I really liked the universe you created here! I think you could have used more vertical exploration and maybe a smaller or more varied map. I have to walk a lot without seeing anything happening. But it has a lot of potential! Congratulations!
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Pumki & The Squash King's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Metroidvania | #52 | 2.132 | 2.500 |
| Design | #52 | 2.239 | 2.625 |
| Overall | #55 | 2.132 | 2.500 |
| Presentation | #57 | 2.239 | 2.625 |
| Enjoyment | #58 | 1.919 | 2.250 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Unity
Team/Developer
Undalord
External assets
FFF-Forward
Comments
Good thing I have sun blocking shades! Ha ha! Once I could see the art, I found it charming. I like the characters and the way they tell bits of a story as you pass them. It’s also nice that you don’t have to interact with them to initiate that. It’s kind of cool.
I’ve read the other comments and so I don’t want to re-hash things already said. I like the fact that there’s a smidge of an economy started in the game. I so wanted that in our game! But things must be cut as you well know.
The enemies are cute, but there’s no reason what so ever to beat them up. You don’t get anything from it and only stand to lose hit points. So, I wonder if they should drop gold. This would give players a reason to punch them. Oh, and the combat isn’t all that great. But maybe that’s not the focus of the game. Still, if enemies start dropping things, maybe the melee could be quicker or made more satisfying somehow.
Sounds like you’re a busy person. But if you could spare about 20 minutes, we would really appreciate you trying our game out, rating it and dropping a comment on the submission page and let us know what you liked and didn’t like! Thanks!
Submitted
Glowstar EmpireNice atmosphere, but I agree with the comments about the brightness (it's way too dark at the beginning). To me, one of the most interesting parts was talking to the NPCs and getting context about the villagers, the mines, the squash king and etc. The world seems intriguing, albeit a little empty. It has an interesting sense of discovery.
Submitted
TransmachinaDude I couldn't see ANYTHING in that first room, and my brightness is at 100%...how the heck were you able to see what you were building?!
Submitted
Reverie of Strange BloodI'm really sorry, I could just barely see anything and that was despite normal room light and full screen brightness. Maybe you could make the light sources in the room a little brighter? It's also cool that you work with 2D light effects in your game.
Submitted
Cyclopvania+1 for all of Michael's notes.
I liked the premise and the overall atmosphere quite a bit. The dialog as you pass the characters is a nice touch and gives it a bit of an RPG flavor.
The biggest issue by far for me was the lack of contrast on some of the tiles. Maybe you have very different gamma settings on your machine, but most of the cave/mountain/forest floor were literally invisible on my monitor. Like Michael alluded to, that would be cool if you had planned to have some sort of lantern power up and just didn't get to it, but not so great otherwise.
I was definitely intrigued and would like to play more if you get around to making it!
Submitted
Paws of PurityThe ending was very sudden. But I get making games is hard :)
But despite that, here are my thoughts on the game:
Movement:
I commend you for implementing both a coyote jump as well as adding a jump buffer. The variable jump height also feels great. But the movement in general felt a bit flimsy. I think the jump is too high in relation to the speed of the character.
Art:
I like the style. The little characters were charming and the atmosphere in the village was very well done. I also like how you transition from the different areas with mixing tiles from the different biomes.
The miners I didn't immediately recognize as such. Maybe you could have given them little pickaxes or something.
When it comes to color, there are sadly some issues with the darker areas in the game. The cave and starting place for example have a tileset with almost the exact same color as the background. It makes it very hard to see and made me think that there would be lantern powerup or something along those lines and that's why I only entered the cave in my second playthrough. If it wasn't for the coins you put there this part would have been very frustrating.
Level Design:
The whole game is very much a giant horizontal line and the majority of the gameplay is to hold down the left or right arrow key. I would say this is boring level design but there is at least one thing it is good at and that's conveying a sense of scale. When you are in the mines the village really feels far away and it makes sense that the miners would like to know how it is there. But still it doesn't really make for a enjoyable map gameplay wise.
The dessert temple is the best when it comes to platforming but I'm sad that the floating backwards L didn't do anything. Was this also cut because of time issues ?
Thanks for making this I enjoyed my time.
Submitted
A Reconnaissance of Envi 5Thank you for your detailed feedback! I had to fly out a couple days before the end of the jam so the ending was rather sudden.
Unfortunately my monitor seems to display colors a lot brighter then they are which led to me thinking that they would be correct. When I played the game on another device, it looked way too dark to play! That will need to be changed.
I agree with the level design part - it was my first shot making a somewhat larger world and while I do think there is a sense of scale conveyed, a few parts of the world just feel empty.
Those were boots! After playing through, they don't seem to destroy themselves when they are obtained. But they give the player a permanent speed boost.
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