Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
A jam submission

Shapeshift ShatterView game page

Shapeshift your way through this fun, yet simple metroidvania using powerups and movement mechanics
Submitted by dan.collins.dev (@dan_collins_dev) — 1 day, 5 hours before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Shapeshift Shatter's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Enjoyment#53.7333.733
Design#153.4673.467
Overall#173.4503.450
Metroidvania#183.4003.400
Presentation#273.2003.200

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Godot

Team/Developer
Solo

External assets
"Piano Sway" by Jay Man www.our-music-box.com "Work Dat Brass" by Jay Man www.our-music-box.com Perfect DOS VGA 437.ttf by Zeh Fernando https://www.dafont.com/perfect-dos-vga-437.font

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted

Cool! I shattered 59 times. As others said, the music selection really makes the whole experience. The controls were fairly good once I got used to them, fit with the lightness of the music.

As I found the game fun enough to stick with I accumulated some criticisms:

  • The collision detection for jumping has some odd hitches. I found myself doing extra jumps midair (before the double jump) sometimes, usually when near platforms or a wall. At first I thought this was an intentional wall jump mechanic I didn't understand.
  • It was hard to tell how many hits I could take before dying, didn't seem consistent. This made it harder to take advantage of the forgiveness of multiple hits; if I got hit early in a room I'd just die and restart rather than risk dying after getting through most of the room as I might have only one hit left. An indicator would help.
  • The jump sound effect seems too long, and the grunt damage sound is weird for a featureless square (it was almost funny, but mostly grating).
  • I think the Automaton of Fun couldn't actually hit me unless I ran into it, it'd just stand there swinging its sword without connecting. And maybe half the time I'd dash through it without it taking damage.
  • Because the square is featureless I can't see which way it is facing, so I'd sometimes dash in the wrong direction.
  • Dark grey platforms are hard to see on a black background. Same with the dark blue used often in enemy bodies, particularly with the spikes on the end of the wide flat enemies which were practically invisible.
  • The knockback on ceiling and wall spikes would tend to drive the player back into the spikes, along the wall, though sometimes the subsequent hits didn't seem to do additional damage.
  • I kept expecting to have to do more backtracking, fortunately I could check the map and see there weren't any doors I'd missed so I didn't have to redo much needlessly.


Note that I played the browser version, on a keyboard, so some of this may be due to timing bugs exposed in the browser. Sorry that the list is so long, it's easier to spot specific issues than things that worked well, and overall it worked quite well!

Developer

Thanks for playing the game and the extensive feedback. I'll try to address each point in order.

  • The issue for jumping isn't an issue with collision detection. The problem originates from where I shoehorned in variable jump at the last minute. I noticed the bug pretty soon after it was introduced, but it felt fun for me because I noticed that it usually gave a little lift when I felt like I had executed a perfect jump. I thought about fixing it, but there was still a lot to work on that I decided to put it on hold and never got around to fixing it.
  • I did think about adding a life indicator, but I made an assumption that it would make sense to the player that they had three attempts after dying once or twice and didn't implement it. It may have been fine, but with rooms like the one right before you get the dash powerup, were just too punishing where you would just get chained into death.That could have been fixed by changing how hit stun worked.
  • I agree on the grunt sound being completely out of place. It was a placeholder from one of my previous games (that's actually me grunting lol) and I just got lazy and didn't bother changing it. There's always a few items that could be easily changed within minutes that I just blow off at the end because I want to finish in time and before i burn out. Hit sound was definitely one of them. As for the jump noise, I think you're the first to comment on it. I'd have to play it again to see, but that never stuck out to me as a possible issue.
  • This was my first time making real bosses and not beefed up versions of normal enemies. With the Automaton of Fun, the issue with him never hitting is a combination of the raycast that detects the player being too long and the timing of his windup and swing. Both bosses also had collision detection issues due the complexity of changing the player's shape, collider, and activating each shape's respective hit and hurt boxes. I know there's a better way to do it now, but during the jam, I was playing it by ear.
  • Not adding an indicator was another instance of me just being lazy.
  • I'm surprised about your issue with not being able to see the platforms. I'm colorblind, so I tried to take that into consideration when choosing the colors. Personally,I think my biggest mistake color-wise was changing the enemy colors. In hindsight, they looked better before I changed things last minute. You can check out what they looked like on my instagram and decide which looked better (or worse).
  • I addressed the knockback/stun issue above, so I'm not going to reiterate it
  • I really love maps and I feel that they're essential for metroidvanias. So I did my best to try and make sure it was always clear if you got lost or had to backtrack a little bit (there weren't many instances of backtracking though.


