itch.io

Well that's clearly just kind of a test course, so I don't really have a lot to comment on here sadly...

The models are alright, I like the robot designs enought. Herron thenselves aren't a bad model either, but their animations are kinda goofy, I don't think anyone stands idle with their arms spread out like that.

Music is fine too, but the loop is a little jarrying, it feels like the song is being cut off and starting over instead of looping properly (As in, I can clearly tell when it ends and starts as specific set point on a timeline... If that makes sense? Like, you want your loops to feel natural. You know where the song starts and ends, but the end shouldn't feel like an end, if you understand what I mean.)

There's not a lot to comment gameplay wise, only noticeble things I can mention is that game doesn't eat up your mouse like 3D games usually do, so if my mouse reaches the edge of the window I just can't move my camera to that direction anymore. I also noticed that for some reason Herron walks way slower if I'm looking either down or up with the camera, wich is very quirky. I also felt like the camera sensitivity was a little too high, a single nudge made me do almost a full 180 lol.

I guess that's kinda it, as I said, this is clearly just a testing room, I'm sorry. But thanks for submitting tho!

No worries!

But I have to say, please don't get the wrong lesson here! 

Having an actual map is very cool, but it is  just a little helping hand , it should NOT be used as a band-aid solution for level design!

I'd say the best metroidvanias are the ones you don't need a visible map at all, the player should be able to tell where they are just by feelings alone! Be that done by differing visuals, interesting gameplay patterns, noteable landmarks or anything like that. For example, you could have made less big open rooms and more cramped corridors ones. If the player can come back to a room that gives a "hub area" feeling they will be able to find thenselves all the much easier without actually needing a visible map for localization.

Maps are still great for localizing where you DIDN'T go yet by showing the player where are new exits on rooms they already passed throught, but they should not be used for mitigating "I'm lost" situations.

Ooooooh that's all so awesome, thank you!!

I had a feeling there was no way for the knight to actually be Lucas because of how ambiguous you made their appearance on the town to be, but I certainly wasn't expecting all of those turn of events! Thanks for the little novel! It was very fun reading throught that, and I love your passion for it,  it's not everyday you find jam entries with that much of love put into their actual world and characters x3

I'll see if I listen to the playlist at some point if I have the time to. I have my personal reservations against giving too much attention to suno since it's AI stuff, but I'll try to let that aside if I do listen to it

No worries, there are other entries on this edition I was also unable to play due to my laptop being quirky, I just didn't comment on those because I reported it on the Discord instead. That's a very common occurrence for me unfortunately x,3

A real bummer indeed tho, I was looking forward to this one, and you actually hooked me up with a story and now I will never know the ending oooh nooo! What happened to Amelia? Is that lone knight actually Lucas? Why did he take 10 whole years to come back to town? How did the blacksmith didn't age a single bit?? And why didn't he go after his daughter??
trully,  questions I might never have them answered TwT

I'm always down for playtesting jam games whenever I have the time to, specially if it's MvM <3

Just hit me up on the mvm Discord! I'm fairly aactive there, I'm the one person with a japanese nickname x) (Pielloww)

I won't lie, I entered this with very low expectatives, but I left extremelly pleasantly surprised!

You might think there's not a lot to comment about art here, but actually, this game's visuals are quite very well put togheter. I actually never felt lost at any point in the game because the shapes of the level design are very good, and I could even make out to understand there are 3 whole distinct areas here, the starting cave, the water zone and the maze downwell, despite they all sharing the exact same (lack of) assets!

Also, those are NOT just some random squares and rectangles made for game mechanics, this is clearly a living world in disguise! I can tell there is something going on here... from the giant maze-like structure hid behind a laser door to the weird rectangles with orange lines on them that moves quite erratically... there is a reason they are all locked up on dead ends, isn't there? That fact alone already gives them such an eerie vibe, and I love them for it!!

Also, I really like how you used the outlined tiles to guide us into safe points, that's something very important in Metroidvanias and most people kinda overlook when placing down their rest zones.

The bosses are all fun, altought I will admit they can be a little nuisance to deal with sometimes. The I-frames when you get hit are way too little so it's quite common to get comboed by the bosses without a real way of escaping their grasp, and for the water pond boss in specific, the game doesn't make you stop moving after you fall onto the water, so it happened a lot of me falling down, then respawning on the middle platform and immediately falling down again because I was still holding the key.

Also, This will sound very couterintuitive, but I actually felt kinda cheated on by the hitboxes, despite them being exactly what I was seeing lol. It might just be a me being too used to it thing, but I will never find hitboxes that are exactly your size to feel like they're right, it just feels wrong to me not being able to phase a tiny bit into enemies or their attacks before actually getting hurt, everything just feels so big!!

Lastly, the control scheme is a little weird.... I looked it up and it doesn't seem to match neither AZERTY nor QWERTZ, so I really have no idea where the hell you got DX-spacebar from x)

I personally really hate jumping with the spacebar on 2D games, it's always nice to just let the player jump with the "up" input if it's not used for anything else. And... unless your keyboard have D and X side by side, why did you choose two keys that are on top of each other instead  of just ZX or DF? That makes such a weird shape on my hand and it's not quite the comfiest thing on the world  </3

Great game tho! I missed having some music, but the reason there's none is understandable. (Also, spoiler alert, but I actually giggled when the final boss turned into a pickup and tricked me into running into it, that was a genius second phase x3  ) 

I'm afraid I can't actually play this game...

