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Stop-Go Shuffle's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Accessibilty | #3 | 3.630 | 3.630 |
| Fun | #17 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Originality | #21 | 3.963 | 3.963 |
| Overall | #24 | 3.466 | 3.466 |
| Audio | #27 | 3.519 | 3.519 |
| Theme | #30 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
| Controls | #48 | 3.111 | 3.111 |
| Graphics | #103 | 2.593 | 2.593 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.2.1
Wildcards Used
N/A
Game Description
Dodge shapes and lasers to the beat of the music. Reach the blue star to win! The catch? You can only move on your turn, during which all the obstacles will freeze. Once your turn is over, you will be frozen in place and it will be the obstacles' turn to move. Plan your turn wisely - or you may end up on the wrong end of an obstacle when your turn is up!
How does your game tie into the theme?
This is a turn based game. On your turn, all the obstacles freeze in place. On their turn, you freeze in place.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
Insert Name Here
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1
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Comments
Finally got to play this awesome game. Knew that it would be my jam since your WIP version in the discord server. Really unique and challenging game. I love the different control schemes that one could take if one specific one didn't work out for them. The gameplay surprised me and kept surprising me every time I died from how I kept getting off guard. Despite it being very simple, it has a very deep thought process behind it that you need to act quick and you need to act right. I managed to complete all the levels after being humbled in every single one (even in the tutorial from which then I knew I was cooked) and I think you should be giving yourself a lot of credit for this as this I imagine was not easy to balance. Congrats on your game!
Finally got to play this awesome game. Knew that it would be my jam since your WIP version in the discord server. Really unique and challenging game. I love the different control schemes that one could take if one specific one didn't work out for them. The gameplay surprised me and kept surprising me every time I died from how I kept getting off guard. Despite it being very simple, it has a very deep thought process behind it that you need to act quick and you need to act right. I managed to complete all the levels after being humbled in every single one (even in the tutorial from which then I knew I was cooked) and I think you should be giving yourself a lot of credit for this as this I imagine was not easy to balance. Congrats on your game!
Glad you finally got around to playing my game!
If it makes you feel any better, I also remember dying a lot when I was first designing and testing the levels (even though I knew where everything was). Avoiding static obstacles was simple enough even without much experience with bullet hells, but I would always stop in front of lasers or bouncers by accident (I did this a lot on Racetrack and Railroad). I think knowing where the safe spots were and how I was "supposed" to beat the level did kind of help, but at the end, it mostly came down to trial and error. Since the game was completely deterministic, if I got halfway through once, I knew I could do it again.
Then again, maybe the fact that I was bad at my own game was a good thing, because it definitely stopped me from making the levels unnecessarily difficult. xD
Excellent work! Really enjoyed the game and love love love the dynamic music! Obviously jam time constraints limit polish but I think having the music be persistent would have felt really good, literally just keeping the groove going, esp when just restarting a level (and probably doing a minimal version on the menu screen).
I did have the screen flash on but I'm partially colorblind so barely noticed it. What I think the flash misses is that it only indicates the state and while audio is obviously the start of the show, having a visual indicated of the pending switch could have been really nice. Some armchair design, maybe wheel spinning at tempo with a needle to really reinforce the timing.
Skimming the other comments, I also struggled with the controls. Even with the sensitivity way down, it was super easy to fling myself across the map, and WASD was definitely too slow. Click to move worked the best on my setup. I think limiting the movement speed would have unified them; to me the modes almost could have been different games since they had such different characteristics.
The last suggestion would be to have the win state stand out from the loose state. On one hand I like that failing doesn't rub it in your face, but it would be nice if winning had a bit more celebratory feeling to it.
It's probably taken me at least 15 min to write all this and I've been groovin' to it in the backround.
Thanks for playing!
Fun fact: you're the first person to have mentioned the dynamic music so far. It was a last minute addition, so I didn't think it would get much of a spotlight, but I'm surprised that it took this long for someone to mention it.
In the settings, I did add a turn indicator that tells you when it's your turn (not sure if it helped you) in case people couldn't use the screen flashing for whatever reason. But as you mentioned, it only tells you the state of the current turn, and something like a slider moving back and forth between two states that visually tells you how much time you have left until the turn switches would have been better.
As for the controls, I do think limiting the speed for mouse move would have been the best option. I liked the mouse move because it allowed you to change between moving quickly and moving precisely on a dime. While I was aware of how easily you could cross the entire map in a single swipe, I wasn't sure how to fix it (I thought of slowing it down but I still wanted the sensitivity to be configurable). In hindsight, I'm not sure why I didn't think to just set a speed cal on the mouse move, because that's a really obvious solution.
