Play curse
The Curse of the Everpong's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #1245 | 3.475 | 3.475 |
| Overall | #2090 | 2.983 | 2.983 |
| Presentation | #2237 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
| Fun | #2646 | 2.575 | 2.575 |
Ranked from 40 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?
You have to be mindful of 2 mechanics at once.
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
This is certainly a unique concept, I haven't seen someone make a more addictive version of googles dino runner yet! The focus-splitting gameplay is really neat, and presents a good level of challenge. I like how the tempo slowly increases, it leads to a nice difficulty curve. The art style and story are cute, and suit the game well.
A few people have mentioned a grace period after death, which I think is a good idea, as a second or two to recover the tempo would be most helpful. The sound effects are fine (though a death sfx would be nice), but the mixing could use some work. The footsteps overpower all other sounds, and it's a bit headache inducing when you're straining your ears to hear the bounces. A few people have also suggested adding music, and whilst some ambient sound would be nice I think there is a high chance that the music tempo might clash with the bounce tempo, so you probably made the right call leaving it out. A little additional detail that would help is the ability to press space to restart. The game mostly does not require the mouse and so it's a little odd that it's suddenly needed to restart after a death. It's a minor detail but would help the overall polish and increase the games addictive qualities. I'm also uncertain as to why the user needs to hold the d key to move. There isn't really a need to ever change directions (that I found at least) and you could simplify the controls down to two buttons by having the character always walk when bouncing, and modifying it to a two button game would make a mobile port easier, if that was something you were interested in. Given I found myself holding d the entire time I don't think this would take away from the games challenge.
Overall the core of the game is great, and really unique. With a bit of polish this would make for a great time-waster! Well done :).
Hey thanks! Really appreciate your feedback!
A lot of what you said had been on my mind after reading the other comments and watching some playtesting, especially with the grace period issues and the sound issues.
The music is something I've been pondering on how to implement. I'm still unsure on how to approach it and my initial ideas only include rough things like music that speeds up with the BPM.
Finally the simplification of making it a true auto-runner was also something I also agree with as it would help with simplifying the controls and make the game more approachable as a whole.
Really appreciate your words, it helps to reaffirm most of my design issues with the game and if the team ever sits down to work on a post-jam update, all these pointers are exactly what I would have in mind!
I think this is the first multiplayer endless runner I have seen.
I loved the concept and I would be more than happy if you make a full build
audio is a tad loud. I like the concept, quiet a brain burner.
Audio way too loud. Art is really nice. Gameplay is pretty epic - I really suck at it, but I found myself really wanting to do another run - it already has that "one more run" appeal that made temple run and subway surfers as good as they were.
Oh my god the hand-to-eye-coordination required! Love it! Really feels like an eternal punishment in a circle of hell.
Would have been nice to have another activity other than walking, maybe it would have worked better as an autorunner? Not sure, but there is so much fun you could do with an design like this if you let the paddle be a constant factor.
I love how it makes me do two things at the same time but one doesn't make the other impossible, kinda like playing the piano.
the concept itself is quite an interesting one having to control multiple mechanics at once is quite dificult a lot of the time, so good job for the whole rage game aspect. the downsides are that when you hit the paddle wrong there isnt a grace period and you will generally continue at the old tempo causing you to hit it wrong twice more and die, so that would be a nice addition, and the audio is (in my opinion) quite loud, and maybe having a backing track as you progress would be nice. but overall the art and simple yet complex mechanic makes for an enjoyable experience, well done
I had a lot of fun playing this, and given how bad I was at it; that’s pretty impressive :D
I liked the presentation, and the conceit is so joyful :)
I think my main cause of failure was once I started to mess up I just fell apart entirely; so although you have the three-strikes to lose, after the first mistake I just made two more in a row. I think you could mitigate this by giving the player a couple of seconds of ‘invincibility’ after a failure so they can mentally reset into doing two things at once.
And yeah, as a few others said, a soundtrack would really elevate this.
But 48 hours is a short amount of time; and I had fun, so :D
Interesting idea and nice art. I'm terrible at it though haha
As most of the game throw in a a whole lot of instruction at once, this game guide you one by one with interesting instruction, make it very accessible.
The pong mechanic have a good potential upgrading to a good beat of rhythm!
Thank you! The design decision to have an incremental tutorial was something we kind of shoe-horned in near the end due to lack of time but we're glad that it still works out in the end!
The pong mechanic was definitely a pain to implement, dynamic BPM is worth so much more trouble that we had initially planned!
Interesting idea, definitely a tricky one to play well haha. Love the theming.
This is a very cool game. I love the humorous story and especially the graphics, they are really well done. I suck tremendously at rhythm games, so I could barely get a score of 392, but I enjoyed every minute of it. The ping pong beat ( that btw, really reminds of Slenderman) adds a lot to the experience. I could feel my own heart starting to race as well. It was quite the thrill, and I rarely get this feeling from a game, so thank you!!! BTW a cool sountrack that would add to the tension even further would have been a big bonus.
Thanks for your comments!
I agree with the idea of adding a soundtrack or some music but we didn't have the time to allocate creative resources thinking about or finding a suitable music when we finally finished the major mechanics and having to implement the final polish and UI stuff. It definitely would have improved the experience.
Glad you loved it!
A good idea! It's really hard to play platformer and hit J in time.
You can also look at our platformer too, if you have a time :)
I really enjoyed the coordination mechanic, you can get into a neat state of focus (other than the walking sound!) It would be nice if there was a small grace period to get back into the BPM after missing a beat, since it's very easy to lose all three lives quickly if you're thrown off the rhythm.
This really proved just how bad my coordination is! It was challenging but fun, every time I thought I'd call it I kept wanting to try again! My main critique would probably be the audio, it was quite loud and jarring. A small bonus might have been to add some sort of background music to go with the ambient sound. The character's design is super cute too!
Nice little game, the idea with the increasing bpm is really nice to create tension and some feel of progression!
the rhythm from walking made it kinda hard to concentrate on the paddle lol, maybe that's intentional tho. neat concept!
That is indeed intentional! Although I still think the design still needs to be revisited to be as approachable, yet retain the difficulty.
This is so hard to me, but I did have fun playing it. Maybe the walking animation need some work to match the speed, but other than that congrats on the submission.
Thank you for your words! Appreciate the comments and your words!
I am very bad at this game, but it's a really cool idea and makes some really interesting gameplay! I also love the visuals, they look great. Nice job!
It looks good but game is hard.