I thought the house was really cute and loved the chicken legs. The game felt unbalanced at times like I was just swamped with enemies and didn't know what to do cos I'd press space thinking I was killing them but then it didn't seem to do anything besides make the house do the splits? The visuals were really small as well as the text and it was strenuous to read. I think it would be cool to also see a visual representation of the house getting powered up like the chicken legs become more buff or something. Also does killing the villagers make the house more of your home? Not so sure about how it tied into the theme.
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Baba Yaga's Cosy House's itch.io pageNames and Email Addresses of ALL Team Members
Daniel Grant - studiorenaisdev@gmail.com
Categories Your Team is Eligible For
Hobbyist, Best Art, Best Narrative, Best Humour (72 Hour Entry)
Comments
Thank you so much for giving it a whirl and providing feedback! I'm glad you found the house cute. At some point I was worried it looked a bit too much like a bird house, but that's also oddly fitting given the chicken legs. xD
The core gameplay is that you damage enemies by moving over them, and they deal damage to you in turn. Kill enough and you can select a power up. Space is a jump that will give you a brief moment of invulnerability, and deal increased damage in a radius around where you land.
The theme element is such a learning experience for me. My original vision was one where you would decorate your home and gain powers in the process. Add a cauldron? Unlock potions. Add a chimney? Get the ability to launch projectiles out of it. Add a crow nest to your roof? Get a supportive companion, etc! Essentially management of both passive and active abilities based on your choice of furniture, and I wanted that to be represented visually too!
While I loved the idea in my head, it proved too much for me to personally implement. I looked at what I had on Sunday and realized it simply wasn't going to happen, and so I redirected my efforts into making a playable loop with what I had and opted to implement my original plan as the power up names and descriptions instead. In the end, my adherance to the theme was reduced more to... "You want a game about home? Well, here's a witch murdering people with hers." Messy, but alas. xD
153 days ago(+1)
Yeah, adherence to the theme turned out to be a bit of a problematic element for me. I had originally envisioned the power ups as things you would actually place around the home - fridges, tables, etc - so one half of the gameplay would be a more decorative experience that took place inside the house itself. Hell, I even wanted some of them to visibly change the player, such as a chimney or additional floor to the building, etc.
All that was ... an ambitious plan, and I realized it just wasn't going to be feasible given the timelimit and my skills, and as a result ended up axing the part that most closely adhered to the theme and trying to incoporate the spirit of that into the names and writing. Unfortunate, but we live and we learn! It was quite an eye opening experience honestly, because this idea was what I had deemed the one I was most likely to finish and it was still stressful and way too close to the deadline. I'd hate to know what would have happened if I had gone for one of my other plans. xD
Thank you very much for giving it a whirl, and especially for the kind words regarding the writing! I'm very pleased that you liked it! That's an element I'd love to explore more in a future projects. I've the itch to try and craft something more narratively driven, perhaps even a visual novel!
Thank you!! I'm glad you had fun and found it cute!
The theme absolutely caught me off-guard. I don't know what I expected, but the moment I read it my mind went completely blank. "Oh" was about the only thought on my mind for awhile, and that was one of the reasons I was so damned impressed when I discovered the project you and Diyanka put together. It was just so creative! "Wow, yeah. This is a great implementation of the theme"
Me? I just went with an insane chicken hut. xD
I'm definitely aiming to explore it further. Both for sake of trying to complete what I had originally wanted to do, and because I'm actually curious of how I can get it to tie together nicely with what I've established so far.
153 days ago(+1)
Godot is amazing!
That is perhaps one of the things I'm most pleased about having discovered from this Game Jam. I had heard of the engine in passing before, but never given it a whirl until now, and it's extremely pleasant to work with. Signals in particular stood out to me as an "Oh, that's hecking neat" feature, and the scene system is great too. I'll probably discover more things I like as I tinker with it further!
Thank you for taking the time to play my little project and provide some meaningful feedback about it. It's much appreciated! The fire mages definitely need work. I'm almost amused at this point how much universal frustration they've manage to cause. I wanted them to be a nuisance, but... this was far too much. xD
And yeah, as mentioned in another message, the adherence to the theme turned out to be a problem. I cut away a lot in order to finish, but at definite compromise with the theme.
Oh, and I'm glad you enjoyed my use of the folk-story! The world needs more Baba Yaga, and not just the John Wick kind.
