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(+2)

The videogame industry is a special one, it's an industry were you can't just tell a story, you have to put good, engaging gameplay to say it's a videogame. What I love about videogames is how the gameplay and the story can fuse together, and Poppin & Jupa: Pocket Adventure does this perfectly.

Calling this “Pocket Adventure” wouldn't be fair, despite the fact taht this is a demo, this game already feels huge, but let's start with the protagonists.

After the first dialouge between Poppin and Jupa, all I wanted was to hear more, Jupa introduction shows her exciting nature, and Poppin's dialouge shows his more serious and curious nature, they're both very well written.

Their idle animations are beautiful, sometimes Jupa would fall asleep, and I loved when they started playing together.

I really liked how you can heal your friend by hugging him, but it feels very slow, I'm not saying it should be instant, but it's very difficult to heal your friend during a boss fight.

The main combat mechanic is very unique, and it feels really good to play, for some reasons I can't jump while pressing up, so it was difficult to attack under the enemies.

The actual combat is very fluid and fast, I really liked that you can charge your attack, you colud add a moon walk option so that the player can't turn around when charging.

I also liked how Poppin and Jupa have different abilities, Poppin being able to pull heavy stuff was very smart, but I don't see why he couldn't crawl.

Another problem I have is how easy the game is, after one of the protagonists dies, you can wake him up, but there isn't a limit on how much you wake up your partner.

After playing through the entire demo, played trough it again and again, I know you have been daveloping this game for a long time, and I can't wait for the final product. Great job!!!

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Thank you! These kind of reviews help a lot. The tie between story and gameplay was a major focus for me, so I hope later chapters continue to improve on that, as well as how Poppin and Jupa work together as a team.

I haven't looked into the hug for a while, but I can see what you mean. It has no business being that slow. I'll take a look at holding up and jumping too; I have noticed similar quirks when holding down.

I tried out a lot of different things with the charge, and at one point that was the case (as well as slowing down). What I found was that it felt too restricting to commit to a direction that early, since now they have to fire the glove and wait for it to retreat if they happen to face the wrong way when charging. I think missing with the glove is punishing enough.

With crawling, the main difference should be that Jupa is small enough to crawl into tinier spaces, the reason I only have her crawl is to help highlight that difference a bit more. I could try having Poppin crawl too, but probably slower compared to Jupa.

The partner revival is something that I'm still playing with, erring on the side of being forgiving for now (same thing for the rest of this demo, it's the first part). There is some punishment to it: the more you do it in a single area, the longer it takes each time. It can be time consuming while exploring, but very dangerous while a boss or a group of bad guys are after you. I did have enough people who game over'd on enemy waves and the boss, so I feel this is balancing out. Ignoring your partner and being too far away when they revive on their own will have them drop some money.

Some aspects I'm considering is reducing how many hearts they start off with on each revival. In later planned areas, some enemies/obstacles can make it harder to reach/revive your partner.

I thought of dropping money on subsequent revivals but I'd hate people to feel like they need to reload a save over losing too much cash. A "hard mode" that game overs on any KO is something I've considered too, but that'll have to be a ways away, I want to at least complete chapters 2 and 3 before fooling with that idea.

The demo has been a big help in figuring out what's working and needs tweaking, so the past few months have been addressing stuff like this. I'm hoping the next demo feels better and less glitchy. Chapter 2 has it's structure planned out, but I'm only partly through coding in the new obstacles, enemies, and finishing the Drill tool. I feel bad for being slow, but I hope when it releases that you and others will enjoy it!