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EchoBall!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay/Design | #22 | 2.800 | 2.800 |
| Enjoyment | #28 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
| Originality | #28 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #32 | 2.638 | 2.638 |
| Theme | #36 | 2.150 | 2.150 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your entry fit the theme?
The game uses Echo to disable players movement if collided with them! a twist on the classic!
What would you like feedback on?
everything! since its my first time I wanna learn and improve with future jams ^^
What assets did you use (if any)?
The Text Animator as stated along with some images I used in canva though I got license for :)
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Comments
This is a pretty sick game! I totally feel you with the time crunch lol. I was impressed by the initial design of the characters, but I think it's missing some animation to liven it up a little. The title screen is sick, I think I really captures the game as a whole/beginning (as title screens should do).
The AI is impressive, especially considering you only had, like, three days to make it!!
Only thing I'm missing is the theme, but maybe I'm not quite understanding it. It's funny, when ideas come to us game devs, we expect everyone to understand them. That's always been one of the tougher sides of game development for me: conveying my ideas properly.
I think you did a really great job of that until the reverb things. I don't get those. Either way, awesome job!
Oh, I also really like the mechanic where you can hit the opponent's dodgeball with your own. I know that's just like regular dodgeball, but still! That was probably pretty hard to code lol.
Thank you for your feedback! I'm really glad you found it impressive! and yeah I get why, the idea was actually inspired by well...dodgeball! like back in school playing that game in the gym the loud echoing of the ball hitting walls really inspired my idea for the theme! However sadly due to crunch time (you can see where I rushed, via lack of animations for characters and the "echos" being bugged) and because I didn't get the time to add a more "echoy" effect to really emphasize it it didn't really work as I liked! Def gonna try to make a big patch after the voting and adventure jam I'm doing haha!
Thank you again! I'm excited to polish this way more and make it a more better product! and the feedback really helps ^^
Fun little game, I don't really get the "echo" part but it's good for what it is (which is a game made in 3 days!) :)
Forgot to say, I Really liked the music :D
thank you! yeah the echo part got bugged out due to misspelling (I was rushing near the end haha) but the second voting is over im def gonna patch things >:)
also thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the music! made the time worth it!
Nice work, the various modes is impressive, although as mentioned by others the echo mechanic does not seem to trigger, but I like the ball deviation when the hit, it makes the game way more challenging and surprising this way. The computer AI is also a really nice touch, well done implementing that in such a short time. Nice entry overall, good job, especially if it is your first time!
Aw, thank you so much! Yeah, I discovered the issue behind it. It turned out to be a simple typo with the tags. The echos were set to detect a "dog" and "cat" collision, but they were tagged as "Dog" and "Cat." Silly punctuation mistakes, ugh! >:(
So, oops! But as soon as the voting ends, I'll be able to patch it up, along with adding a few more abilities. While testing, I realized that the stun ability might be a bit unfair and easily spammable. So, I'm considering removing the stun and introducing new effects instead. Maybe something like getting dizzy and inverting controls? Who knows! I have some plans to give the echos a bigger role and mix up the strategies. I might even add special balls or power-ups! Sorry, I got carried away with ideas, haha!
Really, thank you! I'm proud that this is my first solo project that I managed to complete. Being a generally slow person, it was a challenge for me to push myself both in terms of confidence and mental fortitude to finish this game. I'm thrilled that the feedback has been positive so far! (of course wish i had time to fix the bugs that are there before submitting :( ) I'm also excited to play your games, both the ones you've made now and the future ones you'll create. Can't wait! ^^
The game presents itself very well and is quite polished. Throwing and hitting the opponent while getting it ourselves is pretty satisfying. Art is nice and as others said, great work on including local co-op and competitive modes, that was insane.
