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Project COEUS's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Enjoyment | #3 | 3.900 | 3.900 |
Sensory | #4 | 4.150 | 4.150 |
Overall | #5 | 3.890 | 3.890 |
Execution | #6 | 3.850 | 3.850 |
Relevance to the theme picked | #11 | 4.100 | 4.100 |
Metroidvania | #16 | 3.450 | 3.450 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme Chosen
The year is 20XX: I wanted to create a sci fi game, and this was the perfect opportunity. Just like metroid, it's set in the future with technology that gives the player access to interesting abilities. The sci-fi theme allowed me to focus on creating a foreboding alien planet.
Engine
Unity
Team/Developer
Vandal's Aria, DavidTippy, GoblinHours
External assets
Vermin Vibes Font, Millenia Font, Health Bar Border
Prizes eligibility
PlusMusic (overall soundtrack)
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Comments
Pros:
Cons:
Solid entry overall.
I erred on the side of higher score for enjoyment because I didn't beat the boss and found it sort of frustrating.
Okay this game nails so many things. First off, an FPS! In MVM??? The Metroid Prime series was always close to my heart so I'm kinda biased lol. The immersion was amazing: the sound and the placement of various assets such as corpses made the whole thing have such an ominous atmosphere, and I'm all in for it. I love that this game could be played fast: movement is responsive, speed is high, and the enemies really made you push your thinking speed. My only nitpick was that some assets would stand out from the pixel art aesthetic, such as your ship. But the game made me want to keep playing, something that's difficult to achieve with anyone, especially in a game jam. Excellent game!
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed.
Really fun game! This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder how it was made in just a month. I had a lot of fun with it up until the final boss... I just could not figure out how I was meant to approach it.
Aside from that I felt like the player was a bit too fast for the environment... it gave me a bit of a headache at some points in fact with how fast the textures were going by. The head bobbing probably didn't help with this either.
I see some other people here had trouble reading the font, but I could read it just fine and thought it fit the style really well. Maybe it would be good to have an option to switch it out for a more standard font, make it more accessible without ditching the stylized font altogether. Overall this was an amazing entry, great work!
Thanks for playing! I might slow the character down a little and add a heading bobbing option.
Fun game! Haven't played something like that in quite a while, so that was a pleasant surprise. Music and art is great, made for terrific mood and I was scared the entire time haha. There's some slight design choices that i felt weren't the right ones, but it didn't stop me from completing the game, overall it's pretty solid and definitely a big achievement for someone that just picked up a game engine iirc.
So I for some nitpicks about the design, I wasn't sure what corelocked meant at first, later I realised it's a different name for classic overheat situation, I felt that with how your bosses were implemented, it's just a punish mechanism against players. I wouldn't be against it if your bosses didn't have timed window when they can take damage, if you screw up with overheat you're denied the opportunity to fight. That's my first thought about it, the system probably just need some value tweaking to feel better, but it's aight at the moment.
Thanks for making great game! :D
Thanks for the review! I had a lot of fun making the game, so I'm glad I took a first step in game development.
The overheating gun has definitely been a mixed bag for people. I think most players missed the 'overheat reduction' upgrade, which can be found before the 2nd boss. If you missed it as well, it would explain issues with later bosses. I would agree that the overheat itself is probably too long.
I think I'll add a map to suggest paths which the player can explore. Hopefully more people will find it then haha.
I actually found the upgrade, it does feel much better with it, but I still managed to overheat on last bossfight somehow, just for the record
Combat is very smooth and the abilities complement gameplay very well. Controls felt a bit floaty but overall very fun.
You really nailed the aesthetic. The environments were awesome, looking the ship's windows to see the planet outside felt really cool.
Thanks for playing!
I LOVE this hexen/doom vibe so much!!! The visual fidelity is 10/10, really great art direction and sound design.
-weapon mechanics are great, I'm a big fan of "unlimited ammo but there's a cooldown" in shooters. The cooldown upgrade felt very worth finding and empowering. The shooting cooldown bar being integrated into the gun was a great design choice.
-abilities were easy to use and made sense. It was very well telegraphed what each ability did.
-bio system very cool. Love having the risk system of using bio or saving for heals
-The level design is fantastic. The way some sections loop but are blocked by the dash check (the fire) was *chefs kiss* design. Really great work!
Thanks for the comment! Glad you enjoyed.
