itch.io

It seems the error stems from memory. I will see if I can find a fix for this in the coming days, thank you for bringing this to my attention. 

That's awfully strange. I'll see if I can find the issue. 

Glad to hear it. There was a bit of a glitch with the wall spikes that appear occasionally being a technically different entity and thus their light bugged out to not exist at all, but that will be fixed next big update.

I see. I appreciate your input. I'll see if I can recreate the bug and see where the issue is. 

I look forward to seeing how far you take it. ^^

That's unfortunate to hear. But thank you for playing regardless. We have played with the idea of making difficulties. Various forms of the game with different nuances to allow new players to progress but still possing a challenge to experienced players. The main two were casual and traditional. Casual being where you can control the player while in the air and have infinite checkpoints and traditional with how the game is now. If this casual mode was added, would you say that it would fix some of the annoyances for you and pose a more bearable challenge? 

I see. Im sorry to hear that. Is there something about the controls in particular you dont enjoy? Or is it just the moment in general.

Of course. I didn't get super far as I was pretty busy at the time I reviewed it, but the first good 30 minutes was fantastic.

This is awsome. Honestly, not much to critique here. This is a game I would absolutely buy and sink hundreds of hours into. Incredible art. Very well programmed and design gameplay wise. I may just play this myself in my spare time. As myCatsName said in their comment, very inspiring and extremely impressive. I don't throw out exaggerated praise, but this may very well be one of the most profession, well designed, overall best games I've ever seen in one of these jams period. Any more touch up or improving and I may need to hide my wallet when this officially releases.

This is very endearing. Reminds me of an old arcade game in all the best ways. I liked the music, visuals were very charming and not overdone, and I like the implementation of the button for jump, I assume it works on mobile as well, fun addition to add to the style while expanding the audience. Not many negatives to comment on.

This is a fantastic horror game. Very atmospheric and earie. I would suggest a jumpscare or two when the entity reaches you, or a bit more tension when the enemy grows nearer, after a few deaths I kind of got used to the chasing. But just walking around was very spooky. It already has a good bit of polish. Sound design is definitely a highlight. The hand animations being almost pseudo realistic adds to the creepy factor as well. Very nice.

I really love the cover art and style. The in game graphics are really stylized, but can be a bit... goofy at times. No necessarily bad, but not my cup of tea. I think if the animations were touched up a bit and made a bit more fluid it would be a lot more appealing. Art is great thought. 

I was not expecting the gameplay. I was perhaps expecting a skating game like subway surfers or temple run, some endless runner, a battle soccer type game was not my first guess. That being said it works, it's pretty fun and the gameplay is alright, I would maybe crispen up the movement a bit, make it a bit snappier, but not bad and it was certainly enjoyable. Just needs a bit of polishing, in my opinion. Great base with a few rough edges.

I initially thought this was just going to be a geometry dash clone and was anticipating my comment to be along the lines of "yeah, nice geometry dash remake" but the twist of it only being one view you go back and fourth on with the level slowly adding more and more layers is a fantastic distinction. Was really fun. The graphics are pretty minimalist right now, but certain not bad and it fits the game well. Sound design is good so far. I would suggest making the jumping a bit more snappy, right now it can feel a tad floaty, which is really not what you want for a game like this. Honestly not many complains, solid game.

Ok, it took me a minute to figure out how the game worked, but it's actually a really unique concept. I can't say I know may games of the top of my head with a similar idea. That being said, it's really difficult, and, with no tutorial, it was even harder to figure out what my objective was when I would die on the third or fourth block. I would add some text or something to tell the player the rules, or just make it a good bit easier and have it go the progressively speed up route. Interesting concept, very early execution, obviously, so I'll say it's a pretty good start and with some tweaks here and there it has potential to be a really good mobile or flash game. I can see this being a very successful mobile game especially. During it's final stages, when you crispen up the visuals by adding actual sprites and UI and implement adds every few deaths, could see it being pretty successful.

I appreciate your input! I'm glad to hear you liked the level design, I've put quote a bit of time into it and scrapped many prior versions. Though, the next update will have a few of the more difficult jumps in the first couple screens made a bit easier, if not more obvious to new players.

I've never heard of Blackthorne, but I'll check it out. 

Yes, that bug has been with the game since the beginning and is due to the nature of how the ledge catch and climb System works. It used to be much worse, but I've gotten it down to a reasonably rare level so hopefully within the next couple big updates I can weed it out completely with enough small adjustments. 

