itch.io

I liked it! Something that would help clarity would be giving differently colored names to each of the characters. I had a hard time figuring out who was talking. Great entry though!

Hi Xander! My friends and I are putting together a team for the Mini Jam this week, we've got coding and art going but we don't have anybody who's into sounds or music. Would you be interested in that? As a group we aren't 110% sure if we want another member, but I'd just like to know if that's on the table 

Cute little game! The platforming mechanics were a tad wonky though.  There are a few things you could try to make the platforming feel a lot better.

Take a look at this video by Jonas Tyroller for some useful ideas to make 2D platforming controls a lot more fun:

It's a nice little game and it fits the theme well, though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a tad boring to play. The gameplay is simply slashing at the enemies and walking over the statues. 

Cute and fun little game! It wasn't too difficult and it was a fun application of the theme. Good work!

I may have managed to glitch myself into a wall and had some of the ai glitch on me, but few issues otherwise.

This was a really cool entry with an interesting take on the theme.  While it was quite hard, there's definitely a place for tough games like this. Awesome game!

This was a super well-done entry! Our team had a similar application of the theme, making a squad-based shooter. It's awesome that there's a lot of ways to apply a similar idea! Your execution was really cool, and the art was awesome. 

Fantastic entry!

Great entry! I wasn't quite able to figure out what the split and merge controls did, so I might have missed some stuff. I only made it to level 2 lol. 

This game had a lot of heart to it! The take on the theme was interesting. While it was great, I think I found it a tad easy, though maybe I just got lucky early on when I had a bunch of extra bees to allocate. Good job leaning easier rather than hard though!

Great game!

This concept is really cool because it encourages the player to be very careful about how they make each move. This is a great game! One thing I noticed was how the difficulty ramped up a bit quite quickly. I also might have found a glitch where if you lost and restarted it starts you on the first round at the same wave you died last on. Maybe it's intentional, though.

Overall, awesome game!

Great first demo... this is some good stuff.

In this comment, I'll leave out what a lot of others are saying about what should "be in the game" like online multiplayer,  tutorial, builds for other OSs, bots, etc because I know you've already been considering many of those things. Instead, I'll try to give some thoughts on what you can do to improve what you have here already, mainly the controls.

(Before I get into a ton of detail, it's worth noting that I'm definitely a mouse and keyboard guy, so those with more controller experience might not feel the way I did 100%)

I played for a bit of time, maybe 15 to 20 minutes. In that time I managed to get relatively comfortable with landing big punches on the dummy. Even after that time though, the rate at which I landed a hit felt inconsistent. I often wasn't able to determine what I did differently between a max-power hit and a scrape, or between a hook and an upper-cut.

Along those lines, it was a bit difficult to find the distance needed to land hits. I felt I was often either too far away or too close, and it was difficult to tell until I swung and missed. 

I also noticed that I naturally felt far more comfortable swinging punches with the right side rather than the left. This might be because I'm personally right-handed, but it might also be because the lean-stick is on the right. I might be an edge case here, and it might not even be an issue. 

I'm a tad concerned about how the mechanics of the game will translate to 1v1s, at least for new players. Like I said, in my first 20 minutes I barely managed to get used to punching a dummy, let alone balancing positioning, blocking, stamina, and punching in an actual match. Learning curves are acceptable and are welcome for many players, but many others might get frustrated if they are learning that balancing act in live games. I'd say that theoretically, the best way to address this would be to either simplify the mechanics or provide a way to practice them offline. Not just practice for punching, but for that balancing act the combat features.

The review sounds worrisome, but for real, it's a really good start. When you do land those hits it feels really good, and I could see a community building up around its combat mechanics. Overall, really great! Can't wait to play the next updates!

Quick disclaimer: I'm unsure if we'll be doing any multiplayer or even use Core.  I'm just curious for suggestions if we did decide to try it.

It's pretty odd in my experience to see a jam to offer multiplayer as a challenge.  It's pretty cool, don't get me wrong, but in only a 3 day time period I would expect to have trouble playtesting a multiplayer game even if it was built in Core where multiplayer is already implemented.

Multiplayer games can introduce a lot of relevent design variables that need to be tweaked to maintain balance and fun, but in order to find what needs to be tweaked you need people who aren't you to play it (and enough of them that your game still functions correctly).

Any tips on how to get enough different people to playtest a multiplayer jam game?  I'm interested to hear your thoughts.  Thanks!    

Absolutely!  It's always a fantastic growth oppurtunity regardless of how it goes.  

Here is a video by Jonas Tyroller with some tips on how to have a good game jam experience:

I look forward to playing your game!

Unity here, once again

What I understand from this is that Roblox demonstrates large earning potential.  A million is definitley no small amount, that's for sure.  But we have to remember that there is (in any games market) a large gap between the earnings of select popular games we see on front pages and the earnings of a typical small developer.

