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The Struggles Within's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #34 | 3.961 | 3.961 |
| Music | #83 | 3.705 | 3.705 |
| Fun | #93 | 3.775 | 3.775 |
| Mechanics | #118 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
| Theme | #203 | 3.713 | 3.713 |
| Aesthetics | #262 | 3.496 | 3.496 |
| Sound | #428 | 2.473 | 2.473 |
Ranked from 129 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game total?
2
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
Audio: Main Menu: Visions of Innocence. Credit me as "Tungerman". https://tungerman.itch.io/tearjerker-music-pack Cutscene 1: Heart Initial - https://sonatina.itch.io/infinity-crystal Cutscene 2: Trust Initial - https://sonatina.itch.io/infinity-crystal Custcene 3: Airship Initial - https://sonatina.itch.io/infinity-crystal Level 1: The Horde - https://ivanduch.itch.io/dragon-tales-1 Level 2: The Last Stand - https://ivanduch.itch.io/dragon-tales-1 Menu Select - https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/sound-fx/fantasy-sfx-32833 Scroll Opening: https://freesound.org/people/ukjoncollins/sounds/441549/ Characters & Animations: Emoji Icons: https://sysl.itch.io/mit-licensed-icons Character (cutscenes): https://cypor.itch.io/12x12-rpg-tileset Character & enemies (gameplay): https://rgsdev.itch.io/free-cc0-modular-animated-vector-characters-2d UI: Buttons: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/fantasy-wooden-gui-free-103811 PowerUp Images: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/icons/free-rpg-fantasy-spell-icons-200511 VFX: Particle Effects: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/particles/spells/48-particle-effect-pack-13998 Environment: Gameplay scene: https://rgsdev.itch.io/free-cc0-modular-animated-vector-characters-2d Cutscene: https://cypor.itch.io/12x12-rpg-tileset
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Comments
Hi, congrats on your game! :) I enjoyed the story and the gameplay. The only thing I would try to modify is perhaps to put a limit on the number of monsters that can appear on the screen. Within the first 20 seconds of the game, I was already surrounded by more than 10 enemies hehe xD
If you have some spare time, please try out my game. It's a classic space shooter from the 80s but with a personal touch. Please leave your honest feedback. :)
Thank you so much mate! :)
Yeah that's completely understanable, I was playing around the last day with some timing and made it so that the spawning starts a bit slower and gets faster in about 20-30 sec period, but yeah it's a lot to take in at first at least if you haven't played too much VS style games. Balancing is one hell of an artform to perfect! Would need a lot more playtesting and from a large variety of players who have and have not played the kind of game you're making.
I will play it straightaway now that I got time mate :) I try to give always an honest but fair feedback, don't want to trash anyone, because you never no if it's someones first game and you just discourage them from ever making a game again! :)
Really enjoyed this one. The story was good, and the gameplay was a lot like Vampire Survivors which I enjoyed. Nice work!
Thank you for the review! :) Glad to hear that you liked it! :) Yeah VS is a strong inspiration, but we wanted to bring our own twist with the story + boss battle with changes depending on your powerUp choices.
Nice game, last boss was interesting, I bit him by running around the rocks.
Thanks :)
Hahah, yeah I think that's the universal way of beating him :D I knew it was in there and thought about taking it off, but I thought that the boss being able to walk on the stones would be enough challenge, but not enough as it seems :P
please don't, the difficulty has to be honest, because his minion can hit through a stone:D
Hahah :D I won't edit it, I promise
Replayed the game because the first time I got stuck and its now much more fun! I managed to complete the game and I enjoyed the boss battle at the end! The reason I got stuck was because I just ran away from enemies and I didnt know you could pick up glowy circles and get better so I died by a huge storm of enemies. However once I reaplayed the game it was very fun, well done :)
Thank you so much for giving it another go! Yeah We kind of assumed people would get it, but if you haven't played a lot of VS (vampire survivors) style of games, it's not a given take away, should have made the few first drops glow a bit more or something.
Good to hear that you enjoyed it on the second play through! Hope you made it to the boss, since that's where the fun ramps up and the choices you make with the powerUps might change the boss fight a bit, some more visibly some under the hood ;)
Ok! I did make it to the boss, the bossfight was very fun, well don :)
Big fan of bulletstorm games, and this one didn't dissapoiont, great job
Haha great to hear mate! Hope the boss wasn't too hard :D
It was awesome. I liked the animation in the begining that gives the player the background story for the fight. And the fight itself wsa quite good. The fact that we can't control bullet direction add a new dimension to the challenge. You have to move or you wont be able to collect stars because of the inner demons. Loved the names for the upgrades. The lore is there. The boss fight was a bit too hard for me, so i died there but overall; Nice game with intense enough combat.
