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A jam submission

neon ghostView game page

2D beat 'em up adventure
Submitted by matte (@mattemadex), M for Mediocre, maschiaT, nicole, OD.mp3 (@mp3overdose) — 21 hours, 32 minutes before the deadline
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neon ghost's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality/Creativity#64.2004.200
Theme Interpretation#83.9333.933
Magical Girl Concept#124.0004.000
Overall#163.6673.667
Engagement/Fun#163.6673.667
Audio#183.6673.667
Gameplay Polish#253.0003.000
Aesthetics#423.2003.200

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the Magical Girl genre?
MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD, PLEASE STOP READING BEFORE PLAYING THE GAME!!!                                    You are warned!                                    Magical Girl Mirai (or a mere ghost of her remaining magic) helps Magical Girl Rei (main character) to discover her power. As a consequence of emotional impressions, Magical Girl Rei gets offensive powers similar to what Mirai can do (AOE-attack), plus something that fits her style (lightning punch), plus a power to manipulate time.

Which theme(s) do you pick?
The main theme is "4. Grievous Lady", but some others are also integrated as alternative endings

How does your game fit those theme(s)?
The last warning on major spoilers!                                    Rei founds the truth about how Magical Girls are abused by CorpX, and loses her friend towards the end of the game, literally becoming a Grievous Lady.

If you follow any of the optional challenges, elaborate as you like.
We tried to play with all the optional challenges. Human metronome: rhythm-sensitive inputs and in-game events. Pana-sonic: a washing machine is involved as an important plot point. AE86: some tracks are Eurobeat-inspired SNES chiptunes.

Were the assets for your game made during the jam? Elaborate as you see fit.
Mostly yes, apart of one brick-and-concrete tileset that our artist already had made, and a pixel font that our programmer already had made.

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

The content amount was crazy!! I was really bad at the game though so I kept dying in the beginning which made me not have enough time to fully check it out, but the inputs or precise and satisfying and the art and world building is awesome :)

Developer

Thank you for trying and sharing the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

You managed to create such a big game, I'm impressed.
The  story was really nice.
I got the grievous lady ending.
Will definitely comeback to get the other endings.

Developer

Thank you, and congrats on getting the most out of the game!

Other endings are not as worthy, as they abruptly finish the game in the middle. I admit that trying to squeeze them in was a mistake (but a fun one, so no regrets on that ¦3)

Submitted(+1)

There is a lot of content in this game!

I found the graphics/ aesthetic to be oddly endearing.

Very cool to see multiple endings.

I only got the "Freedom Dive" ending so far, but I find it pretty clever to have an ending for each theme! :P

if you plan to continue working on this, it would be great to see an expansion to the player's moveset (kicks, grabs, throws, combos, specials would be cool to see! :D)

Great work on this!

Developer

Thanks for checking it out!

I tried to record a 100% gameplay video with the main ending, and, to my surprise, it takes ~40 minutes even if you know where to go.

Don't want to trick you into replaying, but there are more moves in the last third of the game ¦3

But yeah, having a more complex combat system from the beginning is a great idea! I think the game suffered a bit from a self-imposed restriction of having only two action buttons (yet I can experiment with adding a "run" by double-press on any direction button, and processing when punch button is being hold, which will give a bunch of different combinations).

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

woah.

That was really engaging. Had to see it through to the end because I was already sure it would be worth my while. Y'all didn't disappoint! Super well done!!! Nicely done getting so much mileage out of the combat as well. I felt legitimately giddy when things switched up near the end.

Developer

Very happy to read that, thank you ¦3

Submitted(+2)

when i see all the floors/lock doors/map, i was worrying the game will force me to explore everywhere seeking key card. But it turns out it's a multi-ending game, so it's good, and i actually play it again anyway. My first try is just Freedom Dive. My second try is Recollect Lines with the ghost lady. (and then the ghost lady jsut stay on the screen even when i click the dream again)

It's a fun game jam submission

Developer

Thank you for playing and sharing the feedback!

Yeah, it grew bigger than I thought, with a lot of exploration required to truly become a Magical Girl game.

I've noted the ghost lady bug to fix in the post-jam update, thanks!