It's funny that you mention the win state being similar to the lose state, because they actually use the same menu and functions (guilty as charged!). I made it so that everything stops when you lose (including the music) because I wanted it to be super unsatisfying. But I wasn't sure what to do for the win state, so I just made it do the same thing but changed the sound effect and let everything keep playing. Perhaps a more animated menu or some confetti might have done the trick?
FWIW I didn't have any trouble with the timing it's more a suggestion on trying to get really immersive experience (which almost assuredly does help if someone is struggling with timing so I think I good idea), not that you need to be sold on that idea.
I think confetti is great solution, it's very clear and obvious but animations could do it too (or likely both). Some other ideas (possibly in addition to) are giving the completion time, tracking those times and alerting for a new record; obviously more work but maybe you want to develop it/explore more ideas? A less obvious but reinforcing could be that there is a "next level" and if you lose, it's greyed out but if you win it's active and green/has some sparkle/shine effect. I think what you did of being able to select any level is 100% the right thing for a jam but in a bigger release having levels unlock could be the way to go.
What an awesome submission. I learned now that I need more than 2 measures to think. I had fun trying all the levels and loved that you could just select another if you got stuck/frustrated with one.
Everything is so well thought out and blends together perfectly. Accessability? If you don't get first place I don't know what will. Thanks for allowing to opt into WASD!
The only critique I want to give is: you mentioned that everything was done in inkscape, so vector graphics. If that's the case I don't know why the game has to be so pixalelated with antialiasing issues on high resolutions. I think your "design" or base res should have been a lot higher, scaling down on smaller devices/web.
Maybe I am being unfair as a 3840x1600 user...
Thanks for playing!
The graphics thing is totally valid. When I was drawing the sprites, I exported them at 1:1 scale because I didn't think the sprites would cause problems when scaled up. I developed this thing on a laptop, but since I didn't bother to test it on any large screens (I'm not sure why I didn't, considering I actually did have a 1920x1080 monitor nearby), I didn't notice it.
I just went and tested it on my 1920x1080 monitor. Even though it was smaller than the resolution you used, it was still noticeably pixelated.
Very fun to play and challenging in a good way.
Glad you had fun!
As someone that struggles with sound design in my games, I have to say you did a great job :)
Thanks for playing!
I spent the entire first two days of this jam working on the music. Glad to see it paid off!
Despite the simplicity of the game - I actually find it among the best time-freezing games in this Jam. And I think it has to do with sound design - the music and this pew-pew by lasers. You kinda align with the beat, and it feels good to freeze-unfreeze. Great job!
I think that mouse is a bit too unlimited in terms of speed, though, as you can cross the whole level in one swipe, which makes some levels a bit too easy, almost missing the whole level content.
Thanks for playing!
The mouse movement being overpowered is something that's been brought up. I tried designing each level to be beatable with all three movement modes because I wanted the game to be accessible to those who couldn't figure out how to use mouse move mode. But since a lot of the levels require you to move over long distances to get between safe spots and mouse move mode is so much faster than either of the other two movement modes, a level that would normally be hard with either of the other two movement modes will almost always become a joke with mouse movement.
If I were to do it again, I probably would have designed all the levels to require more precision manuvering. Since the main strength of the mouse is being able to move very fast, this would have made it less overpowered without making things more unfair for the other movement modes.
If you want the game to actually be challenging with mouse move mode, hard difficulty might be up your alley. :)
How about slowing down the mouse? I think it could help! Not sure what's the best way to do it, but if it's not doable directly - for example - you can move the map in opposite direction y 0.5 of mouse position change?
Right, the problem with that is that for accessibility purposes, I wanted to let the player configure the speed of the mouse. Although capping the mouse speed might have been a good alternative.
You may have noticed that on the later levels, you need to be more cautious in your approach because things like the wall lasers prevent you from recklessly teleporting around. That's the approach to design that I should have used.
It took some time to get used to the moved based system, especially since there was only an audio cue and no visual one, but after some time I actually came to prefer the lack of a visual cue. I also really liked the way I could use my mouse to move my player. It made the game feel more interactive than the normal wasd controls. I tried the wasd and click to move settings but found the mouse movement more intriguing. The minimalistic art also had its own charm :D I just wished I sometimes had more space to move to.
