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A jam submission

桑之巫韻︰夜鳴脈動 Song of Morus: Heartbeat on BeatView game page

A rhythm shoot'em up game fighting hopping Jiangshi
Submitted by SunnyChowTheGuy (@SunnyChowTheGuy) — 1 day, 19 hours before the deadline
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桑之巫韻︰夜鳴脈動 Song of Morus: Heartbeat on Beat's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#34.3504.350
Audio#34.2004.200
Overall#43.8433.843
Genre Mashup Incorporation#53.7503.750
Magical Girl Concept#53.8503.850
Polish#63.6503.650
Originality/Creativity#93.7503.750
Engagement/Fun#113.3503.350

Ranked from 20 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?
Protagonist Song is a taoist priestess who has mastered oriental sorcery aka magic. (i also give her a mascot this time to match the theme better)

Which genres from categories A and B did you choose?
Shoot 'em up X Rhythm

How does your game mash those genres?
it's a shoot'em up game like the whole series, but in this game, player has to click in right timing to maximize ouput. Also the enemies react based on beat.

Were the graphics/audio assets for your game made during the jam?
95% made by me. 60% made during this game jam

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Liking the visuals, and the story elements and dialogue were interesting. Like the enemies moving and attacking on the beat of the song. I also thought it was interesting how you went for a priestess for the magical girl concept rather than the conventional idea of cute dresses and vivid colours. Not sure if it was just me but I personally couldn't understand the rhythm elements, as someone else stated it's good that you don't get penalised a lot for missing the beat, but I could effectively just mash the fire button and still make it by. Good presentation and polish though.

(+1)

As before, I love your artstyle! And I think this is a great improvement from the last time, just needs the difficulty tuning. I think if you made a version of the timing bar that's translucent and closer to the center of the screen it would be easier. I like how the enemies move to the rhythm. I like the strong and rhythmic song choice. I also like how missing the timing isn't the end of the world and you still throw a weak projectile out. Unfortunately I think it can be exploited by mashing the button so an occasional strong attack comes out. I wasn't able to make it very far, but I'll be sure to come back, as the conversations between Song and Alucard were very funny.

Developer

Thanks for playing my game. I am preparing a version with reasonable difficulty, and content will be splited into several checkpoints. So yes, please come back later.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

The graphics are pretty well polished. I like the use of 3D and the effects. 

The music that plays is also pretty nice.

Gameplay-wise you already got feedback about the difficult, additionally I feel like it's a bit hard to keep track at the bar on the top left as well as what happens on the main screen.

Submitted(+1)

I really like the concept but this really needs checkpoints or a way to regain health, since I couldn't get past the 2nd boss and had to keep replaying from the start with each game over. The story is fun and the graphics look very polished, and the music is very fitting, so nice work!

Developer

The difficulty is indeed a problem. As i say in discord, I am planning to make an update to fix all gameplay problems and add more content.

(1 edit) (+1)

As expected, I did not get very far. It's pretty similar in a lot of ways to Soulful Scarlet, which kicked my ass, and on top of that I suck at rhythm games.

While you can only shoot when a beat happens, there doesn't seem to be any penalty for missing beats, so I ended up just hammering both mouse buttons as fast as I can instead of trying to stay on beat.

The environment is small, but it's visually appealing, and notably improved over Soulful Scarlet. I'm not usually a fan of bloom, but it works well here.

The narrative is not really to my tastes but I find it really interesting how you bring Chinese culture and mythology into the game, which makes it stand out among the crowd.

There was some... unusual language used. The term "final solution" is not something you want to use in any context due to its association with the Holocaust, while "don't worry, I'm special" is unintentionally hilarious because "special" is slang for "intellectually disabled".

I wish I had more to say about this one. It's quality, has some neat ideas, and improves over the last game in the series I've played, but it's just not my thing.

EDIT: I also had issues in Edge where controls just weren't registered. But it worked fine in Firefox. Probably a Unity or itch.io bug.

Developer

Thanks for playing my game, even when both gernes are not your favourite.

For the gameplay, it's harder than i expected. I sent days trying to develop a rhythm game timing system that works in Unity WebGL. It didn't go well, and the current timing system is flawful. That's also why i didn't add too much penalty on missing beats. And then I somehow sent too much time on new character models and music. Plus my personal life was getting busy.  Therefore the gameplay part is not polished.

For wording, i kinda knows about the hidden association of "final solution" and  "special", but I underestimate how native English speaker feels about these words. Maybe i should have packed the dialogue and asked for some proof-reading in discord.

Overall, i feel the concept seems working. I probably will make an update to really experiement it better.

Submitted(+1)

I’m a Crypt of the Necrodancer player so this type of game is right up my alley. The graphics look cute and the fact that the enemy movements/attacks are synced to the beat is awesome. The audio and music is also impressive and fits very well with the theme. In fact, almost everything about it is great, well done! However, the gameplay is too simplistic and very repetitive. I had some fun in the 1st wave, and then it already starts to wear on me because all I’m doing is circle-strafing. There are 2 elevations of movement and it seems cool but I feel like it’s not being taken full advantage of; perhaps in future there would be more variety in player attacks, enemies and attack patterns that could spice up the two-plane combat. Even after boss 3, it’s the same circle-strafing mindless zombies. I think the key to making such a game fun is to make the player feel like they are dancing, to feel like they are in the flow with all the moves they are going to perform with impact. Emphasis on impact, because the impact of my attacks in this game feel weak like in a shoot-em-up; but in a rhythm game this needs to be much more dramatic, perhaps increase the damage, add effects, make the enemies fall on their butt, powerful explosions on beat. I want to express myself freely and experience the feedback. At its current state, I feel like I’m not “answering” anything, the enemies are not really dancing with me, there’s no back-and-forth feeling. So, the enemy AI needs to be improved and telegraphing enemy attacks need to be much clearer and more impactful.

