itch.io

Such a cool idea! Def a good party game to play on a couch or smth.

I do have some issues with it though.

First of all, the controls are a bit off for me. If I tap too quickly, I will miss out on the next action, could use some action queuing. This is esp important when you're hidden as you have to have a good understanding of where you move, and if the controls fail you then it's not your fault that you got lost.

The art in main menu is amazing. And then I get into the game, and it looks like it's low res. If the quality from the menu was in the game then it would be so much better!

But it's a good party game, gj. Would have never made a party game in a game jam!

Damn! Great game, looks really nice and just a good job.

Some things that I found were bad were the following:

The camera angle makes me miss out on information in the game. I can't see what happens if I light a torch or push a box onto a button sometimes, so it makes it a bit more of having to guess what happens. Felt a bit frustrating.

The pushing/pulling mechanic is good, but I feel like it got annoying by the end of the game. Having to wait to breathe in and out is not too fun.

Also could use a bit of a tutorial, took me a bit to understand what the astral form does. But sure, it was obvious enough that I could figure it out without a tutorial, meaning the design language was pretty good!

It's an okay game with some issues.

First of all your UI tweens/animations don't scale well so I was not able to play on fullscreen (1440p). was able to play in browser without going fullscreen.

The game has a lot of dialogue. I think too much. Took me quite some time before I could play the game thanks to the dialogue, and my gameplay was often interrupted with dialogue. Wasn't able to get to play the game enough to understand what's going on during the first playthrough. Always getting interrupted by dialogue or level ups.

The game also doesn't have challenge. The oxygen thingy I forgot because I didn't have to think about it, all cats dying to one explosion also made it quite easy.

But good job on finishing it!

This is a great base for a game. It's well designed, looks nice and just works. But in my opinion it has some problems.

So I guess the world is randomly generated. This makes for a lot places where you can't even catch the oxygen pockets, making it frustrating. I also like the score mechanic where you get more score with less oxygen, that is just great design wise, but is canceled out with the fact I can't really control my player and make a decision to take that risk for more score. I want to take that risk, but I can't.

If I could control my character more, I think it would work a lot better. Then I could have more decision making in the game and thus have more fun thanks to me actually doing something in the game. I also think you could add mechanics on to the game then to give it more content. Would actually see it as a really cool roguelike game, something like Downwell.

Good job, it's a good basis for an actually good game.

Ooooh, this is fun. It's a great game, I like it!

Some problems in my opinion.

Movement feels slidy, making it hard to control. It's probably because it's grid based. I think it would better if the grid steps were brought out better through animations. So the player doesn't move in a linear speed but each step starts fast and ends slowly easing into the next tile.

The oxygen mechanic feels a bit pointless as you could remove it from the game and it would still be a game. So the theme is a bit of a miss in my opinion.

Other than that it's a cool game with a lot of potential for challenging levels. Maybe lose the grid movement and it could be a full on rage game kinda thing.

It's an interesting idea but the execution is really not there.

From the game feeling quite random (since controls are fast it's hard to keep track where you are moving when you can't see the player) to the game just being a bit off (weird controls for shooting, would like to press a direction and automatically shoot, hard to start the level because jumping is super fast.)

I also don't see the theme in it.

But I think it could be a cool game if the implementation was better.

Good job on finishing a game for a jam.

Some honest feedback about it.

First of all, the controls are bad. It's hard to understand where forward, especially when the camera rotates. This makes the the gameplay experience really bad.

The theme fit doesn't really come out in the game. Yeah it's drowning, but this drowning mechanic could be replaced or taken away and the game wouldn't change. Also, the problem with the mechanic is that having a time limit means that the levels are designed around that time limit. Meaning that it's not really a challenge because you have to make sure the player can finish the levels. This could be fixed with a longer time limit and adding challenges into the levels. This way the player has a time limit on getting past these challenges.

It's a fun little jam game, and works really well with the theme. The main mechanic is really important for the game and thus the theme is really well used.

There are some issues (as always with jam games). The tutorial lied to me, W doesn't work. Getting stunlocked by crabs is not fun and feels a bit too punishing. Some things are hard to understand (do I also collect trash when moving through it or only when breathing, what is collectable and what is not)

But it's a good game. Good job!

(But I do feel like you have way too many teammates in your team)

I really like the game. It's a great puzzle game but I think it has it's problems that are making it a bit worse.

