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Skele-Tom's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #12 | 3.829 | 3.829 |
| Music | #12 | 3.771 | 3.771 |
| Fun | #24 | 3.657 | 3.657 |
| Theme | #25 | 4.071 | 4.071 |
| Sound | #37 | 3.486 | 3.486 |
| Mechanics | #38 | 3.543 | 3.543 |
| Aesthetics | #62 | 3.786 | 3.786 |
| Story | #79 | 2.757 | 2.757 |
Ranked from 70 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game in total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
KayKit, RGPoly, AssetQuest, finalbossblues
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Comments
That background track was a banger!! Great work on the game, awesome aesthetics and good twists on a standard platformer. I especially loved the menu and how you incorporated the TV in there!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! If I'd had more time, I would've fixed the menu so it also worked with the mouse.
Awesome game! How did you get the game to run in the browser rather than needing people to install an exe file?
Thank you very much!
Longer instructions here: https://foosel.net/til/how-to-export-a-godot-4-game-to-run-on-the-web-on-itchio/ (I didn't write them but it's what I used to learn how to do it.)
you’ve been insanely helpful thank you!
You're very welcome.
I really like the job you did with the music and sound design and visually this was a treat to play. One suggestion though, you might want to darken what is considered in the background, I was confused on what I could actually jump on/touch because it looked the same to me.
I wasn't able to figure out how to get all the candy on the 3rd stage but that was more of a me problem. Didn't play the other stages yet because I managed to soft lock myself by falling on the edge of a fence and getting stuck.
All in all, a nice sort of platformer, you have plenty to work with if you wanted to make more stages.
Ok, finished playing all the stages, didn't get 3 "Stars" on all of them though, but I felt myself smiling as I played the game, good job, I bumped up your score from my first assessment.
Thank you for giving me a second chance after the soft-lock.
How was the difficulty on stage 5:1?
If I remember right it was pretty easy though that might be because I repeated the earlier stages enough to be used to it.
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the sound design. I spent a lot of time with those stupid 8-bit sounds so it would feel like something similar to Mario.
That's a really good suggestion about darkening the background. I had wanted to change the colors of things that were jumpable vs not, but that would have required some time in Blender I didn't have. (I think I mentioned this in my post mortem).
In the third stage, if you stand behind the hatchback (red car) and jump, it will fling you super high. Alternately (and much more difficult) if you time a jump exactly right on top of the car you will shoot stupid high. In stage one and two jumping right behind the car will place you perfectly to get the candy, then to land on the trash cans perfectly. That was supposed to subliminally get you to try the same on the 3rd level. It appears to have met with mixed success as a plan.
I will look into the soft lock. I have invisible barriers on either side of the level so you don't continuously fall off the map since you can move in all directions. (In level 5:1 I take them away so you can fall off.) I thought that I had placed the fences in such a way that you couldn't miss them. But I now realize that I could widen their Area3D to catch you even if you "technically" missed the spikes because it doesn't matter in the end and I want to prevent a soft lock. You can also get stuck on the wall of the building when falling and soft lock.
I am curious, when you soft locked, did you try pressing Escape to pause the game and click on of the level buttons to restart a level? That was the addition I made in the last 30 minutes of the jam to try and partially address soft-locks I missed.
I actually have more camera views I didn't get to use, including a 3rd-person free look and a 3rd-person follow camera. I just didn't think cramming those candies into the existing levels would be fun. But yes, my idea was to slowly introduce the candies and then in later levels make more candy combos. There's even a reset candy I didn't use. Plus various changes to the CRT shader that I was going to mess with. So I plan to make a bunch more levels. Which is why I'm trying to grab all the info I can on bugs.
I can't remember if during the soft lock I hit escape or just reloaded. I will say though that the trick to getting the high jump I did on accident. Was frustrating till I figured that out so might want to nudge people towards that better later. Still, I really enjoyed this one.
