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A jam submission

Keys of the AbyssView game page

Use your Void Powers to gather the crystals and save the Abyss!
Submitted by Graphman31, Astral28, Khao Studios, Fiery51 — 23 hours, 47 minutes before the deadline
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Keys of the Abyss's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Metroidvania#63.9383.938
Overall#143.4383.438
Sensory#173.3133.313
Execution#173.1883.188
Enjoyment#173.3133.313

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Unity

Team/Developer
Graphman31, Fiery51, Astral28, KhaoKG, Max Nattrass

Prizes eligibility
LearnIndie

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Very nice! I love physics-based gimmicks. Being able to stack boxes to avoid traps and reach new platforms sets your game apart from the rest. I also really liked the art and music.

Even though the gameplay is unique, it can also be very buggy. Sometimes spawning boxes would not work as intended: they would either be launched at great velocity towards some random direction, get stuck off-map or completely disappear. Launching projectiles was also very finicky.

There were some instances in which I was sure I could jump between some narrow platforms, but actually couldn’t (the player collider may be a bit too wide). But apart from that, I enjoyed the movement.

As somebody else already said, music was a bit glitchy, like it would stutter randomly during gameplay and even more so while viewing the map. Played on Chrome, by the way. Also, please tone down the bloom, it’s just too much.

It’s pretty clear that you ran out of time for the final boss, so this won’t affect my rating. I’ll just pretend the game ends once you open the door. Having said all that, I really appreciated how unique this was and I’m looking forward to play a bug-free version of this! Great job!

Developer(+2)

Thanks a ton for the feedback! Definitely with more time we could fix a lot of the problems with the black hole and the map, with how big we made the map probably contributed to a lot of platforms being just off on positioning. Thanks for the feedback!

Developer(+1)

Apologize for the audio glitching sometimes, I've never had an issue with this on previous jams, but I believe it might be an optimization issue where I set audio quality slightly higher this time, and Vorbis uses more CPU in a tradeoff for compression ratios. So it might be people's individual computers having issues streaming the audio out of the linker.

Submitted(+2)

Great game in almost all aspects and very cool main mechanic. I didn't like the boss fight though. it was so hard i ended up cheesing it by getting behind the boss and spamming attack until he died, and you shouldn't lose all the hearts when you enter the boss fight was painful. I really liked the visual style  but maybe the bloom was a bit too much(?). Anyway, cool game.

This is the cannon that gets you soft locked, at this point you can only die trying direct its shurikens to you.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the feedback! Yes you are definitely right, we sort of ran up against the time limit with the boss fight, so it definitely could have been better. Thank you for playing our game!

Submitted(+2)

Very like the game!

Good level design and map system! Zooming out and seeing the full map in real time is a cool idea.

The void mechanics are a cool idea! I spawn a box on top of the spikes and walk on it I don't know is supposed to be but I like it.

Platforming is well designed!

The feedback I found is when I drop down the platform sometimes I need to down only one but not all the vertical cannon on the left of the map for example when I press down I fall passed all the platforms to the bottom and need to jump up again.

Developer(+2)

Thank you for the feedback! Yes, the boxes on the spikes is intentional, good job on figuring that out!
Yes, that is a bug with the platforms. Thanks for letting us know about it!

Submitted(+2)

Sorry for the late feedback!

Developer(+1)

Wow! Thanks so much for recording footage! So helpful!

Submitted(+1)

No problem!

Submitted(+2)

I really liked the summoning the void mechanic, and when I was told to open the map I was surprised by how big it is!  

I think one piece of feedback I have is these platforms pictured might be a sliver too far apart from each other.  I noticed it looked like the character only got up because of what I assume was the capsule collider catching the edge and popping me up.  It's good that you have that quality of life feature to help platforming though!  The music was choppy for me, but it sounded good.  I dunno if that's intentional or a webgl bug.

Awesome job!

Developer (1 edit)

The music being choppy might be a WebGL issue, what browser were you using if I might ask? Thanks for the heads up on the capsule collider bit! I knew in my testing it was pretty close and narrow gap to ascend those platforms haha. 

