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The Tutorial (GMTK Jam 2023)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #53 | 4.303 | 4.303 |
| Enjoyment | #69 | 4.198 | 4.198 |
| Creativity | #145 | 4.281 | 4.281 |
| Presentation | #168 | 4.431 | 4.431 |
Ranked from 167 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?
In "The Tutorial", you take on the role of the tutorial whilst guiding a computer controlled player through a platforming gauntlet.
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?
No
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
Liked the game, nice idea there :)
Happy to hear it, thanks for playing!
Amazing level of polish! Reminds me of different topdown robot instruction games, but this is a different perspective ;)
I’m not really familiar with any of them, just a happy coincidence. Definitely going to have to check out a few now though! Thank you for the kind words and for playing our game!
This game was a blast to play! Not too difficult, and the last part was really satisfying to pull off. Though it's good that it was the only "long" puzzle of the game, because waiting for the player to reach a point where they died last time to redo can get a bit frustrating (in a longer game!)
Great job!
Happy to hear it! When we work more on the game the frustration of waiting during longer segments is absolutely something we’re looking into resolving. Thanks for playing!
Excellent idea and incredible execution! I love the "painting" mechanic and that each color has it's own uses, that you yourself can decide. The fact that you give the player all of this control and yet still manage to make the game challenging is quite impressive, well done!
I don't even have too much feedback to give, apart from a few UX issues with not being able to deselect an action, but that's very minor.
Oh and, the choice of music and audio was superb. Fantastic work!
Thank you! We’re both very happy the design of the game ended up playing out as well as it has. The issue you mention with the commands is being patched post-jam before we do considerably more work on the project. Thank you for your kind words!
This was a very nice take on the level builder genre I’ve seen so many of. The justification around making a tutorial was very creative, and the mechanics were fun to play with and had to make you think a bit in advance. It was a lot of fun to play!
Thank you very much, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Wonderful game!! Loved the idea of coloring in the level and "coding" the squares!! Kind of reminds me of LightBot but at the same time its extremely unique! Excellent idea, and excellent execution! Will definitely be looking forward to future versions!
5-5-5
If you want to check out another indirect control puzzle platformer, check out our game!
Oh interesting I’ve never heard of LightBot, I’ll have to check it out. That means a lot as we’re looking into doing a considerable amount of work on the project, thank you very much!
It's cool how the game is based on the concept of reversing the tutorial: usually the most dreaded/boring part of the game, but this jam entry manages to make it quite challenging! I do wish the player had a smarter AI and wasn't just a robot, but of course time limitations during a jam can make that next to impossible. The only real issue I ran into was the player occasionally glitching and dying when there weren't any enemies touching them.
I'd be interested to hear more about the glitches you experienced if you wouldn't mind. Are you able to replicate them? Like which commands you were using on specific tiles? I appreciate the feedback, thank you!
Ah, I went back to try to replicate the glitch and I'm guessing it's actually intended behavior. The player resets every time you paint a new color onto the tiles or adjust the actions of the current colors. Maybe just make it a bit more clear in the description that you can't make changes to the level while the player is walking through it.
That makes sense! This is a fairly common complaint that we’re definitely looking into when we do more work on the project. Mentioning it on the help screen sounds good in the meantime though, thank you!
Really good idea to have the instructions colour coded, makes it easier to understand for sure. This could definitely be fleshed out into a full on platformer puzzle game. Great execution, good job!
We're planning on doing quite a bit more work on this project in the future so I'm happy to hear that! Thank you for playing!
That was a really cool game! I love how you set instructions for each color and then paint them on the level. The art is awesome as well. The only bit of feedback I have is that it would be really nice if I could edit stuff without the player restarting from the last checkpoint. But I understand you probably did that for technical reasons. Overall, excellent game!
Not resetting the player as much and adding the ability to speed them up are things we're looking into when we work more on the game. Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed our game!
This game was an absolute delight!
It felt really good to play, and the concept itself worked incredibly well. While I feel like I've seen elements of this game in other things before it, I've never seen it done in this way, and it lead to an amazing experience that I would love to see more of!
Thank you for sharing this game with us, and I wish you both good luck in the jam, and your future endeavors!
I'm glad we managed to go in a direction where it still feels different than other games in the jam with a similar concept. We have a lot of ideas up our sleeves to expand on the game so I'm happy to hear that! Thank you for the support and for playing our game!
I think my time was 9 minutes something. I got a little annoyed at the final checkpoint waiting for the guy to go through the whole thing over and over. A fast forward button at least would've been good.
