It was an experience, allright! And surely had it’s fair share of memorable moments.
I really liked it. 🐁
BTW - I have a issue/bug to report, which unfortunately forced me to quit the game towards the end… Too bad there’s no save- or checkpoints!
When I arrived to the second(?) playable 3D-segment with the directional arrow controls, the game suffered such severe frame-drops and glitching graphics that I couldn’t proceed. I could make out a skull on a monitor-screen and some lamps(?) from all the flashing and choppy mess, but that’s about it. Couldn’t find a way to progress in that state.
I was running the Linux-build on ancient hardware so that might have something to do with it. There’s probably something in that particular scene that fried up my potato! 🥔
The earlier dungeon-crawling scene didn’t seem to cause any issues tho.
Welp, I managed to get to the finale in the end. Hooray!
The freezing/save game-issue I reported earlier made me intrigued so I decided to poke around the registry. Apparently making duplicates of the data is quite straightforward after all. You learn something new everyday, it seems!
When comparing the dumps I noticed that whenever the game froze there was always something around 200 lines added to the save data-values. It seems to always happen if I try to access the SILICON.ZNE (Sector 4-1) too early when I don’t yet have the bishop. Here the player is forced to go back to the zone-selection screen and gets stuck forever when the data gets messed up.
You might want to get yourself a roll of duct-tape and a lot of bubblegum (or consider overhauling the whole save system : D)
Another bug I encountered was that if you jump around from different zone-maps to another, they sometimes start to overlap together. For example I was able to enter to the forest-zones from the marsh-map etc.
The inventory also got a little janky towards the end when it started to get full.
I think that’s all for now. This was a fun and interesting experience in surprising ways!
I appreciate you returned to play it again!
The keyhole is hidden in the secret attic of the house, which you can access by jumping on the furniture and climbing the lamp. There’s only a rudimentary end-screen when you open the lock, so there’s not that much to see.
In hindsight I should’ve added a picture of the house in the speech bubble as a final tip.
That was only one of the poor design-choices I made in a hurry, and I’m not surprised you found a glitch I overlooked, so sorry about that!
Don’t know if you noticed BTW but The Moon stops talking if you attack him, and you can actually kill him! (That slightly alters the END-screen graphics)
I had a lot of bigger ideas for the game, but there’s only so much one can implement during a JAM.
Thanks for playing!
This was really great!
It’s quite important to keep the mechanics consistent when creating a Metroid-like, and you really nailed it. Very polished stuff, especially if this was your fist time doing something like this!
The sense of progression and the abilities offered felt quite natural. Really loved playing around with the mushroom-bounce and dash! I guess the vine-powerup was the one that felt a bit underwhelming, since you didn’t get to really use it that much.
I think I spent half of the playtime stumbling around until I found the final area. Kinda wish there would’ve been a visible counter how many spirits I’ve collected when playing.
Also, was I supposed to get here? Good thing you added a boundary down there. Was afraid that I’m gonna get myself soft-locked poking around!
The three “levels” had nice color-schemes and own varied personalities to them. Music was pleasant, and those particular arpeggiated chords reminded me of old Gameboy-Zeldas. Would’ve been cool to hear own themes in the different areas, but that would understandably be a lot of work for a jam-game.
(My own entry had literally 90% less area to explore than this, but I went and produced three tracks of music! I guess that was a bit overkill!)
Would be interesting to see a zoomed out map of the game area. It’s always fun how the sense of scale feels so different in games like this when you’re offered only a small perspective when playing.
Keep up the good work!
Nice little experience, although now I have the infernal MIDI-violin loop stuck in my head forever!
I found it strangely funny how every text-output ended with an exclamation mark(!) It felt like it was presented by a silly and manic narrator.
Appreciate that one could actually interact basically every part in the room. I think what took me the longest was finding the stone since it was barely visible. I wish I could’ve get to use the computer!
My older Lowrez-game from two years ago featured a white dot venturing a similar minimalist top-down interior. That was probably the reason why your game caught my attention.
Keep on jamming, folks!
You probably mean the picture-alingment puzzle in the forest, in the very beginning of the game?
You’d have to combine four instances of the same picture.
Some of the combos teleport you to different “levels”, some of them (unfortunately) don’t do anything at all…
It’s a very experimental jam game made in the span of one weekend, so that explains some of the obscure elements…
Hope this helped!
Hey, Ismael and friends!
Greetings from LudumDare (I’m familiar with a some of your earlier games from past LD’s…)
Very impressive work. The game feels good and polished already in this state. Having much fun with it!
What I think it would benefit from would be an auto-zoom feature when you start to aim your shot, especially in segments where you have to smack far away. Sometimes it felt a bit awkward when you had to press three different buttons to shoot, aim and zoom.
Moving around while zoomed out would’ve also felt very nice and natural, so I thought was there perhaps a technical reason you restricted it?
I also softlocked myself on the first try when I hit the little guy inside the cliffs!
Made it to the room after the teleport on the second run. Still didn’t finish it but will surely come back for more later.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks! I’m glad you found our experimental little piece.
Originally there was supposed to be two possible outcomes in all of the mini-games, but so far you can get “cursed” only in two of them.
It’s possible we’ll work out a “full version” some day, but don’t go holding your breath!
Here’s some fresh additional I I R O -content for your enjoyment!
I saw this entry on the bottom of the Unrated-list.
Putting a jam-game behind a paywall is generally unheard of, and not including proper screenshots whatsoever would seem like a major red flag to most people.
Who in their right mind would pay actual money for this?
…uhhh, well… You ought to question my mental state from this point onward then.
Mr.BALL is the first entry in a series of games starring the titular Mr.BALL.
Telling a story of epic proportions, it conveys the whole human experience in heart-wrenching ways.
When firing up the ‘New Unity Project.exe’, it was immediately clear that we will be traveling into unfamiliar territory.
The player assumes the role of a black dot with red outlines, who has to jump over a mean looking spiky rock guarding a pyramid in order to advance.
Not an easy feat!
After reaching a red wall in the distance, things immediately get even more intense.
Next you’ll have to navigate a complex series of grassy platforms in order to plunge yourself into something that looks like a gray loudspeaker. The background graphics and overall design is jaw-droppingly unique and inspired in this part of the game.
But one of the aspects that I find the most ambitious is the dynamic change of seasons.
You rarely see realistic simulation of natural phenomena in games, but here it’s in fact so well conceived that the player won’t even notice when Mr.BALL is suddenly about to perish in the harshness of winter.
To make matters worse, the mean looking spike-block army has gathered all of their forces to stop Mr.BALL reaching his final goal: Himself.
I’ve got to admit, when I first finished the game I was literally speechless.
The thing Mr.BALL was searching for all along… …was himself.
You rarely see video games tackle philosophical questions like this in such depth and elegance.
Seeing Mr.BALL get reunited with his own self is such profound imagery that it has the potential to bring a grown man to tears.
I’d say it really is worth the investment, and I hope more players will allow themselves to experience it.
The game really didn’t follow the set resolution limit of the Jam, but who really cares at this point.
Mr.BALL rules!
Such a strange experience.
A janky Metroid-clone with funny-ass elevator-music. I love it and hate it at the same time! (The song is still playing in my head)
A checkpoint or health-items would be nice. I never could get to the red room without losing almost all my health to the bats.
After multiple tries I managed to get the Morph ball but couldn’t get past the Metroid with only one health.
I don’t know if it’s because of my browser, but I could sometimes see the collision-box of the character, and the backgrounds were missing at some segments.