The downloadable version doesn't open for me at all, it only does the sound effects of everything, and then starts playing the menu music, but it never shows anything other than a black screen...

The browser version looked like it was gonna work despite the logo animations being super laggy, but as soon as I started the game, it looked.... interesting

After that  I walked a little bit to the right and my browser gave me a "WebGL got screwed" popup and the screen turned black again.

Next reload I tried to lower the resolution on the settings to see if it fixed things, but it seens like all I got was to make Lucas so much more anxious to find Amelia asap

And then the game just black screened again after entering the mine....

I don't wanna insist too much since I know this is just going to lead to more glitches and crashes, so I'm sowwy TwT

It's not even your fault really, I'm blaming that on my 4GB ram and integrated gpu.

I usually can run Godot games just fine, but from the looks of your page you seen to really like customizing your Godot with all sorts of stuff so that's probably why my  laptop didn't like it lol

Aaawww that's a cool one, despite the short living.

The robot is adorable, I love it's silly R.O.B face and hands!  And the way it ledge grabs by having no animation at all is actually very amusing and fits it so perfectly x)

I also love the tutorial drawings. My "lame critical thinking side" tells me they look the way they do because you didn't have time to do proper tutorials, but I fricking love them, it's so silly but so cute xD

Also, props for having keybinding options! I will always encourage devs on implementing those,  a lot of people overlook that just because "it's a jam, I won't have time for this!" when in reality I really do believe that's a crucial thing to have in any game.

I like the platform zapping mechanic, but I will admit, I was extremelly confused about them. I didn't understand why everyone of the always-lit platforms just did a tiny nudge upwards instead of taking me somewhere like the bigger zap-timed ones, so I actually thought my game was glitched, it was only after I came to the comments to see if anyone else had this problem that I realized they were supposed to be springs. After that I went back to it, and you be sure I had  a blast! That's an amazing mechanic and it's super fun to play with it! Wich is very sad how little indication you actually have that that's how they're suppposed to work....

There are quite a few ways to fix that:

1 - Make the place you get the zapping a deep hole with one of those down there, so the only way to get out is by using it's impulse. This would make it way more intuitive that this is how physics works here, since instead on the actual game we only interact with those platforms out in the open where it's not really clear the way to go is upwards. (In fact, everywhere those platforms show up it actually looks like the path to progress is very horizontal, and since the zap-timed plats do help you travel more horizontally instead of vertically, that adds to the confusion)

2 - Tweak the animation a little bit. Right now all the platform does is just... gently nudge  you upwards. It doesn't feel like something that can launch you away. Make it agressive! That platform doesn't want you to stay on it! It wants you very far away into space!! Bonus points if you make it actually nudge a tiny bit downwards before launching you up, since you know, that indicates momentum!

3 - Just make them look significantly more different than the zap-timed ones. Yeah that one is lame and easy, but hey it works! xD
 

Ideally, the solution is actually all three of the above, but I still wanted to mention them out in topics like that because it felt fitting x3

And I think that's kinda it, there's not a lot to comment on here other than that issue in specific, but still, that was simple but sweet. Thanks for sharing it with the class <3

(Btw, why didn't you call it "Biomimetics" here on the game page? An actual title is way more inviting than just a... ID tag... Plus the name is very cool)

(edit: I just noticed one of the gifs on the page actually  shows you using  the platofrms properly. oopsie! But still, you should never let your players rely on stuff outside of the game itself)

Simple and sweet, very pleasant. I don't have a lot to comment on tho.

Visuals are very amusing, love the ascii stickmans, always fun to see. Animations are a little awkward, specially the attacking one, I really have no idea what my stickman is supposed to be doing when I press J lol. I think it's supposed to be a punch? It kinda lacks any sort of... well, PUNCH! As in, it is way too soft and smooth, it doesn't feel like an attack at all, it looks more like I'm trying to grab something on the wall or something.

I really love the fists upgrade tho lmao. Just the word "FISTS" randomly floating there and then just having "FIST" on my character's hands is just mwah, perfection xD

I also liked the little cinematic intro, and I like all the crew members around, always love having someone to talk to.

Combat is surely something that exists... But it really is just "stick your face on the enemy and spam". Everything  feels and look very soft so it's hard to tell when something is damaging you or the enemies. Sure, we flash for a little bit but that's kinda it. It really needed a little bit more of feedback, and impact, wich goes back to the attack animation feeling way too soft.

Also, I have the duty to be annoying: LET ME JUMP WITH W!!!

Personal preference, but I just don't like the spacebar lol, so giving your player options is never a bad idea. You used J for attacking, if you're not gonna let me jump with W then at least give me the option to do so  with K right besides it. Anything to spare me from the devilishness of the evil big bar buuwwaaaah

Color me extremelly impressed, that was a very wild ride.

The amount of content here is surreal and it's quite well polished the whole way throught, and the fact you did it all from scratch makes it even more unbelievable to see. This is definitelly the most impressive and well made game on the whole jam when it comes to the technical side of things, there's no doubt on that.

Like, for real, this game, it is, freaking, HUUUUUGEEEEE, and like, yeah, that's... mostly a good thing, actually. The actual map  is super varied and you're never 100% lost, because the gwaphics and level design are all fairly memorable from room to room, and the whole map is actually really well designed in general.... Or at least I thought so on the first 40 minutes or so of playing it. It's funny really, everything feels like this should be a perfect entry, but there was a point were things started to get.... a little annoying to navigate. And the moment I felt like I actually needed to use the map you provided on the game page to progress was the moment I knew everything went downhill.

