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Craft and Punishment - Normal Guy Edition's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #6 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| CONTROLS | #7 | 3.611 | 3.611 |
| FUN | #8 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| BOSS DESIGN | #8 | 3.944 | 3.944 |
| USE OF THEME | #10 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
| ART/VISUALS | #10 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| SOUND/MUSIC | #18 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Game's take on the theme
The weapons are made on the go with a specific crafting system, and the bosses are composites of various things
Does your game utilize the PlusMusic plugin?
No
Did you use any third-party plugins other than PlusMusic?
No
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Comments
The humor, the boss variety and graphics gave me a really nice experience! I'd say the game lacked a bit of sounds and musics but it was fun :)
Really fun game! The intro is the coolest! The graphics are nice and the boss charismatic
Amazing game. I really enjoyed playing this one.
Very good job on this entry, the music works well with the mood and the boss design are quite cool! the controls are easy to grasp! Good Job!
Thank you! We wanted to add 1 music per boss, but clearly no time left for that, so we had to come up with something generic enough for all fights.. Thanks, really glad you enjoyed!
I loved your art and your take on the theme! Having the items I crafted save when I died made retrying a lot more appealing! I enjoyed how Treant had sections of its fight where it couldn't be hit, but I found the fact it was on a platform and difficult to reach to be a little annoying. The ranged attack was also a little limiting, as I had to be moving in the direction to throw it, which resulted in me getting too close to the bosses sometimes. It's amazing the amount of high-quality art you were able to produce for the jam! I also really appreciated the opening cutscene and small storybits after defeating a boss! Keep up the good work!
Yeah, using the other joystick or the mouse position for throwing projectile wouldve been great I think, but I don’t know how I would have made it work with keyboard only, and I didn’t want to force using a mouse.. Maybe it was a bad choice for the projectile, especially since it doe not shoot straight where you left it when you release the direction… And sorry about the platform, it was not as readable as I expected indeed.. Thank you for the art, that was a lot of work indeed, but we had a lot of fun and a great motivation, so it was really a good experience!
Managed to beat on my second try! The things I liked the most are the graphics (beautiful) and the controls (smooth)! The boss designs are also very cool. I have one suggestion. I realized that if you stay close to the bosses and just spam sword attacks, they die really fast! The exception is the boss of the Forest, that shields itself for a while until the player destroy the mushroom's spawns. My suggestion is to maybe remedy this by adding different patterns to the bosses or something else.
That's it! Great game!
Uuh I should definitely look into it, it is clearly not normal! And I think it can also happen for the Treant sadly, a friend of mine managed to skip all phases and take him down really fast without mushroom.. definitely something buggy in here, thanks for letting me now. Thank you for your review, really glad you enjoyed!
One of my favorites so far on visuals and theme approach. You've nailed some replay with the crafting, but I have mixed feelings about boss balancing. Anubus kicked my a**, and the sand was too easy.
There is something awesome about Normal Guy that is clearly not normal.
Haha cleary not normal indeed, kinda feels like one punch man in the spirit.. Yeah the pharaoh is definitely the hardest, but it also depends on the weapon you obtained during your progression. Also with the right weapons, each of the initial boss is definitely really weak indeed, the idea was to push the player to find the right order for targeting the boss weaknesses (we had 4 bosses at start, so it was less easy, now with 3 bosses, you have a 50% chance to find the right order without even noticing).. Thanks a lot for testing it!
First off, loved the humor and visual gags sprinkled throughout the game (Devil May Grill, Family Guy Dead Pose, Game Over Screen and more!)
The art direction is great! (Player and Boss Designs, especially the Pharaoh boss ) And the comic book-style story with different angles + zooms was a nice touch! And the post-boss art scenes with the player being silly put a smile on my face.
I like that each boss has a different style/ approach to fighting them (Some have multiple stages, some spawn enemies, etc.) Also, the unlocked equipment mechanic, encouraging multiple playthroughs is a great idea! Speaking of mechanics, I liked that each piece of equipment had RPG Mechanics that would change the Player's stats.
Smart use of the theme for the levels (Desert = Lack of Materials, Scrapyard = Unwanted Materials, Forest = Naturally Made Materials)
If you plan on developing this further, a menu to see all the equipment and stats of the equipment would be great!
