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A jam submission

A Familiar MessView game page

Submitted by jonas newhouse, jerzlinski — 7 days, 20 hours before the deadline
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A Familiar Mess's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#174.2004.200
Audio#173.8803.880
Originality#273.8803.880
Accessibility#423.0803.080
Overall#443.3773.377
Fun#652.9202.920
Controls#742.8002.800
Theme#992.8802.880

Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
Godot 4

Wildcards Used
Did You Know?, Warp Speed, Wildcard x7 (Who Are You?, Pacifist, Dad Joke, Cheater!, Animism, Trash Everywhere, Silliness Switch)

Game Description
Last night the wizard was away, today you're the only familiar left to clean up after the party. Take out the the trash, reshelve the books, and sabotage your wizard to buy yourself time!

How does your game tie into the theme?
This game is about cleaning up towers of trash within the tower of a wizard.

Source(s)
N/A

Discord Username(s)
jonas(aka bossdog)

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
this is my first

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

yeah, great work. nice art and visuals. good sound effects and music; clean overall. i can tell that love has been put into this, but i just have a few comments:


some of the immediate things you can fix are:

  • controls and movement feel a little unresponsive. too often did i feel like i wasn't turning around fast enough. after a while, i've figured out that it was because my character was only flipping horizontally when their x-velocity crosses the zero threshold, which is a really common mistake, so i understand. but ideally, you should make your character flip horizontally upon entering the opposite input direction so as to visually indicate to the player that they have successfully turned around.
  • a mini-map would be a nice-to-have, especially with all the trash (or at the very least the books) indicated within it. don't know how easy that would be to implement, but you be the judge.

some of the more pertinent issues in my opinion are:

  • the game is, i'm sorry to say, not really all that fun. i think it's really cute, but the tediousness of the task at hand, as well as the overall uninteresting world design, plus the floatiness and overall clunkiness of the player's movement, makes playing this game for an extended period of time a little difficult to imagine. to be fair: your game is pretty short, short enough not to overstay its welcome, and i have to give you credit for that. plus, i think the game is thematically strong, with all of the unique wizardry floating about. (love the cheat code mechanic, btw).


please don't get it misconstrued: i'm not saying the game is bad. i think it's good and has a lot of potential (there's a reason why i beat it and didn't drop it). i believe in your ability, and i think you have what it takes to make something really special. i'm not saying you should completely change this game, but maybe give it a bit more of an interesting twist, or a bit of that pzazz, that i feel is currently a bit lacking right now. because, right now, this is more-or-less a trash cleaning simulator but in a magic tower, and we already have unique versions of that concept out there. i really think you can make this unique too---more unique than it already is.


i love your worki think a bit more needs to be done to fully realize this concept's potential, though. still, for a week's worth of effort, great job. i hope you continue making awesome stuff.

Developer

i really appreciate all of the detailed and constructive notes! this was my first game so input like that can be very helpful. especially the note about axis flipping, that makes so much sense. thank you!

Submitted(+1)

Nice game! What a hard-working familiar, and such a dirty wizard!

Moving around was challenging and took some practice. Finding all the books was a challenge in such a big space, I couldn't track down the last one. I wish I could have zoomed out more or had an arrow indicator for the direction. The music was well-done and the sounds effective (that garbage noise was gross!) I really enjoyed character portraits and the art and animation of the familiar creature. That wizard though...


well done :)

Submitted(+1)

Great in game tutorial, I appreciate that I’m not blocked by the tutorial
It would be more challenging if there was a limit to the weight of trash we can fly with.
Cute bird

Submitted(+1)

This is such a cute game! I really liked how the art, sounds, and controls worked together to make the feeling that this work was really arduous, and that made the moments where you could accelerate through the tower really rewarding! The text on the books and the dialogue was amusing and every character that I met was unexpected and interesting..... I tried a bunch of cheat codes but couldn't find any:(

I'm especially impressed by the dynamic lighting and the zoom out feature, but I wish you could zoom out a little more since there weren't too many landmarks to navigate by. I think you guys made great use of your time, and congrats on the game!

Submitted

Fun movement and I had fun playing. I realized way too late that i can zoom out the camera :D In  the end I couldnt find the last 2 trash and gave up :D

Submitted

really fun and creative mechanics :) cozy little game, nice music and ambiance. it all fit together to make a fleshed out platformer. i did find myself getting stuck a bit here and there and a way to be able to reset my character would've been nice but overall a really solid and enjoyable entry!

Submitted(+1)



\O/

Great artwork! I liked the game mechanics, and loved the idea of hiding cheat codes that you can simply go to that totem and tell them!
The only thin I would change in the game mechanics is controlling the direction of the duck (found it a bit hard to change direction left/right). I think a minimap would be nice too.
Very cozy atmosphere, the SFX match the graphics well!

Submitted(+1)

Wizard sabotaged 275 times, trash found 386/386! The final screen was great, but I won’t spoil it here :) It’s a really lovely game with a wholesome process and environment. The main character is cute, and the process drags you in. Somehow, I couldn’t at first understand that the red things were walls. Otherwise, the art was perfect. Also, it was a puzzle about how to suck the trash from the walls until I realized that holding space actually does the trick. At that moment, I had already collected around 200 trash items :)

Submitted(+1)

Fun game! The graphics are really nice and SFX fit really well:) The only thing I found a bit overwhelming was the amount of different controls and which key does what. But other than that I really enjoyed playing!

Submitted(+3)

It’s a really cute game. I think adding a mini-map would make it really easy for the player to dive-bomb more confidently.

Submitted(+2)

I got stuck a little bit too but found this to be fun. The SFX were great. The vacuum trash kind of mechanic thing was a lot of fun too, something about it was a very satisfying experience.

Developer(+2)

Thank you! It was a huge learning experience

Submitted(+2)

Really cute visuals! You should've added a way the reset the level because I got stuck between a piece of crumpled paper and a chewed up core of an eaten apple and couldn't move :(