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[Out of Frame, Out of Game]'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #87 | 4.356 | 4.356 |
| Overall | #128 | 4.174 | 4.174 |
| Presentation | #297 | 4.288 | 4.288 |
| Enjoyment | #317 | 3.877 | 3.877 |
Ranked from 73 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 computer plays the game. You are the game camera.
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 an incredibly smart concept, and remarkably polished too.
I feel that the level which introduces the spiders should have had something on the left that shows that the character can jump farther when running from them. And I also wish that the character's AI was a tad better (which is rich coming from me, the bots in my game could not be dumber). It seems she's programmed to move towards the level's ending, which is fine for the most part, but I feel like when the end goal isn't visible her priority should switch to exploring in the direction of the window edge she's furthest from that's not in the direction she came from. In my opinion this would allow the player to better mimic the cameras in actual 2D platformers (for example, think of how easy to navigate Celeste is despite how oddly shaped a room may be simply because of the camera's position, or the camera position in the original Super Mario Bros which I'm sure you've heard about a million times already).
Overall this is a great game and a really strong contender for top 100!
Also, the menu gimmick was funny.
Ooh, great suggestions on how improve the player behavior! Regarding the spider level, not sure what you meant by "something on the left". We will widen the gap in the post-jam version a bit to make it obvious that the player cannot cross it without doing something special.
Something like a gap or shallow pool of water that she jumps over. Just something to indicate that spiders increase her jump distance. I got stuck on the main jump of the level for a bit, and only found out the solution by chance (I'm also bad at games, so that may have been the cause).
Ooooh, this was really clever. I'd love to see a post jam version of this.
(SPOILERS BELOW HERE in case someone is scrolling through the comments before playing)
I think a few more levels with the spider mechanic before the parallax trick would have been great - as it stands, both the spiders and the parallax come off as curveballs instead of puzzle elements. Letting the player warm up to the mechanics by introducing them in isolation before mixing them is generally best, but the last few levels kinda felt like they were trying to rush through their ideas as fast as possible. Really, just more expanding on the ideas here and playing with them would be great. Parallax spiders you can manipulate in the background? Zooming in and out to hide pits, or only keep very specific pathways visible?
Also, a few new mechanics for a post jam version would be cool. Toggleable HUD layouts that block varying portions of the screen? Splitscreen?
My only real complaint other than 'more content pls' is that an explicit explanation of the rules the player follows would be nice. The WASD popup at the beginning was clever, but I think building on that style of second-person exposition to introduce new mechanics and ideas would be great. In particular, the first level requiring keeping the camera low required a lot of trial and error due to having to work out the specific rules of how the player moves.
Overall, amazing work - especially for 48 hours!
Thank you for the feedback and great suggestions! The last levels came out rushed because we ran out of time to design more levels. We would like to explore more combinations of the mechanics for the post-jame version and also experiment with new ones. From our initial list: camera rotation to maybe affect gravity, playing with depth of field to blur objects in and out of existence, split screen where you control 2 cameras that can have different zoom levels, top-down and 3D levels, asking the actual player to simulate screen shake, etc. We really like your idea regarding obscuring the view with HUD!!! Regarding explicit explanation of the rules, there was supposed to be voice acting from the "player". Something like "the camera is not following me" and "this wall is too high for me to jump, I need to find another way". We will include them in the post-jam version.
It was pretty standard for the first few levels. But the last level really caught me off-guard, I would love to try out levels with that parallax mechanic!
Other than that, the game looks really nice. Loved it.
Thank you for playing! We experimented with another parallax level that required zooming in/out, but we encountered some issues and eventually ran out of time. We will try again for the post-jam version :D
Nice game with an awesome idea. Pixel art looks really nice.
Thank you for playing!
Wow, this was fantastic! At first, I encountered what I thought was a bug, but then I realized I wasn't playing the game correctly. What a thrill! Well done!
Thank you for playing! In the post-jam version (not yet released), the player gives up when stuck and restarts the level.
