itch.io

The theme is "Just Get Started!"

Yeah, roguelikes are totally fine!

That's totally fine!

Yes, that's totally fine!

https://discord.gg/cCTpbVuj4a
Here you go!

If you didn't publish anything for the jam, then you still count as a beginner for the first-time game jam participant category!

The less I reveal about my verification methods, the harder it will be for someone to get away with trying to pretend to be a beginner! :D

You aren't obligated to submit if you join, it's totally fine if you end up not being able to finish your game!

July 11th! You should be able to see it on the jam home page!

Go ahead and submit! Since you let me know about it ahead of time, I'll give you an exception!

Yes, you still count as a beginner!

Hey everyone!

There are a /lot/ of brand new developers entering the game jam, and that's awesome!
But I've also seen a lot of people trying to figure out how to get started practicing, and asking what they should do to prepare!
So I put together a guide that you can follow - with links to YouTube videos that I think are helpful, and instructions for what kind of games you should make as practice!

Here's the guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BJlFajBrmsoqabb2_i-3_18n0EmTFWngcVUBvZBvMxM/edit?usp=sharing

This is specific to Godot, and more oriented towards beginners, so I don't think it'll be perfect for everyone - but hopefully this can help some of you!

Yeah, you got this!

It's totally doable! Especially for a 10 day jam!
Just make sure you go for a simple mechanic that you can start testing and get working early - then you can build on top, adding stuff to make it fun! If you scope too high from the start, it can become really overwhelming, so keep it small at the beginning!

Thank you for taking the time to help out! Appreciate it a lot!

There are a ton of great youtube channels! Pixel Pete, Goodgis, Pixel Overload, just to name a few!

Thank you! :D

gamer

Thank you so much!
Yeah, I think the game might be tuned a touch too difficult LOL

Did you play with sound on? The sound provides some context clues to the story and the behavior of the creature.
The dice control much more than acting as rocks - and it's a horror game so I was vague on purpose, perhaps overly so, but iteration should provide context on the behavior of the creature. At least, the goal was to learn what was happening through exploration and iteration.
Also, the control screen shouldn't advance forward until you press a button, but it's just WASD to move, lights and dice, so it seems like you got all the buttons down.

Thanks so much! Glad you were able to take him down! :D

Thank you! :D
I appreciate the feedback! I really went deep on the SFX in particular, so I'm glad they were able to shine through, haha!

Yes, I made all the artwork myself! I really appreciate that comment because I'm pretty insecure about my pixel art skills, but I've been practicing a lot, so I'm glad it's paying off! :D
Thanks so much for playing my game and for the feedback! :)

(And yeah, probably the bats need a little less HP, lmao)

Playing this game on stream with Vimlark and everyone was stupidly fun, amazing work! Great, great job - super fun!

Thank you for playing my game and for the feedback! I really appreciate it! :D
Yeah, I totally agree with you about the level design! I ended up spending the vast majority of my time programming the boss fight and doing the art for everything, and ended up not having that much time dedicated to building a fully built out level, so I ended up just making it a series of simple little encounters to make it feel a little fuller than /just/ a boss fight, but definitely the boss fight was the star of the show, haha!

I did set Godot's input mapping to support a gamepad - but I don't actually have on hooked up, so I didn't test the gamepad support! I'll definitely have to get one so I can check and see what's goin on with that setting, haha!

Really incredible game! Absolute 5/5 in every category!
Some of the attacks were a little too difficult to dodge, but that made it so rewarding as well!
Also a brilliant take on the theme! Great job!

Wow, thank you for taking the time to play my game, and for taking the time to leave such detailed feedback! I really, really appreciate it! :D
I actually also did the voice acting for all the enemies and the boss, so I really appreciate that nod! :)

Yeah, I totally agree with the point about the early level. I wanted everyone to make it to the boss no matter what, so I tried to make it really easy to get through, which I think is good for a jam as well, but it definitely makes the early level feel pretty inconsequential! Also, yeah, I was going to make the bats de-aggro at a certain range, but just completely forgot to implement that feature, haha! With everything to implement, it just totally slipped my mind, lol!