First things first, the fact you actually felt the need to leave a map on the game page should already have been a signal, but it is REALLY hard to find out where you actually need to go or not.  Honestly, the SINGLE BIGGEST offender of that is the path to the sliding skill, after you get the hammer. Pretty much every other breakable wall on the game is actually fairly intuitive to tell where they are, wich is good design, EXCEPT the SINGLE most MANDATORY one!!! Like, really, how did that happen? why is every other breakable wall a little offset from the rest or on spots that looks like entrances, but the one wall that should be the clearest of them all just looks like a perfectly normal wall on an absolutely random room with nothing remarkable about it?? That single wall just felt so evil for absolutely no reason lol.

Also, there's is no indication wheter or not I'm near a save point or a warp room before actually encoutering them, so they're all extremelly missable, since they might as well just be another normal room with more enemies. This makes for some moments where the player might feel like they've been wandering around for hours withouth ever finding a single place to rest because they just passed by all the chekpoints. their positioning on the full map is actually very descent, they're very fairly spaced from each other, but there should have been something on the scenery to indicate wheter or not you're near one of them.(Especially the ones on the final area because of all the softlock transitions issue... Imagine you finally reach that place, but due  to a bug have to reload your save all the way back to the skeleton boss at the catacombs because you didn't enter the completely normal looking entrance that led to the  save point at the final area?)

Also, something that also made traversing kinda frustating was the combat. It's actually super smooth and super fun at the beggining of the game! But as you explore  further annd further the enemies just gets more and more damage spongy.... I guess that's on me for not finding every single sword upgrade, but hey, that's fine, we have fireballs!... Until Fireballs don't kill them either and I'm out of stars.... Also, some enemies are just kinda bullshitty, like the those little worms you find on a few rooms. They're literally too low on the ground to hit with any of my attacks, and there's a room on the water area where I am literally FORCED to tank hits from them since I have to slide below rocks with worms on the floor that I have no way of killing or avoiding... And also, who had the idea of making tankier specter paparazzis?? The ones on the catacombs took 2 hits to die and that felt so perfect for this kind of enemy, so you can imagine I was not happy having to deal with things following me at high speeds that took 5 or so hits to die at the final area... (But hey, at least I could fireball those!).

(Kind of unrelated but still related tho, I really like the detail that Skeletons have this secret weakness of dying instantly to the hammer. It's never mentioned on the game, but I think it's fun this way, and it's actually quite intuitive, since you know, bones are just as hard as walls!)

Oh well, all of that aside, that's a really amazing game.... The art is super good and consistent, and I love all the scenery and decorations and different tiles sprinkled all around, and the music is also very very good, I love them all, altought there's this tiny detail that the music restarts from the beggining everytime you pause lol.

Also,  an OPTIONS MENU??? That's peak!!! I really appreciate that! Specially the input configurations! It's just always so good to have those, even on jam games I'd argue it's super worth it to spend some time to develop something like that, and mobile controls even? Now that's just overkill lmao, but heck yeah, the more the merrier!! xD

Save files are also always very appreciated, altought I did play the whole game in a single sitting, wich was probably detrimental, a good chunk of my frustration with exploration might have been mitigated if I actually took a break, but oh well...

Also spoiler alert, but the ending? The princess was me. I'm sorry but I can't afford to see Sir Regal hitting a slime 10 times without killing it in front of me again x)

Don't get me wrong tho, this is probably one of the games most likely to win the jam despite my negativity on this comment, I'm sorry for the rant x3

That's certainly a dude doing dude stuff if I've ever seen one.

The art is gorgeous, there's very little to see here, but it's pleasant, so thanks for sharing with the class x)

Oh yeah music is nice too, I left the game running while writing this to listen to both of them.

I missed some impact on the parrying honestly, I've always seen parries as the epicest thing in the world, so I thought it lacked a little bit of KABLAM! when the blades clashed you know? Right now the skeleton kinda just gets a little sad that I blocked him, I can't even see his sword clashing onto my dude's one.

Also, multiple key configs! That's a plus if I've ever saw one! Always appreciate having options. Something I kinda learned playing another game earlier on this jam is that clamping buttons on 2x2 squares is actually quite comfy, so next time instead of ZXCV and JKLÇ maaybe try ZXAS and JKUI? (the former would clash with WASD but you could make that a toggle maybe?). Anyway, that's just personal preference stuff, it's not that relevant x)

That actually felt very good for a single room, usually I struggle to come up with any commentary at all when that's the case lol

Sad thing this is pretty much just a testing zone, otherwise this actually feels like a fairly decent game overall.

Love the character design, he's super duper cool, and the animations  are also really sick! Definitelly the best part of what you could show up to the class.

Gameplay is actuallly super smooth too, I actually feel like I'm just playing Megaman X, wich is awesome. Usually I'd complain about spacebar jumping here because of my vendetta against it but hey you actually let me use arrow keys here so it wasn't that bad at all. (X is still a way better key tho, you can't just separate Z and X  like that, they're a lovey dovey couple!!). Anyway, my point is, multiple key configurations! That's a more than welcome sign and I really appreciate it xD

Oh well, I guess that's kinda it...  The credits imply I should be hearing music, but nothing played for me so I was on silence the whole time, I wonder if it's a bug?

