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Operation Akimbo: Double Trouble's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Use of the Limitation | #15 | 3.556 | 3.556 |
| Enjoyment | #17 | 3.222 | 3.222 |
| Concept | #20 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Overall | #21 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Presentation | #26 | 2.889 | 2.889 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
David Draper
Software used
Godot, Reaper, Asepsrite, GIMP, MS Paint, Git
Use of the limitation
The player starts the game by taking two (and only two) items, and playing with them until they lose or quit. These items can be one of many stat boosters, dual wielded weapons, or a parachute that unlocks a double jump
Cookies eaten
2 or 3 Cupcakes
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Comments
I enjoyed this game quite a bit. Reminds me of old flash games. I don't have many comments that haven't been said. Some levels feel a bit punishing but other than that it ws fun. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! Yeah I definitely feel like balance could be better, whether that be rooms or different mechanics and enemies. When I come back to this idea I want to smooth out those inconsistencies and also make the difficulty curve more consistent, and introduce it slowly (which is hard to do with randomized rooms hahaha)
This was a lot of fun. Cigar every time.
"I smoke my stogie anywhere I want!"
Great submission! Loved the music, it made me feel very powerful. Levels were interesting but it could have been cool to have some sort of save space when entering a new room to have some time to come up with a strategy.
That's a good idea! I'd like to expand the game and make more levels, building them was really fun, and being able to analyze the situation and make a plan would be really good for gameflow, and would allow more interesting setups!
I like the roguelike feel of it. Picking new items for each run kept things feeling fresh. My biggest gripe is that spikes were an instant kill. They ended my run suddenly and often killed me when my health bar was full, so enemies and other damage sources (and by extension, items that dealt with them) didn't feel very important.
I'm glad you liked getting to experience all the different combinations and going through it multiple times! In retrospect, the spikes were absolutely mishandled and are far too punishing. Especially because the rest of the game is fairly forgiving and lighthearted. I thought about it a little early on but as the jam progressed I just accepted the way they were, and should have thought it over again when I was wrapping everything up.
I had three goes at this and it's really enjoyable! I love the random items each run, and there is a good array of rooms.
I'll start with the negatives:
The crouch is a little overpowered, it's harder to avoid the spikes than the projectiles, and it makes the bosses a joke.
This is more of a personal preference, but the volume is quite loud, it would be a good idea to have a setting to change the volume. While the simple solution is to just turn down my headset, it's my personal common practice to manage this as the developer.
The spikes being an insta-kill is a little annoying. Maybe set the player back to the location they were at before the jump?
I don't know what is causing this, but there is a particular level where the enemies really love just looking to the left, and don't turn around even if you are sniffing their necks. The room looks like it has two trenches, both have one enemy in each, then there is an enemy in front of the exit door. Plus, there is an enemy in the top middle on his own platform.
Now to the positives:
As mentioned previously, I love the variety of everything. The levels, the items, the bosses, amazing.
Even more into the variety, having a choice of items that can either upgrade you or your weapons is excellent.
The choice of music suits the theme really well!
I love the design of all the characters and the animations are done spectacularly.
I hope these comments are useful for further development on this project or the next! Excellent work, definitely among the higher side of the games I've enjoyed the most out of all the submissions! I hope I get to see more of your work in other jams!
Thank you for taking the time to play through it! I actually put in buttons to mute the SFX and music, as I got a similar comment on another jam entry a while back. They are the speaker and music icons on the main menu, but it seems I should have drawn more attention to them! Also having a pause menu in game where those are available would be good, and optimally more options than just on and off.
I was torn on how to handle the spikes, and ended up going with them as an instakill in the same way the pits in a Mario game are. Your suggestion of having them do damage and reset the player to the start of the room is something I did not consider, and a solution I really like. I have plans for turning this into a full game, and I would definitely make them work like that.
As for the enemies, it's an unfortunate quirk of the very rudimentary way I implemented the enemies. With more time, I know exactly what I need to do to fix it, and I'd add more dynamic options and nuance to the enemies as a whole, especially the bosses. There was a lot I wanted to add, and I was okay with kind of dumb enemies so I could dedicate the energy elsewhere, but in a full version their behavior wouldn't hold up. I think that would address the crouch partially as well, more enemy behaviors that challenge different mechanics. And also more dynamic map elements that don't allow you to just sit still hahaha. The big lesson I got from this jam was that enemies take a lot of work to get right, and it's ambitious to put them in a jam game.
I'm very glad you enjoyed the game and liked the designs of everything! I'm happy with how things turned out given the time and my limited skill with sprite and animations. There's a lot I can improve on, but this felt like a breakthrough point for me in that regard! When I end up expanding on this, I plan to add more of the stuff that worked! More enemies, more pickups, and other things that interact with those and enhance the experience. I appreciate the critiques, they are very insightful and I plan to consider all of them when making a follow up to this game, as well as other future projects. You'll definitely be seeing more from me!