Functional, if it felt a bit basic (which makes sense for an atari classic)
Felt a bit luck based weather I had a clear path or not
nice work :)
Really really has a lot of potential, I'm guessing a Balatro/undertale or maybe Inscryption inspiration here
Having so few actions meant it felt a bit awkward to play out my turns and I couldn't set up many combos which I think is where the fun mostly is with a game like this
I liked the idea of the overworld, but I didn't feel like I made many choices just walked to each next button/enemy
I think if you spend a bunch of time getting feedback and iterating on this it could be really really fun!
I love the take on the theme and the metroidvania structure! A really unique movement made it entertaining to get around - though the jumping felt strange to charge up without a visual, especially with the double jump
Cute art (and a clever way to get around a walk animation) but some fairly basic sound, giving the truck collision noise some pitch variance would have gone a long way
I defeated the big alien and got 'victory' but nothing happened?
Rescuing the cat was funny but threw me a bit to not get any reward (I figured the cat would let me have it at least haha)
Speech having multiple bubbles took me a while to figure out, could maybe have some pips on the bottom or something to indicate conversation progress
I stole the alien tech before talking about the big rock, so the game told me to go get something I already had
There's definitely some physics quirks (I can hold myself against a wall mid air, if you jump next to trucks they fly into the air with me)
All in all a really cute and creative entry!
Thanks so much for all your feedback! That's a very valid criticism of the boss, I know what the attacks are so I probably tuned them a little too quick and difficult - there's a small window to dodge out of the way but maybe that needs to be longer!
I think I need to go back after the jam and really have a second look at the jumping, it feels good to me but I've had a lot of comments on it!
First of all thanks for writing up so much feedback, it's invaluable!
I definitely wanted to have more ... everything! More monsters, more puzzles, more opportunity to really flex the abilities - but as you guessed I was working right up to the deadline to fit in what I did! I've gotten a lot of constructive criticism on the jumping and it's a shame I didn't have more play testers to catch that earlier in the development.
Absolutely valid nitpick on the level design for the walljump -> holy flames abilties and in a future update they'll definitely get rearranged to have a much more rewarding discovery route!
So I'm a huge sucker for scifi and this very obviously takes inspiration from metroid! I'm shocked you weren't in the classic category! The art looks great and cohesive.
However I ran into a bunch of issues with this game (itch won't let me post the screenshots, too big...);
Often I would leave a room, take an instant hit as I entered the next room and die
A room on the far right had a door that just restarted the game
This console (two floors up) crashed the game every time
Using the settings menu button causes it to become 'Selected/Focused' so every use of the spacebar opens the pause menu
These guys could get stuck like this, not sure if it's intentional (Tanks could get stuck on floor doors)
Not sure if this guy (Huge tank) is a 'come back later' but I couldn't deal with him or leave
minor: player and enemy hit sounds are the same, making it hard to know who got hit
minor: killing enemies seemed to serve no purpose, meaning I felt incentivised to skip them wherever possible
Unfortunately I just couldn't get very far due to these issues
As others have said, not 'sticking' to the platforms made this a bit tricky and punishing for an opening level
You've got some z-fighting (overlapping cubes) as part of your background
The 'This door needs a key' text was off screen for me and then snapped to the middle
With the untextured platforms, camera angle and lighting it made it quite hard to judge the platforming - in the first level there's a platform that goes off screen a lot of the time!
it's cute, but could have probably benefited from some playtesting to help smooth out the difficulty curve!
Button outlines disappear when I hover over them, assets are a lot of different resolutions - I love the main character art though and the intro cutscene is fantasic!
I don't want to rate this just yet, because I could not figure out how the 'pogo' mechanic was supposed to work - I only ever took damage
Personal taste - the map felt a little too open and I sometimes felt I didn't know where to go (Didn't know where to go really after getting the Shift power in particular)
I have no idea what the red wedges did - I assume health or time or something?
Using the clone/Shift felt like I had to be ready to do all my inputs at once. When the clone was offscreen that felt particularly hard to use - maybe a teleport animation to give the player a moment might help.
Shift/Clone was a great way to get around the problem of 'everyone does double jump' that metroidvanias run into
Hitting enemies felt a bit underwhelming
all in all a solid entry!
For your first ever game you should be unbelievably proud! My first games were nothing like this!
The changing music between areas is nice, the colour theme as a way to play with the 'classic' pallete while keeping it limited was a really great and creative choice! The movement felt a bit slow and frustrating (Especially while backtracking).
The use of 'down' platforms to have the player discover what the blue power did without instructions was excellent level design (Though the blue power doesn't totally protect me and I got hit quite a few times while using it)
The room transitions could be jarring if you didn't quite make a jump, you'd quickly go into one room and fall back into the first.
The enemies (and myself) aren't super obvious when they take damage. The red boss in particular I was hitting for a loooong time before I realised it had a crit spot.
I got the red green and blue powers but couldn't find where to go from there (I found a shortcut left of the red power, so I assumed that red crate was supposed to be destructible?)
I managed to somehow knockback this enemy through a wall?
Clearly tons and tons of effort went into this, the areas are varied and well decorated - putting mine to shame! The movement felt a little hard to control and slippery. I found there were tons of ways I could go at any given time, which felt a little hard to keep track of and navigate. Starting back at the first room each death was a bit annoying, but keeping all my powerups and the frequent healing available helped (I need to git gud I suppose!)
Giving this almost full scores all round!
The introduction to the mechanic was nice and early and clearly a unique take. I loved that it worked as a dash, attack and key all in one. I was disappointed the second place to use it didn't also open a door - I felt the first use established that's what it did, but after that I got it and it was fine.
I loved that there were 'platforming' ways to get through but I could go faster with good use of the dash. The cape is an excellent touch. Enemies were simple but a nice challenge (I stopped playing at the first boss' second phase, the run back to it grew frustrating)
The grey pillars initially I wasn't sure if they were background or platforms.
Super unique feeling theme - the idea that I can't jump and so every venture deeper is permanent was really interesting especially with the limited light. Dying to spikes felt really frustrating, especially with only having A/D to try and dodge them.
The sound that is there is ominous, alien and creepy - loved it, but overall it feels a bit empty and lacking.
The title/tutorial wasn't very obvious that that's what it was, I ended up clicking the start button by accident.
If you crouch (S) in the tutorial/title area you can get inside the wall on the right