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Melon Demon Island's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #167 | 2.157 | 3.200 |
| Overall | #213 | 1.921 | 2.850 |
| Fun | #214 | 1.753 | 2.600 |
| Graphics | #218 | 1.753 | 2.600 |
| Gameboy-ness | #221 | 2.023 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
i wish i had gotten to this before the ratings ended. this was very fun overall and i think your sprites are really cute! definitely has a GameBoy feel to it. i love the music and sound effects! the levels were nicely designed and you have spike hazards and a couple of enemies to add a bit of variety to the gameplay. i largely agree with everything danwithfaintpraise mentioned.
it would be nice if the stationary enemies had some kind of sprite change to telegraph when they are about to pop up and fire. you can figure out the timing easily enough, but it's a touch that really can help players and make the game feel more fair.
the jump needs some work, and makes the game a little bit harder or more frustrating to play than it should be. i think most players will agree that a platformer with a good arch to the jump just feels better. so, like Dan mentioned, you want the jump speed to gradually diminish as the player reaches the peak of their jump and then let gravity kick in and take them back down to the ground. even though it's using Unity, i think this video explains things pretty well. i know there are some great jump tutorials out there for GameMaker as well, so you might want to check out some of those. i think this HeartBeast tut covers it.
also because your jump goes up and then back down so quickly, it makes it virtually impossible to jump over the enemies. maybe that's something you wanted in the game, but it was a little frustrating for me. having a jump that has a little more air-time would also solve this issue.
i like the boss a lot. it has a nice attack pattern. i found the bullets to be a bit difficult to dodge due to the jump. i think they wouldn't be an issue if you changed it a bit. i also agree a little more feedback on when the boss is getting hurt would help. i wasn't sure if the face change meant i was hurting him at first, but that's great start. if you look at other retro games, often times they will add some kind of flashing on the sprite when they're damaged, or an impact effect of some sort. also a sound effect for when there's actual damage could help as well. i realize this is a jam, so you may have just run out of time for these things. i didn't get any sounds into my game, lol!
i'm still using GM1.4, but i assume version 2 has about the same options when exporting. when you go to "create application" to export there a few options to "save as type" below the file name. i would definitely agree to not do the installer.
anyway, sorry for the wall of text! i hope this is helpful feedback for you!
Thanks for the compliments and feedback! It's funny you mentioned Heartbeast's videos, because I actually watched a lot of his stuff when I was first learning GameMaker Studio. Unfortunately, I wanted to figure out as much of this game as possible on my own at this point, so I only referenced tutorials I'd seen before for occasional stuff. I also never attempted a platformer before this, so needless to say it was a bit of a learning experience in that regard particularly :P
Sorry about the installer. The only options I was given were for that or a .zip file, and for some reason it wasn't letting me upload the whole .zip file. I likely could have figured it out, given more time, but I was close to the deadline at that point. I plan to use a .zip file next time, though!
I'm also sorry to hear you had so much frustration and difficulty with the game. I did a lot of testing to make sure it wasn't too hard, so I'll admit I'm a little surprised. I'll try to fix the jumping in the post-jam patch update, but I can't make any promises for practical reasons, unfortunately.
There actually is a sound effect when the boss takes damage. Maybe it was drowned out a bit by the background music or bat swing sound. Again, I'll see what I can do about this in the update.
I am glad to hear you liked the game overall! Rest assured any feedback I'm not able to use when patching this game will be kept in mind for the next one. Thanks again!
I really liked this! A couple of nitpicks though:
All that said though, I had a lot of fun with this and you should be very proud of it as your first completed game. I liked how you made different branching paths to explore, the shooting enemies were thoughtfully designed with their limited kill-able window of time, and having the 5, 10 and 15 melon gates was a nice way of dividing the game up into distinct sections. Great job!
Thanks for all the great feedback! Sorry about the installer. The only options I was getting were for a .zip file or an installer, and for some reason it wasn't letting me upload the whole .zip file. Next time I'll try to see if I can get that working, since (in theory) I won't be so pressed for time to get my game next game posted.
I've been getting a lot more clarification on that issue with the jump lately. I'll see what I can do about patching it, but I can't make any promises at this point, given that it might require redoing a lot of work.
The boss has a very short window of opportunity where you can hit him. It's subtle, but you can see a visual cue when he stomps down if you look closely. I'm beginning to think I made it too subtle, though (it was hard coming up with something I was happy with that worked with the limited color palette). I'll see if I can improve this in the patch, too.
I'm glad to hear you liked the game overall! Not sure what you mean about a 15 melon gate since there were only two in the game, but otherwise thanks again for the feedback and the kind words!
Game feels good and chill. Graphics are cute tho!
Music is great but feels not "gameboy" to me. Also the jump is kinda strange to be honest, even if playable.
Oh and I had some strange issues with enemies losing their colliders for some reason after I come back to a room I visited.
Overall, cool game!
Thanks for the kind words! I'll see what I can do about tweaking the jumping a bit after the voting period ends. I realized it was a little floaty, but at the time I thought it fit the easier platforming I was going for. In hindsight I guess I overdid it a bit.
That's strange about the enemy colliders. That's never happened to me in any of the tests I've done, and I can't think of any reason that would happen....Can you think of anything else specific you were doing when this happened?
Really great music! Simple cute gameplay. Your jump is a little fast compared to your fall. Great job.
Thanks for the compliments! I realize the jumping is a bit floaty...at the time I just wanted to make sure the platforming never felt difficult, but I may have gone a bit overboard. I'll see what I can do about patching that after the voting period is done.
Some of my favorite music of this jam by far! love the color palette too! Might wanna give a tiny bit of extra jumping headroom if you keep working on it. But great job! And again I loved the sounds.
Thanks! Glad to hear you liked the color pallette. I'll keep that point about jumping headroom in mind next time.
Some of my favorite music of this jam by far! love the color palette too! Might wanna give a tiny bit of extra jumping headroom if you keep working on it. But great job! And again I loved the sounds.