itch.io

Thanks for playing and the feedback! Yeah the pressing jump again to stomp is a little unusual, especially without holding down, something I'll probably think about. And I agree the spikes need reworked a bit, both damage, and collision that another person mentioned. Thanks again!

That's fully my bad lol! I thought I tried it but obviously not, cheers!

Very solid start for your first 3D game! The character design is excellent and I liked a lot of what you were going for. The dash into long jump into wall slide is reliably very fun. 

I think I had a lot of similar issues to other folks, just some general 3D polish that I won't bother to repeat. My biggest issue was just the "wall state" and ledge grab not triggering consistently. This may be an issue with the level geometry, not sure. And a few more sound effect would have gone a long way: jump, land, wall grab, and wall sliding would have given some nice feedback to make everything feel better. Hope yall keep working on this!!

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate you taking the time! Yeah sensory and game feel was my biggest focus, glad you liked it. 

And yeah I have a small hitstop when you collect a gem, but I know it's a little silly when you grab a whole bunch of them lol, I left it in, but will probably fix that. That's a good note about the spikes! Will definitely change that. And I agree with your other notes too. Would *love* to have snuck a boss in, but ran out of time at the end just getting the levels finished. 

Thanks again for playing!

Thanks for playing and for the comments! Yeah I had more plans for the jewels, and I do want to tweak the wall jump. And I appreciate the note about those last few text boxes! I had run out of time and thought I would let the player know "okay you can stop here if you want", but I agree I could have easily put something more positive / celebratory. Thanks again!!

Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback! I really appreciate it. 

Yeah I wish I had devoted more time / testing to the level design in general. The final room is a common sticking point. And that's a good note that no one else has made about coming back with the Feather, I should have made the enemy over the spikes one of the rock guys, or just had a shortcut like you said. And I'm beginning to regret the Cursed Sword lol, it double the damage of *everyone*, which I though might be a fun addition, but definitely should have tested it more. 

Will definitely tweak the wall jump too, I went back and forth on it a lot. Glad you liked the aesthetic and the crunchy sound! I wanted everything to feel old and nostalgic, but not trying to emulate a particular console. Thanks again

Really cool entry! Found a couple friends and the credits. I like the visor mechanics, simple but effective. My very part is just the atmosphere, and sound design / music, really great vibes. The visor toggle noise was especially nice.

Few small notes: for playing on gamepad, give the option for visor toggle on the bumpers, would be much easier to execute some of the platforming. Some background tiles were nearly as dark as the black foreground tiles, which made parsing where to go next pretty tough. And IMO if you switch visors and you freeze yourself in a block, I think it'd be nice if it just pushes you in *some* direction, like on top of the block if applicable. But I know that would be programmatically complicated since there's a lot of different block configurations / collision scenarios. 

Overall really great job! Hope yall continue working on it

Really great entry! Hit credits, but didn't find any secrets. A lot of solid puzzles and it's always fun to have "knowledge gates", feels very cool. And I think you did a great job with the theme by getting so much mileage out of "one" ability. I don't want to say too much and spoil anything.

Minor issues, the sound effects were so much louder than the music, that I could barely hear the music in order to have the SFX at a comfortable volume. And having to figure out both (?) hidden techniques so close to each other, was a lot of frustrating trial and error in a short span of time, maybe they could have been spaced out a little more. They were very cool though!

I think my biggest struggle is just the structure of the world / game. Each area is mainly a puzzle gauntlet, through which you gain some knowledge that can be used to access the next puzzle gauntlet. And there's not much reason to go back through those old areas. As a result, the game felt pretty linear. It did open up a tiny bit at the end to find the remaining blocks. And this is certainly not an easy fix while creating this style of minimalist puzzle game. But I just missed the sense of world and exploration you get in a "normal" metroidvania.

But this is a really good game, you could easily expand / polish it a bit and it's be ready for sale. Tremendous work!!

Thanks for playing and glad you found the sword :) Yeah I had planned to add a way to cancel the hyper dash but it didn't make it in for the game jam

Wow thank you so much!! I especially appreciate the  Sensory comments, I tried hard to make everything feel cohesive. Glad you enjoyed the game

Made it to the escape pod! I appreciate the atmosphere, and especially like the music and sound design. The jumping felt a little weird to me, with there being no hang time at the peak of the jump. But the platforming was still okay. The boss fight was a lot of fun, but wish it blew up or something at the end lol. And the escape sequence was exciting! Good work!

