Play game
SparX's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameboy-ness | #18 | 4.103 | 4.103 |
| Fun | #29 | 3.483 | 3.483 |
| Overall | #37 | 3.405 | 3.405 |
| Graphics | #53 | 3.241 | 3.241 |
| Audio | #60 | 2.793 | 2.793 |
Ranked from 29 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
The visuals are a bit bare bones, but they get the job done. Mechanically, it's solid, and has a really nice difficulty curve. Also, one of the most gameboy-ey feeling games as a whole. Would've definitely played a whole bunch of SparX back in 1997!
I'm really happy that you feel that way, it makes me think that I brought that old school vibe to this jam, which was exactly what I had in mind. Thanks for playing!
My record: Level 08 with score: 1805.
Great graphics and sounds! I'll try beat it later xD
Pretty good! 10 more to go ahahah! It's interesting that you died on the level that unlocks the special movement! Thanks for playing!
I thought it would end up at level 10 ....... '0'
Ahahah! Well the last one is a boss, you can count one lvl out ahahah!
Nice Game,
It's remembered Galaga and Space invaders.
Nice, and it's made in Java. Great haha
Thanks! I'm glad you felt the resemblance with the old school games, that was the idea. I don't know if you read other comments but here goes a funny fact ahahah! Although the game is really small (between 100 - 250kb) the game could be even smaller, 32kb or less. Even more interesting is that I decided to make all in one class. It's such a mess aahaha. Thanks for playing!
Nice game and clean good graphics! I noticed the sprites only use two colors and I guess it could have been nice to squeeze in a bit more detail by using all 4 colors :)
Thanks!!! It's indeed true that the sprites only use two colors. Initially, the sprites had more colors, but because they're only 8x8, it wasn't looking very well. As I didn't have much more time left and I really needed to focus on coding, I decided to make them simpler, which did not end well, it became easier to mistake one enemy for another. What I realized tho, is that it doesn't matter ahahah, just dodge the bullets and you'll be fine. I'm joking a bit, but you are right! Thank's for the review!
Installing Java took me back! I like your palette choices a bunch, and the UI is very clean.
I did find gameplay a little lacking, though. You may want to consider shortening the amount of stages until you can use the special movement, the game is pretty repetitive until then. You could also consider adding a hold-to-charge mechanic to your shots, to increase damage dealt. It would offer a reason to not just spam the A button, as you could decide to take out stronger enemies with one well-aimed charge shot instead.
The game has great presentation, but I wish there was more depth. I look forward to seeing what you do next!
Installing Java took me back! I like your palette choices a bunch, and the UI is very clean.
I did find gameplay a little lacking, though. You may want to consider shortening the amount of stages until you can use the special movement, the game is pretty repetitive until then. You could also consider adding a hold-to-charge mechanic to your shots, to increase damage dealt. It would offer a reason to not just spam the A button, as you could decide to take out stronger enemies with one well-aimed charge shot instead.
The game has great presentation, but I wish there was more depth. I look forward to seeing what you do next!
Thanks a lot for the review! The idea of the game is to be a bit like Galaga, so I can't really implement the "hold-to-charge" mechanic. As for the special movement, the game has 18 levels in total, if I activate the special movement, before phase 8, the game will be way easier from the beginning. The idea here is to let the player understand the game and get the hold of it without the special movement. Once he is experienced enough with the normal input, comes the special movement, which must also be "mastered". Games like these end up being repetitive. Galaga for example has a lot of levels, and it's very repetitive, because once you lose you'll have to play the same levels all over again. I'm not comparing my game to Galaga, because mine is really bad compared to it, but I believe these retro games are meant to be repetitive and to be mastered so you can beat it. Arcade games use to be like that before, but it seems that original genre is kinda lost, which's only normal, considering the evolution in the industry. What I might do, is decrease the amount of enemies on some phases, or decrease the number of phases. Also, I forgot to implement a way to get more lives and I'm not sure I'll be able to do it, before the voting ends. I really appreciate your review, thanks!
I hate java but i loved your game xD! couldn't beat stage 3 because i'm bad, but i think is just a matter of time :D!
Yeah java sucks, but I'm stuck with it for now! I'm so used to it, that I'm lazy to pick another language as default. You're not bad and yes it's a matter of time. As a matter of fact, I don't know if the game is properly balanced, I know you are able to finish every level, but I'm not sure if you are able to finish the game as a whole, specially, because phase 17 has the boss. Although on phase 8 you unlock the special movement, which can be activated by pressing 'X'. I believe in the people I making the game for. Thank's for playing it!
PS: Funny fact, when I started making the game, I decided to make it as smaller (I'm speaking of the .jar file) as possible. Then I remembered I was using my engine, then that wouldn't be possible. If I remembered that before, the game would only have about 32kb instead of ~200kb. Such a waste of space ahahah.
For this kind of game in specific, i think if you can dodge the bullets you have a chance to win xD!
Knowing that we have a boss, motivates me even more :).
The special movement, speeds up your ship and your bullets, which if you master it, you can beat the boss easily.
I can't get past the window size screen. What button do you press to select the size. Navigating it with arrow keys works.
The controls are stated on the game's page. The key is 'Z'
Thanks for playing it!
Sorry didn't see that!
No problem!
Yeah, the .exe is made for windows only. I will publish the .jar version. Then tell me if you are able to play it or if still gives you the blank screen.
You may check it out now! Thanks for the report!
Can you try to run the .jar from the terminal. I believe the command is "java -jar SparX.jar". It's probably throwing some error. It might also be because I'm not using "OpenJDK". If the error persists tomorrow I'll boot up linux from my flash drive to try to fix it.
Sometimes errors fix themselves alone and we should not ask why ahahah! I'm glad it worked out! Someone else suggested me a "hold-to-charge" mechanic, but I don't like that idea in this specific game, on a future shmup, it will be a good idea. A guided shot on the other hand, it's a different idea. The thing is, I don't like to add new features after the submission's time is up. I think the voting time is to vote what we created in the given time. Bug fixing and other stuff is, obviously, acceptable. I impose these rules to myself while participating on these jams, to discipline myself, that time's short. I believe this way, I'm learning to work better under pressure. On the next couple of days, I won't really have time to be implementing anything, but in the future I might tweak a few things or even make a second version with Android port with a little touch of my deep self personality in it, I think it would be cool.
About the Atari game, I didn't know that game, thanks for bringing it up. You know, for a while I've been thinking of creating a tool specifically to make games that look like an Atari 2600 game, like a phantasy console. But time has been against me and since I'm working on other projects and doing other stuff, I can't really get any of my small projects done. Although if there was an Atari 2600 jam like this one, I would, probably, be willing to partipate.
Once again, thanks for playing it.