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bloato's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #5 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Fun | #19 | 3.738 | 3.738 |
| Overall | #19 | 3.694 | 3.694 |
| Originality | #25 | 3.881 | 3.881 |
| Audio | #26 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Graphics | #32 | 3.905 | 3.905 |
| Accessibilty | #35 | 3.238 | 3.238 |
| Controls | #50 | 3.286 | 3.286 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.3 Beta 3
Wildcards Used
N/A
Game Description
A small platformer about moderation and balance.
How does your game tie into the theme?
The game presents and begins like a simple platformer– You play as Bloato the frog, collecting flies for points. You soon learn that taking too many flies has unintended consequences, altering gameplay and puzzles for better or for worse. A big inspiration for the character came from No-Face from Spirited Away, and it was a ton of fun to try to play with traditional collectibles-equals-points platformer tropes!
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
brittspace
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1! This is my first!
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Comments
Fantastic music and sound effects (actually made me lol), and a really smart way to utilize the theme. Big fan of the tutorial levels and the quick-restart option. If I had one critique it'd be that the double jump can feel inconsistent at times (or maybe that's just my gluttony). Excellent job!!
Thank you! It was a really fun theme to play with! I'm glad the tutorials worked for you– I wanted folks to become just accustomed enough to it being a normal ol' platformer before introducing some of the gotchas and puzzle mechanics. I was actually most worried that folks wouldn't find the quick restart and get frustrated when being stuck because of not being able to fit through something, or there feeling like there was no way to progress.
The music was done by my partner in such a short amount of time– it blew my mind. I'm smiling at knowing the sound effects landed. It's always one of my favorite parts ... What's better than making weird noises into a mic? 😂
Someone else commented on the double jump feeling inconsistent! Could you say more about how/when it felt that way?
Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
Nice entry, so much better then just laying on your back after eating flies :P. In all seriousness, a great little game, with a unique twist. Loved the sound effects!
You know, no judgement. It's a hard life for us amphibians.
Thank you for the kind words! It was a ton of fun to explore the twist/mechanic, and always one of my favorite parts, recording sound effects. Just me making a bunch of weird sounds into the mic!
it feels really clean and polished, thanks for this entry =D i had some Celeste vibes
Thank you for playing! I love your user name!
Celeste is one of my favorites, so that's wonderful to hear!
I really liked this game! The artstyle is calm, and the music matches it perfectly. The use of the theme is very clever here, and I would like to see more done with this game in the future! But my one complaint with the game is the double jump. It feels very inconsistent, and did lead to some frustration on my end at the last level. But putting that aside, this game is extremely well done for a game jam. Nice job!
Thank you! I'm glad it felt calm to you! Semi-related: I've been thinking about Miyazaki lately– how he touches on heaver themes like overconsumption in such a calm way. A friend of mine does incredible ceramics art on labor that is loosely inspired by him. The music was done by my partner in about 5 minutes on one of her new instruments she was playing with at the time. :) She's incredible.
I am planning on doing a bit more with it! There were so many other concepts I wanted to play with, like the benefits of eating more flies leading to animals not being able to eat you, or being able to walk on spikes. I hadn't wanted to use spikes at all, in favor of natural creatures, for example a pit with an animal that moves so quickly it is effectively spikes. I also wanted to build out the levels and pacing and introduction of concepts a lot more slowly.
I'd love to understand what felt inconsistent about the double jump! I actually had double jump, wall jump/slide, and dash coded up and toggle-able but decided to keep it clean and simple with just a double jump (I almost left that out, but it did feel like it added more control.)
One thing a friend mentioned was– sometimes he would walk of a ledge and miss the coyote-time window but hit jump, so he was really falling and hit his double jump, but it felt like it was glitching. I had wanted to fix it but it was at the 11th hour :)
Thanks for playing and the thoughtful feedback!
Wow, it’s awesome you put so much thought into the theme and atmosphere of the whole game. That pottery is very cool by the way.
I’m looking forward to where you take the game in the future with all these ideas, I especially like what you were saying about taking a more natural approach instead of using spikes and such.
