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Yarn's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Concept | #2 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Overall | #5 | 4.114 | 4.114 |
| Use of the Limitation | #10 | 4.257 | 4.257 |
| Enjoyment | #10 | 3.886 | 3.886 |
| Presentation | #14 | 4.029 | 4.029 |
Ranked from 35 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Just me :)
Software used
Unity, Visual Studio, Aseprite, Audacity, and lots of googling
Use of the limitation
I used only the six colours of the jams palette
Cookies eaten
Too few, but more than I should have
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Comments
the jam ended because i forgot
but gonna test this soon
I'm absolutely impressed! That's definitely the best game I've played in the Jam!
The pixel art and music were awesome and the mechanics were nicely polish! Good job!
I managed to get into the top 5 of the leaderboard🤩. By the way, this rank was a nice way to keep the players on your game.
Really a great entry! I was happy to be able to play your game before the Jam ends.
Amazing job - as the voting period progressed the leaderboard was getting more and more competitive, so it's really cool to see people still pushing for top 5 :)
Also congrats on making it to the top 50%! Definitely not an easy feat for your third jam
This feels like the most complete game I've tried in the jam so far! I'm really digging the movement, the gameplay makes me actually want to try getting a good highscore. Very very nice.
Aw thank you! Did you end up making it onto the top 5 leaderboard?
Yeah I did! I got 3rd place earlier, almost took 2nd place. That 1st place is pretty scary though hahaha... Now that I think about it, it looks like there's also a working server-side leaderboard implemented here, damn that's even more impressive.
Wow so close to 2nd - that must've been frustrating! My friend hit first place yesterday (he was aiming for 1 mil points) and I get the feeling no one else is gonna get close lol
About the leaderboard, it was actually insanely easy to set up given how much it adds to the game - in case you're interested in giving it a shot I'll drop the vid I followed. It only took me like 20 mins to get the functionality down, and I've been able to reuse the code super easily!
I love what you did! Everything fits together! The simple graphics and effects with the style of music and sound effects fit the jam's palette well. This is a very well made game! Great Job!
The amount of polish on this is unreal! The unique movement is really charming and you made you of the color pallette extremely well! Although I did notice that the character was stuttering when moving, this can be fixed by changing the timestep in Unity. I really have nothing else to critique, this is definitely a standout so far and I think it even has potential to be a fully fledged game with the addition of a few features. Watch out fellow devs!
Damn it! I was hoping no one would notice the stuttery movement - I guess with so many fellow devs playing someone would mention it eventually. By changing the timestep, are you refering to Cinemachines update method? Or maybe the player movement one (fixed / standard / late)? It's been bugging me for a while and none of the common fixes seem to be working - theres also a chance its due to the janky way I'm connecting the player to the ball of yarn.
And thanks so much for the positive words! It means a lot to me that so many people are enjoying the unusual movement dynamic :)
No problem! Yeah I'm talking about the fixed timestep. Reducing it should fix the stuttering, although you may have to adjust the values of any of your functions that depend on time. This is the janky movement is because of the camera, if it's because of the yarn then I'm outta ideas ;-;
I really love the gameplay, I wish you add item or something to boost my cat :)
GG for the entry :)
Powerups are definitely something I considered adding, but unfortunately it just never happened - thanks for the feedback tho! I had a lot of fun with your entry as well :)
This is sooo polished! I got a highscore of about 11000 points. The game was super fun to play, it's those kinds of games where you have to fight against your own ability to do things (reminds me of games like Human Fall Flat, in a different way). The cool thing is that the movement and controls were very responsive, so this learning experience of running and smashing things and eventually becoming good at it while avoiding obstacles was on point.
Great job!
Thank you! It's really cool that someone else made that same connection - the risky nature of the pounce is why I felt okay with putting it on such a short cooldown. A couple days ago 11k points would've been first place, so great job on that, and thanks for the feedback :)
Really fun! Love the scoreboard! You did a really good job!
really good use of the palette
awesome game and cool concept
you could improve upon the idea with power ups, effects and a faster pace
really liked the dash mechanic and very good use of the limitation
Ty for the kind words and honest feedback :)
Cute game! I last entered a Speedrunner's game jam and it was already tough to get a leaderboard working. And the yarn idea is very creative and lovely!
Thanks for the kind words :) The leaderboard was actually super simple to get working - I'm really surprised more people don't implementing them. In case you ever want to try your hand at creating one, with this vid I had mine up and running in only 20 minutes!
The game is cool with a cool great. Great job! :)
Thanks!
I am quite frustrated that i couldn't make it on the high score page. Blast you and congratulations! Check out my live review at https://www.twitch.tv/scalphamission
You made an amazing effort though! That last run you did was honestly the highlight of the jam for me - seeing the panicked sprint at the end, you thinking you had made it, only for someone else to steal the 5th place spot while your run was happening was one hell of a ride. Thanks so much for giving my game a play :)
This is really good and polished, it feels like a full release game and not like a game that was made in 3 days.
Funny how we got kind of the same thought that cats play with balls, and we even used the same cat sprite, but we exploited them in a totally different fashion.
And this game has a leaderboard, that's practically infinite replayability for me
Aw thank you :) I've actually noticed a good number of people using the cat animations we did - they really are perfect for the colour palette!