I'm glad to hear you liked it enough to revisit it! The final game will have more polish and will have a bunch of really tough challenges, such as no checkpoints, blinded mode, reverse mode, and no walk or run mode, to named a few. When the game is fully released on itch and steam I will also be having a large giveaway for the fastest time submitted within the first month of its release with a prize from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on how many sales I get in that month. We also plan to have many more installments in this Shadow saga of games following Shadow and his race within the darklands and their history, so, if you're interested, stay tuned, we'd love to hear from you again on a future project. ^^

Fun concept. I actually really like most of the art, very stylized and fits the game really well. Gameplay was a bit clunky. I would suggest shrinking the colliders of some of the obstacles, the box collider extended pretty far out from what I would expect that obstacle to reach, so I died a lot to seemingly air, basically. I would also suggest speeding it up a bit. This may just be my bias, as I tend to lean towards speedrunning preferences, but the chasing did feel a tad slow. This reminds me of a really fun flash game. Has potential to be a fun game to sink some boredom into with a few tweaks to the chasing gameplay primarily. The mixing gameplay at the start was pretty rudimentary and kinda hard to figure out, so that could use some work. I like Mulgrath's take of splitting the mixing portion and chasing portion into two different games, would let you flesh out both concepts better. If not, I would consider maxing the ingredients you mix at the start to affect the chase gameplay in some way. So you can make powerups through different combinations. Just some food for thought.

Of course. I'm very excited to see how far this game goes. It has an amazing aesthetic. Do you plan to include any hidden lore, like in hollow knight?

I appreciate the input. I've also got quite a few complaints about how quickly the difficulty spikes. By the next big update shown in the description of the games page I'll have added a tutorial and will have toned down the difficulty of the first few screens a bit. I've been struggling with with whether I wanna go full rage foddian game or if I wanna focus on the replayable speedrun aspect. I think I've officially settled on the latter.

I'm glad you had fun. 

This will probably be largely the final UI design. I want the user interface to be fairly minimal. However, I may have a controls screen like the one in your game, it's a pretty good idea I didn't think about. The loading and menu screens will also likely be updated a bit with the main menu obviously having many more navigation options than just start game.

I'm also very proud of the ledge climb animation. The lore of this game really relies on the visuals, so I'm glad you liked them.

I do plan to add a jumping sound and more sound with, for instance, the shadow colossus's laser or give Albedo her own ending music for the credits. I'll make some interaction sounds with the menus when you click a button or something. I may also add the occasional cave shake sound play, or perhaps just some more cave ambiance. I was going to add a sound for every time the player impacts the ground, but this game is just to fast paced when you get really good at it, so it was just a constant sound that was more annoying than immersive.

Thank you! And thank you for playing. Good luck on your game as well. If you think you'll be interested in playing further at a later date, then the final game will be released sometime late next year after a handful of larger updates where I'll hold a giveaway of $1,000 - $5,000 for the fastest time(s) recorded or streamed within the first month of the games release.

If you don't mind me asking, could you tell me roughly how many screens you got passed?

I see. Thank you. I appreciate your input. I will try to implement some of these suggestions by the next Large update date listed in the description. If you're still interested in progressing further, let me know by then if you still feel these issues need addressed. 

This game is beautiful. Gives me strong hollow knight vibes, which is especially fantastic for me since my own games visuals were strongly based on hollow knight and similar styles. Great UI, very stylized and professional. This is a game I would definitely pay money for in its current state. To be honest, not a whole lot I can gripe about, just had a great time looking around to be honest, almost as much as I did actually engaging with the gameplay. I'm very stingy with 4 and 5 star ratings in these jams, but this game definitely deserves it. Very impressed.

I see. I'm sorry to hear that. I did intend to make this game very difficult, but I also thought the opening few screens were a tad much for the very start, unfortunately, I play my own game in testing constantly, so I've become fairly good at it, so it's tough to gauge difficulty from a new players perspective. Could you tell me any parts in particular you thought were too difficult for the starting screens? If you don't mind, could you also let me know roughly how many screens you were able to get past?

Pretty well put together. Nice, clean visuals and sound design was pretty top notch. The gameplay is pretty simplistic, but it works well for the concept, no need for excessive flourishes, though I do think some variety in player movement and available actions would be nice, perhaps some abilities, something like that. A really solid flash type game. Could see myself zoning out and playing a bunch of levels if just a few things were added to give it a bit more depth.

