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Bean Dying's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Aesthetics | #162 | 3.829 | 3.829 |
| Fun | #176 | 3.529 | 3.529 |
| Sound | #182 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Music | #224 | 3.343 | 3.343 |
| Mechanics | #228 | 3.314 | 3.314 |
| Story | #290 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
| Theme | #485 | 2.629 | 2.629 |
Ranked from 70 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game total?
2
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
BayatGames free assets from the Unity Store, Oddroom's music loop from OpenGameArt.org
Link to your source?
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/environments/free-platform-game-assets-85838, https://opengameart.org/content/music-loop-variations
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Comments
The game looks nice, has fluid character animation.
The tutorial was well made too, very clear instructions. However, it didn't explain the deadly green water. XD
Level 2 was kinda tricky to clear, but fun. Level 3 had quite the difficulty spike and I couldn't finish it.
Also, I couldn't see how death affected the game. At least it was not very perceptible or there was no player feedback to let them know what had changed.
Good job!
Thanks for trying out our game!
I was thinking that it would be counterintuitive to explain the Danger Water while there was an explanation of Death Wizard's powers affecting the world, but I have adjusted the Water description to only say "Blue Water" in the new update that I just uploaded to emphasize that only the Blue Water is safe.
As for death affecting the game, I made the mechanic so that if the player has more Deaths than Coins, the Enemies and the Moving Platforms will slowly speed up as it is supposed to be a world controlled by the "Death Wizard", the opponent of Beany. It wouldn't be noticeable early on for players who are experienced in platforming games as they would be able to breeze through the first few levels easily, but we were also thinking of the new players that's why we added a lot of coins (And I have added more in the update) to help them have more leeway.
Still, thank you again for trying out the game and we're glad that you enjoyed some of the aspects of it!
Oh, so that's how the death works.
To give visual feedback to the player, I'd probably add a bar on the top of the screen showing how much power the "Death Wizard" has on the world, so that when the player picks up coins, it goes down and when they die it goes up.
Nice work!
Nice looking game. Very frustrating design though.
Congrats on completing your first jam. I hope you keep making games!
The game controls pretty well and the idea is straightforward and simple. perfect for a jam. However, there were a few points that were a bit player unfriendly. The first was just the camera. The wobbling background parallax being tied to player movement felt a bit disorienting. Also, traps being hidden just below camera on a jump down, or just above camera, or even at the end of a fast moving platform didn't feel good to die to. Especially when the game "gets harder" for dying more, tricking the player with deaths they didn't know to avoid creates ill will between the player and designer. Also, the hitboxes on spikes/traps were a bit inconsistent. The floor spikes could hit you without touching them whereas some of the falling blocks could graze you and not kill you. Generally, making enemy hitboxes slightly smaller to give players an advantage feels better gameplay wise, even if it doesn't look realistic on paper.
Overall, y'all did a great job on your first game jam. Well done!
Thank you for trying out our game!
Just to give insight on why things were the way they were at this time:
The parallax background was fine when I was testing it on the Unity Editor but I didn't notice that it would affect other players too much when it has been deployed. I'll make sure to check on it and reduce the speed so it will feel more in the background, but the behavior where it shifts depending on the player direction is intended so as to make it look like the player is going around the world and that the world is "huge".
Regarding the hidden enemies and spikes, the game was supposed to be for a 1920x1080 resolution but I encountered issues when uploading it here so I had to downscale it to 800x600, resulting in making it harder than it already is due to the smaller area of vision. There were also intended hidden enemies especially on the last level so it would feel like the "last, hardest level", but I guess it became too hard due to the resolution issue since even I took quite a time before I finished some of the levels after uploading.
The falling blocks having smaller hitbox than they look are intended so there could be a way for the player to "squeeze" themselves in some cases, but I didn't expect that the floor spikes would have a weird hitbox. I made them exactly as how the spikes look like so it's possible that it may be the player's, but I'll see what I can do with them to make them a bit more "friendlier" towards both experienced and new players alike.
Still, thank you for trying the game and for your feedback! I learned a lot and I'll make sure to keep it in mind. We're really glad that we were able to complete the game before the jam ended.
