tysm!! :>
Lume
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A member registered Feb 04, 2025 · View creator page →
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Thank you so much^^ I wanted to make some actual background assets, but as the only artist, programmer, and game designer, I had no way of fitting a full tilemap into 10 days– so default Unity #FFFFFF white it is! But I intend to update the game with actual background assets, at the very least because I've got no experience making those and would like to try my hand at it.
Tysm for your feedback!!
Thank you for your feedback! I'd like to know what you mean by "clunky". Is it the choice of the keys to input that isn't intuitive? The way the character responds to those inputs? How the character then interacts with the level?
And do you think it would have helped you better grasp the controls to have more lower stakes area in the early parts of the level with room to fail without dying?
Thank you for playing!!
The letter grades were rushed on the last day, so they're not quite how I wanted them to be. I wanted to have them go from F- to S+ with a special L rank if you had a rough start and W rank if you had a head start– but due to time constraints they only depend on score without checking for the start quality, and the score itself has not had time to be playtested and may not be balanced.
And more content is definitely coming! I don't know how much I'll keep working on this game, but I want to make a full first level and patch up some bugs or game design issues at the very least! The fate of the game depends on my motivation, which depends on the reception it's getting, and so far it's super encouraging, so thank you for that!!
I've never heard of anyone else getting delay with the Up key so it might be your reaction time ^^' However I'll keep that in mind and test it out, the Up key specifically was coded differently from the other inputs (though it still uses the same input system) so there definitely could be some oversight in that code! Thank you for the feedback! :D
Feedback time!
First off I love the art! Shovel guy is so cute! And I love their animations, especially when they dive after the shovel! They look so happy^^
I think it would've been nice to have the jump gauge indicator be bigger or close to the character instead of the corner left. When trying to go right, you have to look away from where you're trying to go to gauge your jump, which doesn't feel intuitive.
There is a quite sharp difficulty spike when the very small platforms show up. I gave it a good try, but I did end up frustrated over losing progress. A checkpoint could fix this, but if the intent is to get something similar to Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy, where losing huge chunks of progress is part of the intended user experience, I think you could still compromise by having larger platforms to catch you if you fall from the tiny platform section, or to have the difficulty and frustration be part of the game's identity and branding, as to better prepare players for the challenge! I do think this difficulty spike is a bit too much too early, since the player is still getting used to the mechanics and experimenting with their character's abilities.
Despite this difficulty spike, I had a lot of fun!!
I also noticed that you did not rename your unity build name, was this an oversight or do you not know how to do it? If so I could show you if you'd like! (discord: meerlylume)
I see, thank you for the feedback! I intended for the "launching sequence" to *actually* launch you into the level, but I couldn't fit that into the scope of the game. I'll try to make a smoother transition in my update! Also the shift key looking a lot like the up key is an intentional fakeout, I personally enjoy games that check both reaction time and for a correct symbol (like jungle speed or dobble) so I wanted to put some of that in there! Originally, the minigame was going to be much more devilish and randomly give fakout prompts (like an arrow on the space/shift key's rectangle background or vice versa, or a prompt that both has a symbol and text that reads an incorrect input)– so you were spared from that due to time constraints^^ I don't want to give up on that idea, but I think I'll keep it for much later, harder, areas of the game
By "weird" do you mean in how the minigame played itself or how it related to the rest of the gameplay? Is it a problem with tutorialisation? I know some players assumed the minigame was a tutorial showing the controls, did you also struggle to understand what that minigame was? And if so, does the minigame get better on retries once you've learnt what it does, or does the disconnect persist?
Feedback time!
I found it difficult to spot coins before it was too late to grab them, I think it'd be easier if the camera looked ahead in the Y position.
Now this bit is pure personal preference: I don't like in-your-face pep talk (in the game over screen). I prefer more subtle story-telling that gives one focused message rather than a bunch of inspirational quotes being thrown at me. This is only a subjective opinion! But I feel frustrated by a slow pep talk screen that tells me how to feel instead of letting me restart and figure things out at my own pace, especially when I, personally, don't find the quotes to be motivating or inspiring. Adding to this frustration is the slow egg hatching animation that plays on every single death, followed by the slow walking pace, and then delay to actually control the character once they start falling. This is a game about restarting to learn from one's mistakes, and yet failing feels very punishing because of the slow wait every time, and grabbing coins doesn't feel rewarding. I only noticed on my second time winning that there was a set amount of coins to collect, perhaps the same UI that appears on the end screen could simply be a GUI during gameplay so collectors can know what to expect of the level instead of having to replay it to get all the coins?
