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DANGER A La Mode's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #109 | 3.733 | 3.733 |
| Presentation (graphics, audio) | #129 | 3.733 | 3.733 |
| Theme | #178 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Fun | #206 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game represent Mode?
The enemies in the game are controlled by an ice-creamoid species that attaches themselves to the back of the enemy's head, thus making the enemies themselves "a la mode". In addition, the game features a Multi-Operational Danger Elimination Gun, or M.O.D.E gun. The M.O.D.E gun has both a trap and attack mode, allowing you to switch modes to destroy your enemies. If that weren't enough, we ran out of time before we could add music, so it's as if you're playing the game with the music in SILENT MODE.
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Comments
Great work on this! The enemy and environment design was great and I loved the mechanics of the different modes and how I had to utilize them to kill the enemies. This was a fun and challenging game with unique and engaging game play. Awesome job!
I really enjoyed the youtube video, and it definitely set the tone for the whole thing. All of that was present in the tutorial text too, but the voice work really sold me on it.
I kept forgetting to trigger my first recall trap, so I mostly played with the ricochet. The game loop, which I really enjoyed, became laying down all my richochets, then hitting the first warbody and trying to lure the rest into place without dying. Lots of fun, and super satisfying to pull off. This is the kind of game where the enemies feel insurmountable when you haven't prepared correctly, but you feel overpowered when you do it right. And that's awesome.
I'd say my biggest piece of critical feedback is that the game is very hard, and it felt frustrating to not have checkpoints between rooms. The difficulty works for the core gameplay loop though, and it was genuinely scary to fire your first shot and have every enemy suddenly sprint toward you, I just didn't want to have to redo everything every time I failed a later level.
Overall this is really cool, and with some more sound design the atmosphere could be extremely tense, even with the silly overall theme. Great work!
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback. I'm glad to hear that the tutorial text explained the mechanics well (aside from the lean mechanic, which I'm pretty sure I straight up forgot to include), but I'm even happier to hear that my doofy voice acting was what sold it for you. I had a ton of fun writing that video and I get genuinely giddy when people tell me they watched it.
I can't begin to express how happy your experience with the game makes me. That feeling of the enemies being insurmountable without proper prep is exactly what we were going for, and I'm so glad that landed for you. You are definitely not alone in your experience with the recall trap. I also barely used it. I wanted to either find a way to make it more relevant or just replace it with a better trap, but we ran out of time, unfortunately.
As for the lack of checkpoints, I agree 100% that this makes the game way harder than it should be. I actually had a checkpoint system that I broke at the last minute. The game was meant to save every time you cleared a room. That checkpoint system was the reason there was no way to recover health, actually. Your health was meant to remain persistent if you did the whole game in one run, or refill completely if you died and respawned. I'm sorry that my mistake had a negative impact on your experience with the game.
All that said, I'm glad you still had a good time. Thank you so much for taking the time to play our game :)
I thought this game was very charming and unique. The level art reminds me of old PC dungeon crawlers while the objects are very whimsical with many of them seeming like they'd be at home in a Candyland game. The gun itself felt very precise and had good feedback, and when I died it always felt fair. The ricochet trap works well, but I never found myself needing the recall trap. I played without watching the YT video and felt that the game itself did an ample job explaining the mechanics at the beginning. I enjoyed the writing and the endings a lot and wish there was more of it, but what was there was more than enough to setup tone and the endings. Great job!
Thank you so much for the feedback. I'm really happy to hear that the game felt fair and that you enjoyed the story. One of my biggest fears was that it wasn't clear how to play the game (as I'm sure you could tell by our 50 million attempts to explain the mechanics outside the game lol), so I'm overjoyed to hear that you felt the mechanics were well explained. I also found myself rarely using the recall trap in testing. Were I to make changes, I'd probably try to give the player more of a reason to use it, or just replace it for something more relevant.
It sounds like you had a positive experience with our game, and that makes me genuinely happy. Thank you for taking the time to play it :)
Fun entry, the YT video was very informative. I would have loved if it was integrated into the game but that's whatever.
