itch.io

I have a lot more to say about this one than I think I expected for a game where the description notes it’s unfinished, so bear with me a bit on this one… I have a lot of games to play, and I’m not as good at being concise when I’m trying to be hasty, so apologies for the wall of text!

The visuals are pretty charming in this one, lots of creative visual concepts on display here! I actually rather like that about it. The intro animation is nice and juicy and would probably pare well with some nice lightning sounds once those are ready to go. The attack animations look really nice, and actually, just the animation work in general, it’s very good stuff.

The protagonist has a pretty cool design, and the description of “You kill the rust in your heart by killing the factory” honestly goes hard and despite the themes not feeling integrated much here with the game itself, that alone actually carries the theme points a bit here for the creativity there.

Actually, in general, you’ve maybe noticed I’m describing a lot here as creative, and I feel like that’s generally one of the strong points here. I can tell there’s heart in this one.

Gameplay wise… admittedly I start to have issues at that point. Before I get into those, here’s some positives on that.

I actually really appreciate when games give both ranged and melee attack options instead of sticking purely to one or the other. Could be something to toy with a bit more when the game is more finished, but as is it’s already a solid start to some potentially quite good combat. I also like that you have both a fast attack and a stronger but slower attack (the controls call it a parry, but it seems to work more as a regular heavy attack), to give the player more options.

Moving up slopes slower than normal movement makes traversing terrain feel pretty interesting, even if going down slopes feels slightly glitchy as of now due to kind of more-so falling down than walking down.

Also, I very much appreciate that this game has very generous coyote time (being able to jump for a bit after you step off a platform).

As for the issues… well… I might suggest that the attack animations are a bit too slow and their hitboxes are a bit too small, which makes landing attacks a lot harder than is likely intended.

Additionally, while I’d say it’s a smaller issue, it’s a bit unclear how the player’s invulnerability frames and taking damage etc. even works at first glance due to lack of any kind of real stun or knockback when taking damage, or even a dedicated animation for it, and also the damaged animation kicking in sometimes even when nothing seems to be hitting me. (Is there a stamina mechanic?)

Lastly, I couldn’t figure out how to get past the hourglass eye thing at all. I killed a few enemies, attacked it a ton of tons, and… nothing. Tried leaving the room, nothing, and I don’t see anything else I can really interact with.

To suggest a possible fix for the first gameplay issue in particular though, if your goal with the slow attacks was that you want to discourage the player from timing the attacks wrong, maybe if you speed them up you could also slow down or even stop the player from moving during part of the attack?

I actually do like what I’m seeing here so far despite the gameplay issues though, even if it could still be quite a bit better with that in mind. Would love to see what this becomes after the jam since it’s pretty clear you plan to continue with this more, so keep at it!

First off, thanks! I’m glad you had a good time overall.

Next order of business, honestly? The bosses were made pretty last second, so it’s honestly good to see that so far that’s two for two on people liking the idea behind them, so suffice to say it’s something I’d like to give more attention if I ever get a chance to make a larger version of this.

On the lack of a map and the visual variety, that one’s kinda interesting. The map’s shape makes doing a traditional grid that lines up with it well a bit tricky, so I tried my best to have some kind of landmarking in the form of different level geometry, different rail patterns, etc. to make up for it as best as I could. Seems it perhaps wasn’t enough on its own, so it’s something I’ll try to figure out what a better solution for might look like if I ever make a larger version! Maybe I’ll just add a map screen after all if it comes down to it, I’m not exactly opposed… just not something I wanted to focus on given the time constraints.

Next off, lack of walk animation on the purple character is semi-intentional on the grounds that, while I wanted to do an actual glitch-looking animation, I didn’t have time to figure out a way to make something that looked like that without being excessive or without looking like it was just animated wrong on accident, so I opted for this as a “it gets the idea across for now” option. A pretty fair criticism overall though! Just wanted to explain the thought process behind it a bit while I’m here, since it’s something I would, as with many things, want to address were I to ever expand this more.

Also, considering the music was all stock music due to lack of time, while I actually wanted to do something a bit more like what you suggested with the music, it’s something I’d have to save for a project with more time! It’s a good thought though…

Thanks for playing! I’m glad you had fun, entertaining people is what I strive for most when I make games first and foremost so I’m glad I was able to do it pretty successfully here!

