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Golden Star Sheriff's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #12 | 4.651 | 4.651 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution restriction) | #14 | 4.860 | 4.860 |
| Overall | #25 | 4.221 | 4.221 |
| Gameplay | #52 | 3.814 | 3.814 |
| Audio | #96 | 3.558 | 3.558 |
Ranked from 43 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
One man Orchestra ;)
It's just more than fun, but can be quite stressful in solo mode,, particularly in the areas you don't master that well (music in my case)
Was the resolution a challenge?
Low resolutions are my happy place... takes alot of effort to put up quality sprites but in the end there's just not so many pixels you can use at a single sprite so bring me more 64x64 goodness!
What did you learn?
I got some decent results with the music tracker for the title-screen theme, which is quite a new situation... normally I am terrible with music trackers (even though I can play a few instruments... I am more in the analogic world for music I guess). It was also quite intensive in terms of taking rust out of my joints regarding Pico8 coding.
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I've been looking forward to playing this one after watching your progress in Discord, and you did not disappoint! It looks great!
I played it on both Keyboard and Gamepad. The keyboard felt overly sensitive, making it difficult to play. The gamepad was a lot easier, but it still felt like I had to sweep across a spot to hit my targets mainly because I couldn't be as precise as I wanted to. I often felt like the reticle was never where I really wanted to aim.
There were also some sorting issues with the bandits. Some bandits appeared in front of another bandit when they should have been behind them. Nothing major, but it did add to the aim precision issues I felt.
Other than that, the game's fun! The gameplay is nicely balanced between dodging, shooting, and recovering. It's tough but fair. And the bosses are a nice escalation in challenge. Very retro!
Great job! Keep up the awesome work!
Hey, thnx for playing! As you say there’s a few issues… first the crosshair cannot hit every pixel as it moves at more than 1px speed, but lowering that made it really painful to try to aim to something that was far away on the limited resolution, I plan to add some targetting speed settings post-jam to tune it up/down a bit so everyone can find a comfortable balance… then the Z sorting, agreed on that as well… in some occasions (especially when bandits cross paths on the same Z, wich is actually Y-sorting) there’s sometimes issues on the multi-layered sprite drawing order… I need to find where the bug is, probably something silly like applying sorting before moving or something just as idiotic. I did not notice before submitting but it’s in my “wanted” board with high bounty.
I think the speed is fine, it's more the precision.
Something I use to encounter in old gun-con games on PSX (when you didn't have the Gun-con), or arcade shooters ported to PC, was an additional button to control the speed, kind of like a run button. Some games let the reticle move faster when you pressed it, and others would let you slow down and be more precise when you needed it. I don't know the specifics of your game, but one of those could be a better-balancing alternative.
Hope that's helpful in some way!
Main issue is the limited action buttons available on pico (basically 4xdirections + 2xaction). You can salvage some Player2 controls that are somewhat near enough the rest to make it reasonable to use them but not a big fan of these Frankenstein configs. I will try to tune speed for a start and allow personalization for it by the player, let’s see if this can leverage or at least mitigate the issue enough. Thnx for the suggestion anyway!
Ah, fair enough. For what it is, it's still very playable. So no big deal. Best of luck!
As I said… idiotic bug… one of the branches of execution was not updating Z at all… Fix ready for post-jam update
Woooo! I was a fan of this game since the first time I saw the art posting on the discord server. I absolutely love the western setting and your pixel art is just amazing. The little cowboys look so good and I love the main character poncho. I do find the game a little difficult but that just adds to the retro feel. You nailed hit it out of the park on this one!!!!
Thank you for playing! Pixel art in low resolutions is something I love doing, tried my best to make the game looked the best I could muster on 64x64, that the resolution was kind of forgotten and assumed as part of the style and not as a restriction. The game effectiveness lies on a thin balance btwn moving constantly, firing (with probably low precision most of the time), using wisely your time firing from a safe spot and timing your usage of power-ups… in the end a tight spot hard to reach ;) but I think that’s what makes it appealing for another try and keeps the challenge burning.
