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Inanis Materia's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #233 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Playability | #258 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #282 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Artistic Style | #401 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
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.
- Really fun game you have here. The progression of learning the different abilities was nice and allowed for learning the game mechanics seamlessly. The art is nice, but it would do well with some music/sound effects. The jump delay did make it feel a little rough, but overall the game felt smooth. Good job!
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!
It's a puzzle platformer based around using Alchemical Elements to solve puzzles and make your way forwards. Most of the controls are explained in the game itself, thankfully. As are all the mechanics.
The story is a long one, but I sadly did not get to include most of it in the game, so I will put it here.
Out in the mistwilds, among the swamps and stones, lies a towering monument to the arcane science of alchemy: Alchecity, the City of Great Minds. Standing taller than a mountain, the city is broken up into multiple layers, like the rings of a Tower of Hanoi. The higher you go, the more lavish and fantastical the landscape becomes. And at the very top, the brightest alchemy minds in the world make groundbreaking experiments daily. They say that in the upper levels of Alchecity, you want for nothing, and can create anything.
But this shining beacon only serves to mask the horrible truth: Alchecity is run by a totalitarian regime, made up of the most affluent individuals in the city. From the Potion Czar Grux to the Metal Monarch Rikar, those with power decide everything. Those who wish to study alchemy must due so only in the ways allowed by the regime. Any form of illegal research is sought out and destroyed, burned in the streets by the book load on the lower layers. And even if you do not choose to fight against the regime, many in the depths of the city suffer daily due to run off from experiments performed in the upper crusts. Sadly, many have simply accepted that this is the way life has to be, beaten down and unable to resist.
This all changes one day in the top of Alchecity, when one of the greatest minds in Alchecity, Polwan the Prodigious, sets out to perform a feat unlike any the world had ever seen. In Alchemy, there is a concept called Prima Materia, or the First Matter. It is said to be the primitive formless base of all matter, containing all colors and metals, a wondrous substance fit only for the gods.
Polwan theorized that, if there exists matter that contains all things, there must also be matter that contains no things. An empty matter. An Inanis Materia. And so, despite knowing it was heresy to research, the great Polwan began experimenting. Until eventually... he was successful! He had created the Inanis Materia, a being born of something that has become nothing.
His celebration was short lived, as the members of the regime had caught wind of what Polwan was doing, and stormed his tower. Thinking only of his creation, Polwan made a desperate gamble. He knew the Inanis Materia was far too important, and would only end up destroyed if it remained in his care. So, he cast it out of his tower, hurling it towards the lowest levels of the city, never to be seen again. Hoping that, somehow, it would survive. Even if he could not.
Inanis, our main character, wakes up in the alley at the very bottom of the city's lowest layer. He has no abilities, not even the power to jump. Simply a base instinct to return to the place of his creation... no matter the cost.
Extra Notes
So this game might seem really short, and kind of unfinished, but not only is this my first game jam, but I never intended for this to be the full game. I plan on continuing work on this game after the jam, and eventually I hope to fully release my idea someday.
Thank you Thor and everyone else for helping to push me to try this! I had a blast.
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Comments
:D
Interesting mechanics
:(
Clunky and bugged jumping, landing stops all horizontal movement and you can double jump if you quickly tap space
:D
Thank you!
:(
I am aware of the jumping issues. They are being fixed in the next patch update.
Loved being this cute little blob! I really appreciate how much personality and expression the animations have. Without spoilers, I'll say I liked the cauldrons a lot. Lovely game!
Nice puzzle platformer you made here! I especially like the elemental power you got there and build the last level with all power utilised, bring them all together. Good job on that. The art is also nice, reminds me of A boy and his blob. Not sure if that's what you are going for.
A bit nitpick that it feels not too good with the delays in the start of the jump and after landing. It seems like the games lost every momentum at that moment and that's not a good feel for that. Also, why the wooden plank isn't a one way platform? (Probably I am playing too much Mario and got too used to it)
Anyway, nice job!
Thank you for the praise! I actually was inspired by A Boy and his Blob! I'm glad someone caught that. I didn't put it in the GDD cause it was a minor influence.
