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Acolytes of Arachne's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics/Animation | #15 | 4.079 | 4.079 |
| Fun/Design | #18 | 3.947 | 3.947 |
| Overall | #19 | 3.732 | 3.732 |
| Music/Sound | #30 | 3.474 | 3.474 |
| Technical Implementation | #32 | 3.526 | 3.526 |
| Theme/Limitation | #33 | 3.632 | 3.632 |
Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game implement the focus, Multi-Use?
Acolytes support each other to get past obstacles, but can be sacrificed to gain different skills
Team Size
Solo (1)
Completeness
Complete Game
What tools did your team use to construct the game?
Unity, Visual Studio, Aseprite, bfxr
Which art and audio did you / your team NOT create?
The music was created by Tony Longworth.
https://tonylongworth.com/
Which art & audio did you / your team create BEFORE the jam started?
N/A
Which diversifiers did you use, if any?
N/A
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Comments
Pretty interesting ideas here. I liked the use of multiple characters and the choices having real impacts on the progress you could make. The colour palette was very pleasing and generally a lot of good work has been done here. I found that the juice in the movement was lacking. It is a constant and maybe unfair thing I get from platformers. I have played so many that feel great that any that are more oldschool in terms of movement feel, compare badly. I am old enough to remember Sonic 1 coming out and if it does not feel at least as good as Sonic did 30 plus years ago, I am going to have a hard time enjoying the movement element of any game. Seeing as that is such a dominant part of any platform game my friendly advice is: that is where a good deal of time and energy should go. This game would have had a massive boost with more juice in that area and it would have elevated all the other good work you have done here. Nice job
Thanks for checking it out and sharing feedback!
It's a valid perspective. I meant to do more in this area, but it couldn't take a back seat to finishing the puzzles. I might come back to this after the rating period is over.
My post jam list is massive. Just trying to make sure I don't open the project until I have done a decent amount of play rating. Once I open it up I wont come back out until it's all fixed up
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
I must admit that this version does not incorporate much new "game juice," but perhaps I will work on this in the future. On the other hand, the soft locks are resolved. :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
This one was pretty fun. I thought I was going to be overwhelmed just reading the control instructions but since the mechanics weren't all introduced at the same time it wasn't bad at all.
I ran into the same bugs that others have mentioned below, so not much to say there.
I sometimes forgot the names of the cultists that flash on the screen when I press a button, so it would be nice to have some sort of indicator (maybe their portrait glows or something) to better indicate which one I should be switching to. And some variation on their appearance would be good too.
Nice work!
Thanks so much for checking it out! I'm glad you had fun. :)
I'll be addressing the bugs after the rating period is over...
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
The cultists still look the same, but you can now bring up a list in the Pause menu and see the status of each (In Temple, Outside, Devoured).
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
The game looks visually great, the sounds are nice, and the level design is fitting.
Having to restart when I missed a jump wasn't fun. And Bethany fitting through his first door was a struggle (He kept bouncing off the ceiling or something, so the jump up kept taking a few dozen tries.)
Also having mouse controls for dialogue was confusing.
Overall, great art and story telling, but I didn't finish when I kept dying.
Thanks so much for checking it out and sharing your thoughts!
I will be making some updates after the voting period closes.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
You'll be pleased to learn that you can now handle the dialogs with the keyboard. :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Great game!
There are some bug, like other mentioned before, and I also got stuck in a softlock near the end of the game, I assume, but so far I really enjoyed it.
The idea of using multiple cultist to solve puzzles is pretty cool and also how you progress in the game was well made. You unlock more and more abilities and not in a fixed order. No matter what you pick you can still solve the puzzles. Clever design!
The visuals are also appealing. It gave me a Prince of Persia vibe. The only thing that bothered me a tiny bit was that the cultists all look the same. I think some minor details, maybe different colors on a belt or something like this would help. But it was totally playable and enjoyable the way it is.
Really good work!
Thanks so much for trying it out! I'm glad you enjoyed. I'll upload a fix to the bugs after the rating period closes.
I did toy with the idea of distinguishing the cultists visually. I couldn't quite make up my mind, and then, of course, I ran out of time, so the decision was made for me.
I also thought of including portraits, but it occurred to me that that would consume more screen real estate. Always tradeoffs...
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
The soft locks should be resolved now; no more getting stuck in the moving platforms.
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Bugs aside this was really fun. Art is consistent and fits well. The story and world are unique, and switching between characters took enough brainpower to be a very engaging jam game without ever being frustrating. It felt great to learn new skills and open up the dungeon like in a metroidvania.
Thanks for playing and sharing your feedback! Really appreciate it.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback. Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Very nice puzzle!
I have encountered some bugs:
- Red Spiders never jump when my character on same floor
- Some spiders walk upside down)
- Sometimes barrels shifts from ropes and hangs in the air
- Unable walk on platforms, that moving up
But this didn't stop me from enjoying the game)
(ah and maybe I sacrificed too many acolytes and have a soft lock, my fault :)
Thank you! I'm working on the bugs, but I can't upload until after the jam. :)
The soft lock is a bug too. It will be fixed in the post-jam code. Sorry about that!
