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Frozen Bells's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #6 | 4.294 | 4.294 |
| Originality | #7 | 4.265 | 4.265 |
| Overall | #22 | 3.479 | 3.479 |
| Accessibilty | #27 | 3.029 | 3.029 |
| Audio | #39 | 3.353 | 3.353 |
| Controls | #51 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Fun | #53 | 3.088 | 3.088 |
| Graphics | #53 | 3.324 | 3.324 |
Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.3
Wildcards Used
All of them!
Game Description
A rythm game, but everything freezes. It's holiday time!
How does your game tie into the theme?
All objects in the game (including UI) freezes and you need to deal with that
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
Rakudajin, CarlosEdge , thegloop
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
Varies from first to second
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Comments
Hey! Making a christimas rhythm game was a nice way to incorporate the theme and I had a lot fun with the menus and the overall presentation.
The defrosting + playing the right bells felt a bit too overwhelming to me, even with the difficulty settings. I think you could have had the player defrost all the scenario only that one time in the beginning (because for me it was a very clever and fun way of introducing the game) or had the fire be the only thing that needed tending, with a much slower "fire decay" time.
The rhythm part was also a bit confusing to me, because the TV and the played bells would overlap different sounds. Maybe a more traditional "guitar-hero like" UI and no sound (or some mutted/filtered notes for missed inputs) coming from the TV would've made it a little better.
All that being said, I really liked this entry and think you all did a great job :)
Hey! Thanks for checking in!
I now think that the good balance would be if I make a clicker only for the fire + TV + speaker, but not bells. This would let both freeze-clicker and rhythm games coexist, affecting each other but not as dramatically ruining it.
Yep, I guess we should have played only the missed notes. We avoided the guitar-hero-like structure for the sake of experimentation, and I think it makes some sense given the "bells" theme - visually and effectively, but it does add an extra level of complexity/confusion.
It seems to be a tendency - this and the previous jam-game I worked on so far ended up too hard/heavy/complicated. I should resist this temptation next time :)
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :)
Really interesting use of the theme here great job! Even working in all the wild cards in a great way. I found it difficult but still fun!
Thank you! We have a lot of flexibility in difficulty, but probably should start with the lower baseline difficulty
Nice game! I never thought I'd see a rhythm game with this theme :D - Anyway, it was a fun game. A bit overwhelming to keep defrosting all the things (especially the bells, it was a bit frustrating when I wanted to play a note but it froze thus leading to me missing it), but I could cope with it :D
I generally enjoy rhythm games and this is no exception. It was also simple and easy to follow which is a huge plus :D
Thank you for making the game :D
Thank you!
I think we overdid with the frost a bit (although we reduced the level of frost twice during playtesting)... Now I think maybe we should separate a bit the clicker part and the rhythm part - so that everything but bells freeze... I could change it with literally one line of code, but too late :D
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :)
Nice work! It, initially, is very overwhelming, there was lots of mashing, and then ambient mashing to keep things going. It was also tough having things refreeze while it was being explained. I also think having it start (or an optional difficulty) with the bells appearing in their spatial position, or as typical stream, would have been nice to wrap my head around fewer things. I definitely got better after several tries though I can only handle so much christmas music (but that's a me-thing).
I didn't think of stopping freeze during the tutorial, but now it sounds so obvious when you've suggested it :) We were thinking about spatial positions, but because so often same note comes several times in a row it wasn't a good option.. And I didn't want the classic stream, wanted a bit more original... But I understand that it ended up being a bit overwhelming...
Maybe a good compromise would be not random but biased placement of notes - like "up" note appearing in up positions if possible, in central if not, and in the bottom only in the worst case (and same for other directions) - this would probably still work as a direction cue.
I think the biased placement is a great idea. And to be clear, I'm not anti the random placement, just that it makes it harder to get into but I can easily see as part of the challenge. And I'm definitely a supporter of trying new thing, esp that's what jams are for! On that... note... armchair design idea, the bells are always onscreen and hammers appear around them. Just a thought, keep up the experiments!
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :) And we changed the placement! :)
I think the placement helped a lot, I was able to do much better. Having played a few rounds, I realized the initial frenetic pace prevented me from having deeper feedback. It's great that you get the indicator that the note as good or bad, but I realized that I'm not certain when the perfect time to hit the note is. I'd guess with some experimentation I could figure it out but having some indicator would be helpful. One idea would be an outer circle so when it overlaps (but this obviously creates more clutter). Another might be a glow effect on the perfect time. After writing this out, I can imagine that they shake at the right time but it's hard to see that since they scale in.
I think also having some key indicators for the items that freeze, like a "P" by the item the is unfrozen with "P"; I basically just kept mashing IOP to keep things unfrozen. My gut is that penalizing for that would be un-fun, but giving a boost for hitting right when it changes state could be fun so people can mash if they need to keep up but as you get more adept and time it, it stays unfrozen longer. Basically my thinking is when game have a quick-time reload mechanic, missing it isn't really bad, but can provide a bonus to keep expert players engaged.
Super cool that you improved things post jam, esp with the advent calendar. Each jam I mean to, and often do some work, but then keep delaying uploading because of the "it will be so much better if I add in one more thing" trap.
Thanks for the comments!
I see what you mean about post-jam updates :) I just did the most critical ones, which took like 2 hours.
