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A jam submission

The pawscapeView game page

Game about ferret alchemist trying to escape goblin dungeon
Submitted by 6matko, Boiiterra — 5 hours, 25 minutes before the deadline
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The pawscape's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme#2334.0004.000
Cleverness#7553.0003.000
Playability#8043.0003.000
Artistic Style#8933.5003.500

Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

  • Very enjoyable jumping game, with excellent use of combination alchemy mechanics. Well made and cool lighting, really enjoyed this! There was a lot of challenge playing on 60fps but this added to the fun for me!
  • Super cool ferret action! I like the old retro BGM and intro with the ferret art at the market, its a lovely touch that brings a lot of good memories from old titles. The idea of using scrolls for abilities is simple and works, but I will admit the difficulty could be more progressive throughout levels rather than in spikes between them. Would have also definitely loved some sounds for the walking and jumping to assist with movement coordination and overall atmosphere. I think the theme was approached fairly but I would enjoy seeing more of the alchemy in the game mechanics from the get-go for sure. The shadowy and obscure dungeons, idea of secret societies are spot on though. Would love to see more and maybe add our favorite nascar ferret!

Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes

Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes

Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes

Tell us about your game!
Alchemist Ferret escaping from the Secret Goblin Society (shadows) while using alchemy spells (mixing them). Its a platformer that has basic movement mechanics with small coyote time and temporary powerups (scrolls). The game should give you some challenge as the movement should be precise. In game there are obstacles that need to be overcome with help of these scrolls. Player can combine them and use as one (Increased speed+higher jump, for example). More details in itch.io description

Extra Notes
Thank you for organizing the jam and motivating joining it. It was our first game jam and even first game. You played a big part of it.

After submission a bug was discovered that makes the jump on Level 2 almost impossible if you are playing with 60 FPS.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Alright, here are my notes:
(they will probably sound quite negative, but that's because I focus on the things that should be fixed):

  1. FPS cap should include higher framerates like 165, 240 and 360 as such monitors exist (mine is 240hz so this may make the game feel stuttery)
  2. Main menu is cool but I'd like some button SFX.
  3. You don't need an FPS counter for 2D games.
  4. For earlier levels, you should make jumps more forgiving. Hard jumps early on just mess with the difficulty flow while the player is learning new mechanics (like the scrolls)
  5. I would add an SFX once a scroll recharges. It would be a nice indicator.
  6. Lighting-wise I would add a light to the player. The game feels really dark most of the time and lighting the area up around the player would help a lot.
  7. I like this foggy effect you tried to make, but you should have the texture move around in some way. It's not bad when moving, but when standing around it becomes very static.
  8. In the 3rd level (double jump scroll), you can very easily miss the scroll and get to the end of the level.
  9. Music has panning and distance attenuation. You can either make the max distance of music really large or attach it to the player.
  10. In level 4 my "R" scroll sprite disappeared.
  11. I used speed and got hit by a spike. After respawning I got yeeted out of the dungeon and into the void. The game does not have a reset button so this softlocked the game.
  12. Please nerf that jump in the 2nd level, it's way too hard.
  13. Level 4 needs some arrows or something to indicate where to go. There are a ton of blind jumps and that's not a great experience.
  14. I got to the last jump of level 4 (which was another blind jump) and I died because I used the wrong scrolls. This lead to the same softlock I mentioned before. I proceeded to ragequit the game afterwards.
  15. The scrolls were a bit "wonky" to use. If I have 3 scrolls and I choose to switch one, it should only switch to the one I don't have in my hotbar, which is not the case here.
  16. Sometimes the combined scroll abilities were inconsistent. Like double jump + big jump gave me 1 large jump and a small jump afterwards.
  17. To fix the double jump not giving you proper height on the 2nd jump, just reset the velocity.y if the player is going downwards.

Most jumps in this game are way too hard. One tip I have to avoid this in the future is to design the levels in a way that it's easy for you to beat. If you (the dev) is struggling with jumps, then it's nearly impossible for the average player.

So all in all, this is a game with a messed up difficulty curve, but easy to learn mechanics. The level design needs more work, especially in eliminating blind jumps, and making regular jumps more forgiving.

Developer

Thanks for a thoughtful review. Those are really good points for further improvements. Want to elaborate/comment on a few points.
6. There was a plan on adding a light scroll that would add that feature so the plan was to keep everything relatively dark with limited light source.
7. It is moving but I guess too slow 😅
13. The intention was to let player explore the level and give more paths. If during 1st jump player didn't get into the gap, on the bottom there is a second path that allows player to get to the right position. Not sure if the goal was achieved well.
15. Yes, that was the intended behavior - You should switch only between inactive scrolls (that are not set in the 1/2 slots).

Developer

Hello. Thank you for playing the game and giving such detailed feedback. It is sad to hear you had such bad experience.

