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A jam submission

Scale IssueView game page

A meteor crashes into earth, destroying the musical scales. Can you put them back together?
Submitted by lancelot1106 — 5 hours, 25 minutes before the deadline
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Scale Issue's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#8503.8383.838
Overall#12433.5773.577
Style#14843.6493.649
Enjoyment#17763.2433.243

Ranked from 37 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 player needs to rebuild musical scales to win

Development Time

96 hours

(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
See the description for full credits & links

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Comments

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page
(+1)

I streamed this for my friend who's into music and she loved it. 

Submitted(+1)

I love the Art its super fun! and the music is great unfortanetly I dont know what to do with thee notes so I just collected all of them :)

Submitted(+1)

Honestly one of the best music I've heard this jam. It was already really enjoyable just to sit down and appreciate the music. I'm not the biggest music theory person, but I still had fun collecting notes and seeing what notes fit. It also wasn't obvious to me whether the note the meteor whistled fit in or not... hehe. Still, it was pretty rewarding to see all the notes line up and form the scale, and I'm glad to see you taking into consideration of adding the feature of playing the scale once finished.

Although I also want music to build iteratively as you collect the notes, it seems pretty difficult to make music with such little choices in the beginning. It'd also be cute if over time we collect more of the little dinosaurs to follow and help us on our journey, like what we see with the thumbnail. Overall, it was a fun game with amazing music, so great job on your submission!

Developer

I'm really glad you liked the music!! Although if Meteo's whistling wasn't obvious, I guess I might have to simplify the music some more :D

Building up the music as you collect notes sounds interesting on paper, but in the game it would likely be at the cost of clarity for the puzzles. If a note can't occur (or occurs less) when it isn't collected yet, it becomes more difficult for the player to know if the note fits. It's an idea I fiddled with, but decided not to use. Collecting more dinos would be fun though, I'll definitely write that one down!

Submitted(+1)

So far the best music-themed game I've played this jam, could be a really nice educational game! I'm always a little unhappy when the camera's y position strictly follows the player in platformers, but I could live with it. Two minor music theory nitpicks:

  • Strictly speaking, you'd need to put a treble clef at least somewhere to correctly identify the notes. I know this is pretty nitpicky, but as someone who mostly reads bass clef nowadays I feel bullied ;) Might also be a fun thing for the future to add other clefs!
  • In level 3, you specifically ask for the F minor harmonic scale, which would have a raised seventh, i.e. an E instead of an Eb.

Also a weird bug in level three where there were two Db notes and collecting both of them prevented us from solving the level.

Apart from those nitpicks, I really like where this is going! Also a really nice touch that all the background music was in the correct key!

Developer

Very nice to hear! It did occur to me that this could be used for educational purposes, but I'll keep that in mind for the future!
Preferably I'd had the camera done as well (likely moving to in between the player & Meteo and/or slightly in front of the player), but with only a few hours left I decided that would give me more trouble than it'd be worth.

I can't believe I forgot about the clefs after every detail I put in there.... Even knowing it won't change much for most people, I hammered myself on getting the details right for those who would notice, so that one's kinda shameful 😅 And you also made me realize I forgot to program in the natural as well. Looks like a next version still has lots of work to do :)

Yep, the bug in level three is known. The double Db breaks the end of level check, but my brain was too mush to figure out how to improve that check so that even if you had a double note it'd not break the check (hence why in level 4 there's a note in the wall).

Even so, glad you enjoyed it! And I'm glad you picked up on the music as well :D that was intentional to make it easier for those who don't know musical notation so they could still hear whether the note would belong in the scale!

Submitted(+1)

Loved the pun title. Very cute dinos. The tutorial was slightly hard to follow as the little meteor moved around with the text and I moved around and he moved with me and it was a bit of a mess, but I got it. 

At first I wasn't sure how I was supposed to know if the note was correct, as I would make the meteor play it, but it'd give me no inditcation on if it belonged to the scale or not. Thankfully, I noticed that at the top of the screen it gave me which notes were supposed to be flat or sharp or just normal. It also helped that I know how to read music like that as opposed to with the letters. 

The music itself was cute. I'm not sure if it built up over time thanks to me collecting notes or if just kept going by itself with no changes (pretty sure it was the latter). In any case, nice game

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! I'll make sure to note it down if I continue with this game. Perhaps making textbox static with the pointer just moving along could help.

As for knowing which note is correct: the answer is hidden in the background music, so needing to read music isn't completely needed (but still helpful :D )! That's also why the music just looped, so the player can keep listening to it and try to hear if the note is in there/harmonizes with it. I guess I'll have to make that clearer as well next time around 😅

Submitted(+1)

An original take on the theme, I liked it! Good art and music. I think it could be nice to hear the scale play at the end of the level after you get all the notes.

Developer(+1)

Thanks a lot, glad you liked it!! Yeah, (re)playing the scale is a feature requested more often, so for a next iteration that'll definitely be in there! :D

Submitted(+1)

5 star:>

Developer(+1)

Thanks!!

