Play Jumpy!
Jumpy!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| THEME: How well the theme is used? | #22 | 3.280 | 3.280 |
| INNOVATION: Does the game innovate in some way? | #37 | 2.400 | 2.400 |
| ENJOYMENT: Is the game enjoyable to play? | #38 | 2.360 | 2.360 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository
https://github.com/Open-Mint/Jumpy/
Team members
positi
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Comments
It seems like it could have an interesting idea. Visually, it reminds me of old flash puzzle/timing games. I would like to see where this goes. Keep working on it.
Some issues:
Thanks for playing!
Can You explain what you mean by first issue? Is it the 'Quit' button or the fact that it's all static with just a couple of buttons? If former, it was kind of intended to work on PC version but this way on web it just closes weirdly but at least it has this fun option. If it is latter, animations and other kinds of effects were really out of scope for my knowledge, maybe one day I'll implement something similar.
The information about where you need to be in order for blocks to move was left out intentionally because I didn't know how to balance the game so I decided to let the player explore how things work.
The effect of E wasn't intended to be clear. There are actually two effects: one is a downside and one is an upside. One helps, one doesn't help. But theoretically, even the one that doesn't help can help. It was again left out for a player to explore.
E can be used twice in one round: start and stop. That is the purpose of stopping the blocks, to go and hide behind them while time is stopped :)
What I mean is that moving the player dot off the screen causes the game to end. It would be nicer if movement off screen was prevented, or if maybe the screen wrapped around. I often would accidentally go off screen while trying to avoid a triangle, and the game would end unexpectedly. At the very least, the game should have something to warn the player that going off screen is game over.
There is a difference between gameplay that is unclear, and gameplay that is merely unknown. Learning things can be fun, but trying to learn through ambiguous, misleading experiences is not. Simply hiding the information your players need to understand the game will not make it more interesting. If anything, less.
The idea of having to avoid enemies is good. But the game falls a little short as the levels are quite repetitive and only a little faster that the last one. Also it is not that clear to begin with that you have to be at curtain places for the triangles to move. And i never found out that the E key does.
Level design is probably one of the biggest challenges to any game I've tried making, however I hope it will get better with time and practice! There is a plan to add many more levels and boosts in future for this particular game and I sure hope that will make it more interesting than it is now.
About triangles movement, it was an intention as that way player has to explore, a game, that isn't really long at all. Saying these things at the beginning would probably just spoil the game that has not a lot of content anyways. There was also an issue of balance - not to easy not to hard.
E ability does appear, but the chances are randomized by a certain algorithm(feel free to check out source code for more explanation but keep in mind that the code might feel a bit messy - or at least it feels like the for me). So the only way to find that E power up is to play more(therefore increasing chances of being the right "seed" for an ability). Thanks for playing!
I’m curious why it’s called Jumpy? You don’t really jump in the game, unless I’m missing something.
Anyway, I wish it was a bit faster paced :)
It was supposed to have jumps in it, but that game idea was cancelled due to having a (probably) more unique idea. So, instead of just renaming the game, I decided to keep it named like that! :)
Balancing levels and making the game playable but not too hard or not too easy was really a daunting experience as I've never done things similar to this. In reality, there could be a lot of levels between level 1 and level 3, but that is something for some future update beyond the scope of this (already finished) game jam.
This was also my first ever submitted working game in any jam, so if there are any suggestions with code or with anything else, feel free to comment about them! Thanks for playing!
Congratulations on your first fully finished-and-out-there game! :) Balancing is definitely tricky.. I think the best way to approach it is to just have a few people of various gaming skill levels play your game as you watch what they do. That’s not only great for finding a good difficulty balance, but it will also help you find other things you might not have noticed. Good luck on your game making journey! :D
Thanks! Well, the only tester was me unfortunately. What do You suggest, how to make game tests with remote testers? Is it okay to be posted here as a game then updated/reposted and then submitted to jams?
Most of my playtests were also done online. I built a Windows desktop version of the game and sent it to friends, and they streamed themselves playing it over discord.
I also think you can publish the game to twitch in such a way that only certain accounts can access the game - that way you can have it be online without actually submitting it for the jam.
But I also saw a lot of people submitted their games early, and kept updating them before the deadline.