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1mpulse's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Design | #526 | 3.606 | 3.606 |
| Overall | #577 | 3.739 | 3.739 |
| Originality | #679 | 3.702 | 3.702 |
| Adherence to the Theme | #716 | 3.910 | 3.910 |
Ranked from 188 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Have to agree with lethandralis. Looks very cool, plays very nice, but the theme is not explored really in depth. At this point I feel like Mark Brown already gave to many options about what "only one" could mean.
Thanks for the feedback ! I don't think Mark "gave" options, he just gave examples on the theme. And it is a really hard theme because it has a lot of stuff possible.
I really want to know how we didn't explore the theme in depth ? I'm sincerely at a loss here...
I mean technically you did, absolutely.
To me personally, there were a few possible ideas (and most of them Mark mentioned) that are too bland in my opinion. For example you would go for a game that has only 1 level. Now you could make any game you want, no matter what, and just include one level and you fulfilled the topic 100%. Is it innovative? Probably not. Is the design good? No idea, depends on your game, but the 1 level aspect does not play into the design.
And I feel similar about the the 1 button control. Yes, you fulfill the topic 100%. But you can make all sorts of games with one button controls, and they all share that same requirement, and none of them would really tell me anything about it's design, originality. etc. If it helps, I feel the same about all the one button games in this jam.
Don't take it personally please, your game is still awesome. In the end, it's about how you interpret things. Not me, not others, not even Mark.
Thanks for the clarification !
I agree with you 100%, it's really easy to fit the theme this year. And our game isn't an exception. That is why even fitting the theme isn't enough this year
And what I think makes our game good is the other points to mentionned. We tried to make a game with a deeper design that most one button game you can find.
- You have a recharge system
- You can use comets (even if that's hard right now, needs tweaking) to charge your ship and give you an extra pulse
- You can orbit around planet (and recharge around them)
- You have to manage the rotation of your ship to go where you want
- The impulse has to charge, enough or it won't work but not too much so it doesn't explode
- The rotation means you need to explore the map to know what is the better strategy to go far away
And that's just on the top of my head, our designer would do a better job than me for that. And everything listed above... Is with one button ^^
Thank you for the feedback anyway it's great to see how other people see our game, because it's quite clear to us, but it seems it's not obvious :)
Hey @Hermicrab,
I think I understand what you mean, but do you think that having this single system (our 1mpulse reactor) activated by a single button and let the player go 360°, use orbit, recharge the reactor, slow time and cancel the 1mpulse was a lazy exploration and that we only wanted to "tick the box" of the theme?
Because for us, it drove every single one decision we made regarding the design and how to have art/sound support it. I don't say you're wrong, I just want to understand if you didn't see the design depth and that's why you think we didn't really explore the theme or if if we're missing something else here.
And don't worry, we don't take anything personally and are happy to have constructive feedback ^^
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
I'll try to keep it brief:
I asked myself about my game: Would it matter / change much if more than the 1 would be allowed to hit the goal tile. (Yes, in my opinion. It would be extremely boring).
So you could ask yourself how different would your game be if you would have more than one buttons.
Ok, so the answer would be yes. Because everything was designed around the "only one system" idea. Without this, I'd have left the player choose the ship's direction and remove the spinning mechanic or the orbit and slingshot mechanic, the player could recharge the reactor just by grabbing "floating collectible batteries" like in some many game, instead of forcing him to use the only one button.
Remove this idea, add other systems and buttons and of course It'd be a completely different game. To be honest, it wouldn't even be a game in space, the idea itself came from the restriction. And guess what, it'd be a boring game in my opinion, yes. I suppose it's not your opinion then, and I understand it, no worries ;)
Thanks for your feedback.
Then you did everything correctly.
I think correctly, yes (but what I think is not really important). Perfectly, clearly not :D
Btw your game is cool, I'm really not a "puzzle designer" so I'm always impressed by this kind of design, congrats.
I'm torn, I don't know what to rate this game. On one hand its extremely beautiful, and I can see the effort went into this. On the other hand unlike many people in the comment section I don't think the theme was explored very well. Having only one button / one objective can apply to a lot of games in the mobile market already. Also the objective wasn't very clear to me. My 2 cents. I bet you guys could accomplish great things given enough time.
