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Barrel-o-Ball's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation (visuals) | #94 | 3.680 | 3.680 |
| Concept (gameplay) | #170 | 3.080 | 3.080 |
| Overall | #202 | 2.947 | 2.947 |
| Theme | #314 | 2.080 | 2.080 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
A pretty good little game. I think it would be good to have some way to see where the planes are going to go. IT was pretty hard to get started. I didn't really get how it was related to rotation . But still a pretty good game. Good job.
Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed it! I deliberately obscured the landing position. I wanted it to be a small risk-reward mechanic and something that a player can get better at. That being said, I failed to properly explain how the throwing mechanic works. Some kind of throw force indicator would be great, but I didn't have enough time to implement it.
About the theme; I drifted away from the originial design. Although in retrospect the original design wasn't as a good fit to the theme as I imagined it at first :D so yeah, the theme is not strong with this one :D
This game seems cool, but it has a presentation problem:
Cool idea though, and the mechanics seem to work.
I couldn't agree more, your feedback is spot on! Thanks for trying it and for your feedback :) I will address the issues you mentioned in following weeks
This is pretty fun game once you figure it out. It took me a while, though. Would be awesome if there was some guideline that would show you where the ship lands (like in billiard or golfing games or when you throw grenades in a lot of third person games). Besides that, this is very fun and assets fit very well together. And the sound feedback is great!
thank you, I'm glad you liked it :) the lack of targeting was a deliberate design decision. When throwing the unit first I calculate the velocity for the unit to land exactly where you point to an then I modify the initial speed value slightly. Point is to add some skill to targeting. You have to be careful when throwing the unit further because you can overshoot.
That being said it definitely needs some explanation 😃 I should add some kind of a bar showing the throw power or something like that. Thanks for trying it out and for the feedback :)
Makes sense. Yeah, in that case, some power bar or something would be probably good enough in order to explain it to the user. :)
This is a very good looking game! But unfortunately it didn't worked out very well on my machine. I was extremely confused about what was happening and what i was supposed to do haha: my three characters were all grouped up on the enemy goal and nothing else happened, the ball wasn't spawning and my characters wouldn't respawn too. So I refreshed the page and it went well for about 3 balls and then it happened again, but with the enemy characters stuck inside my goal haha. Its a good looking game with a high level of polishing but the gameplay is a bit confusing and bugged. I think if this jam was a 3 day one, your game could be one of the best! It has a lot of potential, keep up the good work!
thank you! You are definitely right, it does need some explanation and visual feedback :) I'm already working on it. And the stuck units thing is a bug. Which I though I fixed :(
Great concept
Fun to play :)
Great concept
Fun to play :)
Confusing at first but it gets adictive as soon as I discovered that I had to throw the ships. Nice gameplay! Would make a great screen shared multiplayer mobile game. I hope you continue with the idea post jam!
thank you! I'm glad you liked it :) yes, I do have plans for this game. In fact I even have a publisher in mind who will like it :)
You are right though, it does need a decent tutorial and some feedback for aiming/throwing :)
very nice idea, it was fun to play, but i little hard to throw the ships lol. liked a lot
Yep, I should have explained the throwing mechanic better :D Don't think of it as throwing but as winding a spring, and you will be fine :)
Very nice idea. After a few rounds I started figuring out some strategies, like having a guy ready to be thrown in the middle, to get the next ball.
This was fun! I didn't really play with a strategy in mind except trying to have my ships on the field as much as possible (as they aren't doing much sitting on the wall) but did manage to win a couple of rounds this way.
The throws are a bit hard to control with the mouse but it's not that bad once you get used to it, I just wish that if I accidentally throw too fast I wouldn't immediately lose that ship, maybe making it bounce off the opposite wall and take some damage would be enough.
Also I might be wrong but I think the 3 ships have different characteristics ? I think the chonkier one made the opponents bounce farther and one was faster than the others, if so that's pretty cool! Might be a great way to expand the game by making more ships avaiable and making the player chose their own line-up before a match.
Thank for the feedback, I'm glad you liked it! Indeed the ships do have different characteristics. I was going for a simple game but with some deeper strategy elements for those who are a bit more invested.
The flying off the map is another design desicion for strategy reasons. If you want to intercept an enemy unit you would need to throw your ship further, but if you throw it too far it will explode. I obscured the force calculation for the same reason. You have to develop an intuition for the applied force. However, I know I didn't communicate the throwing mechanics properly. I wanted to add an arrow or some kind of force indicator but I ran out of time.
Again, thanks for playing and your feedback! I appreciate it :)
Once you get the hang of the throw it becomes quite fun.
Took me a bit of time to figure out the throwing. I also had a few cases when the little ships got stuck in one of the bases, not sure how to replicate that though.
The lighting is incredibly nice. That combined with the great music and sound effects really make the atmosphere captivating.
Unfortunately a lack of player control after throwing the spaceships makes the game a bit less engaging. I didn't really feel like I was impacting how the match played out.
This is a cool interpretation of the theme !
Yeah, the throwing controls do need a tutorial and feedback. Something like a power bar, or at least an arrow would help a lot.
The stuck ship is a bug (unfortunately very well known, many people have encountered it :( ).
The lack of control was a design decision. There is actually a lot you can do to influence the outcome. Trowing a correct unit to a correct spot does make a difference. But it definitely should be more obvious.
I'm very happy to hear that you enjoyed the game. Thank you for the feedback, I will address all of these issues after the judging period ends :)
Thanks for your answer ! Yeah, I've realized after a bit more time playing that the game certainly reacts well ! It just wasn't very clear to me the first few times.
All in all impressive project, looking forward to seeing how it continues after the jam :)
Great idea, it would be better if the player can control one ship in the battle
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it :) I intended to create a simple casual strategy game. So not letting the player control a ship was a conscious design decision :) I admit that the strategy part is not very obvious, but there are decisions to be made :D
Its like watching a football on tv!
The physics is nice and the feeling on collision is satisfying! I just have ahrd time timing the throw with the mouse? I dunno if I'm just dumb but I couldn't "catch the things" and it was a bit frustrating :(.
I also had one game bugged with a barrel no spawning I dunno why! It was my first I didn't understand what happened :/. But the 2 others game went well (and I lost :D).
Thanks for trying it out! Yeah, there is a bug when a barrel gets stuck inside one of the bases (I could swear I fixed it though...). And you are right, the throwing mechanic is not explained properly and there is not enough feedback. I wanted to add an arrow or some kind of throw power indicator, but ran out of time :) I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for the comment and rating!
It took me a bit to get it but now I know how to play, I love it. Great idea and very nice visuals.
Yeah, it definitely needs a tutorial and more feedback for dragging. Glad you liked it :)