The gunplay and precision dodging works really well. You have to balance your time shooting and rolling to avoid the incoming volleys of fire. Once I got the hang of quickly rolling out of gunfire, I was able to clear out waves of the standard enemy much more effectively. I love the power up for rate of fire, that boost of power feels great.
Thnx for playing! Yep, the game balance was hard to gauge but I had a clear idea you needed to keep constantly mooving and had to make the best of the time on a safe spot using free-aim mode. Both power-ups are quite a boost… large caliber increases the hit area and damage of bullets, rapid firing increases fire cadence and bullet speed. And the best thing is both can be stacked! I hope the duration of the power-ups feels good, I was worried it felt too short or (worse…) too long.
I had been watching this game take form on Twitter and am happy to be able to play it now~ It's very fun and captures the feeling of a 'Wild Guns de-make' with tight controls and consistent action! If you were to expand the idea, it might be nice to have different locations and times of day (that is, different setpieces in the close background, and different colors used for the far background). But for this entry, great work!
Hey, thnx for trying it and for keeping an eye on the twitter dev-log. It is great you feel the Wild Guns aura while playing. The plan was having something like 5-6 different settings with medium length levels, more enemy and boss variety, boss special attacks, civilians you should not shoot, etc. But yeah, that was overscoping by the book. A few days from the deadline only a potentially solid first level could have made it so I changed directions (thnx to the suggestions from early testers, thank you guys!) to go into a “wave based” game for the jam. That brought some changes that I think ended up adding more to the game, like the travelling doctor, and kept other things out, but the plan is post-jam coming back to the original idea and maybe keep a wave mode as well.
Your games always look great and this isn't an exception! I didn't make it to the end boss, but once I get a controller set up I'll be returning to this game.
Thank you for playing it and for your comment on the visual aspect of my little projects. I just keep trying my best so those few pixels look the best I can manage within the limitations. I hope the experience though was fun (I guess it was, otherwise you’d not be returning to the game…)
I'm so bad at leaving comments, haha. I did enjoy playing the game! There's so much to like about the experience. I do definitely agree with your note that using a controller is ideal for the game's control scheme. It just feels better! And having the dodge roll is invaluable and feels so smooth. A+ execution all around, I am impressed.
Don’t worry about your commenting skills, they’re good ;) The main mental click you need to do is your focus is the crosshair, not the character himself… though you must keep an eye on keeping him out of bullet hit markers. I need to fix a few bugs (the Z-sorting one for once…) but overall the result is quite decent and seems you guys are having fun while playing it which is the most important thing of it all.
Cool game was looking forward to playing it and it did not disappoint . Just had t get use to the feel of the controls.
Thnx for playing it! I need to really revisit controls and refine targeting speed post jam. After voting time I will take some days to go through the feedback received and some of the missing things.
The game has “wild guns” feel, title-screen theme is top notch, great work!
Thnx for playing! Good it keeps the Wild Guns spirit, that was the main inspiration ;)
Really excellent use of foreground vs background. I like how much you managed to cram into the small resolution, the different enemies, and the wagon that rides by. It was all great!
Thnx for trying it, and thnx for the praise! I guess I did not as good a job as your incredibly lively city ;) but I think it fits the theme and the purpose.
Fantastic work on the pixel art here, very well done!
Thnx! It was a lot of work but quite happy with the results
Excellent job on the pixel art of this one, Carlos! Minor nitpick: I would constraint the cursor from going to the lower part of the screen. Other than that, pretty solid entry overall, man! Cheers!
Thnx! About the boundaries… I must have lost it and missed the break, the feature for movement boundaries for the crosshair is there… Will fix it post-jam
Nice game! Controls are a bit weird, it's the first time i play this kind of 2D shooter. But i had a lot of fun playing it! My highscore is wave 8.
Thnx for playing! I will refine movement post-jam as there’s quite some feedback about it. Glad you had fun with it
Worth playing it over and over again!👍
Simple, action-packed gameplay, a bit hard at first but really addicting once you master it. The graphics are also neat and really work for the low-rez style.
