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Mechroidvania's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #3 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Execution | #14 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Overall | #16 | 3.556 | 3.556 |
| Metroidvania | #18 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
| Sensory | #24 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Unity
Team/Developer
Giant Robot Rhino Games
External assets
Unity Technologies Particle Pack, FMOD, Poiyomi Shaders, DOTween
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Comments
Game froze when loading after dying in the caves where you lower the platforms with the shock probe
Edit: never mind, I pushed buttons and it finished loading. Not sure if that had something to do with it, or if the loading screen was just really long that time.
Loved it altough I could not get further then that part where you have to lower the platforms with the shock missle the jumps to make are really hard and for now I give up but I will be back.
Just wanted to give you some feedback.
The level design is awesome loved every bit of it on how the world open up(still closed in that big factory) though the difficulty spikes were really steep, wich I would not mind when the room with many raising platform has me stuck and then I decided to learn more about other routes so there I don't mind. The lowering ceiling one lacks a bit of easing to the player wich I think it would be best done by giving a fast route to a previus area or the hub if you want to keep that area with the same challenge without easing the platform section!
Other then that I had a blast dash hopping around and trying different routes, the imposing moving puzzles both physically and on how to be solved. The combat was a nice touch and didn't took made it self unwelcome, most of the time was mechanically engrained in the puzzles wich was really cool.
Great entry with just some polishing and testing to do!
Awesome! That's a pretty good amount of progress so thanks so much for playing! And hopefully you have some better luck next attempt. I really appreciate your feedback. That is a really good point about the difficult sections having alternate ways to return to the hub just in case you want to come back and try later without backtracking through the entire level, and it is certainly something I'll take to heart going forward. As far as the difficulty spikes go, some are intentional and some are steeper than I intended, I think I often worry about things being seen as too simple while designing levels and end up overcorrecting in the wrong direction.
I also agree on the easing bit, it does just start you off needing to make a difficult precise jump followed by a well timed one, there's not really a simple one to start out and let the player get comfortable with that mechanic. I am glad you had fun with what combat there managed to be in the finished game, we had much bigger plans for melee enemies, ranged enemies, drones, boss fights, etc and ended up with just the turret due to time restraints, but if we continue working on it we will certainly add those missing features in. I think if we do continue working on it there will be some big overhauls with the level design, puzzle design, conveyance, player movement, and just more content!
Really cool entry.
The character does control a bit weird. There's a slight clunkiness and but a weird elegance to it. I'm torn on the way the forward jump works, because it feels good when you do it on purpose, but it does make hopping up a bunch of steps kind of pain in the ass if you have to do a bunch of consecutive stand-still jumps.
The Dash Jump was awesome. It was a little awkward to pull off sometimes, especially to chain them, but the speed and the little twirl were so damn satisfying!
In general great job on the puzzle design. There were some really cool lateral uses of the mechanics. Sometimes I wondered if I had the wrong end of the stick, so when what I was planning paid off it felt really gratifying.
Like when I had to shoot those targets to raise the ground, I had to stop aiming so I had could line up my next shot quicker without diverting the missile trajectory.
I got stuck after making it across the gaps with the raised platforms and the batteries. Saw a hole in the ceiling but wasn't sure what to do.
Sensory-wise, I liked the large cavernous spaces that made me feel like I was in a large underground facility. There's room for improvement with the sound effects and other little flourishes that really sell the weight of feel of a robot, but generally the MC felt pretty good.
I'll post my recordings when they're up.
Wow, I really appreciate the in depth write up! This is a lot of great feedback and some awesome insight. It will be hugely helpful in future projects. Reflecting on the jump, I am starting to think it's more of a level design issue than a character controller issue. Like the jump is deliberately clunky, and while I do think the values could be tweaked to feel a lot better, I don't think the levels were adequately designed to be explored by a clunky character. Those tedious jumps at the start are a key example of that, it's just a design decision that would fit better with a lighter character controller that could carelessly jump up them without thinking much of it. So I think if I were to revisit this project, that would be something I would have to keep in mind. I would need to be sure to design the levels in a way that fits the character better.
I'm really glad that people seem to like the dash jump, the speed you can build up by timing the jumps was a really fun unintended effect that I just had to keep. I would usually just hold shift then tap space as soon as the dash animation started to get a chain going, but yeah the timing can be tight. In a revisit of this, I would lean more into the dash and utilize it better given people's positive response to it.