Either way, congrats on submitting! regardless of how finished or not your project is, it's still an awesome feat!

That's so adorable awawawaw

Everything here is just so cutie cutie, even the walking sound effect is lovely, and I really like all the little animations like dying and the fact the air moves are all just some sick flips x3

The enemies are also so huggable, I want one of those bug guys as a plushie, they're just some silly little goobers. The way every enemy actually reacts to your presence and there's exclamation points and everything is also something I just love, I always find those kinds of enemies the absolute best ones, because you know, they feel like they're alive, as they should be!

Artstyle and music are really top notch, there's really nothing to complain here, just to enjoy.

Gameplay was also super smooth, all the mechanics flow really well, and I specially love the picaxe since it's quite unique and creative. I also love how you implemented pogoing, usually this kind of game lets you just spam downslashes for free, but here there's a timing to master if you wanna stay on top of enemies, and that was a very appreciated change of pace.

I also always appreciate some little lore, I'm always curious to see what flavor text the next item is gonna get, even tho admiteddly this game doesn't really go deeper than just the "stock metroidvania lost civilization" stuff, but hey, it's better than nothing!

And now, I must fulfill my role as this jam's official number one spacebar hater: WWWWHYYYY???  TwT

W is like, sooo freeeee!! Sure, it interacted with stuff, but c'mon! Interacting is such a situational input to be wasted on such a good key!! I actually had so much difficult adjusting to all three JKL inputs because I had  to keep my thumb on this damm bar and I kept messing up because I had to focus on my thumb instead of the actual inputs I needed. Yeeesss, I know, I know, it's just personal preference, and it doesn't actually affect the game in any meaningfull way... But still, just coding the jump to happen on both buttons is like, a single line of code thing, there's really no reason to limit a 2D game to spacebar jumping unless you have a REALLY good excuse to. (And if phasing down throught platforms is an issue with W, I always prefered them being phased by double tapping S instead as well)

Anyway, rant over, aewsome game x3

I see....

I actually thought this could be a possibility when I went back to it to record the clip when I paid attention to it's positioning x)

When I got the double jump I just turned around and went back the same way I came lol

This ledge

Huh that's a funny one.

First of all,  the metal ball thingie, it's awesome! Super creative ability and it flows so well! Props to the level design for that, it was really fun to bounce around with that, I love it!

That said, wow that map is so huuuuuge, and like, in kind of a harmfull way I'm afraid. Every single room kinda just looks exactly like the previous one so after a dozen screen transitions I was already completely lost, and the rooms are soooo big, with not a lot of interesting stuff happening on them before you get the metal form, so like, until then you're just kinda... walking and jumping aimlessly throught a lot of random platforms with an ocasional squirrel here and there. And the metal form was actually the only thing I found AT ALL, I couldn't figure where to go next... I did climb a specific room that require  a lot of very cool bounces, but then at the top it was just a dead end lol

In the end I got to a room with very weirdly missplaced coral spikes that had no hitboxes, and fell out into the void when I tried leaving it since aparently it had no transition to the room before it... After that I kinda gave up since walking all the way to the metal upgrade again sounded like a chore, plus I have no clue where on the map it actually is lol, as I said, I was completely lost. (Usually I don't give up that easilly to silly softlocks, but in this case I really have no idea how to navigate this map, it's way too big and empty....)

So yeah, I have no idea  if I saw everything I could see or if I literally missed the whole actual game because there's really no indication of progress anywhere, not even the game page gives me any clue, so sorry if anything x)

Next time I'd actually advise to build way less rooms. Say with me folks: Quality over quantity!

That's very cute x)

Not much else to say tho, it's very simple, wich I expected so no problem here.

Since you gave all the skill points on the beggining I just used the spells I thought looked the prettiest, I don't know exactly what any of them actually do lol. After getting the ground slam I only used that tho, becuase it's the most fun skill honestly x)

Hitboxes are way too big by the way, it's almost impossible to avoid getting hit by enemies and sometimes I bonked my head on corners that I shouldn't. Next time be sure to make hitboxes smaller than their sprites, they should never be a full square around the whole image.

Congrats on your first game! And thanks for choosing this jam for doing so! x3

Fun little game.

The art is alright, I like the robot designs, they cool. Animations are a little janky tho, I'm way more of a "spam to shoot" person instead of holding the button, so my little guy was constantly flickering anytime I started shooting, and their legs also kept restarting the walk animation so they were kinda just sliding throught the floor when that happened. I also felt like the scenery could have used some more decoration, other than 2 different backgrounds for the 2 areas, the rooms thenselves have nothing to distinguish one from the other so they blend togheter quite a lot. That's also the level design's fault, there's not a lot of unique block formations or platforming challenges to be memorable. In fact, instead there are quite a worrysome amount of blind jumps, I could never tell wheter a path downward was gonna be the way to go or just a sneaky spike pit, and reacting with the wall jump is not even an option since the camera takes way too long to follow you down.

Audio works for the most part, but some sound effects are very questionable honestly... I don't understand why the hovering sound is so loud and why it takes forever to stop playing after I've already stopped hovering, and you can hear the eyeball enemies shooting constantly from anywhere on the room they're in and that does get annoying very quickly if you don't get out of your way to go kill them.

