base gun that doesn't cost anything, just in case.
I like the idea of the power for each weapon, I think it could add a lot to the gameplay. I'm still just not sure if it would go well with the cycling weapon system. I think the game would need to have more enemies and different type of movement to be able to really test it out and see if it's fun or not. That's kinda the hard part with prototyping a game sometime, you don't really know if something is actually fun before trying to make it :P
I'd be open to discuss more about it, you can join my Discord or join my stream on Twitch tomorrow or later this week!
Hmm. Maybe I could add a button press that quickly drains the weapon, I agree shooting at the wall to rotate to the next gun you want feels a little goofy. I suspect the design of weapon cycling with abilities might work because, well, and I almost hate to say this, but it's kind of getting sort of close to Vampire Survivors at that point. Lots of abilities rotating through on cooldowns, I'm not trying to be particularly difficult in mowing down mobs, would rather have it satisfying and a high body count, in the direction of Diablo. I was also thinking maybe between levels, the player could re-organize their gun line-up, allowing some player customization while still retaining the unique roulette mechanic. Things to think about. Anyhow.
I actually started my 'game dev journey' with Godot 5+ years ago. I think it's a great project, best part imo being how fast it is to iterate in. I share the hope that one day it becomes The Blender of Game Engines. Being painfully honest, the truth is I just like making games in Unity better, and it's hard to put a finger on why, because I think the engine absolutely has real downsides, without even getting into the company behind it. If I switched again, I'd probably invest a year into exploring Unreal 5 at this point, just to broaden my horizons, but I enjoy dipping my toes into a Godot project for a Jam with other devs every now and then.
I love it. I love the setting, and the weapons, and the upgrades, and the tower-defence style creeps coming at me in a line, and the fact that they're kinda easy and kite-able. Just a fun, feel-good escapism game.
Dude, you totally get it. Exactly what I was going for. In fact, my working project title for this game was "Tower Offense". You're bang on.
Interesting concept and nice graphics!! I liked the variety of weapons, it's great! The character controller needs some work and some enemy variety needs to be added, but overall the game is nice!
Thanks for the kind comments! Yeah, it would be cool to slicken up the movement a bit more for sure, I've got some ideas about that.
I thought that the overall aesthetic and shooting were good, but it is possible to just ignore all enemies and run to the end of the level. I don't know if there was supposed to be a boss fight or not, but I ended up just standing still shooting at the boss to win the game. I really could've used an FOV slider as the game made me a little motion sick, but the core of the game is there!
One idea I had about players avoiding the robots was if one of them in the level had a keycard you had to grab to unlock the exit door. That way, you'd have to battle them to leave, which is the more fun way to play. Still pondering if I think it's an issue or not. Thanks for the feedback!
Love the aesthetic in this entry - the visuals and audio mesh really well and made me quite nostalgic of older shoot em' ups. Also really liked the look of the damage numbers and guns.
I wasn't too bothered by the FOV, but I did have to fiddle with my mouse sensitivity outside the game to get it to a playable state.
Overall a solid game, great job!
Thanks man, I was definitely inspired by older shoot 'em ups for this one, but I didn't want to get too precious in replicating the aesthetic style and instead went my own way. I'm really glad it worked out well for you.
The atmosphere is great (thank you pink / blue haha)!
I would suggest dezooming the camera a little. This way, we will see more and it will give us a speed sensation
Otherwise, it's great! Congrats :)
Pink & Blue, forever in my heart. I have to admit I don't think I've ever adjusted a FOV in a game personally, I just roll with the hand I'm dealt. But I know it's a standard in the genre and I wanted to include it, I just didn't get around to getting a settings page up. Based on the number of comments I'm getting centered on this fact, I'll be sure to always include one in the future if I return to the genre. Thanks for playing
The game is realy fun and the concepts are creative. Pink and blue are a color pallet you can't go wrong with (vaporware / synthwave FTW). The animations were nice and fluid. I wish there was some variety to the enemies, at least some different models, but 3D art is really hard and I doubt you had much time going at it solo. The game is really zoomed in, making it hard to see the enemies around you but apart from that the controls feel solid. All in all it's a fun game and I loved the weapon feel. GG!
