Thanks for playing our game!
I've never played Hack&Slash, but I definitely did take some inspiration from Baba is You. The more direct influences on this game were games like Gunpoint, and the Little Big Planet wiring system.
The other commenters have already provided plenty of feedback on the tutorial, so I'd like to comment on the gameplay.
I think you have a really cool concept on your hands, and I quite enjoyed playing it. However, I'm quite torn about whether or not I like the idea of the player playing a drone instead of an invisible entity. On one hand, it is quite fun hopping between modules, turning thrusters on and off, setting their trajectories. On the other hand, it gets quite tedious, and quickly becomes an exercise in micromanaging each part. This does make me wonder if the game might be a bit overdesigned, and whether some simplification of the gameplay might increase its charm.
Also it was quite hard to tell when my links were being damaged, as they were all interlocked and overlapping.
If you do plan to expand upon this game post jam and if you believe you could make the drone thing work, I have a few suggestions:
Overall, I did really enjoy this game, and hope you expand on it a little. Great job!
Really cool idea, and well-executed too. The only major problem I had with it is that if you miss a jump with one character, you have to backtrack with the other and reattempt the whole thing. It'd be really nice to have a return to last platform/section feature. I do understand the time constraint, though, maybe that's something for a post jam version.
Really fun game, though!
Cool mechanic, but it took me quite a while to understand that I could only connect to the gray tiles.
Also I think a variable-length grapple (where you manually reel in and out) could have benefited this game instead of an immediate pull-type grapple.
Despite the difficulties with the grapple, quite an enjoyable game! Good work!
Probably the best iteration of "you are attached to something weighing you down" I've seen so far. The movement is very polished, and using the ball as a fixed point to swing around was very fun.
The supplemental mechanics like the bouncy mushrooms (which are a little out of place), the guards etc. are also really clever.
Great work!
Thanks for playing our game!
I did originally plan to include a system where you could mouse over a device on the screen, and it would show you what it was connected to, but I had a lot of problems with creating the UI for it and making it work with the screen (not overlapping the play area etc.), so I decided to scrap it and only show the influences of the device you were currently connected to.
and yeah, the lick was a bit too loud.
Interesting idea which suffers from a lack of explanation. Almost stopped playing because I couldn't pass the tutorial, but then I checked the itch page for the game and saw that the magnetize key was mislabeled (it's actually shift, not r).
There's definitely something here, it felt great to be launched by the magnets in the second level though I'm not sure whether that was intended or just a bug. With some more work + the addition of some sounds and music, this could be a really fun game!
Thanks for your kind words!
I'm also a sucker for games with mechanics which allow you to modify the rules of the world. The idea for this game was heavily inspired by my time with Gunpoint & the Little Big Planet Series' wiring systems.
I definitely think the mechanic could have benefited from being explained better (or being explained at all), but it slipped my mind during the jam. As for the main menu, I started creating it about 1 hour before the jam ended, due to poor time management.
Thanks for playing, and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Here it is- https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/463289
It has 7 rates. It's a basic game about playing the same level over and over with a twist being applied to the game rules each time you exit the level.
Thank you for the constructive criticism! You're spot on with the enemy behaviour, I decided to make them change direction after a random amount of time within a range. This range was different for each enemy and created even more inconsistency than having random intervals. This was definitely a bad move, but I'm glad I made it now and know not to pull it again. I don't get what you exactly mean by variable jump arc. Mind elaborating?