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Synthloop Protocol's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #707 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Audio | #749 | 3.633 | 3.633 |
| Creativity | #2251 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Artwork | #2803 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Narrative | #5281 | 2.067 | 2.067 |
Ranked from 30 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?
In this game the main player expression is drawing loops around different enemies and items using your mouse
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
see description for full credits
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Mat, Felix, and Franklin
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Comments
never before drawing circles were that fun :)
Thanks for playing! I tried yours too and I liked how the snake moved in response to the mouse position.
Almost too short for it's own good. Would be good to see what longer runs could become with more upgrades/bosses.
Thank you for your encouragement! I played your game too, and I thought it was super polished. Well done!
This is such a cool game!
The main mechanic is highly polished across all aspects: game feel, art, audio, feedback, everything. That makes it so satisfying to complete a loop and it adds to that "I want more" feeling. Really well executed!
The synthwave aesthetic I think is an accurate decision for a game about drawing lines. It makes for great synergy.
It's a no-brainer for why this idea fits into the theme. Yet, despite being simple, it's so well executed that instead of lessening the experience, it actually adds to it. That's a cool lesson to learn as a jammer.
I only found one balance issue which was that bosses were pretty easy to beat if I drew giant rectangles that fit the entire screen. The only boss that gave me trouble with that was the last one because it spawned little corruption circles. Maybe a similar strategy in a lessened version can be applied to the earlier bosses? Or maybe it can be fixed rule-wise (you can't make loops that are too big).
Other than that, very solid entry for the jam. This is a great game.
Congratulations!
Wow, your kind words really mean a lot to me! Particularly coming from one of the developers of my favorite game so far this Jam!
You caught us! The main secret to succeeding with our game is definitely "draw bigger circles!" Sometimes it feels like a cheat code, haha. So we definitely didn't nail the balance of the game, but on the other hand, it seems like many of our players didn't discover this trick, so we probably could have telegraphed it more, maybe through more careful design of the first boss.
You must have fought Nullframe "Neon Oblivion" as your final boss! He was designed by one of my co-developers, and he is easily my favorite boss in the game. I'm glad you got him as your random selection. Great idea to take his Corruption spawning ability and add smaller versions of that to the other bosses, that will help balance the "draw bigger circles" strategy.
Thanks again for taking the time to play our game and share your detailed feedback. It really made my day! Lots of respect for you and your teammates.
I only had the balance issue during the two first bosses. During normal gameplay there were so many corruption circles that the giant circle strategy was not viable, at least for me, so it forced me to be more careful about where I draw the circles. So it didn't ruin the experience at all for me :) I still really enjoyed it! Besides, it was not an easy strategy to find and it would be unrealistic to expect a jam game to be completely balanced, given our time restriction. It was a very small issue.
So happy to know our game is your favorite of the jam so far! Lots of respect for your team too. You built a highly engaging game :)
This is fairly cool. I like the visuals and the feedback when you score, but maybe it could benefit of a different art style that better harmonizes with the gameplay. Additionally, you could transform this into a phone game, as the controls easily translate to that of a touch screen. Congrats on developing this in such short time 👍
Thank you! We actually really struggled to theme this game, which is unusual for our group. The synthwave aesthetic really didn't come together until Saturday, but we entertained western and even biological theming as well at different points.
Totally hear you on the mobile game port! One of my co-developers lamented that we didn't prioritize any time to look into connecting our input system to register touchscreen touches, but it's definitely something for us to look into post-Jam.
Nice idea! it was a bit challenging for me because i was always letting off lmb before i made a loop lol, but its just my skill issue, overall great job!
Thank you for playing! I played your game as well and really enjoyed the arcade-y combat. Cheers to a successful Game Jam!
Looped laugh and loved
Well said! Thanks for playing. =)
This is really Sweet! The gameplay is enjoyable and tho simple, it looks very nice.
My fingers hurt but i think it was worth it!
This would be awesome to play on a touch screen or even a DS!
Great entry, congratulations to the team :)
Thank you for your kind words! It means a lot to me coming from one of the developers of Our House.
One of our primary inspirations was actually the Pokemon Ranger series of games on the DS, which has you capturing and subduing pokemon by wrapping repeated loops around them using the stylus!
I like the concept! You took the theme in a cool direction! I love the retro synthwave aesthetic the game has! It feels very satisfying when you damage enemies, and especially satisfying when you can loop around them multiple times to finish them off! I also like how the circling system was pretty forgiving and would hit enemies even if I didn't fully complete the circle! I'm not going to lie, my wrist was hurting quite a bit after a while so I wasn't able to finish, but I really liked the game! Great job!
