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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
Love the pogo mechanics, and the level design is fantastic! Loved the idea of 'beat the developer's best time' aswell. Great job to all involved!
Love the gameplay mechanics. Would appreciate something to tell me if I press space at a right moment but apart of that I think you did a great job. Very creative mechanics and nice experience
Our intention was that the changing color of the particle trail would let you know if your timing is right, along with the changing sound of the jump. Thanks for the feedback!
The game is pretty fun! But I was confused on when you could "dive" from a jump. Otherwise the level quantity is pretty high, so good job on that!
Such a fun game! Everything feels really polished. I like the power orb mechanic and how it adds to the difficulty by you not just having to jump around and time jumping to get a boosted jump. I fell on my head often times... 10/10
Very fun ! So polished !
That was fun to complete. Everything was so well made I don't have much to give for feedback. My only nitpick would be that I couldn't use a powerup as soon as I did the 360 but rather when I landed. That could be intended and gives it a mechanic to learn, but it slows down movement and end time.
I really liked the controls and the idea! I think the theme implementation was a bit shallow but the game itself was really fun, I was a bit sad it didn't go on for too long. I also think it could have benefited from a bit more challenging levels. Overall a really good job!
Awesome game! I really like the idea. The music and SFX fits good with the art style and player movement! THe movement itself could be a bit smoother sometimes, but I also played via keyboard (other than recommended). Very good work and I hope you keep going! :)Nice art, every level seems bit chalenging than previous it has nice curve to it, power jump feels great.
Really fun game here! Level design was nice, art is great, and the pogo controls felt very smooth. Loved being able to flip around in the air for the power ups as well. My only suggestion would be to make the correctly timed jumps feel a little better (maybe have the player stick to the ground just a little bit longer to give that feeling of charging up a big jump?). Regardless, great game, nice work!
the art is really cute and i love the music and sound effects a lot well done ! I was really struggling with the moving platforms haha I am just really bad at platformers (and i was on mnk instead of controller) but i think it will be very cool to see people speedrun these kinds of games!
Really fun to jump around and the mid air trick is a good way to have power-up!
Nice graphic and cute animation Love it!
Pogo Boy to the rescue against random racoon sprayers! Cool game, loved the spinning mechanic. Took me also a bit until I found the right key on a keyboard. (I know it is controller recommended but I was too lazy :P)
Well done guys!
Glad you had fun, thanks for playing our game!
Who need Superman when you got Pogo Boy? Love the art and the concept (though I wonder how graffiting the air is a crime LOL)
The graffiti is harmful for the environment when used willy-nilly, especially
Appreciate the feedback on the art, thanks for playing our game!
The art is cool and I like the parallax effect. I would have liked more to do or more mechanics to interact with while traversing the level, and I struggled to do the ground pound properly.
Thanks for the feedback! The ground pound doesn't work if you're too close to the ground and you need a power orb.
That was fun! I think the pogo-stick idea was quite unique! It was a bit difficult for me though (no gamepad) – I wish there was an easy mode haha.
Really liked the mechanics of this one. The flipping was great and I really liked that you had a few easter egg spots scattered around.
Thanks for playing our game, and that you also found all the easter egg spots ;)
This game was really cute and fun, i enjoyed it a lot :) i had a good time going for the stars :)
Really great game! I enjoyed the unique platforming mechanic, and I'm really impressed with the visuals
Very polished game. From the buttery smooth controls, great sprite work and side objectives for replayability. As much as I wished for a bit more level variety, for a short jam like this it`s more important to get the core mechanics right and you guys succeeded at making a game that feels great to play. Good job!
Appreciate the feedback. We wanted to do more levels but just ran out of time!