The egg hatching animation is really well made too, so it's only a shame I feel frustrated seeing it by the slow respawn time. I think it could play in its entirety on the first try but either be shorter, faster, or skippable on the next attempts. I was left spamming buttons and not really knowing if that was doing anything to speed up the respawn because there was no feedback.
If the intent was to send a message about how to better approach failure, and about not giving up, this was unfortunately not achieved for me. Again though, what didn't work for me might for other players so if you want to look into this you should ask for more opinions!
Though I admit that this game has a very interesting meta narrative, since the intended message of the game matches your experience making it!
Back to Game Design: I find it odd to have the first coin be impossible to avoid. Firstly because if you always start with one coin you might as well start counting from one, so that first coin doesn't feel special, but also because coins are an already established video game mechanic that doesn't really need to be shown off or explained. If a player sees a coin, they know it's either a collectible, life, or money, and if the coin is huge and there are no other items, shops, or lives, they assume it to be a collectible. Also, players want to follow coins, so when the first coin showed me the way down, I assumed the goal of the game was to go down or land without dying– whereas the goal is to fly up! Now that last part might just be on me, but I didn't assume "learn to fly" to mean "learn to fly *up*"– it may very well be a skill issue on my part, but even then you should always design with stupid people in mind^^'
The art is pretty good! I especially like the main title. Though I find the blue of the sky (when the bird is hatching) to be a bit too bright and harsh on the eyes, I think it could be a bit less saturated. I've also got a little tech-art pet peeve; you got the parallax wrong, the farther away from the camera, the slower the layers are supposed to move (specifically talking about the darker trees). If you play the game while staring at the background, it feels a bit dizzying because the perspective doesn't match the eye's expectations. Also, be careful about your values on the itch.io thumbnail, the white of the title screen blends with the white of the clouds a bit, making it harder to read.
This game gets fun once you've played it a few times and understood how it works and where the goals are, so in that aspect it's not very beginner friendly. In my opinion, a game is most fun when the learning curve is smooth, and the player doesn't realise they're being taught anything when they're being explained the mechanics– tutorials through level design or game design rather than walls of text or input prompts, but this is very difficult to pull off, and requires a lot of game design practice and knowledge about other games, biases players might have, common visual language, etc... It doesn't come naturally, so I can't fault you for that! Although one very effective way to get better at it which I'll always recommend is external playtesting– asking someone who doesn't know anything about your game to playtest while recording or screensharing, and only giving them hints if they get stuck, so you can see in real time what's intuitive and what's not, as well as what players assume about your game and how they think.
By the way I won the game by spamming up– that doesn't feel intended, so if it's a glitch here you go!
Valid! My vision for the game, if it were to be finished, has a story with a dreamy, abstract, metaphorical feel to it, which could not fit within the scope of the game jam, and was conveyed in the aesthetic but not in the gameplay. My intent was to get a form of flow state vibe that merges difficulty and focus into a calm but active state, while remaining lighthearted and fun. But thinking back I don't know if that was achieved, nor if that direction is a good fit for a sonic-like.
Though I must ask, so I can weight your criticism and know if this is an issue I need to fix or player preference, do you generally dislike sonic games, faster paced, or platforming games? Do you prefer relaxing games? Or is it only the disconnect between the expectations set by the main menu and the core gameplay that ticked you off? If so, do you have any suggestions on how to better convey the intended user experience for newer players, whether that's in the game or on the itchi.io page or description?
Alright, here's my feedback!
I really like how the jump feels! The gravity is well handled and it doesn't feel floaty nor bricky, which is a frequent issue in beginner platformers. And although I think the jump could be improved with a coyote time, I also get that it's a difficult mechanic to implement especially in such a short timeframe and double especially as a first game jam game, also a risk cost if you don't know how to implement it which usually spawns in some glitches, so I'm glad you spent the time elsewhere.
