itch.io

Best Looking game i've seen. Master piece!!

MAN! this game looks and sounds amazing... 

quick question... Why isn't there a Download button ! ? ?

the game took so quite a while to load up on my pc but honestly, it was worth the wait.

one thing though, the dialogue box, nice color and all but the font is a little thin and kinda hard to see. other than that, i love the art work and character designs.

Great job.

I didn't read any of the story though, its... not my type...

I feel like i need to say this again... whoever worked on the art.... GOD.... you did a great job i wish i could get some i could use for my wall paper.

I also drew a character that kinda looks like the mage girl in your game, i did this  for someone a few years back and was planning to put up the speed draw of the character on my YouTube channel. it would be cool if you guys could check it out and tell me what you think about it, maybe give me  a few pointers when its up?

Best of Luck with your game!!

Nice game.

Visually it could use some work... a lot of work. its col yo added in some sound effects.

My greatest issue is this, the enemies are way too high and the player character is way too close to the ground. the walls have this effect on the eyes and it would be much better if the walls were just made of the normal default cubes in the engine you use. 

also, a map would be a great addition to your game in future even though, i have seen some games pull off the no Map gameplay, if thats more your style then the game has to be pretty heavy on the level layout and design style.

i think your game can turn out to be something really cool. i'm looking forward to seeing much better Demo version of your game

Best of Luck!

Nice game, i wish there were sound effects and a quick tutorial.

huh, i didn't realize there was an end zone the player can go to in order to complete a level...

haha, looks like a pretty spooky game but didn't feel like it for the first 10 seconds.

everything was going fine with me confidently moving through the enemies and killing them all with the pistol and shot gun until i realized there was a map, i noticed the little orbs on the ground and picked as much as i could find then i saw the really big purple orb... the problem is, this orb i was looking for was also quietly moving towards me, i never knew i was heading for the boss XD

I had fun playing it and got quite spooked when i finished the first level, cause then, i realized the colourful things on the map were the enemies XD

The game lacks polish and i think its a little too dark, with even the light from the torch being too dimly lit, the game was in fact very nice, the pacing is not so bad and although t does need some more polish and some ambient sounds and a whole lot of blood and particles, i really did enjoy it and will love to see an updated version of it.

and yeah, i think your UI looks nice too.

Best of luck!!

Looks like a game with a cool mechanic, i'll check this out as soon as i can

The UI looks nice but i don't really like how the tooltip follows me around when i hover over a character. maybe just make the window pop up above the characters so theres no obstructions at all. it might seem like a small thing but it gets annoying quick.

This is just my take but i'm really not a fan of games with monstrous amounts of stuff going on in or with the UI,  it makes my eyes dart back and forth. so naturally... i just looked for a way out of the menu and for a way into the game itself. 

Now, i know that this is meant to be a demo but i do feel UI elements need to have some hierachical order but right after pressing the Dungeon button i got hit by the three different dungeons, i'm here looking at the three dungeons and thinking,

"eh, what do the different buttons on each dungeon have to do with the dungeons itself".

Looking closely, i realized its just like the theme for each room? I don't think changing button colors is a good design choice it makes it look kinda random, don't you think so? you can probably just turn the awesome level images into the button itself.

Playing the game

The tooltip type windows are everywhere now,

i can't hover in peace any more. moving through the UI feels like the actual battle than the battle itself, and apart from that, i honestly dont know what i'm doing or supposed to do... is this an auto battler?

This game will really benefit a lot from a very good, detailed tutorial cause again, i had no idea what was going on

'_'

There also needs to be a way for us, your players to know what rooms we are currently in...

the game's pretty UI heavy but feels very bland with a lot happening not much happening all at once.

but hey, this isn't my kind of game and i'm definitely not your target audience so my feedback based on gameplay won't really matter all that much.

Best of luck though, i'd like to see a more polished version of this soon... especially in terms with the UI.

Please let me know if you'd like to hang out some more.

Thanks for checking out Awkward Pong !

...

