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Trains and Bandits's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #12 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Controls | #13 | 3.524 | 3.524 |
| Audio | #16 | 3.476 | 3.476 |
| Overall | #19 | 3.395 | 3.395 |
| Graphics | #22 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Accessibility | #24 | 2.905 | 2.905 |
| Theme | #32 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Originality | #38 | 3.238 | 3.238 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Very well done game, I know some disliked the map/train moving feature but I really enjoy it, it would be nice if you marked the trains you had cleared and could fast travel between them.
I liked how the enemies got faster - new enemies could have been fun, but overall felt that part was ok.
Little bugs like enemies getting stuck and you bullets ending up hitting the wall if you were near the top hurt the enjoyment of the game but did not ruin it - hope you can fix in the future. Path finding for the enemies is not an easy thing but would make it a better game.
I liked the graphics, loved the sound/music, liked how you could see the terrain moving when the train was moving, but not sure this and the map/moving mechanism was enough to sell me on the theme... if you could have added something a little more to really bring home the train theme would have been awesome, sorry not sure what that is so this is probably not helpful.
Lastly, fair or unfair this felt very similar to Shrine-Warden from GWJ-58 and so that hurt my experience, your games are different in their own rights and that gameplay is not anything unique, but it being right after that one does affect the play for me... sorry.
Thank you so much for all the feedback. I appreciate it. I'll address your last point first.
It was similar to Shrine-Warden because it inspired this game! I'm always looking for opportunities to try to implement a new genre each jam because I think its fun, and I usually end up learning new pieces of Godot. Different genres always have some new challenges. After playing Shrine-Warden I decided I'd like to take a jab at the rogue-like genre, and once I saw the theme of Train and thought of the moving rooms, I thought this was the perfect time to give it a try. I thought Shrine-Warden was beautifully executed, and incredibly fun. I think it surpasses my game in every category. :)
I would have loved to add more enemies, but I just ran out of time. Adding new enemy art, and AI behavior seemed like a lot of work, so I didn't prioritize it, but I think the game suffers the most from a lack of variety so perhaps it should have been a higher priority. I sunk too much time into the moving map.
A fast travel option crossed my mind too, but I wasn't sure what the best way to implement it would be. Perhaps that could have been a reward for completing a train, or it could have been a special train car that showed up on the map once visited. That would have been really cool.
I wasn't aware that being too close to the walls prevented shooting bullets. That should be addressed.
I'm not sure how much more train-like I could have made the game. The theme was really just used as the setting, and the inspiration for the twist on the traditional rogue-like grid room map.
Thanks again! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. :)
I quite like how you implemented the map system, from your thumbnails this looked like a basic "train" game where you run through a train and so things, but the map in this one made it feel more connected to the theme, so good job :D
Thank you! I'm glad you liked the map system. Its what excited me when I was thinking of ideas that fit the theme, so I'm glad I was able to implement it well. :)
Very nice game!
The map mechanic was very confusing. Basically I had just come from my first train onto the next one and the first train's wagons were a dark grey color. The train I was currently on was next to my old train so it looked like the game wanted me to go back to the first train.
The shift button wasn't working but right click was.
Dying is extremely anti climatic.
Thank you for playing! Sorry for the confusion. I probably should have added a legend. White boxes were cars that had been visited and grey are cars that had not. The first train should all be visited before you can exit.
The shift button was my fault. I wrote shift in game, but it was bound to spacebar. Just a typo in the scramble of trying to get things done quickly and often too late at night. 😅
I should have added a death animation like I did for the bandits, and perhaps a transition screen. I just had more scope than I could handle (as usual).
Thanks for the feedback!
By the way, I forgot to mention that you should add an arrow pointing to the door in the first tutorial room since the door is quite small and I was lost for a few seconds.
Yeah that's a great idea. Thank you!
Such an interesting mechanic for moving around by boarding trains, quite an impressive scope for a game-jam, got a couple of bugs but nothing major, had really fun playing it. Great game.
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! The scope did end up being too much, but I thought the moving map was a cute idea. Glad it was worth it. I wish I had been able to add more variety to the trains, but I am glad you were still able to have fun.
Interesting navigational mechanics but it was a bit repetitive. I still liked it. Congratulations!
Glad you still liked it! I wanted to get more enemy variety, and maybe some fun things to discover in the different trains, but I just didn't have enough time. Scoping is difficult! 😅
very cool idea! There were a few minor bugs - you can shoot while reloading and enemies got stuck at boxes. But feels pretty polished and unique. Good job!
Thank you! Yeah the reload bug totally slipped by. I tried to resolve enemies getting stuck by using more navigation polygons, but I couldn't get them to reliably move from one polygon to the other.
Loved this game. Had to get that victory:
Glad you had fun and made it to the end!! Thank you for playing. :)
Fun game. Could've used a bit more enemy types. Gameplay loop is a bit too simple and repetitive and gets boring very soon. I didn't see an end, so I stopped after a while, is that correct ?
I don't want to be harsh but the audio work was very problematic for me. Some sounds (like exp pickup) were way too high and ear piercing. Also, the music could use a lot more contrast, it's too repetitive.
Edit : map didn't work for me. So I think I missed a big part of the game. M didn't work for some reason and I couldn't rebind the controls. Shift also didn't dash, only right click worked.
There was an end. It was a little challenging to find though as you had to explore the trains to find it.
Strange that many of the key bindings were failing for you. What web browser did you use? Also do you have a different keyboard layout than QWERTY?
I use chrome and AZERTY keyboard
I see! So probably 2 issues. The first is that I screwed up the instructions! Its actually spacebar to dash and I wrote Shift. 🤦♂️ The map issue might be related to the keyboard you are using. I used physical keys in the Godot settings, so for me the M key is basically the most bottom right letter. For you this might be a different key. I made the mistake of not using physical keys in one of my games and it made using WASD a nightmare for people with certain keyboard setups.
Sorry for the subpar experience! Key bindings has been on the list of things I always want to do, but run out of time for.
It's a fun game. I love the inclusion of a world map and the well made cartoony aesthetics
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
So, the good the bad and the ugly:
It was fun to play! Everything was easy to understand, I love the warning signs showing where an enemy would spawn
Controls we a tiny bit fiddly with mouse and keyboard - but probably worse for me as I was using a trackpad.
No ugly, everything looked good!
Love the reference. 😆 I'm glad everything was easy to understand!
I did some testing on my laptop at one point, and yeah, playing with a trackpad is not ideal, especially if your trackpad is bad like mine.
Thanks for the kind words. :)
I had a lot of fun with it, one bug I noticed was that you could reload and still fire, it lead to a weirdly fun game play loop of shooting once then hitting reload while fighting. basically meant you had infinite ammo
That's a great exploit! 😅 I had no idea that was in there. Good find! I'm glad you had fun playing. :)
Love the map and its simplicity. Played for a while but wasn't sure what I was working towards. I didn't see a station on the map. I eventually lost after killing 98 bandits but was having fun!
I hide the station icon on the map so that players would have to explore the trains to find it. That might have resulted in it being a little too difficult to find.
Regardless I'm glad you had fun! Thank you for the kind words. :)
Fun game. i hope you expand on this in the future.
Thank you! Yeah I wish I had the time to add more interesting things to find on the trains. Maybe some variety in the rooms and enemies.
The game is fun. The Ai and animations were perfect.
Thank you!
I thought it was a conventional roguelike with the train as the theme to fit into the jam but it makes sense when you see the map, really great idea that has actual potential to expand.
Thank you! I thought it would be a neat twist on the traditional rogue-like/grid based map to have the rooms moving with the different trains. 😄