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Light'em Ducks's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #3 | 4.083 | 4.083 |
| Graphics | #4 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Fun | #6 | 4.184 | 4.184 |
| Audio | #7 | 3.947 | 3.947 |
| Accessibilty | #8 | 3.579 | 3.579 |
| Controls | #9 | 3.921 | 3.921 |
| Theme | #10 | 4.474 | 4.474 |
| Originality | #29 | 3.974 | 3.974 |
Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.2.2
Wildcards Used
What the Duck
Game Description
You play as a light wielding duck trying to save their friends
How does your game tie into the theme?
Enemies require to be in the light or dark to be damaged
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
Jorel
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
2
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Comments
Currently my second highest rated game in this jam. It was not ease to beat your game. Really good job!
Thank you for the feedback :)
I had a hard time with balancing on this one. I admit it is harder than I wanted.
Great job with this one, the audio, graphics and gameplay are all really great. I did encounter some freezing issues and later noticed you mentioned them in the description. It might be worth mentioning something in game too e.g. while loading or a warning because it's easy to overlook the description and just assume the game broke.
Overall though, the mechanics were well polished, and this would be a great demo for an actual game.
Thank you for the feedback :)
The freezing on the browser version really made me sad, but I think it was expected. I layered a lot of shaders to get the light particles to look good, and web builds don't handle glow very well as far as I know. I'm glad you liked the way it came out though, I plan on adding more stuff once I get more time. I definitely want to make this a full game.
Really like this game. The graphics, sound, and music make a very enjoyable game, but the gameplay and the upgrade system really make it. Played a couple times and make it further each time, is there a limit or is it endless?
Thanks for submitting again, great game!
I'm really glad you liked it :)
The waves from level 1 through 5 are premade and always the same on every run, but after that, the game goes on forever. I did this to make more controlled dificulty and to balance the game. My first iterations were so hard I couldn't beat them.
To explain a little further, after level 5 all waves are randomly generated and the minimum and maximum number of enemies scales linearly. Each level completed after level 5 gives an exponentially higher score multiplier, so if you get really far into the game, you can get absurd scores.
I'm also glad you liked the upgrades. They are a little simple, but can be stacked to make your duck really powerfull. My favorite combo has to be Orb Damage + Extra Orbs. It feels great to watch the orbs instakill shadow ducks from afar while everything slows down around you :>
Really polished fun game! Loved feeling from hitting ducks and the light mechanic, difficulty also ramped up nicely. Great job overall!
Thank you for the feedback, I'm glad you liked it :)
Very fun game! I enjoyed it very much
I'm happy to hear it :)
As a big Hyper Light Drifter fan, this is definitely my favorite game I've seen from this jam. So well executed! The combat feels challenging but fluid, the presentation and art are fantastic, and its super cute! Amazing job here!
I'm also a big fan of Hyperlight, so I'm really happy you could see the influence here. I spent a lot of time trying to make the combat feel just right, and I think it paid out in the end. Thank you so much for the kind words :)
If you like HLD's music too, I take a lot of inspiration from Disasterpeace. So if you're ever looking for someone to help with music & sfx on a jam, lmk!
I will keep that in mind. My current main project is inspired by Hyperlight. Here is a sneak peek:
Hey I'd love to hear more about this, my discord is videonoise if you want to add me
Sure
awesome, funny and original game! great job
Thank you for the feedback, I'm really glad you liked it :)
I enjoyed the art quite a bit, chill song too. the light being a curse sometimes is a great twist! had fun saving some ducks!
I'm happy you liked it. I almost didn't add the inverted enemies. Good thing I did :)
(did you know there is an exponential score multiplier once you get past level 5 wink* wink*)
well then…
>:)
ok I played a bunch more. lol. I think picking up the light needs to be the same button as throwing the light. the F key is just one too many things to think about in a game this short and this fast! but dang it it is fun!
I noticed this key binding issue near the end of the jam while playtesting, as my hands struggled to dash through enemies and pick up light orbs at the same time. I'll keep in mind changing it to the same button later
you know… honestly… That would be such a small change I would ask the organizers if you can submit an update. It’s kinda an accessibility thing.
Fun game with nice animations. Really good work!
Thank you, I'm really glad you had fun :)
Lot of work there. Art is very cute and polished and so the sound design. I had some freeze issues like you mentioned in the description but only at the beginning. I can't understand how you managed your time to build : options, intro"duck"tion, tutorial and all the stuff in your game but that's impressive.
Sleep deprivation is the key to success (kinda)!
Jokes aside, on the first two days, I try to really plan out (with pen and paper and all of that) what I'm going to do and how much stuff I can get away with without wasting too much time. This is also when I draw my assets and narrow down the game's scope.
I think it is also important to plan ahead what kind of systems your game needs and which ones need better code. Some things can be done with lazy code and work fine, but others might benefit from better coding patterns and modular approaches.
