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Gears of Straw's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Actually Fun | #20 | 3.314 | 3.500 |
| Sticking to the Rules | #23 | 3.824 | 4.038 |
| Overall | #24 | 3.363 | 3.551 |
| Promoting the Restaurant | #29 | 2.950 | 3.115 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Trickken was Master King's favourite game last year so we were really excited for your new game! We were amazed by what you produced in a month. The world was so big and detailed but without being overwhelming.
The core mechanic was really interesting - id like to see how that would play out in multiplayer, it would definitely stop people camping! And the glitch stuff was so cool , both mechanically with the file deletion and the visual effects. Great job!
I think it's obvious that the best games are made by families ;)
Thanks guys! It really meant alot to us that MasterKing enjoyed Trikken so much. Honestly, it helped keep us motivated this year, so we’re happy we could deliver on your expectations. By the way, sorry we were never able to add multiplayer to Trikken. Apparently, local coop in the engine was broken (with no planned fix) and online coop was behind a paywall :(
We tried some work arounds but just ended up breaking stuff. We would definitely like to figure it out someday cuz you’re right, Gears of Straw would be fun online!
Ps. Families Rule!
Really like how you've utilised Glerry's design. The mechanic of using water, then sucking it back up is really fun. The movement is great, I noticed holding 1 made Glerry into basically a jetpack, combined with the gliding it made moving around the maps really fun. The twist was incredible, seeing it all change in realtime was amazing, and that roar! Genuinely terrifying, loved every moment of this game.
Thanks for playing egpNoodlez! Ah, you found the secret "jetpack". Yeah it was originally a feature of the game but it basically made going to the center console useless lol, as you could just fly up to the water towers. Still, it was a lot of fun to use while debugging so we left it in ;).
Glad you liked the twist! The "dark world" was a real joy to make and I loved how the dino came out in the end!
Fun mechanic of spraying water and slurping up moisture from the ground. Love the meta interaction and the epic final dinosaur encounter!
Thank you Nowis :D, tbh, Nintendo made it look easy with Splatoon lol. Getting everything wettable was a huge technical challenge but glad we got it right in the end!
This was a really cool submission. I enjoyed the writing a lot and the central water mechanic was very imaginative and well done. The scale of the world was cool and the ending is epic. Great job team!
Thanks Zorgla! Writing these straws was alot of fun (tho a bit tough lol). Really glad you enjoyed it!
In awe at the scale of this game! The server deletion and ensuing boss fight were highlights. Loved it!
Thanks! Those were alot of fun to make and I'm super relieved the file deletion worked across different machines :D
So many cool things in this game. A highlight for me was how you show information such as your health/ammo being visible in your character or texture on enemies changing to look more soaked as they take damage. I always love when a game can show things naturally like that instead of just having another generic bar or number on the HUD.
Thanks Balbod, those water shaders took up a huge portion of the dev time so we're really glad you like them!
So insanely ambitious, but awesome work still keeping the characters and story feel focused and significant, crazy achievement here in a load of ways.
Thanks Lam! We spent alot of time making sure that players felt like they had a lot of freedom but could still follow the story and not get lost. Glad it paid off!
there have been a lot of incredible games this jam, but this is the one that I keep coming back to in my thoughts. y'all went WILD with this, I'm amazed you managed to pull off this breadth in such a quick jam and keep it scoped to the right time frame. Also the visual of your body being full of water as your health/ammo is really smart and sharp but also never stopped making me vaguely uncomfortable (positive). nice work!!
Thanks so much Lkb! So glad we had that effect! Thanks for the super high praise :D!!! I think, dividing the map into three parts helped to guide players to not go over time!
Making the water visible as also the ammo system is a fun reductive way to incorporate the design with UI... which sort of contradicts the rest of the UI elements which I felt was a bit overbearing (though I wonder if that was intentional to hearken back to those older online multiplayer games). Was the entire city handmade? If so, that is incredibly impressive from a modeling standpoint! I feel like city's design also complemented one of the strength of this game, which was actually not doing the objective itself, but rather going away from the main paths to find and uncover those question marks. Overall, I can see ambition behind this game!
