Metroidvania Month 22

Hosted by Falcon Nova · #MetroidvaniaMonthJam

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A jam submission

POSSHEXORView game page

Possess and slay your path in this most cursed Metroidvania!

Submitted by Davide Puato — 1 hour, 32 minutes before the deadline

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POSSHEXOR's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Metroidvania	#20	3.418	3.625
Execution	#22	3.064	3.250
Overall	#23	3.153	3.344
Enjoyment	#27	3.064	3.250
Sensory	#31	3.064	3.250

Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Game Maker Studio

Team/Developer
Davide Puato.

External assets
Audacity

Prizes eligibility
Jasontomlee asset pack, Blood or Smoke fx.

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Comments

davidovichzxSubmitted348 days ago(+1)

One of my favorites from the Jam!

Beautiful aesthetics and music. I love the possession mechanic and the variety of enemies. However, I encountered a bug with the first boss, I believe. If I touch the book turned into a gargoyle, it teleports me with the boss. However, when the possession ends, I return to the previous room. If I then touch the book with the player, it no longer teleports me, but the boss's health bar stays active for the rest of the game. I hope I have explained myself.

I haven't been able to finish the game yet, but I've really loved it so far. Great Job!

Submitted

Davide PuatoDeveloper345 days ago

Thank you! And yes, other people found the same bug also, but I have fixed it already and will post the new build shortly. And thank you so much for playing and the feedback!

raptor9999Submitted351 days ago(+1)

Cool intro and concept for a game!

I'm kinda with others saying that a bit more tutorial and maybe a bit more explanation of what is going on seems to be needed.

I felt pretty lost roaming around not exactly knowing what to do, then I feel in some place where I just kinda gave up. It didn't help that after I died I think that I found some bug where the player and the enemies both sort of take turns being invisible? If you want any more info just let me know.

The rest of the game (menu, intro, etc) feels very polished, but the core gameplay and start of game are lacking something.

Submitted

Frog - Metroidvania m22

Davide PuatoDeveloper350 days ago(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! And indeed it is lacking some balancing and tutorials, I have already made a fixed version but I am waiting for the voting to end to update it. And yes, please send me more info about the bug you found, I am not sure what it could be from your description apart from the enemies and player blinking after taking damage, but it seems something different from what you wrote, so I am not sure.

GameDev&Design355 days ago

Hey Check it out, only got to play for a few minutes because I had to go to work! Will come back and give it a proper test run 3/5 on first impression!

Check out Chick-Magnet and give it a rate/comment if you have the time!

(The WebGL is more up-to-date but wasn't included as a Jam submission) Thanks, GameDev&Design

BokiSubmitted359 days ago(+1)

Man... your game could be practicallyconsidered a full release if it was a bit more polished, and by that i mean better explanation of the mechanics, cuz in some part i didn't know i could posses upwards and downwards (maybe i missed the explanation), also you can get stun locked pretty easily if you try to eat in a bad spot, cuz you will get hit and then the animation of eating will restart and leave you vulnerable.

The worst thing was getting stuck in the final boss and having to reset the fight. i got stuck in 2 places (i got screenshots in case you wanna know but i don't know if you want no spoilers for other players) where i had nothing outside to posses to get out of there so had to suicide.

other than that i have not much to critique. great game in all aspects, it's amazing that you managed to do a game so polished for this jam. Great job 5/5

Submitted

MetroidvaniaDarkgame

Davide PuatoDeveloper359 days ago

Thank you very much for the compliment! And yes, the tutorial part was made in the last days of the Jam, so a lot of stuff is badly explained, and I did not know about the eating stunlock, so I will definitely fix that. And it's no problem with spoilers, you can post the pictures of where you got stuck for me to fix, since I doubt most people will get to the final boss haha.

I will fix everything using the feedback I received from you and everyone else, so thank you so much for letting me know about the problems the game has.

BokiSubmitted359 days ago(+1)

this were sections 1 and 2 of the final boss, in the first one i think just putting an extra platform to the right of the red stuff would fix it. on the second one doing the same thing or maybe spawning a zombie where the boss is. I am glad i could help.

Davide PuatoDeveloper358 days ago

Thank you! Indeed, extending the platform in the first image would be the fix, now for the other one I will have to create another path since the player should not be able to enter the Book area before opening it. Thank you so much for the help!

dan.collins.devSubmitted359 days ago(+1)

So sorry it took so long to get this to you!

