Hi, everyone! Here's my portfolio:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EkUxRaFOe9EMFZKjKf-qUJ4DJoOg0u6P
https://nickolasbanducci.itch.io/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332190/Truants/
I've got a story idea that's been sitting in the back corner of my brain over the last year, and thought this game jam would be the perfect opportunity for it to see the light of day. Without spoiling too much, I'd best describe it as like when the movie Devil mixes with Chernobyl.
What I'm looking for are artists who would be able to do a small amount of backgrounds and a cast of characters with a diverse set of facial expressions. I also think having a composer and/or sound designer would be nice, though I have some experience making SFX.
If the concept is interesting to you in any way, I'd definitely be open to talking to you more about the plot! Please feel free to hit me up here, or on Discord: lilninjai11#3684
nickolasbanducci
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The fact that the main gripe I have about this game is the fact that it doesn't apply to the theme of climbing at all should be telling of how highly I think about it! Oh my goodness, it was like playing some of my favorite flash games from the past all over again, but with a Mad Max aesthetic and some palpable humor thrown into the mix.
I love how you guys put the crosshairs of the enemy fire behind the player to show when it'd be going, but not exactly what type of ammo would be used (it gives me time to plan avoiding it, but enough variety there to keep me on my toes on how to approach the situation). I was a little confused as to how much damage it took to break parts of my car though. I also didn't notice much of a difference in the car's performance when these things did get damaged (though, the lowest I let it go was orange in the engine, and I was pretty careful about repairing things). You guys might've done this already, but it'd be cool for stats in the car like speed and control to be impaired slightly when small amounts of damage are taken.
This also made upgrading parts kinda difficult. I wouldn't blame you for keeping this "git gud" approach, where you really have to get better at dodging enemy fire so you're not spending as much on repairs. But I think some minor tweaks to the economy would make it a bit easier to get these upgrades, and therefore keep the players playing a little while longer.
Holy crap, was this project ambitious... but the amount that you guys got done with in 72 hours is absolutely phenomenal. Barring the theme category, you guys get the highest marks from me! Stunning work, you guys, this was really fun to play 🤩
Wow, I never would've thought to consider pinball for a climbing game, but when you really think about it... it could totally work! That's really quite ingenious 🤔
You said in a previous comment that this is still a raw product, so I don't want to be too critical here. I think you know that having more engaging sound/music would up the gameplay experience. Pinball machines are usually pretty loud, because they want to get the player excited about hitting different parts of the board and racking up points! I also thought there should be some sort of penalty on the shaking if you do it too much, or at least a limit/cooldown.
This is a great start to something really fun though, keep plugging away and improving it!
I'm gonna agree with the other commenters that the concept of this game is really good! It's not the prettiest game, but I can tell a lot of thought went into how you set up those grappling points to give the player different options of how to scale the wall while being a challenge.
I also agree with a previous comment that it could've used a little more momentum on the upswing when letting go. I was expecting to be able to reach some of these points, only to find myself falling into a lava pit. And it's pretty darn hard to latch onto a grappling point when you're falling! You start to get frantic too when you can't seem to latch onto one, so when you finally do, you've let go because you just keep clicking desperately.
I think it'd be nice to have some sort of indicator as to when you can or cannot grapple onto a point. It was really hard to discern just what the acceptable distance was to actually get it to activate, especially when the game screen is small. My mind wanted it to be that any point in my line of view could be grappled (with farther ones taking a longer time to set up); but even having a line that shows the grapple's trajectory and lights up green when you can grapple would be super helpful. If you're worried about it being too easy at that point, I think you've got that covered with enemies you can shoot throughout the level.