I appreciate the praise on the puzzles, I did end up pretty happy with how they tested all your abilities in interesting ways. Its really hard to know if people are going to understand what the problem they're meant to be solving even is so conveying all that without being condescending or annoying is a really delicate balance.
As for where you got stuck, it sounds like you didn't get the vertical boost power up, which you get at the end of the third level, the alien spaceship. I have noticed some people miss this levels existence, so I think it could have been signposted better, but yeah there is a third level where you get the final powerups and play with a new mechanic.
I do wish I could have made the cave level more cave like, I originally had plans to sculpt it out to make it feel more natural but time restraints made me fall back on just making it with normal primitive shapes, I'm glad to hear it still worked for you though. The scale of everything was not something I initially planned but it was something I fell into over time and ended up liking a lot, especially with how quick you ended up being with the dash.
I'll be happy to see your recording! And I really appreciate you not only taking the time to play it, but to write this great review. Thanks so much!
My pleasure man!
Here's the finished playthrough: MM21 Mechroidvania
Only thing I have to add is I got a bit turned around in the final puzzle.
Awesome! That was really insightful to watch through, I took a ton of notes. It was really interesting seeing some of the pitfalls I had set up without really realizing it, like the path to the ending. I intended that to be a checklist you check off as you progress, like "oh I'm this much closer to the ending!" but in the finished product there's no way to know that, so most people assume that's just where you are supposed to go. Especially since I give you the shock prong there and then give you a battery to test it on. Mainly I just realized from watching this how badly I needed more time to playtest. For example, there is an issue with the current version and conveyance, there are a lot of points where a puzzle is solved and it's hard to tell what it even did, there needed to be better audio queues, cutscenes, better level design, etc to make it harder to miss what exactly the problem is and when it is solved. I am really glad you stuck with it until the end though, thanks!
Great game. Graphics are cool but the jump felt a little clunky at first. not a huge issue though as i got used to it.
Thanks a lot for playing it! I'm glad you liked the graphics. And yeah the jump has been a common critique, to the point where if I kept working on this project I would definitely tweak it. Although there is meant to be a degree of clunkiness to make you feel like a weighty robot, I didn't want it to come off as annoying. I think that is a mix of the level design not being super congruent with the jump leading to some tedious jumps and the jump needing some tweaking, so it's definitely something I'm learning from. Thanks!
Ok first of all, DASH JUMP! Dash jump is the most amazing thing for me in this jam right now, when I aquired it I was dash jumping all my way through the game:D But to be serious, you made this mechanic very satifing, the animation of dashing was also great. The high distances you can made with this made it to be super cool ability:) Enough on dash jump... Your game felt kinda nostalgic for me. Robot was great and I felt like playing my own Bionicle again :D Graphic was raw like in PSX games, even saving cube sounded a bit like PSX intro. I love nostalgia and i love your project, felt great playing it. Congratz for your team !
Very happy to hear how much you enjoyed the dash jump! It's a favorite of mine as well. The bionicle comparison is surprising but welcome, and I do see it now that you've mentioned it. But yeah overall the team is very happy to hear that you had such a good experience with it and we all appreciate you taking the time to give it a shot!
Hey, it's cool to see a 3D game in the mix! The jumping was a bit different for me, but it was fun trying out a metroidvania in 3D. With some tweaks, this could turn out awesome. Keep going!
We will see! I still think I need some recovery time but it could become a bigger project. And yeah, I have had a few people complain about the jumping mechanics so that is something I would certainly look into tweaking. Thanks so much for taking the time to try it out and give feedback!
3rd person perspective was an interesting and unique twist!
I love the ruins of the robot facility, great atmosphere, and whilst a little difficult at times, it never felt unfairly so. Would love to see more of this if you decide to keep working on it.
Really happy to hear it worked well! Yeah I knew that working in 3D would be tougher and there were certainly times during development I regretted that decision lol. I'm really glad I chose that though having now finished it. And yeah we shall see how we all feel about continuing it after taking a break for a while, this project took a lot out of me. Also glad to hear you thought the difficulty was balanced, that varies from person to person and it's hard to judge the difficulty of something when you're playing it for hours and hours every day so there was a lot of tweaking and reworking to make stuff feel just right.