Thanks Ebura-ham! The models were from a modular town pack that we rearranged to make the different zones. And yep, we made the UI like an MMO lol. Though, perhaps we made it a tad too big? We were really focused on readability plus we had a small laptop screen.
Also, glad you enjoyed exploring! We divided the map into thirds to try and balance freedom and structure for the story.
Is this our first gliding game? Either way, crazy ambitious game! I loved the meta aspects, and the world's last act transformation was pretty sweet. At first I was worried I crashed the game after I did the deed *wink*. Kudos to the whole Quiet Men team!
Haha! Maybe you could glide in one of the Izzy games from Bruised Egos XD! But glad to add to the history!
Thanks for the encouragement Mayor! Super glad your game didn’t crash (although it might have been more lore accurate lol).
Very cool idea with the real-life aspect of the "MMO Servers" and stuff!
Thank you! Honestly, we had a tough time with planning and motivation this jam, but deleting the server was the idea that made us really excited to finish the game. So we’re really happy with the warm reception.
Very impressive game! The world map was fun to explore. The water mechanics were fun to use. And everything about the ending, including the breaking of the fourth wall, really blew me away. Nice job!
Very impressive game! The world map was fun to explore. The water mechanics were fun to use. And everything about the ending, including the breaking of the fourth wall, really blew me away. Nice job!
Thanks Jabbawabs, your comments really mean alot!
Btw, we want you to know that we fully, 100% believe that you too could make a great game jam game! You could look at our older games, they’re much simpler and alot rougher! It’s super tough at the beginning , but what keeps us going, is the wild ideas we have and our excitement to share them with Kyle and chat.
Sincerely hope you can join next year, in any way you can! Would love to see what you come up with!
Aww! Thank you so much. This encouragement means the world to me! I am so grateful to be part of such a supportive community. I will participate in the jam next year and hopefully make something that gives you some joy too. Genuinely so touched by your comments. :_ ) <3
Loved the open city. Getting to glide down and see that overhead view after each tower was a nice touch. Also loved being able to see Glerry's water level drain/refill in real time. Just really nice presentation throughout. Appreciated the use/non-use of DSD as well. Very nicely done!
Thank you! Glad you liked it! It used to be that the player would just jump off and fall like a rock. It was funny, but I’m glad we got the glide in there.
Really liked all the little details (like the chat & map) in there! Also, the scope was impressive - very cool! :)
Thank you! The UI was very fun to make, especially the map! It took alot of tinkering to get everything working, from the moving markers to seeing the water on the map. Honestly, super satisfied with the results so thank you for your compliments :)
Good game! I love how you can see how much ammo you have left by the water in Goggins' body. Exploring the little city is lot of fun too. Framerate is a bit chunky, but otherwise it's a solid foundation.
Thanks Jim Jam! Glad you played! Sorry about the frame rate, letting every object get wet takes a significant toll on performance since it’s tracking everything at once. But I ironed that out in the performance version so now an object is only tracked when it’s hit by water! Still a little framey but I hope it’s better.
really cool to have such a big game in the jam. really impressed by the ending sequence and i think this has one of my favorite renditions of the dsd rule
Thank you! We noticed that DSD just happens to be absent every two years and since the smoke box is governmental we thought … congressman Dues?
Oh! And thank you so much for streaming our game! It meant alot and really opened our eyes to how confusing the objectives were to follow. There’s no doubt that Kyle would’ve jumped into the wrong sector or missed new dialogue :P
glad it helped, and thank you so much for being there when i did. you helped me get to see how cool it all was <3
The scope is very impressive, and the water mechanic is a cool way to handle health and ammo. The ending was a very cool surprise!
Thanks JasherJr! With the water, we really wanted to design our game around Glerry, and since he was a straw, we thought about him holding water and then sacrificing some of it to attack. We thought it would be a cool little risk and reward mechanic.