Good simple fun. i am quite impressed with how well it runs with so much on screen at the same time. i would have liked some indicators of where the cannonballs are coming from before they came on screen to better be able to react since it's a bit hard to see them with all the screen gore. other than that, i can't really think of anything that i would improve
submitting a game for a game jam is a notable feat in and of it's self. you are already doing better than 20 of the people who signed up for this jam. the game is playable as well without any major bugs, and has a clear goal, and a clear path to get to that goal. there was some trouble with lag around some areas and difficulty moving around obstacles. it also wasn't clear exactly where i was able to walk between trees and where i was not, one way to help with this is to make the colliders a bit smaller than the sprites. it does cause them to clip into each other a bit, but if you make it so that objects at lower y values render on top (either by changing their order in the renderer component, or changing their z value in unity's transform) it wont look too terrible. in addition having all the creatures simply move directly at the player is effective and simple, and is fine for a game that is just getting a feeling for game design, but it is usually better to give some different behavior. even something as simple as making the boss occasionally fire a fan of slimeballs that you have to dodge would go a long way. all in all i am glad you made a submission and hope to see you submit more.
I really like the concept and execution. I had the same vision when setting out to start my game of a unifying treasure mechanic where it touches on many aspects of play, but you pulled it off better. A couple criticisms though. The fact that a bullet waits for a timer before firing rather than firing and then waiting on a timer made the game feel a bit clunky and imprecise. Also your scaling system seems off, magnets barely seem to have an effect even after several upgrades, and all player upgrades are strictly linear while the enemies seem to scale in a multiplicative way, leading you to drain more treasure on attacking enemies, even when you buy attack upgrades every level.
EDIT: upon continuing to play i discovered the ammo cost feature. I still maintain the opinion about the fire rate, the magnet is better when you have a very high value, but it's still weird, and the game is (understandably because game jam) not properly optimized
i had a better tutorial planned, but i spent too much time getting the thing to behave how i wanted it to, and didnt have much time otherwise. Thanks for the criticism.
i had a better tutorial planned, but i spent too much time getting the thing to behave how i wanted it to, and didnt have much time otherwise. Thanks for the criticism.
thanks, i had a better tutorial planned, but i got a bit more ambitious than my skill level allows, and i had to spend too much time programming and debugging the behavior of the plant
a really fun getting over it style idea. the presentation was great. selecting a pin was inconsistent, and sometimes it would lock on to a pin i didn't click, even ones far odd screen. pins were hard to see with the lack of contrast. alltogether pretty great though
yeah, the last version didn't make it up in time, but it included the indicators disappearing like they do in the 3rd level everywhere, thanks for the feedback though
there are actually a couple of tricks i discovered from repeatedly testing this project to help you align better, but i certainly felt similarly in the begining, perhaps if i built a more tutorialistic opening to express these concepts?
yeah, the turnstile thing has been a common issue from people i see. i figure i could probably communicate that better. thank you very much for the praise, i expected much worse for my first game.
the pads were actually supposed to disappear when triggered like they do in the 3rd level. i fixed this, but i didn't get my latest version up in time. thankfully, i uploaded a early version
The enemies are very difficult to work around. because of your limited rolls, you can't just wait until the necessary path is safe, and moving anywhere around them is basically a coinflip as to whether or not the will kill you. I think removing their ability to kill you if you cross their path, and maybe adding some indication of the direction they are next going to go would really help it feel less random. All in all it actually is a pretty interesting concept. It is visually pretty decent, and the music is great,
it's not so much that the enemies spawn too fast, just that depending on where they spawn and how quickly you can dispatch them, you get into a state where you can't do anything because all of your actions rely on the dice. i guess it is a skill based barrier, so it is not really a "problem." the feeling of helplessness and slowly watching your health bar go from full to half as you try to get to your weapon just kind of sucks.
This is very well done. I don't think the slippery control scheme that was chosen really suits this kind of game. Its not very fun when you take damage because you drifted into an enemy in spite of correcting your direction a quarter second before. And getting your dice stuck in a huge blob of enemies is basically a death sentence. perhaps add a way to manually recall a die to you, even if it requires a long cooldown or something. All in all, i love the idea, it is organically fun to play, and i would probably be willing to drop some money on this.
Solid game, great artwork and controls. the game kind of just encourages you to keep rolling until you get the power up that you want, but i generally love duel purpose mechanics and trade off mechanics.
i can't say i have any suggestions on the pacing thing. the biggest concern i had is that in the begining it felt like i was scrambling constantly to manage the resources i had and trying to juggle between recipes to keep the money flowing. after automation it was more like clicking the same 2 things for a few minutes and the game was suddenly over. perhaps a system where you have to keep moderating the recipes and swapping them to optimize income might improve engagement and still allow for great automation. i know most idle games deal with that buy just increasing the cost of everything as you go.
This gives me big Baba is you vibes, and that is one of my favorite puzzle games. i could recommend a reset button so i don't have to press z 50 times after a long series of mistakes, but other than that, i can't criticize anything.
it took me a bit to figure out that the dirt is used in the same place as the drinks are. the game also goes by much quicker once you start automation. the speedrun-like goal set for it actually is an interesting take on the idle game aesthetic shifting from a more relaxed number growing game into an optimization game. i think with a bit improved pacing, a mechanic to incentivize not simply sticking with a single recipe for half the game (some diminishing returns or something), and a way to get recipes into the bar without click-dragging (shift-click to put it in the first available slot, or clicking the recipe from the side bar to auto fill it) it could actually be a decent game. i might have to try to beat my embarrassing 23 minute time.
thanks for the feedback. when i was testing it after the upload it was fine, but i suppose some polish on dealing with different resolutions is a good idea.
