itch.io

I see some potential, but there's a lot of feedback I have to get it up to that potential.

For one, you need to better communicate with your player how the controls of your game works.  I was able to pick up on movement right away since I've played browser platformers before, but I was about 5 levels in before I realized that I could click the screen to shoot the gun.  It was around that point where I realized I was holding a gun and thought it was odd that my character had a gun they didn't use. It was only at that point I started messing around with inputs and found it was tied to the left mouse click.

Speaking of the gun.  I found myself wishing I could use it mid-air during certain levels. Its neat that you tried to go for a realistic approach with using it on the ground and your character getting knock-back when you do so. But I'm not sure if it really adds more to the gameplay than it takes away.  Especially because the concept of falling off the platform just because you used your gun too close to the edge of said platform is not a feeling any player enjoys.

The controls themselves could also use some work. Movement itself seemed okay, but I personally think the jump was way to high.  At least compared to how the camera tracked your movements as you jump. It made it hard to tell where I was going to land when the platforms I was trying to land on where off screen.

It's cool that I can platform on tree tops. But I also find myself wishing I could just jump through them the way I can certain platforms.  Up to you if you think that's something that should be change though. It depends solely on if your level design can accommodate it. As you could probably also just get around that issue by offering other means of vertical movement.

I'm also confused why the game just restarts you at the beginning of the level if you leave your character idle for too long. It's not because of respawning enemies because I tried this on platforms without enemies. There does not appear to be a time limit. There's no indication that I'm doing nothing wrong besides nothing. It's just seems like a potential source of frustration without reason.

Regardless, I like the approach you went with the pixel art. You sold the concept of your character being a character to me, despite how simplistic the art style is. And the level design is okay, mostly held back by the feedback I already gave above rather than the levels themselves.

Hope you keep up the good work.

For some reason the uncropped png hats made things more funny.

I think I ran into a bug where I "said PABLITO" and softlocked the game. As I didn't have enough to win without Pabilto (whatever that is) and the game wouldn't let me progress to my next turn because that was my immediate next action.

Not bad overall, but it's hard to really judge the pros and cons more objectively when I have no idea what I was doing.  I did find it funny though when I won my first round just saying Pablito with no context of how it worked. So it felt like I just pressed a button and instantly won.

I do like how the king cat looks like he's had enough.  I can relate to his vibe after a long work day. lol.

Nice job.  For a first game, you did well.  Plus it stars a seagull, so what's not to like?

As for a little feedback:

- If you added something that made it more visually clear which quests you have and haven't completed their quest for yet (like a glow around the character or object) that would help make things more clear.

- I think you played well into your art style, resulting in a bit of personality from the visuals.

- more of a minor nick pick, but if you had your character sprite swap to a swimming animation when on top of water, that would sell the idea of the seagull traveling across it better than just literally walking on water. You might even be able to have gotten away with just sinking the seagull's feet a bit more in the water to sell the illusion of it swimming without changing sprites. 

- Another nick pick: I think you could have gotten away with adding some dialogue to the mermaid before giving you the seashell.

Sadly I could not play because I couldn't figure out the controls.  The art looks nice and the music fits the theme though.

Not bad. I had no idea what I was doing but then again I wouldn't say I have much experience in mixing tea or games that involve brewing in general.  I love the art style and character designs.  The music fits the summer theme well too.

First of all, I appreciate the consideration and the complement.

Secondly.  I'm not sure if I'm open to collaboration, especially at this time. I've gotten a handful of solo projects that I rather focus on before taking on anything new for now.

I've been doing art for a long time as well, so while I'm not looking for an artist at this time, I wouldn't mind taking a look for curiosity sake and sharing minds with a fellow artist. 

Plus your comment has given me the idea of reaching out if I do ever getting around to wanting to expand this game in particular, so if I ever get around to that, I'll keep you in mind.

A bit of a heads up.  I think the game is running in the background when you get to the game over screen.  It kept playing the sound effects as I was trying to figure out how to restart the game.  So I think what is happening is that I keep pressing the cast button, resulting in me continuing to be able to increase my score, even after the game is over.

Best of luck with your development journey.  I hope the midterm went well.

All good. It's still good feedback to me for various reasons know all that.

Solid soundtrack. Concept felt fitting to the theme. Everything looked nice. And the minigames seemed good. Though that crow minigame was pretty rough, I couldn't get past it to try the rest of the game but I'll make an update if I get around to finishing it.

Nice job.

The level transition is good.  It's just a shame when I accidently trigger it by walking off screen.  Maybe you could lock the player in each map until they deliver all the packages to fix that? On the bright side, I'm glad I don't have to backtrack all the way to the truck after ever package. That would have made some of the later sections frustrating. But since the game was pretty forgiving, it was pretty chill.

