itch.io

Thank you!! I love Meat Boy and Celeste, so the comparison is super appreciated.

For SceneManagement, SquidGod actually has a really good 15min tutorial for it here. I wanted a lot of control so I ended up building out a slightly different architecture for it, so I don’t really extend from sprites for anything that would be a manager and that includes scenes. Basically the first thing made is a GameManager, then that creates an instance of things like a SFX and VFX manager.

The last manager it makes is a scene manager and that just handles loading scenes, it does this by storing an active scene when it loads one, and calling a cleanup function in the active scene when unloading it.

A scene is just a script that has it’s own init and update loop, the scene manager has an update loop that just calls the active scenes update function.

I only have 3 scenes (Menu, Intro and Game) so it was probably a bit overkill but it’s not that much code, I reckon the SquidGod scene manager should be more than enough to start with!

I hope that helps, hopefully I can find time to make the rest of the dev log series and go over it in more detail.

Totally understandable request! I went back and forth about adding an assist mode, only due to the amount of time I had to work on it before release. The game has done well enough to put a bit more time into dev though so I’m almost defo gonna add some alternate game modes (some assist features and an extra hard one life mode) in the future, no eta yet tho. Thanks so much for playing the game!

Ahh thanks for the update, it’s not annoying at all, it’s the complete opposite! It’s super helpful to know these crashes are in there.

Is there any chance you have error logs? Are you playing it through playdate mirror to stream? Cause it doesn’t show any error screen when it crashes, usually it has “press a for more info” and that tells you what happened to cause it to crash.

I dunno if you use discord but I have a bug report channel on mine and if you post it in there it makes it a bit easier for me https://discord.com/channels/948229596082487366/1290047190651113534

Thanks so much!! I’m glad you’re enjoying it :D I hope it continues to be fun. VVVVVV is a fantastic game so that comparison blows my mind!

Ahhh this is super helpful thank you!! I am still working on bugfixes when I have time, as soon as I get back home on Sunday I’ll have a look at fixing this crash!

I appreciate you spending your time speedruning it as well! I’m glad you’re enjoying it :D

Ahh thanks so much, it was really nice to see you enjoy it!! It’s absolutely okay to post the link here, I would have happily given you a promo code if I knew you were doing it!

I appreciate the interest! Yeah defo, I don’t know when cause work is busy for next month or 2, but it’ll likely launch on pc at some point next year, could be earlier but the latest would likely be mid summer.

Sorry about that, I’m gonna try and put out a fix for people that have had this soon, just had a lot on at work.

I’m gonna add an interactable that will re trigger the final cutscene, and try to fix future crashes, I’m pretty sure they’re “out of memory” errors, so I’ll need to garbage collect manually or something.

Thanks!! That’s fair, I tend to think of the screens as levels and the 4 groups of levels as areas, but you’re right that it’s probably not how players see them, I’ll think about changing it soon :)

That’s such a kind thing to say!! Thank you, I’m really glad you enjoyed the game :D it’s the kinda game I always wanted to play on it as well, I’m really looking forward to games like Comet and Owlets Embrace as well, in a year or 2 the playdates gonna have so many games that aim for a console-like experience! It’s tricky but the playdate is capable of so much!

Thank you!! I’m guessing the guard won’t let you through? If it is at that point, the crumbling ground might reveal a path down!

If it’s not at that point then lemme know I’ll try to help in more detail in a dm or something

There’s a thread in the games channel of the playdate squad discord as well, where players share hints and tips for the game :D

I have thought about it, I think I’ll start with a pc launch just cause I want to work on a game without worrying about performance and memory limits for a bit haha

But I have done a mock up of how it could work on playdate so I might plan a small version of it for pd if I have time! It might be better with it’s own cute little story since I’d have to change a decent amount mechanically

Thanks so much!! I really appreciate it :D

Ooo that’s a good bit of polish to add at some point! Yee, a small extra bit of vfx could work

Ahh thank you, it’s a little convoluted so I can understand the confusion, basically you just double jump near any breakable rock, the boom from your boots will smash the rock! :D

It was an attempt at a new kind of metroidvania ability, I’m unsure of it’s success design wise but it does feel a little cool

I’d love to make a little demo for it, but I don’t think I’ll be able to anytime soon, I’m back at work and mostly focusing my spare time on bug fixes / extra content for a later update at some point.

I also love demos and knowing me I’ll at least want to make it a fun little thing with an objective to complete :D

The hint that someone put in the playdate squad discord was this “The line that got it for me was the middle one. Clue: What are books made from?”

I don’t wanna spoil too much on a public message board but if you dm on twitter, bsky or discord I’ll happily give a bigger hint :D

Thanks Orkn!! That means a lot coming from you, still lots to optimise but I wouldn’t have gotten a bunch of the bugs fixed as fast without your help, I appreciate it a lot!

Ahhh that’s awesome, thanks so much for playing the game!!

I’ll know in a month or 2 if I can justify the update that adds more to world, I hope so, it’s looking like it will so far! any update will add to the base 100% though so you’re completion will remain :D

Thanks, I love maps and pins but it becomes a grind if it’s all in there, stuff like this breaks up the gameplay and makes the world more real to me! I’m really glad it worked for you.

