itch.io

Thank you for playing!

I'm afraid you are hitting a soft spot here... Right now the game is a mix between a card game, a strategy game and a puzzle game. It ends up to be none of those. I like the shape it's taking but I feel like it needs a change somewhere in the core mechanics. I want to experiment a bit more. Giving player more agency is something I want to achive. Thanks for your feedback! ^^

Interesting game! I like the concept. There are many features, and I felt encouraged to explore both the map and the gameplay.

Unfortunately, there are some things that made it very difficult for me to enjoy the game. I found it hard to read the text, for multiple reasons. The font you used is not easy to read; I'm not sure if it's because of the font itself or because the hap between letters is too large. I understand there isn't much space, the screen is rather small, but you should try to not split sentences between multiple screens whenever you can. I'm not a native english speaker, I struggled to keep track of the conversation. Also, the label transition between texts is unneccessary and a little annoying. It's cool when you start and stop talking, I don't think should be used between the same dialogue.

I loved the graphic, sprites and animations are neat. The retro style is cool and well executed.

About the music, the tracks are very good, but I felt they didn't quite suit the mood of the game. When I heard them I feel tension and anxiety, while the gameplay feels relaxed and without pressure. In my opinion having tense music constantly in the background quickly becomes annoying.

Overall the game looks promising, I love the art and the concept is cool! ^-^

Yes, I tried multiple times and I still can't reach the block above ^^

Thank you for your answer and for your amazing game! ^-^

I didn't see the note at the start of the level (maybe you could add an "interact" prompt, like you did for others interactable element), but the softlock happens here:

I did not take the objects but I can't jump back.

Thank you for playing! I will definitely try to make the tutorial easier to digest! ^^

Amazing game, it try to convey a message that is something really complex.

About the gameplay, I like it a lot. Is simple and intuitive, and for me the difficulty was well balanced. I LOVE the rest mechanic, but I'm afraid is explained a little to late in the game. After taking some damage at the beggining I thought there was some bug because I fell the character too slow, I realised what was really happening only after a while. I love the mechanic because is tied with the story itself, improving the player immersion.

About the story... this is an hard one, because I think that is rather subjective what one feels about it. I found it interesting and sometimes even disturbing. It made me think about the theme that's a good thing. 

To be completely fair the ending was a bit disappointing.  [SPOILERS AHEAD!] I was ready for some sort of morals or maybe for a unaswered question, those would have been fine. But I found a simplification of the theme of trauma that I didn't like. I imagine it's a common thought by who has had that experience, and in a sense, it's seemingly a legitimate request. But in reality, what should we do about it? You can't force people to feel empathy, nor do I believe you should try. It's a much more complex issue than simply saying, "Others don't understand me, they're indifferent and mean". The sense of isolation and being left behind is something that (I imagine) in the context of trauma a person can feel and suffer greatly from, but it can't all be reduced to that. It can't be the end of the story, right?

In any case, I can't stress enough that this is my personal impression and feeling about the story. I would gladly listen to other opinions about it ^^

Interesting concept! I found the game very fun, when you are able to think a path and hit the enemy just in time is really satisfying!

In my opinion there is something to polish in the controls. They feel a bit inconsistent at times. There is a bug where the player character start to floating around that happens quite often. I encountered also some various visual bugs.

A little side note, the tutorial is good, but I didn't understood at first that platforms has a sort of cooldown after you leave them.  I didn't immediately understand it because in the part where you explain that using a platform as an obstacle that block your path, there's a bit of space on the sides. After some attempt I went through there XD

About the graphic I like the minimalist style, I don't know if you plan to change that in the future, but I think that some small adjustment in the UI could improve the visual impact a lot. Just some little change in shapes and colors. For example, the slider below is hard to grasp that is the enemy health bar and clash with the other game element.

Overall the game is very promising and fun to play. I loved sounds and boss abilities! And for me the difficulty is well balanced, it's a nice challenge but it never becomes frustrating ^^

Thanks for playing! ^^

To be honest, only by the presentation I also thought the game was some sort of musical puzzle where you have to tune instruments to make an actual melody XD

Interesting concept, I like the idea of a musical puzzle a lot.

