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Cycle It On's itch.io pageHow does your game fit the theme?
Literally a cycling game
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 4 days?
Yes
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 4 days?
Yes
oug?
Oug
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So here is what I have noticed about the game so far.
Hard to learn / Badly introduced controls
The controls of the game were supposed to be convoluted and reflect a bike more, but it seems no one could catch onto how they work. It is a two speed platformer, having a speed for the wheels and a speed for the bike. While on the ground with traction your wheel speed goes into your bike speed. In the air it doesn't. This is why when you turn after colliding with a wall you speed away, because you had been speeding up your wheels the whole time and not the bike. In these cases using S to brake is essential to the game (Resets wheel speed to 0). While jumping you lose traction, but can still pedal your wheels or brake. But most people either didn't catch onto this, or couldn't get a hang of it. I think adding a UI for you wheel speed, along with a better tutorial for how these mechanics work would help a bit. Along with some balancing
Music bug
A lot of people had trouble with the music bug, luckily it is an easy fix. The music bug was caused by the file that stores the music volume setting it to 0 on start. If you change it with the slider it will fix it, and since volume saves as both a static variable and a player preference it is fixed from then on. This is why I never noticed the issue in testing originally..
Screen Sizing
Although there is a fullscreen button, in the downloaded version canvas doesn't scale making it hard to read. This is already fixed in the fixed version since it was a last minute fix done to the Web version
Some known issues mentioned
Some people mentioned buggy ice, the flinging in the Japan area, and lines in the ground. All of these were known about before someone mentioned them. Well the flinging was discovered next day when I actually play tested the game. Lines are caused by Unity doing weird stuff with Z position and locking to a grid, for the life of me I couldn't be bothered to spend hours trying to fix it all perfectly. Buggy ice is because of how I tried to remove unity's natural friction through a third party gameobject. It was very imperfect and causes a lot of bugs :p
Sudden background changes
This is not a bug, just how I decided with the time to program it, but definitely something that should be polished.
I did good on art and dialogue!
As far as I can tell people did like the little dialogue in the game that worked, and the sprite art. This is very cool since my last submission was called creepy. And pretty much all my games people disliked my art. Hopefully I get at least a 3 in art, and my oopsies didn't wreck this category as collateral
Final thoughts is that I am going to get a lot of 1 stars in fun and game design. Maybe a 3 in audio, I expect the music bug will wreck this category a bit sadly. maybe a 3 in art. 1 or 2 in originality. And maybe at most a 3 in theme. I have no expectations given my past with jams. Still had fun, and learned some unity programming :D
For a platformer game, controls are probably the most important thing to design, and these ones just aren't fun to use. Also, some assets don't load correctly, not sure why. However, the story is cool, and I like the pixel art aesthetic.
The controls were designed to be overly bike like and convoluted, I probably could have balanced more and introduced them better but. And what assets aren’t loading?
the background took like 10 seconds to load in after the start of the level, and i was talking to air instead of garnt for a little but at the start. It could just be my browser not being great though!
As for the background it changes with the music change. The background at the start of the game is different than when the gameplay starts, but perhaps I should change this. Not sure about the Garnt thing, I think I would have to see it myself
I made an after jam update! Tbh I am not sure you will enjoy the controls any more than you did. I just did some minor balancing, tried to introduce them better and messed with the ice physics.
Yo there's something wrong with the collision detection, i got stuck several times on walls and corners.
I have responded to a few comments discussing the weird controls for this game. The main thing you are probably experiencing is the fact you can't control your actual movement in the air. You can control your speed and direction when you land, but not in the air.
I made an after jam update! Hopefully the controls are explained more clearly for you. And I did some balancing and changed the ice physics a bit
Very interesting game, but the controls are quite janky. Also, the canvas doesnt scale to screen size, leading to a very small game
This is only fixed on the Web version, because I realized that it was bugging only on the web version... oops
I made an after jam update! I didn't really fix the jank, but maybe explained it a bit better?? Canvas scaling is now in all versions too! Just make sure to use in game fullscreen if you are on web. Also was some balancing and fixed ice physics
The Game window was very small for me, i zoomed in with strg scrool wheel, but maybe it was like that cuz 4k monitor idk. i think the music was cute. gameplay frustrated me... i couldnt figure out whats wrong, sometime i was really fast, sometimes i couldnt move at all. Im still not sure if get stuck on the ice or slide on it. I came to the point on your last screenshot, i didnt really understood what that gray bubble did and that orange thing, i just leaped crazy into the air around the orange one, but i still couldnt get over the edge since i didnt moved forward for some reason. But anyway the music was really fun and i liked the music change at that moon place.
