itch.io

This page is for a mockup that was created for the Game Mockup Jam (so, the animations are just renders lol).

If you want to play the ACTUAL game that started development after the mockup jam ended, head here: https://snuffysam.itch.io/parable-academy

Thank you so much! Yeah, I definitely want to expand this into a full game if I can (I found an engine that should work well). Hopefully with the animation work I have done already, I can just jump in and potentially get a demo out by the end of the year? I'll definitely post on the discord if I make progress on that lmao

Well, we only put the conductor in the first three levels as those are the levels where players need to learn the mechanics - if you didn't have trouble learning the mechanics you don't need to talk to him, lol

Mm hm, potentially making it so I can only jump to the long edges of the platform (where you have room to move around) & disabling jumps to the short edges would work too

Fun, but very hard. I tried a bunch of times but I wasn't able to make it past the first level.

I found myself wishing I could walk around the platforms, like they were planets - oftentimes I would jump to the small edge of a platform, and then there was nowhere else to jump to (since the platform I just left had disappeared), and I couldn't move anywhere so I just had to tank a few hits until the previous platform reappeared.

Also, the boss's health is white on a light grey background. Maybe make that a different color.

It's an interesting dichotomy. The actual platforming is really easy & fast, with lots of movement options to where I never felt like I was in danger of falling in a pit. But then the level design in a lot of places felt very... non-deliberate, memorization-based

 For instance, the falling section where you have to guess which side the spikes will be on, and memorize the pattern through repeated attempts. There were also sections where I was chasing behind a fireball, avoiding the other fireballs above me, but then the fireball turned around suddenly and killed me. Stuff like that where the only way to improve is to memorize the patterns.

To me, there's two options for a sequel. Either pull away from the obstacle course aspect, and make the game more about exploration like a Metroidvania. Or, add more movement options (e.g. a dive, possibly even a limited use invincibility shield), but lean into the unfair level design & obstacles to make it more of a kaizo-like game.

Actually, one more thing. IDK what the worlds are like later in the game, but for now it seems pretty linear.

So if you can't progress to the next level without collecting enough honey buns... why not just require a certain number of honey buns before you can go through the exit?

I suppose because honey buns are fungible, which means you could get 100% of the buns on level 1 and then only a couple on level 2 to unlock level 3? But IDK, maybe take another look at your overall game design to see what you want the purpose of the collectables to actually be.

Well it's more that if something poisonous drips from the ceiling, I'd assume the thing that forms on the ground is also something I'm not supposed to step on.

I know the world map shows how many you need, but I only saw the world map after I beat the first level, and I'm not sure there's a way to see the cost for future levels without getting past the current level?

Yeah, when I got to the first Jelli, I got stuck in the wall sliding animation and the game froze.

I liked the walljump mechanics, one of the platforming sections in level 2 was legitimately quite fun!

I wish there was some indication of how many honey buns you needed to unlock each level - you'd think with all the NPC dialogue stuffed into the first level, there'd be some actually useful information conveyed lol. It's also odd to have a game designed around replaying levels, but the levels also completely reset when you return to them?

Some of the sections seemed a bit unfair, for instance in level 2 at the big hat guy there's some honey buns underneath, but when you jump to collect them you jump into some thorns you couldn't see.

Also, I was kinda the opposite of Steventus - I didn't realize you COULD beat the enemies & poison (?) flowers that dropped from the ceiling by jumping on them!

I haven't heard of a whole Survivors-like genre before, I assume this is referring to Vampire Survivors? But, that game is 2D, which means if enemies spawn behind you, you can still see them.

For my first few runs of this, I saw a gem in front of me, so I shot it, then I immediately got brought to an upgrade screen, then I died immediately after picking my upgrade. It took me multiple runs to realize that enemies had already spawned behind me & killed me. In fact, the enemies seem to exclusively spawn behind the player?

The visuals really aren't clear either, I had a hard time telling if my shots were hitting the enemies. Some extra visuals & sfx would go a long way!

Interesting concept, and well made too!

My big complaint is the pound sign blocks. I know they need to stay on the grid, so I don't know how you'd fix this, but moving them is really tedious and annoying. Like, I have to press E to grab the block, then tap left or right multiple times to move it (like, specifically I have to tap a direction twice to move the block one tile?), then I have to jump away to stop pushing, because if I press the arrows one too many times I'll block myself from the platform, and gotta be careful when messing around with the E key because the R key is right there... it's just really stilted and awkward for a game that controls really well otherwise.

I'm still not quite sure what you mean by that, but I'll look into games that have that feature?

Wait, what genre did you think the game would be just looking at it?

Hm? The camera isn't locked to specific angles, it's freely controlled with the mouse. Which button are you pressing to lock the camera to the x or y axis in the first place?

