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Liminal!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #1 | 4.467 | 4.467 |
| Gameplay | #1 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Overall | #1 | 4.100 | 4.100 |
| Fun | #1 | 4.400 | 4.400 |
| Audio | #3 | 3.867 | 3.867 |
| Ingredients | #3 | 3.733 | 3.733 |
| Graphics | #3 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- What a great game! I love its funny story and audio. It was really a bold and original move to use liminal spaces as a game mechanic. I was a bit confused about how it works throughout the whole game though. Maybe a better way of visualizing the second world-space would help. The overall graphic assets are used very well. Thank you very much for your participation in the gamejam and for the game itself. I had a great time playing it.
- Liminal! 2D Running man? Liminal is an over-the-top gameJam that focuses on nice pixel art, humor and interesting mechanics. Visually, the game is beautiful, polished, full of various details such as menu items, text bubbles, or speech sounds. Bright colors and the whole design corresponds to the "lore" of the game, i.e. the TV show. The humor may be too much for some people, so far I've tried the game on other people, and it's rather fitting. The idea is simple, easily communicated and fundamentally clear. At the same time, it can be easily developed further - e.g. audience voting on what will happen to the poor player, or what will happen to him. Fastening in levels. Or at the end of the escape itself (see that prehistoric film in the title) The mechanics are both the game's strength and weakness. it's interesting, non-trivial (plus it blends in perfectly with the ingredients). I understand the intention of the "single, white dimension" but there is something about the process of "transition" between dimensions that I think could be polished even more. Maybe just slow it down a bit, add a short animation, something so the worlds don't switch so quickly. At the same time, it's sometimes a bit chaotic and you're not sure what exactly will happen. The biggest "minus" of the game is that it cannot be played in a browser. The only advice is - keep going. More similar games, possibly more levels of this one. Both the idea and the game have potential, several other useful mechanics are offered. And who knows, in the end, you might manage to escape from the "totally innocent" underground and from the entire reality show.
- This is one of the most finished and polished games I have ever seen on FIT game jams. As for graphics, it's very well readable pixel art. I have some very minor problem with protagonist portrait smile not matching the character smile in the game. Sometimes the second vision space doesn't read well, and there is no way to explore the map (to plan the solution) without moving. Sound is perfect, perhaps dubbing could be added, but overall it is spot on. The game is fun, quite original (although it is a puzzle platformer). Ingredients usage covers liminal spaces as a game mechanic (that's a big plus from me) and Joker (as the whole game story is about playing a game put together by some psychopath). There is very little from underground (well, the character can appear buried inside the ground), and new life (with a lot of imagination... but it would need more from the story). It is one of the reasons the game did not end up winner for us, BUT... it is a great little game in its own right and I hope the authors will develop it more.
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Comments
I really like this game.
When I am showing games made in the FIT jam to my colleagues and friends, this is one of the few games I can easily show and let my friends have a good time and a good laugh. (But it would be great to have a web version.)
The premise of the game clearly points at Joker ingredient - you are captured in some maniac’s TV show and you have to become a laughing stock of the viewers; but you also have a double vision and solve various platformer puzzles.
If the main shortcoming of the game is that the game is short, then it is a sign of well made game. This game clearly needs more mechanics (perhaps two-three more), lots of more levels and some meta play. There could be level editor to let players experiment with the mechanics. For meta play, you could have them record and share (somehow) their timed plays, or at least have a hot seat multiplayer mode; there could be more characters to choose from, various hats and other goodies could be won by beating the levels etc. There could be hidden (or hard to visit) places in levels that could provide some bonuses or collectibles. There could be more tile sets and environments.
As for chosen theme, the game could troll player by placing bottles of water barring them from double vision (and you would have to plan your path accordingly). The player character could not only have a double vision, but also swinging movement, or reduced pain sensitivity.
Story wise, I like one of the suggestions below, that there could be some Portal-like escape story. Or something like Escapists. Perhaps there could be some other participants, you could race with them, but also plan for escape in the mean time between the levels.
Developers, please, keep going, develop the game more :)
(cue an image with Fry from Futurama holding some green paper, accompanied with some English text)
We're glad you liked our game. It's always nice to hear that someone genuinely enjoyed the experience of playing the game apart from the things that need to improve.
You mentioned a plethora of great idea suggestions. Especially the water bottle mechanic is a really smart one and could be utilized in lots of interesting level designs I think . Some kind of character customization / multiple playable characters also sounds like it would be a fun addition.
