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Starlight Overdrive's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #1 | 4.444 | 4.444 |
| Overall | #4 | 4.097 | 4.097 |
| Use of the Limitation | #10 | 3.944 | 3.944 |
| Presentation | #10 | 4.222 | 4.222 |
| Concept | #25 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Zachary Thurston (Programmer, Designer, Artist) [ Discord : zwt#5368, Email : zwtgames@gmail.com] Feel free to contact me! Samuel Ganbold (Sound Engineer & Music Producer) [ Discord : FlyBobbyJones#1111 , Email: samuelganbold@gmail.com]
Software used
Aseprite, GMS2, Logic Pro X
Use of the limitation
The player is prompted to enter 4 [0,1] values in before starting that alter the players capabilities in game! Try them all out! BUT FIRST TRY 0000; this is the base game, no modifiers.
Cookies eaten
I could really go for some Oreos right now.
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Comments
What a creative use of the limitation! I tried all 16 cheats hehehe...
Thanks for trying it out! I hope you enjoyed it! :)
Cheat mechanic is very cool. I tried every one of them and like the idea. Very good.
Thanks for the comment! I am very glad you enjoyed the idea! A lot of planning and design went into making it so I'm very happy you found it satisfying!
Great game, I really enjoyed how you were able to cheat and how it effected the game. Also the music is fantastic. Great Job!
I am glad you enjoyed the game and the music! Really appreciate the kind words!
This is a lot of fun!! I love the weapons / bombing mechanics by having different ones you can pick + they recharge. I kind of wish I did a similar thing in my game, haha. The music was great, and the visuals are super nice. I’m so used to Arrow Keys + Shift, Z, X for playing bullet hell-like games but a little bit of playing with WASD and switching the weapons with 1234 and it felt super natural. I loved it and good job!! :)
I am really glad you enjoyed it! As I said in some of the other comments I wanted to carefully design the game so that it would fit in an actual custom arcade cabinet so I tried to keep the controls effective and easy to grasp and something that can easily be mapped to an arcade console. The game was designed to be played with a Joystick (WASD), 4-6 gameplay buttons (Q,E,LMB,RMB (Or) 1,2,3,4, LMB, RMB depending on user preferences) and then a 'Start Game' and 'Pause Game' button, just like an actual arcade game!
Once again thanks for your kind words! I really appreciate it!
This game is the best so far!I really liked the visuals and the sounds.
I am deeply appreciative of your comment and I am immensely glad you had a good time with my project!
Do you want to play mine too?
I just saw this! I checked out your game yesterday! I really had a great time with it and left feedback!
ok thank you!
This game is so underrated (add some gif and make thumbnail more attractive)
Game is very polished and sound is so good and also this is the only game i played for straight 20 mins so good Job!
I am absolutely flattered by your comment! I'm glad it kept your attention for so long!
I updated the thumbnail and will probably update it again tomorrow when I have more time ;(.
The problem with something like what I have is that it is a lot less convenient for people to deal with the zip and executable file over something like an in-browser (which I believe wouldn't handle my game due to the music taking up a large amount of storage space even when bitrate was lowered [which I tested]).
I also feel bad doing something like spamming discord and trying to advertise my game over other peoples games ;-; but I hope naturally as time goes on more people will try it either bc it shows up more often or maybe via word of mouth haha!
That's a great twist on the cheat code system. It's pretty interesting. That's like a game inside a game. Go for it. Make it more complex and it will be a fantastic videogame. Maybe even focus on a cheat system to beat levels that are impossible to beat from the start or make the cheat codes that will feel useless and yet be actually useful but only for a selected levels/encounters. Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of people may skip on this as it's not playable in a browser, while this one is actually a great entry.
P.S. Yoyogames (Well… Opera) are giving free subscriptions to those who own a license, I got like 41 months of free indie license, maybe if you have a similar offer it will be possible to upload a html5 version.
I really appreciate the feedback and kind words! It is hard to get the word out to people as like you said many are naturally less inclined to try a downloadable executable over an in-browser game!
I appreciate the info on YoYos giveaway and I do own a liscence from them and plan on continuing development of the project so I will keep this in mind.