Overall a nice game that I enjoyed :D
Glad you enjoyed!
Did you disable the screen flickering? I added an option to enable a turn counter in the settings because I figured that some would find the screen flickering discomforting and turn it off. The turn counter provides an alternate visual cue to the screen flickering. If you haven't already, try turning it on!
Love the take on the theme. Cool music and good job on the synchronization with the game.
I found a little hard to control with the mouse, but I had a lot of fun playing.
Great work.
Glad you liked it!
Did you try any of the other control schemes? I added a click to move control scheme and a WASD/arrow move control scheme because I was worried that the mouse control scheme would be too hard to learn, especially for people who are used to traditional bullet hell controls. I personally think that the combination of speed and precision you can get with mouse control mode makes the game more fun, but it's definitely still possible to beat the entire game with either of the other two control modes (on normal mode, anyway; hard mode might be a different story).
Really cool concept! It is so fun to quickly move around and avoid the obstacles, and the music sync is a good mechanic!
The only thing I struggled with was: there are these 2 beeps that are played in the enemy's turn, but it would make much more sense if that was played for MY turn instead, at least for me, I was constantly trying to move following the two beeps to keep the sync of my movements.
Thanks for playing!
Are the two beeps that you're talking about the ones that only play on certain levels? Those are actually supposed to be the laser sounds. I wrote them in the same LMMS file as the music but exported them as separate tracks so that they would sync up with the laser movements, but would only play if there were lasers present. I probably should have just made them sound effects, though, because they desync a lot more often than they should.
Yeah, exactly! I didn't notice it was the laser SFX. Maybe you could use this technique to add clearer tones, like a lead tone on the player's turn, it definitely helps our brains lol
The development of the composition is actually pretty interesting. If you listen closely, you may notice that there's two different sets of lead instruments. Some of the instruments only play on the first half of every measure (e.g. the analog bell and the kick drum) and some of the instruments only play on the second half of every measure (e.g. the analog times synth and the snare drum). This was done to create a distinct divide between the measures (although whether or not the divide is noticeable is a different story).
It's more obvious if you're wearing headphones, because the "player" instruments are panned more heavily to the left, and the "obstacle" instruments are panned more heavily to the right. Try playing with headphones if you haven't already!
This is such an original game design concept. I got addicted to move right on the beat. I do feel like I shouldn't be able to move on the start of the red beat, if I'm playing as the dark blue shuriken-like character. I would say "move-move-stop" and at the stop, I would immediately move my mouse somewhere else so that I could move it forward again. But at "stop", my character would still move. But I loved this game idea!
Glad you liked it!
Did the music desync for you? You aren't supposed to be able to move at all when the screen is red, but I think the music sometimes desyncs so that the beats are off by a few miliseconds. I personally always counted "move, move, stop, reset," so I never noticed that you can move at the start of the obstacles' turn. It may be more noticable on different machines (since it seems like the amount it desyncs by is dependent on loading times).
Nice concept and interpretation of the theme.
Glad you enjoyed!
I like the idea. Had some challenges with the movement. Tried the different options but didn't seem to be responsive.
Hmm that's odd. Did you try increasing the sensitivity in the settings to make the controls more responsive? Or do you mean that the settings didn't change the sensitivity like they were supposed to because of a bug I missed (a very real possibility)?
Yeah, I change the sensitivity setting, I could see that there was a difference, though the star would bounce around more than move in the direction of my input.
Sorry to hear that. Did you try using WASD/Arrow move mode?
I found that with mouse move mode, re-centering the mouse by picking it up and putting it back down would cause the star to bounce unpredictably. It helps if you only re-center your mouse on the obstacles' turn.
Also, I had a problem earlier with click move mode where the star jittered back and forth when I tried to move at very low speeds. I thought I patched it by changing the movement calculation, but it's entirely possible that I didn't.
We figuring this out. Gave it another go. I changed it to wasd. Then taking it slow I saw that the inputs are just lagging. Like a second behind. This is probably because I have the most budget back alley pc hahaha Manage to get through with some good timing let me tell you haha
Oh yeah, that might do it.
I actually tried this on mobile too, out of curiosity. It works, but it's unsatisfyingly laggy. If I had to guess, something similar probably happens if you try to run it on a low-end PC.
This was such a unique and fun idea! I really enjoyed trying each of the levels, every once and a while the movement felt fidgety but couldn't tell if it was my own skill or the game itself.
Thanks for playing!
