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A jam submission

Run It BackView game page

Cute 2D platformer created for Brackeys Game Jam 2020.2
Submitted by Aileena, matt500b — 1 hour, 33 minutes before the deadline
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Run It Back's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme#3703.6443.644
Fun#4803.2543.254
Game Design#5203.2883.288
Overall#5333.2343.234
Audio#5653.0683.068
Innovation#6203.0683.068
Graphics#7393.0853.085

Ranked from 59 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

In what way does your game fit the theme?
Run It Back is about controlling a cute 2D character and using its special "Run It Back" ability to be able to complete puzzles. However, it gets rewinded after a certain amount of time so you have to be quick!

Did you write most of the code yourself and made all the assets from scratch?
My team member and I worked on this together, we are both programmers so we wrote most of the code from scratch although some bits were taken from tutorials or guided by random stackoverflow posts when we got stuck. This is our first game jam.

The assets were all from the Unity Asset Store but we had to adjust some of the assets to make things we couldn't find, such as the sign posts. The music and sound effects were all copyright-free.

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Comments

Viewing comments 48 to 29 of 48 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

So cute! The controls feel great, and I love the jump animation haha.

It took me a while to understand how the rewind worked, I guess I'm biased after playing so many games with the more conventional mechanic... It's nice to know that jump isn't necessarily going to be the last one. Makes me wish life had such a feature :P

A minor suggestion: it would be better if you didn't have to wait for the bar to clear before rewinding. I also at least once fell from a platform when I swear was standing on it...

Good job!

Submitted

Great fun game, the visuals are good and goofy, I would only suggest adding a cancel feature to the rewind as it can be a bit before it runs out.

Submitted

Wow! This game is really nice. The only (minor) issue I had is that it wasn't really too hard. Congrats, this is really good for a first game jam!

Submitted

cute little game, I thought the mechanic was cool. good job :)

Submitted

I can't believe this is your first jam game. This is really good! Y'all did a great job implementing the art assets so that everything looks natural and cohesive. The rewind puzzles were fun, but not brain-taxing (which I like). I actually didn't have any issue with difficulty and found it to be comfortable all the way through, although the acceleration on the character was a tad much.

The only criticism I have is:

  • A way to start the rewind early (maybe just press  R again). There were a number of times I would collect or miss a coin and be forced to wait a couple of seconds.
  • The invincible/past/rewind version of you appearing in front of you make positioning tight in a number of areas. I keep expecting it to appear in me, but I get that that is not an option because you can collide with your other self.
  • There's no real penalty for death. You do restart, but you don't lose any coins. It does prevent the game from getting frustrating, but it also removes the tension from the platforming.

Anyhow, looks great! I had fun with this, so thanks!

Submitted

Most of what Mandelbrot said just below sums up my own experience of the game - however I must say that for a first game jam, it shows a lot of potential! There's a lot to improve...but it's the case for everyone of us, and I'm looking forward to see how your work will pan out in the future!

(Also, sorry I have to mention it with every reply I make in the jam comments, but my submitted game is not Rick's Flix! It's a collab I made music and SFX for and I'm embarassed that it shows as "my" game everytime haha - my actual submission is "Forward", which you can find on my profile if you'd like to play it!)

Submitted

First, the music is way too much of a clichè feel-good music. Combine that with a platformer, which can be frustrating at times, and you are angry and then there is this passive-aggressive music telling you to be happy, but you aren't, but you want to be happy, which makes you less happy... and it goes on and on.

Also, the animations of the main character aren't smooth. Maybe you use an incorrect canvas size for the sprite sheet?

The movement is also not that great. It's okay, and from a programmer standpoint fine. But if you look at platformer design there's a lot that you can do just with the movement. I recommend watching this excellent video from Game Maker's Toolkit. It helped me a lot to get the movement right for our game. 

And the level design itself lacks focus. There is no clear pattern for how the levels are laid out. You had some cool ideas with the rewind mechanic, but you can explore them in a much more focused way, which makes for smoother playing experience.

The HUD for the time that you have during the 'run it back' mechanic is also way too small. Maybe it didn't scale on my UHD monitor, though.

The game is also really short.

I hope my feedback isn't too harsh. I always look at games from an objective design standpoint. I assume it was more of a programming challenge for you. Well, and for your first jam game, it's alright. But there's much more to learn. Keep at it, and one day you might get somewhere!

Submitted

Fun little game here. Good job. 

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted

I liked the game!

Developer

Thank you! I liked yours too :)

Submitted

It took me a few minutes to understand the "Run It Back" mechanic, but when I did it made for an interest mechanic. Would be nice if there was a timer on it though and adding the ability to start rewinding it when I wanted would be useful too.

I liked the layout of the levels, though I wouldn't put spikes under the box at the end, unless there was a check point near by, that's a little too mean I think :P

Developer

Thanks, I'll try and explain the mechanic a bit better as I'm polishing the game atm! There is actually a timer UI on the top left of the screen but its a bit small so maybe you didn't see that. LOL sorry about that >:D Thank you for playing and for your feedback!

