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UnderAchiever's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #284 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
| Overall | #595 | 3.815 | 3.815 |
| Enjoyment | #758 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Presentation | #1084 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
Ranked from 56 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 role of achievements, usually positive, has been reversed so that they are something to be avoided at all costs.
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 team definitely didn't underachieve with that game!!! Super enjoyable, love how you learn what achievements you need to avoid in the earlier levels and that stays constant in later ones too. And the final level! I don't want to give spoilers but I have no idea how you made and tested so much good content in. Great work, truly enjoyed this one.
Thanks so much! Glad you liked it! The achievements actually don’t totally stay constant, but that’s something we will fix after the jam is over, since it was what we were going for.
We’re really proud of the final level. It was an idea we had relatively early that we thought would be really funny, but we didn’t expect to have time to implement it. As for how we made and tested so much content: sleep was pretty low on the list of priorities last weekend XD
Really fun Game! Made me laugh a lot!
Thank you! Glad you liked the humor!
Awesome game, art looks cute and really liked that boss fight (kind of?) at the end, got 16 coins there lol. Very fun game great job y'all!
Thank you! Well done on the boss fight, that’s a pretty solid score!
Wow, fun and interesting concept, really liked it!
Thank you!
It's a fun concept! It took me a while to understand that the achievements are hinting me how to pass the level. I think my confusion came from some level are passible with an achievement? Is that on purpose or is that a bug?
I also liked the 8-bit animations, and the platforming physics. I read from the comments down below it's not what you wanted exactly, but I liked that the up arrow gives me a bit more wiggle room when I jump XD
Great submission!
Thank you!
We weren’t totally sure whether we should make there be some levels that you could pass even with an achievement. It wasn’t a bug, but it’s something we might change in a hypothetical future of the game. We tried to make it reasonably clear that was okay on the levels where it was with the level’s opening dialogue (“something tells me I can get at most one achievement” and “maybe if I only accomplish one of these feats it’ll be okay”), but I understand the confusion since that made the “rules” a bit inconsistent between levels.
Also, so pleased to hear you liked the platforming physics! It’s not how we wanted it to feel exactly, but it’s nice to hear it isn’t universally disliked :) It definitely plays better with a gamepad because you have more granular control, but we tried to make both control schemes reasonably acceptable.
Who would've thought being a screw up required so much conscious effort (thus assuming being a doctor is a screw up)? Both the idea and the execution are great, some hilarious moments - cmon, bullet hell achievement avoidance. Fun puzzles of course. One of the best games this jam!
Thank you so much, and glad you found the bullet hell idea as hilarious as we did :)
Cute game. Love the achievement popups, I like how they cover both extremes of being a completionist(killing all enemies, getting all coins) as well as a speedrun/challenge run(no coins, no kills), so it really encourages you to be absolutely average, very fitting. Final boss was very clever and fun. Good job!
Thank you! Yeah, we tried to include a broad sampling of achievements in the limited time we had, so glad you feel like we managed to!
This was so entertaining to play! Reginald throwing coins at me was intense, I thought I wouldn't be able to continue my medical career. HAAHHA. From art, story, and humor everything was greatly implemented. Good job!
Um, akshually, that was Regibald. You must be getting him mixed up with your dad, Archinald =P
Glad you liked it! Hope you were able to salvage your medical career despite his “help”!
Absolutely loved it. Such a clever take on the theme and such clever use of it in it's levels, I frkn lost it at the "boss fight" :D
Thanks so much! And yes, that is exactly the reaction we hoped to get from people when they got to the “boss fight” XD
Literally 10/10. Perfect fit for the theme, actively funny, engaging *and* generally fun. Really *really* well done!!!
Wow, thank you so much for the high praise!
Art is amazing. Story is great. Had a couple of laughs. And the idea is really good. My only gripe is platforming and the last part of the game. Wasn't able to beat it got me frustrated :D. Other than that wonderful work.
Thanks so much!
Yeah, sorry about the platforming physics, we didn’t end up having time to refine them as much as we would have liked.
As for the last level, yes, it was probably a bit too hard, but here are some hints in case you want to try again:
Click here for the specific scoring details
You will win the level if you get 4 or fewer achievements, so less than 25 coins. So you can tank it a bit on the harder parts, as long as you dodge the easier phases more thoroughly.Click here for a small hint
If you go all the way to the left side after it starts, you have a bit more time to react, since the view will no longer center on you completely. However, the hardest phase is nearly impossible to dodge from the far left, see hint below.Click here for a larger hint
The super hard phase (the connected lines of bullets with a single gap) can be dodged by going back and forth between the second-from-the-top middle platform, and the small platform down two and over one from it.You’ll need to do a little hop on the circled top platform as the coins pass by, but we found that to be easier than going up higher to a safer platform.
