itch.io

Thanks.

Thanks for the kind words TheMetalCarrotDev.

Hi all. Just wanted to say that my first ever asset pack in now available to purchase over at,

Graffitified Words by James Sonneveld (itch.io)

The asset pack consists of a collection of words and letters made in a graffiti style. All words and letters are done in a greyscale colour scheme to allow people to re-map the colours to their own preferred colours using gradient remapping.

Use the small demo to play around with some of the images available for purchase by changing the colours on the gradient and placement.

Totally agree. Platform spawning may have been too random. When making a platformer, I probably should have focused more on a players skill level (which can be improved) rather than RNG. That way, highscores are always made by the player's skill and not how lucky they were.

Thanks for the comment, it's given me something to think about if when making platforming games in the future.

Thanks Milo. Something I will keep in mind.

I'll be sure to fix the UI. Thanks for playing

Thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback. Yes, stopping the player from getting the same score from the same photo every time would be something that needs fixing. Pokémon Snap fixes that issue with the player being on a track, they can't repeat photos because they go past them after some time. I might test out a level on a track for fun and see if it adds to the game. I will also implement a limit to the same photos being taken, which will probably require a level reload if the player wants to take good photos again.

 If I expand on the movement, do you think 3D movement would work better?

I thought this game was really fun, I certainly was challenged enough to want to make it to the end. Well done on getting this done in only a week. 

The falling mechanic is a good choice. It allows the player the chance to speed run (which is usually the goal for some players) but with the added challenge of risking a death because of it. The only difference with your game compared to something like Going Up is what happens after falling. Going Up keeps the player alive the whole time, while yours essentially kills them then restarts the level.

This might be ridiculously complicated to implement for such a simple game but maybe falling to a certain speed causes a portal to open up beneath the player and teleports them back to the beginning. This way, the player doesn't get a jarring experience that involves menu screens to restart. 

Simpler mechanics to implement might be the ability to do a mid-air jump if the player hasn't already jumped.  I just found that a couple of times I would try to jump but would fail even though it seemed like I was still touching the ground.

Also, locking the mouse position and hiding the mouse would improve gameplay. It is a little distracting seeing the mouse go all over the screen and it actually prevents the player from looking around if it goes onto another monitor (that's what I found anyway).

None of these issues were game breaking in any way just a little inconvenient. Overall, still really fun to play.

I really liked the two-phase approach to the game.  Most games would generate a level for the player and if something went wrong, then the game would be at fault but this way, only the player can be at fault because they didn't make a good path. (Though you could say, the game didn't give me the right cards, etc).

I would like to put this out for anyone who has played but would the game still work with a portrait-shaped screen instead of a landscape screen? While I played, I found I wanted to keep using cards even though I had reached the furthest point I could before I had to move into the movement phase.

To the developers, was a vertical screen something you had considered at all? I'm curious if that would have made the game too easy or not.

Loved playing the game regardless, just something I thought of while playing.

Thanks, klouk! 

Do you mean the player's speed at the beginning of the game? When you get upgrades later on for speed, the player does get quite fast but if you mean at the beginning, that's something I can consider changing.

That makes a lot of sense. I did watch a video about flocking algorithms, and it looked kind of tricky to set up but maybe that was because they were trying to be super performant with it. Though one weeks worth of time is still quite impressive to get that set up, plus everything else you had to do.

OnBacameVisible and OnBecameInvisible was a good choice, even if it isn't performant. I had completely forgot that was a method on Monobehaviours and it does account for the whole frustrum of the camera whereas a cube trigger collider misses the gaps as the far plane expands out.

I'll have to look into implementing those ideas.

Thank you for the reply.

I found Microsoft Edge worked well for me. 

Thank you. I like to think the weather is warm enough for them to swim in but maybe they can get a wetsuit in a future update.

Yes, that's a great idea. I know that Eliane1998 who posted the game, "Flash the Fish" had the same concept in their game. Here's a link to it if haven't seen it already. https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-10/rate/2230411

Being able to see what pictures you take could help slow down the game a bit because I know it is kind of quick at the moment. Also, the way they score a photo is interesting. I would like to know how they did it because it could be interesting to implement. 

Thanks for the feedback by the way.

Thanks for the feedback. I did have a counter for the number of shots that you could take before needing to head back to the ship. It probably got cut off when I was adjusting the UI for the web build. I will consider having more than just UI elements to give the player feedback, possibly a shot sound that plays.

Yeah, that' fair enough. It definitely didn't spoil my experience of your game. Just something I wanted to point out in case you hadn't noticed it.

Loved what you were able to make in a week, it has a good base for something that's for sure.

This was so much fun to play, the mechanics were simple but provided such a wonderful way of interacting with the world. The art style was definitely what stood out the most to me. It was very professionally made and complimented the gameplay very well. Even though the levels weren't complicated to navigate, it was nice to see light sources being used to guide the player, especially towards the ends, which signified the end of a section. Well done.

The bug I found (and it a very minor visual bug) was when I ran into a boulder. Just as I activated the anti-gravity ability after being hit, I found the walking animation was playing while I was floating. Fixed by switching anti-gravity on and off. I just thought I should let you know.

Overall, great game.

