Really interesting game! I love how you fully leaned into it all the way and committed to everything being random across the board. It definitely makes for a whacky experience. I love the pixel art and overall aesthetic by the way. I also was not sure if all powerup pickups randomly gave you + or sometimes - to that stat or if it was a color thing. It was also wild to have an initially really bad character, lose and then get the sword which was wild. Anyway, great job!
Play UnKnOwN
What's Next? (GMTK 2022)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #1733 | 2.972 | 2.972 |
| Overall | #1757 | 3.130 | 3.130 |
| Presentation | #1822 | 3.222 | 3.222 |
| Creativity | #1852 | 3.194 | 3.194 |
Ranked from 36 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?
Everything is determined by the dice! Player. Enemies. Powerups. Abilities. EVERYTHING!
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?
No
We used pre-existing audio
Comments
Thanks a lot man! I really appreciate! 😁
Indeed, I like to think about it this way: if you have an idea,
- either you stop halfway through and you get an average game...
- either you commit all the way and you get either a big poop 💩 or a masterpiece 🖼️.
About the powerups, red ones give positive effects and grey ones negative 😂. Next update, I'll make a tutorial level tho, to explain everything.
Again, thank you man!
Pretty cool concept! The presentation was nice and the gameplay was enjoyable. Good work!
Submitted
Oliver the Dice MasterI tested some rounds, but unfortunately, the game is made way harder for me a I have an AZERTY-layout keyboard while the keys were programmed statically as being QWERTY… ._. This happens in a lot of games (not all, though!), but either speed is not of the essence, of the arrow keys are also enabled; this game is one of the rare cases where I really run into trouble.
Still, I can get a sense of how things roll; I think it can work as a funny way to let off steam, when you are in the mood for some undue trigger-pressing. ;) On the other hand, I am more sceptical as to how long such complete randomisation can work out. If you take The Binding of Isaac, for example, even though a lot of the game is random, you still get a notion of levels and progression in the game.
Of course, the big difference is that What’s Next? is a short game jam game, so it all depends on how you decide to extend it. But the principle ‘everything is random’ sounds difficult to adapt to a longer game.
I like the pixel art visuals, smooth animation, and upbeat music combined, they give a dynamic impression, which matches the gameplay style. :) Maybe some background could have given it even more life, although I guess the colour choice would have been complicated to have everything visible. Twist(?): you could have made a procedurally generated random background!
As for how the game relates to the theme… well, one common interpretation was to think ‘randomness’, which a lot of people did, and they seem to often have added a random element inside a more classic larger picture; you took the idea to the extreme and just put everything random. XD So, I would say you took a common approach, but to an uncommon degree. That’s where you have some originality.
My conclusion: I would describe the game in its current state as a funny experimental minigame. I often wonder about the future of games, and in this case, I tend to see it as inextensible under the same premiss.
It is good that you tried the ‘all-random’ option, this is a fine way to see what this results in concretely. :)
Submitted
Face à faceMan, thank you for this deep insight! 😁 I see that have concerns about this game's future so... I might tell you more.... 😈
I'm actually working on a Video Game Generator. That was called "emerging", you can see it here and I though that the theme of this Jam might but the right time to actually experiment more on the idea... After this, I think that "What's Next?" should replace "emergin" and build on top of that. Here are the things I want to add in the future
- Background: During I didn't have enough time to work on that because it would have taken away from the core gameplay and the game would be less fun. I do have a code in emergin to generate that but "copy-pasting" my full working background generator would have felt like cheating...
- Levels: I wasn't able to do this in this version but I wanted to actually have a legit level generator instead of a squared arena. With random objectives also, more than just "kill all the enemies on screen". This could have given birth to wacky scenarios like "You're a cow fighting demons and buildings in a volcano and you need to collect all X coins for it to end". That was my idea... but 2 days wasn't enough to do it all the way.
- Powerups: I want to add more variety
- Attacks: I want to make more attacks and also create a new "flavor" of attack... "movement abilities". Like, by pressing the "Space Bar", the player can Jump (avoiding all bullets on the ground) or Dash or even Teleport. That would be fun as well!
- Game Saving: Having everything random is cool and all, but it would be great if you could replay a "run" you liked... with the same player, same enemies, etc... And it would be useful for my next point....
- Game SHARING: If you generated a "game" that you really liked, it would be cool if you could export it and share it with your friend. I haven't made a Highscore system yet because it doesn't make sense in a fully random game but if you're all playing the same generated game.... you can actually compete to see who performs the best!
- Custom Game: Randomness and all is cool but again, it would be great if you could say "I don't like power-downs" or "I want to play as the Bird" and be more specific about you're playing next. Have more control over what's going to come out. Combined with the "sharing" feature, this could be really interesting!
