I really liked the audio. I'm not sure if it was intentional for all the sprites to be blurry, but it would have been nice if it was a more solid pixel-art style, without the softening of the edges.
It was a nice puzzle game, with some very chill music. The audio was one of the best parts, and the jokes were funny too.
Good work.
I wanted to add that regarding difficulty, I feel this is a matter of taste and direction. I don't believe in too easy or too difficult, just know your target audience, and know what you want to convey with your game. This game starts off really easy, but quickly ramps up, but given the nature of the game I feel the difficulty is fine the way it is. Each attack is pretty easy to avoid once you know it (unlike undertale, is damn hard even when you do know the attacks), so it's just a matter of being persistent (which is fitting for the theme of the game).
This had a good variety of minigames and was executed well. The visuals and sounds were good, and the music was a good choice. The movement was reminiscent of hotline miami, and was somewhat disorienting, but in a way that added to the game.
I feel some more feedback to the player would have made this a more enjoyable game, for example: Some kind of scoreboard based on how long you last, a timer representing how long your friend will be gone getting coffee ergo how long you need to last, a damage meter for the plant, etc. Right now it's hard to know if you're doing well or not, then suddenly you're hit with an ending scenario. Also somewhere to show in-game how many endings you've achieved would also be nice, anything to show progress really.
Good work overall, fun game.
The influence of the stanley parable and undertale is palpable lol. Whilst the game isn't doing anything new, it was a really good execution of the concept, and the positive twist at the end is a nice spin, so it didn't really need to. The music and sounds were excellent too, though some sounds were definitely on the louder side. So far this is one of the best I've played this jam.
This one was extremely fun. I played for a good while, and the difficulty ramped up quite a bit. Very tightly tuned and well designed. I also enjoyed the random effects occurring, even if the pixies were damn annoying. Great work. Some variety in music would have been nice as the tune did get grating after a while, and I felt the sound effects could have been better mixed, some were very loud. It was nice to have audio, however, so good work.
Game has potential. It would be nice to be able to save your setup so you can tweak it, or be able to do so without having to walk around in first person. There's not much reason I can see for there to be a character you control, rather than have the player float around the level to interact with the objects, and clicking and on-screen button to start things. I think this has potential, so good job. Fits the theme well too. Perhaps the player could also choose the starting locations of the level objects in some levels. Anyway, keep at it.
Good concept, based on the description. Just lacking content. Also, it's easy to get stuck in some areas of the ship, but there's a bug where you can jump up walls incrementally, which fortunately allowed me to escape. With some respawning batteries, consequences for running out of power and some deeper movement, you've got something solid here.
Quite a solid little game, fit the theme well. The visuals and music were great. Some more variety in each minigame would have been nice. Another player suggested mixing the wire colours, which I echo. The difficulty with minigame-games is you really need a large variety of them for the gameplay to be compelling or replayable. But while more minigames is always better, a week is a week, and I think you did a great job.
I'll be honest, the game wasn't very good. But I'll give some constructive feedback, which will hopefully be helpful. And, it's not to say there aren't some good ideas here.
The UI: First issue was with the UI, which was difficult to read at all. The tutorial message overlapped with various other parts of the UI on screen. Also, the in-game UI, the /10 objects found, was very loud and often the brightest thing on screen.
The movement: In future, I would opt for a more intuitive movement system, one that's relative to where you're looking at the very least. This one took a lot of getting used to, and I couldn't see any reason why it would be like this. I could see a place for this movement as some kind of temporary status-effect, but not as the core movement mechanic. It was disorienting and keeping track of which key to press to get where you wanted was confusing. Some kind of directional indicator would have been a significant improvement as well. I got about one object in before I'd had enough of wrestling with the movement system.
The time/gravity manipulation mechanics were cool, probably the most interesting part. I feel this would have been interesting enough on its own with a standard movement system. You could also have the player take damage if they get hit by a floating obstacle, so they have to be careful about when they use their powers.
For future games, I would:
- Focus on making the controls feel nice to use, and not get in the way of the experience
- It's ok to confuse and disorient the player, but underlying that needs to be a sense of fun, and it needs to be done with intention. The way the player interfaces with the game should be intuitive, even if the obstacles they're overcoming aren't.
- Focus on making the UI clear and readable, but not too loud. For example, the tutorial message should be on a blank background. The "OBJECTS COLLECTED 0/10" could be a simple image of what you need to collect next to 0/10.
All the best with future development.
I'll be honest, the game wasn't very good. But I'll give some constructive feedback, which will hopefully be helpful. And, it's not to say there aren't some good ideas here.
