itch.io

Nice job on this and thanks again for participating in the Backtrace Game Jam!!  As promised, some feedback for you:

- The platforming didnt feel great / was confusing.  I think this was a combination of it being difficult to tell how high the character was when jumping.  I think this is because of a few different things: 1) it was hard to anchor the character to a frame of reference given the background and 2) Because the platform textures were hard to differentiate without lighting.  Everything kind of blended together / it was really hard to get a sense for the depth of the playing area

- Generally the player feedback could be improved.  This can be especially difficult during a game jam and most people think of it as "polish" but I really think it is a core part of making a game feel good.  For example:  A dust cloud when you jumped or landed might make it easier to track the player in 3d space.  Effects when the player was hit or hit an enemy would make combat feel more impactful.  Etc...

One other thing:  When you upload to itch, you need to upload ONE build at a time in a single zip folder.  It looks like you zipped your entire build folder (with a windows and mac build) which made it so itch wasnt able to recognize the build through the app.  Next time, upload WindowsBuild.zip and MacBuild.zip separately.
Hopefully this was helpful!  Thanks again for participating, hope to see you at the next one!!

Wow this was great all around!  I loved the cute art style + the little icons that show your "abilities".  The puzzle design was great, slowly introduced new concepts / taught via gameplay.  I only wish there were more levels!

Great game!  Great idea AND execution on the bug theme.  It ties really well into gameplay and the story.  The pacing of the gameplay is good / introduces each concept slowly.  I would love to see more levels that combine more of the "bug" concepts together too!

First of all, you scared me with that blue screen of death hahaha well done!

Really great job, especially given you are a solo dev and with the time constraints.  I love how you incorporated the bug theme (especially when the code editor pops up and insults me for not being fast enough to press the button haha).  Though it would have made it even better if you incorporated those themes into the gameplay a bit more cohesively.

The visuals were a bit choppy but makes sense given the time frame you were working with

Overall, great job!

I though this was super clever!  I just wish there were more levels!  It would be awesome to see you build this idea out into a full game!

Interesting idea but I couldnt figure out how to trigger the "bug" mechanic.  Understanding that better would be key to mastering the gameplay + having fun!

Wow, really cool idea.  Great job with the primary gameplay loop + keeping it simple, then adding progression with the different levels.  It is clear you managed your time well to  be able to pull this off!  I was suprised every time I progressed to another level and you kept adding more and more complexity!  Well done!

I also really loved the art style + sound design.  The noise when you pick up an ant feels super gratifying for some reason.

Great job overall!  Jundo is adorable, the visual style generally is minimalistic but GREAT.  Gameplay is good but a couple points of feedback: 
- The intro sequence went a bit too slow.  Maybe speed it up or let a player press a button to progress the dialouge.

- For a difficult game like this, it is super important that the death --> retry loop is very fast.  You expect players to die a lot, so make that process as painless as possible.  (Like how meat boy does it for example)

I should be announcing both winners this Friday, 12/17.  But keep an eye on the Discord for updates / in case anything is delayed or changes.  

Yeah this is tough.  I want to say it is ok to change the description but as AT4 says, that will make it tough to distinguish whether or not you changed the build so hold off for now

I am definitely open to the feedback, thank you for voicing your opinion!  Keep in mind though that we are balancing for a lot more factors than just the ones you mention.  We have to encourage people to vote / participate in the community and I worry if people had to rate 15 other games before they could rate their own, they may just not vote at all.  This also means that the few people who are evil enough to give 15 1 star reviews in a row and then give themselves 5 stars are going to be at an advantage + their unfair votes wont be balanced out by the large number of (hopefully unbiased) votes coming in from people who didnt submit a game.  Also, by opening it up to anyone to vote, people can 'participate' in the jam to some degree by voting even if they missed the original sign up / didnt have time to create a game.  And again, I will remind you that the judges are the ones who will determine the grand prize winner so there is an extra layer of checks and balances there.

FYI Also:  I have encouraged Backtrace employees in our internal channels to vote in the jam so a good chunk of the votes coming in should be from them.  They are an unbiased, unaffiliated population of ~500 people so that should certainly help.

Anyways, I certainly see both sides of the situation.  Let's see how this jam goes and we can certainly discuss tweaks to the process for next time around.

There are pros and cons to each approach, but this is why we have the judges responsible for making the final decision for the main prize.  That should help prevent cheating

Yeah, as mentioned above, no updates until the voting period is over.  Like FaFeDev said, if you want you could create a new page and upload new builds there if you want!

It should be that voting is open to the public!

The "community rank" will be whoever ranks #1 in the public voting category: "Creative Use of Jam Theme - "It is not a bug"
When the voting period is over, all of the votes will be aggregated and the ranks will become public!

Hey!  In order to do a late submission, I need to send you a late submission link.  Can you DM me on discord so we can continue the process there?  Thanks!

