itch.io

Yea, this game really humbled me. So simple, yet so effective. The movement in this game just felt so good. By my game you couldn't tell, but I'm really a sucker for games where you have to think about how you move and this game scratched just that. Really great job, this really inspired me.

I love having fun cheery music and style in games where u go on a massacre. But if there was one thing I learned in this game jam is that hard to control movement is not always so fun. My game suffered and I felt it here too. Otherwise really great job on the art style and the idea, I loved it :)

OK, I'll preface with the fact that I did not finish the game, but I actually really liked some of the aspects of the game and I'd like to give u my 2cents on some of them. First things first, the game lagged for me, ofc I'm on a potato, but such simple game should not really lag especially if it's somewhat of a quick reaction type of game. I noticed u used unreal so u could've lowered the lighting settings, cuz I guess that's the most expensive part.
I really liked the whole gameloop, it's like temple run, but kinda different in how u choose where to go. At first i did not understand why would you have energy but later I was getting chased by hamsters which gave sense of urgency and made me choose my path with more thought and then I understood the reason why the straight jump was limited by energy count. Overall some really good ideas, I wonder how it would play with a wider map and maybe more handcrafted puzzles. Saw ur comment so good job on actually finishing :D

Had great fun with this one, good job!

big dub game

I'm just impressed how easily understood tower defense games are. No tutorials, not much was needed for me to pick up the game and get immersed in it. Great job, the music sync was some master stroke stuff 😂

It was definitely fun. At first I could not get up those 3 platforms at the end, but mastering the jump to make it was the part I liked. Anyways, great job 😅

Damn, this ticked off all the boxes. Spectacular work.. I wish I could be on your level one day 😭

I also did not figure out the the first rope part, but i really like where u were going. I think maybe the game would've benefited with a lower camera angle as it was hard to see some of the platforms and it's hard to get a feel for your character, but maybe it's just skill issue. But other than that nice job

yoo, i really loved the whole combat part, it adds so much to the game. Great job

took me a while to understand that u control the character with the arrow keys. But yea, had a great laugh, nice job :D

I really liked the whole idea of being inside of a crane machine so I enjoyed exploring the level :)

Nice game, I really like the movement, though it did feel too floaty, but it still created some cools moments. The whole atmosphere of battle is very nice, but I did find myself not fighting enemies and just running through them. 

Yea I needed to add some type of board wipe opportunity so that the players could manage the enemies and get further. Something to think about moving forward with the game.  Thank you for your feedback!

You wasn't able to move even after getting killed by a yellow enemy?

Idk maybe it's just me but it's hard to tell whether you gonna jump over some obstacles. Also adding some animations for when turning or hitting something(also particles) would improve the visual. But overall you did exceptionally good on the look of the game, the UI has a nice style especially the UI for controls is very clean looking. Great game, keep it up :D

I really liked seeing ghosts playing the game, just watching myself figure out the puzzle in replay is hella fun.

I did complete all the stages with only one ghost in play (you can complete the 2 level with no ghost), but I really like that you have an option to make the game basically easier if you use the second ghost. The puzzles are clever though somewhat easy to exploit but nonetheless they were fun to figure out. The game can easily be expanded with more levels, moving elements and even abilities for player...

The movement in general feels fluid, but the jump seems inconsistent sometimes. Like in the third stage jumping up to the platform with a button in the middle was difficult, also got stuck in some places so I had to reset the level. In the 3 level I got clipped through the world by the first moving platform, good thing you made thicker walls otherwise you could skip the whole level with this. And like others have mentioned getting stuck was an issue in some cases. Plus coyote time for jumps would be nice.

The sprite work is nice, though adding some bloom and darkness would add a whole lot to the feel.

Animations are on point for player and other elements. Liked when the camera focuses on your ghosts while they walk out. AND the camera zoom animation when you enter the third level.

The thing that I liked about the first level is the idea that you can't really mess up the platforming, cuz otherwise you would miss the window of when ur character is standing on the button, so making levels where you don't have a choice of standing infinitely on the button would make for more puzzles where you have to be frame perfect with your current life and ghosts. And I'm sure you can expand the game much more it's just one thing.

And the ending is pretty cool, though it would be even more impactful if you cut the music and just had a sudden silence.

Overall I really liked the concept. Thank you for making this great game!

I'm genuinely surprised on how many of my design choices you have picked up on. Now I'm going to try to address your comments in the fashion you dissected my game:

• Introducing the mechanic of absorbing enemy abilities: Through other people’s feedback and seeing my friends play the game, it became obvious that most people get confused as to how to get more abilities. It shows that I still need a better way of introducing new players to the core gameplay loop. It was my idea that getting the movement ability should spark that "aha" moment, but I think that's too abstract and brief for players to pick up on.
• The slash attack: It always spawns in a constant distance from a player but it does not move with the player so it may create an illusion that the cursor is dictating the placement, but really it only dictates the direction of which the zenith of a swing will reach. But yeah, it's somewhat of a difficult ability to wield, but it is put as a first attack ability to train the player, but maybe the game difficulty needs to be tuned down for the start of the game, as many of the players did not reach the other attack ability.
• Death screen: UI is not my strong suit, and your suggestion is really worth trying to do as it sounds like a clean solution for the clutter.
• Ability UI: You bring a good point about the cooldowns, I did it for enemies because initially they did not have telegraphed attacks and it was too hard to predict attacks, I could've done something similar with the player. Maybe have one half for attack and defence abilities, so when u use an ability the corresponding side starts filling up in similar fashion as enemies do.

