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Game Engine / Tools
GDevelop, GIMP, Paint.net
How does your game fit the theme?
The main mechanic of the platformer part mirrors the entire screen and transports you to another mirror world that the opposite season and color. This new point of view can help you reach the portal that is not mirrored.
The mother and daughter also have two opposing points of view on Clementine being sucked into a video game. Clementine thinks it's cool, but her mom is terrified. They both come to understand to other's point of view better by the end of the game
Self-made & used stuff
Graphics / Art (e.g. models or textures)
Not applicable
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Comments
The story was very fun, and the switching mechanic was cool, especially with the art. It's a shame that it could not be explored very much, but I am glad you were still able to finish the game anyway. Well done.
Right off the bat I'm immensely impressed with the spritework. The player character has a well-animated idle pose that shows a lot of polish for the amount of time given in the jam. The mirroring mechanic works wonders with the assigned color palette, and you thematically realized everything quite well. The different portals, as well as the two different worlds, truly helps the game feel realized.
The story is really cute and I appreciate the use of font to really drive home the jump between different worlds. Perhaps the mom could retain that font when speaking to you within the game world?
I can echo Mk.2's post about the switch. It's easy to go out of bounds and need to restart the game. I'm glad you included a button to speed up dialogue, however.
It's hard to rate the game as there is not a lot of it. I suppose a flash-forward was the ideal band-aid solution, however. I gotta check out more of your games since I love RPG Maker.
Thanks. Clementine is technically a CC0 asset I recolored for the jam, as well as most of the other assets. I really like how they came out and since they were all CC0, I'm thinking I might share them as a free asset pack at some point.
Definitely need to add some hidden walls to keep the player from falling out of the scene. Sorry I missed that. At this point my immediate postjam plans for the game are add those walls, an instruction about pressing Shift, and an option to press R to restart a level. Then I want to add 2 to 3 more levels, using mirrored screenshots to make adding each part of the mirrored world easier. (Still can't believe I did not think of that until after the jam.)
Cool you're interested in checking out more of my games! Most of them, including this one are not technically made in RPG maker, though several are made in Wolf RPG Editor, a free unaffiliated RPG software that also is really good for making topdown/jrpg type games.
It's a shame you didn't manage to make more of the game, because theme wise this is to me the best entry. The story telling was really on point with the theme two points of view. The conflict between mother and daughter, respect and autonomy was really well written.
Great job!
The level mirroring mechanic has potential for some great level design, hopefully you continue development of the game.
After using the first switch, the dialogue became frozen with just the letter "C" being displayed. I made sure the game was in focus which it was. Required a restart. The ability to speed up or skip dialogue would also be useful, to bypass dialogue you've already read.
Sorry you ran into that. I've not seen this error before. As for dialog, if you press Left Shift, it autocompletes the current line. This instruction was supposed to be the first line of dialog in the game, but it got cut in error.
I think the dialogs in this game were really fun! The game got stuck on the start, so I had to replay it.
I do think it need a bit more of polishing, specially on the movement.
Overall, this is real nice! Well done
I just finished playing and I thought it has potential! I thought the core mechanic was pretty interesting and had potential, but I would have liked to see it get some real time to shine and iteration. The writing was a bit corny and heavy-handed, but ultimately charming as the centerpiece of the game. The choice of music and art assets was solid, especially the clementine sprite. More than anything else, I think the main gripe is that I came in expecting a puzzle platformer and left with a visual novel.
In terms of polish, I noticed the borders are prone to bugs, even to the point of requiring a restart (and then you have to reread all the dialogue). I also wished the physics were a little better, the current speed curves are a little floaty.
Some ideas that might improve things:
The strength of the video games as a medium here is that you can directly involve the player in the story. Instead of clementine's rebellion being just exposition, you can imagine perhaps starting the game with clementine and her mom at the cursed objects exhibit. Then, you can coerce the player into jumping into the screen themselves (while the mom protests the same), acting out the rebellion of clementine.
Better movement physics, as mentioned above. Even in a puzzle platformer, you are spending most of your time piloting a character, so that should feel good.
If the game is dialogue-heavy, extra love should be given to the text-system. Highlight words, add effects, allow for different text speeds, stuff like that makes the dialogue more fun, more engaging, and allows you to do more.
Levels! I know you are strapped for time, but at the end of the day a puzzle game with 2 levels is too small, and doesn't give you enough time to develop the story either.
