Play Dark Bugs
Dark Bugs's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #49 | 4.254 | 4.254 |
| Aesthetics | #54 | 4.179 | 4.179 |
| Overall | #63 | 3.896 | 3.896 |
| Story | #75 | 3.388 | 3.388 |
| Mechanics | #128 | 3.463 | 3.463 |
| Fun | #161 | 3.522 | 3.522 |
| Sound | #190 | 3.239 | 3.239 |
| Music | #196 | 3.403 | 3.403 |
Ranked from 67 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 in total?
3
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
https://freesound.org/people/seanas80/sounds/91466/ https://freesound.org/people/duckduckpony/sounds/204028/ https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/394419/ https://sounddino.com/en/effects/spider/ https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/54745/ https://freesound.org/people/manda_g/sounds/54987/ https://freesound.org/people/digifishmusic/sounds/59451/ https://freesound.org/people/DrMinky/sounds/167074/ https://freesound.org/people/Department64/sounds/718790/
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Comments
This game is soo good it doesn't look like a jam game at all. Awesome work!
One suggestion from my side is improve on the attack because it seems lacking currently and it is the most basic thing that player will be doing again and again.
wow it is totally amazing how much content you managed to get into this jam game! I think my favorite part was going under the mushroom and the really cool visual effect that created on the screen. Getting to pick and swap out weapons is awesome and I think if I spent more time learning to use the shield and stuff, I probably could have gotten better. My favorite weapons were the ones with long range like the spear and stuff. I actually selected the shield at first because I thought maybe it was a boomerang and I was trying to put more distance between myself and the enemies.
I was surprised to see all the features like blocking, attacking, sprinting, swapping weapons. I sometimes found myself attacking enemies that were already dead so I think some kind of particle effect when they die and maybe a more noticeable sound for death would help with that. And in general I think a louder sound for when you hit an enemy would help give more oomf to the attack landing.
But seriously amazing job. I loved the little details like how the clovers and stuff move a little bit when an enemy pops out of them. Really great work!
It's a really good game. Everything was perfect but I got to the second level and died. Other bugs were hiding under the leaves and they came out to kill me.
Did you get scared or annoyed? :P
It was intentional to be ambushed :) inspired by games like dark souls. Some enemies just waiting for you and bang! Dead. In short time.
Thanks for playing the game ❤️
After checking it out for a bit, it's a decent game, good for a game jam,
The game feels a bit "dry" in the sense there's not enough feedback, it's confusing what to do as well, and picking up heavy weapons completely stops you from moving, then that begs the question, how do we use those heavy weapons? Why can't I move while holding it? Then you remove one, keep another, you can move, but you can't swing (Maybe a bug?), I was not sure what to do as I didn't read the description first, and generally not a lot of players would read the description first when the game just starts on their screen (Like it did for me), so I think a better idea would be introducing them to the game through a story, possibly showing the end boss in a kind of animation to display what's required to be done, to just simply introduce the player to the game, then possibly a zoom in to get them into the world rather than just appearing there, would give the player slightly more knowledge of their surroundings prior to starting.
Another thing would be actually pausing the game while in the inventory, I couldn't move while in the inventory, but could be attacked, and I think that's just unfair (I died several times because of this, trying to equip better weapons).
From my perspective, a lot of bugs in the game, and I didn't even get too far (Take this as played for a bit until I got very confused as to what to do since I didn't read the description first), although it's a good concept and can definitely be improved. Great job!
And you feedback is helpful!
I didnt want to pause the game while inventory is up because that adds dynamic to the gameplay.
You can swap to any hand anytime as long as its not on Cooldown after using a weapon skill.
So yeah the idea was to stay distant and change weapons between fights, not during combat :P
Thanks for pointing out the dry. We have in the list to improve the hit feedback. Apart from the numbers when hit, changing colors of the material to make visual confirmation and higher volume on hit may work (i believe music is high and opaques other sounds)
"picking up heavy weapons completely stops you from moving, then that begs the question, how do we use those heavy weapons? Why can't I move while holding it?"
Can you rephrase the situation? Hmm i dditn experience that bug? I made the weapons and tested them like crazy...