Thank you for your words and in-depth review!
Not sure what you meant by not being able to control bullet movement, it was mouse direction based? 🤔 If you played it without moving your mouse, you're an absolute legend in the game, since it's hard enough with that 😅
Thanks, that's what we wanted to go with the powerup names and how it affects the boss fight and ties to the story.
it was mouse based ? ı assumed it was the reverse direction of player movement. Thats how i played it.
Edit: So i have played the game again. It is much easier when you aim at them.
Haha, well I got to give it to you, you are a legend! I don't think many could make it to the boss with keeping their mouse still.
But a good reminder again that can't assume how people perceive your game/controls in it. We didn't even think about mouse control needed to be shown.
We wrote it in description, but tbf I never read any instructions, I'm more of a "well I'll learn it on the move"
This is excellent. I really enjoyed this and the writing and design is wonderful. The duality between art styles, music choice, etc really seals it as amazing. Very impressive stuff and fun combat.
I do agree the level 1 balance is a bit tight and the game feels almost unfair at some points, but then as you level up and get stronger, it makes you not want to put it down. You made a very fun experience and I look forward to seeing more stuff of yours in the future!
Thanks 😊
Nice to hear someone enjoyed the difference in art work, it has got a lot of feedback, but great to hear you like it. I do agree with most of the feedback though, since neither one of us are artists, it was hard to find something that was different enough to portrait the two different dimensions (real life & inside his head) and still work together seamlessly.
Haha, yeah it can be a bit hard start, but we wanted it to be a challenge, but still beatable. Balancing is one hell of an art and hard to master. Needs a lot more of playtesters than we had and they need to be different level of players as well.
You live and you learn, but thank you so much for the review and kind words!
Nice work, I bet it took a lot of work doing those cut scenes and writing alongside the game. It was a fun experience. I do agree that the balancing when you're level 1 is a bit unforgiving, though I think it also goes with the story in a way. Once I got strong enough, I almost didn't want it to stop, but I guess that's the pull of that style of game :D
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Thankfully I had a team member who smashed those out of the park!
Yeah it's hard talent to perfect balancing the game. But good to hear you made it through though, so it wasn't maybe too too hard. And yeha very good point to the story although I would be lying if I said that was intentionally just for the story, but nevertheless a very good point that first starting to go through your issues/problem will be very hard indeed.
I wish that we had time to make it longer and more powerups and different boss fights that even more stronger chance based on your own choices. But lot learned from this project and for sure something for the future to think about!
Neat game! The transition from exposition to game was confusing. The story just cut out and shoved me in the game. I've played similar games before, so I knew what to do. I will say that there needs to be more scaling. It started off very intense, and it was very difficult to actually get to any of the exp orbs, and it took too many to level up to be able to get to them. Needs some rebalancing and polishing, but good job!
Thank you for the comment and in-depth review! 💪🏼
Oh god damn, we've tried to fix it, but sometimes due to FPS differences and some lag on the website/etc it could cut the story off too soon. Downloadable version shouldn't do that. Thanks for letting us know.
We have some scaling there and did a lot of balancing but I completely understand, it's a hard art to master, for sure something that on our bigger projects need to have even more playtesters with different levels of experience.
I appreciate your review though, it's always good to get feedback to learn from! :)
Nice game although the pixel art at the start was very blurry. I like the story :)
Thank you! Oh damn sorry to hear that, must be some resolution issue, since we tested with few different resolutions and it seemed alright. But thanks for letting us know :)
Glad to hear!
This was fun. If only healing oneself was this easy
Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it!
Oh tell me about it, but it's a slow progress and therapy/etc, for sure can be of help on your path! For me at least it was :)
I myself as a bullet hell enjoyer, liked this game. Good work!
Glad to hear mate, I enjoy them as well quite a lot :D Happy that you liked it and thanks for the review + comment!
OKAY! That went from RPG Maker to Binding of Isaac real fast!
Honestly I didn't care much for the story. The gameplay was very fun though! You really go from running from your demons to absolutely smashing them, nice feeling.