Whether you played it in your browser or downloaded it, the issue would be the same other than a little less lag when multiple things were exploding. And don't worry about the huge list. The more feedback like this I get, the more I can improve. I haven't played your game yet, but I will by the end of the day. I've spent quite a bit of the rating period, doing work I put off during the jam :S

Developer

Sorry it took this long to get back, but I forgot that I had already played and given feedback on your game. Whew this month's been a blur.

Submitted

Oh I absolutely love the sound design, the minimalistic approach and the clever way you've fit in the shapeshifting theme.

My only problem was that this adorable jumping sound gets quite monotonous when repeated a lot during platforming. Maybe making it a bit quieter could help, not to lose the lovely background jazz along with it. Just a nitpick, honestly. Great job!

Developer

Thanks for playing my game and the feedback. I can see where the jumping sound could get monotonous. One my goals for future jams is to allow the play the option of adjusting sound levels. I know I can implement pretty easily, but it's never been one of my priorities. For instance, this jam my goal was to make a player controller that was fun to play and not the bare minimum which led me to focusing on learning and implement state machines. It took a while to sink in, but eventually it clicked, and I was able make a more fun platformer controller as well make bosses that weren't just beefed up normal enemies.

Submitted

You sure succeeded in that field! It was really fun to control. Cheers :)

Submitted

Great game. Very minimalistic, but that worked well. The controls and abilities felt very good and satisfying. Also, it was very well designed in terms of layout and difficulty (keeping in mind I generally don't enjoy difficult games).

I don't really have any negative to say about it, except maybe the lag spike we can get when smashing too many enemies to pieces but that's pretty much it.

Fantastic job :)

Developer

Thanks for playing and the feedback. Yeah, if 3 or more objects are being smashed at once, it starts to lag. It was my first time incorporating physics objects in my game. I went a little overboard with how many are created during each shatter.

Submitted

felt linear at start but as the game progress it sure did felt like a metroidvania! good job on this one

Developer

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

Good job on this. This game is proof that you don't need fancy graphics or art to have a fun game. The player controller was solid. I never felt like I was cheated out of a tricky landing or got killed by an enemy because my input was buggy. The little extra hop at the apex of your jump was inspired. I'm not sure how you programmed that, I started out in Godot and be interested to see your code. However you did it it was inspired. I'm not sure I've seen that particular implementation before and I loved it! Jazz isn't really my bag but the music fit well and I never turned the sound down. it was an unusual choice but well crafted. Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to playing your next game. 

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing my game. I'm a terrible artist, so using basic shapes was about the best I could do haha. Thanks for the compliment on the player controller. Improving platformer movement by learning and implementing state machines was my goal for this jam. Before this it was the very basics before this. And the bosses wouldn't have existed with me knowing how to use state machines as well. The little hop at the apex was a bug that I liked and felt like it was a reward for a "perfect" jump, but from the feedback I've received, I think the majority of players weren't fans and I can agree with their points about it. The jazz music was somewhat random. I woke up one morning during the project thinking about what music would fit and I just started humming out some made up on the spot and transitioned into some jazz. It felt right, so I had to look up some available jazz. The hardest part was finding jazz that was free to use and felt like it meshed well with the game.

Thanks again for the feedback and playing!

Submitted

Good job on this. This game is proof that you don't need fancy graphics or art to have a fun game. The player controller was solid. I never felt like I was cheated out of a tricky landing or got killed by an enemy because my input was buggy. The little extra hop at the apex of your jump was inspired. I'm not sure how you programmed that, I started out in Godot and be interested to see your code. However you did it it was inspired. I'm not sure I've seen that particular implementation before and I loved it! Jazz isn't really my bag but the music fit well and I never turned the sound down. it was an unusual choice but well crafted. Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to playing your next game. 