Hey, thanks so much for playing our game and sharing your thoughts! We had a lot of fun theming it around the synthwave aesthetic on the final night of the game, it's really validating to hear that you liked it. I'm glad you caught the extra margin of error we built into the looping, that was a late addition from one of my teammates but definitely makes the game more fun to play.
Geez, I'm sorry about your wrist! An earlier commentor suggested adding click-to-start and click-to-finish instead of click-and-hold to our loop drawing, and I think that would be a really helpful addition to address the mechanical strain of our game.
I like the idea, and the game is fun. Great job! My arm hurts a bit now 🤣
That was quite a good game actually! The presentation is quite good too; I just wish I could draw better circles...
Thanks for playing our game! Yeah, we spent a long time fine tuning the difficulty of the game to try to make it accessible to a wide audience. If you ever rolled the Ghost Line power-up I definitely recommend taking that one! It's practically a cheat code built right into the game.
This was slick. The loop-drawing mechanic felt unique, and the synthwave aesthetic elevated the whole experience especially with the screen shake and reactive UI touches. Drawing circles around enemies for damage is such a cool core idea, and it worked really well with the enemy wave structure.
Thank you for your kind words and for playing our game! I played your game too, it has a ton of potential, I hope you keep building on it.
Nice job!
I like the creative take on the theme, I haven't seen any other games like this one, which feels like a rarity for this jam.
Ill say my hand is definitely feeling tired after a session of this, so I don't think it could be played for very long periods of time. But I think there could be some options to alleviate that. I think the main issue is having to keep clicking again whenever you mess up a circle, maybe having a key you could press that would act as you clicking could suffice. Or the game could automatically start drawing you a new line a little bit after you hit something. I will say I was tempted to get my drawing pad out and try it with that.
This does remind me of the Pokemon Ranger series, and I wonder if some elements could be taken from those games for this. Maybe some enemies or bosses require you to draw specific shapes around them, (and then move slower to compensate for the added time to draw).
I see in your Gifs you managed to get some pretty long loop streaks going, but I always found it pretty hard to get them going to more than 2-3 loops. So maybe having the trail decay faster so you don't get caught as easily could be a power-up you can get.
Im a sucker for the neon aesthetic, so Im happy to see it here
Good work!
Wow, thank you so much for your detailed feedback, I really love it! I hear you about hand fatigue. One of the first risks we called out while brainstorming this concept we dubbed "the claw" by forcing you to hold the click for long periods. Just a single click to initiate a line would have been a good idea to experiment with.
I'm thrilled you noticed the Pokemon Rangers comparison, I was definitely expecting more people to pick up on that! We had tons of influences, but that one was probably our core most influence in designing this game. We did consider drawing other shapes or drawing really precise circles, but discovered that it subtracted from the game feel we were going for: one of frenetic energy and fast and loose loops.
The trick to getting long loop streaks is to draw bigger circles! Everyone starts off drawing loops that are too small, but once you give them room to breathe your multiplier starts to go up. We wanted that to be an "ah-ha" moment for the player, but it was probably too subtle and not telegraphed enough. That issue is actually what inspired our "Ghost Line" powerup, which lets your loops pass right through enemies for a few seconds. Great for looping fast and letting it rip.
So glad you liked the art vision! Thanks again for your detailed feedback, it's super appreciated.
P.S. I played your game and really enjoyed it!
A simple idea that ends up being more addicting the longer you play it. The music was great too, especially tha boss music.
If you dont mind, please rate my game as well :)
Thank you so much for the kind words! Unfortunately Windows wouldn't let me download your game as it thinks it contains a virus. Looks like you're getting phenomenal reviews though, so great work!
Yeah Ive gotten that a few times this Jam, seems like I missed some export settings to avoid Windows flagging it as malware. Thanks for trying!
Very cool! I really enjoyed this one, I think your visuals are really great. The screen shake and reacting corruption bar really sell each loop, great stuff!
Thank you so much, I personally spent quite a bit of time tuning those two effects so it feels really nice to get called out for it! I played your game as well, and I think your core mechanic is very well tuned, good job!
Really creative, first game in the jam to let you draw loop's!
Thanks for the kind words! I thought your game was super creative too!
Really fun! Super cool to see the loop drawing mechanic used for an entirely different type of game.
Thank you for playing our game!
I didn't expect this kind of game has a boss pattern, super creative
Thank you! It took us a couple of days for the game structure to form, but once we settled on waves, bosses and powerups we had a great feeling about it.
Very fun concept! I enjoyed playing this!
Thanks for the kind words! I enjoyed playing your game as well.
Super fun! Got a few multi-loop combo's and felt like a boss
Thanks Matt, we missed you this year!
Extremely good game surprised this doesn't have more ratings already.
Thank you so much for playing our game, and for your kind words!