itch.io

This is real creative - I like the idea of subverting the platformer genre. I do kinda wish there was a bit more to the mechanics to make it more of a momentum platformer (maybe you can curl up into a ball to gain speed? Add in ramps? I dunno).

Still, really neat idea and decent execution! Kinda wish there were some more sounds but the credits made up for it.

Really neat, wasn't too sure what to expect but this certainly surprised me.

Time trial platformers with a good deal of movement options are always fun so this seemed like my kind of jam. I used a controller, for reference.

The core gameplay is pretty good. I like the extensive moveset which all ties together. There's a fair amount of depth with the movement and using it with your environment to traverse it. There's a fairly simple pleasure in just traversing the environment. I'd have loved a sandbox area prior to the trials to just mess around with my movement, as the space you gave was a bit small.

My main problem here is a lack of feedback when doing the different moves. I imagine it would've been difficult, but some different animations to signify which jump/state you're in would help a lot in terms of clarity and playing through it. I wasn't sure if I did a backflip, for example, due to this.

Alongside that, I feel like the aberrations were kind of backwards in terms of fun. Instead of removing tools for the player (which is what makes your game fun at it's core!), you should've added obstacles that required you to use your moveset further. That is a bit harder and would've required more development time - but it felt a bit backwards to lose parts of my moveset.

The overall vibe was neat. I enjoyed exploring and there was a decent amount of attention to detail. I feel like it would've been neat to have a bit more dialogue when you interact with stuff, just to keep things a bit more interesting when interacting with objects. The visual style is really cool and you did a great job with the assets you had.

This was really cool! The idea is really creative, although I kinda wish it was expanded on a bit more (like, maybe you could change the height/position of your head?). The rooms were a bit dark (and I made the mistake of playing the webgl version), but I feel like this could be expanded upon in a neat way. The controls took a bit to get used to, but I got there in the end.

My one major complaint is around visuals - primarily that the enemies looked a bit too similar and their shields melded into the darkness a bit too much. It was hard to make them out in some areas due to a combination of lighting and dark materials on the models, so you basically had no clue where they were (which was more frustrating than scary honestly).

I also like it could've used a bit more variety in terms of enemies - maybe having some that followed your head instead of your body would be neat?

Hmm, I'm unable to run the game unfortunately. It just opens up a terminal with some debug info, and then immediately closes. I can't see any debug logs or anything else that might prove helpful either.

However, it's pretty impressive you made this in 3 days and in OpenGL - so gj on that!

That's possible - you can swap bullet types by scrolling with the mouse wheel. They have different uses: the second type launches enemies up, the third homes in on enemies and stops them in place for a bit (or other effects, depending on your powerups). If you didn't realize that, I can 100% see how you could get soft-locked - which leads back into the main problem (mechanics not clear enough...)

If you don't have a dedicated mouse wheel, im so sorry i really shouldve added hotkeys

They also all reload differently: normally, the first bullet type is a typical reload (use all bullets, wait and get them back), second is a charge (slowly charges up while active), third is consumable (you randomly get them when killing enemies).

When you get Random Bullets, it shuffles the way you reload each bullet when you change rooms. It's kinda a debuff (as you put it), but it can allow you to use the more limited types more often - so I felt like it was balanced in that way. Plus, it adds some spice to a run 😉

Apologies - I've been busy recently. I'll try it out this weekend and post my thoughts on your page!

Will do! I've been a bit busy, but I plan to check out a few games this weekend. I'll post my thoughts on your page.

Thanks for the review!

Out of curiousity, what powerup caused a softlock? I haven't experienced that myself and thought I fixed up the one powerup that could've caused it (random bullets). The missile/launch bullet should always be chargeable or reloadable, and since you can use any bullet type to damage enemies, you should be able to clear any room (even if it's slow).

Thanks for giving it a shot and I'm glad you enjoyed the gameplay! Admittedly, my playtesting was done very haphazardly and I burnt out hard by the end. There's a lot of polish I wish I could've added - but considering this is my first game jam, it could've gone much worse.

In retrospect, I probably should've had a mini tutorial that you could ignore (like words that'd show up at the bottom of the screen in the first room) in the first room. Or added a text pop-up when you're near the blackboards on the title-screen (which could tell you how to play in more explicit terms).

Oh, just walk over to the door in the middle of the screen and press R (it comes up with a button prompt when you're near it).

Thanks a ton for trying it out!

The controls are below (as copied from my game page):

Move around with A D, shoot with the Left Mouse Button, and slow down time with Shift. You can swap bullets with the mouse wheel. You can Interact and Reload with R when prompted. You can also Pause with Enter when in gameplay and hold Escape while paused quit.

As mentioned, you can only damage enemies when they're in the air. That's the gimmick of the game. You also get powerups by clearing out rooms which changes how your gun works.

The title screen also shows you the controls (that's what the blackboards are for on the title screen), but I suppose those could've been more obvious and in detail.

It takes a bit for the submission to go through - I think it's done in batches or something?

I can see your submission now, so it should be all good