The only time you cant move is when you start the attacking animation, open inventory or dead. Hmm sounds like a bug! Help me understand the scene.
And yeah lastly i was thinking about a tutorial for the beginning to explain the mechanics and more about the story... At least we added how to play tips when opening inventory, and hint on the loading scene to use TAB to open it 😁
Thank you for your valuable feedback!
For the "Can't move" bug, when I equipped 2 large weapons, I just completely couldn't move anymore, after unequipping one of them, I was allowed to move again, but couldn't attack using the other weapon that was still equipped, maybe I was just missing something for that, but I definitely couldn't move.
Nice visuals! The gameplay probably needs a lot of polish, but it's fine, it's a jam game :D it's a little hard to tell when you hit the enemy, not a lot of feedback. Morover, the amount of dead bodies that fills the arena is a little overwhelming after dying many times. And, you die a lot!
Lot of bug fixing to do! But it's good! Nice done
Waaah! You're here :)
It has been only 10 days from brainstorming to uploading a build haha and it's funny - the name is Dark Bugs, and I've seen so many dark bugs (coding errors) in this... it's hilarious :P
Yeah thanks for your feedback... I also thought about ragdolls (corpses that blocks) annoying... I suggested to add a timer. After 3~5 seconds, remove collider. so ant can cross normally.
Hmm hit feedback... There's something I can do about it! Thanks for that - didn't think about it. Now I know what to do about it :)
And yeah the idea is to die a lot haha just like dark souls game :)
If you have deeper list (more detailed) of what's needed to be fixed - let me know!
All right, let’s be honest: The game is full of bugs… and a few rats. The top-down view is a good idea. It’s a Souls-like game, which means it won’t be easy.
Sometimes it seems that the game forgets who killed you (since you will die many times in this game) and ends up blaming an innocent bug (who was certainly trying to kill you, but didn’t succeed).
I like that you can farm the boss indefinitely to greatly increase your XP. Good job, keep going!
I was just now updating the game and found out that "bug". I had a disorder between death and giving the credit on who did it - and I was like... what! and fixed it already before reading this.
Thanks for spotting that :) too much going on in so little time I didnt see this... back then.
Spamming a dead boss !? lol haha DARK BUGS... inside joke. so many bugs we had in the making... but it's out there :3
and your feedback is appreciated. They will be considered to update those :)
beautiful game. love the depth to the perspective. I would have liked to get some stats about the different weapons to make a choice. I tried one weapon which was Very slow and didnt seem to do much damage and another that was faster and more damage. The overall feel though was great, really enjoyed it well done
Hey Tim, thanks for playing out the game. We didnt really balance the game... we had to rush and finish on time. BUT we did have the idea to balance it after publishing. So we are not forgetting this game - not yet.
So if you remember... what weapons did you feel off?
Because I was revamping their damage output, so they make more sense. Specially Knockbacks and stronger if they are slow.
Thanks for your insight!
My favorite touch here by far, is the little wiggle you added on the clover and other plants when you bump into them. Immediately the world felt 10x more immersive. I also liked that I could get high on mushrooms in your game 🍄😂
Yeah those are amazing details that makes the world alive! Trippy effects and moving elements in the world. Thanks for appreciating that :)
I really enjoyed this, even though I suck at it lol. The visuals are great. Really liked the scene transition effect.
Hahaha why do you say you suck at it... it's definitely not easy haha neither is Dark Souls or Elden Ring that inspired us to make this game. But yeah, I think there's a learning curve to succeed with evasion / weapon usage. Thanks for playing! Your feedback is appreciated: what did you like the most? Hate the most? Etc :)
I couldn't finish boss fight for some reason, got a critical error, but the game is awesome. mushrooms, setting all together. Thank you for sharing it.
Wooo what happened with the boss? Was it too strong that it crashed the game? Hmm I'll take a look at that ☺️
I liked the mushroom trippy effect 🤓 thanks for reaching us here. For the love of games!
Please let us know more about the error, from the game, itch or computer? Maybe we can fix it so that you can get your sweet revenge against the king. Thanks for playing!
Hmm! That is weird... It doesnt really show what triggers the bug... Maybe explain us the game behavior. What happened right before dying?