I finished the game and really enjoyed it! My very part was just the atmosphere, the surreal setting and character abilities, and overall vibe. The music did a lot of good work here too. And I really love the ole "drop you down a huge pit to start the game, then you can get back to some of those places later" opening. 

I didn't actually mind the aggressive traps and hazards (something I wish I had time to add to my game) , but I can see them not being everyone's cup of tea. I think they can be playful and kind of funny, provided you don't lose too much progress. 

I wish there was some kind of feedback when grabbing the pickups / runes, some visual and/or sound effect. Would have gone a long way to making that more rewarding. And similar issue when fighting the boss in the forest area, I wasn't even sure I was dealing damage until it died and the gates opened ( whereas the enemies have a hit flash). I'm sure this was all just from running up against the deadline though. 

Great job overall and hope yall continue working on it!

thanks so much!!

Thank you for checking out the game and your kind words!!

I appreciate it! And I agree with your feedback, the level design could use some work and another person mentioned the PC being a little slow

Thanks for playing, and I appreciate your feedback!!

I really appreciate it!! And yeah I wish I had tested the balance of the cursed sword more, I added it towards the end lol

Thank so much!!

Thanks for your feedback, I'll definitely continue work on the game! I'm glad to hear you found the inputs responsive, there's input buffering on both dash and jump. And yeah I had considered upping the move speed. 

I appreciate the feedback and thanks for the kind words! And I totally agree, I didn't budget enough time for level design, and that last room in particular is a bit of a mess. Thanks for playing!

Thanks for checking out the game and sharing your thoughts! Yeah I definitely want to rebalance the enemy encounters and general difficulty going forward

Thanks for playing and I appreciate the feedback! Yeah the level design was a little rushed, and I should have tested the cursed sword more lol

Really great entry! I like your use of the theme for the mechanics specifically, just the one ability. Nice atmosphere, a little eerie. Moving and jumping felt good to me, the precision platforming was difficult but manageable. And it was a good choice to have very frequent checkpoints ( though I guess you had to anyway to refresh your ability lol ). I wouldn't have minded a map, but I found my way eventually. Great work!

Really simple and solid idea for a puzzle game! Well executed. Liked the Time Cast ability, felt powerful and fun. The sound effects went a long way too, very nice. The seesaw platforms being able to squish the player was kinda funny, but maybe they should just reverse direction or stop instead lol. But anyway, great work!

Love all the character art, definitely the highlight. A solid, well-rounded metroidvania experience, nice that you got a boss fight in there too. Felt okay to control. If you were to add some form of feedback when the player's attack connects, either an impact sound effect, or the enemy flashes, or pushback, something like that, that would go a long way to making the combat feel  better. Hope yall work more on it!

Very cool atmosphere! I liked the robotic / clockwork character designs, combined with the negative space environments, felt very dreamlike. The basic movement felt okay, maybe a bit slippery? I wish I had more specific feedback on that, I'm not a 3D dev lol. But the ledge mantle was a nice addition and the abilities were neat. Good job!

I'm sure you had a lot more planned but this was a rad start! I enjoyed trying out the different weapons, and fire breath on the katana was cool. I wish there were impact sound effects when your weapons connected with an enemy, that would be a quick way to make the combat feel better and less floaty. Hope you keep working on it

Very cool entry! Great sense of exploration and some clever uses of the teleport ability for both secret hearts and to progress through the game. Thankful for the map, would have been a little difficult to figure out where to go without it. Wish there was a little more feedback on attacking an enemy, but the combat is okay for what it is. I did manage to teleport into an area before getting Spit, and got stuck. Here's a screenshot of that location. But I had a fun time with it, great job!

Thanks for trying out the game! And the detailed feedback is very helpful, will absolutely take that into account in a future update for the game.

Thank you for trying out the game! And hmm, I'll look into that! Not sure how that happened

Thanks for checking out the game and for all the feedback! We appreciate the kind words and the suggestions, especially on the movement / combat. And yes, the game will definitely get updated post-jam!

