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Shine Hard's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #2 | 4.667 | 4.667 |
| Audio | #7 | 3.926 | 3.926 |
| Overall | #7 | 3.889 | 3.889 |
| Theme | #10 | 4.222 | 4.222 |
| Fun | #16 | 3.741 | 3.741 |
| Originality | #18 | 4.074 | 4.074 |
| Accessibilty | #25 | 3.074 | 3.074 |
| Controls | #26 | 3.519 | 3.519 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.3
Wildcards Used
Silent Night, UI Is Real, Advent Calendar
Game Description
The town of Gruberville is in trouble! Famous for being a premier holiday destination, Gruberville was hit by disaster when a freak storm destroyed their epic Christmas tree. Mayor Hans has left in search of a replacement, but only the magic of Spruce Willis can save them.
How does your game tie into the theme?
Freezing enemies is an essential mechanic of the game. Also, freezing in place (hiding) helps avoid getting caught. The setting is also winter time.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
LanysLirana, FlyingStupid, Senna
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
2 members - 1st jam, 1 member - 3rd GWJ, 1 member 4th GWJ, 1 member - 5th GWJ
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Comments
Really neat and fun game. Being able to pick up snowballs super fast and throw them far away is really fun. The effect of noise propagating as you jump around looks great and is really helpful for gameplay. Also the tree is really cute with its little eyes. The billboard being an interactive main menu is also a nice touch.
Glad you had fun and thanks for playing!
A splendid game to play! I was remarkably surprised at the implementation of the bulletin board; I had almost more fun looking through it than the game, which was well-polished and enjoyable by itself. Well done everyone!
Thanks! We're going to put in a fix for the postcards later today after voting is over. We didn't realize you couldn't flip over any of the postcards from previous days until it was too late to get a fix in. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Lovely game! The art style is so cute and the concept is very unique. The festive atmosphere is top notch. 10/10 entry :-)
I'm glad you had fun. Thanks for playing!
Delightful game - the dynamic music, the little effect when you're behind things, the overall look, wow. The postcards at the start are so cute too. I don't even have all that much useful to say, it's extremely polished and well executed, the visuals and art are so nice, the music is too, the gameplay is super well executed - snowballs might be a bit too powerful, but honestly I'd rather have some wiggle room to make mistakes. Also it's just super cute, that spruce is adorable. Easily in my personal top 3 at least, congratulations on the great game!
Thank you! We're going to update the game sometime later today so that you can actually see the backs of all of the postcards. We didn't realize you could only flip over the current one until day 2 of voting, and by then it was too late to get a fix in. Glad you enjoyed it!
A really unique idea and feels quite polished. The main menu being a board was fun.
I enjoyed that the heavier the tree gets the louder the landing becomes. Nice work on the AI chase/forget system. I got quite a good looking tree out of it!
Thanks for playing, and I love that you shared your finished tree!
I was really impressed with the bulletin board! I also really liked the enemy AI - how did you implement it? Overall really fun game and the models were super cohesive too
Oh thanks so much. The AI is just a state machine and some pretty dumb move towards the location walking. We didn't end up using pathing at all. The flashlight is a cone topped with a hemisphere and some additive alpha. That represents the vision cone of the people. They have three states. Wonder, Chase, and idle. Wonder is the big one. Handles following a pre set path of points for patrolling it also handles getting them back to either their patrol or sentry location. Chase handles them following the player and sitting to alert others around them. Idle just handles them standing still and being in sentry mode. Idle also does the snow ball throwing. I wish I had a behavior tree to handle the logic it's pretty messy in there. Let me know if there's anything more specific you are interested in
yeah I’ve been looking into behavior trees lately as well as I’ve felt state machines are messy. It’s a little out of my wheelhouse at the moment so if you’re interested in looking into BTs together let me know!
Yeah they can be tricky at first but the ability to make small behaviors and build them into more complex ones is really powerful. I'd be down to chat if you'd like.
Amazing job! The level of polish here AMAZING and the commitment to the wildcards is so impressive. Great job!
Hey thanks for checking us out. We did a postcard for Petrified yesterday. Did you get a chance to see it? I can pull up the text if you missed it.
I saw it on the bulletin board and I'm so honored! But I didn't get to see the text. 😭 I'd love to see it!
It was challenging knowing how to pick up snow balls, but I figured it out. Super cool game!
I'm glad you are able to figure it out. We were trying to stick to the "UI is real" wild card, so the instructions were on the bulletin board when you start up the game and our main itch page. I hope you had fun once you figured it out. Thanks for playing!
Intro story, art, music, gameplay so good!!
Earmuffs to mute in menu, while not the most accessible this was so cute! Welcome to Gruberville flyer is nicely designed as is the layout of the town!
I didn't realise at first what it was I was trying to do however after interacting with one of the highlighted areas near a tree placed at spawn I could identify a different decoration on me and so continued hopping around looking for more decorations and fighting kids with snowballs :')
Great festive entry gamers, well done!
