I'm sorry about the frustrating experience. I agree the item usage was implemented in a way that caused frustration, and there was no good way of explaining it in words (that we could find at least). Needed much more playtesting time I think to catch and fix these problems before the deadline. Reliably using the items requires you to move them out of the box they spawn in (or generally spawn in if the box isn't full) and moving them into the box when you want it used. The items have an invisible resource bar that depending on the time spent in the box, will get used up (providing the effect) and then disappear. The score is related to how much health you have left + the gold and silver you manage to accumulate in your bag (which is otherwise useless, so extra bag complications in exchange for a higher score).
As I said elsewhere, ideally there would be multiple speeds controlled by the player. We couldn't get to that in time, but as a default this speed was way too fast. Also agree on your idea for more easily using items. Or more clearly.
Viewing post in There and Bag Again jam comments
Hey, no need to apologise!
It's a jam game. There's bound to be something about it that needs improvement.
Seeing people shoot their shot, learning what is hard to do from others, it's all part of the fun.
I reckon this was a classic case of scope creep, where too many ideas got piled on to be finished in the time limit.
Happens all the time. You didn't ruin my day or anything.
I was just explaining my experience so you have some ideas in case you want to update the game.
:)
Seriously, you at least submitted a working entirely new game for the themed jam.
I took the easy way out, and only spent a couple hours updating an old project.
You accomplished a lot more than I did.