itch.io

Hi TenseGames, 

I might be interested in participating as level designer, depending on the commitment per week, as I have a daily full-time job and family. I cannot see your discord so you add me _scr_ and I can send you my portfolio. The game looks honestly really good, and rather finished, you were not wrong about that. Although I know very well how much the last 10-20% of a game can take... 

I might be able to help on other areas as well, like game design or QA. 

Looking forward to hearing from you! 

Hi! I could help you out here, if you are still looking for someone. You can contact me on discord _scr_

Hi! 

I am a game designer and I could help out with game and level design. Would you be interested in having someone with my profile in your team? 

Feel free to reach out in discord _scr_

Hi Diego, 

I am Santi and I am a game and level designer. You can have a look at my itchio to see the games I worked on before. I just wanted to give a headsup in case you need some help with your game, either with mechanics or level design. I have capacity to work on another project during this summer and I wouldn't mind help you out :) 

My discord is _scr_

Honestly, I cannot remember a lot from it as I found out later, that the sprites that are destroyable also change colour. The combat was working fine, I think, as the player sprite was always going back to green after attacking in red. I might try again the game until getting the upgrade to see if I can reproduce it. I will let you know about it!

That was good! Nice art and the scarf is such a good point. Well done. Feedback to the player and juicy elemnts are also nice, and the combat is responsible and simple enough to get it quickly but challenging enough when it needs to be. The eco mechanic was very surprising, specially when it hit me and learning how to use it in your advantage felt really good. Again, the detail to turn this eco into your save point adds so much to the game feel.

Overall, very good entry! Congratulations, I really liked it.

As joaokrejci said, I see some potential here. At first, I honestly thought the entry was not really good as the combat was not interesting neither the simple platforming. However, the jet pack was a nice surprise and it spiced up the platforming, together with the mushrooms. They both opened the world and it was definitely the best moment of the game. The little melon is cute and I liked the rolling jumping animation, for whatever reason I found it super nice to see!. 

My main input here would be to reconsider the pacing of the levels and its challenges. It felt that the levels were too big and the challenges were not really changing. I think less enemies and more interesting situations would make wonders for this game, kind of like concentrate what you have in less space. Apart from that, I found the combat not really well executed as when you hit an enemy, it will immediately hit you back since there is no knock back to stop their movement, so it makes you feel that you did it wrong. I found actually more fun (and more efficient) to just skip enemies by jumping.

Overall, a nice entry :) Congratulations!

Thanks for playing and this great input! We would like to polish a bit more the project after the jam rating is finished, since we started late the project and almost had no time during the jam, so your comments will help a lot to get a better game. We are glad that you liked the atmosphere despite the issues you got :)

The checkpoint thingy was actually intended, kind of like a punishment for players for saving the game and not just speedrun the entire game like true real gamers ;) 

(kidding obviously, in case irony was not clear. We will get that one fixed right away! We did overreached there...)

I am really glad that you liked the level design! It was actually the only reason why I personally wanted to join this jam as I never did level design before, so I am glad that we got that right. Also reg. the atmosphere.

Reg. the rebirth theme... yeah, not great implementation. The idea was that each new skill turns the player a bit more into a monster just for the sake of being the hero of the story. The end of the game is supposed to make it a bit more clear, I guess, but still not great. Next jam goal: work on "story-telling through mechanics" skills.

Thanks for playing and your feedback! :)

Thanks for playing and the feedback! Glad that you enjoyed it overall. 

You don't plan well enough to have sufficient time to playtest and then you get worms flying all over the place... :D we need to fix that spot

Thanks for playing! You are fully right, the combination of the recoil jump + light direction is indeed a pitfall in design... We had very little time to playtest the game and we realised this issue too late. Your suggestion is a very good solution, and it would help much for platforming, thanks! Glad that you liked the atmosphere :)

Lol that is so true! What a pitfall... After the jam, I would like to keep improving the game with all the feedback giving so that will be one of the first things I will fix. Thanks for pointing it out!

Wow, this is awesome for your first game. Congratulations! My first games were not even close to that lol

Although it is true the movement is too slow, specially when backtracking if you are a bit lost, the music helped there a lot. I love the main track (or the initial one, not sure if it is the main but my favourite by far), so it felt fine just going back and exploring slowly while listening the awesome track. Still an issue, but great job with the music. The SFX for the charge attack felt really clever from your side, but I understand that it is easy to miss. Art also goes super well with the theme and the music, congratulations on that. 