First of all, I think the breathing mechanic is just a pointless thing in the game that makes it more annoying. It doesn't add a challenge to the game, it just makes you spend more time every time you fail. (But it does make the player think through the solution which is good)

The game is trying to be 2 things at once. Being a puzzle game, I feel bad for failing not because of me not solving the puzzle, but because I wasn't able to walk onto a minecart. GMTK had a similar problem with his magnet game and solved it by focusing solely on puzzles.

Other small things like controls (please make WASD movement along arrow keys, accidentally using wrong abilities)

But the game is great if you ignore these parts. Fun puzzles, look really nice and I would prolly play it if it was on steam and got more difficult.

The game felt a bit unfinished and without a goal. I found it hard to understand what I was supposed to do and that really worsened my experience.

As for the theme, it feels like a reskinned health system that I wouldn't say really matters in the game.

Had a lot of problems playing the game on my browser (Firefox) thanks to a couple of issues. First of all, after the second cut scene, my mouse cursor is no longer locked to my game window, meaning that I can click out of the screen as well not be able to do complete 360s and look up or down thanks to the mouse getting stuck on the edges of my screen. Might be a good idea to test your game in browser as well next time.

Unfortunately I wasn't really able to play the game thanks to it being broken.

Somebody being excited to finally get to my entry makes me smile like a kid who's talking with their first crush :D

Glad you liked the game, and I can somewhat agree with the suggestions. After all, the grapple length used to be 4 times smaller :D
And yes, the game does go on for 3 total levels + boss (that is missing art and has some bugs), but I never expected people to actually play it for long enough since it is a jam game :D

So chill, love the game.

I love how the game design makes you create a garden instead of stacking everything in one place. There's nothing stopping me from doing that, but I still ended up making the world look nice.

A couple of things that bothered me. I wish I could move my cam with WASD or arrows, because having to click to move caused me to grab and move plant instead from time to time which was frustrating. Same problem with bubbles. Clicking on bubbles and moving plants instead is frustrating. I'd rather want to have the opposite problem where I am clicking on bubbles on accident. That is not a frustrating mistake.

UI could have been bigger. Way too small on a 1440p monitor. I get that it's also working on mobile, but scaling.

But everything else is great. Super chill, great progression (a bit fast at the end), overall great game design.

Looking forward to see what you do next!

I got to be honest, it's not my type of game. Not a fan of point and clicks, and this one didn't feel responsive and was mostly me just randomly guessing things. I felt like I just randomly found solutions to some of the puzzles.

Art is interesting, but once again I don't enjoy it. It's not my cup of tea.

It was interesting how you used the breath mechanic for multiple solutions, would have liked to see that more.

But I have to give you credit that the game does feel quite polished and complete. Good job on that. Quite a lot of work in here!

Hooooly! I love this idea, it is soooo great.

So let's start with art. It's great. The art style is simple, looks nice and really fits the gameplay. It gives me all of the necessary details (where are wolves, where are deer, landscape) while also being clear enough for me to make plans. Great!

Gameplay is suuuper cool. I love the idea. I agree that it's a bit hard. I found that I was missclicking a lot when executing an attack which made me feel like the wolves are super stupid. Would be nice if when a deer is running straight at a wolf, the wolf would actually try and attack without my input. Other than that it's sooooo coool.

Unfortunately I don't see the theme. Even if we take "Take a deep breath" as "Take a  pause", pausing is not a big part of the game.

Anyway, I would love to see this game be developed further. Would probably even buy it.

Great! Awesome quick Metroidvania and it was super cute and fun.

Art style is amazing and sounds are on point. Just looks really nice and cute. Esp liked the way of showing communication.

I feel the theme was not in the game. Yes, the toxic breathing thing, but if it was removed I wouldn't even notice. Pretty sure there weren't any toxic areas in the later levels.

Combat was also quite meh. Having to click K as fast as possible is just not skillful or fun in any way. The boss fight I was just vibrating my finger on the K key and jumping.

But still, if you fixed those things and gave the game a bit more personality on the gameplay side it would be a great finished product.

Interesting, but also confusing. Not sure what kind of powerups I gain from the beans, but I started shooting more projectiles so that's great. I also didn't understand where I was breathing in gas from. Was it from my location or from somewhere in the cone that appeared in front of me.

Art was rough, I think it lacked lighting but I'm not sure what was off. It was just a bit of an eyesore.

I also died randomly while having 5 health so not sure about that, probably a bug.

But an interesting concept none the less. Does need quite a bit of work and polish tho.