Also, the pistol is just so comically weak lol, I tried using it for a while but after some point I was just slashing everything meelee, wich is not necessarily neither a bad or good thing, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

The energy idea is... interesting, there's probably potential here, but the only thing that really uses it are the wall jumps and that's no good, there were more than one moment I had to just wait near a wall for my energy to replenish so I could finally climb it, and that's no fun. Snipe mode is also a very unique and creative idea, but I feel like the execution still needs some time on the oven, it's kinda way too sluggish for my liking and it just breaks the flow of the game, so I only used it to open the gates I needed it to, and to save my ears from the eyeball dudes.

It's still a solid entry tho, just needed a little more polish I'm afraid

OH. MAH. GODDOOO!!!

I loved this SOOO MUUCH!!!

It's sad that there's not a lot to see other than a few caves and desserts, but I still loved all of it. the art is super pretty, the music is also very good, and the sound effects (despite being external assets) are so ear-candyyyyy. I'll admit I fell in love with this game as soon as the starting cutscene started, I'm a sucker for any kind of little stories, but the one you guys presented here was actually done sooooo well!! I love Maira and her design, and I love how the intro cutscene and the portraits have this black/white sketch artstyle, it gives the game so much identity! Also, the fact you actually start the game on low health because you just crashed??? Those are the tiny details I love to see!

The boss fight was also top tier! I love everything about it, and it even have an ENTRANCE SCENE!!! I am not joking when I say I think that's the first time I see a boss having a proper, fully fleshed out entrance scene in this jam. (Granted, I don't play every single entry that is submited everytime, but still)

And I think that's kinda it, really, I have nothing else to say x)

I guess the only nitpick I can give is that everytime you pass throught a transition Maira stops dead on the new room until you release the movement key and press it again, but like, that's so minor lol

Completely unrelated now, but I find it very funni the idea of a excalibur just casually lying around on a random alien planet x)

Also, the cover art is sick, but it shows Maira going against a T-Rex, and I saw no T-rexxes, so forget everything I said, this game is a 0/10

Ebic, very fun little game

Fairly simple too tho, I don't have a lot to comment on. Aesthetics looks nice besides the AI generation, and the boss music was actually quite a bop too, but I'll have to take you some points out due to personal bickeries sowwy x)

(I mean I already do that to every game that uses external assets in general, but shhhhhh don't let them know it)

I loved how the music didn't stop when I died to the boss tho, that way I was always pumped up to get back to action. It's something small but it's something a lot of other games that gives you the chance for quick retries never do.

Something that felt a little cheap on the bossfight was how it gave me no time to react to fireballs at all if I was already too close to it when it began shooting, I think it would have been nice if it did a backdash to gain distance before doing that (it could do it for the dash attack too so you have more time to properly see the indication, and also, it would just make the whole fight coreography a little fancier in general). Also, when the boss shoot fireballs on the middle  of a flip, their textures comes flipped too so sometimes they were super thin lol. (I do love the paper flipping tho, it never fails to be charming x3)

Also, there is a wall at some point in the map I didn't actually cross... It looked like it was set up to be aaccessed by some kind of wall jump or ledge grab ability, but I just got to the end without finding one. Maybe I missed something, but I can't tell.

That was interesting, to say the least.

Stealth Metroidvania is an idea I've been dreaming about ever since it appeared as an optional theme on one of the voting pools, so I was curious to see what was going to come out of this. There's definitelly potential behind the idea, but I still don't feel like it have been fully fleshed out here sadly, but I understand this is probably due to time restraints. I really like how Patrick is barely faster than the enemies tho, after all, the best stealth games are the ones were stealth is a mere suggestion!

The art is very pretty too, you guys went all out on the scenery and it paid off, it's a very pleasant world to wander around and look at. I also really appreciate the story, I'm also the kind of person that is way more willing to play as a named character than a generic hitbox provider, and I kinda wanted to see more of it, I don't feel like I had enought time to know Patrick properly, kinda wish I could also have actually met Demmie throught a phone call or something (Also cmon, was Patrick's computer really the only one on that whole building?? or did Jack went all out breaking everything he found on the way? (Actually, that seens like a funny image, I'm headcanoning that))

But anyway, gameplay was pretty simple, I don't have any real comment on that. ALTOUGHT, the sound effects lmao, I'm sorry, but I just can't tank the "AURGH", "UGH", "EUGHH" every time I jump, it's just soooo silly XD

I also found the backstab animation amusingly cute, idk, every time I saw it I just screamed a very soft "hyiaa" in my mind x)

Also yeah, you can fall out of bounds if you pass throught a transition and immediatelly turn around, I assume that happens because the game spawns Patrick right at the edge of the room whenever he pass throught a door. There's also no ceilings on the open areas, so I also could climb every big wall and throw myself into the void behind them too because that's funni

A minor nitpick too: I will once again advocate against spacebar jumping like I already did in various other jam games. Please, if you're not using W for anything else, PLEASE let me jump with it!! I know it's just personal preference, but I always like to complain about that because it's such an easy thing to just give me the option to jump with both....

Dude you said this was a short game?? this thing is massive!!!

The map design was very top notch, it actually gave me one of the most actual metroidvania feelings I've had on this jam (I think I slept over the other paradise games, I should check them out someday since I don't remember playing them, but if that's your usual level design philosophy then you really mastered it by now). I also really like the lore tablets spread around, it made me very intrigued the whole way throught x)

Also the artstyle is so cutie cutie heehee, love my little astronaut guy. I also love how you added flavor text to every upgrade and collectible, that's the kind of minor detail that makes me know that you cared about this world and the little lore you made for it.

