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A jam submission

HopelessView game page

Submitted by chreeshendolo (@chreeshendolo), Geoff Blair, Bekkett — 1 minute, 37 seconds before the deadline
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Hopeless's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Authenticity (use of resolution)#1554.3914.391
Gameplay#1573.2173.217
Graphics#1803.3043.304
Overall#1823.3803.380
Audio#2322.6092.609

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Did you work in a team?
Yes!

We had 3 members in total.

We tried to split the work between audio programming and design, rote systems like animations, physics, collisions, etc., and gameplay stuff.

We came up with the "action tree" mechanic, and there was a lot of time devoted to making that work well.

Was the resolution a challenge?
Yes and no.

The resolution allowed us to focus more on the game, as created rough assets was more simple at this resolution - however the challenge came when refining these assets, especially for the characters direction.

The main challenge I think came in the form of clarity, in general it's hard not to rely on words to explain mechanics and goals to the player, however we felt it was valuable to avoid text as it takes up a lot of space to be legible, and is a bit of a strain to read.

What did you learn?
Every project is a learning experience.

We used this one in particular to write a synthesizer, a custom ECS framework, and all the bits and pieces in between.

I feel like the main takeaway I had personally is the value of a good scene management system.

As if you want to make a "big" game, you need entry points into new areas/interactions.

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

I haven't played anything like this before and I love the innovation of it. I had a bit of a hard time playing it but I totally would like to see you expand on it.

Developer(+1)

I’m so glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah it’s tough to interact with in it’s current state, I think some refinement would go a long way.

Thanks for your kind words and feedback :D

Submitted(+2)

The action tree is a really cool battle system! My favorite aspect of it was the bullet time when selecting stuff, that feeling when you just narrowly avoided a bullet for example, that felt great!

I think it worked in well with the overall gameplay loop here, with how you acquire more and more of an arsenal, which works against different enemies. Like the bow works really well against skulls with it's fast reload time and reach but not really against the blobs. Super cool idea!

Developer

I love your depiction of the mechanic!

It really feels like you appreciated it fully, even though it was quite rough :D

Thank you for playing and for your kind words.

I think some refinement would go a long way here - but it’s good to know it was still somewhat enjoyable in it’s rough state :D

(+2)

Really unique mechanic but hard to learn in the first few minutes.

Developer

Yeah - the mechanic itself has value, but in it’s current state it’s a bit rough and more difficult than it needs to be.

With some refinement I think it could be easier to use and understand.

Thanks for the feedback and for playing the game :D

Submitted(+1)

The mechanic is really interesting but the selection of abilities feels way more complicated and messy than it need to be, i wish there was some text explaining the abiltie you are just trying to understan from small icon what abilitie to pick not knowing what they do. Good game but it needs to be refine in some core aspects, i think this would work great in mobile.

Developer

Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more.

This mechanic I think is fun and worthy of further exploration, but in it’s current state if feels rough and clunky.

Thanks for your feedback here :D

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

This mechanic is inspired :D If you don't take this specific game further you should definitely use this mechanic for something else, because it ticks all the boxes, and you could use it on mobile ^^ great game!

And that audio trilling as feedback of the player is amazing btw :)

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the kind words!

The mechanic was a lot of fun to build out - I’d really love to explore it further.

Maybe in the next one ;)

Submitted(+2)

Really enjoyed the mechanic once I understood it.  It might need a bit more tweaking to get it feeling perfect, but an awesome proof of on concept.  I liked the way you designed the levels to slowly ramp up the challenge.

Developer

Thank you for your kind feedback!

Yeah I really like the mechanic as a core concept, but it is unfortunately unrefined.

There’s a lot left I wanted to explore, and honestly it’s pretty rough as it stands, and would benefit greatly from some refinement.

Maybe in the next jam ;)

Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+2)

The drag mechanic is really interesting as others have been saying. At first it wasn't clear to me that I didn't have to click on my player. Also, I'm playing on my laptop with a touchpad so that isn't helping. I'll give it another go when I have a mouse. Since you can click anywhere and bring up the radial menu I kind of don't think you need another click for input and you don't need drag. I could feasibly click where i want to move towards, bring up the menu and then click "move" and shoot in that direction. That might decrease the amount of input needed. 

It's funny that both of our games settled into a beat a stage -> choose between two things -> next stage core loop. Overall very cool ideas and I had a fun time playing!

Developer

Thank you for your thorough feedback!

Yeah I feel like this would be really hard to engage with on a trackpad - that being said the mechanic absolutely needs some refinement and polish.

Personally I really like the 2 choice progression cadence. If I were to do this again, the hope would be to have more choices, that were maybe smaller, but more meaningful, e.g. you can choose to upgrade an existing move, or get a new move, but if you don’t choose the new move it never shows up again.

Anyway thanks for playing and for the thoughts!

Submitted(+2)

I like this mechanic, very satisfying to use when you get the hang of it! My only complaint is that I couldn't see some of the icons when my character was too close to the walls. The game also froze on my first playthrough after a few levels.

Developer(+1)

Oh no a bug!

Thank you for the screenshot that’s super helpful!

We wrote our own engine for this project, and well obviously there’s some extra complexity there that impacts the stability of the project :D

Thanks for playing, and I’m so glad you enjoyed the mechanic!

