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A jam submission

YesterSolView game page

Metroidvania PreAlpha Playtesting. A small hero with a magical spear.
Submitted by NeatGames (@neat_games) — 23 hours, 53 minutes before the deadline
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YesterSol's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Metroidvania#74.0454.045
Overall#103.9093.909
Presentation#104.0914.091
Design#133.8643.864
Enjoyment#143.6363.636

Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Unity

Team/Developer
Solo Developer - Neat Games

External assets
Music: Past Tense by Savfk

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Comments

Submitted

It's a solid entry that does a lot of things well, and I agree with the criticisms and suggestions made below. I would have been more motivated to continue searching for fragments if 1) getting to and from the gem gate were easier and 2) the fragments were visible on the map (at least at some point). Good work!

Also, I might be in the minority but I thought the music was a little *too* serene. Didn't feel like it quite matched the gameplay of dodging blades and destroying bugs. 

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Hi I like your game especially story are pretty good. Spear and seed mode kind create lot of combination during whole game. I actually triggered a bug during playing. I close to corner then I just jump out the map and never find way to go back lol. Link is the video for the bug.

Developer

Thanks for playing and the bug report! I think I fixed a lot of the issues already :D

Submitted(+1)

Nice combination of mechanics and mood. A pleasure to play!

PROS:

  • Ambiance is both relaxing and humbling between the tone of the music and the subtle dialog that makes you feel for the player character.
  • Base spear mechanic opens up a lot of platforming opportunities that are definitely realized with what you've got.
  • Several unique AI types to engage with that you've placed well to take advantage of the challenge they present. (The boss fights specifically were quite impressive)

CRITIQUE:

  • I'm personally not a fan of forcing players to find all of you special items, but if you are going to force that issue before allowing progression then I'd advise marking the special items that players need on the map. I definitely started to feel the experience "get old" when I had to backtrack through every room a couple times in order to find the 2 pieces that I hadn't managed to collect yet.
  • The boss fights were impressive, but they did get repetitive. If you want to have the same kind of boss for each of the powerup points then maybe just adjust the movements of each boss to better match the powerup that players will acquire ...
    • The bomb powerup boss could spawn exploding bombs along its path while it moves.
    • The dash boss could appear->wait a second->dash across the screen->disappear.
  • Just based off of the fact that the spear spins as it's returning to the player, I think it would be cool if the spear dealt damage on the return path. It could set up some interesting combat challenges where you're required to boomerang the spear around walls to damage enemies in the expected path.
Developer(+1)

Thanks for the awesome comment! I'll add it all to my notes :D

Submitted(+1)

This was a really pleasant experience, excellent work on the tone, art, music, the whole atmosphere really.  I really like the spear mechanic.  The only bugs I ran into was the spear did not return a couple of times and some of the hitboxes felt a little unfair.  Overall I liked the slower pace, it felt very relaxing to play.  Great submission!

Developer

Thanks for playing! I "think" I've fixed a lot of the spear bugs, I hope lol.  I hope to make it feel like a relaxing + exploration metroidvania so I'm glad to read your comment :D

Submitted(+1)

Very well done game, nice job! I played to the finish and had fun.  The artwork has a nice, serene style, I loved the parallax background layers and in the pink zone and the bloom on the mushrooms.  The spear and acorn mechanisms worked really well, and the challenges were nicely designed.  The map was also nicely designed and worked well.  Very solid work all around!

Some hopefully helpful feedback: My spear disappeared off-screen a few times and wouldn't come back, but this was always remedied by dying, and you did a good job including many well-placed checkpoints.  I also felt the lack of coyote time, as others have mentioned.  And I would suggest making the colliders on spikes to be in the shape of the spikes (rather than a square), as dying at the upper corner edges of those colliders when jumping over spikes felt "unfair."  But these are very small issues on a great game -- nice job.

Developer

Oh thanks a bunch for playing through! And thanks for the feedback, I'll adjust the spikes for sure :D  I am applying everyone's feedback right now~

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I have yet to finish your game, but one a bit cold feedback before: if you expect the player to have all the collectibles at some point - PLEASE point it out close to the beginning of the game. I usually just go blindly and I got like 70%. I didn't want to go back at that point and look around again -.-

Another one like this, but here maybe i'm just stupid - I saw the first main boss area on map, and thought it was a blind corridor, and did not go there. Went there 10 minutes later after blindly looking around and suddenly BAM - boss xD Some shadowy fog would be a nice indication maybe. But it was just this one time, later I was expecting this.

