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G0L14TH's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Style | #1338 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Overall | #2292 | 3.229 | 3.229 |
| Creativity | #2789 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Enjoyment | #3323 | 2.771 | 2.771 |
Ranked from 35 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?
Each spaceship you hack is exponentially larger
Development Time
96 hours
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
All credits on my project page
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Comments
Good mix of action and puzzles. The ships had a stunning sense of scale. Specially when the second boss appeared! Liking how ships felt totally different from each other. And you needed to adapt both to the ship you're in and the new enemy ship. The complexity of the designs were delightful to look at. The game was pretty difficult, I'd suggest restarting the level not the game when you die.
Thank you! I definitely wanted all of the ships to feel unique, both to play as and to fight, and I feel like I did a good job accomplishing that. I don't think I did quite as good a job at getting the difficulty right. I decided not to add a checkpoint after the first fight because I wanted the player to have an opportunity to appreciate how much better at the game they've become, which they don't get if they never have to face the 1st enemy again after they win once. Also I just didn't want to put in the effort of making a checkpoint system.
You did do a great job with that! It's a hard game but really satisfying to succeed.
A difficult game for sure, but it did feel rewarding when I finally was able to take over that first ship. I found the second fight to be way easier than the first, I completed it on my first try. Obviously a short timeline doesn't help with balancing the difficulty of games but just wanted to leave my feedback regardless. Facing up against that second ship definitely did have the menacing, all-encompassing feel you were likely going for though, with the shape of the ship surrounding the player. It made for some good variety in comparison to trying to get at the back of the first ship.
My only other comment would be that an end screen/message would have added closure to the game. I spent some time wandering around wondering if I was meant to search out another ship or if the game was over. But overall a solid game!
Yeah, balancing was a struggle. I wanted the second fight to be scarier than the first and play completely different than the first, but I also wanted it to be a bit easier than the first, because every time you die to it you also have to redo the first fight. I didn't want that to happen more than a few times. 1st try might've be a bit too easy, though. Ideally it would take everyone 3-5 tries to beat the second fight after maybe 10 tries to beat the first fight, but that is really hard to balance with how varying everyone's skill at this kind of game is.
I wanted to make a game end screen, but I never got around to it. It probably wouldn't have been that hard or taken too long, my attention was just diverted elsewhere. I do like the peacefulness of the current ending though. If only it were clear that it was an ending.
I love the art. but I died. MANY MANY times. Sorry I cannot beat your game (will try later)
Thank you! Yeah, difficulty was the hardest part of this game to get right. If I make it too easy, people who are already good at this kind of game will get bored, but if I make it too hard, other people will find it more frustrating than fun. I tried to balance it somewhat and hoped that the satisfaction of finally winning would offset any frustration, and even added a 'tips' section into the Itch description, but I'm not sure how well that worked.
can imagine, I wont’ give up! I’ll check the tips, definitely need them :D
hey! I played again and I managed to beat the 1st and 2nd boss! really awesome expirence, I’m glad I went back to this game haha
but I’m not sure what to do now, I’m playing with the 3rd battleship, but no more bosses come to me :|
Yeah, there’s only the two. I probably should’ve added some sort of end screen or something, but I never got around to it. As is you just get to experience the peacefulness, the calm after the storm.
okay, so I beat the game!!! :D great job, had fun learning how to get better :)
Love the art! Very VERY hard game, especially for the first level... on my second attempt I died in less than 5 seconds!
Thank you! Yeah, I don't think I ever got the difficulty quite right, despite my spending pretty much the entirety of the 4th day playtesting and tweaking it. I wanted it to be hard enough that beating it for the first time felt like an accomplishment, but I may have gone too far and made it more frustrating for a lot of players instead.
Good rule of thumb is "If the developer thinks it's hard? It's too hard. If the developer thinks it's easy? It's probably just right".
I did the platforming sections in our game using that philosophy, making things honestly probably too easy? (I leaned much more on the side of easy). But then there are sections like the downward mushroom that people are still struggling with, despite that being something I thought was just challenging enough y'kno!
The graphics and concept was very cool, but it was pretty hard (Or maybe I'm just bad lol)
Thank you! Yeah, difficulty was the hardest part of this game to get right. If I make it too easy, people who are already good at this kind of game will get bored, but if I make it too hard, other people will find it more frustrating than fun. I tried to balance it somewhat and hoped that the satisfaction of finally winning would offset any frustration, and even added a 'tips' section into the Itch description, but I'm not sure how well I did with all that.
A major skill issue on my part with this game to truly enjoy it, but when I finally beat the first guy and BECAME them to beat up a new, even bigger ship? I got it. This rules. Such a great concept for this theme.
Thank you! Yeah, difficulty was the hardest part of this game to get right. If I make it too easy, people who are already good at this kind of game will get bored, but if I make it too hard, other people will find it more frustrating than fun. I tried to balance it somewhat and hoped that the satisfaction of finally winning would offset any frustration, and even added a 'tips' section into the Itch description, but I'm not sure how well I did with all that.
I love cinetic energy gravity!
Thank you!
Cool game but felt really hard?
Yeah, I struggled trying to get the difficulty right. If I make it too easy, then people who are already good at this kind of game would be able to win without much effort and get bored, but if I make it too hard more people won't be able to win at all. I wanted people to have to try a few times before they figured out the right patterns for how to win, but I didn't want it to be so hard that people got frustrated. I don't know if I got that balance right, or if it's even possible to get that balance right for everyone.