Now, that's interesting concept! Didn't saw anything like it before, great job!
Thank you for playing!
Very fun game and a great Idea, would love to see this with more mechanics and more levels because it is very creative.
Thank you for playing! There will be more levels and mechanics in the post-jam version.
Great Idea!
My player sadly got stuck in the hole and didn't finish LV3
Thank you for playing! You can press Esc to restart the level and look for another way. The player's behavior is based on what's visible on screen. You can also press N if you want to skip the level.
Fun idea and cute art style
Thank you for playing!
Great idea and game! Was going to give some suggestions, but swilliamsio already gave the suggestions I had.
Thank you for playing!
This videogame has beautiful aesthetics and it's original, I liked it!!
Thank you for playing!
I really like this. I like the idea of subtly controlling the player's actions by only showing them what you want them to, it's very clever. It would be good if it was a little bit more clearer what the player was thinking at every time - it seems like most levels have a predefined path that is hard coded? Would be interesting if you could make it more camera-directed, like giving the player a bias towards heading for the exit if possible, or heading to the centre of the camera if otherwise? Just spitballing. Great job on the game.
Good ideas! We may need to modify the player behavior to make it more consistent. Thank you for playing!
Cute game and nice visuals!
The player would get stuck in two different places though, and I'm not sure if there was anything I did wrong.
Thank you for playing! The player's actions are influenced by what is visible on screen. Try panning the camera so that things are hidden or shown.
Hey we had a similar idea! I think you executed the idea really well, it was very fair. And at first I thought it was bugged because the character would get stuck, but then I realized the camera position actually affected where the AI chose to move. I thought that was SO COOL and it really elevates the game!
Ooh, nice frenetic action game! We opted for a puzzle game because we have slow fingers haha.
I love the games where you control the camera. I still remember Sheepolution's "In the Frame" about being a movie operator. Oh, and have you seen https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2023/rate/2161083 ?
You have expanded on the idea of controlling the camera and made the character react to the environment, showing how camera angles can influence a player's choices.
I would love to see you explore the concept further because I personally like it a lot.
The music reminded me of another game, which is never good, but the art was pleasant.
Please answer this comment to tell me which of the three creators I should subscribe to see a follow-up to this game's concept.
Thank you for playing. I could not find "In the Frame", can you give me the URL? 😁 We did not create the music so maybe that's why it's familiar. You can subscribe to this account, this is where we put all our jam games.
I had misremembered the name of the game, it is called "One Take".
He also made another game that I loved: "One Act" (it's not as related as I wish, but I still recommend it)
Thank you for the links!
The game is really fun to play through! The concept is neat and makes for interesting puzzles. I am impressed with the behavior of the "player". Would you be willing to share how you achieved it?
Thank you for playing! We took a simple approach where there are areas in the levels that trigger the actions when entered by the player. We may need to change the implementation in the post-jam version to support advanced behavior.
I really like this concept! Its a small thing but the parrallax background is so nice to look at for some reason. Everything feels "bouncy" in a really satisfying way. Awesome work!
The parallax background is composed of multiple clouds in different layers. Maybe that's why? Not sure haha. Thank you for playing!
The game perfectly fit the 2020 theme "Out of Control" too!
Nicely done.
Ooh, you're right 😁 Thank you for playing!
Very cool take on the theme. I did not read any descriptions, was like what's going on. Then I realized "I am the camera"! Such a cool moment. Especially loved the spider mechanic and could mechanic was also very cool.
Now I need moar levels! Hope to see full release, no pressure :>
Though I think the character was not supposed to get stuck on 3rd level pit, could not figure out how to get her out. ButIt has a ton of potential.Edit: I figured it out. I did not follow the rule 86 of video games.
Thank you for playing! We have more levels and mechanics planned for the post-jam version 🙂 What's rule 86?
Going left ;)
TIL 😂
Beautiful art style, and fun/unique puzzles! We got stuck on the last level but it was satisfying once figured it out! Thanks for the great game :D
Thank you for playing!