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Your dash attack teaching moment made me verbally exclaim, "Oh f*** yeah." (This is the only time something from the jam got that much of a rise from me, so I don't share this lightly.) While the graphics are simple, the setting is a fun choice for a game, the music is boppin, and I like what you've done from a gameplay standpoint.

To improve this, I would suggest focusing on how the game introduces challenges and mechanics. It's too much too fast. Give me more time to learn and familiarize myself with one mechanic across several sections designed to showcase its utility before giving me the next one. Then start mixing and matching once I'm comfortable with it to keep up the challenge and variety. The same applies to the enemies, albeit in a different way. You've got sections that have a boatload of the velociraptor guys, but they're all horizontal runner types, which makes the space feel messy and cramped as opposed to a fun, interesting challenge. Take a look at how Hollow Knight handles high enemy counts. They do this with variety, maybe throwing a runner type, a jumper type, and a bunch of floater/fliers to force you to move and attack in fascinating ways. (Granted, time is limited in a jam, so finding ways to make use of what you have in varied, intentional ways becomes the name of the game. In this context, a high count of fliers moving in semi-random patterns works a lot better to present a fair challenge than an army of horizontally moving baddies running at me in a straight line from both directions with no room to dodge.)

I wish I had more time to finish this as you've got some good stuff going here!

(+1)

Thank you for such great feedback! To be honest, we had a few more enemy designs that were on the fence to be included (different fliers, jumpers, spitters, etc) but because of time we ended up going with a smaller amount of unique enemies. We'd love to achieve that balance that Hollow Knight reaches - where any combat situation could evolve into something chaotic and fun. In the future I think our game could include a bunch more diversity to interact with.

Your dash attack comment put such a smile on my face! I think we have a long way to go in figuring out the best way to teach players to engage, and it's so great to hear that what we did was effective.

If you get the time, it would be great if you tried out the rest of the game - we have a ton more content in the second half. Again, thank you so much for playing and commenting! Buckethead was such a cool submission and it really means a lot to us.

Happy to share! Also, I'm glad you enjoyed BucketHead; the team worked tremendously hard on it.