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Berry's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fan Favorite | #5 | 4.538 | 4.538 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
There is little I can say about this game that would be a negative. The custom art was amazingly well done, the boss fights were interesting and varied, and the controls were spot on. The story was well done and I honestly can't believe it was done in time for the jam. This was a spectacular title.
Suggestion: Give the spider a health bar. It's frustrating (especially on the the slug boss) to ALMOST have it then lose because you got too close to a bad guy and took ONE hit)
Thanks so much! ^^ I loved your playthrough of it. But yeah, definitely need to rework some things to turn down the difficulty. I'll be sure to fine-tune some things now that the jam is over. 👌
Whoa! What a ton of work you put into this (and in RPG Maker?!). Picked this one out of the top 20 entries on a lark and was happy I did. The pixel movement, platforming, unique mechanics (love the projectile whipping) is really, really impressive. I found the writing and cutscenes to really hit the mark as well. Great entry. I really thought the second boss would be it, and that probably would have been a great game in itself, but it kept going and going!
For a jam like this with a controlled length, I think you really could have focused your phenomenal effort on maybe half the game that you made? I think it would have been just about perfect if you had gotten some story arc to complete by boss 2, or maybe cut a few rooms so reaching boss 3 was a lot faster, and then focused on some awesome artistic scenes to wrap up the experience. It hurts me to have to quit before completing everything, but I think its easy to get fatigued with the challenging gameplay. Regardless of that, amazing job and good luck!
Thank you for the feedback! But yeah, sorry for the length. I really wanted to make a metroidvania adventure where you unlocked really cool abilities whenever you defeated bosses, and had plenty of time to use the abilities. I probably should've made a version for the game jam that made the bosses super easy so they didn't take any time... but idk, the thought of that just sounded so unfun. Ultimately, I decided I would just focus on making the best game possible (after all, I don't think community members voting for the best game have any time limit? you just play for however long or short you want to).
This game has a beautiful opening title scene but missing options. You only have one option and that's for the sound, which is all controlled in one setting. It's pretty standard in RPG Maker games to be able to separate BGM and SFX levels.
I liked the particle stars floating in the background, the silhouette of a spider, the flashing and pulsing title "Berry" was very clearly the center focus. Nice song choice and great start, well done.
Good job showing the spider walking sprite even while it's behind an obstruction. I like the method you've chose here.
The scene transitions are really cool and I like the puzzle/platform/timing tasks. Usually I don't like this sort of stuff, but the controls feel good in this game and it makes it more fun. I found the controls to be just a bit tighter on WASD over controller, so for most of the game I use Controller, but for the boss fights I have to use WASD to beat them.
All the artwork is very well done and I very much like the style.
It took me about five tries to beat every boss, mostly due to trial and error and having to learn the moves. It felt challenging but fair, with a minor exception that the purple fireball on the giant beetle had a hitbox that was too much larger for it's animation.
I was certain that the golden slug would be the last boss as I've been playing for well over an hour now, but nope... The game just keeps going. It's a little too much for a game jam entry, but it goes to show that this project has what it take to become a commercial game. Very well done, and I wouldn't automatically assume this was RPG Maker, but there are some dead giveaways that a trained eye would spot.
Overall, this is a fantastic entry into the game jam. Very well polished with tons of interesting mechanics. Not my favorite style of game, but for what it's trying to do, it does it very well. Great work and keep it up!
Thank you very much for the feedback! I'm delighted to hear you completed the game, I'm extremely honored you dedicated that much time into it. While developing the game, I was a little paranoid the game may be too short (since I didn't have a lot of RPG dialog to fill the time), but I suppose that ended up backfiring on me. XD
Sorry about the lack of options menu. Since all the menus were custom-made, adding a custom options scene was a time-consuming task that I figured would not be as vital for a game-jam game. In retrospect, I regret not taking a bit more time to work on it! >.<
Also, I'm a little disappointed you didn't find controller that much better than WASD? No streamer/judge up until this point has even used controller, despite a lot of the game being tested/designed for using one (360° directional movement, controller vibration, etc). So it's quite interesting that the one person to actually play the game how it was intended didn't enough it that much. 😅 Just for future reference (since I hope to release a full version of the game in the future), could you go into more detail on the controller's lack of "tightness"? Did it just feel like it was too difficult to move in straight lines on controller? Or did the whole thing just feel inaccurate in general?
But yes! Thank you very much for your time, good luck with the rest of the judging!