I would have loved that too! Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to rush to get the game in before the deadline. Sorry about that. Glad you had fun though!
I honestly didn't have much of a hard time figuring out the mechanics here, really the only thing I needed clarification on is that right click warps you no matter where you're standing and that the vignette is a danger indicator. :'3 But I really like the concept! Essentially having to trick shot and learn the paths the enemies take. With a little more polish I'm sure you could make a lot more levels out of this and have a really compelling stealth shooter. Though what you have was already really engaging, I just couldn't experience it fully because I was engaged elsewhere as well lmao.
The visuals were really incredible and you have a lot of great assets on your hands as a result! every texture and model was really professional-feeling, and had a fun whimsical theming to complement the story. You're a great team and great people. :]
We had a great time talking with you too! We still find it impressive that you were able to focus well enough to beat the game with not one, but two other neurospicy people talking in your ear. And you managed to tell stories while doing it too! We truly enjoyed watching you play our game. Again, thank you so much.
Great job! Aside from needing two extra manuals and a youtube video to explain the game this is really well done! But the YT video is hilarious so that's bueno! Seriously fun and engaging game play and super cool graphics.
Lol the neurodivergent urge to overcomplicate/overexplain runs deep within our veins. Thanks so much for playing our game. So glad you had a good time with it. Equally glad that you found the video hilarious :)
I really liked the theming, and the art in the game. The idea that the enemies are controlled by ice cream is original and hilarious. Keep making games!
Also, thank you for talking me into installing wine on my mac!
Any time! I hope you enjoy all the games you can play now :)
Very cool concept! I have to play favorites here, because the “A La Mode” interpretation is brilliant :)
I’m playing on a trackpad (🤯) so it was a little hard to hit those reverse headshots, but even still, the controls were super nice. Very fluid. Excellent work!
I'm genuinely impressed that you managed to play the gme on a trackpad. I wouldn't make it past the first room.
Thanks so much for playing!
Enemies called creamlings is crazy.
The reflection plate mechanic is my favorite part of this game! Really cool way of adding an offensive element to fighting the enemies. I do wish it was possible to maintain stealth while killing enemies.
Thanks for reading the story! I hope it wasn't too much at once. We planned to drip feed it more, but time constraints led us to sort of shove it in where we could. I considered giving the player a way to kill the enemies stealthily, but ultimately I felt that went against the design philosophy we were going for. I wanted to incentivize creative trap placement as a means of tricking and evading the enemy, rather than allowing the player to just sneak around popping Creamlings. Hopefully that didn't put too much of a damper on your enjoyment.
Thank you so much for playing, and thanks for taking the time to share your feedback!
RIP Ice Cream king, but I got bills to pay!
Lovely game you two cooked up, setting up a ricochet trap where you can melt through a herd of enemies was the best part for me. And the art was really nice too, I definitely dig the style you went for. My only complaints might be that there's a bit too much to read for how short the game is, and that there's no checkpoints. I found that frustrating until I realized the game is only three rooms lol, so in the end it's not a big deal.
Short and Sweet. Nice job guys!
Thanks so much for playing! I agree that we might have gone a touch overboard with the story. I planned to drip feed it a bit more throughout the game, but we kind of ran out of time. Also, there were meant to be checkpoints, but I broke them about a minute before I submitted lol. I've already fixed them in the build I plan to upload after the voting. Really glad you had fun though! Thank you for the feedback.
Super cool enemy design, but I agree with the person below that said the enemies were way to tough for what the player has. Maybe make it so that a head shot substantially does more damage. As is, the enemies can kinda quickly lock you in a corner and it becomes rather frustrating. But other than that, I love the vibe, and the mechanic is pretty cool.