Thanks for the feedback, and glad you had fun.
Oh! I forgot one more thing - don't know it's a bug or not. Some giant spiders not hiding behind curtain but mention it in dialogue. Or maybe I dont understand something.
And I liked fast restarts! Died many times and it would be frustrating if not fast restarts.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
The soft locks should be resolved now, and no more getting stuck in the moving platforms.
The fast restart is even faster now (2 seconds instead of 3).
Spider and barrel behavior should be closer to what is expected now.
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
This is a really polished and nicely designed game. I seemed to get stuck at the end, but I managed to get all of the upgrades and sacrificed everyone except the last character. I found the spikes a little frustrating as they have such large hitboxes (and kill you even when moving up), and I wished there was some jump buffering and faster fireball shooting, but overall the platforming was pretty solid. Great pixel art, animations, and story. Nice work!
Thank you for playing and rating!
The spike colliders and fireball frequency are on my list of things to fix after the jam. What did you mean by jump buffering, though?
Jump buffering allows the player to press jump slightly before landing on the ground so that they jump immediately when they land. It's very easy to implement and improves the game feel. Googling it should bring up lots of tutorials.
Aha, yes! I know what you mean. Thank you!
(Not sure if you noticed, but I did implement a bit of coyote time. I'll consider jump buffering also.)
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
I have not (yet) implemented jump buffering, but I did tweak the colliders on the spiked plates. The cooldown time for all abilities has been reduced, with a handy visual indicator to let you know when the ability is ready to use again.
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Poor Alfred. It didn't deserved an unworthy death ):
This game is fantastic, the pixel art is wonderful and the mechanics are neat!
There are some little thechnical issues, but they don't spoil the fun at all. The only little problem that's a little frustrating is with the spikes hitbox, sometimes I feel like I passed and then Alfred meet an unworthy death... again.
The level desing is pretty good but thinks become confusing with too many acolytes in the map at the same time. Towards the end I lost the sense of what I was doing and I started to move around randomly untill I found the spider with each character.
Overall I liked it a lot, one of the best game I played so far!
Thank you! Really appreciate your checking it out, and glad you had fun.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
I did tweak the hitbox for the spiked plates a bit. However randomly moving around with acolytes is kind of the central mechanic of the game. :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Great game! 4/5 on my scale of great in fact.
So glad you enjoyed! Thank you for checking it out.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback. Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Really cool entry, lot of fun and very atmospheric. Difficulty is a little high for me old chap, but still great fun to play
Thanks for checking it out!
Getting the difficulty right is very tricky in a jam. I thought I made it easy enough, but I probably underestimated the challenge, as usual. Since I play my game 800,000,000 times during development, I end up with a very skewed perspective. :)
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
I'm not sure if it's any easier, but the soft locks have been resolved, and no more getting stuck in the moving platforms!
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Very cool game !
Sadly I got stuck very near the end I think
Glad you had fun!
That platform bug is going to be one of the first things I'll have to fix when the rating period is over.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
The soft locks should be resolved now; no more getting stuck in the moving platforms! :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Wowie, What A Cool Game, Never Expect Something Like That From This Theme And Focus, I More Expected Cooking Games ;P
Thanks so much for checking it out! Glad you enjoyed. :)
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback. Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Very well planned and executed.
Intuitive gameplay that gets adjust based on gained abilities. The levels (or stages) are well designed that is based on initial selection of ability the player can play through the game with a breeze and each time differently.
Minor improvement would be to add some texture in the background to make the differentiation between stages easier (dotted, brick, strip, etc. backgrounds), because at some point I would lose track of who is who and who is where. Nevertheless, this is not a crucial component of gameplay but just for visual identification of game elements.
Overall, fun to play around the levels each time differently.
Thanks so much for playing and sharing your feedback! Always appreciated.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
I didn't really make any graphical updates (yet), but hopefully this is easier to get through with the dreaded moving platform bug resolved. :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
What I liked:
What could be improved
Hope it helps
Thanks so much for trying it out and leaving feedback!
I think I know how to fix the spike colliders.
Unfortunately I didn't get around to adding SFX until very late in the process, so I only did the "basics." :) I might come back to this after the jam is over.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
I did tweak the spiked plate hitboxes a bit, although it's still best to avoid them. I didn't have a chance to work much on SFX, but it's on my to-do list.
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
I like the idea of sacrificing your characters to give your other characters powers, fits with the culty theme really well too. Also great job with the UI! I wonder if this idea could be expanded into some sort of rogue-like or generational idea...
That's a fascinating idea. I'm very interested in random terrain generation, but I haven't experimented with it very much.
For this type of puzzle game in particular, I think it's important for the "locks" and "keys" to be placed manually by the designer. But as I'm not very knowledgeable about random environment generation, maybe I'm wrong about this...
Thank you for playing and commenting!
