Mouse Jam 2024

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A jam submission

Ironmouse PowerTripView game page

A platformer for Mouse Jam 2024

Submitted by foliagic, Tekaion — 5 days, 1 minute before the deadline

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Ironmouse PowerTrip's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Overall	#10	3.130	3.130
Originality & Innovation	#12	3.250	3.250
Theme	#12	3.500	3.500
Fun & Game Design	#13	3.050	3.050
Audio	#15	2.600	2.600
Graphics	#15	3.250	3.250

Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
The game follows a (non-cannon) story of Ironmouse getting trapped in the cyberspace and trying to go back to the real world with the help of her friends.

The story is inspired by Vshojo lore and the music (although made from scratch for this game) tries to replicate the chord progression and feeling of Ironmouse's original songs.

You can also unlock some skins based on some vshojo members!

Did your team create the vast majority of the art since the jam started?
Yes, All of it except the fonts were made by us within the jam period

Did your team create the vast majority of the music since the jam started?
Yes, All of it. Samples used in the music are credited in the credits document.

Any Social Media you'd like to shout out?
None.

Anything else you want to mention?
The downloadable version is strongly recommended.

If you finish the game, and decide to try the Speedrun Mode afterwards, feel free to share an image of the end screen with your time in the comments!

Controllers should technically work but I don't know how comfortable it is to play this game on a controller. We mainly tested it on Keyboard. But if you suffer from physical impairments, you can download the game, add it to your Steam Library and use the steam controller support to map controls to whatever device you like.

Credits: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CsUo_7m3sWIHp9U_4l-FHPD3S7c-ZED0x3FPdRTRn9c/

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Comments

OokamiTosonSubmitted124 days ago(+1)

It took me a little bit to get used to the controls but once I did I had a great time! The platforming mechanics where interesting and fun! It had some sections were I just try-and-error until I could memorize and do it in one go, but it feel very satisfying to do so.

I'm sorry to say I immediately gave up on the boss once I realized how to beat it though u.u

A small detail, I found that in the heaven level the pink platforms and arrows where very difficult to see in some places, the background colors didn't pair well.

Great game overall! Would love to see Connor play it instead of Mouse XD

Submitted

Mouse & Monkey Plushie Challenge

foliagicDeveloper124 days ago

Thank you for playing!

Yeah, the way the tiles look in stage 3 makes them hard to see. We will try to improve this by moving the tiles around after the voting period is over.

Matt Pharoah (falcobuster)Submitted126 days ago(+1)

It's a fun game, but the awkward controls made me quit before finishing it. The bounce in particular feels like it could have just been replaced with a higher jump, as using the bounce made basic vertical movement feel like a chore.

Hitboxes also felt a bit wonky, like they were offset from the player's actual position in some cases. I could walk onto some electrified(?) floors as if it were normal ground, but then other times would be reset without actually touching anything.

Going to come back to this later though since I don't feel its fair to give it a rating yet when I haven't finished it

Submitted

Ironmouse and the Tower of Babel

Matt Pharoah (falcobuster)Submitted125 days ago (1 edit)

Came back to it and beat the game. I found that using the arrow keys wasn't viable because if you hold UP and LEFT at the same time, pressing Space doesn't do anything. Switching to WASD works, but then I kept trying to press Space to jump instead of W because that's how games almost always work. Ended up using WASD with my right hand and and crossing my left hand over to hit the spacebar, and that worked.

There's a lot of potential here, but between the awkward control scheme and the fact that you arbitrarily can't ground pound until a little bit after you start falling from the peak of your jump made it feel like all of the challenge of the game was fighting against the controls rather than the actual platforming itself. A lot of the gravity switch parts also felt like trial-and-error as it didn't give enough time to react on the first try. It also wasn't very clear what you are supposed to do against the boss, though I did like the concept of the boss mirroring your position.

foliagicDeveloper124 days ago

Even though we have eased up on it since the original idea, the movement is designed to reward quick reactions and decision making. The idea with the bounce and slide is that you lose some control in exchange for using them, so they are not “free”. We felt that this is more rewarding for the player, and that it added replayability in the form of speedrunning and trying to minimize unnecessary movements. If a jump can be cleared without the bounce, it can be optimized. If a section can be past without interrupting the slide, it can be performed in a more clean way. The limitations of the movement give the player a puzzle to solve, and simply having every move be free would not be as fun, at least to us. If mouse could always jump with the speed of the bounce, or walk at the speed of the slide without losing any control, the game would just not be fun, or so we believe.

The weird hitboxes of the environment can be fixed easily after the voting period, and we are aware of some in stage 2 in particular.

