Very cool, classic aesthetic! I strongly preferred first-person mode. After the tutorial level, the next one seems to drop you right into a hail of bullets, a real trial by fire! The player should be safe if they keep strafing, however. I'd like some kind of objective marker to point you towards what you need to do, sometimes the draw distance hides targets like that. The slow movement speed is fine for a heavy feeling, but it would be really painful if you ended up walking away from an objective!
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Chaos Squad's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #6 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Fun Factor | #10 | 3.811 | 3.811 |
| Audio | #19 | 3.568 | 3.568 |
| Visuals | #24 | 3.919 | 3.919 |
| Originality | #39 | 3.432 | 3.432 |
Ranked from 37 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Is your game a video game or a physical game?
video game
Was your game made solo or in a team?
solo
Did you use any third party assets, if yes what assets did you use?
yes, a font : Kenney "Future" font, and The jam's Logo and BG from the provided Media Pack
Did you choose from one (or more) of the optional secondary themes?
2 Optional Themes Used : The ones Who Control The Machines, and Rogue
Does your game contain 18+ content (Nudity, Gore, Language)?
no
Comments
Thanks a lot ! Glad you like the retro look :D
Haha well i’m happy 1st person mode turned out so well cause it’s just a second camera put onto the model, it is that simple XD I figured when experimenting that the weapon models didn’t look too bad up close even if a little chunky so why not have a sort of cockpit view so the players could feel even more like they’re piloting the mech.
Yeah the “Target” arrows were supposed to help with navigation unfortunately since i couldn’t find a way to adjust draw distnce for individual render layers they ended up a bit useless since they weren’t visible untill the draw distance showed the model as well so if i get time for post jam work i’ll have to see how i could make that better :/
Same here if i get the time, the movement will have some adjustments especially since it’s been the no 1 issue people had, and funnily enough, imagine that at some point movement was even slower :p
but yeah a little bit of extra speed wouldn’t hurt and i think i could have this while keeping the heavy feeling, afterall in terms of scale while they’re supposed to be big bulky machines they’re not gigantic if you compare with some buildings XD
Nice job. Lots of variety between the weapons. Having it work in 1st and 3rd person is a nice touch. Neat retro vibe.
Submitted
Pizza ex MachinaThanks glad you liked the weapons :)
It was a bit of a risky bet but i tried it for fun cause it didn’t take that much work since it’s not a true dedicated FPS mode just a second camera slapped onto the model at an angle that would be convincing for what the pilots would see through the interface XD
I love how complete this game felt! Lots of levels, characters, weapons, etc. It's great that there were a tutorial level to start off with as well. Art style is cool too, it has just the right level of detail.
I think that a bit of weapon balancing would be great though. Perhaps I'm just not very good at it, but the level size, movement speed and bullet spread of most weapons made the sniper my only viable option. Still, I had a lot of fun! Nicely made!
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Blastingbot BlowbackThanks a lot ! Glad you’ve enjoyed it ^_^
Yep i’ve tried since i started jamming to try and have my games feel like there’s a reachable end even if it’s short, and it was a hard goal to reach for 3D but i’m glad i was able to make something you thought felt complete ^^
Happy that you liked the characters and weapon selection, as well as the artstyle in general.
One of the goals i set myself this time was to have a tutorial of sorts cause i’ve noticed sometimes people got a bit lost with either controls or goals in past entries so i figured this would help, and when i managed to make a level select system i decided to have it optionnal so that people who wanted to just jump into the action could do so :p
Nah it’s not you, the weapon balance is all over the place and the bullet spread is a bit too crazy, this made most weapons a bit more short range than i expected them to be with exeption of the Sniper, Laser, Beam, and Rocket launcher cause they have 0 spread.
Excellent!! played few maps is very engrossing music is on point too.
Please do a devlog of how you went about it. would love to see a making of of this.
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SwarmageddonThanks for playing ! Glad you liked the music too ^^
If i get time post jam to work on the game more, i’ll be sure to have devlogs for the updates, i could have a post mortem as well if i can manage XD
But in the meantime if you’re curious about some details about the game, there’s a community post started by PixelRunner i participated to, where you could share some trivia about your entry, so i did :p
Really impressive game, done in only 2 weeks! Would love to see a more polished version, some more differences between characters, maybe a minimap or indicator towards next objective. Flying/dashing might be cool as well and help break up the running. Overall great job, I hope you keep working on this!