So, this game is a really nice concept, but obviously it's in very early stages. I always love an interactive story with multiple endings, and this one is pretty well written across the board. The text is nice, a base font, not too hard to read, could maybe use for a font that's a tad more stylish and earie, however, due to the nature of the ratings, I can't really rate the art very high just based on a readable font. Very creative, I don't see many indie games on here go the multiple story paths rout. I do have concerns about this game becoming more in the future, as, with just how much story and customization is here, it may be a bit difficult to keep track and properly implement it all should you begin to add actual gameplay, you may have to sacrifice a tad bit of story. However, as simply an interactive click based story, it's pretty good. To avoid this I may suggest the visual novel approach, though from the looks of things, you probably already have that planned to some degree. But having visuals like backgrounds and sprites, maybe some animations if you're able to dredge up some funding somehow, would due this game wonders. I really enjoy horror visual novels and this story would really work well in that genre. May revisit this game at a later date.

I LOVE the style. The visuals are very unique and extremely appealing. Sound design is also pretty good. Gameplay wise it's fairly standard for the genre, but that isn't really a gripe, it plays well and has no real errors to speak of. Very solid game, can't say I found much to nitpick, very charming.

Very cute. Music was very soothing, and aesthetic is really nice. Obviously has a long way to go, I probably don't need to tell you that. But has potential to be a very endearing concept.

Very simple but authentic doom style game. Always fun to play this style, and the gameplay is pretty well done as well. Sound design is great, music is very fitting and the sound on the bullets is great as well. Though, this type of game really needs enemy variety. Even just having a variety in the size/color of the enemies meaning they're faster or have more health will add a lot to the game. Once more enemies/enemy variety is added, I think this game will be elevated considerably. Fun demo for now though.

Thank you! I appreciate your input! I also thought the beginning levels were fairly difficult or advanced for the very start, but, with checkpoints and much later levels following a decent progression, I actually kind of like it being that tough from the start. It's meant to be a difficult game. 

I'm glad you liked the level design, its gone through some DRASTIC changes. There are still some tweaks I'll likely make before the final game is released.

Yes, the glitching into ledges has been a bug that's been with the game from the beginning. It has to do with the nature of the action, so it's a tough error to fix. It used to be a lot worse. Luckily I was able to bring it to a manageable level before the voting began. 

Thank you for playing! ^^

Great, thank you. Should you play any more in the future and discover any, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave a comment on the page letting me know what happened. ^^

I appreciate it! Thank you for playing! That is has. Turns out trying to make a ledge crab mechanic using in game physics and flimsy colliders can be a bit buggy. Did you run into any noticeable bugs while playing? If you don't mind me asking.

Ah I see. Since there were a limited number of bullets and the bullet looked like it was doing some kind of fading animation, I assumed that meant I just had one shot to clear a rout, that makes more sense since some of the enemies were extremely hard to get through with only one. Noted.

I'm not sure if this game counts as an action game at all, or if the game being in the action genre is a requirement based on the name of the jam. However, since not all games get approved anyway, I figured I'd give it a shot regardless. 

This is nice concept and a pretty good proof of concept. As you said, it still needs a lot of working, but it has pretty good potential. What you have runs pretty well and looks nice, no strange looking UI or any obvious bugs to speak of. AsE_CG's comment summed up my thoughts on this pretty well. I also played the web version and had no issues. You could take this idea a bunch of different ways, so I'm curious to see which you choose. May have to visit this project at a later date.

This game is extremely fun. The shots give a great kick are very well coded. The shot is definitely the highlight of this game so far. I would suggest allowing the player to pick the bullet back up for a second shot, or have a cooldown perhaps? I didn't get too far into the game, so maybe that's in later levels, but figured I'd mention it. Visuals are pretty minimal, but, considering the amount of time you had to implement them, they work well with the game style and gameplay. I may come back to this game later and check it out again should you give any more big updates.

Very simple game with a fun twist on a classic arcade game. Not too complicated or overdone, just a fun game you can lose yourself playing for a while.  Short and sweet. Lots of replay value. Of course the visuals are pretty minimal, but that doesn't seem to be the main draw of this game, though, since it is a large portion of the rating, it should probably be mentioned. Very fun. 

Really interesting idea, very unique take on a matching game. Also love the Buddhist/Hindu visuals and setting. Though, the cards being of different sizes when turned around looked a bit strange. Also the "Jump scares" aren't very effective, I saw this on a few comments on your page as well. I'd suggest a bit more build up, maybe a longer pause, have the jumpscare last longer perhaps, or maybe have a timer or meter that, when ran out or filled, will transport you to a darker location that is followed by some creepy ambiance and a jumpscare, just some food for thought I came up with while playing. Wonderful concept and pretty good execution so far, but would do really well with continued care and a large amount of reworking. I see this as an awesome proof of concept demo. 