Really loved the cute aesthetic of your game :)
Yo, that was really fun! I haven't played many games in this retro doom style but I actually enjoyed it a lot.
The difficulty ramp up did feel steep but also very satisfying, specially for the last boss. Took me quite some time to figure out the strat specially on the shocking ground (and it may be way too easy to get cornered in that phase), but it felt really cool once I got through it.
The environment looks quite neat and exploration was definitely consistent, I almost felt it would be a bit annoying figuring my way out sometimes but I did do it fairly quickly, so point on that. Atmosphere was conveyed very well, specially on the rooms with dead corpses, and the ambience fit perfectly.
I think my only complaint would be the font, like a few other people mentioned already. It was bearable to read the in-game instructions but the intro was just impossible to understand, specially given the varying interval of which each line stayed on screen which didn't always seem to match the line's length (or maybe I just got that impression due to taking so long to read and not being able to get some of the letters at all).
Overall, great game!
The final boss has been a bit of a mixed bag for people, so it's good to hear that it was difficult, but rewarding. I'm planning some changes for it.
I'm thinking of making it that you can walk through enemies after being damaged, which would (hopefully) solve the issue of being cornered.
I'll definitely try to overhaul the font for in-game and the cutscene.
Glad you enjoyed!
That was really neat, kinda love it. This was actually the first time I played a boomer shooter myself so that was quite fresh too.
When I started the game the UI was totally broken, but just a trip back to the menu to scale the resolution down fixed it no problem (Altought that do mean I had to see the opening cutscene twice, so making it skippable would have been really welcome, and if it was, at least none of the inputs I pressed skipped it).
It's pretty fun overall, I do love dashing around and shooting stuff, altought it's still rather simple anyway so I can't really think on a lot to say on that regard.
Some complaints I have to say tho, there's no telegraphing for when any of the enemies are gonna shoot, so when one appears right on your face you simply have zero reaction time. I'm also afraid there is no indication of wheter or not there are any projectiles coming from behind you, even if as far as I've noticed while playing, I didn't really got hit by anything of that kind, but still, it was a concerning tought to have. (I did got jumpscared a few times by turning around tho xD)
The game was all fun overall, until the final boss honestly. It felt like a really rought fight I have to admit. Aside from there being no telegraphs for bullets and missiles nor for when the shields gets up again or when an enemy spawns, I also got really frustrated by how I died a huge lot due to how the electric field move always lasted way longer than my shield, wich was just unfair. The idea of the move is cool and is a neat way of forcing the shield into the fight, if only it stayed active for less time it would had been a delicious attack to defend yourself from, but that was sadly not the case. I eventually discovered that the edges of the arena are safespots for this specific move, but when I tried to hide there the boss would just hug me on the wall and pat me with missiles that I couldn't defend myself from, because, spoiler alert: my shield didn't last for long enought, and I also couldn't consistently destroy the missiles with bullets because the boss was already kissing me anyway, the missiles hit me as soon as they were shot pretty much.
I have to say, unfortunately I threw the towel there, and I didn't even gave it a huge lot of attempts, it was just a little too frustrating to be worth to keep trying :(
I had a blast with everything that came before it tho, the other two bosses were pretty fine too.
Also, more of a personal nitpick, but I kinda felt like the mouse sensibility was a little too low for me, would have been nice if it was changeable, but that's not a huge problem anyway.
I also recorded my entire run if you're curious to see it, just ask me for it.
Late correction but I realized I have no clue what a boomer shooter is x)
What I meant was like, the first time I play a game kinda like classic Doom
It's possible that I forgot to scale some of the UI, but good that it fixed itself on relaunch. I'll definitely add a skip cutscene option.
I'd agree, the final boss is definitely too hard. I think it was a case where the game was getting too easy for me, so I decided to throw a curve ball in that felt challenging to even me.
The idea with the electric field attack for the final boss is that the player can use the shield to cross between the edges to move away from the boss. Quite a few people have expressed frustration with this since I don't think it's super clear. You want to walk through the field away from the boss to get some space. You're probably right, the electric field does go on for too long.