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Mechatron 3026Thanks ! Glad you’ve liked it so much ^^
Haha yep i never learn and i tend to overscope a bit in jams, but i done the music a bit before and every SFX is just re used from a past entry, so for the rest i managed to get all i wanted done in time :p
Since i’m still finding a bit my footing when it comes to full 3D in the engine i didn’t go for any kind of complex stat systems here so i made the difference mostly through the loadout gameplay wise, but cool suggestion i’ll take note on to help have the characters more distinct.
Yup the movement issue, not sure i’ll go the dashing/flying route for this one though, and that is if i get time, but i’ll see how it goes.
Yhanks again for your feedback :)
IMO one of the top games of this jam. Bullet spread was a bit much on some guns. Shooty sounds could use more punch. Some screenshake would be cool. Music was banging, loved it!
Submitted
Info InfectWow thanks :O not sure i deserve such praise haha XD but i’m glad you’ve liked playing it !
Yup the bullet spread is a bit much, mostly cause i made it almost the same as in my previous 2D entry with just the extra axis but since seing things in 3D makes it that you see a bit further these weapons are absolutely not accurate at all (at least the ones with spread)
Also agree for sound they could be punchier, but for the jam i just recycled previous ones to focus more on gameplay and some of the 3D stuff i’m still finding my footing for so i’m not surprised they might feel a bit lacking. Funnily enough there is screenshake when you land a jump or take a hit i just think i did it wrong for a 3D camera and it looks way too discrete.
Really happy that you liked the music, i wanted to go for something that sounded as metal as possible with the available LMMS instruments and try to have something that felt fast paced enough for action ^^
Love that there are multiple characters and levels to choose from! Overall a pretty well polished game.
I did have some problems with knowing where the targets were. For example level 2 was very large and my movement was very slow. I believe due to the draw distance and that the "target" indicator would not render in front of objects, it took me a very long time to find the targets and finish the mission.
Other than that I enjoyed it and would love to see more mech designs for the different characters!
Submitted
Mecha Soldier - MechJam IV 2023Thanks for giving my game a shot ^^ glad you’ve liked the character variety !
Yeah the level design’s a bit of a mess in some places and level 2 ended up as the worst cause i had to fix optimization issues to have everything run smoothly, especially since i wanted it to be browser playable (one of the main reasons why the draw distance is quite short as well :/) the target indicators are rendered on a different layer but sadly i didn’t find a way to tweak draw distance per layer for the engine not sure if there’s one at all though i could be wrong as i still didn’t do much in full 3D yet.
But the movement speed issue is noted, if i get time post jam i’ll adjust things, and from the feedback i could also try having a minimap to help finding targets and improve navigation hopefully ^^’
I only had time to make one rigged and animated model for the mechs so that’s why the differences are only in textures :(
Excellent work! I'm not sure what happened for me but I got stuck on the training mission and couldn't select others once it was done. Superb effort for a solo dev who made most of the stuff, enjoyed playing thank you! I can see other people were able to load a whole campaign though I'll try again later.
Submitted
Cannonball Commandos - Mechjam IVThanks for giving it a try ! glad you apreciate all the work that went into it :)
Oh dang sorry you’ve had this issue :(
did the return to menu not trigger when you destroyed the 4 training targets ? Or did you get stuck on some geometry in the map ? (cause this could be possible since i might have missed a few spots where i didn’t wall of some areas correctly to avoid getting stuck) if it’s the menu not triggering after mission complete ihave no clue what could be causing this :/
Well if you want to give it another go try skipping the training at the start to see if the rest works ok for you, sorry again about the inconvenience :(
Oh i see, then my bad it’s a UI thing, so here’s the thing :
when you get the menu screen with the training selected, you can actually use A/D to select left and right to choose other missions (i’m sorry the arrows don’t really look interactible so i can’t blame anybody getting confused here :p)
Oh and that’s ok if you don’t want to try it again either ^^
i’m thankful you’ve at least gave it another chance, but in case you want to hope this helps and that this was the issue.