The dialogue in this game is absolute gold. I would love to see a whole game written in this style! The use of the palette was nice as well.
This game has some great potential. From the levels that are here, I really liked it. The spritework is really good and clementine is so cute! The whole mechanic of flipping the levers and going to a mirror world is very reminiscent of the mirror world in super mario 2 and gave me some good nostalgia. I wont reiterate what some others have already said so I will leave it at this; loved the art style, the use of the limited colors, and the music.
The art is very well done! There are some minor issues, and it lacks in gameplay a bit, but the writing kept me going to the end. Good job!
Thanks! Nice you enjoyed the story. Glad it made up a bit for the levels I didn't get to make.
I liked it good art and good implementation of the theme. Text was a bit long sometimes would have been nice to speed up the typing effect.
One big game breaker though is that at places (for example the second level) i could walk out if the screen to never been seen again. So next time maybe add some invisible walls
Thanks. I got that from another comment too. Don't know how I forgot the walls. I am so sorry that keeps happening to people.
Did you use Shift to autocomplete the line? I know it's not perfect, but I was going crazy with Yarn dialog system spelling out each letter until I figured out how to add that. I had thought of adding a Skip option if players did not want to read the text, but it slipped my mind keeping up with everything else.
Ah no i did not know about shift like the r option to restart (so i restarted all). Maybe add that in your description in case other people don't read the comments. But the shift option is exactly what i meant. not to skip but to not have to wait for all to type out
Darn. It was supposed to say that in the first line of the game. I must have deleted that line somehow. I'll put it in the game description. This is so frustrating I missed saying that, especially since I had to use Shift in leu of the more intuitive Double Space because my engine can't register it, so I doubt anyone figured it out on their own :(
I thought the game would be better in reality, it has good art and a good story, but the gameplay is too short and the controls aren't the best, and I don't like the dialogue in most games, it's good but it can be better
I have to say, I really like the game in many ways. It has a beautiful style and feels very cohesive and polished. The colors, character, story, and sound all come together really well.
For me personally, though, there’s just too much story and not enough gameplay.
An example: When Clementine falls into the void, why does the character have to do that instead of me? A platform that disappears after a short time and makes me fall, or a jump that’s way too far but I don’t realize it until I try, would make me feel more engaged in that situation.
I think if you keep working on the game, it has a lot of potential!
Thank you for your feedback.
Clementine making that first jump was necessary for further developing her character as being prone to rush into things, especially when she's frustrated with her mom. I'm sorry it took away from the very minimal gameplay. I had planned on a lot more, but unfortunately the mirror world mechanic I chose was way too hard to implement in my engine within the jam, so I chose to polish what little gameplay I had and focus on finishing the story.
The original plan was that after the first couple levels of Mom trying to butt in and her agreeing to back off, each level would have started with little to no text, gameplay would have become more complex and there would have been a lot for the player to figure out by themselves. Like having multiple switches to choose from, using the mirror world to navigate between switches at otherwise inaccessible areas of the scene and deep water that is frozen ice in the mirror level.
Really enjoyed the story of this game and how you implemented the theme of the jam.
I was a little worried at first cause I had to reboot the game 3 times cause the dialogue broke one time and going off the screen soft locks you. However, the story saves the day. "Mom im an 8 bit character I literally can't roll my eyes" had a good laugh at that one. I will say this is VERY text heavy, It would be cool to see some animated character expressions- though I think the development between clementine and her mom is nice. orange adventure 2 battle / 10
Very cute story! Would love more levels in the game. I really liked it
Thank you. I'm so glad you enjoyed playing the game <3.
Unfortunately, I do not think I am going to make any more. It turns out what I thought was a simple concept of flipping and replacing all the assets for mirror levels was really hard to implement, because there was no way to just mirror each piece based on it's position (the xy position appears to be set at the corner as opposed to the center, so I couldn't just put Mirror Block A the same distance from the right of the screen as the non mirror one was from the left). After I submitted the game, it occurred to me I could have taken a screenshot of each level, flipped it in an image editor, put it in the mirrored level and put each piece on over the image, but I don't know if I got the patience for that at this point.
If you take half the width of the level and subtract that from the x position, it wouldn't be so bad.
mirror_position_x = (position_x - level_width/2) * -1)
or you could move the camera so that 0,0 is the center