This was a really fun game. When I played, I almost thought the scoring system glitched out when I was getting such high scores but looking at the stats and how it calculated my score seemed to explain it.  I did a very similar game about taking photos of fish to get a score.

 I would love to know how your photo system worked. Mine was a simple collider in front of the player that kept track of all the fish in the volume, then returned a score based on how many were there when the player pressed the take photo key.

 I would also love to know how the fish movement worked. It was fluid and dynamic and was able to have multiple fish swimming together at once. It was really well done.

That was a great little game. A great story with some great acting.

I think the only critique I could make is that during the running section, because of the need to focus on the gameplay mechanic, you miss out on the action that is unfolding on screen. A great game regardless.

Note for other people trying to play. I found that Google Chrome seemed to make gameplay really slow for me but trying with another browser seemed to fix that issue. 

Thank you, I'm glad to hear it.

There is definitely suppose to be an oxygen meter. I must of go some of the settings wrong either when posting or during development.

I will fix that one once the jam is over. 

And thanks for playing, I really appreciate it.

I must of got the UI sizing really wrong if the oxygen indicator didn't show up. I'll be sure to fix that one after the jam.

Thank you for giving it a go.

This is coming along nicely. I like the invisibility mechanic, I can see it as possibly a challenge where the shield is unavailable so you have to try and be invisible and sneaky the entire time. Nice job!

That makes sense. That must have taken a little while to do. I imagine you didn't need to place nodes on the water, which would have saved time right?

Me hearing everyone talk how they uploaded only the important files while I've zipped up the entire project.

Jokes aside. I love the progress of the game even after only two days.

Hey Nutty Studios. I loved working on your project for day 2. 

I loved the look of the tiny planet and the UFO and how they both move.

I was wondering how you made the nodes for the placement of the buildings and trees. Were they all empty objects dotted onto a sphere in your modelling program of choice? It definitely is reminiscent of the top-down Civilization games with a hexagon board.

I would also love to know what you think of the additions I made to the project.

https://jimjambimbam.itch.io/uddergeddon-a-cow-abduction-game

You're right my bad. So many projects I forgot that multiple people could be working on the same one.

I had a look at what you managed to get done. I liked your tractor beam effect, there was a lot more movement and life to the effect than mine.

Your UI was also a nice touch. I had thoughts of doing some sort of UI, but I thought that it may have taken up too much of the screen but when I saw what you had, it didn't look like it would have taken up as much of the screen space as I thought it would. It also had a nice sci-fi feel to it, which was good. 

That's alright. I think I said the same thing to myself about wanting to do more when I finished the project on day 1. I think there will be enough for someone else to really get into it.

Well done! Looking at your changes and the game itself, I can see that you have already put so much into it.

I couldn't see it in the Web build (possibly because of the graphics settings) but I noticed that you implemented the animating reticle for the decal. I love it. It's exactly what I imagined it would look like.

I hope someone is able to pick it up for day 3.

Have fun with it. I definitely want to see what becomes of it. 

It helped that it already had a very fun base. Thanks zBeeHamZ!

Good luck. I find the process of implementing mechanics is a lot more fun when you're not the only one working on the project. There is a lot less stress because you don't have to implement every basic mechanic.

Glad I was able to help. I thought it was going to be harder to implement, so it was one of the last things I did but it turns out it was one line of code to do with lerping positions. It could probably be implemented a little better, but it looks believable enough as is don't you think?

 I really liked the way you made the tiny planet and the UFO.

Was that all done in a modelling program? The node setup and hexagons I mean.

I had a little play of what you have so far and I like the concept. I'll work on this for day 2 and see what I can add.

This looks interesting. Do you have the files before you built the game? I would love to give this a go for day 2.

Good luck. Love to see what you can do with it.

The movement and controls for the game were very smooth. I enjoyed them.

I really also liked the idea of the slowly approaching boat. It was another way of showing a time-limit to the player without it being another UI element. It was a shame that the only time you could see the boat approaching was when you were at the beginning of the game and at the  top of the hill. Perhaps having other, smaller vantage points would provide the player with more ways of showing their time limit without having to resort to a number on the player's screen. Regardless, it was still an enjoyable little game.

No worries. I'm glad my comment has inspired you. I actually hadn't seen your comment, but it's good to know you already had something planned for it. Whether you plan to continue or not, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for future games of yours.

No, you're right. A spherical map would be better. After all the feedback, I definitely want to make some improvements.

For a weeks' worth of work, you got a great foundation for a game. Menus, gameplay, art all there. 

I didn't have any issues playing, only what I believe was a small bug where befriended characters would go to where I spawned in when I died as though they all wanted to pay respects to their dead idol, which I thought was kind of funny.

I think maybe the game needed a couple more consequences for the player's actions. As an example, maybe killing NPCs spawns in police to stop you, then when you die, they could stay around and make it harder for you to go on another killing spree but if you start befriending people, that makes them less on edge until they disappear completely.

It was just a thought but hopefully it helps.

Love what you've got so far either way.

Thanks for the feedback. There definitely wasn't a way to skip the cutscene, one of biggest gripes with the game. Something I now realise could have been an easy fix. Funnily enough, I did start off the project with my own model of an infinite road, but I thought the shaders that I was using weren't going to work well with it. I'll definitely see if I can get the old one to work, because it was actually much easier to work with. (Something I want to talk about in a post after the jam is over).