I honestly cannot believe that you both took the time to record your first impressions of my tiny little project! I smiled so much at this and you have no idea how much this means to me! You are both just so wholesome! Thank you! You've made my week with this, and I am going to treasure this video!
It was really educational to see how you approached it. It's very valuable feedback, and a great look at just what made sense, what caused confusion, what frustrated, etc. I realized with some horror that I did a really, really terrible job at explaining how to actually play in terms of controls and what your abilities (such as the jump) actually did, but I'm glad you figured it out regardless. The jump itself does more damage where it lands and also gives you invulnerability for the duration of the jump.
You are absolutely correct about the nature of the power ups and the connection to the theme. I had wanted to include a house design segment, much like how you would place furniture in Stardew Valley, etc - but time constraints led to me implementing it as a more simplified "pick a powerup" system and scrapping the home design.
I am also truly sorry for the trauma that the fire mages caused. xD
Thank you again for trying it!
We had a lot of fun playing your game! The power ups, mushrooms, and multiple enemy types are a nice touch and it reminds us a lot of Vampire Survivors or Survivor.io! I was only using the jump attack as I found it worked best, and I think it's quite a cool mechanic. More creative power-ups could also add a whole new element to the game. Overall, awesome entry!
This was my high score :D
Thank you for the kind words, for playing, and even including a screenshot! It means a lot to me! That's one hell of a sea of fire on screen. Gosh, those fire mages really do get out of hand... xD
I would have loved to have added more creative stuff to it. I had originally wanted to include further non-passive abilities such as tossing potions out the window, launching stuff out the chimney that could fall on surrounding enemies, or even a crow nest upgrade that would send out birds to retaliate upon taking damage once in awhile. There's a lot of little possibilities for some fun that I want to explore!
157 days ago (+2)
Thank you so much for the feedback! It's honestly all pretty on point. I think one of the big mistakes I made is that I simply did not budget enough time for playtesting. All of my balance calculations were done fairly hastily and last minute, and it shows! But, I do think I'm going to continue to polish this a bit more in the coming weeks as a personal project so hopefully I can get that a bit more under control.
Re: the fireball casters, there's a part of me that's glad that you hated them. I wanted them to be a nuisance, but not quiiiite as much as they ended up being, so I think a reduction to their health and speed would be quite good. Their ability to run off screen is entirely unintentional, too! I did a last minute change to the collisions because the melee guys would get stuck on them when they stood still, but I forgot to make sure they could still collide with the invisible boundries I had established after my changes. xD Aaah... what's that expression? 99 bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code. Take one down, patch it around, 137 bugs in the code... ? xD
You might not even need to make them slower; if there was just some way to round them up, that would solve a lot of the issues. After giving it some further thought, I think part of the reason why they're so frustrating is because you end up having to hunt them down one by one, even if you have enough speed upgrades to catch up to them easily. And the fun in this game feels like it's when you're trampling a bunch of enemies at once -- it feels perhaps a bit tedious to have to do this little chore of killing each one individually.
Maybe having a little stun if they get trampled on so you can capitalise and kill the one guy without him running away? Or some kind of herd script that keeps close-by fireball casters together when they flee so you can squash them all at the same time?
This is some excellent feedback. Thank you, Jaco!
I like your assessment. It is contrary to the fun of trampling large groups of enemies to find yourself chasing a singular mage down all of the time, especially since their danger is supposed to make you prioritize them, but in the current state that simply results in you continually chasing one guy across a field while the situation escalates furthers.
The idea of a either a stun or a herd script would work wonders. I'd especially like to try and figure out how to get them to herd together as there's some room for experimentation there too to perhaps have some kind of effect on the projectiles or spell used depending on how many of them have banded together to cast while also keeping them together for the player. Could be neat!
I'm so pleased that you enjoyed the writing and description of the items! I've been finding that I enjoy writing more and more lately, and I'd love to do creative writing like this - either as just fleshing out a future project with more descriptions or even tackling a more narratively driven experience. It means a lot to me that you liked it!
... especially the pun. I was prepared for either love or pitchforks with that one. xD
Thank you so much for giving my little project a whirl. I appreciate it, and I'm glad you found it easy to understand. I've realized I actually could have done a lot more to convey some of that to the player, but I'm glad you figured it out!
I actually have not gotten around to giving Brotato a spin yet. I'll make a note to do that. I'm intrigued! :o
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