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BucketHead's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Execution | #4 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Overall | #7 | 3.962 | 3.962 |
| Sensory | #9 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Enjoyment | #12 | 3.850 | 3.850 |
| Metroidvania | #27 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Unity
Team/Developer
Milo Kent, Eeni14, HillE, Pixelemy, TrashBoat93, sizzlinkola, FrogFriendMax, narcolepsyDriver, Foster Stone, Grant Johnson, bucktoothfrog, R0nnie
External assets
Corgi Engine (Unity Asset Store), Motion Titles Pack (Unity Asset Store), Free Pixel Art FX Package (Unity Asset Store), Hovl Studio Electricity Effect, Miscellaneous SFX from Freesound and Pixabay
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Comments
This is one of the best entries we've played in this jam. So much about this is clearly well polished and cleverly designed.
There were a few issues we experienced that made it tough to get through the platforming. Multiple times we found that the solution to get through a room wasn't exactly very clear, and it led to us hitting our heads against the wall for a little bit. But after uncovering all the abilities, the smoothness of the experience really increases. When you know exactly how high you can jump it made it easier to tell what platforms were meant to be accessed.
It looks like, from reading another comment, you were going for a Metroid Fusion kind of a vibe. Very well done! We felt the same kind of horror vibe that the SA-X gives you in Fusion when it chases you through zones. The voice acting is really cool to hear, but it does also dampen the Metroidvania exploration aspect just a little bit. But for the scope of the jam, the size of this world was perfect and exploration seemed like it wasn't the number one priority.
The character controller is really smooth. We loved the wind-up to full speed, the force of the dash, the weight of the jump, and how the abilities helped augment your movement as you went through. Also the particles and explosions that happen when you shoot/dash/recall the bucket are SO NICE to look at.
Altogether we're really happy to have played this game. It was smart and very well assembled. Please keep working on this - we want to see a BucketHead release in the future!
Thanks for playing! The team had a blast making this.
Definitely agree that some of the metrics are off. I didn't have time in pre-production on top of my other priorities to write out official level metrics, so a lot of these were done in a shoot-from-the-hip, personal feel style which didn't always work.
So that I have data to help in my improvements on the polish build, which rooms were you having trouble solutioning?
We were stuck in this room for a long time before we realized we had to throw the bucket down and jump on top of it. We actually had to come back and retry the game later, because we were stuck in this room for too long.
This one we eventually figured out, but it was a little hard to tell that you had to shoot a projectile up to break that door.
Playing through the game again, I think these are the only two outliers. Everything else was designed well enough so that you could discover how to proceed just by experimenting.
Fantastic, one of the best entries I've played. I thought the voice acting was well done, and the player abilities had a lot of satisfying juice (recalling the bucket, and using the dash especially). And the "hard platforming" challenges towards the end were surprisingly fun.
The main critiques I have are:
Thanks for making this awesome game!
We're delighted you enjoyed!
Hi, I decided to play again and make some recordings to demonstrate specifically what I mean by inaccurate directions.
In this test, I'm moving directly to the left/right, then changing to diagonal-up and inputting a dash. I'm leaving a slight gap to demonstrate that I'm definitely pressing the diagonal before the dash (presses should be audible in the video). When playing on keyboard, the dash often goes left/right instead of diagonal, whereas on gamepad it is very consistent (I know gamepad is not fully supported, but I noticed it worked).
Playing with keyboard (diagonal is slow to register)
Playing with gamepad (diagonal registers perfectly)
To me, this strongly suggests the issue is caused by Input.GetAxis() smoothing, as Unity applies the smoothing to keyboard inputs but not gamepad.
Input buffering may help the controls feel better in general, but I believe this is a separate issue.
(Sorry if this is obnoxious, I just wanted to be clear about what my issue was.)
I appreciate your commitment to helping this game improve.
I hope it's that simple; I'll dig into Corgi's aim code.
Aiming was, in fact, that simple! Also fixed the diagonal wall impact for better corner handling. Both updates will be included in the next release. Thanks for the assist!
Amazing! Glad it helped 馃檪
Really cool project, the set pieces were cool. The art was great, but inconsistent, things often didn't seem to fit together right. The Sprite animations on the player and other bots were really expressive though. I think the voice acting was often a damper because it really did not play like a Metroidvania for most of it. Any exploration I could do was solved by a voice in my head telling me exactly where to go.