Hmm... Bonk.io, i'll definitely check that out as soon as i can. ( slacking off in class though is pretty funny to me XD )

I'll be doing just that and more, in response to what the others have suggested and more so please consider following to get notified when the update is available.

as for sounds, thats in the works, i'll be searching for some really nice tracks that fit the game, giving credit ( of course ) where its due.

i've never made an android game though, i always assumed it would be a chore... but maybe i'll give it a try. ( No promises though ) cause i do have another project, my main project which i'm still working on, using this more as a fresh breath of air so...

But i will think about it and when the time is right, you'll be notified about the planned mobile release ( of course, you'll only know if you follow me here on Itch.... Just saying XD )

Thanks again for checking out Awkward pong, your feed back was indeed helpful, thanks!

Hey man, thanks a lot for suggesting a game i could check out ( Arkanoid ).

And yes, an upgrade like Multi-ball does exist as we speak, its still a hand full as of now but it exists XD, Longer paddles too ad a few others, i'm sure you'd like to see the upgrades i added to the current build so Please follow me here on Itch to be notified of when the Update is out... i'd be more than happy to get your feed back then too.

I am also working on some more polish and a few other stuff, funny how most of the new stuff skip my mind on times like this... ( another good reason for you to follow XD )

As for the single player issue, i kinda found a work around for it... it might not be as crisp i imagine it but i genuinely think its almost on par with my vision for that single player mode, but we'll see... we'll see if it actually fits and is worth spending some more time on.

Can you please explain what you mean by " I think it would be more fun if the game continued until you lost " should i make the Scores higher or are you talking about something more like a highScore system for the single player mode?

I'll add a lot more juice, I pray you'll be available when the update is finally out so you can help check that out for me, it would be really AWESOME . . .

i did all the games UI design with Unity primitive UI, so i'll see how i can make thing look a lot more crisp with the Update... i'm really not sure how long it would take for me to get the actual art work for the game ready though so please bear with me...

Also, i did just check out Arkanoid, i'll be looking deeper into it, see what i can learn from it. Thanks a lot !!

Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to check out Awkward Pong, and for leaving your feedback,  it truly means a lot.

Firstly, i am not going to apollogize for how long this is

XD

I just tried out the game and  it really does look good although, i am not much of a fan of lowpoly art styles cause most games made like this usually kinda look samey and feel not so smooth ( In my opinion ). I've not tried playing with the lowpoly art style for this reason but i also think it has something to do with fact i can see so many polygons on the characters and environment.

I do like the ambient sounds used for the games main menu, it really fits the theme the game tries to carry.

Nice work!!

It could be my system but, i realized the transitions were a little slow when the camera moves from one target to another, Moving forward, i'd suggest really checking in the Profiler to see whats really causing your frame rate to drop before or when the cam moves... 

Right before the mission starts, i wished there was a way to see a summary of the selected characters skills so i don't have to memorize, cram or guess what they're good at, now i don't really know if their persona will truly affect how they function in the game and what kind of weapons they're are allowed to carry ( though that would be a really  cool feature don't you think ? )

also before the game officially starts, when the team is selected, making the characters appear alone on some sort of Round table so there's less on screen for the players to see would not only help your frame rate, but will also help keep the players locked to one character at a time, lastly, also leaving way more room for you to add in more UI elements to the scene, stuff like the Bio-Skill summary, Character stats, and any other thing you'd really like or need to add. This format also preserves the input you provided for moving the camera, the ( a/ d ) keeping things consistent and memorable for the players, also giving them less input and kinda really teaching them how to play the actual game through UI Motion, when the game does start, the player won't be pressing random buttons to check if their hunch for moving the player is right, they'd just... know and thats all thanks to your design decisions right from the get go.

Now this is stuff i'm noticing before actually playing the game, i'm still at the menu and character selection screen.

and oh, Please disable character animations for those characters the player isn't interacting with, that steps hard on the fps for potato PC's like mine XD, Basically, if a character isn't the priority, nothing about it should be enabled, you can go extreme with this and even just replace the character with an image of it which faces the camera then replace it with the actual gameObject with all its components enabled.

Anything behind the characters can be a literal image of the actual prop here making the background around the character blurry and since it might be an image, if you choose this method, you can just darken the image, letting the characters stand out even more, essentially making the character focus better on the character and anything else you want to pull their attention to.

Pressing the start button....

Never underestimate how important asynchronous loading and level transitions saves the game, for me, id start loading in the scene the moment the player is at the character equipment screen, so this is triggered somehow.

