itch.io

Thank you for playing, glad you enjoyed it!

And yes, definitely won't make cursor disappear in future games. It was an attempt to help with too many effects happening on screen, but clearly just made it worse. Thank you for the feedback!

Love the way you used level design with your lighting, really cool feel to walk around.

One thing that I think could be improved on is the size of the levels. It took a long time to wonder around, and much of the map was empty, just reducing it's size to 1/3rd or even 1/2 of it's current size while keeping everything else the same would make the environment feel more full and greatly reduce walking around purposelessly. 

Anyway fun game to play, nice submission!

Idea: Amazing

Having dinosaurs splatter on your screen: Super fun

Graphics: Absolutely solid, only thing missing is a parallax effect. 

All your tutorial prompts were perfectly placed and had useful information, props for that. The idea was brilliant and gameplay fun, but I think it would've been better explored in a grid based system. There were many spots were you were half over an edge, and it was unclear if you should jump or move forward, where as if the movement was on a grid it'd provide much clarity. Also I wish enemies moved more linearly, them accelerating to speed made it hard to predict my own movements. 

Anyways I very much enjoyed playing, solid submission and I'm shocked I haven't seen turn based platformers before, brilliant concept.

I love the aesthetic and thematic feel of the game, you definitely succeeded on your goal to make it dreamy! At first I thought I understood the mechanics but later on I realized I didn't, and I was having trouble understanding how everything works even after reading your itch page. I ended up just sort of pressing buttons and guessing my way through, which sucked a little bit.

Props for adding skip level button and level select screen, I feel like these should be mandatory for game jam puzzle games it was so useful! I feel bad for not understanding the core mechanic, it clearly had much effort and thought go into it.

This was almost a perfect game, but I was very close to giving up before figuring out how to clear room one. I kept putting my tool in the slot without knowing i needed to click the screen first, and was just guessing codes and trying to remember the access code. I probably restarted the game 5ish times since I thought I'd done something out of order and broken the game, and I don't usually give jam games 5 tries but your atmosphere was soooo good I really wanted to get it to work.

Some sort of indicator to show what you can click would have been great to remove most of the frustration, just some faint light up when close to an object you can interact with or something similar. At this state since you can't modify the game, you should at the very least add some instructions on your game page on how to clear room one, since after knowing how to clear room one the game plays fantastic.

The graphics are absolutely perfect, the way you handle lighting does a fantastic job setting the mood, audio is fantastic, and gameplay is really fun and creepy and you handle pacing really well, the second I wonder if all the game does is press buttons in rooms you start implementing new creepiness. 

Almost 5/5 across the board, but I also almost gave up on it without even getting to play it.

The gun customization is really cool! It was really fun trying out how different mods work together with different mods.  

Some minor things I'd change is:
-Make the tutorial text write faster, I was waiting for it to load instead of reading it
-Maybe have the game pause when you get a power up so you can read it, and decide where to put it. It was a little difficult to keep track of what did what while fighting enemies at the same time.

The biggest improvement you could easily implement in my opinion is making way more enemies spawn, and make them way weaker to keep the balance as it is. As a person who loves this style of game, I've found that blowing up 15 enemies that all have 1 hp and do 1 damage,  is significantly more satisfying than killing 1 enemy that has 15 hp and does 15 damage.

Anyways I enjoyed playing your game, love playing twin stick shooters in jams and you definitely a better and more creative take on the them than my own!

Holy crap it's the legend himself :O

Thank you for playing my game, the thought behind the cursor was to see what you're shooting better, but I agree it definitely didn't feel right.
Maybe having a separate shooting reticle and a separate non shooting one would have worked, or just not having all the effects on the default one. Regardless I'll remember this in the future, thank you for playing!

Yep that was the end. There was originally a giant boss fight against the red thing that you're chasing, with sounds and visuals and orchestras and lights and fireworks and shaders and particles... But then the jam ended :/

Completely agree with you on needing more light, my solution was going to be to have the spawners be light sources so you wouldn't have stuff spawn without seeing it, but didn't quite get to it.

The enemies didn't regrow but they kept spawning infinitely off of the red circles, if you didn't finish the red circles quickly enough there may have been dozens of them on top of each other. That was propably one of the main performance issues as well, and not explained at all by me. 

Truly appreciate your feedback, I'll hopefully be able to do better in all these areas in future jams.

Yoooo what up Kuro? 

Thank you for playing the game and feedback! Glad you liked it!

Thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I'll focus on optimization in the future for sure, unfortunately I prioritized it too low and didn't quite get to it.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you!

Thank you for the feedback!

I definitely didn't optimize the visuals as much as I could have, was purely focusing on making it as satisfying as I could. I'll try to be more attentive towards that for future jams. 

Glad you enjoyed playing! For that one you get a button of points if you manage to make it to the next door without touching the floor, definitely could have been communicated better.

Thank you! You may have started playing before we even had a description on the itch page, I was updating it minutes before you commented!