I enjoyed playing your interpretation of the "cat playing with ball" idea too, and it really sucks that you couldn't fully develop it after your basketball injury - I hope you feel better soon! I also hope that soon you'll be able to develop a jam game as you fully envision it, because although it was cut short I think your entry is really solid
nice game I am unsure how the dash works since I would dash towards the left of the screen when ever I did press the button which got me killed in the end. Destroy all the furniture with the giant ball of yarn was fun though
Thanks for giving it a try! The dash is actually more of a pounce, where the cat you play as jumps towards the ball of yarn, knocking it in whatever direction the cat pounced in - did you play through the tutorial? It lets you experiment with the mechanics in a safe area, hopefully giving people a chance to get used to the kinda unusual movement. I hope you enjoyed it either way tho :)
nope did not play the tutorial didn't see it when I first played the game. I did have fun wrecking stuff and and trying to dodge other things though
Very interesting idea. I liked the idea overall gameplay. Also liked that you could decide whether or not you want to move forward slowly and controlled which results in you not being faster than the barrier, or with dashing which kind of takes control away from you for a few frames.
Everything felt very polished and interactive. I liked the relaxing music playing in the background.
Good game.
I'm really glad someone picked up on that - I found that the balance between the two movement types add a lot of depth to the game, allowing more skillful players to take risks and push for the leaderboard, while others can still enjoy the game at their own pace. I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
This is awesome, the movement gimmick is so much fun and the addition of leaderboards is just a cherry on top :D Really good job on this one, and perfect idea for the jam, all the more impressive that You made it solo. Can't wait to see Your jam entries in the future :)
Thanks for the kind words!
Wow... I said that I would pay the most attention to the balance in your game, but I can not remain silent about how detailed you have made the game! Oh, this concept is very cool and goes well with the theme. The visual is very smooth and good. With music playing in the background, it is very fun to destroy objects. You even managed to create a leaderboard!! (Im in top 4 :D) Excellent work...
Oh yes, balance. Well, I think that the gameplay problem is that the standard movement is not very effective. Since the dash is very fast and has no restrictions in use, it is most efficient to move only with the dash!
Yes, it can sometimes be dangerous when there are moving spikes, but then another problem appears - the random generation of obstacles. I had a moment when only static spikes appeared at the top of the level, and I avoided them without any problems!
I think that these problems are quite difficult to solve. I would add dash charges so the player would sometimes have to move around with a normal sprint. But in order for the gameplay not to become boring and somehow limit skill players, you can add items that appear near traps that would instantly replenish the dash charge!
What about generation... The generation problem is much more difficult to solve. I don't understand level generation and I could be wrong, but maybe the game should read the player's Y position in order to spawn traps right on their level behind the screen. Sorry if I misunderstood how obstacle generation works in your game.
Final opinion: The game deservedly 5/5
Thanks for such a great submission! <3
Seriously, thanks so much! It really means the world to me that someone would put so much effort into writing a review for my game - and nice job on making it to top four :)
Thats a really good idea about limiting dash charges, and forcing the player to take more risky paths to recharge them could definitely make for some interesting gameplay moments - I think youre totally right about the map generation too - I wasn't able to create a sophisticated system given the time limit, but its definitely something I want to focus more on in my future jams
I'm actually considering turning this into a small mobile game, so ill keep your suggestions in mind for if I do go ahead with that! And again, thank you for going into such depth
Im glad my feedback helped you! You also helped me with your feedback - I began to better understand what is good and bad about my game :)
Good luck with this difficult task, and let me know when you finish the game!
Nice game, feels quite polished and theres a tutorial which is nice. The visuals look good. Would be better if the difficulty increases or if there was something to encourage the player to move forward since theres nothing stopping the player from just afking at spawn and getting high score.
Oops! I actually had something which forced the player to move forward from the start, but disabled it when I was testing the tutorial (and forgot to turn it back on for the upload lol) - thanks so much for pointing it out. I hope you decide to give it another shot because like you said the game doesn't really function without it
Cute game! running was fun, first i didnt read description and i was trying to avoid all objects >.< And now i have second place!Good job! ^^
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Another dev pointed out that I forgot to enable a pretty important feature when I uploaded the tutorial version (that stops you just afking to get a high score), which I think is the version you might have played? If you have the spare time I'd really appreciate it if you gave the game another try bc its a lot more fun with the mechanic enabled lol
Yeah i noticed that but decided to run not stand and played it again to have higher score! will try again now with fix ! :D
// Its a lot harder now : o! Im not sure if its not too fast as i can`t even take turns bc it slows me down and i loose. I can see how dashing can help a little but overall i would think about making it slower ^^"
Noted! I just uploaded a slightly easier build - its not easy to balance this type of game lol
Have you tried playing around with the mechanics in the tutorial area? Its perfectly safe so you dont need to worry about obstacles / the big wall of death
Nice game. The visuals are nice. The variations on the level were fun, and the challenge of getting the high score is addicting. I can't get the feel of using the dash efficiently though. I got better scores with just running around obstacles.
Thanks for the feedback! I just got done adding a tutorial, which should let people get comfortable with the dash in a safe environment - if you have the time to play the game again, could you let me know if it helps at all? Ive spent so long playtesting its getting hard to tell lol
Wow! I just realized I've been playing the game wrong the whole time after playing the tutorial. Initially, I was just pulling the ball of yarn around. Now I can use the dash effectively. Awesome job on the tutorial!