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
I must say, playing as an ANT and using weapons to beat up other creatures is kind of nice.
Cool game concept and good job so far!
Thanks for playing!
haha I remember when we discussed the game idea - I shared how sometimes I imagine Mosquitos with swords because they can bite hard sometimes... Thanks for playing the game! :)
I beat all 3 bosses. At first I used the katana, then swapped to try different weapons like the broadsword and ninja stars. It was fun! I love the perspective choice and the mushrooms is really cool effect. The "keep playing" feature saved me a few times, but that's ok. My main feedback points were I would struggle to find health pots like i was ina drought and then randomly get a flood back to back (this impacted me dying a lot or finding bosses too easy such as face punching them to death). I also kept clicking thinking my character would turn to attack where the direction of the cursor is but he would swing in front xD haha. My favourite aspect is for sure the mushroom trip and the leaves moving but was a great experience overall! Congrats on the game ^.^
Nice that u managed to beat them all! I do agree that health potion drop rate should be a bit higher. Happy that so many people like the mushroom trip I made😃 Thanks for playing!
"thinking my character would turn to attack where the direction of the cursor is but he would swing in front." Definitely will rstatiemember this! I thought it was fine to attack in front, but I guess it's more intuitive/safe to just attack where the mouse looks at. Thanks for sharing your feedback!
Yeah maybe drop % chance for potions is too low... or not "static" like always 25% or something.
Thanks for testing the weapons! I had fun designing them, and I'm glad you tried them all :)
Great game, and the art is very nice, I just killed the spider, but the rat is pretty hard, as it regen his life.
My tip is to try hitting it constantly to keep it from regaining health. Thx for playing!😃
haha as my partner say, don't stay away. Currently has 10 seconds penatly. If you don't hit it before that - it will start to regen. This is to avoid players from running away (or heal boss on player death). :)
Love jumping around with the spear. I found a small bug for you, if you die while holding Q for the magic attack then you will only perform magic attacks after respawning when clicking Left or Right on the mouse instead of normal attacks. It locks you out of normal attacks until you hold Q and click to use a magic attack like you were supposed to do originally.
Hmm! really? I guess setting "isSecondaryAttack" bool to False on respawn/death could help?
HMM I didn't think it would "stick" as I used "on hold Q = true" and "on release Q = false" so even if was "stuck on death" it should have released when using it again alive... weird... I'll have to test this and see what's up
Yeah lance is cool! I got the idea from Final Fantasy Tactics - the dragoon skill Jump. I assume you know that one :D
Felt Darkwood vibes the whole way through! I haven't managed to beat the game (got stomped by the rat and ladybug bosses, gotta git gud), but I enjoyed the graphics and the overall feeling of the game!
One suggestion I would give is that, since the player attacks using the mouse, the main character could attack in the direction the mouse is pointing.
Besides this, congratulations for accomplishing that much stuff in only 10 days!
Oooh this is the 2nd time we get this feedback. You think its a good idea to just rotate to where the mouse is and make it attack there? Hmm
I'll have that in mind! Thanks for your feedback ❤️
Interesting idea! I didn’t make it very far, but I loved the visuals. Great work!
HAHA I got all woozy from hitting a mushroom and then got eaten by a ladybug, i love it! The game is beautiful and really polished, nicely done!
Thanks for trying it out!
First of all it looks great, and the leaves moving with the player is such a nice touch. Incredible work for such a short time frame. Loved the dual wielding and all of the weapon effects. The spear jump attack was probably my favorite. I'm not sure about some of the controls though. If you're going to use mouse clicks for attack I think it's much more intuitive to have the player attack in direction of the mouse rather than the direction it was facing. Also I found the 'Q' button to be too close to tab and kept opening the menu in a fight. Since your thumb isn't doing anything I think spacebar might be a better choice? Still great work overall!
Hmmm you think so? I didnt like Q... I tried using ALT first but it gave me shortcut interference with unity editor and then used CTRL and had the same but with web browser at itch io (ctrl+r midgame is not fun haha)
So because of time.. set Q for that... Someone else suggested Q for LH, and E for RH side special attack. No clicks.