Really cool game though, congrats to the team!
We were using Metroid Fusion as our biggest influence for the story driven narrative side of the project, hence why the voice, or in the case of MF the scrolling text, tells you where to go the whole time. Appreciate the feedback though; definitely gives us something to think about for any revisions we鈥檒l be making.
Thanks for playing! I'll definitely be spending some time thinking about how to better get all artists on the same style.
Really polished and good quality - and good game. Doesn't have the usual "jam vibe" but more like something from GOG or Steam. The pixel-art, lighting, voice acting... comes together nicely.
The conrols were a bit confusing on keyboard - didn't have my gamepad close - but managable.
We're delighted you enjoyed!
For my reference, is there a keyboard layout that would've made more sense to you?
Super fun! but also I don't know if I can forgive you for not making an ending where we don't kill all the little robots :,( great job using sound design and lighting to make moments feel tense and urgent, even though there's seemingly no actual time limit. The controls feel amazing and I'm almost upset there's not more tight platforming using the mechanics. The only minor gripe I have with them is that with the dash ability it seems that your directional input is eaten sometimes whenever you hold down the directional key right after you activate the ability. As long as you wait a second before you try to move it works perfect, so that could just be a skill issue on my part, but maybe something to mess around with if you feel like changing it post jam. But then again, that didn't really affect my gameplay that much, I just had to figure out what was happening and get the timing down.
P.S. Its embarrassing but I did cry when the EMP turned on when I saw the child robot, great voice work, I also spent like 30 minutes trying to find a way to not have to break through the floor at the end
Alas! I am unforgiven!
Definitely agree with you on the directional input; it needs some buffer time. It's on the list for our polish build.
If we ever make a commercial version of this game, we'll definitely include more platforming challenges. I'm right there with you. For this release, I had to ease players into trickier platforming sequences to keep difficulty manageable. Because it's such a short experience (and because of my choice to focus on varied gameplay for pacing / player retention), I couldn't really start doing tighter platforming until the end when player skill is high enough to compensate.
Thank you for sharing your experience with some of the narrative bits. I put a ton of work and iteration into those to make them as impactful as I could with the time that I had. There's more I plan to do to make them even better, but that'll be for the polish build.
Thanks so much for playing!
Wonderful art and very unusual thing for gamejams - voicover! Abilities are well explained in popup windows, no need for trial and error. Story is not really unique, but there is moral dilemma, you can choose to kill friendly robots or to stop playing.
In this game I found only one flaw - it's pretty linear, and though powerups open new paths, there is no "explore every nook and cranny" aspect of metroidvania.
Great entry and good luck!
Thanks for sharing your experience! It'll make the team happy to hear.
It is definitely very linear. If we ever expand this into a commercial offering, I think it would be a more engaging experience to include elements of exploration. In the context of this game jam, we were very intentional about being story-first, so we made the decision to make a Linearvania (more Metroid: Fusion than Hollow Knight) so we had enough time to polish each narrative and setpieces as much as possible without also needing to deal with the complexities of open world design. Things like iconic lock-and-key locations to aid in recall after receiving a new ability, avoiding game-wrecking sequence breaking, an actual map or some other form of orientation, filling the world with meaningful and interesting things, etc., are design problems that take time to solution and I know I wouldn't be able to solve well in the time that I had on top of everything else.
We definitely could've made an exploration-heavy Metroidvania, but it would've come at the cost of the narrative and setpieces, which is where we wanted to focus on this project. Alas, can't get it all in in one month. :')
This was really fun, I liked the variety of challenges (fire jets here, drones there, you never know what's next). The music, art, and voice acting are something I aspire to! I do feel bad for the other robots since I couldn't escape with them, or maybe I'm not sure why my robot self felt like escaping instead of staying. During the part where I had to stand on the plate for the door to charge and explode, the other robot was like "no! don't do it!" and I jumped off the plate in case he would give me another choice when it was like 90% charged, but... he didn't offer any compelling reasons so I ended up blowing up the door. I'm... sorry, brother.
You and me both! Don't worry, it was just a matter of scope. We didn't have time to create multiple endings due to time constraints. We do plan on releasing an update, so maybe there will be other options, either there or at other times during the storyline.