Thanks for the detailed reply :)
Don't worry about "fixing" this game though. Jam games are good for practice and I think they're fine left as they are so you can learn from them, so don't sweat needing to fix everything. Sorry you had resolution export issues. Those are a huge pain. I know the struggle.
Good luck in your dev journey!
Fun art style and simplistic gameplay, but the game could have done with some checkpoints! Frustrating having to start from the beginning of each level every death.
Also I found the background parallax layer to be quite distracting since it shifts around a lot and depending on the player direction. Overall a nice entry though!
Thanks for trying out our game!
There is one checkpoint (Red Chests) per level as I only added it in a rush, though I do agree that having more checkpoints would help. I'll try finding a way on how to make multiple checkpoints work soon!
The parallax background was fine when I was testing it on the Unity Editor but I didn't notice that it would be too much when it has been deployed. I'll make sure to check on it and reduce it, but the behavior where it shifts depending on the player direction is intended so as to make it look like the player is going around the world and that the world is huge.
Again, thank you for trying it out! We're glad that you still liked some of it!~
Great game. had lots of fun. difficulty reset is an awesome touch. Well done.
Thank you again for trying it out!
This was a really great submission! Very addictive! :-)
Thank you! We're happy that you enjoyed playing the game!
wow what a cool mechanic you made. good work!
Thank you for trying out the game!
It was kinda complicated for a beginner like me to do but I'm glad I was able to pull it off.
Fun jumpie beanie! Good job!
Thanks for jumping around!
Great work! I really enjoy the feel of this game. I like how beany could run behind trees as well, that was a cool touch. The music was nice, and the way that the background moved was really cool too. Excellent entry!
Thank you for trying out our game! We're glad that you enjoyed it~
Nice game. Contratz :) I would only make the paralax effect a little bit weaker.. Its moving to fast.
Another sugestion.. I forgot the name for this technique, but I would sugest you to add the posibilitly to still jump just after started faling from an edge.
Like you run from a edge, falls like 1~2 frames and are still able to do a jump..
Its a commun techniquefor plataform games, It would be a nice adition for your game.
Please play my game and give me your feedback too :) Thanks
Thank you for trying out the game!
I did notice that the parallax was a bit too fast when I saw someone play it. I was sure it was alright when it was on the Unity editor, but I'll have to look into it soon.
As for the jumping mechanic, that sounds nice but I wasn't sure if I had the time to add it so I didn't. I'll check to see if I can do it and then apply it in the game after some adjustments in some levels.
Thank you again and I'll be sure to try out your game when I stream soon!~
Ive never used paralax in Unity.. But maybe you need to add Time.deltaTime to fix it
I tried but it doesn't work since the computation I'm using is kinda different. Or maybe I'm doing it incorrectly, but yeah. I've slowed it down after updating it. At least hopefully it did.
Good aesthetics, I liked it. Nice game.
Thank you for trying it out! We appreciate it! :D
I Liked the Art an feel of the game really. Great Job.
Thank you! All thanks to BayatGames for the assets~
Loved Beany's world! Polished graphics, animation and a nice music, controls feel good and feedback too. Had a great moment playing, thanks!
We're glad that you enjoyed playing the game! Thank you for trying it out!
Good job on the submission! Nice platforming and aesthetics. The controls felt responsive. (Although I had a slight issue with the jump not always registering). The blind drops with spikes and some of the sneaky falling enemies felt a little unfair so I didn't manage to reach the end 😣If those bits are refined I would love to give it another go!
Thank you for trying it out!
Honestly, I was debating with myself whether to keep the blind falling enemies and hidden spikes as the game only had a few levels so I had to make it harder than intended for the last level. And it was supposed to be for a 1920x1080 resolution but I encountered issues when uploading it here so I had to downscale it to 800x600, resulting in making it harder than it already is due to the smaller area of vision. I'll check on how I can widen the screen view and update it when I can.
As for the jumps, I encountered it too but I thought it was just my keyboard. Didn't really find a way to fix it but I noticed that it almost always happened to me when trying to jump near an edge. It is one of the reasons why I added the "known bugs" in the game description.
Still, thank you again for trying it out! :D We really appreciate it!~
Pretty fun and chill game. Good for an evening after work :)
Thank you!
Thank you! We're glad that you enjoyed the game!
