itch.io

First off, this game is by among one of my favorites of the jam. It goes beyond the rating categories. The design, adherence to theme, and originality are the best I've seen in the jam. However, it continues to impress me with the atmosphere, music, art, etc. 

I am surprised how little entries were horror themed, because the theme was only one. Typically giving the player only one of something they usually have a lot of lends itself to making the player feel powerless. I am huge fan of horror games. Although few actually scare me nowadays, and I'm not ashamed to admit that this game's atmosphere and sound effects were effective enough to unsettle me. Despite it's cute art, which I believe provides a beautiful contrast to the narrative and atmosphere, it is scary.  In my opinion, this game is excellent beyond words and I am craving more of this game. 

My only critique is that the mechanic of killing the same monster the same with the spikes would get too repetitive if the game was longer. However, the game was short enough it did not over stay its welcome. If this game were to be made into a full game, I would love to see different creatures and different ways to kill, run, or hide.

I am literally gushing about this game and I wish I could give it a perfect score. I love it so much and is by the most fun I've had with a game jam entry. There is something really special that I feel when playing this game that I don't feel with a lot of other entries. I cannot explain what it is, but you have some kind of special ingredient or secret sauce. 

Like I said previously, I wish I could give this a perfect score in every category, because in my opinion it is my favorite entry. The only reasons that I cannot give it a perfect score is because it is admittedly too difficult and I question the enemy placement (which is design in my opinion). Just to be clear, i not only beat this game once, but four times! I couldn't stop myself from beating it again just to get better at the game.  Also this game uses a common idea used my many other entries, but is by far the best execution of the idea I've seen in this jam.

I would love if you played our game or could even add us on discord because I would love to learn from you!

Thank you for such detailed feedback. I'm so happy you stuck with our semi-functional game! 

Both Sarah and I completely agree with all of the issues you bring up. At some point in the jam we realized that we couldn't figure out how to make the yo-yo any better and had to work with what we had. This jam has been such a great learning experience for us and all of the feedback we have received makes us want to work harder and learn more. We could make the yo-yo disappear and have a little animation of them putting it in their pocket and taking it out. Also, seeing that GIF of the string bending with the terrain makes me excited to learn how to do that so thank you for the suggestion.

Don't be sorry, you're right and I agree with a lot of your points. We didn't have anyone but ourselves play test the game. After we started see some people complaining about the controls we couldn't add an in-game tutorial after the submission period had ended so we made the guide for people who have had difficulties. Just because some people and myself can play the game well doesn't mean the controls are good. Bad controls can be mastered, but that doesn't change the fact they are bad controls. We know there is a lot to improve and we learned a lot. Thank you for taking the time to make a comment and critique the game. We truly appreciate it. 

I had a lot of fun playing this, because it is so addicting! It is comparable to classic arcade games that made you want to keep putting in more quarters. 

I really like the art. It is so interesting and original. The game is challenging, but fair. I enjoyed my playthrough a lot. I would love to see more levels made for this game.

Some of the puzzles were kinda broken, but I still enjoyed the game. It has a lot of potential!

There is a lot of potential for this game. There are just minor issues that I had while playing, but despite them this game is still great. I love the art and concept.

The writing is superb and the art is gorgeous. My only problem is that I wish I could see more of the story.

I love this game so much. The art is adorable. The level design is great. The game is so original. This game is perfect for this jam!

This game was such a clever take on the only one screen idea. It is by far the best "only one screen" game. I had so much fun playing this game. It was also challenging but fair. 

It is amazing how polished the game is from the levels, art, and design.  It is among the best games I've played in this jam.  It is addicting and challenging. My only critique is that it could have introduced the new mechanics better, but I understand it is difficult to do in a 48 hour game jam. 

Yeah, it's not what we wanted. It's expected for it to be unpolished in such a short jam. It was the best we could do, and we want to improve it and release another version after the jam is over. Thank you for the feedback so that we can make a better better game.

On our game page, we linked this guide to hopefully help players better understand the controls if they are still stuck.  It would be great if you took a look and tell us if it is helpful. We optimally would have put better tutorials and level design in the game, but are unable to make these changes now.

First off, thank you for reviewing the game and leaving great feedback. It really means a lot and it helps us learn and grow.

Do you think you can check out this guide and tell us if it's helpful for new players?

We tested locking the character from rotating (and even made the yo-yo shoot from the hand), but it messed up a lot of the physics and made the game too easy. It gave the player way too much control and it felt too rigid. It didn't feel exciting or fun. We do have an idea to make the character only rotate slightly, instead of freely. That might be the perfect balance between the two, but it requires code to achieve this and we did not test it due to a lack of time. 

Originally we wanted to make the yo-yo only follow the string and we almost got it working, but the yo-yo would glitch out sometimes and we didn't know how to fix it. We agree that we should adjust the camera size or change the player size, and we'll most likely make this change after the jam is over. Thank you for the suggestion.

Yes, the yo-yo intentionally moves/updates slower than the purple cursor to give a feeling of weight to the yo-yo.  For the most part, the game can be played slowly and methodically. I believe that playing slower and taking your time makes the game  much easier. I can play the game very quickly and it makes it more challenging for me. That is something that I really wanted to put in the game, because it adds replay value for me. It also acts as a automatic difficulty scaling, because the players will most likely play at a speed that makes it challenging for them. 

Thank you again for taking the time to leave a comment and providing feedback. I hope you read this comment and can understand the amount of thought we put into the game. The current build of the game is not perfect, but is the best we could do in 48 hours. 

It was very fun and cute. I enjoyed playing through the levels, but I couldn't beat level 3. I think there could be improvements, but overall  it is really fun

This game is a lot of fun and addicting. The controls are really responsive. The art is amazing. I wish the bow could shoot a little farther, because it feels like it can but I'm not doing it right. Also, at one point I was confused which character I was spawned near 2-3 other characters that all looked the same. Maybe if the player had a different color or an arrow above their head for the first few seconds at the start of the game. 

I really think there is a lot promise with this game. I enjoyed it and thought it was funny. Although, the worst enemy in the game was the stairs. 

Thank you for the feedback. We realized after we were making the first level that it is similar to getting over it, and I think it ended up being a small influence. The weird controls were necessary or else it would be too easy. The controls could have been improved if we had more time. 

I was able to complete 5 levels. The hit box on the characters is at the top left of their head. I like the game and think it is cool idea, but I question the adherence to the theme of the jam. Nevertheless it is still an impressive prototype.