The menu swapping being a bit tedious is fair, though all things considered I’m kinda just glad I got the character switching working at all in time.

Clover’s music being like that is kind of intentional, for what it’s worth! For everyone else, this is storming a villain’s lair they’ve never been to and want to get rid of so they can get their home back. But as a former villain, for Clover, this used to be her home directly, and it’s pretty much the last place she could ever want to be back to. But her desire to help her friends well outweighs her fears of this place and her creators.

As for the bullet hell bosses, I’m glad that they turned out well honestly! I actually had to throw them together rather quickly near the end of development because I wanted to focus on fine-tuning the level layout overall (you can probably tell that was my biggest priority while making this as a whole), but it seems my soaking in of enough anime vibes before making that part paid off a bit, heh.

That tracks! The game itself probably just needed more that made that side of it more apparent, that’s all.

Okay so I don’t think this fits the theme great but I did have a lot of fun with the physics driven combat in this. I don’t have much to say given it’s kind of just a vertical slice, but it’s pretty fun! Look forwards to seeing a more finished version some day hopefully.

So I had to give this one a try because me and the developer had talked a bit here and there about the fact that our games had similar names and we had to both work out what to do about it (I changed mine to have a longer name, in the end). That being said, I didn’t really know too much about this one going in despite that.

Now, I haven’t finished this yet, but honestly I don’t even know what could even be changed here to make it better so far…? It’s… really well made so far. I’m kind of bad at some of the kinds of puzzle solving it’s asking of me but it’s holding my attention despite that and that kind of says a lot given even the Submachine games (a somewhat similar style of point and click in some ways, if you aren’t familiar with the series, and apparently a pretty well regarded one from what I know) weren’t perfect at doing that.

Part of why I’m commenting and rating now is… well… gestures at how much time there is left in the jam I potentially don’t really have time left to finish this before the jam is over. I plan to get back to it later but I’m about to be gone in like an hour for probably about an hour or so, and then I might not have time left after that to really get back to it before the jam is over anyway.

This game fits the theme basically perfectly, executes the idea of its visuals and sound design incredibly well, and has had my attention the entire time so far. I do think it could be more Metroidvania-ish in some ways, and this kind of game isn’t my favorite thing to play so I’ve admittedly played games I’d consider as having been more, well, fun, so I couldn’t exactly give it a literally perfect score in every category, but it did honestly get close.

(Alas, I didn’t find an easter egg that I understand to be in this thing in my time with it thus far.)

If you change the name, it actually defaults to whatever your current name is! You only have to enter something again if you want to change what it says. Had a feeling a lot of players wouldn’t want to change it every time, after all. And then I had a feeling some players weren’t going to want to bother, so there’s a default name to begin with because of that.

Anyway… glad you liked it!

I played Dark Anomaly (final jam version).zip

The reasoning of benefitting upgrading is fair, presumably it wouldn’t be a problem if the early game combat training were implemented, I will say! I think that alone is probably a good incentive to continue working on this for Super Metroidvania Month, honestly. Like I said, there’s a lot of potential here.

As for revival… yeah, that tracks that it’s just something that didn’t get caught during development. It happens! My own entry apparently had a semi-obscure softlock leftover in the finished thing, and I actually had several playtesters go over the game, so it’s not like I can’t on some level relate on that one.

Best of luck with future updates!

Well dang, this game actually has a Mega Man X-ish dash and dash jump working really well in 3D space. As a huge fan of Mega Man X I am probably very biased when I say that I really really like how the movement in this game feels.

It’s actually really fun working out how to get from point A to B in this game, looking around at the environment to work out what leads where. Oh, and the wall run feels amazing as well.

If I may make a small note: L and R aren’t used for anything yet anyway… maybe a way to improve camera control on gamepad would be to have the camera quickly snap exactly 90 degrees to the side when you do it? Kind of have a way to control the camera without using the right stick for during platforming or such, basically. Just a thought. Not a huge deal though.

Kind of a shame the enemies aren’t finished, I can tell that dashing around enemies after locking onto them to get behind them to avoid attacks is going to be very fun once this is finished!

Oh yeah, amusing bug I found related to the dash: Going down slopes too steep to climb at an angle can lead to building ridiculous amounts of speed.