And what weapon did you mention? Because I set all skills to face where the mouse is... Instead of just attacking ahead (it was like this initially) and then transitioned to aim with mouse. Im glad you liked the jump attack <3 I took that idea inspired from Final Fantasy Tactics dragoon jump :)
Or did you mean EVERY attack to face the mouse? Hmm interesting. Didnt think about that. You believe that would have been a better way to aim primary attacks? I left that for skills only hmm
OH - and Space is for evasive movement :D
Ugh you're right can't believe I forgot space was dodge. I think 'E' is a better option than 'Q' it's easily accessible from 'WASD' and isn't close to anything else.
I did mean for every attack to face the mouse. When you use mouse buttons as controls it makes intuitive sense for the mouse position to be considered as part of the input and the behavior between normal and special attacks should be consistent. If you want to keep attacks relative to player facing it would make sense to abandon mouse attack altogether. At least that's my opinion but these aren't really the kind of games I make so don't feel the need to take me too seriously.
I've always meant to play Final Fantasy Tactics but never got around to it
Every feedback is appreciated :)
I will still think about controls over the next few days. Never done games before and being able to assign ANY key... Is harder than I thought.
There's a FFT for mobiles version. Definitely worth your time. A jewel of game :)
The art is gorgeous and you really nailed it with the reactivity as the player bumps into the flowers and other elements from the scenery. The visuals when you interact with the mushrooms are nice, but sometimes they linger for quite a while. Is it a buffering effect? The longer you sit on them, the more the effect stacks?
Gameplay-wise, I liked the variety of weapons and all their different skills and characteristics. It's a bit hard/counter-intuitive having to activate their special attacks by holding Q and then clicking. Maybe you could have Q for the left hand and E for the right hand, that would make it better. The balancing and game-feel on attacks, be it from the player or the enemies, is a bit rough, but I think that's expected. It's hard coming up with these kinds of mechanics, they require a lot of time for polishing and that's not something we had in abundance, I would say.
When I first started the game I had it on my laptop's screen, and on it I ran into the game's screen getting cut off at the sides, so I couldn't read the instructions on the menu. I switched to my other screen and it looked right. My laptop's screen is 1920x1200, which isn't a common aspect ratio, so that is what may have caused the issue.
So, overall good experience with the game, I read you're just 3 months into game development, and that's already great work, you're really good at it.
EDIT: typos
Thanks buddy. We did our best in the time we had - and even so personally had combats with very dark bugs (coding errors) in the process.
Lots of experience gained in this. Never done something like it and im glad i had a great team to accomplish this outcome.
Thanks for trying it out and your helpful feedback.
Yeah we didnt have time to balance damages & hp... We did a rough model of it... So yeah. Lots of room to improve on that area. Not really sure how its properly done (especially without playtesters).
I usually find games easy. Im very good at playing (due my aspie syndrome?) so making it balanced for people not like me is very hard...
So any feedbacks on this - im open to learn.
Not sure about the shroom effect - I'll ask the team. Before it used to last very long (and didnt go away when dead). Now it seems short :P
Oh and about controls... I wanted Alt+click to be the shortcut. But had many issues in unity editor triggering other shortcuts midGame... Later one tried Ctrl+click and wasnt itch.io friendly (accidentally ctrl+R reloaded page i.e.)
So i went with Q - next to movements... But yeah I'm not fancy about it either.
A letter per hand? Hmm sounds more complictaed than it is - dont you think?
Thanks for your words. You're very kind. I can see a brilliant future developing games (for me and my partners). Im happy with the built game. Despite my ant-size short experience i was able to contribute and deliver.
(About the resolution... No idea how to test that on my end :/ guess that's what playtesters are for when real games are in the make)
About the Q and E thing, I meant it as just pressing those buttons to activate the skills, without requiring you to also click, like you'd have in some of those Hero Shooter games.
Like you pointed out, having playtesters is a must on more complex games like this one. Being able to see how the game is felt under different individuals eyes is a must for making out details you would never realize otherwise.
OHHH that is such a good idea! I never thought about that haha whoops. Clever one. I'll keep this on mind for my next games!
Yep, I wish we could have tried to get playtesters before the date ended. Getting feedback seems ultra important (for any kind of games).
