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Improve My Game Jam 27

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A jam submission

Fight of the Spelling BeeView game page

A honey-filled action word game

Submitted by LukasWho — 3 hours, 29 minutes before the deadline

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Fight of the Spelling Bee's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Visuals(Graphics)	#2	4.500	4.500
Fun	#2	4.200	4.200
User Interface (UI/UX)	#2	4.500	4.500
Overall	#4	4.100	4.100
Sound/Audio	#4	3.800	3.800

Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

DevLog Link
https://lukaswho.itch.io/fight-of-the-spelling-bee/devlog/539988/overachiever

Developer Feedback Questions
Apart from general feedback, it would be nice to get some feedback on the game's difficulty and balancing.

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Comments

Game_emaGSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

I like the game a lot, its a great twist on boggle! (Have not played the other game it is based on) the campaign felt very easy compared to endless mode, which i did 2 times and my PB was 10.
I completed the campaign with over 400/500 health remaining, but I guess for players who are new to the concept the campaign needs to be fairly easy.

I do agree with the vowel thing, I think it should be weighted to give more vowels if you get unlucky with RNG because then you are just waiting for them to spawn in. (Or maybe just have a way to speed up the deteriation so instantly get a new hex on pressing spacebar to skip for example).

Congrats on getting the dragging so nice and the total level of polish is great too!

Submitted

Betrayed Earth v0.1

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, we’re currently looking into ways to make the letter spawning feel a little less up to the Random Number Gods. Adding a boad-dependent weight to vowel/consonant spawning is the main thing we want to try, but due to sloppy coding, it needs a little rewrite.

Wow, finishing the highest difficulty world with over 400 honey is very impressive! As you’ve mentioned, the game is balanced to be a little more forgiving towards new players. We’re thinking about adding a hard mode to the campaign that speeds up enemies and maybe other stuff, but it’s somewhat low priority right now since right now, most people still seem to struggle with the game’s difficulty a bit.

feralunarSubmitted1 year ago

Okay, so I tested this in English bc my German knowledge was definitely not enough for this TvT" I am usually not a fan of games with time limits - but this was surprisingly engaging, and I actually kept this on my phone to play whenever I have some free time~

Generally, I'm very fond of the concept - especially the campaign mode with the flower modifiers, it makes the game feel somewhat like a roguelike with randomized upgrades. By the way, the book is a great addition!! I loved unlocking all the various opponents and seeing which unique mechanics they had, and having all that in encyclopedia form certainly pleases my completionist brain.

The art and UI is also very thematically fitting - can't say the same for the audio unfortunately, since whenever I started a level the music would only play for a few seconds and then stop. I thought it'd loop, but it didn't. That didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the game, though!

The difficulty is a bit challenging, but not so much that it's impossible to beat - I guess you could make the beginner levels a bit easier, but that doesn't feel completely necessary to me. However, I agree with one of the previous comments: if it's currently not possible to change the way the combs are spawned, there should at the very least be a free reroll each fight, because a couple times I ended up with a board with literally zero vowels on it XD

Overall, great job on the game! I've had a lot of fun playing it and I'm really interested in seeing where it'll go in the future :>

Submitted

Gate at Sword's Point

feralunarSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Okay, so I tested this in English bc my German knowledge was definitely not enough for this TvT" I am usually not a fan of games with time limits - but this was surprisingly engaging, and I actually kept this on my phone to play whenever I have some free time~

Generally, I'm very fond of the concept - especially the campaign mode with the flower modifiers, it makes the game feel somewhat like a roguelike with randomized upgrades. By the way, the book is a great addition!! I loved unlocking all the various opponents and seeing which unique mechanics they had, and having all that in encyclopedia form certainly pleases my completionist brain.

The art and UI is also very thematically fitting - can't say the same for the audio unfortunately, since whenever I started a level the music would only play for a few seconds and then stop. I thought it'd loop, but it didn't. That didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the game, though!

The difficulty is a bit challenging, but not so much that it's impossible to beat - I guess you could make the beginner levels a bit easier, but that doesn't feel completely necessary to me. However, I agree with one of the previous comments: if it's currently not possible to change the way the combs are spawned, there should at the very least be a free reroll each fight, because a couple times I ended up with a board with literally zero vowels on it XD

Overall, great job on the game! I've had a lot of fun playing it and I'm really interested in seeing where it'll go in the future :>

Submitted

Gate at Sword's Point

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for the great feedback! Glad we could bring a bit of the roguelike vibe across. We weren’t sure how hard to go on the RPG/roguelike elements and ended up going a bit more softly so that players who just wanted to focus on finding words could still enjoy the game without having to understand half a dozen complicated systems.

The book was a bit of a last minute addition my girlfriend insisted on having, and I’m glad she did!

I guess you’ve downloaded the APK then? Yeah, I can’t really figure out why the audio is so buggy when using a webview instead of playing it in the browser. I guess that’s a downside of using a custom game engine. Fixing this is pretty high on the to do list.

Humane TigerSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Sehr schöne Grafiken - die zusammen mit den grafischen Effekten ein super stimmiges, konsistentes Gesamtbild erzeugen. Die Bedienung fühlt sich butterweich an, die UI reagiert präzise - die App macht einen sehr performanten und professionellen Eindruck.

Leider bin ich soooo schlecht im Worte finden. Ich hab mich echt geschämt, ein paar kurze Worte hab ich gefunden, aber ich bin nicht über das ähäm... erste Level hinaus gekommen.

Habt ihr irgendwo eine Kollektion mit allen Grafiken? Mir bleiben leider nur die Screenshots - was ich dort sehe, gefällt mir ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ super gut!

