Loved the game! I'm on an RTX 4080, so didn't stumble on any performance issues, so I believe I was able to experience the game as intended. Overall I had a lot of fun, and think this is a really, really interesting interpretation of the Ocean and Explore reference. Congrats, you made it so unique! I also LOVED the aesthetics. I don't think I ever played a game with visuals like this before, and I wish there was more of it. The part I really liked was the beautifully lit / colored rooms and the pink lava. It made it feel like the type of scenery one would find in a music video or an 80s-90s science fiction movie. It's also cool to realize how the game already manages to be fun, even with simple mechanics! I think a cute stylized character that better fit into this world's aesthetics would make for a better player character, and help focus the game's messaging. It would read as "play a game that looks like this", and would also help set the expectations for a precision platformer. Anyways, fantastic submission - huge congrats!
Viewing post in Save the Fairies, Jumpissa! jam comments
Thanks for your time and feedback!
It sounds like quite a few people liked the aesthetic. I found it by pure accident while aiming for a different aesthetic, but when I hit this aesthetic I realized it fit the cool factor and simple-enough factor. I definitely will try making future games using it. Maybe eventually I could have players associate that aesthetic with a subset of my games like a brand.
Replacing the player character with a cute-stylized character sounds like a great idea. I'll keep it in mind for future games how the player characters should help focus the game's messaging.
Part of the aesthetic came from me trying to deal with my lack of pixel art skill. PS1/2 3d models seem to rely a lot on pixel art for their texturing. I'm really looking forward to your pixel art master class.
Good point about simple mechanics making the game fun too!