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Bouncing Back's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Video Pitch | #12 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Enjoyment | #98 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Overall | #100 | 3.367 | 3.367 |
| Creativity | #101 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Audio | #141 | 2.944 | 2.944 |
| Artwork | #197 | 2.889 | 2.889 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
You play as a Jack-in-the-box, which are notorious for coming out of boxes. This game takes it a step further in that you can leave the box completely, but must still take it with you.
Video Submission
https://youtube.com/shorts/sFAfyBZOnuo
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Comments
This game rocked and was a great start to the judge streams!
The video pitch was really charming and I was smiling throughout the video. The puppets immediately grabbed my attention and the jokes were funny. However, I do think the pitch itself could be a little punchier as I felt a little lost and would have liked at least a small bit more game footage.
As for the game itself, this game feels like a classic retro 3D Platformer and I love it! The little narrative with the ghost is charming and I really felt like how I could dig my teeth into the game’s movement system. Clearing the first tutorial and then getting thrown into the big hub level felt incredible. However, some of the mechanics like getting the gems in the box felt a little unclear and I got very confused on how to proceed. I’m also not sure how I feel about the idea that my little goober can just freely walk around out of the box. I think the game’s inside the box movement is great and should be the core focus.
As for the art and audio direction, I think there is definitely room for improvement in terms of polish, but the core aesthetic is there and really sells the toybox feel. It would be neat if there were more particles and effects for the movement and items. I also think there is definitely a lot of room for UI improvement as the text boxes, character portraits, and fonts are either sized awkwardly or a bit too generic.
Other than that, I had a great time. Could genuinely see this as a full game.
theres so much game!! i'll come back and play the rest after the jam, but for the sake of doing other things today i only did the tutorial and first level. really fun, feels like an N64 game you've never heard of. i love the multi-mode gameplay, and it fits the theme superbly while staying very creative! joyful game, and i love the puppets in the pitch video.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the puppets, thank you! If you do decide to go back and play more, I should warn you that the pause menu lies, and the tutorial does not have the other two gems, or any shards to collect. The other levels aren't as fleshed out as the first, but the Spikus battle is worth it for the music
Using a jack-in-a-box as the main character was a great idea for the theme. Also the video pitch was very cool. Good job!
Thank you!
pretty sure music is art
right,cause regular forests have spectral entities
Really good pitch, the music is lovely, and the game has a surprisingly large amount of content for a jam game! it'd be nice if your jump had a visual or audio indicator of how charged it is and how far you'll go with it, and there were a few times where I was waiting on a ledge for a platform only for an enemy to repeatedly knock me off of it, but I really enjoyed my time with it regardless!
Thank you! It's always nice to get feedback on the pitch and the music. The character's crouch was *supposed* to show the charge level, but between the non-linear charge (it goes to about 80% really quick, plateaus, and then ticks over to 100) and the way the crouch is animated, it turned out to be really subtle 😅 I had a similar problem with the enemies when I was trying to record a still scene for the pitch background 😛
I really loved the art and vibes, great music too! The level design reminded me of Spyro The Dragon. So much charm in this game! Fantastic job!
Spyro? Thank you! I'm flattered by the comparison 🙂
I love the art and the music was too good it felt like this image
Btw your game is so lovely and good i played it 2 days ago so i kinda forgot most of it but i remember that it was afun game
Thanks so much for coming back to comment, it means a lot. As unsettling as that image is, I'm going to take that as a compliment 😛
This has so much charm!!! I enjoyed this a ton!!! While, probably because I was in the web version, I ended up lagging a bit, and I think because of that the controls were even harder for me to understand, but honestly I think this has been really charming and neat!! I honestly laughed a good bit when I threw the rocks on the things, etc. This is peak!
Oh, I'm sorry you had to deal with lag, but I'm glad you found it charming anyway. Thanks for playing!
I like the idea. But the levels are more towards him being out of the box than in. I would make him bouncing to move the main focus and the levels not so open.
Great job, Keep it up
Thanks for the feedback! It's interesting that the open spaces read as pushing towards getting out of the box, as I was intending them to give you room to maneuver when going full-speed while in the box 🤷🏻♂️
I did love the momentumness of the controls. I think a tighter level will compliment that more like if you have a long rectangle stretch of road leading up to a large gap the player is encourage to gain speed to make the jump. While if you had a large square road the player is encouraged to explore slowly.
I do like giving the player room to explore but I just found it easier to not be in the box to do so. Look up the game Pilfer: Story of Light. It also has momentumness to it and especially with the bonus levels, thats the kind of level I am talking about.
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to take a look at pilfer
"Um excuse me, I am a WEASEL" - this line was so cute
Video pitch was such a cute idea with the puppets, I really liked it.
I really loved the way this game looked and felt, one of my favorite things to do to be silly was crouch and just do little hops around because it was easily entertaining for me.
I think this is great, especially for a game jam game, keep up the great work!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked the pitch. The fact that you could find fun things to do just messing around with the player movement makes me very happy.
A unique take on the theme. Bouncing around to collect gems was fun
Thanks! I'm glad you had fun 😀
Managed to play on mobile with controller, would love to see this get expanded further. Overall made for a fun lil game
Great work :D
I'm glad you were able to enjoy it! I know there's a difference between "runs on mobile" and is "playable on mobile", so thanks for giving it a chance
This is a very interesting 3d platformer with some unique mechanics, with a lot of work on the art, sound and polish it could very well be a great game like A Hat in Time, really good job, hope to see it expanded further!
Thank you, that's a very flattering comparison. I do hope to expand it, as there was a lot left on the cutting room floor to hit the deadline.