really cool take on the theme, gameplay felt pretty satisfying but got a bit repetitive after a while; maybe a few powerups or more holes could be fun to experiment with. the sound effects were pretty nice and the music felt fitting to the game. had alot of fun!
Play game
Don't Whack A Mole!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #728 | 3.590 | 3.590 |
| Overall | #1112 | 3.585 | 3.585 |
| Presentation | #1152 | 3.721 | 3.721 |
| Creativity | #1911 | 3.443 | 3.443 |
Ranked from 61 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 the mole rather than the mallet!
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the music during the game jam
Comments
This was really fun to play, I think it has a lot of potential for a full release! Maybe adding some form of bonus point collectables to encourage the player to take dangerous risks for better score could improve the gameplay a bit!
I love the arcade vibes and how relatively simple it was to play (only having 4 holes was a good call) I enjoy this more than the original whack a mole arcade games haha.
289 days ago(+1)
Post-jam update I'm planning to add some extra "loot" to insentivise more risky play indeed! I've a couple of features planned that will have to wait for a later patch, but I do agree that there needs to be something else to spice up the gameplay :)
Thank you for the kind review, and I'm glad you enjoyed the game :D
291 days ago(+1)
Ooooh the ticking sound is a fantastic suggestion! So that there is visual (red flashing) and auditory ques for when it is about to hit!! I will add this in the current version of the game, thank you so much for that suggestion, it flew over my head when making this version.
And yes, I agree that at the moment the game is a tad easy once you get used to it (as long as you have good reaction time). In the latest version of the game, I am planning to make the hammer hit faster depending on what score you are on, so that the rate at which the hammer hits gets progressively faster and thus makes the game harder and less easy to fall into auto-pilot mode.
Thank you so much for the feedback! I really appreciate it :D
Heya! Thanks for playing!
I'm glad you had fun :) at the moment the speed at which the score grows is linear, so it does feel quite slow. Your suggestion actually gave me a fantastic idea, to have a visual indicator whenever you reach some score milestone and have a little sound play (think combo meter).
Glad the sound effects were helpful! The game didn't feel as satisfying without them and the screenshake.
Hmm, that sounds odd! The hammer hits one of the four holes randomly every two seconds, or if you stay out for too long, so there is a chance you got unlucky with the timing and where the hammer chose to hit next after the "out too long" hit and immediately got hit (I've had this happen and ruin good runs 😭) I think the solution to this is possibly make the hammer hits slightly less random so that they're a bit easier to predict and fairer. Often times the next hole you chose unluckily happens to be the one the hammer also chooses 😅
Thank you for playing and the feedback! I'll need to take a look at how to make that feel more fair :)
Randomness can be a bit weird, so it’s definitely possible I just got unlucky. And now that I’m playing it again, it doesn’t happen as often anymore. Maybe the last few times I was somehow on a really tight cycle where the second hit happened almost immediately? I’m unsure. The timing of it feels a bit unpredictable though.
I think there might be a bug where the hammers timer sometimes doesn't reset when it flies over to hit you if you've dodged it before. I reckon there is something that's not quite functioning as intended. I'll try take a look and see if I can smooth it out. I plan on making a v1.1 and uploading it after the voting period!
Thanks for playing! I do agree that the red flashing is a lil short on time, at first it was for an entire second, which was too long, and now its for I believe half or a quarter of a second, which is now too short.
And regarding the coming out of hiding on timer suggestion, I had made the decision for the mole to come out of the holes on a timer as I found that there would be significantly less pressure on the player to make quick decisions (and thus mistakes), and the random whacking of the hammer would look a little less convincing.
I found that the whacks being at the same time as you come out of hiding to be a sort of parallel to how it is in real life, where often times you end up hitting the wrong hole because you were anticipating the mole to pop out there.
I appreciate the feedback! I will keep pondering the idea of removing the timer. I'd like to create a test version of the game with your suggestion because that's really the only way to test it properly.
Again, thank you for playing and leaving such a lovely and detailed comment :D
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