Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate that you wrote down some recipes on paper. It isn't cheating at all. I call that being resourceful!
My changes that I would make to the game would first and foremost be that potions can be used more than once. I also found it to be too much running back and forth. I like the idea that you suggested. Makes sense about the music loop. I made it sooo last minute.
Appreciate you taking the time to play! Glad that you had a good time.
Good controls! I liked the game a lot. So much frustration haha.
Some critical feedback:
Mouse disappearing in the main menu for WebGL is disorienting. If they should use only keys, then there should be text for that.
The art seems like a great follow-along from BTP. I've seen many learning developers try to emulate what he does from YouTube videos, but they rarely pull it off. I had to do a double-take of your username to make sure it wasn't one of his games! It is great that you did so, but maybe for the next jam, try to branch out and develop your own style! I actually give him that feedback for a lot of game jams since he tends to stick to his Edmund McMillen-inspired comfort zone. Push yourself into new styles! The art should support the gameplay. Don't slap the same artwork on every game.
Confused what happens when I got all of the colors. I respawned a couple of times before it went to the next scene.
Overall, great job with your game! I loved the music and artwork.
Very well polished game! I found that the tutorial was a little long, though I liked the cute twists (e.g. that the spikes actually did damage!)
Some critical feedback for an otherwise solid entry:
I like that your icons in the menu are shooting for minimalism, but they are at a cost of clarity. The three bars icon on the left looks like it would be for some kind of menu (ala mobile-friendly websites). And the play button (which is ">", also used for the back button in the credits page...) should ideally be first in your menu, to fit with player expectations. You may consider different icons, or to just go ahead and put text there. The important thing is to make the interface clear and easy to use -- I'd place that a hair above visual style. Perhaps the icon along with some text. This is a small issue. Your visual language for the game is very cohesive and playful.
Work on your grammar for the intro text. You clearly placed a lot of emphasis on character dialogue for this, and it adds a ton to the charm of your game. I loved it. But the few typos and grammatical stumbles pulled me out of the otherwise immersive experience.
The game camera needs much more lookahead. I found 80% of the screen to be occupied by what my character had already made it past. Your environment is so beautiful and immersive that it is a disservice to your artists to not have the player camera looking forward into the world! It also would link to the platformer game mechanic. There is a reason why most moving-camera platformer games tend to have the player in the corner opposite the direction of movement. Not sure if you are using Cinemachine, but this would be an easy fix that would go a LONG way in pulling people into the game.
Overall, this is a model entry for a game jam. Even though you worked on a team, it really shows how much work you all put into this. It is a very impressive accomplishment that the group of you pulled off in 7 days. Your music and sound effects were aligned with the visual style and story.
Thank you for the feedback! And thanks for letting me know that you had that experience with the page turning. The book-turning does a full redraw of each page AFTER deleting the previous pages. So there is probably a stochastic flicker in between for some users. If I had more time for ironing that out, I would draw the next pages before they are swapped out. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
I'm glad you enjoyed your experience with my game! Thanks for playing.
Work on your menu UI. I assume that you didn't have as much time set aside for this. But just a small amount of polish for the menu would make people have better expectations for your game. I was expecting it to be blegh based on the main menu, but then my jaw dropped when I saw your artwork! The cover of your game is important.
The player movement was a little too chaotic for me. Maybe if I was playing with an actual mouse instead of a trackpad it would be more comfortable. But the sword swinging felt a little unnatural. I suppose it is similar to what BTP did in the paintbrush game, but for some reason I have an expectation of a sword handling quite differently.
Some bugs in the game -- the narrator told me that the gate was open when I had only retrieved two of the three the objects. I went down to the original hallway but it was closed. I think that there was an issue of what happens when you start playing the game without clicking through the narration. You should make it so that when the player dies, the narrator does not restart their explanation (even though it was charming dialogue)!
Overall, I enjoyed playing this game, and got excited when I [SPOILER ALERT] saw the game developer (you!) sitting in that room. Good fit to theme.
