Lots to really admire here. A lot of care has gone into the art style and I really enjoyed lots of it. The water was really nice. If I was going to make suggestions the two main ones would be that the movement felt a bit under juiced, whilst being fast it never felt fun to move. The other would be more checkpoints. Especially in a Game Jam I just want to get through as much of it as I can and see all the work you put in. I was getting pretty bored of starting over each time. Checkpoints would solve this. But they are easy simple tweaks to a pretty solid and enjoyable game. Nice work.
Viewing post in The Last Dodo jam comments
I also love the art, it was done by Thanos Gramosis, Very lucky to have him on the team :)
The gameplay was my job though! I spent some time on the movement to make it feel ‘birdlike’. I did do some testing with other people, and made the movement more fast-paced as a result, but maybe it ended up not quite being fast or slow enough to feel ‘right’.
Your comments on checkpoints is interesting, as I did consider them at the beginning. I never really considered how I should take into account that in a game jam you want others to experience everything without frustrating them, that the level of investment is much lower than a ‘proper’ game. I will definitely remember that for next time I do a jam, thank you!
I made a note for myself too! In terms of the movement it's perfectly fine. I am just an old man now who has played a lot of platform games and the ones that get it really right raise the bar in terms of feel. N+ has to be one of the best examples. It feels lush and so having played that for years of my life I can't help but have it in my mind when playing any platform game.