I will finish it in few days, overall its very nice, the music make a nice atmosphere and I see that the main character is Samus in disguise;) My brain is broken from playing Volgarr the viking and I constantly throw spear with up button. Oh well ;)

I wanna see the implemented mushrooms;)

Developer

Thanks for playing! Yeah I need give some better hints for sure~ That's a good idea for the boss areas :D

Submitted(+1)

I can't believe you withheld double jump from me until right at the end ^^ super fun, 5/5 metroidvania, your mechanics are done really well, I fell out of the map a few times and had to go get my spear manually once :') but nothing game breaking happened, so really well made. I love the story and the art I think you've done something really good here :)

Developer(+1)

Wow thanks for playing all the way to the end!!  If you have any suggestions or feedback, please fill out the googleform on the game page :D I want to keep working on it with people's feedback~

Submitted(+1)

Wonderfull cute Game, looks amazing, everything is fitting very well together and was fun to move with the spear. Nice controlls!

Developer

Thanks a bunch for playing! :D

Submitted(+1)

Awesome presentation and great mechanic! This is better realized version of the spear mechanic of my own game. The platforming physics felt a bit off and the lack of coyote time makes some jumps somewhat frustrating

It was still a great time. Amazing work! 

Developer

Thanks for playing! Yeah I will look into coyote time for sure :D

Submitted(+1)

I got myself stuck under a narrow wall because i threw the spear at it while standing next to it. Unity physics ig, i recommend making it a one-sided collision, so you only collide with it when on top(so you can jump through it), which would also get rid of problems like these. Good game overall though, liked the artstyle.

Developer

Thanks for the tip! I'll try that for sure~

Submitted(+1)

Graphics and animation is really well done, with some satisfying squishing and great use of bloom. Levels are nicely designed to 'tease' player with initially unreachable collectibles and the use of sloped platforms to impose a one-way cliff is very natural. It's also really impressive that you have the time to be able to implement a minimap system, which is a real helpful feature.

It took me a bit of fidgeting to actually know how to use the seed form, but it's cool how many more paths it opened up. I find it difficult to know where I'm supposed to go most of the time after the first boss. To me, I think that it lacks a 'critical path', making it feel like I'm just taking detours, rather than knowing that I'm on the intended path. Coyote time will also help a lot with some of the tight jumps. Doors are also hard to spot, but the minimap helped with it.

Still, I think it's a fun game revolving around a cool spear platforming mechanic that's worth exploring and experimenting with. Great submission!

Developer

Thanks a bunch for the feedback. I will look into how to implement coyote time for sure!

Submitted(+1)

Really loved your game! Overall, it was absolutely beautiful, between the music, art, and effects around the environment. The spear mechanic was clever. I did manage to use it to clip out of bounds on numerous occasions, though. I was actually able to get past the key door requiring the 12 shards by clipping out of bounds and hitting the loading zone. Really well done! 

Developer

Thanks a bunch for playing all the way to the 12 shard door!!  I need to figure out out to solve all the clipping with the spear and seed form for sure hehe. That's a future me problem XD  Please do the google form if you any specific suggestions, I plan to keep working on this! Thanks again.

Submitted(+1)

Pretty cool metroidvania with its spear platform mechanic.

The artstyle is beautiful
The gameplay is perfect
The music is calming

I do had some encounter with noclipping through walls but overall a very great game.

Developer

Thanks for playing! Fixing the clipping is definitely on the priority fix list hehe

Submitted(+1)

Definitely meets the requirements for metroidvania and explores some fresh core mechanics. My primary feedback is around game design:

1. Please add coyote time to the jumps. Falling off ledges due to jumping one frame too late is a curse in platforming.

2. The doors looked too much like walls and the spikes did too. Consider making the spikes way more menacing so the player doesn't have to look so hard to spot them. Same for the doors, make them stand out from the default wall color.

Other than those things, I enjoyed playing. Thanks for sharing!

Developer

Thank you! It's awesome how you always give detailed feedback #salute!