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Icarus - HAGJ 2021's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Thematic Relevancy | #5 | 4.419 | 4.419 |
| Graphics | #6 | 4.323 | 4.323 |
| Historical Accuracy | #7 | 4.129 | 4.129 |
| Overall | #14 | 3.355 | 3.355 |
| Audio | #21 | 3.194 | 3.194 |
| Gameplay | #39 | 2.419 | 2.419 |
Ranked from 31 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Icarus is a solo-project about the saga of Icarus and Daedalus. Your hero has to escape from the tower of King Minos. Please play the game in a browser, not in the app.
Have you used assets? If so, please give credit to the creators here:
Music by bensound.com and freesound.org, find details on games itch.io page
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Comments
Loved the art. It was beautiful. The gameplay was good, but the controls were a little loose. Extremely difficult right from the start.
Really happy that you like the art of my game. Thanks to your suggestions and those of the others, I now have a better understanding of where I have to improve - next time, controls and difficulty will be in better shape - promised! :-)
I did rate this a good while back, but had been hard-pressed for time to leave a comment. Loved the post-mortem, and that brought me back to leave some additional comments.
I felt that artistically, this game was solid. It had a lot of the right things going, thematically, great intro, and sound. It may have been one of the most complete jam entries, if it hadn't been for the controls being too hard to maneuver for me. I couldn't get past the first boat, and felt the obstacles in the path could have been smaller, compared to the physics applied to the flying.
The inertia of flying makes sense - on paper. Unfortunately, with the size of obstacles, there were one too many variables to consider. I felt that there were issues with both staging and anticipation. As a player, you have to judge:
This was a great jam entry, and I'm proud of what you managed to do in a week. With a bit of polish, this could easily be a game that you could take to full release. I wish you and your team the best of luck in the future!
Hey Tuile, thank yor for your thoughtful feedback. The size of obstacles - now that you mention that, it becomes obvious to me, that this would have been something I should have taken into consideration. Technically everything in my code is calculated at real time - colliders, object garbage collection etc. So there wouldn't have been any problems with starting with (much) smaller obstacles in the beginning - adjusting their sizes little by little towards the end - and by that slowly raising the difficulty curve. This is a meaningful idea, definitely regret that I haven't had this myself. Thanks for the inspiration - I think I can put this to good use in the future. Also best luck to you!
I'm glad that you found my feedback useful.
I do think that raising the difficulty curve with time would be a good call in this case.
It's a great skill to be able to evaluate the information/feedback that's been given to you, and find ways to adapt them towards the future. I'm impressed with your mindset!
Thanks for reaching back out!
Love your game! One of my favorite in this Jam:)
I feel the movement a bit too slow, but otherwise great game
The graphics of this game were amazing. I love the fact that after the tutorial there was a seamless transition into the first level and for the levels after that. However, the movement felt a little delayed. Awesome game overall though.
The transitions are seamless with nice integration of the sound effects. The hand drawn artwork is very unique but the software based animations feel clunky. Controls aren't intuitive as I would like but after reading the tutorial I was able to maneuver Icarus up and down. Gameplay is sluggish and there is a lot of waiting. I did appreciate the absence of jarring cuts from scene to scene as everything from tutorials to different stages melts together like butter—complete with gorgeous weather changes!
Thank you so much for your wholistic review Soybaby. Creating a seamless experience for the players was my top goal - so happy you noticed and mentioned that. Think I was unintenionally sacrificing better controls for that. Anyway, thanks for playing my game and for your kind words.
Great game! the art style pull me right in! The interpretation of the myth is also very cool!
Absolutely loved the art style!! Not only is it beautiful, I felt like it fit the "mood" of the myth perfectly.
Thank so much :-) I compiled a good amount of the art of Icarus in an artbook - if you want to have a look: https://humane-tiger.itch.io/icarus-artbook
Nice! Thanks!
Presentation is stunning, it really got me excited to play! Movement controls are very unique and I liked how you made players unlearn what they're normally used to in similar games. I loved the subtle touch of falling ever so slightly. Only qualm I had is it seemed a little harsh to restart the level over after getting hit, I would have rather seen your ecstasy bar go down or you fall instead.
One of the best games in terms of presentation, I've seen so far. Especially UI, Tutorial and graphics. Well done!
Thanks - really appreciate!
All I have to say has already been said, but I'll repeat it anyway. The artstyle is amazing but the controls seem unresponsive and clunky. Great game notheless.
Graphically, the art is beautiful, but the gameplay itself can be a little annoying. Unresponsive and slow controls severely hurt what would otherwise be a total top contender for winning based on even the art alone, but it's nothing that couldn't be fixed quickly after the jam. There are some GREAT ideas in there, though!