Thanks for the feedback !
As @Aegard said in an earlier comment, and I'll let him answer in more details, the theme has been respected (as it is a one button game as you said ^^) but it shouldn't restrict other parts of the design just because there is a theme. Only One battery cell wouldn't be fun to play.
The theme should drive creativity, not constrain it ;)
Hey lethandralis, thanks for your comment :)
So you think we didn't explore the theme well enough because it's not original?
We know the game is, despite still being in the theme, not a brand new fresh concept but to be fair, the design has slightly drifted from the initial pitch ( but you know... time/production constraints ^^ ).
We did have another pitch that was a bit more original, but also much more ambitious and we heart-brokenly discarded it because we didn't feel it was doable in 48hours.
I'm now curious about what you would actually change in the concept? Did you have something in mind?
@KiruB and @MaxiPoki, and all developers,
I did not say that the game doesn't fit the theme, it does - but it seems to be a game that happens to fit the theme, rather than a game that is designed around the theme. Yes, the theme should not diminish the user experience, but I believe it *should* restrict the design. That is the beauty of it - working with constraints, so your creativity is boosted. Obviously I cannot come up with a design that will drastically improve and build upon your concept off the top of my head, I had to think for hours to find a game design that fits the theme for my game. And I'm definitely not claiming I could do a better job than you guys did. It's easy to like a polished game with beautiful graphics but harder to give useful criticism - and it is even harder to accept the critique as developers, as you worked really hard to build something you love.
The funny thing is we actually thought for hours as well and had other ideas that were probably more designed around the theme as you said but discarded them because they would have been way more risky in 40h.
I totally understand your point and to be honest I am probably the guy within the team who agrees with you the most.
I can assure you we do accept and value criticism. After all, it's just a jam and we all do our best to have a great time ^^.
Thanks for the comment ! Any constructed feedback is really appreciated ;)
That is a conversation we had yesterday. And I disagree with you ^^
I think the design shouldn't be constrained by the theme. It can if you want, don't get me wrong, but it shouldn't by default. I mean our game wouldn't be as interesting with only one charge available, that is bad design in my opinion to constrain that just because of the "only one" theme.
To me I find it as beautiful and interesting to fit the theme and think everything as carefully as possible around it. And I think that is something we did with our game. Sure our base idea isn't original, a lot of game are one button game after all, even in this jam.
But I think we crafted a design around that constraint to make a deep and interesting game. You have a lot to do, to think about, you can make a strategy to do the best as you can. And all that around that one button design.
Find the most original stuff and constraint a lot your design or use the least original stuff but build as many things as you can around it are two sides of the same coin. And the two are a way of exploring the theme.
Obligatory comment on the stunning audio, art, and graphics, I just want to stare at it all day long, it's so amazing! (coming from a guy who can only draw triangle shapes haha)
That aside, and if you'd accept some constructive criticism, I feel like the main mechanic here is out of focus. That central focus: timing your impulse to bounce from planet to planet on the way out from the center, I'm just not seeing that explored in a fun way with the gameplay here.
I know from the comments below that you are ready to do some tweaking, but before you just start changing those variables in the script I'd ask you to take a step back and look at the design holistically, and really try to refocus and nail down what you are going for here. It's very easy to lose sight of that, especially when working on a large project with a big team.
All that said, I'm still astounded you accomplished this much in the 48 hours, and I look forward to seeing the updated version!
Thank you so much for your constructive comment, and I'm glad you like the art! ^_^
Thank you cjgunnar ! :)
Let's say the design slightly drifted from what we first pitched, mainly due to time and production constraints ^^.
You may be right in saying that the central mechanic is out of focus, and we would have certainly tweak how it works if it wasn't for the deadline getting closer and closer.
I'm not the designer, so I won't elaborate too much but we all agree we probably spend too much time and focus on driving the team, and might have, as you said, not step back enough.
I think we are trying to acknowledge of that and, from those already there, it was already an improvement compared to last year edition. I'm sure will do better next year ^^.
Thanks for your constructive feedback though, we'll try to keep your advice in minds when we'll iterate on this entry again (probably after the shit-ton of bugs we need to fix first xD).
