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Any Key's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Adherence to the Theme | #975 | 3.609 | 3.609 |
| Design | #1178 | 2.870 | 2.870 |
| Overall | #1207 | 3.159 | 3.159 |
| Originality | #1337 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
While the controls feel a bit wayward, I really dig the concept. Both the idea of using the keyboard as a sort of lifebar and character selection (which sadly did not make it into the submission) as well as the the fact that both jumping and stopping are triggered by the same key. Takes quite some practice to get it right, but also makes it way more satisfying than the usual infinite runner, once you get up to speed. :)
My game: https://njamster.itch.io/wonkey (playable in browser, not mobile friendly)
When you can get the cube moving fast the game feels great. It look me a bit to figure out what would cause me to stumble but I enjoyed learning that myself. A checkpoint or two would have been a nice touch. The key has a lot of personality for just being a cube. Great job
Thanks! With a couple updates, the little key should have an "up" end, a little face, and little arms and legs, so it should be easier to tell what's happening to it. Thanks for the feedback!
Interesting. I think the use of a physics engine rather than hard coded movement (I think I'm right there?) makes it way harder than it needs to be sadly. I really struggled to get the cube moving well since I wasn't overly sure how to control it! Sometimes it would react instantly to a button press, other times ... nothing. That being said I still managed to get a reasonable way :D I looked at the cover/screenshots to see what it looked like when you were playing it properly which actually helped a lot ha.
Thanks for playing! Yeah using the physics engine was kindof a shot in the dark, but it does result in some neat side-effects, as well as some frustrating ones. We'll try to make it more predictable, and atleast with the finished art, the remaining clumsiness should be atleast more funny than frustrating. Thanks for the feedback.
First of all a word to the players: Think about this game as the "Bennett Foddy game of endless runners"...good, now go back and play it again :)
Now onto the review. It takes quite a lot of getting used to the controls, although there is not much to it. I had to think with "programmer brain" to figure out how the cube works. If you could make the cube into something that has a clear bottom and top it would be a nice help for anyone who doesn't understand why the cube doesn't jump properly (while it's upside down).
On the other hand I like the subtle things like the slowing down and jumping are the same action and you have to balance them to get to the next platform. Also the level design complements the player controls very well with the small bumps that you can fail on if you are not careful enough.
One more thing is that maybe adding a couple of checkpoints would benefit the game because getting through a hard part (albeit accidentally), then failing on an obvious challenge and getting put back to the very beginning was very frustrating at times.
All in all it's a great concept and with a better execution (subtle changes) would be an enjoyable yet challenging platformer.
We'll try to complete the game soon, so things like the "up" end of the button are apparent, and the in-game keyboard will work as a finite-life counter. Thanks for playing and giving us valuable feedback!
Yeah! I was hoping for the keyboard being kind of a life-pool. That's awesome :D
Have fun finishing the game!
I had to hit my keys very hard to get any sort of reaction from the cube. I was also unable to figure out when it moved or stopped. Sometimes when I pressed space it would jump immediately and sometimes I had to hold it down and then let go to get a jump at all. this made going across platforms extremely frustrating as often the cube wouldn't respond.
I like the simple visuals, however the pixelated edges of the cube, while interesting, only served to make it more difficult to see exactly what the cube was doing.
Nice, simple concept. Confusing and frustrating controls
Yeah, though trying to use a physics engine for this gives the Button character some cute clumsiness, it borders on frustrating at times. We'll probably keep tweaking the way the character is rigged and controlled to eventually get the best of both worlds. The pixelation too, doesn't take the player's screen into consideration, so every game pixel is 6 real pixels no matter what, which only looks ideal on high res monitors (I'm on a macbook pro). We should fix that. Anyways, thanks for playing and taking the time to give us good feedback!
Thanks for playing and your feedback! We'll try to make the physics more predictable and make it obvious which end is up soon!
The way the player bounces around off of obstacles can make the physics pretty unpredictable and a bit frustrating. Neat concept though and I like the graphical style
I agree! We'll try to make the physics more predictable, though some "clumsiness" of the cube is funny enough to keep. Thanks playing and your feedback!