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The Bomb That Brings Us Together's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #973 | 3.587 | 3.587 |
| Presentation | #1191 | 3.457 | 3.457 |
| Overall | #1258 | 3.319 | 3.319 |
| Fun | #1842 | 2.913 | 2.913 |
Ranked from 46 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?
The game features two chain gang brothers joined together by a chain and - a bomb.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
The chains don't really act the way I expect them to. And it took a bit of time to get what I am supposed to do. But the concept has some clever stuff to it. And the art is amazing. Cool.
Thanks Theo! We'll work on the chains in future iterations. It's a bit funny: They were at the core of our intial but fell to the wayside as we made the jam-game due to both gameplay and mechanical reasons. Now they are more of a visualization than anything.
The movement when holding the bomb is way, way too slow for me. I'm just barely inching across the screen. You can (and probably should) totally have the characters slowed down when holding the bomb, but it doesn't need to be THAT slow.
I did really like the art style and the music, though!
Thanks for your feedback! Do you mean movement as the tall guy, the strong one or both?
We wanted to pronounce the differences between them to increase cooperation and communication (our intended audience being two players). Tall one should barely have to walk with the ball at all. But apparently we communicated that poorly?
I can't remember, but either way I wasn't aware that one character or the other was faster/better with the bomb. Maybe making one guy look more muscular instead of just chunky would help communicate that better?
Thanks! It's mentioned on the game page, but we'll probably need to communicate it better in-game through mechanics & art.
Very nice idea and art style! I enjoyed the gameplay but it feels like there's actually some polishing needed. Looks like chain behaves very weird and also I got a weird bug when I accidentaly threw bomb out of the screen and instead of exploding game soft locked with annoying repeated sound.
it looks great! (but i can’t use WASD)
Argh, your the third person that ran into this issue. No idea what causes is, yet.
What system are you using? Does it have a touchscreen? Did you have anything connected, that might be considered a gamepad?
I’m on windows, no touchscreen. I might have had VR controllers connected, actually. that might count??
Possibly! Do you have a chance to try without it?
I like the idea a lot! I could definitely see myself playing this a lot longer, but I did get stuck a couple times because the bomb seems to go off with no warning (the fuse doesn't seem to actually move to show the countdown). Once it blows up and says you lose, it seems to let you keep playing but didn't let the camera move.
Thanks for playing! Yeah, the fuse doesn't move, it's a simple animation and 5 second timer, whenever it is let go. Probably something we'll need to tweak later, but there just wasn't any time. The issue with the lose trigger is a bug mentioned on the full game page, which unfortunately slipped through. You'll have to restart the full game to fix it.
Looks great, the idea is also very cool, it is a popular thing to do two characters, but making them carry a bomb and give them different "abilities" was a very good touch.
From the gameplay perspective, there's a lot of really good ideas, the puzzle design is very nicely done and I haven't really felt like they were too difficult or too easy, which is extremely hard to do without playtesting in my experience.
There are a few nitpicks, but remember, those are all minor (apart from checkpoints :P).
1. There isn't any way to save progress, a checkpoint system would really make it a lot more fun to play, as sometimes the bomb would behave unexpectedly. With a checkpoint, bugs like this are much, much less of a problem, since you don't lose much progress,
2. The onboarding experience could be a bit better. When the game started, I was placed in a level, with a bomb far away and it exploded, I lost immediately. Nobody is going to know what to do, though this was in the end a successful learning experience for me, it can be done better. The problem here is that the game relies on a caption to explain this (you probably should pick it up - or something like this). If someone can't read (kids or people with impaired vision) or can't understand english, they might get frustrated and quit playing. The first impression is the most important, because people aren't invested in your game yet and it's very easy to lose them.