The controller felt really good, but I have decades of experience with 'ye ole WASD' movement. So when it comes to trying to get the best control I can over the character, I'm just naturally better with WASD from experience. Both WASD and controller felt pretty good actually, especially for an RPG Maker title.
Ahhhh, thank you for the clarification! ^^
Please see Teal's play-through video, as well as her review of the game in the video description:
Thank you so much for the playthrough and feedback! ^^
awesome mechanics, awesome story telling, awesome graphics, awesome level design, awesome, awesome, awesome. I was a little sad that the arrow keys were disabled.
Hi there! Here's a video of me playing through this entry, and I'm going to release my full opinions of each after the results for the first round have been published. Until then I won't let on my judging score or overall review, but you can still watch my playthrough if you'd like! Cheers. :)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1106561790
Glad to see you made it all the way to the final boss! XD I'm super excited to hear your detailed thoughts. Thank you for your time.
I was glad too! Here's my review!
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REVIEW DISCLAIMER
Dear developer! Thank you for making this game :) Here's my disclaimer I'm placing before all my reviews - I appreciate all games, and I consider every creative work a gift from the artist to the audience. The very fact that you made something is worth celebrating! Being a judge of this game, as was stipulated in the rules, I had to play at least up to the first existing hour of every entry and judge the game on that alone - no more than that! If any gamebreaking bugs were found, the game would be disqualified, and I was to judge the game based on the submitted entry by the deadline - without any additional notes. Here is my overall impressions of the game. Again - thanks for creating it! I appreciate every entry, that you gave it your all, and I encourage you to do what you love - if that means making more games, then please do so! Don't let my (admittedly sometimes too brutal) feedback deter you from making future games - I really want you to succeed! Much love, Cash <3
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CASH REVIEWS: "Berry" by ProjectESPider
Immediately, upon playing this game, I had a visceral reaction.
Insects.
A fly passes so close to the screen, its wings fluttering as it zooms close to the camera, that I could practically feel the hairs on the back of my neck stick up. It's safe to say that the first five minutes of this game, I probably visibly *s h i v e r e d* 10-20 times. Something about controlling a daddy long legs spider in this game took me a while to get used to.
This is just a warning to anyone who may be insect-phobic - get ready to squirm a little bit perhaps for the first minute or so.
But the first thing that I noticed once I got over my incredibly skin-crawling reaction to this game filled with creepy-crawlies was that it was incredibly made.
INCREDIBLY, YOU SAY?
Yeah, I said it. Deal! Immediately, upon entering the first screen, you're controlling a spider with pixel movement and platforming that is truly impressive. I can truly say that I don't think I've seen platforming done this well in RPG Maker - period. I haven't played all the sidescrolling/platforming games that I've come by, but the ones I have have featured some platforming that ranges from mildly annoying to frustrating to wanting to stick your head through the nearest door, and to stick that door through the nearest sink incinerator. (Mind the imagery, but you get the point.)
But this platforming - when you jump, it feels right. Dodging bullets like a true bullet hell game, traversing different environments and gaining exciting powers, even though it seems to use the default RPG Maker 2003 RTP graphics (within MZ, of course, obeying the requirements of the game jam), the animations and the mapping and the overall presentation made it truly one of the most gorgeous and reactive games I played.
BUT WHAT'S THE GAMEPLAY LIKE?
Bloody awesome. It plays like some of the best in the genre, truly impressive and balanced, with elevation represented beautifully in the engine, and bosses that are truly fearsome.
BOSSES, YOU SAY?
YES, why do you keep stating the obvious, all capital letters man writing in italics and underscore format! But yes, the bosses were incredibly varied, shooting fireballs and utilising timed mechanics in a smooth fashion.
There are portions where you dodge fireballs, and jumping over them feels like if you die, it's your fault. There was particularly a boss where they swipe after you, and then you have to grab a "web blob" that you will shoot to redirect fireballs towards the blob. This boss is probably the best part of the game. Very hard, and good. They swiped at you in turn, shot big pink blobs, and it was a perfect level of difficulty I felt. I was happy the entire way.
Writhing worms in a swamp areas made me almost want to gag, sadly! But there was some nice story given a civil war was happening of some sorts, and that there was some overall leader that we had to overthrow? I may have misinterpreted the story, but hey, the vibes of the direction were there in some very well-directed scenes.