Looking forwards to seeing where the game goes next! This is pretty clearly on pace to being something really neat when it’s done. And yes, I did finish what’s there of it so far.

Okay, this leaves a really strong first impression visually and sound-wise and just in general sensory as a whole. Very charming stuff.

Though, I did find an area where there seemed to be two textures overlapping each other and flickering when you move the camera because of it… mainly here:

Anyway, the music is very nice here, helps set the overall atmosphere very well. The visuals look great, I think it’s very nice in that regard. The sound design, I cannot stress enough, feels particularly great here. The sounds for jumping, for climbing, the footstep sounds for moving, it gives the game this really nice game feel once you really get used to it. Would not have that any other way!

Before I get into the issues I had which I felt held the game back and which ultimately led to me giving up on finishing it, I do want to stress that I did have a good time here! I just felt the game wasn’t very well executed and needed some more work despite a charming presentation and generally being pretty fun to just move around in and try to play.

Now… unfortunately, there were a few problems I had though…

The game’s player guidance leaves something to be desired, as does some smaller, somewhat more nitpicky play control aspects. If you hold down jump long enough, you can kind of just… jump a second time when you let go of the button? Considering that in a lot of platformers you can jump higher by holding jump, it comes across as a bit odd at first. Once you get used to it, jumping around actually feels pretty good! Just kind of an odd quirk with it.

Unfortunately, ledge grabbing seems to be a bit buggy and can lead to you seemingly just randomly grabbing nothing when touching walls occasionally and such, and I feel like I might have clipped into geometry briefly a time or two with it before getting myself out with jumping and moving on.

Also, where the jump button issue is fine for normal jumping, it gets a bit awkward with wall jumping: If you let go of jump when near a wall, you jump off it just like you’d initially pressed jump. Also, the game’s behavior when trying to jump while climbing a ledge is a bit… odd.

…very small nitpick as well, is it just me or is the main character not actually a rat?

I do think the biggest problems, to be clear, are navigation and buggy ledge grabbing.

Well, and that I’m not entirely sure how well this fits the minimalism theme. The description for how it fits the theme doesn’t really give much insight on that one, and outside semi-low-poly visuals (which… aren’t even that low poly?), nothing else too big stuck out to me on that. The comments have pointed out the small character fitting the theme, but admittedly I’m not quite feeling that as a proper connection to the idea of minimalism. The moveset seems small enough that I’ll say that it gets somewhat a passing grade on this point, just, do think it’s worth throwing out there that it could’ve fit a lot more.

If I may ask, did you have many playtesters on the team? Getting outside playtesters who haven’t played or seen your game much in advance can go a very long way in catching issues like these early and help prevent them from making it into a finished game, even in the context of a gamejam.

Anyway, I had a good time here, thanks for making this! Kind of surprised more people haven’t given it a try at all, there’s a rather charming experience in this thing.

This is an interesting game here, but considering it straight up crashed on me at least once already (or at least froze long enough that I somehow clicked a close game button by mistake or something when trying to just confirm if the window was still working, still not sure which), froze a fair number of times while trying to play normally, etc., it’s going to be a bit tricky to rate this one completely fairly. That being said, if my words seem a bit harsh, keep in mind it was tricky for me to actually pin down how I felt in practice, so I likely liked it more than it sounds like I did. It’s hard to explain.

Let me start with what I like:

I think you fit the theme incredibly well, and I do like the song that plays during gameplay a lot, I actually think the game has a pretty interesting vibe going for it.

I like that the combat is very directionally focused as a way to keep its simple mechanics actually interesting without overcomplicating it. I do also like the detail of the corpses sticking around after death and being able to be picked back up, and the idea of having a separate combat mode for when enemies are around is actually pretty interesting.

The sword animation feels very punchy despite being basically just a single frame. That’s really good keyframing right there. And the animation for activating combat mode to begin with is pretty good too. So game feel is good on what is arguably the most important place for it to feel good.

For some more… neutral points:

I don’t care for how the jump feels to use but it gets the job done. The lack of an animation on it to imply that the reason for its low arc is that it’s heavy or something more like that to really make it feel right hurts it a fair bit, but it works, it’s functional.

