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Escape Velocity's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #2 | 4.400 | 4.400 |
| Audio | #4 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Overall | #4 | 3.505 | 3.505 |
| Fun | #4 | 3.733 | 3.733 |
| Accessibility | #6 | 2.933 | 2.933 |
| Controls | #7 | 3.267 | 3.267 |
| Originality | #9 | 3.533 | 3.533 |
| Theme | #26 | 2.867 | 2.867 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.1.stable
Wildcards Used
Naturalist, Diplomat
Game Description
Help the ball to reach escape velocity in this adventure pinball game!
How does your game tie into the theme?
You play a pinball-like game in order to help a ball reach escape velocity and ascend
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
xandruher, wighz, freakclub, sfeldman
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
0-13
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Comments
SO awesome! Great graphics, cool music, and solid gameplay! Made me doubt my dedication to jam solo :p
There isn't really much to say about an amazing game - I usually only criticize or mutter about my philosophical interpretations. This one is just a good game!
wow thank you!
I have done quite a lot of solo too, both are fun. But achieving polished stuff is easier in a team. Setting a reasonable scope is easier solo maybe :-)
But this time we were explicitly trying to limit the scope and go low effort. Worked well until last weekend perhaps 😆
Wow! Amazing entry. This was something you can tell is going to be fun within 5 seconds of starting it up :)
I was really impressed this was done in a week, then so much more impressed that there's even a working high score service too.
Thank you so much for those kind words!
Just completed the game! The VFX was amazing, and the real-time tutorial was implemented in a very clever way. I like how there was text near a new mechanics explaining how everything worked. The controls also seemed very intuitive.
I like how the level reacted to completions of sections, and how the camera shifted very smoothly. The lights were also really cool, as I always love lighting lol.
Also, how did you guys get the sound of the pinball rolling to play so reactively? That was pretty crazy too. The sound design was top notch.
Downside is I didn't see the theme connect too well, and although I was surprised at how much technical effort this might have took, I didn't think the concept was that original.
I recorded a metal item rolling on an oak table and made a loop from that, and also an impact sound.
For the impact I had a pool of audio players and set db and pitch based on how much the velocity changed since last frame. Big change => high pitch and db
For the rolling sound I had the loop playing all the time, updating db and pitch each frame based on current velocity. High velocity => high pitch and db.
It turned put pretty good I think, which was fun to see, because it was quite low effort.
It was very interesting to play Escape Velocity. The use of pinball mechanics to move the ball feels like playing mini-golf or something similar where the goal is to get the ball in the right place.
The experience was complete from start to finish, with the surprise of seeing an online leaderboard. :O
I only encountered one issue at the beginning of the game, which was that sometimes the ball randomly exits the game after completing the loop, returning to the starting point. This confused me and made me have to restart the game a couple of times until I passed the first stage of the game
Overall, it was a good experience. Good job!
Thanks for playing!
It sounds like you hit R, making the ball restart at the beginning of the level, but I guess it could be some other bug too. It felt kind of scary to depend on physics simulation for gameplay to be honest.
I think the leaderboard is spreading in GWJ! I saw it first in GMTK23 I think, and used it for GWJ59, 60 and 61. Always forget to credit: http://dreamlo.com/
I love pinball games and this was a credible attempt at making one. You've put a good amount of attention to detail into the graphics and level design and different pusher and flipper mechanisms.
I do feel that the game physics were not quite balanced right. The ball was sluggish at times and the behaviour was a little unpredictable. Now, I know that Godot physics in 4.1 is not great so I think the engine takes a lot of the blame here. I have had a good experience with using godot-jolt as a swap in replacement - but I'm not sure if it supports HTML5 games yet.
The ascension theme is loosely linked and you're obviously controlling the environment rather than a character - and no death so that's the wildcards ticked off.
I sadly got beaten by the game (or my terrible skills) and couldn't progress past the grabber area
Thank you for the feedback!
We used AnimatableBody3D with tweens and physics tickrate of 240 in order to not have balls flying through stuff. Sadly, these bodies don't have continuous collision detection, like rigidbody does. We were really really close to not making the game at all while dealing with a bug related to these, but found a workaround and felt that the physics in most cases worked good enough. One thing is that the ball often rolled quite slowly, which was a bit boring, but we never got around to fix that. Trying another physics backend would have been interesting!
The magnet levels are hard, I agree!
ah gotcha! Every game I make with physics gives me headaches!
Yes, it's been a thing where I've gotten burnt, stayed away from, tried again, gotten burned and so on. But this time it at least became playable, nothing goes flying like crazy all of a sudden or go through walls. So that's a level up at least compared to previous physics miseries :D
Sweet game, you guys could totally make this into a full length game!
Thank you very much for saying so, and for trying the game!
Amazing result. I want more :)
Same camera issue than Try dev. That's the only bad thing ^^
How the hell did you succeed in about 1 min guys?
Thank you so much!! We hoped that someone would say that they wanted a few more levels :) And about finishing in about one minute, we had to play test alot to find bugs (and clearly still didnt find all)!