However, I feel like something in the core mechanics should be changed. I find difficult to tune intruments, I always hit one by accident and lost my note. This make the puzzles much harder to play in the wrong way, I know what to do but I'm struggling to do it. The best example of this it's the level full of harps (level 12), I can never tune the harp I want, and if I came to the wrong angle I get launched miles away. Once I also get trapped in a loop, looking the poor Tonic be a pinball ball for quite some times (it was pretty hilarious, though XD).

In my opinion, another thing that can be improved is that the game is full of noise. Both literally and metaphorically.

Literally because all the sounds made by the game elements don't blend well with the background music. After a while, it becomes rather annoying.

And metaphorically because the level desing is full of stuff, somtimes that's not helpfull to solve the puzzle at all. I may suggest to reduce the number of game element in a single level. I play the game to the end and some levels were cool btw, I had fun playing them. Some others were a bit frustrating, like levels 12 and 13 for example.

Aesthetically, I really liked the game. The art style is pretty cute and the character is well designed. 

Overall I had fun playing your game! I think the concept is very interesting and there is room for improvement ^^

Interesting concept, I like it. I'm not into fps in general, but here are my thoughts.

I felt a bit lost at first. The art style is cool, but some elements are blending together. I found confusing the fact that for basic enemies you have to shoot at their body, while for  any others you have to shoot at their gem. Also aiming is a bit difficult.

Anyway, after some death I began to enjoy the game. The gunplay feels good and the game itself is pretty fun. 

Because enemies are all around I would like to have some sort of radar in the UI, to give an idea of what's behind me.

In my opinion the upgrade screen shouldn't open and close by itself so fast. It's a bit annoiyng when I try to aim and suddently all stops without warning. Same goes when the game resume, I died once because the enemy was too close and I wasn't ready. You can either make the player open the upgrade screen by himself, or make a soft transition maybe with a countdown of some sort.

I'm not sure if the game can be called a "survivor-like". It's looks more similar to game like Returnal or other fps-rpg to me. But as I said, fps are not my genre, so I can't really say.

Overall you made a nice demo, was fun to play ^-^

Sure! 

First I had to rebind buttons to be able to move with wasd. I struggled a bit to find a good configuration because for some reason I could not bind the "E" button for gliding. 

Then I noticed that the camera sense was to high. I lowered it, but I didn't find a perfect value that suits for me. Maybe you should add decimal value to have less granularity ^^

And last I had to flip camera Y axis, in a different menu. I know that some people play with flipped axis, but I think that by default they should work in the same way (if you press right you look right, if you press up you look up). I guess what confused you here is that in unity you have to add on the y rotation, while you have to subtract on the x rotation of the camera. 

Thanks for your comment! I'm glad you had a good time with the game! ^^

About the clues preview, you can actually pan and zoom the map to see how many clues are left in each room. But I totally agree that this is a crucial information and is not displayed properly :/ The clue counter is too small and not very highlighted. I will do something about it in the future. Thanks for your feedback!

Nice demo! I can see you put a lot of work on it ^^

The controls feels smooth and I like gliding around, it's satisfying. I like the fact that the character run very fast (is a sonic game after all) and I would have liked to have slightly larger environments and platforms to push this feature.

You should try to calibrate the default settings, I spent a lot of time in the option menu before I was able to play properly.

Thanks! Glad you find some fun playing the game! ^-^/

Thanks for playing and for your comment!

As Maui has said, the tutorial portion stretches a bit long. I felt that the first tutorial stage didn't give a good idea of the whole game. The second level made it much clearer. I think you can merge those two levels.  

You are right, the first tutorial level is a bit pointless. I thought it was fun that you have to just press a button to solve it, but it doesn't really help the player to understand the game XD

About the tutorial itself I'm struggling a bit to find a way to make it less painfull. I noticed watching some playtesters that people after a while just skip dialogues and miss important part of the game rules. It's like the rulebook of tabletop games, nobody want to read it :/ Also, just like board games, my game has many rules, some of them are unintuitive. Maybe I should try to split the tutorial instead of explain all the rules at once ^^

Crazy game. I played all the levels and it was a nice challenge!