Good game! Some improvement I would suggest is that the ship should have thrusters on side for more maneuverability and the second ship is slow so it didn't felt like I was moving so you can increase its speed.
Overall Great Job!
The issue with increasing the speed of the second ship, is you also need to fight it while you're the first ship. I wanted you to be able to win the 1st battle by being more maneuverable than the enemy, but I didn't want you to be able to win the second battle in the same way.
Nice game, I loved the challenge! I hope you'll had more ships after the jam :)
Thank you! As cool as that'd be, I don't think I'll have the time, unfortunately.
this game is awesome! it was genuinely terrifying when the second large ship appeared out of nowhere! at first I didn't quite understand the concept but once I took over the second ship it was immediately clear. the visual were awesome as well all the sprite work and the parallax worked out super nicely! awesome job dude!
Thank you! That’s exactly the reaction I was going for with that ship. I knew that I wanted something that felt all-encompassing, and I wasn’t going to be able to find a ready-made asset for that. I needed it to wrap around the player, but also have a way to shoot through it to hit the engines at the back. It took me probably three or four hours in GIMP trying different combinations and putting together pieces from the spaceship construction kit asset I was using to make something I was happy with.
I spent a decent amount of time on the parallax effect, especially getting it to took good while the camera expands when you hack a bigger ship. Another sneaky thing I did with the parallax is, since the parallax doesn’t loop and if you fly far enough away you won’t see it anymore, I made the big red ship always spawn in the direction towards the center of the arena from you to try to guide you back to where the parallax looks the best.
that super cleaver with the parallax, and you did super well with the art for the second ship. its a super creative use of premade assets. well done dude!
The sense of scale here is fantastic - I could only get to the first two ships, but they felt significantly different from each other, partly in terms of armaments but mostly just in control - the weight, momentum and turning of each ship feels really well tuned to convey their respective sizes.
Personally I found this a little too difficult, I really struggled to clear the first enemy and wasn't able to beat the second, but totally appreciate that could just be personal taste :)
Yeah, difficulty was a challenge to get right, and I don't think I quite nailed it. You can blame my last playtester who won the battle on their 1st try, so I upped the difficulty before uploading. I tried to mitigate some of the difficulty by adding a 'tips' section to the Itch description hoping that it'd make it easier for people who didn't win on their own, but I'm not sure how well that worked.
Spaceships are cool, and exponentially larger spaceships are (arguably) exponentially cooler!
HOWEVER, the difficulty curve also feels exponential (at least to me). The difference in firepower quickly becomes discouraging (i.e. Level 1 enemy has multiple homing fast turrets but the player only has 2 slow guns and can only fire at line of sight) Even if passing a level by pure luck, having no saving points would reset my progress in the blink of an eye.
Thanks for playing! Yeah, the difficulty of this game in general really could've used some work. I spent the whole last day playtesting and trying to get the difficulty right, and still never got there. I tried to mitigate some of the issues by adding a 'tips' section to the Itch description, but I'm not sure how well that worked.
The difficulty is quite high, especially for the first level. The concept, however, is really cool and the graphics sell the effect quite well.
Yeah, difficulty was the hardest part of this game to get right. I dedicated pretty much the entire last day to playtesting and tweaking the difficulty and I'm still not sure if I got it right
I really like the game idea! Definitely a unique take on the theme.
Thank you!
I like the concept and I think it has a strong foundation! You mentioned you're working on tuning the difficulty already, hope you keep at it -- would be fun to play again in the future
I don't think I'll continue working on this game after the jam. I'd like to make a different better game with a similar premise (spaceship combat at an exponential variety of scales), and I'll probably use some of the lessons I learned with this one, but it would be the start of it's own project rather than continuing this one.
I'm gonna call it cope and say I'm too tired from the gamejam to play well, but man I can't get hack the first ship lol. I'll come back to try again, but the game looks super pretty and feels polished. The controls are definitely hard to get a hang of, but I don't know if that's a point of critique or just a skill issue.
Difficulty was one of the hardest things for me to get right while playtesting. pretty much the entirety of day 4 was spent trying to balance the difficulty, and I don't think I ever quite got it right. The game was too hard for most of the people I playtested on, so I made it easier in various ways, like making enemy bullets move slower, increasing player health, and things like that. Eventually one of the changes that I made was to make the player's rotation more snappy and less inertial, but after that the next (and final) person I playtested on won on their first try. So after that playtest I nerfed the player's health again to try to compensate for the easier controls, but I may have overdone it.
Art is well-designed
Thank you! it's all from free assets I downloaded, but I did put the starting and final ship ships together using pieces from an asset pack.
Awesome entry, really cool idea. The sound effects and the music fit the game very well. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! when I was browsing for music to use, I found these songs and just knew that they were the right ones. Matthew Pablo makes some good stuff, and a decent chunk of it is available for free https://opengameart.org/users/matthewpablo
Loved the idea. I didn't understand the mechanics at first, but when you take over the first ship it fell into place and felt very cool. I think the game could've used a drifting mechanic. Also, it ended for me after the third ship - it seemed like a bug, but maybe the game is just short? I would've liked a little more.
Yeah, the game is kind of short. If I had time to design both art and mechanics for a 3rd fight that was somehow both bigger than the last two and completely unique from them, then I would've done so, but there was no way I was going to be able to do that as a solo developer under a time limit.
Originally the controls were more drifty, but in playtests too many people found that prohibitively hard to control and took a very long time getting past the first enemy, so I had to dial it back. If I had more time to playtest I would've liked to find a better balance of driftiness, but alas, time ran out.