For the controls, we kind of regret adding the option to play with arrow keys, as WASD+Space feels much more natural. A lot of people who initially tried playing with Arrow Keys + Space reported that the game feels a lot better with WASD.

olezha_wowSubmitted126 days ago(+1)

This game is great! For the longest time i was really enjoying it! But then... the boss happened. While the first three levels had places where the difficulty had some spikes that were tough to overcome, and took a bit too long for my liking, I did beat all of them before I started to want to quit the game, cause I was interested in what I was about to see next! (But, god, would I love a couple more checkpoints here and there). The powers are a great mechanic! I had a lot of fun with them!

The boss. Oh did I want to quit the game while fighting the boss. It took a couple of minutes to realise that I needed to stomp the blue projectiles to fight her. Which really could've been a bit more clear, cause when I see someone shoot me, I don't really care if it's glitchy or not, I want to avoid it! But when I realised that I also had to make the boss walk into these bullets - I started to cry. (not really, but it was not a fun realisation) One thing was to barely get to stomp the bullets in this elevator shaft of a level, the other was that I had to also make the boss walk into it while it slowly goes back. The controls were manageable in the first three levels, but here I almost gave up. But I didn't! And then finding out that my reward for spending half an hour on the boss was just a screen, not even like some fun dialogue. That kinda broke me.

Overall the game is awesome sauce! (I know I just said a lot about how much I despise the boss, but the boss was just a small part of the game). If I had just a tad more control over my movement, it'd be perfect! It was really fun, and I don't regret beating it! Love it! :D

Submitted

Who Killed Ironmouse?

foliagicDeveloper126 days ago(+1)

Apologies about the end screen. There is supposed to be at least a little narration text letting the player know what happened after that but due to a bug it doesn’t show up. We will fix it after the voting period is over. The ending screen that says nothing but “thank you for playing” is only supposed to show up in speedrun mode.

Thank you for beating the game! We really appreciate all the feedback.

BuGKiriSubmitted127 days ago(+1)

To much Story! ... but tbh thats the only complain i had, the controls are lil bit hard, but it only made me wanted to do it better, and i had really alot of fun! :D Game Fun, Art nice, Music good :D

Submitted

Ironmouse and the Bubiblade of Justice

foliagicDeveloper127 days ago

Thank you for playing!

Dippo StudiosSubmitted127 days ago(+1)

The game was really fun I loved the different movement options the player was able to use to platform from one area to another. I will say it did take a while for me to get used to the controls, but I managed to beat it! Really cool game keeps it up!

Submitted

Bubi's Betrayal

foliagicDeveloper127 days ago

Thank you!

Dezior128 days ago(+1)

The jump sound definitely is something...

Interesting movement system, but it felt really uncomfortable having to jump with up and then pressing space to initiate better jump or slide.
With a little bit more cooking the movement could be something like the one in pizza tower where you have a tool for every situation but unfortunately it is not there yet.

I also didnt finish the game, i got frustrated with having to re-input slides when turning the level, and when i had to switch directions for the slide in the clouds level.

I would say there is a lot of potential for a fun platformer with fun movement options.

foliagicDeveloper127 days ago (1 edit)

Huh. May I ask what headphones you use? The jump sfx sounds completely fine to us and all the friends that played it right after release, but I got similar comments from a previous game. Also, did you play the web version or the Windows version?

Also, what do you think would be better for inputs if you did not like jumping with up/w and stomping with space?

Dezior127 days ago

Hyper x cloud 2, its not realty that the sound is broken or something it just kind of unpleasant, especially having to hear it so often.
Maybe its just preference but if i had to describe it id say its the sharp start to it and the square wave sound it has (i have absolutely no idea how sound works but the jump sound definitely feels not great for me).

Controlls:
Maybe spread over more buttons; movement with wasd / arrows and special actions on xcv/bnm
Where jump is x, stomp is c and v+ direction is slide. Would need some testing, to see if stop on s and jump on w would make sense.
something like that

but thats just my feedback, ultimately its your choice if you think my complaining is valid :D

TheSquawkyRavenSubmitted128 days ago(+1)

It's fun, but the controls are way too hard for me, needing to jump, stomp and release jump to slide instead of bouncing was a bit too difficult for me.

I like the mechanics introduced and the progression, though I didn't manage to finish it. Solid game!

Submitted

foliagicDeveloper128 days ago

I see. It is really unfortunate that you found it too hard to finish. We had a lot of friends play the earlier version of this game and made adjustments to the controls based on their feedback. Even then the there weren’t many people that just gave up without finishing.

If I may ask, what would make the controls easier for you? For sliding, you can slide after a bounce so that you get more time to press left/right before you land. Also, some players commented that switching from Arrow keys to WASD or vice versa made the game way easier than before so I recommend giving that a try.

TheSquawkyRavenSubmitted127 days ago

I only used Arrow Keys when I tried last time. Probably a skill issue for me >.> I'll try it out again later.