I'd like to comment on some of the notes:
1. Going to add that as well as other options.
2.  5. SFX and music were the last to be worked on and not all SFX were added/made. Definitely going to add more.
3. I added it for debugging. Going to remove it for end user.
9. Could you please give more information on that? Is that music during cut-scene and actual game play sounds differently, like more to the left/right?

We are going to work on fixing known bugs, making difficulty curve right and adding missing features.
Hope you will enjoy the game after we resolve those issues.

Submitted(+1)

About 9:
So basically, your audio source for the music is not centered to the camera, but is just placed probably at (0, 0). This makes the music quieter when you get far away from (0, 0) and it also messes with the panning of it (how left/right the sound is) based on which side of the source you are. You can either attach the music source to your player/camera, or you copy the highlighted values from the image I sent.


Also, just to clarify, I still had fun playing your game, but in my feedback I always point out the things that I feel that it should be changed.
That probably makes it sound like I was having a bad time, when in reality it's just a cool game with some issues.

Submitted(+1)

Good atmosphere and art, and the lighting and fog effects are great. I like the idea of the scrolls and being able to trigger both, and the level design leads you naturally to how to use the controls and abilities. Level 3 with the double jump was a bit unforgiving (and not being able to reset in the room above the jump), but once you got a hold of it, it was just fine! Good work!

Submitted(+1)

I really like this game and I can tell you put a lot of thought into it. I'm not sure if its a bug or a skill issue on my end. There were quite a few moments scrolls wouldn't activate properly. Like I would press 'q' to activate high jump then I would jump, only to realize high jump wasn't actually activated. It was especially noticeable on the double jump. All that said, I really like the environment and art style. Great submission!

Developer

Thanks for playing the game and your feedback. I would say thats a miss on our end :) I was just on a call with friend who also experienced issues with double jump. From this POV it looks like more testing and bug fixing is required and I'm sorry you had to experience these issues :(

Submitted (1 edit)

No worries! Its all a learning experience anyway. Super fun concept that just needs a bit of polish, thats all :)

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I really like the idea and also the ambience!

I would suggest adding some checkpoints to some parts of the levels rather than restarting at the beginning of a level.

Developer

Thank you for playing and for the feedback. Will definitely keep it in mind.

Submitted(+1)

Surprisingly the first platformer I've found in this jam and it's cute if a little awkward.

Love the idea of attaining scrolls to get more powers and combining them is even better. The fog shader is beautiful and the levels aesthetically look great.

The problem is the game ramps up after one simple jump to pretty much every other jump being max height or requiring combinations of the scrolls, which are incredibly awkwardly mapped to the keyboard. A smoother difficulty through level design would've helped a ton here as well as either controller support or far more testing on what is a comfortable keyboard set-up.

Great atmosphere, beautiful art, great ideas mechanically. There's a lot of potential here.

Developer

Thank you very much for the detailed feedback. Definitely will take all of the things for improvements and really glad you liked the idea and aesthetics :)

Submitted(+1)

So, i initially used the WASD keys to move around, but then the scroll keys were kinda annoying to use. Switching to arrow keys made it a lot easier.

The game is definitely difficult, but i also sometimes got the idea my scrolls were working correctly, especially the double jump.

If you could include one thing please let it be this: Coyote time, would have made certain jumps a bit friendlier :)

Overall, like the art, the gameplay is alright, the theme with the scrolls is an interesting mechanic to play around with to solve different situations. Good job.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and the feedback. I guess I can agree that the game is not too friendly. Wanted to have a bit of challenge :) We do have Coyote time but now it appears its too small. Definitely will use this feedback as a learning experience.

Submitted(+1)

I love the idea of this game and it plays rather well. The only issue for me was a lack of checkpoints so on slight mistake would lead to redoing the entire level, which is more of a skill issue on my part but it can be a tad frustrating. I do enjoy having the ability to switch between scrolls and make interesting movement tech for myself!

Cheers, hope to see you next Game Jam.

Developer

Thanks for playing the game and especially the feedback :) Hope to see you do great things in next Game Jams too!

Submitted(+1)

Really fun! Good visuals and the scroll spell jump idea was fun to play with. I struggled a lot in the spike lvl, a bit too punishing? Or me bad. Movement could use a lil polish but it was pretty good still! The scroll cooldown-indications werent super clear, I constantly tried to mega-double-jump when mega-jump was still on cooldown, BUT the mega-double-jump-scroll still showed itself as _usable_. 

Good job overall!

Submitted(+1)

This game oozes vibes and the music reminds me of Zelda Link to the Past. Running around as a little spell/scroll wielding ferret is awesome. 

Unfortunately I ran into an issue where the first jump after getting the high-jump scroll is impossible due to the game being at 60fps. @6matko is aware and hopefully there's a fix that can be done without messing with the jam submission files.

Would love to revisit and see more of the game.