The mouse control can definitely be a bit unpredictable at times. Personally for me, I found that my mouse movements were the most jittery when I recentered my mouse, so I would always wait until the obstacles' turn to recenter. Probably would have been a good tip to put on the main menu, huh...
There's also an option to adjust the sensitivity in the settings, although I'm not sure how much that helps.
I played with a touchpad, so enjoy this review with a grain of salt if that was not a developed-for way of playing. I liked concept and I think if there was a relatively long tutorial for explaining how things work this game could be great. I don't think I got the full experience, but I can see a lot of potential.
Hmm, that's odd. Assuming you used mouse move mode (default move mode), the controls should be pretty much the same as using a mouse. The tutorial is pretty brief about it (all it says is to move the mouse to move) because that's really all there is to it (there's no way to shoot or turn on focus mode, if that's what you were looking for).
Were you confused about the obstacle patterns? I tried my best at designing the levels to introduce the obstacles one by one, but I also documented all the obstacle behaviors in the game's description in case anyone wanted to reference them. Take a look at them if you haven't already - maybe it'll help?
I came back and played with WASD instead and it worked great! I'm not sure what I was thinking in my first comment, very fun game!
Wow, it's a pretty original concept for me haha, it's a bit complicated at first, but once I understood the role of the music it became easier.
It was fun, although maybe a little more work on the artistic part would have improved the experience.
Still, it's a great job :D
Thanks for playing!
I'm glad the music was helpful. The main reason I spent so much time on it (unfortunately at the expense of the sprites) was because I wanted it to really fit with the game - that's why you'll notice that in addition to the panning, certain instruments (e.g. kick drum) usually only play on your turn while others (e.g. snare drum) only play on the obstacles' turn.
That said, while part of the reason I decided to go with a minimalistic art style was to save time, the other reason why was because one of my inspirations was Laserwave (which also had a similar minimalistic style with polygons, albeit more neon).
Love it. I tried all three control options on the first level and thought that mouse was super OP. I like that you forced me to become accurate in my mouse movements in the later levels. I like that the music and laser pews synced up. I was able to complete all of the levels. Really cool game. Did you have any ideas for other puzzle mechanics or hazard types you didn't get to use?
Glad you liked it!
I did originally have an idea for a chaser that didn't need to bounce off walls to change directions, and another idea for an obstacle that moved in a circle instead of a line, but I wasn't sure how to design levels around them.
Knowing what I know now though, I probably would have redesigned the maps to lean more heavily into using the mouse control for precision navigation. My main concern was the mouse movement control scheme being too alien to players, but it seems like that wasn't really the case. I designed all the levels to be beatable with the alternate control schemes (on normal mode anyway), but since neither of them really match the absurd combination of speed and precision that you can get with mouse control, using mouse control makes the first few levels of the game ridiculously easy.
This game requires a lot of quick thinking, which makes it really unique compared to similar games. I enjoyed it a lot!
Glad you enjoyed it!
You know, I remember thinking the same thing when I was playtesting some of my levels. A lot of the later levels gave me trouble because I had to really think about which spots would be safe to end my turn in (especially the levels with chasers, which forced me to learn baiting tactics).
Really fun interpretation of the theme. And I love the music! Also, lots of accessibility options!
I found a minor bug where you could still move with the mouse after clearing a stage, but it's hardly game-breaking.
Glad you liked my take on the theme! It wasn't until a few days in until it clicked for me that "freeze" was probably picked as the theme because it was supposed to be winter-themed, but by that point, I was already far enough in that I decided to just roll with it.
And yeah, being able to move around after clearing a level is actually intentional. I just thought it would be kind of unsatisfying if the level froze after you beat it (I also made it so that obstacle collisions are disabled after you win so you can go back and run through them without consequences if you want).
When I heard the premise behind this I was afraid I'd find it a little infuriating. I do not have much patience at all and a game built around 'waiting to move' seemed like it could test my patience...
But it actually doesn't! It's actually pretty fun and completed all of the levels without really getting frustrated at all. All the options are really nice, too
Thanks for playing!
The difficulty in this game is pretty wonky. I balanced it to be beatable with any of the movement modes in normal difficulty (in case people wanted to play the game with normal bullet hell controls), but since you can move ridiculously fast in mouse move mode, it tends to make the game really easy on any difficulty.
Anyway, I'm glad you had a good experience! In retrospect, "rhythm-based" probably would have been a better descriptor than "turn-based..."