itch.io

Hey! I am a pixel artist as well, and I might be interested in participating. It looks like a cool game :)

feel free to reach out in discord if you are interested in my profile _scr_

Cool game, even for an early prototype!. I was surprised about it. The difficulty needs to be definitely tune down as the missiles from the enemies feel that they can predict where I am going, so it doesn't feel too fair. It would be cool that some enemies have a normal shooting which can be dodged without the dash, and some elites which require the dash, instead of now that every missile must be dodged with a dash. But apart from that, good stuff! Keep going :)
Feel free to reach out in discord, if you wanna collaborate for any other project. My nickname is _scr_ or scostasr. I just started my journey as pixel artist and I would love to keep improving.

Interesting concept for sure, however you do not really do anything with it. Maybe you ran out of time, so you just wanted to explosed the idea. Expading the gameplay a bit could have made a fine entry. Keep at it! These kind of entries have ton of potential :)

I enjoyed the visuals a lot, and the level design is good! Well done :) I also had troubles figuring out how to get our of the house so maybe iterate a bit on the structure of the starting level would help with that. Maybe starting on a different point, or guiding the player in a different way than to read the notes of the bood. Overall, fine entry for sure!

Simple but fine game :) I think it could improve a lot if some extra game feel is added, specially when hitting an enemy or when the player is hit. 

I like the music a lot. Simple entry, that could improve a lot if some feel is added (like basic screenshake when hitting an enemy, or when the player is hit; sfx or sprite flickering)

I like the writing of the notes, really feel like they were written by children. However, gameplaywise, a bit too simple in my opinion... Basically, you are asking the players if they can read&understand a note. I think the gamplay could improve if the notes were a bit more cryptic or the choices a bit more diffcult. Adding some sfx or music could improve also a lot the game feel :) Overall, a wholesome entry, very christmacy.

Rage game for christmas, love it!

Good stuff here :) I liked how the mechanics where growing upon time.

Cool game, I like the idea! I got a bit lost in the map so maybe some indicators would be good. Overall, a fine entry :)

Fun little game :) I like the concept itself, well adaptation of the theme. To give some feedback, maybe adding a bit more game feel when the player presses the correct or incorrect keys.

The choice of the keys could be also different, to represent what you see on the screen. For example w d k m (so they are in a vertical line and not horizontal).  Just a silly idea haha

Thanks for playing it and the feebdack!! 

yeah, all the art was hand drawn for this jam, like no-AI or any bs if that is what you are asking. I am really glad you liked it :)

I will keep on my your comment for the next update! A bit extra challenge missing, noted.

lmao! Finally my degree on interpretation and voice acting is paying off...  xd

Thanks for playing the game and your feedback! I appreciate it. I will definitely take it in mind for the next update! 

Thanks man! I appreciate it :)

Hi TenseGames, 

I might be interested in participating as level designer, depending on the commitment per week, as I have a daily full-time job and family. I cannot see your discord so you add me _scr_ and I can send you my portfolio. The game looks honestly really good, and rather finished, you were not wrong about that. Although I know very well how much the last 10-20% of a game can take... 

I might be able to help on other areas as well, like game design or QA. 

Looking forward to hearing from you! 

Hi! I could help you out here, if you are still looking for someone. You can contact me on discord _scr_

Hi! 

I am a game designer and I could help out with game and level design. Would you be interested in having someone with my profile in your team? 

Feel free to reach out in discord _scr_

Hi Diego, 

I am Santi and I am a game and level designer. You can have a look at my itchio to see the games I worked on before. I just wanted to give a headsup in case you need some help with your game, either with mechanics or level design. I have capacity to work on another project during this summer and I wouldn't mind help you out :) 

My discord is _scr_

Honestly, I cannot remember a lot from it as I found out later, that the sprites that are destroyable also change colour. The combat was working fine, I think, as the player sprite was always going back to green after attacking in red. I might try again the game until getting the upgrade to see if I can reproduce it. I will let you know about it!

That was good! Nice art and the scarf is such a good point. Well done. Feedback to the player and juicy elemnts are also nice, and the combat is responsible and simple enough to get it quickly but challenging enough when it needs to be. The eco mechanic was very surprising, specially when it hit me and learning how to use it in your advantage felt really good. Again, the detail to turn this eco into your save point adds so much to the game feel.

Overall, very good entry! Congratulations, I really liked it.

As joaokrejci said, I see some potential here. At first, I honestly thought the entry was not really good as the combat was not interesting neither the simple platforming. However, the jet pack was a nice surprise and it spiced up the platforming, together with the mushrooms. They both opened the world and it was definitely the best moment of the game. The little melon is cute and I liked the rolling jumping animation, for whatever reason I found it super nice to see!. 

My main input here would be to reconsider the pacing of the levels and its challenges. It felt that the levels were too big and the challenges were not really changing. I think less enemies and more interesting situations would make wonders for this game, kind of like concentrate what you have in less space. Apart from that, I found the combat not really well executed as when you hit an enemy, it will immediately hit you back since there is no knock back to stop their movement, so it makes you feel that you did it wrong. I found actually more fun (and more efficient) to just skip enemies by jumping.

Overall, a nice entry :) Congratulations!

Thanks for playing and this great input! We would like to polish a bit more the project after the jam rating is finished, since we started late the project and almost had no time during the jam, so your comments will help a lot to get a better game. We are glad that you liked the atmosphere despite the issues you got :)

The checkpoint thingy was actually intended, kind of like a punishment for players for saving the game and not just speedrun the entire game like true real gamers ;) 

(kidding obviously, in case irony was not clear. We will get that one fixed right away! We did overreached there...)