Yes I have come to that conclusion as well after reading the comments. I think some bouncing Vegas-style arrows might've helped. Really glad you enjoyed it!
Very good game, I liked it! I couldn’t beat the last level, but it’s a solid entry overall. I found a small issue with the pause menu, if you want to change the audio for example and press ESC the pause menu still stays open instead of closing properly.
Glad you liked it.
Thanks for the bug report. I will look into the Escape key issue. I may have introduced that in the last 30 minutes when I quickly added the level selection buttons. Pressing Resume game should solve the problem though.
I really like your camera switch mechanic even if it was disorientation at times also very nice music
Thank you so much! The camera switch mechanic was the "trick", so the disorientation was intended. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Cool game, man!
Thanks so much!
really nice! I had fun
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Man, do I love this game! The intro is just amazing, the TV effect is great, and the music—although I don’t encourage AI-generated content—is spot on. The changing perspective mechanic is a chef’s kiss. Though sometimes, especially in the top-down view, the controls feel a little rigid. The game itself looks and feels amazing. Great work!
I'm glad you enjoyed it. TBH your reaction is what I was going for - make a game good enough that the use of the AI music can be forgiven. I have my own mixed feelings about generative AI, and it has evolved in the last 6 months. You can read some of my post mortems from previous game jams for my thoughts on that and AI generated music in particular (they're all linked on my main itch page.)
I was really pleased with the camera changes. I actually had a third person controller and another fixed camera view that I didn't even get a chance to put into the levels, plus some TV distortions. I'm thinking about making this into a full game after the jam.
I'm curious about the rigid feeling of the controls. Were you using a keyboard or gamepad? Can you give me some more details on what you experienced and what you would have liked to experience? Movement? Jumping?
Thanks again for your kind words!
Hello again
As for the AI generated content, I’m against it for the simple reason that games are a form of art, and art has always been human. Perfection, imperfection, flaws, feelings, atmosphere, and emotion are what make art special. I just refuse to let AI take that from us. This is why I love games. They are a way for me to express my excitement, daily experiences, feelings, and mood, which I would never take for granted. Maybe it sounds a bit too idealistic, but this is truly how I feel about it.
As for going big with the game, I really think you have a strong base to build upon, and I’d be happy to watch it grow.
About the rigid movement, it usually happens when I’m in corners in the 2.5D or top down perspective. The button layout and controls are great, but I think it’s the field of view that confused me and made it feel that way. Maybe it’s just me.
That was fun to try out! I like the idea and the style you went for
Thank you so much!
very cute!
LOL thanks!
I thought the camera switching was a cool concept. The third level I'm unsure if I was doing something wrong. But I wasn't able to get the two candies really high in the air. Really cool concept though and that beginning intro was so so cool. Felt like I was about to dive into a movie really really cool
Yeah I tried to teach by using psychology. In the first two level, if you jump right before you reach the bumper you will get the candy or land on the trash can springboard. Doing so in levels 3 and 4 will catapult you high into the air in a trajectory to get all the candies.
I like that you felt like you about to jump into a movie. I was going for that kind of epic feel. Usually each splash screen in my games has it's own sound, but I wanted a more movie-like build up to this one and I wanted you to have heard that there were lyrics in the game before pressing start. Also, I patterned the songs after the feel of Nightmare Before Christmas and when I wrote the chorus I wanted it to sound like a nursery rhyme so it was like you were hearing the full version. That why in the game on level 1:5 Skele-tom is humming to himself but sings the chorus.
Awesome Job on this.
Musics great , controls are good, and theres some interesting things to work out along the way.
Great going fellow solo dev! :)
Thank you! I appreciate it! Your game was really awesome too.
Solo devs untie! (Separately) :D
Wow, did you produce a full theme song... and and 8-bit version of the theme song for this jam?! I'm impressed!