Great, complete, highly polished experience. Well done!
Graphics look production-grade, I could imagine buying or downloading game that looks that good in Windows XP / 7 era with a bit more content.
Sometimes camera changes position making the ball be out of view (i.e. the part where you magnet the ball up on a 45* slope, right before next level). A small issue, because it then goes back to previous position, when ball goes back far enough.
Great job!
Oh no, did you have to press R to get that working again then? We had the ambition of testing all places where the ball rolls back, but we maybe missed somthing. Or maybe it did work in the end, but it just took lots of time? It sounds like the absolute last actuator actually. I think I understand what happened.
Thanks for the kind words and playing!
I didn't need to Restart, camera went back to previous view and the ball was there already. So I could try again.
This is how I did it consistently:
1. Hold the ball with magnet
2. Once ball is above actuator (the one which triggers immediately, with one force setting), release magnet and quickly click on actuator
3. Ball will get some force forward, not enough to get to the end of level, but enough to trigger camera movement.
4. Ball falls back, camera goes back to previous point and you can try again
I think it's because I was clicking actuator right after releasing magnet and the ball might either be still a bit "stuck" to the magnet, or maybe it's a bit in the air (not touching actuator fully), and doesn't get full force applied.
In the end I managed to get past it by being a bit more patient with 2nd click on actuator.
Thank you so much!! And yeah, we did our damndest to try to see if the cameras worked as intended, but missed a few spots here and there. Thanks for playing!
That's understandable. This kind of camera has so many corner cases, it's a pain to find and fix them all :)
Very fun, got 1:17
That's really good! I had... 1:13 before leaderboard reset I think. FreakClub could not accept having a worse time than me, so I think he had 1:09 or something :)
Thanks for playing!
Good job!!! And thanks for playing!
Wow I am so impressed of the quality of this game, it's really a nice game with even a leaderboard ! A bit hard sometimes when you should click on separate objects very quicly, an idea for that is to bind some keys on each type of object where you can interact, like the very good game Yoku's Island Express (if you didn't played it yet go for it)
Thanks for those kind words!
I felt that an alternative way of controlling the actuators would have been nice too. That idea you had would have been great!
Maybe a label for each actuator in the level showing which key is assigned... Interesting.
Wishlisted the game!
Thank you for the kind words and for trying the game!! I like your idea about quickly being able to activate different objects! That would have improved the game. I will have a look at Yokus Island Express!
nice effort! fantastic aertwork and presentation!
What a cool way to start off this game jam.
An innovative take on pinball in a futuristic setting with a cyber-ish aesthetic that's supported by snazzy music and punctual sound design. The mechanics and level design worked hand-in-hand to make each part of the game challenging. Further, the camera work in the 3D space is among the most incredible I've seen in a Godot game. Bested the game in <three minutes, though I benefited from first-time luck, because my second playthrough went over five.
The combination of needing to control the velocity of the ball enough so that it could be picked up by the magnet was excellent balancing, and creates opportunities for the player to attempt to work two mechanics to achieve one goal. Appreciated the in-game tooltips for how to use the inputs to control plungers, flippers, and magnets. These are far more intuitive than reading a pre-game manual. Gorgeous graphics and colour scheme cap off a well-developed experience.
My only criticism is that the mechanics and level design were so fun, that it felt like it ended prematurely, and I was ready for more. Alas, thus are the limitations of a nine-day jam where sometimes the pendulum swings more towards developing features than exploiting them to their fullest. I'd love it if this game was expanded upon, but that seems to rarely happen with jam games. Not much else to criticize, except that my gaming laptop scalded my thighs in the midst of running this program, and I may need to head out now to pick up some Polysporin from the pharmacy. Does Godot Wild Jam have any insurance?
As usual, this team pushing the boundaries of what could be possible in a limited timeframe. Well done, friends.
What a first response to start off this game jam! :D
Very grateful for yo taking the time to really dig into it. Sorry to hear you were injured during the process! We should maybe have had both epilepsy and scalding warnings. Quite a log of lightwork going on.
Camera management is always a tough thing in games. We used what we called "camera anchors" which consisted of an Area3D for detecting the ball entering a region and a Node3D to which the camera then would tween to. It tweens with different duration based on the velocity of the ball when it enters. It turned out quite OK I think!
We tried to keep this jam a bit relaxed, but got a bit worked up in the end anyway, but we thought that we'd rather have just a few levels, leaving the player wanting more, than going all-in trying to make too much of it. Glad to hear you wanted more, that's really nice to hear!
I think you maybe had the exact same thing in your entry, ~5 levels with much potential left untapped!
Thanks for playing and all kind words!
Thank you so much for this generous review. It was fun to read about your experience with the game! I am glad that the game works as we intended, and that the puzzles had a reasonable difficulty. Sorry to hear about your third degree burns, I must admit that my computer also struggled quite a bit with this game. I am sure it could have been improved quite a bit performance-wise, but unfortunately we did not have any time for that.
Thank you so much for trying the game, and for taking the time to give us this great feedback!!