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A jam submission

TimeWhirl βView game page

Story-based bullet-hell dungeon crawler with a time travel based plot.
Submitted by shelerr, ilyamokka — 5 minutes, 22 seconds before the deadline
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TimeWhirl β's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Engagement/Fun#54.0204.444
Graphics, Audio, and Polish#163.7194.111
Overall#173.6784.067
Originality/Creativity#203.6184.000
Theme Interpretation#203.5183.889
Magical Girl Concept#263.5183.889

Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the Magical Girl Genre?
All characters are magical girls

Which theme(s) do you pick?
Time

How does your game fit the theme(s)?
Plot and one of core game mechanics are based on time rewind

Are all your graphics assets made by yourself during the duration of the jam?

No

some of them were purchased; but most are stuffs I/my team made myself/ourselves

Are all your audio assets made by yourself during the duration of the jam?

No

a good chunk of them were purchased

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Comments

Submitted

I really had a lot of fun with this one!  The pixel art, music, story, and gameplay gave an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue.  The dialogue was witty, funny, and at times very ominous.  I look forward to playing the rest of it and finding out what happened to the Four.

Submitted

This one is definitely a hidden gem. There are games in this jam with great gameplay and games with great storyline, but this is one of the few that does both.

It's very polished in general. I'm not a huge fan of pixel art, but it works well here, and I think I recognize the palette. The music fits well and the sound effects are spot-on. The gameplay is solid. At first I thought the time reversal was pretty useless (if still incredibly cool), but later on I understood its usefulness. The difficulty ramped up quicker than I'd like in the first dungeon which is probably my only gameplay complaint.

One track sounds like the Game of Thrones theme, which is kind of funny.

However, it does feel like some stuff is missing. There's mention of stores and traders, but these don't exist in game. There's also some decisions which don't seem to have any effect, and lots of talk of wands but this doesn't come into play until the very end of the game.

I was very happy to see that continue worked. I died in a boss battle and when I hit retry, the game crashed. The length is about right but it's definitely at that length where it needs a state save like it does.

Some events seemed out of sequence, but it might have been different characters. I'm still not sure if time runs weird in the crypt, or if I'm just confused. In any case, the plot was riveting and kept me hooked until the end.

The dialogue is a bit shaky. For the most part the awkward phrasing wasn't an issue and the story still worked, but it pretty much killed what I think was supposed to be a gamestonks joke. I'm still a bit confused about some aspects of the setting, but ultimately none of that is the focus, and the story of the Four and the time loop is plenty to push the story forward.

I was pretty shocked by how young the protagonists are, though.

To be honest, I was pretty scared when I saw "bullet hell dungeon crawler" because I suck at those, but I really, really liked this one. I did play on easy mode, though.

Developer

Hi there!

Thank you for the review!

We wanted to put traders in the  game initially, but then the deadline came.

Glad you found the save/load system useful. We made it especially for that kind of occasions.

About awkward phrasing - yes, some of that we have. I'm not good at English enough to write something consistent yet. (English is my second language) Though, I am planning to improve.

We're still not sure about continuing the development, but the comments such as yours motivate us to do so.

P.S. What gamestonks joke do you mean? I can't remember anything like that in the text.

Submitted

One of the characters mentions that their dad lost all their money on either stocks or coupons; both terms were used which was pretty confusing because they don't mean the same thing in this context.

Developer

I see. The idea was what she simply can't tell apart those two things because of her ignorance, but maybe the joke is better

Submitted

Thoughts recorded during my playthrough

+ = I liked it

- = I didn't like it

* = Comment/neutral

====================

- I appreciate the options menu on the title screen, but without something playing it's hard to know what the sound settings should be. It's blind guessing until I get into the game.

- Grammar is a little off. For example, "I had to enter the magical crypt below my town and defeat the mightiest of its creatures, which was written in it." I think you meant the mighty creature was mentioned in the letter, but the way it's currently worded it's telling me that the mighty creature was written in the crypt. I'm able to revise it mentally, but it's an extra effort that makes enjoying the story difficult.

- What are the controls? I didn't see them mentioned anywhere and there's no tutorial.


- This needed to be displayed in the previous room. I'm glad that it's there, though!

- Having left shift be run sounds good on paper because it's all under one hand, but in reality it's an awkward reach on my keyboard and won't be comfortable. A keyboard configuration would be ideal; if not possible, please use a key that's easier to access, like space bar.

