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Poly Dash (GMTK 2023)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #108 | 4.127 | 4.127 |
| Overall | #557 | 3.835 | 3.835 |
| Creativity | #563 | 3.949 | 3.949 |
| Presentation | #1797 | 3.430 | 3.430 |
Ranked from 79 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?
Instead of controlling the player and jumping when you need to, like in a regular runner game, you instead have to place/remove blocks to create a path for the player.
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
Wow! this idea works so well. I really enjoyed laying bricks and deleting them. I wouldn't have thought that it would have worked in an infinite runner. The fact that you were able to add upgrades and replay ability is impressive
Thanks a lot! 😁
Indeed, when Cyrille pitched the concept to me at the start of the jam, I saw the light. ☠️
"Wait, you're right! This could be something really good! 👁️👁️" 🤣
The upgrades were added later because the game was pretty fun, but the question "Why should I play again?" was still lingering around and that was the answer we found with the time remaining at hand. Glad you enjoyed it! 👏
That it such a simple idea... But it works so well! Especially in a hectic kind of game as runner!
Honestly, my main complaint would honestly be art... Nothing really wrong with it, just didn't find it that captivating, to be brutally honest... But I think it wouldn't be fair to turn this game down just because of that, especially when it's so much pure fun!
I still think, you did a great job at making this game, it was a really enjoyable experience!
Thanks a lot, dude! 😁
About the concept, we had a lot of fun placing/removing blocks so, I thought that the others will also enjoy it and it turns out it was the case! 👏
About the art tho, unfortunately, since we've focused a lot of effort on gameplay, we couldn't make something that looks better. With more time tho, Art definitely deserves more love! 🤝
You're welcome!
I think, it is the right decision to focus on gameplay, especially in a game jam! You nailed it with simple, but fun placing/removing controls!
a lot of content for such a short time, good job!
Thanks a lot mate! 😁
Not gonna lie, we've lost some sleep to be able to meet the deadline xD
Very fun game! I would add some ideas but the only thing that comes to mind is having more enviroment obstacles so it pushes you to play in other ways, and i'm stretching it.
Good job!
Thanks a lot man! 😁
Indeed with more time, it would be nice to have more stuff that can influence the way you play. Actually, we even thought about having blocks with different effects but with only 2 days, this concept didn't make the cut sadly 🥲 so, we focused on making this as polished and enjoyable as possible!
I really enjoyed the game and the concept of creating the road !
The music is catchy and fits in well with the overall atmosphere of the game.
As for the points for improvement, I find that once you reach a certain speed, it becomes very difficult to avoid enemies and projectiles and to create the road all at the same time. Maybe you should make the "display" bigger, which would give us a longer route and therefore more time to dodge and build. In any case, always qualitative !!!
Keep it up my G 🙏🏿
🤣🤣🤣 I wasn't expecting that one!
Thanks a lot man! 👏
We're glad that you enjoyed the road-building mechanism! About the difficulty, I didn't think about zooming out the camera 🤔. Someone else mentioned maybe having the player try to go forward when he's pushed backward a little. In any case, that's noted on the improvements list. 👏
This was amazingly well done! I like that rather than have the AI be dumb like most other similar games would, the AI in this game is rather good, but there are other environmental hazards that make the game difficult. I really liked the added depth of resource management to the game, it made it so much more fun! The powerups were really well designed, and the controls, to my surprise, felt great. My only complaint is that the protagonist probably shouldn't be allowed to go above the screen, as it makes staying near the very top a very dominant strategy, since to my knowledge no hazards spawn above the screen. This is easily one of my favorite submissions in the jam, this was really fun.
Thanks a lot for praise man! 🤝
Ho man, if you knew how much we've focused on the player and the block placement before moving to anything else xD. Basically, we followed the idea that "if it's funny with cubes, then everything that we add later will just make it better" so, we've put a lot of effort to make sure that the player acts right and the block placement feels correct to avoid "unfair deaths". Lots of bug fixing regarding this 🤣
About the player going at the top of the screen, we've prevented that by Wind Zone but.... honestly, we didn't think about it when just normally climbing blocks. Thanks for pointing it out 👏! We'll have to find a way around this when we resume development on this one. 🤔
This was a lot of fun! super creative! I loved how you didnt cap the block limit at 100. Meaning that you can play super efficiently while its easy at the start and then later when its harder, you have plenty of blocks to save your character! Had a good time with this. Nice work!
Thanks a lot mate! 👏
Indeed the player should be rewarded if he's good. A block cap would have just made the player play lazy when he reaches it. We're glad you had a great time playing our game! 😁
I really enjoyed the game i like balancing my block count while panicking to place more.
xDDD
We're glad you had a great time even with the "panicking" part! 🤣
Good work! I really like the addition of being able to remove blocks and gain back more in my inventory. It really makes me multi-task as I juggle my block count and my pathway!
Thanks a lot! 😁
Indeed, inventory management really made it way more interesting! At the start of the game, we're always destroying the road behind us to get some extra blocks xD
You made this game fun to play and managed to add a lot of features to keep this simple, at first glance, concept interesting. I'm really impressed that you can do so much with just placing and removing blocks.
Great job!
Thanks a lot mate!
Indeed, the core concept is pretty simple (placing and removing blocks) but it feels really satisfying to do so, everything added to that made it stand out even more! We're glad you liked it 😁
Great concept and a lot of gameplay to be had! Found a lot of neat tricks to save blocks and liked the meta-progress. With polish this concept could become a great endless runner or puzzle platformer.
