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A jam submission

The Seven Trials of ChronosView game page

A tranquil bullet hell, where the player collects pixies instead of shooting back.
Submitted by sebjugate (@sebjugate), zuk000, dexmexter, chronocide0 — 12 hours, 20 minutes before the deadline
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The Seven Trials of Chronos's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#74.0774.077
Overall#93.5663.566
Graphics#123.9623.962
Audio#133.5773.577
Fun#163.3853.385
Controls#183.4623.462
Theme#193.6543.654
Accessibility#312.8462.846

Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
3.3rc7

Wildcards Used
Good things come to those who wait; Dare to fail; Roll a D20

Game Description
A tranquil bullet hell where you collect pixies.

Source
No

Discord Username
sebjugate

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Comments

Viewing comments 21 to 2 of 21 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

Very fun! A bit hard, but that's what Dare to Fail is for :) Got only about half the children on the first playthrough.

Submitted

Very nice, everything plays well together!

Submitted

This is such a creative idea, and well executed! Also a great implementation of Dare to Fail. I wish the implementation was just a little different though: instead of sending me to the next level, just let me retry the level with the help of my newly acquired abilities. I want to keep retrying and retrying and getting all the powerups to the end, rather than eventually failing the game because I failed all 7 levels even though I was getting better at the game and more powerful.

(Timestamp 1:01:50)

Developer

Thanks for streaming, sorry I missed it. Thanks for posting the video.

We’ve had a lot of feedback about the ability to play through the game and retry levels to get a perfect store. After the Jam, we may add a mode that allows that.

Submitted

Yo, this was a fun, addicting game. I got frustrated when those little blue suckers would run so fast. But this game has a high skill ceiling that could be really fun when speedrunning. Nice entry!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! We’re pleased with the challenge level of the game.

Submitted

I like bullet hells, but I struggled in this one because of the movement speed of the character. Would be cool to have a some variation in the speed, like slowing down the character when pressing a certain key, this is a mechanic seen in some games of the genre. That would help, because I often found myself bumping in some bullets by mistake when resuming my movement.

Also, better feedback when hurt would help, maybe have Chronos turn red for a second !

Besides that, really great idea, visuals and sounds. :)

Submitted

This game is very well done and polished, graphics and music are amazing, and I had fun playing it even though I suck at bullet hell and it was pretty hard even with buffs x)

I will highly recommend this game ^^ and GJ to your team!

Submitted (1 edit)

This is aggressively polished, nearly to the extent of an indie game release. The music is pleasant, the font and sprites were cool, and the concept was spot on. It even has interesting story elements.

I couldn't tell if it was intentional, but the enemies that shoot all directions at once (that kind of resemble bees?) still move when time is frozen.

There are also a couple of ways to cheese the gameplay loop... If you run into a wall, as long as you're holding a direction key, you will still stop time without having to actually move. And of course you can always spin in a circle if you need extra time to think without ramming yourself into a corner! It may be fun to have the game recognize when the player is trying these and to do something more interesting with it.

[Oh and obligatory comment that I submitted in the same genre, but mine is far more incomplete and amateurish.]

Submitted

Nice looking game. I can't say I understood what the heck was going on. I simply didn't get the time stop thing. I managed to collect a grand total of two of the blue things (pixies?). I managed to "finish" each level by dying. I thought I was doing great, but I was declared defeated in the end! Well, I did try!

Also, I laughed out loud at the Pluto joke. It never gets old.

Developer

I’m glad you stuck with it to the end. Is there something we could do to make the mechanic clearer?

Submitted

I think I read something about stopping time. If there's any control besides basic movements, maybe make that clearer. Because I never realized how to do that.

Developer(+1)

Time stops when you move. Evidently, we need to make that clearer! Thanks so much for responding!

Submitted

Really well done! Amazing amount of polish and balance. It was pretty difficult and there were multiple levels I just could not beat, even with the upgrades :) But, that's not a bad thing. I think the difficulty ramp combined with the upgrade cards was just about spot on. Unique style and mechanics.

Totally thought the heart bullets would give me health. I was terribly mistaken!

Developer

Thanks for playing! I’m glad you liked it.

Yes, the choice of hearts as a bullet was probably a poor one on my part. Not sure how I didn’t think of that….

Submitted

Absolutely lovely game! The visuals have a wonderful polish to them! Really enjoyed that there was gamepad support which worked very well most of the time. The issues I did have, I’m never quite sure if it’s my OS (linux), the engine, or something else. Personally, I’m not a bullet-hell sort of person… my reflexes just aren’t there for those style of games. That said, I did enjoy what this game presented. I liked that, while moving, everything stops, yet there’s still challenge in trying to maneuver around the existing bullets on screen. On top of all that, having to find that one little alcove of safety so you can entice those pixies. Very well thought out, in my humble opinion. I really liked the mini descriptions between each level. Added to the overall presentation, and were quite humorous! That said, I was a little surprised that levels progresses even on death. While I appreciated the leveling up mechanic was behind dying, in my personal opinion, it may have been less jarring for me if I still had to beat a level to progress to the next. Still… given you can choose to go to any previous level from the main menu makes up for this. The only major bug I saw was the “escape” menu (for lack of a better description) doesn’t actually seem to do anything if brought up while the level up screen is present. Wasn’t a huge issue, but it was a bug.

