nice and fun entry! good art and skill progress ideas, maybe need more dificulty but feels nice and original, great work!
Play game
Olden Retriever (Metroidvania Month 15) DEMO's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #1 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Metroidvania | #5 | 3.938 | 3.938 |
| Overall | #7 | 3.688 | 3.688 |
| Design | #17 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Presentation | #22 | 3.563 | 3.563 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Godot Engine
Team/Developer
Em Kyla
External assets
Dog Bark is from Freesound.org, by crazymonke9: https://freesound.org/people/crazymonke9/sounds/418105/ ~ Dog Biscuit crunch is from Freesound.org, by Robinhood76: https://freesound.org/people/Robinhood76/sounds/425115/ ~ Font used for main text is Dogica by Roberto Mocci: https://www.patreon.com/rmocci
Comments on the jam
Very good jam, thank you!
Reference info
https://twitter.com/em_kyla
Comments
Loved this! I'll agree with the others that the music doesn't really fit the overall vibe, though I know you're aware of that. Otherwise, if I had to critique something I'd recommend making the background dark and the foreground lighter, as the current setup feels like the dog and the background are at the same depth, though that's just a personal opinion. Great job, good luck with the full release!
Submitted
WizVaniaOverall I honestly enjoy the graphics, gives me a real SNES/Genesis vibe and you've got that down, everything seems to fit together. Usually you want things closer to you to be lighter than the things further away, but that can also be subjective, so if you like what you're doing better go for it! It's entirely just my two cents.
Weird, I totally thought it was the opposite. I must have gotten the wrong idea somewhere or misremembered something. But just looking up some screenshots of well known 2d games, your advice seems to match up. I kind of didn't feel great about the graphical style overall and want to try something a bit different for the full version, so assets are going to get redone anyway. At least everything but the dog, which got the most time and I'd like to make a few tweaks too without scrapping entirely.
Okay so, given my obvious connection with dogs, I had to play this.
I love the funny text that describes your abilities and the parts of your dog. The animations & graphics are well done and it's reasonably fun to play.
Music good.
The fall into the pit was a nice surprise, as it looked like there was more of the level and then oop.. you fall down.
I would put more feedback if you kill enemies rather than just having them disappear, I suppose. I also didn't really understand what the enemies are. Stone golems? Humans?
Honestly, I just want more, if you have plans to make it into a full game that is!
Submitted
WildThanks so much! I definitely want to spend more time on the enemies, to make it clearer what their supposed to be, and to just have better designs overall. They got the least attention of anything during the jam development time. They are humans, but filtered through the imagination of the dog, within the context of the dogs story within the "real" story. That sounds pretentious but its hard to explain without being spoilery. There will be a full game though! Thanks again!
LOVE THIS!!!
The simple art, the exploration and more importantly, the dog. Heck, my dog barked happily at the metroid powerup cameo in the game.
Well made, well designed also, the music is FIRE!!!
I still felt disappointed a how fast the demo ended. Wish you continue more of this game though.
Once again, well done! ^^
Submitted
OUT OF HERE - Chapter 0BARK... BARK BARK.. BARK BARK BARK. BARK
Translation:
Holy sh.. the intro's music is a banger.
Great game overall, I really enjoyed it, the sheer personality it carries for centering everything arround the idea that you're a doggo is incrediblely fun. The music and sfx are awesome. The map is good, not too confusing and not too simple. I really liked the menu that explains your new powers, even the "doggish" language you use.
About things that could improve: first the parallax, that is basically unexistent, even though there's a background, it moves the same speed as the rest of the map, secondly the gameplay speed and general feel of it, it feels a little too slow (maybe the full version has a dash, idk, but try to make a dash available asap). Also thirdly, there's no damage indicator, I didn't know I was getting damaged until I looked at my hearts.
Anyway, keep it up, I would love to be an adventurer doggo in a full version!
Submitted
Secrets Of the Cursed Mountain - WIPThank you so much for playing and for your thoughts! All of those features will be part of the final game. You are the first to mention movement speed so thank you, you've given me something to consider. There will be a run powerup, but I will consider upping the base movement speed too. Definitely will have to do deeper playtesting as I move towards a full version. Lots of little quirks of the general movement feel to tackle. I'm glad you appreciated the music. I come from a music background and making music for my games is one of my favorite parts!
Oh my god this was amazing. I've followed some of your progress on this game through discord, so I was interested in giving this a play. I wasn't prepared for how much I loved it. I definitely would play a longer version of this.
Submitted
Trial of the AlchemistLove Dogs, Love Metroid Vania, Love Games!
The Game Bugs out if you try to make it Fullscreen (Firefox) after that you can't use any Keys anymore, have to restart the Game and can only play in Browser Screen.
Cool Idea especial with the Stair walking PowerUp, since walking stairs is completely unnatural for a dog.
Great Job, would like to have it played a little longer but the game ended suddenly :(
Submitted
Warrior Vania PrologueCute dog, original idea and nice powerups (even though the stairs felt a little weird... I could jump that high already). Music was very thematic, with barks and stuff. Could have been a little more back and forth when unlocking abilities (re...traversal?)
Submitted
Dumpster Dive: RoboticsDude this demo was a blast :o !
I like how it starts a bit slow when you just wander around and then you fall in the hole and BAM the adventure starts accompanied by that awesome tune (seriously that bit crunched guitar is so awesome \m/ è_é ).
I was also not ready for that upgrade jingle and menu, this was so funny especially with the powerup descriptions.
If i had to nitpick i'd say the only small issue i had was a bit of confusion on where to go because i didn't expect the ability to climb stairs to require an upgrade but really this was quickly solved as soon as i got it, and my second issue was only that this demo was too short, it was really fun to play and i wanted more, but i totally understand it being short since well this is a jam ^^
So this is a quality entry, and i'm not surprised considering the quality of a past entry of yours i played in a previous jam,
so keep up the good work, cheers :)
Submitted
Cursed CastleThanks so much! I haven't had a chance to play other entries yet since I'm at work but I saw your name and was excited that I recognized you from Go Godot Jam! I appreciate the feedback. I think I want to add something to make it a little more obvious why you can't climb stairs right away. The whole joke was like, dog powers, and if you've ever seen a puppy learning to use the stairs you'd get it. But its not that obvious in retrospect. And possibly silly in general to gate off something like that. I'm glad you liked the little touched, and noticed the bit crushed guitar (I was having some fun unleashing my metal-head side last night, last minute making the song). Thanks again!
Haha XD
Well it's always nice to come across fellow past jammers when you participate in a new one ^^
The stairs thing wasn't a big issue it's just that it was unusual from a gameplay perspective, but it totally works for the joke so i don't see any problem of you keeping it as is, and this song is definitively killer with that guitar part, although i might not be that much objective about that as i'm a bit of a metal head myself :p
I love that little doggo, great demo - missing a little feedback on getting hit and some of the jumps seemed to be off sometime (like my jump lost height). but really fun! want to play a longer version. the music is great too :)
Submitted
Bad Bot - RobolutionThanks for the feedback! Both of those issues can be attributed to amateur dev-ness that I hope to remedy in the full version. I was not sure how to program knockback in terms of the math needed, and I did notice the odd jump behavior, which I think might have to do with how i coded the update method for the jump physics. By the time its finished my goal is to actually understand what all the math involved in the physics means rather than working from a tutorial and guessing. Thanks again for playing!
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