Thanks for the review!
no problem, thank you for replying :3
Altought I really don't want you to get the wrong message about the boss here, the problem is not that it's "too hard", it just feels unfair, wich is completely different. In fact the boss itself in theory sounds actually easy enought, the problem is that there's just too much stuff that feels like is completely out of the player's control. Yes I do agree that it could be more clear that you're supposed to stay on the edges, that's really lacking some indication, but even if the player knows that, if the boss corners you into a wall you simply get stuck and bullied, there's no way to get out of there and that just feels like the boss is straight on cheating.
Yes, some other people have mentioned the cornering issue (which can happen with all enemies). I was thinking of making it so that after a player is damaged, they can walk through enemies for a brief period.
Really original entry. Liked the visuals, especially effect when shooting on things works really well.
Being locked to the floor is a bit frustrating especially at the beginning The door could be a bit more visible (once your understand the pattern you find it easily tho). The overcharge mechanic with the gun gets a bit frustrating especially on the second boss (the one that give the shield). Maybe there is a bonus to reduce the cooldown i didn't found. The head movement should be reduced imo.
I had a lot of fun playing the game, lots of cool design idea ! Congrats !
Thanks for the comment!
There is indeed a cooldown upgrade which reduces the overheating. I'm hoping to implement a map which will help show you which areas you have not been to. For the head movement, I'll probably add an option to toggle it off.
Overall this game was very well done. I enjoyed the environment, and the controls all felt smooth. I liked being able to choose to use my energy to heal now, or hold on in case I needed it later.
My biggest issue was with the final boss. It seems like a large spike in difficulty, and it gave no indication that the shield would drop after some time. It was also able to block me into a corner that was difficult to break out of.
Thanks for playing!
I would agree that the final boss was a leap in difficulty. Knowing the strategy to beat it is not clear. You can use your shield to to move through the electric field and away from the boss. The shield is on a timer and will drop after the electric attack has finished.
Another person mentioned that I should add a feature where the character can walk through enemies after being damaged, and I think I'll try to work on that.
An interesting game for sure. Wolfenstein vibes brought some out some nostalgia so congrats on that. You did a good job on communicating to the player their goal and what to do with their powerup. The atmospheric music was a good choice to go with and lends itself to your chosen theme. While there were moments where I felt like I needed a map, I still managed to find my way relatively quickly so good job there.
I think my biggest criticisms would be
Overall, I liked this entry. It was fun. Nostalgic for me and it seems like you had a fun experience making it. Congrats!
Thanks for the in-depth comment. I appreciate all the feedback since it's my first go at creating a game.
1. The mouse sensitivity is an issue a lot of people have mentioned. Definitely going to put a mouse slider in.
2. Fair enough regarding the head bobbing. I could add an option to remove it.
3. The enemies do create a sound when they shoot. I think the volume roll-off depending on distance might have been too strong. I wanted to add some enemy gurgling or something but ran out of time, so I'll get around to it soon.
4. Change font is another comment I've seen lot, so I'll hit that as well.
5. I'd agree that the overheat is a little strong / punishing at the beginning of the game. It was an attempt to balance the player being able to kill the enemies pretty easily. There's an upgrade you can unlock later in the game which lowers the overheating issue. I wanted it to feel good when you unlock it.
I'm thinking of having a second pass at the game to improve some of the issues and restore some cut content, potentially submitting it for the super edition.
Your game was a lot of fun to play. Thanks!
No problem and thanks again for playing my game! Detailed feedback from everyone is so helpful and I've made a lot of choices based on common criticisms that I think were a good idea. It feels lazy to repeat other's comments, but I think it just shows what you can improve on because so many people said it lol. Yeah, I noticed the projectile sound, but the gurgling is what I was expecting to hear as a player. Running out of time sucks lol. As for reducing the charge, if it gave you a description like the others, I definitely missed it. Would have made the boss fight less stressful.
And yeah, I definitely would recommend submitting to the SMVM!
Ah yes I can see how potentially fighting the 2 other bosses without the overheat reduction would be more challenging. Yep it's another one of the those description powerups. I could make it less easy to miss, although I wonder if giving an edge to players who explore more is a good / bad thing. Or maybe that powerup should fall under 'essential.'
More play testing required!
I think if you add a map, the second would be the decision I would personally go with. Rewarding players for exploration is always cool to me. You should load up Doom 1 for inspiration. The very first level has some reason secret rooms and the map really works in that type of game.