The coin collection is just a little bonus challenge - for now, it changes what ending you get.

Was the running speed too slow, or just the walking speed?

Hm... yeah, that's tough. We tried to make it so that you could put notes into the harps from the sides (i.e. not the part with strings, the solid part), but if that's causing you to bounce too we'll have to think of something else.

Making it a button would fix the problem of accidentally placing a note when you just wanted to use the instrument, but it wouldn't fix the reverse... maybe we could have a button that makes Tonic lean forward a bit so you can place a note without your collision box getting near the harps?

The money at the end is how many coins you collected in the levels - depending on how many you collected, you get a different ending screen, but we're working on different uses for the coins for future versions!

For the jumping, was it an issue even if you pointed the camera to the side to line up your jumps?

It's odd, with how much talking there is, there isn't much actual instruction on the game mechanics. What causes a plant to grow vs instantly die? Why does some of the soil dry up quickly when it's all receiving pretty regular rainfall?

Where did I go lol. I was enormous & had full health, i don't think I would just die from one slap...

Anyway, it's a very pretty game, and the mechanics are cool. It is a bit glitchy - the Strategize card would just stick in the middle of the screen no matter what I tried to do with it, and the aforementioned disappearing.

Outside of the glitches, one issue I had is that the battles are pretty slow - it takes a lot of turns to get rid of even the early level enemies.

Really wanted to play this game, but it couldn't see my controller. If a controller is required to play the game (which it is, since there's no single player) and only one player on keyboard is supported, there should be a menu to test controllers.

A very clever game, with polished mechanics, visuals, and audio (I love how the pillar growing & shrinking wasn't just a sprite scale like some games, it was actually different sprites!)

I wish the aiming beam was a bit more visible against the dark background - on level 5, I didn't even realize the beam was a "physical object" that could be stopped by obstacles, and even in later levels it was hard to see where the beam was aiming when I pointed at a mirror.

A very cute, very fun platformer! The visuals were great, and it was just fun to move around!

I was a little confused by the level changing - I got it eventually, but it would be nice to have the camera pan to the area where the level changes e.g. to show a new platform appearing that lets you exit back to the sunflower from the double jump room.

It's solid, I like the level design a lot! The layouts are really good!

I do think the graphics kind of betray you a bit, the first time you encounter a tile it's hard to tell whether to jump over it or go around it.

You also have to be very precise with your placement due to how little distance you jump, it might be nice to have a bit of leeway for if the player steps too close to an edge or lands too close to an edge after a jump.

Incredibly well made! The controls take a bit of getting used to, and my hand got tired after a while (considering you have to do like A -> space -> left shift -> D -> space -> left shift every time you want to wall jump) but that kinda felt like the point? It is interesting to have a game that's played entirely left handed (except clicking through dialogue...) Landing on thin platforms after a wall jump was also finnicky, felt like it was difficult to control the distance of a jump.

The visuals are very nice, with some good variety in the areas. The sound design is also quite good.

One question - why does the stamina bar drain out to in, but the sanity bar drains right to left? lol

I do feel bad because I have been in that position as an artist, where I made a lot of graphics for a game that just didn't have any progress made on the programming side. And I understand wanting to show off your concept art and what the game was planned to be over what actually happened.

With that said, at the very least you should have the correct controls on your itch page. Space isn't shoot, it's mouse button, and aiming is with the mouse as well which isn't mentioned. Which to me sounds like less an issue with the programmers running out of time and more a lack of communication - did the artists make the controls graphic at the end without knowing how far the game had come along? Or did you make the controls graphic at the start of the month without being prepared to pivot if the game's controls changed?

Also, a lesson to all game jam artists - learn a bit of the game engine you're using, that way you can at least put your background graphics directly into the game and have something on the screen.

The art is good, I'm just not entirely sure what's going on?

For instance, there was a round where my heaven task was to send everyone to heaven, and my hell task was to send one person to heaven who didn't belong there. Sounds easy, those goals don't conflict with each other, so if I send everyone to heaven I should stay balanced. But then I did send everyone to heaven, and it said I hadn't completed the goals and hell was still too powerful???

My first softlock was on level 2 lol, honestly kinda impressive.

The puzzles were solid, and the art style was very good, but the platforming mechanics really held this game back. Controls were kinda finnicky, and there were times where I wouldn't jump (idk if it's because I jumped too late and the game lacks coyote time, or if the game just ate my input).

One of the difficulties with making a puzzle platformer is deciding how much challenge to put into the movement aspect - where, once a player knows how to solve a puzzle, how much time should it take them to implement that solution?

