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The Witch's Gambit's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #1124 | 3.258 | 3.353 |
| Originality | #1193 | 3.487 | 3.588 |
| Overall | #1406 | 3.258 | 3.353 |
| Presentation | #1963 | 3.030 | 3.118 |
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 fit the theme?
A Witch seeks power by joining together the souls of long-dead heroes
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing art
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 liked the inversion of the typical power-up mechanic: picking up souls and becoming weaker is surprisingly fun. The final segment didn't quite stick to that (I'd have loved to see it take away something else, like moving on the ground or something), but it was more challenging than any other area, so it still worked.
One thing that was surprising was that the first challenge (the double-jump) was a lot harder for me than any other. I think this was due to the jump being based on key release rather than key press: getting the second jump to trigger at the peak of the first meant I had to release the space and re-press it before the key had fully risen (otherwise the time between press+release was too long).
Since your comments sound like you'll be continuing to develop this further, I wish you the best of luck with it!
Yeah, I had a conversation with another player downpage about that and I'll definitely be reworking the jump before we put this project down. Of all the mechanics, jumping was weirdly the hardest to get right in the timeframe, considering all the nonsense we ended up doing with it ;^.^
The final stage was meant to be a culmination of sorts; yeah, you had been betrayed by the Ambiguously Evil Voice (AEV), but you'd gathered so much power you were capable of handling it. Your thought about disabling walking while carrying the evil soul is interesting though; I might play with it a bit!
Hello to another dev team with siblings! o/
The game's got a lot of charm! The dialogue was all very cutesy and I liked the sound effects a lot. I very much enjoyed the mechanics and I think your level design was good. There were a few tricky spots that I had to try a few times to get through.
I personally think this demo would have benefited from some enemies to jump on, but perhaps that's not what you were going for.
Great work, would love to have you try our game as well!
Sibling game dev solidarity ^°^
We actually considered combat from the outset, but ultimately decided to spend our time focusing on the movement for the purposes of the jam. Combat still may come in a later update, but it would take some doing considering the limited sprite set we used.
I'll be sure to check you guys out when I get home tonight!
So this was really neat, I got to the end (I think) with the special soul but then it started flipping me backward if I landed anywhere. I started high-jumping and shift-ing in rapid order, and that got me moving but eventually zipped me right into a thick wall where, I assume, my character shall stay forever more and the world may be better off for it (given what had just happened, story-wise!). Anyway, this was cool lol. Also the 'Stay Inside' ceiling gave me a chuckle.
Sounds like you came just shy of the end! The jumping bugs are known quantities and I expect to have a fix for them out by unlock time, although I was sure I fixed the wall warping glitch, so thanks for letting me know! The backwards flipping thing is weird too; I'll have to see if I can replicate it!
I'm glad you liked it, though! This was our first time back in the thick of it for a while, so we're glad it came out as well as it did.
Sometimes the witch didn't jump or teleport even if there was nothing in the way, but other than that, the story was really good and it was a fun little game with each level building upon the last.
I've been getting reports about that! I actually just identified and fixed that problem today, so it will definitely be fixed when the locks come off.
Good story and good idea, there are just some things to point out:
I feel that if you tried to work on the game a bit after the jam you could see a major improvement of the game, but there is almost nothing (other than the story, which is great btw) to separate it from other games, all I am saying is that you should try to add a new cool mechanic that would change the game. Perhaps you can use the souls for something else, maybe make more of them and use them as extra lifes; they give you a bonus mechanic, but they disappear if you take damage or something like that.
There is a lot to work with, just try to focus on the three main problems I told you about first. A great idea, just needs a bit of polishing.
Ooh! These are good notes. I wanna try to address them here, if that's okay.
Thanks for this input though; this is valuable stuff! <3
Yeah I fell out in the hub right behind the altar thingy that talked to me, thanks for the reply it seems that you are working on it more so I am going to keep an eye out on how it eveolves
I love the writing, it's silly but i think that is exactly what i like about it. The Ori-like "here you go now you can [double jump|jump super high|dash through walls]" is not that unique but executed pretty nice here i think. The music...we don't have to talk about that. Creating music for a game jam is awesome and this is no exception!
The flaws are maybe the controls, visual variety and physics (as already mentioned in other comments). I think it was not possible to jump when you were already running in any direction. And the jump had a small delay between pressing and actually jumping, which does not feel great in my opinion.
Other than that, i played it to the end and enjoyed it! Nice Job!
I'm so glad you liked it! Musik Kombat did the music and sound effects and they never fail to impress me with what they can crank out in so little time. The writing was my department, and I'm pleased it came out as well as it did. Could you possibly go into more detail about what you said about not being able to jump while running?
Hm, well. I did download it again to give it a try, but it seems like i mistook the "on release" implementation of jumping for a bug :O Sorry! I guess it is made that way because you have to "charge" for the super jump?
But i think that is still a thing that makes me a little uncomfortable with the controls :/ Sometimes i like to "time" double jumps by holding down spacebar until the 2nd jump. Idk why, but jumping on release of spacebar was a little irritating to me.
Edit: I just read the latest comment from HedbergGames and i guess they did a way better job explaining that issue^^
That's a good point about pressing vs. releasing to jump, especially since we definitely swap between those paradigms in the back half of the game. Thinking on it now, I might try swapping it to more of a mega man style "shoot and charge" system. I still want the player to be rooted to charge the super jump, but there isn't really any good reason I can think of to not accept an initial jump input as well.
Fun dialogs loved that :DD and also the stay inside :DD. U got me there I tried to cheat
Good game, some challenging platforming towards the end. Really enjoyed it.
I really appreciate the storytelling. Weaving that into a 48 hour jam is to be commended. I found it funny and charming. However, I think some tweaking with the physics is needed. If you can I would recommend having a series of really small projects: platformer, shooter click and drag puzzler ect that you can repurpose for each game jam so you don't have to wrestle with the physics every time you want to make a game.
Thanks for the feedback! This is actually us coming off of about a 6~8 month hiatus from game dev, so it's nice to hear that was your most noteworthy problem with it. We published it knowing the physics were a little jank and one of the first things I'll be patching when the locks come off is ground detection (also dialogue! Shame on me for not making it skippable/pausable!) We'll definitely be noodling around with this project for a bit and I'll definitely be refactoring a lot of the code and such so watch this space, I guess!
Its good I had fun and enjoyed the experience of an average day in this witch's life.
Thanks so much! <3