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A jam submission

Cat got your tongue?View game page

Battle to the beat and get your tongue back!
Submitted by octobass (@OctobassGames), adamskipadamski, majicmoo, Madmouseman, Odettica — 5 hours, 12 minutes before the deadline
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Cat got your tongue?'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#34.5594.559
Audio#54.2654.265
Overall#194.0594.059
Gameplay#433.6763.676
Theme interpretation#503.8823.882
Innovation#1453.0883.088

Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

GitHub repository
https://github.com/octobass-games/cliche

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Comments

Viewing comments 25 to 6 of 25 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

This game is so incredibly well done! It's clear that a lot of time went into making this as great an experience as possible, so I feel like I have to be quite elaborate with my feedback here. 

First off, cool concept. Rhythm games have been done a million times, and it's quite easy to mess up something small that ruins the entire experience without even noticing. You haven't done that, and it feels really great to play. The art style is adorable, and the story is surprisingly engaging. It seems rather generic on the surface, but as you keep playing, you get more and more invested. I found myself thinking "What style of music is next", and upon seeing the Jazz figure, thinking "What the hell kind of animal is that going to turn into?" The more I played, the more invested I got in the story.

That fact that you took the time to add a "hub" as well amazes me. The story unfolds and you get closer to your goal, but your house gets updated as well, not only with pictures/medals of what you've done but with the animals you've rescued. That's such a nice touch that really goes a long way when it comes to setting itself apart and making the experience feel complete and polished. 

I hope you'll bear with me here, and I hope you may even respond to this part, but it's going to get a bit nerdy. I love what you've done in terms of difficulty. This clearly isn't meant to compete with the likes of Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, or even Friday Night Funkin', this is clearly meant to tell a story while also playing/listening to some awesome music. You're not meant to be grinding for days to get a perfect score or an FC, you're meant to enjoy yourself. Not adding a fail condition (at least not from what I played on easy and normal), you allow the player to explore the game at their own pace, and the score at the end only shows stats regarding notes you did hit and also hammers home the positive and casual vibe the game has. There's no stat for how many times you missed, there's no "you missed too much, now you're dead", it's about experiencing the game, not perfecting it. 

This helps set the tone for the game. Believe it or not, gameplay and art style aren't all that make a game feel a certain way, something as simple as choosing not to display notes missed goes a long way, too. I don't know if these things were intentional, but it really works with this game specifically. If your game had been about "dancing with the devil", I could see the game being a bit more hardcore, but when you found out that what's been barking up the wrong tree is literally a dog, you don't think of the word "hardcore". This way, the only real challenge is actually improving yourself. If there's a fail state, you beat the track, and you feel like you're done. When there's no fail condition, your own challenge is to beat your previous score, not just the boss. 

One of the best entries I've played. Super polished, knows what it wants to do, and does it super well. You've nailed the mechanic and polished everything around it. You've also managed to set a tone and expectations from the player from the get-go. Super solid experience. Kudos to everyone on the team, you should all be very proud! 

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the kind words, and the very thorough feedback! :D

I'm very glad to hear that we managed to pull off a rhythm game, it's the first time we've done one so there were a few things that were new to us :) Yeah, we felt adding a story was important to help tie all of the scenes together. Without it I think it feels like you're just randomly jumping from one place to the next, which is fine but I think having a narrative helps to drive it a bit more. I think the 'hub' functions in a similar way in that it puts level select and the likes in the game itself instead of just a menu.

Regarding difficulty we always like to try and keep things more on the forgiving side e.g. having pretty wide time windows to hit notes, while still offering a challenge should the player want it e.g. having variable difficulty levels. As you've alluded to, these ideas are also present in the lack of level failures. There are medals that the player can grind for if they wish, but they're never punished if they have a lot of trouble with a particular level (there's even the option to skip it from the pause menu should they want to). The scoring mechanism is also built with these ideas in mind. The player is rewarded with high scores for building combos (which prevents players spamming all the notes and achieving very high scores) but they never lose points for missing, the combo just breaks (so they can still spam if they want to, there's just a slight penalty). Not displaying the missing notes may have been a happy accident though, I can't remember whether that part was intentional haha! XD 

Thanks again for the feedback, there's a lot of ideas in there that we'll be able to think about and use in future games! :D

Really glad you enjoyed it :)

Submitted

This game is one of the most complete and enjoyable experiences in the jam! I love it. It is so FREAKING CUTE. The adorable animals, the music, the level where you dream about your cat - so well done. Also, that JAZZ song. I don't know why, but that lilty, pizzicato vibe really struck a chord with me (which reminds me, props on all the clichés thrown in).  

