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A jam submission

The Horse Whisperer Was a UnicornView game page

Submitted by João Eiras Antunes (@joaoeantunes) — 5 hours, 43 minutes before the deadline
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Play interactive mantra

The Horse Whisperer Was a Unicorn's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#5993.7503.750
Presentation#7023.7503.750
Overall#8963.4003.400
Fun#13123.1003.100

Ranked from 20 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?
We subverted the common twin stick shooter control paradigm by removing lateral movement from the player, as well as forcing them to stop when committing to shoot, making them more vulnerable and out of control of the situation, which gradually becomes harder to process and manage as the match evolves. We further played with the idea of "Out of Control" by choosing a setting where the player in fact has all the control but cannot parse all information at the same time, leaving them with the impression that there is more chaos in what is in-fact a deterministic system. This illusion forces the player to act and play in unexpected ways till they can further understand all gameplay details, which is a daunting task in the first play-through.

Did your team create the art for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

Yes

We created all art during the game jam

Did your team create the audio for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

This is really impressive, it feels great to play and is very immersive. It's definitely difficult to understand and keep track of the movement of the bullets, so I ended up kind of shooting randomly and just dodging when I could once they were on my side. That might be something I would get used to if I played enough though. All in all, this is one of the most complete feeling games I've played from this jam, really well done!

Submitted(+1)

Loved the music for this one!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

the music and art are really amazing, i like gamefeel a lot also a very cool mechanic and great feedback :D

Submitted(+1)

took a few attempts to gauge what was going on, but the steep learning curve aside this is really good! definitely one of the more mechanically dense games of the jam, and i really enjoyed how the trippy graphics and sound effects added to the chaos :)

(+1)

Good game, good music, good design. I enjoyed it! :)

Developer

hey guys, one of the creators here.
Yes, the game aims to make you feel out of control.  Controls are not traditional and require some getting used to. However, I will explain some of the mechanics and goals.

The main goal is to kill your opponent by hitting him with the bullets you shoot. Simple as that.

  • You have to pick up bullets in order to be able to shoot them.
  • The more you charge the shot before you shoot it, the more the bullet will survive teleportation jumps.
  • Whenever you shoot at a wall, the bullet will teleport to the other field, keeping the expected angle it would have if it was bouncing of a normal wall. So the bullets will start on your field, jump to the other field, get back in your, etc. There's a reason we chose for a pentagon as the playing field as they are quite magical geometrical shapes.
  • On your field, you see your bullets - that cannot hit you - as white, and the opponents bullets - that can hit you - as blue. So dodge the blue bullets.
  • Whenever you are shooting, you cannot move. So time that decision well and commit to it. Getting hit will interrupt you bullet charge.
  • First player to drain the other player's life - the dots at the bottom of the screen - wins.

Hope this clears some of the confusion!

Submitted

I won't rate this because I don't understand it. I certainly felt out of control.

Developer

Hey, thanks for playing. I did a quick post outlining the mechanics so feel free to read it and give it another try if you feel so inclined.
https://itch.io/post/1667300

Submitted

Right from the start I like the title, very original and the art! The menu animations and the background are awesome. The game itself was a bit confusing though. I was only able to play single player, and I could not understand what my goal was or what I was supposed to do!

Developer

Hey, thanks for playing. I did a quick post outlining the mechanics so feel free to read it and give it another try if you feel so inclined.
https://itch.io/post/1667300

Submitted(+1)

This is a really cool concept! I'm really ultra terrible at playing it any kinda competently but I guess that's kind of the point.

Developer(+1)

Hey, thanks for playing. I did a quick post outlining the mechanics so feel free to read it and give it another try if you feel so inclined. Maybe with these few tips you can master it better!
https://itch.io/post/1667300

Submitted(+1)

nice game!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Very cool gameplay. Music, art and level design are a clear 10/10 for me