If this ain't the most radical, polished best playing retro platformer in the whole jam than I'm crazy, 6/5 stars
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Trash Quest's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sound | #3 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Visuals | #5 | 4.694 | 4.694 |
| WOWIE! | #48 | 3.889 | 3.889 |
| Fun | #54 | 3.944 | 3.944 |
| Simplicity | #315 | 3.722 | 3.722 |
| Creativity | #326 | 3.361 | 3.361 |
| Topic | #617 | 2.639 | 2.639 |
Ranked from 36 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Music Source
MoppySound
Credits
Francis Vace
Comments
Your game is so clean its amazing. All the components work so well together and fantastic colour scheme might I add. If you have time, I would really love if you had a go at my game :)
Submitted
GranniesGrumbleThis game looks great, and it's incredible that you were able to make it in three days. That said, I didn't really feel like failure was progress in this. I was not a fan of having to die every time I opened up a shortcut, and found myself skipping those just to I wouldn't have to go back and start again. Still, very impressive to see a fun metroidvania game made in such a short time.
Submitted
A Mechanical LifeThanks for the feedback :)
I am starting to see that I didn't quite communicate it well enough, but I had meant for the doors to be a risk-reward decision. Do you take a temporary setback to open the permanent shortcut, or do you continue on without a safety net? Like a reverse of Shovel Knight's breakable checkpoints. So the way you played was one of the intended options.
In hindsight though, I think there are a number of reasons they don't quite work, so they'll likely just be regular unlockable doors in the post jam version, lol
This game is massive for a game jam! So much stuff to explore, and what's crazier is that all of it is quality. Great game feel, charming graphics, solid level design, varied and catchy music tracks. All around really great work!
The "failure is progress" theme here feels a little shaky -- leaving behind a heart when you die is an interesting idea, but I feel like it doesn't really play into how the overall game plays moment-to-moment, and doesn't feel integral to the experience. Most of the time I'd die to spikes and I'd have a heart floating above the spikes that I could only get if I...fell into the spikes again. Maybe having hearts only spawn if you die from enemies, and having a one-use platform spawn above where you died from spikes could help with this more.
I also think having more shortcuts tying back to the start would really help with the pace of the game. Unlocking them with upgrades felt pretty good, but having to kill yourself with the wires felt jarring . There's a lot of backtracking required to redo challenging parts, and I felt it deflated some of the great level design you've come up with.
Overall it was a great entry and one of my favorites out of the jam, and I'll forever be thankful to you for including gamepad support!
Alright, calling it right now, you're a robot. There is no physical way, a human, can make such a MASSIVE game in 72 hours. It was fun, but really long.
Submitted
Robo-Sapien, Learn FreedomVery well polished, felt good to play. Love the art style and color pallet, and the raccoon is a cool design. Great job!!
Submitted
Corpse CloneFantastic Game! Everything felt prettz nice to plaz and sepia pixel Graphics are something that zou dont see that often. Its crazy that you built such a large game in such a short time.
Submitted
Morphin CorpseI didn't expect to find a mostly brown color palette so attractive, but the visual design on this game is well done! The music also fits the game, it's exciting without being too overbearing, and I love that each area has it's own theme. In fact, it was the music, not the map, that first made me realize the map was sectioned off into different areas.
The rooms and progression are well designed, and I think each new mechanic is intuitively introduced.
In the opinion, the heart system is unneeded and I think the game would provide enough of a challenge without it. It got annoying being reset back to the beginning every 4 hits and having to run through multiple rooms, just to face the same difficult spot and possibly die again. I think continuing to respawn in the same room would be fine. Ultimately, it was the annoyance of wasting my time that made me stop playing midway through.
I see how the deaths after using the wires ties in with the theme (and the electrocution animation is nicely done), but I think this is also unnecessary. Unlocking a shortcut is nice, but since I often have to return to the area to finish exploring it, being sent back to the beginning still feels bad.
I was also a bit confused by the hearts dropped when I died. While I played, I thought they worked in a similar way as in Hollow Knight, where I had to pick it up in order to regain my full life force. As a result, I went out of my way to collect my dropped heart, even jumping into death to reclaim it. I have since read your comment about what they do, in which case I suggest placing the hearts on a safe floor in the room you die in. For example, if you die on spikes, the heart would be placed on the nearest ground, not on the spikes.
Overall, these criticisms are made as if this was a finished, published game. The visuals and sounds are stunning, and the game design is very clean. The whole game is polished well. It is only a couple design choices that I personally don't like (but perhaps hardcore platformer fans do). The fact that this was done in a 3 day jam is insane. Very nicely done! I want to come back and finish playing it when I'm feeling in more of a platformer mood.
I completely agree with all of your critiques and suggestions.
After the frenzy dust of the jam settled I looked back and now I kinda think I made some design sacrifices for the sake of aligning with the theme that I probably shouldn't have.
The post jam version is very unlikely to have locked door deaths (for the reasons you laid out and also because i think the hurts the exploration to not walk through the door you just unlocked and see where it leads for yourself) and I was also talking about the design with a dev friend of mine yesterday and we came to a very similar conclusion about the placement of the hearts.
I really appreciate the time and thought you put into this, and am super glad you enjoyed your time with it :)
This game looked incredible and I loved all of the effects - the trails, the particles, the light around you, it was all great! The game was nice and easy to control and the different mechanics were introduced at a good pace too, especially ones that opened up more of the level that you had already been to. Speaking of levels, there was a lot of it - an incredible amount of content for a jam game, and the way you split them up by music and colour helped make feel finding a new area all the more special. The sound and choices of music were great and they really fit with the general feel of the game. Great job on this one, it was a brilliant entry!
Submitted
Wizard Of ChaosGood stuff, the only bad thing I can say is that I'm terrible at platformers :)
Submitted
Odyssey Of The CogBeautiful art and sound, as others have said. Found some of the controls very unintuitively placed (for keyboard play, anyway). :P
Submitted
Post-hasteThis game is an absolute masterpiece for a 72 hour jam. A large space station in which you dont lose orientation anywhere, because the areas are distinguished by different music and a different coloring of the map. I just dont get it, how you did this game in 3 days.
The art ist absolutely stunning.
However, the game concept does not fit the topic of the jam in my opinion. The controls on keyboard are a bit weird too. But maybe the game is designed for controllers.
Altogether, this is a absolute amazing game. Great job!
Submitted
UmbraFrostAs for the 'how' of it all: the secret is reusing existing tools from previous projects where possible (eg the camera control system) and very little sleep.
My take on the theme was little ...interpretive, I guess lol. I was trying to make a game where each death would provide a help for progression in the next life, by either dropping a health pick up or unlocking a shortcut.
I really like the graphics and the controls feel very nice! Good Job!
Submitted
Pinguino DEMO
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