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A jam submission

A Standard Deviation - Jam VersionView game page

Submitted by Essojadojef — 11 hours, 57 minutes before the deadline
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A Standard Deviation - Jam Version's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Presentation#1933.9003.900
Originality#2123.7003.700
Overall#2413.5003.500
Gameplay#3622.9002.900

Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

What do you like about your game?
I had fun creating the characters, even though they aren't seen a lot in the game. I also enjoyed thinking up the ways the core mechanic could be used to make the various puzzles.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Love the characters of your game! For a small jam and having an introduction can be hard to achieve in a such limited time. Congrats!

Submitted(+1)

I have to say that the Chromatic Aberration part was really clever. Although the bosses feel a bit pointless because you can mash the attack button and kill them eventually without any stategy or something. The puzzles were the best part without any doubt. Simple yet they use the unique mechanic pretty well.

Submitted(+1)

wow, this was extremely fun to go through! this world and its wacky of characters have so much charm to them, feels on par with a lot of the notable quirky/eccentric RPGs out there! the intro is so nice, with the dialogue being very campy and fun to read, reminds me of some games like Undertale in how they play out their character dynamics (the "i still feel ace" line had me DYING i did not expect that xd)!

the game really drops you into the thick of it asking you to explore this weird island, really capturing the pure wonder that the original Zelda games had! the puzzles are really fun and engaging to go through, i am so glad i decided to continue playing even after i reached the end for the first time since there were a lot of fun color puzzles here! the thing that almost stopped me, which some of the comments already mentioned, is the combat so im not gonna talk too much about it here. i just appreciate that losing all your health doesn't restart the battle, because i would have never gotten a single doc piece if that were the case xd.

the art is also phenomenal! loved the sprite work for the characters, very creative and fun designs (again very Undertale and Mother-like)! the environmental pieces also look incredible, you can tell that the general sprite shape/outline is good when it doesn't have to rely on multiple colors to be visually pleasing, really good stuff here! gotta say that the standout for me was the BGM! please upload the music somewhere because i can listen to the title/starting area music on loop all day! each track has its own flare and adds a lot to the area that you're in, its contributes so much to the enjoyment of the game for me! the sfxs are also really nice to listen to, love the character chirp sfxs when speaking!

overall, incredible! love the campy vibes here and would love to see this game get expanded! great work!

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much! I'm glad you had fun playing and appreciate that you left such a detailed review.

Yeah, both Undertale and the first Zelda were an inspiration while making this game. I chose to use primarily white for the playable character and enemies so that all the colored clones have equal brightness. Actually the captain was the playable character before I switched him with Norbitt that was designed around this idea.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

The intro is very well done and I like the sounds when the characters speak. I'm not a fan of the combat. Having the characters and enemies split in many instances makes the combats a little too overwhelming. I could go straight to the door with an X on it and break it. I'm not sure if it was the intended solution. So overall, I'd say the presentation is very good, but the gameplay would need some polish. The puzzles are simple but fun. I didn't find the one with many walls of different colors you put in the screenshots though.

Developer

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that the combat needs a rework. Going straight for the door is one of the intended options. I wanted to give players the choice of whether to fully complete the game or not, so only a few puzzles are required for that "ending".

Submitted(+1)

Innovative with its use of chromatic aberration and character splitting mechanics. Visually appealing, yet I encountered frustrating bugs. Combat and sound design need polishing. Has the potential to shine with tweaks.

Submitted(+1)

I found a bug where you can get stuck in the trees when you change the room in the wrong spot and you sorta have to restart the game. Other than that really cool idea and great execution :)

Submitted(+1)

Very goated use of chromatic aberration, very pretty and I enjoyed the different mechanics you incorporated into the aberration/character splitting mechanics. I got to the end, but I think I might have missed some area since I only found two of doc's chromatic echoes. The chromatic golfing was a lot of fun, but it took me a long time to understand what was going on there.

Developer

Thank you, I'm glad that you had fun. Yes, some rooms are somewhat hidden by accident because I finalized the map layout too late in development.

Submitted(+1)

probably my favorite of the "chromatic aberration" genre of games that has appeared within this game jam, these characters are so colorful (pun intended) and well put together, that little intro sequence added a lot of charm to the game. plus theres a statistics reference in the name which is cool. good game, great graphical style, very thinky on the puzzles but not ever too tricky, i especially like how each puzzle room was an entirely different take on the color split mechanic.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad that you had fun playing and enjoyed the intro. I tried to work more on the concept of deviation / distribution rather than color aberration (hence the title), but in the end colors were the easiest way to convey the mechanic and are also more fun to look at :P

Submitted(+1)

The game was really cool! the puzzles really had me thinking and were really satisfying. The combat felt a bit messy but other than that the idea was really fun and it looked really cool!

Submitted(+1)

I'm a bit sad I got stuck because the game looked very good :(
I played the whole left area and it was very fun !

Submitted(+1)

Pretty neat, glad the puzzles are interesting and different. 

Developer

Thank you. I wanted to see how many puzzles could be created with a single mechanic. 

Submitted(+1)

Interesting puzzles, I like how the speed of the movement of the refracted versions of your character were based on wavelength. The combat confused me (I never quite figured out what I was doing and just mashed while avoiding walls) and some of the sound design was a bit bare, but I liked the intro sequence and character designs :)

Developer

Thank you for the feedback. I'm glad that you liked the game.  Yes, combat quickly devolves into chaos and I didn't manage to add any strategy to it.

Can I ask you more details about your thoughts on the sound design? Did you feel there were issues with the sound effects (or the lack of) or with the music? I'm still learning this stuff so any feedback is welcome. Thank you.

Submitted(+1)

Sure, here's some more detailed feedback on the sound (I did another partial playthrough and just focused on the sound for this):

  1. Menu music is solid. The soundscape sounds like waves and the bright perc has a tropical vibe.
  2. I like how each character has a different voice.
  3. Spaceship music is a bit repetitive but since it's for a short sequence that's fine.
  4. No big crash SFX! This is a big one that makes the impact of the moment feel less significant. A raiser (like a big swoosh) that leads into a deep boom would make this feel more heavy.
  5. No soundscape on the beach until the music comes back in(all this needs are some waves/wind)
  6. No attack SFX or impact SFX on certain things (this is part of the game juice/player feedback that gives a feeling of weight to attacks)
  7. No victory sound when a boss is defeated (the sound effect is sometimes part of the reward of beating a big boss)
  8. Some of the puzzle room loops are a bit too short, and could also use a bit of a soundscape (maybe some subtle jungle sounds or the sound of a nearby stream)
  9. The "death" sound effect (when one of the instances disappears) I think sounds like an jump sound? I would expect a lower buzzer sound to indicate more of a failure state.
Developer

Thank you very much!

(+1)

super cool puzzle game, had so much fun playing and loved the lore ^3^