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(2 edits) (+1)

Hey man! You asked me to play your game, and so I did. I came into it with very little expectations. The artstyle was charming albeit pretty crude, as though it had been drawn in crayon by a child, while the screenshots didn't seem to offer much in terms of variety. I'm glad I stuck through the game's three levels, though, because this is honestly pretty great. As someone who also excruciatingly made a 2D platformer game that centers around time troubles, I know that you know just how hard it is to convey the necessary information without burdening or overwhelming players. This game straddles the "info load"perfectly well, being that it is intuitive and easy to read which is especially important for fast-paced games (see: Pizza Tower and the Sonic franchise for examples). Examples of intuitive design in this game include the subtle way which this game teaches the wall jump mechanic, the secret key paths that unlock some faster route later on which feel neatly inspired and not just tacked on, even the way the intro cutscene clues players into the fact that they can damage boost off the purple spike to launch upwards into a secret key path! These are all convincing examples of a game that, while seemingly basic, actually features strong design fundamentals. I commend you for the great work you've put into making the level design as tight and understandable as it is. Even still, I have a few comments:

* For fast-paced games like this, it would be a wise idea to let players skip the intro cutscenes for each level. When you encourage your players to be in a mindset of "go! go! go!" you're going to want to let them be able to skip anything that could slow them down, unless it's something important, as it can be rather irritating and flow-breaking (especially when players die a lot, like I did).

* Consider using hit-stops for your game. Hit-stops are brief pauses after killing an enemy. They might be useful after a player does a running attack and get a speed boost, just to let them quickly get their bearings before being launched forward.

* Narratively, you should make clear who's who. I don't know who Jacarilo is, I don't know who "the mosquito" is, and for all I know, I haven't even seen a mosquito.

* Finally, and this one is smaller compared to the others, but your game might have a bit of a categorization issue. Are you sure this is a "racing" game? Not too big of a deal for a game jam, but when you're selling your game to the masses, you're going to want to find your right audience. You might want to think a bit more deeply about what you categorize your games moving forward.


That's all. Take these comments in good faith. You've done a great job; this is one of the best platformers I've played so far in the jam. Congrats on participating, and I wish you the best.

(+1)

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to leave such an incredibly detailed and thoughtful review! I really appreciate it, especially coming from a fellow dev who knows firsthand how tricky it can be to balance a time-based platformer! Hearing that you enjoyed the game and being mentioned alongside classics like Pizza Tower and Sonic is a huge compliment! Your feedback points are completely spot-on:

Cutscene Skip: Totally agree. Running out of time was the only reason it wasn't there, making players watch it repeatedly definitely hurts the pacing. It's priority #1 for the post-jam update!
Hit-stops: I honestly hadn't even stopped to think about hit-stops! That is a very good suggestion! Adding a brief pause on impact would give the combat so much punch and help players re-orient themselves.
Lore and Mosquito: You made a really good point here. I ended up leaving the mosquito out because of the time limit, and with all the jam pressure, I didn't have much time to think of an interesting story to tie it all together. So the narrative definitely ended up floating in the air, just like you said. I completely agree.
Categorization: You're 100% right! In Brazilian Portuguese, "racing" translates to "corrida", a word that can simply mean running on foot, without specifying if it's like Formula 1 or MotoGP. But now that you mentioned it, "racing" in English definitely gives off a Need for Speed or Forza Motorsport vibe rather than a speedrun game. Action/Speedrunner fits way better!

Thanks again for playing through all three levels and for giving such constructive, high quality feedback. I am really glad you enjoyed it, and I wish you all the best with your game as well!