I found it a bit hard to play for too long, as most of it is me blindly moving along a labyrinth. The gameplay was just moving from air pocket to place to back to air pocket, which I also find not too good, for the reason that if you have a certain amount of time to spend in between in between these places, it will either be designed for me to make it, or fail. This could be fixed with obstacles, but is still not the best of mechanics.

Art on the itch page as well as thumbnail are great but lacking in the game. using shapes and colors is fine, but right now the design language was a bit scattered. Having a white area for oxygen, and then having a white hexagon (also an area) for something else and not being able to use it for oxygen is confusing.

I also understand that you had a deeper meaning behind the game which is great, but I unfortunately never got to the part where the meaning became important in the game itself.

This was awesoooome!

Great game, felt really polished. The cute little animation on the character when jumping was superb.

All of the levels were interesting and fun to play through, maybe felt a bit too slow though.

While I did like the mechanics a lot, they were great for platforming/puzzles, I would like a bit more freedom and difficulty. For example, moving in "big fish" form was a bit too controllable in my opinion and could have been more fun (for me). But the mechanics were still great and fit the theme perfectly.

One thing I didn't like at all was the camera moving with the mouse cursor. It was like super aggressive and a bit disorienting.

But man, I could see this polished into a full game with more levels.

I love the style and the overall game is super cute. It's not too punishing and it's a great game for a jam.

Some things that could be improved are the following:

• Health gauge feels backwards. I am losing oxygen but the gauge is filling up. Also it's a bit hard to see as my focus is always on my cursor for aiming and it blends in with the water.
• The water animation felt off because it was not uniform with the overall pixel art style. If the water curves were also pixelated then it would have fit in a lot more.

Other than that it's fun and good job!

I really like the main mechanic of having to follow a rythm for attacks, big fan of ryhtm games. I also see inspiration from Vampire Slayers which is cool.

The game was a bit buggy at times, taking damage didn't always work and other that kind of stuff.

Unfortunately, the art was an eyesore, as everything clashed with too much contrast. Next time I recommend looking into minimalistic art styles while also following a simple color palette. This way even programmer only teams can make their games look significantly better.

But good job for your first game, keep learning!

I like the art, it's not exceptional but it's nice to the eye and has a style it's following.

Not the biggest of the gameplay, as the mechanic of needing to pass a level in a certain amount of time (going from air pool to air pool) is not too interesting without obstacles. There's no challenge in that.

Another thing that I didn't like was that the controls were only bound to arrow keys. Would be nice to have them on WASD as well as most games use those controls and that's the first thing that most people will reach for. Right now I had to figure out the controls on my own.

But it's a finished product and it works so good job on that!

Thanks for the feedback and I'm really glad you enjoyed the game. Honestly was a bit worried that it'll be too hard, but I didn't want to wash out the mechanics by making them too easy either.

About the boss fight, didn't have the time to implement the art or the fight completely, so that might be the issue that was causing it to be confusing. It's a fight that can be finished but with no visuals or feedback, it's def hard to understand how to damage the boss and what damages you.

Other than that, I'd say I have the same gripes and likes about the game. Not enough depth in some mechanics (like the combo one) due to not having enough time or not having enough motivation (burnout was real at the end of the jam :D)

And again, thanks for the great feedback! It'll be valuable in the future for sure, in this project or another!

Hey! I've been working on a small project on the side for quite some time now. It's been going well and it's almost ready for a demo that I could show off at an event that's happening on the 17th of September. The only problem is, I'm not an artist and it's not looking that presentable right now :D And that's why I would need a 2D artist to join me.

About the project To summarize the project, it's a 2D top-down game with roguelite elements and is inspired by games like Monster Hunter: World and Soulslikes. The game's main focus will be the combat system built around a combo system and knowing your enemy. Another big focus will be on the storytelling that is built around players choices. Currently, the project is in a playable state (small gameplay clip), sort of. With a procedurally generated world that can be explored, with enemies that you can fight and combos to learn. There's a lot of boilerplate down as well, things like a buffs system, items system for active and passive effects, and many other things. For the demo, the main help I would need is in the form of characters and their animations (biggest focus) as well as the look of the generated world, with props and textures to decorate it all. That's why I would love a 2D artist focusing on animations to join me in the project.