Overall, a really good game for such a short period of development! It just needs some tweaks, and then you have a really solid gameplay experience here! 😊
This game is executed super well, in my opinion! I like how you've thought about how all these mechanics play together. I didn't even think about what you'd really need bullets for, when first playing the game... until I got stuck between three cubes and needed to break the one above me! Also, shooting a cube right as it's falling to freeze it and make it a higher point to grapple on is so great! We have something similar in our game. 😄
The wall jump was very nifty-feeling, I loved how I could jump from wall to wall on these cubes! But I did feel like it didn't work like I wanted to like half the time, especially when leaning on edges and after grappling. On the topic of controls, while the grappling felt really fluid in its motion, I really didn't like not being able to use it midair. I understand if you'd like to keep it as it is, but it seems so natural to have the ability to do so and frustrating when you can't.I also really loved how the white lines at the top indicate the location and the type of block that'll be placed next! However, I didn't really feel a challenge after a while. I was about 10 minutes in, and the blocks were dropping at the same manageable pace as before. I'd lost two lives early because I was still getting the bearings of the game, but it was pretty easy to keep myself from getting hit after a little bit. There might be obstacles that come around later in the game, like blocks that hurt you or invert your controls if you touch them, or they might fall at a faster rate the higher you climb. But it'd be cool to get something else in there to make the gameplay more engaging the longer you're in it.Nevermind, you totally added obstacles in your post-jam update. Awesome, way to think ahead!
I have to say though, I can tell you put a ton of work into this game, especially when it comes to the controls. It's super impressive that you did this alone in 3 days, and it was pretty gosh darn fun to play. I'd totally be down to play it again after your post-jam update!
Well, for a first game jam, you guys did a really great job! I honestly wouldn't have thought that.
That just might be it for the gorilla. It's actually not a bad idea for him to have a small detection area, as it makes the ability more skill-based (which is cool!). It'd just be cool if there was something to indicate when the spatial ability can be used, like the player character glows red or something right before getting hit.
But also, when I think about it, it's easy to see how the gorilla can possible OP in this game, since the boulders are the hardest things to avoid. It might've been the case in future levels, but I'd love to see other challenging obstacles. Maybe the eagle follows the player slightly instead of going in a straight line across the screen, or maybe there's spiders crawling up and down in front of a pathway.
It sounds like you've guys got an idea of what you'd like to improve about the game though, which is awesome. Keep working on it, and again, great work getting this done so quickly! ^^
Okay, I figured the wall jump was intentional. I think it was just a bit more floaty than I was expecting, so it felt like it was an exploit more than a feature at times.
God, that's so freaking cool... I love that you got procedurally generated courses working so well in such a short period of time. 🤩
This game's definitely commendable for hitting the mark so clearly with the climbing theme! I also applaud the graphics in the game, as they couldn't have been easy to complete along with the code in 3 days. I was also a fan of the SFX for the obstacles, and I never had any doubts that they were eagles and boulders.
But speaking of boulders, they come out of nowhere pretty darn fast. It seemed to be more luck-based not to get him by them, rather than skill-based. I played at the gorilla too, which I guess is supposed to smash the rocks, but it didn't seem to do anything? Couldn't tell if that was a bug or not.
The goal of the game wasn't necessarily clear from the beginning, and could probably use something to indicate that you want the player to progress upwards. But pretty quickly, I was able to catch on that I need to eat these fruits on each level. I do like the level designs you came up with (they remind me a little bit of corn mazes, except with metal bars instead of hedges), though it was a bit easy to get super lost with the fast-falling boulders closer to the end.
I enjoyed how simple and easy this game was to pick up and just play around with! Great work for the limited time period here, it's overall a pretty darn solid game! 😊
Let it be known that playing this game on a trackpad = playing on hard mode. That being said, this game is so gosh darn fun! I love the art, the sounds, the physics of the grappling (it does fling you a bit harder than you think it will at times, but I love how it makes you go to the side if you hold it for too long!), most everything about this game was so pleasing to me!
I just had a bit of problems getting it to work in the first place. It automatically put me into a skewed fullscreen upon opening the game. Luckily, I was just barely able to reach the options menu and turn it to windowed. It seems like there's a resolution bug for fullscreen though, so it might be best to default it to windowed or something. I'm also gonna agree with what one person below said with power-ups or something else in that realm being added to the game would make the gameplay more interesting. Maybe you could make collectibles like stars or something that you can convert to upgrade your character, like increasing its launch speed or making it a little less easy to be flung into random directions!