Okay, played and finished the game, for a quick rating : this game is a banger for the more constructive one, here it is The art direction is on point, there are no inconsistencies, everything feels in its place, and the pixel art really made the game shine There is a little something about some resolutions not matching, for example with what I think is the dead people, they have a really small resolution, especialy when compared to the COEUS I'm a musician, so let's talk about music, for such a small game, there weren't that much of them, but the few that were here, were bangers At least, the ambiances are really great, the atmosphere is spot on, and the boss music ? I wish I could listen to it while writing this rating, very good too The UI works well, no problems whasoever, except maybe the settings, but that's not much Gameplay wise, loved it, felt dynamic, felt great, there wasn't much problems that I could see. The difficulty was good I feel, the COEUS was a hard but great fight, especialy when you figure out the paterns and little strategies to ration Bio Energy Speaking of the bio energy, quite a good system ! Really liked having the choice between healing or preventing damage, it may not seem like much, but it is, it opens some interesting choices The ennemies (except the COEUS) felt a bit repetitive in what they do, but given everything else, and the fact that the game was made in a month, that really is not a big problem Gotta say, I'm a big metroid prime fan, and quite frankly you did hit the nerve, I could imagine this becoming something greater. Really, a big congratulation from me, love it, my guy you rock
Wow, thanks a lot for the kind words! This is my first game, so it's really amazing seeing both good criticism and people enjoying it. I had a great pixel artist help out creating the primary assets (I did some of the art as well). Some of the resolution mismatch comes from that lack of experience where I misunderstood how to properly handle the sizing of the assets in Unity (although I figured it out towards the end).
I'm a composer / sound designer as well, and created this primarily to give me a game to mess around with audio. I had to crunch all the audio in 4-5 days, so I didn't get to write everything I wanted. Just 3 tracks ended up in the game - 2 ambiances, 1 boss fight track. My original plan was to have each boss use the same track, but change the instrumentation and poly rhythms based on their name (X-7, X-11, etc.). I'll give the audio an overall eventually.
I created a little trailer with the boss track if you wanted to hear it again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgHSQrD-SWw
Once I have time, I'm thinking of creating a sequel (COEUS 2) which would branch into a more Metroid Prime style.
Thanks for playing!
A very polished game that show the dev put a lot of effort in it. BGM is atmospheric and has a cool intro too. Gameplay has depth with the bio energy mechanic.
Some feedback for improvement:
- The font is hard to read.
- A mouse sensitivity slider would be great for a fps.
- The final boss floor eletric attack is too big, hard to maneuver around
Thanks for the comment! I worked hard getting a good atmosphere working, so I'm glad that's coming across.
- I've gotten a few people mentioning the font. I'll try to change it to something a little easier for the in-game explanations.
- Agreed, it slipped my mind. It's on my list of things to add once the game page opens up.
- The final boss is definitely a jump in difficulty. I would always use my shield to traverse from one side of the boss arena to the other but it could be more balanced.
Project Coeus plays extremely smoothly and handles great. It really takes me back to the nineties playing the original Doom, but Coeus handles better. The graphics look good. I really like the graphics in the opening scenes. The music is great and really suits the aesthetic.
I did get stuck on the first boss, but I wasn't very good at Doom either. lol.
Great job.
Thanks for the comment! It was...interesting trying to balance the game. The first boss definitely could have been a little easier for the start of the game.
I'm not great a platformers either, so we're equal on that haha.
A very atmospheric game, the ominous dread was palpable. It had a very 1980s vibe to it which to me puts it pretty solidly in line with the 20XX theme. The intro scene also really helped set up the overall tone. The alien art was off-putting in all the right ways, and I really liked some of the rooms that just had dead aliens in them, those rooms scared me the most. I also liked that it seems like the first boss has set a misdirection trap for you. The corelock mechanic on the gun was a really good method to get me to not spam shooting without being as stressful as a limited ammo system.
Some areas I struggled with,
1. It was hard to know where I was going or supposed to go. The game was pretty linear at first, but once I unlocked the dash ability I wasn't sure if I was supposed to continue down a certain path and begin exploring more. Because all of the rooms look more or less the same and because I didn't have access to a map (I think?), it was really hard to have a sense of direction.
2. Some of the enemies had a tendency to body me into a corner and do more multiple hits on me while I couldn't move out. Not really sure what the solution to this is, maybe let me move through the enemy for a moment after getting hit?