Very fun concept for an educational math game. Visuals are really endearing, especially the extra flourishes like the shadows and effects around the camera. Pretty professionally built. Good, simple retro music that fits the style well. Nice simple UI, but the font used for the text can be a tad hard to read, I had to squint and double take once or twice to make out what was being said, especially in the opening segments. Though that may be an error on my end.  Great concept with solid execution, only a handful of gripes.

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm glad you managed to progress further through. I'm thinkin of just making you have unlimited checkpoints. You can see on the update agenda and the main menu I plan to add challenges, so I may just make no checkpoints a challenge for people who've played the game a lot and wanna test their abilities more. Or for a steam achievement when the full game releases.

The point of the limited checkpoints is to force people to be aware of them, so they need to consciously space them out. However, I think the level at the moment is just a bit too hard for that to be reasonable to new audiences. This is a foddian game, so it is meant to have a small rage element, but it's also a speedrun game, so it should be completable within a reasonable amount of time. We'll see. 

But, assuming you only got to the first level in the outside area, that means you only actually have 5 screens to go, including the one that's just you standing there, the ending one. And being able to finish the game is a couple hours is a pretty good first completion time. So I'll leave it at 20 for now. If you'd still like to play further and beat the game, let me know after a few more attempts if it's just truly too difficult to get to that point without using all your checkpoints.

I'll look into the bug as well. I've had a few times where I glitched into the ground chunks while I was sprinting and dashing around like crazy actively trying to break it, but it wasn't even remotely repeatable. This bug will probably take a bit longer to fix, since I need to identify the problem basically through trial and error. For now if it only happened to you once in 40 minutes or longer I can leave it allow to focus on more important updates. But let me know if it starts happening more frequently.

Thank you for playing! This has been extremely beneficial feedback. ^^

Also, with the wall collider mishap, this is because I made a few of the wall colliders too short, so the player is hitting the ground collider behind them. I'm in the process of fixing this now, but I need to go through every ground chunk in the game to move the collider slightly out, so it may take a couple updates, since not all of the wall colliders are even placed yet. After the 10th or so screen only wall colliders on ground chunks that are necessary to complete the "true" path, or the path I think is the most obvious for beginners, are placed. I'll add this as a bug to the page. To avoid this for now, just try and press the arrow key pointing towards the wall of any ground chunks. I'll let you know when this issue has been fully resolved.

I'm glad you liked the level design!

I'm actually glad to hear that. This game is designed to be a foddian platformer, so I took that inspiration from games like jump king, so the player not being able to move in the air is meant to be an extra layer of difficulty to the movement.

I see, I'll take that into account, maybe I'll make the crumble platforms a bit smaller and darker, or brighter. White highlights on the spikes isn't a bad idea. I have a similar highlight on an item later in the game.

The smaller spike platforms are intentional. In some instances, having too large of a spike platform would ruin the flow of the level, but no spike platform at all would lead to players performing shortcuts that were too easy and obvious for my liking and that weren't accounted for. So I shrunk some of the spike platforms so that players could get past it fine, but not allow for unintended and undesirable shortcuts, or players getting onto or in areas they weren't supposed to be. 

I think this is because the edge needs to hit a certain collider for the player to reach for it, so, say, if shadows box collider hits the edge of a platform before the edge detection trigger does, then it treats it as a normal ground tag, so, if you jump before the edge reaches the trigger, the player will jump as if he's on the ground. 

This is actually intentional. There are ways, if you're really good with the movement, where you can exploit this to skip having to climb the edges, which could save you several seconds, which is really big in speedrunning, which is a big target demographic for this game. But I can see how that could be annoying or not very obvious.

Would you say you'd prefer for the player to always grab the ledge when you hit one, say, set jumping and moving to false if the edge is within a certain range, or would you think it be sufficient to bring attention to this? I do actually plan to implement a tutorial in the near future, so, if the latter then I could make this obvious in the tutorial level.  I can do either option, but I would like to get some more opinions on this matter as well.

If you'd like to play the game further, try waiting a moment when you hit the edge of the platform if the player doesn't immediately grab it. The trigger for the player's edge detection is near his face or a bit higher, see if that lets you get a bit further until I've come to a proper solution for this.