I just tried to kill it for the 5 times ) When rat starts spinning I guess there are multiple damage happens, cause there are a lot text messages coming out during it, maybe collision with dead body did this.
"Collision with dead body" Hmm! that's an interesting thing. I have triggered to disable many scripts on death, so if rigidbody/collider is on and healthSystem is off.. that could trigger the error! I'll fix this now :)
Nice game.
I agree with others that it needs a little more polish, but it's a good game with a lot going on.
One of my favourite touches is the scene transition with the leaves.
Thanks for the game.
If there's any polish specific idea - we are listening. Your feedback is appreciated. We did what we could in this time frame 😁 thanks for reaching us!
The ant you play as doesn't always stand out against the background making it difficult to focus on where it is after looking around the screen for your next route/target.
At the start of the game, you get attacked before you pick up any weapons, and while starting with nothing adds to the risk/reward feeling of the game, being attacked when you have nothing hurts a bit.
There were some points I played where you would be surrounded by enemies and could not attack quickly enough to escape, I really dislike the preying mantis, the first one I found was in a tight area with nowhere to go and other smaller enemies boxing you in further. You evade to get past the mantis to attack it and you get killed by the smaller enemies, you start with the smaller enemies and the mantis chops you up.
I understand you were aiming to make a souls-like game, and I think you have pretty much succeeded, but I also think that enemy positioning vs map area needs to be thought about. When playing, I don't want to be completely boxed in with no real way to defend myself.
I've played a few other games since yours, but I can't recall if there was an attack sound, if there is ignore this statement.
Oh deep feedback. Much appreciated.
Yeah we did add sounds.Subtle ones. Maybe the music is powered that opaques the rest. Nice details, we could add an outline or semi-transparent ant to show where the ant is when behind the scene environments. And yeah we wanted to fix that auto follow player even if not in range... But time was limited for that detail. It is in our plan to fix.
We also missed the balancing. To change damage outputs and proper locations of enemies. We did that on a rush. Definitely worth updating those -thanks for mentioning them.
It's OK, I almost gave you feedback for a different Ant themed game to start with.
The time constraints are part of the fun and the challenge with a jam.
Just a quick note regarding my comment about the Ant not standing out, a better way to describe it would probably be that there isn't much contrast between the Ant and the background. Peripheral vision notices differences in colour and contrast when not focusing directly on the object in question, and when you take your eyes off the Ant to look around the screen, a greater contrast would help your eyes focus back to the Ant more easily. I didn't mean when it goes behind objects, but your plan to fix that would definitely add to the game as well.
Thanks again.
I get you! Hmm ... But its weird to get lost. Ant is always in the middle. Put will take this into consideration. Player should visually stand out. Time pressures our decisions most of the times :P
Hey !
This game has some really great visuals. As mentioned by other, the different layers really make you feel the tiny scale of this world. It even allows for some stuff like ambushes, which works quite well for these kind of action games. Good job also with the flower/plants interactions while colliding with the insects, it makes the world really feel alive.
Gameplay wise, this genre seems quite hard to nail down (especially in such a short amount of time !)...
The basic attacks didn't feel very good to use (the light weapons feel like they have short and narrow hitboxes, and the large weapons feel to slow for the amount of damage they deal).
On the other end it seems like you had quite some fun with the "weapon magic skills".
I especially liked the katana's dash and retreat, and the lance (?) lunging attack (it's a shame you can get hit while "in the air"
(Btw, the Greatsword's spin seems a bit OP... ^^')
I also had some issue where I got ganged up on when I switched screens. I feel like something should prevent enemies from attacking/spotting you for X amount of time, or until you start moving.
But overall, great game. With some polishing and content, I really could see this as a great Action/RPG game !
Great Job to the team, I hope you all have a good one ! :)
I enjoyed reading your feedback!
The artist really stood up with his mechanics to interact with the world. Kudos to him. Loved working with him.
I did the main player mechanics and yeah i had a blast coming up with every weapon skills idea! (Too many videogames on my memories helped) I actually found a passion in that particular area in this jam - so your feedback on that, very helpful to me.