The level design is rather clever to follow your vision of now showing any information to the player. However, a tiny bit more of information might still fit into your vision and make everyhting easier for players. Maybe show a little diamond when you get the upgrades, health bar for the bosses or better feedback that you are actually progressing through the fight and not doing something wrong. Reading the previous comments, I realised that I actually got a bug and the objects where not turning red if they are destroyable when the player charges the attack; that would have actually helped a lot and being a nice surprise. Sadly I missed it, but figured out it anyhow. 

I got stump a couple of times, for example outside the bird boss, but overall really good entry :) Congratulations again!

Interesting slow-time mechanic and fairly well implemented. It was fun to play and the controls are very responsive. However, it felt that the game was way too hard from the start, throwing challenges to the player that were not prepared to. It felt a bit frustrating, I think a bit less steep progression would make wonders for the game as it is a well done entry. I liked a lot also the music and the art style! Well done there.

A super nice surprise! Once I got used to the jumping mechanic, I quickly found myself just enjoying the wonderful movement and the soundtrack. Apart from the jump, a rather clever climbing mechanic. Art very unique as well.

Overall, well done! Really enjoyed it.

Super innovative idea! I liked it a lot. Sadly, the 1-hit death + very few saving points threw me away but I wouldn't have mind to keep exploring which new mutations could come. There is a lot of potential in the concept, well done.

As for some feedback, maybe it was a bug but a bit of music or sfx would have been nice. The progression is slow but fine afterall, and the levels give a metroidvania feeling for sure.

Overall, great entry!

Nice retro feeling!. Unfortunately I got stuck after getting the first pickup as I didn't manage to get the final jump to next upgrade.

Great visuals! I would love to see how this game develops

You clearly see how much effort to put into game  juicy stuff, loved it! Very nice feedback to the player. Definitely a metroidvania feeling with intricate levels, and power ups rearrange somehow how the levels are traversed. I would have like to explore a bit more time slow mechanic, didn't really find its use tbh. But you can see the potential there for sure. Quite impressive the dimension of the map as well, and how well the mini-map works. As some contructive feedback, I would say that the progression curve is quite steep, new mechanics directly challenge the player from the beginning without much time to breath; and although the UI elements are super well integrated, I had to stop constantly to read the tutorial messages, breaking somehow the intention I believe. Maybe a static level where the tutorial is shown and the player can test the mechanic could work better, just as a suggestion.

Really nice work overall, you really know what you are doing! Very impressive.

You clearly see how much effort to put into game  juicy stuff, loved it! Very nice feedback to the player. Definitely a metroidvania feeling with intricate levels, and power ups rearrange somehow how the levels are traversed. I would have like to explore a bit more time slow mechanic, didn't really find its use tbh. But you can see the potential there for sure. Quite impressive the dimension of the map as well, and how well the mini-map works. As some contructive feedback, I would say that the progression curve is quite steep, new mechanics directly challenge the player from the beginning without much time to breath; and although the UI elements are super well integrated, I had to stop constantly to read the tutorial messages, breaking somehow the intention I believe. Maybe a static level where the tutorial is shown and the player can test the mechanic could work better, just as a suggestion.

Really nice work overall, you really know what you are doing! Very impressive.

Thanks for the feedback! 

I believe that with SFX you are referring to the start screen. If that is the case, we take gladly the input; fair point. The intention behind it was to create a tutorial without any text but we clearly didn't deliver it correctly. 

The aiming icon turns red when it reaches mouse position, indicating that now the player is able to shoot, so theoretically should not be linked to the interaction with any object. But good point to write in the list for improvements. 

I hope you still enjoyed some parts of the game :) 

Final update done! :) 

Hey, thanks for playing and your feedback, we are glad that you liked the concept and our intention behind it!

You are fully right, those are fair points. We are working during the 24h-extension to implement some assets and parts of the game that we didn't manage to get yet, and we will definitely take your review in mind :)

The theme Rebirth was not about the respawn of the player or how many hits they can hold, but rather the game story and the reason behind the upgrades. In order to progress through the game and be a hero, the player willingly let the infection progress through to grant them new abilities, so it becomes something else, and therefore the rebirth theme. We clearly didn't deliver it correctly so thanks for pointing it out! The version 1.1 should get the idea a bit more clear, as we added a short end for the story. 