The puzzles were a bit on the easy side. I never really felt challenged. But it's hard to do a puzzle game for a jam. Makes me wonder why so many people decide to do them 😅
Other than that though, it's quite well made with a cute aesthetic and polish.
The ability to speed up (as well as place colours without resetting) are already things we're looking into, just didn't really have time to implement them during the jam. In terms of difficulty, we settled for a puzzle at the end that utilised all of your available colours (even though you can do it in less if you're cheeky). I understand it's not the hardest thing in the world, but it shows off our concept well enough and was hard enough some people couldn't finish! We're planning on doing more with the project and I certainly have much more devilish puzzles in store. Thank you for playing!
Wooow, the presentation is excellent on this, all the little details, like the checkpoint screens, fireballs, hand cursors. I also love how the game integrates well into the itch page. I feel like the idea of "you play as the developer" is a very common one in this jam but you've made a very enjoyable interpretation of that idea with a cool twist. the puzzles were fun and the progression was good, the tutorial for "The tutorial" was also easy to understand.
Also here's the time for my attempt to get through the game.
Thanks a lot, I'm happy to hear it! The concept behind our game has definitely been done by others, but thankfully the implementation seems a fair bit different. Thank you for playing!
That was phenomenal! The polish was really on point, and the whole feel of the game was quite cute. The gameplay was really satisfying. I didn't encounter any bugs that stopped me from enjoying the game, and the level design was really great! Really great entry, there isn't really anything I can think of to improve on. Given the time span, the entry felt pretty much perfect.
I'm happy to hear that! I'm really glad things came together as well as they did. Thank you for playing!
One of the best game of the jam! Loves the idea and the execution. Art is good. With some additional levels it can easely be a completed game! Nice work!!!
That's very encouraging to hear! We're definitely thinking of doing more with the game. We have a lot of cool ideas to push everything further. I'm happy you liked our game so much, thank you!
Very cool and polished game.
The final gauntlet feels a bit long during all the trial and error, but the final result was very much worth it.
We wanted the final section to use all the colours you have available (although you can do it in less if you know what you're doing) so naturally it had to be pretty long. We're definitely going to implement ways of speeding up attempts though. Glad you enjoyed the game!
Really cool game! The music and sound effects were nicely implemented with really nice artwork as well. The last level was definitely a test of everything you've learned previously in the game, but also very rewarding. This game has a lot of potential!
That's great to hear. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much, thank you for playing!
Really lovely idea and maximum polish going on. Sounds and music and effects, it had it all. Everyone else has mentioned the restarting, i think just a 'go' button when you're ready will sort it.
Easy to learn and plenty of room for complexity with the double commands.
The idea for the update at the moment is to let players choose whether they want to pause the character or speed them up - allowing for both styles of problem solving. I'm happy you enjoyed it, thanks for playing!
i got it in 8:45 (but i'm getting sleepy, so that may have slowed me down a bit hehe). this is solid. i like the pixel-work, and nothing seems out of place or clashy. the music was well-chosen: nice and soothing to help me sink into the puzzle. there didn't seem to be any filler--every section was asking me to do something new, or putting new pieces together. i felt like every command got a good bit of use, and the combinations were balanced enough that i never really had a go-to combo.
i'll add my voice to those complaining about the player resetting whenever you put down a new block. it wasn't a huge deal, but it did get a little frustrating with some of the longer segments when i had to make adjustments, or when i was altering things later in the course and wished they could just run through the already-working parts while i did that. maybe you could detect the player's proximity to the block being changed, and only reset if they're within a certain number of blocks? not sure how feasible that is, but something along those lines would make it a little smoother in the endgame.
that's my only complaint though. this is a wonderful take on the theme and very well-implemented. those last few parts were super satisfying to solve. great work!
We're definitely looking into making how the player resets more streamlined. If we'd had more time to test we definitely would have caught how frustrating it can be! Thank you for playing, I'm happy you enjoyed the game!
Uh oh, this game makes mine look like garbage. This is really great, I honestly think this might get top 20. I don't know how you polished it this much in 48 hours.
Our game from last year had 7 ratings and didn't even break into the top 50%. Keep at it and try to think with the time you have, I'm sure you'll make something you're proud of! Thanks for playing!
This game was a blast to play! It was interesting and fun. I wish the dude didn't reset every time, though I understand why he does.
Yeah, in terms of the time we had to work with it was really the only thing we could do. As we work on the project more this is definitely something we're going to work on. I'm glad you enjoyed the game, thank you!