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Pogo Boy Saves The Day!'s itch.io pageJudge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Playability - Easy to pick up, fun to master. Good tutorial. Polished, I did not encounter any bugs. Satisfying air control, it's nice that you have a bit of leeway in landing angle. - A little bit difficult to get stars on certain levels despite pretty good execution due to the time metric (give a bit of padding for accessibility, even below average gamers want that shiny star!). I would try a 3 star system, one for each metric you track at the end, as well as implementing a bonus star system where you can introduce level specific challenges, such as perhaps doing a 1080 on level 3, or not landing on your head, or not breaking any boxes, etc. You could also add a leaderboard in the future if speedrunning is a direction you want to take with this game. - Some controls features I'd recommend: make controller triggers and right joystick also spin, make spinning axis based instead of on/off so that you can slowly or quickly spin (on keyboard you could introduce a mod key such as shift to slow down spinning) Theme Implementation - Being a superhero certainly embodies the theme. Cleverness - Great platformer innovation. Feels similar to how I might feel playing 2D Sonic games. - Add some powerups! Maybe one that turbo boosts your spin rate, makes you invulnerable, maybe allowing multiple air jumps, etc. Gives players something to aim at high in the sky. - Add some environmental obstacles/enemy variety! So far the enemies can't hurt you and simply walk around. Maybe there are pedestrians/bystanders that you have to avoid, pitfall traps, tar/concrete pits in construction zones that slow you down, etc. Artistic Style - Charming pixel style, though there may be some pixel perfect inconsistency/stretching issues. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FCJWPYqV0TI?feature=share - 360, 720, etc popping up is a great detail! - "Poop" graffiti is a bit crass, I'd recommend a poo emoji, etc, to keep it more kid friendly. - Great color choices, love gradients in pixel games, though a trick you can do: although your game is a pixel art focused, you can use vector graphics for BGs and skyboxes and it'll still look nice, if you want. Same for on screen text, see Celeste as an example. Rife with potential, I can easily see the finished product after some polish and gameplay work. Great job! Thank you for participating!
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bQ_ZRIL3GSzJaYJefC897qXOVQgkoBVPs2ufaegfhu8/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.lr899156xjnx
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!
Pogo Boy Saves The Day is a side-scrolling platformer where you play as a pogo-stick riding hero, bouncing off the streets and the heads of criminals as fast as you can.
Using several different bouncing mechanics, the player will navigate through levels and bounce on enemies before reaching the goal. For a full score, players must bounce on all enemies and reach the goal within a specific amount of time. In a series of 6 increasingly difficult platforming stages, players must play and replay, learning how and where to use the bouncing mechanics to achieve the fastest time they can.
Controller recommended but not required. Thanks and have fun!
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
Our interpretation of the theme “You Are The Weapon” is that the player character itself is the projectile, launching, bouncing, and dropping onto foes. A pogo-stick riding, bouncing, flipping character, hurtling themselves through levels, became the vision upon which our game was made.
Is there anything you'd like the judges to pay particular attention to?
The game can be played and finished without using all the mechanics, but the game shines when using all the mechanics to improve your score. After finishing the levels, you can pause to select a previous stage.
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Comments
Cool game with a simple moveset and a lot of skill expression. I could see me playing more levels of this.
Thanks for playing!
Very cute game. Loved the little enemy guys and the game itself was also really fun. Comboing the flips into more movement letting you get more flips was just great. Only thing I wish you could do was bounce side to side by landing at an angle but that might make even more problems haha. Great entry!
We thought about adding bouncing off the walls, but decided to keep it more simple. Thanks for playing!
On the title screen and I already really like the scrolling parallax background, the music and the logo!
The music gives a lighthearted feeling to the game. Also, the graffiti on the buildings only speak the truth, I'm afraid...
The idea of you needing to do tricks to use certain abilities mid air is quite interesting. Going for beating the developer's best time showed me how fun and intricate this mechanic is. You really have to take advantage of it as much as possible to get through some of those best times!
The art of the game is very lovely and the sound effects are fitting. I was surprised with the many different ways you could tackle each level, and planning a proper route through them is key to getting a good time on each stage. I could definitely see this game raising more and more challenges by having more levels that would encourage exploring possible routes.
I really enjoyed this one, it was fun! Here's my total time!
Thanks for the feedback and nice job on the time :)
The game is really well made! In terms of gameplay, I think the mechanics really shine when the playing style is fast paced, bouncing left and right hitting the re-bounce timings and bouncing off of enemies. I understand you set up the control scheme having a controller in mind, but I think they would be just as smooth playing just on keyboard if you add Q and E keys for flips. A solid game!
You can use Z and X to rotate with keyboard also! Thanks for playing!