Thank you, I spend significant time near the start of a project to establish game tone and visual style, I think it's almost always worth it. Yeah, Magenta and Cyan, once I tried it out, it just had to be. FOV slider aka Zoom Factor is an unfortunate oversight cut only due to time pressure, I totally agree players should be allowed to customize to their liking in this genre. Thanks for playing!
I love the movement of the robots, it makes me want to hug them. In general, I missed being able to change weapons. Congratulations for making a 3D game that always involves more work.
Thanks for playing! Yeah, I knew I was headed into no-man's land with my auto-rotation gun roulette approach, but I thought it would encourage players to spread their upgrades around a bit more and offer variety rather than just picking their fave and just sticking with it (sniper rifle for me). I had the idea (but not the time) to give the weapons individual abilities you could use once per "clip", like an EMP stun for example, making the clips double as ability cooldown timers and maybe making the novelty of the idea gel together a little better.
Truly amazing!
I loved the amount of detail the game has. The animations are very successful and the fluidity is perfect.
Congratulations on the game!
Thank you so much!
Had lots of fun playing it! Love the satisfying effects.
Thank you! Your game was also great fun.
Very cool design! I could only do the WebGL version so there were the given issues, but that's to be expected and did great considering. Nice flow of combat, and the weapon options were satisfying. At times some level design details felt a little unexciting the longer it went, but within a month this was a great construction. As far as art design goes, it felt a little odd having some things very high detail but then others very low poly. I like both, but having them side by side just made things feel a bit cut-and-pasted. All in all awesome job though, kudos!
Thanks for your feedback. Combat and Game Feel was my focus here, so I'm pleased you liked the weapons and flow. You're probably right about the art style mismatching low and high fidelity a bit, that gives me something to think about for sure. Thanks for playing!
Well the combat was awesome so you got that!
Very cool aesthetics. I really enjoyed the gun cycling/upgrading system.
Thanks Billy, your FPS was also rad! One of the more memorable games I played yesterday.
Awesome! Gunplay felt pretty good, weapon variety was solid. My main thing is the FOV, it’s way too zoomed in for my taste. Not sure if that had to do with my monitor (ultrawide).
Ooo, I don't have an Ultrawide so I couldn't possibly test for that. I did try to auto-detect resolution and restrict the Aspect Ratio to 16:9 at least to avoid weirdness, but I have no real way to know how well that worked out. I wanted to do a FOV slider (+ Mouse Sensitivity and Volume Adjustment) on a Pause Settings screen but I literally just ran out of time and had to go to work. c'est la vie
Super fun game. cycling through guns while upgrading them was a cool use of enemy drops. final boss was a fun twist . music really sticks with me
Thank you, I'm glad you appreciated both the end and the weapon cycling, I knew I was taking a bit of a risk going with those choices, but I figured here was the perfect place to try out something out of the ordinary like that.
That's what Jams are all about! We always try to take at least one step outside our comfort zone or at the vary least try and tackle something we've never tried before. I've learned a ton over my history with game jams. . .and this is only our third one!
One of those games that's easy to get into and play and...keep playing! You made the simple AI of rushing the player interesting, I found myself unsure by the 3rd level if they spawn or if I can rely on having cleared an area, which fits the creepy setting. Nice job!
Yeah, I wanted to make something relatively pick up & play, eschewing any tutorials, I'm really glad that worked out for you. Thanks.
Really cool FPS! The sound is just blasting my ears :D
Thank you! Yeah, unfortunately in-game volume sliders got left on the cutting room floor due to running out of time. You can hit M to mute the music though if it's too much.