OVERALL IMPRESSION
It's almost unbelievable the amount of content that is present here, given the jam, and that pretty much all the content is good! A jumping mechanic that is one of the best in the engine, intuitive, smooth, and mind-blowing. I struggle to find any flaws to this game at the moment. The only flaws I may perceive is that perhaps some of the optional challenges may have been too difficult, and I didn't know what the reward would buy me, other than brownie points? But still... that's barely a complaint. I also had quite a bit of trouble with the final boss, but that was also... a good thing? Apart from the visceral reaction I had to controlling a creepy crawly, this is everything I hoped to expect from a game jam like this.
Fantastic, incredible game. Spider-phobic people, beware!... but maybe still play this, anyway? Because it's... that good? XD
Pretty fun, but also very frustrating. Perspective is very much so messed up in this game, so it can be hard to judge jumps and such. It was to the point where I glitched past the last gate instead of doing it properly.
Would have been nice to add a flag to that final gate because moving the boxes to the same spots over and over was a bit annoying.
Controls are a bit frustrating to deal with because you have what feels like two separate control systems. This is partially my fault, but might be nice to have say prompts on controls appear if you are still for x seconds.
You can jump to win on the first 'boss' fight, bypassing the rest of the fight.
The big beetle felt a bit luck based with the boss sometimes just spamming non-fireballs or spamming fireballs without the button, or would do the remove button twice. Also the swipes were not even in speed so sometimes it would move super slowly, sometimes it would move at normal speed, sometimes it would move at fast speed, and one time it was basically instant.
Please skip repeat dialogues on death.
Slug fight was very annoying and difficult and sometimes felt completely unfair. You have to drag the fire/ice into the slug and sometimes they just clip through the slug. This is on top of having to deal with the slug if it attacks you during, which can end up trapping you. The slug's attacking you also felt somewhat forced if you only participated minimally. One time, I jumped and the slug still hit me because it moved so fast.
One of the blocks near the peak seems glitched and a bit off in terms of layering. This also causes your web to fly off into the 0,0 coordinates (top left of the map) without hooking, which obviously causes you to fall if you were trying to make the jump at the same time.
Your web stops charging if it is in a block instead of allowing you to point blank web jump.
It looked like you were supposed to backtrack for a few flies. I wasn't able to because I glitched past the gate, but I do wonder if there was a second ending for getting all the flies.
Thank you for the feedback! Sorry about the perspective, it's somewhat out of my control since it's built around RPG Maker's art and pre-set perspective, but I'm very confident with it's consistency. 😅 Could you go into more detail about the last gate glitch? I know you can jump over it with the grapple ability, but if there's a glitch that's occurring, I'd like to know. Anyway, here are my responses to the other points made:
Ahhh, that's fair. I'll add that if I update the game! ^^
Ummm, I'm a little confused by what you mean with "two separate control systems"? The controls don't change and there's only one way to do each thing (except for the fact there's controller support). The prompt idea is cool... but I didn't even think of it since, well, most games don't need this? Could you go into more detail about why you think this game would need that specifically?
This was intentional. Originally the boss would keep going until you left, but play-testers got confused, so I made it so it ends after a bit. You can finish the boss either way. 😁
This was intentional. Like most bosses, the moves are selected randomly, but there is a system that prevents the same move from being used too many times. So even if you don't get the move you wanted, the chance the next move will be the one you want will increase. I'm a little confused about whether this is a bad thing, since most games' boss battles are a little random when it comes to move selection? As for the swipe, there are only two speeds. The boss indicates it's going to do the faster one by slamming its other foot (and shaking the screen) beforehand. So you gotta pay attention and look for that sign to know if it'll be the faster one or slower one. 😅
I agree >.< As I mentioned in a previous comment, I wanted to shorten them after you see them the first time, but just ran out of time in the game jam. Even so, they're only a couple seconds long, so I figured it would be fine. (And there's only, like, 2 dialog scenes in the whole game anyway)
I agree. Probably the biggest mistake I made with this game was making the final boss a bit too difficult. Unlike the other bosses, it has a health bar, so you control how fast it gets defeated, but if you aren't patient, you'll end up making more mistakes. In the future, I hope to add the ability to let the player get hit twice before dying and lower the max HP of the boss.
Ooof, sorry about this! I'll see if I can replicate the problem and fix after the game jam!
This was intentional. Otherwise, you could just keep climbing the wall forever. 😅 Gotta give it a little space so the momentum of the web actually "pulls" the player up!
You can actually get every fly the first time you enter the room they're in. Some flies may be easier if you backtrack with new abilities, but that's never actually required for any of them. 🤗 Since you can get over the gate using the box and the dash anyway, I should've probably added the ability to go back with the gate their, but like I said, you don't need to backtrack for any of the flies, so I didn't think of that. >.<
It is the grapple jump. Once you do that though and go to the next screen, you can't ever go back.