That's why our robots overlord will have so many stereotypes against us, fleshly beings. This was great in all aspects. Great job!
The day I woke up and realized my toaster was more intelligent than I am, that day was when the end times began.
Omg amazing!! I was really looking forward to this entry and had a really good time playing it finally. I have nothing but praise for the excellent work on all parts. Great job by everyone on the team!
Graphics were amazing. Love all of the little details for the cute main character, like the way his eyes turn red when the bucket returns. The ability upgrades were really fun and just tricky enough that I had to master them after a little bit of trial and error. The sounds in this game really make the whole world feel alive. The storytelling and the voiceover gave a constant push forward and I think was really effective as a storytelling device. I definitely saw the twist coming, so it was not a huge surprise, but it still was compelling and I wanted to find out how the game ended! Really awesome background work too; I especially liked the starscape background during the credits.
The level design was also executed extremely well. I love all of the distinct props and set pieces which gave each area its own feeling of space, and helped me mentally map out where I was in the ship. Very well done.
I also really liked the musical shifts and tones throughout the playthrough. It was also the perfect length (15-20 min to win). Man... really memorable, charming, and inspiring. Great work!!
Yay! I'm glad you enjoyed and that the tremendous effort from every person on the team paid off for your experience. Thanks for sharing your perspective, I'm sure it will make the team very happy.
As a side note, I also enjoyed seeing bits of your game as it came together throughout the month and finally playing as well. It's one of my favorites from the jam.
I wasn't a huge fan of the mixels, and some of the platforming sections while using the mechanics well felt a little strange. Otherwise, pretty solid and I never felt lost. I think the "escape" sequence's level design was much better than beginning of the game, at the very least more traditional. The story was definitely an interesting touch. Gopd luck on future projects.
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree with you on the mixels. That'll be something I have the team be more intentional about on future jams.
When you say that some of the platforming felt strange, I'm curious what you mean by this. If you're referring to the lack of input buffer on dashing/shooting making it difficult to execute abilities in the intended direction, I completely agree and it's on the list to tackle for the polish build. If you're referring to how some of the metrics (distances where abilities feel good/natural) are off, I agree for a few parts though a couple are intentional for emotional effect. We'll polish up some of those in the final release.
When you say "the escape sequence level design is better/more traditional", I think what you're saying is that you liked how this sequence forced you to use all of your abilities in a more challenge-focused platforming gauntlet. If so, that would make sense. As this game is a story-first adventure game, not a traditional challenge-based platformer, the earlier sections of this game are designed to setup the story and build intrigue rather than give the player challenges to overcome. Additionally, I have to slowly ramp up to this mixed ability platforming as it's not possible / not fun until the player has spent enough time familiarizing themselves with each mechanic and the controls. Otherwise, people just find it difficult, overwhelming, confusing, and report it feeling messy. That's why I spent so much time playtesting each sequence with a variety of both experienced and inexperienced players, to make sure the difficulty was in line with AAA gaming standards while still being engaging for the kind of player this game is designed for.
Additionally, I'm acutely aware that by default no one cares about my game, so it's my job as a designer to hook people and keep them engaged through to the end of the experience. One way I strove to accomplish this was to keep pacing extremely varied. By focusing on unique gameplay moments (bucket puzzles, Seeker/Destroyer chase, narrative setpieces, escape room, etc.) rather than non-stop traditional platforming, I never give the player time to be bored. Granted, some of these sequences could use another pass (like the dark maze) before they're at a high level of quality.
Not trying to invalidate your experience, simply wanting to share some of the design thinking behind the final result. Thanks for playing!
I dunno, I played it to the very end, and wasn't offended by my experience really. I was able to figure out the mechanics and puzzles after 1 - 2 tries, so I wasn't particularly lost either. And no, thats not what I was referring to. I meant, literally the intro to the escape sequence, the level design felt very metroid-y. I liked it, finally, a hallway that doesnt just lead to a massive antechamber. I'm really just not a fan of exploring huge rooms with platforms. And thats just a very me opinion lol, which I can accept. The ending platforming sequence with the boosting + gun shot ability was actually pretty hard compared to the rest of the game, same with the "boss" before I figured out where to stand so I didn't knock myself off the platform, but I don't think that has much to do with game design, just my skill. I'm not really a fan of modern triple a design, since it seemingly sucks the fun out of most things. I felt like the portal-ish references were a bit too much in term of story / setting, but thats just kind of my opinion. I'm just kind of critical. Its one of the more polished games submitted to the jam, that I've had the experience of playing at the very least.