The flying is just awkwardly designed - stop and go style controls don't really work for this kind of thing IMO. It would have been nicer as hold-and-release. The music was pretty okay, although it got super grating and tedious after enough time.
Overall, I think it's a game with amazing graphics and a lot of potential, but one that's hurt by just a small few design decisions that unfortunately have a big effect on the gameplay.
Hey Winnitude, thank you for your detailed feedback. Happy to hear you like the graphics. Regarding the controls, to be honstest, I have played only very few side-scrolling fly games myself, so I am missing the experience of what could work better than what I did. Maybe you can suggest a game, that has the kind of mechanic, which I should adapt? I just didn't want to make it a flappy bird like experience, I played this one and I find it far too hectic - and it doesn't fit the flying with self-built wings, like I am imagining it. I was aiming for a glide-flight experience like this crazy guy must have it :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sDJP1_7AaA
Well, your game is basically a Helicopter clone in essence, fly while the screen scrolls and avoid obstacles, so why not copy the controls from that? Hold down to go down, hold up to go up, release to stay still - or even in most variations, hold to go up, release to go down, which I find makes a more fun and engaging experience but might not be as chill as this game seems to be aiming for. Tapping to get a quick hop of height would be like flappy bird and far too hectic and difficult, but holding to get gradual height then releasing to get gradual decline would feel nice, and so would basically keeping the current scheme, but rather than tapping to start and stop ascent and descent, it would be nice if pressing it down started the ascent/descent and releasing stopped it, so when no keys are held you always fly straight basically.
Helicopter is a game that has had longevity all the way from DOS-based machines to Flash to modern mobile adaptations, it's adored by many, and since this game is designed very much the same in essence, it wouldn't hurt to give some Helicopter implementations a play to see what makes them work for people.
I know everyone is saying the same but... I really like the art style! Especially the animations of the sky and the sea. It's just impossible to ignore the originality and the quality behind them.
I really like the right measurements of "water, heat and tired". I was really looking forward to trying their limits but unfortunately with the current controllers is almost impossible. Nothing that can't be fixed with a small polish tho! all the quality stuff is there already.
Good job!
Hey Neryko, thank you for your feedback. Happy to hear you like the art style - put a lot of efforts into this.
I recorded a playthrough today. I know, it's not the perfect solution, but if you want to follow how the measurements change over time without fighting with controls, maybe it's at least a little compromise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-u6n5KTcH4
Graphics and expressions that are appealing at a glance. I especially like the art style of the mosaic pattern on the title screen. I liked the way the story was explained in text during play. I wanted to see the rest of the story, and it kept me motivated to play. It was a little difficult from the start and the slow movement was a little stressful. Overall, I am satisfied with the game.
Thank you :-) The mosaic is made with a 1-click filter in Gimp, wich I installed just for that one effect. https://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/plug-in-mosaic.html
First of all it's got a great presentation, from the artstyle to the UI etc - everything from the sun and waves drawing to the background. I struggled quite a lot with the core game - I noticed on the game page you talked about the input sometimes being unresponsive, I had this issue, but I think even when it was working, it just took too long to start moving and was very slow. This may be intentional but it felt like some obstacles I just couldn't avoid. Conceptually, with flying acting different as you spend time closer to heat/water is great.
Aside from that, the transitions were great, and a lot of the tertiary stuff felt really polished - I hope you continue to work on this, great job!
Thank you so much for your taking time to write your comprehensive feedback - really appriciate. Makes me happy that you noticed the transitions - I invested a lot to make them as best as I could, for me this was quite important. Sorry for the input issue, it's a nasty race condition that is hard to come by.
When moving is too slow (usually upwards), this can be caused by too wet wings - by the end of 2nd level this "problem" is typically the worst. But when you stay close to the sun in the first part, the effect can be negoiated pretty well - the wings then don't wet so quickly. This is all kind-of intentional (wanted to avoid the "nervous" flappy bird experience) - but I also had these plays where the wings just got too wet - and then some obstacles are just too tough, I can understand your frustration.
Anyways, thanks again for your great feedback. Will also check out your game tomorrow.
beautifully executed! The artwork is fresh, and the ease of controls allow the player time to enjoy and take in the great graphics.
Great take! I wanted to incorporate wax/moisture into my version too, but didn't have time. Great execution!
Thank you. Yeah. We had very similar ideas. Found your game yesterday, but had some hard times steering this little guy. Will try again and give you also feedback.
Beautiful artwork in your game. Very impressive.