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Godot Version
4.4
Wildcards Used
One-Handed, Here Be Dragons
Game Description
Sweet, sweet 2D platforming with a sprawling map, striking visuals, and a banger soundtrack! What more could you want?
How does your game tie into the theme?
Grow Motion's gameplay is designed around the Game Jam's theme of Growing. It's a precision platformer where your character continuously grows bigger, making the platforming even more challenging! But your character's size is also the resource you consume for special abilities. Your character needs to grow to use their special abilities, but growing bigger makes navigating the world's hazards more difficult. Managing your growth becomes an essential skill for success.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
robruana
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
4 (this is my fourth)
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Comments
simply stellar! you had a great idea that fit the theme, and you executed it perfectly. the branching levels were really cool, I even backtracked at one point to try a different path when I was having trouble. I had a lot of fun with the bonus levels as well. level 12 had some tricky jumps, but I eventually figured it out and made it through.
to nitpick a bit: I think the divebomb homing angle was way too wide, as it sometimes sent me 45 degrees sideways, sometimes even into spikes. also, the spike hitboxes felt a few pixels too big — I would have appreciated a tiny bit more leniency for the bonus levels. lastly, I thought most of the writings on the walls were decent as unintrusive tutorialization and flavor, but in my opinion some of the positive affirmations seemed really awkward and out of place… that said, it didn’t really detract from the game, so no big deal.
overall awesome entry!
Omg this is good! But just too difficult for me. This game has no mercy on an old man with bad reflexes. The one with the two consequtive moving blades... I tried it 20 times. Had to give up eventually. Still I had a blast and would not be suprised if this was the winner game
Extra Features
I really liked the Options -> About page!
Controls
Controls wise, it’s a little awkward - at least on keyboard. But it was always gonna be in a precision platformer.
(I play keyboard-and-mouse only. And have: Beaten all the Dark Souls games; more or less beaten Hollow Knight, including path of pain; P-ranked a number of levels in Pizza Tower; and gave up at some point for Super Meat Boy)
Visual / Audio
I quite liked the visual theme. And the music was really nice
The UI sounds also had a separate sound slider which was really nice too!
Overall
I found it fun, and interesting. But also quite difficult. At least with current controls.
Really impressive, and solid entry for a Solo project 4th attempt!!
Amazing game. Perfect entry for a game jam! Controls felt so good and smooth
Thank you for the kind words!
Extremely fun game and incredibly impressive for a game jam game no less. 👏
Movement felt so good it kept me trying again when I died.
Thank you! I aim to please :) I wanted dying and restarting the level to be as quick and painless as possible. I think intermediate checkpoints would have helped in that regard, but dying and trying again is definitely a big part of the game.
Very fun and impressively polished, especially for a jam game. Music was great, visuals and color palette were simple, clear and effective, and controls were tight and felt great. The amount of juice on that dive bomb is awesome; I could spam that all day. Level design was pretty good as well; I really liked how the different paths in the levels interconnected. I had a ton of fun banging my head against the bonus levels. Very satisfying to beat.
This is also such a cool and unique take on the theme of growing. Great job really integrating the theme into every aspect of the gameplay.
I see a lot of comments asking for more checkpoints. From an accessibility standpoint, I think I agree, but from a personal perspective, I'm actually glad there weren't. For me, I think checkpoints would have trivialized a lot of the challenge, especially of the bonus levels. Half the fun was practicing and getting more consistent at the early parts of the levels so I could have more attempts at the end. And since the levels were fairly short and quick, repeating them really wasn't an issue. Perhaps a happy middle-ground would be to put checkpoint frequency behind some sort of difficulty options.
Yeah, I hear a lot of the same feedback about checkpoints. I wanted dying and restarting the level to be as quick and painless as possible. I think intermediate checkpoints would have helped in that regard, but dying and trying again is definitely a big part of the game.
I’m glad it worked for you the way it is :)
Checkpoints as a difficulty option is a great idea. I hadn’t thought of that, but it seems like a perfect way to balance the challenge.
