Just finished the game and loved it. Really challenging ending where I was cursing the game at times. One challenge towards the end where I needed to jump and release ‘J’ at the same time felt at times like I was doing it correctly but the game wasn’t responding. I’m sure it was just the inconsistencies in my attempts and not the game, but perhaps some fractional second of forgiveness from the game would relieve the frustration in those moments. On my second play-through I also enjoyed the distortion effect when you activate ‘J’ or ‘K’ and it made me wonder how you achieved that. Are you using any of the popular engines?
I had a lovely time playing this game. Short and sweet, quality level design and also a great use of both the theme and limitation. You’ve made a great entry, congrats!
Hey thanks for the challenge! I enjoyed that the gameplay itself ‘Transformed’, looks like we were on similar wavelengths with that idea. I noticed that when I went into the first boss battle, if I didn’t buy a weapon then I was still allowed to proceed but it seemed like I wouldn’t take any damage at all, so I was stuck and needed to reload the game. When I bought a weapon, I received 2 weapons (sword and bow) and then would die with 1 hit from the teardrops. I managed to beat both bosses with a bow, I couldn’t figure out how to use the sword without taking any damage myself. I was also hoping that the artefacts would be useful later or counted in the success screen.
I have some ideas for minor upgrades to the game, for instance the static instructional text could be dynamic based on what the player has bought in the shop, so there’s no “If you bought a weapon…”. Maybe the guard can even stop you from entering the boss battle if you’re not equipped, something like “No you’re clearly not ready”. I’m sure with more time and testing the issues I mentioned above would have been addressed as well.
Thanks I gave it another go and had a great time. The music is engaging, really adds to the rush to finish the drawing. I didn’t notice at first that the rectangular block had only 2 states and I was trying to rotate it until it filled the left side instead of the right. I think that’s the only shape that can draw differently depending where your cursor is inside the cell. Did you consider making that behave like the others and rotate twice to fill the opposite side of the cell instead? Great entry, I quite enjoyed this!
A really fun challenge where I feel like I’m learning on every death! Reminds me of the feeling I had playing Celeste. I like that the checkpoints are spaced apart so that there’s a consequence to failing. There was one point so far (where you need to fall below the screen height and then catch yourself in time) where I was frustrated the first time I died because that wasn’t my fault and I lost my progress up to that point. In that moment I learned, “ok the game will set things up so I have to fail sometimes to learn”, instead of “oh, I didn’t realise that was the solution, now I can do it!”. Really great platformer, art and animations are fantastic and the music is pleasant, don’t mind hearing it on repeat at all. Well done, I’ll take inspiration for my first attempt at a platformer soon.
This game is challenging and offers some great replay value with the powerups in the shop. I struggled at first when I was using a keyboard and then I realised it controls comfortably with controller. Even after switching to a controller I had difficulty with the bosses and I may need a few more tries before I beat the game. Great entry, I’m thinking a pixel art platformer might be my next game jam entry and this one is a good inspiration! I noticed there was some hit-detection glitches when you’re standing right next to a block and shooting at it. I got myself into a few death-by-box-reappearance mishaps due to that quirk but aside from that the implementation feels well done. Congrats.
This is a simple, well-balanced game and very addictive! I’ve made it to Empire and I need a break but I can’t stop myself from continuing. Great work balancing the difficulty, I’m curious to know whether you followed an analytical method or if you found a good balance with practical tweaks and testing.
Hi friends just putting a call out there with ~10 days remaining to please do what you can to give your fellow entries a review especially those who have reviewed your game. The more feedback we share, the more accurate the results and also we’ll all improve together. I’ve played some awesome games so far, well done everyone!
This is quite a remarkable entry for the jam! Really great use of the theme, the choice of the frog to be the first transformation seemed like a nice homage to Super Mario Odyssey. The animations were smooth and the controls were responsive. The 3D rotation effect is really nice, you captured the sense of depth well. Overall seems like a great idea and great implementation. Very well done!
Cool mini game, I enjoyed that the decision tree was illustrated as physical movement and that it affected the character’s appearance. Did it also affect any of the progression values? It would be an improvement to have a clearer link between gameplay and the decisions made. Nice interpretation of the theme, well done.
I see lots of people enjoying the game and I’ve also enjoyed the music so far :)
I’m getting stuck on this early screen and I’ve tried using directional buttons and 2 different browsers (Chrome + Safari). Not sure what I’m doing wrong but I’d happily try again if you have any suggestions. Thanks!
This was a fun challenge, the atmosphere was established well with the narration during the tutorial. I know there are many games similar but I sensed some Hollow Knight influence which added to my enjoyment. Nice work, keep it up.
A truly stellar entry for this jam. I’m amazed by the amount of content in this game, there’s some clever level design and so much of it. I noticed there are occasions when the character’s sprite is invisible after death, possibly due to the blinking damage animation. I also found it frustrating at times when I pressed ‘R’ accidentally instead of ‘E’, some separation between those controls would have been appreciated. Lovely work, keep them coming!