Submitted

Barn of Duckness

Davide PuatoDeveloper359 days ago

Thank you so much for the video! This helped a lot to see my mistakes, and also to make me realize how much broken the file I posted is haha, for example the "BOOM!" mechanic is not supposed to be usable until the second book, so when you used it to get to the Baphomet area it was an accidental sequence break, which ended up skipping the Werewolf intro part where it could help to teach that you can use him to jump over obstacles, platforms and to kill zombies, which is used to kill Baphomet since he takes extra damage from possessed monsters. And getting to the Baphometh boss fight using the Vampire Bat is definitely another bug, so that also completely breaks the game since you can go back to your own body after activating the boss fight. And indeed, I completely forgot to put in a Map system until the last day when I finally had someone testing the game, which also explains why there are so many broken parts. Game testing is way more important than I tought, oops.
And I agree that some mechanics are not explained well, like the reset book and possessing in different directions, and also that some paths are not yet accesible like the spiked corridor, the intended route is to use the extra life power up to cross it, so I will also work more on the tutorial part of the game.

But thank you so much for the feedback and testing, I will use everything I saw to improve and fix the project! Thanks!

stealthnachosgamesSubmitted360 days ago(+1)

there's a lot of nice polish in yours puato. it's nice to have stuff like a save function in these jam games and i think the art and sound are great, reminds me of old games like monster bash a bit. or maybe something more like duke nukem. i also really enjoyed the writing, especially the opening sequence. i think a lot of things could be explained a bit better perhaps, like how you can shoot the possession up and down which is not something i thought to even try with it until a little while in (although that may be intentional). progressing forward was a bit of an issue, which is fine but i was often hit with things where i didn't know if i had actually solved it the intended way. for instance, there's a health upgrade toward the start at the end of a long hallway of spikes that i managed to get and i'm still not sure if it was intended for me to just run through them since it's very frustrating and feels a bit luck based on how the spikes toss you. i had a lot of issues with it, but i still think that this is a great idea and i really enjoyed it even with the issues i had. honestly with polish i could see this being put up on steam, it already looks really nice. overall great work!

Submitted

Davide PuatoDeveloper360 days ago(+1)

Thank you so much for the honest feedback! And yes, some mechanics are not explained very well because I was so out of time that I was only able to make the intro in the last day of the Jam, so the written tutorials are kinda nonsense or missing in some parts, which makes the game more cryptic than it should. Also, some puzzles indeed have different possible ways to be beaten, but some do not, for instance in your example you nedded the extra life power up to be able to cross the corridor without death being a problem, but it seems that it can be brute forced, which was not the intention, and perhaps even the extralife method is not very obvious, so I will probably change it.
And thank you! I do plan on polishing it more with all the feedback I receive, the design of some parts are kinda rough since I was only able to have a game tester in the last possible day of development, so all feedback is very special and much appreciated!

BokiSubmitted359 days ago

i thought the intended method was spawning the yellow elf and possessing it, then shrinking and just walking through the spikes since you are invincible while shrinked. i also tried to brute force it a bunch of times but i couldn't.

Davide PuatoDeveloper359 days ago

Oh wow, I did not think of that solution haha, that totally could also be how you do it. Thanks for the observation!

Pandoria FallsSubmitted361 days ago(+1)

I do not seem to be smart enough to figure out how to proceed in your game :D But I will try again after a good night's sleep.

I really dig the aesthetics and the music and sfx fit the visuals very well. The posession mechanic is really cool.

Is it intentional, that you can basically heal yourself to full health from a single zombie?

Submitted

From the Depths

Davide PuatoDeveloper360 days ago(+1)

I would disagree, there is no problem with you, the game might actually be too damn cryptic haha, and yes, you can almost fully heal with zombies because blood is the main "fuel" in the game, so its easy to loose, and easy to gain. It makes more sense later in the game, at least I hope hehe.

And thanks, the sfx and possession where a big focus for the game.

Pandoria FallsSubmitted359 days ago(+1)

You do not happen to have a playthrough video, don't you? :D

Davide PuatoDeveloper358 days ago(+1)

I probably should have one haha, one of the Jam participants made a video playing it, altought it is not a playthrough it shows part of the game, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL2lGiCBfn8
I might now make a "speedrun" showing the intended way so people that could not finish, at least to see how the game is fully, so thank you for the idea! I'll post it as a reply to you when I make it.

Davide PuatoDeveloper358 days ago(+1)

Here is the walkthrough, thanks for suggesting it!

Pandoria FallsSubmitted358 days ago(+1)

thanks so much :)