And I totally agree on the dropping boulders attack! I think my game definitely suffered from the "dev got way too good at fighting his own boss during playtesting" syndrome! I think I got a little /too good/ at dodging it during playtesting, which caused me to tune it on the "more difficult" side! I actually reduced the speed of that attack right at the last second just because I had a sudden doubt that maybe it was unfair - and really glad I did at least a little tweaking, haha! With a follow up, I'd definitely make that attack a bit more fair to play against LOL
And yeah, I think some small changes to the decision timing and the openings to hit him are in order! I don't hate the evasion playstyle, and I definitely intended for his "Burn" lantern attack to be the primary opening for getting damage in, but (especially in the third phase) there should be a couple more openings for the player!

Thanks again for the feedback, it means a lot to me! :D

Thank you for taking the time to play my game and for leaving detailed feedback! I really appreciate it!

Thanks for saying the boss fight attacks were cool! I knew what to expect when playtesting, so I guess I never ended up needing to wait around too much, I should definitely play with tweaking the timing on his decision making to give more opportunities to attack and less wait time!

It wasn't an excuse to plug the theme, I designed this game from the ground up when the theme was announced based on that idea - this entire game was inspired by the theme and only exists because of it. You are absolutely correct that I probably should have made the swords colors a little more obvious to make the tip a little more clear for sure, and I definitely agree that the mechanic ended up not making nearly as much of an impact on gameplay as I wanted it to! If I had had the time, I definitely would have redrawn the animations and extended the hitboxes to make the edge fighting way more obvious, but only so much time in a jam, lol!

Yeah, I wanted to make it easy enough to get through the opening level without too much difficulty, and the result of that ended up being more or less that you can just rush through it. I prefer going for that because although I can fight the bats without too much difficulty, I didn't want any players to end up stuck and not making it to the boss because they couldn't, like, fight the bats or something, haha! I think if I were releasing this as a full game, I would have left the early level much less forgiving, but balancing a game for a jam is an entirely different beast, haha!

Thanks again for the feedback, I really appreciate it! :D

Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it! :)

Yeah, I definitely agree that the edge mechanic did not end up being nearly as impactful as I imagined it would be during the initial design!

Thank you so much! I'll definitely check yours out!

Thank you for playing my game and for the feedback! I really appreciate it! :D

Yeah, I think the plague attack ended up being a little on the unfair side. I think I got a little /too good/ at dodging it during playtesting, which caused me to tune it on the "more difficult" side! I actually reduced the speed of that attack right at the last second just because I had a sudden doubt that maybe it was unfair - and really glad I did at least a little tweaking, haha!

The hitbox on the edge definitely works as programmed - it for sure hits only on the very edge, but I agree that you can't really feel the /impact/ of it nearly as much as I wanted for this game!

Thank you so much for the feedback and for taking the time to play my game! I appreciate it!

Very cool remake, great work!

Great point! I should have made it clearer that the dash prevents damage by having you dash through some kind of damaging wall that you otherwise couldn't pass or something, rather than using it to get across a gap! Great call-out! :D

And hearing that you prefer the alternate control scheme makes me super happy I decided to add that in during the last couple hours of the jam, haha! Maybe that even would have been better as the default control scheme! :)

Thank you so much! :D

Really fun game! Absolutely love the concept, easiest 5/5 on theme I've seen so far on the jam!
The gameplay is really satisfying, and everything is communicated super well. Great work!

Thank you so much! I'll go check yours out right now! :D

I love the concept! Fusing Tetris gameplay with pipe management gameplay is a brilliant idea! Great job! :D

I really love the concept of this game! Super fun! Great work! :D

Really great experience, I loved getting to play as the big boss of the arcade game, definitely felt like I was eating the quarters of all those little guys running at me, haha!
Great job, I really liked it! :D