I am a sucker for grappling hook games and this is no different. Super fun demo, but number one change I would make immediately is the camera zoom. i could hardly ever see the jump I was trying to make with the next swing.
Its somewhat unclear how fast you need to be going for some high jumps and the spike level's beach ball to flag without swinging jump you make at the end of several difficult swings was to tightly spaced for me to see it was possible so I ended my playthrough there.
The animation done for the player sprite was impressive among the games I've played this jam. Squash and stretch, you got that down
My one major gripe is that the music doesn't fit and became annoying after a while and some sound effects for the player would do miles for the game feel.
I am very interested in grapple physics and if I ever get to work on a long term project I will be doing something with a grapple and momentum.
I'm sorry I didn't finish your game. I can't stand the bullet heaven genre unless there is a twist to the mechanics that justifies its existence. I just don't think this has much to show in terms of fun ideas except the technical skill to make it.
However, the game works, and I don't want to discourage you from continuing to develop this or other games. So I'll say that its great you made it within the jams time limit, but I'm not a fan.
My favorite part of this game was the pixel art for the portraits and scenes, however I found the actual gameplay pretty uninteresting. If the protection area were smaller with more room for enemies to spawn on the outside with different speeds there would be more room for different mechanics and management of approaching enemies.
The game was cute overall.
But on a more negative note I am not sold that this game fits the Jam's theme close enough. The announcement video implies water and the use of the color aqua seems like a stretch for me.
The best part of this is the sprite work. I think it needs more development mechanically. I basically just spent a couple minutes building the bridge when a random human killed me even though I had already gone near one without anything happening.
Interesting prototype, but I'd say it needs balancing for less players, especially since they cant move the heavy block on their own or excavate enough for the large orb under the time limit.
Hey this is one of my favorite games I've played for the jam.
Quick note to put an indicator or something in the description telling you how to switch your equipped weapon.
The whip especially is very well put together. Blocking projectiles from the center, hitting multiple enemies, sweeping it around, the length growing. This has the base to be an incredibly fun tool in a more developed game. That isn't to say that this is poorly developed or not fun, but you've got something great here with just that one element.
Fantastic job, I hope you'll either develop this or come up with another fun idea in another jam.
Hey this came out really well. The sprite work and most of the mechanical feel of the player are the best parts.
I only have a few pointers and one gripe.
First, I think the shooting enemies shoot too fast. Second, the sound of the bosses dying is way too loud. Third, the game slowed down massively in full screen for some unknown reason, so i just zoomed in the browser tab and it was fine. Lastly, the machine gun boss has way too short and indistinct telegraphs for its attacks.
My only gripe is that I don't think this fits the jams theme very well. It may be tangentially related by the players water gun and the chinchilla's hate water bit, but its toeing the line. I wish you luck with the judges on that front.
Hopefully the extension of your project is awesome, great job and hope I see you around!
The art for the game page and the title screen art with its camera work had me very excited to try this game and I was pretty disappointed.
Waiting for the jetpack meter to fill is not fun. The enemies don't do anything when you collide. the round colliders for the platforms had me sliding off. I don't see the purpose of filling meter when you step on an enemy unless you comboing, but that isn't feasible in the current state of this game.
The lack of a visual showing controls gave me trouble when I started as well.
I hope you'll work more on the core gameplay of your next project over the page and start screen visuals.
I may just not be accustomed to the side-scroller bullet hell genre, but this mainly felt mechanically off too me.
The size of the projectiles is too small while the player hitbox is too big. Each shot has to be fired individually at enemies that have to much health.
The background is also distracting from the enemies and projectiles.
Instant fixes I would make is lower the enemy health, make the enemy projectiles larger, shrink the player hit box, and make it so the shooting function fires if the key is pressed at all instead of if it was pressed that frame.
It sounds like you had a lot of fun making this so I hope you continue to hone your game design skills!
This game was fantastic. I only have three gripes; the final boss has a little too much health imo, the sound effects were a little too loud at base volume, and the game would only start on my second monitor. I would have preferred to play on the first.
Now lets talk things I liked.
The sfx choices at every point I heard them were perfect. The reverb effect put on most of them was perfectly made as well.
The backgrounds were sharp and well put together. You're own use of parallax scrolling out does the type I put in my own submission.
The lighting effects used were impressive and shows a technical prowess that I have yet to attain.
The creative player attack was one of my favorite parts of the game as a whole. Back blast has always been a funny mechanic and its used perfectly here.
Lastly, thank you for playing and rating my submission as well.
I just finished giving this a try and I think it has good foundations but could be refined some more. There a bit of information I would have liked be more available while playing the inventory could show the capacity with a number and a cash value of the contents without having to be at the sell shop. I also think the movement speed should be a bit higher, though you would have to rebalance the mining speed and oxygen tank. I think these things could definitely make the game more fun to play in general.
The following are just opinions that may not be faithful to the game vision and I primarily think this because I only got the 1st upgrade in each category.
I think it might be better if mineral density or mineral value were higher. It took me a fairly large amount of time to farm up the cash to get the first upgrades and seeing the 2nd tier be almost 3x as expensive while my cash per dive was not going up at a similar rate had me decide to finish my playthrough early.
The inventory system may be bugged because when the yellow bar for it became completely red I could still pick up more ore.
I don't want this to sound overly negative so I'll say that the sfx were well chosen, though the volume of some and the absence of a block breaking sound is notable.
The full commitment to a consistently scaled aesthetic showed me one way I could improve my own game (the sprite resolution varies wildly).
The art for the shop and seller are charming in their own right, and the character of the shop options text is equally so.
The title screen is pretty and the options menu along with a pause function was a good addition because I didn't add a pause function to my submission at all.
Lastly, I'm very interested in the tools used to create the surface of the water. That is technically incomprehensible to me right now so bravo to that.
Hey, would you be able to send a screenshot of your game without the health bar? there should be on on the bottom of the screen. also if you have arrow keys on your keyboard or a controller those work for movement and shooting as well. I don't know the exact buttons for controller rn.