Submitted(+1)

Google Chrome, version 120.0.6099.72

Developer (2 edits)

Hmm, that's weird I know there's some chop in the music I believe during scene transition (that's my error I think events got reloaded instead of being kept active during initial menu -> game scene loading). It was choppy during normal gameplay though? I haven't run into any choppiness past that initial load though on my Chrome or Edge that I tested! Not sure what's going on if so.

(+1)

OK, this may have been my 2nd favorite of all the Jams... but there wasn't a downloadable version. The WebGL had some failure with sound for me...I will try on my MAC and see if that will clear the airways. The game really nailed the theme, and I found the physic mechanics very interesting. I want to know more, but the sound distorted and made the experience a little less enjoyable, so I am blaming the internet and not your project. Given all circumstances. It comes in 3rd place with my voting around 4.6 for all things.

Please Check out Chick-Magnet if you get the chance. Thanks

I will want to come back and finish the huge beautiful map system you made here, the story looked intriguing also with the spooky souls or what not

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much man! That means a lot! Yes, I will definitely check out your game!

Submitted(+2)

Hello,

Great map size, nice level design overall, surprising gravity mechanic, which also is well implemented and used, good movement.

Congratulations!

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much!

Submitted(+2)

The mechanic of sucking in things and shooting them out is interesting but way too chaotic; most bullets just ended up shooting me in the face :P. There seems to be a bug where if you are on spikes when invulnerable you can't jump so you just have to take another hit. The audio and graphics set a good mood and the map lets you know where you need to go.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for sharing! Great to know these things, very appreciated!

Submitted(+2)

Graphics are simple yet beautiful. Music creates this mystery to be unraveled vibe. use of portals is really great. when I saw the map I was like DAMN that's a big map. good job.

Developer

Thank you so much!

Submitted(+1)

Somehow able to cross the spike using the boxes lol.

Anyways, really cool mechanics, have a lots of freedom using it to explore the map. Also the visual and lighting looks nice too.

Tho I assume you set the respawn point at the last place you stand including boxes after you fell into the spike, and since you can't jump on it makes you can't really do anythings beside die and restarting, but it could also just be my skill issue.

Overall, cool game!

Developer(+1)

That is exactly it, I didn't think of or come across that issue! Thanks for letting us know!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I really like the artwork, especially the character design. As others have mentioned, the void mechanic is super cool, has so much potential and perfectly fits the game. I'm also really impressed that you have made a more or less complete game.

I think implementing a world map was a nice feature, especially given the size of the world, but revealing the entire world at the start I think takes away from the exploration aspect.

Great job!

Submitted(+1)

I see people already saying this but i must agree that the void mechanic is really cool. I did notice that once i fell on top of one of the cannons and I seemed to be stuck but perhaps I just didn't know how to get out. Very nicely done!

Developer

Woops, not another! Do you have any memory of where in the map it was? I tested specific areas out, but as the sound person I didn't end up fully testing everything. Thanks, we all really enjoyed the void and gravity system too, could have some cool puzzles and systems, or if we leaned even further have it add even more to combat!

Submitted(+1)

I remember that it was to the left and it was at a spot where there were a several gaps you could jump across and in the first gap there was a canon and I fell into that one.

Submitted(+1)

I really love how you can suck up those boxes and throw them back out. I maybe played around a little too long with that mechanic. Really fun idea! 

Also, I'm very impressed by the size of your map. It is huge!

Developer(+1)

Once we started getting to play around with it, I really enjoyed the void/gravity mechanic in the game too! I almost feel we could have leaned even further into it, but didn't want to move too far from the Metroivania playstyle at the same time. Thank you for the comments!

Submitted(+3)

i like the main mechanic! and it's a super large map for such a short time period. i ended up getting soft locked in an area on top of a gun, but i did manage to get 2 of the crystals and find a third. i also found some purple orbs that i didn't really understand the function of. i'm assuming the dash is a physics impulse because i could bounce off of some edges and launch my guy super high, which was funny but also made the game easier to cheese than was probably intended. anyway, good effort on this one!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! In all my playtesting I don't think I ever ended up on top of a cannon, oh no! Apologies for that, I assume the hitbox was wedged up against a wall causing that to happen.