itch.io

This is really neat! I think it would be a cool feature if the levels could be exported in some sort of file format, like as a starting base for designing 3D levels.

When I first played and saw the dialogue, since the text wasn’t proceeding automatically, I thought the first line of the dialogue was all the scientist had to say, and I didn’t see the “continue” or “skip” buttons since their text colors blended in with the ground. If there was a little pointing down arrow near the dialogue box, then I would have seen that’s not all the scientist had to say. A little arrow that slightly moves up and down like this should be enough:

It is a pretty cool effect to watch all the missiles travel back into their previous starting position. It would be cool if the missiles’ positions + movements were designed in patterns to make their rewind effects look even cooler.

The graphics look okay, but a bit inconsistent in game style. It’s like the game can’t decide if it’s trying to be retro or modern since the text graphics are smooth and have gradients added to them, while everything else is pixelated. There are even moments where the game directly mixes smooth details with pixelated graphics, which does not seem to fit one another. The pixel ratio is all over the place with some pixels either being tiny or large. The ratio of the pixels should usually remain at one static size so that the player is given the feeling and illusion of playing an older pixelated game. If the pixels of the graphics are constantly different from one another, then that illusion is killed and the player just sees that the game is TRYING to be retro, but it really isn’t.

The one thing I did like about the graphics was the color palette of the dark blues and greys. It really gives the player the feeling that there’s something dark and mysterious about this place. However, I’m not sure if the colors of the red + orange missiles seem to fit with the environment’s dark blue color palette. Perhaps you could change the orange flames to blue embers, and change the colors of the missiles’ bodies to a bright grey-ish blue color with the tip being a regular blue (I know nothing about color names, lol). Here’s how I would imagine it to be colored:

I would suggest using the Pixel Perfect Camera addon; it snaps the pixels of sprites perfectly into place on a low resolution grid which helps keep the illusion of a pixelated game.

Here's a guide to get you started on how to use it: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/03/13/2d-pixel-perfect-how-to-set-up-your-unity-p...

The pacing of the story in the beginning is kind of awkwardly paced. I would have liked a moment to gain my bearings before having text immediately showing up on the screen. Perhaps show a scene of the character slowly getting up while looking dazed and confused to enforce the feeling that the character has no idea where they are and that this is not the kind of area they’re used to. After a few seconds, you could have the scientist start talking from a telecom acknowledging that the character finally woke up .

I’m not sure if I’m a fan of the character’s walk cycle. His front foot seems to constantly slide  back and forth while his back foot constantly flies up and looks like he broke his leg:

The legs also never seem to pass through one another, which kills the illusion of this being a walk cycle.

If you do not know how each aspect in an animation works, then it’s hard to be able to depict the motion right because even the slightest detail being off can make everything look unnatural. That’s why it’s important to have references in animation and art in general. Here’s the reference that helped me learn how to make walk cycles for my characters:

Notice how the height levels of the head and body changes each time depending on how much weight is being pressed down. Also notice how each leg has the same movement cycle: the legs in the first frame and last frame are exactly the same with the only difference being the timing they’re set to.

There was one level I couldn’t beat because of the ridiculous amount of missiles there were. I tried to use my abilities to get the missiles to move out of the way, but since it controlled all the missiles at once with no cover anywhere, I could not find a way to beat the game. 

Try to make the game more loose and give the player options to avoid the missiles by using the environment around them. Let the player use a wall to block the missiles, have them hide under floating platforms to use as an umbrella from the rain of missiles, allow some smaller objects to be thrown at the missiles to have them explode early, etc. This would make the game not only easier, but much more varied for the player to have different options to avoid the missiles. It would also make the stages much more unique instead of it just repeating the same flat area multiple times.

Thank you for your feedback!
I have been considering designing levels that did not involve auto-scrolling, and instead focus on time affecting the objects around the player.

I'll also have to add levels that involve teaching the player how to utilize their controls, one mechanic at a time.

In what way is it hard to control the player exactly? There were a few people in the comments who mentioned the game didn't have coyote time, but I'm not sure if that's what you are referring to.

Thanks for your feedback! I'll have to look into maybe adding an option to sprint in this game if I continue with development.

Reviewed and rated, hope it helps!

The intro looks really cool, I enjoyed how it introduced the story of the game and what’s happening in the world. However, I wish the intro could be skipped instead of forcing the player to watch it all over again each time they die.

Right when the game started, a ton of viruses started floating towards me, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I wish I could be told how I’m supposed to use the controls before enemies get thrown at my face. I did not know that the mouse was usable in the game until my second playthrough when I was using a regular mouse instead of the mousepad on my laptop.