Echoing pretty much the same as everyone else - super fun, unique gameplay twist on a platformer. A bit of Super Meat Boy vibes with the music and challenge. Would have appreciated some more checkpoints. Really enjoyed this one, awesome work!
Thanks for the praise! For some reason, I get the feeling that people would like more checkpoints :)
Wow, incredible game, loved every part of it. I don't even know what more to say except wow.
Thank you!
Lots of fun, and nice art! I loved the way you guided the players to how the game works by small pieces, though that made it a bit jarring when coming across the purple bits you have to down-dash into. (I'll reiterate some of the other people saying more checkpoints would be appreciated lol)
Thank you!
You got something there! I had so much fun and failed miserably in the part where you have to reach the purple diamonds, but with some polish it might make a cult game where people try to beat each others records
High praise indeed! Thank you kindly. All of the feedback I’ve been receiving is very helpful :)
Nice platformer! I enjoyed it, despite not completing bonus bonus level, its a bit challenging...
Even just making it to the bonus bonus level is impressive! I didn’t think anyone would get there at all!
I was making levels right up until the time to submit. I hadn’t planned on either of the bonus levels.
I like everything, except the difficulty. I could live with that if there were more checkpoints. Sadly I could not enjoy the whole game, because I have not enough patience, dying and doing the level all over again.
(this didn`t affected your very good rating)
Controller-Gameplay is superb. I really enjoyed playing with the controller, first game in the jam where i used it. Dive Bombing very juicy and satisfying.
Artwork, and Gameplay mechanics are realy cool and match the growing topic.
Sound FX are top, also the driving music fits the game very well.
I especially like that you teach the player the mechanics at the beginning. (and the fun part if you go to the left ;) )
Thank you so much for the kind words and detailed review. I think my next game will scale down the difficulty because a lot of people are mentioning that it’s too difficult.
I should have put the easier path up front.
Fun game!
The design is pretty solid and the game feels really polished for a game jam game. Good job! I really dig the simple artstyle you've got going for this!
Gets a bit too hard for my taste after a while though and sometimes felt a bit unfair. I think the big drop where you have to dodge the sawblades killed it for me. It was too unpredictable and at the end I was annoyed because I had to start the level all over again completely. But I'm also unpatient, so that could definitely be a me-thing.
But all in all really well done!
Thank you so much! Yes, the difficulty might spike a little too much. There is an easier path, but it’s the less obvious route, so I think a lot of people are missing it.
Really fun! enjoyed the changing size. maybe slightly too many mechanics were introduced at once, i found myself a little overwhelmed
Thank you for playing! Good note. I could have put a few levels between each new mechanic for sure.
Great game! ~~Maybe I missed it, but you should really provide attribution for Punch Deck’s Neon Drive which is CC-BY (and any other assets you may have used that require attribution)~~
I did miss it in the “About” menu option, sorry!
Yeah, Punch Deck’s work is amazing! I put them at the top of the About page because I wanted to highlight them.
Thanks for playing!
Definitely one of the best submissions this jam. No notes, well done.
Thank you for the praise!
Well thought out concept, with excellent execution. Bravo.
Thank you for the praise!
Great visuals and music. The idea and implementation are nice too. But this hallway broke me - the game became too punishing for my taste. Even though you past a couple of hard jumps, a sudden saw will cut you :(. It's the same exact reason I don't usually play precision platformers :). But maybe I just need to git gud
git gud, lol
Seriously though, it is quite difficult. Maybe TOO difficult. There’s another path that’s a little easier, but still pretty tough.
This game is really cool -- I thought the divebomb level was a bit too long though. I got through the long "don't get squished" hallway and kept dying after that
Edit--Read through the comments and discovered the solution. The platforming is really satisfying and a good challenge. Great job with this
Ack sorry about the divebomb issue! Glad you found the workaround. Thanks for playing and thanks for the kind words!
Amazing game with very well made level design and original mechanic! I wish dash worked only with arrows, though. I died on the bonus level too many times because of this. But overall it was fun!
Yeah, that was a design choice I wasn’t sure about. I found I used the dash without the arrows enough that I liked it better that way more than the other. But it’s definitely debatable.
Thanks for playing!