As it is right now though, it's already pretty amazing. Great work getting this done is 3 days, the mechanics and art are phenomenal and getting high ranks from me 😁
LMAO, what a unique and squishy-looking world you're created! And with a name like "Olympus Mons", there was no was I wasn't given this game a try. 😝
Personally, I think you did pretty well differentiating what was a climbable surface from non-climbable ones (at least in the beginning parts, which were the only parts I could get to but we'll get to that in a moment). In fact, your art was just great in general, but I was especially impressed with how easy it was to see where I had to go. What was especially hard, and that I feel needs the most work, is the controls. The jump felt a little too high and floaty and times, so it made things like landing on platforms and not touching spikes frustratingly tough. I also had moments where I was trying to climb and pressing up at the same time, but then my character would just stop climbing and start falling. I couldn't really understand why that was happening, but it messed me up and made me start over again.
Speaking of starting over again... I get that it's probably intentional design since this is a speedrun game, but BOY is dying a punishment! I honestly couldn't finish the game after about 20 minutes of playing, because I kept getting stuck on the bolder section. I couldn't tell if there was a pattern or not to their falling, but I'd just die there either while climbing up the wall or jumping to the next section. Not sure if it'd have been more fun with checkpoints or not. Maybe you could have it where you could let the player have checkpoints, but it puts points on their score or something like that!
In either case, I think this game was really fun. It had a really cool world design, the SFX were really fitting (though I wanted some fast climbing music or something to go with it), and the obstacles made for a good challenge! I think you've got something pretty awesome cooking here 😁
Hahaha we're just that good at our game, man. 😉
Naw, it has everything to do with the program we're using and the scores for other projects that were used on it before. I'd have to talk to my TD about exactly how it works, but unfortunately we weren't able to delete the test scores and other things that were on it before... It was more of a "Let's just use this thing for right now to get this submitted, and we'll put a pin in it" kind of decision.
I'm glad you found the wall jumping easy to pick up, it's what I personally thought people would have the hardest time with! As for the fall damage, your point is totally valid. It was more of a design choice: I totally hate when floaty platformers have fall damage, and our lead designer thought that it would be hard enough to have to dodge all these projectiles on the way down (since you have to go down to get more money). That being said, we changed the time of how long the months change last minute. We were worried about people dying too quickly and rage quitting. With longer months in play, and more time to take into consideration how to ascend/descend, fall damage could totally work now.
I appreciate you taking the time to leave such detailed feedback, and for downloading the game. Thanks a lot for playing! 😁
Now, I did use the chafts and I think that it was an effective way of getting yourself out of a tight spot. But because it seemed like such a last resort weapon, and the other ammo types are so limited, it felt silly to use it in the first 20 seconds of the game. It may be that it's rechargeable, but I was a little too worried to about everything else coming at me to really look into it. I also had some issues with getting them to actually set off, but I dunno if that was my mouse acting up or a bug (maybe because I was pressing it frantically?). When the missiles got really close, though, I couldn't get it to activate sometimes.
But the other part of that is that all these weapons seem like a lot to have all from the get-go. If I could just get the hang of how the main guns work first, then buy missiles or the chaft as an upgrade to help me cope when things get inevitably harder, then the progression would feel more natural.
But wow. I thought you might've had a full-blown team behind you getting this done. The fact that this is a one-person job, is freaking remarkable. And in 3 days, no less.😳
I wanted to leave a really detailed list of feedback because this game was so much fun to play, and it's easy to see the potential it has to be even more awesome than it already is! I've also seen you commenting really genuinely on other people's games, so that inspired me to do the same. ^^
Thanks for the detailed feedback! I agree that we have an issue regarding easing the player into the game and having them understand what's going on. We actually planned on having the gameplay go much quicker, but ended up slowing it down to try fixing this issue. Otherwise, they'd just be dying super quick (which I guess is a good way to learn, but not always the most fun way).
I honestly don't remember which program our technical designer used for the high scores... I'd have to ask him. 😅
I think the concept of this game is brilliant. The art style, all the assets and the UI that you put on the screen here all play together so well. I was never confused about what anything is or what it's doing. The sounds are great, they all make sense and make the game that much more enjoyable (I also love how the main menu track has, like, a sonar sound in it. Really great touch!).
The connection with the theme is a bit of a reach, but I can see what you were going for. My main concern, though, was the missiles. I guess there was this stigma in the back of my head that I shouldn't be turning the screen into a bullet hell, because ammo is precious and should be conserved. But the missiles are so dang small, I had to just let loose and let it rain to even get a couple. And in the beginning, I was seeing as many as 6 of them popping up in the screen in close succession to one another. By the time I reached the first supply crate, I'd have at least 3 lives taken off (if I hadn't died yet), and no lives replenished.