Submitted

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Danke für das Feedback! Und schön, noch einen deutschen Tester zu haben :D Es war tatsächlich eines der Ziele des Spiels, ein Wortspiel zu basteln, dass auf mehreren Sprachen spielbar ist. Lustigerweise finden trotzdem einige unserer deutschen Tester das Spiel auf Englisch leichter.

Bisher haben wir noch keine öffentlich zugängliche Sammlung der Grafiken. Prinzipiell existiert ein Github-Repository in dem auch die Grafiken vorhanden sind, aber ich bin noch nicht sicher, ob ich bereit bin, den Quelltext zu veröffentlichen. Wenn, gebe ich auf jeden Fall Bescheid!

vaibhavkrSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Nice game with a cool concept and story! Loved it, feels really cute and relaxing too! The game feels a bit too difficult for me though sometimes, I mean lot of times, I was not able to form words for long times in just the starting levels! Other than that, good game, all the best improving it!

:)

Submitted

viguarsSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

That was really good! Took me a moment because I'm not good at word puzzles but once I got the hang of it it became addicting.

Submitted

Mabity1 year ago(+2)

Your game is absolutely awesome, I loved it! I played the browser version and it's incredibly well-polished.

At first I found the tutorial overwhelming with so many things to pay attention to, but once I finished the first level I was totally hooked. I passed all the levels without problems, the ones with a difficulty star, of course XD.
One small suggestion for UI is to consider turning the directional buttons in the menu level into arrows as the resemble the loading play button, just saying to avoid any confusion.
I explored the other levels and loved the different backgrounds and animals. It was great!

The addition of achievements is great, but I wish I could see the unlocked achievements. Perhaps you could consider displaying them using beehives, they would fit right in with the bee-themed aesthetic.
Also in infinite mode, I would have liked to know how many animals I defeated while in battle. It would have been nice to have a counter on the screen, not just at the end (it was 6 by the way).

My favorite part was the flower levels with options, I found it very creative. Seeing the flowers with their names and representations was a pleasant surprise that added to the fun.

Nice work!

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thanks a lot for the kind words! That’s a good point about the directional buttons, I actually copied the sprite from the loading screen out of laziness, but I can see it becoming a little confusing.

Yeah, the tutorial is a bit of a tough nut to crack. On the one hand, we wanted the game to be simple enough to play without fully understanding all the systems, on the other hand, we did want players to be able to read up on those systems if they wish to do so. Maybe having short in-game tutorials for the most important bits would be the way to go here, but honestly, I’d rather not open that can of worms right now (maybe in the future, though).

Unlocked achievements actually can be viewed: First, click on the book on the main menu screen. Then, on the top of the newly opened screen, click on the trophy bookmark.

Adding a defeated counter to the endless mode is a good idea, noted!

Mabity1 year ago(+1)

I wasn't aware of the book, so thank you for informing me. I just examined all the panels, and I had noticed that the settings panel on the main menu wasn't functioning properly, so I proceeded directly to the tutorial. My apologies for the oversight. I have one final suggestion, and I hope it's not too much. Perhaps you could consider making it more visually appealing with the inclusion of a bee or incorporating other shades of yellow similar to the buttons. This way, it won't go unnoticed by people like myself. Although in my case I thought it had to do with the version of the game, that's why I didn't clic on it, because it was very close, it's still my fault for not paying attention
By the way, I like the Bookworm achievement, very clever, it made me realize that I skipped something and had to go back XD

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Haha, no need to apologize! That’s some good feedback. I’ll see how we can modify the sprite.

CreativeMouseSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Super fun! I always liked spelling games. It's nice that you added achievements

Submitted

Burgers and the Reds V2

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks! Yeah, this update turned out a lot smaller than anticipated due to lack of time (and honestly also due to needing to take a break from the project for a while), but this was one of the most important features we thought was lacking from the game, so I’m glad we managed to get that to work at least :)

NeatGamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Very fun word puzzle game! I like how the bee theme is constantly shown in all the art, map, and UI! Also the dragging to highlight the word you want make feels great! I wonder if it would be cool if the dragging effect looked like honey? Haha that might be too much XD

Really polished work and Keep it up! Please check out my metroidvania when you can :D

Submitted

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks! Yeah, we put quite some work in the graphics of the game this time, I’m glad it seems to pay off :) Glad you like the dragging effect, I had a lot of fun designing that one (writing shaders is just always a treat, I should do that more often). We tried a few different colors and ended up with the cyan for maximum readability.

I actually stumbled upon your game skimming through the submissions for a previous Improve My Game Jam and thought it looked really cool, but didn’t have time to play it yet due to having to be a responsible adult every now and then unfortunately. Looking forward to checking it out this jam, though!

micahpharohSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

Very fun game. The sound effects started to grate a little bit by the end and one of my boards had way too many Z's but other than that I had a good time.

This is totally subjective but I think the insects should be helping each other. It's such a chill game that it feels weird to be fighting.

Submitted

LukasWhoDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thanks for the great feedback! I see your point about the sound effects, they were honestly assembled a little hastily towards the end of the original jam deadline. Maybe we’ll find time to replace some of them one day.

Yeah, right now, newly spawned combs don’t care about the board state, which can sometimes lead to somewhat frustrating boards. We got that feedback a couple of times now, so we’ll probably have to see if we can change it up a little (maybe granting a free reroll every fight might be enough).

Heh, the insects helping each other might be fun, but I’m not sure how to implement it without disturbing gameplay too much. I agree the theming is a little inconsistent and “violent” right now. We tried to soften the game up by claiming these aren’t physical fights, but that was a pretty late addition and a lot of the stuff could probably use a theming update.