Constructive criticism is always appreciated ;) Thanks for the feedback !
We have a very clear idea in mind of where we want to go with our game, but timing and production constraint made us change things to make it in a releasable state for the jam.
The base is here and (as you know ^^) we need to tweak it :) And there are some improvement along the way too :)
Probably the most visually impactful game during the entire jam. The main mechanic of the game works really great and sticks to the theme perfectly. The only complain I have is that the game can feel little pointless considering my only goal is just a highscore ladder (maybe collecting some parts in order to escape would help...?). Great game nonetheless and really good job!
Thanks for your feedback !
I agree that for now the game might feel incomplete. First we need to do some tweaking to achieve the best experience possible with what we currently have.
And we have some ideas to make the game ever more interesting and juicy, hopefully we'll be able to put that later ;)
Hey thanks for your feedback.
We also wanted to keep "only one goal" as it fitted well the theme. But the make a longer game, collecting parts could be intersting!
Cheers
Beautiful game! I loved the visuals, and how everything was glowing. It looked epic. The music was amazing too.
Thanks ! I'll try your game as soon as I can access my PC — seen 'ninja' in the title, already into it :D.
Like many said, it looks stunning! Everything in it is solid enough, it has a coherent design that works well, but I can't say it's as impressive as the other aspects. It definitely ranks great in terms of adherence to the theme though!
Hey, thanks for your comment, very much appreciated :)
I agree with you and it's mostly my fault :o
I spend the last day doing production stuff instead of design (not helped by the fact that for some mystical reason, It wasn't possible anymore for me to submit things). So yeah I can't wait to be able to tweak everything to improve the design (but the basis are there I think) now that we'll have more time :)
Cheers.
I totally get what you mean, we had a similar problem with level designing and especially playtesting our game's levels. Great to hear you'll keep working on it!
Yeah, we're definitely still not used to make games in 48hrs.
Ah ah tell us about level design. The good thing is that we designed the game to support procedural generation and I'd really like to work on this, so yeah we should continue to give this game more love.
Cheers
Oh, same here, this was actually my first time on a gamejam and working with other people, so this surely has been an interesting experience.
Anyway, I suppose once you got the procedural generation done that sped up your workflow quite a bit?
We don't have any procedural generation yet ;) That would have been wayyyyy too long to do in 48h. But we plan to do it :)
THIS GAME LOOKS AMAZING!
I spent a looong amount of time playing this. The mechanic works really well and there's a lot to do.
And did I mention the art is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS?
I'm extremely impressed!
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Hey, we made a GMTK game too. Check it out!
Thanks for your feedback ! Your game concept is really nice and I totally dig your art.
Thanks very much ! It's great to see you played it a lot :)
I need to play your game, I love the art :o
Thank you so much! Really glad you like it so much. :)
Your game looks super pretty!
I've just played your game, it's my favourite one on this Jam so far!
So clever and beautiful, I love it, congratulations :)
Looks good , very appealing game
Thank you Abishek :)
Thanks :)
I don't get how the ship is too unpredictable. As the narrative of the game says, nothing works on your ship but the 1mpulse drive. That means we needed to make the ship turn around so you only had to focus on ONE system.
And it works in an easy pattern I think :
- This ship spin faster and faster until a max rotation speed.
- When time slows time when charging, you can more easily target where you want to go.
- After an impulse your ship goes straight and when the FX is done it goes back to spinning.
I know we need to tweak some things to make it easier to get by. But it's more tweaking than design problem in my opinion. Visuals shouldn't matter but I think lack of tweak shouldn't either. The design is there, it just need some adjustments.
But thanks for this feedback, it means we still have work to do on that !
On another note, I know it's a game jam, but is it a reason not to make a good game visually if we can ? We didn't focus on the visuals, our main focus was the design and delivering it as best as we could. We have awesome artists in our team and they've been able to deliver awesome visuals.
As an artist, I'm not sure I enjoy this comment. Game jams are for artists as much as they are for developers. They are a way for everyone to learn new things, experiment, and simply spend a good time with friends. But thank you for giving it a try and leaving a comment, it's appreciated. :)
It's your choice to not like our game, we don't judge and it's right to disagree, it can starts interesting discussions.