Back to optimising for now :D

Ahh wow, thank you so much!! This is such a nice thing to read, I will absolutely try to address a few of these issues in updates!

Performance of the game, especially in the second trial, along with how hard it is to find the last heart piece should hopefully be taken care of in the next update and that should be up this weekend!

For the riddle, Apathy is supposed to relate to it causing no concern but overall, riddle design is somewhat new to me, I might take another stab at rewording it.

Completely agree on the ending, I would like to add a very tiny cutscene to at least give it a bit of a climax. It was a victim of having to wrap up the game for release. Defo something I’d like to rework if I can justify a big update.

The player character being so understated is something I can understand not liking, it’s a design choice that has pros and cons, they’re kind of a proto-link (zelda) and as silent a protagonist as possible.

This is my first game in this series and I imagine that I’ll follow a similar trajectory, developing flourishes on the design with each new story.

I appreciate all this feedback so so much, I’m still stunned people are finishing the game, let alone caring enough to tell what they would want to like it more! Thank you!!

Oh wow, I’m so dumb! I linked to the dev page instead of the game page, can you tell this is my first time releasing a game…

Thank you, I’ve fixed it now :D

Thank you!! I defo understand that and I appreciate the feedback, I playtested them on a few people and tried to refine them as best as possible, there is one I might update to be a little clearer but I was aiming for them to be side objectives so none are needed to complete the game.

It released on both Catalog and Itch at the same time! :D

Ahh thanks for playing!

yee, the jam deadline came v fast, I can’t believe I got any music in haha.

I’m gonna work on a proper full version of the game with more dungeons, actual bosses and loads more after my playdate game ships

I made such a bad decision trying to do a widescreen game boy resolution, that’ll defo get fixed!

Ahh thanks, I could but unfortunately I’d have no way of playtesting it properly and I’d feel bad not being confident it works

Ah thanks! It was defo a bunch of happy accidents :D

Thanks so much!!

Genuinely great. It feels very polished and the game design on show is incredibly mature for a jam game, I hope you expand it for a full game. The mechanic has serious legs!

Ahh this is great, absolutely keep working on it, with a few more things to do, a bit more interaction in the battling minigame it could be a really good spin on creature ranchers!

Ahh thanks so much, and thanks for hosting a really nice jam!

Thanks again for playing it on stream, it was a real highlight of the jam!

Very fair feedback, for a fuller version I’ll defo be leaning into the zelda gameplay a lot more!

Ah thanks so much for playing! Very understandable I didn’t mean for it to be such a long game or I would have tried to prioritise save / load more

I’m very glad you enjoyed it!

My games a little on the longer side so I’d recommend only playing a little bit on stream to get through more of the incredible games the jams brought out!

https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/2583180

Honestly, they’re only the worst part because everything is so high quality! I think the platforming game feel is such a solid base for a big exploration based game, I’m a sucker for that kind of gameplay though, loved it! Thanks for making it!

Absolutely loved the platforming parts! Genuinely really solid exploration, the art style is fantastic, I can see how much care you put it into and I just wanna say you’ve smashed this jam out the park!

I was not really fond of the battling, it was a cool concept but the balancing is wildly off, that giraffe fight was brutal, and then it bugged out afterwards, 4 animals is the point I felt like it had gone on too long and only carried on to climb the skyscraper, but then it bugged out at the end and I was stuck in the giraffe area, I dunno if there was more platforming after that but it did leave a sour taste, these things happen though and I don’t think it’ll impact how awesome your game is, I absolutely think you should keep working on it though, maybe pull back on the battling and develop the world a bit more, at least for me that was the more interesting part of the game. This is all my perspective though, you should really do whatever it is that you have fun making, you’re clearly going places with a skillset like this!

p.s. this is the area I got stuck, is the game supposed to end here?

Really cool visual look, I made it pretty far but everytime I played I died from running out of health, maintained low sanity always though!

It forced me to make a lot of hard choices and then I had to deal with the consequences. Solid game dude!

small visual bug where you can keep pressing enter on the start screen and it restarts the animation.

Completely didn’t realise it was gonna be a horror game haha, I’m not good with spooky stuff so it did get me at “the bit”. Well done though, not my genre but can’t fault it, you could absolutely make a bigger version of this, unreliable gameplay UI is an underused narrative device in my opinion and you smashed it!

I defeated the god of thunder and lightning!!

Good stuff, one piece of feedback that would make it a bit nicer to play would be basing the left/right direction of where you shoot on the the side of the character the mouse was clicked.

Really good atmosphere, I enjoyed the puzzles once I got the hang of it but got stuck at the rules of three section, I looked at the hints but it didn’t help too much.

Honestly really good work though, I think if you’re going forward all of the hints have to be baked into the game experience, defo needs enter to submit as well.

I think starting off with a few much easier puzzles to make the player understand they are playing through escape room style puzzles that don’t rely on the actual information on screen would be good too, I spent a lot of time reading carefully and constructing my answers around the text rather than looking past the text and finding the answer between the lines.

Really good work on the presentation though!

Ah thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it, I agree the text of links awakening can be very tricky to read sometimes, I think when I add more to the game I might double the resolution to have more clarity, maybe go for minish cap style art!