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A jam submission

Finding DawnView game page

Your cat Dawn has gone missing. Can you find her before it's too late?
Submitted by davemorris (@davemorrisisa) — 1 day, 19 hours before the deadline
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Finding Dawn's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun/Design#14.0004.000
Technical#23.6003.600
X Factor#23.5003.500
Overall#43.5333.533
Theme/Focus#53.8003.800
Music/Sound#113.1003.100
Graphics/Animation#113.2003.200

Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Did you credit all assets in-game (including your own) as required by the rules?

Yes

How did your team implement the focus, and optionally, the theme?
I went with a quest story. You're a wizard and your cat has gone missing. I added a twist in the middle of the story to raise the stakes and add some drama, and a nice happy ending that expands upon the initial concept. Dawn the cat, also represents the light in your life that has returned.

The optional theme was very inspiring. I made the wizards magic powers the ability to make objects fly (hover) so the main mechanic of the game is all build around flying objects around in order to solve puzzles.

Team Size

Solo (1)

Will you continue work on the game after the jam?

Yes - fun side project

Which parts of the game were NOT made by your team? (Including AI generated)
I'm not sure if this is about crediting other artists, but I will assume it is. I did all the programming and implementation, but I used asset packs from:


- Tiny Adventure Pack - Vryell https://vryell.itch.io/tiny-adventure-pack

- Contains music ©2023 Retro Indie Josh (https://retroindiejosh.itch.io)
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

- SFX from Kronbits https://kronbits.itch.io/retrosfx

- Sounds from 8 Bit Sound Pack - Danereid1024 (Sounds by Dane) - https://danereid1024.itch.io/8-bit-sound-pack

What tools did your team use to construct the game? (optional)
Construct 3
Asprite
Photoshop

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

I adored this! Not only was it super fun to play (and very clever with how it approached the theme, no less) but it was also just very sweet. I love the sprite work, and the music was very fitting for the mood. Overall comfy and nostalgic! I did run into a bug, however: In the very big room just before the treasure vault with the potion, I set down a pot and the camera would not pan back to the wizard, so I had to restart the level. Not a deal breaker, but definitely a time sink seeing as I had to do the whole level over again.

Despite that, I really enjoyed this! I look forward to seeing what else you do with the project, or any other fun little games you make!

Submitted(+1)

I really liked this, very enjoyable and interesting puzzles from simple and consistent mechanics. It played very well, and I enjoyed the story!

Submitted(+1)

Puzzle adventure game about a wizard. I like the game mechanics. Graphics and sounds are a bit generic but not bad. With a more exciting story this could be great.

Submitted(+1)

Really sweet little adventure, most of the notes I'd have have already been raised by previous comments, size and scale of the levels being just a bit large etc.

But I do have some some game-feel things that jumped out at me though, the way that movement and every game object is on a grid makes perfect sense for this kind of game, but the smooth seamless movement animation makes it feel like you should be able to move on a diagonal or that things the player and rocks shouldn't be locked to grid positions, this makes it really easy to overshoot when holding down the directional inputs. Just adding a very brief pause between each "step" of movement would solve this handily I think.

All of the objects having their shadows be at different heights makes the perspective a little bit wonky for judging alignment, I know the art is from an asset pack, but it's likely an easy fix?

Developer(+1)

Thanks!

The art is from an asset pack but not the shadows so I had to make them myself and I know some aren’t quite right.  I did a pretty quick job.

And yes. There is meant to be a pause. I had it in, then took it out because I thought it was causing a bug. Fixed the bug. Then never put it back it. I’ll add it back when the jam is over.

Thanks again for the helpful feedback  

(+1)

I had a lot of fun playing this game. I especially liked the complexity of the puzzles, simple enough to be solved with out to much effort, though sometimes required a reset. 

and finding out about the balls of yarn after the first play through made me go back and find them all. 

Music was a nice tone setting element as well. 

great little game.  

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

I feel guilty for being not being able to reach the ending after obtaining the elixir (I was stuck and I didn't know what to do!) , the game is so good :( Please give me some hints so that I could finish this great game! T^T

Making items fly around is a great mechanic and it fits so well with the story. Kudos for that! The only issue I had was the levels were a little bit too big, hence, a lot of camera shifting, breaking the game pacing a little.

Also, I think it would be nice if you could place more stones as backups so that players won't have reset their progress. Was there a reason you put just enough stones in the levels?

I'm still very impressed with what you have achieved for this game jam as a solo dev! Hope to see more from you my friend! <3

Developer(+1)

oh no! I don’t know why you would’ve got stuck. Once you pick up the potion it should take you back to the house and when you leave the house you should get a game over screen with how many resets you made and how many secret balls of yarn you found.


sorry about that.


And yeah, I wasn’t  sure if more stones would make it too easy, or just the right amount would make it too hard. So, I went with hard because then you at least would feel you accomplished something. I’m gonna rework the game after the jam and fix a few things. So that’ll go on the list. Along with making that last level a little shorter/easier to navigate. 

Thanks for the feedback.

Submitted

Oh! Then it should be a bug on my end. 

After I picked up the potion, the gate was locked tight. I thought there was another secret exit but I couldn't find it.

Submitted

The levels were too large, and took too long to traverse.

The character being centered was jarring to look at, and the magic beam not stopping on impact was very confusing.

The graphics and audio were nice and cute for a game jam game.

Making objects hover and taking of them with magic is a great implementation of the theme.

Developer(+1)

yeah, I wanted the beam to stop on impact. I made it a problem for future me and then future me never got around to it. Thanks for the feedback.

Submitted(+1)

Yeah, that's the exciting part of game jams. Future you is not as far in the future as you'd like.