The only downside is also the main twist of the game: I didn't really understand how the echo mechanic worked. If you walk onto a "3-amplifying-bars" icon it doesn't stop your movement :\
Thank you for the feedback! yeah it was insanity but im proud I got it in!
as for the twist, it seems that it got bugged and rarely/doesnt at all work! for some reason the collision freaks out and doesn't work! I already got it near fixed for the next patch/update once voting is over! If I can I also plan to add maybe a new ability or two! but we'll see ^^
thanks for the feedback, sorry the twist did get all bugged, but I ensure you I'm already fixing it >:)
I absolutely love the artistic direction of this game! Definitely one of the more visually appealing entries in this jam! Even the itch.io page looks good and it's great to see that you plan to continue development and are going as far as to create devlogs.
Managing to include local multiplayer in your first jam is incredibly impressive especially seeing that it's pretty well polished!
In terms of critiques the other reviewers here have covered the bases really well so I unfortunately don't have any criticisms beyond what everyone else has provided, just keep working at it and I think you'll have a really cool looking and unique product here. I'm excited to see where this project goes.
I'm also new to game jams so I totally get having bugs in the game, honestly great work even finishing the project as that can be a trial in of itself. Best of luck in your future development!
aw thank you for the feedback! I'm very glad you enjoy the art! as that is mostly my specialty haha! I was heavily inspired by old atari stuff and along with those old fnaf arcade minigame portions for it!
I'm also happy everyone seems to be glad/impressed with the content packed in, it made the time crunch and cups of coffee worth it hahah! Thanks for your kinds words and feedback! I'm excited to showoff future updates, patches and games >:)
man, that was an oversized screen, the gameplay was fun, but it's pretty rough around the edges. i was pity that I don't have a friend to play it with. you did a lot for such small amount of time tho
yeah I seen some people talk about the screen for sure, mainly cause due to my not as big knowledge on unity I did just stick to one size, though I plan for the future to make it all scale to any screen! (been watching some tutorials haha) I agree the gameplay def needs some tweaking! which is the main plan (along with bug fixing) for the future of the game!
thanks! for a first time I'm proud! I know it ain't perfect but seeing everyone at least compliment the amount of stuff packed into this made all of this worth it! same with the feedback! thanks again and I'm excited to show off future patches and updates after the voting >:)
Go for it, man!
First of all, congratulations on finishing you first game on time for the jam!
The screen was too big for me so making it to scale to different devices would be nice, i couldn't see the options very well but i managed to play just fine (the field was uncropped).
As other pointed out, the echo mechanic is lacking a little, i also didn't feel any difference when touching it, you could also make it move/bounce after some time.
For the bugs i found:
Learning the force field
In coop mode (or any other mode that has small field i think), if you go top left or bottom left the npcs can't hit you, so when the field get smaller you can get out of bounds and become invincible, but you can't actually hurt them, you can go back to the field but you won't be able to go back outside.
Also in pvp, when i go bottom left and shoot, the ball detects a wall and collides in front of the player.
Overall the game is fun and challenging (i really liked the music), maybe a skill or items on the field would help, also having some sort of visual effect for the cooldown of the ball to know when to shoot, and animations for the characters, other minor nitpick is that sometimes the ball goes under the field (like, the images of the faces of the characters), maybe some work on the depth of the images are needed. I see that you worked really hard on the game and is a really good start for you game dev journey, i will be checking out for future updates on your games!
Hey, thanks for the feedback! I'm thrilled you enjoyed the game and I'm pumped to work on future updates!
I agree the echos need more impact, and there's definitely a bug or two causing issues. Time constraints got the better of me, but I'll fix those bugs and make the echos wave away as planned! Also plan on adding some abilities and increasing their size a bit more just to make it more impactful on the gameplay!
Thanks for pointing out the screen and collision problems. I plan on getting the scaling done and make it so that the player teleports back if they leave, just in case! And I've got some fun ideas for new stages and hazards in the pipeline >:D (maybe even more characters and animation?)
I appreciate your feedback and I'm diving right into fixing those bugs. Hope you'll enjoy my future work and updates!
Other than the bugs others have mentioned, the game feels polished and complete, which is huge for a game jam. The music selection is nice, the Text Animator you used is charming, and the animated rainbow effect on the title of the game just made it all feel overall better to me, even if it wasn't directly linked to the gameplay.