Did I win? I also found and defeated Duke Arachnos, but that didn't give any sort of game clearing message either.
You packed a lot of content into this! A lot of weapons and enemy types and special abilities. And intoxicating mushrooms, which I was definitely not expecting.
I'm sure there's a way to play the game well and strategically but I found mashing the attack button on bosses and avoiding all other fights was pretty effective. :)
Hahaha I heard someone beat the game without knowing there was such a thing as evasion, running or special attacks... Yeah, a bit of a tutorial start would have been a good idea for this game. We added a tooltip with controls afterward (and even so people dont read).
I wanted the game to be hard, my mates said that easy is fine... So I guess thats what occured. you can just run through and win the game without much effort or strategy :P
I made the weapons thinking of strategies - not just rush in, but also not being able to stand back forever.
We missed the balancing part of HP, damage and enemies in each map.
Like maybe trap the map until all enemies are killed. And yeah, clear victory after bosses is a nice suggestion. Thanks!
Hmm, no win message after rat? Strange. Will check that out, anyways here is the ”voiceline” that was supposed to play after u beat him: ”Oh vengance, but still so much anger… Victory?”
Oh, I did get that message yes. But there were still other areas to explore at the time, I hadn't yet found Duke Arach...nos? Duke Arachnid? The spider duke. Also exiting and re-entering respawns the boss, so I think in total I defeated Rattius IV through VI 😄
Haha, ye I guess the boss should have stayed dead, but since it’s not I guess we are calling it a feature😅 Did u find the ladybug boss aswell? That one is the hardest imo.
I did not! I thought I'd explored the alternate paths but it seems I'll have to return another time to finish the task.
This was amazing, I tried to do the same mechanics but this is so clean and functional, amazing job in just 10 days. I'm a big fromsoft fan so this was intuitive. maybe go all the way, add a parry, flask upgrades bonefires etc. I love everything about this.
Hehe im glad you liked it. The idea started as simple combat between ants and spiders and mantis... And then came the lady bug, and dark souls / elder rings into it. And this came out. Thanks for your feedback. It was fun creating these game mechanics :)
It has potential to become a AAA game for sure :P but... You know... Stuff happens ;)
It was fun, but I should have read the instructions first. But it was pretty intuitive, didn't know about Q. Jumping out from areas I couldn't see seemed like a cheap shot, I died a lot, might have been just me as a player. Overall, fun game, great job!
Oh! So instructions are not clear? :\ we even added a hint at start to open inventory with TAB to see how to play... guess people dont read now at days... How else can we make sure people know how to play? and you said its intuitive... But other reviews didnt know such skills existed :P
Im glad you died a lot - thats sort of the essence here haha keep coming back!
No they are clear I just didn't read and yes you are right people might not read before jumping in.
I don't know about a tutorial, personally. I found it pretty intuitive. Although, i'd love to have a description or hard numbers on the weapons. I found the Big sword - with the spin attack - and the chakram-like one, with the thrown power - to be the best. and it was a lot of fun! I wish i could have transformed into the other bugs - especially the praying mantis - as i leveled. i got to level 40 and didn't notice any really difference in strength or anything?
Anyway - i LOVE this game. so much fun, and so visually pleasing.
Personally I dont like tutorials at the beginning... Discover & learn as i go... But not all players are into this. So we came out with the idea to put the controls in the inventory menu, and a hint in the first loading screen to open inventory. Maybe UI buttons indicating what's possible?
Hmm like weapon stats? When hovering on them... Or clicking on them... Showing the stats? True. That would have been a nice thing to see.
Im glad you liked those weapons! Those were among my favorite ones to make - specially the Shuriken. (I think we missed the opportunity to show the actual names of the weapons! Haha)
Initially we wanted to let players choose their character. Melee mantis, Ranged Spider, Hybrid Ant... But it was too much - so we stayed with ants and make all others the enemies.
Levels increased your HP, Energy & Potions capacity. This wasn't planned from start - it was more a feature that just happened on the go and a nice idea from our partner Simpan :) kudos to him
Thanks for your feedback!
