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A neat little game, liked the musical noises of the cat's movement. Though a few of those sounds at the end cutscene seem slightly out of place (like the snap as the darkness vanishes), but nothing major or anything.

The real question is, is the architecture of some of these rooms due to the darkness, or is it just one of those modern house design trends? 

https://dragondevdhot.itch.io/octolost-mm16

Octolost (Metroidvania Month Version), you play as an octopus, who is lost. (who woulda thunk it?)

Thanks for playing!

Yeah, there's a few issues I saw as I developed the game, but over the course of the month from both developing the game and finding teammates, I found myself with a lot to figure out and how to not fall into scope creep.

There's actually a fair bit of stuff planned that didn't end up happening, like a  longer temple area with more enemies, more secrets, a second boss fight, an actual npc in the town (besides the dogfish), and there most certainly was something else planned to be on the other side of the starting cave. I even planned to have rebindable keys and controller support, but I've not delved into coding that in the engine I use before and by the time I tried in this game the difficulty seemed to outweigh the reward. So I stuck with mouse and keyboard and polishing up other aspects. With the throwing and healing (to answer your query, it's supposed to be algae), I'm usually too busy making the gameplay that I don't really sit down and think on how to due a proper tutorial, and I wanted to avoid having something in your face with a floating text prompt for every possible action, so I stuck with showing e over the stick to interact and having a list of controls in the pause menu, so hopefully I can come up with something better in the future.

I'm actually planning to update the game post-jam to include stuff to be more in the original scope of the game, though it won't be that much longer than what's in the jam.

It's always good to hear helpful criticism, and even better to hear that what you made is pretty good despite the flaws!

Many cool ideas in here, the abilities and animations all feel very polished. Shame that you got ditched. I will say I found a few things to criticize, though most of them would probably be fixed by having a more properly developed version of the game. 

The hammer causes a lot, a LOT, of lag, dunno if that's exactly on my end or the game's but it makes the hammer kinda wonky to use.

 Secondly, the invincibility ability lasts a bit too long for most of the areas that need it, and I think a good improvement would to either let you cancel it or use the other abilities in conjunction with it.

 The other problems I noticed were that there were a good few areas that lacked proper collision, which actually led me to a softlock in the blue level with that one yellow npc in the numbered rooms.

Other than that, while it kinda falls short of actually being a metroidvania, it shows a lot of potential, so if you wanna turn this into a fully fledged game in the future, go for it!

It's a very simple game, but it is a nice little experience, I hesitate to say this fully fits in the metroidvania category over just the platformer category, though. However as another comment said you do have some of the general principles of one included. The controls could've used a bit more work. The double-jump loses height way too fast as you ascend from your first jump, and the edges of terrain have this weird little hook. Other than that, it's a neat little game, bare-bones if anything.

Do you do retro-style sfx, or can you do semi-realistic ones as well?

Hey there, I can't contact you now as it's late, but if you're not already partnered up, I would like to see if we can work together this jam!

Incredible, fun and fast-paced, could have been a bit more juicy but overall it's amazing!

Not really juicy, but still a fun game!

Hey, thanks for playing it! Yeah, deeper into the development it became apparent how tiring on the wrists and fingers it can get, but I'd spent so much time on the rest that I hadn't gotten to consider how to improve it.

I had some ideas for potential post-jam mechanics, like the fruit having a chance to dodge if you spam, so if all goes well in the future I can hopefully improve upon that aspect!

Hey, thanks for playing!

The soundtrack's definitely something I'll try to make a bit more smooth in the future, the music/sounds were pretty rushed in comparison to the rest of the game's content.

I've seen the starting weapon's length to be a recurring complaint, so that'll definitely be increased in the future.

The time's probably also gonna get shortened, though I do expect that the problem's worsened by the fact that dying resets the whole level, so I'm definitely gonna add some kind of soft save for every "phase" of the day that saves your seeds/chunks gained at that point.

Thanks for playing!

Yeah, the length of the starting knife seems to be a common complaint, so that's definitely getting improved in the future.

Also, the bushes were intended for you to hide in, but that wasn't properly implemented yet, so far they just turn you invisible and make a leaf splash.

But if that still worked for you; then that'll be a good sign for when hiding is actually implemented in the code!

Some of the hitboxes and platforms are a bit wonky, especially on that fire-maze level, but it's a cute little game with some well-though mechanics. Pretty good!

It's a real spooker that's for sure, though I definitely hope you work on it further.

It has great potential, but as of right now it's just a bit of a spooky walking sim.

Nonetheless, a great entry, and that art style really sells it.

The atmosphere of the game was great, sidescrolling platformers aren't much my thing but this has some great potential.

It does seem a little resource intensive, but the main issue seems to be that the platforms and mushrooms are a bit clunky, if you don't stick the landing in a lot of places you just get stuck and have no choice but to fall down.

One suggestion, the thorns should probably one-shot you, and you may want to clear out some of the spaces in the thorn pits where you can just walk/stand and not take damage.

Also, just as a detail, maybe make the character's face animate to show pain when getting hit too, but since it's a SIDE-scroller, it's not that big a deal, just would be a neat detail.

Otherwise, a pretty good entry, and hope you finish it up in the future!

Thanks for playing! Yeah I realized a little to late that the total day reset on death thing was a bit too much, I'm not fully sure what to do yet but I think for starters saving your stats at the point of changing from day-to-noon and so forth would be a good start.

As for the hitboxes on the jumping enemies they actually disable until they're just about to hit the ground, to make it like they're landing on you, but making disabling them when they're just standing still's a good idea, so I'll take that into account in the future.

I was going to add being hidden from enemies in the leaf pile but the deadline came a bit too close for me to add that, definitely plan to change that in the future, they do have another use in the form of replenishing ammo for one of the other weapons.

Lastly for getting other weapons, you do have to beat the level, where you'll be taken to a shop that'll let you buy weapons with the seeds you earn. If you hunt down the enemies optimally, you should have more than enough for the first extra weapon/just under enough for the first ranged weapon. 

One of the best I've seen so far, polished both graphics wise and gameplay wise.

As of writing I'm also stuck at the last level, but the game's been so fun that I keep going back to try and beat it!

Hey, thanks for playing! I intended the knife to be a bit of a tricky starting weapon, but was also worried if it was a bit too short.

In the future I'll probably extend the general range of it by a few pixels so there's less super-close calls.

Thanks for playing, I plan on  updating the game later so I'll be re-going over a lot, I did consider at one point to have the chunks give a chance for a heal, so maybe I'll reimplement that.

P.S. If the 3 minute timer felt a bit long, then it's probably a real good thing I didn't go with the 6 minute level time I initially gave it.

I have a couple of quick questions before the deadline hits tonight.

1, Are we allow to put in quick little patches to fix any bugs we can?

2, We're  ok to update and/or monetize (the updated versions of) our games post-jam/ranking, right?

P.S. : My first ever game jam!

Hey, thanks for playing, and any constructive criticism is very much welcome, considering this is literally my second game ever. I was worried about the sounds and music in particular because I had the least time to work on them. But hopefully post-jam I can spend more time on making/getting better effects.