| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Soundtrack/SFX | #140 | 3.294 | 3.294 |
| Graphics | #168 | 3.647 | 3.647 |
| Gameplay | #256 | 2.471 | 2.471 |
| Gameboy Soul | #259 | 3.059 | 3.059 |
| Overall | #265 | 2.859 | 2.859 |
| Interpretation of the Secondary Theme | #374 | 1.824 | 1.824 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game meet GBJam's theme?
It's about a poltergeist claw machine game. And the bosses/enemies were supposed to be based around spooky toys (but I had no time to do them :/)
That was a neat prototype! The art is charming, the soundtrack is cool, and the concept is interesting.
The music is a bit too loud. The volume on some the music tracks repeatedly peaks over +0.0 dB.
All-in-all, good work! Congratulations on the submission!
this looks rly cool and i am very curious to what it can become with a bit more time. the main thing i had an issue with was lack of i guess feedback/ tutorialization? i was just kind of confused about what was going on a lot of the time. at the character select there was no sound feedback for going to each portrait so i just kind of kept going around and around until it clicked to me what the screen was. then in the game the toys and stuff would be falling and i'd touch it (without doing the claw machine grab) and it'd be caught and then just evaporates (so, echoing rikoclon's comment!) so i was sort of confused thinking maybe i did smth wrong? but then the score would go up so i figured it was fine lol.
when the game sent me back to the first screen and i went back in again, i was able to do the claw grab thing and that felt a lot better and made more sense to me! i did read your comment on what the intent was and yes!!! it was ambitious but i hope you do go for all that post-jam :D looking forward to what's next! :D
It's great that you were able to get so much in with the time limit, and unfortunate the full vision was not reached. The concept is interesting, and perhaps with more time the execution could have been better.
I had some trouble understanding what was goin on just from playing without any instruction. I thought I would have to claw, then carry, then drop, so I was surprised to see the claw gobble things up on its own. It felt like the traditional claw gameplay evaporated a bit with each gobble. The music and art are certainly enjoyable, but don't seem to match the theme all that well. The candy corn came close to matching the spooky theme, but I had trouble figuring out what the other pick-ups were. The robot arm seemed like it would be a power up, but gameplay didn't change after collecting it. I tried all the levels but other than music and palette changes I didn't notice a difference. I also didn't understand how to loose health or use attacks, and the UI elements left me wondering if I was missing something. The levels just end, and I couldn't figure out the condition that caused that. Some type of level end scene in between the level and the level select scene could be beneficial. or in the very least some type of text with an audio cue to let you know if the level is ending because you did good or because you did poorly. I wasn't sure if there was a way to do poorly, actually. I had a score so I couldn't have been doing poorly.. but I don't know if I was doing well either. In the end the experience is definitely cute and its concepts are surely intriguing.
Making games is always tough! The deadlines and rules can make things even harder.. Its important to be proud of what you've done regardless of how well it play tests. The whole point of these jams is to learn, and I hope my feedback helps you on your journey! Thank you for sharing your work and taking part in the jam!
Thank you so much for playing and specially for your feedback! Really appreciate it!
Trust me there was a plan for all the elements you interacted with and mention (level transitions being one that I still tried to squeeze at the end but was unable to)! Sadly I took too long with other aspects that perhaps didn't need to be perfected to be functional.
Regarding the pickups, much like the candy corn, they were based on our halloween candy but I tried to make them more generic.
For the game loop, since I was only able to finish the item pickups I modified the loop a bit to end after you pick up a few of them, so that front you were doing good :)
Unfortunately the more spooky bits were left undone (enemies, bosses).
So in the end, ideally this game would have had enemies and bosses that would be different in each stage and themed around spooky monsters. You would indeed be able to grab and drop enemies to the big hole to score points and clear the stage. The enemies/bosses would also be the things that would cause you to lose health.
It was ambitious to say the least hehe.
Thanks again for your feedback and for playing! :)
an angry crane game where you consume the items! I guess it is unfinished, but it looks promising! I wonder how different would have been the 6 levels (I’m not sure how you can get the game over screen tho XD I feel like I’m missing contents!)
Hey thanks for playing! Yes it is quite unfinished as I spent most time going over some things which in hindsight could have been done later hehe.
The game over screen is in game (actually one of the things that I could have done later tbh) however, due to time constraints you cannot die! I didn't want the art to go to waste so I added it as a screenshot.
Thanks again for playing!
Cool game and I love the different themes! Can't wait to see what happens with the enemies added later on.
I'm not quite sure what I was doing there. I grabbed things that then disappeared though I expected to have to drop them somewhere. I was able to automatically grab things that were falling and I don't know what my goal was besides grabbing things.
I am sure these things probably make more sense in the finished product, but right now they left me puzzled.
The graphics are nice and gameboy-ish. I didn't find anything spooky, but from your description I take it that aspect didn't make it before the submission deadline.
Hey! Thanks for the feedback and for playing!
Regarding the things you were grabbing, they were items that the player could consume during the levels to either gain health, increase speed, fill up the secondary atk bar (if not full already), and to become invincible for some time. Initially I did debate whether the player should consume or drop them in the hole in order to consume them. I decided that you would just need to grab them because, with enemies on screen it would probably become too difficult to manage everything.
By itself as you mentioned, the mechanic does not make much sense.
Regarding the goal of the game, drag and drop enemies into the hole and eventually the stage boss. But due to time constraints I was not able to finish this :/
Thanks again for playing! :)
Looking forward to see where this project goes, this is a solid start!
Cool!
Grabbing stuff in the air felt like cheating.
Didn't find much of the secondary theme, but the music is awesome.
It's a pity that you didn't manage to implement the boss fights, because the stage select reminds me to Megaman, and I was excited to fight the gameboy guy in the center! Good work and nice art :)
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