The rest is intense work and good schedualling. I was lucky to have some extra time for this jam, but had to do a crunch at the end to get sound effects done and remove remaining bugs
Haha I see. And now you cannot recovery your lack of sleep because you have to play games, and review them ... but hopfully this part is less time-consuming and gives no headache. As a 4 months Godot user (GDevelop before) I was completly trapped in my own maze during the development of my game (I know that 3D was a bit pretentious for my skills) , but it's a logic and a essential way to approche engine game when we are not familliar with coding but that was tough. Thank you for sharing your labor with me. ;)
I get it. The first months of learning the engine are frustrating. I have a background with coding that really helped to get into game dev, but sometimes it is really easy to feel stuck or feel like you are wasting time while trying to implement ideas or personal projects
This is really polished and satisfying to play. The art is great with the wing attack animations being my favourite. The intro that sets the scene was a welcome surprise and so was personalising your duck.
Lots of juice and things to take away for my own development. Great work.
I'm glad you liked it. The attack animations are also one of my favourite parts of this project :)
Everything feels very polished. Combat is snappy and the controls are responsive. You even get to choose a scarf for your duck, which is a feature that every game should have.
But there are some problems too:
- The shop upgrades are very boring. +5% attackspeed doesn't change anything, and neither do the other upgrades. The only useful thing in the shop was the heal.
-Lack of variety. There's only a few enemy types, and your moveset is too simple. You never have to change up your strategy. You go in to hit a few times and then dash away. One good feature was that you can cancel enemy attacks by damaging them. This allows you go handle 3-4 ducks on close range without having to back off, which felt satisfying to pull off.
-Minor nitpick, but the floating lights in the air are annoying. They look cool, but it's hard to tell that if that's an item on the ground, or if it's just a shiny thingy floating around in the air.
Overall it's a cool game. One of my favorite games in this jam.
Thank you for the feedback!
I'm glad you pointed those things out. I choose to cut a lot of ideas to avoid scope creep and I agree the game lacks variety. In the future, I plan to add more enemies, bosses and new weapons/movesets. A lot of time went into coding the enemy AI and tweeking the game feel.
On the upgrade department, I also agree. I would say the only ones that are objectivaly good are the health-ups and +1 damage (which is not stackeble). I choose to stick to simple stat increases to avoid bugs and extra work. On the future, I'll probably rework them.
And finally for the light particles, I'll add an option to remove them and I'll try to make pickups more noticeble. I was having major performance issues with Godot's built in lighting system (my PC is also not that good) and had to turn down the visuals a bit. I used additive blending to turn sprites into "fake lights", which made pick-ups kinda of, well, blend with things, making them hard to see.
Edit: I'm also really glad you liked the "choose your color" bit. Maybe it wasn't a waste of time after all...
This is so well made, I enjoyed the game a ton!
Thank you :)
I'm really glad you enjoyed it
Wow! This was a super polished game, I loved the sound design! :) I'm also really impressed at how much fun this clean, simple game was to play :) Also love the cute ducks q to QUACK
The furtive Q to quack prompt, so easily forgotten...
(Thank you for the feedback, I'm glad you had fun with the game C: )
This has an absurd amount of polish and juice for a jam game, holy crap. The controls are really tight, the writing is solid, the audio is good, and the art is simple but extremely cute and very well animated - the little details like the secondary animation of the duck's tail in its run cycle add a ton to this. And you employed the theme in a great way. Fantastic work all around!
Thank you so so much for the feedback :)
I'm really glad you liked the game and could apreciated the little details. I knew I wanted to animate cute ducks as soon as I saw the wild cards, so I'm extra happy you liked the art. Comments like this make me really happy!
great work! The character feel is very solid and intuitive
I'm glad you liked it :)
Getting into this game i wasn't expecting such a polished experience, the UI is very good looking and the game art too. Having to manage the light to be able to attack enemies is a very creative idea and i like how it was executed.
Thank you so much for the feedback :)
I had a great time drawing and animating little ducks and messing with the visuals in general
Great game! One of my favorites. I love attack animations!
I'm glad you liked it! I really enjoy making animations nowadays, it's probably one of the parts I enjoy the most when making games :)
WOW, this was a very cool little game that I played for way longer than I should have! The mechanics are very simple but the fast paced gameplay keeps the challenge alive! I can see myself coming back to this one often in the future, and definitely can see this being near the top of the leaderboards!
Thank you so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! :)
While playtesting I also wasted a lot of time just playing the damn thing instead of coding features. Once the Jam is over and I get some extra time, I'll probably go back to add new stuff, like new enemy types, bosses and movesets. I had to cut a lot of ideas to focus on the core mechanics and visuals, but I think it turned out very well
Really enjoyed this game, wish I had more time to keep playing.
I'm glad you liked it :)