You have both mouse and keyboard controls would be nice to be able to know what the alternative controls might be. And it is a bit confusing when you have the grapple and tethers both on the mouse. Would have been better if the the tether was on the shift key or something for more natural movement. Was jump on space? I forget. Point is, if I take a break and then come back, I might not remember the controls. Combine that with controls that don't necessarily feel natural (I feel like grapple and tether should have been swapped), the player might have a harder time. Giving the player some remap options, like say for me, space to jump, wasd controls, shift to tether, and left click to grapple would feel the most natural because of where my hand rests on the keyboard. This can get especially confusing when I need to jump, grapple, and tether at the same time.
It definitely felt like there was more than just two speeds. It felt like four speeds to me. Might have been a glitch or maybe my senses were just being a bit weird, but I feel like at least once the swipe was super fast. But with RNG, you can get annoying combinations like string on the upper left corner, button on the lower right.
There might not be many, but for a tough fight where you might have to repeat the fight...
The problem isn't a matter of patience. The slug moves faster than you from what I can tell and it can hit you while you are jumping out of the way in some cases. Combined with seeing fireballs and iceballs flying through the boss and it feels unfair.
Still would have been nice if you could keep charging it at least.
There were two flies that I couldn't seem to get right away. The water fly (I don't think you have jump at that point) and the fly on the cliff (due to perspectives, it made it harder to tell where I was even supposed to jump from if it was possible). These two flies really felt like you needed grapple to reach because with the perspectives one, it felt like I kept hitting a wall. The water one just looked like it was intended for later.
That also brings up another possible issue. I wonder if any of the fly traps allowed you to accidentally grapple jump and lock yourself in.
Ahhh, we'll it's an unintended exploit, and there's no reason to backtrack anyway. >.<
Yeah, I would've loved to add control remapping or more accessibility options... but I mean this was a game-jam game after all. Only have so much time. 😅 There's no point in the game where you're required to use all abilities at the same time, so I didn't think of it, but yeah.
Idk either. Guess I'll wait and see if someone else encounters something like that? As for the placements of the button/web-device, their relative placements are not random! The third-phase is purposely spread out to make it a little difficult. Once again, intentional to make the boss interesting. 😅
Yes, like I said, I agree. It's difficult. There's a whole system that tells you where the boss will dash however. You need to dodge before they start moving.
Yeahhh, sorry about the cliff one. The game recommends controller so you have more precise movement. And it is color-coded so you know the height to jump from.
Every fly trap is only two blocks high, so you would be able to escape all of the ones you enter. Even if you couldn't, the pause menu has a "Restart Level" button, so you can always restart from your last checkpoint even if you did manage to get yourself stuck somehow.
Color coding would definitely be a problem for me... accessibility issue there.
I feels like the button placement was random since I don't think I got the same pattern each time. Unless dying doesn't reset the pattern and it just continues.
This is a hidden gem. You did a great job with the gameplay! The controls felt good, there was a progression in difficulty, and learning new skills throughout the adventure made it refreshing. Also, I loved the dialogue between other bugs and animals.
This is one of those games where I overlook the RTP graphics because you've done a great job with the gameplay. Easily one of the best games I've played so far.
Thank you for the in-depth review, I greatly appreciate your words! I regret not replacing the RTP, it was part of the plan, but I ended up running out of time. 😭 I'm very happy to hear the design of the game shines through despite it.
With that being said, thank you for your feedback! I appreciate your thoughts!
The movement is really fantastic. Are you using a plugin to make the movements feel like they're not on a grid or is that custom?
Edit: that is to say, are you using a pre-existing plugin or writing your own code for that effect?
Thank you very much!! The game uses 100% custom plugins, feel free to check them out in the /js folder if you want to see how everything works. ^^
一个字，无敌！
This is fantastic, don't think I've seen anything like this in RPG Maker before.
VERY COOL CONCEPT! In terms of gameplay this game is by far the best one I’ve seen. I didn’t even know you could make stuff like this in Rpg Maker. You’ve really inspired me! Great job!
this game is pure joy and the effects / animations are very fluid! i love the art style you used as well. great work!
Thank you very much! I'm not much of an artist, but I managed to make everything move nicely together in the code. I'm glad you liked the way it turned out!
Cute spider. I loved the leggy animations ^^
Thank you very much! ^^
They were quite a challenge to put together. >.<