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A jam submission

An Epic Tale of Tea and TumultView game page

Power up a heroic little tea kettle by whistling/singing into your microphone.
Submitted by andyman404 (@andyman404) — 3 hours, 44 minutes before the deadline
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An Epic Tale of Tea and Tumult's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Presentation (rate its art, animations, sfx, music, and aesthetic appeal)#1402.4173.625
Theme (how well does the game fit the challenge theme?)#1512.2503.375
Creativity (how unique or innovative was this experience?)#1652.0833.125
Gameplay (how good was the user experience, game design, narrative, etc?)#1692.0003.000
Overall#1732.1333.200
Implementation (rate the game's overall stability and functionality)#2031.9172.875

Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

List the Itch usernames of all official team members.
andyman404

How does your game fit the theme?
This microphone-powered game requires the physical player to take a deep breath in order to whistle/sing a note into the microphone and sustain it for as long as they can to increasingly ramp up or activate the in-game character's powers. The character is a brave little whistling tea kettle who can boil without a stove and become progressively faster and more powerful for as long as the real player keeps whistling/singing a note continuously into the microphone. This takes some deep real-life breathing and breathwork to succeed in most of the obstacles. But keep in mind that the more boiling hot and angry the kettle becomes, the harder it is to control. [Hint: occasionally, you also need to know when NOT to take a deep breath to pass an obstacle.] Note: Do not select "Oculus Virtual Audio Device" as the microphone if it shows up. If it comes up by default in the microphone selector, then close the game, change the microphone setting in windows to a real non-virtual microphone, and then start the game.

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Comments

Developer(+1)

LOL. The amount of 1-star rating bombings is impressive. I'm honored. Apparently there would have been even more of these 1-star rating bombings if they hadn't removed 4 of the down-raters after the jam.

Submitted(+1)

Ooh! Good job on all the art work and environments! The kitchen got messed up real bad. Fun and unique mechanic with the microphone. Played for a while with my own voice, but started to get out of breath, so just changed sensitivity so high that it automatically stayed on the boil.

It could be nice if the game didn't require you to make voice all the time, or that there would be some benefit in being in the not boil state as well.

Anyways really impressive work for a jam! Well done

Show post...

 This is amazing. The amount of polish you've achieved is unbelievable for such a short amount of time. Some feedback would be that environmental assets blocked the camera a lot, sometimes completely. I wasn't able to progress further ecause of this. Also sometimes it was hard to find my way around the level. Great job!

Developer

Thank you! Thanks for the feedback - for any other players who see this comment, the player controls the camera with their mouse and will need to look around. It's a 3D platformer, so if someone plays it like a 2D platformer from only one camera angle, they're not going to do so well. As for where to go, initially one needs to follow the trail of sugar cubes, and then follow the non-dairy fairy godmother's glittering rainbow fairy dust trail after you meet her, or look for the next fire to point to the next place to go.

Show post...

the second this reaches my queue im definitely smashing five stars on it, awesome

Submitted(+1)

Looking forward to get this game on my queue to rate it. Marvelous! I'm having so match fun going "NIIIIIIIIIII" as I play it. (Not so much fun for my wife which is slightly worried by the sounds I'm making). :) WORTH IT! 

Developer

Thank you! A fun alternate way of playing it for two people, is to have one player sing into the mic, while the other one works the keyboard/mouse. The singer still needs to pay attention though - too much rage makes it hard to control. Some parts, like the shelves are a lot easier to pass when Kettle is only lukewarm.

Submitted (1 edit)

Wow, it's amazing how you made it something so unique and polished in such short time for a few days game jam. Also a very creative approach to the jam theme. And it's really nice you put effort to be able to adjust the microphone settings in-game for different scenarios. Outstanding work!

Some feedback in case you want to work further in the game: I feel it's too hard to explore the first level. Maybe because I'm not skilled enough to manage all inputs at the same time (keyboard, mouse and voice) or because the level design was confusing for a starter.

Developer

Thank you!

Developer(+1)

If anyone has any trouble on getting your microphone to work on any of the microphone-powered Windows games in the jam, make sure you do the following (feel free to copy this to your page if you've submitted a microphone-powered game):

1. Go to Start menu -> Settings -> Microphone Privacy Settings (type it in that settings search bar).

2. Make sure the toggle for "Allow apps to access your microphone" to on. See below:


Also, you can preselect your default microphone too:

1. Go to the Start Menu -> Settings -> System -> Sound

2. Choose your input device. Make sure it is a real microphone and not some virtual mic like "Oculus Virtual Audio Device".


Submitted

Overall very good and wholesome game.

Few problems while playing: Environment assets were obstructing the camera a lot. Geometry placement seems to make some movement and progress impossible. For example, you stand on a pot handle with fire and max heat value, but you can't get up the shelf since there are some edges that block movement. Even if you stand at the edge of the pot handle.

Good job on the game!

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks! For the example with this pot handle - there are some challenges where just getting as hot as you can isn't going to get you where you want to go. Sometimes being a little more coolheaded and tempering Kettle's anger will get you there instead. 

You control the camera and need to move it around. Sometimes you need to look at things from a different angle to see the solution or the path behind something (near the top of that wall cabinet). Look for where the fires are to get a hint on where to go.

Use the number in the heat/anger indicator to help gauge how high you can jump.

Keep in mind that the hotter/angrier that Kettle gets, the harder he is to control. Sometimes it is helpful to have the precision of a lukewarm kettle, or to go cold while in mid-leap.

(+1)

fun and wholesome 

Submitted(+1)

watched the trailer, breaks my heart that i cant play it on my mac. i play it in my dreams

Developer(+1)

Hehehe. I have an old 2012 Macbook Pro 15" as my backup computer. I wonder if I should spin it up and see if it can run this, even just from within the Unity editor.

BTW, do you know if folks still play indie/itch.io games on new Apple Silicon macs and the latest versions of Mac OS? I remember the permissions stuff getting very fussy about indie games from Itch, and I couldn't figure out how to make mac builds that worked anymore, so I gave up doing mac builds a few years ago.

Submitted(+1)

i have the new Apple Silicon and if just download directly from itch there always seems to be a problem.. but i just found yesterday that everything works fine if you download the itch launcher on your computer and download the mac games from there!