There's obviously no concrete answer to that question, it's different for every puzzle platformer. But maybe there didn't need to be quite so many gaps in the platforms that you need to jump over every time you move about the stage. Ditto with the spikes that make you restart the levels.

Great story game! I really love how the audio changed as the days progressed.

I'm curious how I'd reach the other endings... the game crashed after the "boss fight" but I believe that was intentional?

A solid platformer, the controls worked very well and it was fun to just jump around - that's not something every game here can say!

The visuals were odd, it felt like they came from different games - like the UI, player, and ingots all have this clean cartoony look, but the acid and soldiers (turrets? whatever was shooting those blue orbs) looked pixelated & blurry, like they weren't drawn at the right scale. Also, kinda weird how health is shown by having three hearts in the UI, but lives are a different heart with a tiny number in them? I feel like lives should be copies of Bismar's head on the UI instead?

The platforming worked very well but I also didn't find much interesting or innovative about the game. The logo made me think the game would be about balancing the weight of the ingots but that wasn't a thing. The wall jumping was cool, maybe the game could be more focused on that - having almost entirely vertical platforming (as opposed to the horizontal platforming challenges across spikes & acid drops), with additional mechanics like wall climbing, diving between walls, etc.

It's a very cool, well-polished game. The opening is a little slow (you maybe could have shown the player trying to collect berries for the dragon so there'd be a bit more interesting going on?) but it really opens up once you get the glide.

I think the animations could be improved - for instance, I think pressing down + attack is supposed to be kind of like a Zelda 2/Ducktales/Shovel Knight pogo move, but it uses the same animation as regular attack? So i couldn't tell whether I'd done it right until I hit the spikes.

The random freezes were also annoying, but I understand there's not much you could have done about them.

The aesthetics of this game are SO cute, and there's clearly been a lot of effort put into having a ton of levels! ...Unfortunately, the physics system holds this game back to the point of nearly being unplayable. I had to restart levels dozens of times due to boxes clipping through platforms, there were times my character was moving & pushing boxes even when I wasn't pressing the controls, etc.

I think for future jams, I'd maybe advise scaling back the number of levels so you have time to really refine the physics & controls.

I couldn't make it past the "mind the spike animation" section. There were platforms above and I almost made it to a higher section, but after I died once those platforms didn't respawn...

It's a somewhat unforgiving platformer, there's no coyote time for instance (so if I reach the end of a platform before the next beat, I have to stop for a split second before jumping), and the spike hitboxes are pretty strict. I did like the music!

A cool game with some fun surreal visuals.

For game balance, one suggestion - there should be a tower that has higher range. Once the tree started growing, it was basically useless to put new plants at the tips of the roots, because there were huge gaps between the "spokes" that the humans could just walk through. So I ended up crowding all my units near the trunk where they were guaranteed to hit the humans.

If we're going to have gaps like that, there should be a longer range (but weaker? more costly?) unit, which could add more strategy on what to build and where.

The game was very frustrating... it felt like punching was basically useless, and it was incredibly difficult to aim throws. For an isometric game where you're locked to one of four directions, it's pretty weird that enemies can come from any direction and you can't throw at them.

Very cute, well polished, relaxing game!

My one qualm is the Fever mechanic. First off, I wish there was some way to activate it manually - this would add more strategy to the game, like do you activate it when you have all the easy scales taken off & want to quickly get rid of the hard ones, do you wait until you're low on sharpness, do you activate it when you get a new fish, etc.

The second thing with Fever is... it's just a bit too distracting. I'm not usually one for motion sickness in games, but I felt like the Fever effects had too much motion and took up too much of the screen?

Wow, the text for items sure is small lol

I like it, I think the mechanics for growing & shrinking are a cool addition to a dungeon crawler! One small bit of feedback - it would be nice if there was hitstop & screenshake effects, both for hitting enemies and for getting hit. It would help make the combat a bit more polished!

A pretty good game, though a bit disconnected... it was hard to really see what the progress on certain tasks was (was that even a thing?) and the sudden changes from the news alerts only affected the options I chose one time near the end (where I needed to add an accessible UI). I got a good score so I guess I did it right?

To an extent, the idea was that part of the puzzle is figuring out how to bring the notes places without accidentally putting them in the wrong spot, or without blocking yourself from continuing (seen as early as level 2). But if that's too annoying, we should probably rethink that.

Well, lesson learned. There's a reason most puzzle games reset the room when you leave & come back.

This was a cool game, I loved all the polish, and the music & dialogue was top notch! The final puzzle was a bit odd, I just stood on the pressure plate and the exit opened? I figured there was something I'd have to do with the fireflies...

All in all, a fun, chill time!

For level 3, you need to run onto the timpani to beat it - here's a walkthrough if you're interested!