Did you do the Asynchronous loading for your current build?

Playing the Game...

On moving the characters i immediately noticed my frame rate dropped to Lord knows what but again i use a potato PC so its probably that. I  did check the settings and i was glad to see that there were settings for some stuff and also graphics... it didn't help much, but i'm glad its there.

For me though, the actual play time wasn't as long as i thought it would be,

1. cause of how slow it played on my PC: this in particular pushed me away quite fast cause i'm crazy crazy in love with fast paced action games and

2. cause of how the camera movement felt: i was there pressing the arrow keys to see if i could look around, but that wouldn't feel great since you need the mouse to control where the character goes.

In all, this isn't my type of genre i would usually engage with so i can't say i really had fun playing it but the game does look great and i'm genuinely interested in seeing how this game turns out in the nearest future.

. . . : Best of luck man : . . .

Firstly, i am not going to apollogize for how long this is

XD

I just tried out the game and  it really does look good although, i am not much of a fan of lowpoly art styles cause most games made like this usually kinda look samey and feel not so smooth ( In my opinion ). I've not tried playing with the lowpoly art style for this reason but i also think it has something to do with fact i can see so many polygons on the characters and environment.

I do like the ambient sounds used for the games main menu, it really fits the theme the game tries to carry.

Nice work!!

It could be my system but, i realized the transitions were a little slow when the camera moves from one target to another, Moving forward, i'd suggest really checking in the Profiler to see whats really causing your frame rate to drop before or when the cam moves... 

Right before the mission starts, i wished there was a way to see a summary of the selected characters skills so i don't have to memorize, cram or guess what they're good at, now i don't really know if their persona will truly affect how they function in the game and what kind of weapons they're are allowed to carry ( though that would be a really  cool feature don't you think ? )

also before the game officially starts, when the team is selected, making the characters appear alone on some sort of Round table so there's less on screen for the players to see would not only help your frame rate, but will also help keep the players locked to one character at a time, lastly, also leaving way more room for you to add in more UI elements to the scene, stuff like the Bio-Skill summary, Character stats, and any other thing you'd really like or need to add. This format also preserves the input you provided for moving the camera, the ( a/ d ) keeping things consistent and memorable for the players, also giving them less input and kinda really teaching them how to play the actual game through UI Motion, when the game does start, the player won't be pressing random buttons to check if their hunch for moving the player is right, they'd just... know and thats all thanks to your design decisions right from the get go.

Now this is stuff i'm noticing before actually playing the game, i'm still at the menu and character selection screen.

and oh, Please disable character animations for those characters the player isn't interacting with, that steps hard on the fps for potato PC's like mine XD, Basically, if a character isn't the priority, nothing about it should be enabled, you can go extreme with this and even just replace the character with an image of it which faces the camera then replace it with the actual gameObject with all its components enabled.

Anything behind the characters can be a literal image of the actual prop here making the background around the character blurry and since it might be an image, if you choose this method, you can just darken the image, letting the characters stand out even more, essentially making the character focus better on the character and anything else you want to pull their attention to.

Pressing the start button....

Never underestimate how important asynchronous loading and level transitions saves the game, for me, id start loading in the scene the moment the player is at the character equipment screen, so this is triggered somehow.

Did you do the Asynchronous loading for your current build?

Playing the Game...

On moving the characters i immediately noticed my frame rate dropped to Lord knows what but again i use a potato PC so its probably that. I  did check the settings and i was glad to see that there were settings for some stuff and also graphics... it didn't help much, but i'm glad its there.

For me though, the actual play time wasn't as long as i thought it would be,

1. cause of how slow it played on my PC: this in particular pushed me away quite fast cause i'm crazy crazy in love with fast paced action games and

2. cause of how the camera movement felt: i was there pressing the arrow keys to see if i could look around, but that wouldn't feel great since you need the mouse to control where the character goes.

In all, this isn't my type of genre i would usually engage with so i can't say i really had fun playing it but the game does look great and i'm genuinely interested in seeing how this game turns out in the nearest future.

. . . : Best of luck man : . . .

Really nice game. Loving the soundtracks and art style for the game.