The idea of having these missiles coming at you as enemies is amazing, it just feels like a bit much as a first enemy type. I was hoping to have some slower, bigger enemies to start with so that I could get a feel of the controls first, like maybe some battleships or patrol boats. Then, when I upgrade my weapons a little bit, it makes dealing with the faster and smaller enemy types like missiles a bit more manageable! Also, as great of a mechanic as it is to see where enemies are coming from on a radar screen, it would be helpful to have an arrow or line in front of the gun I'm using to give an idea of where the shot will be directed. The gun is small and kinda blends in with the sea, so it's hard to see where it's aiming sometimes.
When all's said and done, though, this is one of the best looking games I've seen in this whole jam. I can't believe you guys did it in 3 days. And it already has all the mechanics to be an amazing game (like that upgrade system, so gosh darn cool!). I think it just needs a bit of playtesting to get that feel of easing the player into the game, and maybe some minor tweaks to certain aspects, and you guys have got yourself a real winner here 😄
So unfortunately, it won't let me download your fixed version. But I'm gonna assume you fixed the bug where you can't dash into the security guard in the 2nd level, because that was a progression stopper.
While I have to agree with a comment below that I'm not seeing the theme as much in your game (maybe it was the elevator, like you slowly going up this building?), I think that you had some wonder mechanics in play here! The different ways to take out guards, dashing to get past cameras, QTEs to open chests and get money, it has all these awesome features to make it a great game! What I saw looked, sounded, and felt pretty good to play. It's just a shame that I wasn't able to play a whole lot of it... Really wish I could see what you had going on in terms of level design, because all those features complimented each other well.
But great work for 72 hours of development, awesome stuff!
So, I think the idea of having this ball go up a metal corkscrew is a very imaginative and creative take on the climbing theme! The music is fun to groove to, as well, very relaxing and mellow.
When it came to gameplay, I didn't feel like I had a lot of control of the ball. Most of the time, I'd gravitate around the pole in the middle of the spiral. But it was necessary, because I could lose all the progress I made with one wrong move, especially when the ball is behind the pole and out of sight. And with how slow I was making my way up the pole and how long it would take to get back, falling off feels SO much worse...
It's hard to say what I'd personally do to improve the gameplay experience. I was barely able to reach the first chunks in the spiral, and never made it to the turrets, but I bet they serve as fun obstacles! I think, perhaps, if you had the camera following the ball up the corkscrew, like a cameraman, that might give the player a better sense of control.
All in all though, I really appreciated just how freaking cool of an idea this is! I'd love to see you do more with it, and would definitely give it another play sometime in the future 😄
Ah, the down sides of only having 3 days to develop... as I told someone else, what we wouldn't give for just 3 more, right? 😆
Okay, that makes sense now! I think there's something about the asteroids that looked so darn destructible, maybe just from playing other space shooter games, that it didn't click in my head that it's possible they could be invincible. I bet something could be done to show that the player's gun isn't marking a mark against them.
But yeah, of course! Your game was fun, glad that I got the chance to play it and give you some suggestions 😊
Oh, version control... I've had things get messed up during very important milestones in the past that weren't even an issue before, just because Perforce thought it'd be a great idea not to include some files. Totally understand that feeling. 😑
But that's great, glad that I could be helpful! Sorry for all the typos before, I wrote it really early in the morning 😅
I wish that I had more to say that hasn't already been said, but it pretty much sums it up: amazing background and animation, problems with the camera. I'd love to see more people playing this game and getting to appreciate the level of detail you put into it! The soundtrack was also really nice to listen to, and the SFX worked well with what was going on onscreen.
But yeah, I did have this feeling of jumping upwards into areas I couldn't see, which made it difficult to plan my moves. To add to those issues, I couldn't always see what I was jumping on in the foreground. Things that seemed to be climbable, like certain rocks, would just make me fall right through after jumping on them. It would be good to make your interactable environment assets stick out a little more, to differentiate them from the background.
