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Slimmunition's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Innovation | #2 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
Completeness | #2 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
Fun | #3 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
Audio | #4 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
Visuals | #4 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
Overall | #4 | 3.550 | 3.550 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
This game was a very complete and polished. with a handful of little details that make it an enjoyable experience (But that won't stop me from telling you everything I don't like).
First I want to talk about the art. I think your style for this game is very simplistic and cute which works well. You also do a good job of keeping your pixel density consistent which is a pretty big deal when trying to make a consistent look with pixel art (Other than the bullets which are scaled down ruining their pixel density relative to other stuff, but they are moving and nobody would ever notice that detail so I'll let it slide).
One thing I will say regarding the consistency/cohesion of the art in this game is that the characters stick out just a bit to much compared to the background. The characters have shading (which seams to swap between gradient (like on the slime) and linear (like on the square robot)) and a bold outline while the environment has none of that, causes them to conflict a bit with each other. This could be made better if the grass and trees had an outline (probably just a colored outline), and if the trees had shading similar to the characters.
I also noticed a few visual bugs, but they are very minor. Some of the water seems to not be animated, I noticed this in the first level but I'm not sure if it happens elsewhere. Also, the player seems to jitter while moving, making them feel less smooth. This is most likely caused by the players rigidbody2D not having interpolate mode set to "interpolate".
On a positive note, I like the small details you added to your game such as the flower on the player, the way the title changes after winning, and the smooth transition between scenes. Things like this do a lot to make the game feel more polished and complete.
Also, this isn't necessarily an issue, but I think giving your characters an animation (even if its just a second frame they loop between) could go a long way in making them all feel more alive. They are ok as they are now, there's just some missed potential when using the static art style.
Lastly regarding art, I notice that once the game starts there is text above some of the slimes head. Because your game is in a pixel art style, the non-pixel art font stands out quite a bit from the rest of the game. There are lots of pixel fonts that are still easily readable, so I would suggest you use one of those instead to keep a more cohesive look to your game.
Next I want to go over the audio. While there isn't a huge variety, what is in the game fits well. I think the music is a great fit for this game. Not to slow or fast, and fits the cheery vibe you have going. In addition, the shooting sounds from both the player and enemies fit pretty good, although they are a bit quiet compared to the music. I do think that having sound effects for killing enemies, dying, winning a level, etc. would make the game feel more alive, but overall the audio works well enough.
Last I want to go into the actual gameplay. I think you chose a pretty straight forward genre and carried it out quite well. In addition all of the levels are designed very well, with enemies being introduced at good intervals. Overall the levels feel natural and fun to go through.
Unfortunately there's a couple major issues with the gameplay that hurt the overall experience quite a bit for me. The first one being how you used the theme for this jam. I think the idea of using health as the ammo for your attacks works well on paper, but in reality it leads to a lot of downtime where all you can do is wait for your health to regen so you can keep shooting. This, combined with the fact that most enemies aren't a threat when you have cover, means that almost all encounters are won by simply waiting until you have enough health to one-shot your enemy, causing most gameplay to involve just sitting still (or dodging very basic enemy patterns). I know you were trying to force me to balance health and damage, but I felt like I was balancing damage and patience.
^This section comes off as really harsh, but the feature doesn't ruin the game or anything. I just think its a feature that doesn't make the game more fun, meaning it is probably unnecessary.
The other issue I have with the gameplay is that you drag the game out for longer than necessary. While having a long game isn't bad in its own right, currently, you don't add many new features to keep the player engaged (the new enemies are good, but not enough to keep the game feeling fresh).
Overall, this is the best game I've seen from you and you have certainly improved a lot. I hope you enjoyed working on this game, and I can't wait to see what you do next. I apologize if this review was a bit much, but I'm doing this to all the games from this jam as I think critiques help us grow.
Thank you for the detailed response! This is very inciteful and does really well on telling me where I'm on the right track for. Art wise I do think a colored outline for the trees would help as I didn't want to do a white one as it would look unnatural with the environment but with none it makes it inconsistent gameplay wise. I also was trying to find a fix for the slight jitter and that being the solution makes me facepalm. In summary, this is all good feedback and doesn't come off harsh that I'll keep in mind for future projects.
Wow! As I played through this game, I kept saying to myself "ANOTHER level?" because I couldn't believe how much you packed into this! The world feels vibrant with life and the gameplay was wonderful! For my tastes, I would have appreciated a faster health regeneration considering the hard levels nearing the end, and many times I shot away my last point of health, which I can understand but personally disagreed with. If you have more ideas for the game, I would love to see you bring them to life in an update!
Thank you for sharing your experience! More content and detail are things that I really tried improving on and I'm glad you noticed that in game. After playtesting it a lot, I actually reduced the regen time and enemy health. So maybe I could've gone a little bit further with that. Appreciate the feedback!
Pretty good game jam game! I really liked the perspective and art-style, as well as the design of the user interface. The small details were a nice touch and it was cool to see the slimes you rescue follow you around as you moved through the levels. While there wasn't a huge variety of enemies, I thought the different enemy types worked well and that the layouts of the levels produced pretty good variation.
Thank you for the nice comment! I'm happy the variety of levels kept it interesting!
Wow I just gotta say, this game was really fun to play! There are a lot of small details that made the game very engaging for me, like the erratic movement of the flying enemy, the slimes you saved showing up at the beginning of every level, and how the slime bar disappears slightly when you only have one left. But most of all, the level design of the game really stands out. I thoroughly enjoyed all the boss encounters and the use of the trees as cover from enemy projectiles. It really seems like a lot of thought was put into this game and how it was designed. Great job
I appreciate this very much! I'm glad all of the small choices made added up to something big for the experience. Thank you for the kind feedback!