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A jam submission

Tides of TimeView game page

A tale beyond time.
Submitted by deadshotninja, IsabellaAhrendt, Charlie, Lisette Amago (@AmagoLisette), Sneakydaemon โ€” 19 hours, 26 minutes before the deadline
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Tides of Time's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Sensory#53.9503.950
Metroidvania#73.9503.950
Overall#73.7753.775
Execution#93.6503.650
Enjoyment#153.5503.550

Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Unity

Team/Developer
Vitaliy Stepanyuk (@deadshotninja), Kieran Velez (@dolpix), Jake De-Vine (@jakededizzle), Thomas Boone (@thomas.boone), Charlie Lee (@quineapig), Marine Josephine (@rhynema), Ethan Salmon (@smundie), Isabella Ahrendt (@durianwater), Rex Beck (@sneakydaemon), Lisette Amago (@lisetteamago), Ryan Sherlock (@sherlock1998), Jacob Wolfe (@wolfej17), Trevor Skrebe (@trevdog23)

External assets
Wwise, Dialog System, Quantum Console, DOTweenPro

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Comments

Submitted (2 edits) (+2)

Oooo this... I like this.

The look of the ship, the spooky tunes, the eerie creaks and crashing waves.  Definitely top marks for Sensory.  I don't know if Spirit Farer was an inspiration on the visuals but it kinda put me in mind of it.

The time swapping worked well and intuitively for the most part.  I struggled a lot at the first puzzle, not realizing that being too close to the ceiling was preventing me from swapping mid-air.

And there's a slight inelegance regarding the lack of visibility, especially with two worlds to be concerned about.  But given the rooms aren't too large, and you get a check-point on entry, it allowed for plenty of trial and error.

Perhaps in a full game, showing the outline or ghost of the other world when you try to swap and there's an obstruction would help.

Really liked the feeling of mystery.  I would have live to have seen what you could have done with the story given more time, and the insights there might have been into the soul-bound items.  Maybe a Soulsborne style item-description based unravelling.

I do have an interesting bug to report.  (Perhaps completely superfluous actually.)  I was recording my playthrough, and accidentally cut off the ending.  Figuring I could just start from the beginning and speed run to the last section, I restarted the game.  But after getting two abilities, I didn't get my new moves.

I figured whatever was making the unlock ping wasn't triggered because the game already though I should have them from my previous playthrough.  Not sure where the save data was exactly, I deleted and re-unzipped the game.   That seemed to work, so I think I was right.

Anyways.  I'll post the footage once it's up.
EDIT:  MM21 - Tides of Time

EDIT:  Oh, and it didn't effect me because I'm playing on a big screen, but the text on the starting letter might be a bit small.  And there's a repeated phrase (Captain, stubborn but cool or something).  Couldn't tell if it was repeated for dramatic effect or not.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for such detailed and insightful feedback! Really appreciate that you recorded the bugs you found! It will certainly be useful for the team during any future updates. 

Developer(+1)

Hey, thanks a ton for the detailed review and for taking the time to play our game! Watching someone outside of the dev team play is super insightful and helps us see where we can improve, so I genuinely appreciate that.

The idea of a ghostly world when the swap failed was something we wanted to implement, but time constraints got in the way. Thanks for pointing out the bug about the game not resetting; we'll definitely look into that. And yes, the writer did intentionally repeat that phrase for emphasis. ๐Ÿ˜Š

Once again, thanks for the feedback and the tips. It means a lot to us!

Submitted

The time travel thing really is a great idea! However, the layout of the past and present are often way too different and I ended dying or falling a lot in unexpected places :( 

Other than that, the visuals and audio are awesome! The ambiance is really coherent with the setting and the sound design makes things really immersive. I really liked it, nice game! :)

Developer

Thank you for checking our game out and leaving feedback on the time travel mechanic! Glad to know you enjoyed the sound design! Our audio team worked really hard on the soundtracks! 

Submitted

Enjoyment 4/5: Mostly had fun with a few frustrations here and there. Not always clear where to go and not always in a fun way :(, but movement generally felt good.

Execution 3/5: Some jank in the movement (not the controls properly speaking as far as I know) and well optimized generally. But it wasn't always clear what could or couldn't be phased through (e.g. I would have expected deadly spikes to be a "no" but this seems not to be true, at least not universally.) Wasn't always clear when bouncy pads would work and I'm still not entirely certain how they were meant to work.

UX needs a bit of work--I recommend less of a wait between dialog and choices where there are choices.

Sensory 4/5: Pretty fitting music/sound overall! Graphics were neat.

Metroidvania 5/5: central mobility ability (through time) was very crucial

Developer

Thanks for the in-depth feedback! I appreciate the breakdown. We'll definitely take note of the areas you mentioned, especially regarding the clarity of where to go and the phasing mechanics. We'll also look into improving the UX for dialog choices. Glad you enjoyed the music, graphics, and the core metroidvania elements. Your feedback will help in refining the game further. Thanks for playing! ๐Ÿ•น๏ธ๐Ÿ™

