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A jam submission

Midnight ShiftView game page

Portal and Half Life inspired Puzzle Platformer coming to Steam!
Submitted by Thriver MediaWorks — 1 minute, 37 seconds before the deadline
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Midnight Shift's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Game Design#64.3184.318
Adherence To Theme#174.5004.500
Style#354.1824.182
Originality#394.0004.000

Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

nice game, the i really like the art since i am a big fan of pixel arts <3

the only thing i bothered is i cant seem to find the reset level button or there isn't one?

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for the feedback, glad that you liked our artwork!

To reset the level, press "R" , this is also explained on the "Controls"-page accessible through the game's main menu

Submitted(+1)

I was not expecting what I got myself into when I started the game. I'd say I was positively surprised. Let's go over some things about this Game together:

Summary

Adherence To Theme

You play as a Warehouse-worker who accidentally got trapped at the end of closure and has to figure out a way to escape! the Theme was both incorporated in Gameplay and Story, Excellent!

Game Design

  • When playing the Game I noted a couple of things that would bother me. For starters, the highly important Boxes can be stuck indefinitely in every corner and it is very easy to get stuck in every Level. The most probable solution to this would be a pull mechanic, possibly by press of a Button. That is how the old school "Tomb Raider" games did it. The other way one could go about this is to adjust for it in Level Design, which could lead to either weird looking levels or too obvious solutions for the "puzzles".
  • The Jumping was neat, the Physics where outstanding, collision detection worked as intended for the most part. 
  • You already know, but I need to point out that the "trampoline" jump is coded perfectly and is working fully as intended. Kappa ;P
  • The intro cutscene was a pleasant surprise in terms of Storytelling. If I am entirely honest though, the ominous harsh closing sound of the gate had me expecting something more grim, like (again with the PSX classics...) "Oddworld" haha. Possible ideas for some alternative level design to be had, in case you want to make a grim level.(Since it also gave me some "Limbo" vibes.

Originality

A neat idea for a puzzle platformer. Nothing offensive or daring about it, that's why I couldn't give full points here. I can't quite put my finger on it, something is missing. Maybe if the game went more into a wacky, comedic side, it would've given me more Portal feels. Like some gameplay objects inside the boxes had the potential to be even more outlandish than a trampoline.

Oooor the game went the aforementioned "dark" route and made the factory at night a place with horror or creepy influences. At any rate, for your game, since you are indie Devs, you have the power to create something super unique without worrying too much. There is a reason why corporations did not create "Hollow" or "Shovel-Knight", "Limbo", "Undertale", "Hyper Light Drifter" etc. All those games, among other indie games do something very different to big corpo. Titles.

Think about what could it be that makes your game special. Because just the package theming might not be enough.

Style

  • What can I say, the animations and UI elements where quite beautiful, I loved the sprite work a lot and the Theme was fitting and nice.
  • There is a point to be made about visibility of the play area. Similar how I managed to cluster up certain parts, this game can be harsh on the eyes at times. Darken your background elements. Take real life examples, the further something is away, the less information gets carried by light rays into your eyes. (Doesn't quite work like that, it actually get's distorted by sourrings, mostly the sky) Which is why far away objects appear blueish in tint.

far away mountains - Bild von Veracruz - Tripadvisor

  • What I'm trying to say is, make an informed decision for colors. Backgrounds tend to be either lighter or darker than the playable area. Also use highlights to really show what is ground and what not, at least in cases where it's not 100% obvious. (I had trouble making out parts of the rails sometimes, at first.) This is not a huuuuge glaring flaw that destroys the game... But it's something to consider and I'll not it down for you here :)
  • I loved the little Parallax effect btw.

Overall

This game, I feel, has quite a bit of potential still asleep! I critiqued it quite harshly in this review because you said you where planning on a Steam version. My overall Rating is obviously adjusted to this being a game for a Jam, you did very well in my Rating, actually. Only things I had to subtract was the easily getting stuck in every Level (which only just pushed the rating from "almost not 5" to "almost 5", because overall the levels where quite varied and there was a lot of different content, that got me thinking sometimes. Not much but enough for a Jam title.

Developer (1 edit)

First, thanks a lot for this huge feedback, this is a lot of help for us!

-> Actually, we were working on pulling mechanics during the gamejam, but scrapped it because it took too long to finish in 60 hours. 

      This will definitely be in the full version!

-> Yeah, the trampoline bug is one of the worst one's still in the game, but this should be fixed soon! (Did you find the easter egg where you needed the bug to find it? ;D)

-> Really cool ideas for making the game special! We didn't manage to finish more than just the pack theme yet, as this was our first game ever, but we'll definitely do more than this in a full version and probably even make use of some of your ideas ;D

-> Yeah, I also noticed the color/background issues you mentioned, especially small packages that 'hide' between all the background packages. Probably the parallax scrolling would also be more effective with more defined background parts.


Thanks again for all the positive feedback and especially thanks for the time you took for this, as this will help us quite a lot for a full version!

(+1)

This Game saved me from depression.

Submitted(+2)

Nice game. The intro makes pretty clear what the story and context is. Also I liked how to put the logo for pack. Looks similar to some big company. :-p


But I got stuck at level 2 near the forklift. That small box I was supposed to carry, I accidentally  dropped it and it just went out of bounds. Without that I was not able to keep the door open.

Also I missed a restart button. Without that I had to restart the game from the beginning.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback!
The bug you noticed is already on our list for stuff to fix, shouldn't be an issue in next week's update anymore ;D
BUT you can actually restart a level by pressing 'R', this would've helped you when the box-out.of.bounds-bug happened. 

