itch.io

So, I could not get this to work or understand what was happening.
I tried to get it working for two players, but it didn't work.
The sound effects sounded like I was picking stuff up and hitting stuff, despite nothing being on screen.
I thought I picked up a bunch of the green things, but the game says that I didn't
And it was a bit hard to control.

I really like how the game looks. I think you did a great job creating a game and a style with four colors that doesn't feel like you compromised anything by only using four colors.

It's a decent start to a cool game, I think that it needs some polishing. And I would say trying to focus on a better single player experience could be good as well.
And if you want to completely rework the entire game. I think this could work as a cool underwater exploration kind of game instead of an arcade like game. But that would be reworking what the game is about.

One other thing is that when you click play game, it freezes for a bit. I can assume this is the game loading the main game scene. I would recommend having some kind of fade out from the title screen and fade in into the main game to hide this loading.

Overall, cool looking game. Just wish either it worked, or I understood what was happening.

I think it's good. It was very fun, but I wish that there was more of it.
I think first of all, the crows should only be taken care of with 3 bullets, and maybe making a harder crow version later on.
I think that the amount of items that spawn are a little much, they seem to over compensate due to how weak you are without an item.
Stage 3 was completely mindless because I had like 8 potions drop and so I didn't have to worry about my health. Stage 4 was very fun due to how much was on screen and that only 2 potions dropped.
I think having less items drop or just having different chances for items would be nice. Less potions made me much more aware of what I was doing. Also, the shotgun spell has its symbol be "III" which could just mean, three bullets. But to me implied, spell number 3. So I wish that there were more items that changed your spells. And maybe if you pick up more of them, you can upgrade your spells.
I wish the game was a little more hectic.
Also, I wish that there was some kind of boss fight. I understand it being a gamejam, so you might not have had time to do it. But it does feel anti climactic to just end the game with no boss fight or really any indication that Stage 4 was the last stage. Not to mention that the cutscene, coupled with the music makes it feel like I got a bad ending. But I don't believe that I got a bad ending or that there were multiple endings. If there are, then it should be more clear that I got a bad ending, and a hint as to how to get the good ending.
Also speaking of music. Don't love that there isn't any. Sure, you make noises when you walked, but when standing still, I just don't love that there isn't any music playing during the levels.
And lastly, and I don't know what caused this. But when I called a frog enemy in level 4. It teleported to the right side of the screen behind the rocks (the level boundary) and kept hopping around and trying to attack me. I'm not sure what caused it, and it isn't a big deal at all. But just wanted to mention that it is a thing that happened.
Overall great game, hope to see it improved.

Well thank you for leaving a comment!
The first thing is that there are no other rooms, it is just that one. So I tried to make it somewhat hard to justify only having one room, but also not too hard.
I will say that one part of the puzzle could be changed to be a little bit easier to understand.
And even Vimlark admitted that if he didn't have chat, he probably would have spent way longer trying to figure it out.
But I thank you for at least trying it out and complementing other parts even if you couldn't finish it.
And I'll make sure to check out your game.

It's pretty fun.
It is very creative to use the mouse wheel as a form of control. It would have been nice to have some kind of in game tutorial because I didn't look at the description at first and was lost at what to do.
I will say that my favorite level was level 5. I think the levels where you can go fast are the best, though that might just be because they require the least amount of skill.
A lot of the other levels felt very tight and hard to move around in. Not to mention that the animal shapes, while cute, don't make for great levels all the time.
I think something that is all about going fast with some physics would be better. Maybe I'm just bad, but some of these levels, it was hard to go very fast in them. Maybe you could have branching paths and the point of the game is to chart out the best path to go to get the fastest time.
This could be something similar to sonic where it doesn't feel like I'm going fast because I suck, but people who are good at it fly through the level and have fun figuring out which paths to take.

I think it's pretty good.
The lack of music would be a bad thing in any other game, but in this case, I think it does a good job of highlighting the monotony of the job.
I don't know if the $1500 was the actual end or not. Or what exactly. But since the amount is only $1500, it makes it hard to justify buying upgrades.
But overall, it is a very good game.

Yeah, that's fair.
It's hard since some people will understand the solution quickly and some won't, so it's hard to judge how long of a timer you should have.
In addition, I wanted this to be only made by me, and I didn't know if playtesters would count as part of my team or not, so I avoided play testing. Which made making a riddle game a little harder since I was unsure if my riddles were clear or not.
I think I should have made the timer either 10 minutes long or had some kind of difficulty which at least made the timer longer or shorter. It would be cool to also have easier or harder puzzles like in Silent Hill, but I did not have time for that.