3. The aiming mechanic done alright, it's simple to understand after a few tries, but it doesn't show the differences between characters and can be a bit misleading. It was a smart idea to make it go up and down and use only one button, but maybe varying the distance the "shadow" of the bomb shows up at or adding a smaller and bigger arrow would help (or something like this - this is very minor),
4. The movement of the tall character when carrying a bomb is very slow, but I don't know why that should be like this - there's no timing aspect when the bomb is carried and it only slows down the game. I was just throwing the bomb in front of the character to speed it up (and at one point it bounced weirdly and I had to catch it before it exploded),
5. There is a"yanking" mechanic, but it's not really used in any way (you have to suspend one of the characters at one point) and is not conveyed to the player in any way. Also, the chain graphics don't really show any tension - which I know is a hard thing to do btw - but it makes for a chain that is portrayed by the player as mostly irrelevant - and it's actually not, it's important to know what is the max distance the characters can be separated by, because you might have to jump somewhere in a hurry and it could mean a lost run.
6. The level design permits the bomb to fall into unreachable places at a few points - which means that the player can't do anything and is just waiting to lose.
As I said, all of those are just small changes (apart from the checkpoint system), I hope my feedback was useful - and definitely keep making games, there's a lot of really cool stuff in this one, especially for 48h ;d
Wow, so much to unpack here. Thanks so much for in-depth. The bomb is one of those "happy accidents" of brainstorming. We initially had a simble ball-chain in mind, but then we realized that there was nothing encouraging catching the ball (and thus less player interaction). Then someone asked "it could be a bomb?" and here we are.
Going through your single points
1. Yes, checkpoint system is def. we'll probably add in a future version (or shorter levels and less glitchy physics...)
2. Totally with you there. I think at the time we liked the comedic moment but yeah ... it's not great. Might just have the bomb start in the air so you auto-catch it. Great points about first language and kids. I think we'll add more pictures explaining what you can/should do. The text was sort of a last-minute solution.
3. Great idea!
4. We figured it's to pronounce the strong one's role, as otherwise tall does most of the fun stuff while the smaller one is just occasionally important. Maybe we should prevent tall to move with the bomb at all? That way the mechanic is more pronounced. But then there's the throw-catch method to circumvent the mechanic... Yeah, we'll have to think about it.
5. The yank's more of a recovery than anything else. We'll have to figure out what to do with it. We've improved the chains already and will probably work on it later. They caused a lot of headache during development.
6. Not much to add, will be fixed :)
Thanks so much again, that was really good criticism.
Awesome aesthetic and really cool idea :)
It was pretty well executed, but I did hit a few bugs (mostly with the chain) that meant I had to restart a few times, but I had a lot of fun, so, I didn’t mind :)
Very unique aesthetic, and a good play experience too! Other than the chain glitching out a bit I had no issues, and the puzzles were interesting with the use of height and having to pass the bomb around so often and make sure it didnt explode (which it may have done for me... once or twice haha). Good job!
I had issues running the game on my laptop (unable to use WASD) but before I got stuck the animation was great, the art style is so unique and polished for a jam entry, and the audio design fits everything in this world. Great job on this!
Thanks for your feedback and the chat about the bug you encountered. We're going to look into this into the jam and hopefully figure out what caused it.
Nice game and a very nice look! Some decent puzzles in there too but as others have said a few physics improvements would really elevate it. One notable one is that the tall guy can just jump over the tall wooden walls which doesn't seem like it's what was intended.
And as I think we've all been spending a lot of warm summer days indoors, then it's the bomb that will bring us together ;)
Thank you! I had a fun conversation yesterday when two friends who played the game were surprised that jump-glitching wasn't the intended play-style. They said it was fun tho and maybe we'll figure out a way to keep the feel of it in without it being an unintended glitch :D
Also, I'm happy you got the reference. Surprisingly few people point it out. :)
Great game with good graphics, it just needs a few little tweaks in physics.
Thank you so much! I agree the physics need an overhaul. Most of the glitches are just making it easier to win and don't break the game but still :D
The artwork for this game was fantastic!