I'm not sure about the limitations of in-browser games when it comes to assets but music alone makes the game file huge (I couldn't even send it through discord bc it is larger than 50mb) so I am not sure if I'd be able to make it an in browser game or the limitations off of that. (Personally I enjoy the executable games and overall think most of them are of better quality and more polished but maybe I am biased).
Either way I really appreciate the feedback and your willingness to try my downloadable game hahaha!
I also felt like elaborating after reading this again. The game doesn't go on a level system but instead is designed so that the character tries to survive as long as possible with your one life (similar idea to a roguelite).
Well, some tweaks to how a game works are always possible, you may consider this as a prototype. Regardless, that's one of the best entries I played so far.
Okay, I was playing for ages, even had a notebook out so that I could keep track of the 16 different cheats (well, 15 + baseline). Plays so nicely, and its so short-form and easy to change up to try again with different cheats, I love it.
I'm so happy you were playing for ages; I love to hear that it kept your attention for so long! Thanks so much for trying it out and the positive feedback!
As I mentioned in some of the other comments, it is actually a game that is designed to go into an actual arcade cabinet and use the controls of a Joystick (WASD equivalent), 4-6 gameplay buttons (Q, E, LMB, RMB) and a 'Start Game' and 'Pause Game' button so I deliberately designed it to be fun in short bursts of gameplay just like a normal arcade game! (It hopefully also makes you want to come back and improve!)
Wow I loved this game! So fun, and nice presentation! Wonderful!
I'm very flattered that you loved it! It was my first game so thats always a reassuring thing to continue working on more projects!
Wow this is a really cool game that I'm a little stuck in. Great job, I really liked it.
Thank you for your kind comment! I'm glad it caught and kept your attention for a bit!
First off, music is immediately banger, great job on that~! Also main menu is super polished and the fact that you have one with settings is awesome!
I don't think I'd call the game a bullet hell though, it feels more like a shoot-em-up, I'm not quite sure why - maybe because there aren't that many bullets and they don't go off in all directions?
The screenshake is really neat, like quite subtle for small things yet with the potential for more shake, I like that~
There is so much to like about this game, the varied enemies and shots (bombs etc.), the funny death messages, the unknown cheat code entering~ very well done.
One thing I noticed is, there is never a reason not to shoot, so binding it to a button that functionally should be held at all times is kinda tedious. You could either always fire and not use a button for it, or have firing not be the optimal strategy all the time - like slowing you down while you're firing, or something like that~
All in all, a really solid entry - thank you for sharing this with the world :)
Thank you for your kind words! I really appreciate it!
A couple of things I wanted to note about some things in your comment.
When working on the game design plan I originally planned on working on an overheat bar for player firing (this was actually the inspiration for the 0010 code) but I didn't have enough time to fully implement a well designed overheat system (my original intuition was to make it so when you overheat [say after holding for 10 seconds continually] your weapon fired goes on a lock until you button mash some key (say spacebar) on your keyboard 5 times.
I feel like this would feel more intuitive than most overheat mechanics because the player feels that they are actually getting the weapons unjammed rather than miraculously having the weapons cooldown.
(IE the thought of an overheat mechanic came across my mind in the design discussions I had with my partner, I just didn't have enough time to make sprites or incorporate it in code as I felt like duplicating some of the regular cooldown assets used for the secondary might not be as functional for a overheat bar which needs to be updated more frequently [frame wise]).
Although I am not partial to that implementation per se that was one thing that crossed my mind and will be in work on future versions of the project! The only other problem with my proposed overheat is that it might clutter the button schema of the game (unless I stick with a traditional overheat style where releasing LMB lowers cooldown). I actually designed the game to go into a custom arcade cabinet to put in my house because I think that'd be cool to do and a fun project to show others! This means that everything in the game was designed to be played with a Joystick for movement [mapped to WASD] and 4-6 game play buttons [mapped to Q, E, LMB, RMB currently] and a 'Start Game' and 'Pause Game' button (just like an actual arcade game)!
As for the enemy firing and variety I'll be increasing the enemy variety in the game as I continue to work on the project!