Gameplay flowed pretty well too. I don't have a gamepad so it took a little adjustment to get used to using the keyboard  ASZX scheme properly, but thankfully you knew what you were doing and mapped the most important buttons to be one besides the other lol

My only main complaint about the whole game are the kamikaze cucumbers, HOLY GOD what a nuisance on the foot xD

They seemed ok at first since you can just keep walking and they won't hit you, but when they're on a room with more enemies they feel impossible to avoid, and sometimes when they're on the top of the screen they hide behind the HUD and ambush you from there, and I'm like, 95% sure some of those guys bombed on me from off-screen even. But oh well, I had a lot of HP so it didn't actually matter much, but it was still mildly annoying x)

woerm

That was charming.

I really like the artstyle, and love how Vernan looks, specially how regal they keep their posture all the time, idk just thought it was cute x)   (I also like how they start panting at 1 hp, that's a little detail I always love to see)

Gameplay itself was very simple tho, not a lot  to comment on here. I kinda wish there was a little more weight on combat, it feels very janky as it is since other soft knockbacks there's not much feedback for either you or the enemies, nor much feedback when you pogo on spikes other than just a height increase, but that's more due to a lack of polish that might not have been possible on the time you had so it's okay. I missed the ability to attack upwards while in air tho, for some reason you can only do that on the ground and that made fighting the boss and the flying enemies very incovenient.

Also minor nitpicks moment: 

Using WS for the elevator exclusively makes no sense imo, it should have just been up/down + interact button like anyone would assume on any game they'd play.

Also, I found the pixie hideout only after already having rescued Nyx, so Vernan asking about her whereabouts while she was right besides them was a little funny lol, and retriggering the dialogue just gave the same thing all the time. Usually I excuse that for jam games since dialogue really is only there for flavor and is no way super important for the actual game, but this time that specific dialogue is not a generic flavor text, it mentions a condition that can change, and so seeing that it doesn't change at all after the mentioned thing happened does break immersion a bit.

Either way, fun game, very pretty x3

Congrats on the lighthopping!

Very funni, I don't have much else to say this time tho x)

I giggled when I got the green paint. You know I usually critique power ups that serves only as keys, but THIS, THIS is an example of a "key to a door" upgrade done absolutely right xD

I also appreciate how you literally made us kill ourselves at some point instead of making an actual return route from the lava pit lol

Creepi OAO

This game unironically made very uncomfortable and creeped out, but like, in a good way? I mean, it's not a vibe  I personally like, but you managed to bring the feeling out perfectly, wich is a huge proof of identity! Visuals and music style were just perfect for evoking that feeling, trully feels like a realm of the tortured. 

Pan tho?  He's a cutie!! Absolutely love his animations! The way he turns into a little imp kitty when you hold down?? I wanna pat him!! Really good job with those sprites x3

I was very surprised by how fun this actually plays as well, the controls feels clunky at first with the quirky physics, but once you get used to it it flows super well! I only managed to get the wall jump power up due to reasons I'll tell a little down from here, but just zipping up full speed and chaining into walls to follow up with a whip strike on the first little larvae that's unfortunate enought to suddenly pop into existance on my path is a blast!

All that said, it does have... some problems yeah...

Mainly with level design, I feel like there's a lot of rooms where it's just mindless enemy spam, wich would already be very annoying on their own, but combined with the fact enemies will respawn as soon as their spawnpoints are off-screen made some rooms just tedious to traverse. Like, the larvaes are totally fine to respawn whenever they want, they die in a single hit, are pure cannon fodder and a non-threat, so they are nice little critters to saciate our whipping urges, but every other enemy are actually quite dangerous  (specially the dinamite throwers) and they take multiple hits to die, so spamming a lot of them and letting them respawn willy nilly like that made them just a needle on my shoes. (Ideally you would want to only let the enemies respawn after traversing throught one or two rooms, so you can explore more freely your vicinity (Again, the larvae are an exception tho, they're fun to have around all the time))

There's also the ghost damage bug someone else already mentioned before, it does screw over a few jumps when you don't expect it, however I think I know what causes it! I kept experimenting with it on a room where a few enemies spawn from the sky, and my conclusion was that when taking damage during the attack animation, the game will just queue that damage trigger for the next time you leave the ground. What I assume is that you coded the damage hit to never trigger during the "attack state" of the character, but the game still registers that you are on a "damage state", and something happened that made that the "attack state" doesn't end after the animation ends, but it does end when you leave the ground, so as soon as you leave the ground, the "attack state" ends and the "damage state" finally does it's thing. (So essentially, you might have accidentally made the attack animation give you i-frames, wich is a GOOD thing, but that also originated this bug wich is a little unfortunate). Of course, I could be completely wrong too lol, but I'm just telling what I could get off from toying with the game a little bit, and also from experience, since I also already faced similar bugs myself on the past.

Well anyway, I had to give up on the cramped room where you have to wall jump zig zagging between the eye monsters and the spikes. As I said, enemies respawn as soon as they're off camera, and since that room is zoomed in, I had absolutelly no time to kill the eye and get to the wall before it respawned.

I'm not too sad tho, as I said, this game gives me the creeps! I backtracked to explore more and got to a room with an eerie sad face on the background and started playing a super weird song that I just turned around and nope'd out x3

(Again if that's what you were going for, congrats! It's just not my kind of vibe lol)

All hail Kase gaems!