Ok looks like I was just being a n00b lol I didn't realise I should use a & d to go left and right in menu, I just thought there was only one selection due to the time constraints, there are heaps of characters! It's really well done and lots there, the only niggling issue for me is the max angle for looking up, I couldn't always aim at mechs up high without moving back. The sniper and beam weapon scopes were a nice touch, once I knew about it I kept on checking items from a distance. This would also work super well in VR! I also like the way you choose a track that loops so well and really helps keep the momentum as you go through the levels. Some SFX on item pickups would be nice but considering how much you did by yourself in 2 weeks it's more just feedback for future improvements than any kind of real issue within the game.
Very fun and simple! The environments and art style were really cool. Could use some faster movement or run button, the ability to switch weapons, and balanced weapon accuracy. .
Submitted
Invasion Inc.Thanks for playing ! Glad you liked the artstyle ^^
Yeah movement seems to be the main issue everyone’s brought up the most, though believe it or not almost untill the final subbed build the movement was even slower :p but i’ll look into this if i get time post jam to work on it.
Weapon wise, yup can’t argue it needs re balancing so this will definitively be looked into like the movement issue if i get time post jam, i didn’t make a switching mechanic to keep things simple for the jam and ensure i could finished what i planned first, but its a good suggestion i’ll look into if i get post jam time as well ^^
Really fun game and visuals. I liked the many choices in maps and characters. I think some more game modes could go a long way as well. The aiming was a bit weird, it felt like my projectiles would often shoot to the right of where I was aiming.
Submitted
Rogue StormThanks ! Glad you liked the available options ^^
The funny thing is i thought of some game modes, like some defense missions instead of attack, or escort missions etc… but decided that at least for the jam i should just focus on one base system and have it work, plus i’m not sure yet how i could make some modes yet but i think i could figure some stuff out :p
Yeah the 3rd person crosshair isn’t the most accurate, cause the bullets actually spawn from the weapon’s barrel so it’s a bit off to the right, i tried to have it be more centered but couldn’t find a balance that would work without making the camera angle look weird when aiming up and down, so with what i know that’s the best i could acheive sorry :/
Although this is also probably not helped by the amount of spread the weapons have, i just had the same values as i had in my previous entry but with the extra axis added, but it didn’t quite transpose as well in 3D.
really liked this game!! however, first person mode was annoying, as the gun would block off a good chunk of the screen, which made it really hard to use it. was also a bit more tough than it should have imo, but it was still fun! well done!!
Submitted
RE:Assigned Mech at BirthThank you ^^
Yeah fps view is a bit wonky on some aspects for one simple reason, it’s not a dedicated view with proper fps models rendered seperately etc… like it is when done well, i just slapped a second camera on the mech adjusted the view a bit so that the crosshairs would line up with the shots and Bam, fps view :p so that’s why the weapons are so chunky they’re the same models the mech has in its hand just seen closer to the camera.
Sorry about the difficulty :( I tried to have it as balanced as possible, though i’ll admit i might have made a bit too much “busy areas” with enemies and turrets but i tried to have at least 2 repair items per level in hope this would help ^^
Yo, I really enjoyed this! Great work!
I have some minor critiques here and there; stuff like certain weapons being... well, Not Good (the shotgun 💀) and occasionally not being able to aim as high or as low as necessary to hit some targets, as well as the levels being a bit too... sprawling, I guess, but overall there's a lot here that's great. The sorta PS1/Early 2000s PC game aesthetic is really wonderful, and the overall feel of the game (i.e, movement speed, how the guns handle, etc) feels great. You did great, thank you for making this!
Submitted
Mémoire 0079Thanks for your feedback ! Happy that you liked it :D
Yeah the weapons are not the best on some regards can’t argue with that, my biggest mistake in that regard is that to save some time i made that every weapon and projectile in the game is in fact the same for ennemies and the player, so i had to not make the projectiles too fast so that when the enemies shoot you wouldn’t have to take damage from some ultra fast un dodgeable bullets, the shotgun being one that got the really short end of the stick because of that choice :p
For the aiming i had to put a limit angle somewhat but i might have settled for too low, it was a bit odd to balance cause of the 2 perspective so i’ll probably have to tweak things a bit here if i get the time post jam.