Hey, sorry if this wasnt clear, but the enemies only take one shot to kill. They have an ice cream on the back of their heads you need to shoot. One thing you can do thats sure to kill them is: put a ricochet trap on the wall, get an enemy to run in front of it, then shoot at the ricochet trap. I know this wasn't abundantly clear, as we ran out of time before we could really tighten up the in-game instructions. Sorry about that. I added an instructions section to the main page (and in a comment down below) if you'd like to learn more about it. If you decide to give the game another try with this in mind, please let me know if that makes the game more enjoyable :)
***********IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ***********
-If you place down a recall trap, please trigger it before you leave the room. You will softlock the game otherwise.
-There was a checkpoint system in this game meant to save your progress after every room. Unfortunately I must have broken something in my frantic, last-minute bug fixing and now it doesn't work. This makes the game way harder than it should be. Sorry about that.
-If you want to do multiple playthroughs, reset the game between them There's a bug I didn't have time to fix that will just start you at the end after you win. If you just want to read the second ending, this will allow you to do that without having to replay the game.
Real talk, the game is a janky mess. I think it's a solid proof of concept, but please play this game with your expectations in COMPATIBILITY MODE. Also please forgive the typos. I didn't have time to proofread properly.
***********HOW TO PLAY***********
Danger A La Mode isn't a first-person shooter. It may be first-person, and there may be shooting, but its actually intended to be more of a tactical stealth game. The only way to kill the enemies in this game is to shoot them in the back of the head. Your only weapon is your M.O.D.E gun, and once you fire it, all the enemies in the room will come running. Your goal is to set up your traps to enable quick, clean executions when they do. Instructions are in the intro text, but I'll add them here too:
You have two modes available: Attack Mode and Trap Mode. Switch between them at any time by pressing R.
You have two Traps available in Trap Mode:
If you put down a recall trap in a room, trigger it before you leave.
this was really cool! the story was such an interesting premise (something you rarely see in a game made for a jam), and i absolutely adored the modelling and texture work! it does need to be more polished and bugfixed, but i don't see any glaring issues with the gameplay philosophy. the ricochet trap especially is a SUPER cool idea that would make for some really cool design in a longer game! great work, glad you finished!
Thanks so much for the feedback! I fully agree that the game needs more polish, but it makes me happy to hear that you enjoyed the gameplay philosophy. I'm also really glad you liked the ricochet trap, as that was something I was really excited about. As for the modeling and texture work: I made the enemy, and the environment was done by my wife. It was actually her first time doing texture work. She hand-painted everything, and I'm very proud of her.
Thank you so much for taking the time to play our game :)
The enemies are definitely too hard for the kit that the player has. No way to heal, or checkpoints is also made me rely on cheesing the levels. That being said, the rebound pads are the only thing I would really alter. Tried to retreat one time and the enemy shot it while I was running away. If we had more or more durable rebound pads, I think it would both improve gameplay and entice players into using trap mode. There is also a softlock when you activate a telepad of the previous level inside your current level. Great job on the assets.
Great feedback. There should be checkpoints after you clear the rooms, but I guess they aren't working for some reason. Must've messed something up in my frantic last-minute bug-fixing. Unfortunately I didn't have time to fix the soft lock issue. I mentioned it in the description, but I totally understand if you didn't catch that in the wall of text. I agree that the rebound traps should be more durable.
Anyway, thanks for playing and taking the time to leave some feedback. It means a lot :)
Edit: I looked into it, and I did, in fact, accidentally change a line of code last minute that disabled the checkpoints. Thanks for pointing that out. I added a little warning on the page to let people know.
Awesome title art and great aesthetic throughout the game!
The interpretation of the theme was a good combination of clever and goofy, and I enjoyed reading through both endings. I liked the 3d models and aesthetics, especially the effects of King Cream crumbling.
The controls were solid, but I feel the enemies were too hard to take out. The only way I was able to beat the game was by cheesing at the entrance of each area and sniping them from far away. I’d recommend only having one enemy at the first area, so players can get used to taking one out.
Overall, great effort on this!
Great Feedback. Sorry to hear you had to cheese the game. I definitely agree that one enemy in the first area would have been a better decision. Probably should have made the enemy count on each level go from 1 to 3 instead of 3 to 5.
Thank you so much for playing!