I do like the concept of shooting hand sanitizer at COVID, however, I feel like the gameplay is kind of lacking in variety. The gameplay just involves constantly shooting at objects and nothing else. I was kind of hoping for more mechanics, such as slinging masks on to people who forgot their masks, forcing people to keep 6 feet apart by shoving them apart, throwing suspiciously coughing people into plastic bubbles, using a mask-slinging machine gun on mask refusers until they fall flat on the ground with their entire head covered in masks, etc.

I’m having trouble seeing how this game follows the theme of “rewind” at all. What was it in this game that was themed after “rewind”? 

For some reason, the game sometimes gets softlocked after killing the first two viruses that appear:

Reviewed and rated, hope it helps with your game!

The puzzles were well designed, it really made me take a moment to think carefully on what I had to do. The puzzles in the beginning were a bit too simple, I kind of wished there were more puzzles like the last levels in the game.

The enemies were simple, but they were placed in ways that made the puzzles interesting. The player has to decide if it’s the right choice to kill the enemy or leave them since they could be an essential part of beating the puzzle. It also felt good when the crate had to be pushed down in a certain area, and the enemy’s movement was exploited to push the crate right on to the button.

The instruments of the music were way too loud and a bit too high pitched. I actually had to mute the game because it was hurting my ears.

The music also seems to restart with each new level. Perhaps you could make a music manager that spawns a music-playing object if one doesn’t exist while applying DontDestroyOnLoad  and a tag of “Music” to it. On a new scene load, it will search for an object labeled with the tag, “Music”.  If one already exists then it will not spawn a new music object.

Reviewed + rated, hope it helps!

It’s a neat idea to use your dead bodies to get yourself across the spikes. 

While the rewind animation looks cool, it is WAY too slow, usually taking around 10-20 seconds before I’m allowed to do anything again. It would have been better if the animation was locked to only run up to 1 second, and speeds up to meet up with that time requirement.

There were a few times where I got softlocked because my character respawned right on top of a dead body, which meant I had to restart my entire progress. Perhaps there could be an area around the spawn where dead bodies disintegrate to prevent this from happening. There should also be an option to restart the level if the player is unsatisfied with how their dead body layout is. 

I seem to respawn when I click off the window and click back on for some reason, I'm not too sure why this happens.

For the beginning of the game, I'm guessing you were trying to let the player figure out themselves how to play by making them die in the spiked area, and then have them realize they can use their bodies to get across. This actually is a great method of level design by making the players feel smart that they figured out the mechanics themselves without being told how to do so.

The one thing the beginning of the game could have needed was the locations of the control inputs. I have around 100 keys on my keyboard, and if I were a newbie who never played a PC game before then I would have no idea how to control my game. A picture of the WSAD labeled “movement” and spacebar labeled “jump” would be enough to show how to control the game.

I gave your game a review and rating. Hope it helps with your game in the future.

It is pretty cool to use the rewind effect in order to avoid the enemy robot. It’s also a nice concept to have a limited amount of your rewind ability, so the player has to decide wisely of when the right time to use it is.

The backgrounds look nice with the floating cubes and the simple grey and blue palette; it really seems to match the palette of the robots.

It’s hard to tell where my character is standing, perhaps you could try implementing a projector shadow that behaves similarly to Mario’s shadow in Super Mario 64? This way I can always tell where my character is going to land when it’s jumping.

The audio effects are a bit too loud and a bit too extreme for what they’re being used for. The rewind sound is so bass-boosted it’s hard to listen to. It also sounds like an entire avalanche is occurring whenever a simple block starts falling down.

The jumping didn’t feel too responsive when I’m trying to bunnyhop on the section of the falling cubes. It felt like I had to wait a second before I was allowed to jump again, which made the platforming feel restricted.

The movement feels very stiff; I can’t change my directional velocity when my character is jumping. Because of this, there were many times where if my movement velocity midair was too slow or fast, even by just a few milliseconds, I was done for. Since the controls are so stiff, the platforming sections just feel like you have to repeat the steps: stop, turn, jump, in to ensure you don’t die from not being able to control how you move midair. 

There was some sort of tip that appeared about time, but it disappeared after 1 second so I couldn’t get a chance to read it.

Gave your game a review + rating, hope it helps!

The graphics look great, especially for a game that was made in only 1 week. It has the blocky style of every single object being made out of simple shapes, including the player character himself. The lighting is incredibly smooth, giving the colors a gradient look to them which makes them not only beautiful to look at, but fitting for a minimal style. The enemy graphics contrast well with the dark background, so it’s easy for the player to scan for enemies when they’re looking around. The large structures in the background really make the areas feel more alive, like if you’re in another world. 

