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A jam submission

Indiana Jumps and the Tomb of DoomView game page

cute short 2d adventure metroidvania
Submitted by baron_elmwich — 3 hours, 17 minutes before the deadline
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Indiana Jumps and the Tomb of Doom's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Execution#253.6473.647
Enjoyment#293.4713.471
Sensory#313.4123.412
Overall#363.2793.279
Metroidvania#552.5882.588

Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Unity

Team/Developer
Michael Brown

External assets
Only sound effects and music from opengameart.org and Kenney, I made everything else

Prizes eligibility
I should be eligible for everything

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

It feels more like a difficult platformer than a metroidvania I'd say due to the lack of combat. I love the art and the humor! It feels like you're playing through a story and the ending is very cute :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! Yeah I agree about the lack of combat, that would probably feel more metroidvania-y. I have a lot of ideas for future jams, so these comments are super helpful!

Submitted

I really liked the aesthetics of this game! I thought the frog had a lot of personality and the sprite-work on the skeleton character was great. I thought the twist ending was very cute too and really enjoyed how feel-good the game was from start to finish. I also thought the dynamic camera movement was very unique and gave certain segments a tenser feeling which I enjoyed. I do wish there were more "metroidvania" elements to the game, like powers to collect, branching paths to explore, and a bigger world map. The game felt more just like a traditional 2D platformer to me. That being said, I still really enjoyed it! Great job on everything and congrats on submitting!

Developer

Thank you so much, these comments are so helpful for me! I definitely agree about being light on the metroidvania elements. When I started development last month I imagined it would be metroidvania-enough, but hearing people's feedback and playing the other games in the jam has really shown me the light on what elements people think of when they think "metroidvania". I'm pretty inspired to try again in the future. Also, I'm really happy you liked the art! I spent a lot of time doing the art and animations (too much time? haha) but I really enjoyed it. 

(+1)

Here's my feedback video!

Developer

Wow thank you so much for playing! I think you had exactly the type of experience I was hoping people would have, I'm really glad you didn't run into any strange bugs :) I've learned a ton from all the games in this jam, looking forward to implementing a lot more in the future! 

I noticed your comment about how sometimes there were no sounds on some of the collectibles. This has been a mystery to me (I experienced it myself) and I wasn't able to figure out what caused this. I set them all up the same way in each level, and it wouldn't always be the same ones that didn't play, so it was difficult for me to recreate reliably. I agree with improvements to player feedback in general, great ideas!

I'm not sure which NES game you said this reminded you of with the vine climbing, when I was young I watched a lot of Legends of the Hidden Temple on Nickelodeon, I bet that was a subconscious influence haha

Thanks again!

Submitted

Well executed game, the character design is very cute, I got a bit lost in the first level as I didnt knew the collectables would open the door, really liked the ending was expecting something bad to happen but it was heartwarming, good job!

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much! When I started this, I wasn't able to really think of a short way to explain to the player you need to collect the 4 key stones to open the doors in each level (well I guess I could have had another sign at least in hindsight), but this is a good takeaway! I have a lot of ideas for future game jams!

Submitted (1 edit)

Nice sprite work and lighting! Loved your approach to the dynamic room camera.

Some of the rooms felt unnecessarily empty, which was unfortunate because I otherwise enjoyed your learning/challenge progression.

The cost of failure on some platforming sections was worse than death. Having me repeat the same 30 seconds of slow platforming just to get back to the same jump and potentially miss again is a fast way to kill engagement.

I really like the way you introduce the swim mechanic. Having it be near-unavoidable teaches players it's ok - in a genre where water often means death - early before they need to deal with it. Smart design, well done.

Tiny polish change, having your big skele sprite flip to point in the direction of the next door would've been more intuitive.

I like how each area has its own "thing". Moving platforms, water, etc. It keeps the pacing varied and stops me from getting bored.

I wish some sections had quicker alternate routes back (like the upwards snaking water tunnel), again because repetition without mixing it up kills engagement. The only exception to this is your "Sorry" sign which made me laugh as I returned the way I came.

The section with death by falling and enemies should've taught these things as dangerous as everything up until now has been safe to touch. I've been taught that falling is always ok, so sweeping out the rug in this way felt confusing and unfair. I hope this section has checkpoints beyond the room entrance, as having to repeat slowly going down that ladder after death wasn't fun.

Great ending! Nice.

You were clearly very smart about your scope, sticking to simple mechanics, but executing them well enough to get me to play through the whole thing. Well done!