Thanks for the words of encouragement! We will definitely try to come back to the project later if we manage to find some time.
Or, maybe, you can drink some extremely "good" alcohol (like absinth or tatranský čaj) and find another dimension to swap. :)
This game is actually such a treat!
I love the main mechanic, its just a joy to play with. It’s so simple to get into and understand how to play, and the levels build up so nicely. I love it.
The dialogue/lore feels natural, and combined with all other elements (from laugh track, character sprites, to settings menu) carries over its signature humor. Something with Liminal! just feels right.
It’d be great to have some more development to the mechanics, maybe a minimap/zoom out, or something as the other comments suggested? Or even just a final level or something. Also, the use of ingredients is weak but doesn’t feel detrimental to the game.
10/10!
Thanks for the kind words!
I totally agree that some kind of final level would be great addition since at the current state the game doesn't have much of a resolution to it. As for the use of ingredients, I think we utilized the theme "liminal" pretty well as the main mechanic (using a "liminal/transitional" space to traverse the real one) and the ingredient "joker/joke" was incorporated into the manic nature of the presenter, though I can see that the presence of the other 2 ingredients could be pushed a bit further in the game.
Liminal! 2D Running man?
Liminal is an over-the-top gameJam that focuses on nice pixel art, humor and interesting mechanics.
Visually, the game is beautiful, polished, full of various details such as menu items, text bubbles, or speech sounds. Bright colors and the whole design corresponds to the "lore" of the game, i.e. the TV show.
The humor may be too much for some people, so far I've tried the game on other people, and it's rather fitting. The idea is simple, easily communicated and fundamentally clear. At the same time, it can be easily developed further - e.g. audience voting on what will happen to the poor player, or what will happen to him. Fastening in levels. Or at the end of the escape itself (see that prehistoric film in the title)
The mechanics are both the game's strength and weakness. it's interesting, non-trivial (plus it blends in perfectly with the ingredients). I understand the intention of the "single, white dimension" but there is something about the process of "transition" between dimensions that I think could be polished even more. Maybe just slow it down a bit, add a short animation, something so the worlds don't switch so quickly. At the same time, it's sometimes a bit chaotic and you're not sure what exactly will happen.
The biggest "minus" of the game is that it cannot be played in a browser.
The only advice is - keep going. More similar games, possibly more levels of this one. Both the idea and the game have potential, several other useful mechanics are offered. And who knows, in the end, you might manage to escape from the "totally innocent" underground and from the entire reality show.
Thank you for the review!
Neither of us have seen Running man, from what I’ve seen the parallels are interesting.
Also we’ve very intentionally tried to keep everything as simple as possible, I agree that many things can be expanded and many more ideas added.
We actually thought wether to make the controls closer to a responsive movement platformer or to a slower paced puzzle game and landed somewhere inbetween, so thank you for also sharing your perspective on that.
Actually I assumed it :-) I suppose there are many new film or series which are similar and you know them better then this very old one. I just like the idea and want to emphasise it in my own strange way (plus maybe give you a hint for next levels)
The game is nicely unified and polished compared to Game Jam standards. I really appreciate the nice logo and UI menus, which are inspirational to me. Maybe the logo doesn't reflect the pixel art or the content of the game, but I don't think it matters that much. For example, the logo could include a TV screen or beer.
The pixel art is well done. Just one small detail, I would suggest changing the bottle design to vertical, which is more pixel art-friendly than diagonal and the bottle will be more readable (or use a glass of tap beer). When I tried full-screen mode on the wider screen, the dialogue menu didn't scale properly and stretched the character on the right.
The sound is perfect and creates the expected atmosphere. The music is nicely composed, but in one part I found the melodic line a little repetitive, which can frustrate the player.
The gameplay and the idea of double vision is great. I found it a bit challenging - especially on the 6th level, but I managed it. I also experienced a small bug during cutscenes where the character was moved outside the game's borders during the narrative.
Somehow didn't like the blood particles and character dying in combination with people laughing. But that is the individual, just like a taste of humour.
Overall, a perfect Game Jam performance. Congratulations on a really nice and playful game.
Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
The dialog stretching problem sounds really weird, we might want to check that out before the next jam lol.
Also the laugh track right after you die is very intentional but I agree the execution probably could have been better.