very interesting take on the theme, the death - boost jump was kind of hard for me to predict but the quick restart made up for that. I did have fun playing .
Play game
A Hell of a Date's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #86 | 3.578 | 3.578 |
| Innovation | #145 | 3.248 | 3.248 |
| Game Design | #165 | 3.376 | 3.376 |
| Overall | #178 | 3.202 | 3.202 |
| Fun | #189 | 3.202 | 3.202 |
| Audio | #258 | 2.982 | 2.982 |
| Graphics | #371 | 2.826 | 2.826 |
Ranked from 109 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
If you die you get a second chance and become a ghost. The end of your life starts a new beginning.
Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
Yes
Comments
At the moment I am not close to my main PC so it's hard to play games.
Now about the game. The theme matching was so-so. I feel like there are lots of those games where you play through levels and when you die it's considered a new beginning.
For example:
My game: https://battle-chicken-ink.itch.io/the-field-of-reeds - where you start the level is where you end the level.
https://battle-chicken-ink.itch.io/the-field-of-reeds - story
Other than that it's just like a normal parkour platformer. Nothing special, nothing bad in particular. I feel like you could've made the game more special.
Thanks for replying, I don't quite understand why you think that this game is not that matching to the theme. I literally designed the game around the theme, The main mechanic of the game is the entire theme. I also adapted the entire set of other mechanics and level design to that mechanic. In my opinion having a platformer where you die being a new beginning isn't something bad in my opinion, it's more about how it's executed, especially in the level design. And also I haven't seen a single game using something like me as their connection to the theme, so in my opinion it's (still) quite unique. And I'm sorry, but just saying that the starting point is where the end point is, sounds a bit cheap to me, but I'haven't played your game yet,but maybe you could've implemented it well so I'm my opinion might change. And yes, I'm aware that you can either implement the theme as a gimmick/mechanic, narratively or in the graphics/audio (doesn't really apply to this jam).
Games also don't need to be exceedingly original, innovative or something similiar, but yes these things can make the games more unique, but just having good design is often times enough to have a great game. Take Celeste and Hades as an example, Celeste is a basic platformer, but still managed to win big awards due to it having a really good game feel and Hades having an incredible execution of the roguelite genre and in general being very juicy. And yes, I did not make like a really original idea or something, but rather focused on polishing. You may remember Ategons stream, I was the one guy that was talking about coyote time, jump buffer, etc. I implemented almost everything from the platformer toolkit. I also tried to add some extra juice and emphasized the dying, by using the zoom and slowing down time, particle systems to emphasize the walking and landing, stretch & squash, terminal velocity, acceleration & deceleration, etc. But they are some things that a bit less experienced game developers, who haven't come into contact with game design usually oversee. My take on making the game special was trying to make the palyer feel good to control and also satisfiying. And apart from that I also tried to make the UI look clean by using custom sprites and fonts (most people tend to stay with the default icons and font in jams and also adding accesibility. And there are also some other things but they are compared minor to these I won't mention them, since this reply is already way too long. I would be glad if you would reconsider your rating and also maybe play it on your main pc, since your experience might haven't been that great on the other pc. But I also guess it's rather about how you define special, but I think you should redo some of it atleast since my game's specialty mostly bases of the things that are often times overlooked and also not really cared about.
I'll also make sure to check out your game now too
Well then you just didn't play my game at all if you assume that this is my connection to the theme. You respawn in the same level in the same location, but gain a lot of momentum and also gain some a new moveset. I didn't just made an usual platformer and called it a day, please play the game actually a bit before judging it. You weren't even aware of the main mechanic of the game.
Thankd for the feedback! I've heard from some people that they needed some time to adapt to the ghost controls, so you're not alone.
But I have to disagree with you on the skill part, as this game is a platformer (jump n' run to be exact) and therfore relying mostly on skill, as that's how it's usually with these types of games, as seen in mario and celeste (this game is also btw strongly inspired by celeste). While your game is a roguelite, so your game can rely on skill and stragic, but the upgrades should play a quite big role too. If you had like 2 tries or so and came very far, the upgrade system ended up being redundant. And as already mentioned the speed was also kind of a problem. But having the game require a bit skill is in my opinion not something that should be seen as bad, as long as it is intentional in the game's design. A way to solve these aforementioned issues, you could try making the gain of currency linear or the costs potenial, like the amount of currency you gain. Another way would be to just add more upgrades with high cost but high value. I'd suggest you looking into GMTK's video about balancing roguelikes and roguelites.
Thanks again for playing my game :)
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