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A jam submission

save the potatoView game page

Submitted by iamapersoninexistence — 12 days, 5 hours before the deadline
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save the potato's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun#292.6672.667
Gameplay/Design#441.3331.333
Audio#451.3331.333
Graphics#461.3331.333

Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

What would you like feedback on?
overall gameplay and design

What did you update?
added a new mechanic, 2 new levels and a new engine build for the game

Name of updated upload (if downloadable)
save the potato

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Comments

Submitted

Hey! I don't want to be too harsh on this game since it's quite an amazing achievement to create anything playable within 1.5 hours, but I've got to be honest with you, there's a long way for this game to go before I would consider spending money on it.

Before we get into possible improvements, my first advice is: Definitely do keep working on this project, but don't do it in the hope you'll make any money from it. The reason that working on it is worth the time is that practice is the only way to improve. Right now, it seems like you have a good grasp of how to start with a game, but you don't seem to be very good at polishing and finishing a game. Which is a very hard thing that I'm not very good at, either. That's why we practice.

Okay then. Right now the thing this game needs isn't more levels, but polishing the stuff that is already there. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't add more levels eventually. It just means there are more pressing matters you need to focus on.

Let's start with the fundamental design: This game needs a hook. Not every game needs to be completely unique and novel, but right now, there's just not much there. You need to find some spin on your core mechanic that sets it apart from, say, a maze drawn on a piece of paper. Maybe you can tell some sort of interesting story? Why is your main character a potato? Maybe it's a hot potato and you only have a certain time to get it to the exit of a level before someone burns their hands? Maybe evil Knives roam the levels that try to turn your potato into fries? Think about what you can do that is fun and unique.

Before that, you should probably also work a bit on the gameplay itself. As it seems to be newer, I'll focus on the GDevelop version.

  • The red tiles aren't working. I can touch them and nothing happens. It's even worse in the scratch version, though, where they are working, but give you no feedback and you only realize something went wrong when the exit stops working, too. Even worse, you have to restart the entire game then. This is not much fun for the player.
  • Before the gold blocks are introduced, nothing stops you from just going around the level. Not that it helps much, but still worth noting.
  • The character feels pretty clunky. It decelerates faster whan you don't press anything than when you press the opposite direction. That doesn't feel right.
  • You should maybe take a little time and properly align all the blocks. The way it is now feels a little rushed (which I guess it was) and cheap. Maybe switch to a completely grid-based system for your tiling; I'm not sure how exactly GDevelop works, but I'm sure there's a way to implement something similar.
  • In the long term, this game needs better presentation. Solid blocks are completely fine for prototypes, but they usually don't work in a full game. Even something as simple as an outline might do wonders here. Also, sound effects are pretty easy to produce with tools like sfxr and can help so much with giving the player some feedback or just making the game feel a little more alive.

Please don't let this big wall of text demotivate you! You can definitely be proud of what you've accomplished already. I just don't think you are at a point in your developer journey yet where you should expect to be able to make any money from your games. But if you keep on working on your skills, you might be one day!

Submitted

Pretty cool for such a short development time frame! As an improvment point, letting the player know when they've done something right could be a simple step to making it feel more exciting!

Either way, good job!

Developer

the online browser verson