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Buried Shapes's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Metroidvania | #35 | 3.320 | 3.833 |
| Execution | #42 | 2.887 | 3.333 |
| Enjoyment | #42 | 3.031 | 3.500 |
| Overall | #44 | 2.851 | 3.292 |
| Sensory | #67 | 2.165 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Godot
Team/Developer
jimmy_twohands
External assets
Tileset and Character Sprite
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Comments
Nice little puzzle-platformer. :)
I would only suggest to make the hints/explanations re-readable.
That had some clever puzzles for such a short game! I woulvde loved some music and more sfx but the visuals were okay. The controls felt nice but i wouldve liked it to keep the ability i was on when i changed rooms. Theres definitely more potential to expand here, great work!
Great game! I see much potential in this game if you continue to develop it. There are a good amount of puzzle related abilities. I don't see a lot of puzzle-heavy Metroidvanias on here, so this is refreshing. There are some rough spots to work out related to the puzzle mechanics, but they work well for the most part. Great job!
Super cool idea and nice game overall! I agree with the points in the other comments - faced the same issues myself - so I'll add some other comments, which aren't gameplay related.
I think it'd be nice if you added a soundtrack, SFX and a narrative to this. It doesn't have to be good - it could be any boilerplate background music + some free SFX off itch. And a simple narrative - you're an archaeologist stuck in some ancient temple and need to get out. Anything works, because it'll greatly increase immersion and the overall player experience.
Here on itch.io and the amateur indie scene we focus so much on mechanics that we forget what makes games games - the intersection of A/V, storytelling, and interaction. Without A/V and storytelling, games are toys for adults to fiddle with, not games. That's my 2c at least. That being said, I did really enjoy the puzzles and the mechanics. The core components of a great experience are here.
Great job and thanks for a fun 20 minutes. Kinda inspired me to try some puzzle platformers now haha.
I appreciate the feedback and will look to improve on the sound design side of things for sure.
Fun little mechanic, but the true standout here is your level design. Well done and well-tuned puzzles, which is impressive for any jam. Plus it's clear you spent time thinking out the world structure along with your lock and key progression. Out of curiosity, how much playtesting did you do to get the levels to this state?
I would've appreciated feedback that let's me know when I've got the block positioned sufficiently into the clear containers as I sometimes got frustrated thinking the controls weren't working, when actually the block was four pixels too far to the right.
Additionally, it seems that some abilities must be activated in a certain order, or they won't work. For instance, on the red block before the final switch, if I shrink it first, then try to slide, it won't work. But if I slide first, then shrink, it's fine.
Tiny note, the readability of the platform to the left needed to exit the lowermost room is poor because it's so dark. It was hard for me to understand how to exit this area.
Overall a good time, kept me engaged the whole way through. Thanks for making this!
I am happy you enjoyed the game.
In terms of time spent playtesting. I spent a lot of time with an initial test room getting things to work in kind of a sandbox environment. When I finally started building out levels and playtesting them, ideas came out from that process that I just kind of followed. However, I think I started that playtesting and level building phase a little too late and that kind of led to a lack of polish in some areas. One of those being what you mentioned with a lack feed back on some of the clear containers and when actions failed.
Very fun concept. I really like how the jump feels. Unfortunately, I use a keyboard without arrow keys, so getting the control scheme to work made me have to contort a bit. It feels like a lot of the movement has to be very intentional, so it didn't work great for my play scheme.
Very cool concept with the block-based actions though!
Thanks for the feedback! I agree that the control scheme could use some work/have some options for different configurations.
Interesting idea! I like the use of the blocks evolving as you get more abilities! The controls weren't my cup of tea (I'm a WASD person myself) so I found it a bit hard to control, but thats more of a me-issue. I unfortunately couldn't figure out how to make the "slide" function work so I wasn't able to get past the dustbunnies to get the last box, but it was still fun!
Thanks for the feedback. Kind of an oversight on my part since 60 percent keyboards are so popular. I will definitely keep that in mind for future games.