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A jam submission

Prism QuestView game page

A kaizo inspired platformer
Submitted by Rat Race Studio, Michael (iDigg) (@michaelschultz) — 7 hours, 22 minutes before the deadline
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Prism Quest's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Art#24.6674.667
Music#183.6673.667
Overall#203.8673.867
Gameplay#313.4673.467
Theme#333.7333.733
Is the graphics 1 bit?#574.4674.467
Originality#643.2003.200

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Please enter your nicknames in discord and the nicknames of your teammates.
luketns

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Really challenging, I couldn't make it to the end. It took me so long to realise both J and K were buttons I could use, I only used K for most of the game. Why aren't those keys listed in the game page? Overall though, I really enjoyed it! But I would have liked more checkpoints so I wouldn't have to repeat so much each time. I loved the music and the art, beautiful game, great work! 

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much! We had a blast working on it and feel your pain with the checkpoints. The J and K keys are meant to be taught to you through the game so that you don't know about them too early. But I think we could have done a better job at introducing the second one perhaps.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

A really fun challenge where I feel like I’m learning on every death! Reminds me of the feeling I had playing Celeste. I like that the checkpoints are spaced apart so that there’s a consequence to failing. There was one point so far (where you need to fall below the screen height and then catch yourself in time) where I was frustrated the first time I died because that wasn’t my fault and I lost my progress up to that point. In that moment I learned, “ok the game will set things up so I have to fail sometimes to learn”, instead of “oh, I didn’t realise that was the solution, now I can do it!”. Really great platformer, art and animations are fantastic and the music is pleasant, don’t mind hearing it on repeat at all. Well done, I’ll take inspiration for my first attempt at a platformer soon.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Just finished the game and loved it. Really challenging ending where I was cursing the game at times. One challenge towards the end where I needed to jump and release ‘J’ at the same time felt at times like I was doing it correctly but the game wasn’t responding. I’m sure it was just the inconsistencies in my attempts and not the game, but perhaps some fractional second of forgiveness from the game would relieve the frustration in those moments. On my second play-through I also enjoyed the distortion effect when you activate ‘J’ or ‘K’ and it made me wonder how you achieved that. Are you using any of the popular engines?

Developer(+1)

Alright! Congrats on finishing the game. That's a serious achievement!! 🎉
The game was built in Gamemaker Studio and we used this FX plugin by Foxy who was really helpful in answer some questions we had. https://foxyofjungle.itch.io/post-processing-fx

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much for the kind words! Glad you enjoyed it!

(+2)

I really like it, it's probably gonna be my favourite from the jam, but I can't really play it because of a couple of bugs like randomly phasing through platformrs or getting stuck at the landing and being unable to move until jumping, which forced me to die in a couple of spots. It's crazy how cool, polished and well designed this looks so I'll still be reviewing it with that idea on mind but I'm sad that it's too buggy for me to be able to finish it. I played it on stream with a friend and he got much further without my issues but then started getting them in the same way. Still, congrats on making probably the best looking game on the jam by far!

Developer(+2)

oh wow! We would love to check out the stream! Link?

Thanks so much for downloading and playing. We’re working on the platform issues now. Unfortunately we ran out of time and needed to submit before we could squash them all.


We’ll update everyone when the bugs are fixed!

Sorry I meant a discord stream lol not a public one, my best friend was with me on the jam so we were playing the games together. I would love to try this out again once the bugs are all ironed out! Kudos again for the increible looking entry

Developer(+2)

Oh no worries! That's awesome. Would love to know what you think now! Bugs have officially been SQUASHED! You can now play in the browser as well. Let us know if you have any more issues! Would love to know what you think once you are able to check it out again. 🤗

(+2)

That very last section was painful, lol
I liked it a lot, although I'd suggest having a "Strongly recommended to play the downloadable version" disclaimer on the web page as the frame rate works a little weird on the Web Build, and there was a part near the end I got stuck in I'm not sure I could've beaten if I hadn't downloaded it and played again until that part. (Specifically talking about when you have to jump and release almost at the same time to not hit the roof in one of the final jumps in the last checkpoint, it was insanely hard on the downloadable version but super doable with skill, whereas in the build I'm not sure if the physics make it possible)
Overall, it's a very good game, super polished and complete and with very good level design. The perfect example of what a good finished jam game should be imo. Only small gripe was that having to wait for the timing on the spiky blocks made me lose a little time after respawning in a couple checkpoints that slightly cut me out of the flow, but it's a super dumb thing to worry about

Developer(+1)

You did it!! Wow congrats. Now if there were only a speed run timer built in.... 😉

Thanks for the incredibly kind words. We worked so hard on this one and we're over the moon with how it turned out. Thanks for all the feedback and the willingness to give it another shot. Please if you have a chance some time come hang out in stream. We'd love to chat more and keep in touch!

Developer(+1)

Yooooooo! Thanks so much Luka!!! That's awesome you beat it. <3

Submitted(+3)

the game looks awesome and im so sad i suck so bad at it and couldnt see that much. Great work and would love to try it again post jam

Developer(+1)

woo hoo! I bet you’re better than you think. It just takes practice, and less bugs. We’ll get those squared away this week. Never want to make it feel like the game is cheating you. Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Such a nice game! The art is awesome and color palette perfect! I really enjoyed the music! I didn't finish it sadly because I am not that good at platformers and some parts were a little difficult for me but it was really fun to play.  You did a great job!