Thanks for playing! It was really difficult to keep the "UI is Real" wildcard and help with hints and stuff. We tried to be subtle where we needed less then real gameplay indicators. I'm glad you were able to mess around and get the idea. Did you end the game by getting on the platform and interacting? You can do that at any time and get your "score" represented by the crowd you end up drawing to look at you shine.
Thanks again for playing!
I've been struggling for a bit trying to come up with any constructive criticism... but I've got nothing. You've just polished it too well. Lovely game, very pretty, and a smooth experience.
Aww, thank you so much! I'm definitely my own worst critic, so it's nice to hear other people have such positive thoughts on what we were able to get done for this game jam.
Crazy how polished this is. Really good job here, game is a lot of fun!
Glad you had fun with our game. Thanks for playing!
Wow :O Brilliant work! We enjoyed so much! The idea of the ear warmer to mute the game was great.
Thank you for the game :)
I'm glad you enjoyed it! The earmuffs were the idea of one of our other devs. While we really enjoyed the humor of the chase music, it got to be a bit much playing it over and over again. Thanks for playing!
I liked so much the game!!! I am surprised that you managed to achieve such a polished game in such a short time.
Thanks for playing! I am always surprised by how much folks get done in these jams. Our artists are amazing. Every time we set up to do one I am always concerned we've bitten off more than we can chew especially for Art and then our art folks keep kicking butt. In every jam I have done there has been art we haven't used because we ran out of time. I need to do better as a gameplay person to keep up with them.
I really liked the overall visuals and the 3d models, they looked cute :D
I liked the way I had to avoid the people while trying to snatch decoration for the tree.
Thanky you for the game!
Thanks for playing! Cute was definitely what we were going for and we had fun making it.
Wow really good and well polished game for a jam! The lighting and the graphics are pretty. The controls are also good and the map is really big, I would have liked something that indicated the number of ornaments left.
Thanks for playing and for the kind words! We definitely talked about more direct goal communication, but leaned hard into the "UI is Real". There are certainly some improvements we could make there with more time!
Awesome game you guys made for the jam! From the main menu to the graphics to the actual gameplay, everything is well polished and very detailed. Would've liked to hear some sound effects for the tree moving both up and down or a count to see how many ornaments one needs to get but other than that nitpick, the gameplay was simple yet got me going to get at least most of the ornaments. Congrats on your game and Merry Christmas!
Thanks for playing! We took the "UI is real" wildcard as a challenge and it was pretty hard to resist the temptation to put some UI on the screen. Otherwise I'm glad you had a good impression of the game :).
Thanks again and Merry Christmas
How much for the ad for other jam games? :D Joking)
Great submission! Very festive and cure - music, art and how the NPCs move, etc. - all align really well!
I didn't have enough patience to get all the decorations, so I decided to go with snowballs as decorations :D Snowballs looked quite beautiful :)
It actually reminded me of the vibes of snow-town in It Takes Two
Have you tried finishing with ONLY snowballs? You should give it a try!
Also, as far as the postcards go, let's just say you should personally check back tomorrow.
Oh wow, thank you! :D How did you do it, btw? Did you put links to the external server where you changed the content? I haven't even touched on how things like this work since I'm very new to game dev and programming, but I was thinking about how someone can change content without changing the file, which is locked after the jam ends?
And I've just tried all-snowballs :D Lol! I really love this kind of alternative ending :)
I'm just the artist, but from what I understand, yes it's being hosted on an external server similar to the way a high-score board would work. I'll tag in one of the programmers to explain it better. I'm just here to make it pretty. 😅
There is a web server that has the image and some json to provide the text and link. Its similar to how a leaderboard would work where you've got just a bit of external data that gets loaded from the web.
This is very polished! The graphics are adorable, and I love the stealth mechanics. The game communicates things really well, like how much sound you're making every time you jump.
Also, really cool to see a Mikecicle reference on the bulletin board!
Thanks for checking out the game. Mayor Gruber visited Mikecicle on the first day of voting. Unfortunately there were some issues with glue on the postcard and so you can't read it any more (bug with the button) but here is the text:
I found a nice snowy place that reminds me of home. The trees here are a little… blocky I guess? I don’t think these trees will do at all. I don’t think I should hang around here any longer than I have to. I just saw a guy sliding down the mountain completely frozen in ice! At least he smashed through an ice wall that was blocking my way. Don’t worry I have a few more places to search. I’ll send another postcard tomorrow!
Love,
Mayor Hans
Fun and very polished, the menu is golden, and the die hard jokes are fun. Damn kids wouldn't leave Spruce alone. Subtle but functional UI. There are quite a few complex dynamics, like how the sound attracts the kids looking for the tree while they chase it, MGS style. Pretty big scope for a jam game, nicely done.
Fun fact: original concept title for the game was Metal Tree Solid before we decided to name him Spruce! I'm glad you enjoyed it and the humor that we put into it.
This was a fun, polished game. Well done!
Thank you!