I didn't see anyone else mention this in the comments, so maybe it is just happening on my setup. First, when I start the game, I'm not given an option to "start", just "resume". Second, the button press zones were way off for me. I have to hover over a random spot about 200px to the left and 50px up from the button in order to press the button. It was like the buttons were anchored to the top left, but the button sprites were anchored in the center. Hopefully that makes sense.
I also loved all the effort you put into the intro.
Thanks! Yes there were actually four tracks, the intro, two 8-bit- tracks for the levels that alternate and level 1:5 has a rendition where Skele-Tom hums his own theme song to himself as you play.
As for the two issues you mentioned, I am aware of them both and I talk about them in my Post Mortem Devlog. The Start/Resume actually does change names normally from New and Resume, however in the last 30 minutes of the jam I added the 6 level buttons with the pumpkin indicators. The New/Resume button triggers the name change off itself being clicked, and I didn't have time to fiddle with the code, so I just hard-coded it to Resume, knowing that if you clicked it instead of the 1 : 1 button it would start the correct level. I literally ran out of time and got the changes uploaded one minute before the jam closed.
As for for the second, it had to do with the menu being a 2D object inside a shader, inside a viewport set in a 3D object. I was going to have to implement ray-casting for the menu to work through those layers and it was lower priority. The positions that were working are the actual positions of the buttons without the overlay.
Awesome music and I absolutely love the camera transitions! Amazing work! =)
Thank you so much! I was really happy with the music. And I'm glad my "trick" camera transitions went over so well! :)
I love it! It's like a spooky Super Mario Bros! 😁
Very impressive for just 1 week!
Thanks! It was actually less than a week for me because my computer caught on fire and had to be rebuilt. I talked about it in my Post Mortem Devlog.
I'm really glad it gave Super Mario Bros. vibes, because that was one of my visual/gameplay inspirations.
Yo this is awesome, love the camera switches, comepletely caught me off gaurd! The soundtrack is on point too, awesome job!
Thanks!
I planned to add more levels where the camera switches messed you up more, but I figured I should introduce the mechanic before messing you up too much. Level 6 (2:1) was the start of that. Glad you liked the music too!
That's very polished and well done game!
Additionally I would say that I impressed almost equally with the game itself vs cutscenes, intro and menu.
Music and sound effect feet very well the game.
Thank you very much!
I really love, that you animated the round buttons on the TV :)
Thanks to you I will now sing "Skele-Tom" all night :-D
I did good until the 3D Level then I was out. But that's on me, not the game.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you so much!
OMG, you're the first person to notice the TV dials! I was going to add to the model with some markings to make it clearer that they were turning but I didn't get to it.
I also was humming Skele-Tom's theme song last night before bed. LOL Feel free to listen to Skele-Tom's Candy Caper here, anytime you want! (Plus the three level music songs.)
I knew the 3D level was hard, so I made it so you could just run through the level and continue on to the graveyard (level 6). The web game saves your progress, so if you want to try it, you don't have to redo ALL the levels...
I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
Yeah, we wanted to use the knobs also, but time ran out (:
haha, fun game! liked the AI music and the effects!
Thanks! Really appreciate it!
Nice game! I liked the camera switching and changing of the level. Maybe the 'jumpable' objects could have a more dark outline. Sometimes was confused which to jump on. Loved the 3 pumpkins goal each level!
Thanks! I thought that was a nice "trick", which is why I didn't put it in the screenshots.
Yes, the jumpable, springboard objects have been mentioned before. I was pretty sure that not doing color differentiation was going to bite me in the behind, but I didn't have time to change the colors. (I discussed the reasons for this in the post below this one.)
The pumpkin goals just felt right to me. Funnily the timer was one of the last things added to update the pumpkin goals, and there's a bug in it. It doesn't stop if the game is paused because it's not an actual timer, but me just checking the time since the game was started.
The three pumpkins on the menu screen was literally the last thing I added. I made sure it saves for you too so that people can go back and 3-pumpkin all the levels if they like.