One thing that should be toned down is the glowing of the fire hydrant-looking objects in the first level. I thought these objects were supposed to be significant, or do something since they glowed so brightly:

Also, this might be a bit of a nit pick, but the shadows seem to change whenever my character turns or moves, which can be kind of distracting:

It’s cool how there’s lots of details in the audio, such as the lava having the hot bubbly noises, the portal making a deep aura sound which stops the music the closer you get to it, the footsteps the player makes, etc.

The shooting felt satisfying with it’s hard-hitting noise, and the enemy’s monstrous hurt sounds make them feel good to kill. The player really has to strategize their movement and placement in order to kill the enemies. They can’t just run into a large group excepting to kill everything, they have to plan out which enemies are possible to kill, and when it’s the right time to grab some health. I’m hoping more enemy varieties get added in the future, as well as more weapons for the player. 

When I started the game, WSAD didn’t allow me to move which confused me, until I saw that the controls transferred to my XBOne controller. However, the controller only seemed to support the movement of the character and wouldn’t allow me to look around. So because of this, I was forced to unplug my controller in order to play the game. Perhaps in the future you could include an option to choose between a controller or mouse + keyboard.

It’s kind of awkward to control the camera since the vertical mouse movement is much slower than the horizontal movement. Horizontal + Vertical speeds is another thing that should be added to the options menu, even if the vertical movement range is meant to be limited.

It is a bit annoying that the rewind mark gets placed when the input is either pressed or released, which causes it to spawn twice unless I hold down the button. This could probably easily be fixed by changing it to only work on GetButtonDown.

One thing I wish I knew for the boss fight was that rewinding restores your health. I spent my first playthrough thinking I had to use my rewind ability to dodge the boss’s attacks like if it was a Dark Souls boss, trying to dodge right before the projectile hit me. However, I always ended up getting hit by the tracking projectiles. I only found out on my second playthrough that rewinding restores the player's health, which then allowed me to beat the boss much more easily. The player should be told in the tutorial that rewinding can restore your health so that they don’t end up getting confused on how to beat the boss.

When I did figure out how to beat the boss, it kept me at the tip of my toes, utilizing my rewind ability in order to restore my health while trying to keep my distance from the boss. Perhaps you could utilize the “time travel near a breach” ability so that it can be used to dodge enemy projectiles right before they manage to hit you, instead of it only being used to jump over hot liquid.

I gave a critique + rating for your game, hope it helps!

I was confused as to why I am taking damage despite the bullets clearly showing they’ve hit the ground. But then I realized that it wasn’t a bullet, but rather a grenade from a grenade launcher that had an explosive radius. I eventually figured out that the explosive range can be dodged by moving away diagonally from the grenade. Was the graphics for the explosion not included in time? If there wasn’t much time, then a simple 1 frame fiery sprite would have been enough to show the spaces the explosion was occurring.

For the grenade launcher projectile, perhaps you could have a projector display a shadow graphic under it so it’s easier to tell where it’s going to land. It would behave similar to the round shadow that occurs under Mario in Super Mario 64.

Here’s a Unity tutorial that helped me learn how to accomplish this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQcZA3dYGxg

Despite this missing graphical feature, the game is incredibly fun to play. I’ve never played Battle Network, and it's quite fun to have combat in a grid-based setting. The enemies are not too frustrating to fight against, but you’ll certainly get punished if you stand still. I do kind of wish the enemies intensified the closer I got to the criminal instead of having a one static spawn rate + limit.

Some people here don’t like that you can take damage while choosing the option to rewind. I personally feel like this gives you an excuse to kill the enemies so that you can have a moment of peace to activate your powers. However, I can also kind of see the frustration with the menu blocking the whole screen which makes it hard to tell if you’re being attacked or not. Perhaps the rewind should require a short charging period so that the player has an excuse to kill the enemies.

It was kind of hard to tell if I was doing damage to the enemies or not. I did not know what the flashing sprite of the enemies meant. Did the flashing mean they’re invincible or running out of health? I would have preferred if the enemies had a small health bar above their head.

I gave your game a critique and rating. Hope the review helps!

It is interesting to see that the scenarios change each time you play. Perhaps you could allow a seed input so players can share their criminal cases?