It would be nice to have some sort of prompt to let players know they are to continue with the dialogue sequence, this is cause there were some black screens that were meant to work as a transition. I really sat there waiting r something to happen but nothing did. I don't have much of an issue with this cause its a demo and all but  PLEASE, add in a button which tells the player to continue with the story so we aren't left wondering if our PC choked.

The music helped to keep me occupied as i waited for the "loading" to complete until i finally ran out of patience and clicked on the enter key, finally realizing the game was just waiting for my input. Other than that, the game has a good story, it reminds me of the anime " No Game No Life " and i'm honestly looking forward  to playing more of this game soon in the nearest future.

Great game!

i'm judging only based on the visual feel of the game for now, reason is cause i'm not close to my PC for the time being. However, i also just downloaded your game and will be testing it as soon as i get back.

no worries Lucas. Unlockables are stuff that really need play testing to make sure they work right, especially when its directly tethered to the gameplay mechanic.

Also if you'd like to talk more about game dev, and stuff i'd be more than happy to do so again.

We could provide detailed feedback for each other on our current and future games, so just let me know if you're interested in hanging out. 

Best of luck with The Knight who never saw the sea.

sure!

very understandable. No pressure

no worries, thanks for creating. 😁

i'm glad you liked it.

I'm working on juicing it up and balancing the game.

It would be great if you could try the game again when the update is up as soon as the rating for the jam ends. So, maybe consider following me here on itch to get notified when its up.

Thanks again for playing Awkward Pong. It means a lot.

Oh man! i love the music for this game.... How can i get it PLEASE!!! Awesome sound effects too.

Movement was definitely kinda slippery but the jump was one feature i liked the most. i found myself trying to speedrun the game but ended up dying a couple times from by falling to the bottom of the level. Im also glad you added a "Skip" button for the dialogue section.

This is a UI heavy game and it nails this aesthetic quite well! Reminds me of slay the spire in a way.

I love how its just easy to sit back and just relax and play this... no pressure what so ever. Makes me curious to see what playing the other characters will feel like. Nice Game !

Game looks quite polished. Nice game!!

I also didn't quite get what the game was really about, however, i did understand that the game is a sort of pin ball styled game.... this one though has the ball being shot from above and enemy or objects ascend rather than descend. The UI with the numbers at the right hand side are your attacks... well i guess the numbers are actually your currency/ cost for the attack. when you run out of attacks, you'll have to click on the big red button on the bottom right to let the enemy have its turn....

I didn't go far but so far, thats all i understood about the game.

Loving the Persona styled UI design

Even though i didn't quite get the point of the game, it does have niice graphic and effects. and i think it has some potential.

I always love a game with some shooting.

i like the concept of having the game run on a gameboy type console. Its a pretty nice Platformer, though i have a few issues. the main one is how zoomed in the play screen is, with enemies sometimes bouncing up and down, sometimes even going off screen, you leave the player with the task of trying to predict where the enemies might land, currently, its not really an issue but.... its still there. I also had the issue where being too close to a wall and jumping leads to some weird glitching and my character not jumping as high as it should.

The art and animation for the game is great though. 

Ooooh, Awesome! 

For the tutorial, it is in the works, sorry you had to go all the way back to the games page to read how the controls work. I'll make sure to do a better job of making the games tutorial teach the players how the game works.

Adding in a wave or level indicator is truly a great idea, that really skipped my mind, thanks for pointing this out.

You are right when it comes to the shots coming from the center, its something i've been trying to fix for a while now. Everything seem all nice and smooth when you play with the mouse and keyboard but then t feels like playing with a hammer when using a controller. The aim gets messed up but movement and every other feature stays normal, all shots fired then become slightly offset. My greatest fear with this was fixing the aim for the gamepad and then having it become messed up when a player plays with the mouse and keyboard.

And yeah...

the options menu in the current build functions more like a design direction or cover and was not meant to be in the build. It was strictly for testing purposes to see how the UI matches the feel of the game.

My bad for leaving it there. Sorry...

By the way, what do you think of the overall design for the options menu, do you think it fits the current game style and feel?

Thanks for checking out Tide-Breaker Overdrive though,  your feedback means a lot.

Thanks again.

Ooooh Nice intro music and text sounds!

