A preferred length is one where I have fun for as long as I play. Whether that’s 5 minutes or 30 minutes depends on the design and feel etc.
Osinom
17
Posts
3
Followers
A member registered Jun 15, 2022 · View creator page →
Creator of
Recent community posts
I’m very glad to hear that you liked the aesthetics and world interaction!
I’m aware of the cursor visibility preference and agree with it myself as well now. I’ll make sure that it’s visible next time I have a game up! Totally agree with the sounds and music comment as well.
As for parallax; I would’ve loved to have it working. Had spend several hours trying to set it up, but in the end there wasn’t enough time, and the parallax didn’t work as I would’ve liked. But I will be looking into it for future projects, as I too do believe it adds enormous potential value.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hey, thank you so much for the enormous compliment & for playing the game!
As for all your questions, I absolutely love that you ask those! As those were actually part of the first ones I asked myself when coming up with the concept for the world & story. Which, yes, the idea is that you restore sections of the world. - And I now added a little bit of context on the description page as I very much agree that it is good to have!
I wanted to go the show don’t tell route, which is why the focus lied on the environment and its interactions. (I’m happy you noticed.) However due to me massively over scoping (and spending a lot of time on parallax which ended up not making it into this build,) the story, unfortunately ended up not coming forth as much as I would’ve liked.
Again I’m very happy to read that those questions popped up for you while playing the game. And I’m grateful to receive your feedback as well!
The starting room is incredibly intuitive, instantly showing off mechanics and save points. The starting weapon feels amazing to use.
The ropes were a bit glitchy at times, I ended up getting stuck for a while in an arena to the right. Combat was quite brutal unless you do it near perfectly, would’ve liked a second or so of i-frames. But good variety of enemies with clear unique sprites, attacks and movement.
What’s midground and what’s background is clearly distinguishable despite them being a same grey color in the first bit.
There were several empty rooms, in a row, not sure if that was intended. Also, I haven’t had this for any other web games until now, but the screen size was about as big as a DS. Maybe that’s just me though.
All in all, feels good to play.
Pixel art looks good, movement feels good.
There did seem to be some collision issues on most main gates, as I could just run through them. And the jump height was a bit inconsistent, making me believe that I could not reach certain platforms, though I did figure it out after some time. I like that you start with a rather powerful weapon, it feels good and I feel in control of the weapon. The second weapon didn’t seem to do anything, but maybe that’s me.
Also I too got stuck on the right.
The chest pickups were a bit of guesswork with what was inside of them, though reading all possible keys to use, I could figure it out.
Would’ve loved some checkpoints or text skips as it ends up making exploring the demo a lot easier. But for what’s currently available, I liked it!
I really liked the quick attacks, although the combat itself could’ve been a bit better similar to what’s already been said. The boss is a nice introductory boss.
The way the heart containers were provided worked really well for the pace of the game.
Lastly the movement was quite floaty, and would’ve loved some coyote time. Though the floaty movement did feel pretty good with the double jump.
Short game, great pacing. Had a good time playing!
I’m immensely impressed with this entry. Although the abilities aren’t super interesting, they serve a lot of purpose within the game and are well designed in combination with the map layout. They’re really intuitive and once you experience what the abilities do you get reminded of other parts of the map where you could go and explore. Speaking of, there’s quite a lot to explore even at the start without it being overwhelming, which I believe to be incredible in and of itself. I’d be surprised if anyone can finish this in 10-15 minutes on their first play through.
There are clearly several skips available, which is a lot of fun as it feels like you’re figuring out your own way of traversing through the map. I feel like that’s an essential part of a true metroidvania experience.
The story does feel a bit all over the place atm, however they do serve great purpose, always letting the player know what their next goal is and reminding them what their goal is in case they forgot or are stuck.
The room scene transitions are a bit laggy, but that’s not too much of an issue, seeing you don’t have to load that many scenes. The camera is quite sensitive and ended up hurting my eyes just a little bit after a while of playing.
Directional sound felt a bit off as well.
Also I believe I ended up getting stuck somewhere, and F11 didn’t respawn me unfortunately, so ended up having to quit it early. On MacOS.
Animations are cute.
Overall I had a great time!
Thank you so much for playing and leaving a comment! I’m very glad to hear that you liked the art and mechanics. I poured a lot of time and effort into those.
As for the issues you encountered; the clicking off screen will be fixed after the jam is over, together with other small tweaks including some enemy balancing & potential for permanent cursor display.
Thank you for sharing your experience :D
Beautifully put together, fun terrain to traverse, combat does have a level of difficulty and mastery, although the animation locks does make it a bit of guesswork during the first boss fight. Which is a great introductory battle.
The spear ability is fun and unique, but could maybe be a little bit more generous with how long they stay up.
The air dash ability was interesting, although it was quite difficult to use. I understand some time might be needed to get used to it, but locking on to the right spark and having control of movement while in the air did not make it much easier.
Enemies are diverse & fun to figure out.
Overall a good time!
I definitely notice the rogue-like element. Although it does feel more rogue-like than metroidvania-ish, it is also what you’re exposed to before the idea of a metroidvania kicks in.
The game feel reminds me of Minit, although, since dying is a big aspect and arguably a focus of the game, I do wish for it to be less punishing. The player has a lot of hit points, but the floaty movement kind of makes that necessary. I wish the movement would feel more in my control and that the move speed were doubled, perhaps also more respawn points & a smaller hurt box.
Without those, having to track the same path multiple times without it providing any additional progress along the way feels a bit like I could’ve spend my time better.
In conclusion: I believe that if the movement were less floaty, perhaps the starting abilities of the player were just a bit more generous and some more respawn points/shop stations were added along the way, that it would instantly feel a lot better to play.
The music, sound, art and story work wonderfully together. Had an absolute blast playing this as well. All boss fights were unique from one another, challenging enough for me to have to pay proper attention and try my best, without being overwhelmingly difficult.
The upgrades were fun to use, although, without spoiling too much for anyone else reading, a certain projectile attack from the player was not always easy to aim, and got blocked by platforms just a bit that felt somewhat out of my control. And upon obtaining the last movement ability, it does become a “spam this and you’ll be fine” kind of game. So that one felt a bit too powerful perhaps.
I can see this becoming a really good game once some balance changes have been made and some more content has been added.
Would highly recommend any other readers to play this as well!