Had a lot of fun bouncing around in VR. Going up was a bit hard, I felt the thrust control could be a bit more abrupt. I often missed platforms. But, overall a very fun experience.
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Bounce's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Polish | #1 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Visuals | #2 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Theme | #2 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Gameplay | #2 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Audio | #3 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Congrats on completing your first Game Jam submission!
I played for about 10 minutes and here is my feedback:
- The controls feel pretty nice. The compass and red velocity line really help to control my lateral speed.
- Music is pretty pleasant and adds to the relaxing atmosphere.
- It's really hard to know how high I will Bounce. This makes it really difficult to figure out which platforms I can Bounce to next.
- missing a platform feels SUPER punishing. Adding in some "checkpoint" or a floor that catches you at certain height intervals will help alleviate the frustration of missing a platform.
- Somewhat related to #2, but it's unclear if there is an intended path of platforms. They feel a bit haphazardly placed and it felt like I ended up on "islands" where there were no platforms close enough i can reach while also making upward progress.
- This does not mean make this linear, but more like a core path + side paths that may be harder or easier. Similar to a Sonic level or a Mario level.
If tuned well, this could feel like a nice hyper casual/zen gaming experience. If you could nail that state of flow this could really sing!
Thank you for this feedback! Tremendously valuable.
There is no path of platforms. They are generated at random each time. There is some meaning to the center platforms in the middle of the Helix, though. I've considered developing several predefined patterns of platforms that might give it more of a puzzler feel to it, albeit with the zen, meditative, feel. That was beyond the scope of what I could do for the jam, however.
A checkpoint is a very good idea, and you're right about missing a platform. This is supposed to be a meditative experience, but somehow it still kicks you into a goal-oriented mode. You're not supposed to care, you're just supposed to get into a state of flow, where you are bouncing from one platform to the next. Perhaps once you reach the level of the next Helix up, you can always restart at that platform rather than the one at the beginning...
Did you notice that the "bounciness" of the platforms increases as you get away from the center of the Helix? That can be very helpful in getting higher. You can still get kind of stuck, but it should pretty much always be possible to net height by taking a little bit of risk, and venturing farther out.
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