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Balloon Story's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #52 | 3.756 | 3.833 |
| Overall | #107 | 3.838 | 3.917 |
| Audio | #113 | 3.511 | 3.583 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution) | #124 | 4.491 | 4.583 |
| Graphics | #132 | 3.593 | 3.667 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
Nope, I worked alone. I typically struggle in a team and prefer to do it all myself. It was fun though!
Was the resolution a challenge?
I don't think the resolution presented any unexpected challenges until late in development. I knew that I'd need to make small sprites, which meant I could get away with relatively low-effort programmer art (not that I could do any better than this.)
The text, though, was a bit of a surprise. These are such short quips to clue the player into why this menu has shown up, yet all of the real-estate is already used! Each letter is a struggle to get the player to understand what you're trying to convey, in as small a space as 3 pixels wide by 4 pixels tall. I mean, have you seen my 8? It's practically illegible. It looks like a smudgy 0!! But the font as a whole is charming, I think.
What did you learn?
I wanted to join to practice my game-making skills, to stay ahead of the curve and keep myself from becoming hopelessly rusty. And because these game jams are fun. This is also my first experience making a "scripted" game with pre-built levels and virtually no randomness. That's new to me.
I'm afraid I can't say I've learned very much, aside from a new respect for people who did and do create games for ridiculously low-resolution computers and consoles, and for people who make such gorgeous pixel-art at these minuscule scales. There's a lot that goes into making a game, and I'm only particularly good at the programming part.
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Comments
Very cool entry! Fun mechanics and it looks good. One piece of feedback I would give is that some of the visuals are confusing. At the start everything above the baloon looked like a ceiling to me, so I tried going left and right, And maybe the edges of levels should have walls instead of going nowhere. Good job overall!
Simple fun and very challenging game… you get easily into the addicting loop of “oh man almost had it - retry!” - Good job :)
I liked the graphics, too - the balloon that has a 3D render effect and the parallax background!
And the music is super simple but gets you in the right state of mind!
I love it :D you got to really get in a state of zen for some of those parts, especially when nearly pressing 'retry' instead of 'checkpoint' thank god I didn't ^^ that last level was super cool too! my score:
really fun game! :)
This game is so simple and cool! The controls are about as intuitive as you can get, with someone picking up the mechanic in just a few seconds. I only got through level 2, but it's pretty addicting. The music and art is on point. This game works really well for 64x64 but I could see it being really fun in higher resolutions too!
Lots of attention to detail on the movement and presentation of the balloon. Felt focused and complete.
Reminded me of an Earth Worm Jim level: https://youtu.be/yDSSFtzAmcQ
This one might be one of my favorites so far! It's tough but makes you want to keep playing! Really nice job!
Nice game, the artstyle and audio fits quite well, but the ballon being as big as the obstacles makes it a bit hard to complete the levels.
I like the idea and the gameplay, but the second level is already too difficult. After getting past the rotating blocks it's hard to tell wether it's you smacking into things or them smacking into you because you lose reference with respect to the background and floor. The execution is really smooth though and moving around with the baloon feels really good, props to you for that!
Yeah... I'm beginning to realize the game's difficulty depends a lot on you being me- someone who knows what's coming next and exactly how the balloon moves in certain circumstances. (Though, it's intentionally both difficult and super quick to restart.) If you're struggling with reference frames, you *can* get through the game while hugging the stationary walls enough to see them.
If I make a post-jam version, I may reduce the size of the world as a whole to effectively boost the camera's range, and probably slow down the obstacles greatly. The camera is your greatest ally here, and the resolution limits your ability to use that ally.
I'm disappointed that my game is too difficult... there are five levels, and the later ones introduce additional concepts and features. Though I suppose it's good that people don't see level 4, it includes back-and-forth wind which desperately needs a tell and I didn't draft up a particle system to clue the player in.
Yeah I get you, I had the same problem with regulating difficulty in past jams too. It's really hard, if not impossible, to look at your game from a "fresh" prespective. As if you've never played it. I've learned the hard way that in game jams your game should feel easy to you. Because you as the developer are the most experienced player and the one that has the most play time.
Fun! Good art. Good job!
I really like this! simple mechanics, graphics fit the challenge well, nicely done!
I like pretty much everything about this game from the mechanics to the artwork to the music.
I find this kind of game hard to play because inertia takes a long time for me to learn to control so I didn't get very far. But that's a fault with me, not with the game :D
Congrats!