It’s pretty cool to have a large and open town that can be explored with different alignments of objects with each new case. However, since the placements of the NPCs and trash bins are random, I ended up getting stuck in the starting area with no way to enter the alley since there were trash bins in the way:

It’s also neat that you have to look at each piece of evidence to assume which timeline is the correct one. However, I kind of wish the inventory would graphically display what each piece of evidence looked like.

The game mostly involves clicking random objects and NPCs until you find the evidence you need. I was hoping the game would involve hints that would connect with another. For example an NPC who finds out you’re on this case coming up to you and saying “Look, I dunno much ‘bout this case, but I think I might have overheard some guy at the Ale House talkin’ about some creep coming out of their apartment soaked in blood or somethin’. But just so ya know, ‘lot of people there get pretty tipsy on a Saturday like this, so take what I said with a bit of salt”. And then you would go to the Ale House to get more info. You ask the bartender if he overheard anyone talking about someone soaked in blood. He mentions Jeremy was drunkenly talking loudly about it. Jeremy refuses to talk while he’s sober, so you find a way to have a few drinks with Jeremy, and get him to speak up when his alcohol levels go through the roof.

Finding information should be interesting for the player. It should involve people who you would least expect to have useful info (like a hobo in an alleyway who was near the apartment of the killing), the people who won’t give up information without exploiting a weakness of theirs, managing to spark a person’s memory by showing them a piece of evidence you found, etc. 

Going up to the most random people and trash bins to find evidence based on luck is not fun.

I kind of got excited when the game involved time travel, but the NPCs did not look different at all, and the game ended immediately after clicking some trash can. The game never announced who did the crime, so  I felt completely unsatisfied to not get a concrete answer of who did the crime.

I took a look at your game and gave it a review + rating. Hope the critique helps!

This game was hilarious, especially from a game designer’s standpoint. It’s incredibly unique that the game rewinds its state of progress the farther the player progresses.

I enjoyed utilizing the “glitches” as much as possible, and it’s funny to watch as the game deteriorates the farther it gets rewinded. I loved the detail of the player’s sprite tileset going out of whack.. It would have been funny if the ending caused the game to delete itself and leave an empty Unity folder.

I wanted to see what would happen if I ignored the log and jumped off the cliff without rewinding, the slime fell off the screen and the game got softlocked.

The pixel ratio is inconsistent with some pixel ratios being all over the place. The background seems to have massive pixels and the grass is tiny. Pixels should always stay at one consistent ratio because not doing so can make the game look unpleasant to the user.

The music is not bad, but it doesn’t seem fitting with the game’s pixelated graphics. A chiptune theme would be much more fitting for the retro look instead of classical-sounding music that would fit better in a detailed and fancy setting.

Overall, this is one of the most unique games I’ve seen in the jam, especially since I have yet to see any other game here that breaks the fourth wall.

I gave your game a critique and a rating, hope it helps!

The design of the character looks great, he looks exactly like the kind of person who would have the power to bring the dead back to life. He looks human, but his blue hair and skin along with his dark cloak indicates he’s some sort of mysterious otherworldly being. The stern look on his face gives the indication that he’s been using his powers for some time, and is very used to interacting with mythical entities.

The puzzles were easily the main highlight of this game. It was fun to time my jumps, and the hazards are set up in a way where they’re not overly difficult, but punishing enough where getting hurt is always your fault.

The graphics of the game look great, along with its dark blue/purple palette. It really makes you feel like you’re exploring ruins that take place in an underground cave. One thing I would have liked though is if the bricks had some graphical variety, such as missing bricks, cracks in the bricks, or vines growing on the sides. Doing this would make it look much less like a repeating texture.

The color change of the NPCs going from a greyish-blue to their bright natural colors really makes it feel like you’re bringing someone back from the dead. It’s also a nice detail that their mood graphically changes as well.

The music sounds okay. While the instruments do fit the theme of dark ruins in a cave, it gets kind of irritating hearing the main melody play the same 4 notes repeatedly. I don’t know much about music, but perhaps the pitch of the 4 notes should change in variety as the song goes on, and then eventually overlap a new main melody over the old one which would transition the old melody to a background instrument? I’m hoping I didn’t describe this in a confusing way, I don’t know too much about musical terms.

The pixel text is kind of hard to read with some of the pixels of the letters being larger than others.

I would have preferred if I could see my health and mana up in the corner. Perhaps you could have the option to have the health/mana not appear if they’re completely full?

