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Pogonator's itch.io pageLink to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IQrU0U-4jpbOBDgv_-9yVArqWcq2H4d0wjgjdyu2r7o/edit?usp=sharing
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
Yes
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
Yes
Summarise your game!
2D pixel platformer where the player controls a scientist who flings his own body (press [A]) into hordes of knife shaped zombies in order to heal them - by drenching them in blood.
The healed knombies are transformed back into their original human form. Because the scientist's body is hurt every time he hits a knife, he has to be healed by getting new blood from the nearby blood transfusion (press [S]).
Try to survive all 4 waves!
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
The theme is "You Are The Weapon", so I took this very literally and expanded from there. My very first idea was the human-wielding sword which is also depicted as a sketch in my GDD. But this didn't look and feel right (I even made some animations with this). A friend remarked that the one of the inverted sword/human animations looked like the human was bouncing on a pogo stick. That's how the whole idea came to be.
Thanks for an awesome second game jam for me!
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Comments
Great sound design, silly premise, and pleasing visual style. Cool game!
I know it may be a strange question, but for me it's not clear how you should go through the door on the right at the beginning of the game. Could you reply with how to do it and then I may try to play your game again?
I also recommend that on itch.io page and in your GDD, you explicitly state under controls that you should press and hold the Enter key on keyboard to progress the intro text faster. This may be helpful for some players in case.
I really liked the unique mechanics but for now, I think I may defer further comment until I checked your game more. later.
Thank you for your suggestion! As for the door, it is not for the player to walk through. It is an entry point for the knife zombies to get into your laboratory. As the waves progress, more entry points are created through which the knifes enter the lab. The knifes are spawned randomly at each of the doors/holes. You just have to defend the lab a.k.a. heal the zombies.
Maybe in a future version, additional levels or rooms would be added but for now there is just this one room for the player to defend.
Ah I see, I only saw one enemy come out the whole time but maybe I got some bug or glitch, I might try it again soon.
Ah, alright, I see what happened: the real first wave only starts after you complete all the instructions on the screen at least once: jump [space], move [arrow left/arrow right], whack the knife [a] and completely heal at the blood transfusion [s].
Very nice! Now I understand what happened now after your helpful last reply:
- The tooltip went away even when using the heal partially. Then it was unclear you were supposed to heal all the way to continue the game
I recommend in post jam version that you should either
- only require that they just healed even a little bit once by any amount to be considered enough, or
- don't make the tooltip go away if you healed partially in tutorial and have more explicit, clear indications the tutorial is not yet complete.
Otherwise it's possible the game pretty much ends before it even starts for some players.
I guess judging by the comments here, many players did not do this, so maybe you're fine for now.
As for the game itself, I really like it a lot and it's very unique, the mechanics work really well. I wonder if to improve it, the ability to kill multiple enemies at the same time in one hit could be at least a little bit more lenient than it is now (especially in the first waves of the game). This is so the player can feel more satisfaction killing more enemies at once more easily and making a strategy out of losing less HP. If it causes the game to be too easy later, maybe something could be thought of to address that somehow for later waves.
Overall, really nice job on this one!
I love the sound effects! And attacking also damaging you was a great idea.