Post by Thoozee in The Autumn Reverie jam comments

Cozy Autumn Game Jam (2023) » Entries » The Autumn Reverie

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Amazing game, I had a lot of fun with it! *-*

The idea of setting a rhythm game in New England of the 18th century is almost absurd, but I was amazed by how it fits perfectly with the cozy and festive atmosphere of an old-school dance fight. The dialogues are brief yet effective, and they gave me every element I needed to immerse myself in the situation just from the beginning (also, I loved the introductory scene). The artwork and the animations are extremely polished: it's hard to draw such peculiar characters with such few pixels, and yet you were even able to give them historical costumes! In summary, congrats!

Speaking of the mechanics, as others already pointed out, the game is not easy. Well, it's true that the player can retry every time you want, and the rounds are so fast that replaying doesn't bother too much (I was able to reach my record score of 15/16 in the third songs, this way...).
However, I noticed two problems: (1) when you miss a move, the player stops for more than one beat; this causes a chain reaction that makes it impossible to recover the error. (2) The hand-clapping at the beginning of each round has 5 beats, instead of 4, and that drove me crazy ahaha. I had to count out loud the numbers, and still it didn't work to make my mind register the starting time of the musical measure.
I don't know if they were intended or not, and I don't mean to say you have to change those; I just hope to give you some useful feedback :)

Also, I'll say it clear: for me, it's not a problem of "small temporal windows" to get the correct input, because - if your purpose it to make a really hard game - that is a perfectly legit mechanic. Maybe, rather than accepting the keyboard input at any time, the player could pass a level with 90% of correct moves? The 80%? I don't know, you'll figure out the proper threshold :)

In conclusion, again, thanks a lot for your submission, I really enjoyed it!

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HinmanLantern270 days ago

Thank you so much for these very thoughtful and helpful comments, and for playing the game -- I appreciate it! I'm happy to hear about the parts you liked. On the mechanics, much of my error here was in thinking that players were going to have an easy time with the game. You are absolutely right on the problem #2 you identified -- it threw me a bit, too, but I figured leaving it that way would perhaps add a little challenge (and bugs needed fixing until late in the night). Thinking your game is easier than it is is a classic game jam mistake, but I did it again. As for #1, the way it's coded is that there's a window for making dance moves that opens a bit before the beat and lasts until a bit after the beat, such that striking a key outside of that window just has no effect (there is no freeze of the player). The open/close of the window is based on a clock that starts at the start of the song, so it's also unaffected by when you made your last move, and you can always interrupt a dance move with another one (if you strike a dance key during the window). So my guess on problem #1 is that it's the disruption-of-rhythm sensation.

Your thresholds idea is a good one -- with more time, I considered having a "good" level of striking the key on time (if within a large window) and a "perfect" level of striking a key (within a smaller window), and then some threshold for moving on, but by the end of the two weeks, that got cut.

You made it far -- the third dance is the final one, so you were on the brink of winning! Thanks again for playing and for these comments!

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