Yep, might have seen a bit too big for the levels, especially considering that for performance reasons i had to drastically reduce the number of enemies compared to how many there were at some point.
Really cool that you like the aesthetic and gamefeel still despite all the other issues XD I like retro so i aimed for more of a PS1 look, but wow i really take it as a big compliment if you felt it had also a 2000’s PC feel ^_^ gameplay wise i wanted to keep things a bit more arcade like and simple, plus i don’t think i could really manage to pull off something that’s more sim like :p
Solid entry, especially for a solo dev! I really like the scope mechanic that you've implemented, though I wish the jumps had more oomph. Really cool and really well-rounded submission from the menu and ui to the gameplay. I can understand sacrificing hi-def textures in favor of keeping the game running smoothly, especially to have it run so smoothly in the web browser. Great job!
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Game Jam -MechJam IV- Kaiju VillageThanks for giving it a shot, glad you’ve enjoyed it ^^
Yeah i was really happy that the engine made it possible to make scopes this way, i thought it made sense to have them work like that.
Well the textures were always planned to be pixelated cause i wanted to make something retro, but the render resolution of the game was scaled down the most i could to find the best balance between performance/visibility.
Also glad that it ran smoothly for you, i wanted it to be browser playable cause i fell everytime for jam that’s the best option to have the most people being able to play it, but it was quite an uphill battle for optimization O_o,
i’m not gonna bore you with the details but if you’re curious i’ve participated in a community post where people can share trivia about their entry and i explained a bit more about what i did with the performance issues etc…
Anyway thanks again for playing and your comment, cheers :)
Incredibly impressive! The game gave me a lot of nostalgia to the old PS1-PS2 era, sniper definitely was fun, but I gotta save I love the LMG overall! My constructive criticism would be that levels felt a bit open and with the world not loading in all the way id walk for awhile only to be met with a wall. Maybe some form of minimap would help with this? I hope this helps :)
Submitted
Overbyte - MechJamIVThanks for sharing your impressions ^^
Haha well with how blocky everything is not quite so PS2 :p
Cool ! Nice to see everybody seem to have found their favorite, the LMG ended up being a good all rounder for both targets and enemies XD
Yeah can’t argue that everything ended up a bit barren but long story short i had to emty a lot out of the levels for performance reasons, if you want the more detailed version, i told a bit more details into a community post started by PixelRunner where poeple could share trivia about their entry (where i hope my long post didn’t scare people off :p)
Thanks for the suggestion :) i like the idea of a minimap if i get time post jam i’ll try it, i’ve done some in past entries but they were 2D so i hope i can pull it off for 3D.
Unlimited ammo! Yeah! Give me that minigun! BTW it turned out grenade launcher coupled with assault rifle is useless :( Not so useless as jumps though :)
Submitted
Mecha CombatThanks for your comment ^^
Yeah i did ammo systems on other games but since i still don’t have a clean and easy way to implement it quickly i decided to not bother doing so this time so as OP as it can be with all weapons Unlimited ammo it is XD
The AR/GL combo i wanted to be a sort of versatile 2 in 1 weapon but the grenade didn’t ended up as usefull as i thought it would be, especially since it has a bit of a slow gravity cause the 3D rigid body didn’t behave quite as i expected compared to it’s 2D counterpart, so once i got it sorta working i didn’t alter it any further to not risk breaking anything, but oh well at least you still get to use it like a regular AR and at worst there are a lot of other weapons in the levels :p
I had a lot of issues with performance througout developement so the level design got a lot simpler with less props etc… so that’s why the jumps doesn’t feel quite useful, i still kept it cause i wanted the levels to have some verticality and i didn’t want to limit player mobility too much as well.
Such a fun mecha game! This really brings me back to my Mechwarrior past, I can still remember playing these sort of games in the 90's man this brought back such good memories! The controls were really well made, the feeling in the levels was overall a very good experience, the sound effects were very serviceable and effective!
I love that it has character select and I see you are putting to good use your knowledge from past games, i've been following you for quite a while!
This game could become a fully fledged game for sale with some more polish and more levels, that is how much I liked it!