I agree with Chuske that a tutorial in-game would be a good idea. I had trouble when it came to moving while point-blanking with the rats, and I couldn't get my attack left-click to work. but I did enjoy your idea!
Hmm! What do you mean by " moving while point-blanking" with the rats?
What made your left clicks not work? Im curious since I made the main character mechanics... I tested it maaaany times, but I wish I had more playtesters before due date to get this kind of information I may have not spotted on my own.
Thanks for your feedback!
So great. Like appart from some missing SFX sounds during the fights, it just is THAT good. Congrats on doing such a cool game in such a short time, I'm throughly impressed :o
We did add SFX... Maybe the music was too loud it opaque the other sounds? Guess that also needed balance haha thanks for your feedback! (Im also impressed of what we made :D)
Sprites are well made and the level design is nice.
Thank you!
Cool concept and really amazing how much immersive feel you got into this, such as the plants moving in a realistic way as you brush by them. The combat and the sprites are super lovely.
If you had more time, I think perhaps a bit more guidance/hints/signposting/tutorial on the early levels would really help to get players up to speed. This is especially important for a jam where players play a lot of games just for a short time in each game. It took me a minute or two to spot the route out of the first map. Could also introduce the mechanics a bit more gradually.
Unbelievable how much detail and immersive feel you got into a game in 10 days, what an amazing effort. You guys have real talent.
Thanks! I believe I speak for my time when I say this... None of us expected this result haha we had fun implementing stuff one after another without a solid plan from the beginning. So yeah each of us added to it love and passion and this occured.
Im glad you like it!
Im not sure about a tutorial.. but definitely more hints in the UI at least in the first map. So player knows the controls at least and what the ant is capable of. (Also, didnt think about this possibility of players rushing from game to game.... Wasnt expecting that).
Thanks for your feedbck! I also believe this game is much more than required for a jam haha after watching so many games I think we went miles ahead unnecessarily :P but hey! It was fun <3
Cool game, nice graphics! At the start I got attacked before I had a chance t pick up the weapons though! :)
Hahaha i wonder if you got scared or annoyed.... I personally enjoy being attacked and being defenseless for a while. Kind of get the heart pumping going :P
But neh - this was a bug we didnt fix on time. Enemies going after ant even if out of range. :P
I wasn't annoyed, I just found it funny :) Luckily I soon found the weapons after being attacked.
haha that's the effect we wanted. Not entirely defenseless - just shake your body and survive :)
Great job! I really like a lot of the effects you have! Walking into some of the plants, the petals coming off were super cool! Also, the subtle effect of the mushroom was really fun, too!
I did get a little confused what to do after I beat the spider boss, so I went back to the beginning, but there was nothing.
Leveling up did not seem to do a lot since I still got owned by the mantis enemies. The spider boss was easier than the mantis enemy lol
I have not played a lot of dark souls games, but I imagine that is where some of the inspiration comes from? If so, it would be cool to have more than just 1 health pickup. I eventually got a lot more, but I had 0 for the longest time.
Overall, there is a lot of polish and a lot of good things with this game and it is super impressive, good job!
Never played dark sous (or elden rings)? Ohh.. you're missing out on some good game mechanics in those... Yeah we got inspired by that. I never played elden, just dark souls. And my partner never played dark souls, just elder rings. So we fused our ideas together with the other guy (the artist) and made this game from scratch.
We kind of missed some details... To let the player know where to go, and what to do. But hey.... For a jam it's cool! Let people explore what to do next :) (I found lady bugs harder :P btw)
We thought of increasing the amount of potions drop... And yet - there's some fun on getting smashed and just respawn again :D (if you ever decide to play dark souls you'll get this!)
Thanks for trying it out!
Oh good to know there is more! I will say that when I got to the second area, I didn't realize there was a way to go up, so some of the transitions between areas was not always clear, so that might be why I had trouble finding the other two bosses. If I recall, it was a line that looked like it would be a wall/ barrier past a root at the top of the screen in the second area.
Does a secret open up / unlock when you defeat all the bosses??
Thanks for playing! There is a rat boss and ladybug boss aswell, on the right side of the map. If u are ready for a challenge, go try them out😃
The game is too good! good job!
Thank you!