itch.io

just scrolling through community and figured I might as well get a rating from you

My game is an rougelite action platformer with hand drawn art (barely a rougelite but it regenerates randomly every time you respawn so I guess you could sort of put it in that camp)

https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/2581410

I love this! the hand painted art makes the game feel really physical, and I love the way the story slowly unfolds with the level design, it really reminds me of Gris.

It might be nice if you could work out a way to make what's back/foreground and what is a platform a little clearer.

It would also be cool if you could figure out a way to make the text boxes match the art style more, they're probably the only part of the game I didn't love the look of and they broke the emersion a little bit for me

I tried to work out a way to fly with about 4 playthroughs but couldn't solve the game, I always ended up in the eyeball place... not sure if I made it to the only ending or I just kept getting the bad ending :'(

All in all I loved this experience and rated it highly!

Unfortunately the game bugged out too much for me to enjoy, but the presentation is gorgeous!!

It didn't feel as much like a game as it did a tech demo, I had fun with the levels but was completely lost on the synthesizer at the end...

I fear my brain might be too small for this game.

I adore this game - the art style is goddamn gorgeous, really reminds me of old school PC games where they were always experimenting with new and usually very physical looks - specifically Neverhood.

The flying and shooting gameplay feels incredible, it took me a second to understand the controls but once it clicked I literally had this "oooohhh" moment where I was blown away by how good it felt

My only criticism is the checkpoints - I honestly think they kinda ruin the game, I didn't realize they existed in my first playthrough, flew around for about 5 minutes having the time of my life and then had to reset to read the instructions and actually work out how to beat the game. Once I knew what I actually had to do the game was over in about 30 seconds and I felt kind of disappointed, I think this game would be much stronger if you made the enemies a little harder and make them spawn more, then make it a survival high score attack style game. Players need time to enjoy your controls, combat and art!!!

But ultimately my only criticism is "it's too short" which hopefully you take as a massive compliment.

Actually, my one gripe is you spoil the ending in the thumbnail

Hey! This was one of the first games I played in the jam a few days before the submission date, I sorted by random and this came up

I've only come back to it now - I actually tried to find it to show a friend but couldn't find it haha

It's super silly fun and creative, reminds me of some of those classic troll flash games. I didn't see the bridge png in the description so I just went to google to find a wallpaper that was big enough to make a bridge hahaha

Amazing game, deserves the win.

The gameplay felt a little slow and floaty, and I didn't fully get the pregnancy and upgrading mechanic, I think this is a game pretty far outside of the genres I like so maybe it wasn't for me

It looks really cool though and I had fun messing around with it!

Thanks so much for playing! I agree that navigational help would be nice haha, I've gone into my thoughts on it in some detail in some other comments. I really appreciate your feedback!

Thankyou so much! I probably overcommitted by doing this much animation for the game jam and maybe could've spent my time better, but since they're the main feature of this project I'm really happy how they turned out and I'm really glad you like them <3

The ghosts can be pretty brutal ahaha

The trick if you're stun locked is to hold X and a directional input and you will dash through them before they can deal more hearts - ghosts can keep smacking you around when you're in helpless state but they can only take hearts when you're in control, so you can always dash before they hit you again.

Haha thanks, I love working in Scratch, I used to want to try to learn a different engine but I think I've resigned to the fact that Scratch is where I work fastest, am most comfortable and have the most fun

I really appreciate you giving it a try!

Thanks so much for the feedback - if you already found the key and gave getting home a good shot then you've experienced pretty much all of what the game has to offer at least!

I completely agree getting home is the worst part of the game and pretty arbitrary.

The game is supposed to be a little hard in that sort of NES unfair kind of way, especially since I didn't have time to add lots of enemy types or things like that so I'm really pleased with the half of the game where you follow the flames to the key - it's just fair enough to be doable and make sense but also sometimes you get lost for a while or the ghosts kill you and it's frustrating - something about that sort of difficulty through amature game design feels kinda retro to me 😅

But because there's no flames or equivalent to get back home - only memory, and the map is randomly generated and very samey, I think the half you struggled with is the part I'd like to fix because it feels pretty random whether you get home or not and it's unfair to expect players to remember the way back - if I ever polish up the game I think my first fix attempt would be to have a letter carved into the bricks of each torch room, that way you're still sort of using your memory to get back (so I preserve the gameplay a bit) but you can remember what letters you've already come across and know which ones were closer to home, maybe they even appear in alphabetical order so when you see A - D you're like "okay I'm really close"

But I digress those are just future thoughts of a different game - thanks so much again for giving the game jam version a try and your feedback ❤️ (and sorry for the long reply)

Yeah I totally get game jam balancing struggles haha

Your game is really impressive and I rated it highly

There's something really classic yet also super fresh about this game, I loved it and it really did feel legitimately creepy to play.

I haven't played a text based game like this for a long time so it felt super nostalgic... also the art was immaculate!

I have to run through again to try out the other ending

I agree with the control complaints, a regret of mine is not at least making jump mapped to space and up so players could choose between two formats

Making customizable controls in scratch is doable but a bit of a headache and wasn't worth my time for a game jam :'( I should make reusable custom control code so I can just slap it into all my games in the future haha

I'm curious what control scheme you'd like most, considering I have 2 action buttons as well as a jump

Screw you for including the ball game

Loved the rest of the game but I'm really sorry I had to quit once the ball game got to the last stage

100% Self made in Scratch during the jam

https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/2581410

Perfect game! probably going to win