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Charmer Cat's itch.io pageAre you participating in the Novice, Intermediate, or Advanced category?
Please explain why your team qualifies for the category you chose.
I qualify for the novice category since the only game jam I ever participated in was far longer than a week (Mushroom Jam). Also, I only started learning game dev recently, I have less than one year of experience.
How does your game relate to the theme?
The game really materialized itself around the word "Charm". You play as a charming cat, on a quest to charm the world. Your charming powers are given to you by a talisman powered by charms, that you wear on your tail.
There is charm as a quality of the main character, charm as a game mechanic/ the action of delighting someone and charm as a trinket/magical item.
I've written the word charm so many times already, it's starting to lose all meaning..
Specify any and all pre-made assets in your submission.
The only external asset I used, disregarding fonts, is the soundtrack "Origins" from this soundpack by Bit By Bit Sound: https://bit-by-bit-sound.itch.io/16-bit-starter-pack
Feedback?
Where can we contact you?
Discord UID: 701358082500067349
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Comments
You gave feedback on my game and asked for some from me, so here's the spiel:
Graphics - You do pretty nice pixel art for a beginner, and actually I could say the same about the entire game as a whole. The music is nice, although the only other sound effect was the meow as far as I could tell.
Game Loop - This is a semi-puzzle story game. You talk to people, and charm them in the correct order by getting into their hearts. Very sweet and succint. Nice job.
Gameplay - You move left and right exclusively in the world, which means I didn't really have as much freedom as I'd like for a story game. In the heart maze, I moved so fast and got carpel tunnel. I think if you still want the difficulty of movement, you should add ice physics, so the player is simply rewarded for patience. But other than that, the different gameplay mode is very nice.
I think it would be very nice to also have WASD for movement, and perhaps a different button to skip through dialogue as well. As it stands, you need three hands to play this game (arrow keys, e, and click through dialogue.) Are you using a game engine for this?
Polish - What was there was polished nicely. There was only one level though, and the first time I played I chose to view the ending. It was a static image that you had already saved as a screenshot LOL. I was unable to continue or even restart from there, so I refreshed and played again. Continuing to the right, I just got stuck in the demon room XD.
Misc IDK - I liked how it was Pokemon style you have to meet eyes with the person. The animation for the cat is nice, but it was too slow for the walking (maybe speed up anim)
I feel like the narrarator doesn't really have my best interests in heart. He's completely trapped me. Also why do I have an inventory in the top left? Also the bird cloud is funny. Also the rabbit has red eyes lol. Also she is still holding a sandwich after I've eaten it.
OK. That's all. It was only a 3 day game jam after all.
Wow, that's a lot! Thank you so much for taking the time try my game out and write all this feedback, I really appreciate it.
Those are all very good points about the gameplay, I'm really mad at myself for forgetting to add wasd movement before releasing. I'm using Godot and doing that is incredibly easy, I did it the next day after the jam ended in 2 minutes at most, it just slipped my mind to do it beforehand.
Also, ice physics is a great suggestion, I have been thinking of ways to tweak the maze mechanics as I've been working on the next stages, and that should feel less frustrating, ideally. (I'm really sorry for causing you carpal tunnel syndrome)
As for polish, I've yet to dabble much into sound effects, though that's probably something I should focus on for my next game jam.
And to address some of your questions there: the narrator is the furthest thing from an unbiased, neutral entity. That aspect doesn't really get to shine in the content that's currently available, but I'm glad you picked up on it. The rabbit - another suspicious creature with weird interests, the red eyes are generally the norm for albino rabbits, the murderous tendencies are not though.
Again, I'm really thankful for you giving my tiny little game a chance. I know it's unpleasant in many ways, but it's all a learning experience in the end.
Pretty neat idea, switching between walking around and the maze! I do wish the mazes started to have some more obstacles, such as a moving wall or anything to increase difficulty. Other than than, I really enjoyed the art and vibe of the game, nice entry!
Many thanks for the feedback and for the ideas! I'll make the mazes increasingly difficult in the following stages of the game ;)
I loved this game!!! The dialogue is funny, the art style is cute, and the maze puzzles were embarrassingly difficult for me... I'm definitely gonna come back to this game, excited to see whats in store!!
I'm happy to hear that you liked it! I'm sorry if the mazes were difficult, it was hard for me to scale the difficulty because I played them so many times that I got really good at them. I could do most of them in one try so I actually thought they were too easy, even though I struggled at first too.
Also, I do indeed have more in store for this game! I hope you'll check it out once I finish it :)
AHHHH the art style is so adorable!! I picked the family ending :)) They are so sweet and cute. The music, alongside the art really does bring about a soothing calm atmosphere. The cat's little meows are to die for too ahfhds
I'm really glad you enjoyed the game! The family ending is about all there is for now, but more will come eventually. Thank you for playing, I had a lot of fun playing your game as well!
Cool idea and a charming implementation! :D
bahahaha, I love your game! You have great sense of humor, too.
You might be novice by the experience, but you're definitely very, very talented.
You might actually score high in the novice department!
Anyway, here's more detailed feedback:
Art: 9/10. VERYYYYY CUTE, indeed. you've a great artstyle.
Music: 7.5/10. Calming, but unnoticeable. more sfx would fix this.
Theme: 11/10. Very nice idea. And the maze thingies are very smart, too.
Code and implementation: 8.5/10. A few hiccups in dialogue here and there, but still good overall.
KEEEEEP it up!
Thank you so much for the feedback! It's always appreciated ;)
I'm glad you liked my sense of humor, I was afraid it wouldn't come through all that well. As for the artstyle and coding, all I can say is that this novice is learning and growing!