Submitted

It is a nicely done platformer. The mechanic, though kinda frustrating some times, is interesting, and could be worked on to have a really nice game on the future. 

As a suggestion, player should be able to jump after leaving a platform, so give him some time for that.

Good job!

Developer

Thank you!! :D

Submitted

Neat game. If I had any suggestions, it would be that it'd be nice if you could manually start the rewinding. But I do really like the graphic of the time bar in the top right. Great job, for your first game jam especially.

Developer

Thank you very much! :D

Submitted

Nice job!

Developer

Thank you :)

Submitted

I liked the way how in the run it back mode, you could use traps as platforms. The only thing I think would be nice, is if the player could choose when to stop rewinding back.

Developer

Thank you for playing and for your feedback! Yeah unfortunately we ran out of time before we could implement the functionality to allow the player to manually rewind, but that has now been added so hopefully you'll play the game again after the game jam when we've polished it up a bit. Thanks :D

Submitted

I liked how each parts of the mechanics are introduced piece to the player at a time as the levels go on instead of shoving all the instructions into the player's face.

The game also seems to follow the theme of "rewind" quite well. Having the "run it back" being required in order to reach some parts of the levels really made it feel like the most important and notable feature of this game. However, I would prefer if I could have the ability to rewind after I'm done using the "run it back" feature instead of having to wait for the bar to deplete all the way.

The platform maneuvering feels a bit too precise in most areas. It feels like I have to land just right along the edges of each platform or I'll miss the jump completely. I would prefer if some of the platforms were moved closer instead of relying on hitting the edge each time. Having precise jumps in platforming games isn't a bad thing however, it just needs to be incorporated in a way that feels smooth. With some platformer games, they incorporate a feature that gives a grounded check a slight delay before determining that the player is off the ground.

I also would have preferred if the "rewind" player body could pass through the past player body with the exception of jumping on its head. There were a few times where upon using the "run it back" feature the rewind player ended up colliding rapidly with the past player and ended up falling off the stage.

This might be a personal opinion, but I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the music that plays. It sounds more like something you would hear from a bubbly commercial rather than a video game. The music also seems to repeat the same melody multiple times rather than changing into a unique tone, so it got pretty tedious listening to the same set of notes throughout my playthrough.

Developer

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback! I'm glad you liked how the tutorial was laid out :) 

Yeah, we ran out of time during the game jam but I've now implemented a manual rewind so you don't have to wait it out anymore, and also "coyote jumping" to give more leeway on when you can jump after leaving the platform etc so hopefully that'll make it smoother and you don't have to jump as precisely! 

Do you remember how you managed to make the rewind play collide with the past player? Usually the rewind player is offset either to the left or right of the player (depending which way you're facing) so it would be interesting to know and hopefully it's just a collider issue we can fix! 

Sorry about the music! I'll try get some more different songs into the game :) I hope you enjoyed playing <3

Submitted

I tried replaying the game to see if I could recreate the collision bug, it seems to mostly occur on the moving platforms.

Developer(+1)

Ooo I don't think I tested that haha, thank you for going back and recreating it! And for the video as well, that really helps!

This platformer is actually very very cute! I had so much fun playing it! 

Developer

Thank you so much, I'm glad you had fun :D

Submitted

Very cute platformer. Fit the theme very well!

Developer

Thank you! ^^

Submitted

Nice game, graphics are cute and the idea of rewinding is great.

As a platformer, your game could be more permissive. Give to the player the possiblity to make his jump right after he leaves a platform and add more checkpoints, it will be less frustrating.

Good job !

Developer(+1)

Hey, thank you very much for your comment and for playing :D Yeah someone mentioned "coyote jumping" which I think is what you mean, I managed to get that implemented after the game jam so you have some leeway when jumping off the platform and don't fall straight down! I will definitely look into adding checkpoints too as it's frustrating to restart the whole level especially if you're near the end.

Submitted

Great first game jam! I think you nailed the core mechanic, and I love the fact that you can jump on your doppelganger for more height. Something about pressing the rewind button and then jumping into a pit just feels super satisfying to do. My only negative criticisms would be the details on your collision detection and character movement. The character can seem like it twitches sometimes, and the hitboxes are a little bit off from the visuals. It also seems like you stick to corners of platforms a bit if you're pressing against them.

Great game though!

Developer

"Something about pressing the rewind button and then jumping into a pit just feels super satisfying to do" LOL that made me laugh, haven't had heard someone say that before XD I think the character twitching is just his idle animation, he kind of wobbles on the spot. I definitely need to make the colliders a bit smaller as it looks like he's floating a bit off the ground which I didn't notice before.

Yeah the corner of a platform thing is a bit annoying, maybe I'll see if I can implement a wall jump ability so he doesn't just stay stuck and slide down. Or fix the colliders somehow, I'm not sure what's causing that atm. Thank you very much for playing and for your feedback! <3

Viewing comments 48 to 29 of 48 · Next page · Last page