Really cool game, I got invested in the story once I repaired my fellow robot and saw there were more to repair. I did however find a bug that made me reset my progress; After acquiring the missiles I saved at the node, opened the door and ran in only to be gunned down by the turrets. When I respawned right outside the door I had lost the missile ability and the powerup was gone so I had no way to progress. One smaller thing is I would like more mouse sensitivity .Other than that it was fun and I especially enjoyed the platforming across the moving platforms. Going to give it another go and hopefully I won't die this time!
Yeah there's an issue with the missile power up unequipping itself between loads, if you press e to switch your right hand weapon that should switch you to the missile, sorry about that though we didn't have time to find out what was causing that. And there is a mouse sensitivity slider, did you mean you wish the slider could go higher? That's definitely something that can be changed in future builds. Glad to hear you found the characters interesting though! I think they turned out pretty fun and I think they give you something to look forward to when returning to the hub level. Thanks so much for playing and giving feedback. Best of luck on your next attempt, hopefully you don't find any more bugs lol.
Yeah I turned the slider all the way up and I wish it would go a little more, that and gamepad support! I should have looked at the controls before I reset my progress, maybe I would have tried pressing E lol.
That's on us, that bug is really confusing! And yeah controller support was definitely on the list of "victory lap" ideas, ie extra ideas to work on once we finished our main ideas, but we unfortunately didn't have time for any of those. But yeah that's all stuff that would 100% be ironed out in a full release.
This is a great game, it can become the basis for a big project! The only thing is that the height of the jump when walking is less than standing still, which prevented the start of the game from passing quickly. But in general, it was interesting for me to play.
Thanks a ton! Yeah we have been considering continuing to work on it post jam but I am so burned out for now I am in dev hibernation lol. And yeah the moving jump vs stationary jump was an intentional decision on my part that was intended to make jumping feel more deliberate and technical, like you really need to commit to what type of jump to use. In my head that type of technicality and weightiness fit well with playing as a robot, but I can see how the implementation could be frustrating, especially early game where it is expected of you to jump up a lot of steps. I think given more time to rework the game, I would average the jumps a bit more and lower the platforms so you can moving jump up most of them, then test the vertical jump on just a few. I really appreciate you taking the time to play it, I appreciate the feedback and I'm glad you had fun!
Great job done with this entry, I love the graphic and the controls work very smoothly.
Thanks so much! I appreciate you taking the time to play it, I'm glad you found the controls smooth.
Fun game! The dash jump feels really really good :D Great job!
Thanks so much! I remember thinking the flip was a bit over the top when I first thought of it but I just wanted to try it anyways, then I fell in love with it lol.
This game is awesome, altho i couldn't get through the falling spikes zone (ironic because i also made something exactly like that in my own game lol), good work!
Sorry to hear that, difficulty balancing can be tough! Sometimes stuff I didn't intend to be crazy hard stumps people, and sometimes people just cruise through something I intended to be a real challenge lol. Thanks for giving it a shot though!
love the aesthetic and look of the game, not to mention movement somehow reminded me of ps1 tomb raider... the movements feel stiff at times, but in a fun nostalgic way.
Thanks for checking it out! Yeah balancing making the character feel weighty and robotic while still being fun to control is a really delicate process, I think we struck a good balance but I would certainly like to tweak it a lot more. But yeah I'm glad to hear it mostly worked for you! Its also funny to have it compared to Tomb Raider, it's not really something I expected or intended but its interesting to hear.
Great vibes from this game, from the environment to the ambient music, it's immersive and I didn't realize the time I spent in it, it wasn't boring. Absolutely love the dash jump. Solid entry overall.
That's very reassuring to hear, that was one of my concerns for sure was the length, it ended up a lot longer than I originally imagined but it felt right to me so I stuck with it. I appreciate you taking the time to check it out! And yeah the dash jump seems pretty popular which is really cool to see, it was a favorite of mine as well which is why you get it so early lol.
Great game I loved it and it looks fantastic.
I feel like it's inspired by fromsoft works and it nails the feel and vibe of those games.
Great work keep going.
Thanks so much for playing! Definitely some souls inspiration for sure, glad you picked up on it!
This game had some awesome liminal space vibes, and I loved the modelling/animations of the mechs! It also felt great zipping about the world with the boost-dash ability. I've only played about half an hour so far, but it seems like there's loads more to experience. Great entry, love to see 3D jam games
Thanks so much! Yeah we planned to go much further with the mech's designs and variations but y'know, jam. I still ended up pretty proud of what we have though. The boost-dash ended up more fun than I anticipated, you can really gain some speed with it if you time it right. And yeah respect to another 3D entry, your game was really cool too!