One thing that needs to be worked on though is the sound: the gunshots are a bit too loud, and, as a suggestion, some sounds are needed either to aid the player (game feedback) or add to the atmosphere (for the carriages, for example).
Gonna play it again now!
Yes… sound came late to the jam party XD and it is also my weakest area. The plan (post-jam) is having a background track while in game and the travelling doctor to have his own tune to announce it’s coming. Seems you really are having a lot of fun with it ;)
That worked out really well! Love the power ups, they give a nice change of pace to the gameplay.
Thnx Johan! Gameplay needed variety and they were in the plan from the beginning (why create objects to destroy if you don’t put anything inside?). They forced the travelling doctor in to have a respawn strategy that made some sense as the game moved to waves. Quite happy on how the pieces ended up fitting together
The game reminded me of old shooting games on slot machines. Cleverly used potential of 64x64 resolution. Good job!
Thxn for playing! There are some bits from “Cabal” on it but it’s mostly following the SNES classic “Wild Guns”. It was tough fitting it in 64x64 but I think it ended up quite well.
Very fun! It reminded me of an old game called "Mad Dog McCree". I would have separated the aim from the controls (maybe using the mouse).
Thanx for playing! Great you had some fun with it. The game is following on the gameplay of SNES classic (though now you have a Switch version…) “Wild Guns”. I could have split control but I kind of liked the mechanics in the original. I remember “Mad Dog McCree” :) it was more like a free aim game, which is kind of a fully different gamestyle from what I was aiming for. Thnx for the feedback!
the control is a bit difficult in my opinion, because the player will also move while aiming.
but it's not really problem, once you get used to it this game is quite fun.
Thnx… while pressing the fire button you remain stationary and go into “free aim” mode. I kind of followed “Wild Guns” control mechanics (with some changes like the roll instead of the original jump). Glad you had fun with the game!
oh yeah right, I didn't realize that.
This was a fun little experience! I think some music during the waves would have been very nice. the monotonous sound of the gunshots can get a little grating. overall, well done!
Thank you for giving it a try! I agree… I was worknig on 2 extra tunes (general BG loop and a dedicated tune for the travelling doctor) but I got to those too late… I am not very fluent with music… I can play a few instruments but moving music into a tracker and have it sound decent enough is extremely painful. I need to consider finding a music artist for next events :P
This is great! One of my favorite things about this game is that you need to shoot powerups/healing to pick them up. Watching the healing items fly by on a carriage as I missed every shot was pretty hilarious!
I also definitely suck at this game, but I enjoyed it quite a bit! I also thought you did a great job with the pseudo-3D aspect of it.
Awesome job!
Thnx! Glad you had fun playing it… The travelling doctor was a last minute addition (it came into the game like 12h before the deadline) as I wanted a way to respawn the barrels. I could not implement it exactly as I wanted (with $ cost for each power-up on the carriage) but I think it works as it is.
About 3D… well, no actual projection in this one… tried it but gameplay suffered a bit (particularly collisions became quite odd) so I opted for a naive approach to bullet collisions and ditched the rational maths.
Give it a few more rounds and you’ll get better with the controls, it takes a bit to get used to them
Loved the game! controls are kinda hard but once you grasp them it´s pretty fun!
Hey, thnx for playing it! In the small space available the relative speed btwn the crosshair and the character was hard to balance… too slow and the aiming was terribly slow, too fast aiming was impossible… ended up on something that once you get used to seemed to work. Great that you had some fun with it!
Amazing! Honestly, I've seen the development of this game in the discord channel and I love how it turned out. From the visuals to the gameplay it's just a really fun and well-put-together jam game.
I also just really like western-styled things so, that draws me in as well. :)
Thnx! It was a tough ride… I am quite obsessed with polishing the details and really put a lot of time on making sure I get the looks/vibe right. Sadly a few things stayed in the To-Do list (mostly extra music/sound in terms of “core basics”, and the actual levels and extra variety of “extended features”), but overall game came out pretty decent. Glad I got the western vibes right for an actual expert in the subject ;)