I struggled to make progress but I think I got the hang of the controls. There seems to be a fair bit of technique required to get consistent results. Perhaps a gentler introduction would be a tutorial level with some basic obstacles that get progressively more challenging. Nice work, keep it up.
Thanks for the helpful feedback :)
I appreciate the praise, good to have the strengths recognised.
I’m considering a major change to the gameplay loop for the initial stage of the game (pre-metronome).
I’ll make the update once the jam is over and then I’ll send it over in case you’re able to offer any further thoughts.
Great frogger-style mini game. I couldn’t help but have a few back-to-back plays as the simply premise was an easy one to grasp and enjoy quickly. Thanks for sharing!
Fun mini-platformer, I do enjoy trying the character controllers on different games. This one had a great jump+roll combo, I was wondering at first how the roll was going to be useful and you found a way to make it satisfying. Nice job, I’m sure once any technical issues have been resolved it will be even better.
Great foundation and I agree there’s lots that could be added with time. For now it seems like you’re focused on fundamentals and we’ve all been there. I liked that the arrows were shot away from the cursor so it’s like you’re drawing the bow towards the cursor. I found it got challenging very quickly, perhaps a slower introduction of enemies and even a timed wave system could be a couple of low effort, high reward tweaks to try. Thanks for sharing!
It had me hooked for quite a few rewards. Like others I also found it fun and enjoyed that later stages required experimentation e.g. crafting a shovel wasn’t explicitly instructed. I haven’t figured out how to craft a knife yet but I’ll have another play later to see if I can crack it. Cool game, thanks for sharing.
Great puzzle platformer, there were some challenging and well designed levels here. If you end up making any more levels I’d play again. Also maybe the floaty jumps are helpful for having enough time to control 2 players at once, however it might make the controls feel more responsive if the jumps are less floaty and the dash is more directly horizontal. I’m imagining something similar to Celeste could improve the game-feel but still a solid entry for this jam.
Fantastic simple rogue-like! The combat was exciting with a some interesting boss-battle evolution. Definitely worth a few replays. Also enjoyed the “not big surprise” lol! Nice job.
So challenging! I’m going to try again later with a friend because I’m terrible at this by myself haha. Great pixel art and smooth animations. Nicely done!
Great puzzles and a very on-theme mechanic to solve them. From what I’ve seen so far this is a front-runner for this jam, surprised it has so few reviews. An all around great entry, well done!
Cool mechanic and a great idea to use 3D problem solving skills in a 2D world. I struggled to understand the rotation mechanic at first but once I realised it was happening in 3D space things made sense. I think some objects’ orientation could be more clearly communicated with some more sprites e.g. when a spike is pointing towards the camera. Another thing I struggled to understand was the area of effect for the rotation ability. At first I thought it could be used while standing on an arrow but then later it seemed that wasn’t the case and it was based on proximity to the objects that can be transformed. With these tweaks I think it would be an improvement but it’s already an impressive take on this jam’s theme.
Great idea to cycle through the items, it creates an unavoidable escalation in difficulty while also fitting the theme well. I’ve found it to be quite challenging but I’ll keep trying to beat Phase 3 :)
Great job with the puzzle design, I’ve been stumped on several problems and I’m yet to finish the game. Love the simplicity of the controls and art. The animations add to the feeling of weight behind movements and block building.
Great tutorial, did its job to help me understand the game and the narrative as I usually try to just jump straight in and see what I understand. I laughed out loud when I died in the tutorial and had to start it again, thinking “this person can’t be taught”. I liked that the different transformations offered a trade-off for attack/defence abilities. I found myself feeling somewhat cheated after a string of successes and then insta-death after 1 missed dodge. Perhaps a health-counter would address that but also it’s a difficult game which isn’t necessarily a problem.
Great game! There’s a lot of “depth” here in the different abilities and classes, plus fair bit of strategy to learn as you play. You’ve done well to represent so much on the screen at once and being a rogue-like there’s good replay value here. I suspect I’ll be back to play more, nice job.
It’s helpful to hear your thought process, I’m thinking of ways that I might update after the jam is over to make it clearer which notes are useful and which ones are just for extra challenge. Sounds like you learned it in the end but others may not be as persistent. Playing while dead was my attempt to address the frustration of dying as it’s difficult to systematically find a solution and I’m glad you discovered it! Thanks for the kind words :)
Really nice work, I got a lot of Rain World vibes from this game. Love the use of surface and sub-surface color palettes. I got stuck for a while as the bouncing butterfly until I realised I could jump through some trees. I got confused because another tree or wall that looks very similar bounced me down into a hole. In the end I got all 40 bites and I think you’ve done extremely well with this jam!