Congrats to the team. This is stellar. 

Developer

Thanks for playing, and for the kind words! :D Yeah, the jazz track is one of favourites :)

Submitted

I don't usually play rhythm games but oh boy, did I enjoy this one!! The execution is top notch - from the gameplay to art and music, everything is -chef's kiss- <3 

Amazing work, keep it up!!! :)

Submitted

amazing art, interesting premise and fun gameplay! alas, I had to play on easy mode.

Developer

Thanks for playing! Haha, despite all of our testing even we still find a lot of the levels pretty tough (especially on hard) :D

Submitted

I really love this game. Amazing art, music and gameplay. Only complaint , levels are a bit long.

Nice Job! 

Developer

Thanks for the kind words :D Yeah, we've heard similar feedback from others regarding level length. We'll keep it in mind if we decide to add any extra levels post-jam :)

Submitted

Really great game. So well executed, and you packed in so many cliches. Art and Music were really good too!

I thought I was good at the game, and then I tried hard mode. Enough said haha. 

Great job!

Developer

Thanks for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)

Haha I struggle with hard mode too! XD

Submitted

Insanely polished! I appreciate the difficulty options since hard was too much for me I switched to easy and that was just about the right level for my skill. It goes without saying the music is great. The tracks did go on for a bit longer that I would have wanted to but that's probably just cause I am impatient. Overall fantastic rhythm game :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much for playing and for the feedback! 

Submitted

You guys made an amazing rythm game! All the musics are good and give me chill vibes! Art is well made and gameplay is good too, althought i struggled because i'm not used with this controls and i felt lost sometimes

I had a lot of fun playing each level, my favorite was the nap one haha
Great job, keep it up guys! 

Developer

Thanks for playing! :D

Yeah that's one of my favourite levels out of all of them too, haha :)

Submitted

This was really polished :) I liked the music, the pixel art was nice, too, and the animations were smooth as well. My only suggestion would be having an "easy" mode for people like me - who suck at rhythm games :D

Submitted

Nice rhythm game!) Fun artstyle. Great job!

Submitted

I was watching the video at YT instead of actually playing the game - because I have absolutely no rythm in my blood and would fail badly.

The graphics and animations are really good - and everything blends perfectly with the music - of  cause. Will show your game to my niece, next time I meet her. She is a big fan of such games, and will enjoy it, for sure.

Developer

Thanks for checking it out and the kind words! :D

Yeah, rhythm games can be pretty tricky. Despite making it even we struggle with certain levels XD 

I hope your niece enjoys it! :)

Thanks again!

Submitted

Very beautiful, very difficult, I failed :)

Developer

Thanks for playing! :)

Submitted

I love rythm games, so I'm a little biased to talk about this lol. Loved the art and the theme interpretation.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

What a great game! I had really fun playing through the levels and listening to the music. The graphics were gorgeous and I think that you did a good job interpreting the theme as well :)

I saw that a few others mentioned the order of the arrows, and I have to agree on that point. Another thing that I really would have loved would be some indicator of the beat. I felt lost a few times since the space between the arrows are only relative to other arrows and not a  constant change in the background color or a vertical bar over the arrow lines.

However, these are minor things. This is still a great game! :D

Submitted

Great art and sound! Rhythm games aren't really my jam but it's obvious a lot of polish and care went into this one. Cutscenes add a lot to the charm :)

Submitted

The sprites are top notch, the music is just as good, but it was quite difficult to play. Although I have never played such games before. I liked that you can skip a level, that's very thoughtful of you.

Developer

Thanks! Yeah, we're thinking of doing something post-jam to maybe help with the difficulty :)

Submitted

Super addictive, the musical tracks are so good. I am really digging the art.

Developer

Thanks! Glad to hear you enjoyed it :D

Submitted

Very fun! Loved the graphics and the audio was awesome! 

Developer

Thanks so much for playing!  I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted

I loved the visuals of this game! It really gives me that rhythm game feel! I just got a bit confused while playing since the arrows are kind of scrambled? Not sure how to say. But maybe its also because I don't usually play with arrows haha.

Developer

Thanks for playing, and for the feedback! :D We're hoping to release a post-jam version of the game that'll improve some aspects of it (the way the arrow layout works being one of them!)

Submitted

I never play rhythm games but I absolutely LOVED this one. Super polished game, gorgeous art work, and really fun and forgiving controls. So much detail in each level, great story with lots of puns. Best game I've played so far. Thank you for sharing this.

Developer

Thanks for playing! Really glad to hear you enjoyed it :D

Viewing comments 25 to 6 of 25 · Next page · Last page