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GBJam10 - Potbound's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameboy Soul | #3 | 4.409 | 4.409 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.909 | 3.909 |
| Graphics | #11 | 4.227 | 4.227 |
| Interpretation of the secondary theme | #12 | 4.045 | 4.045 |
| Soundtrack/SFX | #25 | 3.591 | 3.591 |
| Gameplay | #34 | 3.273 | 3.273 |
Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Too much dialogues and intro for my taste and it isn't easy to skip, and I lost once and had to restart the game. I liked the interpretation of the secondary theme though. Even though I hated to read all text again, I played again and almost exit the trash but the controls during the exit part were a bit unresponsive and I lost :( It was fun to play anyways (I am not trying again)
It took me way too long to finally figure out how attacks works. The first boss was really hard and it took way too long to learn the patterns, sometimes you couldn't even move. Also, all of the bosses are the exact same and there are no real differences between them.
But still a really great game.
The art, sound and writing are phenomenal!! The characters are so great... and I felt very immersed in this world. I'm blown away by how many characters you were able to create in that time. And I lol'd so many times at the dialogue. The overall tone of the game is perfect... and hilarious.
The art and animations are incredible and it felt like playing an authentic GB game. Like one that came out back then, but somehow you never played, but now you discover it in the used section at a Gamestop.
I really enjoyed this game, the art/dialogue is great and is fun and super-charming. You guys fit a lot into this too, I fully expected the game to end after getting out of the trash bag.
It's a shame you ended up dropping the block puzzle aspect and focused on combat in the second half of the game. While I like the combat minigame, I don't think it's engaging enough to carry the game on it's own, and that's really all the game is once you get into the kitchen. I think some continuation of the block puzzles would have helped break up the combat a lot more (But that probably wouldn't have been doable in the time limit).
I see someone else commented their frustrations with the healing mechanic lol. I ended up giving up against the plant boss after beating my head against her on one health for a while. I think it goes to show how adding extra mechanics doesn't always help you, and that simple solutions (Like just fully healing the player) can sometimes be better if it helps players better engage with the core of your game (The dialogue and story in this case).
All in all you guys did a fantastic job, I just wish I could have saw the ending.
I'm really loving what I'm playing, the game is gorgeous, the scenario and dialogs are really good, especially for a jam game... but then there is one design direction that is infuriating to me and makes me wonder what the hell happened to you guys, when everything else is so polished and smart.
The freaking healing mechanic.
It just makes absolutely no sense. The fighting mechanic is fun but it's hard to understand (I had to read through the comments to get that you first see anticipations and then attacks). The thing is that once you understand it, you may very well already have healed a lot after losing a bunch of battles.
And at this point you understand another mechanic : the healing can once empty stays empty forever.
This makes absolutely no sense, it means that in a game focused on narrative, you're now doomed to finish every single fight with a single health point.
I'm fighting the Plant boss now and she is hard as hell. Inputs are dropping left and right and it's driving me mad because I love everything else, I want to finish the game and leave with a good impression but this is definitely impossible now.
A simple fix would be getting rid of the healing mechanic entirely, replenishing the player's health to the fullest after each defeat.
Otherwise it's a damn good game as I said, the initial block pushing puzzles are cool, every character is super endearing, the spritework is phenomenal... I just wish the game didn't start hating the player midway.
Edit : restarted the whole game just to not empty the health can, made it all the way to the Plant Boss, still had to empty the whole can ^^" luckily I managed to beat her right after that ahah. Still kinda pissed :D
Congratulations on finishing the game!
Honestly we approached the health restoring from every angle - make it so the oasis heals you (it should, it doesn't, it's bugged) - make it so there's an NPC that always heals you back to health in the kitchen (this felt clunky) - the only area where you can heal back up after defeat is with the banana and that was hastily patched to just send the player back to the credits screen to prevent a crash on failure.
Everything is very much held together with duct tape.
What never occurred to us was just auto-healing the player and getting rid of the can entirely. That would've saved us so many issues. Unfortunately by the time we were discussing it we had half a day left and all the dialogue to write.
We hope you enjoyed the game. Lance is looking over the code to do some post-jam fixes, and I think your feedback of just healing the player will be useful.
Thanks for playing and your thorough feedback!
Great game! Captivating and well written dialogue, amazing art and music.
Keep it up!
This game oozes charm! I love all the environments and character designs – the character avatars in particular made me chuckle! The dodging parts also kept me on my toes. Amazing job!!
I've never cared about a small potted plant as much as I did while playing this. I didn't realize you could heal until WAAAAAY into the game. The sink area felt like it might have been a "Mario 64 infinite staircase" or something. I would hit those little buggers every 2 steps and if I messed up once, I had to start over. Art and characters here are adorable. Great story with a very simple but engaging combat system. All around a very cool experience and a lot of spunk packed in here, especially for a jam game. Great work.
Cute game really like it
Loved it, the combination of puzzle like adventures, humor and cute story made it for me. The music wasn´t awesome, but it definitely made a good ambience. Great work!
You guys killed it. The writing was surprisingly touching at times, all the characters felt unique. Sprite work and palette were on point, and I liked the puzzly mechanics of moving around the plant. Good job!
Love the artstyle!
Really cool, very cute art style.
As others have said though the dodge mechanic could be a bit better telegraphed. It would also be nice if the plant healed when you went back to a checkpoint, getting stuck one one "leaf?" is a little annoying.
Incredibly well made game in every aspect. Congrats!
Very good entry! Loved the graphics, the sound, the soul...that was so cool!! I might play it again soon aha
I loved it! The story is very nice, the characters are very original and the design of the puzzles very successful !
Lovely characters!
I took a while to understand that the first motions are anticipations and not attacks, after that, fights went very smoothly. At times it feels like I was dropping inputs, might be a limitation of the engine.
Very cute and entertaining, good stuff.
Man, the writing is really quite endearing. Like, man, I care about these characters. And the dodge gameplay is quite fun. Telegraphing could be a bit more obvious as "telegraphing" since it looks a bit like an attack. And the pushing gameplay at the start was a bit slow. (And the insect part is a bit longgggggggg)
Very cute game with an interesting theme and a fun mix of mechanics. Even though the controls were a bit frustrating at times. I didn’t expect to care at all about rotting vegetables