itch.io

Thanks!
I spent some effort to slow down the chaining of spores so that humans can see it happening, and I think that helped a lot with the feel

I am so glad to hear you are branching out! 
As a dev who had 4 months invested in a project in Unity, and then switched to Godot, It has been so much easier to re-do things with a clear and specific direction. It took me less than a month to catch up to where I was.
I also took some time to do a first time project (game jams yay!) in Godot before I started the re-construction.

At first I thought that leaning heavily on C# in Godot would be the easiest way to switch, but although I am sure there is all the same functionality, I wound up leaning into GDScript entirely for my re-made project. There is just so much more support, tutorials, and resources for GDScript. 

May this be a stepping stone for you to become a better developer all around.

I can't wait to see what you make next. Your attention to detail, and marvelous game feel make everything you do look super polished!

I was so excited for this to drop! 

The only bug I noticed was with hovering over an ability, the effect on the character flickered a lot, and made it tough to see what it did.

It has been a while since I really sat down and played, I really like the addition of the quizzes. It motivates me to read the flavor texts of things, which helps me have a better experience, and I wouldn't normally do that.

The hunting for a piece of soul for a character mini-game seem like it doesn't fit the rest of the game. There is no particular challenge or risk in choosing that mini-game. I think adding a timer would get it to be too stressful in an otherwise turn-based game, I'd rather it be similar to a tough choice, like have 3 options of character's soul shards, and pick -1 health, -2 health, or -3 health or something to make the more valuable ones, or the ones close to being complete be more risky to get.

I haven't explored much with the expanding the home base, but that looks good, and simple enough

I would love a little blurb written about each character, that might hint at their background, or the best ways to use them. Obviously some characters have specific roles in the party, and just starting out, I would love some hints or general advice about that.

I noted in the discord that you were interested in more detailed feedback, so I will try my best to get nitty-gritty. 

Firstly, your game is doing great. We had roughly the same concept - fetch quests with a racoon protagonist in a forest. I think for a jam like this it is a good scope. All the things I'm mentioning are probably in the "polish" category

The biggest issue I found with your game is lack of transitions. The animations suddenly changed with no in-betweens. The speed did not ramp up / ramp down. The text boxes just appeared and disappeared, instead of "arriving and leaving" in some fashion.  the cut scenes suddenly started and stopped, I would have rather seen my character walk into the cave a little bit before a fade and a cut scene.

With a 3d game, you get all the issues that come along with it. The camera clipped into the rock, and the animations were a little stiff. The environmental details and lighting and leaves were all finished-game ready.

Check through all your game texts, there were some misspellings.

The story was cute, but I didn't gain an emotional attachment to the characters by the time I was done. I'm no writer, so I can't point to what exactly was missing. It's not like what was there was bad though. 

The smell-o-vision effect looked cool, but also it looked like it was coming right out of the ground a few feet ahead of you, and then tended to cover up the camera and obscure where it was coming from. Maybe a more straight-forward straight line from your target would be clearer?

It was never explained that I should be looking for one item at a time, and going back to the rock, so I started out collecting a few bonus items before I went inside the rock the first time.

Overall great jam entry! You ranked highly too. Now you get the tough choice of polish it up the rest of the way or move on to the next thing. Good luck in whatever you choose!

I see this is your first game published on Itch! Very good job!
You are now a game developer!

I appreciate sticking with the low risk goals of collecting leaves, and it was not at all punishing if the player fell down to either another platform or the ground.

You picked some good assets to use. (never underestimate the power of free assets for a game designer)

Of course some sound would have been really nice, and there are plenty of free things out there. If you have an interest in music composition, My favorite tool is Beep Box and for sound effects, the quickest to use for me is JFXR

I like trying out different genres (for better or worse), but If you are going to do more in the platforming area, I recommend you look up some additional platformer terminology and physics. It is a little counter-intuitive, because what players want for a good feeling platformer physics is not at all anything similar to real physics.