3. Unfortunately I ran into an issue where the game just crashed after going into one of the elevators / loading rooms. I'm not sure if I was even going the right way at that point, it was in the room with the smoking space ship.
Even though first-person shooters aren't really my genre of choice, I was pretty solidly sold on the atmosphere and just general creepy vibe of the area. Very nice job!
Thanks for the comment! The atmosphere was very important when I was developing the game. The artist did a great job selling the creepiness of the aliens.
1. A minimap was on my list of things to do, but had to cut in the time crunch. I actually cut another room from the game and I'm glad I did. I tried to make each room feel unique so it wouldn't be hard to get lost, but you're right a minimap would be helpful.
2. Good point. This was an issue I had in mind, but couldn't find an easy solution to immediately. I'll hit it after the jam.
3. Hmm that's a new bug for me. I'll see if I can recreate it in testing.
Thanks for playing.
Excellent execution.
Good storyline, narrative. The mission is clear and it makes sense.
Artstyle good. I didn't make it too far. I managed to kill the first boss.
It starts to get a little creepy at some point when the colours get greyer and there is corpses lying aroudn all over the place, so I chickened out xD just kidding-, but I died once.
Anyways. I have one thing to suggest for improvement.
At the beginning I took some time to figure out I had to get the plasma gun and then run all the way back to destroy the boxes in front of that door.
To get through it. I didn't even realize that it was a door at first, as there didn't seem to be anything indicating that it is (or I'm just slightly dumb)
Overall expert job!
Thanks for the review! A lot of effort was put into the atmosphere, so good to hear that works well!
Overall the game feels really good. I really like the visuals with the music and the mix between 2D and 3D is really well done. My only complains are as others have said the camera movement and some minor details in mechanics:
Maybe the dash could have some cooldown, at least with every enemy except the final boss I could spam dash to the left while shooting in circles avoiding every attack.
Regarding the final boss, I feel like it's such a big power spike in difficulty compared to the other bosses that were in my opinion way to easy, at least for me.
Exploring definetly was the best part of the game. I feel that I could play it for hours with a bigger map and some kind of minimap to know where I am.
Thanks for the comment! I spent a lot of time trying to make every corner worth exploring in the game to find some upgrade or lore detail.
I would agree that the dash needs something to balance it with the relatively easy enemies. Like you suggested, a cooldown could work.
A minimap was definitely on my list of things to do, but I realised that the current version of the game was small enough to have progression be fairly simple. I might go back and expand this game beyond this scope, or tackle a sequel in the future when I have time.
It's great that you made it to the end of the game. I would agree that the final boss probably is too challenging compared to the other enemies. I think maybe introducing the rockets earlier might have clarified what was happening in the final battle.
Thanks for playing!
Incredible aesthetic! It is a really great throwback to the days of the original Doom and Half Life. The music, sound design, and fog effects also contribute to the really great atmosphere. The shooting, movement, and level design were all quite solid. Though as others have mentioned, it seems like the character turns significantly slower then the mouse movement, so I would often hit the edge of the screen with my mouse before fully turning, preventing me from completely spinning around. I also found the tanky bosses to be a bit too repetitive, but that might just be my personal preference. Overall, excellent work!
Thanks so much for playing! I'm definitely going to implement a mouse sensitivity slider to (hopefully) help with that. The artist did a great job and I'm happy with how the game turned out :)
It looks good, and it seems like it could be fun, but turning around goes very slowly when using the mouse, so it's hard to play.
Also, I find it hard to read the font.
I also tried to go back to the main menu to see if I could find the controls. I then tried go back into my game again, but you can only start over and the intro video takes a long time and can't be skipped.
So very impressive visuals, and probably a lot of fun after some minor tweaks. I played it on linux.
Oh there's also a folder called 'Project_COEUS_Linux_BurstDebugInformation_DoNotShip' which probably shouldn't be shipped :)
Thanks for stopping by! I think I definitely should have given the game to people to play test first (mouse-wise). I realised that the mouse sensitivity was likely going to be an issue. My mouse sensitivity is set quite low, so it's surprising to hear that the character turning is slow for you. Maybe you could turn up your mouse sensitivity a try again?
Good to know that the linux build works. (And that I should remove that folder, oops).
Edit: Adding a controls button and sensitivity slider is definitely on my list of things to do.
Thanks again!
Visit the itch page for more info: https://vandals-aria.itch.io/coeus
Enjoy!