All in all, you guys did an awesome job with this game. It really looks great, especially considering the 72 time limit! ☺️
My best score was 666666. 😈
Naw, it was 15050. Absolutely impressive when it comes to the art style though, and it reminds me of our game when it comes to just how hectic things end up getting! Between worrying about the rising lava pit and wondering exactly how many minions of Hell I'm hacking, this game's always keeping me on my toes!
I'm agreeing with other comments that more could be done to the general gameplay. I couldn't tell if you had put in things like score multipliers in there, but I think it'd be amazing if you killed a bunch of demons in one swing, and then you end it off on one of those spiders... and it gives you like x5 score boost to that one slice! Clicking from ring to ring also felt finicky at times, and I think there's interesting things you could do with them. Maybe some of them move really fast, or go invisible/can't be clicked for a moment before becoming available again. But if you use those rings, they give you even more points or something.
Overall, this game is aesthetic AF, to both the eyes and the ears! But if I were to give a suggestion on how to make it better, just go nuts with the score! Really indulge the player, make it feel good to do that slicing and dicing... This is Hell we're talking about! 😁
When it comes to aesthetics and sounds, you guys get high marks across the board! The player character is a bit of... well, a character (he looks like if a blobfish made a baby with a snowman and put Walter White's hat on it!), but the backgrounds are mesmerizing to look at. The music on the main menu, as well as the tones that play when you progress from node to node, really put me in a good mood too.
I think there's more to be desired from the gameplay, though, since it's pretty simple to type the letters and progress upwards. It'd be really nice to see some combo multipliers if you get a number of right keys in a row, since you can kinda spam the keyboard without much consequence. Or maybe you have multiple routes of nodes you can have the player choose from, and either those nodes have different instrumentals or they lead to some cool collectible or something!
It did feel a bit unfinished overall, especially when the last two levels were having issues with the player character glitching after the first key press (the 4th level eventually let me bypass this after a few tries, but the last one was consistent). Still, this is really impressive given that you guys completed it in 72 hours, and it looks like you have plans to continue developing it based on the "Coming Soon" features. I'd love to play it in a couple months and see what you guys did to improve it! 😄
I don't want to meet the masochist who is willing to try the no checkpoint run of this game... This was really fun to play though, definitely got those Super Meat Boy vibes while playing it. The level designs were well thought out too, almost rage quittingly difficult but enough where I felt that it could be done with enough finesse.
Usually, I would say games like this are better off split into levels, but the speedrunner aspect really works well for this jam. Aside from my wrist hurting from being so stiff while doing these jumps, I'd say my only other complaint is the lack of music. The SFX were nice, but my platforming would've been more enjoyable with a crunchy beat to jump to.
Again, this gets high marks from me. Great work getting this all done in such a short time! 😀
Well, I'm glad to have taken the time to notice it then! Don't be so hard on yourself though, it was great that you at least made the effort to try. I was also ambitiously thinking I'd be able to make a whole song for our game, before conceding that I needed to take time to make art assets instead and finding some free-to-use songs instead. You just make due with what you can, that's the best advice I can give for you moving forward. :)
Keep working at it, and congrats again!
Oh man, I can see people getting addicted to this game... my high score was 49 before I decided to call it quits! It has challenging controls, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as I still felt relatively in control throughout the game. I didn't know if I was supposed to be allowed to wall jump, as it felt a bit exploitative, but it was fun nonetheless!
Are these tracks procedurally generated, or random selected from a bunch that you made? Because either way, it's pretty awesome and a job well done for 3 days of work! 😁
I had problems with the grappling, as well. It really only seemed to work when it wanted to, and when it did, it flung me into random directions with an absurd amount of force that render me unable to control the character (even left and right had no real effect at that point).
That being said, I really like the sound design of your game! The SFX and the music both really fit the game's aesthetic and adds to its experience. Overall, I feel like I got an idea of what your game was supposed to be and that it has a lot of potential. I think you just needed some more time to really get the controls set just right.
I agree with the comments, the mini-map works very favorably with a game like this and is a smart design choice! But the F key is kind of a strange mapping for a jump, is there any particular reason why you went with that?
I did find a bug where you can just keep jumping up forever, until you're out of the bounds of your play area and your score just keeps going up. You can even make your ball go offscreen, so that there's no shot of it getting killed and the score goes up indefinitely.
All in all, it has some flaws but I had fun playing it! Also, that song is super catchy. 😁