Also, a bug I noticed was with the Treant boss' "spike root attack" keeps triggering, even after the boss is defeated.
Great job on this game and good luck with the game jam! :D
Than you so much for that complete feedback! Yes, we wanted to add current equipment stats too, there even is a draft version of the equipment summary in the”unlocked” page, which I forgot to remove since it is not working yet… But that would definitely be a good idea! Ah, the boss attack still triggers indeed, altho the player should not take damage at that time (but I may be wrong and I hope you did not die right after killing the boss from traps, that would be unfortunate..). Thank you, really glad you enjoyed the game, and thank you for that really nice review
when I read the title I thought this was a parody of the sin and punishment games, either way I was impressed by the visuals and art, the game had solid gameplay that actually got me hooked, I would truly consider playing a game of this style so overall excellent game!
If I remember correctly it started not too far from that, with a pun on "Crimes and punishment" in fact.. Thanks a lot for the feedbac, really glad you enjoyed, I kinda want to go in that direction for a more complete and commercial game at some point, so your comment is on point and deeply motivating!
maaaaan this game was great!! I definitly had a great time. The visuals? dope. The humor ? exceptional. but wdym you were ONLY TWO ? Really great job guys. Everything is neat, you even made an unlock page!! This was surprinsingly easy and that's something great for a jam game so people can just play it quick. I played on keyboard only and it was fine. I spent way too much time figuring how to get to the forest boss, didn't notice the side access but that was just my dumb brain. There was a bunch of different visuals, can't figure how it works so well together but it does! I'm fond of the character & bosses design. Hope you're proud of your work!! GJ
Wow! Thanks a lot for that amazing review, it means a lot to us! It was a lot of work indeed, and I think I'm not mistaking if I speak for both of us, but we are indeed pretty proud of the final result ! There are still a few things that need to be improved, the unlock page was supposed to be a starting point for some speedrun aspect with a timer, and we didn't have time for more sound and music sadly, but overall we're really happy with the result, and really glad people seem to have fun with it! Thank you again for that feedback, really it was so enjoyable to read
Great visuals and fairly clear controls, except for the shield, I never managed to figure out how it works.
Thank you! yeah shields seem kinda useless, especially you you dash attacks, but if you have a shield with high damage absorbtion and counter damage or effect, it can be useful somehow, but still hard to use..
The cutscene art is incredible! Impressive pixel art to match. I gave the Forest and Desert bosses a shot, pretty tough stuff! It was somewhat disorienting with both melee and projectile attacks based on the direction you're facing rather than where your cursor is in relation to the player. I think it may be the mouse control. If all of the controls were on the keyboard, the directional attacks would feel more natural. Many boss attacks between the two I played feel sudden and unpredictable, so consider making the telegraphs more apparent or doing some sort of "training" pattern before going into the larger waves of bullets. All in all, good job!
Thank you for the art, that was a lot of work indeed, really happy that it seem to please the eye!
I agree the mouse can be disturbing, however it can be played with keyboard only aswell!!
Don't hesitate to give it a try if you want with keyboard only, you can use WASD + IOKL for projectile/shield/dash/attack... (or even better if you have a gamepad controller it works too)
I see what you mean for the telegraph, some patterns are faster than others, which might hit you often, but it should be pretty low damage usually, so it felt like 'necessary' damages to remember the player to not just stay in melee range, and anticipate the potential attacks. But it would be a great idea to put only the low speed patterns at start to make a sort of tutorial indeed, thank you for the suggestion, it will definitely go in a future update. Also the window of telegraph for most attacks and waves is usually 0.5s to give the player some time to react, but while it seem to be the case for the treant which goes into defensive stance before releasing any pattern, it seem to be less for the sand giant.. Ill dig into it to check.
Thank you for testing it, and for your kind review!
this pixel art is good, and i think you was succes at artstyle. Good job !!
Thank you for the compliment!
I was just about to sign off for today. I thought "eh, one more game". This was... a while ago. I won't admit how much exactly, because that would be admitting that I suck a bit at your game. I don't. I just err... finished it multiple times... because I like it so much.
