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A jam submission

From the Looking GlassView game page

A Bullet Hell of your Own Making
Submitted by BricksParts — 2 minutes, 34 seconds before the deadline
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From the Looking Glass's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Enjoyment#343.2073.429
Presentation#503.2073.429
Concept#513.2073.429
Overall#632.9733.179
Use of the Limitation#1122.2722.429

Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Team members
Brian (BricksParts)

Software used
Photoshop, Godot

Use of the limitation
Mirror copies of the player follow your every move and place traps. Mechanically you are creating the patterns used against yourself

Cookies eaten
none, but now I'm hungry :(

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Comments

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

In terms of colour harmony and the graphics assisting the gameplay, this is my favourite game so far. As others said, it would have been even better with sound. I think some camera shake and a message upon death would make it even better because I don't even realize I'm dead until a bit of time has passed. I loved the bullet graze mechanic, too.

I was going to say it doesn't follow the limitation well but then I read your "use of the limitation" part. The bomb placement doesn't seem to coincide with the positions of the reflections, though, which feels unfair (why should I avoid the mirror pieces if bombs are going to be all over the map anyway?).

Developer

I'm glad you enjoyed it! As far as the limitation goes, it definitely ended up becoming less of the core mechanic as the development progressed. I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean about avoiding the mirror pieces though?

Basically the way the bomb placement (and thus the theme implementation) works is that every cycle, a new clone copies your movement of the previous frame, and periodically drops bombs. Originally you were actually able to directly see the enemies, however later on in development (upon adding the mirror background) I made it so that you could only see the clones in the reflection. As far as showing the player how the game works this is probably not super good to be honest, but during playtesting I found that the enemies ended up being more distracting than helpful. I think that if I moved forwards with this project, I might honestly scrap large parts of that aspect and focus more on the bullet grazing as the core mechanic. Anyhow, hopefully this gives you some more insight to the implementation of the limitation (although it's admittedly a bit weak haha)

Submitted

I mean I saw my reflections when I stepped over the mirror shards so I figured that by avoiding them, there wouldn't be any reflections of mine to place bombs, but to my disappointment, the bombs appeared regardless of where I was, and also, the bombs appeared even where there weren't any shards.

Yes, it would have been quite a mess with all of the player trails being visible, especially in a bullet hell, so it was a wise decision to make them only barely visible in the shards. I think the reflections look really good, though; layer masks are quite an advanced thing so I'm impressed you got that to work.

Submitted(+1)

I really like how the instructions are blended in, movement was quiet fluid, well done! 

I would have really liked to have some sounds in it though! and a clear definition of what the top and bottom red bars meant.

Developer

Thank you! If I continue the project, I'll probably add some text to the bars to explain that they are: top = energy, bottom = health

Submitted(+1)

I really liked the way this looked and felt! Took me a few plays to realize that picking up tiny bullet-dots would refill my energy bar just(?) as effectively (without destroying my health bar), but I did better once I did. Perhaps you could have the score / high score display on the main screen after health runs out, so it's more clear that the game is over than just "WASD isn't letting me move anymore" (and so you don't have to figure out why it's not displaying at full size in the sidebar)? A really clever and replayable game concept though, and it looks fantastic! The use of the limitation sounds neat but I wish it had been documented in the game / directions itself (rather than just on the submission page).

Developer

Thanks you! Yeah the game could certainly use better feedback in various regards :) As far as gaining energy, you actually gain more energy from fresh bullets as opposed to bullets which have significantly shrunken, but admittedly this is something that would be extremely difficult to discern for various reasons. I have some thoughts about how to make this more clear if I continue this project.

Submitted(+1)

simple yet very addicting game! It is very replayable and enjoyable!

Developer

Glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted
Deleted 2 years ago
Developer

Thanks for checking it out!

Submitted(+1)

A very enjoyable game, the mechanics are very smooth and polished, and the overall game is simply fantastic! It would be nice to have a way to track your score, but the game is still very fun.

Developer

Thank you! Unfortunately I didn't have time to get around to adding any music or sfx, but I'm glad you enjoyed playing nonetheless :)

Submitted(+1)

I think this was a very fun game! The artwork looks fantastic, the UI and movement are accessible, and the gameplay is fun. I wish there were some quality of life things, like music in the background or a highscore, or even more levels, but it's impressive enough you made a very compent game. Good job!

Developer

Thank you! It's not shown very well (I couldn't figure out how to make the text bigger) for the current and high score, but there actually is one on the right side of the screen haha. Thank you for playing :)