Here is a table demonstrating this principle from this article:  https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-revenue-data-and-why-you-should-ignore-it-2bea283d37fc

This table displays in-app earnings from a single day for different Action games on both the App Store and Google Play Store.  This demonstrates the descrepancy between the big titles on the front pages and what most people actually publish.   

Here is also a GDC talk by Mike Rose talking about this same phenomenon on Steam:

The moral of these grim statistics is this: you absolutely MUST NOT assume you will find success based on the success of popular titles.

I expect that with so many games in Roblox's registry, the statistics follow a similar trend to this.  As far as I'm concerned there is no escaping the fact that succeeding in any games market is actually much harder than making a good game in the first place.

I do not say these things to try to discourage you or tell you that you won't make money or find success.  I myself have not released a commercial game, but I've attempted it many times and continue to despite weak financial prospects.  I say these things to help you to keep your expectations realistic.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there is a 99% chance that you won't make anywhere near as much money as Adopt Me on Roblox.  Of course, that's also true for Clash of Clans on mobile or PUBG on Steam.  

When you are learning to make games and program, I think that Roblox is a good way to start.  However, for a financial endeavor, I'm much more pessimistic about that platform for other reasons. 

 For example, if you create a game in the Roblox platform, it's stuck there.  Your game is exclusively available to only Roblox players.  A Roblox developer is also at the mercy of Roblox themselves.  If Roblox makes a change that hurts a developer or a game, there's not much that can be done about it.  That principle, of course, still applies to other markets.  Apple for example is removing Epic products from the App Store.  Other than legal squabbles, there's nothing they can do about it.  BUT:  Developing in an environment separate from the markets you intend to sell in gives you flexibility and longer customer reach because your game is yours and you can do whatever you want with it.  Sure, Epic may be hurt by that move, but it has other avenues to sell their games and make money.  On the other hand, if a Roblox developer were too, say, get banned or something from the platform, then POOF.  All of their work is gone. 

I've only worked in Godot a little bit, so I don't know much first-hand about whether it's a good engine to work in.  I do know that many say it's great and I don't doubt them.  I would personally suggest that if your intention is to earn some money to go with Godot because then everything about your game will belong to you and not Roblox.  You can also sell your work in multiple places.  Itch.io can be monetized, and I know that you can put a finished game on Steam when you meet some requirements and pay a 100$ fee to sell.  If Godot can port to things like iOS and Android, that's 2 more potential avenues if your game can use an appropriate control scheme.  Of course, even if you do sell on all of these platforms, you still probably won't make much money. 

But, even if you make 1 single cent, you'll still be miles ahead of many others because you made money by making a video game that's yours.

Don't forget as well that if it doesn't work out the way you wanted it to, it doesn't mean that it was a waste of time or effort.  Failure is success in progress.  By making any financial game you'll learn so, soo much that you will take with you to the next attempt regardless of where you make it. 

Really nice man!  I'll keep that in mind for this jam and the future!  Thanks!

As far as I'm concerned, just stick Walpole in there somewhere and you'll get it

Let's hear a more objective perspective:

There are a lot of different tools available for us to create games.  They all have different strengths, weaknesses, and learning curves.  Some prefer that you have some development/design experience, others are great to learn on for building games for your first to first hundred times. 

Personally, I built my first game on a visual scripting engine called Construct 2.  I didn't have any coding knowledge and I was intimidated by it, but that was ok!  I learned a ton and felt proud that I finished my tiny game all on my own.  I later moved to Gamemaker where I built more ideas and started to learn how to code.  Nowadays I work in Unity, where I write almost all of my own code.  After this jam, I'll have 8 jams complete in Unity as well as other projects. 

What does that anecdote demonstrate?  Everyone has their own learning paths.  As long as you're comfortable learning new things, there isn't really a bad tool to pick.

I personally don't have any experience in Roblox Studio or Core so maybe I'm off track here, but they seem very similar in premise.  Both Roblox and Core are platforms where a creator can create content and experiences by building off an already solid and familiar framework.  That being said, there may be an argument to be made that learning to develop in Core could provide an avenue for transitioning into working in the Unreal Engine.  It may take some time and practice, but I'm sure it can be done!

If your experience is in Roblox Studio, I'd bet it's a great starting point for learning to code and design games.  If that's the case, however, I'd personally encourage you to give Core a shot for this jam.  I expect that it would be a great learning and growth opportunity for you.

Hecc, I'm throwing in the Miz Jam now too.. How wise of me X(

Heck man, y'all need more ratings.  This is honestly one of the most fun games I've played in the jam.  Typically when I see the rope wrapping around things in other games it's just a gimmick, but here it's a very, VERY fun and interesting puzzle mechanic that is easy and quick to understand without explanation.  Very solid execution.  Well done, sirs.

