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桑之巫韻︰靈域快線 Song of Morus: Limbo Express's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Aesthetics | #1 | 4.636 | 4.636 |
| Originality/Creativity | #1 | 4.727 | 4.727 |
| Overall | #3 | 3.987 | 3.987 |
| Audio | #5 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Engagement/Fun | #6 | 3.727 | 3.727 |
| Magical Girl Concept | #7 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Gameplay Polish | #7 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
| Theme Interpretation | #9 | 3.545 | 3.545 |
Ranked from 11 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?
Protagonist Song is a taoist priestess who has mastered oriental sorcery aka magic.
Which theme(s) do you pick?
1,3,6
How does your game fit those theme(s)?
1. it has demons in EP2. (supposed to be enemies in EP1) 3. The deity of death asks protagonist for help. 6. Villain from old project+end game speak
If you follow any of the optional challenges, elaborate as you like.
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Were the assets for your game made during the jam? Elaborate as you see fit.
Soundtracks are composed before jam's official start time. Characters and related assets are developed and reused between my several jams. SFX is downloaded. Some general models are downloaded. All other are done by me. with some exception of assets from friends
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Comments
Visually, this is an incredible tour de force. It's bright, colourful, sharp, and appealing. It just pops. Even the menu has neat looking train tickets and spiffy animations. I haven't played every game in the jam, so I can't say for sure that it's the most impressive in the jam. But it's definitely a contender.
The title text in the main menu is a bit crunchy. But that's only really apparent because everything else looks so good.
The soundtrack and sound effects don't come to the forefront as much, but they're still very nice and work very well.
I know Song of Morus are meant to be hard/intense games, but even still, this is a step up on the difficulty curve. It's one of the most disorienting games I've ever played. The narrow field of view means you can barely see anything else while aiming at the enemy, bullets come from behind you with no warning (at least, none that I could see or hear), and moving around the train snaps your view ninety degrees over.
The tutorial mentions a wooden sword, but I couldn't figure out how to use it.
I'm sure there are people who can play this, but I'm definitely not in that group. It didn't make me sick or give me severe eyestrain, but if it were longer it might have. Once again, I know what you're going for here, but part of me would really like to see a more accessible Song of Morus game in a similar style.
It's always neat to see Chinese mythology and Hong Kong culture in these games. Some of the dialogue is a bit stilted and could use copy editing, but that feels like a minor complaint.
Thanks for the feedback. I am glad the visual is appericated.
Yah! The whole concept of this game is to push player to the edge of motion sickness. The non-linear train exterior surface shump is a newborn idea. So the gameplayis still in the phase of try and error. On one hand, I feel I should lower the difficulty so that it's easier for new player. But on the other hand, I do feel this game has to be difficult to attract niche gamers. Maybe if I have more levels to flatten the learning curve, it will be better
I will keep develop this game. The current target is 2 more levels
It's not that I think this specific game should be easier, it's more that I want to see a Song of Morus game that isn't a Hard Game someday. Maybe a chill, narrative visual novel, I don't know. Just something completely different from your usual niche.
The main train gimmick is quite unique and leads to interesting ways to deal with patterns outside of raw movement.
I found the camera while not sprinting to be too close to your character, and the camera movement when moving from one side of the train to another was pretty jarring and gave me a bit of motion sickness. I ended up handling a lot of patterns by sticking to one side of the train for as long as possible (to avoid dealing with the camera movement caused by doing so) unless I was forced out of position.
3D danmaku (and signposts) is fun to see as always though I had a hard time with depth perception, especially with the pattern where it descends on you since the bullets have no shadows on where they will land on the ground.
Thanks for playing my game. I am still fine tuning the camera movement, as the game mechanic is quite unique. I hope my next version will be less jarring.
For depth perception, it's indeed quite hard to feel the 3D position from a 2D screen. My current strategy is just keep moving to enhance the depth perception.
As expected, very cool! I've been watching you build it during the jam, and been excited to try it. I'm happy to report that I DIDN'T experience any motion sickness, though the camera could be a bit disorienting at times.
The idea is very unique and well executed, and it all looks great. My only real graphical complaint is that during the tutorial, when the environment was very white, I had a hard time keeping track of the cursor/aim mark.
The gameplay itself feels like a solid evolution/continuation of the Song of Morus games, and it was easy for a veteran of the series to jump right into. Weirdly enough though, I think one of my favorite parts was just dodging the signs (Very nice of Desdemona to warn me they were coming XD )
One other note... and this isn't your fault at all, but MAN did Norton want to murder your game. First it auto-purged the main executable. I forced it to restore it. This next part may be on me for not figuring out how to flag the whole folder as safe, but I've also never seen this before. When I ran the game, Norton systematically deleted EVERY DLL one by one, popping up annoyingly each time. Some how the game still ran fine... maybe they all loaded before being sent to Norton prison? I don't know if the game will run anymore without me re-unzipping it. Anyway, just letting you know... not sure what to do about that other than give the finger to Norton. I was having an issue like this with NW.JS exports for awhile, so I know too well that Norton is insanely aggressive.
Anyway, over-zealous antivirus aside, really great work! I'll definitely be back to check the future updates!
Thanks for the feedback. I will try to fix it in next game jam. I am glad that you don't get motion sickness as expected, I guess I can raise the level up.
Limbo Express is indeed designed based on the lessons from the last few Song of Morus games. During Laments On the Brine, I learnt that a moving background makes the game feel much more intense. And during Skypatch, I leanrt that designing a stage based on real world is difficult and time-consuming for solo team. And these inspired me to make a game with a speeding train in a surreal world.
For Norton's reaction, I hope it's alright.
really badass anime battle setting!
A great concept, great presentation, fun to play, very polished! The OST is great too, I know it has been composed before the jam, but it is consistent with the game arstyle and really give an identity to the tile.
A few feedbacks:
Thanks for the good time and can't wait for Chapter 1! Good luck.
Thanks for playing my game and giving me feedback. Hmm. For softlock, I may think about it, especially when integrating game controller. The game control is quite new. There are lots of detail I still am trying to figure out.
An original idea, characters with charismatic designs and a polished interface. Good job!
Very fun, great game! Good mix of Shmup and 3D action.
The use of the train makes the gameplay very unique; dodging the incoming obstacles adds something other than bosses to the game. I missed being able to jump, but at least Desdemona was there to make up for it.
technically, my positioning algorthm can handle jumping up, but it may be too complicated for player to handle, so in this game Song can only jump in and out.