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback. Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
This is awesome. Really like the art, and I appreciate some little touches like the differently pitched jump sounds, and the general juice of the SFX. Totally digging the “meet a glorious end” goal going on here too. Explaining what happened in each person’s section is such a huge quality of life thing.
IMO the hitboxes are a little unforgiving, especially because you can die by running into the sides of the crushers. Also I wish I could’ve used a key to advance dialogue. I went for long leap and the cooldown sometimes bit me in the ass.
I think I, the player, met an unfortunate end because ferdinand is now stuck in a platform and I can’t even switch characters :( (I may have deserved this because I was seeing what would happen if I switched chars in dangerous places)
Nitpicks:
Thanks for playing and rating! I'm so glad you enjoyed, and truly appreciate the detailed feedback.
A few words about that little "A door has opened in Celestine's section" message: I spent a lot of time on the UX/UI. Because the level is large and complicated, I thought about using a minimap... a compass pointing in the general direction of developments... and other solutions. In the end, I decided that a verbal narration would work pretty well, since the characters are named. You can still see the red "ping" box, which was my original method for drawing attention to unfolding events, but it's not all that useful because 9 times out of 10, the action is offscreen.
Thanks for going through the bugs!
The curtain line is a long story. I neglected to fix it until I ran out of time.
As for the burning obstacle: I agree, that ended up taking too long. I'll simplify after the jam. Note that those aren't pieces of wood, though. They are people cocooned in silk. :)
The platform collision issue has been reported by other players... I don't know exactly what causes it, but I think I might know how to make it go away anyway.
That weird barrel behavior is not supposed to happen, ha! That's what I get for allowing Unity's Physics2D to handle anything at all instead of coding it myself. :)
That’s disgusting, I love it.
Yeah I hope it came across that I really appreciated that. Honestly I never even felt lost because often whenever Id switch chars thered be something immediately before me that had opened up on one of the other chars. I got to a point where I was hitting 2 switches at a time and then it felt like a party platter of things to do. Wanted to call it out because I appreciate the work that went into typing out what has happened to everyone which sounds very entangled
Honestly not sure what the barrels are for but you can freeze constraints on RigidBody2Ds, or make it static if it’s not supposed to move
Glad you enjoyed! It's always great to know that people had fun with something I put together.
The purpose of the barrels is to fall vertically and hit switches that you might not be able to reach. (Sometimes you can reach the switch with a long leap, but you might only have the fireball). Good suggestion on the constraints.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
This includes: The pile of cocoons now burns in one go. The dreaded moving platform bug has been resolved. The Weaver doesn't mention a curtain when there is no curtain. Barrels now behave themselves! :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
This was one of the most involved I've played.
Well implemented, with lots to do, I had fun backtracking to free other acolytes.
Some minor issues with collision boxes, jumping spider having no telegraph and so feeling cheap, getting stuck in platforms and the hymn being too loud. But for a game this size on jam, great!
Well done!
Thanks for playing and leaving feedback!
I think I have an idea of how to fix the platform collision issue, or at least kludge it. I can't make updates until after the jam, though. :)
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
The lava spiders now telegraph their jump--that was a really great suggestion. And the moving platform bug has been resolved. :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Nice, I'll check it out later this week
REALLY GOOD GAME! One of the most unique for sure!
Love the whole theme and atmosphere! And I was really impressed when I noticed this was a non-linear-metroidvania-like game (kudos for that!).
Sadly I wasn't able to finish due to a bug: When I activate a platform one of my characters god stuck on could not move anymore.
Some feedbacks:
Congratulations for the entry!
Thank you! That's very helpful feedback. If I redo this project after the jam, I'll address each of these items.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback.
I have shortened the cooldown on all abilities, and added a little slider visual so you can see when an ability is ready to use. Also, death respawn has been shortened from 3 to 2 seconds. Oh, and the dreaded moving platform bug has been resolved. :)
Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
Great game! The art and idea is good. In the tutorial I thought that all the different keys you had to press would be a bit overwhelming but the way you implemented it made it understandable. I also like how non-linear the game was.
Thanks for checking it out! Yeah, I was careful to include the various funky ability controls in the GUI. I've been burned by that omission before. :)
Glad you liked the non-linear exploration opportunities. I would have done much more with more time. I may return to this one in the future and build it out to a fuller experience.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback. Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
how is this a jam game its sooo good , the artstyle is stunning the music fits very well , and the storyline is cool , I'd like a sequel to this if you had time after the jam (A request not forcing ya :D)
a solid rating from me well done fam!
Thanks so much for checking it out! I'm very glad you enjoyed it.
I might return to this in the future, but if so, I would keep most of the mechanisms in place while redesigning the level from scratch.
Now that the rating period is over, I've uploaded a new version, containing 24 bug fixes and new features in response to community feedback. Feel free to check it out, and thank you again for sharing your feedback!
As for a sequel... well why not? I think the mechanics are strong enough to fit quite a few more puzzles. I'll have to think about this.