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A jam submission

KnifeBotView game page

KnifeBot was made with one purpose... to throw knives.
Submitted by Thulko
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KnifeBot's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#14.1624.162
Concept#14.4714.471
Enjoyment#24.1764.176
Use of the Limitation#34.1184.118
Presentation#173.8823.882

Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Team members
Thulko

Software used
Unity, Aseprite

Use of the limitation
I didn't want the player to stop moving their mouse so I required mouse movement in order to fling the knife toward targets. I didn't want the player to run out of ammo, so I gave them infinite ammo. I didn't want the player to stop aiming so I put them on a conveyor belt to keep them moving. I didn't want the player to stop playing when the player had beaten the game... so I made the credits into more targets. I wanted the end of the credits room to loop back into the first room but I didn't have the time to properly do it.

Cookies eaten
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Comments

(+1)

Really fun to play, I like how you give my score to me through counting how many knives I used.

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you enjoyed playing :)

Submitted(+1)

Had fun throwing knives. Nice sound effects and level design. I think swords need to be limited as I ended up making an entire level full of swords.

Developer

Glad you enjoyed the game. I'm not sure whether I'm going to limit the number or have them disappear after time right now, but definitely something I'm thinking about.  Thanks for the feedback.

Submitted(+1)

knife throwing is a lot of fun! i liked the mechanics, although i think it could be improved. my knifes often got stuck at the start even though i moved the mouse. the sounds are also really satisfying. great job!

Developer

I'll look ways I can adjust for that. Glad you had fun playing :)

Submitted(+1)

a very good idea , an excellent use of restrictions . The controls are a little strange , but when you play for more than 5-10 minutes, you get used to it. It would be nice if you check out my game too

Developer

Thanks for the feedback and I'll definitely check your game out.

Submitted(+1)

Some of the later levels were very difficult and sometimes the knife wouldn't throw properly, though both might just be my owns skill. Overall very fun, satisfying, polished game.

Developer

Glad you enjoyed it. The controls can be a little tough and definitely take a bit of practice to get use to.

Submitted(+1)

The presentation artwork, music, sounds were all quite satisfying. The concept for the game is also very cool. 

As other commenters have mentioned, I found the controls quite tricky to get the hang of. I found pressing Q to get a new knife just felt like busy work that made my hand tired (of course I want another knife after I've thrown one!) I found coordinating the E press with mouse movement to be exceedingly difficult, even after 6 or 7 rooms I didn't feel like I was getting much better at it and it stopped feeling like my skill was helping me. At some point I gave up on playing skillfully and started randomly flinging. Some visual incentive not to waste knives, such as a score with penalty for misses might help with that urge to just fling randomly.

Developer

I appreciate the feedback even if other people have pointed to the same issues.  You're right about wanting to get a new knife after throwing, in the current game state there is not really a scenario where you wouldn't just repeat that action. Thanks again for your feedback.

Submitted(+1)

First impression was confusion and slight frustration, but once I got the hang of it, its pretty engaging. I would recommend making the mechanic a bit more obvious, like showing a picture or something. Additionally, while not having limited ammo is nice, It would be a cool addition if you rewarded the player for both completion time and the amount of knives used.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback. I agree, some sort of reward for good play is needed.

Submitted

I think the controls might need to be a little more explicit. I'm still not entirely clear on what the best strategy is for throwing but what I ended up doing was spinning the mouse in a circle to "charge up". That made it feel best, but I'm not sure its the best for accuracy. Was verr fun once I figured it out, but I left a pretty big knife graveyard the first time lol. I, for a moment, thought it was unplayable, but then read the comments, so I knew there was something I was doing wrong. Nice game though, cool idea.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to give the player more instruction on how throwing works.  I ended up writing a comment on the game page instead of in-game (which I should of done).  The best way to get accuracy in your throw is by lining up which direction you want the throw to go toward, and pull straight back, and then forward again and release.  So kind of like a slingshot.  That will give a very straight line result, but sometimes I end up doing a spinning to charge up (as you said you've done) as well because it will give a spinning effect on the knife (which I think is cool haha)

Submitted(+1)

WOW definitely one of my top three games of the Jam. Music was great the concept was amazing and the levels where really great as well. Well done man GG.

Also I would love if people could also check out my game and give some feed back would be great(:

Developer(+1)

Wow top 3 :) that's awesome to hear!   I'll definitely check out your game too. 

Submitted(+1)

Wow, I was thinking skeptical about the idea, but I changed my mind when I understand the throwing mechanism. Cool and fun game!

Developer

I'm glad you enjoyed my game :)

(+2)

ONE OF THE BEST GAMES OF THIS JAM! Its the most fun game i've played so far, its difficulty is PERFECT and the music and art is AMAZING. Awesome submission Thulko!

Developer

Thank you! I'm happy to hear people enjoyed the game, It means alot :)

Submitted(+1)

Great game dude! I love the mechnic and how you progress through levels with the converyor belt. A few things though:

1. Use a different font than arial. You can find good fonts on sites like Google Fonts.

2. Make it so that the music loops.

Other than that, great game. I'll definetly finish it later. I hope the feedback helped you, and it would be nice if you could check out my submission too. Thanks. :)

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Oops I forgot to loop the music... I definitely wanted to change the font but I was trying to finish as fast as I could toward the end of the Jam.  Will definitely change the font.  Not sure if I'm allowed to change font and reupload during the review stage of the Jam or not.  Thanks for the feedback though!

Submitted(+1)

The game is really fun! I already remembered many times during this Jam my teens when I played a lot of flash games with physics mechanics.

I'd like to use just a mouse - and it will be portable to mobile as well)

I hope my feedback was useful! I'd appreciate it a lot if you could check out my submission too!

Developer(+1)

Interesting idea, never thought about trying to port it to mobile if it only uses mouse movement. cool idea. You're totally right, i got the idea from playing old flash games.  I recently rediscovered those old Madness Combat videos and remembered playing Madness Interactive and just throwing objects into the air and catching them. I'll definitely check out your submission later today after I get back home.  Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

Really fun ! But you should make the control mouse only

Developer

Thanks! I'll be experimenting changing the control schemes a bit once I'm done reviewing GameJam entries.

Submitted(+1)

it's really fun, awesome art, awesome concept

Awesome Game :)

Developer(+1)

Thank you, I'm still learning pixel art so i'm glad to hear it looks good.

Submitted(+1)

It's really, really fun and a very cool original concept. My only complaint is that the controls make it unnecessarily difficult.

 Maybe instead of checking for "E pressed" you can check for "E is down" while you motion with the mouse, and the knife lets go based on the motion of the mouse and the key being down, instead of pressed. Because you're never going to want to drop a knife right next to you or lightly toss it, so there's really no need to have the knife release on a simple button press and have it not go anywhere. Just my thoughts on it.

But anyway, I really love the idea and the originality of it. I could see this game taking place in a complex dungeon with switches and doors, I would totally play that.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and giving feedback! At first I was gonna have all the knifes come out on a different conveyor belt so you'd have to pick them up but I didn't have the time to implement it so I went with just giving them to the player when they press Q. But your idea sounds interesting, I will have to tinker around with a way to implement that in order to test out how it feels, could be quite cool.

(+1)

It is fun!
Developer

I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Very enjoyable and nice idea. I would change controls (maybe mouse click for throwing?).

… and hard sometimes :)

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Allowing players to remap key binds is something I'll likely do when I work on the game after the Jam is completely over.