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Shadows of the Golem's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Playability | #258 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme | #653 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Cleverness | #755 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Artistic Style | #1697 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Good GDD, I would like to see more detailed information around the key ideas in the game. The ideas and foundations link nicely to the game jam, but it would be good to get more of an explanation on the links to the themes. I really enjoyed my little play through. Feedback: Implement a training section to the functionality behind the game. (How you move, what the different blocks are, how you use the attacks styles, how the clouds work etc) Add some more detail to the design of the background and the main character Change the backing soundtrack to something that is linked better to the theme, and make the sound track follow the events that happen in games Add a button to centralize the character on the screen The game is nicely laid out, please keep going with this. I would be very interested to see how you implement new blocks and upgrades to the movement system :)
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!
climbing up a massive golem to destroy weakpoints. it is a platformer. wall jumping, moving platform, bounce pads. controls in game description.
Extra Notes
thank you for playing!
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Comments
Shadow of the Colossus, but in 2D! It's a bit unfortunate that you don't keep your momentum when you try to jump while the platforms are moving. Also the wall jump feels pretty janky. Overall it's an interesting idea, just needs some polishing!
Thank you for playing! I dabbled with keeping your momentum when I first started. I found immediately you lose the feel of scaling the golem. As for the wall jumping I have been working on tuning it. What about it feels janky so in the future I might be able to resolve it.
It's hard to describe, I just couldn't get it to work reliably. Especially when the Golem was moving.
I really like the idea, but moving on platforms while EVERYTHING is moving is pretty challenging to me :D
Thank you for playing! I hope you enjoyed it. I thought the unique feature of this is the moving world while platforming but this has a bit of a learning curve to it. so, Id like to make more easier levels that get the player used to platforming before scaling huge creatures and have this level more of a midground.
I might be a bit confused here??
Looks pretty though!
Thank you! Can you elaborate on what is confusing? I would like to make things more explainable to the player if there is any confusion.
Pretty nice game! I love that you have to wait for the golem's action to make your next move, but thats also the downside, you have to wait quite a long time between each move. If you can balance the golem moving time or introduce a new player mechanism to provide an alternative way to jump up those blocks originally need the golem to be moving, it would have a better player experience.
Thank you for playing! I tried to get a few alternate routes going up the leg and would like to further explore getting more routes that don't require waiting for the body and the lower arm. creating multiple paths has been a challenge and a lot of refining but I feel it can be done!
Great game idea! Overall I think everything is great. I was a little frustrated that I couldn't jump up through platforms. I felt like that slowed things down a bit for me. It definitely has some Only Up or Getting Over It vibes where I kept falling out of the Golem and had to try again. Great work!
Thank you for playing and the feedback. I think in the future I'm going to make more giants to climb and this is for sure a great option for adding more variance to the game.
Really loved the concept! I would love to see some way to influence when the golem moves from the ground when you are not inside
Thank you for playing! This would be a great idea! I think would be to manipulate the golems movement. The movement was built on duct tape and dreams but i do believe I can work something in to adjust its movement in the future.
duct tape and dreams! new studio name dropped :D
2D Shadow of the Colossus is a cool idea. Unfortunately, in practice, it involved a lot of waiting for the golem to move into position. But it's a neat concept. Pretty much unrelated to either theme though.
Thank you for playing and the feed back. I have a few uses of the word shadows from the oxford dictionary: to reference to proximity(being close to the golem at all times), Ominous oppressiveness (threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments.), or sadness and gloom(i added as much sadness and gloom to the environment and the music. The Golem is a creation of alchemy. Golems are created from multiple element and used to serve there creators. i tried to go with different variations of the theme then the straight forward this is a shadow this is a potion.
What a cleaver idea - 2D Shadow of the Colossus!
This game was tough, but I still very much enjoyed it!! Really great job!
Thank you for playing it! my goal was to have a single person enjoy the game as this is my third game I've made including my main project!
This game is challenging. In a good way. I will come back to it. I was a fan of the shadow of the colossus game back in the day so good job replicating a 2d version of that.
Thank you for playing the game and im glad you enjoyed it!. Shadow of the colossus was a huge part of my childhood. the feeling of being a small fragile person undertaking a massive overshadowing boss was just so impactful. id love to come back rework some art and add more bosses!
If you ever need help, let me know
The concept and scale of this game is pretty cool but the gameplay did frustrate me a little. In particular, it was quite frustrating missing a jump, and then having to wait for a while until the cycle of the golem reset so I could try again. Its still very cool though!
Thank you for playing it. I hope you enjoyed even though it can be frustrating. yes the boss being on a cycle was a hard designing aspect i tried to have multiple paths without trivializing the experience and it was rough. I tried to leave 1 particular jump from the upper leg to the body but everything else that required cycle was mainly difficulty with level design. it was as fun experience to make and well worth it.
Really great game, I could play this for hours. The only thing I became frustrated by was the yellow walls, I feel like some ability to climb those would communicate much better with the player how to interact with them. But overall im really impressed. It looks great
Thank you for play the game and the feedback. The yellow walls are not climbable. They are only wall jumpable.