I wanted convoluted controls... well I got what I wanted. I explained under your artist's comment how the controls worked. The dialogue that explained the orbs didn't work because of the bug mentioned in the description. As for window size I suggested full screen under options, was it still too small? Ice is super bugged and I am aware. Gray Orbs brake for you, and Orange Orbs give you back stamina. Flying I think was caused by ice, I am not entirely sure. The ending bugged out for again the reason given in the description sadly ;-;
i didnt used that ingame full screen but the engine ones, but it made only my screen black and the game in a small corner ^^ but i was playable with the zoom in method ^^ Feel you badly with the buged thing ... i wish i had tested my game completly before uploading, but i was like oh nice spawner works, upload! ... withouth playing to the finish line x.x xD
Bugged isn't even the right word for the ending, it was just the triggers were off in space. The rest of the dialogue was from a missing input in their components
I did an after jam update! It adds all the missing dialogue that shows up in the fixed version, as well as modifying ice's behavior. I already suggested in game full screen I believe. I also did some minor balancing so hopefully you can get further! I didn't fix the fling bug though... no clue what causes it
sadly i think the music is just a generic 8bit sound (lul)
i had a lot of problems with the game, i zoomed back because i was stuck or couldnt move at all
second jump the same thing, i was stuck and as i moved back i zoomed sooo fast backwards, that i died
To explain the controlling here. When you hold a or d it pedals your wheels, when you are on the ground to transfers to movement in whatever direction you are facing. When you press A or D it changes the direction you are facing as well. When you jump you can no longer change direction. So, you were speeding up your wheels running into a wall, and then when you turned you sped in the other direction, when you jumped since you didn't have any speed running into the wall you didn't get anywhere. As for the music, not sure if that is a compliment or not lol, I went for a retro style sound track and generally the game is supposed to give a retro feel.
I made an after jam update! The controls are the same, but I think I might have explained them better in the game. Another tip is to either hold of the controls awhile before turning or hitting brake. This slows your wheels before you turn around. Did some minor balancing, and modified ice physics as well
It was very hard to play so I didn't play it for too long(I got frustrated quickly lol), but it looked very fun if you have the skill. And I liked the art a lot!
The music didn't work for me for some reason though, even though it was allegedly at full volume.
I have a note about the music bug (I actually figured out why it is happening, but anywho) turn the sound down then back up it will fix it. This is because the object that holds the volume sets it to 0 at start lol after that it saves the setting and is updated to wherever the slider goes. Please listen to the music to rate it fairly and take the bug out in fun and game design :p. Also yea the controls are pretty hard, I eventually got the hang of them kinda myself, but it took all of me making the game to do so. Thanks about the art, art has been a problem in a lot of my games so nice to see people liking this games art :)
I made an after jam update! No longer is there a need to mess with the volume slider to get sound, I fixed the music bug! The controls are the same, but hopefully it explains them a bit better. Also did some minor balancing to make the levels more reasonable and changed ice mechanics
It was kind of hard to play, and the window was way too tiny to read anything. There are also some visual bugs, like some weird lines on the ground and the background changing suddenly. Still, the time to make a game was very short, and if you don't have a lot of past experience these types of problems are common. Congrats on making something in such a short timeframe!!
To note I have experience making games, but in the past I used GMS2. z coordinates in unity I think are partly the culprit for the weird ground lines. The controls are convoluted somewhat on purpose, I wanted to replicate a retro game feel with also an oddly realistic physics for the bike (Didn't come out right in some ways like how you can just keep going faster until practically light speed). Backgrounds, yea since I was just activating and deactivating there was no transitioning, which should have been present. As for the window, did you make it full screen? I think the game is kinda hard to play without. I blame not having enough time with my schedule!
I made an after jam update! While the controls are the same, canvas scaling is on for all versions. So use the in game full screen to see everything better. I did do some balancing, and modified ice mechanics along with changes to the tutorial. Maybe this will help you!
I feel like a game journalist here but... I couldn't get past the first area of the game. My bike kept stopping near walls and I couldn't move and then when I DID move it zoomed off at light speed into a spike.
Ah I am sorry to hear that. The first level was definitely unreasonably hard. There's definitely a trick to learning to control the player. I got a hang of it from making the game a bit, and have made it as far as the end of level 2 where I didn't pick up enough speed
I made an after jam update! Hopefully the changes in the tutorial dialogue, and modified ice mechanics. Along with some minor balancing. Will help you get further!
I liked the character sprites and followed your steps for fixing the audio bug. Nice submission, hope to see you submit again next year!
I hope to submit again next year, thanks :)
I made an after jam update, feel free to check it out!
Don't be too hard on yourself! 72 hours is a very short window to create and release a game, but you had a vision and worked towards making the best thing you could. It seems you already took time to reflect and learn (the most important quality for anyone doing anything), so you'll grow and become better for it. Let this be a stepping stone toward greater things :)
I have been doing game jams for years now ;-;. Really to me I don’t care about most the cut stuff as I thought it was inevitable. I care about how I screwed up the triggers in the final version making the game significantly less than what I made. I really think I should have done at least one check to make sure it all works. I didn’t have much time by the end, but still
I made an after jam update!
Game dev here, rate the game ofc according to what I actually uploaded in jam time. But please look at the fixed version for more of what I thought I was uploading. Quite mad at myself. Please let me know of any bugs you experience, or other issues you have with my game. Music bug should be able to be fixed by just going to options and moving the volume slider for it. I suggest playing in fullscreen as well
I don't know if it's just me but I put the sound and music sliders to max volume and put my pc volume to max but i don't hear sounds? The game does have a nostalgic feeling to it which I like
Not sure why the music isn't working. I am able to get it to play. But to just vent a bit, I just realized I forgot to add an input to a bunch of dialogue triggers, forgot to place some too, and a few triggers weren't moved making the game unbeatable. I want to die
Here's a fix for the music, turn the music down and then back up. For some reason it doesn't start automatically sometimes or something. Sound effects were nixed because time :(. Please replay with music, probably the best part of the game ;-; because it is so broken
Made an after jam update. Music bug is finally gone!
The Game Window is a bit too small. Would love to see it more up close
any thoughts besides this?
Made an after jam update. I suggest using in game full screen to help with the game window :D