Using the mana with a limit felt more annoying than as a natural limitation the character had. There were a few times where I had to end up waiting a few seconds before being allowed to use my magic again in an area that didn’t involve having to move quickly. I feel like the mana would work better if it could be used endlessly so that the player doesn’t have to constantly wait for their magic to work again. However, if you wanted to keep the limited magic aspect for areas designed around this mechanic, then perhaps there could be “magic draining” areas that limits the amount of time the character can use their powers. When the player leaves these magic draining areas, they can use their magic endlessly again.

Some of the platforming does seem a bit too precise. You should probably implement coyote time which gives the player a slight delay before determining that they’re not grounded anymore. Implementing this gives the illusion that the controls are very responsive.

It’s kind of immersion-killing to have ascii emojis in the dialogue. It would have been better if the sprites of the characters depicted their emotion as they talk. 

The main character would also feel more immersive if he could show his emotions as he’s talking with the NPCs. This would be better than the dialogue saying that the main character responded to the person talking even though his sprite shows no change in emotion. A simple gesture like this would work for a silent protagonist:

Perhaps you could add the feature of interrupting the ghosts’ rambling about being dead by having the option to bring them back to life while they’re in the middle of talking? It would be funny if doing this gives the player slightly different dialogue with the NPC acting surprised.

The boss seems impossible to fight without taking damage. I liked what you were trying to go for, with the concept of bringing the health down while trying not to make spikes appear on yourself. However, since the hitbox of the boss was so large, I could not find a way to avoid losing health. I only managed to beat this boss because its health never recovered after dying. If there were more stacked crates to jump over while decreasing the hitbox of the boss, then it would seem more like a fair fight.

I reviewed and gave your game a rating, I'm hoping my critique helps!

The color palette of orange and ash brown is very pleasing to look at, and the shading of the slight fog seems to fit in with the game’s minimal looking style. The way the cubes have bright outlines really seems to emphasize that these objects are important to complete the puzzle compared to the background neutral-looking colors.

The rewind tool is fun to use, it really makes you feel like you’re defying the rules of time by undoing your mistakes. 

When I looked at the title in the thumbnail, I thought I was looking at two glowing red eyes in a doorway instead of it just being two bright doorknobs. Perhaps the edges of the door could be made slightly brighter to emphasize that it’s a door.

It was kind of hard to hear the narration of what the person was saying in the background. It sounds a bit muffled, and I don’t want to have to turn my volume ALL the way up just so I can hear it. An option to adjust the volume of the narration (as well as other volume options) should fix this.

There were some sections where it required constant rewinding in order to get the object to stay in place. Perhaps you could have the ability to stop an object in place by holding down a certain input.

I kind of got stuck on level 3, I felt like it wasn’t really clear enough on what I was supposed to be doing, especially since I JUST got introduced to some mechanics that I don’t feel experienced enough with. For the majority of the time, I thought I was supposed to move the green cube into a certain spot, that is, until I found out that you’re supposed to use it like if it was a lift. The green cube should be changed so that it’s too heavy to be pushed by the player so they won’t get confused as to what they’re supposed to do with it.

You should try introducing one mechanic, and then have a few levels that involve utilizing that one mechanic in baby steps before moving on to something new. That way, you can ensure that the player knows how to use their new tools. During later levels, you should throw in certain stages that involve utilizing one mechanic more than the others in order to double check and make sure that the player still knows how to utilize every tool at their disposal.

I’m not sure if the old-sounding western music fits with the greyish-orange palette and the style of the TRON-styled cubes. The color palette and the way the building is styled seems reminiscent of ancient Japanese interior architecture. The resemblance is almost uncanny:

Perhaps you could style the game around ancient Japan? It would be interesting seeing Portal-styled gameplay with ancient Asian influences.

Oh right! Some people have been mentioning that coyote time needs to be added; that will be definitely added for the checklist on what to improve for the game. Thank you for the response.

I gave your game a review and rating, I'm my critique can improve your game in the future!

I liked how the game not only has a story, but a whole world it takes place in that has its own lore. I can see in the beginning that you’ve been playing a bit of Undertale from how similar the intro looks.

The sound effect for the text scrolling was quite unique, and it seems very fitting. Perhaps each character could get their own text-scrolling sound effect that matches their personality.

The puzzles that the game has are well executed. You treat the player like if they were smart and allow them to figure out all the aspects of the puzzles themselves. It’s also cool that the puzzles teach the player how to use new mechanics correctly, that is an example of some good game design. While the 4 tile puzzle was well designed, the tiles were kind of small which lead to many times where two tiles would be pushed by accident. Making the tiles larger should fix this problem so that the movement of the player is much more loose for the player to move up to the tile they want to push instead of moving a slight amount of pixels just to be able to push one single tile.