Now to answer your questions:

"How early you had the first playable prototype of the game?": First I worked on player movement, the enemies, the spawning system and then went on implementing the ability absorption mechanic. Then after implementing enemies that could shoot I would say I had the first playable prototype and it took about maybe ~10 hours overall. The game as whole I would say took ~30 hours :D

"Can you spoil the last 2 abilities?...":

1. Pistol - let's you shoot 1 pellet

2. Bonus health - gives 2 extra health

Had ideas for more, but I chose to improve the gamefeel as it made the game feel more complete.

"Did you intend the attack ability to be difficult to use?...": I understood that it is a much more difficult ability to wield, so I wanted players to have a harder time at the beginning so that they would eventually discover an easier ability which in my mind could potentially create a sense of accomplishment as it would give them the ability to go further.

"How much you would say you have experience in jams / game design?": I've participated in one other jam, but this one is the first one where I actually submitted. Apart from gaming my whole life, dissecting what gives me dopamine hits and watching yt channels like "Game Maker's Toolkit" and "Adam Millard - The Architect of Games" I don't really have much practical experience in game design. It's a second game I've done A to Z. 

 But for real, thank you so much for your comment, I feel like you really understood what I was going for and I really appreciate your comments. Thanks for playing the game :D

Thank you all for the encouragement. I'll try to expand the concept a little more after the jam.

Nice art work, though movement system feels a little floaty also enemies seem obsolete as they don't really pose any real threat with a such high rate weapon, you can try working on some other way that they attack the player and react to shots. Other than that good job and keep it up!! :D

Yeah, the game can really be expanded. Had ideas for other abilities too like some AOE attacks and as a hole the core of the game can be expanded, like adding different stages, like if you survive long enough a boss appears or the map expands and more environmental things appear like exploding barrels or smth. But before any of this the codebase really needs more love, at the start I tried to do everything very clean, but then in the fashion of a game jam I started to cut a lot of corners so it's somewhat of a mess atm :D But yeah, thanks for playing and your support <3

just wow...

I love the challenge and this easily can be expanded upon, like creating a way to remove zombies, different levels, making so that you can use some of the medical items for defending yourself from zombies, obstacles that only a player can get over, like a door which you can shut and it buys time for you to do smth, adding wounding system. Great idea with some polish you can make this into something commercial ;)

Even with monotonic color scheme I was able to make out the game elements and the sprites are beautiful, though the camera positioning did feel too high, it made it kinda hard to tell whats below, other than that I enjoyed the game, great work!

Good job, I feel like all the main points were mentioned by other people, so with a little tweaking the game will be even better!

Yeah as a creator it's hard to foresee if the players gonna pick up on concepts I really should've thought of a better way to communicate it, maybe a little intro cutscene or just a separate menu with explanation would've done a better job. Either way, thank you for playing, hope you enjoyed! :)

Thanks for playing hope you had fun! :D

Yeah balancing the timings wasn't easy, these cooldowns for skills felt not too long and kept the game challenging, but the balancing of these things really needs more playtesting and tuning. Now I think maybe it would've been better to make enemies have more health and make the attacks a little bit faster so the gameplay felt more fluid then have the player improve these skills to deal more and etc. So yeah, many ways to improve and expand, thank you for your feedback! :)

Yeah, I need to figure out a better way to express the premise through the game itself, but yeah, thanks for playing! :)

Using organization tools like Trello really helped me to stick to a plan. So I highly recommend creating a plan of features and all that goes into a game and complete a game in small steps at least that worked well for me.

Nice art style and neat idea. Great work!

Glad to hear that. The yellow ones only give movement and others give other abilities ;)

I really liked the mechanic of the circles, though there were too many of the heal circles as I didn't see myself really get into that much trouble. The definitely can be expanded upon one thing that comes to mind is some enemies that gain buffs if they are in some circles so you have to pick and choose what to eliminate first and I'm sure you can expand this game much more. Also great boss fight. Hits on enemies lacked response. Other than that amazing idea, keep it up :)

Actually insanely well thought out and made. Bravo!

A tip that you can slow down time in the game itself would be good also adding some particles for when an enemy is destroyed would add more satisfaction for the onslaught. Other than that it was fun to mess around, great work, make more :D

The ambience is very relaxing and the models look very cool. Great execution on the theme. The shapes for the cross were somewhat hard to distinguish but it got easier as I played. Also I wasn't a fan of the movement it felt a little sluggish for me. Other than the great work!

I like the difficulty curve also great idea in general. Great work!

Ah yes, and the music... Smooth...

Great work, I liked the theme of the game a lot, but the squirrels were tidbit too creepy :D

I really like how you made the map also the models for planets and other objects are high quality. Great work!

It's fun and I liked the story. The game lacked game feel, it could've been more satisfying to go through the waves if when you killed an enemy and blood particles splattered all over the floor or something similar. Here's a good video on how gamefeel is done:

Also the menu for new wave breaks me out of the experience.
I understand you are just at the start of your development journey but these are some things to consider in the future. Other than that, great work, keep it up! :)