This was very viby, really lovely aesthetics and music. Needles to say I adore the roof area, it's very pretty and the theme is so soothing. Your games have always excelled on the vibes department honestly, you're really good at building sceneries and enviroments despite always having so few different elements to work with. It's simple and it's pretty, and it's a Kase game at a glance, wich is a huge plus for me since that means identity <3

(Granted I'm obviously biased since I  already know your stuff lol, so of course I have more reference for that than most, but still, I like seeing your evolution throught those, and again, I think enviroment and vibe setting are really shaping up to be your strongsuits imo)

Also love how you sprinkled some life on the death realm, the NPCs are just as NPCs as they can be, but they're still always fun to have around x)

With the exception of the green guy of course, I love how he wanders around with you. Kinda wish he left something on his last spot after vanishing, but oh well, from now on I'm still naming him Quirrel!

And I think that's kinda it, there's not a lot more to say.... Gameplay is also simple and intuitive withouth anything too outstanding to comment on.

If I were to nitpick something I'd just say that the boss on the end is a little underwhelming, I do wish it had more attack variety, but I do assume you did make it in a rush anyway so that was kinda inevitable in a way sadly. Also, another very minor detail, but while I was following Quirrel's advice of plunging myself into the void, I noticed that whenever I teleported back to safe land I would appear on the very tippy toey edge of it, so most of the times I would just respawn while walking and immediately fall again (I assume you just respawn the player on it's last "on floor" position, wich is not super reliable honestly, Idk what the most optimal way to do it would be, but the only work around I can think of myself would be manually placed checkpoints, but that does sound like a hassle, so...)

Also yeah, I did miss map scrolling, felt awkward to have to go to the center of the world to be able to check wheter or not there was somewhere left to go.

Anyway, yeah, Kase Gaem!

Alrightie, that's a very cute little game x3

I love the artstyle and the char designs, they're all adorable, and I really really love all the life you sprinkled into this little world, everything here is as charming as it can be, from the little intro animatic to all of the dialogues x3c

That's also a very fun implementation of the theme! It sounds basic on the surface, but I would never have expected an entry that could also serve as a little educational game! Separating all three stages of the food chain like that was super creative and I love it <3

Gameplay is very basic tho, there's not much to talk about it. Combat is honestly pretty lackluster I'm afraid, this would've been actually way better if it was just a little cozy adventure without your sword nor enemies, I think they do more harm than good here. You can't move while attacking and none of the moving enemies get hitstun nor my char gets iframes, so combat boils down to "mash the mouse until the monster dies while tanking hits because I literally can't avoid them", wich isn't particularly fun. (I would've just avoided all enemies altogheter instead of engaging with them, but there are a few mosquitoes and poopie beetles on positions where this isn't really possible).

Also, still kind of related to combat, I'll be a little nitpicky now, this is 100% just personal preference on my end, but I really see no reason as to why the attack button had to be a mouse click, and I personally also don't like using spacebar and shift for common actions like jumping and dashing, so I really would've appreciated an Arrows + ZXC option. But again, I'm just being nitpicky lol.

Buying the upgrades is.... Interesting, to say the least... Not a huge fan of it tho, that made me backtrack back and fourth needlesly more than it should've,  And I'm like, 80% sure you don't even need any of those upgrades to progress, the only things actually stopping you are the keystone balls, so this makes this essentially a "lock and key" game, wich is not what a Metroidvania is supposed to be. Ideally the only gates you should have are obstacles that requires the actual power ups and tricks you learn on your journey, not doors locked behind keys that you just press "E" once you have them.

Well I think that's all I had to say. Really adorable experience still ^v^

(I can't give ratings btw, I'm just here for the funsies, and hopefully to give usefull feedback)

BNUII GAEM!!

Very solid entry for something done in such a hurry, that's quite impressive :0c

It's not even as short as I expected!

Love the vibes, very cozy, and cute gwaphics! The music is definitelly the spotlight here tho, they're awesome! the main theme is so chill and mystical... It actually sounds like it came straight out of Monster Sanctuary, wich is a good thing in my view. And the chase theme just slaps!! It's ebic and gets me pumped! Wasn't even mad by biting the dust since that meant I could chill out and hear it a little longer! (Kinda wish it resumed from where it stopped after a reset tho, quite a bummer I never got to properly hear a full loop of it by natural means)

Gameplay is simple and sweet, not a lot to comment there, the chases were fairly challenging wich is a plus for me, made me stop babbling out on Discord about control schemes and git gud. Oh yeah, speaking of that! I actually felt some weird floatiness on the double jump, for some reason it only triggered after a slight delay from my second Z press? Idk,  I did test it so it wasn't just my imagination, but it might also be my laptop's fault. regardless, it's pretty irrelevant, just felt like mentioning it because I found it rather exquisite.

I assume the game just ends with the infinite flight? I tried backtracking and kissing every ceilling after that and didn't find nothing else... Would have been fun if you hid an easter egg somewhere only accessible via that, but oh well I just went back to my bnui fwends and rested there (And if you did hide something somewhere, congrats since it's very well hidden lol).
 

Okie, thank you x3

Altought, one problem, I have absolutely no idea how to send an "itch.io private message" ;v;
(As far as I knew that didn't even exist, does it? )

Oh boy oh boy, I thought nobody was actually gonna come from that x,3

Uhhh... awesome then! I'm still free! Altought I'd prefer keeping contact on Discord instead of here, since I kinda do everything from there myself, is that ok?
(As mentioned, you can find me as "pielloww" with 2 Ws there, if you search and get someone with a japanese username, then it's me on all my weeby glory!)

