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No need for apologies, game jams are like crash-testing half-built cars :) If we keep doing what we did great and keep adjusting what needs improvement, we'll all make great games one day. I'll look forward to your next entry!

:'D That's awesome! You're the only one I know of who found that! Awesome job exploring! I'm glad you enjoyed the art and the level. We'll pay extra attention to the enemy interactions for the next jam and focus on that side of things, as well as more dialogue and a better tutorial system to improve the puzzles and gameplay. Happy holidays and thanks so much for the review :

I think I understand. Sometimes we get so used to testing our own games that we don't even notice simple things that could cause difficulty to others. At least the test audience is free and unbiased here :) Plus, every broken game gets us a little closer to making our dream games. I'll be excited to see what you make next! 

Okay, I'll keep an eye out for it in the next round of testing. Thank you again for the feedback and advice! 

During my first playthrough, it seemed to be working. I tried many times in many different ways and just couldn't reach the platform, however I gave it a second try tonight after rebooting my computer and it seems to be working fine—so it may have been something on my end, especially if no one else had this happen.  

Oh good. That's part of why I didn't have the enemies or gates reset after a ko. I'll try and recreate the invulnerability bug on my side. (Were you using Windows 10?) 

Thanks for the great feedback. I will extend the melee range and add some VFX to make it more obvious where the attack range is. The animations aren't perfectly synced to the hitboxes, unfortunately. Slowing down the enemy melee and adding a stun/dodge/counter system is part of the plan for the next edition. There are a few bugs like the paused enemy  that need to be ironed out for sure. Getting stuck in the invulnerable mode is not something I have come across before, so thank you for warning me! Did you make it to the end despite the glitch? 

I like Unreal Engine a lot, but it runs so slow on my computer I can make half a game on Godot before UE would even load :'D  What did you use to make the visuals?

Thank you for sharing, Medibang is a nice program :) Is it the ledge you drop down from? I couldn't get back up, even with the upward dash unlocked. I may have missed something, or am just a bad gamer, haha.  Sure, we can all make some great improvements after all the feedback here.   

I think if lore can be shown, it is often better than direct telling. Too much exposition can be boring and it is good to have a little mystery and uncover more of the lore as you play. Trying to give just enough story to entice a player makes it all the more rewarding when they discover something new. At least that's how I feel as a game fan.

Fair enough, I've had too many issues with exporting to the web in the past, and can relate. Wow, first attempt at hand-drawn? That's extra impressive! Thanks for sharing the tools too! 

So... was I the only one who submitted a project?

Cool story and nice art design! Definitely has some bugs right now, but those can always be cleared out with time and patience. Definitely have a progress/skip button for the dialogue so the player can control the speed of the intro. This way impatient people can blast through and more patient people don't have to worry about reading too slow. Really like the sci-fi/medieval mash-up, great idea!

Beautiful minimalist art style! Which program did you use? I love the black and whit, and the koala idea was a very nice touch. Other than that I tend to agree with the others, some music and SFX would add some juice to those beautiful attack animations! Nothing wrong with grabbing some royalty free assets to fill in the gaps when you're short-handed. Our SFX guy ghosted, so we grabbed some stuff from zapslat.com Keep up the awesome work and I'll look forward to your next project!

PS: it was nice to see a top-down game, I usually think platformer Metroidvania, but this style is really good for exploring!

Very cute character design. It made me super happy when the run animation was on all-4s :D I wish there was more slides in the attack animation as the single frame made the attack timing more difficult. It was mostly easy to navigate, though I did get stuck on walls and in areas I should have been able to fall through. I've had some strange bugs appear out of nowhere in other game jams too, and it was usually related to the Web version. Submitting a downloadable version next time is a good idea. Last jam my web version had transparent meshes on the enemies, even though the download worked fine. Hope the advice is helpful, and thanks for sharing!

Thank you for sharing! :)

You're very welcome. I didn't finish 100% But I'll take another crack at it if I have time. Since there are so many entries, I'm trying to base my ratings off a 10-15min impression and try to rate as many as possible. I'll see if I can find the secrets on my own. There are a couple hidden in mine too

An interesting game with potential. More time could be spent on smoothing out the animations, but the character design was interesting and cool. I encountered a bug where the dash would occasionally stop me from using the jump (If anyone else had this problem, there may be an issue with the "on-floor detection" when transitioning between states or animations). I hope you keep improving and building on this prototype, I think it has good potential! 

One of the coolest bosses I've seen this jam. nice original artwork. A little gaussian blur and variation of saturation between the play area and background would help. Multi-directional casting is a great idea, though it would be more useful with one-way collision set up so it could pass through the platforms. Wasn't sure where to go after the first boss fight, but the fight itself was very fun and satisfying! Nice hand-drawn style too, what program(s) were used for the art?

*glitch was encountered on the web version, not sure about the downloadable version

Very nice entry! Glad to see another Godot game :) Really nice art, which program(s) were used? The animations were well blended into the movement and I can appreciate the effort put into setting the story and developing the world. I kept getting a glitch where the songs would rapidly repeat the last note during scene changes. Other than that, I was very impressed and thought the progression and puzzle solving was fun and well-developed!

Nice work recreating some of the Hollow Knight functions! The feedback was very punchy when striking enemies and the movement mechanics were pretty smooth. Nice touches with things like the character glow too. Some issues with things like screen size, but a good base to build and learn from! Nice work with the enemy coding too!