* Something that should be included in the tutorial: use the mouse to aim

- G key is also an awkward reach on my keyboard. If it were F, it would be right next to my "walk right" key, but as it is it's incredibly hard to reach when trying to dodge the enemies that suddenly appear

+ I do like the tutorial room. I got to try out the different mechanics to learn how everything works.

+ The art is delightfully pixelated and lively

+ It's not too hard to survive the first "real" room of the game despite the mass quantities of enemies. (Playing on Normal difficulty)

+ The minimap, complete with dungeon layout and enemies present, is a real help

+ Oh, right shift works too? That's handy. Tutorial should just say "shift" instead of "Left shift" since it doesn't matter.

- I saw something I couldn't pick up in the first dungeon and just wrote it off as a rock or something. Now I realize it was a corpse based on a conversation in the second dungeon. I think corpses should be pointed out earlier so it's clear what they are when I run into them.

+ I like the retry feature when you die to the boss. I don't have to start all over again or too far away from the battle.


- I'm not sure what the point of this choice is. I get some extra text if I answer "I'll do it." I still do the battle if I give the other answer.

+ I like that there is an audible "hit" sound when my shots connect with the enemy. I don't have to guess whether the shots off screen are connecting or not.

- The dungeon after the first boss is way too hard. The enemies are bullet sponges and keep respawning until I'm too overwhelmed to be safe. I have to quit since I can't spend any more time on the game.

Summary

The concept of this game is cool: a dungeon crawler with bullet hell mechanics. Once the mechanics are understood, it's even an enjoyable challenge. However, there are some things that hold it back from being awesome. The biggest issue I had was with how the mechanics were taught: explanations came a scene after they were needed, and some things, like the time shifting, was not presented in a way that allowed me to know how to properly utilize them. All of these issues came together and resulted in me quitting the game early. This game does have its good points, too: the music was appropriately ambient; the graphics are clear and lively; bullets can swarm the screen but are presented in ways that make taking hits not feel cheap. I think if the game were given some boosts to how it teaches the player to play the game and some of the other presentation features this could be an outstanding experience.

Submitted

This was a pretty fun, and fairly difficult bullet hell game!

I played on normal, because my pride wouldn't let me choose easy. I managed to complete the game, despite quite a few "game overs."

I liked both of the attack abilities. The time travel mechanic was pretty hard to use at first, and I found that it was mainly useful on the bosses. In the rooms teaming with enemies, I found that attempting the time travel to heal just left me in a worse situation than before each time. In fact, I found the enemy swarms on the last few floors harder than any of the bosses.

Nice work!

Submitted

The currently published Windows version appears to be a copy of the Linux version.

Developer

Oops... It is for some reason.

Fixed it.

Submitted

can't get pass the tutorial because I don't know what RMB or LMB is, good game from what I played

Developer

This is the right mouse button and the left mouse button. Probably we should have expect something like that to occcur.

Play it again please

Submitted (2 edits)

okay, thanks, will do

EDIT: okay played, pretty cool bullet hell, with a time control mechanic, though challenging, I enjoyed myself, the only issue I can think of is maybe the WASD for movement, I kept reaching for the directional keys by accident, though it could be because I am mostly a console gamer.

Developer

Glad you enjoyed, thank you for the feedback!

Submitted

Really well done game. I liked the big magic hit mechanic. We did a similar line of sight thing in our game. Also, the going back in time thing was cool too. It is difficult without an invincibility period. Tight controls and camera shake made for good gameplay feel. The final boss seemed pretty easy compared to the second to last boss.  Overall, really good job.

Developer

Thank you for the feedback, glad you enjoyed it! 

Indeed, I made the second to last boss rather difficult. I probably will do more playtesting in my future projects, to catch such problems early.

Submitted

I loved the story and the gameplay was solid too though the bosses felt a bit too easy compared to the regular mobs, if you guys plan on to work on this after the jam I'd love to see more of the lore.

Developer

Glad you enjoyed it!

I am indeed considering working on this later because the story didn't quite work as we originally planned. We have some rough ideas, about how it can be improved. It really depends on ilyamokka, though.

Submitted

On the title screen, the hitboxes on the main menu options being too small got me worried...

... for nothing. This is a solid game. It is not a genre I'd usually play, but I finished it without too much trouble (on easy). It took me a bit to get a grasp on the rules (kill all the enemies felt unintuitive, the rewind more so). But once I did I really felt I was learning quick.

It's charming, even if the dialogue gets a bit repetitive ;)

Developer

Thank you for your feedback and for the kind words!