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A jam submission

Elevating TensionsView game page

Pick up weapons or use your fists to last as long as you can in an elevator fight scene. Made for Indie Tales Jam 2021.
Submitted by Spicy Chicken, Pixel Overload, Robo-octo — 8 minutes, 44 seconds before the deadline
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Elevating Tensions's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Aesthetic Flair (Graphics & Sound Presentation)#164.3214.321
Overall#213.8753.875
Technical Excellence (Design & Engineering)#253.8213.821
Relevance (Creative Expression of Theme)#293.9643.964
Immersion (Gameplay & Storytelling Engagement)#443.3933.393

Ranked from 28 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

  • Thanks for the submission! I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I thought the moment to moment gameplay was heading in a good direction, though a bit repetitive after a few floors. Any kind of diversity in enemy type or background graphics would have helped here. I loved the visual aesthetic, and the sound was also easy on the ears. Good work there. Overall, I think this was a solid entry, I wanted more! Thanks for your effort, and best of luck with the next project you work on together.

Made by One or Two People

more than two people worked on it

All Original Content

yes everything was made during the jam

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Comments

Submitted (1 edit)

Really enjoyed it, the art, music, and gameplay feel great! :D And a creative expression on theme! Also a suggestion from what I've noticed while playing, I think the sound for hitting the enemies doesn't fully fit. Since you got the main character sounds right, you might do similar sounds on the bad guys too, since they look similar and probably also have deep voices. (enemies are buff and big, they should have stronger and deeper voices like the mc)

Submitted

Great game I love the pixel art on this game

Submitted

I like the anti corporate spirit! I find the controls a little bit wonky but the visuals and SFX are top.

Submitted

Wow, this game was a blast to play. First, I loved the design of the game, as it fits really well with the theme and gives the players lots of stuff to do aside from beating up corporate goons. From all the weapons you can pickup to the items that can heal you, it adds a lot of variety to the game and helps to keep it fresh. However, I had a hard time getting some of the pickups because my character wasn't able to jump high enough to get them. It would have been nice to be able to double jump, as it would have made getting those pickups much easier. I also liked the control scheme for the game, as for the most part it was very easy to figure out and get good. However, there are a few things that I would change. First, I would make the dash feature a separate button, as I was unable to use it much during my playthrough due to how hard it was to pull off.  You can also make it so that when the player double taps either the left or right arrow key, or the a or d key, the player will be able to dash. This is because the mechanic works very similarly to how the dash mechanic works in the Mega Man X series, so I think doing something similar with the control scheme in that aspect would be great. I would also make grab and throw the same button, as I found it a bit cumbersome to have to pick up an item with one button and then throw it with another. Both of these features would be much easier if mapped to the same button, as you can have the button grab an item when the player has no item, and then be able to throw when the player does have an item. This is similar to how items work in the Super Smash Bros. series, and I think this game would greatly benefit from that as well.

I also love the art style of this game, as it helps to make the game more colorful without adding more detail. The only critique I have is that all the enemies kind of loo the same. I think it would have been nice to add some visual variety to the enemies, especially the ones that carry weapons. I also loved the sound design for this game, as the sound effects sound appropriate without being too noisy, and the music was a blast to listen too, both for the instructions screen and the core gameplay loops. This was hands down one of the strongest elements of this game. I also loved the story, as it adds a humorous explanation behind the player character's desire to take down this massive corporation, all while ever so conveniently beating up all of their guards inside of an elevator car. It also gives the game a sense of ludonarrative consistency, which is a very important thing to have when it comes to stories in games.

Overall, I had a great time with this game. Great work.

Developer

Thank you very much for your compliments and feedback! We planned to have different types of enemies such as an enemy with a hard hat who couldn’t be stunned, big enemies who couldn’t be knocked back, and were considering a boss. Sadly with 3 days we were not able to implement them but perhaps we may try and add some more soon? We’ll see

Submitted(+1)

That’s ok. What you’ve done so far is very impressive with only 3 days of work. I’m sure you guys can make this a full fledged game in no time.

Submitted(+1)

Pixel art and music were amazing. The game is well build and is soo fun. I would like to see the spacebar added as another way to jump as it took me a bit to familiarize with the up arrow. Overall amazing game :D

Submitted(+1)

I absolutely loved the pixel art and the music. The game is fun, the fact that there is a way to know when enemies are about to attack makes it less about just mashing the punch key. The controls felt natural (though I didn't realize you could wall jump after a while). Overall a really polished and great game.

Submitted

The one room being an elevator is a great idea. One thing that would have been nice would be to have spacebar as jump along with up/w. It also may have been nice to have throw and pickup be the same key, since they are somewhat exclusive and it makes heat of the moment fighting a bit simpler. Overall though this game was a fun beat 'em up with great presentation and a lot of polish.

Submitted

The game perfectly fits the idea, and the art style is gorgeous!! I love it! Good job! If you have some time, can you check out my game?

Submitted

Cool to see that i wasnt the only one who was thinking about elevators when programming a game for this jam. Your pixelart is absolutely amazing you are a real artist. The sounds are perfectly fitting for the game. I can´t find a single negative thing bout this entry everything i great.

(+2)

I liked that.

I feel like the adventures of Chuck McCorndog are only just beginning.

Music was rad. The art style was great. The concept was cool.

I couldn't really get the hang of the wall jump mechanic, and occasionally I launched off into the roof for seemingly no reason at all. I also didn't love not being able to attack enemies until they were into the elevator and their health bars showed up (Chuck would not wait, he is a man of action!).

Eagerly awaiting Elevating Tensions 2: Get Chucked

Developer

Oh man that is a great name for a sequel. Thanks for playing!

Jam Host

Really fantastic game you've made. Loved the music and fight sequencing. Would have liked to have seen more referencing to the capitalist theme within the scenery itself. Other than that, a stella game, good job!

Submitted

Pixel art is really polish. Menu, elevator and mechanics are  really clean :D I loved it ! Maybe a parry to avoid dying suddenly ? :3

Developer

Thanks :)  if we make a fighting game again we'll try to include a parry

Submitted

its good 

Submitted

Really clean pixel art, and a great soundtrack! I like the particle systems when taking and dealing hits. Constantly picking up and throwing weapons, replacing them, and brawling was fast and responsive.

One thing I would experiment with is adding some "hitstop" to really sell the impacts. You can tune this differently for both regular hits and kills, and would make your melee strikes feel a lot more visceral. Additionally, I kept trying to hit enemies as they entered, and the downtime while waiting for their health to become active broke the flow a bit.

With a few more enemy types and some milestones/upgrades, this could be a really fun high-score game! Well done!

Developer(+1)

Thanks a lot! We intended to make some enemies drop down from the vent above throughout combat to keep combat lasting longer and less slow door opening moment but we didn't get to that in the jam unfortunately.

Submitted

I really liked this game, and I hope we can one day see Chuck McCorndog in Smash. The presentation was good, but the gameplay had some issues. I managed to get a high score of 15k, but I thought the most efficient strategy was to just stand in a corner and spam the J-attack.

Developer

We thought we got rid of the hiding in the corner bug but sadly we didn't, but I'm glad you still had fun.

Submitted

The pixel art here is phenomenal. Gameplay is a bit repetitive, but given the timeframe I can understand why. I also liked that you showed the controls in the same style. Good stuff!

Developer

Thanks a bunch, glad it was fun