Developer

Yo! Thanks so much for all the kind words. We had such a blast making this one. A number of things to improve post jam and we're still working on getting the web version working. Thank you so much for downloading and playing. :D

Submitted(+2)

Very clean pixel art, I could tell it was made by an Aseprite enjoyer :)
It's a fun concept, I think I almost got to the end, but didn't manage to finish the game yet.

One thing in particular that I noticed and that could be improved, was that a lot of the times that I died were because a jump input didn't convert to an actual jump, perhaps due to the lack of (or low) coyote time.
This made me die much more to basic jumps where I shouldn't die rather than on the actual transform sections.
I also sometimes appeared to fall through the platforms when changing between blue and pink forms, not sure if that was just me not being fast enough between the inputs.

Overall solid game and I loved the slime character !

Developer

Thanks so much for playing, Jyken! I'm glad you're enjoying it! 

Coyote time is definitely something we'll be adding. And the phasing through platforms is a bug, it's not you. It's for sure an issue with the pink platforms, because sometimes you'll just phase through those when you're not even switching.  We have a couple ideas on what might be causing that and hope to have it fixed soon along with some other bugs we've been noticing.

I'm glad you liked the art, this was my first time trying a 1-bit style! :)

Developer(+1)

We've fixed the platform issues and a number of other bugs. The game is also now available to play on the web! Give it another shot and let us know what you think! Thanks again for playing. 💖

(+2)

Love the game!! Super cute art style and really cool game mechanics. The end is pretty difficult but just like with any platformer, I improved with each run and the hard parts got easier. I'm determined to get through that last little bit! 

Developer

Thanks, Doritooooooo! <3

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

I can see that the difficulty is a part of design. With that in mind I would wish for a shorter reset animation (that allows you to move, but annoyingly does not allow to jump) and for a full-screen view rather than a tiny window.

I could not correctly time the sequence of "hold K, jump, release K, hold K, release K, hold J" in a split of a second, but that is exactly what you wanted, didn't you? Still proud of how far I could go.

Cool art (and animations, amazing attention to the details!) and music, perfect disguise for a Kaizo game!

Developer

Thanks for playing, matte!! F1 on keyboard and up on the d-pad if you're using controller will go fullscreen. The spawn animation allowing you to move was a bug we couldn't figure out in time. We're hoping to fix that soon and get a new build up.

I think this might be the part you're talking about in the screenshot below! If so try this instead: hold k > release k > hold J at the peak of your jump!

But thank you so much for the kind words!!

Submitted(+1)
F1 on keyboard and up on the d-pad if you're using controller will go fullscreen

Cool, didn't notice that! Unfortunately, the performance is not great in fullscreen, and it seems like the game is designed strictly for 60 FPS (having lower value makes blob jump much higher and fall through switchable platforms sometimes).

The part I was stuck on was a bit after that one, it was like a couple of slides where you need to fall through, and then turn the bottom slide into a jumper, than jump up through a tower with small jumper steps into a jumper balcony, where I was supposed to slide in the balcony, and quickly jump through the another slider just a pixel above my head, while deactivating it, and reactivate it in time to deactivate a moment later after the spikes at the end of the balcony slide. 

Developer

Interesting, we'll have to look into the full screen performance and frame rate issues. Thanks for pointing that out!!

Ahhhh, nice! I think I know the part you're talking about now, you're right at the very end! Thanks again for playing, I'm glad to see someone has almost beat it!

Submitted(+2)

This is so good! Clever level design, really nice work <3

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted(+2)

I really love the visual style of the game and especially the intro and that color change effect. However unfortunately I ended up not completing the game due to its immense difficulty. There's not really enough checkpoints after going through hard areas and I found the player to fall incredibly fast in tandum of needing to switch and hold colors with what felt like close to frame perfect inputs. The actual base of the game itself is solid (there are some quirks such as pressing the Up arrow opening up the debug menu and sometimes with pink you fall through bouncy blocks, it could be because you aren't clamping your fall speed and the platforms are thin so maybe the GameMaker physics engine isn't immediately calculating it) but I think some slight fine tuning to the player control and more forgiving level design could significantly improve the game.

Developer

Yo, thanks for playing and the input! It's definitely a challenge for sure. We were heavily inspired by Kaizo Mario for this, so replaying some sections until you get good enough to get the checkpoint is part of the fun, albeit sometimes frustrating. :) If we were to expand this game after the jam and try to reach a larger audience, we'd almost definitely need to make it a bit easier.

Good call on the pink platforms. We were trying to solve that one up until the finish line along with some other bugs, but just ran out of time. Definitely might be the fall speed, though!

Developer(+1)

We just released an update that fixes a bunch of the issues you mentioned. You can also now play in the browser! Hope this makes it a better experience for ya! Thanks again for playing! :D

Developer(+1)

We had so much fun on this one. Can't wait to see what you all think. Unfortunately we weren't able to get the HTML version working correctly. We'll get it posted once we can figure out the bugs though. Good luck to everyone and hope you enjoy the game. Please let us know if you have any issues.