itch.io

So glad you enjoyed the fever mode and infection systems. Those are really the core of the game and took a lot of fiddling to get them interesting.

Yeah I'm always so unsure of control layouts. For this game I just used the same control scheme as Ninja Gaiden 2 Black and hoped that would land. But our game is very different. You can actually change the controls by pressing CTRL+Y. But default controls are important regardless.

The enemies were tuned pretty difficult to make fever mode more pivotal. Early on the mode was useless, you could just stay in normal mode and spam them with basic attacks. I may have taken them too far though. They don't drag you towards them, they actually knock you back. But your attacks have pretty strong homing ability, especially in fever mode, which is probably what you were noticing.

And yes your last point seems to be running theme with all feedback. The floaty slippery feeling character was very intentional, one of the first things we decided we wanted for the game, but my late decision to include some precision platforming sections to try and spice the game up was a bad call. Should have kept it a purely combat driven game with maybe just some easy platforming.

Thanks for the compliments on the visuals and sounds, the artist and musician both worked really hard I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that.

And thank you so much for the thorough review. I'll rate and review your game later tonight!

Thank you! An in game tutorial to teach things like that would have been ideal but didn't have time. Hopefully everyone will find the README like you did. I imagine the fever mode is pretty confusing without any guidance. Your game was great btw!

Rated and reviewed yours. Here's ours:

https://itch.io/jam/1-bit-jam-5/rate/3309751

Short, sweet and fun! What I really love about the melting snowball is that it isn't just a time limit for the level, the ball being smaller also provides opportunities to use alternative paths or just get through obstacles more easily. This creates a really satisfying risk/reward sort of system where waiting out the timer a little can actually be good but overdoing it will cause you to fail. It also naturally creates this system where the game gets a bit easier if you are doing poorly, kind of like a dynamic difficulty. 

Having the snow pick ups grow the ball bigger again provides has a ton of potentional for interesting level design. But speaking of the pick ups, on one level I found an oversight, if you quickly fire through the course while the burners are off, gathering all the pick ups this happens:

The ball gets giant, stuck in the walls, and you get blasted with the collision sound. Have to a wait a while for the ball to shrink before you can continue playing. So you should probably put a max size limit on the ball or something.

Reviewed and rated yours! Here's ours.

https://itch.io/jam/1-bit-jam-5/rate/3309751

A solid well made game. I love some of the little details like firing knocking the player back and the slow motion when landing a hit. Character controls well, weapon being a shotgun is satisfying sometimes hitting multiple enemies at once. Graphics and sound are great.

I would like if the difficulty ramped up a little faster at the begining. After dying a couple times I wanted to try again but the very easy early game lasts a little too long. Maybe some kind of faster melee enemy to force the player to move around so they cant just stand still in the middle shooting. 

I also didn't understand the dynamite. It seemed worse than the shotgun to me, with a longer cooldown, more difficult to land, yet not doing much damage or having much of a radius. Think buffing it could be fun.

Went ahead and made due with the browser version. Pulling off a 3D fps for the first time during a game jam is impressive. I liked the ideas here too. Choosing one weapon for your run instead of having them all is interesting. The choice changes the feel of the game and gives replay value. Having to stay near the fire was a very smart way to deal with the lack of any walls or level. It could have just been back strafing while firing forever but the fire forced me move in more mindful ways, make decisions in each moment if the cold or the enemies were the bigger problem, and have to walk towards enemies when the cold was the bigger threat.

I did have some problems with the weapons actually hitting the enemies. I feel this could possibly be due to lower frame rate I played at due to my older computer. Felt like sometimes my shots were just passing through enemies and doing no damage. The sniper especially felt useless. I found that most of the time spamming melee attack seemed to be the best way of dealing with enemies. Didn't manage to survive very long with this problem. So maybe check and see if the game is programmed in a way that frame rate effects hit detection.

As far as design, the only thing I think would be nice is some hud notification of where enemies are hitting from. Getting hit in the sides and back was a little annoying spinning around trying to figure where I was getting hit from.

The downloadable version the game seems to be missing something. Its just the .exe without whatever this file is.

I'd like to play the download version as my computer is older and the browser version is stuttery for me. I'm sure the offline version will run fine. If you can update it soon I'll play it that way. Otherwise I'll just make due with the browser verion.

It actually does reset your velocity on respawn, but what I hadn't thought of until now is that I should have ignored player inputs for a few frames after respawn. If you don't let go of the movement keys almost immediately after respawn then you will run off. Thought I had this problem taken care but there's always something else! And you're right, the character's slippery floaty movement was very intentional but including some precise jumps with this kind of movement was not the best decision. It was originally a combat only game but I felt it might be too repetitive and added some platforming sections to try and make it more varied.

Fever mode is what made you a killing machine. Infection is gained while in fever mode and activated after the mode ends. Infection reduces your movement speed, jump height, and attack speed. However, I made infection go away much quicker than initially planned as I was scared of annoying the player if it lasted longer. I guess I overdid it, made it so quick that you didn't even really notice the downsides.

Thank you so much for the very valuable feedback. All useful things to keep in mind with my next game. I'll be sure to check your game out soon!

We worked really hard on our game and would love people to check out and give feedback. Unfortunately a browser version wasn't possible and requiring a download means most people are going to pass on it. Would greatly appreciate anyone willing to check it out and will definitely rate and review yours in return.

https://itch.io/jam/1-bit-jam-5/rate/3309751

We worked really hard on our game and would love people to check out and give feedback. Unfortunately a browser version wasn't possible and requiring a download means most people are going to pass on it. Would greatly appreciate anyone willing to check it out and will definitely rate and review yours in return.

https://itch.io/jam/1-bit-jam-5/rate/3309751

We worked really hard on our game and would love people to check out and give feedback. Unfortunately a browser version wasn't possible and requiring a download means most people are going to pass on it. Would greatly appreciate anyone willing to check it out and will definitely rate and review yours in return.

https://itch.io/jam/1-bit-jam-5/rate/3309751

Great music! Having the storm worsen over time, affecting your speed is a cool concept. Having randomized puzzle locations in a game like this is a great idea, makes you learn the entire map instead of just memorizing a specific path. Took me a while to realize what the npc meant by key at the lake as I was seeing those tiles as walls rather than icy floor.
I would make the default movement speed higher though. After four attempts, I had the map locations memorized, knew I needed to find the guys to tell me about the key then go get the key and take it to the cabin, and I would have done it if I could move faster. But I just couldn't face another attempt of moving between all the fires and wells at that speed.

Amazing tension and atmosphere. Panning over to the picture on the wall actually kinda startled me thinking it was someone for a second. The ghosts resembling the objects they appear over was really well done. Rushing around trying to find cell signal is a great concept. Cool game.

Clever twist on block pushing games adding some extra layers to the genre. Great difficulty progression that doesn't get too hard. Love the scribbly style intro.
The press spacebar graphic prompt was not apparent to me so it took me a bit of wandering around thinking this was a puzzle before realizing I needed to press that key. I also would have liked a way to change facing direction without stepping forward so that I could spacebar the blocks without walking down particular paths.

I get this error when I try to play. I'm sure the problem is on my end somehow since the other comment was able to. Dunno how to fix it though. Sorry about that.

Oh okay! Yeah my intent on that part was to have the upper floor without the spikes and then the identical jumping sequence in the lower floor with spikes so you could practice without fear of death and then feel cool when face it with added danger and first try it. But in my gut I felt that part was kind of annoying and guess I should have listened.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll try your game out tonight!

Thank you so much for playng it! Are you referring to the reduced jump height when infected?