The wall jumping needs some getting used to and is more difficult in the beginning tutorial areas than in the actual stealth sections of the game, mainly due to a level design issue I'll get to. But for now I'd like to say that it doesn't do the game a service to have the tutorial be a platforming difficulty spike when the core gameplay loop is centered around stealth. It could make some players that dislike difficult platformers feel frustrated and miss out on the biggest strength of the game, which is a shame, because the stealth is super fun!
The game has no AZERTY keyboard support which is a shame. I know to change my keyboard language settings to fix this issue, but not every AZERTY player knows this trick, and it doesn't even work on every game engine. I don't know how input handling works in GameMaker, nor do I know if changing keybinds is easy to implement, so I can't really blame you for this either, especially since this fix would've required more time which you had in short supply, and if this is your first game or first time runnning into this issue I can understand the oversight.
Early on in the platforming level, there is a rather tricky wall jump (with a staircase below it) made unintuitive by the character bonking their head on the platform above when jumping off. Since there is no coyote time, it's even more difficult to time that jump right, and I feel like this could've been fixed by simply adding one more tile to the staircase and moving the wall the player must jump on a bit further back– or even not at all since the player is still getting used to the mechanics there.
In this same area, the player must jump on a very small platform and slides off it, it would've been more accessible to newer players if that platform was wider, or if the intent was to force a wall jump in this section then the platform should go even higher to prevent the player from ever reaching the top with a single jump. If they don't jump too early and bonk their head on the block above, the player often instead slides down the staircase when winding up to make that jump, which adds to the frustration in this specific area and makes it a bit unfair to newer players.
In your future games, I'd recommend you do more external playtesting, since you would've been able to catch those issues much earlier on and fix the easy ones or accommodate the level design to go around those issues. I don't know if that's what's went on, but it reminds me of times I playtested my own projects so much that it became trivially easy for me, and when confronted to external playtesting I was hesitant to make it easier because I worried it would become boring or too easy. Ironically, it is much harder to make an easy level than it is to make a difficult one, especially if it's a tutorial level or a first level which needs to teach or reinforce mechanics. But I still find your Level Design to be encouraging! Keep it up, and do more playtesting to catch any issues early on! In my experience, playtesting has also helped me be more okay with failing, and changing mechanics that don't work even if I'm attached to them, it taught me to "kill my darlings" as they say, or patch bugs which I knew were there but got used to working around, this can only improve your games!
The assassination mechanic feels really good! The sound effect is really well chosen and the feedbacks are great! You can easily understand how your hitbox looks like thanks to the smear effect. I also really like the shuriken and think it's a great idea to limit its use when on full health, incentivising players to take risks by preventing them from spamming an easy solution is really smart, and keeps the intended stealth user experience intact! Great work on the stealth sections!
I really enjoyed the core gameplay and concept of the game, especially the knowledge checks in having to memorize recipes to be more effective. The presentation is good too, although I think the colors could've been pushed to a warmer tone for an even more welcoming vibe.
- On the first day, I got an upbeat music which made me expect a much faster pace, I expected more customers to show up more quickly and to struggle to keep up or remember the recipes. The slower pace is not an issue at all! But the disconnect between expectations and gameplay made me hurry to get the recipes made and left me with a lot of downtime, especially since a lot of games in this genre are fast paced rather than relaxing so I approached it with this bias.
- I've experienced a major glitch where the coffee machine stopped working at all, I had to fix it by reloading the page which made me lose progress, since there is no pause menu or way to restart a day in the game. (unless I missed it!)
- Also a minor glitch, where if you click on a customer right after they've said what they want, you can click them again and the game will give them the last beverage you've made even if you haven't made it again.
- I'm personally not a big fan of wall of text tutorial, and I feel like the mechanics of this game are intuitive enough to not need it, however this is more personal preference than actual criticism, others may need it while I don't, and that's okay!
- I also feel that the fade in/fade out for the coffee machine screen is a bit too long, again, since I expected something more fast paced, I expected to not have a lot of time to make drinks so I was a bit frustrated by the long fade in. Although, some form of fade or transition time could be used as a mechanic for the recipes list to encourage players to learn them by heart (just a suggestion!)
I hope my feedback doesn't come accross as too harsh, it's very good for a first game jam! Keep it up and don't get discouraged! You've got what it takes to make great games!!