Yeah, I've gotten comments about the jumping and the need for one way platforms. Both are things I plan to update as soon as I can patch the game. Prior to uploading, when I was testing it out myself, I didn't really notice the delay being that bad. But I'm also not the kind of guy who would notice something like that. So I'm grateful to everyone who points it out. As for the Wooden Platforms, this was my first time using Godot, and I didn't know how to do that until after the submission window passed.
If you don't mind, would you prefer if there was no wind up jump animation and landing animation? That's most of where the delay comes from, but I can take them out if it would feel better to play as a whole.
If you really want the wind up, which to be fair is not that of a bad idea, I would suggest doing a bit of sliding when winding up, so that the it doesn't feel like the game just stopped. (Taking something from Mario) Landing I would say is a bit unnecessary, seems punishing the player for jumping, which is not ideal. Unless you are dropping from a great height or course.
I remembered someone did mentioned, probably GMTK, that pausing the game for a few frame is a way to "feelingly" punish the player for doing something wrong, and I felt a bit of this especially during the landing animation.
Good idea! For now, I'll just remove the animations for both landing and wind up, so that should make it more fluid to platform.
Very nice game!
I really liked the use of the primary elements for both spell-casting and puzzle-solving, very creative. I especially like the cauldron bringing it all together. Not too short, not too long, the perfect length to showcase all the abilities and mechanics, a lot of potential for future levels!
Loved the artstyle, simple blob doing blob activities! The jump wind-up is a cute touch, though it made the movement a little less sharp, which is okay, blob is clumsy!
I wish there was a way to switch around movement and ability use between WASD and arrow keys, but that's asking too much of a game jam game, my game also has unconventional keybinds and no way to change them for now…
Also, I kept thinking that the thin wooden platforms are one-way and bumping on their ceiling, but that's more of a skill issue :) I know there's a simple way to solve this in Unity with one-way colliders, there's probably something similar in Godot, I don't think there's any downside in making those platforms one-way.
Great job!
Thanks so much for the feedback! Yeah, I've gotten comments about the platforms not being one way. There is a way to do it, but I only discovered how to do so after the Jam submissions were over! I plan to implement it in the patch as soon as I can.
I'll look into making a way to swap between Arrows and WASD for controls and abilities in the future. Since this was my first time ever using Godot, I didn't have the knowledge to do something like that in the time allotted.
Really good job! You introduced the mechanics pretty well, but I got stuck at the bucket. I wanted to turn into water to fill the bucket but I guess that's not the answer? good framerate! really good job! keep making games!
Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself! Nah, for the bucket, you needed to stand on the upper platform next to the lever and activate the water power. You can sort of just fill containers without needing to go into them. And yeah, I definitely will keep making games!
Very cute, could make a legit actual metroidvania with the way the mechanics are unlocked. The animations are smooth and cute. Jumping felt a little unforgiving but maybe that was intentional. Great entry you've got here!
Thank you so much for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed yourself! The jumping being that way is mostly a result of me not having a lot of experience with 2D platformer mechanics. In the future, I think, at least early on, I want to make the jumps easier and more forgiving.
What a cute and fantastic foundation to a metroidvania style game.
I'll preface this by saying I wish there was some sound and music, being in complete silence feels really meh.
However the game was a lot of fun to play, I loved the pacing and tutorial and the interesting way you had the elements interact with the world was a lot of fun.
The little slime was really cool looking and I liked all the animations. I had a really fun time with this :)
Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm really glad you had fun! Yeah, I can see how the lack of music or sound effects would bring down the experience. I'm not super familiar with making video game music, and I had trouble finding CC0 Music and Sound Effects I could use for the game that fit. If you have any recommendations, please let me know!
This is good enough easy platformer game. Well done.
But, the jump delaying makes jumping a little unbuttered.
And a little sound effects would be better.
Thank you for the feedback! I plan to update the game following the jam with better jump mechanics, and also sound effects if I can find them.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play your game because it runs too slow on my laptop to make it a nice experience (around 5FPS). Still, from what I played, this could be a really interesting game if commercially released!