Submitted

1. I guarantee that the massive framerate drops on web are because you're using a physics-based shatter effect, which isn't necessary--you could create shatter sprites that have the same effect, or use a more efficient algorithm.

2. It's hard to tell which direction the cube is facing.

3. Even though you said it's "forgiving," it's really not--there's more than a few puzzles which will auto-kill you if you miss a jump. Examples would be hitting a spike and being launched into a row of spikes, falling into a pit with walls too high, not being able to dash when over spikes--honestly, that last one is a big deal. Not being able to dash when over spikes? Think of all the 'saving throws' that could be made if you could dash when you're about to hit a spike. But no.

That being said, the music was great and the puzzles were, on the whole, pretty good!

Developer(+1)
  1. You're right about the physics-based shatter effect. I hadn't used the physics object in Godot yet, so I toyed with that in this project.
  2. That was going to be fixed with just some eyes, but it was neglected due to burn out in the end.
  3. The "forgiving" description was when I stubbed out the itch page for it (originally didn't plan to have any enemies in it.) That was an oversight on my end. Honestly, the map and difficulty are inconsistent based on a last minute decision to redesign my map. Easily the biggest "what not to do during a jam" lesson I've learned so far. And can you clarify on not being able to dash when over spikes? Because you can. One of the last rooms was made with the player walking off the edge and dashing before hitting the spikes to jump on on a platform two times. Then above that section of the room, the player is supposed to double jump for the distance over most of the spikes. There are ceiling spikes so the play stop moving forward at a point in the double jump and waits until they can dash between ground and ceiling spikes to make it to the exit.


Thanks for playing my game and providing some feedback.

Submitted

I tested it multiple times in one of the middle rooms--one of the first where dashing over spikes is a main part of the layout. I could jump and dash normally when there were no spikes underneath, but if I jumped, moved over spikes mid-air, and then tried to dash across them, the dash input would be eaten and I'd fall on the spikes.

Developer(+1)

That's extremely odd because no one else has mentioned having that issue and im doing it right now. Can you screenshot or point on the map where you're encountering this issue?


Submitted

I'll do that when I get back to my computer, sure. It'll be a couple hours tho.

Submitted

It's in the very large room at the bottom, right after you've broken the first wall.

Submitted

And actually I did some further testing and discovered it's a problem when facing right at all, not just over spikes. I just noticed it over the spikes because you're going right in the level.

Developer

That's still pretty odd because I can't replicate what you're experiencing.

Submitted

Huh. Are you testing a web build or a desktop build? If desktop, then it could be a web-only issue like the shatter slowdown?

Submitted(+1)

This was certainly interesting. The sound effects and music were ... kinda fun. I liked them. 

I also think the dash ability with the wall bounce feels amazing and it would have been great to get to string multiple of those together eventually but it is always limited to only one. 

Also the feeling when you kill a boss is fantastic , so incredibly anime.  You slice through it, wait and then it bursts into a thousand little pieces. Great stuff. 

Two points of criticism I have are that there seems to be something weird going on when you hold down jump and release it at the apex. It makes you do a little mini double jump that I think isn't intended.

The other thing is that the explody bits made the game slow down a lot. No idea why that is though. Maybe just too many physics objects interacting with each other. 


Overall I enjoyed it. Good job.

Developer

Thanks a lot for playing and giving feedback. I liked the wall bounce effect as well, and did consider the possibility of allowing for a player to chain it up to 3 times, but I chose to stick to just the one. And man, that boss effect made me laugh so hard when I first beat it after implementing that effect. You're dead on about the anime-ish quality to it. Like a samurai slicing through the enemy, a moment where nothing happens, and then the blood sput happens. One of the highlight of making the game was that little detail.

As for the criticisms, the little lift you get on release was bug that I ended up just accepting. It was introduced when I implemented variable jumping. And yeah, too many simultaneous explosions caused lag most likely due to the the amount of physics objects interacting with each other. 

Thanks again for the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

very solid metroid game,
from the music / Sfx to player movement are so fitting.
5/5 ⭐

Developer

Thanks a lot. My focus for this jam was improving player movement. Up until now, my platformer character have not been fun to play imo. This time I enjoyed the movement, so I achieved that goal.  Next time, I'll be focusing on better level design.

