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Castle of the Cosmos's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #2 | 4.816 | 4.816 |
| Soundtrack/SFX | #14 | 4.237 | 4.237 |
| Overall | #31 | 4.053 | 4.053 |
| Gameplay | #40 | 3.921 | 3.921 |
| Gameboy Soul | #52 | 4.184 | 4.184 |
| Interpretation of the Secondary Theme | #264 | 3.105 | 3.105 |
Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game match the theme?
WARNING: There is a bug where music can stack if you revisit previously entered areas. THERE IS NO MISSABLE CONTENT IN PREVIOUS AREAS, so to avoid most instances where this happens, don't go backwards once you've entered a new room!
Our game uses a unique damage mechanic that emphasizes the common fighting game concept of SPACING - a projectile that moves at a 45 degree angle and increases in strength with every bounce. Rather than targeting enemies directly, players are encouraged to line up their position carefully to space their attacks and maximize damage.
As an added thematic bonus, our game features a Lovecraftian monster from outer space as the main antagonist, and a surprise otherworldly twist at the end.
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Comments
Man, that was bloody fun. Just tossing around orbs that got stronger, really selling that trickshot vibe. Only issue was that visual clarity wasn't the best due to a lack of contrast. But the enemies and boss was awesome.
I hope you expand on the idea, like adding different angles you could fire at or different orbs. And new enemies that make you take advantage of trickshots. This game's concept has some real potential.
Excellent game! Really, really like the nods in the opening sequence (and the rad splash screen!)
The music was on point and the art is absolutely gorgeous! The backgrounds were setting off my dithermania. Very neat combat mechanic and some nice, intentional level design to support it (some of the setups with the floating medusa-type enemies felt neat to re-approach and go "oh, that's why that ledge is there").
Also, wow, what a stacked team. Great job to all involved!
Thanks for all the kind words!
Pretty polished. Congrats!
In my humble opinion, everything, the enemies, the camera, etc, seems to move too quickly. I cant get enough time to appreciate the nice sprite work. (:
I would recommend some kind of bounding box based camera movement, so it doesnt move when making very small movements. Also something like Mario, in which the camera only moves up if you land in a platform above.
nice game anyway :)
Thank you! Good ideas all around - frankly, I think the number one thing the gameplay style needs to work perfectly is a bigger screen, haha.
Extremely polished game!
The weapon was nice and creative. I would've introduced enemies in places with low ceilings, so the weapon bounces would make it act like a conventional weapon, and make later encounters happen in more open areas, forcing players to dance around enemies.
Awesome game, congrats!
Thanks for playing! We'd have loved to have had a bit more time to really fine-tune the levels to make the most of the mechanic, for sure.
Pretty solid Castlevania style game.
Thank you!
Finally got around to playing this submission! I love metroidvania/castlevania games, and this game definitely nailed that vibe. Honestly kinda felt like playing Castlevania using only the ricochet ball sub-weapon (Not sure what that is called)
Anyways, fantastic work overall, I felt the art and everything fit the gameboy aesthetic very well. The only minor nitpick I'd give is that the gameplay could be a bit more interesting if it had more to do with the secondary theme, it felt like you guys had a planned gameplay style you wanted to do before knowing the secondary theme, and were like yeah, let's just say this castle is in space.
That said, obviously my lowest points for you goes in the interpretation of the secondary theme, but don't let that bother you, you nailed everything else and it was an enjoyable experience! I hope you finish whatever vision you had for this project, and continue to make games in the future!
Thanks for checking it out!
I love this submission. The art is incredible and all the different monsters are really cool. I think the attack concept is cool, and I would love to see it fleshed out more. Incredible job!
Thanks for playing! We think the bouncing projectile idea has a lot of potential for sure - we barely scratched the surface of it here.
cool game i loved how it looks like the classic castlevanias
Thank you!
first up, this game is absolutely beautiful, the work on the sprites are stunting.
the gameplay is a bit clunky, and the camera stutters due to larping in the small resolution.
as a fan of castlevania I felt the need to complete it lol.
Thanks for checking it out! The camera lerp definitely wasn't ideal, but we opted to keep it in the interest of time, as we had more critical gameplay issues to iron out in the short time we had.
Graphics and music are amazing!