Some of the sound effects, such as the boulders collapsing, hurt my ears since I was wearing headphones. I was expecting the volume of the sounds to be only slightly louder than the background music, but it ended up being much louder than expected. I had to turn the volume down all the way which made it hard to hear the music.

I kind of wish the pencil wouldn’t get stuck in the wall behind me as I threw it. I don’t know anything about the engine you’re using, but I’m assuming this could be fixed by spawning the projectile right in front of the character instead of starting behind.

The rolling ability seems kind of short for an ability that’s meant to be used for dodging, and seems to be easily spammable. If the dodging were to occur for a longer animation time, as well as to have a slight delay before it can be used again, then it would feel much more natural and useful for combat.

Some of the pixel ratios don’t seem to match with one another with some pixels being larger/smaller than others. The pixel art should always be at one consistent ratio to make everything feel like it matches with one another. Having different ratios makes the art unpleasant to look at and its style becomes completely out of place, and all over the place.

Overall, while this game does have some rough edges that need to be smoothed out, I had fun exploring the levels of this game and it’s mechanics; as well as the story it has going for it.

I tried playing your game using the XBOne controller I had, but none of the controls seem to be working sadly. I'm sorry, but I cannot play your game :(

I gave your game a review (plus rating) on what was done right, and what aspects can be improved as well. Hope it helps!

I like how the way the objects change the farther the car progresses in the game. It really makes the gameplay feel more varied the farther you progress. It also kind of motivates the player to try again after dying because they want to end up seeing what surprises are up ahead.

I also like how the orbs glow brightly in flames so the player can easily see what object is important to collect. The fiery blue glow that they have seems to fit with the color palette of the spaceship which really makes these orbs feel connected with these extraterrestrial beings.

It also felt good to use the rewind power at a moment where the spaceship was about to get me. It really gave me the feeling of cheating death. I do kind of wish I could be able to collect more orbs than just the limit of three. Perhaps you could have 3 sets of bars that activate after collecting three orbs each (ie. filling one bar allows you to use rewind one time, two bars allow two rewinds, three bars allow three rewinds).

It's kind of hard to see what's up ahead as I'm driving backwards since the camera is looking at the car. There were a few times where a wall would cover my screen and I couldn't find an opening until it was already too late. I feel like a bird's eye view camera would work better for a game that involves having to dodge obstacles that the car is moving towards.

Another way that you could show that the spaceship is getting closer to the car is to have a HUD that shows the distance between the aliens and the vehicle. Here's a visual example I made on how this can be implemented:

Perhaps you could also add a constant sound effect the spaceship produces that gets increasingly louder the closer it is to the car in order to give the player another indicator the distance they have from it.

There were a few times where my car ended up stopping because it bumped into a small object, such as a shrub or a stick. It would make more sense if the car only slowed down slightly as it goes over these objects instead of stopping all the way. This would make it less punishing for the player to not notice smaller objects, compared to the big and obvious boulders that are in the way.

Also I just found out now that YOU'RE ONLY 11 AND YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO MAKE GAMES IN UNITY?! Your game is legitimately better than some of the stuff that's made by full grown adults in this jam, and I truly mean that. Don't you ever stop designing and learning how to make games. With your capability to make games like this at 11, I can't imagine how good you will get at game design when you reach the age of 21.

Wow, this is some lengthy feedback! I appreciate it so much!

Another user mentioned that the symbols could use a flickering effect as well, and I definitely agree with that since not having any warning could lead to some unfair deaths.

I also agree that the game does need some form of coyote time, this is on my list of things to add when I re-ramp the controls after the jam ends.

The reason for the particle effects you're seeing is to visually enhance that the player is moving around instead of having just a static background. I figured it would save much more time than to add a background texture while keeping the graphics minimal style... HOWEVER, there is nothing in the game that mentions  as to why there is yellow dust floating around. So there does need to be a future explanation of what the dust particles are and why they are floating around. I do plan on having this game take place on a small planet floating in space in the developmental future, so I'll probably need more visual enhancements to show that's the location each level is on.

The ground does look a bit too white, and it really could have used any sort of texture. At the time of this game's creation I have not learned how to use the tileset generator yet, which is something I should really get into if I want to continue advancing with pixel art.

With the skull spikes, I was originally going to have it so that touching the side of them doesn't kill you. However, I also had to deal with making sure the player doesn't climb on top the very edges of the hitbox where they don't end up getting killed. Since I was running low on time, I just had the hitbox go around the skull spikes and figured that the skull symbol would be enough for players to know not to touch them at all. Perhaps I'll make a variety of skull spikes where the spikes surround all sides to deal with this problem until I can get it fixed.

