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A jam submission

Life is Hard as a MonsterView game page

Submitted by strutcode — 6 hours, 51 minutes before the deadline
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Life is Hard as a Monster's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#73.9333.933
Theme#94.2004.200
Graphics#113.8673.867
Overall#123.3623.362
Audio#143.4003.400
Controls#223.0003.000
Accessibility#262.5332.533
Fun#362.6002.600

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
3.5.2

Wildcards Used
Collect 'Em All, Thy Visage

Game Description
A tiny exploration/adventure game where you must eat or be eaten.

How does your game tie into the theme?
The player plays a monster in a world full of other monsters!

Source(s)
N/A

Discord Username(s)
Puck#9427

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
4

My game has an export for Linux, Windows, & Mac and/or is playable through HTML5

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

This game seems really cool! I was confused at first why I couldn’t attack, I tried running into enemies to see if I could damage them. On my next lives I ran around until I found other monsters. I think the purpose of the game is to lead monsters to have them fight each other and then take their remains in order to build up your character?

Developer(+2)

Yeah, you can't attack without using the first essence piles from the tutorial to buy the "Bite" or "Claw" abilities. A few more tips to ease players in surely would have helped!

Without an attack, the best bet is to just explore and avoid enemies since they will give up after a while and sometimes fight each other when the player isn't in range, creating more remains to feed on. There are also various objects scattered around that you can consume for essence.

I appreciate you taking the time to play and give feedback, and I hope next time I can give players a better experience! :D

Submitted(+1)

Awesome proof of concept. I found it very relaxing and it gave me early MMO vibes which was nostalgic. Spiders were a cool surprise but they murdered me

Developer

You really hit the nail on the head! EverQuest was one of the games that got me into game development so I'm sure there's influence in there. Maybe I should take that relaxing atmosphere a bit further if I expand on this idea.

Thanks for the feedback, and the spider appreciation.. that movement code took way longer than it should have! XD

Submitted(+1)

All around a pretty neat idea! I had to fight some disconnect between what I guessed I was capable of vs the controls the player is actually given at level 0.

Assuming it really is meant to be an “outrun the other monsters” survival game, the main thing I would recommend adding is an event for the first time a monster turns its attention onto the player and gets close. When that happens, I feel like the words OH CRAP RUN! should practically cover the screen. My first few deaths were trying to figure out how to fight those first two monsters, not from failing to run away & stay alive well enough.

The world was very cool and the controls were very smooth once I entered fullscreen. Windowed mode kept trying to turn me to the right.

Developer(+1)

This is really great feedback and much appreciated! Near the end I bounced back and forth on what to give the player to start and I think it ended up being not quite right -- the ability to defend yourself seems like a minimum even if it's not powerful.

The intention was for the gameplay to be a progression from weak prey to an unstoppable powerhouse, so you aren't far off the mark with your assessment but ultimately the pacing was probably just too slow. :D

I encountered the same bug you did with the mouse control in windowed mode specifically which is a mystery to me, but perhaps the HTML version requires a cursor position reset when entering mouse capture mode. Perhaps next time I can avoid making players dizzy.

Submitted(+1)

Amazing what you've accomplished over the jam, this is a great little monster eco-evo sim game.

Developer

Thank you for the compliment! I hadn't really consider the ecosystem angle of it, but I sure am now! I appreciate the feedback. :D

Submitted(+2)

I loved the sound track. Very serene... and relaxing. Something to calm me down while I'm running away from hungry monsters 😭.
Great submission!

Developer (1 edit)

ahaha, thanks for the feedback! It's public domain music but I picked it out myself so clearly I have talent. XD

Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

i like the concept but I dont really have enough time to play it.

it has great potential.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that it turned out a little too slow paced, so I'll keep that in mind for next time.

(+1)

Good start! I included it in my compilation video series for the Godot Wild Jam #56, if you’d like to check it out. :)

Developer

Hey, that's really cool! Thanks for taking the time to record your thoughts on video, and best of luck to you as a content creator!

Submitted(+1)

Cool idea, definitely a lot of potential.

Well done!

Developer

Thanks. I'm definitely considering taking it a bit further after the jam, but I have the attention span of a goldfish so we'll see!

Submitted(+1)

Bug report: Everything is blue (sky) and black (everything else) on my mac, can't see anything. But I like the music!

Developer(+1)

That too bad you didn't have a chance to play! I don't have any Apple machines around so the Mac version is 100% untested. I wonder if the HTML5 version might have worked better.

Submitted(+1)

The game concept is really cool and I wish you were able to finish the game. The idea behind of collecting and building/evolving your own monster is really cool. Huge amount of scope for a single person. Def. the landscape is very cool (a bit too big for my taste) but your 3d models looks awesome. Well done!

Developer

Thanks! Scope creep is the name of the game for me haha

I agree the landscape is a bit too barren. I had grand visions of filling it in with more detail but perhaps next time!

Submitted(+1)

Music glitched a lot when I moved. The world is beautiful tho and this game looks fun if progression was a bit easier

Developer

That's an interesting symptom. I wonder if the footstep sound is competing for too few audio channels. Thanks for the feedback though! I definite will try to balance my next entry better. :D

Submitted(+2)

What a unique game! I love the atmosphere you cultivated with this game. The landmark mountain has a great design, and the music and terrain create a relaxing feeling (until monsters attack!).

Unfortunately, I couldn't get too far in the game. After the first two killed each other, I was only able to harvest one plant before a couple of monsters chased me down! I tried to lead them to a quillmonster, but the wouldn't fight eachother.

All in all, great job! Keep making games!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate the thoughtful response. :)

The balance is very off, and it's probably rather challenging to get far especially without more than the few tutorial tips that made it in! Still, I'm happy you gave it a try and found something interesting about it.