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A jam submission

A Glimmer of HopeView game page

A magical girl of light fights against creepy DEAD ZONES, but not all is as it seems
Submitted by CardboardCat (@CardboardCatHQ), MokkaQuill (@MokkaQuill), TheRealZimm, KeaneWa — 9 minutes, 56 seconds before the deadline
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A Glimmer of Hope's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Magical Girl Concept#24.5794.579
Overall#83.9373.937
Graphics, Audio, and Polish#114.1584.158
Originality/Creativity#123.8423.842
Engagement/Fun#183.5793.579
Theme Interpretation#183.5263.526

Ranked from 19 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?
You are a magical girl fighting back the darkness.

Which theme(s) do you pick?
Conservation of energy

How does your game fit the theme(s)?
Only the light that you bring into the dark zones can light the way. There is no light except that which you produce.

Are all your graphics assets made by yourself during the duration of the jam?

Yes

all of them were made during the jam period

Are all your audio assets made by yourself during the duration of the jam?

Yes

all of them were made during the jam period

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Comments

Host

Art is definitely the strongest point of this game. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE ART.

The gameplay mechanic and concept is also very amazing. I absolutely love the darkness and the lighting the room.

Though... I think the game can have some polish. For one the movement feels kind of slippery I think. Imo you should increase the acceleration. For more impact I think when you hit the enemy, there should be SFX and more effects.

Good job! Thank you for participating!

Developer

Thank you for the feedback! We learnt a lot from making this! ^_^

Submitted

This is a cute little game, though it had some issues that kept it from being my favourite. I think it says something, though, that despite getting really frustrated at times, I played this game through to completion.

The light mechanics are definitely the highlight of the game. I really like that white torches show the way and red torches show danger, though I'd like to see checkpoints integrated into this as well (maybe blue or green torches?). Using it to activate things, too, is just a lot of fun. It's new and different, and it works well.

The platforming mechanics, well, they're fine on paper but there's something about the implementation that makes the game really finicky to play. Making precise jumps is hard and I'm not sure why. I think it's because the way it's set up you're committed to a jump of a certain length once you hit the jump button but it's very difficult to judge how long it'll be. The slidey movement, heavy inertia, and tendency to just drop control inputs doesn't help either. The wall jump is a cool idea, I love wall jump, but it's also super finicky and awkward and half the time I just fell off the wall. Particularly jumping from one wall to the other is very difficult.

For the most part, it's still okay, and the light mechanics carry it, but there are parts of the game which are just super frustrating to play. In fact, there were a few specific points where I almost gave up.

The first was the rotating hammer which I couldn't figure out how to get past. It kept knocking me down to the previous section and one time actually reset my checkpoint to before the jumping puzzle. Eventually I think I glitched my way through the hammer.

The second was the first disappearing platforms section. The light mechanics really lend themselves to slow, methodical play, and the finicky jumping basically makes it a necessity, but platforms that fall out from under you make this impossible. There just isn't time to land on a platform, probe for the next one, and pull off a jump before it disappears from under you.

The third was the giant wall jumping section near the end. This is pretty much just because of how bad the wall jumping is- a section full of it with spikes and pits was not fun.

I didn't like the flame sections very much- either the early ones or the columns you had to run past repeatedly near the end- but they weren't horrible. There were also parts where you had to make more leaps of faith than I'd like, mostly toward the end of the game, but again they weren't horrible.

I think in the end I'd rather see more use of the light mechanics, maybe for puzzles, and fewer tough platforming sections. If the platforming mechanics were improved, though, I might change my opinion on that.

I think I've already said this but the art is absolutely standout. It's consistently styled, it looks good, there's no glitching and it's all very nice. The character designs, too, are visually pleasing.

I wish there was more indication that punching ghosts is how you kill them. I was pretty confused the first time I made a ghost disappear.