With this mashup, I feel like it’s a very difficult challenge to get the player to feel this way; even I am not so sure how to properly address this issue, or if variety is enough to solve it, so it’s quite commendable for you to try making something unique like this. I have no complaints other than the gameplay, so it’s a pretty well-made game, and that deserves praise. I still think Song of Morus is quite impressive. Great job!

Developer

Thanks for your detailed feedback. That's what i really need for improving for game.

for "too simplistic and very repetitive", i totally agree and there is a reason. My life was suddenly very busy during the jam period so a lot of content was cut, and the game is barely finished hours before deadline. Originally, i wanted player to be able to switch weapons (with different beat pattern), forced or in purpose. I also wanted to add more undead creatures. some of them may pop out from the ground instead of coming from the edge of stage.  But then i ran out of time.

I am planning to make a change after receiving all feedback.  So... keep in  touch.

Submitted(+1)

Another fun entry in the Song of Morus series!

I continue to enjoy the unique setting & characters of your series, it has a different feel from most of the other games that show up in MGGJ.

You picked a good mashup, with Rhythm being a bit of a challenge to pull off in my opinion. Overall, I think you did it fairly well! Though I did feel like I could get away with spamming attacks sometimes. As always, the bullet hell element is what makes it the most difficult for me. The basic waves are no prob, but as soon as a boss was spitting bullets at me, it got tough. I failed on the second boss. (I'll probably come back and give it a few more tries later!)

This one did feel a little simpler when compared to the one from MGGJ4, but you did say you had less time for this jam. Even so, I think this came out really well! Nice work, looking forward to more of Song's adventures!

Developer(+1)

Talking about bullet hell, there is a concept i am developing since the last game (Kaleido Combat). i am making the enemy mostly focus on one layer at a time, which means player can dodge the bulley simply by jumping. It's still in trial and error phase but it will be my direcition future. But as i say, i havn't tested enough because i run out off time, I bascially finished the "ending" 3 hours before deadline.

For the character and setting, thanks for appreciation. There is a world setting in my mind but i wonder how many game jam i need to tell the full story.

Submitted(+1)

This is extremely polished and I like the different take using Chinese mythology, which is very cool!

Unfortunately it seems to me that a large amount of this game is rehashed from previous games you've worked on, which to me feels a little against the spirit of a jam. 60% feels like an overstatement. The art is wonderful and colorful and the VFX are excellent, but most of it looks rehashed so I'm conflicted on my feelings.

The character is cute and the writing is fairly good, alucard is quite a charming cameo and I enjoyed the character's rapport. I can tell english is a second language for you and the english is fairly accurate, but at times still feels a little unnatural, so maybe running your script past a native speaker to tweak some wording would be wise in future.

The gameplay itself is pretty fun, I think the difficulty is a bit inconsistent and a simple solution would be a checkpoint on each level. The game as a whole feels very polished but unfortunately under-tested. I would highly recommend doing a blind playtest with a friend or two next time you jam.

Overall I have very mixed feelings because this is an excellent game but the asset and gameplay reuse really sours it for me. I think you clearly have the skills to make something excellent, and you can do it without relying on recycling. I hope next time you do a jam you go the extra mile and make something just as good from scratch.

Developer (2 edits)

Thanks for playing my game. I can totally feel my story script problem, and lack of play test before submiting.

I understand that the asset and gameplay reusing may not impress some people. If you lower the rating for it, it's understandable. The protagonist is remaked (both game model and story model). Mascot is completely new. 2 new enemy models. New scene. New soundtracks. Enemy AI is all new and the battle system is highly modified to integrate the rhythm system. Maybe i saved a lot of design and research time, but for workload i would say it's 60%. If i create a game from scratch, the percentage may still be the same, as i will rely more on free assets online.

Recently, i adapt an iterative stratgey. In each game jam, instead of experimenting brand new game idea, i experiment small game element. And instead of creating assets for new setting, i create assets for same setting. Each game jam gives me inspiration and feedback. So, someday, I may have a polished game concept and a big pool of assets that i can make it to something bigger. I think it's acceptable for a prizeless casual game jam like MGGJ? or maybe not.? That's also why i honestly shows all my information and let people judge.

Submitted(+1)

I had a lot of trouble with the game. It was difficult to run and shoot. Also once I got hit, I got swarmed and could aim in time. It may just be me but I found the difficulty way too steep, and couldn't enjoy the game as much as I hoped to.

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for the feedback. Because the development was in a hurry, i didn't send much time on game balance. After the rating period. i am going to improve the game based on everyone's feedback.hmm maybe when the character get hurt, there should be a force to push every enemies away so the player have more time to recover.

Submitted(+1)

Pretty cool game, inspired by manhuas.  The controls are fine, takes a time to play it fully but is okay.  The art is very cute. And the music is super cool with the oriental instruments touch. Great job!

Submitted

Playing on the web browser, and using WASD to try to move but the character doesnt budge.

Developer

may i know what browser are you using?

Submitted

google chrome

Developer (1 edit)

hmm weird. i mainly test in chrome (PC) and doesn't get problems. i will test more later