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WizMechThanks a lot Lemi glad you liked the game :)
Yeah what a time it was especially when you see where 3D’s gone in such a short time all things considered, really happy that my game managed to invoke you some good memories from back in those days ^^
Controls wise i felt that WASD + mouse was the way to go to have the shooting feel right, and that that would be the modern tweak needed for a bit more precise gameplay. As for the SFX since i had so much to work on in some aspects, i simply just decided to re-use my Mech Jam 3 Sfx since they seemed to fit when testing and it made sense for a sequel anyway.
haha yeah it’s been a bit of a staple so far to have a chara select, but i just can’t help it, especially since this time around there was a secondary theme that would fit this perfectly :p and yep i’m trying to make good use of any new trick i learn every game. Likewise ^^ although i know i might miss a lot of updates from fellow jammers since i’m not always around itch in between jams, i try to keep up at least a bit and check out every now and then though !
Wow thanks for those kind words :o, as always for my jam entry i’m not sure in advance if i’ll have time to do some post jam work, but if i can i’ll try to add a bit, though i don’t know if i’m ready yet for some full fledged game yet cause there’s still somethings i’m learning (yes even after that long :p)
The gameplay was great! Reminded me a lot of Goldeneye but with weightier characters. The movement did feel a bit slow, but the levels were compact enough that it wasn't a huge problem. The escalation of the weaponry every level was nice as well, but it did have the funny effect of causing me to actively dodge some weapon pickups whenever I had a beam weapon.
Also, I like how the aesthetics give the impression of Mecha Team Maverick receiving a PS1 sequel to a 16bit era original. Really impressive overall!
Submitted
Airborne Wastes 2Thanks for giving my game a shot Crimson Bulb ^^
Haha yeah i gues gameplay wise it could be kind of a heavier goldeneye, though i didn’t have as much objectives variety for the missions sadly XD
Well like i said since it’s been the main issue so far, if i get time post jam, i’ll try tweaking the movement speed a bit to see how this goes.
Haha yeah the Beam gun was tons of fun to make so i’m glad you thought it was fun to use, and i’ll admit a little bit OP as well, though here i didn’t make the mistake of just giving it out in a default loadout, you gotta look for it when it’s available hehe è-é
Visually speaking that’s pretty much the idea but for a sequel to my Mech Jam 3 entry ^^
even if you’re not wrong mentioning Team Maverick cause my personal canon goes that so far most of the Sci-Fi games i made with character select are part of the same larger universe :p
Huge fan of the visuals, thought the scopes being on the side as a separate view instead of replacing the main view was a really cool touch.
Having different mechs with different visuals, weapons was great and the portraits of their pilots was an extra touch that really added to it.
Even things like limiting the draw order for the environment to such a harsh cut-off really sells the PSX vibe.
Probably more than any other sound effect I loved the crunchy sound to the footfalls of the mechs.
Submitted
MechxecutiveThanks a lot ! Really happy that you liked it :D
I wanted to try something different.
Cause i thought if i’m going for “big robot wields big robot sized guns” how practical and usable a scope weapon would be if you needed something long range ? So i thought why not have the scopes on mech weapons just be cameras that could send their feed directly in a window on the pilots interface.
So as i thought this made sense in universe, i played around with viewports in the engine to acheive a small window that would see from a different cam with a different zoom level etc… to apply this effect, with the additional idea being that you could scope in and not obstruct your main view to keep moving if you were doing so. And i also got inspired by some very old titles that made scopes this way (visually, cause technically i have no idea how they acheived this back then :o) before the more modern standard of full screen scope or ADS systems.
Glad you liked the variety as well ^^ I wanted to have the pilots visible in the UI even if it didn’t serve any gameplay purpose, especially since i chose one of the secondary themes which puts more emphasis on them, plus i felt that having the portraits + a loadout of choice + each their custom paintjob would really help convey their personality through and have players find each their favorites XD
Well the draw distance with a harsh cutoff is something the engine does by default since i didn’t use any kind of fog effect to mask it and i had to keep it rather short for performance’s sake in the end, i got lucky the scopes’s extra further reach didn’t tank performance even further :p
Haha glad you liked the stomping sounds cause funnily enough, every single SFX in the game are just the same re used SFX from my Mech Jam 3 entry last year XD
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