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The Steel Corps's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun Factor | #5 | 4.083 | 4.083 |
| Overall | #8 | 4.083 | 4.083 |
| Audio | #15 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
| Visuals | #19 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Originality | #29 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Is your entry a video game or a physical game?
A videogame
Was your game made solo or in a team?
The game was maded entirely Solo
Did you use any third party assets, if yes what assets did you use?
No external assets used
Did you choose from one (or more) of the optional secondary themes?
If equiping fallen enemy weapons counts as recycling, so it is
Does your game contain any 18+ content?
No, it does not
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Comments
Really enjoyed this, great pixel art and a nice UI. The terrain damage effect when you destroy an enemy mech is really cool.
Would like it so you can shoot a bit more before the guns overheat, but that's my only real criticism.
Great job, well done!
Thank you very much for the support!
For the upcoming post-jam patch, I improved the whole ejecting a criticaly overheated weapon in terms of area and damage. So, the option of overheating weapons on purpose to use them as improvised grenades on the go is more viable and specially more fun.
I really like the idea for the game. Twin stick shooter with weapon becoming bombs while heating up.
I really like the UI you made for the game. I also code UI for my games but your buttons look so good and thanks for going the extra mile and adding controller support.
Fortunately I did already had coded a basic UI system for Gamepad/Keyboard navigation from a bigger project I am working on. If I didnt have maded those systems, everything would control far worse since I almost ran out of time.
I am glad to read that you found them functional, many thanks!
One of the most addictive games I've played in the recent times, no cap.
The design is simple yet effective. I really liked the overheat system, it adds that layer of depth that makes this game stand-out and reward the players who want to achieve better scores!
Love the presentation, it's cohesive and well done!
Gameplay-wise is amazing, the controls feel great and responsive, the enemies are easily readable by their design and colors, the dual-wielding was fun to use, and the difficulty was on-point. Every time I died, I knew I could do better.
The only nit-pick I have is that I feel that the hitbox for the pick-up range is kinda small, so sometimes I thought I picked a weapon when in reality I didn't.
Overall, amazing entry, had an absolute blast playing it! ^^
I am glad that you found the experience mostly enjoyable.
Since at the current state, the Equip and the Eject buttons are the same, the pickup range should not be overly big, but I suppose it could be adjusted a bit. I will take that in consideration for the update I am working on, for sure.
Thank you for playing!
Fun game. Visuals and sounds work well together. I can’t fully understand how Q and E work. Sometimes Q ejects a weapon from the left slot, sometimes from the right. Sometimes E also edjects. Is there a pattern behind?
The whole equiping and ejecting thing is a result of having them asigned to the same input buttons, and they have some rules based on context. I will try to elaborate:
- When you want to equip a weapon:
As long as there is a weapon slot available, either Q or E keys functions to equip on the first slot available from left to right. My logic behind this is to make the action of equiping weapons faster and simpler on the middle of action without risk of mistakes here.
- When you want to eject a specific weapon:
As long as you are not over an Equipable weapon: Q will eject the Left slot if there is any. And E will eject the Right slot, if any. Unless there is some very specific interactions I have not tested propertly (which is always a possibility), there should be no possible way to eject the Right weapon by spamming Q for example.
The ejection being restricted on wherever you are over an equipable weapon or not might be the root of confusion here. This restriction is only there just to avoid the worst case scenario: where you mistakenly eject a weapon instead of equiping it.
In any case, thank you for the feedback, If I ever come up with a better way to present the information, I will do it for sure in a post-jam patch.
The unequip mechanic is a really clever idea. Everything looked, sounded and felt super polished too. Well done!
Thank you very much, I watched your coverage in the livestream and I am glad to see it went alright!
I will watch the rest of the entries for sure once you are live again.
I think your sound design and music works very good! A great take on the vampire survivors like.
I'm really nitpicking here, because overall it was very solid:
I was just a little confused at first about how to remove weapons. Turns out it made sense, but I thought it was only Q. Maybe have an eject suggestion show up when out of ammunition?
I like managing your heat, but I think I would rather it be connected to something else, because just blasting through a weapon is nice and easy to do because by the time you're done, there are usually 3 more weapons to pick from.
Right after I had some sleep after the last long stretch before submitting, I realized I should have doubled down on the ejection and overheating system. Like, making a critically heated weapon a true ticking bomb that could actually fend off a group of enemies, so pretty much every weapon could be used as a grenade if that is the decision of the player, just by increasing the radius and damage of the explosion.
But, thats for a post jam update, unfortunately. Anyway, I am glad you had fun with it.
Ejecting your module and letting it explode after use is a very robotic thing to do. I want a bigger map, maybe dungeons layout, more weapons. Also for now (as in many bullet hell games) it's possible to run in circles and avoid everything. Make enemies predict your position.
aimPosition = playerPosition + playerVelocity * distanceFromPlayer
Yeah, running in circles is pretty much the viable strat in such open areas, at least you are kinda incentiviced to move around to pick up the weapons available to you.
