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A jam submission

Build-A-BroView game page

A 2D-in-3D Metroidvania game, developed for Metroidvania Month 16.
Submitted by Joe Sorgea, Snardle, lazerlokque, ixia1 — 4 hours, 50 seconds before the deadline
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Build-A-Bro's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Metroidvania#312.8644.750
Enjoyment#392.4124.000
Overall#442.4504.063
Design#512.2613.750
Presentation#562.2613.750

Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Unreal Engine 5

Team/Developer
Spiral Tower

External assets
Quixel Megascans by Epic Games, Infinity Blade Firelands by Epic Games, Modular SciFi Season 1 Starter Bundle by Jonathon Frederick, Modular SciFi: Engineer Hallways Vol. 2 by Jonathon Frederick, FX Variety Pack by Kakky, Rocket Thruster Exhaust FX by SHOGUN GAMES LLP, Sci Fi Weapons Dark by Ying Pei Games, Vintage SciFi pack VOL 1 Enigmatic Ancient Stone by I.L.E.P. STUDIOS, Local Outlines by Luna Harmon, Horror / Grunge / Military Dark GUI / UI KIT by HONETi, "fartus tubelius" by NoiseCollector, "whip 01" by erkanozan,"Meat slap 1" and "Meat Slap 5" by MWLANDI, "Whip Crack 01" by CGEffex, "Trash Can Lid" by jesabat, "Big Trash Can Hit" by evanmack01, "Zipper" by Tee_Hee_Tummy_Tums, "Greasy Meat Slap" by Christopherderp, "Fart 9" by deleted_user_21, "Cracking/Crunching, A" by InspectorJ, "Rocks" by adamgryu, "Hand Bells, B, Single" by InspectorJ, "Brick falling" by drummerman, "Bag Of Flour Dropped On Counter Top" by bbrocer, "Fly Swatter" by Samantha_Dolman, "Wet Splat 2" by nebulasnails, "10056 giant fireball blow" by Robinhood76, "small bang slam explosion backyard sound effect" by Garuda1982, "Bolt-Nutdrop1" by kendel

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Comments

Submitted (1 edit)

This is a neat idea, very ambitious! I thought the graphics were glitched at first, but once I got the eye it made sense.  I like the animations, the hopping with one leg is neat.

I got up to to picking up the harpoon tongue. A few issues stood out:

  • The jump and land sounds are irritatingly harsh, especially compare to the nice clean clink of taking damage and the pleasant music.
  • As others mentioned the framerate was annoyingly low in some rooms, particularly Volcano Access.
  • The minimap is confusing when both you and doors are tiny green dots.
  • It was frustrating having to switch between the game and the itch.io page in order to find out the controls, and when I got the harpoon tongue it took some time to figure out it needed to be selected like a weapon.
  • Is there something I'm supposed to do to interact with the monoliths that seem to be save points? When I died from being attacked (while trying to figure out how to use the tongue) I respawned back at the beginning with no parts (and then when I got the eye the blob no longer rolled, just faced the camera). When the monolith was highlighted I tried every key to try and save, but something when I pressed "G" I think I respawned outside the map, had to quit.
  • When I fell into the Precarious Grove with just the eye and leg, it seems like there was no escape but death, but after falling in the lava to burn down my health I respawned outside the map again.
  • There were a few jumps that were just on the edge of the single leg jumping ability, it seems like I needed to have a running start before I could jump high enough to clear these, probably would be better if it wasn't so close.

It's a shame there aren't more ratings for this. I expect the huge download scared people off; generally in-browser stuff gets played a lot more than even small native apps. Also perhaps reconsider the name, it sounds a lot less interesting than the game really is.

Submitted (1 edit)

Oh, because there are no files on the game, this doesn't show up on the submissions in need of ratings list, that's probably related to the low number of ratings. Er, never mind, the link counts, it just doesn't show for me because I already rated it.

Submitted

I was excited to play this game but I couldn't get pass the obstacles in the first area. Not sure what's going on there or what I'm supposed to do. Can't seem to jump over the first obstacles. 

Developer

Hey, there are a couple different things it could be.

  • If you're stuck in the first room (Crash Site), make sure to hold down the jump key to get the max height out of your jump.
  • If you're stuck in the room with the elevator (Volcano Access), jump over the switch on the elevator instead of taking it down - you can't go that way at the start, you'll need a leg to jump higher.
Submitted

Thanks, I'll try holding on jump.

Submitted

I really enjoyed the concept of slowly building up the character by unlocking more body pieces. It was like Spore meets Metroid. Some feedback that I have:

  • The lag/lack of optimization reduced the enjoyment somewhat. The assets could have maybe been more compressed to save performance/reduce the download size. 
  • A menu screen on start-up would've been nice. It's not a deal-breaker, but it felt less polished and there seemingly wasn't a way to quit without force closing the game.

But I generally thought this was a great take on the metroidvania genre. It took the concept of exploration and power-ups and made it feel satisfying. Some jumps/areas were tricky, but in a way that made success feel meaningful.

Developer

Glad you liked the body parts mechanic! We definitely ran into some issues closer to the deadline and didn't get a chance to optimize things or add a main menu. We're planning on working on this more after the jam, so we can implement your feedback in a future update.

Submitted (1 edit)

Quite an interesting game. It may be worth adding a map (to a minimap).

Add: Also, optimization would not hurt the game

Developer

Thanks for your feedback! In a future update we plan to add a map screen + implement some performance fixes.

Submitted

Why does the download button take me to a google drive?? Please upload a build to itch.

Developer

Hey, the game is too big for itch so we put it on Google Drive. It's ~2.3 GB, itch caps downloads at 1 GB.

Submitted

LOL! Wow! Now I’ve got to check it out!