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Curse of the Magpie's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Concept | #8 | 3.941 | 3.941 |
| Overall | #10 | 3.669 | 3.669 |
| Presentation | #11 | 4.118 | 4.118 |
| Use of the Limitation | #15 | 3.588 | 3.588 |
| Enjoyment | #58 | 3.029 | 3.029 |
Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Robin Toller Hovler - Developer, Edvin Edenhage - Art, Carl Härling - Theme music, Ambient city sounds obtained from https://www.zapsplat.xn--com-5o0a/
Software used
Unity, Photoshop, StudioOne
Use of the limitation
You have only a minute to steal as much gold as you can per flight
Cookies eaten
0, during the first 68 hours - 16 during the rest
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Comments
The presentation is great, I love the vibe it has and the use of the limitation is also pretty good. It's not very intuitive in some aspects honestly, took me a bit to notice I had to target the hands of the NPCs, but other than that it's pretty solid, good job
Thank you for playing! We agree that we didn't give the players the proper amount of explanation pre-game. I will be placing a small explanation in the game soon to hopefully give other players a better experience. :)
Yes, a few NPC's carry pocket watches. This is the second most valuable item. You would also find a lot of them carrying gold medals, or if you are really lucky - the necklaces on a few of the ladies are worth a lot. :)
Thank you again. :)
At first I was confused to why I needed to control the bird with my mouse, but after the first couple runs I figured it out and it was really fun. Also amazing presentation and very engaging progression
Thank you very much! Glad you liked it. The controls is pretty bad explained, I will toss in some explanation for them soon. :)
I tried this game like 3 times before it finally clicked. Some note for future players:
- You always fly to the right. Mouse up = fly up, Mouse down = fly down.
- If you hit the ground, you lose a life
- If you fly into the sky, you go to the shop
- At the shop, you can buy upgrades. If you don't spend all your gold on upgrades, it goes into the bank.
- Your goal is to steal items from the people below. Just fly through their torsos with left mouse button pressed to steal their items.
- Make it back to the shop with gold before time timer runs out to upgrade and bank your gold, then repeat.
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Feedback for the devs:
- This game is fun, unique, and feels complete.
- Feedback is often lacking. A lot of buttons don't highlight when I hover over them. There's not animation when I steal an item. A lot of mechanics aren't fully explained.
- Despite that, I really had fun with this once I got into the flow. It had good "sea bird fishing by skimming over the water" vibes, and once I got a pattern down, it was super satisfying.
- It took me a long time to realize gold was being banked, because the bank icon and the per-run gold icons are in the same place.
- I felt like the game had two phases. High stress "unlock the upgrades" phase, then low stress "just zoom through the crowd and reap the rewards" phase.
- Some graphic indicating where the mouse is would help a lot. In the browser, the cursor is hidden, and I have to wiggle it to figure out how high/low it is.
- The art is really good. Consistent tone, and the goofy almost-too-real physics sells the tone. The birds flying animations are so good I almost forgot to mention them! They just feel perfect to the point they fade into the background!
- Getting trampled when I hit the ground happens too fast and is too punishing. I wish I bounced once or twice and got a chance to recover. Or, possibly I just wish the people were a little taller. Or, possibly, I'm just bad at video games.
- It took me 22 flights to finally pay Odin back, btw.
All said, brilliant work. It reminds me of the old flash games era in the best possible way!
Thank you for taking the time to formulate this nice and balanced critique! We appreciate it greatly! ^^
UI-feedback, yes definetly on the todo-list!
Love your description of the two phases of gameplay, or tempos. We were aiming for that sense of acomplishment you feel after a period of struggles, and you formulated it perfectly!
I'm so glad you liked the art! I had fun creating that 1920s atmosphere, and Robin did an awesome job with animating my sprites. =D
Wow, thank you so much for taking your time with it and making this comment! :D We have seen that the biggest issue by far is the amount of time it can take to figure out how to play, I'm working on tossing in a small explanation to let other players be able to skip the trial-and-error step before they can actually play the game properly.
We are very happy to hear you had such nice things to say about the arts and animations, and your feedback is greatly appreciated over all. This is good lessons for us to learn when deciding what updates to make and what we should avoid in our next jam. :)
Thank you again, and gratz for lifting the curse! :D
Very polished, and enjoyable game. A nice gamplay loop that engages you, and it doesn't take forever to reach your goal. The visual and sound design are very nice, and the concept of a theifing magpie terrorizing pedestrians is quite unique and interesting. The controls are a little unintuitive at the begin but are quick to adjust to. Very nice job.
I bathe in your praise, and bow in your grace, and kiss your Goggle-glass-face!
Thank you for playing! And for your kindwords!
The controls will have an overhaul post jam. :)
Really really enjoyed playing, managed to lift the curse after 18 days which probably isn't great haha :)
Had trouble with the controls at first but once I learnt them they were fluid and worked really well!
5 stars all round :)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the game! Much better then my best round of 25! =D
Congratulations for lifting the curse! Thank you a lot for playing! And for the rating. THANK YOU <3 :D
Great game, really like the atmosphere, art and music. Controls are a bit confusing, but once I figured them out it was really fun.
Played it on stream, in case you wanted some gameplay footage: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1099833320
Hey Codoor!