But we never said visuals should count in the rating. They shouldn't.
AND! We didn't try to make an "art contest" as you said. Our artist just wanted to try things out and make a beautiful game, is that wrong ? Just because it's a jam about design we should restrict our artists ?
The fact that you don't like our art choice is another problem entirely.
I also believe a good design can be fun to play without fancy graphics. Strip our game of its graphics and it will still be fun to play in my opinion (and I believe also for the other people who like the feeling of our game). But all together is the experience we wanted to provide. It wouldn't be the same if all were separated. If it's not your kinda game, that's ok, but don't make our artists feel bad because they did an awesome job ;)
And I believe Zelda Breath of The Wild has awesome art and visuals... don't you ? ;)
The things you mention as design fail are mostly by lack of time to fine tune, as you said the ideas are good they just need more tweaking (besides bugs).
And I still don't get how our ship is too unpredictable. I really want to know what you don't understand.
It turns all the time except just after you used an impulse and then it turns again. And the rotation is always in the same direction.
There are some bug still, but overall the pattern stays the same.
Hey @Rismosch,
It's ok to disagree and you have the right to dislike our game's gameplay! As you could see in the other comments, many people like it and find it fun. If you think there are all wrong and the game has a bad design, that's fine by me :)
Let me just add this: We didn't participate in this Jam to be the most popular game (we're not and we'll never be). If we wanted to "perform" and get a good score, we'd spend more time on tweaking and get a better review. But our goal is different, we want to have fun and have everyone in the team enjoy their work and be challenged.
Also, I don't share your point of view about design being separated from the other discipline. For me, the design is at the centre of all discipline, linking them together to create an experience and I'm a strong believer of cross-pollination. Also, in my opinion, game feel and juice are super important and it's not "pretty art and music".
Though, once again, no hard feelings here and thanks for your feedback :)
Cheers.
This is one of the most highly rated ones I would imagine, I see you guys used shadergraph to do so many amazing visual tricks! I love the use of polar coordinates make everything better haha. The explosion is actually made way better by them tbh :p. I'm just learning about shaders rn and I really wanted to experiment with them during this Jam but i was a Solo boi this time and had to sacrifice certain aspects of the game over other ofcourse, I don't even think I got a lot of important player feedback in and juice. This game makes me truly feel the lack of juice in mine ;_;. Amazing work guys, props to the team! I'll keep my eye on you guys, expecting great things!
If you guys get the time, please try out my game :D
https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/460992
Thank you for the feebback, it's really nice to hear :)
We were a team of 7 so that's why we could deliver a lot of things, you can't really compare it if you are soloing the jam. Don't beat yourself up ;) And that doesn't make everything simpler, managing a big team is also a big task in itself XD
I'll try your game as soon as I can ;)
haha it's more inspiring if anything, props to the team really great job!
The shaders were made with AmplifyShader, which is my favorite nodal shader creation tool. :D
And they don't use polar coordinates, but simple refraction/distortion, and also a bit of UV distortion with a lot of panning textures~!
oooh I see, I've heard about it. I see people porting shaders from there to shadergraph still. It sounds pretty much the same.
How did you manage to get the swirl effect then? If not with polar coordinates.
And once again props to the team!!
The visuals are great! I really enjoy the effects.
Some feedback: I think the ship should lock rotation when you start charging. Otherwise it's hard to control exactly where you are going to end up.
Nice work!
Thanks for the feedback !
We know the rotation is a problem. We need to decide and test multiple solutions. And yours is an interesting one ;) Much appreciated !
Hi Ryan, thanks for your feedback :)
I don't think it should be locked, because we want to challenge your ability to anticipate and we think it's part of the fun, but, that being said, we clearly need to tweak it, it's not yet as satisfying as it should, you're right ^^
Cheers
This game is very fun, and very on theme!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. :)
Thank you !
Best and most thematic game I've seen yet! The visual effects were truly professional class! It would be great if you could recharge, though.
Thanks!!
You can recharge if you charge your impulse in the atmosphere of a planet or next to a comet! :)
Thanks for your comment taoroalin :)
As Sirhaian said, you should be able to recharge the 1mpulse drive on comets and planets by holding the Spacebar for a second. I hope that helps ^^
Thanks for the feedback ! You can indeed recharge when in orbit aroung planets... but sometimes it doesn't work unfortunately >< That's a known bug :'(
Amazing, graphics are excellent and the gameplay really fits. I found it a bit confusing at first but it got addicting quickly! Awesome job on this one!