Developer

Thank you so much for all the comments! Hearing people's feedback about all this is really valuable!

I wanted to construct the levels so that failing a jump would set you back too far, but this is definitely an area that needs some more tuning.

Thank you for going down the "Sorry" path! From a level design perspective, I wanted to have collectibles on both sides, but I wasn't sure how to to make them different, so I was hoping people would forgive me for trolling them just once. I play tested it on a couple friends, and they didn't even go that way, so I was a little bummed out.

All your comments are great, I really appreciate it! I think I was able to accomplish everything I could when I started this project a month ago, but I've learned a lot since then and I have a lot of ideas for the future! Thanks for playing to the end, you rock!!

Submitted(+1)

This game was great! The only issue I had with it was the audio sometimes would break? there was a hissing noise in the level song and sometimes the sound effects were panned all the way to left or right, mainly the jump sound effect.  I also thought the final song was a little jarring but still great work! I love the charm and little jokes at that tutorial. Made me smile. I also liked the hellevator or the water bucket save pretty funny as well. Hopefully it was a reference it Terraria or Minecraft Lol. Great game! Perfect length. One more thing I liked was the game design. Combining all the elements from the first 2 levels into the last one but also adding another element to it. I would love to see more of this game!

Developer

Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun making this game. Thanks for mentioning that about the sounds... I think I've heard the hiss you're talking about, but I can't figure out yet why it would be there, maybe it's something in the audio file? I'm not doing anything crazy, just "play this song when the scene loads" kind of stuff. I learned a lot in this game jam, lots of ideas for the future! :)

Submitted

Sweet little game! It's the perfect length for a jam game, it took me about 10 minutes to beat it.

It felt great to play as the frog! Got nothing to say about the controls. Going into a door, collecting 4 keys(?) and getting the object created a nice little gameplay loop, and having gameplay be limited to one room really helps with not getting lost.

Art is neat! I have nothing to add on that, just, good art and animations. Music is funky, I like it.

Great game!

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much! Yeah I wanted to keep it on the shorter side for the jam (people have things to do!). I think one thing I would have liked to add but forgot would be a UI for collecting the key stones in each room. It's always 4 and I know 4's not a big number, but I think it would help players know what they have left to do. Learning a lot!

Submitted (3 edits) (+1)

When I saw that UP, "W", and spacebar all jumped I decided to spam all of them to see if I could break the game. Surprisingly, it didn't, but what did was the infinite coyote time granted to the player that allows the player to infinitely jump up walls as long as they collide with a wall while falling. Players also have a double jump by default as long as the hold jump for long enough when jumping. Lastly, the screen transitions sometimes bug out essentially softlocking the game, which isn't a huge issue except there are no saves or respawn keys! It has great art, audio, and polish, but I feel like the game needs a bit more challenge to keep the player engaged. Loved the witty wall text!

Developer

nice, thanks for spamming the inputs! I think you can thank the Unity Input System for that, I just had to bind all those keys to the same action and cross my fingers that they work together!

Sorry about the soft locks, I’ll see if I can put in a reset button… it’s been hard for me to replicate that error to fix it

Also, you have a good eye about the jumps! Technically speaking, I decided to try it so the player has “one jump” that gets reset on the ground, but you can spend it in the air falling if you want to

Thanks for the feedback!!!

Submitted

Cute and simple game, I wished for more hazards though, the tomb wasn't that dangerous after all! Controls worked well except that the ladders were wonky. The game was rather linear, more exploration would have made it more interesting and more metroidvanialike. The art is great!

Developer

Thank you so much! Hah I was intending to light on the "Doom" from the inception, and I agree about the linearity. I learned a lot from this game jam and have a lot of great ideas now about making a game more metroidvanialike! This one definitely skews toward metroidvania-lite 

Ugh ladders!

Submitted(+1)

The frog is super cute! :D

Overall design is great and well-balanced, but the player character is the best. :D Zooming in and out depending on the location is something that at first takes some getting used to, but it is a nice feature. :) 

Great work!

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much! I had a lot of fun animating the frog with his little bouncing hat :)

Definitely learned a lot working with the cameras and hearing feedback about them, it's very helpful!

Submitted

Great game, I had fun ^^

The+

- A frog... which jumps... indiana jump, simple effective

- Indie the frog is well animated and cute, the mummy is cool too 

- Clear and fun tutorial, parodying the warnings is a good idea (the 'sorry...' x))

- Camera work - Game with a beginning, middle and end. can be finished quite easily in about 15-20 minutes 

- the mummy's resolution is funny 

The -

- Small bug when the frog jumps and picks up an object, it blocks the jump animation (removes when I jump again)

Given the way the burial hall is built, could we have stolen the chick's night light and escaped ? 