Gameplay-wise, it felt alright. I never felt the central gameplay gimmick of touching the echoes disabling your movement controls; they were too far to the left to ever come into play, and even if I did go out of my way to touch them, it didn't seem like anything happened. The echo balls colliding with eachother did intrigue me, though; part of me wonders if there's something to explore with making the shots bigger and slower, such that colliding with the enemy shots occurs more frequently, which could potentially be exciting/interesting to play around.
Regardless, this is solid for a first attempt!
wowzah! thanks for the feedback!
I do agree the gameplay could def feel better! again I was focused on so much things some parts were sadly overseen, the echos are the main thing I feel like I could've improved the most, since I do know they're very very small to really affect much, I tried to make them more tricky to dodge by shrinking the stage, but yeah I'm already going back to change a lot of things! and fix those pesky bugs!
It seems the echos aren't working too well/at all either? that's very very odd? I'm gonna check that out and see why that's going on, cause that's bad if one of the meant to be main mechanics aren't working o.o
and yes! you can clearly see stuff like the ball colliding is meant more for the future! I got some fun ideas for it, since I plan to make echos have more impact and possible effects ;)
thanks for you kind words and constructive feedback! I'm glad despite the bugs here and there many people are enjoying the game ^^
This is hard ! I don't know if it's just me but it always seemed like the AI could shoot way more often than I could. Also it's a shame the echoes are too small to have a big impact on the gameplay, because the idea itself is really original !
Hey! firstly thanks for playing!
second, yeah that's one of the main things I messed up on, the "Echoes" don't have as massive gameplay focus as possible, I tried to fix that by making it so that the stage shrinks, making them harder to avoid, but once the voting ends I'm 100% going back to patch it up!
as for the AI that's the left over of hard mode! also I am planning to adjust the cool down on the bot, but originally I planned to have 3 difficulties for both the co-op and the single vs cpu mode! of course maybe keeping the hard only wasn't the best call o.o I just like challenge in games but yeah it was unfair for the ai to be super fast dodgeball throwers (co op is hell mainly trying it myself o.o)
Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you like the idea! and I do plan on making this a bigger game! since it'd be fun to add some powerup balls or have the echos do some extra effects ;) (also fix the dam pause menu hahaha)
Make sure all the buttons work before submitting, or at least the ones that ensure that the player can complete a game loop. But i'm guessing you already know that.
Now for something that might help you in the future. when making pixel art in unity you can click the imported image file and in properties set filter to "Point(no filter)" and Compression to "None", like so https://imgur.com/a/ZIwLltd this ensures that when scaled to a bigger size the image doesn't become blurry
Thank you for your feedback and helpful tip! I completely agree that there were some bugs and glitchy buttons in the game, particularly with the pause functionality (stupid bugs >:(). Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to address those issues. However, I see it as a valuable learning experience for future game jams! and I'm 100% gonna go patch those up once the rating period is over!
I genuinely appreciate your suggestion regarding pixel art in Unity. As someone who is still relatively new to Unity, I found your tip regarding the "Point (no filter)" filter and "None" compression settings very valuable. It's great to receive feedback and learn new techniques that can enhance the visual quality of pixel art in larger scales. Thank you for taking the time to share that with me! again thank you so much! I'm happy to learn such valuable info for my first solo game jam ^^
A few of the buttons don't seem to work, like the main menu button from the controls screen or the buttons for main menu and quit after playing a match. Other than that though I think the idea is original and I'm kind of impressed to see a multiplayer game for the game jam, as well as one with an AI mode.
firstly, SUPER THANK YOU! Im glad you thought this was original and impressive! it really makes all this time worth it!
as for the button issues, I 100% can say that's my bad, I may've accidentally in my rushing to finish everything (since my main focus was mechanics and artwork with music on the side haha) forgot to properly fix that! (the pause menu mainly is a mess somehow o.o)
basically I made some oopsies and forgot to tell the game what it should do with those buttons o.o
I do plan on fixing it the second I can! but I do truly thank you for bringing it up! ^^