Thank you! Super glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks! Very much appreciated :)
Thanks for the feedback !
Although for me the controls were not immediately apparent, I liked the simple concept once I knew how to navigate. The gravitational pull is a nice feature and the art is obviously amazing.
Thank you for the feedback !
What wasn't apparent to you? It's good to know what's wrong so we may fix it :)
I pressed quite a few buttons but didn't hold them down. So I didn't see the bar fill once i pressed space. Also I was playing on an underpowered computer, so not entirely your fault.
We planned having UI around the ship at first to avoid that. But with limited time it was easier that way ^^ But that is good to know ;)
also optimisations are on their way!
The game look amazing and the sound design is outstanding. The controls are hard to master since it is nearly impossible to know what kind of planet, star or object will be in the way I am shooting for. And impulsing takes too much time to initiate so it is hard to quickly dodge. Overall, it is a too hard but it is so pleasant to look at. Well done.
Thanks for the feedback!
It is hard to know where you're going. We started to fix that but not enough time to tweak it unfortunately. We hope to deliver a better release after the votes are done ;)
I'm happy you liked the game (even more now that you mentioned sound design ;p). Thanks for playing !
There are arrows to show the five nearest planets but there's a bug in this version not showing some.
Also, the bigger the arrow is, the bigger the planet will be.
Godly visuals. The trippy effect you get on game over is amazing. Big fan of the hyperbolic hues and chunky color blocks.
Bumpin soundtrack and sounds! I'm into it.
Gameplay is a bit outlandish -- I can never go quite where I want and hazards are hard to notice before it's too late.
Thanks for your feedback :)
We didn't have time to tweak a lot of things and among them the spaceships rotation for example for which we are not completely happy with.
We'll probably upload a new fine tuned version when rating is finished.
Thank you for the feedback! As @kirub said, some tweaks are still needed but 48 isn't enough ><
We hope to deliver a better release after the voting ends ;)
Glad you liked the soundtrack and effects ! Thanks for playing.
Nice looking and quite enjoyable game, well done!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
I just like games like it, and really enjoy visuals.
Thanks for the feedback :) Our artists did an awesome job !
They make a breathtaking job.;)
You are breathtaking!
I think the aesthetic was great! I really enjoyed watching everything. And I think the mechanic can be simplified and ties with being one buttoned a bit more? I feel that the battery charging mechanic paired with that slippery spinning takes too much control away from the player which makes that single button press feels not responsive and hence not very enjoyable, at least I wish the spinning can also be more controlled or more predictable. Maybe a double tap to spin 90 deg with half battery cost? And I have to say that the visual is the best one I have seen so far, the level of polish is awesome! Thanks for this interesting game!
Thank you so much for the feedback!
Thank you so much for the feedback!
I think there is a lot of truth in what you're saying. But we didn't have time to tweak everything as we wanted unfortunately. Some feedback are missing or not understandable enough so it can feel a bit weird sometime (mostly with the recharge as you said).
Hopefully we'll have time to work on it and release a better version after the votes are over ;)
I can totally understand the time constrains! (look at mine, unpolished to the degree that almost ruins the gameplay (but still worth a play!) ) so seeing a game so polished, with so much potential, I couldn't resist point out a thing or two. xD I think my suggestions are a bit rushed, so please take them not too seriously.
No worries, always glad to have (especially constructive) feedbacks and you clearly got a point there. :)
Constructive feedback is always appreciated, we hopefully will fix the problem in a later build ^^ I'll try out your game when I got the time ;)
Yeah, to be honest, we tried to put everything our amazing artists/sound designer made and it took us more time than expected.
So, you can point it out, because we were the first to blame ourselves even before the Jam's end because we didn't take enough time to tweak everything :o
It's the deal with a "big team", you fall in these kinds of traps :D
ps: I tried your game, it's fun and original, great job ^^
Beautiful game with a cool take on a classic mechanic. Nice work!
Thank you very much for your feedback :)