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A jam submission

Space Bard: Song of CourageView game page

Play the perfect song to encourage our heroes!
Submitted by vkaike2 — 4 hours, 59 minutes before the deadline
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Space Bard: Song of Courage's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Concept#63.8953.895
Presentation#213.5793.579
Overall#223.4343.434
Enjoyment#333.1053.105
Use of the Limitation#453.1583.158

Ranked from 19 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Team members
vkaike2(Dev), William (Sound), Sparky(3D Art)

Software used
Unity

Cookies eaten
none

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Nice concept. I would suggest that you would have a option to change the keybinds and the note speed.

Developer

I just did an Update to the game, now you can change the keybinds when by pressing "esc".

Submitted(+2)

That was an amazing concept, I really like the idea of the game. Gameplay wise, the keys didn't match too well to the music, and watching the fight when I was doing well it didn't feel very impactful.

Loved the concept so much 

Submitted(+2)

Man, this is such a cool framing for a rhythm game and fits the theme very well! Unfortunately, I feel like the gameplay doesn't quite hold up yet. Unless my sense of rhythm is super off, I think the notes oftentimes just don't align with the music or even the beat. Also, a lot of rhythm games show the beat alongside the notes and I think that helps your players so much to put the notes into context. DJKL is an interesting choice, but I found it worked better than I expected; I only got confused a couple of times, while I had much more problems with a game using the more obvious DFJK layout.

I think there's also an interesting question of how to "balance" this. Since your damage is determined by the last couple of notes that you've played, this means that notes in faster sections have less impact on the damage, which is funny, as they are usually the hardest ones to hit. Then again, if you have a long section of silence, it means that the last few notes of the previous section matter so much. A reason I had so much trouble with the second song is that I often messed up the end of the first section and then had to watch as my hero just did a lot of bad hits in a row, without any way for me to do something about it. It's an interesting system as it is, but I feel like it doesn't reward good play enough, while it punished bad play in certain sections too harshly.

Anyway, I'd love to see this idea elaborated. I feel like there might be a lot RPG-inspired mechanics you could add to this to make it stand out from other rhythm games. Just a simple example, equip your heroes with different weapons and either go for a safe, standard choice or have one that has a lower base damage, but profits immensly from a filled combo-meter. Or adding a shield that allows you to miss some notes without losing your combo at the expense of slower attack speed. What I'm trying to say is, this feels like a super-cool starting point to a potentially awesome game.

Developer

Yep, I had a problem timing the notes to the music, that was a programming problem,  I did it in a way that the environment changes the delay for each note, for example in a WEBGL build will display differently than an EXE for example, I could do this in a better way now but I did not have the time to fix during the jam.

And about the RPG element, will be cool if we add some specific notes in the music that uses some skill, or some other instrument to give the choice between attack and defense, idk something like that.

But thanks anyway, your comment means a lot.

Submitted(+1)

Love the game. Very hard. I think with a few more polishes, this could be a full game!

Submitted(+1)

Love the game. Very hard. I think with a few more polishes, this could be a full game!

Submitted(+1)

Love the game. Very hard. I think with a few more polishes, this could be a full game!

Submitted(+2)

This is a cool idea, but the controls are just throwing me off, what with having three on one side and one on the other. I think splitting it 2-2, or having the D bar be a bit split off from the others would help a lot.

Still, I'm digging the concept and presentation!

Developer

Sure, we should have a way to customize the inputs. my bad :(

Developer

hey, I just updated the game, now you can change the controls by pressing "esc".

Submitted

Nice! Thanks for letting me know.

Submitted(+3)

I love the concept. Finally I get to play the bard in an rpg game :D

(+1)

As a big RPG ran, I found this to be really fun. I like the concept of mixing turn-based combat with rhythm games and it can put you in a flow state where there's enough challenge to keep you playing. The art and music also make this better than many games in the jam.

Submitted(+1)

that was really fun and creative, while also being a bit challenging! good job!

Submitted(+1)

I really liked the idea that you aided your ally in battle. A nice little aesthetics for these types of games! Well done!

Submitted(+2)

i like your 3d character artwork. 

(+1)

<3

Submitted(+1)

Our last game submitted to Itch was a rhythm game, it's so hard but you've done it!

Developer

do you have the link, I want to play it too :)

Submitted

It's here https://gallsy.itch.io/track-zero was tricky to do it all in 5 colours but I think it turned out well!

Developer

Your game is awesome, I love the simplicity with inputs somehow it makes me remember static shock (the superhero) mixed with subway surfer Xp.