Fun little puzzle game! I like the idea that an object needs to be passed between two characters in order to progress, even if the physics were a bit frustrating at times.
The style is quite charming as well, well done!
Thank you! We'll def. iron out the physic-kinks in a post-jam version. There just wasn't enough time left and we figured it's better to upload a wonky but working version rather than risking breaking everything by "fixing" physics in the last minute :)
I really like graphics of this game
Fun game, but I hate having to download something
Thank you. I'm totally with you there. Unfortunately, the web build kept failing and we didn't have enough time left to fix it before the deadline.
Looks cool, I wish there was a Mac or HTML build!
You and me both, haha. We managed to get the Web Build working about 1 hour after deadline and we'll publish it once the jam is over.
Nice, please post a comment when you do -- looking forward to it!
This game looks amazing and has a cool central concept. I agree with some of the others than the tall man moves way too slow with the bomb though, which made the game a little hard to get through.
Thanks so much for your feedback! Can you elaborate on how far or often you walked with the tall guy carrying bomb? The intended way is that he almost never carries the bomb. Rather he should catch it and then throw it back later. All puzzles can be solved with minimal bomb-carry-walking on tall guy's part. Maybe we have to find a better to communicate this.
The artist deserves to be full of themself, this is really nice for a project with so much time pressure!
The bugs and overall jankiness are certainly the biggest issue facing the game. Some stuff is endearing, like the chain crazily stretching or launching yourself into the air by pressing against a wall and mashing jump, but they do sometimes make things awkward to control or leave one character totally off-camera.
A more robust tutorial would have also been lovely. It wasn't hard to figure out, but it certainly wasn't clear.
The idea is a lot of fun, and the mechanics of tossing the bomb back and forth feel natural and interesting! The character's body types and abilities work really well together. The level design was occasionally awkward or obtuse, but generally presented interesting challenges.
Also, your itch page is fantastic. That sort of playfulness makes me feel good about your game before even downloading it.
Great work here!
Thanks so much! I was obviously kidding, but I am also very hyped up because of these compliments :D
I think we might work on it a bit more after the voting period, just because it would be nice to have the game working without some of the glitches. The feedback from everyone here is certainly helpful!
The artist deserves to be full of themself, this is really nice for a project with so much time pressure!
The bugs and overall jankiness are certainly the biggest issue facing the game. Some stuff is endearing, like the chain crazily stretching or launching yourself into the air by pressing against a wall and mashing jump, but they do sometimes make things awkward to control or leave one character totally off-camera.
A more robust tutorial would have also been lovely. It wasn't hard to figure out, but it certainly wasn't clear.
The idea is a lot of fun, and the mechanics of tossing the bomb back and forth feel natural and interesting! The character's body types and abilities work really well together. The level design was occasionally awkward or obtuse, but generally presented interesting challenges.
Also, your itch page is fantastic. That sort of playfulness makes me feel good about your game before even downloading it.
Great work here!
One thing that happened for me is the short gang brother couldn't be controlled by the WASD keys like the tutorial said, so I ended up playing with one hand on arrow keys and another on 360 controller! I love the hand drawn presentation, however the tall one moves too slowly. Good job overall!
Thanks for your feedback!
Do you mean the tall guy is too slow when he's carrying the bomb or in general? And do you mean the speed feels too slow for the animation or would simply prefer him to be quicker?
As for the controls: I was being a bit too clever when coding the input controllers and made it recognize & switch to gamepads automatically, if they are detected. Which means that if you're playing on your own it's best to disconnect any gamepad before :)
Yeah when he's holding the bomb he's very slow, even for carrying a bomb it feels a bit too much. I'll try playing it again without the controller connected!
I think that's more a design issue on our part. We didn't want any areas where the player should have to move with him carrying the bomb. But after watching others play it we've noticed that there are def. areas where people will do precisely that. And then I can totally understand why the speed is annoying :)