Adding in a jump buffer, Coyote time,  and falling when the jump button is let go early would all do a great job in improving it. This YouTube video is a great analysis of one of the best platformers out there, Celeste:

I love the cast you have, and the character art/animations made me laugh

Not much to add that other commenters haven't, other than in the tile set I love the trees, but the pathway looks a little too puffy/3D as though it is a wall.

Thanks for the detailed analysis!
I feel like you've been snooping on my team. You are spot-on, lol!

•Yes, the walking sound is not 100%, we re-did it 3 times, but ran out of time to get it exactly how we wanted.
•I didn't know about the tab thing, but I think you are right, it was probably leftover from someone testing.
•A completed game would definitely have some sort of journal or tracker, and an in-game menu and auto-saving. But we really were focusing on getting the core game loop working well. 
•All items held are in front of everything else currently. I figured it was important to know what you are carrying, and it was a better bug than the clipping in-front/behind the player character with every step. Proper Z layer changes with items are also on the docket.

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to run your game. The web version is broken, and I can't extract a .rar
The pictures look cute though!

I have no idea what I'm looking at or what the different colored zones do, or what I am.
I get money from something. is it a per-second of survival drip?
the yellow things look like they are able to clip through the logs?

Maybe find some free assets, and add a UI that tells me what is going on? A font would be much more readable

Thank you! Praise from you is high praise indeed!
I totally want stuffed animals of our characters.

Good ideas!
We had originally slated a mini game or two, but cut down to focus on the basics.
The idea for the giant pumpkin was from my 6 year old! Probably for some future easter egg, or extra conversations.

Oddly enough, our artist has illustrated 2 children's books, although what was required for the game was significantly different

The only problem I ran into was that it ended so soon, Would love to see more of this. 

The only suggestion I can think of is more UI feedback, such as greyed out menu items for things you can't afford.

Good Job!

I liked the paper cut out animations, but I don't think it meshed well with the rest of the 3D world.
When I put wheat into the truck initially, it turned into pumpkins visually

I really appreciate how thematic your tower defence game fits with trick-or-treating! 

This was an excellent puzzle game. 

The tutorial was really good at easing the players into the mechanics

Its super cute, and I love the animations, and your whole cast. 

it was a bit wordy at times, but I am excited to see this expanded

I am impressed with fitting in three different mini games in a 2 week jam.
I was worried about the leaf raking one (with the physics) , but it turned out to be easy enough to accomplish, and was my favorite mini game.

I would recommend locking the forest until you get the other ingredients, instead of just trusting the player to go there last. I liked the path and walking animations, but the first time I arrived at the farm, I thought I accidentally was going back home for a bit.

I didn't like the twist ending, because it wasn't foreshadowed with the dialogue, or rest of the mood of the game.

Starting and finishing your first thing is the hardest hump to get over! 
You are now a game developer!
Find some good tutorials, and welcome to the game dev community! 

Awesome job, especially with the optional theme, and the controls! the staircases work well. Professional quality pixel art too!

The only thing I would change, is to have the mushroom guy move over to specific places when talking to something, I missed a cute lichen snack eating animation cause I was right in front of it.

aww that sucks. 

We had a lost-work scare, but we're able to roll back the Git, and only lost an hour or so of work. 

The audio was jarringly piercing to my ears. 

You could have a much smaller hit box for the leaf to be more forgiving to the player without anything being any less challenging,

I loved the artwork, the stagey might be beyond me.
A tutorial might help me learn

The names and the bouncing around was really funny. 

I wish it was longer.
It could be improved with some animations, like a silly face when your squirrel gets a worm.

I like the atmosphere, but it was a bit too difficult to last long

I love the artwork and how everyone looks like stickers!
The game kept freezing whenever I tried to make coffee.
The pace was stressful, And I would have preferred one or two customers at a time.

I loved the artwork. 

The player movement is a little rough,  and I accidentally skipped two of the room scenes because i hit E too quick or something. When it took me out, I couldn't get back in!

I thought the controls for the acorn worked really well!
It would have been nice to get more feedback on the springs, like an animation or something.
Good job on learning something new!

Thanks! That one gets stuck in my head a lot.

