Wow, I didn't expect that my death would allow me to see the truth of the world. Excellent game, I had not seen something like this in a gamejam so I was quite surprised, it is unfortunate that I did not have time to finish the game but the concept at the level of gameplay, fun factor, visuals and audio outstanding and obviously the theme and the object super well implemented. I want to keep seeing games made like this, good job
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CuteTomato's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Special Object Implementation | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme Implementation | #5 | 3.905 | 3.905 |
| Overall | #11 | 3.048 | 3.048 |
| Fun Factor | #17 | 2.619 | 2.619 |
| Gameplay | #20 | 2.333 | 2.333 |
| Audio | #21 | 2.667 | 2.667 |
| Visuals | #24 | 2.762 | 2.762 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How is your game related to the Theme and Special Object?
The theme of failure is interpreted as ‘we learn by making mistakes ’ and not always what we think is right is really the best thing to do.
The special object is actually the protagonist of this adventure.
Comments
Fun game and nice twist on concept. I like that death shows the path to success, first time seeing it done this way. I think some of the timings could be tweaked a little bit more in the favor of the player. Wish the quantity of splatters was just a bit more because I died multiple times in a row and it started getting rid of my old splatters and made it a coin flip if I was going to get through or not. I was very glad of the checkpoint system.
Submitted
HeirloomFun game, some parts were just a little annoying to repeat because I couldn't land the jumps lol The art looks great!
Submitted
Tomato FarmUnfortunately I couldn't finish this game, I just got too frustrated and I'll give you the reason why because I feel the whole reason of participating in game jams is to get critical feedback in order to improve.
Pro's
- The graphics are brilliant!
- Having checkpoints were very much appreciated and I do feel like they were much needed with your game concept.
- I thought your game concept was very punishing but very unique, I liked that the tomato splatter reveals the hidden thread/ hazard and it was a very clever idea.
Con's
- First and most importantly the jump mechanic was awful (for me atleast) and that alone prevented me from finishing the game, although I did try my best . It may have just been me but for 90% of the game the jump input was very delayed. Not sure if the controls are conflicting when holding D while jumping but this caused me to die too many times.
- I learnt this from my very first game jam and I think it relates to yours too. When you have invisible hazards with no warning to the player, it is very punishing. The player dies from no fault of their own and that can take away from the play experience. I too did this for my first Jam and learnt that it would work much better if the player had a hint that a hazard was approaching. Like a warning sign in the background or a "!" pop up above their head to warn them. I think as dev's we forget that part when we are play testing because we are aware of where we placed the hazards.
I really hope you don't think I'm too harsh in my critiques and I can't wait to check out your future games, especially if you keep coming up with these cool concepts :)
Submitted
Splat the Tomato - Mini Jame Gam #34On the contrary, I really thank you for your feedback! :D
I thank you for explaining your gaming experience in detail.
I am sorry it turned out to be frustrating, I did not intend to create a rage game.
Certainly the feeling of punishment is legitimate, but not intended. Once the first invisible obstacle was encountered, I thought the player would be more cautious, let's say, towards all game elements. Warn him here in my opinion would have made the effect less, although I agree with you that it was too punishing.
I had initially tried to implement the same revealing splash mechanic at Trail, but realised that not being able to give him a Collider was impossible.
Perhaps I could give him a sort of aura, increasing in size with each death, which would have the same effect as the splash but follow the player and allow him to identify the nearest obstacle to reveal the danger? What do you think?
I'm really happy to have this kind of dialogue with you. :)
There's no need to apologize, this is the very reason to do game jams. This is the best place to test your ideas and get the feedback from the player base!
You are correct in thinking that dying on the first obstacle created caution and also you learn that each item had its own obstacle, Cheese > Cheese grator, Meat > Tender Hammer, Hob > Heat, Pot > Boiling water, So you could learn when to jump.