This is a lot of helpful information I'll take into consideration. Thank you for taking your time to write this long critique.

Thank you for your feedback. Just out of curiosity, in what moments did the controls not respond exactly? I have been meaning to improve the quality of the controls since a lot of precise movements are required, and the last thing I would want are unresponsive controls in a game like this.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I agree that the game needs a pause button, especially since there are some intense moments that the player would want to take a breather from. Perhaps pausing the game can cause a "Stop" symbol to appear which would stop everything from moving, including the player.

Thanks for the feedback! I have been thinking about changing up the story a bit, and have been debating if I should continue with the clocks messing up time, or to overhaul it to the player fighting against someone messing with a VCR's buttons.

However, I never thought anyone would view this as space themed from the particles, but now that I think about it, the particles do seem to resemble stars and the player seems to look like a little alien. Perhaps I could have this game take place on a planet whose time works differently because they orbit a black hole, so they need to have clock devices put in place in order to keep time working normally. You might have just inspired me to come up with the right story of this game, thank you so much for that! I'll have to continue on with this theme since a story is the one thing this game desperately needs.

...I guess I need to include you in the credits now.

The audio of this game is well-designed, both in sound effects and music. I found the walking sound effect to be cute, it sounds like a robot making little sound effects as it walks around. The music was also very calming and peaceful sounding which fits the light-neutral color aesthetics that the game has. However, there does seem to be a bit of a delay before the music repeats again,

The controls feel smooth, and it's fun to be able to control my minions' movement like it was a video. It also feels satisfying when I'm able to time my jumping with the way my minions were pre-recorded.

The puzzles are well designed, and don't hold the player's hand on how to complete the levels. The game teaches one mechanic, and then throws in levels in-between that makes sure that the player knows how to utilize that mechanic before moving on to something new. It makes it exciting knowing that there are newer mechanics to learn, and it makes each level feel unique the farther the player goes.

Since all the levels were unlocked right at the beginning of the game, it was hard to tell which level I left off on when I exited the game. Perhaps the the last level that the player played could be highlighted in the level selection to make it easier to find again.

One thing that could be improved is to not have the minions reset after the player dies and to just respawn the player-character themselves. I would have preferred to press the reset button if I didn't like my minions' placements instead of being forced to backtrack my movement all over again. Perhaps the reset button could be pressed twice quickly to iterate backwards to the previous minion if the player wanted to change their movement, and to hold down the reset button to restart everything.

In level 2.4, it was kind of hard to tell which buttons the wires were connected to since they were either close together or they overlap each other. Perhaps the buttons + wires could be color-coded so it's easier to differentiate which wire connects to what.

There were also some moments where the lined details of the ground connected to the wires which made me think at some points that the wires were connected to certain buttons until I took a closer look and saw that they were different colors. My laptop's monitor isn't that bright, so this should probably be dealt with for users who do not have good screens.

Overall, it's a very well-designed puzzle game that has satisfying mechanics, and varied puzzles. This game definitely has potential of being a great puzzle-platformer, and I hope you continue development of this game after the jam ends.

I gave your game a review (plus rating) on what was done right and what can be improved. I'm hoping it can help improve your game in the future!

It's very amusing to watch as tons of clones of my character get placed everywhere and then to walk on top of their heads to use as platforms. Perhaps you could add some character customization to make the player feel like they're actually creating clones of themselves.

It's a cool attention to detail having the clones copy the movement of my character when they are placed on to the play area. Maybe one idea you could implement is that the clones mimic your movement when you create them: If you walked as you create a clone, your clone would continuously walk. If you jump, your clone will continuously hop in place. If you jump AND move in a certain direction, your clone would walk in the same direction while hopping.

I can imagine using this idea can make it interesting to solve many different kinds of puzzles. One example could involve using multiple walking clones to push a heavy metal box out of the way. Another could involve a puzzle with a button that brings an elevator up when pressed, and down when released. The button would need a clone that would constantly hop up and down in order to bring the elevator up and down for the player

While the graphics do look plain, the neutral grey palette seems to contrast well with the bright and colorful palette that the player-character has. This really makes the character and his clones pop out, which makes them easy to find when looking around the level. One thing that could be improved is that the graphical style of the character and stage don't seem to match. What can be done with the graphics is to either change the level's graphics to look pixelated and match the character's retro look, or change the character's visual design to a bright-colored square (or any kind of pointy shape) to match the level's shape-ey look.