But I agree with your comments! I thought about the things you've mentioned and I totally agree that I should go more for bonuses than for penalties :) And it would be cool to add some clicker mechanics separate from rhythm, like you've said - with point for clicking in good time.
And for the bells - yep, I should have placed semi-transparent positions for the full bell state I guess :)
Interesting rhythm game, I like how well the UI interaction works with the game and how you somehow have to play notes like you're in guitar hero on the TV that could or could not break any minute. Congrats on your game!
Thank you!
Hey look, another rhythm game!
Question: are you penalized for ringing the bell when you're not supposed to if there's nothing on screen? Sometimes I would be so concentrated on the TV that I wouldn't notice that the bells were frozen in multiple layers of ice, so I would spam tap the arrow key in between series of notes to try to free it as fast as I could. It's definitely a bit annoying to be hitting a chain of notes only to find that one of your bells is frozen (then again, maybe it's my fault for not paying attention to my bells when I'm not using them).
I look forward to seeing what new songs you've got for me tomorrow. :)
Thank you so much! :D Today is one of the hardest but very beautiful one :)
There isn't a score penalty for hitting extra time, but it does reduce the combo meter, as in most rhythm games. But yep, this kind of annoyance is part of the game mechanics, but I guess we overdid it a bit :)) Maybe freezing everything but the bells would make a better experience :))
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :)
Nice job! I found it to be challenging, but definitely works once you get the hang of it. Excellent use of the wildcards, too. The only thing I thought was rough was the white text on whte background, I had a bit of trouble with that, but it could just be me. Otherwise great entry!
Thank you! Was that outline not salient enough? Or was the wind without outline there for some reason? I hope outline would make it readable, although the fancy font itself is not too readable
I think the outline could've been a bit thicker, but the font being a lightly different color than the wind would've been a little easier on the eyes!
Thank you for this feedback! I'll try to be more mindful of that next time :)
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :) And we've changed the fonts!
It looks much nicer!
Very unique and engaging experience, although maybe a bit hard. The UI freezing was a clever idea, it perfectly fits both theme and wildcard!
Thank you! :) We should have put default heat to a lower level :D
I gave a 5 on originality! This was definitely one of the more unique games I've seen here. I thought the bells execution was pretty clever! I enjoyed.
Thank you!
Nice idea! But i think unfrezzing bells is too hard and unfair because it can freeze right before you want to press it.
We probably should have the default difficulty a bit easier, but there is a freeze-level adjustment starting day 3! :)
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :)
Cool game! Very unique, I like how you incorporated the music into the gameplay so well. The art was also really cool, I liked the mice chilling up top giving you a score :p
Thank you!
Wow, thanks!
this is probably the most clever game submission i've seen so far. I wish that the bells were in the same orientation as they showed up on the screen, that way I could be quicker about learning. But all in all, I enjoyed the learning of this game! Unfreezing the screen seemed tedious, but I understand you were hitting the theme!
Starting level 3 you can reduce (or increase) the freeze :) But I probably should have made base-line freeze even lighter :)
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :) And we changed some bell orientation!
The mice are adorable. Love music games and really liked how you have to clear things out before starting. At first the amount of things to learn felt overwhelming but once I got to the core loop (music and unfreezing) I was having a good time. Great work!
thank you! was the tutorial too heavy? or just too much things happening at a time?
My experience with the tutorial pop ups was like ..<still reading>... Oh! Another thing <still reading> Oh! another! I'm a fast reader which is I think why I noticed because that isn't super usual for me to feel like I'm not keeping up. I did like how well things were explained, it just felt a little too quick for me. Not a huge problem, but it stood out to me.
I'm noticing all of the games I really liked I am finding some pretty far off the beaten path things to comment on. Which means I definitely liked your game.
Sound design is very nice. It's pretty hard to keep everything unfrozen and play the rhythm game at the same time though. Original idea ^^
It gets easier after you get a thermostat (on day 3), but I gues we should add it earlier or maybe make the base freeze less severe :)
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :)
Like the clicker meets rhythm! Really cool take.
I didn't think of it as a clicker, but you are right, it pretty much is! :D Maybe we could also add some bonuses for cleared ice, to make clicker contribute to the score :D
Like the clicker meets rhythm! Really cool take.
I absolutely adore rhythm games, and this one was so much fun. The addition of the keeping the room warm added a challenge I wasn't expecting. I'll be coming back to this game to see the advent calendar reveals!
Thank you so much! There is a new song every day, and we've put the coolest ones in the middle right around Christmas :) It would be real cool to see you back! :)
Oh my goodness, carol of the bells is so hard!
Thanks for coming back!)
I think it's the hardest, but it's so cool!)
#1 difficulty (on tv) also makes it slower and easier to learn, if you'd like ,:)
Hey! We've updated the difficulty, I hope it's more enjoyable now :)
Cool take on the theme, enjoyed the rhythm game with a twist
Thank you!
Pretty chaotic gameplay, though I enjoyed it. Nice work!
Thank you! We probably should have reduce the base-line freeze to make it less overwhelming at the start :)
A bit hard, but super cool idea and great take on the theme! Also nicely done incorporating all the wildcards. Great work!
Thank you! Also on days 3 and 5 you get an opportunity to change the difficulty :)