Thank you so much for playing and streaming our game! To watch someone play it was invaluable, and good fun! One of the most important lessons we take away from this jam is to include some sort of tutorial when the mechanics are not obvious. We've done what we could to make it easier to grasp quicker by rewriting our description, but there should definitely have been an in-game tutorial, or at least something to explain how to get back to the roof tops or how and where to fly to display the gold glints.
You also guessed the controls were unintentionally difficult and by that you're right. Magpie shouldn't be able to do such sharp turns, and I've also noticed this issue when I've played it here on itch, but I didn't experience it in Unity. Perhaps there is an issue with mouse sensitivity, but this is something I need to look up next time.
Many thanks again for giving it the many chances you gave it, and I'm very glad you enjoyed it in the end! :D
art and music was great, overall great concept. some constructive feedback would be the following.
my first play i didn't see the bird i was controlling, it was very small. i like the fact the camera pans in when going lower. for the life of me though i couldn't figure out what to grab on the citizens, there is a sparkle effect in the beginning but that was it. i was able to get it after the third or fourth play. the increase in gravity was harsh but what was worse was the collision with other citizens.
i managed to grab a treasure and fly back over the roof tops but when the timer ended my character died and i did not receive the treasure . as I am writing this i just played it again, so you have to go all the way up to the sky with a treasure.
my suggestions would be to utilize that pan in and pan out feature when the level starts, to draw more focus on the bird, add a eye catching thing to the collectibles, and maybe an indicator on where to go once you have the treasure
Thank you very much for this great feedback! We agree that we need to explain the mechanics better, and it's on the top of the list in the post-jam update to implement this among some other things. It's not obvious how you return to the roof or how to activate the highlighting of valuables (it's a matter of flying at the correct height. Before you've bought Keen-Eyes upgrade you will need to soar around the top of the level to se the glint of the valuables - buying more levels will lower the threshold of how high you need to fly to see this).
Your last paragraph makes a lot of sense, and probably most of it is stuff we will implement post-jam. :)
Many thanks again! :D
The concept is really good and the movement felt nice. Well done!
Thank you! :D
The flight controls feel very smooth and the way the momentum increases while swooping is great. It was really satisfying to notice how I became familiar with where people carry different items, and which have more value, and developed a strategy to get them and get out in time, like a thieving magpie would. I did eventually lift the curse! Also I love the idea of an ancient god's curse affecting someone in a comparatively modern time. And the art and music are really cool and atmospheric. It's a great game!
Congratulations on lifting the curse! Thanks so much for comment and playing. :D
Very cool concept! Like others, I struggled a fair bit with the controls. It seems like once the camera is more zoomed in, the bird turns more sharply (leading to crashing into the pavement), though maybe Im imagining it. A bit of a tutorial should resolve any confusion with how the swooping mechanic works. Love the moody vibe of the game, and the creative use of gold. Sure it's still game currency, but it's obtained in a unique way. Nicely done!
Thanks for playing! :D Yeah, the controls have got quite a few different responses, which is fun - to be honest, we've even had a bit of internal struggle where on the scale we want to place them. ;) Haha! The sharp turns some seem to face is actually something I also noticed when playing the built version of the game. I have been the most frequent tester of it during dev and I've felt it's been good, but I was caught a bit of guard earlier when testing here on itch, where poor magpie decided life was to much for her and did a 90. xD
Great game, however tutorial in-game would be great. And my personal preference is bigger UI. Overall great game :)!
Thank you for playing! :D
Took me a while to get the hand of it, but once I did it was very engaging. There is something quite cathartic about the whole concept - a really interesting take on the gold theme. I feel I mainly struggled to get to grips with it because my cursor wasn't visible in the game window. Overall a very stylish and unique game!
Thank you very much! :D
The art is good and the game too
Thank you!
do you want to try my game too?
I want too! But I only have mac and are forced to use mac-build or webgame. :(
oh no prpblem
I really liked the idea and was actually hyped to see the upgrades in action, unfortunately after around 10 tries when I couldn't get a single piece o jewelry (even after reading the description) I gave up... Also there is some issue that my cursor wouldn't stay in game, even with fullscreen... it might be some issue with dual monitor setup...
Thank you for trying, sad to hear the game didn't work well for you. :( We had some issues with the web-window. Noobs at publishing unity-web. But hopefully the cursor-issue is resolved now. ^^
I really like the art style, the mood of the game and the writing. The font size could be increased to be more readable. Also, I didn't understand how to play. I tried to find gold but I found nothing. I crushed myself against the pedestrians, it was quite fun but I must miss something. But overall, I'd like to see more because it's pretty well done considering the time we had!
Thank you very much! :D Yeah, we've updated the description to hopefully make the game more playable. It's easy to forget that other people haven't tested it four hours and hours. ;) Thank you for playing. :)
Thank you for the uplifting review! =D
This is really good! The graphics are great. But it was quite hard to figure out how to play. Great job!
Thanks a lot! Yes, I have updated the information for the game to hopefully make it more playable. :)
Good Game
Goodd Game
I really liked the flight mechanics and art style. Took me a few tries to realize I had to leave the screen to return to the roof haha.
Thanks for playing! :D Perhaps we should've been more informative about said game-vital mechanic... xD
Beautiful! Amazed that this was done for a Jam.
Thank you very much! :D