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A jam submission

Doodle PipView game page

Running, Jumping, or Pumping — Doodle Pip is Very Active!
Submitted by Xin Jin Meng (@xinjinmeng) — 2 hours, 12 minutes before the deadline
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Doodle Pip's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Stealth#123.7314.105
Kink#333.0623.368
Sound#382.9183.211
Play#532.2482.474
Overall#562.3972.637
Aesthetic#562.5352.789
Harmony#582.5352.789
Ambition#642.0092.211
Novelty#662.1532.368
Horny#691.6741.842
Narrative#721.1001.211

Ranked from 19 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

A very cool game. Gives me some retro game feels like dig dug and bubble bobble which was really fun. It seemed there were a few things unfinished and I was unclear what my objective was, and if I had met it. Conceptually, it was really fun, interesting character, interesting enemies, a tune that really gets stuck in your head. Really fun. ~

Submitted(+1)

A pretty interesting concept, reminds me of dig dug a lot, which I enjoy.

It's a bit rough around the edges and the level is missing finalized graphics, but it's over all a solid project. The design of the main character and the enemies are really nice and go well together. The music is fitting for the clown theme, and the inflation bit I can see someone being into kink-wise. I appreciate that you're invulnerable as you inflate enemies, since many came in packs and could've easily defeated you as you try and get rid of them.

In general it's missing some polish but it's well thought out and well executed, nice work!

Host(+1)

feature report: i can jump up into a ceiling and simply ascend to victory

the music absolutely makes this.  wish there were more!  even a couple single-screen levels or something.  a good time while it lasted though

Submitted(+1)

Though obviously unfinished, was still very charming and what limited animation there was well done.

I wish you the best of luck developing this further!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I have to admit, I laughed out loud at this.  It's rather incomplete, but what little there is is just about perfect.  I love the faces of the enemies when they blow up like balloons, and I love the exuberant confetti that comes out.  And the 8-bit ragtime is the perfect background music for it all.  Timing when the inflation animation ends so you don't get pounced by another enemy is pretty challenging.  And I like the idea of speccing it to an actual console too, though I never owned a master system, so I can't say how authentic it is.

Developer

Thank you for your kind words. 💙 I hope to finish this, but in the spirit of the game jam I feel I should wait until judging is done.

Like the NES, the SMS has a maximum of eight 8x8 sprites per horizontal line. The current implementation wouldn’t work on genuine hardware. The workaround is that SMS video memory is directly accessible, so it would be possible to use tile memory to simulate the inflations. I have a theory on how to implement that, but in the interest of getting the basic game to work before deadline, I simply used sprites. 😅

Submitted

Oh that makes sense.  You'd have to snap the inflation animation to whatever size the tiles are, but I could see it working.  I guess if you're clever you could try using tiles for the solid red parts to save sprites, and use sprites for the edges to get more resolution.

Submitted(+1)

The game controls well, with some somewhat buggy interactions like being able to float by using the pump or move through walls. Those can actually be used to your advantage since some older games had plenty of quirks like those in them. I feel like you should be able to use the inflated enemies for something, either rolling them or jumping on them perhaps?

The characters are neat, but the background is a bit too clashingly bright on the eyes. The inflation, deflation, and explosion animations are very nicely done! Sound effects are usually an important part of inflation themed games, adding a few rubbery noises could dramatize the action. The original soundtrack fits the tone of the game really well and I was surprised by how varied the title screen loop becomes if you stay on it too long!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your kind words. 💙 Choosing colors with the Sega Master System palette is a bit of a challenge - it’s all pure saturated 3-bit RGB.

And definitely, there needs to be sound effects! The SMS sound chip has two kinds of noise generators, there’s plenty of options available. I’ve been getting more experience with chip-tune arranging. Ragtime is especially good: public domain, simple melodies, and lots of variations to fill out the time.

I have pondered that maybe inflated enemies could be manipulated. 🤔 I didn’t want to be too much like Klonoa. Here’s hoping I get to revisit this soon!

Submitted

I think you can harmonize fully saturated colors too, it's more about the distance that they are apart that makes them clash. Pip's nose color in the background will look milder even though it's just as saturated as the dark blue, but it's closer in tone to the green ground. I always try to avoid using maxed out RGB and CMY colors as fills, they have too strong of a visual impact. People had ray-tube televisions back in the day of the Sega Master System and the colors got washed out by how they were displayed and the distance that players sat from the screen. What we see on our modern monitors is very different from what highly saturated colors used to look like.

Submitted(+1)

I like the music! What sprites were there we good too. It is indeed very old school, in that losing is a bit too easy and the controls are a bit too frustrating. (The summary page for this game is a delight, by the way.)

Submitted(+1)

I liked the character designs, and the way it played like an old atari game.

Very nostaligic feelings. I would love to see it get an ending if all enemies are defated.

To give it a little more substance

Developer(+1)

Thank you. I plan to come back to this later, my original design document has a fair number of ideas. Coding is hard! 😭