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A jam submission

VerestView game page

A stylised pixel art metroidvania!
Submitted by JUSTCAMH (@justcamh)
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Verest's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Story#14.6674.667
Audio#14.5004.500
Engagement & general#15.0005.000
Overall#14.6004.600
Gameplay#14.3334.333
Graphics#34.5004.500

Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Unity

Team/Developer
JUSTCAMH and ClockMaker

Discord username
@JUSTCAMH @ClockMaker

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Comments

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Wow, very good Job!

I enjoy the graphics and the good Gameplay. In only one month you did such a well polished game. It is really amazing!!!

Host(+1)

Got nothing to say, next game.

Man that was a great experience! Story with dialogues, everyone telling you your role of a forager, amazing graphics joined by a great music creating a relaxing but stressful experience, I simply loved it! Amazing job!

Submitted

My god is this not well done. Big props to you guys.

Art & Music: The use of the pixel perfect camera and the unity particle system is masterful in this, adding a lot to the atmosphere with the never-quite fully legible yet horrifying monsters and abstract symbols. Small nitpicks would be that the main character is a bit stiff, and that some of the UI feels less polished than the rest of the game, but you get used to it. The small worm enemies are sometimes too hard to distinguish from grass, especially when you're moving fast. The music is also varied, catchy, and pairs well with each environment.

Story: A slow burn that builds until a great turning point that hooks you completely and integrates well into gameplay. It's straight to the point and gives you a sense of greater unknown powers at work. The simplest things like the location name give you lots of intrigue by itself. One thing I think that could use more work in a longer game is to give more characters and attachment to the townspeople, though that may lengthen the intro a bit too much. Perhaps focusing on one or two characters and really endearing yourself to them would make the impact that much better. Right now they are funny and varied, but I haven't spent enough time with them to remember them much or our main character.

Gameplay: The movement is oh so satisfying and easy to control. I'm not sure I found out what to do with the stone symbols, but there's a decent amount of content in this map. The spear's hitbox does feel a bit small so landing hits can be a bit hard to judge. I found myself tanking hits / avoiding enemies more than I tried to properly engage them, so it might be worth looking into making combat more fun? Not sure.

The levels are well crafted and have many small, interesting puzzles and challenges to do. Coming back between rooms was still fun and little nooks and crannies weren't too obvious but still easy to spot  if you were looking for them. The game really opens up after the turning point and it feels exhilarating (which ties into the story well). There's a small issue where occasionally I can get tossed back and forth between level boundaries but it's mostly smooth.


That is to say, I am completely nitpicking and was blown away by your work. I enjoyed it immensely and will be following to see more progress!

Developer

Awesome dude, I'm really glad you liked it. Your first sentence had me concerned (my god is this not well done) but I see that that is a typo. I completely agree with the character feeling stiff, in the past I've spent way too much time on animation, but now that jam time is over, I'll come back to that and give it more life. Worm (caterpillar) enemies are intentionally hard to detect, just to set them and the location in your mind. 

I don't want the game's intro to be too long, but did my best to pack in as much as possible. I don't really want to add more characters, but I'm aiming to have them reappear throughout the remainder of the journey, like during the boss fight. They will tie into the story, so hopefully that will keep them relevant. How you say the story is a slow burn, do you already think the intro is too long? The goal was to make a big town of people, all with something interesting and relevant to say, but not necessary, so that people can pick their own pace. 

I'll also play around with the combat, cos it is a tad bland. Some extra reach would be nice, perhaps as an upgrade? Although, you've seen the last powerup, so extra reach doesn't really make sense. I'll play around with it all, but I think the short spear range will make the last powerup all the more sweet. 

It's awesome that you're enjoying the levels, I really want to make them as open as possible. The screen transitions things is a known oddity and will be fixed. There will be more secrets, and I've got a lot of interesting ideas to make the world even more interesting, stay tuned. 

Thanks for all your nitpicky feedback, that's exactly what I need to make the game better. Thanks for playing and supporting the game =)

Submitted(+1)

Sorry about the first sentence haha, it was more of a 'is this not the best thing ever?' kinda sentence structure.

For the intro, I agree that more characters are a bad idea but I still think having one with extra focus/appearances would do a lot. Everyone in town did have something interesting to say, but it would be nice to have one the player cares about more (think like Zelda / Groose in Skyward Sword).

For the combat itself,  the reach was fine, but the width was too small. Having to jump and time each hit and not sure if it would. I understand the need for skill but it was annoying if I'm in front of a moth and can't hit it at all.

Submitted

MacOS download not working for me :(


Developer (1 edit)

=(

Sorry dude, that’s all unity stuff that I can’t really fix...

It seems to be impossible to escape the well. I can't fit through this gap with the morph ability. In general I think shrinking the morph's collision certainly wouldn't hurt as it's inconsistent already for going through flat horizontal gaps. I'd love to play more when this gets fixed!

you definitely can, try again

ps : with what device are you playing ? (keyboard/gamepad)

I tried with keyboard, d-pad, and analog stick. Always the same result. Whether I hold down-left and press the morph button or if I hold morph for a little bit then try to move, whether I'm pressed against the corner to start or if I jump and try to line up diagonally with the gap, the sprite just jiggles a lot and nothing happens. I tried for about 10 minutes and I couldn't get it to work.

well, i replayed it and i didnt had this problem, you should retry, also you have to HOLD the morph button and go down left, if you hold it for less than a second you will not have the time to pass trought it

I don't know if you're running a different build, but if you are you should switch to the executable from the link. I'm on Windows 10, and it definitely does not work. Here's video of me trying to get through it, holding down-left and holding morph.

Developer

Hey, I just deployed a fix! Thank you very much for your detailed report and video, it was very useful. If you encounter any other problems, please let me know (but should be smooth sailing from here)