Nice work! I wish there was a little more story, or motivation to survive longer. Good mechanics, Good sound.
I wish it was more obvious how close I am allowed to place Orbs. It becomes very frustrating to have a free orb, but have no place to put it. Maybe allow the player to place it in the Void, to create a hole, and slow it down - but They loose the orb permanently

I am on the team that submitted Bass Invaders - Give it a try!

Good and spooky!
I wish there was some sort of ambient sounds, and that intro theme could get louder if The Dark gets close.

Unfortunately, it incentivized crawling, which forced me to play a more boring game. Perhaps a limit on how long you can crawl? (bad knee, etc) Or make it a super powerful flashlight that repels The Dark but has limited batteries

I am on the team that submitted Bass Invaders - Give it a try!

It is really cool, but I kept on being confused as to which guy was mine.
I wish there was an option at the end of each death to let me choose to save that run or not, because sometimes I know what I want to do, I just fail at doing it - and then my failures keep getting in the way

I am on the team that submitted Bass Invaders - Give it a try!

Awesome song, good amount of juiciness, and an easy to understand mechanic.
Your pixels have borders on them, which makes me think they are not a true 64x64 resolution, but that may just have been a stylistic choice

I gotta say I am not able to get very far at all, and I have no idea how the game mechanics work beyond walking and jumping.  I think I like the concept a lot, I just need a tutorial or something.

Awesome!
I absolutely love the controls, and with just 2 buttons you can instigate a melee brawl.

Those are some good beats too.

Your swarm sound is as though a festering flesh-eating wound could express excitement to the ones it is eating. Visceral, and terrifying. I don't even want to listen to it twice. 

I like the drums especially in the territory conquest sound, but all the layers work well together to convey the meaning.

 The ability acquired sound the first part is a little grating to my ears, and goes on for a tad too long before the drop off.

SFX: Sounds like Transformers movies sound effects. The death and the roar sound really similar and the roar is a little long. But altogether very good and consistent. I am getting a zerg from StarCraft vibe from the voice.

Music: I think you have two parts with the same trumpet instrument, and it seems impossible to play, or like they are interrupting each other. 

I can't hear the bells very well, and would like to hear more of them.  

I like your driving strings

At 35 - 40 seconds the trumpets becomes super duper jarringly cheerful, and again at 1:10 with the cello  

I think your SFX are perfect. I was trying to do a similar enemy battle cry one, but you pulled it off better. 

If it was my game, if you selected a bunch of Ghouls, I would offset the SFX and have it play for each so you could hear how many you got. 

I heard what I thought was the ghoul sound in the music. Don't do that or the player may think they accidentally selected a ghoul even if they didn't. 

When reading the prompt, I was imagining medieval Europe, but this is decidedly more foreign sounding. 

Good background music. Enough of a melody for you to know there is one, but it is subtle enough to not get annoying too fast. 

I like your drum beats. If this the music was for while you are playing, I think the moans sound effects should not be included in the music, as it might confuse the player with summoning minions or whatever the moans would be used for. But I am imagining an intro cinematic for the first 30 seconds with the title appearing when the synthesizer kicks in, and possibly different music when playing the game. 

For the SFX, I think they are too long, when triggering a SFX, I want one good one. Possibly consider layering some together for one more complex sound?

Could you provide titles or descriptions of how you were imagining the songs and SFX would be used? 

For now I will call them Song 1,2,3 and SFX 1,2,3

For the music:

I liked your use of trim and phasers and longer effects that go over the whole phrase. Song 3 was exciting, a little bit of a rock thing going on. All together your three songs sound like a very different game. I am imagining a little point and click adventure game where you play as a kid learning about nature and magic. I like them, it is relaxing and pleasant. 

SFX: In general, get more sound effects, and layer 3-6 on top of each other

1. I could not hear the first sound effect well enough to figure out what it was maybe someone flipping a pancake in a different room? 

2. Rattly bones rattle well, but I think this is three variations on a bone SFX. I think it works even better if you layer them on top of each other.

3. Sounds like an inflatable died.