itch.io

Nice! I've just tried the new update and the game runs very smoothly now!

I couldn't find a powerful strategy for beating the boss quickly, or at least I didn't think unlocking abilities was worth the time, so I pounced on the boss and finished the game in 10:38. For some reason, OBS didn't record the first 5 seconds of the race, but I started the timer as soon as I pressed play on the title screen. I've written a (far too long) list of feedbacks on your game page :)

I really like how open the world is and how you can choose to explore, talk to NPCs, fight monsters or go straight to the boss. The world is beautiful and the 3D models look very clean. Overall you've done a great job.

On the other hand, a number of small problems add up when they could be fixed very easily.

Firstly, the camera. The problem is mainly the fact that the controls are inverted compared to pretty much every third person game, so it takes a lot of time to get used to. 

At first, I was very confused. I tried to kill some enemies, even though I didn't know what I gained fighting them. The magic abilities are unlocked after a certain number of "Imaginations," but the count isn't shown anywhere, so I didn't know what I should do. I would have really appreciated feedback when the player makes some kind of progress (like a text showing how much imagination gained, or XP, etc when killing enemies, opening chests or talking to NPCs). Since it takes so long to unlock the first ability and there is no feedback, I was really wondering if I did the right thing or if I missed something. If the abilities you unlock depend on the level of the character, then it would have been better to write "Unlocked at level X".

The first time I played the game, I collected everything I could, killed every enemy, and on my way to the boss, I fell in a tiny hole in the mountain where I couldn't jump, so I was stuck, and I had to reset the game and do everything all over again. There was also another spot where I could fall under the floor, so I had to run to the sea to get out. I think it would have been nice to have a reset button in case that happened.

The chests are weird. They open when you go next to them, but then you need to press F and there is no indication of whether you did something or not (except if you look carefully at the bar under the health bar). Since the "press F" text doesn't disappear and the weird glitched noise they make, I didn't know if the chests actually worked. Then I noticed that they make you level up instead of level down, which seems to go against the purpose of the game. But since leveling up seems to increase your attack damage, I went for that alternative strategy to fight the boss :)

After pressing play in the title screen, if you press enter or space instead of skip or continue, It shows glitched text, and the more you press enter, the faster the text appears. Nothing game breaking here but I thought that was pretty funny. Also, after beating the boss, in the final story text section, the skip button doesn't work and that made me lose time on my speedrun!

Sometimes when you fight an enemy, especially the "Shadow", the attack animation gets hidden by another animation, so you can't avoid it, and it looks like you take damage out of nowhere.

The fight against the boss is fine. I just don't like the way it sometimes teleports the player in the middle of the room because there is no animation indicating the attack will happen and it sometimes teleports you direcly into the spikes of it's other attack so it feels very unfair. Eventually, I found a way to consistently avoir the attacks but it looks more like a bug than an intended strategy.

Here is my speedrun of the game :)

Very cool game but I'm terrible at it! Sorry, but I'm not going to make a run on your game because I'm very bad at this type of game and I don't think there's enough speedrunning strats for me to be interested in spending more time on it.

After some practice, the crouch jump becomes intuitive, but it's very hard when you're not used to it. It also took me a while to notice you can keep running to run faster.

I'm not a fan of having a score at the end. I think most people will have a negative score at the end, which doesn't really feel right and I would prefer on the end screen to have the different figures, especially the in-game time.

I noticed that the character goes way faster when moving in diagonal and it makes a big difference. It's quite useful for speedrunning :)

Here is my speedrun of the game:

The time in the title of the video is RTA. If I use the score to calculate the time, it gives me an in-game time of 1:40.

It was fun to speedrun. I wanting to save as much time as possible using the enemies' projectiles and I got very lucky on the last room.

I got a very good time of 4:53 on my first run and it took me a very long time to get a better time. Eventually, I got extremely lucky in the last room and I beat the game in 4:40 :)

Nice game! I had fun speedrunning the first level. I found the UI a little confusing. I had no idea how the stamina was represented and what the risk was, but maybe it's just because I'm not used to that type of game.
Here is my speedrun of level 1 

Maybe I will try the other categories later. 
Here is my run on the first level. It should be a new WR :)

Very cool concept. I had a lot of fun trying to find the fastest way to complete the game. I found a weird interaction when you press R while changing gravity.
Here is my speedrun :)

I don't know if the in-game timer is made for speedrunning, but I made my own categories :)

Hey! Here's my game:
https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/2567047

If you're ready to leave some feedback, I would appreciate it if you try the updated version of the game instead:
https://florian-castel.itch.io/dream-shift-updated

Very nice art. Up to the first boss, it's very fun and challenging. But I feel like it gets easier and easier as you progress, so it doesn't get more interesting after that. I don't know if enemies get stronger, but it would be nice if the later levels were harder.
Here is my speedrun of the game :)

Here is my speerun of the game (up to the first boss). Maybe I could have used more attacks to move forward but rooms are small so it doesn't make too much of a difference.

I don't know if there's an end to the game. I'll consider the game beaten when I beat the first boss.