The boss fight I tried to do properly once. I was sometimes able to light up all the lights, but not always. I thought it was because there were some up high where you had to wall jump and that's just not possible during a boss fight, but reading other comments it seems that it was just bugged. I ended up just cheesing it, jumping up and spamming melee attack on the boss's torso. Other than that, I didn't like that there seemed to be no way to avoid the swipe, but the other attacks struck a good balance between being dangerous and dodgeable. In terms of difficulty I was able to defeat the boss after a few tries, which means it's probably going to be too easy for a lot of people.

I'm not sure if the boss music is supposed to loop, but if it is it's not working.

In terms of length it's about right, though it's at the ragged edge of really needing a save/continue feature.

Dead Zones made me think of Metro for some reason, but the actual game has zero Metro vibes so I'm not sure why that is.

It's a pretty good game as-is, and it certainly has some really nice art. I think with a little bit of tweaking, it could go from pretty good to great.

Also, submitted under ten minutes before the deadline, that's cutting it close!

Submitted

A really cutesy hi-bit pixelart platformer game featuring a Magical Girl that has the ability to control an orb of light. The game artstyle, music, and sounds are really good and is well polished for its Magical Girl theme. However there needs to be improvement in the game mechanics and execution of the game play for this to be a complete game.


Magical Girl Concept: The main character Glimmer dresses as a Magical Girl and has only one magical ability of firing and controlling an orb of light, used only in lighting torches along a dark path. The Magical Girl theme is present but there is room for improvement in the character design and concept. I find that she could use more magical girl features like an offensive or defensive magical abilities/spells, have a flashy animation or be able to transform, or have a light familiar/fairy follow her as a companion.

Mechanics: The game utilizes some platforming movement controls and wall jump mechanics, which feels a little awkward at first but can be adapted easily. The player character run speed is comfortable for platformer of these types but a walk button will add a good deal of control for more careful players. As for the jump mechanics, the jumping feels good on the up direction but falling feels a little sudden or heavy. The jump animation corresponds well with the jump. However, there is some slight unresponsiveness when pressing the jump button and it happened in several instances in my playthrough where the character doesn't jump when moving. This seems to happen a lot on breaking platforms and when the character lands on a platform (seems to take a lot of time to register ground presence). The wall jump/slide mechanic is fun to use but one thing I notice is that at times the character animation for wall slide doesn't play correctly and defaults to the left/right run animations. Besides that, the character left/right hit box is off centered, causing some strange bugs when turning away from spiked wall, which causes the character to jump into the spike wall, or slip off edges when turning. I'm a little curious why the left/right movement key has an S key in the instructions. Other than that health and magic gauge mechanics are employed in the game while coupled with the the forgiving death mechanics, player character would restart their play through by spawning at an unmarked checkpoint. The magic gauge is used as a means of limiting how many light orbs can be fired and how long a light orb can be controlled which is a really neat setup. The consumption rate for the light orbs both firing off one and controlling feels reasonable enough. One notable mechanic is the ability to control the position of the light orb, which helps in lighting up certain paths and also to activate certain switches. Although this mechanics isn't a novel idea, but the developers manage to utilized it as part of an important mechanic in the game. However I felt that it can do more by doubling as an attack ability against enemies, since the melee attack ability feels somewhat odd and really redundant in this game. The melee attack seemed to be a two swipe attack which makes it feel overly long for a single button press and not closely responsive when the attack button is pressed. Although the enemy ghost would knock back (feels like a push back) when the melee attack occurs, it wasn't very exciting as there isn't any impact or hit indicator to tell the player if the enemy is hit. This goes the same for the Boss fight which was quite a let down (will explain more in Challenge/Engagement). I think the melee attack should either be improved, give a better feel to the enemy hit with animation/effects, or be replaced by the light orb which can naturally double as an attack. Another thing to note is the fixed camera tracking on the player character which feels stiff as the camera follows the player character. The camera movements and tracking needs a lot of adjustments and can also be used to address the "leap of faith" issue since this can be coupled with the light orb control mechanic. What I meant is that, when the right mouse button is held down, the camera could track the light orb or pan towards the light orb position instead, giving players a lot more visibility around the scene.

Visual: All the art and visual aspect of the game is done really well and the cute character design made the game very appealing to as a platformer. In terms of pixel art quality, everything is really spot on and is made with utmost care. The color choice and composition in the visuals really contrast the story and the character background very clearly as it highlights the main character, Glimmer in a really dark and possibly unforgiving world. Its know to be difficult to balance both the lighting and color especially when the background and world environment arts is set in a pitch black ambiance, so I would say the developer manage to pull it off without sacrificing the clarity of the artwork. As for the boss design, I find it well executed since the boss looks intimidating while has that mild scary sort of clown theme going on. I think the game is visually amazing since a lot of thought and effort must have gone into making it look so good.

UI: The game has a well laid out main menu and in-game menu but there isn't any exit button the in-game menu. There is a controller instruction screen which is helpful but the layout of each control keys seems really disorganized and it did not have any obvious flow or segmentation between each key control. I don't mind the creative instruction screen but having too much creativity to a point it looks disorganized makes it unappealing at times. Besides that, the UI used for the health (both main character and boss) and magic bar is simple and straight forward, so nothing to note. The dialog box has a character portrait display which makes it easy to identify which character is speaking at the moment. There are times when the ghost attack the character when dialog is being played, the ghost movement or AI should pause during such events as to avoid players from being harassed when reading dialog.

Audio: The original music adds a fine touch to what the game entails from the very start since the title screen and I really like how the title screen track creates this ambiance of darkness lit by a glimmer of light, just as the title's namesake. However, the platforming stage with the cave background doesn't seem to be playing any music track, rather just soft cave ambiance and it seems to last until the clown area. I think music should be introduced since the first ghost appears or when the first torch is lit so this way it lightens the heavy dreary feel of the dark cave which became monotonous after a while. (Spoiler Alert! Start) The music used in the clown area suites the intended message given off by the visuals and it became quite a relieve when discovering this area. Then there is the music track used in the boss stage, which gives that really nice exciting clown battle expected in this part of the game. Just like what the rest have mention in their comments, somehow the audio did not loop so was met with silence instead. Anyway, at least there is a rewarding but sort of melancholy piano track after beating the boss (Spoiler Alert! End).  Besides the issues, the music composition suites the visual design aspects really well and it matches well with the environment the player is in. As for sound effects, the developers use a good selection of sounds effects and are used at the right moments in the game. Nothing of significant to say about it.

Theme: The game does fulfill the Magical Girl theme since the Glimmer has a very magical look to her and have the magical ability to manipulate an orb of light. However, the side theme wasn't really addressed well or is misrepresented because the developers picked conservation of energy as their side theme. They related conservation of energy to how "the light [brought] into the dark zones can light the way." and "There is no light except that which you produce", which to me doesn't ring conservation at all, rather it sounds more like "filling the empty void with hope of light" that sort of theme. My interpretation to conservation of energy in a game involving light would be like this: light is a precious magical resource in this dark world and any use of it will limit your progress into the game. So, in other words, whenever the player uses light the magic bar doesn't get filled until that light source is recovered, e.g. extinguish the light from lit torch to recover magic power, then that sort of interpretation molds well with conservation of energy. Obviously with the current story and design decisions made in this game, the developers can forgo the idea of this theme of conservation of energy and focus on telling a story oriented towards hope instead.

Challenge / Engagement (Large spoiler text ahead!): First of all, the game isn't very challenging, rather has several mild surprises when it comes to platforming, such as the broken platform and out of place canons. (Spoiler Alert! Start) The first part of the game (the cave area) is basically just to get the hang of the movement control and there isn't any excitement in avoiding environmental obstacles. The spike walls and sludge feels more like barricades or a means to guide the player to their destinations. The fire traps give a sense of dynamic level design but was poorly executed since the trap can be easily avoided with the right timing and player placement. One thing I would highlight is the use of torches as switches as puzzle elements to deactivate certain traps in the game. So far the only one puzzle I like is when you need to hover an orb of light under a platform and activating a switch torch (green lit torch). On to the next area, the clown area, feels the same as the cave area but bouncing beach balls fired off from cannons are dynamic obstacles which did give a little pressure to progress past it. Besides that, the ghost appearing at first in the cave area and several times along the way did not pose any risk. At first I assume they were not killable as I was firing off light orbs at them, while on many occasions I was able to out run past them until I started using the melee attack. As for the boss, the attacks pattern and decision for each attack style are done really well with predictable times to avoid the attack. What broke it was the confusion that whether lighting up the bulbs around its neck actually lead to defeating it, while after one point the center bulb couldn't be lit up anymore. In the heat of the moment, I was assuming that the player needs to cause the boss to falls down onto the ground by lighting up all bulbs in order to hit him on ground level but that seems to be the wrong way to fight him. So it seems that jumping and smacking him with the melee attack is the right way of fighting the boss, which is a big let down because the most important mechanic (the light mechanic) became something of an afterthought in this fight. So I want to say that a good challenge is in the level design and in how the player can make full use of the available mechanics in defeating the boss (Spoiler Alert! End). In order to make the level challenging, the game could use more dynamic obstacles, challenging wall jumping sequences, and puzzle elements. In other words, make full use of what is available and have it do a lot more than just being barricades and lighting torches. (Spoiler Alert! Start) As for engagement, the story is pretty engaging since the unexpected twist is in defeating the final boss and discovering the true intend of defeating the boss (Spoiler Alert! End).

Originality / Creativity: The story has some level of originality with the use of dark zones and how darkness is involved with magical girls. However, the developer might want to reconsider writing something that isn't based on a familiar magical girl trope that is known by the masses. Besides that, the level of creativity is substantial with the art and music put into the game.

Story: The initial cutscene story gave a good ground of what to expect in the game but then it felt quite odd since it wasn't consistent with what is depicted visually during the gameplay. I would expect Glimmer to be fighting against monsters made from pure darkness (you get a bunch of ghost clowns instead) while the final boss didn't exactly use any abilities that represents darkness. However, there needs to be some good deal of reassessing the story and lore within the gameplay. Besides that, the story created quite a mystery after the final boss is defeated. (Spoiler Alert! Start) Which it raises the question whether Glimmer is the only magical girl capable of defeating darkness, why are other Magical Girls involved and what made them monster in the first place (Spoiler Alert! End)? Anyway if the game ever gets further developed, the story direction could use some work and reconsideration because a good well fleshed out world can in fact keep the story consistent while making it believable during game play.

Overall: The game excels in its original pixel artwork and audio content. Their well to do light manipulating mechanics stands out as something that makes this game have its own identity. However, there are some game breaking mechanics and level designs that needs to be reconsidered if the developers wish to further develop this game or even the next set of games. Currently, I can see the mechanics are not fully utilized and how its being used is at bare minimum which means a lot more can be done with what is available. I'm not sure if the developer intentionally made the game too easy but I think there needs to be a lot more thought put into making the game a little more exciting.

Note: The breaking platform should reset after a set amount of time instead of forcing the player to KYS just to reset the level.

Developer(+1)

Thanks a lot for the in depth feedback. It's super useful for us!

The art is massively cute. The boss looked great. Love the lighting torch mechanic.

I love metroidvanias, so you got me right off the bat.

As far as improving, really it's all about time and play testing which we don't have as much during these jams. The controls and collisions get a little wonky at times, I'm sure you're aware. Many times I got stuck on corners, that kinda thing. I mostly just blame playing on the keyboard, haha!

The music is nice. Seamless looping except for the boss. Some of the sound effects could be raised/lowered in volume. Like, the landing is much louder than the jumping and can end up being a bit distracting.

Again, everything is great so far, these are just little nitpicks.

Developer

Thanks a lot! The first starting point we had was "Let's make a metroidvania" so, even though it strayed from it in the end, it's cool it still came across! :D

Submitted

Really liked the pixel art in this game.  The lighting mechanic was interesting. I also liked that there was a boss fight at the end. I beat the boss but wasn't exactly sure how that worked. 

SPOILER

I thought lighting up all the bulbs made the boss vulnerable, but there were times the boss just seemed to fall down on its own.

END SPOILER

My biggest suggestion would be to tighten up the controls. When it comes to platforming games, loose controls just makes for a frustrating experience. Other than that, good job.

Developer

Hi there, thanks for the feedback! Yeah, with the boss the idea was lighting up all the bulbs should make it drop, but it's unfortunately a little bugged. Sorry about that!

Submitted (2 edits)

Absolutely adorable artwork! The main character in particular was great, with a lot of expression and animation in the small sprites. The music and audio was all great! The lighting mechanic was good, I liked how that worked, and the occasional puzzle using it. The end boss was also a great idea! I always love big, imposing bosses. Very cool. The story was fun too, sort of like a happier Madoka.

The actual controls and movement could be a little frustrating occasionally... I'd get into bad loops of falling in insta-death slime and down spikey drops over and over again. Also almost didn't figure out how to beat the boss... I figured out where the missing lights were in the nick of time. Maybe I just wasn't observant enough, but those were tough to notice. There was a small bug there too, the music stopped playing during the fight.

Despite the few issues I ran into, this was overall a really great game! Hope to see more from you!

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much for the feedback! ^_^

Submitted

The visuals, the lighting were top. The SFX of the character were cute! 

Now, with the movement, it felt like walking in ice, or maybe the character was too fast and the platform a little tiny. The walljump was great tho.

There was a bug with the final boss where, even thought I light up all it's lights, it didn't fall and continued attacking the little magical girl. Maybe the boss overcame it's weakness and went for the kill. 

The mechanic of the light was a lot of fun, and having the ball following me around while holding the right click was cute.

The ghost could give a little feedback when being attacked though. I noticed they got brighter but that was with some of them only.

Jumping is fun. Loved the design of the final boss and the final girl! 

Developer

Thanks so much for the feedback! Yeah, I really wanted to make death animations for ghosts but I sadly ran out of time. Will definitely make sure to prioritise it in the future! ^_^

Submitted (1 edit)

This was a lot of fun! I love the 2D visuals and the lighting. The music and SFX are amazing in this game. The team nailed the atmosphere. Pacing was just right, it didn't feel like I was in the same area for too long. The game felt fair and the difficulty curve is really gradual in a good way, so great job on that! What stood out to me was the lighting mechanic and torches and how that interacts with the world, player and enemies. That aspect was really fun.

Only thing I had an issue with is some aspects of the player controller feel a little weird. The movement doesn't feel 1:1 at times and the collision box around the player felt a tad iffy at times;  I found myself stuck onto some ledges lol. However it didn't hinder the whole experience for me, I say with some improvement with the controls and player controller; this can turn out to be a better game than it already is. Great job to the team that worked on this!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much!

Submitted (1 edit)

I written these as I play, It's the experience I have with this game


This game got a very charming pixel art! and a nice intro too, 

The game started, I take some time to try to get used to the control

The portrait of the character is very cute

The lighting mechanic is quite interesting, but it’s kind of frustrating trying to find a torch with it since the light from the magic light is not bright enough for me to see where it going so it’s kind of a blind guess and keeps hitting the wall.

The next I notice is how the character near the bottom of the screen, Which makes jumping to the right spot quite difficult because I can’t see what below my feet.

I see a ghost and hit it, Since there’s not really a visual cue that it hurt in any way I almost thought It’s unkillable for a second

I come across the first hazard, I giant hammer thing, I almost got no time to react and it launches me down to the bottom so I have to jump back up, next is the fire hazard I also can’t react to this, It just comes out of nowhere, I recommend at least show the hazard in the safe spot so the player can learn of its existence and how it works first before throwing it at, the player without warning, even if you kind of hint it with red fire, but most player not gonna catch on that, 

next hazard breaking platform, this time I react in time and immediately jump back, but the platform didn’t respawn so I have to kill myself for it to respawn, at least respawn point is generous, okay this part is quite a problem since you can only see the platform when it lights up, You can’t find where the torch is it time before the platform break I have to die multiple time until I can proceed, this where I notice how weirdly unresponsive the jump control is, when you run and jump, the jump sometimes doesn’t work, this seems to be a problem specifically on this breaking platform, I keep falling into the water due to this problem, after many hardships, I pass through the breaking platform part, 

I enter the circus-looking place, It has music! very nice, after passing through a bunch of cannonballs, oh no another breaking platform!

Then after that, there’s place the required lighting torch under the platform with fire hazard to proceed, this is kind of clever actually.

Later come into the part with a lot of jumping down, Since the character is at the bottom of the screen it becomes mostly a leap of faith.

I then come across the boss finally he kind of reminded me of moon lord from Terraria

 This boss, it’s the worst, this guy is gonna be the most inconsistent thing I ever come across.

1st try: this boss seems simple, you just have to light up all the light and the boss will become vulnerable, okay I got its health down in half… wait I light up all the light? Why doesn’t it fall down? Did I glitch it out? time to kill my self

2nd try: Okay maybe it’s fixed now…. wtf Why does it’s chest block my light magic? I’m not going to be able to light all the light!   time to kill myself.

3rd try: I light one of the light.. wait it fall down? I don’t even light all the light, okay time to hit it… Now it’s doesn’t take any damage from the hit???  time to kill myself.

10th+ tries: I’m going insane, It seems most people would give up at this point, but i’m not most people

??th tries : I did it! somehow I can defeat it!, with sheer luck!

I guess the cute character at the is worth it I guess.




conclusion: this really need some playtesting, It’s one of the most flustered I have been but I’m sure fixing these problems, is part of the learning process, This game is almost good, it just needs some fix and polish, keep your head up king 

Developer

Thank you so much for the in depth feedback - knowing your thoughts as you played it is super useful for us!

We're really sorry about the experience with the boss. You should be able to shoot straight at the light balls, but the hitbox bugged in a way that wasn't present during our playtesting with others, which is really unfortunate (same with the music). We'll no doubt patch it as soon as the jam voting is over, but thanks for sticking with it to reach the end!

Thanks for all the platforming feedback too! It's our first platformer, and only the second game we have ever made, so this feedback is SUPER helpful to us, thanks so much!

Submitted

Thoughts recorded during my playthrough

+ = I liked it

- = I didn't like it

* = Comment/neutral

====================

+ Good intro cutscene

+ Cute art

- The movement feels too fast

* Playing with both the keyboard and mouse feels a little awkward for this type of game, but being able to shoot projectiles in the direction of the cursor is a unique touch. (I eventually got semi-used to it after a while)

- The melee attack seems to trigger twice?

- Game music is awfully quiet, even at full volume - if there even is music? I can't tell.

+ This needs to be said separately: Glimmer's portrait is really good!

- I had to take a leap of faith and fell into some spikes. Try to avoid designing levels like that. I did appreciate that there was a bit of dialog to warn me about that, but there was little I could have done to avoid getting damaged anyway without knowing exactly how to avoid it.

+ I like how quick respawning is, and there seem to be fairly generous checkpoints

- There's one point shortly after meeting the first ghost where you have to jump across several small platforms. The movement is so quick and the platforms can be hard to see until you've lit them, so I died a lot in this place.

- Ghost kept moving when a text box was up (I was in the area under the endless flame). It managed to get in a few hits before I was done reading.

+ I like how white torches are neutral, and red torches indicate a hazard.