The boss was tough as bullet hell, and I like it! If you're into some more bullet hell stuff, I have just the submission for you, check it out :)
Hahah, yeah it has a slight change :D From your real life to the dimension inside your head.
Glad you liked the gameplay though! You explained it quite well, that was the feeling we wanted to portrait!
Yeah boss can be one tough son of a gun, especially if you take few certain powerUps that affect him more than the others.
Oh I will check it for sure, today I probably can't play any, need to take a day off, haven't had one since I started developing the game, feeling a bit knackered! :D
Nice game, it was kinda a sudden when you switched dimensions and i could tell the game was kind of a roguelike since it had buffs and such.
Though i felt the art style change was a bit weird maybe you guys were trying to enforce the fact that this is a different dimension but i think the artsyle should have been consistent
Also the combat was a bit boring since all you were doing was just running around and shooting the monsters and the sudden boss battle with all the projectiles caught me off guard, maybe during the buff collecting phase you could have added enemies with different attack patterns(e.g. a shooting enemy and a rolling enemy just to prepare you for the boss) and i think you should have made it so the little buff coins float towards you when the player is nearby instead of having to be exactly where the coin is.
Anyways good job with the game!
Thanks for the comment and good points 😊
Yeah the art was our weak point for sure, since we're not artists and wanted the two "dimensions" to be different and when using assets it was hard to find two different ones that would still work together somehow.
It's not everyone's cup of tea for sure, I get that. First time I played VS I had a similar feeling but I just got hooked on games like it. Obviously ours is not anywhere close to being on the same level, would have needed a lot more powerUps and progressive difficult changing, but that would have been too big scope for the gameJam.
That was actually our idea to add enemies that would shoot/roll, but having a small test on it, it was too difficult for the player with the current short gameplay. For a longer one that would have been a great idea for sure!!
Yeah that's a great idea, but didn't want to make it too easy either, since that could have even more taken the player to just run away for the coins to just reach him, now you needed to go back and risk it as well (also there was this autokill feature if enemies got too far and then new ones started spawning infront of you). The "triggerbox" was actually a bit larger than the star, but good point, one idea was to get a powerUp which would then make the box a bit larger or if you got close enough for the stars to pull towards you.
I love the in-depth review thank you for taking the time! 😊
Nice game -- took me by surprise when the attacks began. very well done.
here is my submission for anyone thats willing
Rate Mirror Mirror by repeatloader for The GameDev.tv Game Jam 2023 - Free Course For All Submissions! - itch.io
Thanks, yeah it's a very sudden change as normally in your mental health, things can rock negatively quickly. But game wise I get your comment especially if not used to rogue-like games😊
I will have a look at it later for sure!
The mechanic is nice. The storytelling is good. The art style between two dimension is a bit too contrast in my opinion. Some sound effects would be nice. How the screen gets darker as you get hit is a really nice touch, considering the story of the game. Good game.
Thank you so much! Yeah that I agree with, neither one of us are artists and was hard to find assets that suited together but still were different enough to portray the dimension change from real life to inside the characters head.
Sfx missing for sure was a downside, we tried some for shooting and enemies getting hit, but due to the sheer amount of bullets and enemies getting hit at some point, it was too overwhelming and we ran out of time to fine-tune, so went without for now.
Thanks, we really enjoyed the effect once we got it done.
My brother let me take the time to rate your game ***** stars, maybe little better music or audio effects would be great later on, besides that this is one of the best games i play in the Jam so far, really funny, love the art, and the mechanic is cool, i follow you and add it to favs maybe later we can make this game next level i have couple of ideas about it.
Thank you so much for the lovely comment mate :)
Yeah the SFX are really missing, we tried some on attacking and shooting, but they overwhelmed the music and didn't fit so had to go without.
yea i was worry so much about that i miss sounds too, i always do the sound at end and always short on sounds hahaha
Wow, you could really feel the walls closing in; the cutscenes really told the tale and mood transitions. Loved it, well done!
Thanks for the lovely comment, my team member is the one to thank for the cutscenes and fine tuning the story to really feel real.
Very cool! I like the intense music and endless horde, I lasted pretty long without getting hurt but once I did and the fog started to close in it felt really intense.
Thank you so much, yeah I love the fog/dizziness feeling once you get hurt, makes it even harder 😅
Great story to start off a fun game. Great music and animations!
Thanks so much for taking the time to play and review!