Thank you for the feedback! I'll make a tutorial level after the contest to help people. Maybe add some extra tip dialogue to Grandpa Joe so he can help players who get stuck. You're the first person to mention the cramped feeling, but I think you're right. I'll see what I can do to open the world up in the next version and maybe zoom the camera out a bit more too.  

Nicely done. Fairly well-rounded for a solo project. I like that you made the SFX by yourself, too! 

Very cool theme and visuals here. I liked the multitude of characters to engage with and also the cyber-punk area. No sure if it was a glitch, but I didn't get any special SFX to tell when I was hit by or hitting the techno-squidy enemies. The UI had a nice clean style and the teleporting movement had a good animation. Nice work, everyone!

Very cool theme and visuals here. I liked the multitude of characters to engage with and also the cyber-punk area. No sure if it was a glitch, but I didn't get any special SFX to tell when I was hit by or hitting the techno-squidy enemies. The UI had a nice clean style and the teleporting movement had a good animation. Nice work, everyone!

I think the NPC/story aspect was my favorite part. I can tell time and effort was spent on the dialogue and felt the story was funny and creative.  Other than that I don't have much to add. The bats could use a little less health, though, considering how well they can move and follow, compared to how rapidly and accurately the MC can fire. Great entry and keep up the awesome work!

A decent entry with cool character design. I especially like the MC and boss design. Some more hints wouldn't be a bad idea, especially for less experienced gamers, but it was an interesting game. 

It's a start, but needs a bit more polished. The look was quite spooky, but the lack of visibility combined with difficult jumps made the difficulty lean towards frustration. A good practice project and thank you for sharing, Unreal Engine is one of the more complex ways to make games as a solo dev,  so it might take a while to learn the basics, but you'll have a very powerful tool in your hands if you master it!

Pretty cool concept. Reminds me of a rotoscoped game I used to play with my cousins. I liked the basic game mechanics and the art style was quite fitting. Controller support would make it even better for people not used to keyboards, especially once you've unlocked the wall jump. The floor was a bit too slippery near the edges (a problem I often had to overcome when making games in Unity due to their physics system, it's easy to make the ground seem icy). The color changes were a nice touch to diversify the areas without having to create more art assets. A fun game overall and an excellent example of building a good game around a couple of simple game mechanics. Nice work!

Cute characters and nice pixel art! I liked the setting of the story and thought the weapon was fun. I do wish there was a different health system, as the one-hit knockback to the starting point is super frustrating for people like me. Especially when there is limited visibility and basic enemies take a few hits to destroy, though some people love a high level of difficulty and punishment. I enjoyed the character/level design and the game mechanics and would like to see this game continue to grow and develop!

Cute character design! For some reason, the web game ran very sluggishly for what it is... not sure why. A good start and has some nice basic functions and promising pixel art. 

Not bad, pretty cool climbing mechanics. A bit frustrating at times with the one-hit death against terrain, but mostly a fun kind of challenging. The art could use work, but the music was quite nice to listen to and had a good energetic feel for the boss fight (only played until after the first boss). Controller pad support is always a good addition to games with very tricky movements like this, and it could be a little more obvious in some sections whether an area is unreachable, or if the player is just not good enough with the current skills.  All in all a pretty cool entry, thank you for sharing!

My favorite thing about this game is the visuals. I like the character design and the jump animation! I'd recommend some kind of health system because one hit sending you back to start is too punishing for most people—this coming from a team that made too difficult of a game also. There was a glitch occurring with the dash attack that seemed to prevent the next scene from loading too, but can be fixed with some tinkering. A good attempt for a first try, and I'm sure you have potential. I hope you keep building on this one because the character and world seem very cool and fun! PS: Glad to see some other Godot representation!

Thanks! It's good to know the art and music were well-received. Thanks for mentioning the parallax background, btw.

I have a background in old-school games and was worried I had made it too easy or obvious—once the skills and layout are known it could be speed-run in under 3 minutes. However, it's pretty unanimous that I need to soften things up for the next jam and find other ways to extend the gameplay and keep it fun. The more feedback the better and I appreciate it all! Next time I'll slow down enemy attacks, add a stun effect, and include a more obvious tutorial stage. 

Hmmm, yes the acorns are supposed to be explosive because of mutation caused by the aliens... but some explanatory dialogue was cut from Grandpa Joe.  With more time, though I do want the SFX to be more different between MC and enemy attacks to make it more clear who is being hit.  In your case was it a lack of explanation, too much similarity, or was the concept simply too strange?

Not bad, pretty cool idea. Makes me think of the old-school Atari games. Keep up the hard work!

Not bad, pretty cool idea. Makes me think of the old-school Atari games. Keep up the hard work!

Simple, but a very good start and fairly bug free. Cute pixel art style, too! As for the tile seam someone mentioned... I remember having this problem with Unity a few years ago and it wasn't a problem with my tile art, but an issue with Unity settings. There are some good Youtube videos that can teach you how to remedy this for your future projects. Keep up the good practice!

I've never worked with Gamemaker, but your explanation makes sense. I bet I could play it another 1000 times without seeing this glitch again. Thank you for adding the save checkpoints, btw, I made use of them many times, haha. I like being able to take risks and try crazy things without worrying about starting from the very beginning. I'll definitely give it another play after I've rated some more  

Here's a playthrough for anyone finding the game overly difficult or not using Windows OS. It's definitely beatable, but the combat system can be improved in many ways. Thanks for all the great feedback so far!