The animation in the game broadly is fine, I like how the multi-directional walking is handled from that standpoint but less so how the walk cycle itself looks, and as mentioned, the lack of a jump animation isn’t ideal here. The sword swing being an instant snap actually feels pretty good which helps make up for the rest of the animations being somewhat just there, but it doesn’t change that the animations could’ve benefitted from a bit more work all the same.

Unfortunately, there’s a bit of an elephant in the room here… which leads me to my big negative point (I have a few other small gripes but I want to focus on this one):

Dying in a single hit in combat is… harsh. Really harsh. Especially when the respawn times are this long. It makes getting used to the combat, in the context of a game where you can’t even attempt to use attacks outside combat at all, and where you have to manually control the camera at all times, etc., very, very difficult. Likely harder than intended. It’s not made very clear by anything that you have to manually attack upward before you can attack more than twice in other directions, which makes figuring out the combat considerably more difficult than likely intended.

Considering actually being able to progress in the basics of the combat is necessary to make any progress at all, this is kind of a huge problem.

It’s especially odd because this game gives the vibe of one that wants you to figure out everything for yourself, yet the game has an explanation of the combat… that somehow leaves out the part where you can’t attack horizontally or vertically twice in a row regardless of whether it’s the same direction twice in a row, so you for example, can’t attack left after attacking right if you don’t first attack forward, backward, or up in between.

Giving yourself enough spacing to actually reset between attacks sideways is a bit of a pain point in the combat because of the fact that you attack in the same direction you move. It’s possible to get used to, but… with the long respawn times the game has combined with the game freezing for a few seconds while reloading everything after the already long respawn time… it can feel more than a bit tedious.

Especially since one of the very first battles is against three enemies that start about equally far apart from you, meaning you have to immediately learn all of this simultaneously in the span of a fight that tends to last about 5 seconds, win or lose. The respawn time lasts longer than the combat encounter itself.

Due to the depth perception and camera angle, I also sometimes struggled to land sideways attacks, which is a problem when, again, you die in one hit.

This feels like a game that would have benefitted from more playtesting. A lot more playtesting.

…

…I still actually kind of liked what I saw of this one despite everything, but I couldn’t really get very far after nearly an hour of playing, which is a bit of a big problem.

I recommend getting outside playtesters next time! It’s a very, very important part of game development. It’s a shame because I can tell this game is actually quite neat if you can put the time into it to learn how the combat works, but I unfortunately wasn’t really in the right kind of place to where that was going to be able to happen for me today… and, I can’t stress enough… I do still kinda like it despite how rough it actually is to actually try to play. It did actually hold my attention long enough to keep trying for almost an hour despite… not being able to figure out the combat well enough to progress, and not thinking the combat was that well executed.

There’s seriously potential here! Maybe this is one to poke working on further for Super Metroidvania Month…? I think I’d like to see how that goes.

…I’ve admittedly had a bit of a stressful week so my writing was probably a bit all over the place but hopefully I’m getting across what I felt about this and thought about it right.

I had a rather stressful past 2 weeks as it happened, which was very unfortunate timing considering I had really wanted to rate games in the jam… I still have to actually go through my feed before I even can rate games of choice…

But, uh, I was hoping to address that later today, so… hopefully I can manage that later today! Apologies for the delay on things, I would’ve rather it been different from that but at least I can hopefully have time to address it today somewhat.

(As some important context, stress actually can cause me notable health issues, so sorting out my health on that was kind of important before I even considered it in the interest of not being overly harsh on games from being in a bad mood caused by all that. It just… took a lot longer to figure out a good solution than I would’ve liked. Was really hoping to have more time to rate games, but it is what it is, I should still have time to rate yours after rating a few on the feed at least…)

Oh right, and thanks for playing! Admittedly, I did already try to trim down the amount of early game text to begin with to just what I consider necessary for the story, but there might be a few parts that could still be trimmed slightly. Something I can consider if I have time to work on the game more after the jam.

Oh! Right, I realize now I should also further clarify: Part of the reason for the warning is in case somebody not in the jam, but rather just familiar with my other games, stumbles into the game and is curious about it. Since a lot of my other games are a lot more tonally lighthearted, or broadly play out in a way that’s a bit more hopeful than this game is barring that, I felt a heads up would be appreciated by some.