Great work, guys.  Very cool premise and a detailed story.  The only suggestion I would make would be to reduce the time waited in the zombie section.  I felt like I spent more time in that part then all the others because of the 3 minute timer.  I felt like I was waiting around to get back to the story, when it should have served it's purpose in only a minute or so.  Just a thought!  Great entry overall.

Nice premise and a solid execution.  I personally experienced a lighting glitch on the second level, where the spotlights from the security bots would clip through the walls and floors and produce weird effects.  

Otherwise, the premise creates a very interesting scenerio where your ammo is limited and making shots count is important.  Really cool!

Very impressive work, man.  A very unique artstyle that probably took time and fancy flying to pull off with a solid shooter feel.  Frankly, I think it's the best fps I've played so far in the jam.  

One thing I'd say to make an improvement though:  I felt like the explosive charges that one enemy shoots out are very difficult to avoid.  I feel like no matter how far away I am from them, they always deal damage to me.  I'm unsure how to avoid them. 

That though is really the only improvement point I suggest.  Really solid work overall.  

This had a very entertaining premise and good character.  I had a bit of a fumble when I started clicking on plants for about 5 minutes straight and figured it didn't do anything after that.  I didn't realize what was actually supposed to happen until I saw the comment just below mine.  I guess some better communitaction that we need to be button mashing while matching the plants.  Maybe flashing text that says something like [MAKE GAME] whenever you need to be button mashing.  Just a thought.  Ultimately though I thought this one was fun!

There is a good concept here.  The color switching mechnic is cool, but I don't see how it pertains to the theme of the jam.  (It did remind me of Titanfall 2's time switching mission, which could be a cool angle to pitch it at though.) 

I wasn't able to get through many of the levels, largely because some of the controls did not respond in the way I was used to according to my inputs.  Sometimes, for example, I would hit the space bar in a critical moment and the colors wouldn't switch.  Othertimes the character wouldn't respond to things like jumps and wall jumps.

I suggest a fantastic video by Jonas Tyroller about how to tighten up those platformer controls really nicely.  We used a lot of the same methodologies he talks about in our entry, The Dream Wood. (The Title of the Video is "5 Reasons Your Indie Platformer Sucks! (+Easy Fix!)"  I DO NOT intend to say that your game sucked.  It's just the quirky title of an otherwise very helpful video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFsJIrm2btU

Well sure, there's that.. I meant it as only a joke (speaking from my own experience), I'm sorry if it was in poor taste

Same, man.  (I didn't do GMTK, I did a small one), but Brackeys and now this one just a little bit later.  But I mean, while we're all couped up and unemployed there's no better time, right? :D  

I don't think I've seen another game here bring it all together so nicely.  I'd bet very few people would've been able to pull so much off alone.  The First Person controller and the ragdoll enemies are things you've showed off in the past, but even still it's been wrapped together extremely well.  Well done, sir!

I only have 1 complaint.  At times I felt like in combat there wasn't much you could do to avoid getting it without waiting to block the enemies.  The combat felt slowed down by how you have to block, then strike, then block, if you want to get them without getting hit.  This game gets away with that well because you have the option to throw your sword, and even in many cases it's not necessary to fight at all if you're trying to speedrun the level.  That's all I'd give to improve, to make the enemy melee attacks easier to avoid with a telegraph or something of the sort.

Ultimately very well done!  I got 5:18.227 as a combined time (not in one run).

Superbly polished platformer!  Gorgious art, fitting sound effects and music, and interesting puzzles that weren't to easy or too hard.  One of my favorite parts of it to be frank was the death effect, it's quite funny!  Outstanding work!

Man, I'm sorry you weren't able to finish it T.T   We agree the levels need lots of adjustment to smooth out the dificulty curve.  But hey, Thank you for those kind words!  We're really glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks! Celeste was our big inspiration I think. (I wasted lots of time playing it rather than helping the team)

Thanks, man!

Thanks for playing and spending your time with us, man!

We're glad you liked it, man!  I noticed that on the web build I had some of that too when I didn't play it in fullscreen.  When it was in fullscreen it seemed to be fine.  If you play it in fullscreen and it's still fuzzy, maybe it is because of your resolution.  That's strange.. I'm sorry you didn't see it look quite right :/  Hopefully it's something we can fix!

We're glad you liked it, man!  Celeste was one of our inspirations.  I managed to waste 6 straight hours of dev time playing it instead of helping the team :D

Thanks for playing, man!  We're glad you liked it!

Thanks for playing, man!

Thanks for the feedback, man!  We're glad you liked it!

Thanks, man.  Celeste was definetly in our heads as we made it.  I managed to binge play it for about 6 hours straight during the jam instead of doing useful things for the team XD.  But anyway, thanks again for playing!