itch.io

Well now I'm excited!

Much appreciated! I should mention I'm a fan, and have used your music in multiple projects so far (though they remain unpublished XD)

Well, see, that's the thing. It was originally planned for this game jam, submitting it to the other one was the afterthought. But you're absolutely right, it's not a metroidvania in its current state. I was way too ambitious with my goals, this was supposed to be a mostly-linear intro segment meant to set the scene for a larger open world, and also a place for the player to get acquainted with their tools. Unfortunately life caught up with me and I wasn't able to get much done for the "main game" section, and it didn't have anywhere near the same level of polish as the intro, so I decided to submit it as-is.

Yeah, I've had a few bugs reported with the anhks. Thanks for your addition! You should be able to read the tablets--every "ruin" is interactable, aside from like walls and things--but you can only read them once, so maybe you read them without noticing? I know when I playtested sometimes I would use a weapon right next to one of them and then keep pressing A through the text and would miss it.

I'm sorry about getting softlocked in the respawn room! I'm guessing it wouldn't let you transition to the next room? That's a known bug (more like a developer oversight, my bad) where it forgets to load the nearby scenes when you reload a checkpoint.

Ah, bugger. I believe what's happening is that the item-switch script interrupts the script which is supposed to reset the doors. Thanks for the bug report!

One other thing: Music by Beatscribe. Forgot that when I was putting in the external assets field. Should also mention that all external assets, aside from music, are heavily edited to create a uniform style and to increase memory efficiency.

Thanks for playing! If you'd like to explore more, I'd recommend thinking vertically ;)

Unfortunately those alpha holes are a limitation of the system this is designed for. Priority (which graphics have transparency and appear in the foreground) is decided on a per-tile basis, and there's technically no true "alpha" in the conventional sense. So, in order to give a convincing 3D effect, the top tiles of objects like the rocks or columns have "priority" (will be shown over the player) while the bottom tiles will not, so the player will show above them. Since the player is 16x16 pixels in size with a roughly 6x7 hitbox centered horizontally and aligned with the player's feet, this works out most of the time, but since the player's hitbox is smaller than an 8x8 tile there will be cases when you're right up against a rock or column where the player's sprite extends past the boundaries of the tile with priority and can be seen "through" the object. This is an imperfect solution but I've chosen to go with it, because the alternative is having the player's hitbox be 8+ pixels tall (which would prevent tile clipping) but that would result in more player frustration in areas which do not have a lot of space to move around in.

The hitbox issues are annoying, yeah. I haven't found a good solution to deal with those yet. The problem is that there's a lot of tools the player can use but, due to this being a GameBoy Color game, there's a finite amount of unique projectiles that can exist in any given scene. I think it's around 5 projectiles. The thrown dynamite and pistol bullets are 2, and I need to save room for potential enemy projectiles, so to be conservative both the fist and knife use the same hitbox. That being said, the hit detection is a bit wonky at times, I have no idea why. I'm looking into fixing it, but as it stands it's not a high-priority issue as the game is 100% completable at this stage.

As for the fists not hitting anything...they actually *do* hit things, and you might be surprised at their range if you ever try punching a pot or something, but they don't do any damage to enemies. Have you ever tried punching a snake? Or a bat? Or a t̴̰̲͔͇͖͗̀e̸̲̊͐r̷͔̬̮͖̩͐r̴̖̜̩͙̂̈́i̶̛̖̲̜̻̲̾͌͠f̶̺̌y̶͉̬̑̾̀͛̚i̸̙̮̕̕͝n̸̟̔͌͑̅̍g̸̬̺̼̟͐͂̅ ̴̧̆e̵̯̩͛̈́͜l̷̛͓̻͔̗̠̆̌̈́d̷͉͛r̶͓͈̆i̸̢̛̩̚ț̶̺͈̀ç̵̢̛̙̆̈́̓ḧ̴̡̛͇͇́ ̴͈̰̏̓̍h̵̪̮̃͛̉͐̓ỏ̶͚̠͗͒͋͝r̷͖͇͙̺̓͜r̶͔̮͊̽̔͌ͅȏ̸̟̲̭̂͛̚ṟ̷̎̕? Not the most effective tool, I'll tell you that. Your fists are useful for some problem-solving elements later in the demo, however, so don't count them as useless just yet!

You're a major player on the discord lol

Yo, the legend himself

Thanks!

Same, I expected it to regenerate the tileset name when I renamed the background, but it didn't.

Oof. I found the solution on discord, my tileset name was incorrect which I only discovered by looking at the GBVM symbols.

I'm getting the same error, how was this resolved?

Thank you! Honestly, you hit the nail on the head with that critique. When mastering I generally tend to listen to my music on a variety of speakers/headphones with a variety of sound profiles to get the best mix overall, but just didn't have enough time bc of the holidays lol.

Thanks! The idea was for these themes to be the root of a bunch of variations throughout the soundtrack--e.g., each stage would have its own music, which would be a variation of the theme of the main character of that level. Obviously I never got that far xD

Yeah, I've paid for Soundtrap for a few years now. Frankly, it's probably a better deal to use Logic Pro or FL Studio than to subscribe to Soundtrap, since the only real advantages it has are cloud storage, no memory requirements, and a non-audio-technician-oriented workflow, and I'll probably switch over to FL Studio at some point in the future bcuz of that, but I've been very happy with Soundtrap so far.

And thanks for the complements on the project page! My day job is a graphic designer, so I'm perhaps more aware of the effect presentation can have on the success of a project than others. It's not too much effort, mind you, but every little bit helps!