I do plan to update the game at least to the original vision I had for it. For a post-jam content, sure, there could be more types of enemies, some smarter than others, thats a grant.
Thank you for the interest, it is always apreciated.
Overall tight controls, super responsive, great mechanic of detaching parts of the mech I love this idea so much I can definitely see this as a big staple for a longer version in variants.
Is very intuitive, very easy to get into and the enemies were challenging without making them excessively difficult, it pushes you to strategize which I love.
So overall is a great game!
NOTE: If there was something I would love to see from this, is adding more stakes a more interesting system of progression with upgrades and such or a shop, different levels, and some sort of narrative attached to it even if it's simple, I feel like the mechanics have a lot of potential to propulse this game to a whole other level.
I am very grateful for your feedback and support.
Originally this game was meant to be a series of levels/scenarios, each with its own setup and objective. Due to time constraints it had to be limited for the generic Survival thing with everything else as polished and functional as I could get done for the Jam.
Fast-paced and really good polished! This one is a blast. I love top down shooter, so I had to play this one.
The interactive tutorial level is really cool. The cooldown mechanic is fancy as well as the weapon throwing mechanic.
One minor thing: I could not throw the weapon, when I am standing on a new one.
But other than that really well made.
Honestly, it was a pain for me to decide what would be the best option for both Firing, Equiping and Ejecting TWO weapons at the same time, specially with a Gamepad in mind. In the end, I decided it to be the same buttons for equipping and ejecting each weapon separately.
One option I was considering was to make the Ejection action more like a Hold Button for X seconds instead of being instant, and the issue I wanted to avoid the most is to accidentaly eject a weapon when you just want to equip it.
If I come up with a better solution, it will be added in a post jam update for sure.
Nontheless, I am glad you enjoyed it!
Incredible entry! Fun well paced, the mechanic of throwing the weapons reminds me of Breath of the Wild, where it helps you explore all the weapon options cause your constantly having to change in between them, i got to wave 15 but I could easily keep playing! Art, Juice, Music, all great as well! Well Done!
Thank you for the support! I really wanted to make it like the meme 'Improvise, Adapt, Overcome' with the whole ejecting and equiping enemy weapons on the go.
Great arena shooter !
This was tons of fun, i really enjoyed the dual slot weapon system where once you run out you just throw your gun away and pickup a new one it really keeps the action going :D
The spritework is really good as well especially considering how tiny they are, great amount of detail for their size and quite some enemy variety too.
The very C64 sounding music is also a banger btw XD
If i had to nitpick i’d say the only small issue there is si that you don’t really know which guns are which untill you’ve picked them up and fired, maybe some labels that show up when you’re close to one you wanna pickup could help with that.
Other than that it’s an absolutely cool entry and i had a blast trying it !
Well done :)
Glad you enjoyed it. For the weapons matter, probably the easiest solution would be to expand the Training Grounds section with the other types of weapons, so they can mess around freely and have that knowledge when it comes to real gameplay.
As for the music, other than a bigger project I am working on, I have pretty much no experience in music composing, and although the tracks are quite short and maybe too repetitive, I am happy to read some praise.
Good game overall. Enjoyable gameplay, and the graphics are great. love the weapon picking and throwing mechanics. However, I found the movement is a bit stiff, or maybe it's the camera.
Thank you very much. If you meant it for the Gamepad, it is understandable, since both mouse and gamepad share the exact same configuration in camera bounds and speed. Each device should have its own configuration in the first place. And that will be something to add to a post-jam update.
Really fun and very replayable! The shooting was very satisfying. A little more weapon variety would be appreciated just to mix things up, as well as a dash for movement. But overall really really good, and I hope you keep working on it!
Thank you for the support. The original idea for the gameplay, instead of the regular 'Circular Arena' endless thing, was to make it a series of regular separated levels/scenarios with an end goal, where such movements options really are not that needed.
But that is part of the Jam, half of it is to fight back the scope creep and the other one is to make actual playable content.
There will be for sure some post-jam updates.
Oh for sure, my suggestions were just for future features. The game plays really well as is, and is a lot of fun!
I thought this was great. weapon ejection system is really cool and appropriate to the mecha genre. gameplay is smooth-- I think the camera is a little too overactive. It was giving me a little motion sickness, I think moving a little less dramatically in the look direction might help. for a jam you did a very nice job especially creating a tutorial/test area (our game coulda used that!!). nice job.
edit: oh and doing the little radar in such a small resolution is so cute/cool/well-done!!
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed it overall.
Originally I planned to put more work into making camera speed and bounds configurable for gamepad, like I did with the Deadzone on the right stick, but like many things, had to be given up in favor of several other issues, specially optimization to make at least the WebGL version playable after a fair anount of rounds in my end.
Nice work!
Thank you very much!
Very solid game. Gameplay and art wise. The mechanics with the the overheating weapons and dropping them into the enemies is very fun and addictive.
Glad you enjoyed it.
I wanted to try to turn an usually annoying mechanic into something that could actually be used in your favor.