I think I've covered the main points... I just wanted to let you know that, "this isn't even my final form" 🤣🤣🤣
You're looking at the future right? Don't worry, you won't be disappointed. 👏
Cool game! The concept is really interesting and I love the way you incorporated the theme into your game! The movement was nice and shooting and powerups were pretty cool. I did find taking damage to be pretty confusing since sometimes I would take half a heart of damage or like one heart and then other times I wouldn't take any damage at all. Also, the enemies didn't seem to take damage at times and when they died I don't think I hit them, so I got a bit confused. Overall though, I had a lot of fun playing! The art and music are great too! Well done!
Submitted
Roll, Fish!Man, I'm glad you had a great time playing my game! 😁
For the damage system, I can actually enlighten you on that:
- Each projectile has its own damage. Big slow shots deal a lot of damage while small fast shots deal less.
- Mobs (players and enemies) have their own attack and defense power. When you attack, your shot is multiplied by your attack power and when you take a hit, the damage is divided by your defense power.
- Sword powerups multiply by 2 (or divide if it's grey) your attack and shield for the defense.
I think that the confusion comes from the fact that these values can be perceived through gameplay but cannot be seen... maybe in the update I can actually show the attack and defense power below the health bar of each mob. I'm worried it might over saturate the screen tho... 🤔
Hey! great job on the game!
had a lot of fun playing it multiple times.
also a very cool presentation!
some feedback:
- I wish I had some way of interacting with power-downs. maybe I can stomp the ground sending a shockwave changing all upgrades to power-downs and vice versa? but these power downs just litter the ground and I hate them. haha, I prefer to hit the enemies than to receive a power-down.
- I wish I had some way of changing my character, the cellphone sucks 😫 and I got stuck with it the whole time. I get that it is random, but I wanted some kind of control of it.
Submitted
Sad & FuriousHey! I'm really glad you appreciated the game man! 😁 It means a lot!
As for the feedback:
- Indeed, I did receive a lot of requests for power-downs... 😂. It made me sad because no one realized that you can use them as traps for your enemies since they can also pick them (like the powerups by the way... 😂) but hey. I'll still put a lifetime on them post jam to make them cycle...
- As for the cellphone, damn. You're really unlucky my dude... 🤣. Well, this one is a little harder to address since that's part of the core concept of the game... but maybe, with enough sprites, this kind of bad luck won't be able to happen anymore! I made 70 sprites in 2 hours... might as well make 1 000 😂
Got a horrible starting character without knowing the concept (couldn't even aim my weapon)! Thought the game was busted until I tried again and everything was different, then I just had lots of fun rolling different starts until I got a tiny fast firing maverick.
Really good fun, only suggestion would be to have negative power ups maybe fade away, as it feels bad to not have a chance to get more OP, unless that's the intent!
Submitted
Dickie RollemI really like what you did with the theme for this one. I was immediately murdered the first round I tried, and the second round I got some terrible weapon with a super short range. After that I figured out what the buffs/debuffs did and enjoyed it. The only issue I ran into was that at one point there were several debuffs on the screen and nothing else seemed to spawn, it might be a nice idea to have the buffs/debuffs disappear after a short time so that more can cycle through.
Submitted
Die for MeLol now this was random and a lot of fun!!
My first run I got some useless attack that goes like 2 feet away from you and stops... I don't think I made it past round 2. Then I tried again and got some massive 8 way attack that I just kept spamming that and collecting everything! Eventually I guess I got so strong that attacks weren't even hurting me but I could one or two shot everything, so that was pretty neat. I stopped at about wave 25 since I was already uber powerful.
Probably my only minor annoyance is I don't think I like the debuffs (I believe that's what the grey icons were?) or at least not so many of them. Makes me feel worse when I grab one.
Overall though fantastic addition to the jam and so far one of the top 5 games I've played out of 30 or so! Great work on this!!
Edit: Oh also about the theme, it makes complete sense to me. I think when Mark announced the theme he didn't literally mean that DICE has to be physically in the game. It seems like 90% of games took that literally but oh well lol, nothing wrong with those games just funny how it looks with 5000 games with dice in the title.
Submitted
Mage McDuffy's Last BuffetHey Thanks a lot man!!! I really appreciate! 😁
About the debuffs, it looks like everyone has mixed feelings about this... 🤣 but I'm still disappointed that no one used them the way I intended: you can pick power-ups.... but enemies too! This means that they can steal valuable buffs from you... but it also implies that you can use debuffs as traps for them!
Well. After the jam, I definitely need a tutorial level to explain everything... 😂
Last, I'd like to say, Top 5 game of all the games you've played so far is really flattering. Thank you so much! 💖
After my first run I was like "hmm is this it?". I had some weird slow character that couldn't really shoot. But then when I played again for a few runs, they were all completely different. One time I had a really OP setup. Cool idea and the execution is really fun. The game has that "one more run" kind of feel.
Submitted
Die, Dice, Die!Very cool!
I collected all the boots and was straight hum zinging... I don't recommend that as a strategy.
Great work! Love the art, lots of fun :)
Submitted
Piece Combat
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.