It's really fun, a cool idea and really polished! My only complaint is that high jump combos are kinda hard to get, but that may be because I was playing on a keyboard. But great job anyway!
A really fun little game! The idea and mechanics were great, the art was also fitting!
The only issues I found were that sometimes the high jumps would not work properly, but it pressing too early, or not long enough. The 360 turn also seemed to not work at times, primarily after an auto jump off of the edge of a platform and spinning. It seems you have to press the space bar most times to get the 360 to go through, not sure if this was intended.
I really liked the combo of being able to do a 360 off the bat, onto an enemy’s head, which then goes into another 360 where I slam down onto another head into another 360. This feels really smooth and satisfying to pull off, though at times, I feel I can chain a slam into another slam, while other times I can’t. It seems that there is something with the automatic jumping when you don’t press spacebar that is stopping some of this from happening.
I feel an indicator of where the character is at (on the ground below the player), or maybe a small “preview camera” of the player would be great, as some levels I actually jump out of the screen boundaries through the top and am not sure where my player is or if I completed the 360.
Other than that, the game seems like a pretty complete minigame that was well made in 2 weeks. Great job!
Thanks for all the feedback!
The game is super nice! Awesome job. From concept to implementation. There are a lot of elements that I really liked and it was fun. Think you nailed it with idea, mechanics and art. Honestly, don't even know what can be improved but I was satisfied after playing the game and I enjoyed it so it should also indicate something :)
Here is my speedrun for this game! Let's see if anyone else joins the competition :)
Thanks! Now i know your secrets :)
The art for this is super charming. I enjoyed the various mechanics and the hide-and-seek aspect of finding the enemies. The movement felt a bit slow to me, like it would have been more fluid if I could have jumped slightly higher and faster.
really had fun playing the game, love the music, love the art concept and mechanics! It is a really nice and strong entry. Well done, really enjoyed the game
Thanks for playing!
I've been playing for a few hours just to beat the dev time, and I think that alone should tell you how much I liked it. Great game!
Thanks so much!! Somebody has already beaten it further down in the comments, I think even their time can be beaten :)
I just saw their time and... I'm sorry
hmm you beat me by... OVER FIVE SECONDS!!! WHAT?? I thought someone could beat my stage 5 but not by that much! I'm kinda speechless. Once the jam is over I'll update the game with your time (if it still stands) :)
These are my times for reference:
If you have a video of how you got close to those times on stage 1,3 and 5 I'd love to see it, especially 5. No idea how you sped up stage 3 by a second either.
Absolutely bonkers! Thanks again for playing and pushing the limits!
Thank YOU for making this game!
I did record a video, it's not my PB but has improved times especially levels 1, 3 and 5, how can I send it?
Also, I've reached below 68.50 and I'm worried that I reach a hard limit before others join the competition...
You're very welcome! Uploading to youtube would be easiest. If you don't want to share it publicly you can make it unlisted and send me the link on discord (@choccymilk) I don't think you have to worry too much about competition!
Great game, the music was nice a chill. I like the reward of the flip mechanic giving you a power up. I also like that the forgiving punishment for landing on your head during a flip was just a sound effect and didn't delay the game play. I though it was nice to have the developer's time at the end to encourage speed runs.
Super polished game--very nice job!
The mechanics felt really nice to use, and the polish is insane for the amount of time. I'm really impressed!
Thanks! I had a little time off work, so dumped a good amount of hours into it!
The level design here was fantastic! Really love how the controls were introduced. The bounce of the pogo stick felt very satisfying and I loved looking for all the silly graffiti!
oh my goodness i had so much fun playing this! the controls are super smooth and i loved the feeling of having to rotate to gain access to the abilities. made me think of laika and doing flips on her bike to reload the gun c: amazing job!
I'm glad you liked it :) Thanks for playing!
Genuinely strong entry. The controls were pretty fluid, though I sometimes noticed myself missing the extra high bounce for reasons I couldn't determine. Not sure if it was too early or too late. But the level design was fantastic, gave me something to test my skills against and I had to push myself to get level 4 and 6 in particular. Great vibe
Thanks so much!
Pretty fun and cute game! The game's presentation is superb too, art style, sfx and music blend together really well.
Very cute game, consistent artstyle and the stomp feels nice and impactful. Reminds me of some games I used to play on Nitrome. Good luck with the jam!
That game was pretty fun! Loved the pixel art it was very cute. Timing the jumps kept me invested in the gameplay while pursuing the objectives. Getting all the enemies was simple enough but getting them quickly seemed like a whole other challenge, I'll have to give it another go and see if I can get a gold star for every level... Although... do the graffiti artists really deserve it? Isn't jumping on their heads from extreme heights with a pogo stick a bit extreme? (Only joking! This game was heaps of fun!)
Thanks for the feedback!