Submitted

This is so polished! Great art style and audio, really good atmosphere right off the bat. In a potential future update, some voice acting (like reading the letter) would add to it even more. I thought the gravity felt a bit too hard, i.e. jumping and falling could feel a little smoother. The time switch mechanic is unique and adds a cool puzzle element to the genre. However, my one gripe was the insta-death -- like lightly running into spikes from the side, or touching a rat. I'd strongly prefer a health bar so it's not as unforgiving.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the detailed feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the art style and audio. We'll definitely consider voice acting for future updates. Noted on the gravity and the insta-death feedback. I appreciate the suggestions and we will look into making those adjustments. Thanks for playing! ๐ŸŽฎ๐Ÿ‘

Submitted

Excellent work, art, design, mechanics, sound, atmosphere. The level design and guiding the player seemed exquisite to me. 10/10

Developer

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the level design and felt the guidance was on point. Really appreciate the 10/10. Means a lot! ๐Ÿ™Œ

Submitted

Nice work! I really liked the time switching, especially when having to switch mid air during platforming. It can be tricky setting it up but feels great pulling it off. Also I'm a sucker for a good pirate theme

Developer (2 edits)

Hey, thanks so much for checking out our game! I'm glad you enjoyed the time switching mechanic and the pirate theme. Really appreciate your feedback and kind words. Cheers! ๐Ÿดโ€โ˜ ๏ธ๐Ÿ•ฐ๏ธ

Submitted

That I was great loved the level design and the switching mechanic. I loved the boat setting the only nitpick were the jumping platform that didn't work all the time.

Wonderful game!

Developer

Thanks for playing, glad you had fun! Sorry the beds gave you some trouble, must be some bugs hiding under there :O 

Submitted

The visuals are INCREDIBLE, the game feels incredibly smooth, and the graphics are all cohesive. So impressive that you all pulled this off in such a short amount of time!

Also great implementation of a dimension/time changing mechanic, matched the theme really well!

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you for checking out our game! I was part of the art team and appreciate your kind comments on the visuals! Glad to know that you enjoyed the time flip mechanic! 

Submitted(+1)

Wow the visuals. Puzzles were challenging enough too. Very nicely polished game. Well done^^

Developer

Thanks for taking the time to play our game! We worked really hard to deliver a polished experience. The artists did an INCREDIBLE job. And yeah, the puzzles are tough as nails. I had to play through a couple times to get through certain places.

Submitted(+1)

gorgeous looking game,  animation and movement feels really nice. my only grip is getting one-shot by small enemies... but thats probably a skill issue for me, need to play more and git gud.

Developer

Thanks for playing our game! The artists did an incredible job ๐Ÿฅฐ

I also get killed a lot by those nasty rats... We can for sure look into making the game feel more balanced in the future.๐Ÿ˜

Submitted(+1)

Lovely theme, the smoothness of the time travel was really good, but my pc locked up after 3 items and it felt like a little much to repeat. Caught 2 minor bugs though, one when you fall off the map endlessly (see link) and another in the text chat. When talking to the girl who wanted the  heart locket, the text had me show her the Compass (I'd picked up compass first, then locket and shown them to each person before returning either) didn't seem to lock the game though

https://imgur.com/a/Ob9xdP3

Developer

Thanks for playing our game! Im glad the time travel mechanic is working smoothly ๐Ÿ˜Ž Im sad to hear that the PC crashed midway through... thanks for pointing out those bugs. We'll make sure to squash em ๐Ÿฆต

Submitted

Past and present mechanics are really unique and great. I love this game.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for checking out our game! Really glad you had fun with it :D 

Submitted(+1)

Nicely done! The time switch mechanics are very unique, once I got use to them it works well and was cool to switch back and forth to get through areas and find npcs. Art, music and sfx are all well done. Played well and didn't run into any bugs and was able to all 5 items in one go. Great job!

Developer

Thanks for trying out our game, and the kind comments! Super happy that all the effort the team put into this shows (and that our bug extermination was effective! XD) 

Submitted(+1)

Liked this game! The time switching mechanic was pretty fun to play with.

Developer

Thank you for checking out our game!

Submitted(+1)

Really great game! I love the setting and atmosphere is really great! The only issue I ran into was when switching between the worlds I didn't know if I was suddenly going to switch into spikes or cannons so I would die a lot since I would just switch in the wrong place. 

Developer

Thank you for checking out our game and giving feedback!

Submitted(+1)

Very well made entry:) Time shift mechanics works very nice here and it fits the theme. Difficulty level is nice balanced . Overall good work and congratz!

Developer

Thank you for your kind comments! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the time shift mechanic of the game!

Submitted(+3)

Interesting concepts and challenging enough, well done.

Developer

Thank you for checking our game out!

Submitted(+1)

That was tough as NAILS.. great art though. I couldn't complete it because my laptop was crying, not because I'm bad at platforming or anything.

Developer

Hey there! ๐ŸŒŸ Thanks for diving into our game and for the kind words about the art! Apologies that it put your laptop through a workout. ๐Ÿ™ˆ We definitely aimed for a challenging experience, but we've made some updates since your playthrough. Hope you'll give it another go โ€“ and remember, it's not you, it's the platforming! ๐Ÿ˜‰

Submitted(+1)

My laptop was at its limits still, but thankfully I managed to speedrun the ship and ascend the Barnabas. It was fun. The fast movement makes it quite enjoyable. Though the spike collision always caught my foot. And one time the rat AI went asleep and camp the platform's edge while I was wall climbing ๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ‘ But then it fix itself after it kills me. Overall great game. Keep up the good work! ๐Ÿ‘

Developer

Haha! Had a laugh on the rat comment. Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for playing again! <3