Ok. Only the part about liking it so much is true.
Random thoughts time!
This is one of those games, where everything comes together. Art direction, controls (ok, I don't care much about the shield- it's like admitting you were gonna get hit). The general design! Awesome!
Bosses were genuinely cool. The moving ones were better though. The sand guy can be defeated by standing and spamming anime kunai, the tree, by running up to it and spamming sword.
Makeshift stuff was great. Only thing I'd add is the stats of the equipment I'm swapping out.
Comic book stuff was great too! I always like some plot in my games, and if said plot is funny (I also feel very fancy!) and well drawn- even better!
The difficulty was, for the most part, hard but fair. (I'm writing this not having finished the game, It's almost midnight here, and the pharaoh keeps spamming me with scarabs).
Over all- one of the best games I've played in this jam today! And I've played some good games today, so you know. High praise :)
Thank you so much for that deep review! I don't use shields either haha, but overall don't worry, the game is a bit hard indeed, especially that pharaoh and his clones.. requires a good dose of strategy to focus clones and scarabs in priority, and some good rng too to take him down fast enough... also some weapons make it even slightly easier, typically hose with effects or 25 dmg (which is the max)..
We wanted to add the stats of swapped item indeed, but did not have time left to implement it sadly..
Thanks again! Really glad you enjoyed so much :D
You know, I left you with this "omg this is soooo good" review (that you deserved), and I didn't write the one thing I didn't like! There is no music, or any sound for that matter during the intro!
Other than that I stand by what I've written before :)
I apparently suck at bullet hell games haha. Did not get far nor able to do anything makeshift. Just ended up dying while trying to use a shield. Not my proudest moment. the music was fun, although I wish the cut scenes had audio in them.
Damn, I might have let the difficulty a bit too high indeed, especially with the initial weapon, sorry for that... You might have already done that, but just in case, you can chose the boss you fight in the world map, so don't hesitate to try the other bosses maybe, one of them might suit you more and feelsimpler to fight so that you can build your first real weapons and go gurther in the game..
And the first shield is really bad, it only prevents 20% of damages so dodging attacks should definitely be a prefered solution. Sadly we didn't have time to implement the music in menu and in cutscenes, but we might add them to the next update in 2 weeks! Thank you for the feedback, and again sorry for the pretty rough balancing..
Really nice art! Controls feel good. First 2 bosses were a bit easy, 3rd was hard but good, and then the final boss was practically unbeatable. Even after I learned its attack patterns it would have taken me like 10 minutes of whacking at it to win... Maybe I was using the wrong sword??
Thank you! I'm not sure which bosses are the "first 2", because you can chose the order in which you fight.
But mmmmmh there is a really slim chance you might arrive against the final boss with the initial weapon after crafting only shields and projectiles every time, or if you discarded the weapons you built, and in this case it can definitely be hard to beat, but if not, all weapons are almost equivalent and should allow you to kill him with some more boss knowledge, typically focusing always immediatly on clones and scarabs, to prevent getting overcrowded, and then coming back to the real boss in between. Also there are moment where the boss is invincible, when he summon stuff, but if done optimally, it can definitely be cleared in 2-3 minutes.
You could reset progression in the settings if you want to retry the first bosses and try new weapons.. But thanks a lot for the feedback, and really glad you enjoyed!
this game is AWESOME. the art is amazing, i love the pixel art, exp in the junkyard. the controls feel really good, the dodge and slice mechanics are really satisfying. i never really found myself using the shield but i assume there are more upgrades that would make me want to use it. really great game overall!
also i love that you just wake up and r like 'time for punishment', 10/10 story
Thanks a lot! There was a lot of work on the art indeed, and plunch is really talented! Altho for the level design only, we had assets from szadiart that are gorgeous, but the rest (bosses, characters, attacks and all concepts) were done by us. A good shield can provide up to 60% damage reduction and provide counter damages to bosses, so some people might use it, but I prefer dodging too :D
Thank you, really glad you enjoyed
the design of the bosses is nice and the sets are visually very successful. I really found this game funny and nice I can't wait to see your future creations!
Thank you, really glad you enjoyed ! There will definitely be future creations!