Good-looking prototype with gorgeous main character sprite animations and moody, relevant backgrounds all set into a CRT arcade-cabinet presentation. Chunky voice clips and dark but energetic music. All in all, the aesthetics are on point with this one. Falls short in gameplay with some odd design and balance choices. Screen does not smoothly scroll but "jumps" forward a tile every second or two. The goal is to dodge or destroy obstacles but there is no other threat; obstacles damage your score but score is gained every obstacle cleared so it quickly becomes impossible to die. Game can be cheesed by spamming attacks. Still, great presentation; recommend polish gameplay loop and add some enemy variety
Viewing post in Chi-Kaiju jam comments
Thanks for giving it a look, chillz! Credit for the aesthetics goes to the rest of the team: Matt, Luke, and Zach did phenomenal work here.
As you say, there was some awkwardness in the pacing; I’ll take most of the blame for this. We were indecisive early on between turn-based, real-time (like Battle Network), and rhythm (like Necrodancer). Eventually, I settled on something that sits in the middle; picking one and fully committing to it may have been wiser.
As for obstacle variety, I strongly agree, and we had plenty of ideas here: obstacles with more health, or covering multiple spaces, or moving. As is always the case with gamejams, we were limited by time, and obstacle variety paid the price.
Regarding balance, I think I have to push back a bit. Spamming one ability is a totally valid strategy (since, as you say, it’s impossible to die). But it’s definitely not an optimal strategy: depending on the ability you spam, you’ll either miss obstacles with your attack, or lose points by getting hit. So I wouldn’t expect that strategy to make the leaderboards at the showcase.
All that said, you’re not the only reviewer who disliked the lack of a fail condition, so it was probably the wrong call to rely solely on score to determine success.
Thanks again for your feedback!