Sorry everyone, one of the settings for the jam was tagged incorrectly so it isnt giving you the ability to vote.  I am working with itch.io support to fix the issue, I'll let you know as soon as it is fixed!  Thanks!

https://itch.io/jam/backtrace-gamejam-3/topic/1794308/backtrace-and-godot?before...

Awesome!  Thanks!!

Hey, sorry to hear you are having some anxiety!  Yeah, I can't really extend the timeline because that wouldnt be fair to the others who planned and scoped for this time frame.  But i'd be happy to take your feedback and potentially we could do a longer jam next time!  Let me know what you think / if you have done other jams what your favorite time frame is!

Good luck on finishing up your entry!  You still have time to finish!  

Sure!

Sure! In software development, the word "bug" often means an issue with the software. Similar to "glitch" or "mistake". But also, "bug" means insect. So you could interpret the theme as "it is not a mistake", "it is not a glitch", or even "it is not an insect".  Remember, the theme is not meant to be a strict rule. It is meant to help you think of creative ideas! So interpret the theme however it makes sense to you and have fun with it!

I still haven't found your support request for this.  Maybe it would be easier to send to me via Discord?

Yeah, this sounds totally fine as long as you participate + submit a game!  I'll double check with my support team / see if I can find the request and let you know if I have questions or concerns.

I just asked the discord community to try to see if we can find out who made it / get their explicit permission for you, I'll let you know!

From our perspective, it is totally fine as long as you can get permission.  I've actually not used that tool before but feel free to use it if it works!  We fully support community tools so feel free and let us know how it goes!

In terms of getting permission / the legal aspect, maybe ask about it in the discord because im pretty sure whoever built this participated in one of the last game jams so hopefully they are still around and can answer you!  Generally, it is probably safe to assume that they are open to people using it given they published it publicly on Github and wrote up a detailed ReadMe!

It can be anything, even a test "Hello World" Debug.LogError or something.  The goal is to just ensure that you have actually integrated with Backtrace.  Once one error / anything is sent by your game and received by Backtrace, that means it is all set up and the integration is working.  From there, you dont have to touch the Backtrace SDK through the rest of the jam, it should just automatically send error reports without you needing to do anything.

Yes!  Feel free to use any engine that you want (including building your own).  But remember, the jam is only about 48 hours long so it might be hard to build out an engine and a game in that time!

The short answer is, "Yes, it is fine to use previously created assets".  The longer answer is "be reasonable about it".  If the pre made assets you use make up the entirety or a major part of your jam submission, that is not ok.  If you have a script or two that are pretty standard or will help you with a feature or two, that is fine.  There will also be a place for you to write a note about this when you submit your jam entry.

The rules say "

1. Asset Usage Guidelines
   1. You are free to use any assets (Sound, Music, 2D or 3D Art, Fonts) which you have the legal permission to.  For example, asset packs purchased on the Unity Asset Store.
   2. If you do use previously created assets, say so in your game’s submission
   3. Teams who create their own assets as a part of the jam will be given a slight competitive edge from the judges.  We don’t want to exclude anybody from the jam who can’t find a team, but we want to incentivize our community to work together + form relationships!

"

Check out the rules:
"

1. You cannot submit a game that you have been working on before the game jam’s start date.  Eligible games will have only been developed during the game jam’s duration.
   1. However, it is fine if you want to set up an empty project and integrate Backtrace before the jam officially kicks off (~24 hours in advance).  We actually highly recommend that all participants do this so they can focus more on their game during the jam!

"

Basically, yeah it is fine to set it up ahead of time.  We just want to make sure people arent actually building out their game.  If you start the game jam with an empty project + Backtrace integrated + some packages installed, that is fine.

Put in whatever you want.  You can think of it almost like the name of your backtrace instance.  When you sign up, Backtrace creates an instance for you and uses the subdomain you input to do so.  Note that your subdomain shouldn't have any "." characters in it!

Thanks for asking, yeah sorry about that!  We wish we could offer the prize to everyone, it really just comes down to legal restrictions, unfortunately.  Either way, I really hope you join / am excited to see what you come up with!

Khushaal - Sorry for the confusion on this:  We actually NO LONGER require a video to be submitted.  We wanted to give you more time to focus on creation of the game this time around.  However, if your game isnt intuitive for the judges to figure out by playing, then you likely wont be scored well so make sure any directions or tutorials are as clear as possible!

Yeah as pixelBoy said, it is "Shared Knowledge"

Which level are you stuck on? Ill try to help!

Very interesting concept, well done!

Is it possible to do anything other than move around on this build

Thank you so much for playing and the detailed feedback!  Yeah I never got around to implementing the options menu (sorry about that!) but you can bet that v2 will have that all ironed out!

hahaha im so glad someone noticed that!  when I put it in the game I giggled to myself