Well done! I liked the visual style - clean, simple graphics with cool lighting effects. It reminded me of Thomas Was Alone. The mechanics were easy to grasp and the puzzles were mostly intuitive. A few notes I had that are hopefully helpful:
This was probably meant as a two-player game, but to be honest most people will likely play it as a single-player game, so I wish it had accommodated that a bit better. Like somebody else mentioned, instead of controlling both with two different controls schemes, maybe allow the player to switch between them.
I also ran into several camera issues, where if the characters got far enough apart, I couldn’t see either of them. This is a common problem with multiplayer games where everyone’s in the same shot, but there are good solutions out there, like zooming out the camera.
Lastly I would recommend that you never hide the character from the player’s view. Invisible walls can be fun when well signposted, but make sure to show the player somehow through the wall, so they don’t lose track of where they are. This happened to me actually: I got stuck at a part where one character was stuck behind an invisible wall, and the other was out of view, so I had to quit.
Well done submitting something to the jam! Just a heads up, the Windows .exe didn’t run properly at first - I had to rename the “Best Friends_Data” folder to “BestFriends_Data” (remove the space).
It’s a cool concept to protect a group of friends to make your way to the end of the level. Unfortunately, shooting enemies didn’t seem to do anything, so my guys kept dying. I think it’s a bit harsh to restart the level if even one friend dies, maybe make it a bit more lenient, like you have to keep at least one alive? Anyway, keep it up!
Very cool game! I really liked the futuristic/post-apocalypse pixel art style. The game mechanics are unique - they took a little getting used to, but once I “got” it, things started to click. I appreciate that you’re trying something new.
Unfortunately I had to quit at one level where the drone was stuck under a movable platform, and I couldn’t move it up for some reason. If you fix that bug and add a quick restart button, I think that would help a lot.
Gave it a quick play, but unfortunately like the below comment, I couldn’t finish because the box got stuck in the corner. I also couldn’t really tell what the goal was, seemed like I was supposed to move the boxes to the squares, but there was an opening on the left side that seemed like an exit, but when I moved both players there, nothing happened.
But, I appreciate you making the effort despite a busy schedule! Game jams are tough when you’ve got other things going on. Keep making games!
Amazing work! It’s kind of hard to believe this was done in one week. The pixel art is fantastic, clearly you have a talented artist. The gameplay is tight and works exactly as expected of a point-and-click game.
The writing is also really good. I liked how there was almost always some new bit of text, even if I was checking something I had already checked previously. My only critique would be to add sound effects, that would add a lot to the atmosphere.
I hope you continue developing this post-jam, or make something new!
Much Pong, very cool game! I really appreciate that you’re telling a story, not many jam games do that. Particularly interesting to me since I’m (gratefully) not in school right now, but can’t imagine how difficult it must be for students during the pandemic.
Gameplay-wise, I really like that you basically combine two games in one; my favorite kinds of games are the ones that surprise you with their mechanics. Very difficult to pull off in a game jam. My only criticism really is that the Pong game felt way too slow, and I actually quit after a few minutes of no one scoring. Reading the comments now, I’m realizing that you can move left and right too, which I had no idea about! Maybe you could telegraph that somehow, whether with in-game text or something more subtle to get the player to realize they can do that. I’m so used to regular Pong I didn’t even consider it :)
Interesting idea, I think I can see what you are going for! Unfortunately it glitched out a minute or two in where the camera stayed still and the player moved out of view, so I couldn’t keep playing.
I think it would be better if you onboard the player more, rather than just have a big screen of controls at the beginning, which is a lot to remember. I couldn’t figure out what Split or Merge did, so I ended up just shooting and moving with one character. I know there’s limited time in game jams, but spending some time making an in-game tutorial I think would make a big difference. Good job!
