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Sprite's Sojourn's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #51 | 3.849 | 3.849 |
| Overall polish | #55 | 3.976 | 3.976 |
| Creative use of art assets | #78 | 3.810 | 3.810 |
| Engagement | #94 | 3.762 | 3.762 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Fantastic visual, fluid gameplay and some time related thematic. Gave you 5 stars.
Very good looking game! I love how it is focused on story telling.
I played the game again since our discussion on discord and you were very right. The way you used the particles are reminiscent of HK. Now that I looked more closely at I noticed that this game is just oozing with the HK feel. It's the colors, the way light shines down from a path that goes up, the atmospheric sounds, the lack of slopes and more. I love HK so much and that feel just put me in a good place right away :).
The music was pretty good even though it was so simple. I would've even let it pass if it where in a commercial game. Now I really understand what you meant by the sustained notes carrying the song. If you made some of the songs: great job. I know you were working on a replacement song for the crystal cave part, did you manage to put it in?
The game felt very polished because of the particles. There were so many little touches and you used the artpack creatively to achieve it. All the parameters of the particle systems were very nicely tuned and I think you did it perfectly! Seeing floating rocks as fog clouds made me smile and it reminded me of how creatively SMB1 re-uses the grass sprite as a cloud sprite.
The story was nice and fitted well with the atmosphere. It was engaging to see the snippets of the characters' lives when you move back and forth through the level. Seeing the demon at the was very unsettling, especially when he whips out his animated tentacles. I was like "WOW". I've seen you wanted to make more unsettling games in the future and you did a great job here. One thing I think would improve the engagement of the story tho is if there was some form of relations between different characters. I don't mean it like having a conversation but more like learning one thing about a character from another. This will make the story bits more like puzzle pieces and make the player think about what each segment would mean in the context of the whole game. Basically, I wanna see a story bit and go: "hmmmm, what are the lore implications". still very nicely done for a jam game.
There were a few nitpicks that held me back from giving you 5 stars on the polish. I think I'm being too harsh tho by taking a point away so they are really small. 1. The coyote time is broken. I think you made the jump velocity additive and don't compensate for the downward velocity gained by falling. For my games I like to go a step further and even adjust the jump velocity impulse to compensate for the height that is lost relative to the platform. This makes the coyote jumpheight consistent with the a regular jumpheight relative to the platform. I hope you remember the quadratic formula for this implementation :), or dm me. The amount of coyote time seemed good tho. 2. the music seemed to transition a little to fast for me. Considering how calm the music is I would expect an equally calm transition. 3. the friction of the character was off but you know this already.
Some comments say that the pacing is odd because you start so slow and very suddenly move at hyper speeds after you get the first upgrade. I'd like to argue however that that contrast makes the upgrade more exciting and that was a nice addition.
I also found the platforming bit boring. The platforming isn't thought provoking as you just jump forward from A to B. and that is.... PERFECT. You don't want to distract the player from the story in a game like this. The player has to be able to daydream about the 'lore implications' while they are moving around so you did a great job on this part.
Good game. Would play it again.
Edit: Oh I forgot to mention I really like the part where you drop down in the lower area. Suddenly being emerged in another place like that felt really juicy!
Love the story!
It's pretty interesting to explore this beautiful world, but the jump height needs to be a bit bigger to make it easier to move around. Also, the borders between green, blue, red, etc background could be blended so that they are a lot smoother.
What a beautiful game! The particles, shadows, lighting, etc. really combined so nicely. And I loved the SFX and the background music; it all made for a wonderful atmosphere. I especially liked how the music would transition in and out when entering and leaving certain areas.
I felt the jumping was just a bit finicky, but that could be due to me playing on the slightly laggy web build as opposed to the downloaded version. Also, I think the game could do with just a few more small touches like a simple menu screen, and I did think that the ending was just a bit abrupt.
But overall a stunning game! Amazing job!
I'm really impressed by that game , I played trough it 3 times to see all the endings.
the atmosphere is amazing , the lighting ,the particle effects and animations did a great job at immersing me into this world .
I really love metroidvanias , so I'm glad to see another one besides mine . The two major movement upgrades are a bit uninteresting tho , there could have been a double jump or something .
The movement feels great , very floaty ( but in a good way ) .
