itch.io

hi beatrix, came across this while browsing nuclear throne mods lol
cute game, reminds me of blazing beaks with the art style and limited room size
i hate the buff dudes though LMAO, also i can't restart the run without exiting fullscreen, and i need fullscreen to not lose control since this game uses the mouse

Super Soaker is so powerful I had to intentionally stop trying to see the game over screen, haha!

I love the gameplay loop, and I could see myself playing this a lot if the items were a bit more balanced and with more late-game challenges! Maybe unique ghosts that resist different items, steal items, stuff like that?
Love the art style and visual effects, perfect use of a limited color palette!

Awesome, always love a good bullet hell!

I don't enjoy my comically large witch hat being a part of my hitbox and certain attack transitions being unavoidable (like black crescent moon exiting upwards right into black bullet streams), but other than that, I enjoyed every second of it!

I did manage to beat it in one life with enough tries, but I still feel the need to no-hit the whole thing...

Agreed, for sure. I do think the difficulty should vary between runs, but it's probably a bit much.
I couldn't think of a good solution that doesn't just artificially give the player more time when a difficult layout appears, because that would feel kind of cheap.

Got 360 on my first attempt! Could have gone further, but you know, end of the cave bug lol.
I think there might be some situations where the gap is too far for you to move into it before crashing, but I haven't played enough to 100% confirm that theory.
Pretty fun!

Incredible art style, very fluid animation and great choice of colors! I enjoyed the platforming and bosses, though I think the boss fights feel pretty linear. This is probably intentional due to the tight controls, but I think just a little more freedom could go a long way so the player feels like they at least have some level of control instead of following a very strict pattern, and could probably enable more skill-based patterns since this definitely seems like an intentionally hard game.

The boss with the bouncing projectiles was my favorite, reminds me of Wispy Woods.
Overall, great work!

Hmm, yeah I can't think of why that should be happening. Glad you liked it, though.

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!

The lack of music isn't a bug, I just couldn't come up with something good in time.

I'll remember to add the option of using keys if I make a post-jam version, though! I personally opted for left click since most keys are much smaller and a little odd to use in one-button games, whereas spacebar can be kind of loud when you're rapidly tapping to adjust yourself.

Great atmosphere with the lighting and resource management/navigation, I almost thought it was a horror game at first.
I will say, it seemed very slow until I realized your stamina regenerates faster the more you save it, so maybe that should be communicated more clearly, or reworked since it makes dashing not very useful.
The boss fight at the end was cool, definitely got startled a bit when I walked in and saw it lol.

Love the visual style and consistency! Level design was creative and fun, and I like the use of infinite coyote time!
Really, my only problem is the music sometimes cutting out, but other than that, it's pretty much perfect to me.
8 levels is surprisingly a lot for how long they are, so I'm quite impressed you were able to keep the quality so consistent for that long!

I have a feeling some people won't like the lack of checkpoints, but I personally enjoy when games double down on their retro-inspired design, and it never felt truly unfair.

Really fun! I like the temperature and fuel management in the levels that have both elements. I'd definitely play a post-jam version with world 3 and some more visual/audio feedback!
Level 5 of World 2 might be the hardest level I've seen in a game jam lol, but I did manage to beat it after a while!

Thanks!

Thanks! Level 4 is actually further than I'd expect from the average player, well played :)

I'll improve the wall jumping in the post-jam version.

If it's too floaty, you can press down to do a quick drop (I thought this was covered by the WASD in the tutorial, but I think most players ignore S/down in platformers so I'll probably change that too)

Thank you!

Yes

Thank you!

Thanks for the detailed criticism! I will definitely keep this in mind for a post-jam update once I'm feeling less burnt out :)

And yes, the eyes copy exactly what you do, so if it seems really fast and relentless, that's because you are being fast and relentless, but maybe that isn't communicated to the player well enough. The strategy is to remember what path you took so you can backtrack without crossing that path.