Submitted(+1)

Took me quite a few tries to grasp the click->select->drag mechanic… I’d say it’s a bit too complex (or at least it requires some adaptation time). The concept is nice but there’s a lot of time consumption on activating the actions and identifying which ones are available or not. Other than that nice and solid entry!

Developer

Yeah one of the main challenges of creating this mechanic ourselves is that we haven’t seen it before, so it was hard to figure out exactly how it should work/feel.

There were more ambitious ideas that lead to this clunkier interface that was cut in the last 2 hours of dev time - I think this would have really benefited from a more streamlined selection process.

Thanks for your thoughts and for playing our game :D

Submitted(+1)

I am not very good at this game (I made it to like level 4 before I couldn't get out of the way fast enough from the initial jump even using the shield) but I had an amazing time playing. I loved getting to choose abilities for the next round and how the game slowed down while you were choosing so it felt pretty tactical even though I guess you'd technically say it is an action game. One thing I would consider adding in the future is some mechanic where you gain  power over time even when you die so that old people with slow reflexes can get to see the later levels and the end screen (if there is an end). Overall fantastic experience - great job y'all!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing, and for your feedback!

I’m so glad you enjoyed the mechanic, and I agree that there is some balancing issues in general.

The levels and many of the abilities were thrown together in the final hours of the jam, so there’s some real refinement to be made.

If we explore this game more, we’ll keep your thoughts in mind - thanks again!

Submitted(+2)

I love the new and interesting mechanic! Exploring mechanics and ideas is what jams are all about in my mind, and you really pulled off that idea.


I feel like its a mechanic that has sooo much potential but is JUST missing something that would bring it to perfection. Maybe some higher quality UI, or having time fully stop (so you can pull off awesome combos and so on!)

Overall a very unique system I could see being made into an incredibly fun super-hot like game. 

Great entry, hope to see more :)


p.s. - Im not sure if it was my device, but the audio was REALLY REALLY quiet? I could barely hear it even at 600 % browser volume

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for playing and your kind words about the mechanic!

A real challenge of bringing something we haven’t quite seen before into fruition, is we weren’t really sure what it should look or feel like - so I agree there is a lot of refinement that can be done here.

This was especially limited in regards to the 64x64 restriction, as the icons for the action tree are already quite large, and none of us are proper artists, so bringing clarity into such a small space was difficult.

I think there is a lot still on the table to explore to make this mechanic feel right and I look forward to someday diving deeper there.

Thank you again for your great and kind thoughts! :D

Submitted(+1)

Huge learning curve, but once you get the hang of it a nice game. Good job!

Developer

I’m so glad you enjoyed it!

One of the big concerns was that the entry point for using the system was too complicated right off the bat, so it’s great to know that players overcame that and enjoyed the game.

Thank you for playing, and for the kind words :D

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

The action tree mechanic is really intriguing, and I think it could be very fun.  For me, it's very counterintuitive.  It feels like an everyday game mechanic from an alien planet, in both good and bad ways.

I guess that's just to say, I suck at your game, but I want to git gud!

A little more explanation about the chain of events would help: 

Click and hold->move to choice->move back to where you started holding->either release to execute the action or right-click to cancel.

Based on other games, I thought it would just be "click and hold->drag to choice->release"

Developer

You are spot on I think - I wrote the description of how to play after staying up all night to finish the entry, I think your description is quite apt, and will use it to craft more clear instructions.

So thank you for concisely expressing how to play :D

Yeah one of the challenges when making something you haven’t quite seen before is that you’re not quite sure how it should look or feel - that being said I think there is some promise to this mechanic, and lots of room for improvement/refinement.

We really appreciate your thoughts and kind words, thank you :D

Submitted (1 edit)

Yeah, I get that.  My submission is a choice-based game ala "Reigns," and after running the game dozens of times I knew exactly when the game would unlock input for the next choice, and I hit A to make my decision almost exactly when that window opened. It ran pretty great and I sent it to the team for playtesting at like, 1am.

It never occurred to me that a new player would spam the A button trying to see when the input window opens, and when my teammate ran the game it was just glitch after glitch because of  tiny windows of time when the game wasn't properly ignoring the A button.  I guess this jam taught me how important lengthy playtesting is to understand how an actual player interacts with the game.

Submitted(+1)

I like the idea and challange of the game. Great Work!

Developer

Awesome, so glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for playing, and for your kind feedback :D

Submitted(+1)

I love the concept and the game is quite challenging! At first it was hard to figure out what was going on and how to do things. Once I got the hang of it I really appreciated how you desinged it. The main problem for me was remembering which action was each icon associated to, the bomb one being especially unclear. I love that the time slows down when you're interacting with the icons, it's a great touch and great for gameplay too in order to keep it fast paced. Nice job!

Developer(+1)

Wow thank you so much for your thorough depiction of your experience with our game :D

I agree - the icon design wasn’t well executed, and having made those icons myself I can say it was my failing alone.

That being said, I do think if I were to remake this at a higher resolution, the icons would be greatly improved by that alone.

Excuses aside I think the system worked out well and felt fun and compelling, I’d love to explore this mechanic more in the future to see how it can be improved and refined.

Thank you again for playing the game, and for your thoughtful feedback :D