I was able to break the game a few times and I felt like it took away from the "game boy" feel to have jump be bound to space bar.
Overall amazing submission!
Thank you! In case you weren't aware, the space bar is just one option for jumping (mostly for the WASD control scheme). You can also play the game with the arrow keys and Z/X if that's your preference, or a gamepad!
Graphics are great! Music is nice (although i accidentally caught your bug)
Mechanics has a good idea, but i think you should give a lot of space (at least at the beginning to really show it's potential to the player) for training. Gameboy doesn't give mush resolution so i guess it'd be much better in bigger resolution. Speaking of that, camera smoothing doesn't really help with low resolution. Because when camera is slowly moving 1 pixel to catch up to player it doesn't look nice when pixels are this big (I'd have preferred fixed or player centered camera, as all genuine Gameboy games).
I love 2d Castlevanias, and of course i enjoyed your game! I admire your creativity, you just need more practice!
Best wishes!
Thank you! Camera was definitely a tough thing to get right - we felt it needed to look in front of the player to account for the small screen size and the need to be able to see ahead of you to line up the projectile properly, but the smoothing solution we opted for was definitely imperfect. If only we had more time!
Fun romp. Great art, sound, and vibe! I quite liked the spacing mechanic and would like to explore it more.
Thank you! So would we, haha.
I love every single thing in this game.
the castlevania vibe, the simple but fluid gameplay, the graphics style and the music. oh the music. it really hits the spot. 10/10
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
HMMM WHAT? THIS IS MY FAVORITE IN THE WHOLE JAM <3
Thank you for playing! Really appreciate it :)
It was pleasure to play this game. As was said art, music are excellent. Gameplay mechanic with increasing damage per bounce was not very clear till I read it, but still was fun. For me is the most highly rated game so far! I think you had happy time doing this, congratulations!
Thank you for the feedback and for playing! Yes, it was a lot of fun working on it!
Guys that's a really great game with a god-like artwork. Everyone on the stream enjoyed it.
Thanks a lot for playing, we really appreciate it!
Congratulations on making such a great game and getting my first perfect score! Top tier everything, and a totally unique interpretation of the theme on top of that! As a Game Boy homebrew dev I think 90% of this game could actually work on a Game Boy Color. Has your team ever considered working with the real hardware?
Thank you! Very high praise, glad the game resonated with you so much.
I wouldn't say we ever considered working with real hardware, since we wanted to use whatever software we were most comfortable with in order to get things done quickly (this was built in GameMaker), but we did wonder how much of the game would be possible, especially considering the detailed art and animations. We mostly assumed it would be way too much, so it's cool that you think it could maybe be done.
Interpretation of the theme is loose in nature, but I wanted to say this is easily the most gorgeous submission I've seen so far, from the artist direction to the solid gameplay.
Thanks a lot for playing!
Absolutely GORGEOUS game. The art is amazing (definitely top tier), the gameplay is smooth and the weapon of choice is very interesting! Also, the music takes me back to castlevania, obvious inspirations. I can see this becoming a bigger game with a full story, it just invites us to know more about the world and to PLAY more! Interesting way to incorporate the SPACE theme in the gameplay too!
I can feel the game boy vibes from the title, but I think the monsters, characters and maybe even the scenario are way too complex for the game boy. Too bad because I was DYING to test it in the original hardware, it remembers a little Fallen Crown. T-T
Funnily enough, as the person who wrote most of the music, I've never played a Castlevania game! Obviously the rest of the team was heavily inspired by Castlevania for this, though, so I tried to write the kind of music that I imagined Castlevania games must have, with a bit of my own personal taste thrown in, haha. Glad to hear I was pretty close! Maybe I'll finally play SotN now...
Thanks for playing!
That really just make it more impressive! You really got the vibe here!
Go for symphony! And the DS ones are the pinnacle of the series! Portrait of Ruin is definitely my favorite!
Wow, the art and music are amazing! The gameplay is mostly smooth and the shooting mechanic was really interesting and it was fun to use. I had the music bug after dying a couple of times fighting the final boss so had to mute, unfortunately. A small nitpick is that I feel like the space theme is a bit of a stretch. Fantastic work, very impressive for such a short amount of time!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback!