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A jam submission

Dreamy Quest 13View game page

An dreamy 8-bit adventure
Submitted by SOYBABY (@soybaby) — 6 days, 9 hours before the deadline
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Dreamy Quest 13's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#44.0004.000
Originality/Creativity#83.7863.786
Polish#92.9292.929
Overall#113.0713.071
Engagement/Fun#123.0713.071
Audio#142.5712.571
Magical Girl Concept#142.6432.643
Theme Interpretation#162.5002.500

Ranked from 14 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?
A girl has magic dreams

Which theme(s) did you pick?
Golden Wind, Stone Ocean, Phantom Blood, Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable

How does your game fit the theme(s)?
I'm incorporating a mix of themes into the items, enemies and environments encountered in each stage.

Were the graphics/audio assets for your game made during the jam?
All graphics & audio assets were made by me during the jam

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Comments

(+1)

Nice artstyle, nice retro audio. Dunno what to think of the music though, was pretty annoying. I get that it's dreamlike, but it was not pleasant to listen to. Pretty polished movement, was pretty intuitive. Enemies seemed a bit glitchy at times. Charming world, really nailed the dreamlike atmosphere. Hope to see more!

Host(+1)

Very very cute artstyle. Definitely very nice to look at. Also love the use of the audios for various effects; very amazing.

Hm I wonder if I did something wrong though... after being thrown into space, I mashed some buttons for a while and then the top half of the screen becomes yellow and the girl disappears and from then on I seem to be stuck...

In any case, thanks for participating!

Developer

oh no!! I will have to fix the space scene to prevent that from happening. Glad you like the art style! Thank you for the feedback 

Submitted(+1)

I've been enjoying the trippy entries in MGGJ4! This one definitely nails a dream-like surrealism.

I liked the graphic style a lot. Cute characters, great colors, a fun look all around. The sound is bizarre, but in a good way. 

The gameplay was simple, but fun. I was very amused as I ran around punches bees and seagulls. The fetch quests were very simple, but good enough for now. If the game was longer, I might like to see it get a little more varied and complicated.

Great work! I hope you add more levels :)

Developer(+1)

thank you so much! I appreciate the feedback and I’m glad you like the style. I do want to continue developing this for sure so that there is a more robust set of things to accomplish. Cool dog icon btw

Submitted(+1)

Lot of fun, but it got really laggy after I summoned the bees, which made the game really hard to play. 

Developer(+1)

Hi Nova Kane, thanks for playtesting! I just posted an update that fixes the bee slowdown. Let me know what you think.

Submitted(+1)

Surprisingly fun! I think the vivid colours and the sound FX made it feel relatively complete despite the relatively simplistic artstyle. I laughed really hard when picking up the flower made her punch hold a flower,  thought that was a really cute touch, and having to jump on the heads to jump into a portal was also very funny while adhering to game logic. Not much to say about the basic platforming gameplay but it all felt very cohesive and made for a decent package, even if incomplete.

Submitted(+1)

I like the premise and art style here. Having each level in a different setting with different tiles, background, NPCs, and monsters makes the game feel big and varied. The pixel art in use is simple, but visually appealing and consistent.

The controls don't quite work. I'd expect a game like this to be set up to allow one hand on movement and one hand for other controls, no matter what the specific controls are. Unfortunately there was no way I could arrange my hands to make that happen. I ended up using WASD with my pinky on Shift and my other hand tapping ?.

Repeatedly tapping Shift also triggers StickyKeys on Windows, but you'd be well within your rights to blame that one on Microsoft.

The audio style is not my thing, and I found it kind of grating at times, but I think it does okay at what it's supposed to be. I would really like to have music.

Unfortunately, the core gameplay just isn't compelling as it stands. The first level is okay, but the second level is frankly tedious. It's way too long a journey to repeat, especially since you can lose the clam, and clearing the birds is a chore. There needs to be something added to make these journeys more interesting. I don't have an answer for what that is.

I always find it difficult to rate prototypes and unfinished games. On one hand, it hardly feels fair to judge it by the standards of a complete game. On the other hand, there is only one rating scale for every game in the jam.

In addition to simply being incomplete, there are a few bugs. It's sometimes possible to jump and punch (which is critical to attack some enemies), but sometimes it doesn't work. Run seems to stay stuck on in some cases as well.

I think the best course of action would be to focus on making that second level really fun and interesting, then knocking out some of the bugs, and then applying all the lessons learned to future levels to round out the game.

Developer

Hey XCVG I appreciate that you took the time to check out the game and provide the valuable feedback! I've taken notes and will make sure to address each item for future updates. Thank you!!

Submitted(+2)

+ lovely art, cute aesthetic, very expressive characters

+ creative gameplay

+ punch animation

+ you can stand on people's heads

- walking speed is very slow (initially I thought the run button wasn't implemented or something but I realized it's probably literally mapped to the ? symbol. WTF)

- needs some music

Developer

Hey Lapspider! I appreciate the feedback. I've been struggling with which key to use for run—any suggestions? I'll see what I can do about adding music in the next update. Thank you!!!!

Submitted(+1)

LSHIFT is one I often see used to mean "run". AFAIK it's in the same place on every keyboard layout, unlike '?' or 'Z'.

Submitted(+1)

Why is it 13? Are there 12 more games I am missing out on?

Overall a interesting short game with very nice graphics. Although the character is slow, it actually feels fine in the unorthodox aspect ratio. It took me a while to realize that you are supposed to use the peoples heads to enter the portal and once inside you can run off into eternity to the right.

Apart from the menu theme and the sound effects there is no sound. I think something vaporwavey would fit in with the graphics. Or maybe add some ocean sounds to fill the silence.

The punch is very satisfying, though the enemies are not quite active.

As for the magical girl aspect, if the context wasn't a magical girl jam I would not have known that it was supposed to be a magical girl.

Developer(+1)

Great questions. I'll incorporate your suggestions and address some of the points in an update soon. 13 is because I wanted to have thirteen worlds to visit but I only was able to make two so far. There's already a way to run but I will be adding hints in-game on how to do that. I was debating on whether or not to give a clue on how to reach the portal. I might add something else to jump on or lower the height. Hmmm… Oh the portal I have to fix that so there's no way to run off forever—thanks! One thing I've been neglecting big time is the music. That's another one on the to-do list. Nice idea with the ocean sounds. Enemy movement needs to be addressed I agree with too. One change I've already made is the look of the character has been redrawn in a more magic girl way. I wanted to implement a costume change / transformation at a later stage but it might not happen given the time. Maybe I'll revisit this aspect in the future. Thanks again!

Host

Just in case I would like to ask: give one example as to how you incorporate the themes?

Just give one short quick answer and it is sufficient; this is just so I can quickly see that yes you incorporate the themes properly.

Developer

This is an early prototype at the moment but I’ll upload a new version soon that shows how the themes were incorporated into the game. Stone ocean is the name of stage 2