It's great that you were able to get so much in with the time limit, and unfortunate the full vision was not reached. The concept is interesting, and perhaps with more time the execution could have been better.
I had some trouble understanding what was goin on just from playing without any instruction. I thought I would have to claw, then carry, then drop, so I was surprised to see the claw gobble things up on its own. It felt like the traditional claw gameplay evaporated a bit with each gobble. The music and art are certainly enjoyable, but don't seem to match the theme all that well. The candy corn came close to matching the spooky theme, but I had trouble figuring out what the other pick-ups were. The robot arm seemed like it would be a power up, but gameplay didn't change after collecting it. I tried all the levels but other than music and palette changes I didn't notice a difference. I also didn't understand how to loose health or use attacks, and the UI elements left me wondering if I was missing something. The levels just end, and I couldn't figure out the condition that caused that. Some type of level end scene in between the level and the level select scene could be beneficial. or in the very least some type of text with an audio cue to let you know if the level is ending because you did good or because you did poorly. I wasn't sure if there was a way to do poorly, actually. I had a score so I couldn't have been doing poorly.. but I don't know if I was doing well either. In the end the experience is definitely cute and its concepts are surely intriguing.
Making games is always tough! The deadlines and rules can make things even harder.. Its important to be proud of what you've done regardless of how well it play tests. The whole point of these jams is to learn, and I hope my feedback helps you on your journey! Thank you for sharing your work and taking part in the jam!
Viewing post in Claw or Treat jam comments
Thank you so much for playing and specially for your feedback! Really appreciate it!
Trust me there was a plan for all the elements you interacted with and mention (level transitions being one that I still tried to squeeze at the end but was unable to)! Sadly I took too long with other aspects that perhaps didn't need to be perfected to be functional.
Regarding the pickups, much like the candy corn, they were based on our halloween candy but I tried to make them more generic.
For the game loop, since I was only able to finish the item pickups I modified the loop a bit to end after you pick up a few of them, so that front you were doing good :)
Unfortunately the more spooky bits were left undone (enemies, bosses).
So in the end, ideally this game would have had enemies and bosses that would be different in each stage and themed around spooky monsters. You would indeed be able to grab and drop enemies to the big hole to score points and clear the stage. The enemies/bosses would also be the things that would cause you to lose health.
It was ambitious to say the least hehe.
Thanks again for your feedback and for playing! :)