Amazing work! Loved the game over all!

Developer

Thanks for the thorough feedback, and thanks again for streaming!

Submitted

it take a lot of time to  understand , but good visuals and mechanic 

Developer

Thanks for playing! Is there something we could do to make it easier to understand?

Submitted

The concept was interesting and the jokes between levels and in the intro were great.  Personally I'm not generally one for bullet hell games but this one was kinda interesting.  For the first little bit I accidentally missed the portion of the tutorial on the fact that you can stop time while moving.  Which after going back and checking.. I don't know how...  As for the few points I can mention:

  • Sometimes the hitbox of Chronos was a little hard to tell specifically where it was.  I enjoyed the ingame health bar as well as the health in the top left, but it also felt a little weird being hit sometimes and not other times.  Especially with the upgrades that lower the hitbox and such.  
  • The fact that the pixies just teleported when you trapped them was a bit annoying and unexpected.  I assumed that if you could catch up to and trap a pixie you'd be able to capture it, so I did end up dying a couple times to a teleporting pixie, but it was interesting and made them a little harder, if a bit annoying without already knowing it and in general.
  • Integrating Dare to Fail as a way to allow players to continue playing even upon death was interesting, and definitely made it less annoying when I did end up dying.  A lot.  So that was appreciated, though the endings I definitely do wonder what the others were, especially since I barely got about half of the pixies so I won't really be able to see the "good" ending unless I go back through.

Overall though it was an interesting concept, a kinda funnily executed one.  And most of all, definitely not a tranquil game.

Developer

Thanks for playing, and for the detailed feedback. I understand that bullet hell is not everyone’s favorite game.

One response I do have is that Chronos’ hitbox is the lighter white circle in the middle of his head. But we probably should have specifically pointed that out somewhere!

Submitted (1 edit)

The visuals are super interesting ! I think it could be worth spending a bit more time polishing stuff such as walls for example, but it's definitively original.


Controls were a bit weird on my web browser (left and right works, up and down movement is stuttering?) so it was really hard to avoid bullets.

Thanks for the game

Developer

Thanks for playing. I’m sorry you had an issue with the controls, I can’t reproduce it, what browser are you using?

Submitted

I am using firefox 88.0 on windows 10.

Developer

Hmmm, that’s the same as me. We have had at least one user have an issue where their gamepad was sending input. Do you have a gamepad?

Submitted

Hum yes indeed my gamepad was also plugged. I'll try without

Submitted

That time stop mechanic is really, really cool! And I LOVE the art.
Really well done! I think if I had been stuck on a single stage and had to keep retrying every time I died it would have gotten a little stale, but the "dare to fail" option that let me keep going was really nice, and encouraged me to play until the end!

Developer(+1)

Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Advancing the level even if you die seems to be a contentious issue, but given the difficulty of the game and the short time people have to play it in a Game Jam, I think it was the right decision.

Submitted

Outstanding game mechanism! Not my kind of art style but I like the decision making between move or not move.

Developer(+1)

Thanks, we’re really happy with how the mechanic turned out.

Hopefully you found the art suitable even if it’s not your style ;) I’ll admit I did tread a little on the surreal side.

Submitted

I've spend 10 mins for playing :D really cool game, well done

Developer

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

Its a bit difficult but i like the challenge. Also like the idea and implementation of the Wildcards.
Well done.

Developer

Yes it is a difficult game. If it wasn’t for the Dare to Fail wildcard we probably would have toned it down significantly. Fortunately, that wildcard gave us the opportunity to make a challenging game that players could still get through in a reasonable amount of time.

Submitted

The game is fun. Getting 7 pixies in each level is difficult, but rewarding.

I'm disappointed because I reached the fourth trial without realizing that I had to wait to receive the pixies (I was trying to push them against a wall to grab them)

Developer

We're glad you enjoyed it!  You're right some sort of visual indicator on the pixie could have reinforced the pixie's behavior (besides the movement).  

Submitted

I love the way the wildcards have been integrated. The game is super difficult for me, but I appreciate that I was allowed to move to the next level even though I lost.

Developer

The game is difficult.  If we didn't have that wild card of failure is another way of proceeding we'd have had to adjust it down some more.  As it is it is really rewarding when you do catch them all.  Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Cool game, but too hard for me, option to restart level with bonuses was for me biggest flaw. Art, and music was top-notch.

Developer

After you get the end, the main menu allows you to replay any of the levels that you want but you're right that you would have to start from the beginning again to get the power-ups back. Thanks for the feedback though, we're glad you took the time to try out what we made.

Developer(+1)

I’d encourage you not to think of dying as a failure :) Just try to collect as many pixies as you can. If you get 20-30, you’ve done well. Collecting all 49 takes a lot of practice!

Viewing comments 21 to 2 of 21 · Next page · Last page