What a large world! I didn't have time to finish the whole playthrough, but the amount of work that you put into this game really REALLY shows. Congrats on your entry!
Some critical feedback:
Full-screen option would be good for immersion
Work on your font choices and cohesion (e.g. your logo and in-game art is pixel art, but your font looks like a very crisp sans-serif.
Music crossfading would be good throughout the game -- from menu-to-game and from one sound zone to another. Your music was absolutely fantastic, and adding some cross-fading will allow it to draw players further into your crafted world.
Control onboarding would be good, but this is fine for a game jam where people expect WSAD. I like that the player started in a bare room where they could figure this out by trial-and-error.
Art style looks nice -- would perhaps add shadows below the characters.
Work on your UI placement. You need a larger uniform boundary from the endges of the screen to have better visual harmony
Make characters stop moving when you talk to them
Overall, I loved the experience of playing this game. Cute art and funny sound effects (PERFECT voice acting. Laughed out loud some times). Great sword animation. Reminds me of GBC Zelda games. Funny bits you put in (Lora Craft).
First of all, I am absolutely floored by the amount of polish in this game! Even considering that you were working in a team, this is an impressive amount to accomplish in 7 days. Well done!
Your art direction is terrific. The music and visual style completely supported the mood that you wanted to get across. And I did not encounter any obvious bugs on my playthrough.
Some critical feedback:
Work on grammar for the text-based communication, particularly the long introduction sequence. This absolutely needs to be crisp if your intro is so key to setting the mood for your game.
Some issues about the controls:
Add a [SPACE] to continue indicator for the introduction, so that people know how to advance.
Onboarding would ideally be included for controls. Fine for game jam though where people expect WSAD.
The in-game action controls are inconsistent and awkward. I didn't like having to click "continue" and on the dialogue choices when I was using the keyboard for everything else (e.g. SPACE to start conversation, but L-click to navigate the conversation tree is awkward). At least include a way for people to play through just with the keyboard. Mouse adds nothing. Also, the pixel art of the game lends more to all-keyboard controls as a retro-style game.
Setting aside the few grammar issues mentioned in (1), the writing is TERRIFIC. I'd suggest that you add a way to delineate between what is being said out loud by a character, what is being observed by the player character, and what is said in the player's internal monologue (e.g. put player thoughts in italics). Will make it more effortless for the player to enjoy your writing.
As a whole, fantastic entry. Congratulations on your accomplishment!
Visual art looks terrific. More clarity on what is going on in the game would help. I found myself a little confused about what creature I was in combat with. The camera rotation could be improved a lot. Also the in-game controls didn't include how to fight, but I saw that you included that below on the page description. Audio could also be used to give more feedback about what is going on in the game.
Great entry for your first game jam! I love the assets, and thought that the visuals were quite polished. Improving the animations for your player attacks would be good. Also improving the clarity of what the items do would be good. Some music and more responsive sound effects would also be of benefit (a more appropriate damage sound effect would be great). Congrats on finishing the jam, and looking forward to what you do in future competitions!
I liked the minigames. Good execution of it. I agree with the poster below that it genuinely looks like 1978GAME. But maybe that's part of your design.
I was struggling with moving the obstacles around, especially when they get stuck in a corner... I didn't make it all the way to the end -- kept getting stuck at the second net (with the three soccer balls), and everything was falling down the holes haha. But congrats on your entry!!
Haha, I like this! I actually had to think for a moment at the start of each round to intentionally not do what the instructions said. The "Catch the fish" round got me every time... The addition of time pressure was very clever to make people try to rush through the instructions and potentially make a mistake. Good fit to theme!
Simple! Not sure how it fits the theme exactly, but I really liked the 3 jumps puzzle mechanic. Might steal that for another game jam ;) I assume that you are on the beginning of your game development journey, and this is a terrific entry in that context! Congrats on finishing the jam.
