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Doodlebug Island's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #67 | 4.282 | 4.282 |
| Overall | #97 | 4.094 | 4.094 |
| Fun | #207 | 3.872 | 3.872 |
| Presentation | #267 | 4.128 | 4.128 |
Ranked from 39 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
The in-game social network joins players together and lets them share their experiences with one another
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the music during the game jam
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Comments
I never thought a game about taking pictures of bugs and putting them on an online forum would be end up being one of my favorite games. Also, it took me some time to realize that online meant online, I thought the other photos were just stuff that the developers have put in the game. Didn't think those were actual photos by other players xD That's a cool idea, actually.
Nice work!
Awesome concept! Love the social aspect of this! It works so well! Really great fun! Wish this mechanic was in more photo modes in games!! :D
The mechanics are interesting, I liked the game.
Brave move, presenting an online game in a game jam. There isn't much gameplay of course, but the game is well built and the mechanics are well executed. It was fun to find new bugs (i couldn't find the last one!) and reading other players' messages around was really nice, the best part actually. I like these kinds of adventures, just a couple of techincal tips:
1- you should allow players to exit camera mode without shooting a picture
2- some thing's hitboxes have a bit too much friction, they stop the player when you collide with them
3- you should make the hitboxes way smaller and allow the player to go behind trees and large rocks, it feels unnatural to be stopped by the highest leaves on a tree, making them smaller would make traversing the map way better.
and that's it! I presume you made this with a database (that's what i would've done, at least), it would be cool to see a devlog! Good job :)
Thanks for playing and for the comments! We'll try to fix up the hitboxes after the jam. You can actually exit the camera view by pressing ESCAPE (though it's not communicated anywhere and it's not reasonable to expect players to know that). And yes, we use a database to store people's comments -- specifically SQLite.
Really cool game, as others have said it is quite surprising you did this in 48hrs due to the attention to detail and quality art you guys have done, unique take on theme and overall solid job, nicely done
Nice art , cool gameplay , not bad for a 48hrs game , nice job bruh!
Cool idea, and pretty original take on the theme! It's cool that you guys managed to create all this in 48 hours ;)
This is one of my favorite game in this jam. Great visuals, fitting music, unique gameplay and a very interesting in-game social network. I did tried to make an exploration game recently, but it was a lot more work than I've expected. I'm absolutely impressed that you managed to pull this off in 48 hours. There're bugs with realistic explanations and then there's Doritobug.
Ironically, this bug game doesn't have much bugs at all. There is a small issue where the input text box gets cutoff when typing long sentences, but it displays correctly when posted.
Great job making suck a lovely game!
This reminds me of the sort of mechanics you find in a Zelda game - something that just makes the world feel more alive. It's a clever take on the theme and it's very nicely presented, but I don't think it's enough to sustain a game by itself, since the gameplay just boils down to moving around the map until you come across a new bug. Perhaps if there were a puzzle-solving aspect to how you might track down each bug?
Probably the only online entry. It's like a mix of pokemon snap, and those old school avatar chat rooms. This game stands out a lot compared to the rest. I really like the screen that pops up when you find a new bug. Very polished.
This is so cute. The in game social network is impressive to say the least, and it was a lot of fun to roam around and find bugs :D
Love the art and the music and I love the online part of it good job!
I really like the player sprite, and it's impressive how you were able to get such a polished product done in such a short period of time
Yay this was cute! My favorite bug was the Lord Helix bug.
It was cool to see other people's comments and just generally it was nice and relaxing to walk around and photograph bugs. It would be really cool if there were hidden secrets or poses you could get the bugs to do kind of like in Pokemon Snap. Maybe if there was like a honey trail I could on the ground to get bugs to follow me :p
Just out of curiosity, were any of the comments you saw from someone named ButterBoi? xD
-Sasha
Yep, I saw comments from ButterBoi and Bugsy! Were one of those you?
HAHA YES!!! I was ButterBoi. I guess the way it works is you can see peoples comments if they're on the map at the same time as you! I must have juuusssttt missed you, because I only saw comments by Bugsy, who's the dev. Bummer! I would have loved to see your comments on these buggos xD xD xD
-Sasha
Yeah, or it may be that you only see comments within the last X minutes or so; do you see my comments if you go back into the game?
Ah! yes indeed! Just went back and read through them all. Very entertaining, thank you :D
"Who would win, me or one bug xD"
-Sasha
I... I don't know what to say.... I'm absolutely speechless from how much I loved this.
Like legit, if this ever becomes an online game/app with constant online connectivity, I'd play it all the time. According to the itch page, it seems like you can see other people's posts if they're on the map at the same time as you? I unfortunately didn't get the joy of expieriencing that. I'll have to get the other two scooters to play at the same time so we can try that out! But yeah, as I was playing the only thing crossing my mind was "I love this so much. I wish I could see what other captions people are writing!
Graphics, Music, and especailly mechanics were perfect. You literally thought of everything! Each time my brain though of something the game could use to make it even better, I discovered you guys already added it! Log of bugs found? Check. Facts about the bugs? Check!
Literally the only thing I might suggest is making a separate control for reading comments. That way if you're in an area dense with comments (like the rectangle area where you/Bugsy wrote a bunch, love that btw.) and see a bug, you can take a pic without closing out of a comment. This would especially be important if global online becomes possible, since there'd be a lot more comments. And on that note, maybe a button to toggle viewing others comments on and off, for anyone who just wants to find the bugs.
Aside from that, just really fantastic work. I could see so much potential for expanding this game. Turning it into a whole entire wholesome social network, maybe a mini game for an online sims/animal crossing esque game, a version with real bugs and facts about them to make an educational game for kids? Whatever you do, I'm sure it'll be a success. It already is in my book.
5 stars all around from me. Thanks for making my day with this adorable game.
Best of luck in the jam!
-Sasha
Thank you so much for the incredibly kind words. This comment made our day :)
I am a frog and I love bugs
This game has too many bugs.
Haha, jokes aside this is super original and has some clever design. The pixel graphics are really cute and it fits well for the aesthetic for this game, and combined with the music reminds me a lot about Animal Crossing. And, the UI effect for when you capture a new bug on camera is just super satisfying and well made. There's plenty of fun and unique features in this, and I'm really impressed you got all this done in the 48 hours allotted.
The only thing I would note is that I didn't really see much of a point for picking a caption and posting the photos (Or maybe there is and I didn't notice it). It would be really, really cool if you got random likes or comments on your post depending on what you typed for your caption (keywords) or the type of bug. If you were planning on expanding this that would be a really cool thing.
Altogether this is an amazing jam submission, and I wish your game luck for the rest of the voting time!
Thanks for the kind words and thanks for playing!
You're right -- there isn't much of a gameplay point to posting to Doodlebug. We do hope that players will use it as a way to track down the last bug or two (looking at others' posts for hints), or maybe as a quick break from hunting -- but we can't predict what players will use it for, so we didn't want to lean too hard into that because every player will have a different experience. Those ideas you mentioned are great though, and using Doodlebug more for gameplay is definitely something we talked about, and we'd probably have given it a go with another 24 hours.
I loved all the doodle bugs! <3
Super cute and super fun! I was hooked the moment I took my first picture
brilliant!