Just look at the Controls-Page accessible through the game's main menu or the game's description, all controls are explained there.

But you are right, we should have added another help-message telling the player about the restart-feature in game

Submitted(+1)

Oh! I didn't read controls, my bad. Great to hear that you will be working on bug fixing.

Submitted(+1)

Submitted by Thriver MediaWorks — 1 minute, 37 seconds before the deadline 

Hard times huh! lol I like it. I don't know why but  pixel games were amazingly good in this GJ. You should consider updating this one!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback!

We're actually thinking about a full steam version with lots of new features and levels,

f.e. a level editor, forklifts, assembly lines, lifts, new boxes, more platforming etc!

I'll take a look at your game later ;D

(+1)

Nice Game, makes fun :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the kind feedback!

Submitted(+2)

I really really liked it. Nice pixel art with a chill little background music. I’m looking forward to see more things and updates!

Developer(+2)

Thanks for featuring our game in your stream ;D

I'll try out and rate your game later as well

Submitted(+2)

The graphics in the intro are a bit fuzzy. Have you tried disabling compression and using point filter? Also, the ui does not scale. But apart from that a great puzzle game.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback!

The fuzzy graphics could be caused by our workaround to implement the intro - we had to transfer the video into a spritesheet and animate it in Unity, as there's a Unity issue so videos don't work in WebGL builds, but as the full version will be downloadable, this will definitely be fixed.

This was our first gamejam, so we had no time to learn how to make scaled UI - will probably be added next week already ;D

Thanks, I hope you had fun :D

Submitted (2 edits) (+2)

Nice platformer! I think the movement and jump speed is kinda too high/fast but that's just my opinion. The level difficulty is good, might be too difficult and tilting for newbies. Finished the game, I think it was really short! With more polishing, more content and more variation of levels, like different soundtracks, different looking rooms and boxes and stuff, things gonna look much better! Be creative :)

Developer(+2)

Thanks for the feedback, I noted that we should adjust the movement speed now!

We sadly didn't have much time left to design levels, but we're constantly working on updates!

We already have lots of cool ideas like forklifts, assembly lines, level editors etc and we will add way more levels to the final game ;D

Submitted(+2)

Nice one, levels progressively bring new nice mechanics and ideas. With just a bit more polish on controls and interactions, we're good to go !

Developer(+1)

Thanks, we're always happy to hear constructive feedback!

Updates for bugfixes and gameplay mechanic polishes will be released very soon ;D

Submitted(+2)

It's a nice game, nice ideas. Calming music. You can have more levels later on. Jump height looks a bit too much tho. 

Developer(+2)

Thanks for the feedback, I added 'jump height' to the list of gameplay mechanics that need to be polished ;D

We'll definitely add way more levels with new mechanics and even a level editor so players can share their own levels!

Submitted(+2)

Ooh level editor sounds good!

Submitted(+2)

really good game! I like the creative solutions to a lot of the puzzles and the way the game introduces mechanics is very smooth and intuitive. My literal only gripe with the game would probably be that the trampolines are a little glitchy. otherwise, great game! could easily see this on steam if given a few touch ups.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks a lot for the kind feedback!

Yeah, the trampoline bug can be really annoying when having to push it, we sadly couldn't fix it in time :/

But this is something we're already working on, and all bugfixes and some new features / levels will be released here on itch.io for free!

I'll take a look at your game later today ;D

Submitted(+2)

Really awesome game. As a big fan of puzzle games, I loved how strong the theme was, and how well you introduced the puzzle mechanics as levels went on.
The music is perfect, nice and ambient, but not too repetitive as to get boring quickly. The visual language is really clear, and the physics are consistent once you get the hang of them. Let me know if you keep developing this, because I would play 50+ levels of this game :)

Thanks!

Developer(+1)

Wow, this is some really nice feedback ^^

We really want to continue development, and as the feedback is very positive so far, it's looking good :D I'll reply here again if we officialy decided that ;D

I'll look at your game later today

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Hey there, we officialy decided to make a Full Steam Version out of our game!

In case you're still interested, here's a link to our Discord server for all information, updates,

a chance of becoming a Beta Tester and much more ;D

https://discord.gg/kAyDRNP

Developer (4 edits) (+1)

Update!
We updated the game with some bugfixes, new features, edited and new levels, a WebGL support etc!
Have fun and stay tuned for even more cool updates!
Submitted (3 edits) (+2)

Sometimes the game doesn't start after the intro, but since the screenshots looked great I tried a couple of times... and after the 3rd intent I was able to play the whole game. The game design was very well made! I  Loved the art, I love the puzzle solving. Great Job! One of my favorites so far :)

Edit: I just saw your comment that there is a text saying "Press E to Start" , but At least for me it was and still is not visible. I guess I was pressing keys on my 3rd intent trying to be able to played it and pressed 'E' by accident.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing even though we have this issue!

We updated the game yesterday night to fix bugs, edit the levels etc *and* made a WebGL export (It was  a download game before)

Unity has some issues right now with videos in WebGL games, so we sadly lost our cool intro, outro and credits scenes, which is why you can't see them and can't know how to start the game :/

But we're already trying to find a workaround and will publish an update as soon as it finally works!

Developer(+1)

Edit: The update is finished, we managed to work around this Unity issue by converting all videos to frame-spritesheets and putting them into the game as animations - have fun ;D

Submitted(+2)

I have empty screen after sound intro :(

Developer

You have to press 'E' to start the game after the intro played ;D There should be a text telling you this

But we're currently working on an update with bugfixes, new features, better levels,  a WebGL build and a tutorial that's probably going to be finished today, so stay tuned!

Developer(+1)

Edit: The update is online, have fun ;D