The game as a whole has a nice set of personality. The dialogue you get delivering everything  in an area, the music (outside of a maybe a slight improvement to the looping), and of course, that flipping truck.

Keep up the good work.

The game has nice theming. But I think the platforming can afford to be a bit more generous.  It felt like I barely left the ground when jumping. Not to mention all the times I just walked off because it felt like my jumps didn't register. Likely because I would try and wait until the very last second to jump because of how strict the jumping already was to begin with.  The game could really benefit from a concept called "coyote time". Where you temporally let the player jump as they leave the platform to account for delay movement.  There's plenty of tutorials for any engine out there on the concept. So I'd recommend looking more into that if you decide to pursue this genre further.

Pros: Legally distinct Grinch enemy is pretty funny. 

Feedback: Player could use a bit more types of animations.  At the very least you could pause the run animation when the player isn't moving. It feels odd that he runs in place.

The jump collision is also a bit odd. Sometimes I jumped on them and it defeated them. Sometimes I would get hurt instead. That made it a bit confusing if jumping is a good or bad thing.

It seems like you're getting the hang of creating platforming, now it's just a matter of improving upon your basics.

Thanks. Just out of curiosity did it feel too slow even with the max speed toggle in the settings or are you just referring to default speed?

Thank you.  Funny enough, those games where a huge inspiration for the concept of this game. I'm sure there's been plenty of games since then that approach ice sliding for puzzles in that sort of way, but my mind always comes back to the puzzles from a lot of those retro handheld RPGs like Pokemon and Golden Sun.

The snow mechanic started as my attempt to adding a twist to the formula. Even more so, when I realized how well it worked with the bonus limitations of this game jam. There were definitely times I pondered if that was the right direction to go in, especially with how tricky the mechanic made puzzle design.  But comments like this are a huge assurance that it was worth it, even if with the concern of it making certain puzzles too easy to cheese.

Thanks again for the very sweet comment.

I think the music broke while playing for me, but besides that, a solid game. Took a little bit for me to get into the swing of the gameplay hook, but once I did I just kept going.

I love the concept of this.  A little tricky for me to give it the time it deserves when I'm trying to experience as wide of a variety of games as possible from this jam before the voting ends, but I did give it an earnest couple rounds and I'm enjoying it so far.

I'm looking forward to trying it out when I can, ironically enough, give it more focus.  This is a cool concept that I could see people using to help them focus. Also, great transition.  Got to make sure I give that a shout out.

Great job. I actually got a little sad when I got to 20 penguins and reach the ending.  I was all ready to keep going. 

Real creative transition, charming characters, and nice music to keep you going through the game loop.

Got this error when attempting to boot up the game.  I'd love to try it out, but currently it seems like this error is preventing me from doing so.

A bit visually overwhelming. Between the lack of full-screen, the filter and how small the spikes were I often found myself jumping right into spikes because I didn't see them until it was too late. I don't know if all three of these issues need to be fixed but even just making the spikes a bit bigger/more noticeable would go a long way.

Also, I'm not sure if it was intentional, but the music made me feel uneasy as I played.  I kept feeling like something was going to come out of no where to jump scare me. I get the feeling that might be more tied to my personal tastes than something wrong with the game.

Great job, I had a lot of fun with this one.  

I think the control scheme is great. Using the mouse wheel to toggle between snowman pieces was a clever use of the control scheme. 

My one qualm was that keeping track of which piece I was on as I was focused on running away from the snowmen/shooting them with pieces. I often got confused of what piece I currently had selected because my eyes were focused elsewhere and didn't always have time to look at what I was scrolling to. I don't know if I have a clear solution for this, but slowing down the mouse scrolling might help. At the very least, it would be nice if there was a visual indicator that showed up around the player, if only temporarily, that showed what snowman piece you were on. 

This may seem like a nick-pick but with how hectic the gameplay gets, any little bit that helps me keep up with how fast paced the game is would be helpful.

Solid game. Really fits the theme and I like what you did with the transition.  Only flaw that really stuck out to me was the music looping. The track was nice, but considering how long you'll listen to it, it would have been even better if there was a more seamless transition from the back to the front of the track, but as is that's closer to a nick pick than a glaring issue.

Thank you.

Between the theme being "comfy winter" and one of the optional restrictions being "mistakes making the game easier" I really wanted being forgiving to be a major focus of how I developed the game. So I'm glad that came through in execution.

Also, nice snowman. 

Thanks.  

That might be something I'll have to look into once the jam is over.  As the snow collider was pretty much the only issue I was worried might end up being problematic but I couldn't think of a good solution for in time.  I don't want to get too sidetracked from my main development projects. But certainly something I'd be willing to research if I ever expand on this idea after the jam.

Thanks for the feedback.  