Sorry to hear that. I do plan on working on this game to make it a full release, so I will keep this in mind for the future.
Don’t worry, my laptop is ancient, I don’t expect 60 FPS while playing.
Very fun concept! I enjoyed how the different elements came together at the end to power the cauldrons.
My only suggestion would be to maybe rely less on tutorials/exposition! Your game already has a pretty intuitive design so letting players discover the different effects of the elements could be fun.
Great work!
Thank you for the feedback! Would you say the prompts in the top right corner would be enough to help players know what they could do with their abilities? Because I may just use that if that would be helpful.
Right off the bat, lemme just say that I really enjoyed the pixel art and animations! That fire animation when your burn those wood "walls" is really clean. It looks nice!
I thought the way you end up using the cauldrons in the later parts of the game was really clever, needing the player to do the combinations. I also appreciated that you put in the top right corner the available commands when reaching an interactable object. It's a small but really good touch!
A couple of suggestions I have is to show the story in some sort of intro cutscene! I thought it was a really interesting concept so imbuing it directly in the game in some form would be nice. And, as other people have said, getting some audio stuff will help elevate the game a lot!
For your first jam game, this is really, REALLY solid, and I do mean it. I know my first jam game had a bunch of softlocks so I get the pain of having a softlock after deadline. But the checkpoints really help and being able to reset helps to remedy when you do get softlocked in the animation.
Cute game and I can see potential in this, mixing different puzzles with the different elements and all. Good work!
Hello! Thanks for the feedback and nice comments. I'm the animator for this game and it was really a lot of fun!
Really fun stuff, the use of the 4 powers is intuitive and fun. Although the softlock is very unfortunate.
The art is crisp and nice, the UI is also really nice although maybe a semi-transparent background for the circle would make it a little less intrusive.
There's a lot of potential here with the combination of the four powers. This is great work for a first jam, a million times better than my first one 😅
Adding sound, even if it's placeholder stuff would've really enhanced the enjoyment.
Please give our game a shot and give some feedback!
Good game! I liked yhe use of the arrow keys and WASD! Great interpretation of the themes! Well done!
Thanks you! I really appreciate the positive feedback!
Cute platformer with puzzle component, visual cue for the next step was well displayed and really usefull.
Using the ignition power on a cauldron filled with water to use your aerial ability seems pretty intriguing and ingenious.
Going forward you can think about give the player the ability to pass through platform surface to land on them.
Little note : there is a little misplacement of one of the arrow sign but really easy fix if not already done. GG
That was cool! I loved the visuals, the fire animation was really good. I didnt hear any music or sfx, that would really helped to make the game more engaging. For your first game this is really impressive! I thought the combining of each element to make updrafts in a logical way was very interesting and I would love to see more puzzle involving logical ways to use each element together. A few gripes I had were that the jump felt kind of awkward, idk why it had delay after the input, it didnt cause any issues for me just a little awkward and same with the landing delay before i could move again. Overall great entry!
Got stuck at the cauldrons because of a bug: I don't know what exactly I've done incorrectly, but when I started moving the cauldron, lighting the fire, and filling it with water, all of a sudden I couldn't move. I could only pick the cauldron up and move it around, without my character moving. Other than this issue, the game is really well done and has a really cool concept. Keep up the good work!
Great work, really surprising amount of content. Fire breathing animation is perfect, and the jump mechanic felt really polished. I also encountered the third cauldron bug. After finding the third cauldron, after the moving platform, I attempted to move it while on the left side. After hitting S you can no longer move or jump - like the character model might have gotten stuck in an invisible wall. Great work overall!
Thank you so much! Honestly, hearing that content remark means the world to me. And thanks for the info! I'll go and get that bug fixed right away!
Very beautiful game ! The animations are incredible ! The mechanic are nice ! Although I encounter some bug at the third cauldron after getting the fire rune. Very nice !!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you had fun! And I'm sorry you encountered a bug. Would you be able to tell me what happened, so I can try and fix it?