This is a pretty nice game. The upgrades are pretty good and the general layouts are nice.
I do think though that it lacks a lot of polish. For example, the first enemy, I wasn't even sure if I was 'hurting' it. The knockback is too fast, and the sound effect didn't sound like 'hurt' and so I was thinking it was an invulnerable ghost that I need a new sword to defeat. When I fought the squid though, I realized that I could kill them. I think it would have been good if there was some more polish to the combat and make it feel like I'm registering a hit.
I think the first roof area was quite a bit of an odd level layout. It wasn't immediately obvious to me that you had to jump on to the roof, so I tried jumping through the hole (and bump my head and fall). I did this twice (I thought I just messed up the timing). I understand that part of it is to show the use of the mobility options, but I feel like it would have been less frustrating if the hole wouldn't drop you down to the first floor again (and have to trek back up). I wasn't sure if it served as a 'tutorial' to show how the dash is useful, but imo it should have been less 'punishing' in pushing you back.
There were also instances were I got put out of the screen, and I had to reload my save (because I was out of the camera).
Overall I think the game is nice, and the mobility options are great, but it did feel like some parts of it could have been improved.
Play Ghost Reaping Gig
Millennial Ghost Hunter's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Metroidvania | #26 | 3.583 | 3.583 |
Overall | #36 | 3.125 | 3.125 |
Design | #38 | 2.917 | 2.917 |
Presentation | #47 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
Enjoyment | #49 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Godot
Team/Developer
Team MELZK
External assets
uses two public domain sfx from https://opengameart.org/content/100-cc0-sfx . one fairly modified one unmodified. Standard 8x14 IBM(-ish?) CP437 font, pulled from MegaZeux CP437 default, both unmodified and blown up/outlined a bit
Prizes eligibility
PlusMusic OST, Standard Prize
Comments
All core parts of the game work well. The controls are a little slower than I'd like, but I got used to them quickly. I like the wall-climbing; for me it's a preferable approach than wall-jumping, and it opens a lot of opportunities for exploration.
Even the basic enemies are surprisingly strong--an enemy this early in the game should not take more than 2-3 hits to defeat. Also, they should at least occasionally drop a healing item when defeated.
Note that I ran out of health, but never died. Either the fail state is not implemented, or it's not working consistently.
Nice, the gameplay, graphics music all work nicely!
Some thoughts:
- the attack feels a little sluggish, it's difficult to damage enemies without taking damage
- there's a few instances where I fell off-screen (like the below):
It's pretty short, but also pretty sweet. I really like specially the chill music, and the also the "home-made" sound effects wich are really fun and charming lol.
I also really loved the little Boss fight on the end, the patterns are actually really good, even if the Boss itself isn't the most polished thing in the world.
The overall combat itself feels really clanky tho, at least with the regular enemies. The character has both way too much start-lag and end-lag, so it is really hard to hit the enemies properly witouth being hit first. The enemies are also a little too fast and unpredictable, specially the guy with tentacles, there really is no clear way of knowing when he's gonna try to slap you so you just take damage completely for free.
I also think the game was very buggy for me in some aspects. Idk if other players got that too, but I was actually immortal during the entire game, no matter how much damage I took I just wasn't dying, even when I already had no hearts at all. I also didn't manage to trigger the pogo move you listed on the game page by any means, wich made me kinda sad tbh (Edit: ok I actually discovered how to do it now yay, but going back to try it again made me discover another bug: loading the save after finishing it doesn't actually works, it only loads the HUD hearts in a full gray screen lol)
Thanks for playing, and thanks for the constructive comments. That's some good feedback about combat. The squid guy attacks when looking at you, but he needs more of a telegraph. I'm curious about your struggle with the pogo attack--I wonder if there's something that would make it more intuitive.
Unfortunately, we were more rushed than usual this month, hence the rough edges.
I absolutely love the sounds of ghosts, they are perfect! Game feels good to control, movement upgrades are nice, was pretty short but not in a bad way, makes me appreciate it more tbh. Solid work!
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.