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AshScend's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #1 | 4.647 | 4.647 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution) | #4 | 4.853 | 4.853 |
| Overall | #4 | 4.463 | 4.463 |
| Graphics | #18 | 4.441 | 4.441 |
| Audio | #50 | 3.912 | 3.912 |
Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
I made this alone but a friend gave me valuable feedback as I was making the game
Was the resolution a challenge?
I wanted to make a high-octane game with lots of stuff happening on-screen, so it was definitely challenging to try to keep the playfield readable at such a low resolution!
What did you learn?
Turns out 1px particles are super fun to work with!
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Comments
Wow ! Very nice game ! Loved art-style and vfx!
Interesting idea overall.
That was awesome. The gameplay, art, animation, sound, everything felt great. Slowly building up the ground underneath you with enemy corpses, combined with some simple sand physics is such a cool novel idea. Gameplay was generally great - killing enemies was super satisfying, shooting and collecting ammo provided some challenge but wasn’t too easy or too difficult. Movement did feel a little slippery and uncontrollable at times.
I also thought it would have been nice to have some way to deal with bats that get too low. Right now trying to dodge or hit bats in line or below you is not very fun, but I suppose preventing them from getting too close could be considered part of the challenge.
The lack of music/ambience did make it feel a bit quiet.
Thanks for playing! Really appreciate the constructive feedback.
I was thinking of implementing upgrades that shoot downwards to alleviate the issue of bats that manage to fly underneath you.
As for movement that sometimes feels out of control, I think that might partially be caused by a flaky implementation of one-way platforms. When a ton of ash is piled on a platform and you jump up through it, the game hoists you to the top of the mound of ash. But I haven’t nailed down the feel of this – it probably happens way too fast and people might go, “whoa what happened”. I’ll probably rework this if I decide to refine this game after the jam.
Or, perhaps you meant that the character kinda glides too fast across the width of the playfield – especially on steep slopes – and I’m definitely thinking of tweaking this as well.
The polish of this game is extremely satisfying. Art and sound effects are nice. Really enjoyed playing it. Great job! :D
The art style and particle effects are so cool! The palette makes them not too distracting and I had a lot of fun beating the game. I also liked the sound design, it fit the theme well though I wish there were some music to go with it.
Great game! The concept of using defeated enemies to slowly get higher is neat, and executed. well. Getting upgrades and slowly growing more powerful is satisfying. The presentation is very well done too. Everything is animated smoothly. I was particularly impressed by the way the ash piles up. The voice acting is also a nice touch.
That Level Complete animation is so good! Very impressive visually, and a lot of fun too. That ash simulation runs really smooth, amazing work on it!
This is a very visually stunning and fun game to blast through. It’s nice that you get to keep all of your upgrades after beating the game.
Love it. The artwork and visual effects are excellent and the gameplay is smooth and exciting. Great job.
Really nice game! The mechanics and upgrades were really satisfying and I ended up playing a lot more than I expected (managed to get to the end and all). My only nitpick is that I think a reward for combos would be nice, considering that they are tracked.
This game is really fun, I was really impressed with the new game plus dilemma, and it was a blast replaying from level 1 with all my upgrades. I also really like the powder style physics being used as a game mechanic, I've always wanted to see something like that and this application of it is perfect. The low rez voice was very cool and nostalgic.
Nice, nice, nice. The octane is strong and the heaps of my foes deep. I gotta check out Emscripten, too. That seems like some pretty cool stuf.
Wow this was a fun one! Excellent visual effects accenting simple yet elegant sprites, gameplay that made me a powerhouse but never disengaged me, and tactful sound design! I especially liked the burning corpse upgrades, but I didn't notice anything from the burst of mini-balls upgrade. Ash physics were super impressive too, and made good use of the small resolution. One of my favorites!
Thank you for your feedback! Yeah, I need to rework the burst of mini bolts. It’s meant to help you escape tricky situations at close range. However, as it stands it’s difficult to see because the mini-bolt appears in the trail of the main bolt. Levels 2 and 3 of the upgrade give you more mini bolts, but since the game only has 7 stages for now it’s rare to be able to get the upgrade to that level. This is what a fully decked-out mini-bolt gun looks like
I’ll definitely keep your feedback in mind if I flesh out the game after the jam :)
Really fun game! I really like the flow of the game loop. Getting upgrades and trying to conquer progressively harder levels is great fun. Nice job!
Congratulations on making this game ! I've played your game during a live that you can watch here :
The live is timestamped so you can go directly to your game.Thanks again for your donation !
I hope the feedback and live reactions will be useful. Keep it up !
Thank you for having my game on the stream! Live feedback from first-time players is invaluable. I’m glad you made it to the end!
My pleasure Jorio, it was a great game. Thanks again for your donation, stay tuned for future games and videos !
This was very fun and satisfying, I love it.
The visuals are surprisingly clear despite all the particles.
Amazing work.
I think this may be the best game of the jam! It reminds me of Noita, which is in my Top 3 of greatest indie games of all time. I like that you have to strategically plan your ash heaps, otherwise you might get stuck below a platform. The only minor nitpick is that it wasn't explained in game how to refuel (I'm assuming it's when you step on the flames?).
By the way how did you code the ashes? Was it a physics engine with each pixel of ash as a separate rigidbody? Or some kind of clever particle system?
Thank you for your feedback! Yes, the ammo is the little flames. We got in touch elsewhere, but here’s the rundown of the ash sim anyway in case somebody else is interested:
The game maintains a bitmap to keep track of terrain collision data. Basically, each pixel in the collision map is either solid or air. Each piece of ash “claims” a single pixel in this bitmap.
In the update routine, each piece of ash looks at a row of 3 pixels underneath it in the collision bitmap to decide what to do next.
Each piece of ash has a floating-point velocity vector. The ash will only be able to “claim” a new pixel in the collision bitmap once the floating-point coordinates would take the ash to a different integer pixel. I guess if I were to port this to an old platform I should’ve used fixed-point math :P
That was the gist of it. Of course, there’s some secret sauce to improve the game feel of the ash: subtle randomness to make everything feel more organic, ash can also bounce off other stuff if projected with enough force, etc.
The old After Dark screensaver “Confetti Factory” inspired me to simulate ash like this. It used to captivate me as a kid. I have actually never played Noita so I guess I’ll have to see what it’s like!
This one is incredible, I had an absolute blast playing this. Great job!
I played this game on stream, the vod is up at http://bit.ly/bean-stream
Thank you for having my game on the stream! It was a lot of fun to watch you play :)
Very addictive and a great mechanic to pile up ash… vibes of Noita in the sense of “pixel” scenery. Even with all that is going on on screen colors are very wisely picked and things still feel clear to the eye, congrazt on that, which is not an easy feat.
So fun! and cathartic :D m not sure I've ever played a game where I needed to headbutt flaming corpses over having more health ,':/ well made! :)
This was really fun and satisfying to play! Watching the playfield fill with ash faster and faster as I continue to upgrade the ash droprate and enemy on-death AOE damage made for quite an interesting gameplay experience, haha. Well done.