I love puzzle games. I've played many of them. And geez, I'm a bit envious about your level desing skills XD You made so many cool levels, every one of them can be solved with a clever solution. There are a lot of cool interesting mechanics combined and almost every level is unique, different from the previous ones. 

About that, maybe is a little too much for a demo? I would have liked to have some more "plain" puzzles. Not easier, just simpler, with less mechanics involved, because sometime I felt a bit overwelmed.

The only level that, in my opinion, need to be revised is level 35. I had to skip them after many try, and I understood the solution only after entering folds.

For the audio, even if it just temporary, I suggest looking for some royalty-free tracks. It can improve the game a lot. After a while the silence becomes tiresome.

Overall an amazing submission. I didn't even realize I had played it for so long lol. Great job!

Thanks for playing!

Well, to be a graduation project this is impressive! You've done a lot of things right that are not easy at all.

The game is a pleasure to play, visuals and sounds are very good and works pretty well together.

I liked the level desing, even if some part are a bit rough (aka the fall with spikes that you have to pass with trial and error), but the chekpoints are close enough to make the difficulty just right for me.

If you ask about what could be added to the game it's totally up to you. Right now you have a good base to start with. You could add more platform mechanics, combat mechanics, quest mechanics... My only advice is to experiment with prototypes and see what's works better for you ^^

Overall a very solid submission! Also, I am a rat.

Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback! ^-^

I received some feedback that the herrings level (I also mispelled the level name, lol) is particularly difficult, I'll try to add more time to make it a little more forgiving. Some following levels are (should be) much easier.

- You have 2 fullscreen buttons. I think you should keep the one from Unity and remove the one added by itch.io that never works well (it's in the edit game page, the option : "Fullscreen button — Add a button to the bottom right corner of your embed to make it fullscreen").

About this... I usually do the same thing, but this time I wanted to force full screen at the start of the game (because the UI is not yet responsive and in windowed mode there are some issues). However, in doing so, I discovered that sometimes a conflict occurs if one presses Unity's default full-screen button D: For now I've left both to fix this, but I understand it's ugly and confusing... Sorry for that ^^"

- A custom mouse cursor would add a lot to the style of the game I think. Something thematics like a pen or magnifying glass maybe ?

That's a great tip! Thank you! :D

Now everything works perfectly!

Nice game! It has a lot of style, I loved it!

Sounds and music are amazing! Also the graphics are very well done! All those vfx make the game juicy, but for my personal taste the screen shake is too strong, it's a little annoying ^^"

In my opinion the game mechanics needs to be balanced a bit. Right now the "hold" power is just less powerfull than shooting, I did not find a good way to use it. I like the fact that you have to destroy runes to complete the level, but I feel like I have to stand still for too long. Maybe you can make them faster to break and then respawn it in a different location, like you did for the boss, idk.

The problem with the boss is that it's just too cool XD

Overall, it's a fun and polished entry, good job!

Great game! It was very fun and it's visually impressive!

I love the concept! It's a mobile game I would very much enjoy playing on my phone during downtime. I like the fact that controls are so simple :D

The UI can be refined a bit, in my opinion. I was confused at first by the amount of information on screen, but the truth is that for the player, some of that information are not important most of the time. You could try applying some rules of visual hierarchy, making less important information less visibile. The first thing that comes to my mind is, for example, that "start heading" could be a flag you put directly on the heading wheel. Sames goes for "start cargo". "Life support" and "speed", should get more relevance only after the launch. And so on.

For me, the difficulty is well balanced. I managed to complete all the levels, although it took me a while to fully understand the mechanics. About the level desing I can't see any flaws, but I would have liked to have even simpler introductory levels, with fewer elements and more obvious trajectories for the ship.

