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The Arcane Core [alpha demo]'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Metroidvania | #43 | 2.887 | 3.333 |
| Overall | #53 | 2.562 | 2.958 |
| Sensory | #55 | 2.742 | 3.167 |
| Execution | #56 | 2.309 | 2.667 |
| Enjoyment | #60 | 2.309 | 2.667 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Godot 4
Team/Developer
only me
External assets
some sound effects / ambient recordings from freesound.org
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Comments
Neat concept, pretty disorienting though. Otherwise the rotating world wasn't a problem but at some places the angle suddenly changed without any warning and it was hard to keep track of where you were because of that. About the controls, jumping is very sudden and you can't even jump up one block if you're right next to it. The grappling hook worked well. For some reason some areas were really buggy and I couldn't move around without the grappling hook at all. The end of my run happened when I was suddenly launched in the space and afaik there is no way to restart the room. I also found the crossbow but didn't know what to do with it as it didn't shoot anything. Didn't find the drill at all, sadly. Good graphics, though there are some pixels of varying size (the trees and the HUD).
The concept is very creative so I wished that I could have done more here, I just found it hard to play.
Thanks for playing!
The concept was challenging and there are things I couldn't get right before the submission period ended.
Mostly I wanted to see if the general idea is good and I can work more with it - and it seems others like the concept itself so I might do something more with this.
Great entry! This is quite an ambitious and unique game. I like the environments and world building. The circular worlds are really cool & intriguing. However, I struggled to navigate it and gain any progress because it was difficult to traverse. With some more development to smooth out the rough edges, I see great potential in this game! Good job!
Thanks! :D
I wanted to test out this concept to see how well it would be received. Although I didn't get many reviews so far but it seems like I could make something after the jam.
Super neat concept and I love the galaxy edge / aurora lights visualization you've got going on. The super fast jump and camera hiccup upwards is going to give me a headache, though.
Thanks!
The jumping / moving mechanic could use a polish, it's true.
Hey the game bugged out as soon as I started, moved right, and the first dialogue box appeared. Let me know whenever fixed, and I'd love to replay this.
Thanks for the bug report!
How did the game bugged out?
The dialog boxes could use a...redesign. At first there are no answers listed and you have to click the dialog text itself. I tried now and for me it seems to work.
Ok I clicked on the dialog box and could play the game.
Dude the mechanics are insane...I've never seen something like this in my life. I can't even visualise how you must have implemented this. Also with branching dialogue and story and everything...kudos man really well done. The music and art support the gameplay too.
It was really difficult to control personally. I got the grappling hook and then tried to get up to the laptop...that was insanely tough for me. Ultimately what I did was spammed mouse and jump together randomly upwards until somehow I made it to the top. I continued doing that for a while, until I got stuck here (see screenshot). Couldn't click any grapple point out, and couldn't go inside, so I had to end my run here. Maybe I missed something idk.
Aside from the controls, I can only say that it was tough to keep track of where everything was. Obviously this is a challenge given the kind of physics you have, and I believe you could give the player some affordances here. For example (don't do this, just a suggestion to highlight the problem) make each circle/world a completely different colour or something.
Still, just the experience of trying this game was wild for me. I need to go drink some tea or something. Crazy stuff.
Just for us player's benefit, maybe you could upload a gameplay video or walkthrough later on?
Thanks! I don't even know how to reply to everything correctly :D
First of all I'm really glad you like the concept! :)
I was not sure if the "spherical/circular side-scrolling platofrmer" would be generally likeable but I couldn't really name one game with it and really wanted to try making a game with this idea.
The original idea was one circular underground gameplay with a central gravity and a giant gemstone or something in the origin the player has to mine. - While getting the needed equipments, exploring...etc.
One big map felt difficult to design very well because I've never tried to build a level that's spherical and somehow I thought scaling it up into multiple smaller planets, even travelling between them could be a good feature which basically became the overworld / open-world segment of the game.
As for the controls I couldn't make the jumping itself good yet...I had some problem it, like accidentally jumping out from the gravitational field of a map and getting stucked in a point in open-space. - It's still a remaining bug or rather glitch that can be reproduced.
The main problem is that if you jump, then move right away it "drags" the player down right away so basically the jumping only works when you are standing in one place without touching the movement keys.
Fortunately implementing this simpler grappling hook made it much easier to traverse spherically, but as you said the controls still could use an overhaul.
As for affordances the one I implemented so far is the compass that's rotate in a way so you can always see which direction is north...etc. Still I can see it's not easy to navigate, I'm thinking about a minimap or something similar that shows the planets, areas. I've never done any minimap in any game so right away implementing one for this kind of game would be certainly challenging.
On your screenshot you are supposed to shoot with an equipment you can find the button next to the wall you got stuck in. The button itself is...not very visible or contrasted relative to everything else and I want to redraw it or highlight it somehow, maybe in the next update. - It has another bug as well...basically turning off/on rapidly if your projectile touches it more then once so it's also hard to simply press it.