Submitted(+1)

It's good, I like the concept, it's a fun way to use the jam's theme. 

Developer

Thank you! Glad you like the way I interpreted the theme!!

Submitted(+1)

I love the music. But i couldn't quite figure out the tutorial, so I have a question: Are you meant to pick up the nodes that harm you?

Developer

Glad you liked the music! And no, you are not supposed to pick up harmful notes, I suppose I could have made that clearer in the tutorial. Notes that hurt you also won't show up in the scale (because they don't harmonize with it) ánd can eventually cause you to fail the level. 

Submitted(+1)

Not a musical person, but liked the game and was a bit confused about what to do exactly. Got stuck in the tutorial whoops... The idea is cool and very well executed. 

Submitted(+1)

Developer

Glad you liked it! But I guess I could have made a few things a bit clearer in the tutorial. And yes, there is a small bug in the tutorial 🤭 but luckily I added a skip button :)

Still, very happy to hear you liked the execution!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I really like the idea of this but unfortunately I really didn't understand how to get the notes to show up at the top and whether I was supposed to be jumping to collect them or not. They never seemed to do anyhing that I could tell. I want to give this game another go at some point to see if it clicks more as it looks great and the idea is cool. 
Also I think you may not have made your music sliders logarithmic as the music seems to drop off very fast when adjusting the volume. 
(edit: spelling/grammar)

Developer

The notes can be picked up by jumping towards them (had hoped that was a bit more clear from the tutorial), so I hope your next attempt goes better!

And yeah, UI is not my strong suit. I've gotten the hang of UI in Unity, but in Godot I'm still way off knowing all the ins and outs

Submitted(+1)

I'm not a musical expert at all (at least music theory) but I enjoyed it nonetheless... Actually I've seen some progress pictures on the Discord-Server and since I read the name "Scale Issue" I had to play it :D Good job! I really enjoyed it. Sounds and visuals are great as well!

Developer

Glad you enjoyed it! My goal was indeed to make it so even without knowing theory it would be possible and fun, so I'm happy that seems to be achieved!!

Submitted(+1)

Nice and cute game. I'm not someone who knows how to read sheet music so i kinda just memorized what i had to pick up, i think it'd be cool if you could teach people sheet music with this! although right now i feel like i didn't get the intended experience. The platforming was okay

Developer

My intention was to add some explanation for the scales, but I had to rescope as that would get too big way too quickly (even with just the four scales used, whoops). But yeah, memorizing works too 😅

Submitted(+1)

Level 3 music was a banger but I could not beat it. Must've been missing a note. Also I know basically nothing about music so I just got every note I saw and it worked. Good job
Love the name btw

Developer

Second time I've heard about the bug, and I even made sure to check the level thrice. Oh well... Still, thanks for playing! I'll make sure to add more notes per level in a future version so simply picking everything up is less of a strategy ;)

Submitted(+1)

Beautiful game! Well done!

Developer

Thank you so much!

Submitted(+2)

Now that's a neat interpretation of the theme! I like the idea of having to find notes that sounds like they fit in the current music. I wished the game allowed me to hear the entire scale, during the level to better hear if a note is part of it or not, and at the end as a reward. I could still rely on the visual notes writing, but I find it less fun. :P

Also I'm missing a C in the Level 3, I went back and forth but couldn't find one.^^' But beside that, it was pleasant to complete. Kudos for this clever use of music and sound!

Developer

I'm pleased you liked my take on the theme! I indeed wanted to add an option to hear the entire scale you built at any moment, but at day four my brain had practically turned to mush so I couldn't figure it out anymore >< And yeah, the visual part is more as a useful extra than the main thing to rely on.

There is a C in level 3, relatively close to the starting point of the level! But in checking, I did find another bug... Still, happy you enjoyed it!

Submitted(+2)

loved the dinos and the friendly asteroid :) I thought I had to pick every note but realized some of them were not part of the scale after taking damage, oops. the music/scale angle was creative, nice work!

Developer

Happy you liked the dinos and Meteo, as well as the take on the theme! And yeah, not every note will harmonize with the scale, probably something to put into the tutorial for a next time :D

Submitted(+2)

first time ive seen an asteroid be friendly to a dino

Developer

To be honest, it would've caused some destruction if the scales hadn't broken its fall ;)

Submitted(+2)

Fun idea! I broke the meteor one while picking up a note, it kept rotating in the same spot

Developer(+1)

I'm not gonna lie, I tried for like half an hour to break it like that and it never happend to me, so I'm slightly embarassed it can happen... Still, glad you liked the idea!

Submitted

No problem! Sometimes bugs are just weirdly inconsistent :D

Submitted(+2)

Love seeing other musical platformers! Wonderful take!

Developer

Thanks you, great to hear you liked it!

Viewing comments 26 to 7 of 26 · Next page · Last page