The UI: First issue was with the UI, which was difficult to read at all. The tutorial message overlapped with various other parts of the UI on screen. Also, the in-game UI, the /10 objects found, was very loud and often the brightest thing on screen.
The movement: In future, I would opt for a more intuitive movement system, one that's relative to where you're looking at the very least. This one took a lot of getting used to, and I couldn't see any reason why it would be like this. I could see a place for this movement as some kind of temporary status-effect, but not as the core movement mechanic. It was disorienting and keeping track of which key to press to get where you wanted was confusing. Some kind of directional indicator would have been a significant improvement as well. I got about one object in before I'd had enough of wrestling with the movement system.
The time/gravity manipulation mechanics were cool, probably the most interesting part. I feel this would have been interesting enough on its own with a standard movement system. You could also have the player take damage if they get hit by a floating obstacle, so they have to be careful about when they use their powers.
For future games, I would:
- Focus on making the controls feel nice to use, and not get in the way of the experience
- It's ok to confuse and disorient the player, but underlying that needs to be a sense of fun, and it needs to be done with intention. The way the player interfaces with the game should be intuitive, even if the obstacles they're overcoming aren't.
- Focus on making the UI clear and readable, but not too loud. For example, the tutorial message should be on a blank background. The "OBJECTS COLLECTED 0/10" could be a simple image of what you need to collect next to 0/10.
All the best with future development.
This is a very cool looking game. I really wanted to like it more, and for there to be more, but the controls make it hard to really appreciate. The issue is one part boss design and one part controls.
- The rover has a gun that shoots where you look. You can drive in a different direction to where you're looking. There's a big monster you have to shoot and avoid at the same time. A good start.
- The shooting is at it's worst when you have to aim upward, which would be fine if the boss weren't spending most of its time above you, which it is. Additionally, there's no tension while the boss is up there - you're just waiting around for it to come down, so you can shoot it.
- The bullets take time to travel, meaning you have to lead your shots. This would be fine if the boss were spending most of its time near you, however, most of the time it's extremely far away, making leading near impossible.
- The best time to shoot the boss is when it's chasing you, meaning you need to drive away and shoot. This would be fine, however: If you drive while you're shooting, the camera tries to look where you're moving, meaning you have to wrestle against the controls to get your shots in.
- Your only way of dodging any attack is to drive away. The boss' only attack is to walk on top of you. This doesn't really work in practice, as the boss is either chasing you and you can easily outrun it, or it's already on top of you and you just have to wait until it kills you, you kill it, or it decides to stop.
There is a kind of boss where this exact setup works. One that you have to chase around (so you can shoot where the camera wants to point), that attacks with slow moving projectiles (you drive around to avoid them), and one that stays on the same level or close to, so you don't have to aim up or down too far to shoot it.
There is a kind of handling setup where this kind of boss works, one with better long-range attack capability, better aiming angles, a gyroscopic camera, and more options for dealing with a melee boss that you need to avoid
The best part of this game is its visuals, and I liked the sound as well.
The game design here is very good. Good telegraphing, varied attacks. The final boss was a cool mashup. There are a couple of shortfalls. One is that due to the slow chipping away of the boss' health, the fights feel longer than they really are. I also felt the character had too much health, since at some point in every fight the intensity vanished as I knew that even if I was hit several times in a row, my victory was assured due to consistent damage output. Further, the beginning of a fight was never tense as I had a comfortable amount of health. Upon reflection, I think this is why many games have healing mechanics (or just give you lower health and a shorter fight) instead of one giant health pool - to ensure tension is maintained no matter how well you do.
Sound: Musically it was good and did the job, but the mixing between sounds, and in the music itself, was poor overall. At times the music made sound effects inaudible. When you make sounds and music, try to consider how they'll sound in tandem as you create them - try not to create any sound in isolation and consider it as part of the broader soundscape.
Visuals: Very basic but again, they achieved what they needed to. Refinement will come with time. My favourite design was definitely boss 2.
Anyway, very good submission
Hey thanks for the feedback, this is all really helpful.
Between now and the next jam we'll be making a version 2 since we also like the idea, but are overall not that happy with the execution. Thanks for taking the time to play, and we hope you'll come back for round 2 (once it's done).
Solid entry, music was a good fit. The environment was a bit uninteresting though nice work constructing it yourself, and it was difficult at times to tell exactly whether your starship was positioned correctly. It was fun though and I played until I beat it. I think it would have benefited from more use of the vertical plane, such as dodging over or under obstacles, and some better feedback on your position.