I only have 3 months since i started in gameDev. So expect bugs (and dark bugs muahaha) and unbalanced stuff :D
(And because time was short we couldnt really balance the cooldown, attack rate, damage for each weapon - but its in the after-jam launch plan)
Oh and i did add the "cant get hit while jumping" with the lance... It didnt work? Hmm! Weird. It should! I named it dragoonJump. I got inspired from final fantasy tactics, ever played it?
Yeah greatsword is op haha we needed one of those in... we wanted it to be like a boss drop... But then, just let players test them all or i would have invested too much time in each weapon and no one would ever test it :3
I'll pass down this feedback to make a few updates:
• damage balancing
• increasing hit box area
• better damage/speed match
• invisibility for X after scene change/respawn
Thanks for your feedback!
Yeah these kind of game need A LOT of time to balance properly... There are so many minute details to tweak...
It really shows you put a lot of time and attention to the weapon skills (I'm glad I read the controls, it wouldn't have occured to me to press A/Q+click to access them otherwise ^^') !
The Dragoon Jump makes sense now, I get it now that you've mentioned it (I only saw the Dragoon skills on FFXIV Online, but it's the same thing) ! ^^
In the context of a jam, I'm glad you've given all the weapons available to the player, it was a good decision on your end.
Glad to hear you're going to keep working on the game, that's great news !
In case you need someone for more playtest, I would gladly do it !
If so, you can add me on Discord (same username). Else, I'll still be following the development of this game, but from a bit further away. ^^
Good luck !
This is cool, I like the 3d effects on top of the 2d overlay. Variety in enemies is nice too.
Thank you! It's always a nice idea to mix things up :)
We could have added more enemies but one member dropped out and had to improvise because... you know, time :P
thanks for trying it out!
One of the best games of the jam so far, great job
Thanks Dave! Make sure to repost/share it with your friends so they can see & play it.
Be kind to leave us a rating, if it's the best, it should be on the top :3
best game by far!
we are so glad you loved it! Share it with your people :)
Neat concept! I felt the mechanics / gameplay could use some more refining, or maybe it's the control layout. In any case, this is a well-designed game and it fits very well with the gamejam's theme. Great job!
Thanks for playing! Could you share your thoughts about the mechanics and controls? Always nice to know what we can improve:)
Certainly, I'd be happy to. I found the movement to be a bit choppy or abrupt. There seemed to be little if any acceleration in movement from standstill to full speed, but maybe that is deliberate by design to emulate the movement of the ant. Somehow, the movement didn't seem fluid or smooth, but rather chunky or aggregated, almost as though the ant was moving by tile to tile somehow. I hope that description makes sense! I was also playing on older and less-powerful hardware too, so possibly that was an issue issue affecting things in the user experience side of things. As for the controls, maybe I just needed to get used to the layout / configuration, but somehow I found them to be awkward and counter-intuitive. I hope this user feedback helps a bit! Thanks
Thanks alot for this indept feedback, will look into it and see what we can improve
Awesome job! The visual, sound and music were awesome, i just couldn't figure out how to switch weapons.
thanks for playing! Maybe it should be more clear how to switch. It’s a drag and drop inventory😃 Go give the other weapons a try aswell!
hey! use Tab to open inventory and drag weapon you want into the right/left hand. As long as there's no cooldown, you can swap weapons on the go :) thanks for your feedback
I haven't play it yet, I just wanted to know and proximate time to beat this game. It looks interesting af but I'm scared that it might take hours to beat, so what is a time frame?
It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes even if you get lost! So try it out and explore this world. You might enjoy it (and find bugs 🐛) 😜
alright 20 minutes is definitely not a couple of hours, going to smash it tomorrow. Will let you know how was my experience
thanks! Let us know whats your experience... your feedback is helpful <3
I love the game and the idea of bugs with swards, it's so much fun!
Haha thanks! Personally i always had this idea of mosquitos that bite so hard they seem to carry swords to attack us.
Tiny world theme helped us come up with this idea for a game. So why not? Equipped bugs 🤪
I really like the visuals in this one! Nice job fellas
Yeah the artist in the team is awesome. Check his profile to see more on his work - send him a msg to get his art in your game if you want ❤️ 100% recommended