I am really glad that you liked the level design! It was actually the only reason why I personally wanted to join this jam as I never did level design before, so I am glad that we got that right. Also reg. the atmosphere.

Reg. the rebirth theme... yeah, not great implementation. The idea was that each new skill turns the player a bit more into a monster just for the sake of being the hero of the story. The end of the game is supposed to make it a bit more clear, I guess, but still not great. Next jam goal: work on "story-telling through mechanics" skills.

Thanks for playing and your feedback! :)

Thanks for playing and the feedback! Glad that you enjoyed it overall. 

You don't plan well enough to have sufficient time to playtest and then you get worms flying all over the place... :D we need to fix that spot

Thanks for playing! You are fully right, the combination of the recoil jump + light direction is indeed a pitfall in design... We had very little time to playtest the game and we realised this issue too late. Your suggestion is a very good solution, and it would help much for platforming, thanks! Glad that you liked the atmosphere :)

Lol that is so true! What a pitfall... After the jam, I would like to keep improving the game with all the feedback giving so that will be one of the first things I will fix. Thanks for pointing it out!

Wow, this is awesome for your first game. Congratulations! My first games were not even close to that lol

Although it is true the movement is too slow, specially when backtracking if you are a bit lost, the music helped there a lot. I love the main track (or the initial one, not sure if it is the main but my favourite by far), so it felt fine just going back and exploring slowly while listening the awesome track. Still an issue, but great job with the music. The SFX for the charge attack felt really clever from your side, but I understand that it is easy to miss. Art also goes super well with the theme and the music, congratulations on that. 

The level design is rather clever to follow your vision of now showing any information to the player. However, a tiny bit more of information might still fit into your vision and make everyhting easier for players. Maybe show a little diamond when you get the upgrades, health bar for the bosses or better feedback that you are actually progressing through the fight and not doing something wrong. Reading the previous comments, I realised that I actually got a bug and the objects where not turning red if they are destroyable when the player charges the attack; that would have actually helped a lot and being a nice surprise. Sadly I missed it, but figured out it anyhow. 

I got stump a couple of times, for example outside the bird boss, but overall really good entry :) Congratulations again!

Interesting slow-time mechanic and fairly well implemented. It was fun to play and the controls are very responsive. However, it felt that the game was way too hard from the start, throwing challenges to the player that were not prepared to. It felt a bit frustrating, I think a bit less steep progression would make wonders for the game as it is a well done entry. I liked a lot also the music and the art style! Well done there.

A super nice surprise! Once I got used to the jumping mechanic, I quickly found myself just enjoying the wonderful movement and the soundtrack. Apart from the jump, a rather clever climbing mechanic. Art very unique as well.

Overall, well done! Really enjoyed it.

Super innovative idea! I liked it a lot. Sadly, the 1-hit death + very few saving points threw me away but I wouldn't have mind to keep exploring which new mutations could come. There is a lot of potential in the concept, well done.

As for some feedback, maybe it was a bug but a bit of music or sfx would have been nice. The progression is slow but fine afterall, and the levels give a metroidvania feeling for sure.

Overall, great entry!

Nice retro feeling!. Unfortunately I got stuck after getting the first pickup as I didn't manage to get the final jump to next upgrade.

Great visuals! I would love to see how this game develops

You clearly see how much effort to put into game  juicy stuff, loved it! Very nice feedback to the player. Definitely a metroidvania feeling with intricate levels, and power ups rearrange somehow how the levels are traversed. I would have like to explore a bit more time slow mechanic, didn't really find its use tbh. But you can see the potential there for sure. Quite impressive the dimension of the map as well, and how well the mini-map works. As some contructive feedback, I would say that the progression curve is quite steep, new mechanics directly challenge the player from the beginning without much time to breath; and although the UI elements are super well integrated, I had to stop constantly to read the tutorial messages, breaking somehow the intention I believe. Maybe a static level where the tutorial is shown and the player can test the mechanic could work better, just as a suggestion.

Really nice work overall, you really know what you are doing! Very impressive.

You clearly see how much effort to put into game  juicy stuff, loved it! Very nice feedback to the player. Definitely a metroidvania feeling with intricate levels, and power ups rearrange somehow how the levels are traversed. I would have like to explore a bit more time slow mechanic, didn't really find its use tbh. But you can see the potential there for sure. Quite impressive the dimension of the map as well, and how well the mini-map works. As some contructive feedback, I would say that the progression curve is quite steep, new mechanics directly challenge the player from the beginning without much time to breath; and although the UI elements are super well integrated, I had to stop constantly to read the tutorial messages, breaking somehow the intention I believe. Maybe a static level where the tutorial is shown and the player can test the mechanic could work better, just as a suggestion.

Really nice work overall, you really know what you are doing! Very impressive.

Thanks for the feedback! 

I believe that with SFX you are referring to the start screen. If that is the case, we take gladly the input; fair point. The intention behind it was to create a tutorial without any text but we clearly didn't deliver it correctly. 

The aiming icon turns red when it reaches mouse position, indicating that now the player is able to shoot, so theoretically should not be linked to the interaction with any object. But good point to write in the list for improvements. 

I hope you still enjoyed some parts of the game :) 

Final update done! :)