Thank you for the feedback! Since the game only has 2 buttons, I tried to map every natural key to one of the inputs so people could intuitively press whatever key felt natural to them on the keyboard and figure out the controls while playing.

I also tried to make the power ups as intuitive as possible by highlighting the game areas they affected, though we definitely ran out of time while working on that. 

I'm sad it was difficult for you to pick up, I spent a good bit of time trying to make the game mechanics as self evident as I could. That combined with the fact that there are only 2 buttons for controls, I thought if any game could survive without an in depth tutorial, it'd be this one. Lesson learned for future jams I guess. 

Hey I played yours! Love the juiciness!

Here's mine:
https://itch.io/jam/boss-rush-jam-2024/rate/2469506

Amazing stuff with the visuals! I love the simple art style with the really polished visuals, and the audio fit in perfectly. 

Gameplay was fun overall, but quite confusing. I think you added a bit too many mechanics into the game, there was always a bunch of stuff going on and it was hard to keep track of what was affecting what. If you'd added less mechanics, and spent that time on making the smaller amount of mechanics fit together better as well as making it more clear what every thing in the game did, I feel like the overall product would have been even better. 

Regardless it was a fun to play and game feel was on point, great submission.

Hi! I rated your game, here's mine: https://itch.io/jam/boss-rush-jam-2024/rate/246950

Absolutely love the art style, the dialogue of the characters, as well as the idea. Really felt like I was playing an old school RPG on my gba. Unfortunately as cool as everything about the game is, it did feel like I had no control over anything happening in the game, due to the nature of the rock paper scissors.

To increase player agency and not feel like everything is 100% random, you could maybe give the player the option to build their own deck. Alternatively you could provide the player knowledge on whats coming, so they can prepare for it, possibly in the form of being able to use a power to see what the next 3 cards your opponent will play, or even just straight up knowing what your opponent is about to play and then buff the enemy HPs and their power cards to increase challenge.

I don't know if any of this is a good solution, but some form of design decision to limit randomness would make the game significantly better imo. Anyway you did an absolutely fantastic job with the aesthetics, and this is definitely the most creative idea I've seen this jam. 

I was hoping to see alot more games in this style for the game but this is the first one for me, love the gameplay of this one! I think the player could've really benefitted from having maybe 3-10 times more hp, the game is really hard and it seemed like getting hit once cost you half your hp, but it was super fun regardless. Only other thing I'd add would be the possibility to hold down mouse to keep shooting, and add more particles and screenshake for when you hit things and kill things, but it was a really fun game with clear and fun boss mechanics regardless.

Hey I rated your game, your games one of my favorites so far! Here's mine: https://itch.io/jam/boss-rush-jam-2024/rate/2469506

I think this is the best looking that i've played so far, amazing job! The boss designs and the mechanics were all very cool, though the bosses were quite hard I was only able to beat the right one all the way through, felt like alot of the attacks came from nowhere while I was just trying to get some stabs in. Regardless the game is superbly polished, amazing submission.

I rated yours! Left a comment on the submission page.

Here's mine: https://itch.io/jam/boss-rush-jam-2024/rate/2469506

That was fun! Almost like a mini "rogue like galaga"! Like the idea, like the execution. If you are developing this further it would be cool to see some more different attacks from the boss that aren't just bullet formations, but for a gamejam this worked perfect. 

Play other people's games and leave feedback, they'll see your game under your feedback. You can also play other peoples games in the "rate for rate" threads they're making here under community tab, and if u rate their game they'll rate yours

Absolutely love the aesthetic and the environment, really strong. Especially the entry sequence, fantastic.

I found the best strategy for almost all the bosses to be dash in - triple kick - dash away - repeat. I wish you made the weapons stronger, since it was always cool to get one, but any time i tried to use them instead of doing the above I'd just take damage and go back to my dashing triple kick strat. Also was there any significant reason to use punch over kick or vice versa? I wish you differentiated them more, give the player a really good reason to use punch and a really good reason to use kick, they felt very interchangable.

For the second boss I wish the homing missle wouldn't follow you after you jump over it. As it stands, the only way I could figure out to deal with it was to run to the other side of the map, which just felt lame to not be able to do anything for 5 seconds. 

Could use some more juice, add more screenshake, particle impacts for attacks, stuff like that.

My biggest critique is your control scheme. Maybe there are a bunch of games with a similar control scheme but if there are I don't play any of them, so it's extra unnatural for me. Forcing both of my hands to be on the keyboard is bad enough, but having the most important ability (dash) be on shift instead of somewhere my right hand can reach feels like a slap in the face, after specifically forcing my hand to be on the keyboard. Please at least add an option involving the mouse buttons and E,F, R, T, G, or 12345 for abilities, my muscle memory was about to commit suicide :(

Besides that, beating each boss felt very rewarding. Barely dashing past the edge of the enemys blade felt awesome, and the boss designs were very cool. If I had an option for setting my own keybinds, or could use my right hand on my mouse anyways, I'd love to play through this again. 

Hey I rated your game and left feed back on your jam submission! 

If you'd like to try mine as well, here's a link: 

I think overall your game was too hard. Not being able to aim while moving around made it even harder. 