I also noticed the wall jumping being very tight, but never got to fixing it because the sheer amount of other tasks that seemed like a higher priority to me at the time. If it helps, there is a buffer that lets you press jump before touching the wall, but not after.

The thing I struggle with when it comes to difficulty balance is making things easier without making it easy to the point where it's automatic. Finding a balance is hard, and I didn't have any time to get playtesting from other players. I think I'll do a playtest phase when I update the game.

Also btw, you don't have to hold spacebar, you only need to tap it once to enter max speed and from there you can just hold the direction. The reason I wasn't super descriptive with this stuff is I wanted a textless tutorial that gets straight to the point, but maybe I'll reconsider that decision.

Really fun game! I think this is the first entry I've tried where I have no criticism, well done! I think a hard mode would be really fun if you ever update the game :)

That should be a huge help, I'll try again sometime!

This is amazing! It feels like a complete game. Very polished sprites, and awesome music and sfx!

This is just a personal gripe, but I don't like using arrow keys.
The first boss was very epic, but I think it was a lot easier than the rest of the level, especially for how long the fight was.

Unfortunately, I had to stop playing on the second level because I was getting tired of holding X for so long. I can handle pressing lots of keys rapidly, but when there's very little reason to let go of a key/button, it gets bothersome imo. I know the charge attack is a thing, but that's just an extra and you still will be holding X the vast majority of the time regardless. An accessibility setting that reverts your firing state to "hold to stop shooting" or maybe just toggle shooting, would be hugely appreciated if you make a post-jam version.

This is a pretty good base for a tower defense that could be expanded upon! I like the setting, the enemies and portals look very cool as well. Movement could be improved, particularly with walls but it's understandable for a game jam project.

The problem with the gameplay loop is that you get a lot of mana, and you can just spam the basic nailgun without much of a strategy and permanently stop all the enemies. If you do make a post-jam update, maybe add some more dynamic unit and enemy interactions to keep the player engaged, and also up the difficulty enough that the player needs to make a creatively synergistic setup rather than spamming one strong option.

That being said, I'm not very knowledgeable about tower defense games, and I myself would probably have a hard time striking the right balance.

Found a bug where you mash spacebar during the tutorial and the game will go ultra slow mo.

I love the art style and colors you used for the page and game, pretty fun gameplay loop too!

I would like to be able to move horizontally mid-air, or for the platforms to stop moving while you're stomping. Currently, you have only a fraction of a second to react to spikes and it feels pretty out of nowhere at times.

Adding to the last point (pun intended), it feels strange when upwards facing spikes kill you even when you're rising.
I also think spikes should appear earlier, as they only appear when things are moving quickly, so you don't get much time to get accustomed to such an important gameplay element, not to mention the huge difficulty spike (pun also intended) as it's very easy without the spikes.

I think if these were changed, I would enjoy it a lot more, but it is your game so feel free to disagree with anything I just said. Please don't take this as "I don't like your game", I think it's a lot of fun! I just like to point out (ok fine I'll stop with the spike puns) every issue I have with the games I play, so you can make the game more polished in any potential updates :)

Aw man, I never even thought about that happening. Maybe I'll have to put custom controls higher on my priority list next time. I may make a post-jam update at some point, but I'm still working on a pretty big update for last year's submission so it may take a while. Apologies.

What's the issue, controls or something else?
You use WASD to move and aim, I to jump, spacebar to dash or throw held item (downward throws only require you to press down in the air)

Thank you!

Alright, I've just released a patch that lets you resize the window!

Ah, sorry about that. I hadn't considered motion sickness, but it makes sense that's happening.

Hey, are you still looking for a team? I can show my game (preferably on Discord) if you're interested. So far I'm working solo, so if you prefer a bigger team I understand.

This looks really really nice, though my main issue is that the environment (floors, walls, etc.) are about as bright as important gameplay elements like enemies and projectiles, hurting readability and making hazards not stand out enough. This can be fixed, though.