Overall it's really a good game! ^-^/

I'm sorry but I guess there is a game breaking bug in the updated version D: Projectiles doesn't move and stack up on screen.

Also the frame rate drops drastically when you enable full screen. I didn't encounter any of these issues in the previous version.

I did not rate the game yet, I will do it as soon as you've fixed it ^^ The game looks very promising and the art style is gorgeous!

Interesting concept, it just need some polish imo ^^

There are some bugs. If you die when the ability is active you still need to wait for its cooldown after the respawn. When the player is reading dialogues the time should stop and he shouldn't be able to move. You can softlock yourself in the first level of the second part, I think that a couple colliders are missing.

I would like to see more clarity, in general. I found hard to understand what items are. I would like to have the ability cooldown displayed on the screen, or at least have a visual indication of when it's ready and when it's about to expire. I died several times because the ability ended while I was jumping. ^^"

I like the idea of having two different states, with different ability and the level change shape when switching between them. It's very cool! :D

Thanks for playing! ^^

Aw, loved this one! ^-^

The game is very fun, I really liked the setting and the characters are cool. I can't comment on the grammar since I'm not a native speaker, but I really appreciated the dialogues themselves.

Regarding pixel art, I can try to give you some advice. I'm not an artist, I've only recently tryed drawing something myself and I'm rather poor (I have to thank my wife for the beautiful assets she made for me, haha), but I think that you could improve the visuals by choosing colors that go well together. In my opinion there is too much contrast between the background and the rest of the elements. Maybe try looking at other pixel art games that you like to get an idea of how they use colors together, you might find some inspiration.

Another thing that can improve visuals are the sprite size. For example, the player sprite is very detailed but on a full screen it's too small and at first glance looks a bit fuzzy. You can decide whether to make it bigger or simplify it, that's up to you and wich style do you want for the game.

Aside from these things, the drawings themselves are very nice. I like them!

Overall the game is fun and enjoyable, I want more of it!

Thanks for playing and for trying to figure out the gameplay! XD

I understand that there is a bar on the right that I need to fill up. It seems like when I click on some of the items on the left that maybe more of the bar will fill up. I'm not sure when it is appropriate to "draw" and when is the right time to "investigate." I saw an "action" button a few times. I'm not sure what "action" does.

The goal here is to have a good set of item in play in order to maximize your investigation stat (pipe icon) and then investigate. 

The "action" button activate the location special ability that some locations have. The ability details are written at the right side of the screen.

I played several times and it took me a while to realize there was a map with different locations. Perhaps if you started the level on the map screen, people would see all the locations to begin with and know that they need to visit each one.

Actually I tried to make a game with a lot of elements and it's hard to grasp all of them without a tutorial of some sort. I knew this from the beginnig, but I couldn't make one on time, sadly.

I can see you spent a lot of time on this, hopefully you'll put some more work into it and help out folks like me that can't figure it out. 

I'll give you a follow and see if you ever update your game!

Thanks! I'm already working on a post jam update. ^^

Thanks! I will definitly update this game after the jam is over :)

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked the art! ^^ 

I'm sorry if the difficulty curve is too rough ): Thanks to give it a try anyway!

Thanks for playing and for your comment! ^^

Bees... Why does it always have to be bees? D:

Great game! I love how you interpreted the theme!

Cool game!

When the character said he was lost, I find myself lost too XD But I managed to solve the puzzle in the end. 

Very innovative mechanics and perfectly fit the theme!

Nice game! I replayed it six times before managing to escape. XD

If you have time, check out my submission: https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-11/rate/2531999

Nice game! Horror is not my cup of tea, but I had fun anyway! ^^

Amazing game, one of the best I played in this jam! 5 out of 5! :D

:O

Best game I played so far, 5/5 on everything! :D

Fun game! I enjoyed playing it to the end.

The art is amazing, 5/5 on that!

The level desing could be more clean in my opinion, there are a lot of unnecessary elements. Also I found the doors out of place, their behavior does not suits them very well. They have a really cool animation, though.

Overall, a nice entry! ^-^