About me I'm a programmer with 2 years of work experience in backend development as well as a bunch of hobby game dev projects under my belt (that you can see here). I feel pretty comfortable in Unity and am confident in my ability to finish the project given enough time. I currently work on the project solo, meaning that I am also responsible for the worldbuilding part of the development right now, where I mainly have experience from being a Dungeon Master for about 2 years now. Outside of game dev, I'm a big gamer and also do a lot of different extreme sports like snowboarding, wakeboarding and skateboarding.

Who am I looking for I am mainly looking for a 2D artist specializing in character animations, as that is the part that matters most right now (the combat system relies on good visual feedback that animations can provide). I'd also love someone that would be interested in a long-term project, but it's also fine if you only want to help out with the demo (about a month).

Compensation Unfortunately, I don't have any funds right now to pay anyone (including myself). But in the long term, I would love to be able to pay everybody a salary and do RevShare on top of that. To be able to do that, I would like to start marketing the game after finishing the demo, so that raising funds would be easier.

Contact me If you feel like you would like to help me out with the project and are ready to spend a bit of your time, feel free to contact me here on Itch.io, on Discord (BangTheWall#5914), or on my email (ralf.lehepuu@gmail.com). Looking forward to working with you!

Nice score! And thanks for the kind words, really means a lot to us!
I'm also planning on making an android and ios build of it, let me know if you would be interested :D

Hello! I've recently started prototyping an unique 2D combat system and have decided to start a bigger project around it, since the gameplay that I am getting out of the prototype is fun and promising (included videos of the prototype further in the post). But since I am a programmer with no experience making art and sound assets, I would love to team up with other game dev enthusiasts who I could develop the project with. This way, we could push for a demo ASAP to start marketing the game ASAP as well. In my ideal timeline, I would love to push out a gameplay demo in a few months.

About me

I'm Brait, a 19 y/o computer science major who has been into game development since forever. I have experience with both programming, as I work as a freelancer, and game development, having done a lot of prototyping of games, game jams and other things. Here is my most recent game I made for the Azure Lux Game Jam, that got chosen for first place by the judges of the said game jam (Who were Microsoft Employees, XBox MVPs, and Microsoft experts.)

About the project

In general, the project would be a roguelite game with a focus on the previously talked about combat system, a deeper story and challenges. I have a clear plan for both the gameplay and the story that I would like to follow.

• Combat system: The system basically relies on the player drawing out their own attack lines, that can be chained together in various formations for extra damage. At the same time, the enemy uses a similar system, that makes dodging incoming attacks also a challenge thanks to the various attack patterns that can be used. This will eventually make a bullet hell style roguelite with various challenges and skill curves to overcome. Here is a short video of the combat mechanics in play at a small scale (Excuse the developer art). This is also just a prototype and can be changed, nothing is final. Yet.
• Story direction: I personally love the kind of story telling that utilizes "Show, don't tell" to the max. You can see this kind of storytelling in "The Binding of Isaac" for example. I would like to take this story on to a path that will describe the grief of the playable characters that is only conveyed through things like level design, enemies, items, sound and art. The whole game would be centered around the theme of the 5 stages of grief, that each of the playable characters would be going through and battling in their own way.

Who am I looking for

Mainly, I would currently love to work with the following people:

• 2D artist: Someone who is ready to create a game with their own unique style. Definitely would help if you can help with the creative process of coming up with different visual elements, from enemies to characters to items to environments. (This would involve both 2D art assets and animations as well)
• Don't fit the people I mentioned above but still like the idea or would like to work on this project? Don't be afraid to shoot me a message, maybe we can work something out.

How to contact me

So you are interested in the project? Great! Shoot me a message on Discord (BangTheWall#5914). I will try to answer as soon as possible. Everything from questions to ideas to whatever is welcome, would love to discuss things with everyone.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree, the mechanic is a bit harder than I would have liked. But I can promise you, the game is beatable :D

The mechanic is to lead the spider somewhere else using the waves. For example send a wave north and go south.

Thank you!

Happy to hear that!

Yeah, that camera thing is a problem thanks to me using Update for camera movement instead of FixedUpdate. So the camera will be slower or faster depending on the amount of frames you get in the game. Fixed update will give a choppy camera movement, so I uploaded a version where camera movement is faster.

Hey! I didn't have that problem myself, but I have getting that feedback from people yeah. Will fix.

I quite liked the game. The main mechanic is really cool, and I could see this as a bigger diablo type game.

Yeah, I'm a moron. I uploaded a Linux build as well ;)

Hello! I wanted to join the discord server, but the link provided on the main page is expired (or invalid I don't know your life). Can somebody please update it so I can have some friends?