The transition to the main game screen looks great too, it matches the style of the game ( in my Opinion ). I guess the games UI was inspired by Shovel knight?  :  )

I would also strongly recommend adding a text ( Animated ) which tells the players which key to press, ( especially for much newer players getting in to pc gaming ).

One thing i really liked about the gameplay was the fact everything was unlocked right from the start, it was awesome to simply press the spacebar and see my character dashing through enemies without taking damage although in some cases, some where along the later stages i found myself landing straight on the enemies and taking damage having nothing else run through my mind other than ( This could really use some double jumping and or a shoot mechanic ) its a really god thing you added the checkpoint system, that was quite thoughtful. Nice touch!!

I also thought it would also be a good idea if the enemies didn't move as fast as they did mainly cause the characters damage range is relatively cute.

 After my first kill, i immediately imagined my knight with a massive sword and a side arm cause i'm a huge nut for massive humongous swords that deal crazy damage and fast gameplay. XD

In all, Nice game, im looking forward to seeing a complete version of this. Great game!

Thanks a lot for trying out Awkward Pong,

I initially ignored the ball moving straight down... it was just being pulled by gravity, it was the easiest approach to get some basic gameplay working and since at the time i was the only one playing it i kinda forgot it there as i quickly began to work on the games UI and other features which are currently in place and will be updated immediately after the jam.

The current build, though, sadly only existent on my PC is far more engaging to play, all with a few Upgrade features, and polish.

The ball also starts in the center of the circle, launching in a random direction with a fixed speed which increases on the first impact made with either paddles. Thanks for pointing this out.

Adding an AI mode seems pretty solid, i thought of it earlier in development but shrugged it off as i saw it taking a whole lot of my time from my actual project, " Tide-Breaker Overdrive ". However, i will consider adding it in soon. I have also reduced the speed of the ball and since there will be Upgrades, i have decided to make changes to the game through those rather than forcing progression like the classics.

Thanks again for checking Awkward Pong and for such awesome feedback. XD

Who would've thought such cute creatures would be such a pain XD Lucky me, i have my trusty water sprayer to deal with those little devils.

I wish this had some controller support.

oh nice! mind sharing which game that is?

oooh feels good to play.

Finding out how the controls work was quite the adventure but after i figured out how it worked, the game got a lot more interesting.

In all, this is a fun and interesting concept.

Good game.

I didn't quite get what i was to do after  i may or may not have starved the customers to death.

For your main menu, i would recommend lowering the brightness of the tiles just so the players can see the text you wrote in red, its would be less work for the players, same goes for the main game play, since the tiled ground is just background, it shouldn't be as loud as the rest of the elements in the game screaming for attention.

The game does sound good, and the bell was probably the reason my customers died of starvation XD.

no worries, do you plan on polishing it some more?

The art and animations look nice ,

but i strongly suggest adding some visual cue to let the players know when an animal is falling off the wagon. i had a slight issue finding out where each animal fell from, though it wasn't too much of an issue

I like the idea of the controls even though it felt kinda weird the first few times i tried it.

i do wish there was a key to add some force to the ball rather than making the players focus on the spinning which makes the game really difficult on its own and the fact there is no barrier to keep the ball from going too far is also a wee-bit annoying in my opinion.

Great music on start up, though i couldn't really do much for some reason. right after i select the character thingy, the game just shakes up and down then boom, i loose. I did download it so i can try it some more with a controller.

Oh i love being welcomed by an awesome music... i wish i did this early on in my game, Awkward Pong.

The sound design is amazing. I also noticed the blood on the beach sand was quietly disappearing so i sat down to watch it also.. felt very satisfying to watch it fade out. The art for the trees is also a nice touch though, i do wish the collision for the trees were a little more forgiving, ( smaller... rounder... ) and that the enemies didn't run away continuously when their health gets low.

Nice game, though, the exit on fail is truly an annoying feature, i would also not make the menu screen as cluttered as it currently is cause it can get overwhelming and confusing pretty quick.

Still, Its a nice game concept, i like how the obstacles spawn, it gives the player a few more things to worry about other than the coins

Wow!!! Pretty weird!!!

chose the clock to see what would happen and it totally blew my mind....

the audio for this is also amazing and quite comedic, and i''m loving it, its a really nice and wacky concept and i love it. feels like watching an old comic book come to life