Spoilers for the game: In regards to the darker themes… if one pays enough attention to the story, there’s implications that

It’s kind of easy to miss… multiple aspects of that though. This is, to be fair, kind of by design: I don’t want to take away from a given player’s own interpretations of the plot, since beyond some of the looser beats that I intended, the specifics are intentionally highly ambiguous, and even the looser intended beats I’m intentionally vague on since I think that makes it all way more interesting.

That being said, because I intentionally wrote it such that the implications can be quite dark if you read it certain ways, it’s in there as something of an abundance of caution.

…ambiguous writing is fun!

I had wanted to do more with that at first, honestly! Just kind of didn’t have the time to figure out how to make the progression feel best if I was going to do that… that, and an optional sequence break I wanted to be possible with it didn’t quite pan out and was leading to too many issues with softlocks, and thus had to be scrapped for lack of time. (This game might very well have taken a whole week less to develop, and had more time to refine, had I set my ambitions lower and not attempted that sequence break design to begin with, and thus had more time to focus on making the jump take longer to get in the main sequence.)

If I get to update the game past the jam, I’ll see about restoring the originally intended sequence breaks that would make getting to progress considerably in the game without the jump or extended climb possible, since I think that alone would fix that issue!

Anyway, thanks for playing, I’m glad you liked it!

Oh! Thanks again for helping test it out! ^_^

Oh! Noted! I'll do that in a bit.

Also... heheheh, yeeeaaaaah I started throwing that area together for an easter egg that I'd been suggested and then I realized it'd be a great place to throw in at least one more while I was actually assembling it.

...huh wait how did you spoiler mark that? Uhhhhh

...anyway, the spoiler marked thing is just a small secret-ish thing I decided to throw in.

Oh wow, I'm surprised that I missed that softlock given how much testing I had going on this thing lol

Oh hey, by the way, I just changed it so in the next update there will in fact be an indicator in a given level which modifiers are in play. It'll even give you hints on what kinds of changes to keep an eye out for!

...and, looking back at how the level code works, given I had to in order to refresh myself on what changes are made in particular... I almost want to do a remix level set for the next update now which makes the stage changes considerably more dramatic, makes the first level a lot easier overall, and has a separate high score from the original game's levels.

Oh, uh... I never fixed the letters. Maybe they were right to begin with then?

Anyway, they're referred to as radio since, while visual, they're text-based still, so it's implied you're seeing on-screen a message that's being sent in radio form.

Oh! I can fix the letters thing you mentioned, oops. I'll try to remind myself to do that when I have some more time, which may be a bit.

As for the indicators thing... huh, honestly, I hadn't thought of doing that. I'll try to take a note on that to add that soon. There's definitely changes to the level layouts, but they tend to be things like fewer or more enemies so it can be pretty subtle sometimes. At its core it was added to make routing for scoring more complicated overall, but uh... yeah I probably should indicate when you've gotten a stage change better in some way.

Also, yes, the optional objectives don't change the ending, and don't have anything to do with the radio transmissions. (The radio transmissions are... a really, really easy to miss visual easter egg, I'll say that much, given nobody seems to have found them after all this time.)

I was really busy during my last chances to approve it, I think I was ultimately too late... gah

It has been recompiled in a new Fusion version and with some settings tweaks that help reduce chances of false positives. Virus scanners shouldn't mistake it for malware anymore.

Dang, latest version still having false positive issues? Clickteam Fusion is an engine somewhat notorious for causing false positives in games made with it. I may need to recompile it in the latest version again to fix that. They keep having to change the engine a bit to reduce the number of false positives it causes.

...but, uh, also, this is a Windows game, and in looking into that, it's being picked up on as a virus for... Android. Which this game cannot and does not run on at all. So I'm a bit confused.

EDIT: Actually, can you clarify: Is this for the paid version, or the demo?

EDIT 2: Either way I don't have time to recompile now but I'll try to remember to tonight.

Thanks for playing! Glad you liked it.

the web build was pretty last second. admittedly, you're not wrong that it would've been funnier to do it that way, though. hindsight!

as for the aesthetics, i mean... not exactly, i didn't have a specific intent in mind with the subpar art at a conscious level beyond "feel like a bootleg". though, i suppose at the end of the day, "feel like a bootleg" was the goal, and those do often look like they thought they looked better than they actually do, so... close enough!

UPDATE: I know exactly why this happened. It's a bug. I should have fixed it at this point. Try redownloading!

