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A jam submission

Desert Escape!View game page

An arcade-style platformer for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Submitted by NicoVision — 11 days, 14 hours before the deadline
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Desert Escape!'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#43.7293.729
Overall Impression#43.7503.750
Polish and Completeness#44.0004.000
Originality#44.0634.063
Art and Style#54.0004.000
Gameplay#83.2503.250
Sound#113.3133.313

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

License Agreement

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This game may be used in a physical and digital multi-cart release and distributed by jam organizers as part of a digital archive (ZIP).

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Comments

Submitted

Playing this in multiplayer, it's really fun either competing against each other or cooperating to get to the top when one of us was stuck. Really great gameplay loop, probably my favorite multiplayer entry in the compo.

Submitted

I really like this game. It's a lot of fun, the concept is great, the music is a good fit, and the art style is appealing and evokes feelings of early console releases. The tumbleweeds are a great mechanic; I love that they can be helpful or a hazard depending on the context and how they happen to bounce. The game also feels really polished and well-made.

I wish the difficulty curve were less steep; it often feels like death is out of my hands due to the particular block patterns I get, even on the first level. Slowing down the speed at which the blocks fall in the earlier levels, and/or providing an indicator of where the next block will fall (which could give less warning and eventually none on later levels) would go a long way toward smoothing out the curve. My only other point of feedback is that I would have never found the super jump on my own, and it seems like that's an important tool for survival in this game. While a real arcade game might have physical artwork explaining the mechanics, we don't have that here, so I think a gameplay demo showing the feature or an attract-mode tutorial card would be a big help.

Submitted

This was fun! My high score was 26,900 — it’s a fast-paced game with quick retries, but some indicators of what is approaching would help a lot!

Submitted

Great style, leaning into the black box fonts, arcade HUD and simple textures works very well. I didn't recognize the super jump until I looked further at the Itch page, with hidden input functions I tend to prefer to see that in-game somehow. An attract mode, or pre game splash screen.  With all the chaos of sorting out which block is coming and what does what, it would be nice to be armed with the info of how the controls work before the chaos starts. 

I do really appreciate the mash-up of platforming and falling blocks. 

Submitted

I like the idea and some details like the tumbleweed that can be either harmful or helpful... But I agree with another comment below, I really wish there was any sort of warning of where a new block will drop, otherwise it feels kinda unfair to lose the game in a way that can't be prevented.

Submitted

This looks like a genuine NES classic, the idea is quite creative, and I like the fact that there are several different death animations.

Submitted (1 edit)

I love this concept. When the "helper blocks" killed me it made me laugh. I also enjoyed getting trapped and watching the world crumble in my prison.


It would be great to be able to see what block is going to fall next. Also, some kind of indicator where blocks will drop for a second or two would help.

Submitted

Holy Moly this is perfect. Super freaking cute, lots of fun, quick gameplay loop. A little bit hard for my slow reflexes, but I kept on playing anyway. Amazing work