The pixel art was so good! Fun idea.
Thank you!
Intersting take but for me the jump is floaty for the y axis but rly fast for the x axis which makes it rly hard to controll - also I would love to know what to do before a level begins - I get that there are jokes like with the goomba level and the pacifist if you don't kill at least one but it feels cheap if you get an achievment like no dmg in the bee level when that never existed before
Yeah, unfortunately we weren’t able to put more time into tightening up the platforming physics, but it was on our to-do list, haha. It was a lot worse about 4 hours before submission, but we are still not thrilled with how the movement feels.
Fair point about it feeling cheap, both with not knowing what to do and with introducing new achievements. We tried to give slight hints about what you might have to do with the initial dialogue, but the game is definitely designed around needing to lose a few times to gain information. For the game jam we prioritized letting people see more dialogue, so we didn’t want to make it too easy to know what to do ahead of time.
Definitely a lot to think about if we decide to keep working on it after the jam, thanks for the feedback!
Happy to help! Be sure to check out my game
Yep, will do! We make sure that someone from our team plays and reviews every commenter’s game :)
I really like the hand drawn pixel art style and something was just so charming about the dialog sound I couldn't get enough! Really fun concept of being totally average. The first time I got the pacifist achievement I laughed out loud
Thank you!
Glad you like the “voice acting”, we do too! Fun fact: originally to save development time, but then because we thought it was funny, all three characters use the same voice sound but with different pitch adjustments.
The art and dialogue is amazing! So much detail for such a short development time. I had a bit of audio issues in the browser version and sometimes the controls felt difficult, but overall this was really fun! I shall get the minimum achievements possible >:).
Also if you saw me accidentally comment the same thing like three times.... no you didn't. :) (Sorry for any notifications).
Thank you!
Yeah, we noticed some mild audio issues with the web build, but didn’t have time to troubleshoot all of them. The controls/physics are a bit wonky, we know. Another thing we didn’t have time to get to, haha.
Thanks for playing!
Loved the art, dialogue and humor of wanting to not get achievements. Great game overall, great job!
Thank you!
LOVE the concept, makes for a great puzzle platformer. The controls could definetly use a bit of work but I had a lot of fun trying to make my dad... unproud of me? Great work yall :)
Thanks for the feedback, and glad you liked it!
And yeah, for sure, tightening up the controls will be one of our first orders of business if we pick this up again after the jam…
There's something great here. A legitimately funny puzzle platformer. Did a great job at turning a game on its head without just being a different already existing game. Really liked the original art as well. Pallet swapped uncle gave me a genuine laugh. Controls need work- jumping is floaty and awkward, but this is a solid base for a great game.
Thanks for the kind words! Palette swapping dad to make the uncle was originally a time-saving measure, but we’d probably keep it even if we had infinite time because we found it kind of hilarious when it was implemented.
Agreed on the feel of the controls. Tightening them up was definitely something we would have liked to do, but ran out of time for additional iterations. Believe it or not, the jumping was a lot more floaty and awkward about 4 hours before we submitted, haha.
The dialogue was great, and gamepad support is a nice feature. I loved the game a lot! That being said, I might be doing something wrong and can't get past the third level?
Glad you liked it!
Here’s a hint for the third level in case you want to try again:
Third level specific hint
The achievements you can get are “Collect 5 coins”, “Finish the level without taking any damage”, and “Finish the level without killing any enemies”, so the requirement to win is to both take damage and kill the noomba, and of course collect fewer than 5 coins.
You can satisfy the first two requirements by letting the noomba hit you before you kill it.
Ahhhhhhhh, silly me! I'll definitely be trying again with that knowledge in mind!!
So... I actually didn't realize that the achievements give you hints about what to change about your strategy, and I'm really dumb for not noticing that in a game literally called Underachiever.
Great game, surprising amount of content, great concept/puzzle design.
Haha, no worries. We might have been wise to put some specific inner monologue text after certain types of failure, at least in the earlier levels, to make it a bit clearer. Something to think about if we expand on the game after the jam. Thanks for playing!
Beautiful platformer, creative core idea! You definitely made a cute little game :D
Thank you!