This was super difficult, but fun! The effects look really juicy, audio is nice, and the difficulty is high but makes it a lot more engaging and replayable. Well done!

Only complaint I have is there doesn't seem to be any reason to stop shooting, so I think the shoot button is unnecessary.

I got this far on my 3rd attempt (the difficulty gets absolutely bonkers, lol).

I think this is my favorite entry so far! The lasso mechanic and secret enemies really helped keeping the gameplay fresh, and the aesthetic is unique and cool. Love the music!

I also liked the map design and overall retro feel to the game. It does a really good job at playing like a retro game.

Some of the rooms (especially with the rocket enemy) felt  a little cheap and you just get hit immediately after entering the door. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but I guess it does make it feel more true to its retro style.

It's difficult to shoot diagonally while standing still since the movement affects your aim and there's no way to strafe while shooting or anything like that.

Also, I'm not sure if the triple shots have much of an impact on the gameplay. The player is slow enough that I found it very unlikely for me to get hit by any of the outer bullets, and when I get to use the triple shot myself, there's only 1 enemy per room so I'm really just using the middle bullet. All the other projectile types were really fun, though!

Thanks! Yeah, I wish I would have spent a bit more time making things more readable.

Thanks for the crash report! I must have missed that since I didn't test the tutorial very much after adding a lot of stuff to the game on the last day.

Turns out, it's because the tutorial is setting your aim direction to "right" whenever it resets your position because of outdated code. When I added more aiming directions, I decided it would be more clean and flexible to use a value for the direction instead of using 4 different words, so it's trying to set your aim direction in the old way of using a word, but it crashes because it's reading a word as if it's a number.

I fixed it now. I'm not sure if I'll ever make a post-jam version, but if I do, it will come with the fix :)

I haven't played this genre of games before, but it was fun! On my winning run, I was already at 1 HP around 5 minutes in, and had to get all the water shield upgrades to heal back, lol.

The runs are pretty long, and I felt like the game was getting easier as I leveled up. Maybe the game could be shorter, or there could be bosses to shake things up (I know the jam deadline is the reason for the lower enemy variety, but I feel like the game could be a bit shorter in that case).

Also, the hitboxes are kind of off and there should be more visual/audio feedback for taking damage and losing shields.

I like all the upgrades and they were easy to understand, which is super important for a game jam entry imo.

It's hard to choose a rating since it's so different than all the other entries and it's more like a sandbox than a game, but it's neat! It's definitely good inspiration for survival/sandbox games and could easily be a great foundation for a full game :)

This game would probably be a lot more fun if I played with a second player, but it was still pretty fun fighting the CPUs. I was able to click fast enough to just mash left click and parry most shots though, lol. Also Double Pepperoni is S tier.
Cool game!

I saw some clips of this game on Discord, and it was the first one I wanted to try. The pixel art is nice and the animations for spawning, shooting, etc. are very fluid.

Although, the main issue for me is the layers of rng. You need to hope you don't go several screens without finding ammo, find lots of barrels, don't get softlocked by level gen, hope barrels and aliens drop anything at all, and even if they do, hope they drop what you want.

Sometimes deaths are unavoidable, and I think this could be fixed if there was some sort of system in place to guarantee the player finds both item types after a certain amount of enemy kills/barrel destructions. Overall though, really fun game!

A bit short, but the gameplay itself is great! I like the music too, fits really well.
I'm not sure if it's from my experience with the Streets of Rage games, but I found the floors to all be pretty easy to clear whilst taking little to no damage, although that's fine given it's a game jam and lots of people here are probably inexperienced with beat-em-ups.

The only issues I had was getting permanently frozen on my second run, and the punching ninja enemy hit me despite his entire arm being in front of me.

Cool game! Very difficult, but that's not a bad thing.
I like the way different people react to you differently, so you have to be strategic with who you chase after so you don't starve. The music and sfx fit perfectly too!

I think the only problem I had was how quickly people can swim away. It feels like you can't really do anything about it if a person happens to have a fast move speed and swims away.