Thanks a lot mate!
We're glad you enjoyed our concept! Lol this is Cyrille's first jam so he must be really proud! 🤣
On my side, I did the best I could to make his idea come to life and we're pretty happy with the result. All the love the game received really made us happy!
Really enjoyed this one really nice concept and well polished well done! :)
Thanks a lot man! 😁
We're glad you liked the idea and our execution! 🤝
Very cool, i haven't seen aa game here yet where you're building the level
Thanks!
Indeed we haven't seen games like this so far either. We thought it would be an idea used more often tho 🤔
Had a lot of fun with this! The core gameplay loop is pretty addicting, and the mechanics work pretty well! I wish the player would speed up to their original position if they started falling behind though (maybe to counter-balance that, you could have the game accelerate more the further you get), and I never really felt the need to upgrade blocks since you can restock on them pretty easily by removing pre-placed ones.
Nonetheless, it's a really solid auto-runner ^^
Thanks for the praise mate! 😁
About the player not being able to come back, indeed someone else mentioned this issue so, we might have to think of a way later to balance this. Also about blocks indeed, I never died because of lack of blocks so decreasing the amount of blocks would turn things up a notch! Thanks for the feedback! 😁
Probably the best take on the 'play as the level' interpretation of the theme yet! Great work!
Thanks a lot mate! 😁
We were worried a bit that someone else had the same idea so, we decided to put a lot of effort in it to make sure that at least, our execution of this idea stands out!
Great concept! Fits the theme quite well. Quite challenging but not impossible.
I was impressed with how much you've managed to get done, including upgrade mechanics and procedural generation! Well done!
Thanks a lot man!
We had to cut corners to have a good experience but everything didn't even make the final cut. We're still pretty happy with the result tho, and glad that you enjoyed it! 😁
Wow this really suits the theme, the presentation layer is perfect and suits very well the gameplay !
The core mechanics of the gameplay is really great and fun, maybe a bit repetitive on the long time but it's still a really creative concept for the player so there is severals ways for him to no feel the game repetitive !
Also i got a bug when right clicking once to removes the blocks, it keeps removing the blocks when i stop pressing on the mouse left click, i don't know if this is inteded but this seems not to me natural if it is
But despite that, the game is really great, keep up the good work man !
Thanks a lot man! We're glad you enjoyed our game! 😁
Cyrille (Game Designer) really had a nice idea for this Jam so, we decided to stick to having a great core loop and, we're pretty happy with the result! Even we had fun playing it, which isn't always the case when you play something that you've made!
About the bug you faced, this isn't a known issue to us so, we would have to dive deeper to see how to resolve it. It's noted tho! 🤔
Thanks a lot mate! We've really spent a lot of time on that part so, we're glad you liked it! 😁
Wow. Wow wow wow wow. This is (so far) my FAVORITE 2023 jam game! It's also the best take so far on the "you make the level" concept.
I'm glad you guys kept the scope very tight to work on making a fun game rather than a "all style no substance" game. The placing and removing blocks is so intuitive and it's so fun trying to make a path for the player while also removing blocks to try and stock up.
I also love the upgrade concept as it kept me replaying to try and get the most upgraded I could get!
Although, this is where the biggest problem is, as it is totally unbalanced when you upgrade yourself enough. At a certain point, as long as you collect upgrades every once in a while, you just never run out of health or blocks.
Another problem is that once you get pushed back, there's no way to catch up with the screen.
However, what you've got is a great concept with great execution. I would love to see the concept fully fleshed out and expanded. I hope you had fun making it!
Man, not gonna lie, this comment made my day. Even called my friend Cyrille (Game Designer) to tell him to check it out. 🤣
We're really glad you've appreciated our game man! 😁
Indeed in 2 days, we decided to keep the scope tight because, there were only 2 of us, a Game Designer and a Programmer. Sure, I'm good at pixel art but if I spend too much time on it, who's gonna code the game? Looking at those facts, going for the gameplay 1st approach was our goal. A lot of efforts were focused on this block placement mechanism and the player's AI so, we're glad it felt good to you! 😁
About the upgrades, indeed it deserves more balancing 😂. That was the latest addition to the game so, maybe with more time we could add more upgrades and balance it properly! A lot of stuff was scrapped due to time constraints 😅 . Cyrille even wanted to have the player being able to place different kinds of blocks, each with different effects (cool idea!)... but this one didn't make the cut.
I didn't mention this during the competition since I thought it would be too hard to make with the time constraints but I also think that a multiplayer option would be amazing and could make the game even better than it is right now!
Still, we're glad you enjoyed the game and you really encourage us to develop it further! Thanks for the feedback! 😁
Ha! I'm glad. You guys deserve it!
I think what impresses me most with the game is that I never died (with one exception where he glitched out and wouldn't jump) because the AI didn't do what it was supposed to. It was extremely consistent how it would work so when you die it never feels unfair.
Also, I didn't even think of having different types of blocks! That is such a great idea, and another reason I would love to see this expanded on.
Good luck! I really think you have a shot at making it far!
Alright!
... We'll take on the challenge then! 🔥🔥🔥
Really like the concept of the game and the gameplay feels SO GOOD, the placing and removing block is so smooth and the game is challenging without putting me in contant pressure tring to min max the best road
Man, thanks a lot! 😁
We've put a lot of effort into the core mechanic: having the player go forward and jump automatically and place/remove blocks so, we're glad you appreciate what we've cooked 🤝
We're also glad that the balancing felt good to you!