Definitely a neat concept, and less awkward to pick up than I thought it would be once I started playing. It would be interesting to see the concept developed further, like adding in puzzles that require you to use your bag to weight down switches and stealth sections where you can't afford to shoot your gun.
I seem to have hit a wall though: The exit stairs don't appear to be functional. I managed to loot everything and kill every guard but there didn't seem to be anything else I could do after that and the game didn't show any popup or further instructions. Also, for some reason if you've got a gun drawn and a gun holstered they only seem to share 1 bullet between the two (if you shoot the first gun, you'll only be able to throw the second).
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One Armed Bandit's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #334 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Adherence to the Theme | #524 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Overall | #696 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
| Design | #1304 | 2.727 | 2.727 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Love the in-depth review, thank you very much. :)
Puzzles were scrapped due to lack of time, but could definitely work with either the bag or just any items really, possibly under time pressure. The stealth sections were also considered, but of course, we didn't manage. I'm thinking simply having a radius around the player where they are heard, for starters. And some proper patrol routes.
The holstered gun "sharing" the bullet was at first done sort of purposefully to adhere more closely to the theme of one bullet, but we later agreed that it's kind of... a stinky pile of poo.
Did you hit the wall trying to exit level 1 into level 2? In that case it's just that currently you can step off the stairs during the fade to black and if you do, it doesn't transfer you to level 2.
If you hit the wall after demolishing the entirety of level 2, I first of all salute you, and second of all, yes, there should be a popup. It's even in the game. But some trigger got broken along with a bunch of other stuff because when the itch.io servers started having a panic attack, so did we. Well, maybe a little one. Anyway, here is your well deserved ending:
Ok so I just revisited it, and it looks like the issue is that if you die and use the pause menu to retry, the exit becomes bugged and unusable. So I had gotten stuck at the end of level 1 at first due to that bug.
I have now successfully gotten through the full game, killed every guard, and looted everything I could (including my hand). I actually really like being able to combo a big group of guards using the pistols dropped by each one you kill! It'd be even more satisfying to pull off if they had smarter AI to contend against, but I def understand sticking to simpler stuff for a jam..
As for the shared bullet issue, I don't think it'd be a problem if bullets were a separate item on their own, but since they're built into the guns it essentially means you lose a bullet when you fire a gun while holstering another and that just doesn't make sense.
Also, I know you can't fix any of this for the jam but here's a few more things I noticed, in case you folks plan to revisit this later:
1. The menu interface isn't consistently responsive, and sometimes you have to hunt around for where on the screen you need to click to interact with it. From what I can tell, it appears the click detection doesn't account for world rotation.
2. Resetting through the menu doesn't reset your loot count.
3. You can mute the music from the pause menu but it doesn't seem like you can re-enable it.
We were debating the rotation heavily. Initially an 8 direction, D-PAD like, movement model was considered, with fixed rotation. This seemed more hectic, impaired even. No strafing either. So we're still not really sure. Honestly, it wouldn't even be a problem to make it switchable for people. Might just do that. Thanks so much for trying the game :)
First of all, cool username. :D
As for the game; right now it consists of only the main mechanic and some buggy stuff tacked on, but seems to give most people a taste of where it could go, so... thanks for the encouragement . :)
Hey, thanks for giving us a shot. :D Yeah, we wish we had that magical extra hour or so to work in some animations for pistolwhipping and player walking, as well as fix the enemies not actually reloading, not dropping guns if killed while stunned or reloading, having an actual death going on, not having a screwed up transition between levels that doesn't work if you move after it starts and finally, having a working end game notification and a working menu... Ah well, the charm of game jams. Anyway, it means a lot to us that somebody else feels there's some potential here so we will definitely try and carry on, perhaps make it a mobile thing as well.
Yeah well, we all wished for the extra hour if I'm honest with myself I know there are a LOT of issues with our game and games we have done in the past for other jams but it is the experience that counts and how much joy (and stress) the project gave you.
Also if you get a project out of it that could be better with some time and attention I think you just hit the nail on the head for the jam.
We did debate going to a more classic fixed view with 8 direction movement but figured we'd try something new. To add insult to injury, the assets we had on hand don't work very well in this spinny configuration. I completely understand the preference, this does get a bit hectic. As for intuitive, the tutorial is a bit... wordy. And the hand controls are a bit awkward, but we figured it would more represent the crippled nature of our anti-hero and focus on the one remaining hand. Perhaps a slower paced tutorial with more focus would be appropriate for a longer game. As well as some more visual cues, as we're heavily lacking in the animation department. Thank you for trying the game none the less! :)
Thanks for giving it a shot, didn't think anyone would. :) Yeah, you should always keep a gun so you can hit stuff, even if it's empty. We were discussing having some melee in there, but were quite sure it would fit. Plus there's a bunch of bugs that mean enemies don't drop guns reliably if they're stunned, off screen or reloading. And they keep reloading forever. And they really like to stare at walls. So yeah, a bunch of issues, but it's our first game jam so we're not too bothered. Anyway nice to see people have fun with it, might try and turn this into something more. :)
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