Thanks for the clarifications!
Such a great game! It's very polished. The art, voice acting, music, SFX, and the creative use of the bucket are all so good. I love the story as well. One tiny bug I found is that you will get pushed back a lot and out of the room if you retrieve the bucket in the low ceiling area of the left bottom room entry. I guess it's the collision with the bucket that pushes the player out. Overall, it's an amazing game. Congratulations!
We're delighted you enjoyed! Thanks for playing.
For any Mac user running into the "application can't be opened" error, download the itch.io app (https://itch.io/app), then download the game from there. That'll work without issue. Happy gaming!
I got it working, I'm doing my playthrough but i got stuck at the part where you get the ball launcher, i accidentally skippied the tutorial and cant figure out how to use the ability, also it unlocked this dash ability when I used K after getting the ball launcher which didnt feel right but it i lost that ability after reloading. How do I use the ball launcher? The polish is really great so far tho!
The dash ability is what you get for ripping the tip off of the ball launcher (though in hindsight I can see how that would be unintuitive as you're not launching objects, rather you're launching yourself). The ball launcher itself is not an ability you get. Also, you are correct that you lost the ability after reloading. Due to the short duration of the game, we opted not to include a save feature.
Glad you enjoyed so far!
Very cool and original game! And it's very well executed
I left me to think that there was an alternative ending so I replayed it but didn't find anything.
The only word of critical feedback. Space sky in the central room window looked a bit odd to me. The parallax is reversed. As I get it you tryed to achieve an effect of looking into an actual window. So if you shift rigth your view opens more to the left. But it feels odd considering other places normally parallaxed background. Well, maybe it's just me but it really cought my eye
Other than that, it's a great game!
I'm glad you enjoyed! I'll make sure to look into the parallaxing for the polish build.
That was a fun experience, there were very creative upgrades and the audio was great. The graphics were good too, but as said they're unfortunately quite uneven as some backgrounds were blurry and some pixels bigger than others. That's my biggest problem with this but I definitely enjoyed my time, your team did good job.
Thanks for the feedback! We'll look into how to improve that on future jams. Glad you enjoyed. :D
Hey! I really wanted to check this one out but the mac application says it cant be opened, do you know how to open it?
Ah! Yeah, I'm on Mac, too and this can be a nuisance. The issue is that Mac is trying to protect you because it's an unofficial app. The only way around it is to use Terminal to override Mac being Mac. You'll need to open Terminal and type: chmod +x
With a space after the 'x'. Then, drag and drop the App into the Terminal window to autofill the path. Press backspace once to remove the extra space, then add: /Contents/MacOS/*
So, the finished Terminal line might look like this: chmod +x /Users/Mio/Downloads/BucketHead.app/Contents/MacOS/*
Tutorial from:
https://superuser.com/questions/1127274/the-application-exampleapp-can-t-be-open...
Here's an older walkthrough of other people running into this issue with itch.io games on Mac:
Out of curiosity, I'm also using Unity, how did you get yours to build without running into this issue? Did you click anything special in the build settings? For instance, did you use the Target Platform set for both Intel and Apple Silicon or just do it individually? Something else? Would love to know if you know for my future reference.
Okay thanks ill check it out tomorrow. This vid fixes the webgl stuff:
Oh as for the stand alone build i dont really change anything apart from the resolution stuff, for me it just has a mac and a windows option. Mine has a similar mac issue where you have to force it to open through the settings but yours just says its not allowed
Thanks for the resource! I'll try this out.
You can download the itch.io app for mac, which lets you easily install mac builds.
Whoah! That works perfectly! Thanks for the tip!
Hello there! This was quite a nice game overall, I have a few gripes which I'll write down here, but for the most part it was an enjoyable experience.
I softlocked once at the beginning, a video of that is attached.
I feel like some timed sections were too tight, one comment already mentioned the first bossfight being too tight, which I agree with. In the final boss room, shooting the second button also had a tight window and took me a few tries.