It's a really awesome and fun concept although in practice there are some things I definitely do not like. First of all I'm still not sure what the yellow platforms exactly do, also I don't get the point of having fall damage. Also, on the upper leg section, it's just flat out annoying to have to wait to fall all the way down and get revived, when adding walls so when you fall you just go to the bottom would serve the same perfect. Also, the moving parts of the golem make everything feel kind of janky and slippery since some jump you need to just sit there and wait which is definitely not fun at all. And some platforms will just kick you off them no matter what you do. I also don't get the point of having two separate attack buttons. The idea behind the game is great and I hope you can execute a full game nicely, but the prototype has too many problems for me to really love it. Also, the artstyle is a bit inconsistent between the golem and the player which does bat an eye, but I can't say I'm not guilty.
Thank you for the feedback! The yellow platform allow for a wall jump to happen. Fall damage is present because there are multiple mechanics that wouldn't hold no challenge if it wasn't present. I would like to know what platform you had an issue with. I've ran every path every multiple times.
I love the concept. The scale of the golem is absolutely felt and I thought fall damage was a really funny and clever choice. I also thought the movement of the golem constantly changing the layout of the platforms was very cool. Having said that, the platforming felt really slippery a lot of the time. I think this was caused by a combination of really strict platforming and the movement of the player being slightly inconsistent and difficult to predict due to the movement of the golem. I think a way of zooming out or seeing how the golem is currently moving would help a lot with planning out your own moves, although I could see that detracting from the scale. Lastly, I found myself waiting for very long stretches of time for the golem to move into a position I could proceed in, becoming completely disengaged from the platforming. Overall, a lot of neat ideas I would like to see explored further along with improved platforming.
Thank you for playing, the clouds that pass over are designed to indicate the golems movement. In the future I'll keep in mind that the waiting time new level or redesign of this level
Very cool idea to climb the abomination, I had a hard time with understanding the wall jump mechanic. The clouds started to help out since it was impossible to see what direction the movement was during the climb
2D Shadow of the Collosus!
That was difficult. The concept of the game is super cool, a platforming game where the entire world shifts. I really liked it.
Animation and art are fine, they could be improved but we only have 2 weeks so you really spent you time well getting what you have done. The controls should be improved, the fact you can wall jump only once from each wall is annoying.
Couldn't really figure the shadow part of the theme.
This is a cool game and concept and overall really good job.
Thank you for playing the game and I'm glad you enjoyed it. as for the shadows I have a few uses of the word shadows from the oxford dictionary: to reference to proximity(being close to the golem at all times), Ominous oppressiveness (threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments.), or sadness and gloom(i added as much sadness and gloom to the environment and the music. as for wall jumping only once its the only way I couldn't get the game from being trivialized in certain area. I fully learned from this experience that there needs to be a balance of difficult and easy mechanics(frontloading the easy ones) to keep a rewarding experience. If I continue to develop the game I would love to put in an effect of the column you are on "turning off" to better translate this.
Super interesting concept, you did well getting everything you got done in the timeframe. I have some of the same issues as others have posted. Some of the animations are too subtle, the character doesn't feel very controllable, the wall jump walls don't feel consistent on how they work (specially when they start becoming more horizontal), and my personal biggest issue is the incorporation of the theme is extremely vague and underdeveloped. The feeling of movement while platforming is awesome though, and it was pretty fun overall!
Hello thank you for playing and I'm glad you had fun! the walls are supposed to be inaccessible as they transition in angles. as for the "theme" I used a few definitions for shadows: used to reference to proximity(being close to the golem at all times), Ominous oppressiveness (threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments.), or sadness and gloom(i added as much sadness and gloom to the environment and the music. I also added the teleport mechanic to make the game a bit easier while incorporating shadows into the lore of why your character cannot die. I sadly had to ask my music guy to rewrite the theme once to match as the original, though fantastic, was not gloomy. as for the alchemy, instead of focusing on the player doing combination or transformation I decided to go with a more remnants of someone else creation. the golem being front and center as both the boss and the level I felt had enough showcasing of this theme. there are other subtlety's of the themes.
Ah that makes more sense. Its not easy interpreting the theme in unique ways, I get it. But your unique gameplay loop really carries this game as well. I'd love to see a fully released version with more polish and story elements! If you have time, check out my platformer I entered in the jam we have similar atmospheres :)
Will do! I cant believe i missed playing it and reviewing it. fun fact i just got back from polishing a bit of the game broke so much more and now had to revert back. i think this was a lesson on it works well dont fix till after the jams done. i have the code now inplace to get the positions and everything for aligning the character to the wall just breaks on the arm because of the rotation. physics are hard.
Yah haha we also were worried about updating to the newest version of Godot and reposting today, after the original was mostly working. But we are hoping itll solve some of our WebGL error issues. Thanks again.
hey so just a heads up updated my game and somehow dropped to the bottom of the list here. be careful if your updating.
Wow ambitious - this must have been a lot of work. Goes to show how capable Godot is these days. The second I realised the whole level was the giant Golem and it was moving and with the music as well my first thought was “epic”. Jumping and some of animations could be tidied up a bit as they’re just a bit rigid and lifeless, but that’s just because so much work has gone into other parts of the game. Great work.
thank you! I appreciate the feedback. I have been nonstop working on it since the jam started.
While I don't really like playing rage inducing games, I like this one. I really love the mechanics and how they interact with each other. The UI and some art in the game could be better, but the gameplay really makes up for it.
As I'm typing this I noticed that I see just like after those optical illusions videos. Can't imagine how it was for you debugging this:)
I'm glad you enjoyed the game! debugging was very difficult for sure.
Rage quit for now. Ill come back later. Great Alpha!