Nice music, I see what you did there haha. Some times I died because I had no idea there was a spike or enemy there. Is there a way to peek, or maybe I needed to play it fullscreen?
It was pretty fun! It had a polish I wish I added to my game haha. Good work :-)
Thank you! We really appreciate it!
Regarding the hidden enemies, it was supposed to be for a 1920x1080 resolution but I encountered issues when uploading it here so I had to downscale it to 800x600, resulting in making it harder than it already is due to the smaller area of vision. But there were also intended hidden enemies especially on the last level so it would feel like the "last, hardest level" but I guess it became too hard due to the resolution issue since even I took quite a time before I finished it after uploading😅
Ahhh, makes sense. Well hey, keeps things interesting!
Great job. This project is really polished.
Thank you for trying out our game!
We really appreciate it, but there are still minor tweaks and bugs we need to fix. Thank you again!
The sprites and animations are adorable. I really like how you play with the back- & foreground and the parallax. Nicely done!
Thank you for that! Also thanks to BayatGames since all the art are from their Unity asset pack :D
I love this aesthetic and the sound effects! But I don't understand what the purpose of the game is
Thank you for trying it out!
Sadly we felt like we didn't have enough time nor experience to further flesh out the story and include it properly in the game, so we were only able to make a basic platformer with a bit of a twist. We're still glad that you loved some part of it!
Fun
Basic platformer. Not difficult and spent most of the time just walking.
Aesthetics
Very good. Charming, animations looked good, colors looked nice. There were some slight bugs with parallax. The game tutorials rarely completely fit on screen. I think it is a bad idea to display half a sign or a quarter of a sign.
Music
Decent, but seems like beginner work. Could be improved, but I didn't hate it. It matched the aesthetics.
Sound
Great sounds. Everything matched the game mood and didn't distract from the game itself. Good use of rising and falling pitch.
Mechanics
Poor. The movement felt slightly slow.
Dark water kills but blue water is fine. This comes immediately after we are told water is safe.
There are a number of blind falls. The camera needs to show where I am landing, especially if you put spikes at the bottom.
When you die the final boss gets stronger. Negative feedback loops should be reserved for more hardcore games. You also have no way to keep track of your deaths and you don't get to experience the mechanic until the end.
Story
There's a death wizard? That doesn't seem to make any sense. Why are you a bean?
Theme
The theme is death is only the beginning, but this mechanic barely qualifies. The music, sounds, and aesthetics all work together very well to make a theme, but the story conflicts with the theme, and the core theme of the game jam feels like an after thought.
Good work on the art assets. Otherwise needs some work.
Thank you for trying it out! Just to give an insight on some of the things that you mentioned:
Fun & Theme:
This is our first game jam submission and first real "from the scratch" work so we only decided to create a basic platformer after feeling that our initial plan isn't going well on the first day. We had to go back to something that we're familiar with, just like what Rick and Tim advised from one of their GameDev.tv streams.
Story, Aesthetics, & Mechanics
Sadly we felt like we didn't have enough time nor experience to further flesh out the story and include it properly in the game, so we were only able to make a basic platformer with a bit of a twist.
There should be a Death and Coins counter on the upper left corner of the screen to keep track of your current "scores" for the level that you're playing on.
Regarding the hidden enemies, the game was supposed to be for a 1920x1080 resolution but I encountered issues when uploading it here so I had to downscale it to 800x600, resulting in making it harder to see some of the enemies than it already is due to the smaller area of vision. That's also why the game tutorial instructions are too big.
The hidden spikes near the cliffs and the camera not showing most of the area below were intentionally added to at least make the player more be careful when jumping and to make the game a little bit more challenging, otherwise experienced players will find the game too easy and just breeze through the game. But I guess it did make it difficult for other players, especially the players who are not used to these types of games.
And I (the developer) intentionally didn't tell the players about the dangerous Dark Water since in the tutorial there is an example of what a safe Water looks like. But I guess it won't be as obvious for the other players. I'll keep it in mind next time.
Overall, we'd like to thank you for your lengthy review. I've learned more and remembered some things that I forgot. It is a good lesson and I'll do my best to study more so I can do better next time. Thank you again for trying it out! We really appreciate it~
Saw the creating and the struggle, it turned out Funny and I like it!
I'm really glad that you liked it! Thank you!~