Thank you so much! Yeah, the repetitiveness is imo the biggest drawback when just listening to it. None of the tracks actually loop, however...they generally follow an A-B-A' pattern, with some differences between the final section and the first section just to keep it a little interesting, though I did have them repeat a couple measures from the opening in order to be able to properly loop them in-game.

I'm glad to hear that! I wasn't so sure that the chiptune portion of that would be well-received, so I'm glad you liked it!

Thank you so much! I remember listening to one of your submissions in the previous jams and really enjoying the overall tone.

Thanks so much! Yeah it's a lot, I had a bit of free time over the weekend and decided to just run with it.

I know it sounds like that, and I kinda like it...it's actually a riff on the second section from Bach's Toccata and Fugue in Dm, just cut off after the first bar. I then added the three repeating notes afterwards because it sounded cool, then realized why it sounded cool...

I was surprised to hear the similarities to Separate Ways (one of my favorite Journey songs), when I was actually including the Bach reference as a very, very subtle DragonForce reference...the opening acoustic guitar arpeggios in Through the Fire and Flames are also an abbreviated version of Toccata and Fugue.

That's fine! I realize I didn't really say anything that positive about it, but that doesn't mean I thought your game was bad. I really did like the movement, and in platformers/metroidvanias getting movement right is a really big deal.

No, thanks, that's really helpful! I was aware of some of those, and thought that they'd be so hard to trigger that I could leave them in and spend time patching other bugs. I'll put those on the to-do list!

Thanks! Here's a spoiler-free guide for how you get the access code if you feel like continuing:

1. Interact with the door
2. Ask the receptionist about the access code
3. Follow her instructions

Yeah, clarity of interactable items + fg/bg is gonna be one of the first improvements post-jam. Thanks for the bug report, I'll do what I can to patch those!

Oh, thanks! I like retro systems, plus it's an easy program to prototype and build games in, so it's great for game jams.

Uggggghhhhhh not another bug with the stairs! Putting those in was the worst decision I made, they are literally the most bugged-out area of the game. Yeah, the characters can blend in a little, and that's why I tried to add the colored highlights on their mostly-black heads. 

I'll pass along your compliments to the musicians! I agree, I think the score complements the game perfectly--or maybe even the other way around!

I do like how smooth it is, and apparently a lot of people in the comments liked it (so maybe I'm alone lol), I just had a lot of trouble predicting where the drill was going to go, if that made sense. Smooth animations tho!

Hey, it's definitely a good start! We've all been there

Huh. Are you testing a web build or a desktop build? If desktop, then it could be a web-only issue like the shatter slowdown?

Oh, yes, that at least was great! A welcome change from many games in this jam not having in-game control information.

Sorry, it's a hardware problem, since it's intended to play on an actual GBA (where the music would be at appropriate levels coming out of speakers). I can try to fix it in the post-jam updates?

And actually I did some further testing and discovered it's a problem when facing right at all, not just over spikes. I just noticed it over the spikes because you're going right in the level.

It's in the very large room at the bottom, right after you've broken the first wall.

Oooooh let's see. One was Speleomorph (here) -- that's the one where changing shapes is the main puzzle-solving mechanic -- and then Shapeshift Shatter (here) -- that's the one with the triangle dash.

Props to you for doing what's necessary to improve! And, again, sorry that I came off so strongly at first :/ my bad lol

Yeah, I'm gonna redo some of the rooms to increase the clarity. Thanks for playing tho!

I'll do that when I get back to my computer, sure. It'll be a couple hours tho.

Nothing's truly bad, it just isn't as creative as other submissions have been with the theme of "shape-shifting", in the context of switching between geometric shapes. There's one that's very similar to this--switching shapes to escape a cave--in which the different shapes are the main approach to solving puzzles themselves, where in yours the shapes hardly matter...platforms, gates, and walls only appear or disappear based on what shape you're playing as. In your game, you could replace the shapes with any other graphic--like playing Super Mario 64 as Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, etc., whereas in the other one the shapes themselves are an integral part of the game.

As I said--your concept isn't bad. Super Mario 64 is obviously a very good game, and that's why I used that comparison--this game could be successful if it weren't being compared to a different one.

Another game sees you switching shapes in order to attack enemies: you can move and jump as a square, but you take damage. You can only dash forward as a triangle, but you deal damage to enemies and walls. You have to alternate between them in order to complete levels.

That game is roughly the same as yours except for one key aspect: the logic for how different shapes alter the game. In yours, the different shapes themselves act as "keys" to various "locks", except you only have to switch to a different shape in order to "unlock" that shape's gameplay. There's another step of interactivity in the other one: if you just switch to a triangle at a random part in the level, nothing happens--you dash forward, and then turn back into a square. You need to target your dashes at breakable walls and enemies in order for them to be effective. It's not an automatic change, it's one that the player has to do themselves.

So that's why I said that other games have done better with this theme (granted, I was also exhausted from a long day at work at the time, and in hindsight I probably shouldn't have been as harsh with it). Does that explanation make sense?

Also be aware that these are my own personal evaluations of the games in this jam. Anyone here can disagree with me, and that's okay.

I tested it multiple times in one of the middle rooms--one of the first where dashing over spikes is a main part of the layout. I could jump and dash normally when there were no spikes underneath, but if I jumped, moved over spikes mid-air, and then tried to dash across them, the dash input would be eaten and I'd fall on the spikes.

Noted! I'm going to try to improve the amount of interactive elements and clear room transitions (as well as fix any bugs) in the post-jam updates.

I'm truly sorry it couldn't have been more positive, I really mean it.