The movement is way too sluggish. It takes around 10 seconds just to be able to walk from one side of the stage to the other. I actually timed it to show how long it takes:

This can probably be fixed easily by increasing the speed so that walking to the end of the stage only takes 2 seconds.

The player can't seem to jump whenever they are on top of a ramp. This is a huge problem since there are way too many times where the player-character gets stuck between two clones. I'm guessing you used a raycast for ground-checking since my character can't seem to jump off a platform whenever they're near the edge. I strongly recommend you use a boxcast for groundchecking purposes instead. It works the same as a raycast, but it detects areas within a square area instead of just a singular point.

As for the player getting trapped, perhaps you can include an undo button that deletes the last clone that was created previously. This would make it much less punishing for the player to make a small mistake instead of forcing them to start the level all over again. You could probably make a List that keeps track of each clone that gets created, and each time the player hits the undo button the list will delete the most recent clone and iterate backwards.

It also seems the cloning button needs to be pressed multiple times before it creates another clone, even when I'm not on top of a ramp. Was this input method implemented in FixedUpdate()? If this is the way it was programmed, it should be set in void Update() instead. The reason to use the input detection in Update() is because FixedUpdate() can either run several times per frame or not run at all. I've had this problem occur in the past, and placing the input detection in Update() always seemed to fix this.

While the game isn't perfect, you have that right amount of energy to push yourself to make graphics, code, and to learn the features of Unity within one week. This kind of work effort is the exact motivation that a game designer needs to succeed.

I made sure to give your game a review (plus rating). I'm hoping it helps with your game in the future.

The graphics of the game look great, and seem to fit well in the style of the classic Gameboy.

The sharp diamonds that surround the stage really seem to compliment the blocks that the stages are composed of.

The bricks of the backgrounds look varied with missing bricks which goes a good job preventing the player from noticing repeating textures. Perhaps you could add some cracks in the bricks as another detail in the background as well?

The way that the character's cloak folds as the character moves around is a very nice detail in the walkcycle. Normally most cloaked character's cloaks would remain static as they move around,  but this is an exception.

It's great design that you teach the player the mechanics one step at a time instead of just shoving all the instructions into the players face at once. The instructions consist of only one word each time, so they're quick to read and it's expected that the player should figure out the details of the controls themselves.

The controls for the player feel nice to navigate around the levels with. The player has a slight bit of a slide which makes the horizontal movement controls feel smooth. I noticed that you have implemented coyote time into the jumping mechanics when I tried hopping off the corner of a platform; this is a great design choice for a platforming game. One thing that could be adjusted would be to loosen the raycast area of the ground check. It feels like it requires a bit too much precision in order to time my bunnyhopping correctly.

The skull being the goal of each level doesn't seem too fitting with the cheery music and cartoonish graphics. A simple door with a lock would have not only been more fitting in the game's style, but it would make sense as to why you are getting a key. A key and a door seem to match more than a key and a skull.

I seem to be getting slightly motion sick seeing the aggressive shaking every time I beat a stage. The aggressive quakes don't seem to spark the mood of "victory" to me, they seem to convey more of something large and dangerous occurring, such as an earthquake, large traps activating in ancient ruins, or an evil colossus awakening. Having some simple particles flying out should be enough to show the player has beaten the level.

All of the puzzles are way too easy to solve. Every puzzle just consists of moving forward, and then rewinding until the key reaches you. I was really hoping for some sort of puzzle that was different, but no level had any variety with reaching the key, other than to use this one strategy.

I was also hoping that the game would consist of more puzzles would have more variety on how to not only carefully navigate the key, but to also to navigate the player themselves. One game I can think of right off the top of my head that does this right is Donkey Kong (1994). This game is VERY similar to the one you have done for the jam and I think looking at this game's level design would help improve the layout of your stages. The majority of DK 94's levels involve Mario needing to get a huge key to a locked door by solving platformer levels that also incorporate puzzles into the design of the levels. Mario usually needs to navigate through large sections that consist of many platforms before he's able to reach the key. In some other levels however, the game changes it up by making the key is completely out of reach. A few different contraptions need to be activated in order to find a way to reach the key. Some examples of this include the key being on an inactive conveyor belt, and Mario needs to pull a lever to activate the belt to move the key towards him. Another example involves Mario needing to activate some bridges to make it to the key.

Overall, while the game does have great-looking graphics, smooth controls, and a fitting soundtrack, the level design could be much more varied, and challenging for the player. I'm really hoping this review can help you improve your game in the future.

I gave your game a review plus a rating. If you can, take a look at mine when you have the chance:
https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-4/rate/724996