thanks for playing and your comments I agree ,and that was what I was struggling with , and in the end i just sold out and used gems also the jump pad was a bit finicky , I did try to add some depth to it by adding a store to upgrade your player stats. Did you manage to get to the end ? Do you have any Suggestions on what a good hook for this game could be ?
if you have some time you could checkout the play through vid I made of the first section.
Hi, gave it another shot and got a lot further. I found that 6th gem I was confused about in the first area - it was behind a bush. I'd move it out from there, it's tough to find. I got to the area where you have to go down and backtracked like the game said, but I accidentally used up all my kunai and couldn't remove the box to get the big gold gem. I really liked the store though! Getting upgrades like that was fun.
As for a hook, honestly I'd just remove the gem requirement. I think collecting currency is something players will want to do naturally and that having to get a certain number makes it less fun and more like a chore. I think the platforming is enough to drive the player through that section until they get the kunai and unlock the shop. Natural curiosity and being told to follow youkai will hopefully be enough to drive the player.
A few UI recommendations: the Restart and Continue buttons look almost identical right now. I would make the restart button red and add a big X or some other icon that indicates that it's not the option players should pick normally. Or maybe stack them vertically and put continue on top. For the shop: I'd limit the number of fonts and colors going on. I'd say for a project of this length 2 fonts, maybe 3 different styles using those fonts. That way you can have headings, subheadings, and paragraph text.
Thanks for giving it another try , now that the jam is over and so too the holidays I can get back to working on finishing this project, thanks for the valuable feedback I started implementing changes today, and i must say that I am really pleased with all the feed back I got and ways to improve, I have already removed the need to collect gems as the main focus, I gave the player a shuriken that does 1 damage and is unlimited and the kunai that uses the gems and does 4 damage and also increased the health on the enemies I have also added random drops to the enemies as the currency to buy power ups , to give players a reason to kill enemies. thanks for your suggestions, I have not updated the game on the game page yet but I will at the end of January, when I update the UI , menu ,boss battles and make a trailer, Hope you give it another go when I am finished !