Now, it’s kind of hard for me to put into words, but I think my problem with the double jump could’ve been from how it scaled with the player. As the player gets bigger and they can jump higher, the double jump stays at the same height, and when you can jump very high, it feels a little frustrating to only have a tiny “bump” in the air.
And no problem, I love giving detailed feedback for games I enjoyed as I really do want to see them improved. Best of luck with your future projects!
Aw, thanks! Yeah, my friend's ceramics work is out of this world.
And yeah, spikes are interesting! They give such immediate feedback and we all know what it feels like to step on something pokey. I wonder what it will feel like if it's an animal roaming– it might be a bit frustrating with the delay between "hit ground you're not supposed to" and room restart. But it was game jam time so spikes it was 😂
For the double jump: oh, yeah. Do you mean after you've increased size so you can use the lilly pads to bounce, and then you just get the tiny air jump? I could see how that would feel a bit anticlimactic. It makes sense that it's more proportional to your "jump height" even if you're using an object to get up there. If you were really, really heavy the button effectively wouldn't do anything, which would feel bad.
Great feedback! Thanks!
Really clever take on the theme - I'd predicted that we might get too big for being too greedy but not how cleverly the flies would be used to make us actively have to avoid them! Sounds are cute, the frog is adorable, and I like the various ways in which the weight/size of the frog affects how it interacts with the environment.
Thank you! It was really fun to tweak the physics to be fun to move around with but have some negative consequences when puzzle solving. And lots more ways of playing with getting bigger that helps, like growing enough that walking on spikes doesn't hurt or that interacting with different animals doesn't kill you. Plenty to explore, still!
Really clever take on the theme - I'd predicted that we might get too big for being too greedy but not how cleverly the flies would be used to make us actively have to avoid them! Sounds are cute, the frog is adorable, and I like the various ways in which the weight/size of the frog affects how it interacts with the environment.
This was really clever, I like how the unintended consequences turn the original goal on its head. The lighting did a whole lot for the minimalist level design, it looked super nice. Great game!
Thank you, Grumbumblior, for playing it and leaving a comment!
I was really excited by the concept and, yes, turning the traditional platformer trope a bit on its head! I'm glad you liked the lighting and design. I didn't have a ton of time to spend on level art, and I wanted something that gave off a bit of a mischievous and lonely feeling, since the concept is a bit playful and troll-y and eventually, you realize that the objective isn't only to "collect all the coins."
really cool implementation of the theme! The art style and lighting effects are great, and make for a cool atmospheric experience. I also think the difficulty curve is a bit steep, since its hard to master a platformer with a jump height that varies unless you are prepared to restart a lot. Good work overall!
Thank you and thanks for playing and your thoughts! It was a ton of fun to design and play with the mechanics.
Yes, I wanted to play with varying the jump-mechanics based on how much you've eaten, so you had to figure out what was the maximum you could eat for a particular level, in order to make or miss different jumps, for example.
I spent quite a bit of time tweaking the physics so that the movement and puzzles wouldn't feel too punishing and things would still be fluid at different scales. I wonder if it's possible to tweak in such a way that it feels masterable? Hard to do that and have the feeling of "unintended consequences." 😂
Hi, I liked the used Artstyle, Sound and Music, i liked your use of light and shadows!
Also cool that you can eat flys to get bigger and that changes the jumpheight and so on.
I was not able to get as far because i am bad at platformers i guess xD
Well done!
Thank you! It's definitely harder to play platformers without a controller!
Hi, I liked the used Artstyle, Sound and Music, i liked your use of light and shadows!
Also cool that you can eat flys to get bigger and that changes the jumpheight and so on.
I was not able to get as far because i am bad at platformers i guess xD
Well done!
Took me 53 tries to get further, I recommend making the game a bit easier for a jam, Overall fun to play until I got angry at falling so many times XD
Thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback!
Great thoughts re: difficulty for a game-jam. I actually made it quite a bit easier before I submitted! I had a couple really punishing rooms. It was definitely difficulty to balance ease of play and some of the more difficult puzzles and mechanics I had in mind with the scaling mechanic in so few levels!