I do think adding a hazard sign or a "!" pop up above their head would warn them about the danger ahead is much needed and I disagree with it taking away from the game, the object would still be invisible and they still need to find a way to avoid that object. There would still be many deaths but it wouldn't take them by surprise.
"Perhaps I could give him a sort of aura, increasing in size with each death, which would have the same effect as the splash but follow the player and allow him to identify the nearest obstacle to reveal the danger? What do you think?"
I think this is pretty cool but how I would personally implement this would be like this:
- Instead if the aura increasing with each death, have pickups/ power-ups/ collectibles on the map. The player can then choose when he wants to use that ability to reveal a hidden hazard. The player wont have many power ups, so they would have to choose wisely when he wants to use them or take his own chances/ risks.
Also, if you take a look at my first game, it was awful. I feel like my game for this jam is 100 times better because after my first jam I highly focused on "Game feel", I wanted to make the controls feel good. In my first game, my jump felt very floaty, the player got stuck on walls and so on. I would personally try to fix these aspects. The jump mechanic was the only reason why I didn't finish your game, I didn't mind the rage aspect of learning as you progressed. For me personally, focusing on Game Feel and controls made me 10 x better. It doesn't matter what game you make, it needs to feel good to play.
Haha thank you, I don't think I'm an expert but I'll do my best :)
I think it would be the visuals for me, your game would really benefit from a more cohesive artstyle between the different elements. I think the splatter should maybe be a single colour, and you could still show the elements that are behind the splatter (I'm not sure how that would look, you would have to experiment).
Since the transition is the tomato getting big, you should make sure the sprite is big enough so that it doesn't look pixelated. Maybe some bug fixing (the character still shows during the transition), maybe a tutorial level just to make sure the player understands the concept from the beginning. Also, the earlyer spots dissapear when there a too many, and that is quite frustrating !
These are just some ideas, hope this helps!
When I played it seemed that the obstacles such as the knife and the burner were only visible on the layer with the tomato splatter. I couldn't see most of the moving obstacles. Very cute theme though.
Submitted
Ketchup Me NotExactly!
That is exactly the core-mechanic that ties in with the concept of failure: by dying from the various invisible elements you are able, thanks to the tomato stain, to see part of the obstacle in order to avoid it.
Thanks a lot for the feedback though, maybe I can work on recognising this mechanic from the beginning.
Cool concept. I like this game though here's my feedback. I think the sound design of the boing if fun but after a while it got anoying. I like the visuals too. I think the movement doesn't feel really good so hope you can improve that :)
Submitted
Tomato RequiemI like how you implement the theme into you're game, because I think it has a lot of potential.
Now lets get to the important part (this is just my feeling and noted that I only got to the second hot metal) :
1. I feel like the controls are really annoying, the jump sometime doesn't go very high and controlling when to get left right is very hard. (The physics also felt a bit janky but its not that important)
2. The sound effect is quite annoying. I wish there would be a setting maybe or you could say I can just mute the entire game but the point is I feel like you could get way better sound effects. For example the music sound like a kid song(sorry) and the bounce effect sound very cheap.
3. I did said I really like the how the mechanic fits the theme, but I felt like it is quite annoying that the splash you make revealing the obstacle fade away so quick, since I won't be able to see the hammer and need to die, and it is really hard to see the hot metal thing.
4. I like how you don't immediately teleport the player back so the player get time to see what they die to, but maybe it just me but it is quite annoying when the big tomato stay at my screen for a bit after dying. Like even after I spawned, I still see the big tomato. (It takes a while to respawn considering the amount of death)
Lastly thanks for reading this and for your effort!!
Submitted
Tomato LivesHi, thanks for the feedback.
On many of the things you pointed out I agree with you, it's the most basic of prototypes, it's not a game yet and the polishing part I really skipped it, trying to focus on getting the game done in the time I had available (I had other weekend commitments).
All in all I'm glad you found some latent potential, it was a fun and important experience for me.
I hope you can try the game again with the addition of checkpoints (only in the browser version), they should make the gaming experience less frustrating.
Let me know!
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