Personally I felt like the game was a bit too much on the easy side , the jumps are all not too hard to land ( at least for my personal liking ) and the coyote time is very forgiving .
I really loved the story aspect of the game . The ending is incredible . And it was fun to find all the memories of the characters .
Overall I love this game , its one of my favourites in the jam , well done.
WOW! The atmosphere, lighting, particles, and general feel of this game were spot on. I think the platforming felt (mostly) fluid and the characters were really interesting!
There were a few things I think could have been improved:
All of those things were pretty minor though, I loved the ending (I got the best ending according to the game), loved the story, loved the overall feel of the game. Awesome job overall!
The particles and lighting are pretty, though some of the transitions between lighting colors seemed rather abrupt. Like crossing over the edge of a tinted rectangle, which may very well be how it's implemented.
I'm not a fan of precise platformers so that colors my experience here. I felt that difficult jumps were out of place in the atmosphere of the game. I stopped playing after exploring everything I could find without getting the blue potion which I assume unlocked new content. But I found that sequence of jumps frustrating to the point where I wasn't willing to continue. I think some tweaks to the players movement could help there. The fact that the sprite sinks to the ground and then slowly rises after each jump is visually distracting, though I don't think it actually effects the next jump. Also, it felt like if I jumped right as I ran off the edge of the platform, in the place where I intuitively expect to get the longest jump, I instead got a very short jump. But if I jumped a few pixels earlier I did get a long jump. Maybe that's intentional but it felt wrong to me.
The only memory I got was the spider's and I'm not sure why. I passed it on the way in and heard it's monologue. Then when I came back later it's memory was there instead and I don't know what I did.
I liked the tone and I think I would enjoy exploring more of this world.
The intended path was down toward the lower area, you unlock a way to progress further there. I was banking on the drop in the crystal area to give you that hint, or just natural player exploration. A lot of people didn't get the hint that the jumps towards the potion aren't viable at first and just kept trying till they gave up.
Part of that is natural distrust in a jam game but I feel like i could have done a better job at earning it back in the early areas. The rest is mostly down to you not getting to experience the rest of the game. All the "lessons" I tried to teach through gameplay don't seem to have been effective in your experience, so the rest fell apart.
I knew accessibility was going to be a problem but unfortunately I ran out of time. Thank you for taking the time to document your play through for me. I'll carry those lessons with me into my future projects.
The only real detractor I felt had to do with movement, it was a bit jerky and needed a gradual ramp to make some of the platforming less frustrating. The story is great, I liked the mechanic of finding memories of the dead.
If you were to flesh this out into a full 4-8 hour single player experience I'd buy it.
Looks very professional. The atmosphere, art and soundtrack is amazing, kept me going even though the gameplay is very simple. Great game!
Great little game. The poor souls though ): Love the particle effects and lighting. Great choice of music too. Especially the cave with the crystals!
I played it a lot longer than I expected I was going to. 4/5 memories. Good job!
it was super cool, the graphics were amazing, the only thing missing was a main menu, other than that it was very epic
The music and the visual effects of this game really help the player (me) to feel the atmosphere of the game. Parkouring your way through the platforms was kind of hard, personally I got stuck at that turquoise potion part. The only bug that I encountered, was that sometimes the music can stop playing when returning to an area. Other than that, great work!
Great game with thick atmosphere! I had trouble with some of the platforming and having to walk back was frustrating, but that's a nitpick. The music, sound, writing and lighting are all hauntingly beautiful. If any game could trigger a midlife crisis it's this one, it definitely made me feel and ponder my own mortality.
I think you're the only one who has a character like this. Level design is not easy so to tackle a metroidvania must have been quite the task. I personally don't like all of the bloom effects, I appreciate the lighting on the sprites though as that's not easy. Smart choice of changing background colors when you're in new areas so players can remember where they are. As far as platformers go this one was not frustrating in it's controls, and the camera moved very fluidly. Great job!
Great atmosphere and aesthetics along with a nice story. The gameplay is pretty fun too, a little frustrating at times but that's just me sucking at platformers :D
Also the particles on player character made the jumping so satisfying. It's probably one of the most polished games in the jam.
Amazing job!
Beautiful atmosphere,beautiful story. You have a good eye! Good job!
Great Style! love the exploration