Play Ghoul Groove
Ghoul Groove's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #6 | 4.362 | 4.362 |
| Overall | #30 | 4.255 | 4.255 |
| Presentation | #210 | 4.191 | 4.191 |
| Originality | #225 | 4.043 | 4.043 |
Ranked from 47 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Your gun was possessed by a spooky (but also very groovy) ghost, forcing you to shoot in time with the music.
Did your team create the art for this game during the 48 hour time slot?
Yes
We created all art during the game jam
Did your team create the audio for this game during the 48 hour time slot?
Yes
We created all audio during the game jam
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Great game! Saw this on Jupiter Hadleys stream and just wanted to play it. Feels awesome and the shooting on the beat of the music is just fantastic!
And love how the twist is to protect the people instead of having to kill them.
Awesome work!!!
Love this. I included it in my GMTK Game Jam compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :)
This game! I have to say its almost perfect! I want to see this in the top 100! The beat is amazing! The mechanics are freakin amazing! Definitely in my top list of Jam Games!
never knew you were also a programmer nice!
the visuals are adorable, really loved those. checkpoints coulve been nice. I think the core gameplay and execution of it were amazing though. Had a lot of fun playing your game! Amazing job!
Thanks for submitting your game to play it on stream, hope you find the feedback valuable! (Approx time codes to all games played in the description). Congratulations on making a game in a weekend!
Amazing. Really. The hidden tutorial, the music, the concept, the execution. It's just so perfect. Love your work, from GD to this :)
amazing game! i hope you win or at least get featured in GMTKs video
I'm speechless! Your game surprised me in an incredible way! I really liked it, congratulations! Excellent idea, excellent adaptation to the theme, excellent execution! Well done! 5/5 !
So I wanna preface this by saying that I was a big fan of your guys' work in GD when I played from 1.9 to about a year ago, when I stopped playing. I happened to catch your submission in the GD discord by complete luck since I was still in it for some reason, and knew I had to give it a review. Hopefully I can remain as unbiased as possible when writing a review that I know some of my favorite creators are gonna read.
First off, the art is overall pretty great. The "juice" is just right, not over the top but still satisfying. The art style isn't unbelievably unique or original, with the white on black palette being used quite frequently, but it fits the game well and its not just straight lines or one shade of white. Everything is textured and detailed.
In a rhythm game, music is crucial, and I almost have trouble believing that these tracks were made over two days. They're honestly fantastic, with the gun's firing noise acting as a driving bass. Something especially interesting is that the BPM actually affects the gameplay, so the tempo must've been chosen ahead of time. I can see how the game could get really in-depth with songs that slow down or speed up at different times, causing the gun's fire rate to change. And since the game is an auto scrolling rhythm game (hmm, sounds familiar) you could still handcraft the levels based on where the song is at all times.
Gameplay-wise, the game is what you'd expect from experienced level designers. It starts out with a tutorial teaching the basics, accompanied by an ambient track to keep your gun from shooting. This ensures that the player isn't overwhelmed with information when the music starts. I love how the white dudes get more and more dense over time, so despite the game essentially being one long level, there is still a noticeable difficulty curve. One section is particularly awesome, with the cracked blocks on either side insuring that you can only shoot the walls once before they become hazards.
Overall, the game is great, and I wouldn't expect any less from this team. I can tell a ton of work was poured in. Fantastic job on this entry, and I honestly can't believe it doesn't have more ratings.
Also if you guys have the time, it would really mean the world to me if you were to play and rate my game, as I like to think that it implies a lot of design elements I learned from playing GD and similar platformers. That's it, take care y'all.
Unreal. The amount of polish is nuts! I couldn't get to the end, but with that said: fantastic work. I'd absolutely love to see this as a commercial release someday.
Aw man this awesome! Really well executed! I think this is my favourite interpretation of the them yet, love how the music gives you that little bit of predictability without sacrificing the "out of control" idea.
Really well done!
I would love to see a full game to be made out of this!
Great game, love the pixel artwork, and fast paced shooting. Best of luck in the GMTK gamejam!
This was really cool, Well done! Music was awesome, game feel was on point! Wish I didn't have to toturialize every time i played and would have loved to see how far I got, like a score :)
Unique style, I really liked the graphic and music! Clever concept
Thanks a lot! Funnily enough we actually lost our graphic artist during the jam (they had to do family stuff that weekend) so then we had to improvise and that's why we chose this messier, more chaotic, grayscale style! Glad you liked it :)
Favorite game of the jam so far!
Fantastic presentation, and really clever concept!
Thanks, happy to see all this was worth the final hours rush stress :p
Yeah, I saw that it was submitted a half hour before the deadline!
One of my favorite parts is how you did the "tutorial". Just something psychologically fascinating about putting the player in a room with a gun and other characters and the FIRST thing they're going to do is try shooting them. Then of course the player learns that they are NOT supposed to shoot them, and they have to question why they had the initial impulse to shoot them in the first place!
Pretty close indeed, and actually we had to update the game 2 min before the deadline due to it missing important features, almost thought we wouldn't make it :p
That's super cool that you point that part out, because we wondered a long time on how to convey that you shouldn't shoot the characters and never really settled on a definitive solution. I think it's indeed interesting to have the player first go on a genocide run only for him to realize upon death that he should probably have spared them, but there was one scenario that had us worried:
What if a player decides to not kill the white dudes?
Once it becomes a challenge to avoid hitting them that's where he might start shooting them accidentally and not really understand/care that if he does that too much the consequence will be harsh! Then he might end up dying way further than usual the first time, which may lead to frustation. And in the end we never really solved that, so we just ended up posting hints in the description on itch.io to try and prevent that. Hopefully if we end up updating the game later we'll find a solution to that without having to use text because honestly I think "show don't tell" is definitely something that's worth striving for!
P.S.: sorry for the long message, might have went a bit too far here^^
I appreciate the long message! It's cool to hear the thought process behind it. I honestly think the way you have it setup is pretty good. Even if someone initially avoids killing the guys, they would likely notice the life bar and through trail and error figure out what causes it to decrease.
"Show don't tell" is one of my favorite aspects of game designs. When done right the player will feel real ownership over solving a puzzle or figuring out a mechanic. One of the most satisfying feelings a video game can convey imo
Great concept and execution! The music was awesome too!
Thanks a lot!
What a genuinely fun little game. The tutorial bit with you in control was a smart move. The obstacles were various and had their own little solutions to dealing with them. The music was good as well, with the bpm boost really being felt as chaotic. Well done! :D
Ha ha thanks! We actually wanted to add even more chaos by later on having heavier beats every 4 beats that would make you fire bigger bullets, maybe if we expand on it post jam :)
oh dang. that does sound cool. Big shots for heavier beats, and maybe like a shotgun blast for a cymbal hit. Either way, one of the best games ive done so far by a fair bit! :)
Exactly!! So many ways this can be expanded upon. Maybe even near the end when the intensity is at its highest the bpm gets so high that the bullets, being so close together, form a laser and now you have to use moving platforms and "perspective" to your advantage to avoid hitting anyone! But yeah, thank you so much for the kind words!
I really like the concept and execution. Took me a few tries to understand what was going on, but once I did it was pretty fun.
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it, we were worried it might be a bit too obscure to understand at first, but at the same time we wanted the player to sort of figure out themselves what to do exactly, would prob be improved to be easier to get had we had more time^^