The movement in the game is very fun and the speedrun timer is a great addition to this type of game. 

I did a speedrun of the game in 51.42 :)

I got a time of 51.42. Sub 50 is definitely possible, but some parts are really difficult to get consistent at, especially in the last level. Very nice game and very fun to speedrun!

I gave it another go, and I finally beat it in 5:05.15. As for the narrow path I mentioned in my previous comment, I've actually found a way to get through them consistently, but it took me a long time to get used to.

It took me way too long to get used to the gameplay, but I finally did it in 5:04.15!
I have no idea if it's a good time, but that's good enough for me!

Hey, did you play the current or updated version? It's fine if you rate based on the version submitted for the jam but I hope that the update is enough to make it less confusing and more enjoyable. If your complaint is about the updated version, then I need to work on it a bit more :)

Anyway, thank you very much for playing!

Very nice game for a first game jam! I feel that sometimes the boss is very hard because it keeps spawning drones. But when it doesn't, it becomes very easy and you just need to attack it constantly!

Here is my walkthrough of the game:

It wasn't that hard!

I think the speedrun could be improved a bit, but some parts feel very luck-base, especially the boss fight. So I'll settle for this run :)

Great game! It takes a little time to get used to the mechanics, but it's great fun! The sounds and visuals are great too. The only suggestion would be to add a clear indication of how to throw the grenades downwards because I was stuck at the wall of spikes and had to look in the comments to know that you could do it. 

It was also one of my favorite games to speedrun :)

A really fun game to speedrun. Thank you for the suggestion!

Very nice game! I think the main thing you can improve is platformer physics. The jump height is very hard to control, and it's very inconsistent. Sometimes a full jumps will be higher than another one, and it feels very luck-based. Also, if you jump exactly as you land, the jump will always be tiny. 

I suppose the way you make the character jump is to apply an upward force. I think it's often better to act directly on the rigidbody's speed. Something like that:

rb.velocity = new Vector3(0, jumpSpeed, 0)

There's also this bug that lets you go through walls. But it really helped me to get a good time in my speedrun.

Who needs keys when you can pass through walls?
It could be optimized by doing the door skip faster but it's good enough for me. I took the liberty of starting a run at the beginning of the level with a few keys already obtained so as not to have to restart the game each time. Anyway, it makes no difference to the final time as I don't use the keys.

Here is the run in 2:33

Very nice visuals. All the effects, like the trail and the attack effect are very well done. The gameplay is very simple, but still very enjoyable. I would have appreciated several variants on the enemies that would do more than just move (for example attack the player with projectiles).

The space station is very well done and I like the little cutscene at the beginning. The main thing that would need to be improved is the way you manipulate the oxygen tanks. There were several times when I ran out of oxygen just because I couldn't move the containers or drop them where I wanted.

So I did a speedrun of the game where I didn't use any of these pesky tanks 😊
I took advantage of the fact that the number of repairs doesn't reset after death.

I know it's not the intended solution, but speedrunning is also about taking advantage of the glitches in the game :)

Thank you very much for sharing. I was looking forward to playing your game but unfortunately my laptop isn't powerful enough to run it.

There isn't much to optimize in a speedrun of the game. I still found a little shortcut at the end :p

I'm sorry but I think I will skip your game for now. I actually tried for a few hours but I couldn't beat the game! More feedbacks on your game page :)

I really like the style and pixel art and the gameplay is very original. But it feels very hard and inconsistent. Many parts feel luck-based for me, especially the tight "shortcut" path. Since you can't buffer the inputs, you either have to mash them or time them almost frame perfect precision. Also, I would have appreciated some checkpoints. The fact that I need to take 1 minute to get through the "easy" part over and over again is very repetitive and time-consuming.

Here is my speedrun of the game (08:35 remaining on the timer at the end). It was fun to speedrun , even though the tight jumps are a little bit frustrating sometimes. Also, the fact that the dash doesn't cancel your upward momentum feels a bit unintuitive.

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't really want my channel to gain popularity. I just speedrun for fun and I was thinking it would make game creators happy to have a video of someone playing the game.

I choked a little bit at the end but I still think it's a good run :)

(08:35 on the timer at the end)

Hello everyone,

I'm going to start a YouTube channel where I upload videos of speedruns of jam games. If you want me to speedrun your game or other games in the jam you like, your suggestions are welcome! I might not be able to play them all if there are too many so I will only choose the games I find the most interesting to speedrun. Speedrunning a game actually takes a lot of time!

I already uploaded the speedrun of the game Gadget Heist on my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpal5V-jjRKN3w56VWKfvxw

Also, feel free to check out and rate my submission.
https://itch.io/jam/acerola-jam-0/rate/2567047

I recommend you play the updated version, which is easier and less confusing (the original version is still fine, so pick the one you want):
https://florian-castel.itch.io/dream-shift-updated

I'm not a fan of the escape button resetting all your progress when you just want to pause. But it's a very interesting concept, and I love how the enemies slam into the screen when you jump on them.

That's really impressive that you managed to do all of that in 2 weeks. I had a hard time with some puzzles. Thanks for including the solution on the itch page :)