Your audio is really good effects in game are cool, but being forced to stand in the same spot to be able to deal damage to each piece of boss was frustrating.

I think one way to help with difficulty could be to instead of start with 6 enemies on screen, work up to it. Like start with one, then when you kill it summon in the next 2, then when you kill those summon in 4 and then you win game.

Also I think your enemies could have really benefitted from health bars, and probably lower hp pools to add. 

Hey I played your game and left a comment with feedback on your submission! 

Here's my game if you want to give it a try! 
https://itch.io/jam/boss-rush-jam-2024/rate/2469506

Wish I could have played with friend, seems like I missed out on exploring much of the cool mechanics on this one. Here's some take aways. 

-Sound design was flawless, A+

-Entry room was dope, really liked it and being able to test mechanics before game starts. Again wish i would have had a buddy to try it with

-Assuming you already nerfed the HP of the boss to adjust to single player experience, it took too long to take down boss with default gun. I'd make the sunbeam your default gun, and make an even stronger version or triple shot version as a possible upgrade.

-Some of the power ups were useless, because they all competed for the same slot. I could see no reason to pick up shield or melee since I'd give up my ranged attack. There could probably be some strategising with 2 people but I feel like most people would rather have a ranged attack even then. I liked swapping stuff in and out but if you are going to add more utility items, having a separate slot for main attack and for utility items would solve this issue. 

Overall I enjoyed playing your game, fun simple and polished with a seemingly cool take on theme that I unfortunately couldn't experience for myself :( 

I absolutely love the clean but simple visuals of this one, you did amazing considering you only used shapes for art. Also massive fan of the menu animations!

The recoil mechanic was satisfying and cool at first, but it started being quite annoying to constantly be drifting away from all the enemies and having to waste my ammo just to get back to them.

I feel like if you want to continue with the shoot to move mechanic, an easy fix to this would be to make the enemies move at you at a much faster rate, so instead of the annoyance of moving back and forth the recoil would instead work as a defensive measure to keep your distance.

Anyways it was really nice for a game jam game, excited to see what you make for boss rush jam :D

Your art looks fantastic!

Sorry to get back to you a little late but we teamed up with another artist for this jam, I hope you find a team and good luck on the jam

update: Found programmer and audio designer, just looking for an artist!

We are a team of 2 programmers and a sick audio designer looking for 1 more artist to join our team.

Current idea for our project is to make a soulslike experience in the style of old school doom / daggerfall where we mix 2d elements with a 3d environment. If that sounds interesting to you, and you're a kick ass artist, DM me with some of your previous work!

Here's the last game jam game I participated in, made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare #54
https://arnazian.itch.io/card-hexchange

When you say you can only place towers in the spot where you stopped last round, were you able to move the camera around and then it just didn't let you place towers?

You could move the camera around with wasd or the arrow keys, I had a note of it in the bottom left of the shop UI but I know things like this are easy to miss

That's really interesting to me that the default font bothered you, fonts are definitely at the very bottom of the list for polishing priorities on my game jam submissions.

I think I've only ever heard one other person put importance on font selection, but since you mentioned it maybe I should prioritize it more.

I appreciate the feedback, I'll definitely take it into account next time I'm prioritizing which features have to be cut to hit the deadline.

Hey you asked for in depth feedback on discord, here it goes.

1. The title menu is insane. I don't know how many assets you used for it and I don't care, I love everything about it and the camera animation, sounds and graphics all work together incredibly well. If you make the buttons slightly higher quality I wouldn't be surprised seeing it in a triple a game.

For the gameplay, I think you suffered heavily with either over scoping or more likely an identity crisis. It feels like you wanted to make a parkour game, and a super power shooter, and in trying to achieve both instead of picking a route you didn't achieve either.

I feel like if you spent the time you spent on shooter mechanics making the parkour better, or spent the parkour time making the shooting better, you could have had a great game in both cases. As it is it was visually marvelous but it was very finnicky and not even close to as fun to play as it could have been.

Main issue that both of the game modes shared was the awkward controls.

Shooter
For the shooter, holding ctrl to be able to shoot? Holding X to be able to cast abilities? No other game I know of does this, and for good reason. I'd probably ditch the melee, nerf the shooting slightly to make up for it but make it the standard, and then switch between abilities with tab or number keys and right click to throw the abilities. Something similar to that would make players who play shooters not have to read your game page to be able to even shoot a gun, let alone have to look it up repeatedly because it's so unintuitive.

Parkour
For the parkour, the keybinds were fine, but it suffered in the flow of the movement. I feel like if you enabled wall run by default and / or made grapple hooks land you on the platform instead of the wall in front of it, made the grapple function easier to control, slowed down the movement / falling in general, and slowed down time right after hitting a wall, the parkour mode would have been a lot more fun.

In general just making the parkour easier and more forgiving would have significantly helped the gameplay experience. 

Anyway obviously the graphics are top top tier, 6/5, but the attempt at creating too many game mechanics really hurt the gameplay.