(Also, I'm not really used to working on teams so excuse me if I have no idea what am I doing lol)

Ello folks, It's been a huge while since I last did any sort of game jam, so I thought it would be fun to do one to start the year.
Sadly, I cancelled my C3 license last year so I can't really go solo, but I'm willing to try drawing some art for someone else if anyone is interested. (Mainly pixel art, I can try doing something else but it will most likely end up pretty rought lol, at least animation wise. And of course, I'm also no Picasso by any means)

And of course, I also have some experience with C3 so I can help a bit with coding tips and troubleshooting too, but truth be told, that was never my strong suit x)

Anyway, if anyone is interested, hit me up on Discord! I'm "pielloww" there! (With 2 Ws!)
(I did join the community server, but I didn't see any jam specific chat channels so social anxiety told me it was better to ask for a team here >< )

Yap yap, I found all the 3 spells actually, and another 4th one that was out of reach behind a grate. But as I said, I didn't really understood what they did.

As I said, I explored everywhere I could think of, I only gave up after I didn't had any other corner to check

Aww man, I was so excited to play this one, but sadly Godot 3D aparently just despises my 4gb RAM laptop.... Not even on a tiny window with everything else closed I managed to run it properly. I could wobble around the "barn-berg" fine enought, but as soon as I layed on one of the beds, the game just crashed. The  one that sends you to the city did function, but the place was running at 10 fps and eventually just froze so I only caught a glimpse of it.

I love Pick tho! Very cute design and super natural combination of a witch farmer. Also love how she sleeps on the hay. This game in general has so much identity! From the moment I opened the menu I already could feel a strong sense of style, even the UIs are all a vibe!

Alas, a true misfortune I can't run this hay filled game on my hay fueled machine, but hay, perhaps some optmization options could be an idea if this ever become a bigger project by any chances

OH MAH GODDO!! I loved this char on the server, I still love her here, she's so adorable, peak character design x)

Due to loving her so much on the server I was actuallly looking forward into playing this one, but sadly there's  actually not much to say for the game itself, it very clearly came out of the oven too early  :,)

I was actually very confused as what any of the spells actually did, none of them seemed to have any different interaction with anything I threw my glitter into, so some more tutorialization would be very welcome (Even just a popup text would do the job). I still explored everything I could explore tho, even a little bit out of bounds because you left a huge opening on the hills, so why not am I right. There's actually a little glitch where whenever you jump and use the wand somewhere that isn't targetable you do little dash forward (Or at least, I assume it's a glitch, since it doesn't look nor feel intentional, and I even cheezed a chest with that), but that's actually something you should implement for real on the real deal if you continue working on it, or at least something similar, it made walking around way more fun, specially since the castle courtyard is pretty big.

I had no clue where to go at some point tho, I didn't find any actual ending point,  so I waved at myself on the mirror and began my way to kill myself on the out of bounds void, but as soon as I crossed the door to outside the game just decided to crash instead, wich at least was good comedic timing.

Also, the animations are pretty janky, specially the wall cling one, once you climb up a wall with it the witch will just be stuck on that until you land on the floor again after a jump or fall, wich is a little annoying since I wanted to see my gal waving her arms around! I also got stuck inside a wall after grabbing an edge once, and had to restart from last checkpoint.

Speaking of checkpoints, only the first one works, and only the first time lol. Altought, when I backtracked to it to try saving once, a giant frog ghost appeared there, wich I actually don't know if it's intentional or not, but it's actually awesome! I love when sceneries have little changes everytime you pass throught them again, makes the world feel more alive in general!

And here ends my tedtalk, I tried to record it, but Unity fullscreen doesn't go well with OBS on my 4gb RAM laptop, so sadly no professional gameplay video this time

Short and sweet!

I can't think on much to comment on this one either, but it's pretty charming. Bossfight was also fun, altought a still felt it little wonky at times, it was hard to jump over it without getting hit, and I couldn't tell wheter it had contact damage or not, since I actually took damage while it wasn't flailing punchies once (Or I took right when he started doing so, in that case I'd advice to only let bosses attacks actually deal damage with a little bit of delay than from when they start the animations, and also stop dealing damage a little earlier than their animations end, since I think I also took damage by jumping over it and touching it's head after it had already stopped the bitting anim and was just retrieving the head)

Also love the ending x)

Anyway, here's a gameplay vid if you wanna see it (Altought it's technically a second playthrough sinceI had to get out of the computer for a minute on the middle of my first attempt)

Very simple, but charming.

Not much to comment tbh, I guess I'd just say that the tutorial saying "double jump" is kinda fake propaganda since you can actually jump infinitelly, and a simple double jump actually can't reach the next platform lol

Anyway here's a gameplay vid, mostly just because I'm used to recording those because otherwise there's nothing really amazing happening here, I'm sorry x,3

Pretty simple, but I guess it gets the job done.

Not really much to comment about this, other than that I wish the "worlds" were more visually distintict instead of all looking the same, and I also wish you had made some sort of indication on wheter you're actually taking damage or not since it's kinda hard to tell. That would also make it easier to realize that shooting consumed your health since you didn't mention that on the page, so I took a while to understand why I was suddenly dying

Anyway here's a gameplay vid (I died on the 4th round sadly)