Submitted(+1)

This was so cool and fun! The retro style was adorable and getting to the rooftop to see the dystopian city and purple clouded sky was really cool. Still super curious about CorpX and what they're up to! Had some difficulty with the enemies and then finding her hacking tools, but that's on me. I keep thinking maybe the tools are behind the red door on B1, but on 1B I can't unlock the red doors without disabling the lift that lets me reach B1 and none of the grunts have dropped a second key card... but hey I can use the roof jetpack to escape and that was a lot of fun! Really solid game and I enjoyed it a lot.

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Yeah, the maze of this facility is hiding a bunch of things from you ¦3

Only one of two lifts required the card, so the idea was to force you to leave the card in one of the terminals, locking you away from certain floors for some time. Sorry for making it too confusing!

Submitted(+1)

No apologizing! You made an excellent game that's a lot of fun to puzzle through and figure out. Thank you so much for sharing it!

Submitted(+2)

This is a pretty cool classic style beat em up! I enjoyed the retro aesthetic, and the music worked really well. The rhythm timed attacks were a cool mechanic. I'll admit I was really bad at them, and struggled in battles with multiple enemies at once.  That's more a me problem than a game problem. (I wouldn't have minded an easy mode though!)

This is really nice work. Great job!

Developer(+1)

Yeah, I tried to balance it to be more friendly to new players, but it seems like there is no one-size-fits-all.

Maybe an adaptive difficulty would help to make the game more accessible. Thank you for the feedback, that's a very good lesson!

Submitted(+1)

I went back and tried playing on my phone, and though I still have no rhythm (I'm musically cursed I guess) I was very impressed with the mobile controls, they worked very well!

Submitted(+1)

This game has potential. I was quite intrigued by the story, but I didn't get the true ending.

The game is really hard, it's hard for me to dodge the agents attacks and watch the right time at the same time.

Developer(+1)

I've experimented with more accessible rhythm indications, like flashing screen or something like the Crypt of the NecroDancer uses, but decided to leave a barely noticeable UI element as it is only supposed to be used as a quick reference at the beginning.

Sorry you had to look at it to catch the timings! That was definitely overlooked.

Submitted(+1)

Maybe a small sound before the good hit momentum could also help.

You wanna continue working on it? :3

Developer

The music and enemy movements are synchronized to the same rhythm the player should use, not sure if additional sound would help, but it is worth a try (can't test it on myself though, need to find someone who wouldn't mind suffering through a rhythm game without prior experience ¦3).

Yes, there is a list of things I wasn't able to finish in time, and I would like to address it post-jam.

One of the items there that might be helpful is an input delay calibration, as different devices may give you different responses to correctly timed actions (especially when playing with wireless headphones that add a huge audio delay, making it almost impossible to find the right time).

Submitted(+1)

The timing for punching at the start of the game is quite hard to pull off, but after you get a hang of it, the fun begin. 

Developer

Sorry, I just experimented with background resource streaming to load everything while you are in the training area, but it seems like JavaScript did not really liked that :P

Thanks for trying it out!

Submitted(+2)

I really enjoyed this one! I specifically like the powers available to the player. I haven't played many of these kinds of games, so I found the difficulty curve quite manageable. I did experience some bugs with the font rendering  (the characters tended to be cut off a bit early) and the charging noise played repeatedly after dying while charging. But it's clear that a lot of work went into this game, and I think it turned out well.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and leaving the feedback!

Sorry for the bugs, I've noted them to fix after the jam.

Submitted(+1)

The game is very interesting with the multiple endings and the special powers, but these powers are very broken and easy to abuse when you dominate them. Also, I feel that the protagonist walk slow.

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Yeah, it is hard to find the right balance, especially when players have different skill levels.

I guess the answer could be to make the difficulty adaptable, and to introduce new types of enemies to compensate for the difference in raw power after transformation.

Submitted(+1)

The game have a good difficulty, being easy to finish in the worst ending, but more hard to find the better endings, so this isn't a problem. My idea is nerf the powers, for example, limiting the use with a mana bar that will be recharged punching enemies without magic.

Developer

Having separate restrictions for the magic powers is a great idea, thanks for that! It could be really fun, I should definitely experiment with this mechanic post-jam.