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Sunfighter's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #144 | 3.309 | 3.700 |
| Audio | #147 | 3.309 | 3.700 |
| Overall | #174 | 3.399 | 3.800 |
| Graphics | #202 | 3.130 | 3.500 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution) | #238 | 3.846 | 4.300 |
Ranked from 10 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, just me! I hit some snags towards the end, but making this tiny, silly little thing is probably the most fun I've ever had with game dev.
Was the resolution a challenge?
Honestly I think the resolution was actually a help to me. I always struggle with scope and something about the extremely low resolution let my brain keep things small. Though I did have to deliberately misspell the word "resistance" because even with a tiny pixel font the whole thing wouldn't fit on the screen.
What did you learn?
I learned a ton about my workflow needs as a solo dev. I've done two game jams and the first game I made was okay but basically just a demo of a concept, while the second one was a barely functional mess at submission time. This one, while it's tiny, actually feels like a complete game, and even has a story! I think the confidence I've gained from this project will be a big help going forward.
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Comments
Nice game, some good design there for the levels… UI positioning obstructs the view too much (you don’t clearly see when there’s a section you can go down because the bars just go on top of that). I would have loved a bit more detail on the tileset, as it is a bit bofing compared to the rest, but it works well with the theme. Music & SFX also feels adequate and goes well the action. Very good entry!
Loved the sound and the parallax background!
Thanks! That background was something I whipped up in a few minutes, totally meant to be a placeholder but ended up sticking around and honestly, I don't think I could have improved on it much even if I had tried. I had hoped to add a few more parallax layers, but I think it might have just been too busy, so it was probably for the best I didn't spend time on it. Thanks for playing!
Very cool game! Didn't feel so hard that I'd rage quit, but not easy enough to bore me. The controls and fighting felt great. Cracked me up crouching down and punching those little robot dudes lol.
That ending cinematic was so good too! The animations were great and I loved the whole "4 months later" bit and that you had to press attack to hit the sun. The whole cinematic was just great, you definitely made every pixel count. The music was great as well.
Great job!
Thank you! This makes me so happy, because I basically had that vision for the ending and my enthusiasm for it gave me the momentum to build the rest of the game to support it. I'm really glad someone else appreciated it too. I also felt very much like a "real" dev having made a game with an end cutscene, as silly as it is. Thanks again!
This is *really good*. The spritework is excellent—the robots having an outline helps add a sense of weight to their sprites, whereas the player sprite *feels* more dexterous for not having an outline.
Others have mentioned the controls being confusing but the only part that tripped me up is
My brain keeps insisting that K, the 'down' button equivalent, ought to be block.
I see that there is controller support so I'm putting this in my pile of things to revisit once I grab my controller.
The sound is overall great, but the standout are the impact sounds. Just perfectly punchy.
That's a really good point about the location of the block button, thanks! Towards the end of the jam in the word file I was using to keep track of development "customizable controls" moved from "to do" to "there's no way" (along with the boss fight I wanted so much), but I think it would've been a big help to have gotten them in there. Thanks for playing and all the kind words!
Loved the deepness of combat and variety of character moves. A lot of game feel combined with tight controls.
A very polished game.
Thanks so much! I think the game feel is probably what I'm most proud of. I spent more time than I had hoped to squashing bugs in the attacks and blocking mechanic, but I'm glad it seems like it was worth it!
This will probably be my favorite game of the jam. Love the complex combat, the running mechanic, and especially the visual style. Like, I could play this and not realize you made it under a 64px restriction.
I hope you keep developing it, and if you do, I think you could simplify some things. I got pretty confused by the four different stats, especially the difference between green and orange. Four seems like a lot. Same with the buttons. Having JKIL and Space and ASDW was pretty confusing for my hands, even though this is the type of game I usually play.
None of that distracted from the fantastic moment when the little bots showed up for the first time, and that sound effect played. It really conveyed the "oh shit" feeling, even without knowing what was going to happen.
Wow, that's all so kind of you to say, thanks! I actually meant for it to stay however it ended up by the end of the jam, but now that I've had a couple of days and some feedback I think I might let myself get pulled back into it before long. I definitely feel like the controls were a placeholder I got used to in building and testing, and pretty unapproachable. I like your point about the meters being confusing too, and I'm thinking maybe just having both running and being in the sun affect one combined stamina value would be a lot cleaner. Thanks again!
Awesome!!!! You really nailed the feel, combat just FEELS nice, and the robot hitting sounds are perfect. It felt really good to smack a robot
My ONLY complaints are:
- Weird confusing control scheme
-Little TOO difficult (maybe due to the control scheme?)
But the sun sapped away a LOT of health really fast, which made me especially weak to the robots. Still an awesome entry though, keep it up!
Thanks so much! I actually spent a lot of time tweaking that robot punch sound in Ableton Live and I'm so happy someone else out there appreciated it. Believe it or not I actually reduced the intensity of the sun drain like three times, lol. I'm learning that I have no sense of the difficulty in the things I make and that I should always assume they're way too hard. Looks like I'm not quite there yet!