Developer

Thank for these great points! All of your + points were aspects I wanted to focus on for this jam, so I’m glad they turned out! 

Thanks for letting me know about the animation bug! You know, I didn’t think about stealing the nightlight on the way out haha, that would have been a fun twist! Maybe I’ll revisit this in the future :) 

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Love the animations and how his hat bounces as he jumps! The skeleton pharaoh was also really awesome. Really well done pixel art 10/10. The music selection was also really great and fit very well. I just love the charm of this game.

I would have liked to get a few powerups, maybe just to increase his speed a little bit at the very least. It could have also been cool if you could choose which relic to collect first.

A great little narrative platformer with great atmosphere, humor, and artistic direction. Nice work!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the great comments! I agree with all your points about power ups and choosing where to go. I think a month ago that was too much scope for me to reasonably achieve, but knowing what I know now maybe we'll have to have another bigger, better installment in the future! 

Submitted(+1)

Firstly, the lights/shadow, was really cool that you could 'interact' with it. Secondly, I love the camera, how it zoomed in in some parts and away in others. It created a really cool experience. Wilst I have some critiques below, I thought eh level design was great

The biggest issue it had, was it was completely linear, you were basically forced to walk a certain way and there was (with exception to the floating things in the last level) no obstacles at all, just walking and jumping.
It wasn't exactly a metroidvania because of these things ^^^ but it was a fun platformer.
There were some bugs with the moving platforms, I could sometimes double jump + walk across even when the platform wasnt there...
Some rooms were a little confusing, you would leave to the left but then the door was also on the left. A bit of a confusing moment more than a real problem but something to consider.

The art was cool and the animation was great, but I know that was assets.

Developer(+1)

That's fair about the story being linear, thanks for playing!

Actually I made all of the art and animations myself in Aseprite, which took up most of the month for me. But if you think it was good enough to be an asset pack, I'll take the compliment!

Submitted(+1)

Ohh my bad, I misunderstood the description. In that case let me add that the art was amazing, the character designs, the animation, the environment and more. It was honestly fantastic. I'm blown away, well done!!

Developer

no worries! haha

Submitted(+1)

The art is superb; the character is adorable, and the environment has a great atmosphere. I love the smooth camera transitions and the story where you need to collect the sleep items. Great job.

Developer

Thanks so much! I really learned a lot putting all of this together! I will say most of the time went into making the animations lol

Submitted(+1)

Hello,

I have been really pleasantly surprised! Wow, such a wonderful entry. Artistic direction, music, visuals effect, animations; all great.

Gameplay is simple, elegant, effective. Level design is very well done. Exploration keeps being interesting and appealing.

Congratulations on this great entry!

Cheers

PS: don't hesitate to try our game :)

Developer

Wow thank you for such nice comments! Given that it's a game jam game, I wanted to try and keep the story pretty tight so more people could make it to the end, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Looking forward to trying your game too!

Submitted(+1)

The camera and art were pretty cool.  Amazing game

Developer

Thanks for playing! Getting some of the cameras to work was a pain for some of the areas, but it was a fun puzzle too!

Submitted(+1)

Great great great great. Just great. I love being a frog. Level design was tight and the concept is wonderful.

Small thing I noticed- if you double jump in the Baby Chick area below the moving platforms, you trigger the camera for the upper area and you have to walk back to another camera area to get it to reset.

Big thing I noticed - as I walked into the 3rd area, Indiana froze completely :( the torch on the wall however, still flickering. This was right inside the entrance to the 3rd area (the door that you enter below where the mummy is).

Congrats on a great game!!!!

Developer

Thank you so much!!

Sorry I missed that camera trigger area! I did a pass where I deliberately went through to try to check for camera transition problems like that, but I guess I missed that one :) If this happens to anybody else reading these comments, it should be possible to wander blind into another area and the camera should correct itself. I'll try to fix this in a future update!

If I can figure out how you froze in the 3rd area I'll try to fix that too. I might know what's happening because it happened to me in the 2nd area in testing and I think I fixed it there, but I haven't had the same problem yet in the 3rd area. Were you able to make it to the end? This is the first time I made so many cutscenes in a game so it's been a bit of a learning curve!

Submitted

I unfortunately couldn't make it to the end, but I was planning to go try again at some point!

Totally hear you about the cameras. I am sure there are 100 weird areas in our game.