- Now that I know I can melee the ghosts, there really isn't much challenge to them. I just stand still while they charge at me, I hit them until they disappear, then move on. There are no additional gimmicks added on and no environmental challenges, so that experinece just feels like filler instead of the skill test that I believe was intended.

* Suddenly MUSIC?!

- Throwing a bunch of ghosts at me from the same direction doesn't really challenge me. If they had come at me from different angles and had their own gimmicks, that may have been different.

- The cannon platforms set piece is really obnoxious: More leaps of faith that have me running into cannons that shoot random projectiles, and there are eventually so many of them that it's nearly impossible for me to not get hit!

+ I am really appreciating the hold-right-click light ball technique - I can explore a room for lights if I want, and holding the light ball in front of me can mitigate unexpected hits once in a while.

- Bug in the vertical platforming room: You don't die automatically when you fall into a pit if you fell during your invincibility frames. You have to move after the invincible effect wears off to trigger death.

- Transition to new corruption room is a bit quick. Needs something to smooth it out, like a fade out/in. (More of a nitpick, really)

+ Placing a switch underneath the walkway so I had to use the right-click-follow light ball was cool.

- I got to a room with 4 ghosts. I dispatched them, then started exploring left to see if I had missed something. I did - it triggered the dialog from the now-defeated ghosts!

* I'm not sure why there's a meter for the magic - I always seem to have enough of it, and the light balls are designed such that keeping a right-click-locked ball for long is both nearly impossible and not terribly game-breaking (as far as I can tell). Maybe get rid of it?

+ On that topic, the big, shiny health bar makes sense and isn't in the way.

- Boss has background music, but it stops abruptly - I think the looping is messed up.

- OK, this battle with the clown is really ticking me off. I quit at this point (and I'm sad, because I suspect this is near the end).  Here's why:

  • Light ball collision detection is inconsistent in the worst of ways: sometimes the arms block shots, sometimes they don't. While I like those times when they don't block, it makes hitting the clown's balls nearly impossible.
  •  The clown's target areas (it feels weird calling them "balls" 😆) are inconsistent, too. I believe the idea is that you need to light all of the targets up to bring the clown down to earth so you can smack his silly face, then rinse-repeat until he's done. Unfortunately, sometimes the lights are all lit, but the game doesn't register this, so I'm frantically trying to hit targets that may or may not need shooting, hoping to hit that random one that needs to be hit or having the clown fall on his own. Other times, the clown falls before all of the targets have been lit. This issue is compounded by the random hit detection: is the game telling me that I successfully lit the target, or is it being blocked by the clown's body?
  •  The light balls I cast don't always seem to live long enough to reach their intended target consistently. I'm not sure if it's due to the fussy hit detection or something else, but it added to my annoyance.
  • I didn't initially catch that there were more targets above the clown's head; it wasn't clear during the introduction how many targets the clown had. Not the biggest deal, but it's there.

Summary

This is a cute game with some potential, but there are design choices and random glitches that hold it back. During much of my playthrough I was thinking "this game should be subtitled "Leap Of Faith" because there are way too many leaps into the great unknown; I know that you're supposed to light your way with the torches along the path, but it's nearly impossible to get to those torches without making a jump into the darkness. Combine that with the lackluster combat, and the overall experience feels kind of mediocre. Here's what I'd advise: study classic platform games like the Mario series and Mega Man series and try to learn not just *how* their levels are constructed, but *why." What makes them interesting to play? How do they avoid player frustration? And also make note of their missteps, for even these venerated series are not without their errors.

So to summarize my summary, I applaud your entry in this game jam, but I think you can do better. Indie game dev, especially in game jams, is a constant journey of improvement, so I hope you can take this feedback and grow from it!

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much for all of the feedback! Really sorry about the boss, it shouldn't have been that way. It worked in our playtesting and then broke with out final upload, which we should have allowed more time for. Thanks for giving it your best shot regardless!

Really appreciate you breaking down your feedback into bullet points, there are so many things there we didn't think of and this makes it really easy for us to action the feedback for future games. Thanks again ever so much!