That is fair, I felt like five minutes made it much more stressful and race like.
And you do have infinite time on the gameover screen, so you can at least plan everything out there if you do need more time.
But maybe 10 minutes might have been better.
It is hard to judge with timed puzzle games because some people will figure it out quickly and feel like the timer was too long. And for some people it might take a while for them to figure out and feel like the timer is too short. There isn't a problem with either camp, it's just acknowledging both camps and trying to make something which satisfies both can be hard.
Maybe having an option of how long you want the timer to be could also work.

I have ideas on expanding the idea. But this one room did take me the entire jam time to make (which looking back on, it probably shouldn't have taken that long, but also it was my first time using Godots 3D engine stuff, so there is that.)

I will say, if you do want to see something similar. There is a game series called Zero Escape which is on Steam. It does cost money, and they are also very visual novel based, so expect a lot of reading (though the games do have voice acting). But those are very good games and you will probably realize when playing them how much I  ̶s̶t̶o̶l̶e̶ was inspired by the series. I will also say that the DS/3DS versions of 999 and VLR are better than the Steam release, so if you can play them, I would recommend playing those versions instead. But the Steam versions are still a solid way to play them.

I think it's good.
Obviously, that style isn't going to work in every game.
But I think considering what the game is about, that is, running from death while dying of old age. I think it creates an interesting and foreboding atmosphere.
I will say that it is usually best to have the music to continue playing when dying. However, if your method when dying is reloading the scene, I'm pretty sure there isn't a way to not have the music also restart. Maybe you could have a variable (it might need to be a global variable) which might increase each second and then when the scene is reloaded, it starts the song that many seconds in equal to the number that the variable is. And then have the variable go back to zero when it equals how many seconds long the song is. I have not tried this idea out myself, and I could just be overthinking something very simple like I usually do with my code.
But overall, the music is pretty solid.

in the first level I got softlocked by having 2 balls stuck going up and down and 1 ball in a permanent angle that would never hit any of the remaining blocks.
My solution to the 2 balls that were stuck going up and down is to detect if the Y or X axis have not changed in around 15-20 seconds, and if they haven't then pushing them in an angle.

So first, I would say it would be best for the buttons on the main menu to be activated when clicking on them, rather than the mouse just touching them. It makes it more clear to the player what is happening. In addition, putting the buttons closer to the center of the screen would allow players to better see it. Making them bigger would also help.
When it comes to the tutorial screen, it would be much easier to use text instead of drawing the letters. You can either do this with the text tool in your art program and/or you can do it in the engine, depending on the situation. For godot, text nodes are called Labels or RichTextEdit. RichTextEdit Nodes are more complex and can do some cooler stuff, but Labels work just fine for most situations.
Your platforming controls are pretty solid. However, I do not understand how the grapple mechanic really works. If there is a cooldown to it, have a UI element that shows that cooldown. If it can only be used on land, then have a UI element that grays out when you are in the air, indicating that the grapple can't be used. In addition, the speed thing is very hard to understand. I think it's interesting to have a risk/reward element where going fast makes you avoid death, but make you slower when you get older. That is genuinely cool. However, when I dash, it just seems to drain my age and instantly kill me.
The grapple mechanic is cool, however, it conflicts with the "speed makes you die" gimmick of the game. Because it is very unclear how much grapple will kill you.
Here's what I would change about your game. Remove the grapple mechanic. It's cool but isn't needed when it comes to your theme of "speed makes you die". Double jump can stay, but don't make it kill you. Just make it weaker as you get older. When it comes to the dash button, instead of moving you forward, I think it should increase your speed, so you just walk faster. However, you have an age meter (or just two labels, one says age and one has a number) at the top of your screen. As you use the run button, your age will increase and you will slowly get older and your movement abilities will be slower. I think this could make things much more interesting. Another thing you could do is make multiple paths for level design. If your age is a low number, you can move faster and go through quick paths. But if you are slower, you aren't able to take as many shortcuts and faster routes. You could also have things which slow you down in the current moment like backwards conveyor belt or lasers. Making the reaper get closer to you and more likely to kill you. Also, having a life system would also make the reaper being an instant kill be much more threatening than it is right now with everything being an instant kill. But with obstacles that slow you, you need to make a decision if you want to walk through it but maybe risk the reaper getting closer to you, or running through it to get through that obstacle, but potentially harming your ability later on in the level.

Another thing is to not be afraid to do research on how Godot works. Some of the docs are not super great at explaining what things do, but I would not know what I know about Godot if I didn't research it. So be sure to look up how to do something if you aren't sure.
While this isn't a great game, I can see good ideas from this game which could be used to make this game better or a new game.