Submitted(+1)

This was a good time. Once I got all of the abilities unlocked I felt like I could move through the game very smoothly, very satisfying to cover large distances without touching the ground. Using the charge to bounce off of walls for height was a fun twist on the mechanic too. The music and shatter effects were as pleasant as I expected them to be from your progress videos. :D

Some things that stuck out to me:

- It was nice to have 3 health, but generally if you fell on or got pushed into spikes, you would just bounce around until you died. This could be fairly frustrating, so it might be worth considering making floor spikes and falling spikes different assets with floor spikes being one-hit kill (to be fair, there were a few occasions where I successfully bounce away from some of the spikes, but it was few and far between).

- Room difficulty and pacing felt a bit weird to me, there were several rooms in the beginning of the game with massive difficulty spikes (including the first room which required some near pixel perfect jumps to get over the spikes), whereas later rooms, although more complex in layout, were easier to get through just because of unlocked movement abilities.

- It was very fun to navigate around the map, but sometimes the normal jump felt a bit off. My character would do mini-hops in the air or slide up walls slightly, and so in the early game I wasn't entirely sure if I was solving jumping puzzles in the intended way or exploiting small bugs.

- Bonus Feedback: I dunno if it's just my browser, but destroying multiple objects at once would cause my game to stutter a lot.


Anyway, very cool entry. Glad you got it done!

Developer

Thanks man. Yeah, I think if I hadn't tried to redesign everything last minute, there may have been more consistency in room difficulty. I was all over the place that night. The little lift you get from the jump was a bug that I just decided to keep because it felt fun. Honestly, that redesign may have hurt the game rather than made it better. As for the stuttering, its not just your browser. It also can happen in the download version :( Besides learning how to implement state machines, i think the biggest takeaway from this jam is not to repeat the dumb decisions I made haha. 

Submitted(+1)

33 times I shattered!

Good clean fun! Quite responsive controls make it fun to maneuver around and use the skills. I was for a while perplexed, though, by a little tiny lift I would get on top of some jumps that seemed completely random (though always seemed to happen when I needed it) till I figured out—on the last screen–that it comes from the jump's key up. I've never seen that before, was it intentional?

That little key-up lift and the dash-wall-bounce tech were just weird enough that I wondered if they were "bugs" you turned into features. I applaud the creativity either way!

Developer

Haha thanks for playing. I shattered 17 times this morning I think. And yeah, the little jump lift was definitely a bug that I was initially going to fix, but it felt fun and more natural, so I kept it in.

Submitted(+1)

I never realised how much I needed jazz in my metroidvanias until now ;) and really goes with the look of the game!  Love how you have incorporated the theme of shapeshifting to pull the game back to the core of the abstract (and fun) mechanics, and they are implemented so well!

Developer

Haha thanks a lot. Yeah, going with jazz was one of the better ideas I had during this jam haha. This is the second time I've participated in the MVM jam, so I wanted to focus on better character movement by learning and implementing state machines. It took half the month, but it was definitely worth it. Learned quite a bit.

Submitted

There’s a lot to like about this! It’s got great progression, puzzles, and a few enemies to make it more appealing. The sound track helps to achieve a light hearted mood that fits the humor of the game. And I like the minimalism! Oh, and the sound effects are interesting and also support the light hearted mood too!

As I always try to leave a constructive criticism in an effort to point developers to ever higher achievement, I guess I would say that this game could use a bit more of that mysterious “juice”. Like having the player squash and stretch as they jump, fall and move. That sort of thing. That wouldn’t detract from the minimalism and would add just a little more appeal.

All in all, great job! There are so many great entries and yours is one of them!

We would love for you to play, rate and comment on our game giving us any constructive criticism (or praise) that would spur our team to making better and better games! Thanks!

Developer

Thanks a lot! I used this jam to focus on learning about and implementing state machines to make a better platformer character, which ended up taking half the month haha. It eventually made sense and I was able to implement for the player as well as apply it to a lot of other objects in the game.

And I agree about the animation. That was originally planned, but it got scrapped in favor of ensuring other things were animated. And yeah, I'll play your team's game here in a moment!