The gameplay felt super neat for the most part, there was one tiny thing that I didn't like about the character controller, the character x velocity seems to get reduced/set to 0 when hitting the floor after jumping/falling, which feels super awkward, you should be able to keep your momentum after jumping. Aside from that, dash and regular movement felt great.
Your audio department did such a phenomenal job all across the board! Great sound effects, super fitting, never felt out of place! Music is fantastic and always fits the current situation. Great work guys, keep doing what you're doing!
The art was fine on paper, if you look at an individual sprite it's good, but I think you had multiple artists working on this, which made some sprites have different styles from others, which does look kind of odd. You also have uneven pixel sizes which is generally more of an amateur thing to put in your game. The visual effects are amazing though! Very over the top, in a good way.
The story was good, though I feel there was a missed opportunity to give us an alternate ending where we side with the robots instead of shutting them all down. It's okay, there's only so much time in a month.
Good game, very well done!
Thanks for the feedback Kaeselord! When you say that the first bossfight was too tight, are you referring to the speed at which it chases you, or something else? Also, so that I have data on that section, could you let me know roughly how many tries it took you to beat that section?
Yup I was referring to the speed, and after checking the video again, I died 2 times during that first boss escape.
Copy! Thanks! I've re-tuned the boss section and it will be included in the final upload before deadline.
Agreed re: art sizing. We ran into numerous scaling issues when trying to implement backgrounds, sourced a couple assets from different locations, plus we did not establish an art style guide. If we were to take this and do it commercially with more time, these are all issues we'd address. I'll also spend some time thinking about how to improve this process on future jams.
Hello - good to see another large team with a voice-acted game!
If you guys don't mind, I'm going to post feedback quickly since there's not much time before the deadline. So it'll be a string of comments instead of one big comment. It's too last-minute to make changes, but if any of my feedback is worth taking into account even now, I'd be very happy.
The buttons I need to press are difficult to see - they're slim and they don't stick too far out of whatever wall they're on.
Edit: The first boss is mega-hard! Dunno if its possible to slow the boss down by a few pixels. Ofc pls keep in mind this is just me.
Thanks for feedback! So that I can measure data, how many tries did the first boss chase take you?
About 30 tries I think? For the last locked door, I kept pulling the bucket back down from above cause I thought I needed that to jump. Then I tried once by just regular jumping, which worked.
Copy! Thanks! I've re-tuned the boss section and it will be included in the final upload before deadline.
The maglev burst is difficult to coordinate inputs for (diagonally). If I delay either of my two directional button inputs by a little bit, the burst only goes in one direction. A few frames buffer (like coyote time, or jumping again just before you land) would be nice. Took me ~10 tries to jump up into the first bug room - kept falling down - and I'd say a similar number of tries to clear the bug room itself.
Yes, the lack of input buffer bugs me to no end, too. That'll be something we look at in the polished build.
Game over! Excellent game, what an experience. Loved the upgrades, loved the puzzles and loved the story. Music and SFX were top-notch. VA too. My favourite part was when you first meet the boss - what a cinematic shot.
Brilliant! Would've really liked it to be longer. Kudos to the entire team.
Nice game really liked the intro sequence and the fact thats voice acted, the history and bucket mechanis are interesting, understanding how to acquire the second upgrade was very hard for me I think making so the human character speaks like he does with the previous one would help, the backgrounds are great and add some storytelling but somethings kind of blend on it(mainly the buttons). Only played until the part where your returning after the battery because I got stuck on the wall where you would go up to encounter the first boss, will give it another shot later as im curious about the ending.
Glad you enjoyed! Yes, agreed regarding the second upgrade. You're not alone in that one.
When you say you "got stuck on the wall", do you mean that you literally glitched into a wall and couldn't continue, or that you were stuck in the first "boss" area between the two security gates and that it was unclear how to progress, or something else?
I mean I glitched into a wall, as its hard to explain trhough text I went back and was able to recreate the bug, it happens where you get the bucket aswell, for reproducing the image just jump look right and call the bucket. I think clicking on the left side of the screen is the pause menu but im not sure, making this menu easier to acces would fix the issue as the checkpoints are very frequent.
Haha! Whaaaat? You don't want to hang out glitched into walls all day? That's not your idea of a fun time?
I'll add this to the punchlist for the polish build.