Yeah, I'm not shocked about the issues with the snowball precision. It was a concern that I had while playtesting, but I couldn't think up of an elegant solution at the time, especially within the time frame of the jam.  I'm glad it wasn't too problematic though. Especially since I was going to have the retry button in the game regardless.

While it's a bit of a shame you didn't get around to animating the character like you hoped, there is at least a bit of charm to t-posing penguin just sliding down the hill at mach speed on their snowboard.

Very solid game. Didn't even mind the length, as it makes replayablity quick and easy.  Only thing I can think to wish for is the ability to correct your direction if it gets extremely messed up. But overall the way the controls work add to the charm.

(See comment section) Wait? You're not supposed to destroy the doors? 

To be fair, it's much more funny and a time save to not destroy the door so my brain didn't even register saving the doors as an option until I read the option.

As for the game itself, very charming. There is just something about this game's presentation that is just wonderful.  The voice over is perfect. It fits the tone of the rest of the game very well.

My biggest critique is that the game ends just as it is starting to get great. I was just starting to think about how interesting things could get when you introduced the ice sliding puzzle and then that was it.  Don't take it too personally though.  Making a game in this short of a time frame is tough, and I can definitely appreciate what you were able to deliver. It's got a nice art style, nice audio, some interesting gameplay mechanics, nice theming, and a neat transition.  There's a lot to like about this one.

On paper, pitching up the audio as you build up your streak is a cute concept. Though in execution, I ended up not being the biggest fan of how high the pitch went, especially when the original collection beep isn't anything to write home about as is.

I can see the arcade gameplay loop you were going for though and appreciate the effort. My best score/streak was about 34 if you're curious.

Sadly, I don't think the photo feature saved the file like you hoped.  Searched all around the general file area recommended and couldn't find a folder for this game anywhere in my user data.  Thankfully I did decide to just take a screenshot of my snowman creations myself.

Overall, a nice a cute game. Minigames were pretty nice, though I don't think I could wrap my mind around how the gardening one worked in particular. It did not seem too responsive to my mouse. All the other ones were nice though. Music worked pretty well on loop and the art style is cute and on theme with the game jam.

Nice job.

Got curious about your other works after trying out the game jam entry.  I  see some things about this game that I actually enjoy more. Like there's something charming about the simplety of this art style.

I appreciate the generosity of the checkpoints. The platforming felt a bit stiff at times, so the checkpoints did help reduce any frustration caused by that. The snowstorm section especially amplified the limitations of the controls.

I'm not sure if its a web exclusive issue, but there is an unfortunate bug with the jumping sound effect. It sounds like the game is playing the sound several times in a row at once. Resulting in a sound that isn't the greatest on the ears.

Earning new abilities along the way is a neat concept. There is certainly potential for that to enhance the level design if explored further.

Wishing you the best on any further endeavors. 

Thanks.  

Technically this isn't my first game. It is the first time I've developed a game for a game jam specifically, but I have done/currently working on a small handful of other projects in the past.  

Still, it was a nice change of pace to actually come up, make and release something within the small time window and I doubt I would have ever made something like this if it wasn't for the sake of the game jam. So I'm glad I decided to take part in it.

Nice job.  I really appreciate the little intermissions and fun facts on the game over screen. It made retrying over and over less punishing.

"Did you know: Every copy of Snow and Fangs is personalized." Is that a threat? xD

I would have loved to give this one a bit more of a chance but I kept getting incredibly unlucky with the turnip-like enemies. Every time I killed one, they would fall on top of me, locking my movement, even after they despawn, essentially putting me into a soft lock.

I will say the art style is unique, if nothing else. The music does give off a bit of an ery vibe and the art style certainly complements that. Not sure how much I enjoyed it, but I could definitely see some people appreciating the tone it gives off. That rabbit stares directly into my soul and I think that's worth something.

Also, can't say I've ever heard of a dungeon crawler staring a rabbit before. It's a fun concept and I'd love to see it explored further.

Nice game with a cute art style.  The biggest flaw is that once you figured out all the combinations, you're kind of just stuck going on indefinitely, since you aren't going to loose if you keep getting them right and there isn't really a clear win condition.

There's also some bugs I noticed while playing. Nothing that really got in the way of gameplay but things I wanted to bring up never less. For one, the music doesn't loop so I ended up playing the majority of the game in silence. A shame since it is nice music. Secondly, I noticed a few visual bugs on the browser version. Specially with the font of certain numbers. It's something I've ran into several times in my own development, so I recognize this is tied to html versions of Godot games not fully recognizing certain fonts. Easiest way to fix this would probably be to use code to force the font of your numbers into a more basic font. Something that computers would typically have on them by default.

lol. I see we share taste in music. What can I say? It's a perfect track for emulating winter vibes.

As for the game itself, a nice, short, straightforward experience.  I think the snow cannons having little simile faces on them is a nice touch. Can't even be made at the goofy little goobers trying to destroy me.