Maybe after the final deadline, if you wanna see the improvements, we would love to hear again your feedback!

Thank you for the review and feedback, we are glad that you liked the theme and the concept!! 

We totally agree with you though, the uploaded version was missing several assets as we didn't manage before the deadline. Luckily we got now the 24h-extension and working hard to get the game where we wanted it to be :)
Maybe after the final deadline, if you wanna see the changes, we would love to hear again your feedback!

New version coming with major fixes :) 

Yeah, exactly haha sorry. My username in discord is _scr_

Hey! Do you have discord? I would like to show you one project of mine, in case you are interested in participating :) You can find me on _scr_

Hi everyone! 

I am looking for a writer to help me adapt the indie game Celeste as a children book, specifically in a Kamishibai format. 

Due to the very limited space of this format, I am struggling to get the story right and it would be great to count with someone with experience in writing.

Once the story is finished, I would like to get in touch with a professional illustrator to create some nice illustrations to go along with the rest, but so far, I want to focus on the story. 

Unfortunately I cannot offer any payment at the moment for you... I have no intention so far to make any money out of this project, so I guess you can think of it as a sort of fan art project.  However, we can publish the result in whichever platform you want and promote your work in any way you would like.

If this sounds interesting to you, feel free to reach to through discord _scr_

Looking forward to hearing from you! 

Santi

Thanks for the feedback, MegaMelone. We will keep it in mind for sure for a future update of the game :) I am glad that you still could enjoy the gameplay!

Check out our previous game, also submitted to this jam! 

https://itch.io/jam/20-second-game-jam-2023/rate/1923034#post-8857458

Thanks for the feedback, MegaMelone :) It is actually interesting how people reacted to both games. Your point is certainly one to have in mind. I will keep working on the Fruit Twist so it can at least reach the same level as Twistling.

Very glad that you enjoyed this one more!! 

Hi gabemcarvalho! Glad that you enjoyed the game :) It is actually funny to see how different people the "mouse puzzle" xD

Ghosting is a big deal for this game, you are fully right... We tried to solve it in a similar game that we did for this jam but it turned out to not be as fun as this one. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks a lot for playing and the feedback! You are fully right, we will try to think about this issue in future updates

Glad you enjoyed it despite this problem :)

Hey Bitoh! Thanks a lot for your comment :) 

Wish you the best in this project. If someone else is reading this, go and check out the official game page and test their last update!

Hey PixonParadox, thanks for the feedback! :) 

The game is supposed to be a "physical puzzle", where you have to struggle to press the diffent keys, like the Twister game. So, we chose the key patterns to deliver that feeling. If we succeed, cannot say xD but that it is the reason some keys are close to each other and other very far away. 

Hi! I would say the  difficulty was medium, reminded me of old arcade games (I guess that was the intention actually).  Not too hard but neither too easy. The goal to master the game is clear, you just have to get there.

Reg. what to improve, of course variety of enemies can always be increased, right? or different enemy patterns, or an extra layer of enemies further away. 

But I honestly find that kind of cheap feedback, so I can also suggest you to add an extra mechanic to give the player a second chance. 

Controls are hard to master because changing the direction requires some time, it is not immediate. So if you are heading an enemy, it is hard to not die. That the key of the game I would say, so all good there. But, you could add a mechanic to be a bit more forgiving with mistakes. 

For example, you could slightly slow down the time right before colliding with an enemy, so the player has a bit more of buffer time to react. The feeling of saving the day right at the last sec is awesome and could spice up the gameplay! 

Or you could add a "parry" mechanic, so the player can press a key right before colliding an enemy, so instead of dying, they would bounce back from the enemy and has now a bit of time to react and change direction. 

Just random ideas :) I hope it helps, in general very good game! 

Opened again!

Nice game! I specially liked the gameplay, simple but effective. The sound design is also very good, well done

Wow great job here, definetely something worthy to check out! Quick games with simple mechanics that are easy to understand in a sec and execute (Warioware feel). Feels nice and surprising the whole time. Well done!