Ive made a fair few games in my time and for ease of use I regularly bundle my own assets for use down the road. Mostly stuff like saving serialization and the such. Would I need to credit myself if I use them?
I am also excited to see the option for player content and will probably spend the next week making things. I've already spent 30 hours playing and for the price I paid all I can say is thank you.
I got your game when you released your latest video and I am in love. There is something profound that strikes me when I see the end of day long simulations. This game has been my obsession and the hours on my steam account show that. With that however I'd like to add a few things.
I'm not sure if you take suggestions or anything but it would certainly be neat to have more sandbox maps. Or alternatively different settings that help make the map more extreme. The temperature setting is a good way to encourage change.
However change across a species into very different ones can take a long time through mutations. I'm not sure how possible it would be but a map that has some form of a continental drift could help encourage mutations that drastically alter a species into several in a shorter amount of time. I see water level changes already with temperature so altering that to follow some sort of noise as well could work.
I also think aquatic life as animals and plants would rock, especially if they are able to transition onto land. I have no idea if this would be possible or how you would even begin to implement it.
This game is amazing and you should be immensely proud. I am so glad it is early access not because I think it needs more, but because I am excited to see it grow.
The Sapling is something I will come back to time and time again and is an absolute bargain for the price you are selling for. You could easily double the price and the quality of your work and the entertainment of your game would still be worth it.
I think, probably the best thing you can do for new players at the moment is make the intro quests more descriptive. For example "Get 5 Plant Fiber (Check Bushes)" I personally had a hard time figuring out where to find it, and spent much too long whacking grass looking for it.
The quality of any VR game can be deemed with how long it takes you to injure yourself. 5 minutes and I was already punching a wall. Wonderfully fun game, fits the theme well, and pleasant to play.
Wow, not only an amazing game but we both had the same sorta idea for our game mechanic. Yours is so polished though and I have to commend you for the amazing art. Keep up the good work!
This is one of my favourite games of the jam so far, I'll be detailing more scores for your game and going in a bit more depth because that sort of feedback is the best.
Fun - I love this games mechanics so much. The physics and the rules of movement being the only things given to you mean that as you play through the game you create interesting solutions to problems which is some of the best fun. This can be hard to do well but this game does it very well. This is certainly the Goat Simulator of this jam. 5/5
Simplicity - Without a tutorial the game is simple enough to pick up and understand that it took me less than three seconds to figure out what I had to do. Starting with Mexico and the USA was also an amazing design choice because the context of Mexico, America, and the wall conveys the goal almost instantly. 5/5
Visuals - I do quite like the visuals. Though I also recognize many from the asset store. This is not much of a detriment to the game though as they mesh so well together that you can barely notice in some levels. It is making the visuals fit that help to make a game immersive and this game does it well. 4/5
Sound - The sounds were well made and provided solid feedback on what was happening. It was insanely satisfying to get bugs on a flag mostly because of the satisfying sounds. 5/5
Creativity - I would never in 1000 iterations of this jam ever had thought of a game so simple yet compelling. 5/5
Topic - The bugs and historical references cemented the topic and gave the game quite a bit of charm. 5/5
WOWIE - As my overall score I got the average from my previous ratings. For this game that score is 5/5.
I love this game so much, it would be detrimental not to take what you have made and learn from it. For three days or so of development it was amazing. It is a shame you don't have any other games posted because I would have checked them out.
I can understand why some people may not like this game but I certainly do. Keep up the amazing work!
I'm going to talk about this game in regard to the rating criteria for a more in depth review.
Fun - The game is fun but quickly becomes the sort of fun you get from rage games which isn't my cup of tea. The lack of checkpoints made the importance of platforming all the more higher and I am unfortunately not the best at that. 3/5
Simplicity - The core mechanics can be a little confusing but they are easy to learn once you have played it for a while. The simplicity is there without losing depth. It's just a shame these mechanics aren't explained. 4/5
Visuals - They are stunning, work well together, and are stylized in a lovely way. 5/5
Sound - The music tack and sound effects work well. The sound track is definitely a highlight. Though the sound effects aren't anything that break away from general sound design and don't feel too special. 4/5
Creativity - The bug mechanics in this game are top tier creativity and are executed well. 5/5
Topic - See Creativity 5/5
Overall, by averaging the other scores, this game gets a WOWIE score of 4/5 from me.
Fun to play but with a learning curve a little steep this game is one of my favorites from this jam. Checkpoint would be nice though.
I'm going to talk about your game in regard to the rating criteria for a more in depth review of your game.
Fun - The game is fun though after a little bit the game loop can feel repetitive. However with this game I feel like the little things help make it a better experience overall, like the troll on the start screen. As soon as that happened to me I knew that I liked your game. It has charm. 4/5
Simplicity - The game is as bare bones mechanics wise as a top down shooter can be and it works well. There is enemy variation which works well though I am not sure if the enemies vary more than just visuals. 4/5
Visuals - The visuals aren't the best though they aren't awful either. However they are consistent which is very important for immersion. 2/5
Sound - The sounds are decent, though they quickly become jarring after hearing them so often right after one another. 3/5
Creativity - The game isn't the most creative and follows the structure of a top down shooter closely, however it does this well and I will give the developer credit for that. 3/5
Topic - With the sprites of the game being the only real bug of the game loop itself I would have given this 3/5 for being there and being obvious but not quite going any further than the bare minimum. But the title screen and it's little gag sold me on the fact that this game IS bugged. It was so enjoyable of a bug that I'm giving this 5/5.
WOWIE - My overall score is just going to be an average of the stuff above so 3/5.
The game is fun and I did enjoy it. I would like to add that with such a slow firing gun crowd control was very important and the lake on the map became a very close friend of mine.
This game is a ridiculous amount of fun and is one of the few games that not only get 5 stars in everything but will remain on computer once the jam is over.
This game is a ridiculous amount of fun and is one of the few games that not only get 5 stars in everything but will remain on computer once the jam is over.
WonderBoy is a lot of fun. The visuals work well, it fits the theme amazingly, and it is certainly one of the more interesting implementations of said theme. It's fun to play in short bursts especially with the satisfying sound design.
The game loop is quite simple, unfortunately without visual aid on deaths or any sort of score / objective that I noticed it quickly got repetitive.
It can not be understated how well the visuals here work. They are outstanding. The themes implementation creates situations which turn what I would consider an action game into one where you need to out think your opponent with, at times, you only getting glimpses of your enemy.
Overall it was quite fun, though it isn't something I can play for very long before it feels repetitive. Good job, keep it up!
Bugs vs Bugs is a very fun game. The concept is unique and it takes very little to understand what is happening and what you are doing. Visually it works well. While it is not insanely detailed its detailed enough for good visual feedback when playing the game. The sounds also work insanely well and not once did I feel they were out of place or didn't fit.
I would rate this game a lot higher if I didn't encounter this specific issue that made the game unplayable for me. The sensitivity of character rotation on my device was awful. There are unfortunately no settings to change sensitivity so I was stuck with it.
However when this game works it works very well. If the sensitivity is patched it will become one of the few games this jam I keep on my device.
Take breaks! Remember to sleep! Even just a 20 minute break or 3 hour nap to keep you going is better than trying to create when exhausted! You'll make a worse game when struggling than you would if you weren't. This is especially important to remember now that there is less than a day left to make this game. It doesn't matter how it turns out though, you participated and you should be proud of that. I can not wait to see what all of you make! Safe developing!