I'd be happy to send you a copy later down the line when it is even more polished and has even more content than right now if you'd be interested in trying it again for me down the line!
Once again thanks for your kind words! I sincerely appreciate the feedback! (Sorry for the verbose response I just felt like you brought up a few points worth elaborating on!)
Fun game! Really liked the high density pixel art style! The player's HP showing the ship's damage was a nice touch, and the interfaces on the sides shaking upon taking damage was a nice touch as well. Plus the side bar screens flickering really helped sell that retro-futuristic vibe.
Thanks! I'm really happy that you enjoyed it and greatly appreciate the positive feedback! I was trying to go for a stylized look and this was actually my first time doing pixel art (and my first game made) so I am very pleased that you liked the graphics! I plan on taking the game and putting it in a custom arcade cabinet so everything in the game is designed to appeal to both the retro/arcade style feeling and mechanics/controls are designed to be easily portable to a Joystick and 6 button schema just like an actual arcade game!
That's cool! I think that style of this game will feel right at home in an arcade cabinet!
Very fun game, and with an awesome soundtrack! :) My one criticism is that some of the "cheats" didn't feel like cheats at all, but more like optional hard-modes. Which is fine, just not what I was really expecting.
Thanks for the feedback! I am glad you liked the game and the soundtrack! And you bring up a very valid point. Although subjective, in my mind I was thinking that a cheat can modify the game in a positive way or alter the game to make it harder; this is the first game I've ever made period, but I have played a lot of games and wound up having a lot of fun with older games which had cheats that weren't necessarily beneficial to the player (see GTA NPC rioting cheats [gives every npc a weapon]), my friend also brought up Heretic (a DOOM-like game that winds up having cheats that create undesirable effects, like instant death and such). I guess conventionally though like you said most cheats should be beneficial to the player and I deeply appreciate your feedback and honesty!
Game On!
At the same time, maybe these 'negative' cheats would function better as difficulties that may be accessible through a select difficulty setting in the menu! And then the solution is to make all cheats feel beneficial to the player!
That sounds like a great solution, yeah! :) The points you bring up are good, and it's a totally valid interpretation of the theme; but as you say, when I, personally, hear the words "the player must cheat" I tend to assume that cheating will benefit me.
Very good game! but i think that the player should be bigger and have some indicators of when the special weapons are up, but overral great game!
I greatly appreciate the feedback and I am glad to hear that you like it. The suggestions that you have are interesting and I was thinking about continuing the development of the project past the Jam and adding different difficulties - (ideally, these different difficulties may do things like altering the player size [bigger for harder difficulty, smaller for easier difficulty], this might be a tricky balancing act though because the collision masks are bound to the player [ie a bigger player is going to get hit more often])
As for the indicators for sounds I was thinking about possibly having audio do this for the player to know when their secondaries are up besides looking at the cooldown bars! (primarily because I don't want to obstruct the player's view too much but I am sure if I thought hard enough about it I could come up with an intuitive way to do this)
Either way, I really appreciate the feedback and comment!
My favorite game for Major Jam so far! Would rate if i could :/
Fantastic game. I think I have the high score.
I'm flattered by your comment. Thanks for trying it out!
That was so good! My only nitpick is I really wanted Q to cycle back up on your secondary weapons.
I had a feeling that 1,1,1,1 was either going to be the best cheat or the worst "cheat" and I was certainly right!
This is a really good point. I greatly appreciate the feedback! When I was designing the game I wanted to make it so that the player can play with an old console box (since I tried to draw inspiration from old arcade games) that they have enough buttons to do so. Intuitively I was used to playing arcade games that had a joystick (which maps perfectly to WASD) and 4 buttons (which maps to Q, E, Left click, Right-click). My oversight is that I forgot most of these old arcade games do in fact have a button to pause (which I could map to ESC). This would allow the player to rotate their weapons forward and back because I could bind the other cycle button to Q and make pause be ESC and it would still work on an old console box.
More modern arcade games have more buttons though so this is a very valid point. Possibly I could map each secondary to a button.
I really appreciate (and agree with) the feedback!
Just figured I'd let you know that if you liked it I updated the version for better button controls!
Thanks again for the feedback!
Fantastic game