Hey really cool atmosphere and felt pretty nice to control. The hits and dodge feel good. The heal could be a little more clear when you have the minimum energy to perform a heal, and precisely when the heal has gone off and you can let go of the button. 

Like others have said, it was really hard to see anything, once I adjusted my monitor settings it was better. I didn't even realize there *were* spikes in the 2nd room, let alone that I could pogo jump on them. 

Really tried to engage with the first boss but gave up after many attempts. I gave it about 10 tries, the iframes on the dodge help, but just found the fight too punishing and inconsistent. Especially in the 2nd phase, the boss's attack comes out so fast / unexpectedly, if you're near the boss at all, a hit seems unavoidable. I love Hollow Knight and other hard games, and I appreciate the challenge, but this was tuned a little too aggressive for me, especially for such an early encounter.

But I'd love to see more of this game if you continue work on it!

**Slight spoilers**

Fantastic concept, love the 90s aesthetics, definitely a lot of nostalgic imagery. The rooms with the Great Thinkers were easily the highlight. I was excited each time to see the new gimmick and pixel art character. Really really cool. I liked all the unique icons for the different areas too, that was a nice touch

For me, the time limit really hurt the experience. I wanted to carefully explore, read the lore notes, and enjoy the vibes. But the player is incentivized to ignore all that and barrel ahead. I reached the final (?) trash can area with less than a minute. And that area felt really cool and evocative, but I was like "welp gotta stop playing in 30 seconds". I did like that it was a blue screen of death. But it was just frustrating and disappointing. And I didn't feel compelled to play through again, because actually traversing the world and dealing with the viruses was a little tedious. And at that point, the novelty / originality of the world has worn off. The time limit is a bold choice, and maybe it's contributing to a greater design goal / player experience that I'm missing, but it didn't work for me.

But the game still rules, everything is well-implemented and pretty polished. Great work!

Thank you for taking the time to try it! Really appreciate the kind words. Those are good notes, I'll probably put it in some kind of early "sword check" to make sure the player knows the buttons, and I'll have to disable saving mid-death. Thanks for catching that!

Thanks for checking out the game! Yeah you're right about the frog room, that was supposed to be an alternate path, but the jump is accidentally 1 tile too high. And yeah I would maybe make the game a little easier in certain rooms / re-tune the knockback. Thanks again!

I love the world you created and all the different characters were a joy to discover and talk to. The Cactus Guard were my favorite lol. And I appreciate how well you incorporated the Ecosystem theme. 

Being able to buy the abilities and access each area in any order is a fun idea, but also kind of a double-edged sword. The nonlinearity and player-freedom is great, but it's hard to level design around not knowing what abilities the player has at any particular moment. So there was maybe more backtracking than there needed to be through mostly empty levels. ("Empty" meaning I've already talked to the NPCs and collected most of the pickups) 

But it was still very fun to get new abilities and explore more and meet new characters. I had a great time!

Thanks so much for trying out the game, and for all the detailed feedback, that's extremely helpful! Those are all good notes and I definitely want to address the issues you mentioned. If it's not too much trouble, could you describe how you got stuck in a wall? That's the only issue I couldn't reproduce, I tried several things but couldn't get myself stuck. The player character has two colliders that she switches between whether she's crouching/ sliding or not, but only switches to the "standing" collider if there's room to do so. So maybe something with that is causing the character to get stuck

Awesome character design and art, very pretty! And nice atmosphere to the game. The dodge felt good, but the platforming itself didn't feel great to me, you jump and fall very fast. I think tuning that to be slower / slightly floatier, and maybe a little bit of inertia on the left/right movement would help, and match the elegant character design. But the biggest issue is the room transitions look identical to the other walls, very very confusing in places. 

Would love to see more of this character!

Great idea, super charming game. I love the journal, being able to customize it, and having the controls in there is a fun idea too. And just the simple act of seeing a new bug was very enjoyable, I really liked finding the green camouflaged one. I would maybe rethink some of the platforming / level design-- missing a jump and falling all the way to the bottom of the tree was a little tedious. Nice work overall, great vibes!