...wait, what? when you get this far it's supposed to auto-progress... the middle dungeon isn't an actual dungeon, it's representing the first stretch of the game.

which order did you play the areas in? trying to figure out what happened here.

real. that "yuo did it" screen is worth really looking at and taking in for a while too.

the browser version has significant issues that are absent in the windows build and it recommends you to try it first for a reason. i thought of putting it on a different page for that reason, honestly. instead, i put the overcomplicated disclaimer screen up. also... did you try waiting for a few seconds on the "yuo did it" screen?

Ok, right. I think I have the web build working now: https://happy-frog-games.itch.io/yes-yes-skeletons-go-fight-the-m

The disclaimer not only warns you about the issues but requires you to do an intentionally-slightly-excessive sequence of key inputs to progress. It doesn't require any simultaneous key presses though. Should be fine? I think? Just going to post it here to make sure though all the same...

...oh! Right. Another reason, forgot to mention this one earlier because I was still kind of waking up at the time: Web builds put themselves at the very top of itch pages. So like, it tends to be the first thing people look at on an itch page when one is there. Which I really don't want when the build in question is intended as a last resort fallback instead of the intended version of the game. I'd rather somebody try to download it, run it, and if they have issues, then use the web build.

...I suppose I could add a disclaimer into the web build itself...? I do have a few minutes right now... I'll see what I can do.

Mostly so people have to read the disclaimer that it's not the ideal version and they should save it as a last resort

If I make an optional web build, is it okay if I count it as a separate itch project, link to it from the original jam game, but have a warning on the link that mentions that it should only be played as a last resort and has some slightly broken audio (things don't play at the correct pitch sometimes due to changes of Clickteam Fusion 2.5's HTML5 exporter's audio behavior vs. the non-HTML5 exporter)?

...also, if I don't have time to fix the audio of such a web build now, but find I have time to fix it after the late submission period, would that be like... fair game, as part of the "small updates that don't change the game much" thing? Or not really?

The visuals are pretty nice here. Not sure what much more to say though given the unfinished nature of it, admittedly, but given that the visuals seem to have been a focus, well...

This one has some very, very interesting visuals, atmosphere, and an interesting concept overall it feels... but something feels a bit off about the execution of this one. Randomly taking damage from seemingly nothing, enemies respawning seemingly whenever they feel like, checkpoints placed directly on top of enemies... it does admittedly, in a weird way, add to the vibe, but with the game currently lacking an ending (according to the download page) and as a result lacking a payoff, it's hard for me to make of it if that really makes the game better or not.

What to me doesn't add to the vibe as much is that the game kind of ate my jump button sometimes if I tried jumping after landing from a dagger throw., in a game that seems to want to involve fighting enemies a lot and jumping a lot.

...that being said, the randomly taking damage is a bit of a problem given that the game is actually pretty tough. Hm.

I... think I like what I experienced here though? But it's very hard to explain. The vibes and atmosphere are carrying this one a lot. I also want to see what more you can do in the future if this is anything to go by? This is a very interesting oddity of a game.

I, uh, think if I were to have one recommendation for the future? Since, I'm having a hard time collecting my thoughts into words here properly other than this one... You seem to have nailed a lot here, but I think the thing that felt off to me in a way that didn't quite benefit the game most was the level design. Things like the checkpoints having enemies around them, enemies that are placed exactly at the end of platforms so you're basically guaranteed to get hit by them when you jump across said platform, things like that, if you could maybe tune that a bit better so the enemies in question only feel threatening but actually are relatively weak enemies that don't do much damage, making it feel more unfair than it actually is, I think it could contribute to the vibe without the issues that the current setups have gameplay-wise.

Well... Playtesting aside, this was all me. Happy Frog Games is, outside 2 people helping me with business side things and the occasional contractor I bring in for projects, this project not being one of them, pretty much a one person team!

...which is part of why things like sound balance weren't perfect. Sound balance is very hard to get right when you're also making a game. Doubly so when it's synth-based and you're putting in the numbers for exactly how you want the synth to behave yourself, making balancing the audio slightly trickier when those numbers don't always add up exactly the ways you want sometimes. Still, it's something I'll keep in mind, since, uh, yeah believe me I've been thinking about possibly making a larger version of this after the jam.